In 1560, Sir Thomas Benger was made master of the revels, succeeding Sir Thomas Cawarden; he dying in 1577, Mr. Thomas Blagrave, who had acted since 1573, held the office for a short time; but Mr. Edmund Tylney was appointed in 1579, and died in 1610.
The play performed on Twelfth Night, 1571, was called Narcissus, in which a live fox was let loose and chased by dogs; so that the introduction of live animals on the stage is not a modern invention. On New Year’s Day 1574, the children of Westminster performed Truth, Faithfulness, and Mercy. The scholars on the foundation at Westminster, known as the queen’s scholars, have continued the custom of acting plays to the present time, the performances having for very many years past been one of Terence’s plays, of which four are taken in rotation, and excellent acting is in general exhibited to a select and talented audience; the concluding ceremony of the cap, however, reminds one of the usual termination of the country Christmas play of St. George. In the beginning of this reign there are references to the custom, then called an old one, of scholars being allowed, even by their foundation deed, to bar out their masters a week before Christmas and Easter.
At Christmas 1574, she had a company of Italian players, amongst others, one of them was a tumbler. On New Year’s Night 1582, there were also sundry feats of tumbling by the servants of Lord Strange, besides plays during the Christmas, and a mask of ladies. In several following years a tumbler, called Symons, seems to have been famed for divers feats of activity, and the queen apparently took pleasure in such exhibitions. In 1600, a person, called Nycke, tumbled before her, and 14s. are charged for his silk hose. In her latter years we find Edward Allen, John Heming, and Thomas Pope, presenting plays before her. The rewards given to the players, vary from £6 13s. 4d. to £40. As the ‘Merry Wives of Windsor,’ written at the queen’s request, and other of Shakespeare’s plays, were performed at court, we may fairly presume that some of them were performed at Christmas, and that the great Bard himself may have acted before her.
In 1592, the vice-chancellor, and heads of colleges, at Cambridge, were directed to act a comedy before the queen, at Christmas; but these unfortunate victims of too much learning were obliged to memorialize the vice-chamberlain, stating their inability to act in English, and asking leave to perform in Latin. They must have been in their glory in the reign of Elizabeth’s successor, the pedant James, whom, on one occasion, they addressed as Jacobissime Jacobe. Like her predecessors, the queen would play at dice at Christmas time, but she had dice set for her that threw the high numbers only, as fives and sixes; and, as she knew not the trick, she was kept in good humour by her success, as she, of course, won; and her courtiers probably thought it worth some sacrifice to avoid incurring the effects of the paternal temper existing in her.
Kemp, in his celebrated morris-dance, from London to Norwich, takes particular notice of the Norwich waits, saying that few cities have the like, and none better; who, besides their excellency in wind instruments, their rare cunning on the viol and violin, had admirable voices, every one of them being able to serve as a chorister in any cathedral church. One Richard Reede, a wait of Cambridge, is particularly mentioned, as having 20s. for his attendance at a gentleman’s mansion, during the Christmas of 1574. Besides these, Puttenham speaks of tavern minstrels, that gave a fit of mirth for a groat, much in the style of our present peripatetic street musicians; their matter being for the most part stories of old time, as the tale of Sir Topas, the exploits of Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwick, Adam Bell, and Clymm of the Clough, and such other old romances or historical rhymes, made purposely for recreation of the common people at Christmas dinners, and brideales, and in taverns, and alehouses, and such other places of base resort.
The nobility, as in former times, imitated the court in the manner of keeping Christmas, and the gentry followed in their steps; but they were allured to town by the superior festivities in the metropolis, to the neglect of their friends and dependents in the country, besides dissipating their means in London, and thus causing an inability to preserve proper hospitality and charity in their own neighbourhood. In order to check this practice, an order was made in 1589, directing the gentlemen of Norfolk and Suffolk to leave London before Christmas, and repair to their own countries, there to keep hospitality among their neighbours. Their presence also would not only enable them to increase the real enjoyment of their dependents, but would serve to controul any tendency to riot or debauch at the country alehouses, at this time the resort of many idle strollers, under the guise of minstrels, jugglers, revellers, &c., and would, if right-minded themselves, give a proper direction to the festivities.
“At Christmas be mery, and thanke god of all;
And feast thy pore neighbours, the great with the small.”
In 1581, there was a book written by Thomas Lovell, published by John Aldee, against the ‘Use and Abuse of Dauncinge and Mynstralsye.’ It is of a puritanical nature, being a supposed dialogue between Custom who defends them, and Verity who attacks them and is made victorious. Custom, however, pleads hard for dancing at Christmas time, showing that it had been a usage of long standing.
“Christmas is a mery time,
good mirth therfore to make;
Young men and maids together may
their legs in daunces shake;
Wee se it with some gentlemen
a common use to be,
At that time to provide to have
some pleasant minstrelsie.”