THE MASTER OF THE REVELS.
Lords of Misrule and Abbots of Unreason had long presided over the
Yuletide festivities of Old England; in addition to these
functionaries King Henry VIII. nominated a Master and Yeoman of the
Revels to act as the subordinates of his Lord Chamberlain, and
expressly to provide and supervise the general entertainments and
pastimes of the court. These had already been ordered and established
after a manner that seemed extravagant by contrast with the economical
tastes of the preceding sovereign, who yet had not shown indifference
to the attractions of poetry, music, and the stage. But Henry VIII.,
according to the testimony of Hall, was a proficient, not less in arms
than in arts; he exercised himself daily in shooting, singing,
dancing, wrestling, "casting of the bar, playing at the recorders,
flute, virginals, and in setting of songs, making of ballettes; and
did set two goodly masses, every in them five parts, which were sung
oftentimes in his chapel, and afterwards in divers other places."
Early in his reign he appointed Richard Gibson, one of his father's
company of players, to be "yeoman tailor to the king," and
subsequently "serjeant-at-arms and of the tents and revels;" and in
1546 he granted a patent to Sir Thomas Cawarden, conferring upon him
the office of "Magistri Jocorum, Revellorum et Mascorum, omnium et
singulorum nostrorum, vulgariter nuncupatorum Revells et Masks," with
a salary of £10 sterling--a very modest stipend; but then Sir Thomas
enjoyed other emoluments from his situation as one of the gentlemen
of the Privy Chamber. The Yeoman of the Revels, who assisted the
Master and probably discharged the chief duties of his office,
received an annual allowance of £9 2s. 6d., and eight players of
interludes were awarded incomes, of £3 6s. 8d. To these remote
appointments of "yeoman tailor," and "Master of the Revels," is due
that office of "Licenser of Plays," which, strange to say, is extant
and even flourishing in the present year of grace.
As Chalmers has pointed out, however, in his "Apology for the
Believers in the Shakespearean Papers," the King's Chamberlain, or, as
he was styled in all formal proceedings of the time, Camerarius
Hospitii, had the government and superintendence of the king's hunting
and revels, of the comedians, musicians, and other royal servants; and
was, by virtue of the original constitution of his office, the real
Master of the Revels, "the great director of the sports of the court
by night as well as of the sports of the field by day." Still the
odium of his office, especially in its relation to plays and players,
could not but attach to his subordinates and deputies the Masters of
the Revels; "tasteless and officious tyrants," as Gifford describes
them in a note to Ben Jonson's "Alchemist," "who acted with little
discrimination, and were always more ready to prove their authority
than their judgment, the most hateful of them all being Sir Henry
Herbert," appointed by Charles I. to an office which naturally expired
when the Puritans suppressed the stage and did their utmost to
exterminate the players. At the Restoration, however, Herbert resumed
his duties; but he found, as Chalmers relates, "that the recent times
had given men new habits of reasoning, notions of privileges, and
propensities to resistance. He applied to the courts of justice for
redress; but the verdicts of judges were contradictory; he appealed to
the ruler of the state, but without receiving redress or exciting
sympathy: like other disputed jurisdictions, the authority of the
Master of the Revels continued to be oppressive till the Revolution
taught new lessons to all parties."
It is to be observed, however, that the early severities and arbitrary
caprices to which the players were subjected, were not attributable
solely to the action of the Masters of the Revels. The Privy Council
was constant in its interference with the affairs of the theatre. A
suspicion was for a long time rife that the dramatic representations
of the sixteenth century touched upon matters of religion or points of
doctrine, and oftentimes contained matters "tending to sedition and to
the contempt of sundry good orders and laws." Proclamations were from
time to time issued inhibiting the players and forbidding the
representation of plays and interludes. In 1551 even the actors
attached to the households of noblemen were not allowed to perform
without special leave from the Privy Council; and the authorities of
Gray's Inn, once famous for its dramatic representations, expressly
ordered that there should be "no comedies called interludes in this
house out of term time, but when the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord
is solemnly observed." Upon the accession of Queen Mary, in 1553,
dramatic representations, whether or not touching upon points of
religious doctrine, appear to have been forbidden for a period of two
years. In 1556 the Star Chamber issued orders, addressed to the
justices of the peace in every county in the kingdom, with
instructions that they should be rigorously enforced, forbidding the
representation of dramatic productions of all kinds. Still, in Mary's
reign, certain miracle plays, designed to inculcate and enforce the
tenets of the Roman Catholic religion, were now and then encouraged by
the public authorities; and in 1557 the Queen sanctioned various
sports and pageants of a dramatic kind, apparently for the
entertainment of King Philip, then arrived from Flanders, and of the
Russian ambassador, who had reached England a short time before.
The players had for a long while few temptations to resist authority,
whether rightfully or wrongfully exercised. Sufferance was the badge
of their tribe. They felt constrained to submit without question or
repining, when loud-toned commands were addressed to them, dreading
lest worse things should come about. It was a sort of satisfaction to
them, at last, to find themselves governed by so distinguished a
personage as the Lord Chamberlain, or even by his inferior officer the
Master of the Revels. It was true that he might, as he often did, deal
with them absurdly and severely; but even in this abuse of his power
there was valuable recognition of their profession--it became invested
with a measure of lawfulness, otherwise often denied it by common
opinion. How it chanced that a member of the royal household ruled not
only the dramatic representations of the court, but controlled
arbitrarily enough, plays and players generally, no one appeared to
know, or thought it worth while to inquire. As Colley Cibber writes:
"Though in all the letters patent for acting plays, &c., since King
Charles I.'s time, there has been no mention of the Lord Chamberlain,
or of any subordination to his command or authority, yet it was still
taken for granted that no letters patent, by the bare omission of such
a great officer's name, could have superseded or taken out of his
hands that power which time out of mind he always had exercised over
the theatre. But as the truth of the question seemed to be wrapt in a
great deal of obscurity in the old laws, made in former reigns,
relating to players, &c., it may be no wonder that the best companies
of actors should be desirous of taking shelter under the visible power
of a Lord Chamberlain, who, they knew, had at his pleasure favoured
and protected, or borne hard upon them; but be all this as it may, a
Lord Chamberlain, from whencesoever his power might be derived, had,
till of later years, had always an implicit obedience paid to it."
Among the duties undertaken by the Lord Chamberlain was the licensing
or refusing new plays, with the suppression of such portions of them
_as_ he might deem objectionable; which province was assigned to his
inferior, the Master of the Revels. This, be it understood, was long
before the passing of the Licensing Act of 1737, which indeed,
although it gave legal sanction to the power of the Lord Chamberlain,
did not really invest him with much more power than he had often
before exercised. Even in Charles II.'s time, the representation of
"The Maid's Tragedy," of Beaumont and Fletcher, had been forbidden by
an order from the Lord Chamberlain. It was conjectured that "the
killing of the king in that play, while the tragical death of King
Charles I. was then so fresh in people's memory, was an object too
horribly impious for a public entertainment;" and, accordingly, the
courtly poet Waller occupied himself in altering the catastrophe of
the story, so as to save the life of the king. Another opinion
prevailed, to the effect that the murder accomplished by the heroine
Evadne offered "a dangerous example to other Evadnes then shining at
court in the same rank of royal distinction." In the same reign also,
Nat Lee's tragedy of "Lucius Junius Brutus," "was silenced after three
performances;" it being objected that the plan and sentiments of it
had too boldly vindicated, and might inflame, Republican principles. A
prologue, by Dryden, to "The Prophetess," was prohibited, on account
of certain "familiar metaphorical sneers at the Revolution" it was
supposed to contain, at a time when King William was prosecuting the
war in Ireland. Bank's tragedy of "Mary, Queen of Scotland," was
withheld from the stage for twenty years, owing to "the profound
penetration of the Master of the Revels, who saw political spectres in
it that never appeared in the presentation." From Cibber's version of
"Richard III.," the first act was wholly expunged, lest "the
distresses of King Henry VI., who is killed by Richard in the first
act, should put weak people too much in mind of King James, then
living in France." In vain did Cibber petition the Master of the
Revels "for the small indulgence of a speech or two, that the other
four acts might limp on with a little less absurdity. No! He had not
leisure to consider what might be separately inoffensive!" So, too,
some eight years before the passing of the Licensing Act, Gay's ballad
opera of "Polly," designed as a sequel to "The Beggar's Opera,"
incurred the displeasure of the Chamberlain, and was denied the
honours of representation.
Nor was it only on political grounds that the Lord Chamberlain or the
Master of the Revels exercised his power. The "View of the Stage,"
published by the nonjuring clergyman, Jeremy Collier, in 1697, first
drew public attention to the immorality and profanity of the dramatic
writers of that period. The diatribes and rebukes of Collier, if here
and there a trifle overstrained, were certainly, for the most part,
provoked by the nature of the case, and were justified by the result.
Even Cibber, who had been cited as one of the offenders, admits that
"his calling our dramatic writers to this strict account had a very
wholesome effect upon those who wrote after this time. They were now a
great deal more upon their guard ... and, by degrees, the fair sex
came again to fill the boxes on the first day of a new comedy, without
fear of censure." For some time, it seems, the ladies had been afraid
of venturing "bare-faced" to a new comedy, till they had been assured
that they could do it without risk of affront; "or if," as Cibber
says, "their curiosity was too strong for their patience, they took
care, at least, to save appearances, and rarely came upon the first
days of acting but in masks, then daily worn and admitted in the pit,
the side-boxes, and gallery." This reform of the drama, it is to be
observed, was really effected, not by the agency of the Chamberlain or
any other court official, but by force of the just criticism,
strenuously delivered, of a private individual. But now, following the
example of Collier, the Master of the Revels, in his turn, insisted
upon amendment in this matter, and oftentimes forbade the performance
of whole scenes that he judged to be vicious or immoral. He had
constituted himself a _Censor Morum_; a character in which the modern
Licenser of Plays still commends himself to our notice.
Moreover, the Chamberlain had arrogated to himself the right of
interfering in dramatic affairs upon all occasions that he judged
fitting. Upon his authority the theatres were closed at any moment,
even for a period of six weeks, in the case of the death of the
sovereign. If any disputes occurred between managers and actors, even
in relation to so small a matter as the privileges of the latter, the
Chamberlain interfered to arrange the difficulty according to his own
notion of justice. No actor could quit the company of one patent
theatre, to join the forces of the other, without the permission of
the Chamberlain, in addition to the formal discharge of his manager.
Powell, the actor, even suffered imprisonment on this account,
although it was thought as well, after a day or two, to abandon the
proceedings that had been taken against him. "Upon this occasion,"
says Cibber, with a mysterious air, and in very involved terms,
"behind the scenes at Drury Lane, a person of great quality, in my
hearing, inquiring of Powell into the nature of his offence ... told
him, that if he had patience, or spirit enough to have stayed in his
confinement till he had given him notice of it, he would have found
him a handsomer way of coming out of it!" Of the same actor, Powell,
it is recorded that he once, at Will's Coffee House, "in a dispute
about playhouse affairs, struck a gentleman whose family had been some
time masters of it." A complaint of the actor's violence was lodged at
the Chamberlain's office, and Powell having a part in the play
announced for performance upon the following day, an order was sent to
silence the whole company, and to close the theatre, although it was
admitted that the managers had been without cognisance of their
actor's misconduct! "However," Cibber narrates, "this order was
obeyed, and remained in force for two or three days, till the same
authority was pleased, or advised, to revoke it. From the measures
this injured gentleman took for his redress, it may be judged how far
it was taken for granted that a Lord Chamberlain had an absolute power
over the theatre." An attempt, however, upon the authority of the
Chamberlain to imprison Dogget, the actor, for breach of his
engagement with the patentees of Drury Lane Theatre, met with signal
discomfiture. Dogget forthwith applied to the Lord Chief Justice Holt
for his discharge under the Habeas Corpus Act, and readily obtained
it, with, it may be gathered, liberal compensation for the violence to
which he had been subjected.
The proceedings of the Lord Chamberlain had, indeed, become most
oppressive. Early in 1720, the Duke of Newcastle, then Lord
Chamberlain, took upon himself to close Drury Lane Theatre. Steele,
then one of the patentees, addressed the public upon the subject. He
had lived in friendship with the duke; he owed his seat in Parliament
to the duke's influence. He commenced with saying: "The injury which I
have received, great as it is, has nothing in it so painful as that it
comes from whence it does. When I complained of it in a private letter
to the Chamberlain, he was pleased to send his secretary to me with a
message to forbid me writing, speaking, corresponding, or applying to
him in any manner whatsoever. Since he has been pleased to send an
English gentleman a banishment from his person and counsels in a style
thus royal, I doubt not but that the reader will justify me in the
method I take to explain this matter to the town." Steele could obtain
no redress, however. He was virtually dispossessed of his rights as
patentee. He estimated his loss at nine thousand eight hundred pounds,
and concluded his statement of the case with the words: "But it is
apparent the King is grossly and shamelessly injured ... I never did
one act to provoke this attempt, nor does the Chamberlain pretend to
assign any direct reason of forfeiture, but openly and wittingly
declares that he will ruin Steele.... The Lord Chamberlain and many
others may, perhaps, have done more for the House of Hanover than I
have, but I am the only man in his majesty's dominions, who did all he
could." For some months Steele was replaced by other patentees, of
whom Cibber was one, more submissive to "the lawful monarch of the
stage," as Dennis designated the Chamberlain; but in 1721, upon the
intervention of Walpole, Steele was restored to his privileges. It is
not clear, however, that he took any legal measures to obtain
compensation for the wrong done him. Cibber is silent upon the
subject; because, it has been suggested, the Chamberlain had been
instrumental in obtaining him the appointment of poet laureate, which
could hardly have devolved upon him in right of his poetic
qualifications.
Nevertheless, Cibber had been active in organising a form of
opposition to the authority of the Chamberlain and the Master of the
Revels, which, although it seemed of a trifling kind, had yet its
importance. For it turned upon the question of fees. The holders of
the patents considered themselves sole judges of the plays proper to
be acted in their theatres. The Master of the Revels claimed his fee
of forty shillings for each play produced. The managers, it seems,
were at liberty to represent new plays without consulting him, and to
spare him the trouble of reading the same--provided always they paid
him his fees. But these they now thought it expedient to withhold from
him. Cibber was deputed to attend the Master of the Revels, and to
inquire into the justice of his demand, with full powers to settle the
dispute amicably. Charles Killigrew at this time filled the office,
having succeeded his father Thomas, who had obtained the appointment
of Master of the Revels upon the death of Sir Henry Herbert in 1673.
Killigrew could produce no warrant for his demand. Cibber concluded
with telling him that "as his pretensions were not backed with any
visible instrument of right, and as his strongest plea was custom, the
managers could not so far extend their complaisance as to continue the
payment of fees upon so slender a claim to them." From that time
neither their plays nor his fees gave either party any further
trouble. In 1725 Killigrew was succeeded as Master of the Revels by
Charles Henry Lea, who for some years continued to exercise "such
authority as was not opposed, and received such fees as he could find
the managers willing to pay."
The first step towards legislation in regard to the theatres and the
licensing of plays was made in 1734, when Sir John Barnard moved the
House of Commons "for leave to bring in a bill for restraining the
number of houses for playing of interludes and for the better
regulating common players of interludes." It was represented that
great mischief had been done in the city of London by the playhouses:
youth had been corrupted, vice encouraged, trade and industry
prejudiced. Already the number of theatres in London was double that
of Paris. In addition to the opera-house, the French playhouse in the
Haymarket, and the theatres in Covent Garden, Drury Lane, Lincoln's
Inn Fields, and Goodman's Fields, there was now a project to erect a
new playhouse in St. Martin's-le-Grand. It was no less surprising than
shameful to see so great a change in the temper and inclination of the
British people; "we now exceeded in levity even the French themselves,
from whom we learned these and many other ridiculous customs, as much
unsuitable to the mien and manners of an Englishman or a Scot, as they
were agreeable to the air and levity of a Monsieur." Moreover, it was
remarked that, to the amazement and indignation of all Europe, Italian
singers received here "set salaries equal to those of the Lords of the
Treasury and Judges of England!" The bill was duly brought in, but was
afterwards dropped, "on account of a clause offered to be inserted ...
for enlarging the power of the Lord Chamberlain with respect to the
licensing of plays." It is curious to find that Tony Aston, a popular
comedian of the time, who had been bred an attorney, was, upon his own
petition, permitted to deliver a speech in the House of Commons
against Sir John Barnard's bill.
But two years later the measure was substantially passed into law. The
theatres had certainly given in the meantime serious provocation to
the authorities. The power of the Chamberlain and the Master of the
Revels had been derided. Playhouses were opened and plays produced
without any kind of license. At the Haymarket, under the management of
Fielding, who styled his actors "The Great Mogul's Comedians," the
bills announcing that they had "dropped from the clouds" (in mockery,
probably, of "His Majesty's Servants" at Drury Lane, or of another
troop describing themselves as "The Comedians of His Majesty's
Revels"), the plays produced had been in the nature of political
lampoons. Walpole and his arts of government were openly satirised,
Fielding having no particular desire to spare the prime minister,
whose patronage he had vainly solicited. In the play entitled
"Pasquin, a Dramatic Satire on the Times; being the rehearsal of two
plays, viz., a Comedy, called The Election, and a Tragedy, called the
Life and Death of Common Sense," the satire was chiefly aimed at the
electoral corruptions of the age, the abuses prevailing in the learned
professions, and the servility of place-men who derided public virtue,
and denied the existence of political honesty. "Pasquin," it may be
noted, was received with extraordinary favour, enjoyed a run of fifty
nights, and proved a source of both fame and profit to its author. But
the play of "The Historical Register of 1736," produced in the spring
of 1737, contained allusions of a more pointed and personal kind, and
gravely offended the government. Indeed, the result could hardly have
been otherwise. Walpole himself was brought upon the stage, and under
the name of Quidam violently caricatured. He was exhibited silencing
noisy patriots with bribes, and then joining with them in a dance--the
proceedings being explained by Medley, another of the characters,
supposed to be an author: "Sir, every one of these patriots has a hole
in his pocket, as Mr. Quidam the fiddler there knows; so that he
intends to make them dance till all the money has fallen through,
which he will pick up again, and so not lose a halfpenny by his
generosity!" The play, indeed, abounded in satire of the boldest kind,
in witty and unsparing invective; as the biographer of Fielding
acknowledges, there was much in the work "well calculated both to
offend and alarm a wary minister of state." Soon both "Pasquin" and
"The Historical Register" were brought under the notice of the
Cabinet. Walpole felt "that it would be inexpedient to allow the stage
to become the vehicle of anti-ministerial abuse." The Licensing Act
was resolved upon.
The new measure was not avowedly aimed at Fielding, however. It was
preceded by incidents of rather a suspicious kind. Gifford, the
manager of Goodman's Fields Theatre, professing to have received from
some anonymous writer a play of singular scurrility, carried the work
to the prime minister. The obsequious manager was rewarded with one
thousand pounds for his patriotic conduct, and the libellous nature of
the play he had surrendered was made the excuse for the legislation
that ensued. It was freely observed at the time, however, that Gifford
had profited more by suppressing the play than he could possibly have
gained by representing it, and that there was something more than
natural in the appositeness of his receipt of it. If honest, it was
suggested that he had been trapped by a government spy, who had sent
him the play, solely that he might deal with it as he did; but it was
rather assumed that he had disingenuously curried favour with the
authorities, and sold himself for treasury gold. The play in question
was never acted or printed; nor was the name of the author, or of the
person from whom the manager professed to have received it, ever
disclosed. Horace Walpole, indeed, boldly ascribed it to Fielding, and
asserted that he had discovered among his father's papers an imperfect
copy of the play. But the statement has not obtained much acceptance.
The ministry hurried on their Licensing Bill. It was entitled "An Act
to explain and amend so much of an Act made in the twelfth year of
Queen Anne, entitled 'An Act for reducing the laws relating to rogues,
vagabonds, sturdy beggars, and vagrants, into one Act of Parliament;
and for a more effectual punishing such rogues, vagabonds, sturdy
beggars, and vagrants, and sending them whither they ought to be
sent,' as relates to common players of interludes." But its chief
object--undisclosed by its title, was the enactment that, for the
future, every dramatic piece, including prologues and epilogues,
should, previous to performance, receive the license of the Lord
Chamberlain, and that, without his permission, no London theatre,
unprotected by a patent, should open its doors. Read a first time on
the 24th of May, 1737, the bill was passed through both Houses with
such despatch that it received the royal assent on the 8th of June
following. It was opposed in the House of Commons by Mr. Pulteney, and
in the House of Lords by the Earl of Chesterfield, whose impressive
speech on the occasion is one of the few specimens that survive of the
parliamentary eloquence of the period. With the passing of the
Licensing Act, Fielding's career as manager and dramatist was brought
to a close. He was constrained to devote himself to the study of the
law, and subsequently to the production of novels. And with the
passing of the Licensing Act terminated the existence of the Master
of the Revels; the Act, indeed, made no mention of him, ignored him
altogether. He survived, however, under another name--still as the
Chamberlain's subordinate and deputy. Thence forward he was known as
the Licenser of Playhouses and Examiner of Plays.