than the Lord Steward's department, although three of these, the Jewel
House under a Master, and the Wardrobe of Robes and the Removing
Wardrobe of Beds, each under a Yeoman, looked after the Queen's plate
and jewels, her clothes, and the furniture of the Chamber
respectively.[118] But there was an elaborate hierarchy of individual
officers and groups of officers, each with definite and recognized
functions to perform under the general superintendence of the Lord
Chamberlain. The main basis of grading goes back to the social
organization of the Middle Ages. In the fourteenth century every lay
household officer fell within one or other of five well-defined grades.
He was a knight banneret, a knight bachelor, an esquire (_scutifer_,
_armiger_) or serjeant (_serviens_), a yeoman (_valettus_), or a groom
(_garcio_). Pages and boys were later additions.[119] Each grade had its
uniform rates of salary and allowances, and there was regular promotion
from one to another. And while some officers of each grade were
definitely assigned to special duties (_mestiers_), others were more
loosely attached either to the Household as a whole or to the _camera_
in particular. The clerical officers were similarly arranged in grades
distinct from, but parallel to, those of the laymen. But between the
fourteenth century and the sixteenth a good many changes had come about.
The most important of these were due to the early Tudors, who had not
merely made a distinction within the Chamber itself between the Privy
Chamber and the Outer or Presence Chamber and their respective staffs,
but had also, perhaps following a French model, brought into existence
two hybrid grades in the Gentlemen and Grooms of the Privy Chamber.[120]
'Gentleman' has the same significance as 'Esquire', but this particular
group, whose members were intended to be the personal companions of the
Sovereign, seems to have been an amalgamation of two groups belonging to
the earlier establishment, one squirely, the Esquires of the Household,
the other knightly, the Knights of the Body. And if the Gentlemen of the
Privy Chamber were more nearly knights than esquires, the Grooms of the
Privy Chamber were in like manner more nearly esquires than grooms or
even yeomen.[121] Probably, however, they replaced an earlier group of
Yeomen of the Chamber. The duties of the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber,
in addition to those of companionship, seem to have consisted chiefly in
dressing and undressing the Sovereign. The Grooms attended to the
orderliness of the rooms, and were supervised, under the Chamberlain, by
officers holding a very ancient post, the _hostiarii camerae_ or
Gentlemen Ushers.[122] Obviously the normal staffing of the Privy
Chamber required some modification in the case of a virgin queen.
Elizabeth appears usually to have had no more than two or three
Gentlemen and from five to ten Grooms, in place of the eighteen
Gentlemen and fourteen Grooms provided for in the fee lists, and to have
supplemented these by making feminine appointments in corresponding
grades. There were Ladies or Gentlewomen, some of the Bedchamber and
some of the Privy Chamber, and beneath these Chamberers, who appear also
to have been known as 'the Queen's Women'.[123] The First Lady of the
Privy Chamber acted as Mistress of the Robes, and she or another of the
Ladies took charge of the jewels actually in use by the Queen and
accounted for them to the Jewel-house.[124] In addition there were the
six Maids of Honour, who were not salaried officers, but girls of good
birth, for whom the court served as a finishing school of manners, and
who attended the Queen in public, sat and walked with her in the Privy
Chamber and Privy Garden, and kept her entertained with the dancing
which she delighted to witness. They were generally dressed in white,
and were lodged in the Coffer Chamber under the care of a lady called
the Mother of the Maids.[125] And they learnt other things at the court
besides manners. Gossip is full of the troubles which Elizabeth
underwent in the attempt to establish the cult of Cynthia amongst the
maids of honour and the younger ladies of the Privy Chamber.[126] A few
older ladies of rank, some of them relatives of the Queen, were also
assigned lodgings in court, and were apparently known as Ladies of the
Presence Chamber.[127]
The Outer Chamber was also supervised by Gentlemen Ushers, some in
daily, others in quarterly waiting, with Grooms of the Chamber, headed
by a Groom Porter, and Pages of the Chamber under them to maintain the
apartments in order, Yeomen Ushers to keep the doors, and a body of
Messengers of the Chamber, ranking with the Yeomen, who besides their
domestic uses were at the disposal of the Privy Council and the
Secretaries for political purposes, and become very numerous by the end
of the reign.[128] The Gentlemen Ushers also took part in the
arrangements for lodging the court during progresses, in co-operation
with a Knight Harbinger and four subordinate Harbingers who went in
advance as billeting officers.[129] To the Outer Chamber, moreover,
belonged the Esquires of the Body, who slept in the Presence Chamber,
and took charge of the whole Chamber after the ceremony known as the All
Night at nine o'clock, and a group of officers 'for the mouth',
including Carvers, Cupbearers, Sewers for the Queen, and Surveyors of
the Dresser.[130] These had anciently been of importance, all ranking as
esquires, and the Carvers and Cupbearers from the fifteenth century as
knights.[131] But their functions had dwindled, like those of the Hall
officers at an earlier date, when the Tudor sovereigns ceased as a rule
to dine even in the Presence Chamber, and by the end of the reign the
posts of Carver and Cupbearer were claimed by great nobles as dignified
sinecures.[132] The actual service of Elizabeth's meals was done by her
ladies.[133] Similarly the Sewers for the Chamber, who apparently
represent those of the Esquires of the Household who did not become
Gentlemen of the Chamber, had probably neither duties nor salaries under
Elizabeth.[134] It had long proved convenient to the Crown to entertain
a number of nominal servants, who without giving actual attendance in
the household upon ordinary occasions, could be called upon for the
great ceremonies of state or for the household array in times of battle,
and at other times helped to increase the royal prestige and to
strengthen the royal hold upon the localities in which they lived.[135]
And naturally there were many aspirants to the _status_ and the
protection which even a nominal membership of the royal household
afforded. Survivals, such as the Sewerships for the Chamber, were well
adapted to this purpose, but it was also possible to meet it by
appointing supernumerary members to effective groups.[136] Elizabeth
certainly made many 'extraordinary' as well as 'ordinary' appointments,
especially of Esquires of the Body and Grooms of the Chamber, and a
status midway between the ordinary and extraordinary Grooms seems to
have been assigned to the players belonging to companies under the royal
patronage.[137] It may be that the 'extraordinary' appointments were
sometimes of the nature of grants in reversion, and that the holders
looked forward to passing on to 'ordinary' posts in due course.[138]
Duties in the Outer Chamber were also fulfilled by the various bodies of
royal guards. Of these there were three. The oldest was constituted by
the Serjeants-at-Arms, who held the rank of Esquires, and were appointed
by investment with the collar of SS at the hands of the Sovereign on the
way to chapel.[139] They are little heard of under Elizabeth, and their
posts were probably to a large extent honorific. The Yeomen of the Guard
were a foot-guard established by Henry VII in 1485. The Yeomen Ushers of
the Chamber were selected from amongst them, and on their establishment
an older body of Yeomen of the Crown, itself in origin a guard of
archers, seems to have been allowed to lapse.[140] The Yeomen were the
working palace guard, and were under a Captain, a Standard Bearer, and a
Clerk of the Cheque.[141] The Gentlemen Pensioners or 'Spears' were a
horse-guard established by Henry VIII in 1509.[142] Both these Tudor
guards seem to have been modelled on analogous French establishments.
The Pensioners had a Captain, a Lieutenant, a Standard Bearer, and a
Clerk of the Cheque. They were gentlemen of good birth, and to them the
Court looked for its supply of accomplished tilters. They attended the
Queen, bearing gilded battle-axes, on her way to chapel, and in public
processions.[143] By the sixteenth century the control of the guards
clearly fell within the sphere of the Lord Chamberlain. Both the
Hunsdons themselves acted as Captains of the Pensioners, and the
Captaincy of the Yeomen was sometimes, although not always, attached to
the Vice-Chamberlainship.
The Secretaries, with the Clerks of the Signet and Privy Council, the
Master of the Posts, and the Masters of Requests, although they had
grown out of the Chamber, and were still, like the Lords Treasurer,
Chancellor, Admiral, and Privy Seal, lodged in the Household, cannot at
this period be regarded as under the Lord Chamberlain.[144] But he had
some responsibility for the royal Chaplains, the Chapel, the Vestry, and
the Clerks of the Closet, whence the Queen heard prayers, especially
after Elizabeth suppressed the Deanship of the Chapel.[145] And he
controlled the physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries, the astronomer,
the serjeant-painter, the surveyor of ways, the various hunting
equipages, the rat-taker and mole-taker, and a number of artificers
ministering to the diverse needs of the Queen and the palace. Probably
he controlled the royal fools and other survivals of that characteristic
mediaeval interest in mental and physical abnormality.[146] And, what is
more to our purpose, he certainly controlled the players, and the
extensive establishment of musicians. Amongst these the old royal
_ministralli_ or _histriones_ of the Middle Ages, with their
_marescallus_, were still represented by a body of trumpeters under a
serjeant.[147] But the personal taste of Henry VIII for music had
brought a stream of new performers to court, and this had continued
under Elizabeth. Many of them were of foreign extraction, and certain
families, such as the Laniers, the Ferrabosci, the Bassani of Venice, or
rather, as their name denotes, of Bassano in the Veneto, the Lupi of
Milan, formed little dynasties of their own at court, father, son, and
grandson succeeding each other, in the royal service through the best
part of a century. At the end of her reign Elizabeth was entertaining at
least seven distinct bodies of musicians, whose members numbered in all
between sixty and seventy. For wind instruments there were, besides the
trumpeters, the recorders, the flutes, and the hautboys and sackbuts;
for string instruments the viols or violins and the lutes. There were
also an organist attached to the chapel and possibly players on the
virginals.[148] The most important of these were the lutenists, who sang
as well as played, and often composed their own songs, and appear to
have been of higher standing than the mere instrumentalists. One of them
was specially designated as the Lute of the Privy Chamber.[149] It seems
probable that some of the superfluous Sewerships for the Chamber were
conferred on them, and Alfonso Ferrabosco may have been about 1575 a
Groom of the Chamber.[150]
Finally, there were a number of offices, called in Elizabethan parlance
'standing offices', each under a Master or other head of its own, which
can only be regarded as on the borderline of the Household. These were
the Great Wardrobe, the Revels, the Tents, the Toils, the Works, the
Armoury, the Ordnance, and the Mint. They were financed separately from
the Household, and had their various head-quarters in London away from
the palace. But their officers were regarded as members of the
Household, and although largely independent, they were in many or all
cases subject to some kind of supervision by the Lord Chamberlain.[151]
Probably the explanation of their origin is given by a phrase used about
1478 by the writer of the _Liber Niger_. Here the Wardrobe is spoken of
as 'an office of chaumbre outward'.[152] In these standing offices, and
also in the Secretariat, we seem to have examples of that budding off
from the main administrative organization by which those great
departments of state, the Exchequer and the Chancery, had already come
into existence. Doubtless the process was facilitated, when
considerations of practical convenience and a desire to reduce the
number of mouths to be provided for in the palace led to the location of
particular branches of work in permanent and independent premises. The
history of the Revels Office, which will form the subject of another
chapter, well serves to illustrate the kind of development
involved.[153]
Members of the standing offices were generally appointed for life, those
of the regular Household during the royal pleasure. The former received
letters patent; the latter were only sworn in before one or other of the
chief officers, and as most of the early records of the Lord
Chamberlain's department have perished, no complete list of them is upon
record. The uniform rates of pay and allowances for each grade of
officer which prevailed in the fourteenth century had undergone many
complications by the middle of the sixteenth. Each officer had, of
course, his fee or wages, payable either at the Exchequer or by the
Treasurer of the Chamber, whose functions will shortly be described, or,
as in the case of most of the regular officers of Household and Chamber,
by the Cofferer of the Household. The rates had gradually increased,
perhaps with a decrease in the purchasing power of money. Those for the
recently established Tudor posts were reckoned in pounds; the older ones
in marks. Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber and Pensioners got £50,
Esquires of the Body £33 6_s._ 8_d._ (fifty marks), Gentlemen Ushers of
the Privy Chamber £30, Grooms of the Privy Chamber £20, Grooms of the
Chamber £2 13_s._ 4_d._ (four marks). These may serve for examples.
Obsolete mediaeval rates of so many pence a day still survived here and
there.[154] The Grooms and Pages of the Chamber had also a traditional
'great reward' of £100 among them at Christmas, while the fees payable
to the officers of the Chamber by lay and ecclesiastic homagers were
not--and are not yet--extinct.[155] Exceptional 'rewards', from foreign
visitors of rank and so forth, were naturally forthcoming from time to
time, and, as naturally, largesse often became indistinguishable from
bribe. The allowances, other than salary, were of several kinds.
Firstly, there was diet, that is to say, dinner and supper at the
appointed tables in hall or chamber. Most of the officers of the regular
Household enjoyed this; a few, whose attendance was not required daily
or at all times in the day, received instead a money allowance from the
Cofferer known as 'board wages'.[156] Secondly, there was, 'bouche of
court', a commons of bread and ale, candles and fuel, served only to
those of sufficient rank to be lodged in the palace itself.[157] It is
probably an evidence, not of economy, but of change of social habits,
that in the sixteenth century ale had replaced the wine of the
fourteenth. Originally the 'bouche of court' had to suffice for
breakfast, but under Elizabeth the Maids of Honour and a few other
favoured groups were allowed to share the queen's breakfast of
beef.[158] Thirdly, there was 'livery' in the narrow sense, clothes or
the material for clothes from the Great Wardrobe, or a money payment in
lieu thereof. Even in the fourteenth century there was already much
commutation of livery, which in the case of yeomen and grooms also
included an allowance for shoes, known as _calciatura_. By the end of
the fifteenth century it was definitely thought derogatory for men of
rank to wear even the sovereign's livery, except in some quite
symbolical form.[159] Under Elizabeth some of the salaries seem to have
had livery allowances added on to them. The process of commutation can
still be traced. But liveries were issued in kind to the yeomen,
messengers, grooms, pages, and stable footmen. These seem to have been
of two kinds; 'watching' liveries issued from the Wardrobe in the
winter, and 'summer' liveries, for which payment was made direct from
the Exchequer.[160] The latter were gorgeous and costly, of scarlet
cloth, with spangles and embroidery of Venice gold, taking the shape of
a rose and crown and the letters 'E. R.', with some distinction between
yeomen and grooms. The present costume of the Yeomen of the Guard, or
'beef-eaters', is a later modification of this livery.[161] In their
capacity as Grooms of the Chamber the royal players were entitled to
wear the Queen's 'coat'.[162] The officers of the standing offices had
livery or livery allowance, if it was appropriate to their rank. They
did not have diet or 'bouche of court'. But they were in some cases
entitled to supplement their fees by charging 'wages' for actual days of
service in the accounts which their Masters annually rendered to the
Exchequer.[163] 'Extraordinary' officers probably got no salaries or
allowances of any kind, unless they were called up for special duty. But
it must be added that all royal servants, whatever their office, and
whether 'ordinary' or 'extraordinary', received a customary allowance of
red cloth at the coronation and of black cloth at a royal funeral, and
that the schedules of recipients on these occasions form the most
complete establishment lists available.
The accession of James did not materially alter the general structure of
the Household. The chief changes were in the Privy Chamber. The Wardrobe
of Robes was placed under a Gentleman, afterwards called a Master. The
Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber were increased in number, reduced to
quarterly terms of waiting, and deprived of salary.[164] The salaries of
the Lord Chamberlain, Gentlemen Ushers, and Grooms were raised. And
what was practically a new department was brought into existence in the
Bedchamber, which had a staff of Gentlemen, Grooms, and Pages,
independent of the Lord Chamberlain and controlled by their own First
Gentleman, who was also known as Groom of the Stole.[165] The Bed
Chamber, chiefly composed of Scots, furnished James with his most
confidential servants.[166] As might be expected, James enlarged his
hunting establishment, and one of his new appointments was a
Cockmaster.[167] He had a conspicuous Fool in Archie Armstrong.[168] And
he instituted in the Lord Chamberlain's department an officer known as
the Master of the Ceremonies, whose function was to look after the
lodgings and the general well-being of ambassadors, and to grapple with
the knotty problems entailed by their inveterate stickling for
precedence and etiquette.[169] A separate household was formed for the
Queen, to which the various grades of ladies found at Elizabeth's court
were transferred.[170] There were minor households for the royal
children. That of Henry was much enlarged when he was created Prince of
Wales in 1610, and in many respects, especially on the literary and
artistic side, came to rival his father's.
One other officer, whose name has already been mentioned, must now, in
virtue of his special relation to the playing companies, be fully
considered. This is the Treasurer of the Chamber. His history affords an
admirable example of that capacity of duplicating the functions of the
departments of state, which was inherent in the Household as the
successor in a direct line of the undifferentiated _curia regis_. After
the development of the Exchequer was completed in the course of the
twelfth century, the great bulk of the royal revenue was dealt with by
that organization, and payments into and out of the royal account were
made through the clerks of the branch known as the Receipt of the
Exchequer. The posts of _camerarius_ and _thesaurarius_ were now
distinct. But the change was never quite exhaustively carried out.
Presumably the sovereign found it convenient to retain a certain residue
of his funds under his personal control. Side by side with the Exchequer
and its great officer it is still possible to trace into the thirteenth
century a _thesaurus camerae regis_ and a _thesaurarius camerae_; and
the Pipe Rolls continue to refer to payments made _in camera curiae_, or
_ipsi regi in camera curiae_, and to receipts taken by debtors _de
camera curiae_, both of which were certified to the Exchequer _per breve
regis_ and put on final record there.[171] There were also _clerici
camerae_, who probably wrote these _brevia_, and it is conjectured that
the privy seal, as distinct from the great seal of Chancery, came into
existence as a means of authenticating the _brevia_ as impressed with
royal authority. Thus the _camera_ was able to duplicate the functions
of the Chancery as well as those of the Exchequer.[172] About the middle
of the thirteenth century the Pipe Rolls take to referring to the
exceptional financial transactions as taking place not in the _camera_
but in the _garderoba_. There are _clerici garderobae_ and a chief
officer called indifferently the _custos_ and the _thesaurarius
garderobae_.[173] Presumably the _garderoba_ or 'wardrobe' was at first
merely that apartment of the _camera_ in which the financial work was
done, and there are still indications of some such early relationship in
the position of the Wardrobe when we first get a clear view of the
operations at the very end of the century.[174] But by this time its
scope had greatly increased, owing to the policy of Henry III and Edward
I, who found in it a financial and administrative instrument, both more
ready to hand and less subject to baronial control and criticism than
either the Exchequer or the Chancery. Much of the revenue had come to
pass through its hands, under a system of tallies, which were issued to
it in block by the Exchequer on the authority of a royal warrant
dormant, exchanged for incomings with accountants, and ultimately
presented as vouchers at the Exchequer of Account. As part of the same
process, the clerical head of the Wardrobe had acquired an importance
almost equal to that of the Chamberlain. Indeed, so far as he was
controlled by any lay officer, it was less the Chamberlain than the
Steward, under whom he sat at the daily review of household expenditure
which formed a feature of the Wardrobe system, and was continued into
Tudor times by the Board of Green Cloth. Here also sat a _consocius_ of
the Treasurer, the _contrarotulator_, who kept duplicates of his
accounts as a check upon him, and had the charge of the privy seal. The
Wardrobe held not only the money and jewels of the King, but also his
'secrets'. Its officers were his _secretarii_ in the earlier
unspecialized sense, his confidential agents, both in finance and in
diplomacy and other affairs of state. The extant account-books show that
it not merely defrayed the expenses of his household, his alms, and his
amusements, but also those entailed by the fortification and
victualling of his castles, and the wages and equipment of his army and
navy and his ambassadors and other _nuntii_.
During the reign of Edward II the power of the Wardrobe was broken up,
partly by the direct action of baronial hostility, partly by a discreet
process of reorganization within the household, in the face of baronial
criticism. The responsibilities of the Treasurer and Comptroller were
limited to the purely domestic expenditure of the Steward's department,
much as we find them in Tudor times. The charge of the privy seal was
dissociated from the Comptrollership; its use, like that of the great
seal before it, was subjected to regulation in the baronial interest;
and it soon became superfluous. Offices, such as the Great Wardrobe for
the purveyance of cloth, furs, and other bulky commodities, which had
recently come into existence as branches of the Wardrobe, were now
placed on an independent footing, and began to account direct to the
Exchequer. And now once more, after remaining in obscurity for the best
part of a century, emerges into renewed activity the financial
organization of the Chamber. To it appears to have been assigned, as
part of the scheme of reform, such expenditure as could not with
propriety be withdrawn from the personal supervision of the
sovereign.[175] With this as a nucleus, it was not particularly
difficult to convert the Chamber into just such a financial and
administrative organ as the Wardrobe had been before it. The funds at
its disposal were gradually increased, as opportunities offered
themselves of adding to them the revenues of one escheated manor after
another. Its clerks in turn became the _secretarii_, out of whom the
royal Secretaries in the Tudor sense were in course of time developed.
Even the lost privy seal proved capable of replacement by a series of
other small seals, the 'secret' seal under Edward II, the 'griffin' seal
under Edward III, and finally the 'signet', which remained to the end in
the hands of the Secretaries. It was only up to a point that the trained
bureaucrats, with the power of knowledge behind them, proved amenable to
baronial control. It is probably only up to a point that they will prove
amenable to democratic control.
The actual use made of the Chamber varied considerably in different
reigns. It flourished at the end of the reign of Edward II, and again
during the first half of that of Edward III. Soon after the middle of
the fourteenth century, it lost much of its political status, owing to
the separation from it of the Secretaries, who now had their own clerks
in the Signet Office, and on the financial side it was for long little
more than a privy purse in strict subordination to the Exchequer. It was
still, however, capable at need of serving as a medium of war
expenditure, and with the appointment of Thomas Vaughan by Edward IV in
1465 its financial importance began to revive.[176] Up to the end of the
fourteenth century, its financial officers are generally called
Receivers of the Chamber; during the next the double title of Treasurer
of the Chamber and Keeper of the King's Jewels establishes itself.[177]
They are sometimes, although perhaps not always, appointed by patent,
and at any rate from the time of Henry IV are only accountable to the
King in person.[178] On the execution of Vaughan in 1583 the posts of
Treasurer of the Chamber and Keeper of the Jewels were divided; and it
may serve as an illustration of the conservatism of courts that this was
still a subject of grievance in the Jewel House two hundred years
later.[179]
At the beginning of Henry VII's reign the functions of Treasurer of the
Chamber were discharged by Thomas, afterwards Sir Thomas, Lovell.[180]
On his appointment as Treasurer of the Household in August 1592, he was
succeeded by John, afterwards Sir John, Heron, who had in fact acted as
his assistant and kept his books from 1487.[181] Under the Tudors, with
their general tendency to elaborate the personal control of government
by the sovereign, the post remained one of first-class importance. It
was regulated in 1511 by a statute, the recital of which sets out that
it had been the practice for certain Receivers of royal lands to account
before persons appointed by Henry VII 'for the more speedy payment of
his revenues and the accounts of the same to be more speedily taken than
could have been after the course of the Exchequer', and after accounting
to pay sums to the use of the King in his chamber.[182] The record of
these transactions, signed by the King or 'his trusty servant John
Heron' had been no legal discharge to the accountants in the Exchequer.
Henry VIII had set up by patent a body of General Surveyors and
Approvers of the King's Lands to take the accounts, and the statute
confirms this proceeding and appoints John Heron to be Treasurer of the
Chamber, and to be answerable, with his successors, direct to the King,
and not to the Exchequer.[183] John Heron continued in office until
1521.[184] His successor was John Miklowe, who had been Comptroller of
the Household.[185] But Miklowe's tenure of office must have been short,
for in 1523 a statute, passed in renewal of that of 1511, names as
Treasurer Sir Henry Wyatt, who was the father of the poet, Sir Thomas
Wyatt.[186] In 1526 Wyatt was placed on the Privy Council[187]; and on
13 April 1528 he was succeeded as Treasurer by Sir Brian Tuke, who held
office until 1545.[188] In 1541 a new statute was passed which erected
the Surveyors of the King's Lands into a court of record, appointed the
Treasurer of the Chamber as Treasurer of the Court, and required him to
account before the Court or such other persons as the King might
appoint, both in this capacity and also for 'all and every the receytes
issues profyttes dettes and thinges concernyng his office of
Treasurership of the Kinges Chamber'.[189] Tuke was succeeded on 25
November 1545 by Sir Anthony Rous, to whom one John Dawes acted as
deputy[190]; and Rous on 19 February 1546, by Sir William Cavendish, to
the disappointment of Stephen Vaughan, Henry's financial agent at
Antwerp, who had hoped for the post. Cavendish also had the assistance
of a deputy, Robert Oliver.[191] During Cavendish's tenure of office,
two further changes in the position of the Treasurership took place. A
patent of 1547, subsequently confirmed by statute under Edward VI in
1553, dissolved alike the Court of Surveyors and the analogous Court of
Augmentations, created to deal with the revenues of surrendered
religious houses in 1535, and established in place of these a combined
Court of Augmentation and Revenues of the King's Crown, of which the
Treasurer of the Chamber was to continue to act as Treasurer.[192]
Hardly, however, had this readjustment received legislative sanction,
when it was upset again. A patent of 1554, under the authority of an Act
of Mary's first Parliament, suppressed the Court of Augmentation, by
annexing its business to the Exchequer, and directed the revenues to be
paid into the Exchequer and accounts to be audited there, as before the
Court was set up.[193] Cavendish did not find the Treasurership a bed of
roses. On Tuke's death it was anticipated that his successor would
receive a legacy of official debts.[194] A book containing copies of
'certificates' or reports made by Cavendish to the Privy Council show
that he soon had occasion to be perturbed.[195] About Lady Day 1546 he
represented that his receipts had been dislocated to the extent of about
£14,000, and that in view of his liabilities, which he detailed, there
was urgent need to consider the state of the office. In another paper he
called attention to the enormous number of securities for old debts to
the Crown, some of them dating from the time of Henry VII, with which he
found from Tuke's books that he was charged; and, as 'a yonge officer
not long exercised in the same', prayed that these might be reviewed,
and a decision arrived at as to how much of the total nominal amount of
£322,980 covered by them stood for 'sperat' and how much for 'desperat'
debts. The book also contains summaries of his liabilities during 1547,
at the end of 1548, when he declared that he had debts of £14,000 and no
ready money in the office, and finally at Lady Day 1554. This last item
does not disclose how far his revenue had in the interval been made
sufficient for his needs. It is possible that it had been made more than
sufficient, for on 17 August 1556 the Privy Council called upon him to
appear before them with 'Cade his clerc', and on 9 October 1557 they
returned his book of account, stating that he owed £5,237 5_s._
0¾_d._ and must appear and answer particularities, either in person
or, if ill, by his clerks.[196] It seems clear that the Tudor period had
seen a very considerable increase in the scope of the financial
transactions with which the Treasurer of the Chamber had to deal. In
addition to privy purse expenditure in the narrower sense, such as the
royal pocket-money, alms and oblations, largesse and rewards, and the
like, he became responsible for many wages and annuities, some of which,
including those of the royal players, had formerly been charged direct
upon the Exchequer.[197] He purchased the jewels and costly stuffs in
which much of the Tudor wealth was invested. He financed or helped to
finance the Surveyor of Works, the Great Wardrobe, and even for a time
the Cofferer of the Household. And beyond the limits of anything which
could be called domestic expenditure, he undertook much that was
concerned with 'the King's outward causes', the maintenance of posts and
ambassadors, royal loans, secret service; even, it would appear,
although perhaps out of a special account, the service of war. His
income, originally derived from the Exchequer, was put on to an
independent basis, by the direct assignment to him of numerous revenues,
both ordinary and extraordinary, including most of the new sources of
wealth on which the financial policy of Henry VII had firmly based the
power of the Crown. Some of his payments were made in accordance with
old established custom or under household ordinances or other standing
instructions.[198] But the great majority depended upon the personal
authority of the sovereign, communicated either by word of mouth or by
warrant under the sign manual or the signet, or in course of time
through the medium of a minister such as Wolsey or the Privy Council.
Similarly he rendered his accounts at first to the King in person, and
the early books bear the signatures of Henry VII and Henry VIII in token
of audit on many pages.[199] The responsibility grew to be a very heavy
one, with a turnover of some £100,000 in the course of a year, and we
find Brian Tuke in 1534 writing of it as 'a charge that far surmounteth
any in England', and pressing 'that for things ordinary I may have for
payments an ordinary warrant, and that for things extraordinary I may
always have special warrant or else some such way as I, dealing truly,
may be truly discharged', lest if there were any misunderstanding, 'I
might be undone in a day, lacking any warrant when I sue for it'. It
would appear to have been the special difficulty of the Treasurer's
position which led to the system of audit by means of a 'Declared
Account', as a substitute at once for the cumbrous method of the earlier
Exchequer, and the more recent practice of personal verification by the
sovereign. When Sir Henry Wyatt left office he was directed to declare
his account before a General Surveyor of the King's Lands, and this
method was adopted when the Surveyors became a statutory court in 1541
and ultimately passed after the dissolution of the special courts into
ordinary Exchequer practice.[200]
Sir William Cavendish, who was ill when the Privy Council asked for
details of his account on 9 October, died on 25 October 1557. An account
for 1 April to 31 December 1557 is in the name of Edmund Felton, perhaps
only an _interim_ administrator.[201] The Treasurership of the Chamber,
together with the Mastership of the Posts, was granted by patent on 29
October 1558 to Sir John Mason, with a fee of £240 and 1_s._ a day.[202]
Mason was continued in office by Elizabeth, and on 23 December 1558 the
Lord Chamberlain, the Comptroller of the Household, the Secretary, and
the Chancellor of the Exchequer were appointed as a committee of the
Privy Council 'to survey the office of the Treasurer of the Chamber and
to assigne order of paymente'.[203] As a result, considerable changes
seem to have been made, which reversed the policy of the last
half-century and much reduced the Treasurer's responsibilities. On the
one hand, the funds assigned to the Cofferer of the Household, the
Surveyor of Works, the Master of Posts, and the Ambassadors no longer
passed through his account; on the other, a separate account was
established for the more personal expenditure of the Queen, which was
put into the charge of a Groom of the Privy Chamber, acting as keeper of
the Privy Purse. Both accounts seem to have become subject to audit and
declaration at the Exchequer; but while that of the Treasurer of the
Chamber was declared annually, the only extant Privy Purse account of
the reign is one for the ten years 1559-69 declared after the death of
the first keeper, John Tamworth.[204] This was a small account, mainly
fed by New Year and other gifts to the Queen. The expenditure out of it
only averaged about £2,500 a year. Most of it was upon gifts and
rewards, which were detailed in a book of particulars under the sign
manual, unfortunately not preserved. A payment of £5,000 to the Earl of
Moray suggests that it proved a convenient channel for secret service
funds. It also includes items for the keep of the royal fool, for the
purchase of jewels, and for certain annuities, wages, riding charges,
and expenses of the stable and hunt. The Treasurer of the Chamber, under
the new arrangement, spent about £12,000 a year.[205] Out of this he
defrayed the royal alms, certain rewards, wages, annuities, and riding
charges, the maintenance of prisoners, and the expenses of 'apparelling'
the Queen's houses and keeping her gardens. Obviously the two accounts
come very near overlapping at several points. One may suppose that in
the main the Treasurer of the Chamber was responsible for customary
payments and such as could be made on the authority of officers of state
or household; the Keeper of the Privy Purse with those which depended on
the personal pleasure of the sovereign. The officers borne on the
Treasurer of the Chamber's wage list were those who belonged neither to
the household proper nor to the 'standing' offices; the Yeomen of the
Guard, the Watermen, the Apothecaries, the Musicians and Players, the
Hunt, the Footmen and Boys of the Stable, the Artificers, the Rat and
Mole Takers, the Keepers of Paris Garden, the Surveyor of Gates and
Bridges, the Chester Post. That they should also have included the
officers of the Jewel House is explicable from the original connexion
between these and the Treasurer. The Treasurer's own salary and his
office expenses also appear in his account.
The distinction now drawn between the Treasury of the Chamber and the
Privy Purse must have had the effect of putting the Treasurer in a
position analogous to that of the Secretaries. He was on the way to
becoming an officer of state rather than an officer of the household.
The order of payment determined upon by the Privy Council appears to
have been that salaries chargeable to the Treasurer of the Chamber
should be payable upon 'warrants dormant', 'riding charges' for
messengers upon warrants from the Secretary, and miscellaneous payments,
such as rewards for plays at court, upon warrants from the Privy Council
itself.[206] Sir Francis Knollys became Treasurer of the Chamber when
Mason died upon 21 April 1566[207]; and Thomas, afterwards Sir Thomas,
Heneage, when Knollys was appointed Treasurer of the Household, on 15
February 1570.[208] Knollys, throughout his period of office, and
Heneage, from 1589, combined the Treasurership with the duties of
Vice-Chamberlain of the Household. Heneage died in October 1595, and
there was some delay before a successor was appointed.[209] A trial of
strength seems to have taken place between Essex and Burghley, who
regarded the filling of the vacancy, together with the much more
important vacancy in the Secretaryship, as critical to his chances of
prolonging his dynasty. Burghley's candidate was John Stanhope; Essex's
Sir Henry Unton, to whom he wrote about his prospects on 24 October
1595, telling him that Robert Cecil was troubled at the competition, and
thought that neither would carry it.[210] I am not sure that Cecil had
been quite straightforward with Essex. Another aspirant was Sir Edward
Wotton.[211] There is gossip about the matter in Rowland Whyte's letters
to Sir Robert Sidney.[212] On 29 October he wrote, 'Probi is comanded to
wayt at court; hath spoken with her Majestie, and is sayd he shall haue
the Disbursing of the Treasory of the Chamber, till her Majestie be
pleased to bestow yt. Sir H. Umpton and Mr. John Stanhope, stands for
yt.' On 5 November, 'Peter Proby paies the money till a Treasorer of the
Chamber be chosen, which will not be in hast'. Peter Proby was a useful
hanger-on of Burghley's, and had been his barber. On 20 November 'Sir
Thomas Heneges Funerals were solemnised, his Offices all vnbestowed'. By
7 December Whyte ventures a prophecy:
'I heare that Mr. Killigrew shall receve and pay the Treasure
of the Chamber, till the Queen find one fitt for it; but if
this continew true, Mr. Killigrew will haue it in the End
himself.'
Whyte was wrong, however. William Killigrew was a mere stop-gap.[213] On
20 December, Whyte has an inkling of what is going on, and commits his
new information to cipher.
'The Queen hath promised him [Sir H. Unton] the Thresureship of
the Chamber, and stands constant in it, and at his return to
haue it. But if 900 [Burghley] and 200 [Cecil], that would 40
[Stanhope] had it, can hinder it, the other shall goe without
it.'
It was not until 5 July that, according to an amused letter from Anthony
Bacon, 'Elephas peperit' with the swearing in of Sir Robert Cecil as
Secretary and John Stanhope as Treasurer of the Chamber, 'so that now
the old man may say with the rich man in the gospel _requiescat anima
mea_'.
Burghley himself notes the appointment without comment in his
diary.[214] John Stanhope, who was knighted on his appointment and
created Lord Stanhope of Harrington on 4 May 1605, did not get the
Vice-Chamberlainship until 1601. He remained Treasurer until his death
in 1617. There was some characteristic Stuart traffic in the reversion.
Sir Thomas Overbury held it at his death in 1613. Lord Rochester then
bought it from Stanhope for £2,000, and offered it to Sir Henry Neville,
who declined to take it from a subject. Finally it passed to Sir William
Uvedale, who in fact became Treasurer in succession to Stanhope.[215]
During Stanhope's tenure of office, some changes in the 'order of
payment' took place. The account for 1607-8 recites a privy seal of 27
January 1608 as authority for the transfer from the Privy Purse to the
Treasurer of the Chamber of certain payments made on warrants from the
Lord Chamberlain. Similar payments thereafter form a regular section of
the account from year to year. By a later privy seal of 11 October 1614,
still extant, an additional sum of £1,500 a year is put at the disposal
of the Treasurer to enable him to meet them.[216] His total assignment
was thus increased to about £20,000 or rather more than half as much
again as the office had cost under Elizabeth. That of the Privy Purse
was now about £6,000.[217] We have seen that there had been
possibilities of overlapping between the two accounts, but it is rather
odd that amongst the items transferred should be specified allowances
for plays, bear-baitings and other sports, since such allowances had
regularly been paid by the Treasurer of the Chamber for something more
than a century past. It is, however, the case that from 1614-15 onwards,
the payments were made on warrants from the Lord Chamberlain instead of
the Privy Council.
It is rather surprising that the Privy Council, whose members were
carrying out duties roughly analogous to those of a modern Cabinet,
should at any time have concerned itself with such trifling matters of
domestic routine as the signature of certificates authorizing the
payment of rewards at recognized rates to companies of actors and other
entertainers. The explanation, however, is that the Privy Council, like
the Household and the Departments of State themselves, was a direct
representative of the Norman _curia regis_, and that the _curia regis_
had been the organization through which the King's subjects and servants
gave him assistance in all his affairs, small and great, domestic as
well as political.[218] For all practical purposes, indeed, the
Elizabethan Privy Council consisted of little more than the chief
officers of the State departments and Household, sitting together, and
acting collectively. The great territorial magnates, who at certain
periods of its history had turned it into an instrument for the control
rather than the exercise of the royal prerogative, were now, unless
they happened to hold official positions, rarely sworn amongst its
members; but upon it, side by side with the Chancellor and the
Treasurer, the Admiral and the Privy Seal, sat not only the Secretaries,
but also the Steward and the Chamberlain, the Master of the Horse, the
Treasurer and Comptroller of the Household, and often the
Vice-Chamberlain or the Treasurer of the Chamber. It was therefore
natural enough, to Tudor no less than to mediaeval ways of thinking,
that among its numerous and imperfectly defined activities should be
included some which give it the aspect of a Household board of control.
It was in fact by means of a Household ordinance that Henry VIII
regulated the composition of the Privy Council and directed the constant
attendance of the members upon his own person[219]; and throughout
Elizabeth's reign we find the Council in the closest possible
association with the Court, following it from palace to palace, and even
from stage to stage of the progress, so that the record of its meetings
serves practically as a royal itinerary, and sitting under the most
direct Household influences in some convenient apartment of the Privy
Chamber. There was even no longer, as in the time of Henry VIII, a
'council at London' as well as a 'council with the King', with the
exceptions that, if the Court was very far from head-quarters, a few of
the lords sometimes stayed behind to look after current affairs, and
that the council as a whole seems occasionally to have met at
Westminster when the Court was not there, either in connexion with the
sittings of the Star Chamber, or for special business in the lodgings of
one or other of its members.[220] This tradition of propinquity between
the Sovereign and his council was, however, broken through by James, who
at an early date in his reign took to leaving the lords to transact
business at court, while he went hither and thither on his endless
hunting journeys.
In the absence of any contemporary _ordinale_ for the Privy Council,
some idea of its methods can be gathered from the register of
transactions kept by its clerks and from other sources.[221] It is
probable that the Queen sometimes sat with the lords, although her
attendance is never recorded in the register.[222] The usual president
was the Lord Chancellor; the earlier Tudor post of President of the
Council was rarely, if ever, filled up by Elizabeth.[223] But the
general supervision of the clerks and the preparation of business for
consideration, other than that which lay directly within the department
of some particular officer, seems to have fallen to the Secretary. The
number of councillors was gradually reduced from twenty-four at the
beginning to thirteen at the end of the reign. Of these not more than
half were generally present at any one sitting. But there appears to
have been no fixed quorum; occasionally only two members or even one
transacted business. At first three meetings a week sufficed; later they
were often held daily, both by morning and afternoon, and even on
Sundays. Wednesday and Friday were generally set aside for petitions and
other private business, and the remaining days devoted to public
affairs. Drafts of proclamations were passed by the Council before they
received the royal sign manual, and thus became of the nature of Orders
in Council.[224] Where a proclamation was not in question, the
conclusions arrived at by the Council were embodied in a minute, and
submitted through the Secretary for royal approval. When this had been
obtained, any executive action was then taken in the form of warrants or
letters to administrative officers, central or local, or to individuals,
according to the nature of the business. These required the signature of
not less than six councillors, who were not necessarily those present
when the business was discussed. Before they were put forward for
signature they were subscribed by the Secretary or one of the clerks.
Warrants to the Treasurer of the Chamber or other paymasters were also
impressed by the clerk with the special seal of the council. The minutes
were ultimately placed in the council chest, which is unfortunately
lost. But copies or abstracts of those which related to public affairs,
or in some cases copies of the letters finally issued, were made by the
clerks and from time to time bound up in volumes, of which a series, far
from continuous, is preserved.[225] Even at their fullest, however,
these 'Acts of the Council' cannot be supposed to form a complete record
of its proceedings. Council letters are to be found in many local
archives of which no note exists in the register. There were four or
five Clerks of the Council who took duty, two at a time, according to a
monthly rota, and it is clear that some of them were more business-like
than others. But it is also probable that much business of a
confidential character was deliberately left without record. In addition
to the clerks, there was a Keeper of the Council Chamber door, probably
one of the Ushers of the Chamber, and the Messengers of the Chamber were
available to carry such letters as could not conveniently be entrusted
to the regular staff of the Master of Posts.[226]
The ordinary sittings of the Privy Council were of course held in
private, and each member took a special oath of secrecy upon
appointment. But on each Wednesday and Friday during term time they
resolved themselves into the Court of Star Chamber, and held a public
sitting to inquire into cases of riot, libel, disregard of
proclamations, and the like. Herein they were exercising the old power
of the _curia regis_ to duplicate the functions of the law courts.[227]
For Star Chamber purposes they associated with themselves judges, who
ranked as 'ordinary' but not 'privy' councillors.[228] 'Ordinary'
councillors also were the Queen's 'counsel learned in the law', who
included the Attorney- and Solicitor-Generals and the Queen's Serjeants,
and the Masters of Requests who, by another exercise of curial
jurisdiction, sat in the old 'white hall' at Westminster to deal, under
the general direction of the Privy Council, with civil cases arising out
of the suits of poor men or of royal servants.[229] The political
functions of the Privy Council lie beyond the scope of this study, but
their concern with all matters affecting breach of the peace, sedition,
heresy, and public health entailed, under more than one of these heads,
a general supervision of the stage, which will be the subject for
discussion in a later chapter.[230] Similarly, the players, or those of
them who were royal servants, came as such under the jurisdiction of the
Court of Requests, and some interesting information as to their
contracts and disputes is derived from the records of that
tribunal.[231]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 84: _22 George III_, c. 82.]
[Footnote 85: Stubbs, i. 382; Round, 68, 76, 82, 112, 140; Tout, 67. By
Elizabeth's accession the High Stewardship and High Constableship had
reverted to the Crown, and the offices were only temporarily conferred
for occasions of state. The Great Chamberlainship was _de iure_ in the
same position, but was accepted under a misunderstanding as hereditary
in the house of De Vere, Earls of Oxford. The Chief Butlership was
hereditary in the house of Fitzalan, Earls of Arundel, and the Earl
Marshalship in that of Howard, Dukes of Norfolk. It reverted on the
attainder of Thomas 4th Duke in 1572. On 28 Dec. 1597 it was conferred
on Robert Earl of Essex, and after his execution on 25 Feb. 1601 was
placed in commission. These great offices, granted as hereditaments, are
to be distinguished from serjeanties, or grants of land _per
servientiam_ to the holders of minor household posts, which thus became
hereditary. Grants of serjeanties ceased early in the thirteenth
century, and the only household duties exercised by their holders in the
sixteenth century were formal ones on special occasions.]
[Footnote 86: The derivation is through the French from O. H. G.
_marascalh_ (_marah_, horse; _scalh_, servant). Round, 84, traces an
early connexion of the marshal with the stable.]
[Footnote 87: A Squire of the Body held the office of Master of the
Horse in 1480 (Nicolas, _Wardrobe Accts. of Ed. IV_). The term 'Master',
generally applied to heads of offices in the outer ring of the
Household, does not seem to be of very early origin. It probably
replaces the fourteenth-century 'Serjeant'. Sir Thomas Cawarden got a
'Mastership' of the Revels in 1544, as he 'did mislyke to be tearmed a
Seriaunt because of his better countenaunce of roome and place beinge of
the kinges maiesties privye Chamber' (_Tudor Revels_, 2). The Mastership
of the Horse was held by Lord Robert Dudley, afterwards Earl of
Leicester (11 Jan. 1559-87), Robert Earl of Essex (23 Dec. 1587-25 Feb.
1601), Edward Somerset, 4th Earl of Worcester (deputy Dec. 1597; Master
21 Apr. 1601-2 Jan. 1616), Sir George Villiers, afterwards Duke of
Buckingham (3 Jan. 1616). The appointment, like that of other 'Masters',
but unlike that of the Chamberlain and Steward, was by patent and
carried a fee of 1,000 marks (£666 13_s._ 4_d._). Amongst the lesser
Stable officers were the royal Footmen, whom we might expect to find in
the Chamber.]
[Footnote 88: _H. O._ 19, 55.]
[Footnote 89: For the functions of Hall officers, as understood in the
fifteenth century, cf. the 'courtesy' books, especially J. Russell's
_Boke of Nurture_, the anonymous _Boke of Kervynge_ and _Boke of
Curtesye_ (Furnivall, _Babee's Book_), and R. W. Chambers, _A
Fifteenth-Century Courtesy Book_.]
[Footnote 90: The Treasurers of the Household were Sir Thomas Cheyne
(1558-9), Sir Thomas Parry (1559-70), Sir Francis Knollys (1570-96),
Roger Lord North (1596-1600), Sir William Knollys, afterwards Lord
Knollys (1602-16); the Comptrollers, Sir Thomas Parry (1558-9), Sir
Edward Rogers (1559-67), Sir James Croft (1570-90), Sir William Knollys
(1596-1602), Sir Edward Wotton, afterwards Lord Wotton (1602-16); cf.
_D. N. B._, _passim_ (with some errors); Dasent, vii. 3, 43; _V. P._
vii. 1; _Sp. P._ ii. 227; Wright, i. 355; _Sadleir Papers_, ii. 368;
_Carew Correspondence_ (C.S.), 152.]
[Footnote 91: The Lords Steward were Henry Earl of Arundel (1558-64),
William Earl of Pembroke (1567-70), Edward Earl of Lincoln (1581-4),
Robert Earl of Leicester (1585-8), Henry Earl of Derby (1588-93),
Charles Earl of Nottingham (1597-1615), Ludovick Duke of Lennox and
afterwards Richmond (1615-24); cf. Dasent, xxviii. 60, 107; _S. P. D.
Eliz._ clxxiii. 94; Stowe, 664; _Sc. P._ ix. 611; _Sp. P._ i. 18, 368,
631; ii. 239, 455; iv. 122; _V. P._ vii. 3; _Hatfield MSS._ i. 452; xi.
478; _Sydney Papers_, ii. 75, 77; Hawarde, 84; Camden (trans.), 124,
226, 373, and _James_, 14; La Mothe Fénelon, ii. 332; iv. 437; v. 60;
Goodman, i. 178, 191; Cheyney, 28; _Lords Journals_, i. 543, 581; ii.
21, 62, 64, 116, 146, 169, 192, 227, &c.; Wright, _Arthur Hall_, 194-7.]
[Footnote 92: Larson, 132; J. H. Round, _The Officers of Edward the
Confessor_ in _E. H. R._ xix. 90.]
[Footnote 93: _Hist. Mon. Abingdon_, ii. 43.]
[Footnote 94: _Constitutio Domus Regis_ in H. Hall, _Red Book of
Exchequer_, iii. 807; Hearne, _Liber Niger Scaccarii_, i. 352: 'Magister
Camerarius par est Dapifero in lib[er]acione ... Camerarius qui vice sua
servit, ii solid. in die ... Camerarius Candelae, viiiᵈ in die ...
Camerarii sine liberacione in domo comedent, si voluerint'; cf. Stubbs,
i. 391; Poole, 96; Round, 62.]
[Footnote 95: Round, 112.]
[Footnote 96: _Fleta_, ii. 2: 'Auditis querimoniis iniuriarum in aula
regia audire et terminare [Senescallum], assumptis sibi Camerario,
hostiario, vel marescallo aulae militibus, vel aliquo illorum, si omnes
interesse non possint'; ii. 6: 'Camerarius autem et subminister
Camerarii a jurisdictione Senescalli et Marescalli exempti sunt, veluti
omnes garderobarii ut in quibusdam; non enim extendit se iurisdictio
Senescalli ad modica delicta Camerariorum vel garderobariorum audienda
vel terminanda, eo quod ex consuetudine hospitii sunt exempti, dum tamen
illi de quibus exigi contigerit curiae coram Senescallo Cameris Regis et
Reginae, et garderobae assidue sunt intendentes; sed coram ipsis
Thesaurario et Camerario audiantur querimoniae de huiusmodi ministris et
subditis suis, et terminabuntur, praesente tamen clerico Regis ad
placita aulae deputato; ita quod de finibus et amerciamentis ex
huiusmodi placitis provenientibus nihil Regi depereat.']
[Footnote 97: _Flores Historiarum_, iii. 194; cf. _Fleta_, ii. 16.]
[Footnote 98: Tout, 12, 68, 169. The 'Seneschal' and 'chambirleyne' are
on the same footing as regards fees and allowances in the ordinances of
1318 (Tout, 270). They are knights, and may be bannerets.]
[Footnote 99: _Fleta_, ii. 6: 'Debet enim Camerarius decenter disponere
pro lecto Regis, et ut Camerae tapetis et banqueriis ornentur, et quod
ignes sufficienter fiant in caminis, et providere ne ullus defectus
inveniatur quatenus officium suum contigerit'; ii. 7: 'Foeda autem
Camerarii sunt haec, parata sibi debent esse quaecunque pro corpore suo
sint necessaria; videlicet, cibus, potus, busca, et candela; et de
caeteris foedis sic statuitur. Camerarii Domini Regis habeant de caetero
ab Archiepiscopis, Episcopis, Abbatibus, Prioribus, et aliis personis
Ecclesiasticis, Comitibus, Baronibus, et aliis integram Baroniam
tenentibus, rationabilem finem, cum pro Baroniis suis homagium fecerint
aut fidelitatem; et si partem teneant Baroniae, tunc rationabilem finem
capiant secundum portionem ipsos contingentem.... Permissum est etiam
quod Camerarius ex antiqua consuetudine habeat omnia vetera banqueria et
tapetos, curtinas et lecta Regis, nec non et omnia ornamenta Camerae
usitata et derelicta, et de omnibus exeniis Regi factis Cameram
ingredientibus, dum tamen de victualibus aliquam portionem.']
[Footnote 100: Nicolas, _P. C._ vi. ccxix.]
[Footnote 101: _H. O._ 31 (1478): 'A chamberlayn for the King in
household, the grete officer sitting in the Kinges chambre.... He
presenteth, chargeth, and dischargeth all suche persounes as be of the
Kinges chaumbre, except all suche officers of household, as ministre for
any vytayle for the Kinges mouthe, or for his chambre; for all those
take theire charge at the grene cloth in the countynghouse. This is the
chief hed of rulers in the Kinges chambre.... Item, he hath the punition
of all them that are longing to the chaumber for any offence or
outrage.... The Chaumberlayne taketh his othe and staffe of the King or
of his counsayle; he shall at no tyme within this courte be covered in
his service.... Within the Kinges gates, no man shall harborow or
assigne but this chambyrlayn or ussher, or suche under hym of the King's
chambre havyng theyr power. This chamberlayn besyly to serche and
oversee the King's chambres, and the astate made therein, to be
according, first for all the array longing to his proper royall person,
for his proper beddes, for his proper boarde at meale tymes, for the
diligent doyng in servyng thereof to his honour and pleasure; to assigne
kervers, cupbearers, assewers, phisitians, almoners, knyghts, or other
wurshypfull astate for the towell, and for the basyn squires of the body
to be attendaunt'; 116 (1493): 'In the absence of the chamberlaine, the
usher shall have the same power to command in like manner; alsoe, it is
right necessarie for the chamberlaine and ushers to have ever in
remembrance all the highe festival dayes in the yeare, and all other
tymes, what is longing to their office, that they bee not to seeke when
neede is; for they shall have many lookers-on. And such thinges as the
ushers know not, lett them resort unto the chamberlaine, and aske his
advice at all tymes therein; and soe the ushers bee excused, and the
chamberlaine to see that hee reveale himselfe at all tymes, that hee may
bee beloved and feared of all such as belong to the chamber.']
[Footnote 102: Goodman, i. 178, speaking of Hunsdon's time: 'The lord
chamberlain, there being at that time no lord steward, is the greatest
governor in the King's house; he disposeth of all things above stairs,
he hath a greater command of the King's guard than the captains hath, he
makes all the chaplains, chooseth most of the King's servants, and all
the pursuivants; there being then no dean of the King's chapel, he
disposeth of all in the chapel.']
[Footnote 103: Young, _Mary Sidney_, 16, gives from _Sydney Papers_, i.
271, and manuscripts several letters of 1574-8 from Lady Sidney to Lord
Chamberlain Sussex about her accommodation at court. Heneage reported to
Hatton on 2 Apr. 1585 (Nicolas, _Hatton_, 415) the Queen's anger with
the Lord Chamberlain for allowing Raleigh to be put in Hatton's lodging.
Lord Hunsdon apologizes to Sir Robert Cecil for his ill lodging in 1594
(_Hatfield MSS._ iv. 504).]
[Footnote 104: Cf. ch. iv.]
[Footnote 105: Cf. App. F. Secretary Walsingham in 1590 refers an
applicant for an audience to the Lord Chamberlain, 'who otherwise will
conceave, as he doth alreadie, that I seke to drawe those matters from
him' (_Hatfield MSS._ iv. 3).]
[Footnote 106: _Sp. P._ ii. 606. The default was at the reception of
Alençon's envoys in Aug. 1578. The Calendar makes Sussex 'Lord Steward',
but the original (_Documentos Inéditos_, xci. 270) has 'gran Camarero'.
In 1582, at the reception of a lord mayor, 'some young gentilman, being
more bold than well mannered, did stand upon the carpett of the clothe
of estate, and did allmost leane upon the queshions. Her Highnes found
fault with my Lord Chamberlayn and Mʳ Vice-Chamberlayn, and with the
Gentlemen Ushers, for suffering such disorders' (Fleetwood to Burghley
in Wright, ii. 174).]
[Footnote 107: Cf. ch. vi, p. 205, on the misadventure of Jonson and Sir
John Roe in 1603; also Jonson's _Irish Mask_ (1613), 12, 'Ish it te
fashion to beate te imbasheters here, and knoke 'hem o' te heads phit te
phoit stick?', and Beaumont and Fletcher, _Maid's Tragedy_ (_c._ 1611),
1. ii. 44, 'I cannot blame my lord Calianax for going away: would he
were here! he would run raging amongst them, and break a dozen wiser
heads than his own in the twinkling of an eye'. John Chamberlain says of
Comptroller Sir Thomas Edmondes in 1617 (Birch, i. 385), 'They say he
doth somewhat too much flourish and fence with his staves, whereof he
hath broken two already, not at tilt, but stickling at the plays this
Christmas', and Osborne, _James_, 75, of Philip, Earl of Pembroke, that
'he was intolerable choleric and offensive, and did not refrain, whilst
he was Chamberlain, to break many wiser heads than his own [_vide
supra_]: Mʳ. May that translated Lucan having felt the weight of his
staff: which had not his office and the place, being the
Banqueting-house, protected, I question whether he would ever have
struck again'. This was in Feb. 1634 (_Strafford Papers_, i. 207).]
[Footnote 108: Machyn, 183, of Mary's funeral, 'All the offesers whent
to the grayffe, and after brake ther stayffes, and cast them into the
grayffe'; Gawdy, _Letters_, 128, of Elizabeth's, 'I saw all the whit
staves broken uppon ther heades'.]
[Footnote 109: _Lord Chamberlains Books_, 811, ff. 178, 206, 236,
contains warrants to the Wardrobe for the liveries of Lord Sussex, Lord
Howard, and George Lord Hunsdon. The fee of £16 appears in a memorandum
of 1606-7 (Nichols, _James_, ii. 125).]
[Footnote 110: The ordinary books of reference give a very inaccurate
list of Elizabethan Chamberlains. I have collected the evidence in _M.
S. C._ i. 31.]
[Footnote 111: Goodman, i. 178, says that Hunsdon was 'ever reputed a
very honest man, but a very passionate man, a great swearer, and of
little eminency'. Naunton (ed. Arber, 46) gives a similar account.]
[Footnote 112: Stowe, _Annals_, 936; Birch, _James_, i. 336; Wotton,
_Letters_, ii. 40, 41.]
[Footnote 113: _V. P._ xiv. 65; Camden, _James_, 14.]
[Footnote 114: Birch, _James_, i. 382; Camden, _James_, 15; _V. P._ xiv.
100. Philip Herbert himself became Earl of Pembroke at his brother's
death on 10 Apr. 1630. He took the parliamentary side in politics, and
surrendered his staff on 23 July 1641. Robert Devereux, third Earl of
Essex, although also a parliamentarian, succeeded him from 24 July 1641
to 12 Apr. 1642 (_L. Ch. Records_, v. 96).]
[Footnote 115: _M. S. C._ i. 34, 40. Howard of Effingham is described in
the _Revels Accounts_ (Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 238) as 'my L. Chamberlayne
the L. Haward' on 5 Dec. 1574, and more precisely in the Chamber Order
Book of Worcester as 'Lord Chamberlayn in the absence of the E. of
Sussex' in Aug. 1575 (Nichols, _Eliz._ i. 533).]
[Footnote 116: Nicolas, _P. C._ vi. ccxxi; cf. p. 37.]
[Footnote 117: Dasent, vii. 3, 43; Wright, i. 355; La Mothe, v. 60;
_Sadleir Papers_, ii. 368, 410; _Sydney Papers_, ii. 89, 198, 216;
Chamberlain, 100; _D. N. B._]
[Footnote 118: Hearne, _Liber Niger Scaccarii_, i. 352, 'Portator lecti
Regis in domo comedet, & homini suo iii ob. & i summarium cum
liberacione sua'; cf. _H. O._ 39, 42, 251. These Wardrobes were
distinct, alike from the Great Wardrobe and from the standing Wardrobes,
to which the furniture of the permanently equipped palaces was committed
(_H. O._ 262).]
[Footnote 119: _H. O._ 39.]
[Footnote 120: Carlisle, 11, assigns the institution of the Gentlemen to
Henry VII, but this is inconsistent with the official document of 1638
printed by him (112), which definitely refers it to Henry VIII. He also
gives from _Addl. MS._ 5758, ff. 263ᵛ, 269ᵛ, a list described by him as
of Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber at the time of the King's 'French
expedition, in 1513'. But in the manuscript the list is simply headed
'The Kinges prevy chamber'; it is part of an enumeration of 'the King's
Trayne to Bulloyne', is not dated 1513, and probably belongs to 1544.
Similarly a list of Gentlemen, printed by Brewer, ii. 871, from _Royal
MS._ 7, F. xiv. 100, and dated by him 1516, proves on scrutiny to be
certainly later than 1520, and may therefore be later still, while a
number of alleged grants to Gentlemen and Grooms of the Privy Chamber
between 1510 and 1514 (Brewer, i. 148, 195, 205, 280, 364, 748) may be
seen by comparison with other entries for some of the same personages
(i. 11, 18, 91, 96, 113, 243, 410, 425, 448, 493, 600, 612) to be merely
due to bad abstracting. Evidently Brewer, when working upon his first
volume, had not distinguished between a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber
and a Gentleman Usher of the Chamber, or between a Groom of the Privy
Chamber and a Groom of the Chamber. The first clear example of Grooms
and Pages of the Privy Chamber which I have come across is in a military
list of June 1513 (Brewer, i. 634). Here there are no Gentlemen, but in
Sept. 1518 a parallel list of French and English names (Brewer, ii.
1357) has a section of Gentlemen of the Chamber, in which occur, besides
French names, those of Sir E. Nevell, Arthur Poole, Nicolas Carewe,
Francis Brian, Henry Norris, William Coffyn. I believe the categories of
this list to be French rather than English. In 1520 (Brewer, iii. 244) a
Chamber list gives the names of four squires for the body followed by
'William Cary in the Privy Chamber', and in the same year a list of
quarterly wages due from the Treasurer of the Chamber (Brewer, iii. 408)
has, besides four Grooms of the Privy Chamber at 50_s._ each, 'Henry
Norris and William Caree of the privy chamber' at £8 6_s._ 8_d._ each.
On the other hand, a list of Chamber officers of 1526, probably just
before the Eltham Articles (_Lord Steward's Misc._ 299, f. 153), has
still no Gentlemen, though it has Grooms of the Privy (here called
'King's') Chamber. As I read these facts, the distinction between the
Outer and the Privy Chamber was made in Henry VII's reign or early in
Henry VIII's. The Grooms were then divided into two classes. But the
institution of the Gentlemen was later and apparently upon a French
model. At first, about 1520, one or two Squires were personally assigned
to attendance in the Privy Chamber. Then the arrangement was regulated,
and a definite class of Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber established, by
the Eltham Articles in 1526. As to _status_, the duties of the Gentlemen
seem to have been in practice much those of the Squires of Household in
the _Liber Niger_ (1478), which were probably already exercised by
Chaucer in the same capacity a century before. 'These Esquiers of
houshold of old be accustumed, wynter and somer, in aftyrnoones and in
eveninges, to drawe to lordes chambres within courte, there to kepe
honest company aftyr theyre cunnynge, in talkyng of cronycles of kings
and of other polycyes, or in pypeyng, or harpyng, syngyng, or other
actes martialles, to help occupy the courte, and accompany straungers,
tyll the tyme require of departing' (_H. O._ 46). Stowe (_Annales_,
565), describing the coronation of Anne Boleyn in 1533, calls the
Gentlemen 'Esquires of Honour'. Their precedence under Elizabeth was
after that of the Esquires of the Body (Carlisle, 86). On the other
hand, some of the Gentlemen appointed in 1526 had been Knights of the
Body, and the office of Knight of the Body appears shortly after to have
become obsolete. Knights are included as chamber officers in the
Elizabethan fee lists, but I can find no evidence that any were in fact
appointed.]
[Footnote 121: The Grooms were distinguished from the Gentlemen in the
post-Restoration court (Chamberlayne, 247) by not wearing sword, cloak,
or hat in the Chamber.]
[Footnote 122: _Constitutio Domus Regis_ (_c._ 1135) in Hearne, _Liber
Niger Scaccarii_, i. 356, 'Hostiarius Camerae unaquaque die, quo Rex
iter agit, iiijᵈ ad lectum Regis'; cf. _H. O._ 37, and p. 37, _supra_.
On the etiquette of Bedchamber service, as inherited from the fifteenth
century, cf. Furnivall, _Babee's Book_, 175, 313.]
[Footnote 123: The feminine posts do not appear in the fee lists.
_Lansd. MS._ lix, f. 43, gives (_c._ 1588) two ladies at 50 marks (£33
6_s._ 8_d._) and one at £20 as 'The Bed chamber', five at 50 marks as
'Gentlewomen of yᵉ privey Chamber', and four at £20 as 'Chamberers'. The
term 'The Queen's Women' appears in the list of liveries for Elizabeth's
funeral. Beyond these there were probably only a few women, e. g. a
'lawndrys', employed at court; cf. Cheyney, i. 18. In the New Year Gift
lists the official women are mixed up with wives of men officers and
others in attendance at court.]
[Footnote 124: Katharine Astley seems to have been First Lady in 1562
(Nichols, _Eliz._ i. 116), Katharine Howard, afterwards Lady Howard of
Effingham, from 1572-87 (_Sloane MS._ 814; Nichols, i. 294; ii. 65, 251;
_Sp. P._ ii. 661), and Dorothy Lady Stafford in 1587 (_Sp. P._ iv. 14).
But Mary Ratcliffe had charge of the jewels from July 1587 to the end of
Elizabeth's reign (Nichols, iii. 1, 445; _Egerton Papers_, 313; _S. P.
D. Jac. I_, i. 79; _Addl. MS._ 5751, f. 222; _Royal MS. Appendix_, 68),
apparently in succession to Blanche Parry.]
[Footnote 125: For the white dresses, cf. App. F; _Sydney Papers_, ii.
170; _S. P. D. Eliz._ cclxxxii. 48 (vol. iv, p. 114); L. Cust in _Trans.
Walpole Soc._ iii. 12; for the lodging in the Coffer Chamber, doubtless
where the 'sweet coffers' were kept, _Sydney Papers_, ii. 38.
Elizabeth's predecessors, at least from the reign of Edward II (Tout,
280; cf. _H. O._ 44), had maintained some of the young lads who were
royal wards at court under the name of Henchmen, but on 11 Dec. 1565
Francis Alen wrote to Lord Shrewsbury (Lodge, i. 438), 'Her Highness
hath of late, whereat some do much marvel, dissolved the ancient office
of the Henchmen'.]
[Footnote 126: This may be exemplified from the histories of Robert
Dudley and Mrs. Cavendish, of Walter Raleigh and Elizabeth Throgmorton,
of Robert Tyrwhitt and Bridget Manners, of Southampton and Elizabeth
Vernon, of Essex and Elizabeth Brydges, Mary Howard, Elizabeth Russell
and Elizabeth Southwell, and of Pembroke and Mary Fitton.]
[Footnote 127: Nichols, _Eliz._ ii. 24; _Sp. P._ i. 45; ii. 675.]
[Footnote 128: Philip Henslowe (ch. xi), George Bryan (ch. xv), and John
Singer (ch. xv) were Grooms, and Anthony Munday (ch. xxii) and possibly
Lawrence Dutton (ch. xv) Messengers of the Chamber.]
[Footnote 129: Cf. ch. iv. I doubt whether the Harbingers were
originally Chamber officers, but they seem to be so classed under Henry
VIII (_H. O._ 169) and in the Elizabethan fee lists.]
[Footnote 130: An order of 1493 'for all night' is in _H. O._ 109;
Pegge, ii. 16, has a long account of the same usage in the
post-Restoration Household. John Lyly (ch. xxiii) and Sir George Buck
(ch. iii) were Esquires of the Body. A brawl in 1598 between the Earl of
Southampton and Ambrose Willoughby, who was in charge of the Presence
Chamber as Esquire of the Body after the Queen had gone to bed, is
recorded in _Sydney Papers_, ii. 83.]
[Footnote 131: _H. O._ 33 (_c._ 1478), 'In the noble Edwardes [Ed. III]
dayes worshipfull esquires did this servyce, but now thus for the more
worthy'.]
[Footnote 132: At Elizabeth's funeral the Earl of Shrewsbury had a
livery as Cupbearer and the Earl of Sussex as Carver.]
[Footnote 133: Cf. App. F.]
[Footnote 134: Philip Henslowe (ch. xi) became a Sewer of the Chamber.]
[Footnote 135: Brewer, ii. 871 (assigned to 1516, but probably later
than 1526). The livery list for Elizabeth's coronation includes 7 Ladies
of the Privy Chamber 'without wages' and 11 others 'extraordinary', 4
'ordinary' Esquires of the Body, and 6 Gentlemen Waiters (i. e. of the
Privy Chamber) 'unplaced'; that for her funeral 16 Grooms of the Chamber
'in ordinarie' and 23 'extraordinary, but daily attendant', 5 Pages of
the Chamber 'in ordinary' and 3 'extraordinary', and a number of
Esquires of the Body and Sewers of the Chamber far in excess of anything
contemplated by the fee lists.]
[Footnote 136: Batiffol, 93, describes a similar practice in the French
household.]
[Footnote 137: Cf. ch. xiii (Queen's, King's).]
[Footnote 138: Philip Henslowe (ch. xi) seems to have passed from the
'extraordinary' to the 'ordinary' status as Groom of the Chamber.]
[Footnote 139: Pegge, v. 49. There were 'xx servientes, unusquisque jᵈ
in die' in the _Domus_ of Henry I (Hearne, _Liber Niger Scaccarii_, i.
356).]
[Footnote 140: Pegge, iii; Tout, 304 (1318): 'Item xxiiij archers a pee,
garde corps le roi, qirrount deuaunt le roi en cheminant par pays'; _H.
O._ 38 (1478).]
[Footnote 141: Sir Christopher Hatton was Captain of the Guard 1572-87,
Sir Walter Raleigh 1587-1603, Sir Thomas Erskine, afterwards Viscount
Fenton (1605) and Earl of Kelly (1619), 1603-32.]
[Footnote 142: Halle, i. 14; ii. 294; Pegge, ii. An Elizabethan book of
orders for the Pensioners (1601) is in _H. O._ 276.]
[Footnote 143: Cf. App. F.]
[Footnote 144: On the development of the Secretaries, cf. Tout, 175;
Davies, 228; Nicolas, _P. C._ vi, xcvii; Cheyney, i. 43; R. H. Gretton,
_The King's Government_, 25; L. H. Dibben, _Secretaries in the
Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries_ (_E. H. R._ xxv. 430).]
[Footnote 145: On the Chapel, cf. ch. xii, s.v.]
[Footnote 146: Payments on account of Robert Grene, a court fool, appear
in the _Privy Purse Accounts_ for 1559-69 (Nichols, i. 264). Apparently
the post was hereditary; a warrant of 1567 for the clothes of 'Jack
Grene our foole' is in _Addl. MS._ 35328. C. C. Stopes, _Elizabeth's
Fools and Dwarfs_ (_Shakespeare's Environment_, 269), adds from a
Wardrobe book of 1577-1600 (_Lord Chamb. Books_, v. 36) 'Thomasina', a
dwarf or _muliercula_, and from another (_Lord Chamb. Books_, v. 34)
'The Foole', 'William Shenton our Foole', 'Ipolyta the Tartarian', 'an
Italian named Monarcho', 'a lytle Blackamore'. References to Monarcho,
including _L. L. L._ IV. i. 101, are collected in _Var._ iv. 345, and
McKerrow, _Nashe_, iv. 339. Dee, 7, records a visit from the Queen's
dwarf 'Mʳˢ Thomasin' on 7 June 1580.]
[Footnote 147: Cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, i. 50.]
[Footnote 148: Lafontaine, 45. Numerous records of the musical
establishment are collected by Lafontaine from the _Lord Chamberlain's
Records_, and by W. Nagel, _Annalen der englischen Hofmusik_ (_Beilage
zu den Monatsheften für Musikgeschichte_, Bd. 26), and more completely
in the _Musical Antiquary_ (Oct. 1909-Apr. 1913) from the _T. C.
Accounts_. The fee lists are not to be relied upon.]
[Footnote 149: This was Mathias Mason. The lutenists also include Robert
Hales (1586-1603), Henry Porter (1603), also described in the same year
as a sackbut, and Philip Rosseter (1604-23), on whom cf. ch. xv.]
[Footnote 150: John Heywood was certainly a Sewer of the chamber to
Henry VIII (cf. ch. xii, s.v. Paul's), and Edward VI had a group of
singers holding these posts (Lafontaine, 9), but there is no definite
evidence of a similar arrangement under Elizabeth. On Alfonso
Ferrabosco, cf. ch. xiv (Italians).]
[Footnote 151: On the relation of the Lord Chamberlain to the Revels in
particular, cf. ch. iii. The issues from the Great Wardrobe were mainly
upon his warrants.]
[Footnote 152: _H. O._ 37. The post of Clerk of Works is also called an
'office outward' (_H. O._ 54).]
[Footnote 153: Cf. ch. iii, especially Tilney's list of 'standing
offices' _c._ 1607. The 'maisters of the standing offices' also appear
in the description of James's coronation (Nichols, _James_, i. 325).]
[Footnote 154: Thus the curious fee of £11 8_s._ 1½_d._ a year
represents 7½_d._ a day, the regular wages of esquires, serjeants,
and many clerks under Edward II (Tout, 270).]
[Footnote 155: The £100 was 'from the King's privy coffers' _c._ 1478
(_H. O._ 41), but by 1508 it was from the Exchequer (Henry, _Hist. of
Great Britain_, xii. 454), and here it was still paid in the seventeenth
century (Sullivan, 252, from _Pells Order Books_).]
[Footnote 156: Nichols, _Eliz._ ii. 47, from return of Board of Green
Cloth (1576).]
[Footnote 157: Nichols, _Eliz._ ii. 45, 51. 'Bouche' or 'bouge' of court
is clearly from _busca_, bush, firewood. The allowance was as old as
1290, for _Fleta_, ii. 7, notes _cibus_, _potus_, _busca_, and _candela_
amongst the Chamberlain's fees (cf. p. 37). It is set out for each
officer in 1318 (Tout, 270) and _c._ 1478 (_H. O._ 15).]
[Footnote 158: Nichols, _Eliz._ ii. 44.]
[Footnote 159: _H. O._ 34, 'because ray clothinge is not according for
the king's knightes, therefore it was left'. But an order of June 1478
(_T. R. Misc._ 206, f. 11) required Lords, Knights, Squires of the Body,
and others within the household to wear 'a colour of the kings livery
about their nekkes'.]
[Footnote 160: Cheyney, i. 32; Devon, 24, 43, 67, 83; _Abstract_, 8;
Pegge, iii. 27; Nichols, _James_, ii. 125; _V. P._ vii. 12; Hentzner,
_Itinerarium_ (quoted App. F); _Addl. MS._ 5750, f. 114; _Lord
Chamberlain's Records_, v. 90, 91. The 'watchyng clothing' is as old as
Edward IV (_H. O._ 38, 41). It seems to have been 4 yards of medley
colour at 5_s._ a yard (Sullivan, 253). The sovereigns seem to have made
some use of personal colours as distinct from the royal scarlet. Those
of Edward VI were green and white (Von Raumer, ii. 71); those of
Elizabeth black and white; cf. pp. 142, 161 (1559, 1560, 1564).]
[Footnote 161: Pegge, iii. 92.]
[Footnote 162: Cf. ch. xiii (Queen's).]
[Footnote 163: Cf. ch. iii.]
[Footnote 164: Carlisle, 90, with a list of many of James's Gentlemen.]
[Footnote 165: The order of 1526 for the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber
prescribes that one of them, Henry Norris, 'shall be in the roome of Sir
William Compton, not only giveing his attendance as groome of the Kings
stoole, but also in his bed-chamber, and other privy places, as shall
stand with his pleasure' (_H. O._ 156). Naturally the post had lapsed
during female reigns, although a hope of Sir Robert Sidney for a
'Bedchamber lordship' in 1597 suggests that a renewal may have been
contemplated (_Hatfield MSS._ vii. 225). James had had Gentlemen of the
Bed Chamber in Scotland. Later court usage, represented already by
Chamberlayne, 262, in 1669, interpreted 'stole' as 'vestment', but I
suspect that in origin it was the close stool, which was kept _c._ 1478
by the Wardrobe of Beds (_H. O._ 40); cf. Marston, _Fawn_, 1. ii. 46,
'Thou art private with the duke; thou belongest to his close-stool'.]
[Footnote 166: Goodman, i. 389, says that the prime gentleman of the bed
chamber and groom of the stole was 'a man of special trust' and had a
table for guests 'employed in the king's most private occasions'.
Viscount Fenton combined the post with that of Captain of the Guard
under James. According to Newcastle, 213, the Earls of Arundel and
Pembroke laboured in vain to be of the Bed Chamber throughout the reign.
Carey, _Memoirs_, 79, 91, describes the heart-burnings to which the
office gave rise. Robert Carr, afterwards Earl of Somerset, began his
career as a Page of the Bed Chamber (Nichols, _James_, i. 600).]
[Footnote 167: _S. P. D. Jac. I_ (8 Nov. 1604). The French ambassador
wrote in 1606 (Boderie, i. 56) that the king 'vit combattre les cocqs,
qui est un plaisir qu'il prend deux fois la semaine'.]
[Footnote 168: Cf. _D. N. B._. Anne also had a 'jester', Thomas Derry,
in 1612 (Cunningham, xliii).]
[Footnote 169: _Abstract_, 46; Devon, 17, 72 and _passim_; _Cott. MS.
Vesp._ C. xiv, f. 108; _Addl. MS._ 33378, f. 34ᵛ; _V. P._ x. 102; Sully,
443; Boderie, i. 39, 272, 362. Sir Lewis Lewknor received a formal
appointment as Master of Ceremonies by patent, with a salary of £200, on
7 Nov. 1605, but had in fact been exercising the functions since 1603.
Amongst his assistants were Sir William Button, who was employed by 1607
and obtained a reversion of the post on 10 Sept. 1612, and John Finett,
who ultimately himself became Master, and published a record of his
service from 1612 in his _Philoxenis_ (1656).]
[Footnote 170: Worcester to Shrewsbury, 2 Feb. 1604 (Lodge, iii. 88);
'Now, having done with matters of state, I must a little touch the
feminine commonwealth, that against your coming you be not altogether
like an ignorant country fellow. First, you must know we have ladies of
divers degrees of favour; some for the private chamber, some for the
drawing chamber, some for the bed-chamber, and some for neither certain,
and of this number is only my Lady Arabella and my wife. My Lady Bedford
holdeth fast to the bed-chamber; my Lady Harford would fain, but her
husband hath called her home. My Lady Derby the younger, the Lady
Suffolk, Ritche, Nottingham, Susan, Walsingham, and, of late, the Lady
Sothwell, for the drawing-chamber; all the rest for the private-chamber,
when they are not shut out, for many times the doors are locked; but the
plotting and malice amongst them is such, that I think envy hath tied an
invisible snake about most of their necks to sting one another to death.
For the present there are now five maids; Cary, Myddelmore, Woodhouse,
Gargrave, Roper; the sixth is determined, but not come; God send them
good fortune, for as yet they have no mother.']
[Footnote 171: Madox, i. 262; Thomas, 24; Tout in _E. H. R._ xxiv. 496.]
[Footnote 172: Tout, 63.]
[Footnote 173: Madox, i. 267; _P. R. O. Lists and Indexes_, xi. 102;
Tout in _E. H. R._ xxiv. 496. The following summary of the history of
the wardrobe and chamber in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth
centuries is largely based on Tout, _The Place of Edward II in English
History_ (1914). Additional material has since been published in J. C.
Davies, _The Baronial Opposition to Edward II_ (1918).]
[Footnote 174: _Fleta_, ii. 6, quoted on p. 37.]
[Footnote 175: J. C. Davies, _The First Journal of Edward II's Chamber_
(1915, _E. H. R._ xxx. 662), gives extracts from a Chamber account of
1322-3, including a payment of 7 Jan. 1323 'a iiij clers de Sneyth
iuantz entreludies en la sale de Couwyk deuant le Roi et monsire Hugh
[le Despenser] de doun le Roi par les mayns Harsik liuerant a eux les
deniers xlˢ', which adds an interesting early use of the term
'interlude' to those given in _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 181, 256.]
[Footnote 176: Newton, 351; Ramsay, _Lancaster and York_, i. 317; ii.
466. Henry VIII's Treasurers of the Chamber sometimes kept separate war
accounts (Brewer, iv. 1. 82), and there is a similar example as late as
1599 (_R. O. Audit Office_, _Various_, 3, 108).]
[Footnote 177: _P. R. O. Lists and Indexes_, xxxv. 220, and _Cal. Patent
Rolls_, both passim.]
[Footnote 178: _C. P. R._, _1 Hen. VI_, p. 3, m. 5 (3 May 1423), _5 Edw.
IV_, p. 2, m. 28 (29 June 1465), _1 Rich. III_, p. 5, m. 21 (26 Apr.
1484). I think Newton is wrong in regarding Vaughan's appointment by
patent as exceptional. The _Liber Niger_, _c._ 1478 (_H. O._ 42), fully
describes the Jewel House, with its 'architectour, called clerk of the
King's, or keeper of the King's jewelles, or tresorer of the chambyr',
and says 'all thinges of this office inward or outward, commyth and
goyth by the knowledge of the Kyng, and his chamberlaynes recorde'.]
[Footnote 179: Sir Gilbert Talbot, Master of the Jewel House in 1680,
represented (_Archaeologia_, xxii. 118) that anciently the Master was
Treasurer of the Chamber, 'till that branch was taken out and made an
office apart; and is now five times more beneficiall than the
Jewell-House; all the regulation of expence being apply'd to the
remaining parts of the perquisites of the Jewell-House, the fees of the
Treasurer of the Chamber and Master of the Ceremonys being left
entire'.]
[Footnote 180: Campbell, i. 228, 316; ii. 105, 296, 320, 445. Newton,
351, 353, thinks the exact dates of Edmund Chaderton's and Lovell's
appointments uncertain, and supposes the keepership of the jewels to
have been detached on the latter occasion. But it was clearly on the
former, the date of which is given in _C. P. R._, _1 Rich. III_, p. 5,
m. 21, as 26 Apr. 1484. Lovell is described as Treasurer of the King's
Chamber on 26 Feb. 1486 and of the Queen's Chamber about the following
Easter (Campbell, i. 228, 316). There is no patent for him, and my
impression is that both posts had been annexed to the Chancellorship of
the Exchequer, granted him on 12 Oct. 1485 (_C. P. R._, _1 Hen. VII_, p.
1, m. 18).]
[Footnote 181: Newton, 354, with a full account of Heron's career.]
[Footnote 182: This arrangement had already been legalized by _1 Hen.
VIII_, c. 3 (_Statutes_, iii. 2), which authorizes the payment of
certain revenues to Heron as General Receiver, 'and to other persons ...
hereafter in like office to be deputed and assigned as in the time of
the late ... King Henry the vijᵗʰ hath been used', but does not refer to
him as Treasurer of the Chamber.]
[Footnote 183: _3 Hen. VIII_, c. 23 (_Statutes_, iii. 45). It is
provided by § 6 'that the Kinges forenamed trusty servant John Heron be
from hensfurth Tresourer of the Kinges Chamber, and that he by the name
of Tresourer of the Kinges Chambre be named accepted and called; and
that he and every other persone whom the King hereaftur shall name and
appoint to the said roome or office of Tresourer of his Chamber be not
Charged ne chargeable for any suche his or their Receipt of any parte or
parcell of the premisses as before ys expressed or therefor to accompte
answere or make repayment to any persone or persones other then to the
King or his heires in his or their Chamber, and not in the said
Eschequier'. The Act only had force to 30 Nov. 1512, but it was
continued by _4 Hen. VIII_, c. 18, _6 Hen. VIII_, c. 24, _7 Hen. VIII_,
c. 7, _14-15 Hen. VIII_, c. 15, and made permanent by _27 Hen. VIII_, c.
62 in 1535 (_Statutes_, iii. 68, 145, 182, 219, 631). The account of
this legislation in Newton, 361, treats the Act of _6 Hen. VIII_ as its
starting-point.]
[Footnote 184: His salary was at first £10, afterwards £25 a quarter
(Brewer, iii. 407). He died on 10 June 1522 (Newton, 358).]
[Footnote 185: A letter in Brewer, iii. 781 (N.D. but dated by Brewer 2
Dec. 1521), speaks of 'Master Myclo the new treasurer in Master Heron is
room'. Certain payments were made by John Myklowe, 'late treasurer of
the King's chamber', from 1 June 1521 to 1 May 1522, and thereafter by
Edmund Peckham (Brewer, iii. 1156), until 1 Jan. 1523. Conceivably
Peckham, who had been a clerk in the counting-house, and was cofferer by
1524 (Brewer, iv. 422), may have been Treasurer for a short period
between Miklowe and Wyatt, unless indeed these payments belong to a
special war loan or subsidy account, such as Wyatt himself rendered in
1524 (Brewer, iv. 82), probably not strictly in his capacity as
Treasurer of the Chamber. Miklowe is described as Treasurer on 10 Apr.
1522 and was dead by 28 June 1522 (Brewer, iii. 924, 998). For his
earlier history, cf. Brewer, ii. 436; iii. 332; xxi. 2. 426; Ellis, iii.
3, 271.]
[Footnote 186: Wyatt is described as Treasurer in an indenture of 18
Feb. 1523 (Brewer, iii. 1190). In one of Cavendish's memoranda as
printed in _Trevelyan Papers_, ii. 12, the name of Sir Thomas has been
substituted for that of Sir Henry as a predecessor of Cavendish. This is
an error, or more probably a forgery, as Collier edited the volume, and
called special attention to the entry. Sir Thomas Wyatt was riding in
1524 on war loan business, payment for which is in his father's account
(Brewer, iv. 85). On 21 Oct. 1524 he became clerk of the jewels. It is
just possible that the old connexion of the Treasurer with the Jewel
House suggested the confusion, on which cf. Simonds, _Sir Thomas Wyatt_,
19.]
[Footnote 187: _H. O._ 159.]
[Footnote 188: Brewer, iv. 1843.]
[Footnote 189: _33 Hen. VIII_, c. 39 (_Statutes_, iii. 879).]
[Footnote 190: Brewer, xx. 2. 452; Dasent, i. 323, 470.]
[Footnote 191: Brewer, xxi. 1. 125, 147; _Trevelyan Papers_, i. 197.]
[Footnote 192: _7 Edw. VI_, c. 2 (_Statutes_, iv. 1, 164).]
[Footnote 193: _1 Mary_, Sess. 2, c. 10 (_Statutes_, iv. 1, 208);
Thomas, 15.]
[Footnote 194: Wriothesley to Paget in Brewer, xx. 2. 338 (5 Nov. 1545).
A later letter of 11 Nov. (Brewer, xx. 2. 365) refers to debts of the
Surveyors' Court 'which is the Chamber'. In 1552 Charles Tuke was called
on by the Privy Council to bring his father's accounts to the Lord
Chamberlain for view and consideration (Dasent, iv. 164).]
[Footnote 195: _Trevelyan Papers_, ii. 1. The book is now in the R. O.
It is in the statement of 1548 that Sir T. Wyatt's name has been
inserted.]
[Footnote 196: Dasent, v. 329; vi. 182; _Hatfield MSS._ i. 256.]
[Footnote 197: Cf. ch. xiii (Interluders).]
[Footnote 198: Examples are in _H. O._ 120, 139, 147.]
[Footnote 199: Cf. App. B.]
[Footnote 200: A fuller account of the Tudor Chamber finance is given by
Newton, 360; cf. M. D. George, _The Origin of the Declared Account_ (_E.
H. R._ xxxi. 41).]
[Footnote 201: Felton was cofferer in 1553 (_Archaeologia_, xii. 372).]
[Footnote 202: _S. P. D. Mary_, xiv. The fee of £240 represents the old
fee of £100 attached to the Treasurership, together with allowances of
£100 for board wages, £20 for clerks, £10 for boat-hire, and £10 for
office necessaries, which Cavendish's accounts show that he enjoyed. The
1_s._ a day was presumably the fee for the Posts.]
[Footnote 203: Dasent, vii. 15, 27; _S. P. D. Eliz. Addl._ ix. 3.]
[Footnote 204: Nicholas, _Eliz._ i. 264, printed the accounts of Edmund
Downing as executor to John Tamworth for 1559-69 from the audited copy
in _Harleian Rolls_, A. A. 23. Copies are also in the _Pipe Office
Declared Accounts_, 2791, and the _Audit Office Declared Accounts_,
2021, 1. No later Elizabethan Privy Purse Accounts are known, but it
appears from the lists of New Year gifts for 1561, 1578, 1579, 1589, and
1600 (Nichols, _Eliz._ i. 108; ii. 65, 249; iii. 1, 445) that Henry
Sackford succeeded John Tamworth as custodian of gifts given in cash,
and he is described as Keeper at Elizabeth's death (_S. P. D. Jac. I_,
vi. 2). His successor was Sir George Home, afterwards (1605) Earl of
Dunbar (_S. P. D. Docquet_ of 17 May 1603). Jacobean accounts for 1603-5
are in _Pipe Office Declared Accounts_, 2792, and in _Audit Office
Declared Accounts_, 2021. Some extracts are in Cunningham, xviii. In
1617 (_Abstract_, 6) the Privy Purse disposed of £5,000 and an
additional £1,100 from New Year gifts.]
[Footnote 205: This estimate is based on the account for 1594-5;
doubtless there was some variation from year to year. A memorandum of
_c._ 1596 (_Hatfield MSS._ vi. 571) gives the annual assignment to the
office by warrant dormant as £13,800.]
[Footnote 206: On 23 July 1581 Heneage wrote to Hatton (Hatton, 181)
that he could only grant allowances to couriers sent to Mr. Secretary in
France if signed for by the Lord Treasurer, Lord Chamberlain, or
Vice-Chamberlain. On 26 May 1590 (_Cecil Papers_, iv. 35) a royal
warrant directed Heneage to pay on warrants subscribed by Burghley, as
formerly by Walsingham. Both documents refer to temporary arrangements
in the absence of a Secretary. When Herbert became Second Secretary in
1600, it was 'doubted that his warrants for money matters will be of no
force to the Treasurer of the Chamber, which office depends upon the
principal Secretary's warrants' (_Sydney Papers_, ii. 194).]
[Footnote 207: Camden (tr.), 130; Haynes-Murdin, ii. 761; _S. P. D.
Eliz._ xl. 20.]
[Footnote 208: Wright, _Eliz._ i. 355; Hatton, 39; Heneage's accounts
begin on 15 Feb. 1570.]
[Footnote 209: Camden (tr.), 450; Dasent, xxv. 4.]
[Footnote 210: _Cecil Papers_, iv. 68.]
[Footnote 211: _D. N. B._ from _Lansd. MS._ lxxix, No. 19.]
[Footnote 212: _Sydney Papers_, i. 356, 357, 363, 373, 382.]
[Footnote 213: _Cecil Papers_, v. 500; Haynes-Murdin, ii. 808. Killigrew
rendered an account from 16 Dec. 1595 to 3 July 1596.]
[Footnote 214: Birch, _Eliz._ ii. 61; Haynes-Murdin, ii. 809.]
[Footnote 215: Birch, _James_, i. 277; _S. P. D. Jac. I_, lxxxi. 15.]
[Footnote 216: _Lord Chamberlain's Records_, v. 81-3. The recital runs:
'Whereas we have thought fitt to disburden our privy purse of certaine
paymentes used of late to be made out of it, And to assigne the said
paymentes to be henceforth made by you our Tr_easur_er of our Chamber
... for allowances to players, for playes made before vs., for
bullbayting, beare-bayting, and anie other sport shewed vnto vs.' The
Treasurer is to pay 'vpon billes rated allowed and subscribed by our
Chamberlaine'. Warrants for rewards for plays were still signed by the
Privy Council during 1608-14, but by the Chamberlain from 1614.]
[Footnote 217: _Abstract_, 7, 12. During 1603-17 the Treasurer of the
Chamber had also had £21,362 for 'extraordinary disbursements'.]
[Footnote 218: The development has been fully worked out by Professor
Baldwin.]
[Footnote 219: _H. O._ 159 (1526).]
[Footnote 220: Cheyney, i. 67, 106; Hornemann, 52; Dasent, _passim_.
Certain regulations called Orders in Star Chamber (cf. App. D, No. cxx)
appear to proceed from the Council sitting in the Star Chamber, but in
an administrative, not a judicial, capacity.]
[Footnote 221: Cf. generally for this paragraph Cheyney, i. 65;
Hornemann, 19, 49; E. R. Adair, _The Privy Council Registers_ (_E. H.
R._ xxx. 698); and prefaces to Dasent, _passim_.]
[Footnote 222: La Mothe, iv. 29 (22 March 1571): 'J'y suys arrivé sur le
poinct que ceux de son conseil venoient de débattre, devant elle, les
poinctz du tretté.']
[Footnote 223: Hornemann, 54, cites _S. P. D. Eliz._ cclxxviii. 55 as
evidence that Essex was President of the Council; but surely it was the
Council in Ireland. Scaramelli (_V. P._ ix. 567) reports an interview
with the Council on 24 Apr. 1603, at which he says the Archbishop of
Canterbury, President of the Council, was not present. This suggests
that James had appointed a President. 'These Lords of the Council', adds
Scaramelli, 'behave like so many kings.']
[Footnote 224: Steele, xiv.]
[Footnote 225: Cf. App. D, _Bibl. Note_.]
[Footnote 226: Robert Laneham was Keeper and describes his functions
(Laneham, 59): 'Noow, syr, if the Councell sit, I am at hand, wait at an
inch, I warrant yoo. If any make babling, "peas!" (say I) "woot ye whear
ye ar?" if I take a lystenar, or a priar in at the chinks or at the
lokhole, I am by & by in the bones of him; but now they keep good order;
they kno me well inough: If a be a freend, or such one az I lyke, I make
him sit dooun by me on a foorm, or a cheast: let the rest walk, a God's
name!']
[Footnote 227: Baldwin, 439; Cheyney, i. 81; Dicey, 68, 94.]
[Footnote 228: Baldwin, 450; Percy, 17.]
[Footnote 229: Cheyney, i. 109; Percy, 48.]
[Footnote 230: Cf. ch. ix.]
[Footnote 231: Cf. chh. xiii (Pembroke's, Worcester's), xvi (Theatre,
Globe), xvii (Blackfriars).]
III
THE REVELS OFFICE
[Sixteenth-century material is collected by A. Feuillerat,
_Documents relating to the Office of the Revels in the Time of
Queen Elizabeth_ (1908, _Materialien_, xxi), and _Documents
relating to the Office of Revels in the Time of Edward VI and
Mary_ (1914, _Materialien_, xliv), which replace the extracts
from Sir Thomas Cawarden's papers in A. J. Kempe, _The Loseley
Manuscripts_ (1835), and the report by J. C. Jeaffreson in
_Hist. MSS._ vii. 596 (1879), the Audit Office records in P.
Cunningham, _Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels at Court_
(1842), and Sir Henry Herbert's copies of official papers in J.
O. Halliwell-Phillipps, _A Collection of Ancient Documents
respecting the Office of Master of the Revels_ (1870, cited
from its running title as _Dramatic Records_). A study of the
documents is contained in A. Feuillerat, _Le Bureau des
Menus-Plaisirs et la Mise en Scène à la Cour d'Elizabeth_
(1910). Much of my own _Notes on the History of the Revels
Office under the Tudors_ (1906) is incorporated in the present
chapter. Cunningham's book is still useful for the seventeenth
century; the authenticity of some of his documents is discussed
in Appendix B. Of earlier historians of the stage, George
Chalmers, _Apology for the Believers in the Shakespeare-Papers_
(1797), deals most fully with the Revels Office; it is matter
for regret that Sir George Buck's 'particular commentary' of
the 'Art of Revels' has disappeared. In his _Supplementary
Apology_ (1799) Chalmers made many extracts from the office
books, now apparently lost, of Sir Henry Herbert (1623-73).
Others had already been published by Malone (_Variorum_, iii).
These have now been collected with other material, including
the later documents from _Dramatic Records_, in J. Q. Adams,
_The Dramatic Records of Sir Henry Herbert_ (1917, cited as
Herbert).]
One of the 'standing' offices which, from the general oversight
exercised over them by the Lord Chamberlain, may also be regarded as
'offices outward of the Chamber' was the Revels Office. This, in its
fullest establishment, consisted of a Master, a Clerk Comptroller, and a
Clerk, whose services it shared with the analogous Office of Tents, a
Yeoman, and a Groom. It was of Tudor origin. The first mention of a
Master of Revels is in a Household order of 31 December 1494.[232] But
the post appears to have been at this period a purely temporary one,
conferred upon some existing officer of the Household, who had been
selected to supervise and defray the expenses of the revels for a
particular feast. Several of these _ad hoc_ Masters are recorded at the
court of Henry VIII; the most prominent was Sir Henry Guildford, who
held various offices, including that of Comptroller of the Household.
The Masters appear to be distinct from the Lords of Misrule, who were
also appointed _pro hac vice_ during the Christmas season, but whose
duties were ceremonial and quasi-dramatic, rather than
administrative.[233] In dealing with the details of Revels organization,
the transitory and fluctuating Masters had, from the beginning of the
reign, the assistance of a permanent official, who belonged originally
to the establishment of the Wardrobe. It was his business to carry into
effect the general directions of the Master; to obtain stuffs from
mercers or from the Wardrobe itself, and ornaments from the Jewel House
and the Mint; to engage architects, carpenters, painters, tailors and
embroiderers; to superintend the actual performances in the
banqueting-hall or the tilt-yard, and attempt to preserve the costly and
elaborate pageants from the rifling of the guests; to have the custody
of dresses, visors, and properties; and finally, to render accounts and
obtain payment for expenses from the Exchequer. These duties, with
others of like character, were long performed by one Richard Gibson,
whose careful accounts, compiled in an execrable orthography, preserve
many curious details of forgotten pageantries, including the employment
of none other than Hans Holbein in the decoration of a banqueting-hall
at Greenwich. Gibson had a double qualification for his functions. In
addition to his office as Porter and Yeoman Tailor of the Wardrobe, he
had been, as far back as 1494, one of the King's players.[234] He had
apparently the art of making himself indispensable, for he gradually
accumulated both posts and pensions. He held the ancient office of
Pavilionary or Serjeant of Tents, and in this capacity made the
arrangements for the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. By 1526 he was
one of the royal Serjeants-at-Arms.[235] Machyn, who records the burning
of his son for heresy at Smithfield in 1557, describes him as 'sergantt
Gybsun, sergantt of armes, and of the reywelles, and of the kynges
tenstes'.[236] It is not, however, clear that he held a distinct post as
Serjeant of Revels, and when a patent was issued to his successor, John
Farlyon, in 1534, it was not as Serjeant, but only as Yeoman.[237]
Farlyon also became in course of time Serjeant of Tents, and the
traditional connexion between Tents and Revels was never wholly broken.
Whether John Travers, who became Serjeant of Tents on Farlyon's death
in 1539, had any supervision over John Bridges, who became Yeoman of
Revels, is rather doubtful.[238] But the position becomes quite clear in
1545, when the Serjeantship of Tents was converted into a Mastership,
and its holder, Sir Thomas Cawarden, was also appointed, under a
separate patent of 11 March 1545, to an entirely new post as a permanent
Master of the Revels, to whom the Yeoman naturally became
subordinate.[239] This continued to be John Bridges until 1550, when he
was succeeded by John Holt, who had acted as his deputy since 1547.[240]
Cawarden enlarged the establishment by securing the appointment of a
Clerk Comptroller to check and of a Clerk to keep the books, thus
leaving the Yeoman free to devote himself to the practical side of the
business.[241] Both these officers served, and continued throughout our
period to serve, alike for the Tents and the Revels. John Barnard was
Clerk Comptroller from 1545 to 1550, when he was succeeded by Richard
Lees.[242] The first Clerk was Thomas Philipps, who was appointed in
1546, and held his post until 1560.[243] But from 1551 most of the
duties were performed by a deputy, Thomas Blagrave, who succeeded to the
Clerkship on 25 March 1560.[244] Blagrave was a personal 'servant' of
Cawarden, who probably saw to it that all the subordinate officers
appointed after the retirement of Bridges were his own nominees. Each,
however, held his post under a patent direct from the Crown, and this
arrangement bore the promise of administrative complications when the
personal relation with the Master had terminated. The following document
illustrates the organization of the office as settled by Cawarden about
1546:[245]
_Constituc_i_ons howe the King's Revells ought to be usyd_:
Fyrst, an Invyntory to be made by the Clarke controwler and
Clarke, by the Survey and apowentinge of the mastyr of the
Revells, Aswell of all and singular masking garments w_i_th all
thear furnyture, as allso of all bards for horsis, coveryng of
bards and bassis of all kynds, w_i_th all and singular the
appurtenances, which Invytory, subscribyd by the yoman and
clarke, ought to remayne in the custody of the Master of the
Offyces and the goodes for the saeffe kepyng.
It_e_m, that no kynd of stuff be bowght, but at the
apowyentment of the Master or his depute Clarke controwler,
being counsell therin, and that he make menc_i_on therof, in
his booke of recept w_hi_ch ought to be subscribyd as afforseyd
by the Master.
It_e_m, that the Cla_r_ke be privey to the cutting of all kynds
of garments, and that he make menc_i_on in his booke of
thyssuing owt howe moche it takyth of all kynds to ev_er_y
maske, revelle, or tryumph, w_hi_ch boke ought to be subscrybyd
as afforseyd by the Master.
It_e_m, that the Clarke kepe check of all daye men working on
the p_re_misses, and to make two lyger boks of all wags and
provisions of all kynd whate so ev_er_, th_e_ one for the paye
master and th_e_ other for the Master.
It_e_m, that no garments forseyd, bards, cov_er_ying of bards,
bassis, or suche lyck, be lent to no man w_i_thout a specyall
comaundment, warrant, or tokyn, from the Kyng's Ma_ies_tie, but
that all be leyd up in feyr stonderds or pressis, and every
presse or stonderd to have two locks a pece, w_i_th sev_er_all
wards, w_i_th two keys, th_e_ one for the Master or Clarke, and
th_e_ other for the yoman, so that non of them cum to the stuff
without th_e_ other.
In Farlyon's time the Revels stuff had been housed at the royal mansion
of Warwick Inn in the City.[246] Cawarden moved it in 1547 to the
Blackfriars, where various parts of the old Priory buildings served at
different times as store-rooms and work-rooms or as residences for the
officers.[247] Much material bearing upon the activities of the Revels
during 1544-59 is preserved at Loseley Hall, amongst the papers of
Cawarden's executor, Sir William More, who also acquired his interest in
the Blackfriars. Cawarden lived just long enough to superintend the
festivities at Elizabeth's coronation. After his death on 29 August
1559, his offices were distributed.[248] The Mastership of the Tents was
given to Henry Sackford of the Privy Chamber. Banqueting houses,
however, which had originally been the concern of the Tents, seem now to
have been put in charge of the Revels. The Mastership of the Revels was
given, by a patent dated 18 January 1560, to Sir Thomas Benger.[249] The
Clerk Comptroller and Clerk continued as in former years to be joint
officers for the Tents and the Revels. Benger is a somewhat shadowy
personage. It is upon record that he gave Elizabeth a ring as a New
Year's gift in 1562; that the Westminster boys rehearsed the
_Heautontimoroumenos_ and _Miles Gloriosus_ before him in 1564 and spent
6_d._ on 'pinnes and sugar candee'; that he got a licence to export 300
tons of beer in 1566; that he had players of his own at Canterbury in
1569-70; and that the corporation of Saffron Walden spent 3_s._ 6_d._
upon a 'podd' of oysters for him at Elizabeth's visit to Audley End in
1571.[250] Apparently he began his administration with good intentions.
The following note is affixed to his first Revels' estimate, that for
the Christmas of 1559-60:
'Memorandum, that the chargies for making of maskes cam never
to so little a somme [£227 11_s._ 2_d._] as they do this yere,
for the same did ever amount, as well in the Quenes Highnes
tyme that nowe is, as at all other tymes hertofore, to the
somme of £400 alwaies when it was leaste.
'Mᵐ. also, that it may please the Quenes Maᵗᶦᵉ to appoint some
of her highnes prevy Counsaile, immediatly after Shroftyde
yerely, to survey the state of the saide office, to thintent it
may be knowne in what case I fownd it, and how it hathe byn
since used.
'Mᵐ. also, that the saide Counsailors may have aucthoritie to
appoint suche fees of cast garments as they shall think
resonable, and not the Mʳ. to appoint any, as hertofore he
hathe done; for I think it most for the Mʳˢ. savegarde so to be
used.'[251]
The cast garments were a perquisite of the officers, and were sold by
them, doubtless to actors. The change in the Mastership led also to a
change in the local habitation of the Revels. It is to be supposed that
the buildings with which Cawarden had supplemented the official
storehouse were no longer available after they had passed to his
executors. In any case, it is clear from the survey of 1586-7 described
below that upon Cawarden's death the Office of the Revels was removed
to the 'late Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem' in Clerkenwell. Probably
the transfer had taken place by 10 June 1560, as an inventory was drawn
up on that date of 'certeyne stuff remaynynge in the Black Fryers in
London'.[252] The Tents, as well as the Revels, seem to have been moved
to St. John's.[253]
In accordance with Benger's request, a survey of the Revels was
undertaken, under a warrant from the Privy Council of 27 April 1560, by
Sir Richard Sackville and Sir Walter Mildmay, the Under Treasurer and
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a draft of a document submitted to
them is preserved at Loseley.[254] This contains a detailed account of
the transactions of the Office since the last audit in 1555, as a result
of which Cawarden's executors established a claim for a balance or
'surplusage' of £740 13_s._ 10½_d._ against the Exchequer. The total
expenditure of the Office for the period covering Elizabeth's coronation
and first Christmas had been £602 11_s._ 10_d._ To the account are
appended inventories showing the sets of masking garments which existed
in 1555, the materials since issued from the Wardrobe, the use made of
both of these in the fashioning of new garments and the 'translation' of
old ones, and the sets found in the Office at the time of the survey.
These are marked as either 'serviceable' or 'not serviceable' or
'chargeable', but 'fees', and the warrant from the Council instructs the
commissioners that cast garments 'being fees incydente to the saide
office may be taken by yᵉ Master of yᵉ Revelles & dystributed in soche
sorte as haue bene accostomed'. Probably the officers sold them to
players.[255] No further detailed accounts are available until the last
year of Benger's Mastership, but there are summaries which show an
average annual expenditure of about £570.[256] For some reason, there
was a great increase of cost in 1571-2, which is the first of a series
of years for which elaborate accounts exist in the Record Office. These
are of a detailed nature, much like that of Cawarden's accounts at
Loseley, and arranged more or less under heads. Schedules of the plays
and masks given during the periods to which they relate are in some
cases attached. A brief analysis of the account for 1571-2 will show the
general character of the entries. I can only dwell here upon those which
relate to the organization of the Revels Office, and not upon those of
merely dramatic or scenic interest. The main account runs from the end
of Shrovetide, 1571, to the end of Shrovetide, 1572, and covers,
firstly, a period of nine months from March to November, during which
the occupation of the Office was limited to the airing and safeguard of
'stuff' and attendance upon the Master during the progress, and,
secondly, an active three months of revels and preparation for revels,
from December to February. This expenditure is accounted for under two
main heads, _Wages and Allowances_ and _Emptions and Provisions_. It may
be abstracted as follows:
A. WAGES AND ALLOWANCES.
(i.) _March to November._
£ _s._ _d._ £ _s._ _d._
Tailors and Attendants 26 0 0
Attendants (9) on Progress 13 19 0
Porter (60 days) 3 0 0
Diet of Officers (60 days) 30 0 0
Necessaries bought by Yeoman 3 13 0 76 12 0
(ii.) _December to February._
Tailors and Attendants 113 8 8
Property-makers, Embroiderers,
Haberdashers 39 1 2
Painters 35 18 2
Porter (80 days, 15 nights) 4 15 0
Diet of Officers (80 days, 15 nights) 47 10 0 240 13 0
B. EMPTIONS AND PROVISIONS.
(i.) _March to November._ Nil.
(ii.) _December to February._
Mercers (4) 938 8 7
Draper 52 15 3
Upholster 32 5 8
Silkwomen (Joan Bowll and another) 74 14 4½
Petty Cash (Comptroller) 1 0 0
Petty Cash (Yeoman) 80 11 2
Implements for Properties 14 11 1
Furrier 2 2 6
Colours 13 16 1
Wiredrawer 6 16 0
Vizards (Thomas Giles) 4 5 0
Necessaries for Hunters 1 1 8
Device for Thunder and Lightning 1 2 0
Chandler 5 15 5
Hire of Armour 3 9 8
Buskin-maker 0 11 4
Brian Dodmer (travelling expenses,
&c.) 3 0 0
Boat-hire, &c., for Comptroller 1 0 0
" " Clerk (_per_
John Drawater) 1 0 0
Green cloth, &c., for Clerk 3 6 8 1,241 12 5½
_Summa Totalis._
£ _s._ _d._
Wages and Allowances 317 5 0
Emptions and Provisions 1,241 12 5½
------------------
£1,558 17 5½
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