The longest number of plays given before Elizabeth in any one winter was probably in 1600-1, when there were eleven. During the greater part of the reign the number ranged from six to ten. For some of the earliest years only two or three are on record. It is possible that a few may have escaped notice owing to the absence of a 'reward', or conceivably the charge of a reward to funds other than those covered by the very complete accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber.[1] Naturally, if an Inn of Court or gentlemen such as the sons of Sir Percival Hart played, they did not take a money payment. The schoolboys of Eton and Westminster did, but the latter perhaps not from the very beginning. The only winter for which the Treasurer of the Chamber records no rewards is that of the plague year 1563-4. But the Revels Office provided for three plays at Windsor, and if it was thought dangerous to bring companies from London or elsewhere to court, Eton or the Windsor choir would have been the natural substitutes. In 1574 again the Revels Office were furnishing plays at Windsor and Reading by Italians, no payments to whom can be traced. Elizabeth occasionally ordered a mask outside the winter season, for some such purpose as the entertainment of an ambassador. I do not find clear evidence that she ever ordered a play. But, both in winter and in summer, she was from time to time present at a play given by some one else, in progress or at a wedding or banquet in London.[2]
- ↑ Cf. App. B. The Revels Accounts record plays which the Treasurer of the Chamber did not reward, by the Chapel (1559-60); by unnamed companies (3 plays) at Windsor (1563-4); by Westminster (Miles Gloriosus; cf. Murray, ii. 168), the Chapel, Sir Percival Hart's sons, and 'showes' by Gray's Inn (1564-5); by an unnamed company (1567-8); by an unnamed company (1581-2); and by Gray's Inn (Misfortunes of Arthur, 1587-8). For years not covered by these accounts must be added the Inner Temple Gorboduc (1562), probably their Gismond of Salerne (1566?), and not impossibly others by Gray's Inn, who, according to Elizabeth in 1595 (Gesta Grayorum, 68), 'did always study for Sports to present unto her'. I cannot understand Collier's unreferenced notice of a payment to men of George Evelyn (cf. ch. xiii) for a play in 1588. A letter of 4 Dec. 1592 from the University of Cambridge (M. S. C. i. 198, from Lansd. MS. 71), deprecating an invitation to play an English comedy at court, shows that a similar suggestion had been made to Oxford; there is no evidence that either University actually played. It is conceivable that plays may sometimes have been rewarded out of the Privy Purse (cf. ch. ii) instead of by the Treasurer of the Chamber.
- ↑ Cf. Calendar, s.a. 1559 (7 Aug., Paul's at Nonsuch), 1564 (5 July, play at Mr. Sackville's), 1567 (April 13, play before Elizabeth and Spanish ambassador), 1575 (plays on progress at Lichfield by Warwick's, at Kenilworth, and at Woodstock), 1578 (Aug., Ipswich play at Stowmarket), 1579 (play at Osterley), 1595 (Jan., probable performance of M. N. D. at Derby's wedding), 1601 (Aug., 'playing-wenches' at Caversham), 1601 (29 Dec., play at Hunsdon's in Blackfriars). There are also, of course,
