the maintenance of order was at least as much in the interests of the players themselves as in that of any other section of the community. In avoiding subject-matter of offence, so far as the texts of their plays were concerned, the companies had of course the assistance of the Master of the Revels, upon whom, in view of the unwillingness of the City either to appoint licensing officers themselves or to accept a nominee of the Privy Council, the functions of a stage censor had, as an alternative policy, been conferred.[1] The employment of a royal official for this purpose was in effect a resumption by the central government of a responsibility which it had already attempted to discharge during the earlier Tudor reigns, and had then delegated to the local justices by the proclamation of 1559. The selection of the Master of the Revels explains itself naturally enough as an extension of the duties which already fell to him of scrutinizing and, if need be, 'reforming' the plays proposed for presentation at Court.[2] The actual establishment of his authority appears to have been a gradual process. It is tentative and limited to the plays of one company in the patent for Leicester's men of 1574. It is as wide as possible in the commission issued to the Master in 1581, overriding the proclamation of 1559, and giving him a complete control, not only over individual plays, but over players, playmakers, and playing-places generally. Shortly afterwards, in 1584, the Leicester archives record that the credentials of Worcester's men at that date included, in addition to the warrant from their lord, a licence from the Master of the Revels, from the terms of which it appears that the company were 'bound to the orders prescribed' by him, and in particular that all their plays were to be 'allowed' by him, and to have 'his hand at the latter end of the said booke they doe play'.[3] In London, on the other hand, the correspondence*
- ↑ As far back as 1549 the City had appointed two Secondaries of the Compters to license plays; but this arrangement doubtless terminated when the King and Council assumed the function; cf. ch. ix. In 1572 the Council were pressing the City to appoint 'discreet persons' for the purpose, and in 1574 suggested the suitability of one Mr. Holmes. But the City, who claimed to have had profitable offers to farm the licensing, repeated a former refusal to commit it to any private person. The regulations of 1574 provide for the appointment by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of persons to peruse and allow plays. But the Council are still urging, and the City promising, the appointment of licensers in 1582.
- ↑ Cf. ch. iii.
- ↑ The unauthorized company which stole this licence (cf. ch. xiii, s.v. Worcester's) is probably that which appeared as the Master of the Revels' players at Ludlow on 7 Dec. 1583 and at Bath and Gloucester in 1583-4 (Murray, ii. 201, 282, 325). I do not think that Tilney himself had a company. His predecessor had. Plomer (3 Library, ix. 252) notes a Canter-*
