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.[1] 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.[2] These had anciently been of importance, all ranking as esquires, and the Carvers and Cupbearers from the fifteenth century as knights.[3] 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.[4] The actual service of Elizabeth's meals was done by her ladies.[5] 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.[6] 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.[7] And naturally there were
- [Footnote: (ch. xv) were Grooms, and Anthony Munday (ch. xxii) and possibly
Lawrence Dutton (ch. xv) Messengers of the Chamber.]dayes worshipfull esquires did this servyce, but now thus for the more worthy'.]*
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ H. O. 33 (c. 1478), 'In the noble Edwardes [Ed. III
- ↑ At Elizabeth's funeral the Earl of Shrewsbury had a livery as Cupbearer and the Earl of Sussex as Carver.
- ↑ Cf. App. F.
- ↑ Philip Henslowe (ch. xi) became a Sewer of the Chamber.
- ↑ 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'
