to the Paul's repertory. Heywood could not adapt himself again to a Protestant England, and soon left the country. Sebastian Westcott was more fortunate. In 1560 he was appointed as Head of the College of Minor Canons or Subdean.[1] Shortly afterwards, being unable to accept the religious settlement, he was sentenced to deprivation of his offices, which included that of organist, but escaped through the personal influence of Elizabeth, in spite of some searchings of the heart of Bishop Grindal as to his suitability to be an instructor of youth.[2] In fact he succeeded in remaining songmaster of Paul's for the next twenty-three years, and during that period brought his boys to Court no less than twenty-seven times, furnishing a far larger share of the royal Christmas entertainment, especially during the first decade of the reign, than any other single company. The chronicle of his plays must now be given. There was one at each of the Christmases of 1560-1 and 1561-2, one between 6 January and 9 March 1562, and one at the Christmas of 1562-3.[3] During the next winter the plague stopped London plays. At the Christmas of 1564-5 there were two by the Paul's boys, of which the second fell on 2 January, and at that of 1565-6 three, two at Court and one at the Lady Cecilia's lodging in the Savoy. There were two again at each of the Christmases of 1566-7 and 1567-8, and one on 1 January 1569. During the winter of 1569-70 the company was, exceptionally, absent from Court. They reappeared on 28 December 1570, and again at Shrovetide (25-7 February) 1571. On 28 December 1571 they gave the 'tragedy' of Iphigenia, which Professor Wallace identifies with the comedy called The Bugbears, but which might, for the matter of that, be Lady Lumley's translation from the Greek of Euripides. At the Christmas of 1572-3 they played before 7 January.
- ↑ Hennessy, 61.
- ↑ Flood cites a Vatican record of 1561 from Catholic Record Soc. i. 21, 'Sebastianus, qui organa pulsabat apud D. Paulum Londini, cum vellet eiici, tamen tum ita charus Elizabethae fuit, ut nihil schismatice agens locum suum in ea ecclesia retineat'; also Grindal's letter of 1563 to Dudley in Strype, Grindal (ed. 1821), 113. Hillebrand adds from Libri Vicarii Generalis (Huick 1561-74), iii, f. 77, that in July 1563 Westcott failed to appear before the Consistory Court and was excommunicated as 'contumacem', and from St. Paul's records (A. Box 77, 2059) that on 8 Nov. 1564 he gave a bond to conform or resign by the following Easter. Gee, 230, gives a list of deprived clergy from N. Sanders, De Visibili Monarchia (1571), 688, which includes among Magistri Musices 'Sebastianus in Cathedrali ecclesia Londinensi'.
- ↑ Fleay, 15, 60, has some inaccuracies in these dates, and conjectures that among the early Paul's plays were a revival of Udall's Ralph Roister-Doister and Ulpian Fulwell's Like Will to Like, and that these contained satire of Richard Edwards and the Chapel.
