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the festal and penitential arrays of the choir.[1] The boys themselves do not appear to have received any wages but, when their voices had broken, the King made provision for them at the University or otherwise, and until this could be done, the Treasurer of the Chamber sometimes paid allowances to the Master or some other Gentleman for their maintenance and instruction.[2]
The earlier Masters were John Plummer (1444-55), Henry Abyngdon (1455-78), Gilbert Banaster (1478-83?), probably John Melyonek (1483-5), Lawrence Squier (1486-93), and William Newark (1493-1509).[3] Some of these have left*
- ↑ Stopes, 15, '40 surplices for the gentlemen and 16 for the children of the Chapel' (Wardrobe warrant of 7 Oct. 1533); 'for 10 children of the Kings Chapell, for gownes of Tawney Chamblett lined with black satin of Bruges, and Milan bonnettes for the said children, as in the same boke of apparel is declared xliii^{li}. iii^s. iiii^d. For two children of the Kings Chapell, for 2 gownes of Black Chamblett, lined with black satin of Bruges 2 cotes of yellow saten of Bruges lined with Coton, and 2 Millan bonnettes, and for making and lining of said gownes and cotes as in the said boke at large it duly apperes x^{li} xviii^s . . . Item for twenty gentlemen of the King's chapel, for 20 gownes of Black Damask for the said gentlemen, cxxvii^{li}. x^s.' (Queen's Remembrancia, Wardrobe Expenses, Hen. VIII, 52/10 A).
- ↑ Chamber Accounts (passim). From 1510 to 1513 Robert Fairfax had 2s. a week for the diet of William Alderson and Arthur Lovekyn, the King's scholars, and £2 13s. 4d. for their teaching. In 1513 William Max, late a Child of the Chapel, had 40s. In 1514 Cornish was finding and apparelling Robert Philip and another Child of the Chapel, for £1 13s. 4d. a quarter, and in 1517 finding and teaching William Saunders, late Child of the Chapel, for the same sum, with 2d. a week for board 'when the king keepeth no household'. In 1529-30 Crane had 3d. a day wages and 20d. a week board wages for Robert Pery, and in 1530 also for William Pery. In 1531 Robert Pery was paid direct. Cunningham, xx, gives a late seventeenth-century example of a similar arrangement. In 1546 a royal letter was written for the appointment of William Bretten, late a Chapel boy, to be singing-man at Lichfield (Brewer, xxi. 1. 142). Some of the above names appear in a list of Chapel Children, William Colman, William Maxe, William Alderson, Henry Meryell, John Williams, John Graunger, Arthur Lovekyn, Henry Andrewe, Nicholas Ivy, Edward Cooke, and James Curteys, receiving liveries at the funeral of Henry VII in 1509 (Lafontaine, 3, from Ld. Ch. Records, 550, f. 131). Some amusing correspondence of 1518 relates to a boy Robin, whom Henry VIII wished to transfer from Wolsey's chapel to his own. It was stipulated that Cornish should treat him honestly, 'otherwise than he doth his own', and later Cornish wrote praising the clean singing and descant of the recruit (Brewer, ii. 1246-50).
- ↑ J. M. Manly in C. H. vi. 279; C. Johnson, John Plummer (1921, Antiquaries Journal, i. 52); Wallace, i. 21, from patents and Exchequer payments. Wallace does not include Melyonek although (ii. 62) he gives the following commission, already printed by Collier, i. 41, and Rimbault, vii, from Harl. MS. 433, f. 189: 'Mellenek, Ric. etc. To all and every our subgiettes aswele spirituell as temporell thise our lettres hering or seeing greeting, We let you wite
