in a play given by the Gentlemen of the Chapel shortly before his appointment as Master. And although it was some years before he organized the Children into a definite company, he was the ruling spirit and chief organizer of the elaborate disguisings which glorified the youthful court of Henry VIII from the Shrovetide of 1511 to the visit of the Emperor Charles V in 1522, and hold an important place in the story, elsewhere dealt with, of the Court mask.[1] In these revels both the Gentlemen and the Children of the Chapel, as well as the King and his lords and ladies took a part, and they were often designed so as to frame an interlude, which would call for the services of skilled performers.[2]
In view of Cornish's importance in the history of the stage at Court, it is matter for regret that none of his dramatic writing has been preserved, for it is impossible to attach any value to the fantastic attributions of Professor Wallace, who credits him not only with the anonymous Calisto and Meliboea, Of Gentleness and Nobility, The Pardoner and the Frere, and Johan Johan, but also with The Four Elements and The Four P. P., for the authorship of which by John Rastell and John Heywood respectively there is good contemporary evidence.[3]
- [Footnote: 'William Cornysshe otherwise called Nyssewhete Chapelman with . . .
Henry the VII^{th} his raigne the xix^{th} yere the moneth of July' [1504], doubtless the satirical ballad on Empson referred to by Stowe, Annales, 816 (B. M. Royal MS. 18, D. 11). I think they yield an older William and a John Cornish, of whom one, probably John, arranged the three pageants at Arthur's wedding, and a William 'jun.' who must have joined the Chapel in 1503 or 1504 and became Master of the Children. The older William may be identical with the Westminster (q.v.) choir-*master of 1479-80. A Christopher or 'Kit' Cornish, referred to by Stopes, 17, and elsewhere, had no existence. This is a ghost-name, due to the juxtaposition of 'kyte', i.e. Sir John Kite, afterwards Archbishop of Armagh, and 'Cornisshe' in the 1508 record above.]*
- ↑ Cf. ch. v and Mediaeval Stage, i. 400.
- ↑ The T. C. Accounts show a reward of £200 to Cornish on 30 Nov. 1516, of which the occasion is not specified, and a payment of £18 2s. 11-1/2d. for 'ij pagentes' on 6 July 1517. With these possible exceptions, no expenditure on the disguisings or the interludes which formed part of them as distinct from the independent interludes by the Children, for which Cornish received £6 13s. 4d. each, seems to have passed through these accounts. Any remuneration received by Cornish or his fellows or children for their personal services probably passed through the Revels Accounts.
- ↑ Wallace, i. 16, 50. He light-heartedly accuses my friend Mr. Pollard, me, and others of perpetuating an old mis-ascription on the strength of Bale, 'generally without consulting the Scriptores', in the first edition of which (1548) Bale says that Rastell 'reliquit', and in the second that he 'edidit' The Four Elements. This Professor Wallace regards as revision by Bale of an incorrect assertion that Rastell was the author into an assertion that he was the publisher. But Bale elsewhere uses 'edidit' to indicate authorship, as Professor Wallace might have learnt
