used for the Revels and was never in fact Cheyne's.[1] Sir John Portinari gave evidence that for some time after the surrender of the convent it had remained empty, and that he had himself kept the keys until Cawarden took possession of it in 1550. Cawarden then invited him to a supper and a play in the hall.[2] The Revels seem to have had the use of the upper frater or parliament chamber during Henry VIII's reign.[3] But the surveys of 1548 and 1550 locate them to the north of this, in the southernmost of the four halls of the old guest-*house. The two central halls, together with the convent kitchen, had been tenanted as far back as 1539 by successive Lords Cobham, to whose house they were adjacent.[4] In 1554, however, Cawarden sold the two rooms to George Lord Cobham, together with the porter's lodge, which underlay his original holding, and received as part of his consideration a release from any claim which Cobham may have had to the kitchen yard and to the property granted to Cawarden on the west side of Water Lane.[5] With the upper rooms transferred to Cobham went 'appurtenances', which probably included the corresponding ground-floor rooms, as these are not traceable in More's possession and apparently formed part of the Cobham estate when that was disposed of in the next century.[6] The porter's lodge was all on the ground floor. It had a frontage of 21 ft. on the cloister and ran back for 47 ft. towards Water Lane. At the time of Cawarden's grant in 1550 it had been occupied by John Barnard, clerk comptroller of the Tents and Revels, but he had died in the same year.[7] Naturally it was convenient for the officers of the Revels to live in the Blackfriars. John Holt, the yeoman, had a house to the north of the churchyard. Thomas Philipps, the clerk, had the 'little chamber' west of the frater. The paved hall served him as a wood store, and from time to time some of Cawarden's servants lay there. About 1552 Cawarden moved Philipps to the Ankerhouse, and put into the little chamber the deputy clerk, Thomas Blagrave,
- ↑ M. S. C. ii. 35. I do not know whether More deliberately confused the Tents and Revels.
- ↑ Ibid. 52.
- ↑ Ibid. 105.
- ↑ Ibid. 14, 116; Hist. MSS. vii. 603.
- ↑ Ibid. 15.
- ↑ Only an abstract of title at the date of the sale exists (Barrett, Apothecaries, 46), but Apothecaries' Hall occupies the site of these rooms.
- ↑ M. S. C. ii. 4, 9; Feuillerat, Eliz. 440. In 1552 Jane Fremownte had succeeded Barnard (M. S. C. ii. 115), but she cannot have had the whole of the original lodge, as her 4 ft. entry on Water Lane is too small to have been the main access to the cloister. Probably part had been granted to her neighbour, Sir George Harper. Nor did all her holding pass to Cobham in 1554. Some of it was probably added to the house on the north, which occupied the site of the old church porch.
