App. K), which shows that Elizabeth was accompanied by Cecilia of Sweden.[1] Whether these plays were at the school or at Court is not quite clear. I should, on the whole, infer the latter, but no rewards were paid for them by the Treasurer of the Chamber. John Taylor was, however, paid for plays by the Children of Westminster during the Shrovetide of 1566-7 and the Christmas of 1567-8; John Billingesley for their Paris and Vienna on 19 February 1572; and William Elderton for their Truth, Faithfulness, and Mercy on 1 January 1574. In 1567 also the boys are recorded (Observer) to have played at Putney before Bishop Grindal. I suppose that Billingesley and Elderton succeeded Taylor as Magistri Choristarum. Taylor himself is probably the same who on 8 September 1557 was Master of the singing children at the hospital of St. Mary Woolnoth. Elderton is presumably the same who brought the Eton boys to Court in 1573. Whether he is also the bibulous balladist of the pamphleteers (cf. ch. xv) is more doubtful. The absence of a payment for Miles Gloriosus may suggest that this was given by the grammar school who, like the Inns of Court, did not expect a reward, and that the English plays were given by the choristers, who were on the same footing as the choristers of Paul's. I am not sure, however, that the wording of the statutes quite implies such a sharp distinction between the two sets of boys, and it will be noticed that Taylor, or his man, was in some way concerned with the Latin play. Very possibly grammar boys and choristers acted together. With 1574 the Court performances end, but expenses of plays are traceable in the college accounts in 1604-5, 1605-6, 1606-7, and 1609-10, and up to about 1640, when they stop for sixty-four years.[2] vii. ETON COLLEGE Head Masters:—William Malim (c. 1555-73); William Smyth (c. 1563); Reuben Sherwood (c. 1571); Thomas Ridley (1579); John Hammond (1583); Richard Langley (1594); Richard Wright (1611); Matthew Bust (1611-30). [Bibliographical Note.—The best sources of information are J. Heywood and T. Wright, Ancient Laws of King's College and Eton College (1850); Report of Public Schools Commission (1864); W. L. Collins, Etoniana
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