BOY-ACTORS UNDER THE TUDORS AND STEWARTS. BY THE REV. J. ARBUTHNOT NAIRN, LITT.D., B.D., [Read February 26th, 1913.] THE history of the various companies of boyactors who have appeared upon the English stage is, as has been justly said,* a "puzzling and interesting subject of enquiry." It is puzzling, because the records of the boy-actors' companies are far from complete, and have only in recent times been systematically studied,† while many important problems in connection with them still remain unsolved. The subject is an interesting one, because the boy-actors attained, for a time at least, such eminence as to rival the men-players, including the company of which Shakespeare was a member; and, as we shall see, many of the foremost dramatists in the later years of Queen Elizabeth wrote specially for them. The boy-actors have the honour of being alluded to by Hamlet in a passage (to be considered later) which Professor Manly in Cambridge History of English Literature' (abbreviated 'C. H.'), vol. vi (1910), ch. xi, p. 279. See also Bibliography, pp. 467–8. By Professors A. Feuillerat (Deutsches Shakespeare-Jahrbuch' for 1912), and C. W. Wallace in Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars,' 1908, and Evolution of the Drama up to Shakespeare' ('E. D.'), 1912. Hamlet, Act II, sc. ii, lines 315-350, Furness: (in 'Globe' edition, 340-385). VOL. XXXII. 6 forms one of the clearest and most striking references made by Shakespeare to contemporary affairs. * The boy-companies appear to fall into two main divisions: (I) choir-boys, and (II) boys attending certain public schools. The choir-boys belonged to: (a) The Chapel Royal (whence the title "Children of the Chapel Royal"), or (b) St. Paul's Cathedral, or (c) The Royal Chapel at Windsor. (b) Westminster, or (c) Merchant Taylors'. Those in the first of these two classes were selected for their voices, and were regularly trained in music and (later) in acting. For a limited period the children of the Chapel Royal and of St. Paul's choir attained the status of professional actors. Those in the second class may be regarded rather as amateurs, who derived their impulse towards acting from some person, usually one of their masters, who happened to be interested in the drama. I. THE COMPANIES OF CHOIR-BOYS. The chief function of the boys in the choirs named above was to sing in divine service before the King, or Queen, and the Court. (a) The Chapel Royal gave its name to the most * A third class can be added, composed of the Earl of Leicester's Boys (1574), the Earl of Oxford's Boys (from 1580 to 1602), and Beeston's Boys (1636 to 1642), but our information with regard to these is scanty. The list in the text does not claim to be exhaustive. ancient of such choirs. The earliest reference to it that we possess dates from the time of Henry V (1420), when a commission was issued for the purpose of "taking up," that is, engaging, or impressing, boys for the services of this chapel. Under Edward IV the staff of the chapel consisted of dean, gentlemen of the chapel, eight children (afterwards increased to twelve), a master of song, and a master of the Grammar School. The custom gradually grew up of using these children for the secular entertainment of the Court, by the presentation of pageants, masques, and plays. When this custom began is uncertain it was earlier than the accession of Elizabeth, but it received a great stimulus from her love of the drama, and the period of greatest importance of the boy-companies lies within her reign. The plays which were acted by the boys were (until 1580) probably written chiefly by the Master of the Children of the Chapel, who was, as a rule, a good musician. Among these masters* are: William Cornish (1509-1523), Richard Edwards (15611566), William Hunnis (1566-1597), and Nathaniel Giles (1597-1634). Giles was the last master under whom the boys were permitted to act; in 1626, when his Commission to "take up " boys for the King's Chapel was renewed, it was expressly provided that "none of the said choristers shall be used or employed as comedians or stage-players." This decision of 1626 was due partly to the growing power of Puritanism and partly to the deeper sense of incongruity felt to exist between the sacred and * See the complete list in Wallace, E. D,' 21 foll.; ‘C. H.,' vi, 280 foll. the secular functions of the Children of the Chapel -an incongruity not so keenly felt by the Elizabethans, in view of the ecclesiastical origin of which the drama still bore marks. Cornish, Hunnis, and Edwards (as has been said) wrote plays for the children, and John Heywood, who had been trained in the Chapel under Cornish, wrote, from 1523 onwards, several plays which found favour at Court, and formed a bridge between the old moralities and modern comedy. In 1584 we find two of the most distinguished authors of the time writing plays for the children: John Lyly, whose "Alexander and Campaspe" and "Sapho and Phao" were acted before the Queen by them in conjunction with the children of Paul's; and George Peele, whose "Arraignment of Paris" was presented before the Queen by them alone. In 1592 they acted in the " Tragedie of Dido, Queen of Carthage," by Marlowe and Nash. From 1597 to 1603 a company of these children, formed by Nathaniel Giles, who became master of the Children of the Chapel in 1597, was established by him in the Blackfriars Theatre, situated in the precincts of the Blackfriars (Dominican) Priory. This company attained considerable success. Their theatre was superior to others in accommodation and in its artificial lighting. Its prices of admission were higher than those of the public theatres, and so it attracted select audiences. Many leading dramatists wrote for the boy actors: Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Marston, Middleton, Dekker, Webster, Chapman. Music and singing played a large part in their entertainment, and so attractive were their |