Biographical Sketch of the Author. Xili 
issued, authorizing them to impress singing-boys for the King’s 
Chapel.’ Afterwards, by the good offices of some friend, he was 
admitted into the choir of St. Paul’s Cathedral, where he acquired 
a considerable proficiency in music under the tuition of John 
Redford, the organist and almoner, of whom he speaks in terms 
of the highest praise. From St. Paul’s he was sent to Eton, 
probably in 1540 or 1541, ‘‘to learn the Latin phrase,” and was 
for some time a pupil of Nicholas Udall,? the author of ‘“ Roister 
Doister,” who appears to have been a second Orbilius, and by 
whom he was unmercifully thrashed, receiving on one occasion, 
“for fault but small, or none at all,” no fewer than fifty-three 
stripes. 
From Eton he passed on to Cambridge, and, as already stated, 
was elected to King’s College in 1543,° but afterwards removed 
to Trinity Hall, of which he appears to have retained pleasant 
memories. Being obliged by a long illness to discontinue his 
studies, he left the University, and joined the Court as a retainer 
of William, Lord Paget,‘ by whom he was probably employed as 
' Dr. Rimbault, in his Cheque Book of the Chapel Royal, quotes the following 
from Liber Niger Domini Regis (temp. Edward VI.): ‘‘The children of the 
Chappelle were 8 in number, with a Master of Songe to teach them. And when 
any of the children comene to be xviij yeares of age, and their voices change, ne 
cannot be preferred in this Chappelle, the nombere being full, then, yf they will 
assente, the kyng assynethe them to a College of Oxford or Cambridge of his 
fundatione, there to be at fynding and studye both suffycyently, tylle the king may 
otherwise advanse them.”—Query, was Tusser assigned in this way to King’s 
College, Cambridge ? 
2 Nicholas Udall took his degree of M.A. at Oxford in 1534. 
3 Hatcher, MSS. Catalog. Praepos. Soc. Schol. Coll. Regal. Cant. 
* Of this nobleman, the ancestor of the Earl of Uxbridge, a very full account 
is given in Dugdale, from which it appears that he was born at Wednesbury in 
Staffordshire, his father being one of the Serjeants-at-Mace of the city of London. 
Under Henry VIII. he was Ambassador to France, and Master of the Post. In 
1549 he obtained a grant of the fee of the house without Temple Bar, first called 
