a. INTRODUCTION 
) A GENERAL VIEW OF THE FIELD 
THERE were two regularly constituted companies of children- 
actors under Elizabeth and four under James I. Those whose 
history this work aims chiefly’ to present were, The Children 
of the Chapel at Blackfriars, 1597-1603 ;? The Children of the 
Revels to the Queen at Biackiriars, 1604-8; The Children of the 
King’s Revels at Whitefriars, ca. 1603-9; The Children of the 
_ Revels to the Queen at Whitefriars, 1610-1613-[15].* The last 
_ three may be spoken of in a general way under the common title, 
Children of the Revels. 
_ These three royaliy patronized Jacobean children-companies 
and their various imitations and ramifying influences ranging 
down to the period of the Restoration are traceable directly to 
their source in Queen Elizabeth’s establishment of the Children 
of the Chapel at Blackfriars, 1597-1603. The source of that 
establishment was the Queen’s will. But the precedent enabling 
her by a wide stretch to use the Children of the Chapel in carry- 
ing out her final theatrical purposes is to be found in the long- 
standing custom of using them for the divertisement of Royalty 
and the Court. Practically throughout Elizabeth's reign they 
had been incidentally employed now and then for this purpose 
in presenting stage-plays and interludes. Their secular use in’ 
acting, singing on festival occasions, and at royal entertainments, 
‘precedes the reign of Elizabeth and doubtless antedates our first 
records of such. 
The primary function of the Children of the Chapel Royal was 
to minister to his or her ‘Majesty’s spiritual well-being by trained 
choral singing at times of devotional service. They formed a 
*The Paul’s Boys of late Eliza- companies. 
betii and up to their termination *I. e., to the death of Elizabeth, 
_ early in the reign, of James are the March 24, 1603. 
subject of treatment only in their *Practically, 1613; nominally, 
contributive relations to the history 1615. 
of these royally patronized children- 
PIS 
