ES1ABLISHMENT OF BLACKFRIARS 59 
Hunsdon.* 
the Chapel.” 
This is Gyles’s first connection with the Children of 
July 2, 1597, the Queen issued her Privy ‘Sea for a Patent to 
Nathaniel Gyles as Master of the Children and Gentleman of. her 
Chapel. 
Mason, Substitute at Greenwich, to 
sweare Nathaniell Gyles Gentleman 
of her Majestes Chappell (being be- 
fore extraordinary), whoe accord- 
ingly receaved his oth as other gen- 
tlemen before him hath done, in the 
presence of us whose names are 
subscribed.”—/dem, 37. [fol. 24]. 
*See supra, 26°. 
*“The Children of the Chapel, 
who disappeared when their play- 
place was shut up early in 1583, are 
met with again in 1581, as acting 
at Croydon, under N. Giles, their 
master, before the Queen.” —F. G. 
Fleay, A Chronicle History of the 
London Stage (1890), 81. 
Fleay is mistaken here concern- 
ing Gyles. 
Hermann Maas, Die Kindertrup- 
pen (Diss. Gottingen, 1901), 8, ac- 
cepts Fleay’s error seriously and 
adds a worse one. He refers to 
John Nichols, Progresses, &c., of 
Queen Elizabeth, III, 124, 227, as 
proof that the Children of the Chap- 
el under Gyles acted before Eliza- 
beth at Croydon in 1591. 
takes these references from Fleay, 
op. cit., 78 (to which also he refers 
for his proof), but gives them as 
his own, although he had certainly 
not seen Nichols’s work. On the 
pages referred to, Nichols deals 
with a different matter,—the pres- 
ence of the Queen in Windsor in 
1593, to which indeed Fleay prop- 
erly refers. But Maas in appropri- 
ating Fleay’s references mistook 
them as referring to the first point 
rather than the last in the sentence 
in which Fleay has given them. 
*Both these documents I have 
found in the Public Record Office. 
Neither seems ever to have been 
published. The Privy Seal can be 
reached by consulting Privy Signet 
Index, under July, 1597. The Pat- 
Maas’ 
The Patent was issued accordingly July 14.* 
ent is obtainable under the index 
“Duodecima Pars Patentium de 
Anno XXXIX. Elizabeth Regina.” 
As in all such cases, the Patent 
is engrossed from the Privy Seal, 
and is identical with it in wording 
of the grant, except where the en- 
-grosser has erred or has spelled 
differently. I quote therefore here 
and in all similar cases from the 
Privy Seal as of prior authority. 
The pertinent part of this docu- 
ment provides for the instruction 
and care of only twelve children,— 
a point of significant interest in the 
succeeding history. The Privy Seal 
(the many signs of abbreviation ex- 
panded into italics however) with 
the customary memorandum (in a 
separate hand) of the date of the 
Great Seal to the Letters Patent 
follows :— 
Memorandum quod xiiij die 
Julij Anno infra scripto istud 
breve deliberatum fuit domino 
Custodi magni Sigilli Angliae 
apud Westmonasterium  exe- 
quendum. 
Elizabeth dei gracia Angliae Fran- 
ciae et Hiberniae Regina fidei de- 
fensor &c Prodilecto et fideli Con- 
siliario nostro Thomae Egerton 
militi magni Sigilli nosfri Angliae 
Custodi salutem Vobis mandamus 
quod sub dicto Sigillo nostro vestra 
existente custodia litteras nostras 
fieri faciat patentes in forma se- 
quente 
Recina &c Omnibus ad quos &c 
Salutem ScrtaTis quod nos de gracia 
nostra speciali ac ex certa sciencia 
et mero motu nostris dedimus et 
concessimus ac per praesentes pro 
nobis heredibus et successoribus nos- 
iris damus et concedimus dilecto 
Servienti nostro Nathanieli Giles 
officium Magistri puerorum Capellae 
173 
