CHAPTER IV 
ACTORS AND SINGERS.—THE TWO FUNCTIONAL DIVISIONS 
OF THE CHILDREN 
THERE were two sets of the Children of the Chapel from 1597 
to the death of Elizabeth in 1603, all maintained at the royal 
charge, and all intended primarily or ultimately for the Queen’s 
service. Of this condition there is ample evidence. 
From the earliest history of the Chapel Royal, the children 
had been lodged and boarded in or near the palace, in close con- 
nection with the Chapel.t. There can be no doubt that the twelve 
boys provided for in the Latin Patent to Gyles? were still thus 
maintained. The allowance of 4o/. to Gyles is a provision for 
this maintenance and is based specifically upon the same provi- 
sion to his predecessors, William Hunnis and Richard Edwards.® 
With this set of children we have here nothing further to do. 
The boys who acted were maintained at Blackfriars under 
Evans. The liberal interpretation which the Queen allowed to 
be put upon the English Commission, as already noticed, shows 
this condition fully provided for. Clifton in his Complaint to the 
Queen says it was at Blackfriars that his son was ‘‘delivered & 
committed” by Gyles and his deputy James Robinson “vnto the 
custody of the sayd Henry Evans,”’* and that he was “as a pris- 
oner committed to the said playe howse amongste a companie of 
lewde & dissolute mercenary players.”® The Complaint was 
*See The Old Cheque-Book (ed. 
E. F. Rimbault, for The Camden 
Society, 1872), iii; also for various 
accounts of expense for their keep, 
J. P. Collier, History of English 
Dramatic Poetry and Annals of the 
Siage (1831"), I, 20ff; (18797), I, 
37ff. Also see Sir John Hawkins, 
A General History of the Science 
and Practice of Music (new ed., 
1853), I, 272, 358. 
* Supra, 59°. 
*This amount, 40/., as shown by 
the various documents quoted or 
referred to in chapter III, was the 
sum allowed to each of the known 
Masters of the Children of the 
Chapel from Edward IV to James 
I,—namely, Henry Abingdon, Gil- 
bert Banester, William Cornish, 
William Crane, Richard Bower, 
Richard Edwards, William Hunnis, 
Nathaniel Gyles. 
* Athenaeum (10 Aug., 1889), 204; 
G.-F., 131. 
° Athenaeum, ibid.; G.-F., 130a. 
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