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MAINTENANCE OF THE CHILDREN 101 
seems to mean at least the Yeoman of the Revels, have no basis 
It is not certain to what account these expenditures 
If they went through the Office of the Revels 
in fact. 
were charged. 
_ they passed under the signatures of Kirkham and the Master of 
the Revels, Ed. Tilney, thence to the Audit Office where they 
were allowed. Or if they passed through any other office or set 
of accounts, the amounts in any case had to be allowed in like 
manner by some official near the Queen. 
Such expenditure as also the furnishing of apparel and the fact 
of allowing the Children to act in her name, to say nothing of 
the grants to Gyles and Evans and the attendance of Queen and 
Court at the theatre, settles the conduct of the Blackfriars as be- 
ing: under the knowledge and sanction of Queen Elizabeth. 
Additional proof of the official conduct of the theatre is con- 
tained in Clifton’s own statement of its surreptitiousness, which 
- is here added.? 
Standing alone this would not be valuable testimony. 
*The discovery of the record 
containing these allowances would 
be a valuable contribution to 
Elizabethan-Jacobean stage-history. 
Among the records of the Office of 
the Revels preserved at the Public 
Record Office, from which Mr. P. 
Cunningham published merely Ex- 
tracts (u. s., 100°) and some of 
them incorrectly, are Declared Ac- 
counts, Audit Office, Bundle 2045- 
2046, years 1573-1670; and Declared 
Accounts of the Pipe Office, Roll 
2005, years 1603-38. I have gone 
through these with hope of some 
evidence. But in both sets of ac- 
counts the records of Oct. 31, 1588— 
Oct. 31, 1603 are wanting. There 
are numerous other gaps in the rec- 
ords. IJ have likewise examined the 
Accounts of the Exchequer and the 
Queen’s Household Accounts with- 
out results. 
The working out of the vast field 
of the Revels I have been glad to 
leave to a fellow-researcher, Pro- 
fessor A. Feuillerat of the Univer- 
sity of Rennes, France, who for 
some years has been collecting all 
records and documents of the Office 
of the Revels in this period for 
But it is 
publication. Prof. Feuillerat tells 
me he has found no account among 
these records that might cover such 
expenses as were incurred in main- 
taining the Children of the Chapel 
at Blackfriars. But there are other 
classes of accounts yet to. be 
searched. 
*““But soe yt is, moste excellent 
Soveraigne, that the said Nathaniell 
Gyles, confederating himself w 
one James Robinson, Henry Evans, 
& others yet vnto your ma''** said 
subiecte vnknowne howe [= whol], 
by cullour of your ma*'®* said let- 
ters patents & the trust by your 
highnes therby to him the said 
Nathaniell Gyles committed, endev- 
ouring, conspiring & complotting 
howe to oppresse diuers of your 
ma‘'** humble & faythfull subiects, 
& therby to make vnto themselves 
an vnlawfull gayne and _ benefitt, 
they the said confederates devysed, 
conspired & concluded, for theire 
Owne corrupte gayne and lucre, to 
errecte, sett vpp, furnish and mayn- 
teyne a play house or place in the 
Blackefryers.”—Clifton’s Complaint, 
G.-F., 127. 
215 
