himself.[1] There is no evidence that Ritwise's successors followed his example by bringing their pupils to Court; and the next performances by Paul's boys, which can be definitely traced, began a quarter of a century later, and were under the control of Sebastian Westcott, master of the song school, and were therefore presumably given by boys of that school. Westcott in 1545 was a Yeoman of the Chamber at Court.[2] He was 'scolemaister of Powles' by New Year's Day 1557, when he presented a manuscript book of ditties to Queen Mary.[3] Five years earlier, he had brought children to Hatfield, to give a play before the Princess Elizabeth; and the chances are that these were the Paul's boys.[4] With him came one Heywood, who may fairly be identified with John Heywood the dramatist; and this enables us, more conjecturally, to reduce a little further the gap in the dramatic history of the Paul's choir, for some years before, in March 1538, Heywood had already received a reward for playing an interlude with 'his children' before the Lady Mary.[5] There is nothing beyond this phrase to suggest that Heywood had a company of his own, and it is not probable that he was ever himself master of the choir school.[6] But he may very*
- ↑ Mediaeval Stage, ii. 196, 215, 219. Wallace, i. 88, points out that the performers of the Menaechmi before Wolsey in 1527 were not the Paul's boys, but the Cardinal's gentlemen.
- ↑ Chamber Accounts (1545).
- ↑ Nichols, Eliz. i. xxxv, 'By Sebastian, scolemaister of Powles, a boke of ditties, written'.
- ↑ Household Accounts of Princess Elizabeth, 1551-2 (Camden Misc. ii), 37, 'Paid in rewarde to the Kinges Maiesties drommer and phipher, the xiij^{th} of Februarye, xx^s; M^r. Heywoodde, xxx^s; and to Sebastian, towardes the charge of the children with the carriage of the plaiers garmentes iiij^{li}, xix^s. In thole as by warraunte appereth, vij^{li}, ix^s'.
- ↑ F. Madden, Expenses of Lady Mary, 62 (March 1538), 'Item geuen to Heywood playeng an enterlude with his children bifore my lades grace, xl^s'.
- ↑ Wallace, i. 77, goes against the evidence when he asserts that Heywood wrote for the Chapel. Why he asserts that Heywood 'had grown up in the Chapel under Cornish', to whom, by the way, he wantonly transfers the authorship of The Four P. P., The Pardoner and the Frere, and Johan Johan, I do not know. There is nothing to show that Heywood was a Chapel boy, and the absence of his name from the Chapel list of 1509 (cf. p. 27), when he would have been about twelve, may be taken as disposing of the notion. He is first discoverable at Court in December 1514, for which month he received wages at the rate of viij^d a day in some undefined capacity (Chamber Account in Addl. MS. 21481, f. 178), which was shared by one John Mason, who was a Yeoman of the Crown by March 1516 (Brewer, ii. 475). By 1520 Heywood himself was a Yeoman of the Crown (Brewer, iii. 1. 499), and during 1519-21 the Chamber Accounts show him as also a 'singer' at £5 a quarter. Later he became player of the virginals, and has 50s. a quarter as such in the Accounts for 1529-31, 1538-41, and 1547-9. He was Sewer of the Chamber at the funeral of Edward in 1553. It occurs to me as just possible that Heywood's 'children' may have been neither the Chapel nor the Paul's
