Note 682 — VII THE COURT PLAY

Cf. App. B. The Revels Accounts record plays which the Treasurer of the Chamber did not reward, by the Chapel (1559-60); by unnamed companies (3 plays) at Windsor (1563-4); by Westminster (Miles Gloriosus; cf. Murray, ii. 168), the Chapel, Sir Percival Hart's sons, and 'showes' by Gray's Inn (1564-5); by an unnamed company (1567-8); by an unnamed company (1581-2); and by Gray's Inn (Misfortunes of Arthur, 1587-8). For years not covered by these accounts must be added the Inner Temple Gorboduc (1562), probably their Gismond of Salerne (1566?), and not impossibly others by Gray's Inn, who, according to Elizabeth in 1595 (Gesta Grayorum, 68), 'did always study for Sports to present unto her'. I cannot understand Collier's unreferenced notice of a payment to men of George Evelyn (cf. ch. xiii) for a play in 1588. A letter of 4 Dec. 1592 from the University of Cambridge (M. S. C. i. 198, from Lansd. MS. 71), deprecating an invitation to play an English comedy at court, shows that a similar suggestion had been made to Oxford; there is no evidence that either University actually played. It is conceivable that plays may sometimes have been rewarded out of the Privy Purse (cf. ch. ii) instead of by the Treasurer of the Chamber.