Note 87 — BOOK III THE COMPANIES

Matthew Welder appears as a lute and viol at Court in 1516 and 1517. Peter Welder was appointed in 1519 and is traceable to 1559, as a lute, viol, or flute. Henry van Wilder was a ‘musician’, 1553–8. Philip Welder or van Wilder himself is first noted as a ‘minstrel’ in 1526. Later he was a lute up to 1554. In 1547 he was also ‘of the Privy Chamber’ and keeper of the King’s musical instruments (Nagel, 6, 13, 15, 16, 18, 22, 24, 27; Lafontaine, 8, 9, 12; Brewer, i, cxi). He died 24 Jan. 1554, leaving a son, Henry, probably the one noted above (Fry, London Inquisitions, i. 117). The Chamber Accounts for 1538–41 show an allowance to him of £70 ‘for six singing children’ (Stopes, 12). Several references to ‘Philippe and his fellows yong mynstrels’ and to ‘the children that be in the keeping of Philip and Edmund Harmon’ appear in Green Cloth documents from 30 June 1538 to 1544 (H. O. 166, 172, 191, 208; Genealogist, xxx. 23). Edmund Harmon was one of the royal Barbers. Finally, livery lists of 1547 show nine singing men and children under ‘Mr. Phelips’ (Lafontaine, 7). An earlier company of ‘the King’s young minstrels’ than this of 1538–50 seems to have been lodged at court c. 1526 (Brewer, iv. 1. 865), and there were ‘troyes autres nos ioesnes ministralx’ as far back as 1369 (Life Records of Chaucer, iv. 174). Elizabethan fee lists continue to make provision for ‘six children for singing’, but there is no indication that the posts were filled up.