Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. I was poking around J
Speaker 1: Store Daily a while back, and while I was there,
Speaker 1: I found this article called Her Majesty's Kidnappers. And this
Speaker 1: article was about a couple of men who abducted boys
Speaker 1: and forced them to work as actors in early modern England.
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, I definitely have to find
Speaker 1: out more about that. So I did, and here is
Speaker 1: the episode that resulted. As it turned out, pressing boys
Speaker 1: into service as performers really wasn't new, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: isolated to these people that this article was about. What
Speaker 1: led to legal action in this particular case was that
Speaker 1: these guys abducted a kid who's his father was in
Speaker 1: a position to actually do something about it. I did
Speaker 1: want to note England is obviously not the only place
Speaker 1: where children have been made to work as performers under
Speaker 1: conditions that could be questionable at best. A lot of
Speaker 1: the time. We're really not going to be talking about
Speaker 1: or even touching on other historical examples or like all
Speaker 1: the legal and ethical issues that surround child performers in
Speaker 1: today's world. Like, those are all separate stories from that one,
Speaker 1: with their own historical and social context. I'm sort of
Speaker 1: imagining people listening to this and thinking, like, why aren't
Speaker 1: they talking about Yes, but what about that one thing? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And that like, because those are whole other things. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The court case that we're talking about today was not
Speaker 1: directly connected to William Shakespeare, but it did happen during
Speaker 1: his lifetime while he was working as an actor and
Speaker 1: a playwright. So as folks probably know, and we actually
Speaker 1: alluded to it briefly during our vander Barbett episode. Women
Speaker 1: were not allowed to perform on stage at this point
Speaker 1: in British history, so in the plays of Shakespeare and
Speaker 1: his contemporaries, the roles of women and girls were played
Speaker 1: by young men and boys. But boys did not just
Speaker 1: play female roles in productions that otherwise had a cast
Speaker 1: of adult men. There were also entire troops of boys
Speaker 1: who worked as performers, stretching back to before there were
Speaker 1: established public theaters in England. The earliest British accounts of
Speaker 1: boys as actors were actually in the role of female characters,
Speaker 1: but these were not in Shakespearean comedies or tragedies. They
Speaker 1: were in liturgical productions that were staged by churches and cathedrals,
Speaker 1: and these might be performed at the church or on
Speaker 1: church grounds, or in some other public space. There were
Speaker 1: also churches and religious groups that put on touring productions
Speaker 1: that sort of traveled among nearby towns, doing miracle plays
Speaker 1: and mystery plays. In other words, they were depictions of
Speaker 1: the lives of particular saints or stories from the Christian Bible.
Speaker 1: Mentions of boys playing the roles of women in these
Speaker 1: kinds of productions go back at least to the twelfth century.
Speaker 1: Not long after that, boys choirs were established to perform
Speaker 1: religious music at services. Boys had been included in choirs
Speaker 1: before this point, but choirs only made up of boys
Speaker 1: whose voices had not yet changed due to puberty came
Speaker 1: a little bit later. The other place that boys were
Speaker 1: pretty likely to perform during this era was school. Performance
Speaker 1: was seen as a way for boys to practice their
Speaker 1: poise and their diction and to learn to develop things
Speaker 1: like public speaking skills. So school performances were usually of
Speaker 1: religious or didactic works, or maybe classical pieces from Latin
Speaker 1: or Greek literature. Sometimes schools did put on public performances,
Speaker 1: but usually this was pretty controlled, so the audience was
Speaker 1: limited to the student's family, as are other members of
Speaker 1: the community, and it was really tightly supervised by the teachers.
Speaker 1: While she was still a princess, the future Queen Elizabeth
Speaker 1: the First often liked to visit schools and particularly enjoyed
Speaker 1: being honored with a performance while she was there. Eventually,
Speaker 1: boys performing troops were being invited to perform at court.
Speaker 1: The first written reference to one of these court performances
Speaker 1: dates back to fourteen eighty five. Boys performing companies became
Speaker 1: an established part of court entertainment in Tudor England, especially
Speaker 1: around the holidays, Saints feast Days and other celebrations. In
Speaker 1: fifteen oh nine, King Henry the Eighth appointed William Cornish
Speaker 1: as Master of the Chapel Royal, and underneath Cornish's direction,
Speaker 1: the use of boys's actors and singers and other entertainers
Speaker 1: at court increased dramatically. Queen Elizabeth was also a fan
Speaker 1: of these companies, both before and after she ascended to
Speaker 1: the throne. So in Tutor England, whoever was in charge
Speaker 1: of court entertainment, or whoever was specifically in charge of
Speaker 1: child entertainers, they often had the right to press people
Speaker 1: into service. We more often talk about impressment in the
Speaker 1: context of something like being forced to serve in the
Speaker 1: Royal Navy, but anybody whose labor was seen as valuable
Speaker 1: could be impressed, so that included artisans, skilled crafts people,
Speaker 1: and performers, including child performers. Since the choirs were made
Speaker 1: up of boys whose voices hadn't changed due to puberty,
Speaker 1: these children were usually between the ages of about six
Speaker 1: and fourteen. If there are any first person accounts from
Speaker 1: any of these children about what life was like in
Speaker 1: these troops, whether they were impressed, or whether they were
Speaker 1: performing of their own free will, Tracy didn't find any
Speaker 1: of them. We don't know that any exists, but it's
Speaker 1: likely that the conditions that they were working in often
Speaker 1: were not good. We do have first accounts from people
Speaker 1: who encountered various children's troops who described those children as hungry, sick,
Speaker 1: and exhausted after traveling to their performance. It is also
Speaker 1: very likely that many of them were subjected to physical
Speaker 1: or sexual abuse. In the early mid sixteenth century, these
Speaker 1: troops started to evolve, and the material that they were
Speaker 1: performing evolved as well. Rather than performing almost exclusively religious
Speaker 1: or didactic work, or maybe classical literature and doing that
Speaker 1: at a church or a school or at court, troops
Speaker 1: started performing more comedic work for the public, including satirical
Speaker 1: songs and sketches and plays. Some of those grew out
Speaker 1: of the Protestant Reformation. Since Catholic dramas and Catholic religious
Speaker 1: music were no longer permitted, performers had to find new material.
Speaker 1: This wasn't entirely new. The earliest known English language secular
Speaker 1: plays date back to about thirteen hundred, but more our
Speaker 1: playwrights started writing these kinds of plays, and more people
Speaker 1: started watching them. These troops also weren't performing at the
Speaker 1: large purpose built theaters that might come to mind in
Speaker 1: the context of Elizabethan or Shakespearean theater. So those three
Speaker 1: story round structures that were open in the center, none
Speaker 1: of those had been built yet when these troops started
Speaker 1: performing publicly. The first of those, the Red Lion, was
Speaker 1: erected in fifteen sixty seven, and James Burbage built England's
Speaker 1: first permanent theater, which was just called the Theater, in
Speaker 1: fifteen seventy six. So instead these boys troops were talking about,
Speaker 1: were in much smaller, enclosed, repurposed spaces. Also, especially as
Speaker 1: people moved away from staging plays that were explicitly religious
Speaker 1: or didactic, performing in public was seen as really suspect.
Speaker 1: There were plenty of small troops of entertainers of adults
Speaker 1: who traveled around England putting on some kind of a show,
Speaker 1: but they were often regarded as vagrants or criminals. It's
Speaker 1: possible that the adults who were in charge of these
Speaker 1: troops of children thought that their age would offer them
Speaker 1: some protection from criticism or suspicion, and that really may
Speaker 1: have been true, but that didn't necessarily apply to the
Speaker 1: playwrights who were writing for children's troops. Some of these
Speaker 1: playwrights were censured or even imprisoned over material that they
Speaker 1: wrote that was then performed by children. One way the
Speaker 1: people who managed these boys companies tried to get around
Speaker 1: this kind of suspicion was to frame their performances as rehearsals. So,
Speaker 1: after all, if you were going to perform before the monarch,
Speaker 1: of course you had to practice. What was the harm
Speaker 1: in selling a few tickets so that people could watch
Speaker 1: the boys rehearse, and so the boys could get used
Speaker 1: to having an audience. It's possible that this really did
Speaker 1: start out with selling tickets to watch rehearsals, but soon
Speaker 1: fully commercial professional troops of children were regularly performing for
Speaker 1: a paying audience, just with their managers still describing it
Speaker 1: as a rehearsal. In fifteen seventy two, the City Council
Speaker 1: of London banned public performances due to an outbreak of plague,
Speaker 1: and plays were banned altogether. Three years later. These boys
Speaker 1: companies continued, though thanks in part to that claim that
Speaker 1: they were just rehearsing ahead of their appearances at court,
Speaker 1: but the boy's companies started to be dismantled as well.
Speaker 1: After Richard Farrant, who was Master of the Children at
Speaker 1: Winsor Chapel, rented a space in Blackfriars that he said
Speaker 1: was going to be used for teaching and rehearsing, but
Speaker 1: he really turned it into a working public theater. After
Speaker 1: a lot of legal wrangling, in fifteen eighty four, Farrans
Speaker 1: landlord Sir William Moore evicted him and the company. By
Speaker 1: fifteen ninety most of the boys' companies that had been
Speaker 1: established earlier in the sixteenth century had fallen up art
Speaker 1: and no longer existed, but they were revived a few
Speaker 1: years later, and we'll get into that after a sponsor break.
Speaker 1: After a hiatus of about a decade, boys performing companies
Speaker 1: were briefly re established in Britain. In fifteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: a new troupe of boy actors was established at Saint
Speaker 1: Paul's Cathedral. This was known as the Children of Paul's
Speaker 1: and then another, the Children of the Chapel Royal, was
Speaker 1: established in sixteen hundred. The next part of this story
Speaker 1: is mostly focused on the Children of the Chapel Royal,
Speaker 1: but these two troops really had a lot of similarities
Speaker 1: and sometimes they performed together. The Chapel Royal was the
Speaker 1: monarch's personal chapel and the master of the Children of
Speaker 1: the Chapel Royal was Nathaniel Giles, who was also organist
Speaker 1: and master of the choristers at Saint George's Chapel. Windsor
Speaker 1: Helles managed boys who sang for church services and a
Speaker 1: troop of boy actors who were headquartered in Blackfriars in
Speaker 1: central London. So a bit on Blackfriars. Back in the
Speaker 1: thirteenth century, King Edward the First had given land to
Speaker 1: the Dominican Order to build a monastery and a cathedral.
Speaker 1: By the first decades of the sixteenth century, though this
Speaker 1: order was becoming a lot smaller and less powerful, with
Speaker 1: fewer monks actually living there, so the order started renting
Speaker 1: out some of its buildings. In fifteen twenty nine, King
Speaker 1: Henry the eighth also started using part of this site
Speaker 1: as the office and storage space for the King's Rebels,
Speaker 1: which was responsible for royal entertainments. This included storage for
Speaker 1: things like props and costumes. In fifteen thirty six, after
Speaker 1: Henry d eighth had cut ties with the Catholic Church,
Speaker 1: he started dissolving England's monasteries. The Dominican Monastery in Blackfriars
Speaker 1: was dissolved two years later in fifteen thirty eight, but
Speaker 1: the area known as Blackfriars maintained its status as a liberty,
Speaker 1: meaning that it had some autonomy from the City of
Speaker 1: London Corporation that other parts of the city did not.
Speaker 1: So as an important example for this story, if a
Speaker 1: group of performers in Blackfriars did something that upset the
Speaker 1: Lord Mayor of London, he did not have the authority
Speaker 1: to shut it down. Various buildings and Blackfriars were sold
Speaker 1: after the dissolution of the monasteries, and in fifteen fifty
Speaker 1: part of this was granted to Sir Thomas Coworden, who
Speaker 1: was Master of the Rebels. After Cowardon's death, the property
Speaker 1: was eventually sold to Sir William Moore, looping back to
Speaker 1: what we talked about before the break. More later rented
Speaker 1: this to Richard Farrant, master of the Children at Windsor Chapel,
Speaker 1: who used it as a theater for about a decade
Speaker 1: starting in fifteen seventy six. Usually this theater is called
Speaker 1: the First Blackfriars Theater, and as we mentioned earlier, More
Speaker 1: evicted Farrant and his company from that space in fifteen
Speaker 1: eighty four because it was not a rehearsal space an
Speaker 1: actual functioning theater. James Burbage, father of famed Shakespearean actor
Speaker 1: Richard Burbadge, built a second, larger theater in Blackfriars in
Speaker 1: fifteen ninety six, which was used primarily by the Children's Troops,
Speaker 1: and a lot of what we know about this theatre's
Speaker 1: history comes from court records. The people involved with managing
Speaker 1: this theater filed so many lawsuits against each other and
Speaker 1: There were also lawsuits filed by people from outside the company,
Speaker 1: including the one that we're going to be talking about shortly.
Speaker 1: By the time Burbage opened the second Blackfriars Theater in
Speaker 1: fifteen ninety six, multiple stand alone theaters had been built
Speaker 1: in and around London. There was the one just called
Speaker 1: the Theater built by Burbage, which we mentioned. There was
Speaker 1: also the Curtain, the Rose, the Newington Butz Theater and
Speaker 1: the Swan. So the second can't Blackfriars Theater was a
Speaker 1: lot smaller than all of these. It was roofed like
Speaker 1: it was an enclosed building rather than being open in
Speaker 1: the center like all of those other theaters were. And
Speaker 1: the Children of the Chapel Royal as a performing company
Speaker 1: was also different from the companies of adult men who
Speaker 1: were performing at these other larger public theaters. These adult
Speaker 1: companies were often beholden to one or more patrons who
Speaker 1: were funding their work, and the work itself was subject
Speaker 1: to approval and censorship by the Master of the Revels.
Speaker 1: During this period, the Master of the Rebels was Edmund Tilney,
Speaker 1: whose role grew until he had near total control of
Speaker 1: English theater like. Eventually he allowed only two performing companies
Speaker 1: of men, and he had to personally approve every single
Speaker 1: play before it could be performed, but the boys' companies
Speaker 1: were not subject to any of that. It's often a
Speaker 1: little unclear whose authority they were performing under, if anybody's.
Speaker 1: They might be criticized for satirical works that insulted people
Speaker 1: in power, but they weren't stopped from performing it in
Speaker 1: the first place. Yeah, they were basically flying under the
Speaker 1: radar of all of the censorship. That sort of kept
Speaker 1: the other theaters in line. And then also the fact
Speaker 1: that they were performing in Blackfriars meant they had this
Speaker 1: other layer of protection. So we mentioned Nathaniel Giles, Master
Speaker 1: of the Children of the Chapel Royal, earlier. In fifteen
Speaker 1: ninety seven, Queen Elizabeth I granted him a patent authorizing
Speaker 1: him to quote take so many children as he or
Speaker 1: his sufficient deputy shall think meet in all cathedral, collegiate,
Speaker 1: parish churches, chapels, or any place or places as well
Speaker 1: within liberty as without this a realm of England, whatsoever
Speaker 1: they may be. So the purpose of this patent was
Speaker 1: to make sure that the most talented children in the
Speaker 1: realm were available to sing for the Queen, but Giles
Speaker 1: did not focus strictly on finding good singers for the
Speaker 1: Queen's entertainments. He got into a partnership with Henry Evans,
Speaker 1: who had apprenticed as a scrivener but had become a
Speaker 1: theatrical producer. In sixteen hundred, Evans leased the Blackfriars Theater
Speaker 1: from Cuthbert and Richard Burbadge, sons of James Burbage, with
Speaker 1: the plan of establishing a company a boy performers there.
Speaker 1: Evans envisioned turning this company into a highly profitable business venture,
Speaker 1: which meant that Giles needed to use his patent to
Speaker 1: recruit enough boys to fill an entire acting troupe. By
Speaker 1: December of sixteen hundred, Giles and Evans were aggressively impressing
Speaker 1: children to fill out their acting company. If parents complained,
Speaker 1: sometimes they would offer them the option to buy out
Speaker 1: the boy's contract, which was really not much different from
Speaker 1: kidnapping children and then ransoming back to their parents, except
Speaker 1: in this case, these kidnappers had royal permission to impress
Speaker 1: children into performing, which meant most parents didn't think they
Speaker 1: could complain about it. But then on December thirteenth, sixteen hundred,
Speaker 1: James Robinson, acting on the order of Nathaniel Giles, abducted
Speaker 1: thirteen year old Thomas Clifton as he was on his
Speaker 1: way to school, and around the same time Robinson, Giles
Speaker 1: and Evans also took a number of other boys. Nathan Field,
Speaker 1: John Chapel and John Moderam were all in grammar school,
Speaker 1: and Alvary Trussell, Philip Pickman, Thomas Grimes and Solomon Pavey
Speaker 1: were all apprentices. Thomas's father, Henry, was a member of
Speaker 1: the nobility, and he was well connected enough to get
Speaker 1: his son back. After about a day and a half,
Speaker 1: he went to his friend, Sir John Fordescu, who was
Speaker 1: Chancellor of the Exchequer and a member of the Privy Council,
Speaker 1: and he issued a warrant for Thomas's release, and then
Speaker 1: after that Henry Clifton filed a complaint in the Court
Speaker 1: of the Star Chamber. The Court of the Star Chamber
Speaker 1: convened at Westminster. There are contradictory explanations for where the
Speaker 1: name came from, but most agreed that the room were
Speaker 1: it originally heard complaints was decorated with stars in some way,
Speaker 1: either with the Star Spangled ceiling or with drapes. This
Speaker 1: court had started out as a function of the Royal
Speaker 1: Council in the early sixteenth century. The Council would take
Speaker 1: on legal questions that, for one reason or another, couldn't
Speaker 1: go through the regular court system. Eventually, this court evolved
Speaker 1: into its own body. Although it still was made up
Speaker 1: of Privy Councilors and it operated under the monarch's prerogative,
Speaker 1: it was outside the bounds of the courts of common law.
Speaker 1: A lot of the cases that were heard before the
Speaker 1: Star Chamber had to do with rioting or other disturbances
Speaker 1: of the peace, as well as defiance against royal proclamations.
Speaker 1: In this case, Henry Clifton's basic argument was that Giles
Speaker 1: was abusing a patent that had been granted to him
Speaker 1: by the Queen, and we're going to get to all
Speaker 1: the details after we pause for a sponsor break. Henry
Speaker 1: Clifton's complaint was heard before the Court of the Star
Speaker 1: Chamber on December fifteenth, sixteen oh one. This complaint outlines
Speaker 1: his opinion that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth had granted letters
Speaker 1: patents to Nathaniel Giles, quote for the better furnishing of
Speaker 1: your Chapel Royal with well singing children, and this granted
Speaker 1: him to take such children from places like parish churches
Speaker 1: and chapels. But instead Giles had confederated himself with James Robinson,
Speaker 1: Henry Evans and others to put these boys into a
Speaker 1: quote company of leude and dissolute mercenary players. The language
Speaker 1: used in this complaint is really repetitive, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of circular, with just inordinately long sentences which I'll tend
Speaker 1: to say the same thing. Yeah, I usually enjoy reading
Speaker 1: historical documents like this, but I found this one in
Speaker 1: particular kind of exhausting. So Tracy bless Her has edited
Speaker 1: all of that to make it a bit more understandable.
Speaker 1: And he basically accused them of quote endeavoring, conspiring and
Speaker 1: complotting how to oppress diverse of your Majesty's humble and
Speaker 1: faithful subjects, and thereby to make unto themselves an unlawful
Speaker 1: gain and benefit. They conspired and concluded for their own
Speaker 1: corrupt gain in lucre to erect, set up, furnish, and
Speaker 1: maintain a playhouse or place in the Blackfriars within your
Speaker 1: Majesty's City of London. To better furnish their plays and
Speaker 1: interludes with children. They and the said Confederates, abusing the
Speaker 1: authority and trust by your Highness, have most wrongfully, unduly
Speaker 1: and unjustly taken diverse and several children from diverse and
Speaker 1: sundry schools of learning and other places, and apprentices to
Speaker 1: men of trade from their masters. Clifton also spelled out
Speaker 1: that these children were being taken not for service as
Speaker 1: part of the choir in the Chapel Royal, as had
Speaker 1: been intended, but they were being quote employed in acting
Speaker 1: and furnishing of the said plays and interludes. This was,
Speaker 1: he said, quote against the wills of the said children,
Speaker 1: their parents, tutors, masters and governors, and to the no
Speaker 1: small grief and oppressions of Your Majesty's true and faithful subjects. Importantly,
Speaker 1: Giles's patent empowered him to impress quote well singing children.
Speaker 1: But the boys named in the complaint were quote no
Speaker 1: way able or fit for singing, nor by any the
Speaker 1: said confederates endeavored to be taught to sing. But by
Speaker 1: them the said confederates abusively employed, as aforesaid, only in
Speaker 1: plays and interludes. There's just a whole whole lot of
Speaker 1: the said and the AfOR said in here more than
Speaker 1: in the bits that we just read. So instead, Clifton's
Speaker 1: son had been given lines to learned, and he was
Speaker 1: threatened with being beaten if he did not learn them.
Speaker 1: Clifton called this an abuse of Her Majesty's commission. Clifton
Speaker 1: also described what had happened when he had gone to
Speaker 1: the theater to get his son back. He had been
Speaker 1: quote utterly and scornfully refused, and the perpetrators had basically
Speaker 1: dared him to take them to court. Clinton argued that
Speaker 1: it was quote not fit that a gentleman of his
Speaker 1: sort should have his son and heir, and that his
Speaker 1: only son to be so basely used. So to be clear,
Speaker 1: Clifton was not arguing that no children should be impressed
Speaker 1: as performers, but that it was not appropriate for his
Speaker 1: son due to his station and the fact that these
Speaker 1: children were being used as actors, not as singers and
Speaker 1: religious services. It was, in his words, quote, an abuse
Speaker 1: of the nobility of this your Highness's realm, and an
Speaker 1: abuse of Your Majesty's said commission. Many of the records
Speaker 1: relating to the Court of the Star Chamber have not
Speaker 1: survived until today, so we don't have a lot of
Speaker 1: detail about the decision. But in short, the court found
Speaker 1: in Clifton's favor. Evans was censured for quote, taking up
Speaker 1: of gentlemen's children against their wills and to employ them
Speaker 1: for players. He had to resign from his work at
Speaker 1: Blackfriar Theater and leave London, but in a lot of
Speaker 1: ways this really didn't affect him. He transferred his interest
Speaker 1: in the company to his son in law, Alexander Hawkins,
Speaker 1: and Hawkins more or less ran things as Evans's proxy.
Speaker 1: We know all of this from a letter that was
Speaker 1: written later on by one of his associates, not from
Speaker 1: any actual legal records about this arrangement. For Giles, so
Speaker 1: the biggest consequence was that when he received a new
Speaker 1: patent in sixteen oh six, it specified this quote. We
Speaker 1: do straightly charge and command that none of the said
Speaker 1: choristers or children of the chapel, so to be taken
Speaker 1: by force of this commission, shall be used or employed
Speaker 1: as comedians or stage players, or to be exercise or
Speaker 1: act in any stage plays, interludes, comedies, or tragedies, for
Speaker 1: that is not fit or decent, that such as should
Speaker 1: sing the praises of God Almighty should be trained up
Speaker 1: or employed in such lascivious and profane exercises. There's kind
Speaker 1: of a gap though, between when this case was heard
Speaker 1: in sixteen oh six, and we don't really know if
Speaker 1: he kept impressing children as actors in that window between
Speaker 1: when the court case was decided and when he was
Speaker 1: issued this new patent. How it's like you can kidnap
Speaker 1: them if they're gonna sing for the Queen only religious music,
Speaker 1: but they're gonna sing if they're gonna sing church music,
Speaker 1: kidnapping them as fine, just cool, cool, cool. And at
Speaker 1: least two of the boys named in Clifton's complaint wound
Speaker 1: up staying with the theater, Solomon Pavey and Nathan Field.
Speaker 1: Pavey had been apprenticed to Edward Pearce, who was choir
Speaker 1: master at Saint Paul's. He died at the age of thirteen,
Speaker 1: but Field continued to act into adulthood, and he died
Speaker 1: in sixteen twenty. After all this, a lot of theater
Speaker 1: companies started, at least nominally apprenticing young boys as actors
Speaker 1: rather than pressing them into service. But these apprenticeships were
Speaker 1: a lot different from the guild apprenticeships that people might
Speaker 1: be more familiar with. A guild apprenticeship was very lengthy
Speaker 1: and formalized, and while conditions for apprentices could be very poor,
Speaker 1: when the apprenticeship ended, the person was trained in a
Speaker 1: craft or a trade, and they had also earned a
Speaker 1: range of rights and privileges as a freedman. The boys
Speaker 1: who apprenticed as actors were often younger than typical guild apprentices,
Speaker 1: and based on the records that we have, most adult
Speaker 1: performers had not apprenticed as actors when they were children,
Speaker 1: so it was like if children were being quote apprenticed,
Speaker 1: they weren't becoming actors using that training was when they
Speaker 1: were adults. It was actually a lot more likely for
Speaker 1: an actor who to have gone through an apprenticeship in
Speaker 1: some other trade and then come to acting as an
Speaker 1: adult and then conscripting children for performing as singers continued
Speaker 1: for a lot longer. Once there were more permanent public
Speaker 1: theaters in England with established companies of adult actors, children's
Speaker 1: troops became increasingly controversial among performers and playwrights. There are
Speaker 1: written references to them in some of the dramatic work
Speaker 1: of the day. Shakespeare's Hamlet was written right around the
Speaker 1: time that the Boys Companies were revived, and the first
Speaker 1: folio version includes a conversation between Hamlet and Rosenkrantz in
Speaker 1: which Rosenkrantz describes a theater troupe as quote an area
Speaker 1: of children, little iases that cry out on the top
Speaker 1: of question and are most tyrannically clapped for it. Hamlet answers, quote,
Speaker 1: what are they children? Who maintains them? How are they
Speaker 1: a scotted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than
Speaker 1: they can sing? Will they not say afterwards if they
Speaker 1: should grow themselves to common players, as it is most
Speaker 1: like if their means are no better? Their writers do
Speaker 1: them wrong to make them exclaim against their own succession.
Speaker 1: Ben Johnson's satire The Staple of News also includes a
Speaker 1: character called Censure, who complains about these troops. Quote, they
Speaker 1: make all their scholars playboys. Is not a fine sight
Speaker 1: to see all our children made interluders? Do we pay
Speaker 1: money for this? We send them to learn their grammar
Speaker 1: and their terance, and they learned their playbooks. The Staple
Speaker 1: of News was first performed in sixteen twenty five, and
Speaker 1: at that point boys acting companies had once again faded out.
Speaker 1: In England, Queen Elizabeth the First died in sixteen oh three,
Speaker 1: and King James the sixth of Scotland and First of
Speaker 1: England succeeded her. His consort and of Denmark issued a
Speaker 1: new patent to the Children of the Royal Chapel and
Speaker 1: they became the Children of the Queen's Revels. They were
Speaker 1: disbanded about three years later after facing increasing criticism for
Speaker 1: performing a range of material that satirized the government, the
Speaker 1: nobility and the monarchs. The Children of Paul's was disbanded
Speaker 1: in sixteen oh seven after the playhouse on the Cathedral
Speaker 1: grounds was closed. London's theaters were closed down entirely in
Speaker 1: sixteen oh eight and sixteen oh nine due to plague.
Speaker 1: After the plague subsided, Richard Burbage evicted the remnants of
Speaker 1: the Boy's Company from the Blackfriar Theater and it became
Speaker 1: the winter home of William Shakespeare's company, The King's Men.
Speaker 1: The Court of the Star Chamber also faced increasing opposition
Speaker 1: from the courts of common law and from some members
Speaker 1: of Parliament. It was abolished by the Long Parliament in
Speaker 1: sixteen forty one. We haven't really touched on this, but
Speaker 1: as a final note, there's a lot of literary criticism
Speaker 1: and theatrical scholarship that looks at how these companies of
Speaker 1: boy performers and the material they performed contributed to the
Speaker 1: development of English language drama. Obviously, there were comedies and
Speaker 1: tragedies long before the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but a
Speaker 1: lot of what was being written in England and in
Speaker 1: English was either religious or didactic in nature. Playwrights writing
Speaker 1: for boys companies, which were working outside the bounds of
Speaker 1: official patronage and censorship, laid a lot of the foundations
Speaker 1: for the English language dramatic tradition. Virtually all of England's
Speaker 1: most prominent play rights during these decades wrote for children,
Speaker 1: and I wrote material for children that broke away from
Speaker 1: what was expected in terms of form and content. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I read one paper that was sort of like, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna go so far as to say that without
Speaker 1: these boys companies there would be no William Shakespeare, but like,
Speaker 1: it really was a lot of playwrights kind of cutting
Speaker 1: their teeth on writing different material that was then going
Speaker 1: to be performed by children. It's a wild thought, it is,
Speaker 1: and that also makes like such a hugely complicated moral
Speaker 1: and like analytical set of criteria to look at everything
Speaker 1: through where it's there. I like this play, but it's
Speaker 1: grounded and enslavement of children and that's not good and
Speaker 1: I don't know how we reconcile all of this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I of course I think most people who have ever
Speaker 1: studied Shakespeare probably are aware about, you know, women's parts
Speaker 1: being played by boys and young men. I was really
Speaker 1: not aware until getting into this that there had been
Speaker 1: whole companies of just child actors who are all either
Speaker 1: boys in England specifically. I do have some listener mail
Speaker 1: which is about a totally different subject. This is from Jen.
Speaker 1: Jen wrote, Hi, Holly and Tracy. I loved the tomatoes
Speaker 1: episode and especially the Friday behind the scenes conversation. I
Speaker 1: wanted to write to share my own history with disliking,
Speaker 1: slash loving tomatoes. As a kid, I had the same
Speaker 1: aversion to chunky tomato textures as Tracy. I enjoyed the flavor,
Speaker 1: love tomato soup, non chunky tomato sauces, and ketchup, yes,
Speaker 1: even the strange, colorful ketchups that Hinz introduced when I
Speaker 1: was thirteen. Holly is making like excited excited gestures about
Speaker 1: the colorful ketchups, but any semblance of actual tomato texture.
Speaker 1: No thanks. My mom would roll her eyes when I
Speaker 1: asked her to I mean jarred salsa, only to scrape
Speaker 1: the tomato chunks off my tortilla chip with each dip,
Speaker 1: so only a flavorful tomato juice coated it. Meanwhile, my
Speaker 1: paternal grandpa had a garden filled with tomato plants that
Speaker 1: he tended with care each summer. Those plants brought him
Speaker 1: so much pride and happiness, and each time my parents
Speaker 1: and I joined my grandparents for dinner, Grandpa would pick
Speaker 1: a few tomatoes and serve them as a side dish,
Speaker 1: sliced with a pinch of salt on top. He, grandma,
Speaker 1: and my mom would devour them with praise for how
Speaker 1: fresh and yummy they were. My dad and I would
Speaker 1: abstain ew tomatoes, and Grandpa would reply, she she don't
Speaker 1: know what you're missing. Flash forward to college, with a
Speaker 1: buffet style cafeteria in my dorm and a city full
Speaker 1: of diverse culinary experiences. By then, my grandpa was sick
Speaker 1: and unable to take care of the garden. Still thinking
Speaker 1: about what Grandpa said, and in line with Holly getting
Speaker 1: swayed by beautiful words about tomatoes, it seemed like I
Speaker 1: had been missing out on something. I started sneaking lice
Speaker 1: tomatoes into my cafeteria sandwiches and eating entire chipfuls of
Speaker 1: salsa without scraping off the tomato pieces. Little by little,
Speaker 1: my taste buds started to accept fresh tomatoes as a
Speaker 1: legitimately delicious food. My big realization of this change was
Speaker 1: a few years later when I attended an EarthFest festival
Speaker 1: on the Boston Esplanade and each one of the organic
Speaker 1: grocery store tents was handing out fruit and vegetable samples.
Speaker 1: I was offered an entire tomato, and I bit into
Speaker 1: it as if it was an apple, savoring each bite.
Speaker 1: My grandpa passed away soon after I finished college and
Speaker 1: didn't get to witness my love of tomatoes. Still, every
Speaker 1: time I smell a vine fresh tomato, I think of
Speaker 1: him and smile. I now have a garden full of
Speaker 1: my favorite cherry tomato plants and a big old tomato
Speaker 1: tattoo on my arm and memory of my grandpa. I've
Speaker 1: also attached a photo of my pup I think risa
Speaker 1: is how we say this who also enjoys occasional ripe tomato.
Speaker 1: Keep up the amazing work. I always look forward to
Speaker 1: your episode, especially the food history ones. Take care and
Speaker 1: have a relaxing and lovely summer. Jen, we have a
Speaker 1: very cute dog and a great tomato tattoo. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: wanted to read this in part because I love this story.
Speaker 1: For one thing, it did occur to me after we
Speaker 1: had that hole behind the scenes conversation that one thing
Speaker 1: that I will eat that does include big pieces of
Speaker 1: tomato is crazy salad because the combination of you know,
Speaker 1: slices of tomato with the cheese and the olive oil
Speaker 1: and the basil and like all that, like that I
Speaker 1: actually find pretty good, but still just plain tomatoes, big
Speaker 1: chunks of them by themselves, not usually my favorite. Last night,
Speaker 1: I had a like, very basic store bought salad as
Speaker 1: part of my dinner, and it had like four or
Speaker 1: five little cherry tomatoes in there, and I ate none
Speaker 1: of them, row of them. Listen, cherry tomatoes are a
Speaker 1: gamble because sometimes they'll even look great and I don't
Speaker 1: love them to begin with, but like a ripe flavorful
Speaker 1: one can be good. But sometimes they look great and
Speaker 1: they just taste like not good. Yeah that dog is Yeah,
Speaker 1: weapons a great cube. By the way. Yes, during tomato season,
Speaker 1: I will get like an heirloom tomato at the farmer's
Speaker 1: market and cheese from the cheese vendor. Like we'll get
Speaker 1: a bunch of farmer's market stuff and make like a
Speaker 1: cuprazy salad or something, and that I do really enjoy
Speaker 1: and I ate a million of it. When we were
Speaker 1: in Italy, like every meal it was or just like
Speaker 1: there would be some kind of fresh mozzarella appetizer. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of a lot of that. So anyway,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Jen for this email and these pictures.
Speaker 1: If you would like to write to us about this
Speaker 1: or any other podcasts, we're at History Podcasts that iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: dot com. We're also all over social media ad Missed
Speaker 1: in History. That's where you'll find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest,
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