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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production

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Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.

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Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. I was poking around J

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Speaker 1: Store Daily a while back, and while I was there,

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Speaker 1: I found this article called Her Majesty's Kidnappers. And this

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Speaker 1: article was about a couple of men who abducted boys

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Speaker 1: and forced them to work as actors in early modern England.

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Speaker 1: And I was like, well, I definitely have to find

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Speaker 1: out more about that. So I did, and here is

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Speaker 1: the episode that resulted. As it turned out, pressing boys

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Speaker 1: into service as performers really wasn't new, and it wasn't

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Speaker 1: isolated to these people that this article was about. What

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Speaker 1: led to legal action in this particular case was that

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Speaker 1: these guys abducted a kid who's his father was in

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Speaker 1: a position to actually do something about it. I did

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Speaker 1: want to note England is obviously not the only place

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Speaker 1: where children have been made to work as performers under

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Speaker 1: conditions that could be questionable at best. A lot of

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Speaker 1: the time. We're really not going to be talking about

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Speaker 1: or even touching on other historical examples or like all

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Speaker 1: the legal and ethical issues that surround child performers in

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Speaker 1: today's world. Like, those are all separate stories from that one,

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Speaker 1: with their own historical and social context. I'm sort of

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Speaker 1: imagining people listening to this and thinking, like, why aren't

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Speaker 1: they talking about Yes, but what about that one thing? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: And that like, because those are whole other things. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The court case that we're talking about today was not

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Speaker 1: directly connected to William Shakespeare, but it did happen during

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Speaker 1: his lifetime while he was working as an actor and

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Speaker 1: a playwright. So as folks probably know, and we actually

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Speaker 1: alluded to it briefly during our vander Barbett episode. Women

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Speaker 1: were not allowed to perform on stage at this point

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Speaker 1: in British history, so in the plays of Shakespeare and

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Speaker 1: his contemporaries, the roles of women and girls were played

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Speaker 1: by young men and boys. But boys did not just

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Speaker 1: play female roles in productions that otherwise had a cast

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Speaker 1: of adult men. There were also entire troops of boys

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Speaker 1: who worked as performers, stretching back to before there were

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Speaker 1: established public theaters in England. The earliest British accounts of

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Speaker 1: boys as actors were actually in the role of female characters,

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Speaker 1: but these were not in Shakespearean comedies or tragedies. They

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Speaker 1: were in liturgical productions that were staged by churches and cathedrals,

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Speaker 1: and these might be performed at the church or on

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Speaker 1: church grounds, or in some other public space. There were

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Speaker 1: also churches and religious groups that put on touring productions

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Speaker 1: that sort of traveled among nearby towns, doing miracle plays

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Speaker 1: and mystery plays. In other words, they were depictions of

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Speaker 1: the lives of particular saints or stories from the Christian Bible.

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Speaker 1: Mentions of boys playing the roles of women in these

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Speaker 1: kinds of productions go back at least to the twelfth century.

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Speaker 1: Not long after that, boys choirs were established to perform

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Speaker 1: religious music at services. Boys had been included in choirs

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Speaker 1: before this point, but choirs only made up of boys

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Speaker 1: whose voices had not yet changed due to puberty came

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Speaker 1: a little bit later. The other place that boys were

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Speaker 1: pretty likely to perform during this era was school. Performance

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Speaker 1: was seen as a way for boys to practice their

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Speaker 1: poise and their diction and to learn to develop things

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Speaker 1: like public speaking skills. So school performances were usually of

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Speaker 1: religious or didactic works, or maybe classical pieces from Latin

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Speaker 1: or Greek literature. Sometimes schools did put on public performances,

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Speaker 1: but usually this was pretty controlled, so the audience was

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Speaker 1: limited to the student's family, as are other members of

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Speaker 1: the community, and it was really tightly supervised by the teachers.

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Speaker 1: While she was still a princess, the future Queen Elizabeth

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Speaker 1: the First often liked to visit schools and particularly enjoyed

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Speaker 1: being honored with a performance while she was there. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: boys performing troops were being invited to perform at court.

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Speaker 1: The first written reference to one of these court performances

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Speaker 1: dates back to fourteen eighty five. Boys performing companies became

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Speaker 1: an established part of court entertainment in Tudor England, especially

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Speaker 1: around the holidays, Saints feast Days and other celebrations. In

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Speaker 1: fifteen oh nine, King Henry the Eighth appointed William Cornish

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Speaker 1: as Master of the Chapel Royal, and underneath Cornish's direction,

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Speaker 1: the use of boys's actors and singers and other entertainers

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Speaker 1: at court increased dramatically. Queen Elizabeth was also a fan

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Speaker 1: of these companies, both before and after she ascended to

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Speaker 1: the throne. So in Tutor England, whoever was in charge

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Speaker 1: of court entertainment, or whoever was specifically in charge of

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Speaker 1: child entertainers, they often had the right to press people

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Speaker 1: into service. We more often talk about impressment in the

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Speaker 1: context of something like being forced to serve in the

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Speaker 1: Royal Navy, but anybody whose labor was seen as valuable

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Speaker 1: could be impressed, so that included artisans, skilled crafts people,

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Speaker 1: and performers, including child performers. Since the choirs were made

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Speaker 1: up of boys whose voices hadn't changed due to puberty,

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Speaker 1: these children were usually between the ages of about six

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Speaker 1: and fourteen. If there are any first person accounts from

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Speaker 1: any of these children about what life was like in

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Speaker 1: these troops, whether they were impressed, or whether they were

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Speaker 1: performing of their own free will, Tracy didn't find any

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Speaker 1: of them. We don't know that any exists, but it's

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Speaker 1: likely that the conditions that they were working in often

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Speaker 1: were not good. We do have first accounts from people

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Speaker 1: who encountered various children's troops who described those children as hungry, sick,

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Speaker 1: and exhausted after traveling to their performance. It is also

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Speaker 1: very likely that many of them were subjected to physical

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Speaker 1: or sexual abuse. In the early mid sixteenth century, these

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Speaker 1: troops started to evolve, and the material that they were

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Speaker 1: performing evolved as well. Rather than performing almost exclusively religious

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Speaker 1: or didactic work, or maybe classical literature and doing that

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Speaker 1: at a church or a school or at court, troops

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Speaker 1: started performing more comedic work for the public, including satirical

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Speaker 1: songs and sketches and plays. Some of those grew out

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Speaker 1: of the Protestant Reformation. Since Catholic dramas and Catholic religious

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Speaker 1: music were no longer permitted, performers had to find new material.

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Speaker 1: This wasn't entirely new. The earliest known English language secular

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Speaker 1: plays date back to about thirteen hundred, but more our

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Speaker 1: playwrights started writing these kinds of plays, and more people

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Speaker 1: started watching them. These troops also weren't performing at the

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Speaker 1: large purpose built theaters that might come to mind in

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Speaker 1: the context of Elizabethan or Shakespearean theater. So those three

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Speaker 1: story round structures that were open in the center, none

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Speaker 1: of those had been built yet when these troops started

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Speaker 1: performing publicly. The first of those, the Red Lion, was

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Speaker 1: erected in fifteen sixty seven, and James Burbage built England's

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Speaker 1: first permanent theater, which was just called the Theater, in

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Speaker 1: fifteen seventy six. So instead these boys troops were talking about,

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Speaker 1: were in much smaller, enclosed, repurposed spaces. Also, especially as

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Speaker 1: people moved away from staging plays that were explicitly religious

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Speaker 1: or didactic, performing in public was seen as really suspect.

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Speaker 1: There were plenty of small troops of entertainers of adults

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Speaker 1: who traveled around England putting on some kind of a show,

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Speaker 1: but they were often regarded as vagrants or criminals. It's

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Speaker 1: possible that the adults who were in charge of these

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Speaker 1: troops of children thought that their age would offer them

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Speaker 1: some protection from criticism or suspicion, and that really may

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Speaker 1: have been true, but that didn't necessarily apply to the

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Speaker 1: playwrights who were writing for children's troops. Some of these

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Speaker 1: playwrights were censured or even imprisoned over material that they

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Speaker 1: wrote that was then performed by children. One way the

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Speaker 1: people who managed these boys companies tried to get around

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Speaker 1: this kind of suspicion was to frame their performances as rehearsals. So,

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Speaker 1: after all, if you were going to perform before the monarch,

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Speaker 1: of course you had to practice. What was the harm

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Speaker 1: in selling a few tickets so that people could watch

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Speaker 1: the boys rehearse, and so the boys could get used

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Speaker 1: to having an audience. It's possible that this really did

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Speaker 1: start out with selling tickets to watch rehearsals, but soon

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Speaker 1: fully commercial professional troops of children were regularly performing for

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Speaker 1: a paying audience, just with their managers still describing it

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Speaker 1: as a rehearsal. In fifteen seventy two, the City Council

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Speaker 1: of London banned public performances due to an outbreak of plague,

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Speaker 1: and plays were banned altogether. Three years later. These boys

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Speaker 1: companies continued, though thanks in part to that claim that

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Speaker 1: they were just rehearsing ahead of their appearances at court,

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Speaker 1: but the boy's companies started to be dismantled as well.

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Speaker 1: After Richard Farrant, who was Master of the Children at

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Speaker 1: Winsor Chapel, rented a space in Blackfriars that he said

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Speaker 1: was going to be used for teaching and rehearsing, but

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Speaker 1: he really turned it into a working public theater. After

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Speaker 1: a lot of legal wrangling, in fifteen eighty four, Farrans

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Speaker 1: landlord Sir William Moore evicted him and the company. By

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Speaker 1: fifteen ninety most of the boys' companies that had been

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Speaker 1: established earlier in the sixteenth century had fallen up art

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Speaker 1: and no longer existed, but they were revived a few

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Speaker 1: years later, and we'll get into that after a sponsor break.

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Speaker 1: After a hiatus of about a decade, boys performing companies

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Speaker 1: were briefly re established in Britain. In fifteen ninety nine,

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Speaker 1: a new troupe of boy actors was established at Saint

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Speaker 1: Paul's Cathedral. This was known as the Children of Paul's

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Speaker 1: and then another, the Children of the Chapel Royal, was

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Speaker 1: established in sixteen hundred. The next part of this story

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Speaker 1: is mostly focused on the Children of the Chapel Royal,

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Speaker 1: but these two troops really had a lot of similarities

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Speaker 1: and sometimes they performed together. The Chapel Royal was the

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Speaker 1: monarch's personal chapel and the master of the Children of

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Speaker 1: the Chapel Royal was Nathaniel Giles, who was also organist

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Speaker 1: and master of the choristers at Saint George's Chapel. Windsor

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Speaker 1: Helles managed boys who sang for church services and a

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Speaker 1: troop of boy actors who were headquartered in Blackfriars in

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Speaker 1: central London. So a bit on Blackfriars. Back in the

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Speaker 1: thirteenth century, King Edward the First had given land to

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Speaker 1: the Dominican Order to build a monastery and a cathedral.

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Speaker 1: By the first decades of the sixteenth century, though this

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Speaker 1: order was becoming a lot smaller and less powerful, with

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Speaker 1: fewer monks actually living there, so the order started renting

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Speaker 1: out some of its buildings. In fifteen twenty nine, King

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Speaker 1: Henry the eighth also started using part of this site

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Speaker 1: as the office and storage space for the King's Rebels,

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Speaker 1: which was responsible for royal entertainments. This included storage for

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Speaker 1: things like props and costumes. In fifteen thirty six, after

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Speaker 1: Henry d eighth had cut ties with the Catholic Church,

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Speaker 1: he started dissolving England's monasteries. The Dominican Monastery in Blackfriars

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Speaker 1: was dissolved two years later in fifteen thirty eight, but

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Speaker 1: the area known as Blackfriars maintained its status as a liberty,

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Speaker 1: meaning that it had some autonomy from the City of

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Speaker 1: London Corporation that other parts of the city did not.

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Speaker 1: So as an important example for this story, if a

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Speaker 1: group of performers in Blackfriars did something that upset the

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Speaker 1: Lord Mayor of London, he did not have the authority

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Speaker 1: to shut it down. Various buildings and Blackfriars were sold

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Speaker 1: after the dissolution of the monasteries, and in fifteen fifty

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Speaker 1: part of this was granted to Sir Thomas Coworden, who

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Speaker 1: was Master of the Rebels. After Cowardon's death, the property

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Speaker 1: was eventually sold to Sir William Moore, looping back to

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Speaker 1: what we talked about before the break. More later rented

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Speaker 1: this to Richard Farrant, master of the Children at Windsor Chapel,

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Speaker 1: who used it as a theater for about a decade

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Speaker 1: starting in fifteen seventy six. Usually this theater is called

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Speaker 1: the First Blackfriars Theater, and as we mentioned earlier, More

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Speaker 1: evicted Farrant and his company from that space in fifteen

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Speaker 1: eighty four because it was not a rehearsal space an

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Speaker 1: actual functioning theater. James Burbage, father of famed Shakespearean actor

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Speaker 1: Richard Burbadge, built a second, larger theater in Blackfriars in

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Speaker 1: fifteen ninety six, which was used primarily by the Children's Troops,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of what we know about this theatre's

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Speaker 1: history comes from court records. The people involved with managing

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Speaker 1: this theater filed so many lawsuits against each other and

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Speaker 1: There were also lawsuits filed by people from outside the company,

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Speaker 1: including the one that we're going to be talking about shortly.

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Speaker 1: By the time Burbage opened the second Blackfriars Theater in

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Speaker 1: fifteen ninety six, multiple stand alone theaters had been built

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Speaker 1: in and around London. There was the one just called

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Speaker 1: the Theater built by Burbage, which we mentioned. There was

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Speaker 1: also the Curtain, the Rose, the Newington Butz Theater and

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Speaker 1: the Swan. So the second can't Blackfriars Theater was a

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Speaker 1: lot smaller than all of these. It was roofed like

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Speaker 1: it was an enclosed building rather than being open in

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Speaker 1: the center like all of those other theaters were. And

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Speaker 1: the Children of the Chapel Royal as a performing company

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Speaker 1: was also different from the companies of adult men who

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Speaker 1: were performing at these other larger public theaters. These adult

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Speaker 1: companies were often beholden to one or more patrons who

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Speaker 1: were funding their work, and the work itself was subject

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Speaker 1: to approval and censorship by the Master of the Revels.

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Speaker 1: During this period, the Master of the Rebels was Edmund Tilney,

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Speaker 1: whose role grew until he had near total control of

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Speaker 1: English theater like. Eventually he allowed only two performing companies

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Speaker 1: of men, and he had to personally approve every single

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Speaker 1: play before it could be performed, but the boys' companies

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Speaker 1: were not subject to any of that. It's often a

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Speaker 1: little unclear whose authority they were performing under, if anybody's.

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Speaker 1: They might be criticized for satirical works that insulted people

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Speaker 1: in power, but they weren't stopped from performing it in

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Speaker 1: the first place. Yeah, they were basically flying under the

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Speaker 1: radar of all of the censorship. That sort of kept

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Speaker 1: the other theaters in line. And then also the fact

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Speaker 1: that they were performing in Blackfriars meant they had this

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Speaker 1: other layer of protection. So we mentioned Nathaniel Giles, Master

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Speaker 1: of the Children of the Chapel Royal, earlier. In fifteen

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Speaker 1: ninety seven, Queen Elizabeth I granted him a patent authorizing

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Speaker 1: him to quote take so many children as he or

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Speaker 1: his sufficient deputy shall think meet in all cathedral, collegiate,

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Speaker 1: parish churches, chapels, or any place or places as well

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Speaker 1: within liberty as without this a realm of England, whatsoever

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Speaker 1: they may be. So the purpose of this patent was

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Speaker 1: to make sure that the most talented children in the

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Speaker 1: realm were available to sing for the Queen, but Giles

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Speaker 1: did not focus strictly on finding good singers for the

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Speaker 1: Queen's entertainments. He got into a partnership with Henry Evans,

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Speaker 1: who had apprenticed as a scrivener but had become a

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Speaker 1: theatrical producer. In sixteen hundred, Evans leased the Blackfriars Theater

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Speaker 1: from Cuthbert and Richard Burbadge, sons of James Burbage, with

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Speaker 1: the plan of establishing a company a boy performers there.

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Speaker 1: Evans envisioned turning this company into a highly profitable business venture,

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Speaker 1: which meant that Giles needed to use his patent to

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Speaker 1: recruit enough boys to fill an entire acting troupe. By

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Speaker 1: December of sixteen hundred, Giles and Evans were aggressively impressing

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Speaker 1: children to fill out their acting company. If parents complained,

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Speaker 1: sometimes they would offer them the option to buy out

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Speaker 1: the boy's contract, which was really not much different from

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Speaker 1: kidnapping children and then ransoming back to their parents, except

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Speaker 1: in this case, these kidnappers had royal permission to impress

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Speaker 1: children into performing, which meant most parents didn't think they

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Speaker 1: could complain about it. But then on December thirteenth, sixteen hundred,

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Speaker 1: James Robinson, acting on the order of Nathaniel Giles, abducted

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Speaker 1: thirteen year old Thomas Clifton as he was on his

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Speaker 1: way to school, and around the same time Robinson, Giles

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Speaker 1: and Evans also took a number of other boys. Nathan Field,

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Speaker 1: John Chapel and John Moderam were all in grammar school,

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Speaker 1: and Alvary Trussell, Philip Pickman, Thomas Grimes and Solomon Pavey

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Speaker 1: were all apprentices. Thomas's father, Henry, was a member of

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Speaker 1: the nobility, and he was well connected enough to get

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Speaker 1: his son back. After about a day and a half,

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Speaker 1: he went to his friend, Sir John Fordescu, who was

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Speaker 1: Chancellor of the Exchequer and a member of the Privy Council,

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Speaker 1: and he issued a warrant for Thomas's release, and then

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Speaker 1: after that Henry Clifton filed a complaint in the Court

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Speaker 1: of the Star Chamber. The Court of the Star Chamber

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Speaker 1: convened at Westminster. There are contradictory explanations for where the

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Speaker 1: name came from, but most agreed that the room were

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Speaker 1: it originally heard complaints was decorated with stars in some way,

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Speaker 1: either with the Star Spangled ceiling or with drapes. This

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Speaker 1: court had started out as a function of the Royal

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Speaker 1: Council in the early sixteenth century. The Council would take

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Speaker 1: on legal questions that, for one reason or another, couldn't

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Speaker 1: go through the regular court system. Eventually, this court evolved

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Speaker 1: into its own body. Although it still was made up

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Speaker 1: of Privy Councilors and it operated under the monarch's prerogative,

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Speaker 1: it was outside the bounds of the courts of common law.

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Speaker 1: A lot of the cases that were heard before the

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Speaker 1: Star Chamber had to do with rioting or other disturbances

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Speaker 1: of the peace, as well as defiance against royal proclamations.

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Speaker 1: In this case, Henry Clifton's basic argument was that Giles

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Speaker 1: was abusing a patent that had been granted to him

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Speaker 1: by the Queen, and we're going to get to all

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Speaker 1: the details after we pause for a sponsor break. Henry

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Speaker 1: Clifton's complaint was heard before the Court of the Star

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Speaker 1: Chamber on December fifteenth, sixteen oh one. This complaint outlines

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Speaker 1: his opinion that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth had granted letters

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Speaker 1: patents to Nathaniel Giles, quote for the better furnishing of

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Speaker 1: your Chapel Royal with well singing children, and this granted

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Speaker 1: him to take such children from places like parish churches

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Speaker 1: and chapels. But instead Giles had confederated himself with James Robinson,

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Speaker 1: Henry Evans and others to put these boys into a

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Speaker 1: quote company of leude and dissolute mercenary players. The language

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Speaker 1: used in this complaint is really repetitive, and it's kind

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Speaker 1: of circular, with just inordinately long sentences which I'll tend

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Speaker 1: to say the same thing. Yeah, I usually enjoy reading

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Speaker 1: historical documents like this, but I found this one in

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Speaker 1: particular kind of exhausting. So Tracy bless Her has edited

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Speaker 1: all of that to make it a bit more understandable.

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Speaker 1: And he basically accused them of quote endeavoring, conspiring and

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Speaker 1: complotting how to oppress diverse of your Majesty's humble and

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Speaker 1: faithful subjects, and thereby to make unto themselves an unlawful

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Speaker 1: gain and benefit. They conspired and concluded for their own

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Speaker 1: corrupt gain in lucre to erect, set up, furnish, and

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Speaker 1: maintain a playhouse or place in the Blackfriars within your

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Speaker 1: Majesty's City of London. To better furnish their plays and

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Speaker 1: interludes with children. They and the said Confederates, abusing the

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Speaker 1: authority and trust by your Highness, have most wrongfully, unduly

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Speaker 1: and unjustly taken diverse and several children from diverse and

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Speaker 1: sundry schools of learning and other places, and apprentices to

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Speaker 1: men of trade from their masters. Clifton also spelled out

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Speaker 1: that these children were being taken not for service as

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Speaker 1: part of the choir in the Chapel Royal, as had

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Speaker 1: been intended, but they were being quote employed in acting

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Speaker 1: and furnishing of the said plays and interludes. This was,

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Speaker 1: he said, quote against the wills of the said children,

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Speaker 1: their parents, tutors, masters and governors, and to the no

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Speaker 1: small grief and oppressions of Your Majesty's true and faithful subjects. Importantly,

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Speaker 1: Giles's patent empowered him to impress quote well singing children.

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Speaker 1: But the boys named in the complaint were quote no

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Speaker 1: way able or fit for singing, nor by any the

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Speaker 1: said confederates endeavored to be taught to sing. But by

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Speaker 1: them the said confederates abusively employed, as aforesaid, only in

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Speaker 1: plays and interludes. There's just a whole whole lot of

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Speaker 1: the said and the AfOR said in here more than

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Speaker 1: in the bits that we just read. So instead, Clifton's

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Speaker 1: son had been given lines to learned, and he was

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Speaker 1: threatened with being beaten if he did not learn them.

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Speaker 1: Clifton called this an abuse of Her Majesty's commission. Clifton

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Speaker 1: also described what had happened when he had gone to

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Speaker 1: the theater to get his son back. He had been

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Speaker 1: quote utterly and scornfully refused, and the perpetrators had basically

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Speaker 1: dared him to take them to court. Clinton argued that

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Speaker 1: it was quote not fit that a gentleman of his

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Speaker 1: sort should have his son and heir, and that his

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Speaker 1: only son to be so basely used. So to be clear,

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Speaker 1: Clifton was not arguing that no children should be impressed

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Speaker 1: as performers, but that it was not appropriate for his

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Speaker 1: son due to his station and the fact that these

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Speaker 1: children were being used as actors, not as singers and

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Speaker 1: religious services. It was, in his words, quote, an abuse

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Speaker 1: of the nobility of this your Highness's realm, and an

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Speaker 1: abuse of Your Majesty's said commission. Many of the records

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Speaker 1: relating to the Court of the Star Chamber have not

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Speaker 1: survived until today, so we don't have a lot of

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Speaker 1: detail about the decision. But in short, the court found

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Speaker 1: in Clifton's favor. Evans was censured for quote, taking up

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Speaker 1: of gentlemen's children against their wills and to employ them

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Speaker 1: for players. He had to resign from his work at

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Speaker 1: Blackfriar Theater and leave London, but in a lot of

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Speaker 1: ways this really didn't affect him. He transferred his interest

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Speaker 1: in the company to his son in law, Alexander Hawkins,

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Speaker 1: and Hawkins more or less ran things as Evans's proxy.

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Speaker 1: We know all of this from a letter that was

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Speaker 1: written later on by one of his associates, not from

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Speaker 1: any actual legal records about this arrangement. For Giles, so

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Speaker 1: the biggest consequence was that when he received a new

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Speaker 1: patent in sixteen oh six, it specified this quote. We

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Speaker 1: do straightly charge and command that none of the said

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Speaker 1: choristers or children of the chapel, so to be taken

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Speaker 1: by force of this commission, shall be used or employed

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Speaker 1: as comedians or stage players, or to be exercise or

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Speaker 1: act in any stage plays, interludes, comedies, or tragedies, for

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Speaker 1: that is not fit or decent, that such as should

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Speaker 1: sing the praises of God Almighty should be trained up

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Speaker 1: or employed in such lascivious and profane exercises. There's kind

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00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:47,480
Speaker 1: of a gap though, between when this case was heard

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00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 1: in sixteen oh six, and we don't really know if

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00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:54,639
Speaker 1: he kept impressing children as actors in that window between

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00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:57,159
Speaker 1: when the court case was decided and when he was

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00:24:57,160 --> 00:25:01,560
Speaker 1: issued this new patent. How it's like you can kidnap

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00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:05,840
Speaker 1: them if they're gonna sing for the Queen only religious music,

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00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:08,280
Speaker 1: but they're gonna sing if they're gonna sing church music,

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00:25:08,400 --> 00:25:11,840
Speaker 1: kidnapping them as fine, just cool, cool, cool. And at

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Speaker 1: least two of the boys named in Clifton's complaint wound

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Speaker 1: up staying with the theater, Solomon Pavey and Nathan Field.

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00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 1: Pavey had been apprenticed to Edward Pearce, who was choir

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Speaker 1: master at Saint Paul's. He died at the age of thirteen,

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Speaker 1: but Field continued to act into adulthood, and he died

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Speaker 1: in sixteen twenty. After all this, a lot of theater

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00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:38,440
Speaker 1: companies started, at least nominally apprenticing young boys as actors

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00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:42,680
Speaker 1: rather than pressing them into service. But these apprenticeships were

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00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:46,199
Speaker 1: a lot different from the guild apprenticeships that people might

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00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 1: be more familiar with. A guild apprenticeship was very lengthy

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00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:55,240
Speaker 1: and formalized, and while conditions for apprentices could be very poor,

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00:25:55,720 --> 00:25:58,679
Speaker 1: when the apprenticeship ended, the person was trained in a

401
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:01,480
Speaker 1: craft or a trade, and they had also earned a

402
00:26:01,640 --> 00:26:06,000
Speaker 1: range of rights and privileges as a freedman. The boys

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00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:11,040
Speaker 1: who apprenticed as actors were often younger than typical guild apprentices,

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00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:14,520
Speaker 1: and based on the records that we have, most adult

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00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:18,560
Speaker 1: performers had not apprenticed as actors when they were children,

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00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:22,560
Speaker 1: so it was like if children were being quote apprenticed,

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00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:26,280
Speaker 1: they weren't becoming actors using that training was when they

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00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:28,199
Speaker 1: were adults. It was actually a lot more likely for

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00:26:28,280 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 1: an actor who to have gone through an apprenticeship in

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00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:34,800
Speaker 1: some other trade and then come to acting as an

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00:26:34,840 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 1: adult and then conscripting children for performing as singers continued

412
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:43,479
Speaker 1: for a lot longer. Once there were more permanent public

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00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:48,000
Speaker 1: theaters in England with established companies of adult actors, children's

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00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:53,560
Speaker 1: troops became increasingly controversial among performers and playwrights. There are

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00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 1: written references to them in some of the dramatic work

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Speaker 1: of the day. Shakespeare's Hamlet was written right around the

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00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:02,440
Speaker 1: time that the Boys Companies were revived, and the first

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00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 1: folio version includes a conversation between Hamlet and Rosenkrantz in

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00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:11,159
Speaker 1: which Rosenkrantz describes a theater troupe as quote an area

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00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:14,200
Speaker 1: of children, little iases that cry out on the top

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00:27:14,240 --> 00:27:19,200
Speaker 1: of question and are most tyrannically clapped for it. Hamlet answers, quote,

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Speaker 1: what are they children? Who maintains them? How are they

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00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:25,480
Speaker 1: a scotted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than

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00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:28,439
Speaker 1: they can sing? Will they not say afterwards if they

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00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:31,480
Speaker 1: should grow themselves to common players, as it is most

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00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:34,280
Speaker 1: like if their means are no better? Their writers do

427
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:37,680
Speaker 1: them wrong to make them exclaim against their own succession.

428
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:43,159
Speaker 1: Ben Johnson's satire The Staple of News also includes a

429
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:47,800
Speaker 1: character called Censure, who complains about these troops. Quote, they

430
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 1: make all their scholars playboys. Is not a fine sight

431
00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:55,640
Speaker 1: to see all our children made interluders? Do we pay

432
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:58,840
Speaker 1: money for this? We send them to learn their grammar

433
00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:02,920
Speaker 1: and their terance, and they learned their playbooks. The Staple

434
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:06,159
Speaker 1: of News was first performed in sixteen twenty five, and

435
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 1: at that point boys acting companies had once again faded out.

436
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:13,680
Speaker 1: In England, Queen Elizabeth the First died in sixteen oh three,

437
00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:16,439
Speaker 1: and King James the sixth of Scotland and First of

438
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 1: England succeeded her. His consort and of Denmark issued a

439
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:23,639
Speaker 1: new patent to the Children of the Royal Chapel and

440
00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:27,240
Speaker 1: they became the Children of the Queen's Revels. They were

441
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:31,440
Speaker 1: disbanded about three years later after facing increasing criticism for

442
00:28:31,600 --> 00:28:34,879
Speaker 1: performing a range of material that satirized the government, the

443
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:39,040
Speaker 1: nobility and the monarchs. The Children of Paul's was disbanded

444
00:28:39,040 --> 00:28:41,800
Speaker 1: in sixteen oh seven after the playhouse on the Cathedral

445
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:46,400
Speaker 1: grounds was closed. London's theaters were closed down entirely in

446
00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:50,160
Speaker 1: sixteen oh eight and sixteen oh nine due to plague.

447
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:53,760
Speaker 1: After the plague subsided, Richard Burbage evicted the remnants of

448
00:28:53,760 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 1: the Boy's Company from the Blackfriar Theater and it became

449
00:28:57,040 --> 00:29:00,360
Speaker 1: the winter home of William Shakespeare's company, The King's Men.

450
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 1: The Court of the Star Chamber also faced increasing opposition

451
00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 1: from the courts of common law and from some members

452
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:12,120
Speaker 1: of Parliament. It was abolished by the Long Parliament in

453
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 1: sixteen forty one. We haven't really touched on this, but

454
00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 1: as a final note, there's a lot of literary criticism

455
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 1: and theatrical scholarship that looks at how these companies of

456
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:26,720
Speaker 1: boy performers and the material they performed contributed to the

457
00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 1: development of English language drama. Obviously, there were comedies and

458
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:35,959
Speaker 1: tragedies long before the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but a

459
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:38,800
Speaker 1: lot of what was being written in England and in

460
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:43,960
Speaker 1: English was either religious or didactic in nature. Playwrights writing

461
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 1: for boys companies, which were working outside the bounds of

462
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:51,040
Speaker 1: official patronage and censorship, laid a lot of the foundations

463
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 1: for the English language dramatic tradition. Virtually all of England's

464
00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:59,400
Speaker 1: most prominent play rights during these decades wrote for children,

465
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:02,600
Speaker 1: and I wrote material for children that broke away from

466
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: what was expected in terms of form and content. Yeah,

467
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 1: I read one paper that was sort of like, I'm

468
00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:11,640
Speaker 1: not gonna go so far as to say that without

469
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:15,000
Speaker 1: these boys companies there would be no William Shakespeare, but like,

470
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:18,320
Speaker 1: it really was a lot of playwrights kind of cutting

471
00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:21,479
Speaker 1: their teeth on writing different material that was then going

472
00:30:21,560 --> 00:30:26,440
Speaker 1: to be performed by children. It's a wild thought, it is,

473
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 1: and that also makes like such a hugely complicated moral

474
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:41,360
Speaker 1: and like analytical set of criteria to look at everything

475
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 1: through where it's there. I like this play, but it's

476
00:30:44,840 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 1: grounded and enslavement of children and that's not good and

477
00:30:47,680 --> 00:30:51,360
Speaker 1: I don't know how we reconcile all of this. Yeah,

478
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:56,360
Speaker 1: I of course I think most people who have ever

479
00:30:56,600 --> 00:31:02,840
Speaker 1: studied Shakespeare probably are aware about, you know, women's parts

480
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:06,440
Speaker 1: being played by boys and young men. I was really

481
00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:08,520
Speaker 1: not aware until getting into this that there had been

482
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 1: whole companies of just child actors who are all either

483
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:18,920
Speaker 1: boys in England specifically. I do have some listener mail

484
00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:21,440
Speaker 1: which is about a totally different subject. This is from Jen.

485
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 1: Jen wrote, Hi, Holly and Tracy. I loved the tomatoes

486
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: episode and especially the Friday behind the scenes conversation. I

487
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:30,720
Speaker 1: wanted to write to share my own history with disliking,

488
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:33,960
Speaker 1: slash loving tomatoes. As a kid, I had the same

489
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:38,280
Speaker 1: aversion to chunky tomato textures as Tracy. I enjoyed the flavor,

490
00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 1: love tomato soup, non chunky tomato sauces, and ketchup, yes,

491
00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:46,080
Speaker 1: even the strange, colorful ketchups that Hinz introduced when I

492
00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:51,520
Speaker 1: was thirteen. Holly is making like excited excited gestures about

493
00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:56,520
Speaker 1: the colorful ketchups, but any semblance of actual tomato texture.

494
00:31:56,680 --> 00:31:59,400
Speaker 1: No thanks. My mom would roll her eyes when I

495
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 1: asked her to I mean jarred salsa, only to scrape

496
00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:05,920
Speaker 1: the tomato chunks off my tortilla chip with each dip,

497
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:10,200
Speaker 1: so only a flavorful tomato juice coated it. Meanwhile, my

498
00:32:10,240 --> 00:32:13,160
Speaker 1: paternal grandpa had a garden filled with tomato plants that

499
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:16,560
Speaker 1: he tended with care each summer. Those plants brought him

500
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:20,160
Speaker 1: so much pride and happiness, and each time my parents

501
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:23,120
Speaker 1: and I joined my grandparents for dinner, Grandpa would pick

502
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:25,800
Speaker 1: a few tomatoes and serve them as a side dish,

503
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 1: sliced with a pinch of salt on top. He, grandma,

504
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 1: and my mom would devour them with praise for how

505
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 1: fresh and yummy they were. My dad and I would

506
00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:38,240
Speaker 1: abstain ew tomatoes, and Grandpa would reply, she she don't

507
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 1: know what you're missing. Flash forward to college, with a

508
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 1: buffet style cafeteria in my dorm and a city full

509
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:48,160
Speaker 1: of diverse culinary experiences. By then, my grandpa was sick

510
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 1: and unable to take care of the garden. Still thinking

511
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:53,360
Speaker 1: about what Grandpa said, and in line with Holly getting

512
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:56,480
Speaker 1: swayed by beautiful words about tomatoes, it seemed like I

513
00:32:56,560 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 1: had been missing out on something. I started sneaking lice

514
00:33:00,360 --> 00:33:04,719
Speaker 1: tomatoes into my cafeteria sandwiches and eating entire chipfuls of

515
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:08,360
Speaker 1: salsa without scraping off the tomato pieces. Little by little,

516
00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:11,000
Speaker 1: my taste buds started to accept fresh tomatoes as a

517
00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:14,400
Speaker 1: legitimately delicious food. My big realization of this change was

518
00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:17,440
Speaker 1: a few years later when I attended an EarthFest festival

519
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:21,920
Speaker 1: on the Boston Esplanade and each one of the organic

520
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 1: grocery store tents was handing out fruit and vegetable samples.

521
00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:28,240
Speaker 1: I was offered an entire tomato, and I bit into

522
00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:31,320
Speaker 1: it as if it was an apple, savoring each bite.

523
00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:34,800
Speaker 1: My grandpa passed away soon after I finished college and

524
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:38,000
Speaker 1: didn't get to witness my love of tomatoes. Still, every

525
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:40,240
Speaker 1: time I smell a vine fresh tomato, I think of

526
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:42,520
Speaker 1: him and smile. I now have a garden full of

527
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:45,560
Speaker 1: my favorite cherry tomato plants and a big old tomato

528
00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:48,480
Speaker 1: tattoo on my arm and memory of my grandpa. I've

529
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:52,680
Speaker 1: also attached a photo of my pup I think risa

530
00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:57,200
Speaker 1: is how we say this who also enjoys occasional ripe tomato.

531
00:33:57,360 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 1: Keep up the amazing work. I always look forward to

532
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 1: your episode, especially the food history ones. Take care and

533
00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:05,720
Speaker 1: have a relaxing and lovely summer. Jen, we have a

534
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:12,160
Speaker 1: very cute dog and a great tomato tattoo. Yeah. I

535
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:15,560
Speaker 1: wanted to read this in part because I love this story.

536
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 1: For one thing, it did occur to me after we

537
00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:20,080
Speaker 1: had that hole behind the scenes conversation that one thing

538
00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:23,560
Speaker 1: that I will eat that does include big pieces of

539
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: tomato is crazy salad because the combination of you know,

540
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:36,720
Speaker 1: slices of tomato with the cheese and the olive oil

541
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:39,000
Speaker 1: and the basil and like all that, like that I

542
00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:43,879
Speaker 1: actually find pretty good, but still just plain tomatoes, big

543
00:34:43,960 --> 00:34:46,759
Speaker 1: chunks of them by themselves, not usually my favorite. Last night,

544
00:34:46,880 --> 00:34:52,520
Speaker 1: I had a like, very basic store bought salad as

545
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:54,960
Speaker 1: part of my dinner, and it had like four or

546
00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:58,520
Speaker 1: five little cherry tomatoes in there, and I ate none

547
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 1: of them, row of them. Listen, cherry tomatoes are a

548
00:35:03,200 --> 00:35:06,480
Speaker 1: gamble because sometimes they'll even look great and I don't

549
00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:09,239
Speaker 1: love them to begin with, but like a ripe flavorful

550
00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:10,920
Speaker 1: one can be good. But sometimes they look great and

551
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:15,359
Speaker 1: they just taste like not good. Yeah that dog is Yeah,

552
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:20,200
Speaker 1: weapons a great cube. By the way. Yes, during tomato season,

553
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:24,240
Speaker 1: I will get like an heirloom tomato at the farmer's

554
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:28,719
Speaker 1: market and cheese from the cheese vendor. Like we'll get

555
00:35:28,719 --> 00:35:30,319
Speaker 1: a bunch of farmer's market stuff and make like a

556
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:33,160
Speaker 1: cuprazy salad or something, and that I do really enjoy

557
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 1: and I ate a million of it. When we were

558
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:40,799
Speaker 1: in Italy, like every meal it was or just like

559
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:44,680
Speaker 1: there would be some kind of fresh mozzarella appetizer. There

560
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:46,880
Speaker 1: was a lot of a lot of that. So anyway,

561
00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:51,480
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Jen for this email and these pictures.

562
00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:53,080
Speaker 1: If you would like to write to us about this

563
00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:56,239
Speaker 1: or any other podcasts, we're at History Podcasts that iHeartRadio

564
00:35:56,320 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 1: dot com. We're also all over social media ad Missed

565
00:35:59,560 --> 00:36:01,960
Speaker 1: in History. That's where you'll find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest,

566
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:04,960
Speaker 1: and Instagram. And you can subscribe to our show at

567
00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:07,839
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app or wherever else you'd like to get

568
00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a

569
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:19,960
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the

570
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:23,480
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your

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Speaker 1: favorite shows,