I hope to provide a sidelight on the commercial sector of theatre in the 1530s and 1540s by fitting together glimpses of the recorded activity of one man, or perhaps, since he is usually referred to without a Christian name, a firm: Felsted of London. Two of these sightings have been individually written about before at some length, but I think this is the first time that anyone has drawn them all together. As happens with these things, once I had become alerted to him, I noticed his name in a couple of other contexts by sheer serendipity, after which I actively looked for him elsewhere, and was rewarded with a couple more mentions. Perhaps now I have drawn attention to him other scholars may find him lurking in their work and the picture can be rounded out even further.
His recorded appearances span eighteen years. To go through them chronologically:
After this he disappears: or he may, as I said, be lurking in someone else’s work.
We may have an earlier sighting: in 1521 (the Mayor again being a Draper), a ‘Thomas ffelsted’ was hired for 8d to play ‘with a ij handyd staf bothe nyghtes’ at the Midsummer Watch.6 If he was born around 1500, this might be a staff-twirling incarnation at around the age of twenty, while his costumier and production activities came later at the less agile though more substantial age of the early forties to mid-fifties. Or this may have been our Felsted’s father, or an uncle, or a cousin, or even an older brother.
So, who was Felsted of London, and what did he do? I propose to go through each of these glimpses of him in rather more detail, and try to gauge something of the range of activities a theatrical supplier could undertake in the first half of the sixteenth century.
First for his costume-hiring business. On 3 October 1538 John Husee writes to Lady Lisle:
accordyng vnto your Ladyshippys wryting I wylbe in hand with f[e]lstede silcke dyer for the players garmenntys / and also to procure to gett some good mater for theym. But this nyw ecclesiastycall maters wylbe herde to com by.7
Two days later he reports:
I haue byn with ffelsstede. and gevin him ernest for a sywt of players garmentys / which he wyle kype for you / and an entrelywde which is callyd Rex Diabole / Sparke knoweth the mater / I woll do my best to gett some of this nyw skryptur maters / but they be very Deere they askythe aboue xx sh f[o]r an Entrelywde.8
Though Felsted is described both here and in (3) as a silk dyer, it is already clear that his activities cover a much wider range than the mere dyeing and supplying of material. In the Drapers’ accounts for the 1541 Midsummer Show, he is paid:
for the makyng of ij gownes ij capes iij cappes a payre of sleves & for j yard canvas to lyne iij cappes vs9
and possibly also for the next item:
for makyng a payr of playted sleves & vpper bodyeng a gown for mary xiiij d
which suggests that he was a designer and dressmaker as well as a dyer and stockist of silks and satins: the 5s and the 14d do not include the cost of any material except the yard of canvas. The cost of material appears immediately previously in the accounts: it comprises ‘blew, violet’, and ‘red satten brudgs’ (of Bruges) at 20d a yard, ‘white satten brudgs’ at 24d a yard, and ‘rysell worsted’ at 16d a yard. Presumably this was also bought from Felsted; at least, it is not attributed to anyone else.
Moreover, Husee is not buying the made-up ‘sywt’ (matching set) of players’ garments from him, but hiring it. It would appear that as a hire firm Felsted stocked the full range of theatrical costumery: in the 1541 Drapers’ Accounts, he hires out wigs and beards as well as garments:
iiij ealow heres for thangells, a black here for crist, iiij heres & iiij byerds for the doctors & Joseph & ij capes of white fur powdert
all for 3s 4d: apparently a reduction for quantity, since the hiring of a single ‘here’ (longer? newer?) for Mary from another dealer, Mistress Shakerley, cost 12d. Perhaps Husee’s sywt also included wigs and beards.
Husee does not mention the agreed hire fee for the set of costumes, or even say how much he put down in ‘ernest’, as a deposit to book them over what was presumably the busy time of Christmas. Interestingly, whatever sum he did agree and pay also included the booking of the script of an interlude, which clearly shows that, like John Rastell,10 Felsted combined the costume-hiring business with the provision of up-to-date play-texts, though presumably unlike Rastell he did not print them himself. He thus offered what one might call a total package. Whether the costumes were directly related to the play, or whether a standard set was deemed to cover all requirements for the stock characters of an interlude, we cannot tell. Rastell’s stage wardrobe seems to have been considered suitable irrespective of the type of play.11 Since Husee talks about paying over 20s for an interlude based on ‘these new Scripture matters’ – possibly a John Bale? – it sounds as if he was looking to buy the scripts, rather than hire them. In any case, he was willing to shop around for something nearer to Lady Lisle’s requirements than the play Felsted offered him, which was called Rex Diabole – a dog-Latin title which suggests either a morality or a romance subject.12
It is impossible to tell, as Paula Neuss points out, whether Felsted had this particular set of costumes already in stock, or whether he was proposing to run up a special order for Lady Lisle to collect in time for Christmas. She came over to England in November and went back to Calais on 14 December, where the Christmas entertainments presumably included either Rex Diabole or some other ‘matter’.
By April the costumes were on their way back to London. Unfortunately, however, the ship in which they were travelling was wrecked on Margate Sands. On 7 April 1539 Husee wrote to Lady Lisle telling her of the wreck, and what he had learned of the salvage, but:
I can not tell in what casse I shall stonde in for the pleyerys garmenttys / for by your Ladyshippys commandement I am bownde in x li for it and it is not to be dowtyd but seing the garmenntys ar wett I shall haue somwhat ado i[n] it / and peradventur I shall be compellyd to pay ffor all / if y can fynde some measnes to take an honest ende with him it shall be best.13
Presumably the £10 to which Husee was ‘bownde’ was the total assessed value of the set of costumes. Husee knows that they are wet and that he will have to pay something towards repairs and replacement (‘I shall haue somwhat ado in it’): moreover, if they are totally ruined ‘I shall be compellyd to pay ffor all’.
As it happened, the damage was not as extensive as he had feared:
Sparcke is come and hathe broughte the playeng garmentys / which with muche ado ar resseyued and I haue payde the mony as well for the cariage and tryminng of them as to the skynner and others / as f[o]r the hire / who had ovir and besidys his dywty xl d for amendys / I intende to deal nomore with suche merchandys.14
One recognises the heartfelt ‘Never again!’, but I suspect that ‘merchandys’ is, as Paula Neuss suggests, ‘merchandise’ rather than Byrne’s ‘merchants’. However, Felsted is hardly the ‘villain’ of the scenario, as she casts him. I know precisely what I felt when a set of costumes I had hired out came back with all the woollens put through the launderette and reduced to playing garments for six-year-olds. A close encounter with the English Channel is not likely to have done very much good either to fur, or to gold kid, which was often used to ‘guard’ theatrical costumes,15 and which might, rather than furs, be why the garments were sent to the skinner. Husee seems to me to get away quite lightly with paying for transport (‘cariage’) to the skinner ‘and others’, for repairs and refurbishment (‘the tryminng’), and an extra 40d (not 60d) to Felsted for his trouble (‘for amendys’) on top of the agreed hire charge (‘his dywty’). We still do not know how much precisely this latter was, but we can compare with the going rate of other hire charges of the same period, most notably those cited in the famous lawsuit (c. 1530) of Rastell and Walton.
There, it will be remembered, the goods at issue were eleven player’s garments, two caps, two curtains, and several loose pieces of material which had comprised the stage wardrobe of John Rastell, printer, would-be merchant-adventurer and theatrical entrepreneur, which he had left in the charge of Henry Walton for safekeeping while he, Rastell, was ‘in the parts beyond the sea, in France’. On his return, Rastell asked Walton for the costumes back: Walton prevaricated, and kept him waiting for two or three weeks, at the end of which Rastell found himself the defendant in an action for a debt of 40s. He was told that Walton was holding the costumes against this debt, and that they had, to Rastell’s great indignation, been priced only ‘at 35s. 6d, which were worth at that time 20 marks [£13 6s 8d] and above … for the great part of the said goods were garments of silk and other stuff, fresh and newly made, with much workmanship done upon them, to the great cost and charge of your said orator (Rastell)’.16 Here we get the usual insurance dilemma: Rastell priced the garments as new, at replacement value, whereas Walton’s assessors had taken depreciation in to account, and considered that ‘the said goods were of no more value than they were priced at, for they were rotten and torn players garments’. To which Rastell said that one of the reasons why they were in this state was because ‘the said Walton hath letten them out to hire to divers stage plays and interludes, and hath received and had for the hire of them since the said praisement of them the sum of 20 nobles [£10 or £6 13s 4d]17 and above’. There follows a complete inventory, with what looks like Rastell’s own valuation alongside each garment (which adds up to £9.16s, with one garment missing). This comes interestingly near to the liability of £10 for which Husee had bound himself to Felsted.
It is difficult to compare prices without a much more detailed survey. Both materials and ‘workmanship’ would have to be taken into account. Rastell’s costumes were largely made of silk, in the form of sarcenet (a fine light silk), and ‘satin of Bruges’, but out of used material, ‘And if they had been bought of new stuff it would have cost much more money’, according to the tailor who helped to make them.18 He priced them at ‘better than 20s’ each. In the 1541 Drapers’ accounts, a gown for Christ supplied by Felsted took six and a half yards of Bruges satin and cost 10s 10d,19 only half of what Rastell was claiming for his costumes, but that does not allow for the price of ‘workmanship’. Here the costs could vary widely: compare the garment of Rastell’s which was said to be ‘worth a noble [10s? 6s. 8d?] in the making’20 with the 14d for the pleated / plaited sleeves and upper bodice of the Mary dress made by Felsted in 1541.
As for hire charges, again, there are too many variables to use the Rastell-Walton case as a completely reliable yardstick against which to measure Felsted’s prices. Presumably if a set of costumes were hired for four months or more, as Lady Lisle’s were, the hire costs would have been considerably greater than for a short-term hire. One of the actors who had worn Rastell’s costumes said that Walton ‘lent them out about 20 times to stage plays in the summer and interludes in the winter’ (an interesting distinction) ‘and used to take at a stage play for them and others, sometimes 40d, sometimes 2s, as they could agree, and at an interlude 8d. for every time’. Another witness agreed and added that ‘the common custom is for an interlude 8d. for the garments, and at a stage play as the parties can agree’.21
The germane time of Walton’s hirings was said to be three or four years after the King’s great banquet at Greenwich (for which Rastell had supplied much of the set). This was in 1527, so these are early 1530s prices, as opposed to the late 1530s prices of Felsted. Rastell’s claim that Walton had hired them out ‘continually this 4 year … above 3 or 4 score times’, if true, would mean that Walton had made a total of between £2.13s.4d and £13.6s.8d, which fits in with his claim that Walton had made ‘20 nobles and above’ (£10 or £6.12s). The hire fee negotiated with Lady Lisle must have been ‘as the parties can agree’.22
So – and much more briefly – on to Felsted’s activities at Maldon the following year, 1540.23 He was paid £6 8s. 9½d ‘for servynge the play that yere kepte on Relyke Sonday [the third Sunday after Midsummer Day: 11th July] and for other expencs and chargs in and abowte the same playe as yt appereth pertycularly in a boke therof made and to this acownte annexede’.24 This subsidiary account book survives, and contains the full break down of expenses.25 The sum of all recorded expenses in the book, £6.8s.9½d, is the same as the sum paid by the Chamberlains to Felsted, which suggests that he was ultimately responsible for actually handling the budget. Production costs accounted for include wood ‘for the skaffoldis’, other timber, work on the playing area, the materials and making of some costumes, mostly ‘cotes’ of leather (apparently bodystockings for Christ and John the Baptist), pots and vessels of various kinds, a large quantity of paper (perhaps for writing out parts, but it was also used in the Revels for props and scenery), ironmongery, gunpowder, labour of various kinds, and refreshments: also fees for minstrels and morris dancers and ‘for the wast of the dawnswers bellis’ (but no actors’ fees), and board and lodging for seven days for Felsted, his man, and their two horses. The impression is that Felsted was in charge of setting up the acting (and spectator?) area, building the set, but not this time providing costumes, which were from the town’s own wardrobe. The speciality costumes were probably made on site. Most of the easily obtainable materials were brought by local contractors, who also provided labour. Felsted is paid ‘for serteyne pots and for colowris’ which he may have brought with him from London, but others were supplied locally. (These may have been paints or dyes.)26 As John Coldewey shows, the overall sense is that he is hired as a sort of executive consultant: he provides his expertise and organising ability and possibly specialist materials which could only be got in London, the local contractors provide the labour. His fee, besides board and lodging, seems to have been 25s 4d, though this may of course have included further expenses and goods.
As ‘property player’ Felsted aligns himself with those other professionals from the big city of whom Coldewey treats in his article. They include the ‘Mr. Gibson’ who between 1526 and 1533 assisted the Kentish towns of Lydd and New Romney with their plays, and was probably, as W.R. Streitberger says, Richard Gibson of the Revels Office (died 1534).27 Gibson was reimbursed largely in kind, including half a porpoise (1531/2) which cost the town of Lydd 11s ½d overall (including 5s carriage), and given board and horsefodder when he came in person. The Lydd and New Romney accounts show that a considerable amount of prior consultation went on: various people are paid expenses for going up to London ‘to speke with master Gybson of our playe’ (Lydd 1526/7). Lydd took him the script of their St. George play (1530/1, 1531/2); New Romney sent him a ‘byll of our arrayment for the play’ (1525/6), which suggests that he was acting as general production consultant.28
One might expect officials of the Revels Office to be called on in a consultancy role: they also hired out costumes.29 What is interesting is the way in which the Home Counties even at this early stage look to the City of London as the source of specialist theatrical supplies and expertise. Theatrically minded amateurs all over the area must have had a network of names and addresses. John Husee talks about his colleague in the Lisle household, Spark, as if he were more familiar with this kind of thing: ‘at Sparckys comyng I will tacke his cownsell for he is better acquayntyd with suche maters then I am’.30
The next summer (1541) ‘felsted silk dyer’ is on home ground, as one of the suppliers to the City of London Midsummer Watch. I have looked at this already in comparison with the Lisle hiring. He and ‘a taylour at blanck chapel-ton’ are the only costumiers actually mentioned. It shows that even though he did not hire costumes to Maldon, that side of his business was still active.
His next appearance is nothing to do with the stage. On 4 May 1546, John Hilly, master of the King’s pinnace called the Sacre, in the Marshalsea for spoil (pillage, unlawful distraint) of certain pieces of ‘russell worstedde’ was released upon sureties, viz. Thomas Felsted and John Singleton of London, whose recognisances are given.31 The fact that cloth was involved suggests that this is our Felsted, or perhaps one of our Felsteds. According to Sayle, there were two Felsteds, Humfrey and Thomas: their relationship to each other is not stated.32 London testamentary records show a Humfrey Felsted involved in the administration of a will in 1563, and another Humfrey (perhaps the same man?) dying in 1591.33 If these two Felsteds were related, the chronology suggests father and son or uncle and nephew, or even grandfather and grandson/great-uncle and great-nephew, and the younger one possibly rather too young to be involved in the 1530s and 1540s activities. Whether they formed a theatrical dynasty, or whether father/uncle’s interests were treated with suspicion by the younger generation, we do not know.
At Christmas 1548/9, ‘ffelsteade’, Christian-nameless as ever, made ‘ix globes with all thinges necessarie ffor theyr makyng at xvjd the pece’ for the Court Revels, for which he was paid 12s.34 What they were for is not revealed. They were painted by Waplett the painter at 10d the piece, and they seem to have been props for a masque of friars, ?pilgrims, and hermits, probably attached to the latter, of which there were nine.
Felsted’s last recorded appearance shows a rather different branch of activity from the hiring of costumes. In October 1556 he was asked to provide a foist (a small-scale barge) with ordnance and shot for the Lord Mayor’s water-pageant to Westminster.35 The foist was a traditional part of the water procession: at Anne Boleyn’s coronation (1533), Mayor Stephen Peacock and his Haberdashers’ Company was asked to provide ‘a barge for the Batchelers with a wafter [a sort of police launch] and a foyst garnished with banners and streamers likewyse as they vse to doe when the Mayor is presented at Westminster on the morowe after Symon and Jude’.36 Machyn regularly refers in his Diary to ‘a goodly fuyst trymmed with banars and guns’ (1553); ‘a goodly foist mad with stremars’ (1561).37 According to Fairholt, a foist had ten pairs of oars, and masts for the banners: it had a master and gunner ‘and squibbs sufficient for the tyme, with all things well paynted, and trymmed acordyngly, with twenty pavases [shields]’ and two half-barrels of gun powder on board (1566).38 The foist seems to have been the focus of a dramatic firework display. At Anne Boleyn’s coronation the ‘Foyst or Wafter’ was ‘full of ordinaunce, in whiche Foyst was a great Dragon continually mouyng, & castyng wyldfyer, and round about the sayd Foyst stode terrible monsters and wylde men castyng fyer, and makyng hideous noyses. Next after the Foyst a good distaunce came the Maiors barge’ (another foist held a pageant of a mount with a falcon environed with white roses and red).39 It would appear that Felsted’s theatrical skills included pyrotechnics: in Maldon, the entry ‘to Felstede of Londone xxvs iiiid’ is followed immediately by ‘for gonepowder iis vid’, and a little further down the accounts, ‘for vii dayes bordynge of Felsted and his mane iiiis iiiid’ and ‘for grasse for his iio horses by all the same tyme iiiid’ is followed immmediately by ‘for a pound and a half of gonepowder ixd’.40 Felsted and gunpowder seem to go together.
I have not been able to find any more about Thomas Felsted as a private individual through any of the usual channels. He should be a member of the Dyers’ Company, which included ‘Every person occupying ye Arte of Dyinge of any manner of clothe, woollen or lynnen, olde or newe, silke or fustyan, lether, woole, hatts, felts or cappes, or any other thing dyed or colored.’41 The extant Dyers’ records, however, only go back to 1632. The family may originally have come from Essex: the village of Felsted lies halfway between Great Dunmow and Braintree, nine miles almost due north of Chelmsford, and of course, only about fourteen miles as the crow flies from Maldon. Perhaps Felsted was recommended to the Maldon church wardens by a distant relative. But the family seems to have been in London by the end of the fifteenth century: there was a William Felsted in the parish of All Hallows Barking by the Tower in 1490.42 Humfrey Felsted appears twice in wills, one of them (1591) his own. He might even be two people, perhaps father and son. John Felsted, son of the later Humfrey, died in the parish of All Hallows the Less in 1600. He, like our Felsted, was a silk-dyer.43 The Dyers Company Hall was erected in Thames Street, in the parish of All Hallows the Less.44 Perhaps he was a grandson or a greatgrandson of our theatrical Felsted.
We will probably never know what made our Felsted diversify from a respectable life as a silk-dyer to this more rackety existence. One can see why, dealing in the kind of material favoured for stage costumes, he might be well situated for such a move. Maybe, having been introduced to the stage by the Guild activities, he realised there was money in it. Since he was a dyer, rather than a draper pure and simple, he must have had an eye for colours and expertise in chemicals. Maybe, however, he always had been hooked, from the days of staff-twirling. It takes a particular kind of enthusiasm to move from rock alum to sulphur and saltpetre
1 Ian Lancashire, Dramatic Texts and Records of Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 1028; Paula Neuss, ‘The Dyer’s Hand in Rex Diabole Theatre Notebook, 38 (1984), 61–5. We were all saddened by Paula Neuss’ premature death last year. The fact that I disagree with some of her conclusions in this article does not detract from my respect for her many achievements in the field of medieval theatre.
2 A.H. Johnson, The History of the Worshipful Company of the Drapers of London 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914), II, 274–8 (at p. 275). These accounts are summarised in Jean Robertson and D.J. Gordon, ‘A Calendar of Dramatic Records in the Books of the Livery Companies of London, 1485–1640’, Malone Society Collections, III (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954), pp. 32–5.
3 Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, ed. by J.S. Brewer, J. Gairdner, and R.H. Brodie, 21 vols (1862–1918), XXI, i (38 Henry VIII), no 738, p. 369.
4 Albert Feuillerat, Documents relating to the Revels at Court in the time of King Edward VI and Queen Mary (Louvain: Uystpruyst, 1914), p. 43: 3 Edward VI.
5 R.T.D. Sayle, Lord Mayor’s Pageants of the Merchant Taylors’ Company in the 15th, 16th and 17th Centuries (London: private, 1931), p. 23; see also pp. 27, 29. Summarised in Robertson and Gordon, ‘Calendar’, p. 40.
6 Robertson and Gordon, ‘Calendar’, p. 8.
7 My quotations are taken from Paula Neuss, ‘The Dyer’s Hand’: she gives references both to Public Record Office papers and to the modern-spelling edition of The Lisle Letters, ed. by Muriel St. Clare Byrne, 6 vols (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981). This quotation is to be found in PRO, SP 3 XII no 3; Byrne, Lisle Letters, V, p. 237 [1241]; Neuss, p. 61.
8 PRO, SP 3:7; Lisle Letters, V, p. 238 [1242]; Neuss, p. 62.
9 Johnson, Drapers, p. 275. All quotations are from this page.
10 For Rastell’s theatrical activities, see Three Rastell Plays, ed. by Richard Axton, Tudor Interludes (Cambridge: Brewer; Totowa: Rowman & Littlefield, 1979), Introduction, especially pp. 4–10.
11 See ‘Pleadings in a Theatrical Lawsuit: Rastell vs. Walton’ in Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, ed. by Edward Arber (London: Constable, 1903), pp. 307–21. Walton hired them out to ‘stage plays’ and ‘interludes’, apparently as a package, as the rates cited are ‘for the garments’ (p. 317) or ‘them’.
12 As Paula Neuss points out implicitly (p. 64), this is not grammatical Latin for ‘Devil King’, which would be Rex Diabolus, as it is in the Digby Mary Magdalen (The Digby Plays, ed. by Donald C. Baker, John L. Murphy, and Louis B. Hall Jr., EETS, 283 (1982), lines 560, 722, etc.). On the other hand, we do not have the title page, only Husee’s version of it. Diabole could well be his blend of diabolus and diable. ‘King [by permission of the] Devil’ is too ingenious. In the titles she cites (King Darius, King Johan, Rex Vivus, Dux Moraud) the second word is a name or nickname. Perhaps it was a dramatised version of the story of Robert the Devil (Robert le Diable), father of William the Conqueror, who was, according to legend, begotten by the agency of the devil after his mother and father had been long childless (an Anna and Joachim tale in reverse), and who led a career of unbridled savagery until his mother awakened his remorse. He was sent to a holy hermit in Rome, who set him the penance ‘ye must counterfayte and playe the fole / and ye may ete no mete but that ye can take it frome the dogges whan men gyue them ought / also ye must kepe you doumbe without speche and lye amonge dogges’. He becomes the Emperor’s fool, and after several incognito feats of bravery against attacking Saracens, is released from his penance and married to the Emperor’s daughter, who has also been dumb until miraculously given speech to reveal his prowess. Thenceforward he is known as ‘the servant of God’. Wynkyn de Worde printed a prose version of the story (the lyfe of the moast myscheuoust Robert the deuyll whiche was afterwarde called the seruaunt of God, ?1510: quotation here is from sig. ciijv–ciiijr). The Middle English romance of Sir Gowther is a version of the story. There was also a fourteenth-century French dramatised Miracle de Nostre Dame on the subject: Miracle de Nostre Dame de Robert le Dyable, filz du duc de Normandie (printed Rouen: Edouard Frere, 1836), and there were many other versions of the story in other European languages. It occurs to me that the ‘fool’ episode is very like that in Robert of Sicily. A Ludus de Kyng Robert of Cesill was played at Lincoln in 1452/3 (Stanley J. Kahrl, ‘Records of Plays and Players in Lincolnshire 1300–1585’, Malone Society Collections, VII (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974 for 1969), p. 31), and The play of Robert of Cicell was played at the High Cross in Chester in 1529 (REED: Chester, ed. by Lawrence M. Clopper (Toronto; Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1979), pp. 26, 484). Even if the homonymous heroes have not been confused, their stories belong to a strain of romance plays which have not survived in England (except in the parcel from Dux Moraud), though they have in the Netherlands and France. On the other hand, it might well be an allegorical play, though the idea that it was a Faustus-like plot is pure conjecture.
13 PRO, SP 3:XI no 57 (fol 74); Lisle Letters, V, p. 428; Neuss, p. 63.
14 PRO, SP 3:XI no 59 (fol 76); Lisle Letters, V. p. 437; Neuss, p. 64.
15 See ‘Rastell vs. Walton’, p. 312 (IV); p. 317 (IX).
16 ‘Rastell vs. Walton’, p. 311.
17 The exact price depends on whether Rastell is talking of the new Henry, royal, or rose noble valued at 10s, or the older noble valued at 6s.8d.
18 ‘Rastell vs. Walton’, p. 315.
19 Johnson, Drapers, p. 275.
20 ‘Rastell vs. Walton’, p.315
21 ‘Rastell vs. Walton’, pp. 316, 317.
22 It seems highly unlikely, therefore, that ‘the total cost of hiring Felsted’s costumes for three or four months was fifteen pounds’ or that he made ‘£15 10s clear profit’ (Neuss, p. 64). She mistakes the £10 for the outstanding hire charge instead of the value of the costumes.
23 W.A. Mepham, ‘Medieval Drama at Maldon in the 16th Century’, Essex Review, 55 (1946) 169–75, and 56 (1947), 34–41.
24 Essex Record Office, D/B 3/3/235, quoted Mepham, 55 (1946), 170 and 56 (1947), 37.
25 Essex Record Office, D/B 3/3/236, transcribed Mepham, 56 (1947), 37–40.
26 Mepham, 56: Thomas Wedd, who makes ‘xv hundred lyveries’. Mepham (55, p. 173) suggests that these are ‘badges or ribbons’ (?or rosettes) in the town col-ours. In that case, colowris may mean ‘dyes’: in the accounts immediately after the lyveries he is paid ‘for clothe’ and ‘for coloure’ (56, p. 39).
27 W.R. Streitberger, ‘The Development of Henry VIII’s Revels Establishment’, METh, 7:2 (1985), note 50. For Gibson in general, see this article (pp. 83–100).
28 For the Lydd and New Romney accounts, see ‘Records of Plays and Players in Kent 1450–1642’, ed. by Giles E. Dawson, Malone Society Collections, VII (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965). For the porpoise and other rewards, and visits to Mr. Gibson, see p. 199; for New Romney, see p. 132.
29 See e.g. Robertson and Gordon, p. 25 (1535); Feuillerat, Edward and Mary, pp. 249–52: 1546/7 (City of London), 1554 (Lord Lumley), 1555 (Venetian Ambassador), undated (New College, Oxford), 1558 (Nonesuch), 1547 (Lord Protector Somerset).
30 PRO SP 3:XI, no 57 (fol 74); Lisle Letters, V, p. 428; Neuss, p. 63.
31 See note 3.
32 See note 5.
33 A Humfrey Felsted appears in testamentary records of the mid-sixteenth century. He is granted administration of the Will of Robert Whittal (parish of All Hallows the Less) in 1563 (Index to the Testamentary Records in the Archdeaconry Court of London Volume 1: (1363)–1649, ed. by Marc Fitch, The Index Library, 89 (British Record Society, 1979) p. 408), and the Will of a Humfrey Felsted of the parish of St. Peter Paul’s Wharf was proved in 1591 (Index to Testamentary Records in the Commissary Court of London 3: 1571–1625, ed. by Marc Fitch, The Index Library, 100 (British Record Society, 1985), p. 145. His wife was called Anne, and he was father of John (see note 42). Perhaps, given the dates, he was son or even grandson of Thomas. His profession is not stated in the Index.
34 Feuillerat, Edward and Mary, p. 43.
35 Sayle (see note 5), p. 23; see also pp. 27, 28. Summarised in Robertson and Gordon, p. 40.
36 Edward Hall, Chronicle (New York: AMS Press, 1965; facsimile of 1807 edition), p. 798.
37 Henry Machyn, The Diary of Henry Machyn, ed. by J.G. Nichols, Camden Society, 42 (1848), pp. 47, 271: quoted Robert Withington, English Pageantry: An Historical Outline, 2 vols (New York: Arno Press, 1980; reprint of 1926 Harvard University Press edition, reprinted Benjamin Blom, 1963), II, p. 13 (1553); p. 19 (1561).
38 F.W. Fairholt, Lord Mayor’s Pageants (London: Percy Society, 1843), p. 17. See also quotation from William Smyth on pp. 20–21.
39 Hall, p. 799.
40 Mepham, 56 (1947), p. 39.
41 Edward C. Robins, ‘Some Account of the History and Antiquities of The Worshipful Company of Dyers, London’, London and Middlesex Archaeological Society Transactions, 5 (1881), pp. 441–76: see p. 450. The Ordinances quoted here go back only to 20 Elizabeth.
42 Index to Testamentary Records in the Commissary Court of London 2: 1489–1570, ed. by Marc Fitch, The Index Library, 86 (British Record Society, 1973), p. 94. There was a Luke Felsted, brewer, in the parish of St. Sepulchre in 1397 (Commissary Court 1: 1374–1458, ed. by Fitch, The Index Library, 82 (British Record Society, 1969)), but this is too distant to connect with any certainty.
43 Archdeaconry Court of London, Volume 1 (see note 31), p. 131. His widow was Anne. In Commissary Court, 3 (see note 31), he and his mother Anne are however said to be dead by 1598. Son of Humfrey and Anne (see note 31), and married to Anne, he left two daughters, Anne and Mary.
44 Robins, ‘Dyers’, p. 462. It was destroyed in the Great Fire of London. See John Stow, A Survey of London, ed. by Charles Lethbridge Kingsford, 2nd edn, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), I, p. 237.