| Henry Clifton v. Robinson | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Court | Star Chamber |
| Full case name | Henry Clifton vs. The Blackfriars Company (Robinson, Gyles & Evans) |
| Decided | 1601 |
| Case history | |
| Subsequent action(s) | none |
| Keywords | |
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The Clifton Star Chamber Case or Clifton vs. Robinson was a court case of early modern England, in 1601, before the Star Chamber, concerning the abduction of children by choir schools. [1]
In 1601, Henry Clifton, a nobleman from Norfolk, [2] sued the Blackfriars company (headed by Gyles, Robinson, and Evans) for their abduction of his son Thomas, on 13 December 1600. [3] Clifton obtained a warrant from Sir John Fortescue, who granted it using his authority as a member of the Privy Council due to his connections and high social status. [4] [5] [6] The basis for the case was not that Thomas was forcibly impressed into the choir school (which was entirely legal) but that he was made to act in the plays of Children of the Chapel. [7]
In 1606, possibly as a result of this case, the royal patent allowing the Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal to impress children into service was revised to stipulate that choristers who had been forcibly impressed would not be "used or employed as Comedians or Stage players." [8]
The Clifton case is one of the only surviving objection records to the common practice of forcibly impressing boys into (ecclesiastical) choir schools in medieval and early modern England. It is notable that the objection is to the child's involvement in the controversial children's theatre companies of the period. Forcible impressment was royally condoned as seen in letters from Elizabeth I on 15 July 1597 for the Master of the Children of the Chapel. [7] The prevalence is evidenced by documents such as an authorization for the Chapel Royal in 1420 and An Ordinance of the Lordes and Commons Assembled in Parliament, for the Apprehending and Bringing to Condigne Punishment, All Such Lewd Persons as Shall Steale, Sell, Buy, Inveigle, Purloune, Convey, or Receive Any Little Children (9 May 1644). [7] Others such as Salmon Pavey, Avery Trussell, John Chappell, Nathan Field, John Motteram, Philip Pykman, and Thomas Grymes are known such impressees. [7] [9]
William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
English Renaissance theatre, also known as Renaissance English theatre and Elizabethan theatre, refers to the theatre of England between 1558 and 1642.
This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1600.
John Marston was an English playwright, poet and satirist during the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods. His career as a writer lasted only a decade. His work is remembered for its energetic and often obscure style, its contributions to the development of a distinctively Jacobean style in poetry, and its idiosyncratic vocabulary.
The Lord Chamberlain's Men was a company of actors, or a "playing company", for which William Shakespeare wrote during most of his career. Richard Burbage played most of the lead roles, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. Formed at the end of a period of flux in the theatrical world of London, it had become, by 1603, one of the two leading companies of the city and was subsequently patronized by James I.
Blackfriars Theatre was the name given to two separate theatres located in the former Blackfriars Dominican priory in the City of London during the Renaissance. The first theatre began as a venue for the Children of the Chapel Royal, child actors associated with the Queen's chapel choirs, and who from 1576 to 1584 staged plays in the vast hall of the former monastery. The second theatre dates from the purchase of the upper part of the priory and another building by James Burbage in 1596, which included the Parliament Chamber on the upper floor that was converted into the playhouse. The Children of the Chapel played in the theatre beginning in the autumn of 1600 until the King's Men took over in 1608. They successfully used it as their winter playhouse until all the theatres were closed in 1642 when the English Civil War began. In 1666, the entire area was destroyed in the Great Fire of London.
Nathan Field was an English dramatist and actor.
Philip Rosseter was an English composer and musician, as well as a theatrical manager. His family seems to have been from Somerset or Lincolnshire, he may have been employed with the Countess of Sussex by 1596, and he was living in London by 1598. In 1604 Rosseter was appointed a court lutenist for James I of England, a position he held until his death in 1623. Rosseter is best known for A Book of Ayres which was written with Thomas Campion and published in 1601. Some literary critics have held that Campion wrote the poems for Rosseter's songs; however, this seems not to be the case. It is likely that Campion was the author of the book's preface, which criticizes complex counterpoint and "intricate" harmonies that leave the words inaudible. The two men had a close professional and personal relationship; when Campion died in 1620, he had named Rosseter his sole heir.
A boy player was a male child or teenager who performed in Medieval and English Renaissance playing companies. Some boy players worked for adult companies and performed the female roles, since women were not allowed to perform on the English stage during this period. Others worked for children's companies in which all roles, not just the female ones, were played by boys.
The Children of the Chapel are the boys with unbroken voices, choristers, who form part of the Chapel Royal, the body of singers and priests serving the spiritual needs of their sovereign wherever they were called upon to do so. They were overseen by the Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal.
The Children of Paul's was the name of a troupe of boy actors in Elizabethan and Jacobean London. Along with the Children of the Chapel, they were an important component of the companies of boy players that constituted a distinctive feature of English Renaissance theatre.
Cynthia's Revels, or The Fountain of Self-Love is a late Elizabethan stage play, a satire written by Ben Jonson. The play was one element in the Poetomachia or War of the Theatres between Jonson and rival playwrights John Marston and Thomas Dekker.
John Underwood was an early 17th-century actor, a member of the King's Men, the theatrics company of William Shakespeare.
Nathaniel Giles was an English Renaissance organist and composer. He was the organist for Worcester Cathedral and wrote Anglican anthems.
Joan Shakespeare was the sister of William Shakespeare. She is the only member of the family whose known descendants continue down to the present day.
Elizabeth Russell, Lady Russell was an English poet and noblewoman. She was an influential member of Queen Elizabeth I's court and was known in her time for her refined poetry as well as her musical talent. In 1596, she was a vocal opponent of the reconstruction of Blackfriars Theatre in that London district.
Henry Evans was the Welsh scrivener and theatrical producer primarily responsible for organising and co-ordinating the activities of the Children of the Chapel and the Children of Paul's at Blackfriars Theatre for a short period in 1583–84. He later led a consortium of investors who leased the theatre during a much longer second phase, after the property was revived by Richard Burbage and Cuthbert Burbage.
Peter Street was an English carpenter and builder in London in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. He built the Fortune Playhouse, and probably the Globe Theatre, two significant establishments in the history of the stage in London. He had a part in building King James's Banqueting House in Whitehall Palace and he may have been responsible for the settings for the king's royal masques.
Sir William More, of Loseley, Surrey, was the son of Sir Christopher More. The great house at Loseley Park was built for him, which is still the residence of the More Molyneux family. Of Protestant sympathies, as Sheriff and Vice-Admiral of Surrey he was actively involved in local administration of the county of Surrey and in the enforcement of the Elizabethan religious settlement, and was a member of every Parliament during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. He was the owner of property in the Blackfriars in which the first and second Blackfriars theatres were erected. He has been described as "the perfect Elizabethan country gentleman" on account of his impeccable character and his assiduity and efficiency of service.
The Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal was the choirmaster of the Chapel Royal of England. They were responsible for the musical direction of the choir, which consisted of the Gentlemen of the Chapel and Children of the Chapel. In some periods regarded as the most prestigious choral directorship in the country, the holder was given power to take boys into service from the leading cathedral choirs.