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Rh The year 1572 is marked by two measures of government, each of which had its reaction on the status of players throughout the country. The first entailed some regularization of the position of noblemen's companies. The fifteenth-century struggle between the power of the Crown and that of the great feudal houses had led to enactments forbidding subjects to attach to themselves, by the giving and taking of a livery or badge, retainers who were not in some bona-fide sense their own household servants or officers. The Acts against retainers had been continued up to the reign of Henry VII, who had confirmed them in 1487; and had then, upon the firm establishment of the royal supremacy by the Tudors, largely fallen into desuetude, in spite of a proclamation of 1545, already noticed, which was intended to call renewed attention to them. They were, however, still technically operative, and a proclamation of 3 January 1572 announced an intention to enforce them from the following 20 February. Their relation to the players is shown by the fact that the company which had been performing under the Earl of Leicester's name immediately wrote to their lord, and, while making it clear that they did not expect any wages beyond the livery to which they had been accustomed, begged for a definite appointment as his household servants and for a licence to certify the same as a security against interference under the revived statutes during their annual travels in the provinces. A second proclamation of the same character was issued on 19 April 1583. More important than the proclamation, but probably representing the same policy, was the repeal by Parliament of the Vagabond Act of 1531 and the substitution of a new statute, which came into force upon 24 August. This included in a definition of vagabonds, not only 'juglers, pedlars, tynkers and petye chapmen', but also 'fencers, bearewardes, comon players in enterludes, and minstrels, not belonging to any baron of this realme, or towardes any other honorable personage of greater degree'. Specific power was, however, given for the issue of local travelling licences by mayors and county justices. So far as noblemen's players were concerned, the Act was presumably no more than declaratory of their existing position. But the knight or plain gentleman lost his privilege of protection altogether; and in future, if his servants wished to travel as players, they had to get their licence from the magistrates. As a matter of fact, with the exception of those forming part of the royal household itself, practically all the companies of professional players which appeared in London during Elizabeth's reign were noblemen's servants. A few performances