Page:The Elizabethan stage (Volume 2).pdf/83

 Chapter assigned a chantry to the teacher of the choristers for an increase of his maintenance. On 5 November 1570, Farrant was reappointed a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, but evidently did not resign his Mastership. On 11 February 1567 he began a series of plays with the 'Children of Windsor' at Court, which was continued at Shrovetide 1568, on 22 February and 27 December 1569, at Shrovetide 1571, on 1 January 1572, when he gave Ajax and Ulysses, on 1 January 1573, on 6 January 1574, when he gave ''Quintus Fabius, on 6 January 1575, when he gave King Xerxes'', and on 27 December 1575. With the winter of 1576-7 the entries of his name in the accounts of the Treasurer take a new form; he is no longer 'M^r of the children of the Chappell at Wyndsore' but 'M^r of the children of the Chappell'. The Revels Accounts for the same season record that on 6 January 1577 Mutius Scaevola was played at Court by 'the Children of Windsore and the Chappell', and it is a fair inference that Farrant, in addition to exercising his own office, was now also acting as deputy to William Hunnis, the Master by patent of the Children of the Chapel Royal, and had made up a combined company from both choirs for the Christmas delectation of the Queen. This interpretation of the facts was confirmed when Professor Feuillerat was able to show from the Loseley archives that in 1576 Farrant had taken a lease of rooms in the Blackfriars from Sir William More and had converted them into the first Blackfriars theatre. Whether boys from Windsor continued to take a share in the performances by the Chapel during 1577-8, 1578-9, and 1579-80, for all of which Farrant was payee, we do not know; there is no further mention of them as actors in the Court accounts, although they accompanied the singing men from Windsor to Reading during the progress of 1576. Farrant died on 30 November 1580, leaving a widow Anne, who in 1582 obtained the reversion of a small lease from the Crown, and was involved in controversies with Sir William More over the Blackfriars tenement at least up to 1587. He had acquired some reputation as a musician, and amongst his surviving compositions are a few which may have been intended for use in plays. Farrant was succeeded at Windsor*