Cathedral
Children, and were acted by them at Court, and in their little theatre
"behind the Convocation House."

Unfortunately under Lyly's leadership the Boys became involved in the
bitter Martin Marprelate controversy, for which they were suppressed
near the end of 1590. The printer of Lyly's _Endimion_, in 1591, says
to the reader: "Since the plays in Paul's were dissolved, there are
certain comedies come to my hands by chance, which were presented
before Her Majesty at several times by the Children of Paul's."

Exactly how long the Children were restrained it is hard to determine.
In 1596 Thomas Nash, in _Have With You to Saffron Walden_, expressed
a desire to see "the plays at Paul's up again." Mr. Wallace thinks
they may have been allowed "up again" in 1598;[171] Fleay, in 1599 or
1600;[172] the evidence, however, points, I think, to the spring or
early summer of 1600. The Children began, naturally, with old plays,
"musty fopperies of antiquity"; the first, or one of the first, new
plays they presented was Marston's _Jack Drum's Entertainment_, the
date of which can be determined within narrow limits. References to
Kempe's Morris, which was danced in February, 1600, as being still a
common topic of conversation, and the entry of the play in the
Stationers' Registers on September 8, 1600, point to the spring or
early summer of 1600 as the date of composition. This makes very
significant the following passage in the play referring to the Paul's
Boys as just beginning to act again after their long inhibition:

_Sir Ed._ I saw the Children of Paul's last night,
And troth they pleas'd me pretty, pretty well.
The Apes in time will do it handsomely.

_Plan._ S'faith, I like the audience that frequenteth there
With much applause. A man shall not be choak't
With the stench of garlic, nor be pasted
To the barmy jacket of a beer-brewer.

_Bra. Ju._ 'Tis a good, gentle audience; and I hope the Boys
Will come one day into the Court of Requests.

[Footnote 171: _The Children of the Chapel_, p. 153.]

[Footnote 172: _A Chronicle History of the London Stage_, p. 152.]

Shortly after this the Boys were indeed called "into the Court of
Requests," for on New Year's Day, 1601, they were summoned to present
a play before Her Majesty.

Their master now was Edward Pierce, who had succeeded Thomas Gyles. In
1605 the experienced Edward Kirkham, driven from the management of the
Bla