, p.
127.]

Clifton at once appealed to his friend, Sir John Fortescue, a member
of the Privy Council, at whose order young Thomas was released and
sent back to his studies. Apparently this ended the episode. But
Clifton, nourishing his animosity, began to investigate the management
of Blackfriars, and to collect evidence of similar abuses of the
Queen's commission, with the object of making complaint to the Star
Chamber. In October, 1601, Evans, it seems, learned of Clifton's
purpose, for on the 21st of that month he deeded all his property to
his son-in-law, Alexander Hawkins.[330] Clifton finally presented his
complaint to the Star Chamber on December 15, 1601,[331] but his
complaint was probably not acted on until early in 1602, for during
the Christmas holidays the Children were summoned as usual to present
their play before the Queen.[332]

[Footnote 330: _Ibid._, pp. 244-45.]

[Footnote 331: Wallace, _The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_,
p. 84, note 4.]

[Footnote 332: On December 29, 1601, Sir Dudley Carleton wrote to his
friend John Chamberlain: "The Queen dined this day privately at My
Lord Chamberlain's. I came even now from the Blackfriars, where I saw
her at the play with all her _candidae auditrices_." From this it has
been generally assumed that Elizabeth visited the playhouse in
Blackfriars to see the Children act there; and Mr. Wallace, in his
_The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, pp. 26, 87, 95-97, lays
great emphasis upon it to show that the Queen was directly responsible
for establishing and managing the Children at Blackfriars. But the
assumption that the Queen attended a performance at the Blackfriars
Playhouse is, I think, unwarranted. The Lord Chamberlain at this time
was Lord Hunsdon, who lived "in the Blackfriars." No doubt on this
Christmas occasion he entertained the Queen with a great dinner, and
after the dinner with a play given, not in a playhouse, but in his
mansion. (Lord Cobham, who was formerly Lord Chamberlain, and who also
lived in Blackfriars, had similarly entertained the Queen with plays
"in Blackfriars"; cf. also The Malone Society's _Collections_, II,
52.) Furthermore, the actors on this occasion were probably not the
Children of the Chapel, as Mr. Wallace thinks, but Lord Hunsdon's own
troupe. Possibly one of Shakespeare's new plays (_Hamlet_?) was then
presented before the Queen for the first time.]

Shortly after this, however, the Star Chamber passed on