John Plummer, Master of the Children

Extract

The following document is of some interest as illustrating the history of the ‘Children of the Chapel Royal’, which is not yet worked out for the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

John Plummer is mentioned as one of the clerks of the King's Chapel in 1441, receiving a grant of £10 on the 12th April in that year. The grant of forty marks a year for the maintenance of the eight singing-boys, here mentioned, is dated 4th November 1444, and from that date onwards it may be presumed that they ceased to draw their clothing from the great wardrobe. On 24th February 1445 Plummer was formally appointed their teacher and governor. On 30th May 1446 the grant of forty marks, charged on the ulnager of Bristol, was renewed. This grant was presumably rendered invalid by the Act of Resumption of 1449, but it does not appear certain that the following warrant for its revival took effect, since no Letters Patent in pursuance are to be found in the Calendar of Patent Rolls. A similar grant of forty marks a year was granted to Plummer's successor, Henry Abyndon, on 16th March 1456, to date from his appointment at Michaelmas 1455. This grant was renewed by Edward IV on 10th July 1465.