Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal
In some periods regarded as the most prestigious choral directorship in the country, the holder was given power to take boys into service from the leading cathedral choirs.As well as singing in divine service in the chapel, in Tudor times the Masters of the Children were also involved in staging plays with the choristers.[1] Initially these were for the entertainment of the Royal Court,[1] but by Elizabethan times were taking place in theatres for the paying public.This culminated in the Clifton Star Chamber Case when the then Master of the Children, Nathaniel Giles, allowed his warrant for recruiting choir boys to be used for legal abduction of a nobleman's son to act in a theatre in which he had a financial stake.There followed a period of excellence in the choir of the Chapel Royal, with many of the boys under his tutelage in those years become famous musicians such as Pelham Humfrey, Henry Purcell, John Blow and Michael Wise.