Tudor Royal Singers on the Road

The “Gentlemen Singers” of Henry VIII’s Privy Chamber were offered a new benefit in 1544: “att every removeing, allowance of a cart for the carriage of their stuff.” Many Tudor singers spent a significant amount of time on the road. This was true above all for the royal household musicians who followed kings and queens in their “removeings” and progresses. Itinerant music-making attracted its share of controversy, as we can see in a variety of contexts, from the court reforms of the Eltham Ordinances (which described touring with a large professional choir as a cause of “great annoyaunce ... labour, travail, charge and payne”) to the unscripted musical duel that took place when the peripatetic Chapel Royal singer Robert Philips made an appearance as guest soloist at St George’s, Windsor. This article explores the practicalities of life for Tudor royal singers on the road: the “stuff” they carried, the types of music they sang in various situations, and the ideological turmoil they often faced at close range.