Meals were served at regular hours. "It is ordeyned that the household, when the hall is kept, shall observe certyne times for dinner and souper as followeth: that is to say, the first dynner in eating dayes to begin at tenn of the clock, or somewhat before; and the first souper at foure of the clock on worke dayes."
The duties of the choir also are plainly laid down: "Forasmuch as it is goodly and honourable that there should be alwayes some divine service in the court ... when his grace keepeth court and specially in riding journeys: it is ordeyned that the master of the children and six men ... shall give their continual attendance in the King's court, and dayly in the absence of the residue of the chappell, to have a masse of our Lady before noone, and on Sundayes and holy dayes masse of the day besides our Lady masse, and an anthem in the afternoone."
It was part of the business of the Master of the Children to instruct his young charges in "grammar, songes, organes, and other vertuous things"; and, on the whole, the lot of the choristers might have been deemed enviable. It is evident, however, that it was not always regarded in that light, for a custom existed of impressing children. This practice was authorized by a precept of Henry VI. in 1454, and one of its victims was Thomas Tusser, afterwards author of "Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry," who thus alludes to the matter:
There for my voice I must (no choice) Away of force, like posting horse; For sundry men had placards then Such child to take.
Moreover, it has been shrewdly suspected that the whipping-boy, who vicariously atoned for the sins of a prince of the blood--in other words, was thrashed, when he did wrong--was picked from the Children of the Chapel. Certainly Charles I. had such a whipping-boy named Murray; and judging from this instance the expedient was not commended by its results.
Members of the choir were expected to be persons of exemplary life and conversation, to ensure which state of things there was a weekly visitation by the Dean. Every Friday he sought out and avoided from office "all rascals and hangers upon thys courte." The tone of discipline, to conclude from the poems of Hugh Rhodes, was undoubtedly high; and, whatever difficulties he may have encountered in training the boys to his own high standards, his "Book of Nurture" must always possess considerable value as a reflex of the moral and social ideals of a Master of the Children in the sixteenth century.