In 1568, the Earl of Shrewsbury, writing from Hampton Court to his countess, says, "The Plage is disposed far abrode in London, so that the Queene kepes hur Kyrsomas her, and goth not to Grenwych as it was mete." Meet or not, Elizabeth kept many Christmases at Hampton Court, banqueting, dancing, and dicing--the last being a favourite amusement with her, because she generally won, thanks to her dice being so loaded as to throw up the higher numbers. Writing from Hampton Court at Christmas, 1572, Sir Thomas Smith says: "If ye would what we do here, we play at tables, dance, and keep Christmasse." [Illustration: Coat of Arms.] QUEEN ELIZABETH'S SINGERS AND PLAYERS. The Christmas entertainments of Queen Elizabeth were enlivened by the beautiful singing of the children of her Majesty's Chapel. From the notes to Gascoigne's _Princely Pleasures_ (1821) it appears that Queen Elizabeth retained on her Royal establishment four sets of singing boys; which belonged to the Cathedral of St. Paul, the Abbey of Westminster, St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and the Household Chapel. For the support and reinforcement of her musical bands, Elizabeth, like the other English Sovereigns, issued warrants for taking "up suche apt and meete children, as are fitt to be instructed and framed in the Art and Science of Musicke and Singing." Thomas Tusser, the well-known author of "Five Hundreth Points of Good Husbandrye," was in his youth a choir boy of St. Paul's. Nor is it astonishing, that although masses had ceased to be performed, the Queen should yet endeavour to preserve sacred melody in a high state of perfection; since, according to Burney, she was herself greatly skilled in musical learning. "If her Majesty," says that eminent author, "was ever able to execute any of the pieces that are preserved in a MS. which goes under the name of Queen Elizabeth's Virginal-book, she must have been a very great player, as some of the pieces which were composed by Tallis, Bird, Giles, Farnaby, Dr. Bull, and others, are so difficult that it would be hardly possible to find a master in Europe who would undertake to play any of them at the end of a month's practice."[56] But the children of the chapel were also employed in the theatrical exhibitions represented at Court, for which their musical education had peculiarly qualified them. Richard Edwards, an eminent poet and musician of the sixteenth century, had written two comedies; Damon and Pythias, and Palemon and Arcite, which, according to Wood, were often acted before the Queen, both at Court and at Oxford. [Illustration: THE ACTING OF ONE OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS IN THE TIME OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. (_By permission, from Messrs Cassell & Co's "Illustrated History of England_")]