When fashionably dressed men wearing spurs, which could be loud and distracting to other church-goers, would enter the chapel, the choirboys would sometimes demand money as a fee.
[2] Choirboys were allowed time to play on Thursday afternoons, and in one document from 1598, a verger named John Howe notes an occasion when the boys broke windows and disrupted churchgoers.
Playing may have become a part of the boys' education as a result of the influence of humanist teachings, which encouraged students to "develop poise and improve their skill in speaking Latin by acting"[4] In 1527–1528, the Children of Paul's performed for King Henry VIII, and for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey.
Sebastian Westcott was Master of the Children of Paul's in the years 1557–82; in his era, the boys performed 27 times at court, more than any other troupe, adult or child.
They performed a play by Sixt Birk, called Sapientia Solomonis, which "dramatized the relationship between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba in a way appropriate for schoolboys".
By 1600, conditions had changed; a new Master, Edward Peers (died 1612),[9] allowed the Children of Paul's to resume acting, and apparently faced no significant opposition.
This tended to limit their drama; sometimes plays had to be cut short to accommodate the schedules of the religious institutions in the middle of which the boy players operated.
This is a lost play considered to be a dramatised representation of the legal wrangling in the Star Chamber of one John Flaskett (a local book binder) and a woman of considerable inheritance he was betrothed to: Agnes How.