ABSTRACT
William Cornysh, Master of the King's Chapel in the reign of Henry VIII, has been described as 'the most considerable figure in the history of Early Tudor court revels'. Cornysh did have a fascinating career and may have played an important role in bringing new forms of drama to the English royal court. Elements of the reconstruction of William Cornysh's life have been pursued before. Some aspects of these reconstructions relate to areas of uncertainty about the identity of this figure. One persistent area of uncertainty concerns the question of whether there existed one or two William Cornyshes. Various well-known sources of evidence survive for Cornysh's involvement with the revels and pageants of the royal household in the very late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. There is a tendency in biographical accounts of William Cornysh's life to proclaim him as an innovator of new forms, and therefore as a 'Renaissance man' in the sphere of drama.
