ROYAL MASQUES AND MASQUERADES
At Court in bygone years, on occasions of festivity, it was customary
for the whole company to appear in borrowed characters, a practice which
may be traced back as early as the reign of Edward III. Pageants of this
kind were exhibited with great splendour, and at a costly outlay. The
magnificent disguisings which took place in the reign of Henry VIII.
have long been proverbial. The chief aim seems to have been to surprise
the spectators “by the ridiculous and exaggerated oddity of the visors,
and by the singularity and splendour of the dresses, everything being
out of nature and propriety. Frequently the masque was attended with an
exhibition of gorgeous machinery, resembling the wonders of a modern
pantomime,”[70] the preparation of which occupied a considerable time.
It was at the Christmas festivities in the year 1509 that Henry VIII.
appeared in the disguise of a strange knight, astonishing the Court
circle with the grace and vigour of his tilting. Henry was specially
fond of disguisings and masquings, and on another occasion he presented
himself with his cousin, the Earl of Essex, and other nobles, in the
disguise of Robin Hood and his men, “Whereat,” writes Holinshed, “the
Queen and her ladies were greatly amazed, as well for the strange sight
as for their sudden appearance.”
At Shrovetide soon afterwards, in a grand banquet given at Westminster,
Henry, with the Earls of Essex, Wiltshire, and Fitzwalter, appeared in
Russian costume, “with furred hats of grey, each of them having a
hatchet in hand, and wearing boots with peaks turned up.” The King’s
sister, the Princess Mary, danced a masquing ballet, hiding her face
under a black gauze mask, as “she had assumed the character of an Ethiop
queen.”
In the early part of the year 1510 a royal masque was given to celebrate
the birth of Prince Henry, on which occasion Sir Charles Brandon,
afterwards Duke of Suffolk, introduced himself before Queen Catherine in
the garb of a “hermit poor,” craving permission to tilt in her honour.
In the evening, when her Majesty sat in state at Westminster, a nobleman
entered to inform her “how that in a garden of pleasure was an arbour of
gold, full of ladies, who were very desirous of showing pastime for the
Queen’s diversion.”
Catherine graciously replied, “I and my ladies will be happy to behold
them and their pastime.”
Then a curtain was drawn aside, and the pageant moved forwards. It was
an arbour, covered with gold, above which were twined branches of
hawthorn, roses, and eglantines, all made of silk and satin to resemble
the natural colours of the flowers. In the arbour were six ladies,
dressed in gowns of white and green satin, covered with gold letters of
H and K. Near the bower stood the King himself and five lords, dressed
in purple satin, likewise covered with the same monograms in solid
bullion, and every one had his name in letters of bullion. Then the King
and his company danced before Catherine’s throne.
In honour of the marriage of Arthur, Prince of Wales, with Catherine of
Aragon, three pageants were exhibited in Westminster Hall. The first was
a castle with ladies; the second, a ship in full sail, that cast anchor
near the castle; and the third, a mountain with several armed knights
upon it, who stormed the castle and obliged the ladies to surrender. The
pageant terminated with a dance.
But these Court spectacles were, perhaps, at no period more cultivated
in this country than by Henry VIII. and his favourite, Wolsey, in whose
strangely contrived shows a moving mountain would sometimes “enter the
great hall, adorned with trees, flowers, and herbage, and studded with
wild beasts and savage men, which, opening suddenly, would send forth a
gay throng of knights and ladies, or allegorical personages, who, having
sung and danced before the guests, retired again to their place of
concealment.”[71] Such performances, as may be imagined, by their
novelty and grotesqueness, rarely failed to create as much fun and
amusement among the royal circle as among the privileged persons invited
to see them.
When an inventory was taken after the death of Henry VIII. of all the
tapestry, pictures, plate, jewels, and other goods of which he died
possessed, it was found that he had no less than ninety-nine vizors, or
“masks of sondry sorts,” besides many sets of “maskings heads” at
Greenwich, which he and his courtiers were in the habit of wearing.
In her youthful days Queen Mary made her appearance at a pantomimic
ballet, when she wore a black crape mask as an Ethiopian princess. In
the year 1527 she exhibited herself before the French ambassadors at
Greenwich Palace, with five of her ladies, dressed in Icelandic costume;
and with six lords, in the costume of the same country, the party
“daunced lustily about the hall.”
At another masque, before the same ambassadors, in May of that year, the
Princess Mary issued out of a cave with her seven ladies, dressed after
the Roman fashion in rich cloth of gold and crimson tinsel, and they
danced a ballet with eight lords. It is said that the young Princess
soon became emboldened and at her ease when engaged in such royal
pageantry; although, as it has been remarked, it seems strange to us
nowadays that one so young should have been allowed or encouraged, so
attired, to challenge the gaze and criticism of strangers. The only
instance, says Payne Collier, in which Queen Mary called on the Master
of the Revels to provide for entertainments at Court during her reign
was in 1557. On St. Mark’s Day she commanded, for her “regal disport,
recreation, and comfort,” a “notorious maske of Almaynes, Pilgrymes,
and Irishemen.”
A continual series of pageantry and masquing welcomed Queen Elizabeth’s
reception at Kenilworth; and on Shrove Tuesday, 1594, the members of
Gray’s Inn got up a burlesque masque for her amusement, with which she
was so much pleased that the courtiers, fired with emulation, as soon as
the masque was over began to dance a measure, which caused her Majesty
to utter this reproof: “What, shall we have bread and cheese after a
banquet?”
The Earl of Essex, who took good care to propitiate his royal mistress
by all sorts of flattery, on the 17th of November 1596--the anniversary
of her accession to the throne--caused a sort of masque to be
represented which was thus described by an eye-witness: “My lord of
Essex’s device is much commended in these late triumphs. Some pretty
while before he came in himself to the tilt, he sent his page with some
speech to the Queen, who returned with her Majesty’s glove; and when he
came himself, he was met by an old hermit, a secretary of state, a brave
soldier, and an esquire. The first presented him with a book of
meditations, the second with political discourses, the third with
orations of brave-fought battles, the fourth was but his own follower,
to whom the other three imparted much of their purpose before their
coming in. Another devised with him, persuading him to this and that
course of life, according to their own inclinations. Then comes into
the tilt-yard, unthought upon, the ordinary post-boy of London, a ragged
villain, all bemired, upon a poor lean jade, galloping and blowing for
life, and delivered the secretary a packet of letters, which he
presently offered to my lord of Essex; and with this dumb show our eyes
were fed for that time.”
In the after-supper before the Queen, “they first delivered a
well-penned speech to move this worthy knight to leave his vain
following of love, and to betake him to heavenly meditation, the
secretaries all tending to have him follow matters of state, the
soldiers persuading him to war;” but the esquire answered them all in
plain English: “That this knight would never forsake his mistress’s
love, whose virtue made all his thoughts divine, whose wisdom taught him
all true policy, whose beauty and worth were at all times able to make
him fit to command armies. He showed all the defects and imperfections
of the times, and therefore thought his course of life the best in
serving his mistress.” The Queen said, “If she had thought there had
been so much said of her, she would not have been there that night.”
A Court masque was the accompaniment of Darnley’s murder, probably
arranged, it has been suggested, as one of the episodes of that cruel
tragedy. Much has been written on the beauty and romance of the
Elizabethan masques, which it was required should be something more than
a ballet, or a fancy ball. According to Mr. Thornbury, in his
“Shakspere’s England” (vol. ii. p. 371), “the poetry was such as Jonson
could write--tender as Anacreon, vigorous as Æschylus; though
occasionally tedious, laboured, dull, and rugged, mythology, history,
and romance were ransacked to furnish new materials for these plays; the
poetry and costume were all but perfect, and the scenery was left to
fancy, so well able to realise it. The amusement that delighted such
minds as Bacon’s and Jonson’s is not to be sneered at in the nineteenth
century.” The sympathy and support, too, which Elizabeth gave to this
class of diversion had a more or less lasting effect; but there was an
inclination as time went on to introduce many innovations which were not
always in good taste.
One of the chief amusements of James I. and his Court were masques and
emblematic pageants, and it appears by what is entitled “A Briefe
Collection of the Extraordinarie Payments” of the Court of James I.,
from 1603 to the end of 1609, that the “charges for masks” amounted to
£4215.[72] An imposing instance occurred in the year 1610, to
commemorate the Queen’s eldest son, Henry, being created Prince of
Wales. On this occasion the “whole Court of England, the Queen, the
Princess-Royal, and all the aristocratic beauties of the day were busy
devising robes, arranging jewels, and practising steps and movements for
this beautiful poem of action, in which music, painting, dancing, and
decoration, guided by the taste of Inigo Jones, were all called into
employment to make the palace of Whitehall a scene of enchantment. In
this masque the Court ladies personated the nymphs of the principal
rivers, the Queen represented the Empress of Streams, and the little
Prince Charles, in the character of Zephyr, attended by twelve little
ladies, was to deliver the Queen’s presents to his elder brother, the
newly created Prince of Wales, the presentation being the ostensible
business of the masque. One of the chief attractions of this
entertainment was a ballet, which was so arranged that Prince Charles
always danced encircled by his little ladies, all of whom had been so
carefully trained that they were rapturously applauded by the whole
Court. This festive scene was perhaps one of the brightest and happiest
in the Queen’s life, for when in after days some one accidentally
recalled it to her memory after the death of Prince Henry, she gave way
to the most acute grief.[73]
But some of these magnificent masques appear to have been conducted with
but little attention to decorum. The Countess of Dorset mentions in her
Memoirs that there was “much talk of a mask which the Queen held at
Winchester, and how all the ladies about the Court had gotten such ill
names, that it was grown a scandalous place; and the Queen herself was
much fallen from her former greatness and reputation she had in the
world.” Peyton’s censure is even stronger. “The masks,” he says, “and
plays at Whitehall were used only as incentives for lust; therefore the
courtiers invited the citizens’ wives to those shows on purpose to
defile them. There is not a chamber nor lobby, if it could speak, but
would verify this.”
In the following reign the masque became a highly beautiful and
exquisite entertainment, encouraged by the fine taste of Charles I., and
aided by such cultured men as Buckingham, Jonson, Lawes the musician,
and Inigo Jones. The masque at this period was produced at an enormous
outlay, and one presented at Whitehall by the Inns of Court in the year
1633 cost the prodigious sum of £21,000. In the masque of “The Night and
the Hours,” the first scene represented a double valley, one side with
dark clouds hanging before it, on the other a green vale, with trees,
nine of which were covered with gold, and were fifteen feet high. From
this grove towards the “state,” or seat of the King, extended a
dancing-place, with the bower of Flora on the right, and the house of
Night on the left. The bower of Flora was decorated with flowers and
leafy branches, whilst Night appears in her house, “her long black hair
spangled with gold, amidst her hours, their faces black, and each
bearing a lighted black torch.”
On another occasion the Lords’ masque was performed, which was also
divided into two parts, the lower being first discovered, in which there
was seen a wood in perspective; and on the sudden fall of a curtain
there appeared a heaven of clouds of all hues, whilst from a bright and
transparent cloud eight maskers descended with the music of a full
song. On reaching the ground the cloud broke in twain, and, after the
manner of a transformation scene, a series of changes took place. With
these gorgeous entertainments was usually presented the anti-masque, a
humorous parody of the more solemn show. And to the popularity of this
species of exhibition we owe Milton’s “Comus and Arcades.”[74]
During the reign of Charles II. masquerading was the rage, and it is
recorded how the King and Queen and all the courtiers went about masked,
and so completely disguised that no one, unless in the secret, could
distinguish them. They were carried about in hackney-chairs, entered
houses where merry-makings were going on, and danced about with the
wildest frolic. On one occasion the Queen got separated from her party,
and her chairmen, not knowing her, went away. Much frightened, she
returned to Whitehall in a hackney-coach, or, according to some
authorities, in a cart. The Earl of Manchester--the Lord
Chamberlain--well aware that she was surrounded by spies who were ready
to make the most of the slightest indiscretion on her part, did not
hesitate to tell her that “it was neither decent nor safe for her to go
about as she had done of late.” The Duke of Buckingham seriously
proposed to Charles that in some nocturnal frolic they should carry the
Queen off, and send her to the plantations, to which, according to
Burnet, the King would have had no objection had she retired voluntarily
into a convent.
A harmless feature of the frolic and fun of the exiled Court at St.
Germains were the balls and receptions given by Mary Beatrice. A lively
description, too, has been given of the Shrove Tuesday masquerade at St.
Germains, to which the whole town was admitted, the barriers being
thrown open by her Majesty’s command, in order that all classes, high
and low, young and old, English and French, might join in the carnival.
Etiquette, however, forbade the Prince and Princess from wearing masks,
or assuming any particular characters on these occasions; yet they are
represented as dancing merrily in the midst of the motley crowd.
On one occasion some indignation was caused when it was discovered that,
at a masked ball, the son of the Court apothecary, Bondin, had found
admittance, at which the Duchess of Burgundy was present. The
apothecary’s son, concealed under his mask, had the audacity to pass for
a marquis, and was bold enough to dance with a princess who was not very
remote from the throne. At these balls not only James and his Queen, but
the young Prince of Wales, were often present. At one of these riotous
gatherings the crowd was so great that the little Duke de Berri, son of
the Dauphin, nearly lost his life in the pressure by suffocation.
Happily he was rescued, but not without some difficulty. It may be noted
that the “pretended Prince of Wales,” as the son of James is invariably
called by the English papers of the period, is described as being
present at these masked balls, “masked,” to save him from being “tied
to ceremonials.”
And it is recorded that whilst this kind of merriment was going on, the
ears of James were deafened by solicitations from his starving disbanded
soldiers, whose distress was appalling. Indeed, their condition became
so desperate that Louis was petitioned to enrol one hundred of them in
the French army; and, when this request was refused, an honest captain
of gendarmes, expressing himself too freely, was punished with the loss
of his personal freedom, and was flung into the Bastille. It is said
that James would have had sympathy with the bold speaker thus cruelly
punished, but that his attention was, through the force of
circumstances, attracted in different directions.[75]
Masquerading was general in Scotland as far back as the days of James I.
At the celebration of the marriage of James IV. and the Lady Margaret, a
company of English comedians, under the management of John English,
enlivened the festivities of the Court with a dramatic representation.
“After dinnar a moralite was played by the said Master Englishe and his
companions, in the presence of the Kyng and Qwene, and then daunces were
daunced.”
During the regency of Mary of Guise, and the reign of Mary Queen of
Scots, “when masques became more and more splendid and extravagant, and
when the Queen pirouetted in newly introduced French dances which were
anything but models of decorum, no wonder the more sober-minded were
disgusted, and all amusement of the kind was brought into
disrepute.”[76] But it would appear that, however much such frivolities
grated on the feelings of the sober-minded Scotsman, royalty was not
disposed on that account to dispense with a mode of diversion which had
never been so severely censured elsewhere.
In the year 1681 there were gay doings at Edinburgh, when the Duke and
Duchess of York and the Lady Anne--afterwards Queen of England--were
present. Balls, plays, and masquerades were introduced; but the last
were soon laid aside, “the taste of the times being opposed to such
ungodly innovations,” and there were substituted poetic and dramatic
masques and pastorals, in which the Princess Anne, with other young
ladies of quality, personated some of the mythological characters. These
entertainments included the “Comus” of Milton, and similar pieces by Ben
Jonson, Shirley, Davenant, and other dramatic poets of the last century,
and they were interspersed with music, and were set off with splendid
dresses and decorations.
And coming down to later times, a practical joke which was played by the
Duke of Montagu on Heidegger, a celebrated conductor of operas and
masquerades, is said to have been much enjoyed by George II. A few days
previous to one of Heidegger’s famous masquerades, at which the King had
promised to be present, the Duke of Montagu invited the German to sup
with him at the Devil’s Tavern in Fleet Street, and plied him with wine
till he became helplessly intoxicated. Whilst in this condition, Mrs.
Salmon was commissioned to take a cast of his face, which was afterwards
painted “to the very image of life.” The Duke then procured a suit of
clothes exactly like Heidegger’s ordinary costume, and having procured a
person whose voice and figure resembled those of the German, he managed
to create an excellent counterpart of his unfortunate victim. On the
evening of the masquerade Heidegger ordered the band to play the
National Anthem as soon as the King and his suite arrived; whereupon the
counterfeit Heidegger commanded them to play the Jacobite tune of “Over
the water to Charley.” The King and the players were in the secret of
the joke, for the former laughed immoderately, and the latter followed
the orders of the fictitious manager. Heidegger was in a state of fury,
and when informed by the Duke of Montagu of his Majesty’s displeasure at
the insolence of the band, repaired to the royal box to vindicate his
character. The King kept up the joke for a time, and terminated it by
ordering the counterfeit Heidegger to remove his mask.
On New Year’s Eve 1745 Frederick the Great, in celebration of the peace
with Silesia, gave at the Opera House a masked ball, to which every one,
without distinction, was admitted. The Court and the nobility were
entertained at six large tables, in addition to which people of every
rank and station found on all sides richly furnished buffets. On the
square before the Opera House a temple of Janus was erected, behind
which a grand display of fireworks took place. The ball lasted till
morning, the maskers giving only too manifest proof that they had found
the wines most excellent. But the King, who made the round of the
tables, where he saw a good deal of his plate finding its way into the
pockets of his guests, and discovered many persons lying hopelessly
drunk in the lobbies of the house, remarked, “I shall never repeat this
joke.”
On the 13th of March 1799 the Opera House of Berlin was the scene of a
masquerade which contemporary reports describe as well worthy of the
days of Louis XIV., or of Augustus the Strong of Saxony. It represented
the marriage of the English Queen Mary with Philip of Spain, the
character of the bride being supported by Queen Louisa, and that of the
bridegroom by the Duke of Sussex. A minuet of these two royal personages
was followed by a quadrille between Queen Elizabeth, Don John of
Austria, Margaret of Parma, and the Duke of Savoy.
On the evening of March 16, 1792, Gustavus III. was mortally wounded at
a masked ball at the Opera House at Stockholm, and died, after great
suffering, on the 29th. The pistol-shot was fired by a man of noble
family, Ankarström, formerly a captain in the Guards, who, having
retired from active service, and still holding a half-civil command in
the island of Gothland, had been--rightly or wrongly--accused of a
traitorous understanding with the Finland mutineers in 1788. He had,
therefore, been sentenced by the King to a term of imprisonment. This
sentence, it has been suggested, and the wrongs his order had sustained
in the constitutional changes of 1789, may have wrought a mind naturally
gloomy into madness; in addition to which he is said to have lost
heavily by a sudden depreciation of paper money to an extent of 30 per
cent. Hence the King, in his eyes, was a tyrant and a robber, and he
vowed vengeance. With him were joined several other discontented and
angry nobles, who had suffered arrest in 1789, and had real or fancied
wrongs to avenge; and it may be added that the King’s secretary, Bjelke,
who enjoyed much of his Majesty’s confidence, persuaded him to go to the
ball, taking care to give timely notice to the conspirators.
At night, after Christina had taken the most solemn step of abandoning
the community of Luther for the Church of Rome, at Innsbruck, in Tyrol,
the Archduke entertained her with a masque and dancing. Nor was this
all, for there was a play represented before her that evening, the moral
of which, it is said, was not of the cleanest, and upon which the
illustrious convert made this comment: “Well, gentlemen, it is but
proper that you should entertain me with a comedy to-night, since I
amused you with a farce this morning”--a profane remark, concerning
which the great Leibnitz remarks that, if it was really uttered, it
proved that “Christina was not mindful of--decorum!”