full catalogue of masks between the Shrovetide of 1560 and the Christmas
of 1571; but there is every reason to suppose that they were given
yearly, and a number of scattered notices have survived. Brantôme, who
came to court during October 1561, in the train of the Grand Prior
Francis of Lorraine, describes a mask of Wise and Foolish Virgins,
performed by Elizabeth's maids of honour, who did the Frenchmen the
courtesy of taking them out to dance.[537] There was a mask at Baynard's
Castle when Elizabeth visited the Earl of Pembroke on 15 January 1562, a
'grett maske' at Whitehall on 18 January after the performance of
_Gorboduc_ by the Inner Temple, and on 1 February 'the goodlyest masket
that ever was seen', which came in procession from the city to the
court.[538] During May 1562 elaborate masks were in preparation for a
projected meeting between Elizabeth and Mary of Scots at Nottingham
Castle.[539] The meeting never came off, but a scheme for the masks is
preserved, and is sufficiently detailed to show the point which had been
reached in the evolution of the form. It covers the entertainment of
three successive nights. On the first a prison of Extreme Oblivion,
under the keepership of Argus or Circumspection, is to be made in the
hall. A mask of six or eight ladies is to enter, leading Discord and
False Report captive, and preceded by Pallas riding on a unicorn and
Prudentia and Temperantia on two lions. Pallas is to declare the
intention to the queen in verse; Discord and False Report are to be
committed to the prison; and 'then the trompettes to blowe, and
thinglishe ladies to take the nobilite of the straunger and daunce'. On
the second night the structure in the hall is to be a castle called the
Court of Plenty, whereof Ardent Desire and Perpetuity, serving
respectively Prudentia and Temperantia, are to be porters. The mask
proper is again to consist of six or eight ladies, accompanied by
Friendship on an elephant, drawing Peace in a chariot to dwell in the
castle. Friendship is to speak explanatory verses. 'Then shall springe
out of the cowrte of plentie condittes of all sortes of wynes, duringe
which tyme thinglishe lordes shall maske with the Scottishe ladyes.' The
third night's mask is to be a double one. Disdain and Prepensed Malice
are to draw in six or eight lady maskers, sitting in an orchard of
golden apples, and to demand on behalf of Pluto the surrender either of
Discord and False Report, or of Peace. These are to be followed by six
or eight lords, with Discretion and Valiant Courage or Hercules.
Discretion is to offer the services of Valiant Courage as champion.
Prudentia and Temperantia are to let down tokens of peace from their
castle, a grandgarde and a girdle and sword, which are to be laid at the
feet of the queens. There is to be an assault between Valiant Courage
and Disdain and Prepensed Malice. 'After this shall come out of the
garden, the vj, or viij, ladies maskers, with a song, that shalbe made
herevppon, as full of armony, as maye be devised.' One may note the
allegorical theme, the use both of fixed and of movable pageants, the
persistent episode of the assault at arms, the gifts to the principal
spectators, and the somewhat formal speeches of the presenters, eked out
on the last night with a song, but not yet broken up into dramatic
dialogue. The draft makes it clear that English and Scots are to mingle
in the dance, but not quite so clear that the invitation is to come from
the maskers, although that was probably the intention.[540]
There were 'gret mummeres and masks' again at Baynard's Castle on each
of the four days, 17-20 February 1563, devoted to celebrating the double
wedding of Lord Herbert of Cardiff to Lady Catherine Talbot and of Lord
Talbot to Lady Anne Herbert. But we are not told that Elizabeth was
present, although it is not improbable.[541] On 9 June 1564 there was a
device for the entertainment of Artus de Cossé, Seigneur de Gonnor, who
came as ambassador from France to confirm the treaty of Troyes. It was
of a martial character and entailed the preparation of a castle and an
arbour and three masks, and a total cost of £87 9_s._ 6_d._[542] A month
later, on 5 July, Elizabeth was entertained at the house of Sir Richard
Sackville by maskers in her colours of black and white, who presented a
sonnet in her honour. The host was the father of Thomas Sackville,
afterwards Earl of Dorset, one of the authors of _Gorboduc_ and of _The
Mirror for Magistrates_.[543] During the winter of 1564-5 there were
several masks, apparently given in close relation to the plays of the
same season. One was at Christmas and another, of Hunters and Muses, on
18 February, while at Shrovetide no less than four were made ready,
although only two, of Tilters and of Satyrs, were actually seen.[544] On
16 July 1565 Elizabeth attended the marriage at Durham Place of Henry,
son of Sir Francis Knollys, to Margaret, daughter of Sir Ambrose Cave;
and the entertainment included two masks.[545] Similarly, at Shrovetide
1566, she was present at the marriage of Henry Earl of Southampton, to
Mary Browne, daughter of Anthony Lord Montague, and on 1 July 1566 at
that of Thomas Mildmay to Frances, sister of Thomas Earl of Sussex, and
on each occasion there was a mask with an oration 'spoken and
pronounced' by Mr. Pound of Lincoln's Inn. The July mask introduced
Venus, Diana, Pallas, and Juno.[546] We know that there were four masks
during the winter of 1567-8, and that there were masks during those of
1568-9, 1569-70, and 1570-1, but practically we know no more.[547] For
1571-2, however, fuller information is available, since with this winter
begins the series of detailed Revels Accounts, which extends, with
occasional interruptions, to 1589. There were six masks, on unspecified
dates. For two of these the costumes were 'translated' from old sets.
Four were new made; one of yellow cloth of gold, with torch-bearers in
red and yellow changeable taffeta; one of crimson, purple, and green
cloth of gold, with torch-bearers in red damask; one of white and black
branched loom-work, with torch-bearers in blue and yellow changeable
taffeta; and one in murrey satin, with torch-bearers in changeable
taffeta of an unspecified colour. The maskers were six or eight in
number in each case, and wore vizards, gloves, at 6_d._ a pair, and
strange heads. Devices of canvas were made for some or all of them. One
set carried flowers of silk and gold, and before them went a child
dressed as Mercury, with two special torch-bearers, who made a speech,
and offered the Queen three similar flowers, signifying victory, peace,
and plenty.[548] On 15 June 1572 an elaborate mask was given in honour
of another French embassy under the Duc de Montmorency. The theme
evidently bore some resemblance to the abandoned devices of 1562.[549] A
vizard was made for Argus and a collar and shackles and curls of black
silk for Discord. There were two pageants, a castle upon which Lady
Peace was brought in, and a chariot measuring 14 ft. by 8 ft. with a
rock and fountain for Apollo and the nine Muses. These were probably the
dancers. The performance is called both a 'mask' and a 'triumph'. The
total cost was £409 3_s._ 2_d._, exclusive of the value of stuffs
supplied by the Wardrobe, and it is recorded that the chariot was broken
and spoiled. Payments were made to a Mistress Swego, apparently for
head-dressing, and to a 'muzisian that towghte the ladies'; also to
Haunce Eottes for 'patternes', and to Petrucio, for his 'travell and
paynes' taken in the preparations.[550] This is doubtless Petrucio
Ubaldini, and it may also be assumed that the 'Mʳ. Alphonse', who
apparently had the general direction or 'apoyntment' of the proceedings,
and wore a pair of cloth-of-gold buskins, was Alfonso Ferrabosco, the
musician.
This example attests the continuance of the spectacular element in the
mask. Its literary aspect also finds illustration during 1572. The scene
was again a house of Lord Montague, who was celebrating the double
wedding of his son and daughter to those of Sir William Dormer. The
dancers were eight kinsmen of the host, dressed as Venetians. There was
a long introductory narrative, spoken by a boy-actor. The motive of this
was suggested by the supposed community of blood between the Montagues
of England and the Montagues of Venice. The actor represented a boy of
the English house, who had been taken prisoner by the Turks, together
with four English soldiers, who were the torch-bearers. He had been
rescued by Italian Montagues, who were returning with him to Italy, when
a storm drove them on the shores of Kent, and they took the opportunity
to visit their kinsmen in London. After the mask there was a shorter
speech by Master Thomas Browne, whom the actor drew from the company,
and presented to the maskers to replace him as their 'trounchman', and
the maskers then took their leaves. The author of the verses was George
Gascoigne. They contain no indication that Elizabeth was present, and
therefore she probably was not. But they furnish a very good example of
the way in which introductory speeches, still stiff and undramatic, were
used to give topical point and meaning to the disguises assumed by
maskers.[551] With this Montague mask may be compared that at the
wedding of Henry Unton, represented in one of the scenes from his life
and death by which his portrait, now in the National Portrait Gallery,
is surrounded. The wedding party is shown at table in a great chamber,
overlooking a hall below, in which sit six minstrels. At each end of the
hall are steps, and up and down these and over the floor of the chamber
passes the mask procession, a drummer, a 'trounchman' with a paper in
his hand, Mercury, Diana, six Nymphs, and ten Cupids, five white and
five black, as torch-bearers.[552]
Finally, a curious document of this same year, 1572, indicates the
widespread popularity which the mask had acquired, as a form of social
entertainment. It is preserved amongst Lord Burghley's papers, and is a
complaint by one Thomas Giles against the Yeoman of the Revels, who had
the custody of the Queen's masks, and made a practice of letting them
out on hire to persons of all degrees, noble and mean, both in the city
and in the country.[553] Thomas Giles was a haberdasher, and from time
to time supplied goods to the Revels. He bases his complaint mainly on
the damage done to the royal property, but at the end he allows it to
appear that he himself made a business of letting out masking apparel
for hire, and found his prices undercut by those of the Yeoman. He
appends a list of a score of occasions during the past year on which
loans had taken place. The garments lent appear to have been mostly
those made for the Court festivities of the previous winter. One set is
described as 'the coper clothe of golde gownes which was last made'.
This must have been the mask of Muses given on 15 June. It was lent with
another mask, 'into the contre to the maryage of the dowter of my lorde
Montague', at some date between 15 September and 6 October. This was the
occasion of Gascoigne's verses just described, although it must have
been the other mask, a mask of men, which those verses presented.
It may be collected from scattered items of expenditure that the Court
masks of 1572-3 were two in number.[554] There was a mask of Janus on 1
January, with a snow-storm of comfits and a presentation of snowballs,
made out of sponges covered with fine lamb's-wool, to the Queen. And on
some later date there was a double mask of men and women, representing
Fishermen and probably Fruit-women. Haunce Eottes is again said to have
painted 'patternes' for the masks. There are some traces of a mask, with
women, as well as Mariners and Turks, in it, when Elizabeth received the
French ambassador Mareschal de Retz at Canterbury during the progress of
1573; and there was one at Greenwich, probably not at the royal expense,
for the marriage of William Drury in the following November or
December.[555] For the winter of 1573-4 a complete list is
preserved.[556] There was a mask of Lance Knights in blue satin, with
torch-bearers in black and yellow taffeta, on 27 December; a mask of
Foresters in green satin and cloaks of crimson sarcenet, with Wild Men
in moss and ivy as torch-bearers, on New Year's Day; and a mask of Sages
in 'counterfeit' cloth of gold, with torch-bearers in red damask, on
Twelfth Night. There were six maskers in each case. The Foresters were
equipped with a hollow tree and with comfits made to resemble wild
fruits; also with horns garnished with silver, 'which hornes', says the
Revels account, 'the maskers detayned and yet doeth kepe them against
the will of all the officers'. At Candlemas Haunce Eottes made designs
for a mask of six ladies in green satin and gold sarcenet, representing
Virtues, and carrying lights and 'properties', including a silk tree, in
specially made candlesticks. Perfumes were prepared to burn at the end
of matches, and speeches for delivery to Her Majesty written in fair
text. But after all the mask was not shown 'for the tediusnesse of the
playe that night'. Finally there were two masks on Shrove Tuesday. One
was of seven Warriors, with a shipmaster to utter a speech, and six
torch-bearers; the other of seven ladies, also with a 'tronchwoman', and
torch-bearers. Probably this was a double mask, and in some way there
came into it nine children, who had been drilled and taught their
speeches by one Nicholas Newdigate, and in various ways gave a good deal
of trouble.[557] During the winter of 1574-5 I can only trace with
confidence one mask, on an uncertain date. It was a mask of six Pedlars,
who had little hampers, and looking-glasses with posies written on them
in fine yellow paint.[558] There were not improbably others, the details
of which cannot now be disentangled in the Revels Accounts from those
relating to plays. A mask, 'for riches of aray, of an incredibl cost',
was planned as part of the Kenilworth festivities of July 1575; but was
not in the end performed.[559] Nothing is known of the masks during the
winter of 1575-6, for the Revels Accounts are missing. For Twelfth Night
1577 a 'longe' mask was prepared, of six dancers in murrey satin, with
torch-bearers in crimson damask. There were to have been seven speeches
'framed correspondent to the daie', and Nicholas Newdigate again trained
boys to deliver these. But for some reason the mask was put off, and
given on Shrove Tuesday without any speeches at all.[560] The Revels
Accounts of 1577-8 are missing. A mask by Henry Goldingham was given at
Norwich on 21 August 1578 during the progress. It was of Gods and
Goddesses, who entered the privy chamber with a presenter,
torch-bearers, and musicians, marched about the room and gave
characteristic gifts, but apparently did not dance.[561] On 11 January
1579 there was a double mask for the entertainment of the French
ambassador, M. de Simier, who had come about the Alençon marriage.
Patterns of the mask were submitted for approval to the Lord
Chamberlain. One party consisted of six Amazons, the other of six
Knights.[562] Each party had its torch-bearers and a 'troocheman', who
made a speech to the Queen and delivered her a table with the speech
written upon it. These speeches had been translated into Italian and
inscribed upon the tables by Petruchio Ubaldini. The Amazons and Knights
danced together and afterwards fought at barriers. Some of the plumes
which had been hired for the Knights were 'dropt with torches', and the
Revels Office had to pay damages for them. Patterns were also shown to
the Lord Chamberlain of a 'Mores' mask intended for Shrove Tuesday, but
this seems to have fallen through.[563] I do not know whether the
invention of the Court poets had failed, or whether for some other
reason Elizabeth had become discontent with masks; but, although there
are full Revels Accounts for the winters of 1579-80 and 1580-1, and
although plays were numerous, no single performance of a mask is
recorded. But the spirit of revelry awoke in 1581, at the coming of
French commissioners to complete negotiations for the Anjou marriage in
the spring, followed by that of Anjou himself in the autumn. Patterns of
masks were prepared and the construction of a mount begun in March.[564]
These were not proceeded with at the time, and the famous tilt before
the Fortress of Perfect Beauty was substituted as an entertainment for
the commissioners. But in the winter there were two masks, and amongst
the devices employed were a mount with a castle on the top of it, a
dragon, an artificial tree, an artificial lion, and a horse made of
wood.[565] These details suggest a revival of the scheme abandoned in
the previous spring, for the personal delectation of Anjou.
Court masks are but little in evidence during the next few years. There
was one of ladies, with torch-bearers and eight boys, on 5 January 1583,
and during the same winter one of Seamen was prepared, but not brought
into use.[566] There was a mask in 1583-4, of which no details are
given; while for 1585-6 and 1586-7 no information, in the absence of the
Revels Accounts, is forthcoming.[567] The accounts for 1584-5 and 1587-8
have a general reference to masks in their headings, which may be no
more than common form.[568] In September 1589, however, a mask was
prepared to be sent into Scotland, as a compliment to James VI on the
occasion of his wedding to Anne of Denmark.[569] It does not appear to
have been a very sumptuous affair, and only cost the Revels Office £17
10_s._ 10_d._ We are not told what the maskers represented.
There were six of them, with vizards and falchions, in purple coats,
crimson bases, and orange and purple and white mantles. They had
torch-bearers in red and yellow damask, and four persons garlanded with
flowers 'to vtter speches'. The description of the torch-bearers reads
uncommonly like that of the torch-bearers to the abandoned mask of
Seamen, and if they wore 'translated' garments of 1583, there cannot
have been much masking in the interval.
After 1589 the Revels Accounts altogether fail us, and although it is
probable that the mask shared in the general renewal of festivity which
followed the passing of the Spanish peril, we have only side-lights upon
it during the last decade of the reign. Certainly it was still
flourishing in the winter of 1594-5, when one Arthur Throgmorton planned
to use it, with a rather skilful introduction of some personal abasement
and the gift of a jewel, as a means of recovering the forfeited favour
of the Queen. The occasion seems to have been the wedding of William
Earl of Derby, and Lady Elizabeth Vere, granddaughter of Burghley, on 26
January 1595.[570] It was in this same winter, too, that a very
magnificent Shrovetide mask was brought to Court by the men of Gray's
Inn, as a wind-up to their notable Christmas revels under the Prince of
Purpoole. Of this a detailed account is preserved in the _Gesta
Grayorum_, with songs and speeches which can be assigned respectively to
Thomas Campion and Francis Davison. These had for theme a controversy
between certain adventurous knights and the sea-god Proteus, and for
object the flattery of Elizabeth, the virtue of whose presence obliges
Proteus to release the knights from their durance in an Adamantine
Rock.[571] Of the place of this mask in the history of the literary form
something will be said at a later point.
The gallantry of Gray's Inn was emulated a few years later by the Middle
Temple, who, after presenting several masks in their own hall during the
Christmas revels of their Prince d'Amour, did their devoir at Court on
Twelfth Night with a mask in which the nine Passions issued from a
Heart. The mask was followed by a barriers, and preceded by a cavalcade
through the streets of a type of which examples have already been noted
in 1377 and 1559.[572] In the summer of 1600 one of Elizabeth's maids of
honour, Anne, daughter of Elizabeth Lady Russell, left the Court to be
married to Henry Lord Herbert, son of the Earl of Worcester. The Queen
was present at the wedding on 16 June. She dined at Lady Russell's house
in Blackfriars, and supped and lodged for the night in that of Lord
Cobham hard by. After supper a mask came in. Eight Muses, represented by
maids of honour and others, were come to seek their lost companion.
After they had done their performance, they wooed the Queen to dance.
She was not proof against the ready tongue of Mary Fitton, and complied.
'Elle dansa gayement et de belle disposition,' says the French
ambassador, M. de Boississe, who was present.[573]
Finally, in the spring of 1602, negotiations were passing between Sir
Robert Cecil and Sir John Popham on behalf of the Middle Temple, for
some entertainment to gratify the Queen, for which the benchers were
prepared to contribute 200 marks.[574] Probably this was a mask, but
whether and when it actually came off is not known. It may have been
designed to celebrate the coming of the Duke of Nevers and other
Frenchmen in the following April, and it may have been the mask a song
from which was copied by John Manningham, a member of the Middle Temple,
on a fly-leaf of his diary with the date 'Nov. 2'.[575]
Under James I the material for tracing the history of the mask becomes
remarkably abundant, owing to the regular practice, of which the _Gesta
Grayorum_ is the only Elizabethan example, of issuing elaborate
descriptions, with copies of the songs and speeches used, for the
information of those unable to be present, and the incidental
glorification of performers, poets, and producers.[576] In view of the
full details compiled from these descriptions and other sources in the
bibliographical appendix, a brief chronicle will suffice for a
conclusion of this chapter. The main factors to be borne in mind are,
firstly, the personal participation of Queen Anne, who took a special
delight in all kinds of spectacle and revelry;[577] secondly, the
employment of such poets as Jonson, Campion, Daniel, Beaumont, and
Chapman, to give the masks their literary setting;[578] and thirdly, the
great development of the scenic element through the mechanical and
decorative genius of Inigo Jones. Anne gave her first mask, of which no
details are preserved, as a welcome to Prince Henry, when he came to
join the Court at Winchester during the plague-stricken wanderings which
filled the autumn of 1603. An English official describes it as 'a
gallant mask', and the French ambassador, more critically, as less a
'_ballet_' than a '_masquarade champêtre_'. At any rate it whetted the
appetite of the Court for more to come, and there was soon talk of the
splendours foreshadowed for the following Christmas.[579] This, still
owing to the plague, was held at Hampton Court. The principal mask was
danced by the Queen, with Lady Bedford and other ladies of the court, on
8 January. Through the influence of Lady Bedford, Samuel Daniel was
employed as poet, and produced his _Vision of the Twelve Goddesses_.
Queen Elizabeth's wardrobe was ransacked to provide material for the
costumes. The lords of the Court, led by the Duke of Lennox, danced a
mask of Indian and Chinese knights on 1 January, and certain Scotchmen
one resembling a sword dance on Twelfth Night; but of neither of these
has a full description been preserved. The masks of subsequent
Christmases took place at Whitehall, where in 1607 the old timber
banqueting house of 1581 gave way to a permanent structure designed to
house them with magnificence. The Queen's mask of 1604-5 was the _Mask
of Blackness_, and began the long and fruitful co-operation of Ben
Jonson and Inigo Jones. It was on Twelfth Night, and did honour to the
creation of Prince Charles as Duke of York. A mask of Juno and Hymenaeus
given on 27 December by friends of Sir Philip Herbert, in celebration
of his marriage to Lady Susan Vere, has not been preserved. The only
Christmas masks of the next two winters were of similar origin. Jonson's
_Hymenaei_ was given at the wedding of Robert Earl of Essex and Lady
Frances Howard on 5 January 1606, and a mask of the Knights of Apollo by
Thomas Campion, who had had a share in the verses for the Gray's Inn
mask of 1595, at that of James Lord Hay and Honora Denny on 7 January
1607. As a mask must be accounted, I suppose, the extraordinary
exhibition of _Solomon and the Queen of Sheba_ before James and
Christian of Denmark at Theobalds in July 1606, of which a description
is forthcoming from the satirical pen of Sir John Harington.[580] By the
winter of 1607-8 the new banqueting house was ready, and the series of
Queen's masks was resumed with Jonson's _Mask of Beauty_ on 10 January.
In a second mask, sometimes called, although not by its author, _The Hue
and Cry after Cupid_, for the wedding of John Viscount Haddington and
Lady Elizabeth Radcliffe on 9 February, Jonson appears to have
considered that he took a definite step forward in the evolution of the
mask-form, by the introduction of an antimask or group of grotesque
dancers as a foil to the mask proper. The Queen's mask for 1608-9 was
Jonson's _Mask of Queens_ at Candlemas, and there was no other. During
the winter of 1609-10, which was devoted to Prince Henry's mimetic
barriers, there was no mask at all, unless indeed the anonymous and
undated _Mask of the Twelve Months_ belongs to this year. But on the
following 5 June came Daniel's _Tethys' Festival_, which was the Queen's
contribution to the festivities attending the creation of Henry as
Prince of Wales. In 1610-11 there was a Queen's mask, Jonson's _Love
Freed from Ignorance and Folly_, on 3 February, and also a Prince's
mask, Jonson's _Oberon_, on 1 January. Jonson's _Love Restored_ was a
Prince's mask of 6 January 1612. The masks of 1612-13 were all given in
celebration of the wedding of the Princess Elizabeth to the Elector
Palatine of the Rhine, Frederick V, at Shrovetide. There were three of
them. Campion's _Lords' Mask_ was danced by lords and ladies of the
Court on the actual day of the wedding, 14 February. The other two were
contributed by the Inns of Court, and each was preluded by a public
procession or triumph, such as had been found natural in earlier years
when a mask came from London to the palace. The Middle Temple and
Lincoln's Inn came by road on 15 February with a mask of Virginians by
George Chapman; the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn by water on 16 February,
with a mask of Olympian Knights by Francis Beaumont. This, however, they
were not able to dance until 20 February. Jonson took no part in these
hymeneal festivities, and may have been abroad. The masks for the
wedding of Robert Earl of Somerset and Lady Frances Howard on 26
December 1613 almost vied in magnificence, and more than vied in number,
with those given for the princess. The bride had passed through stormy
days since Jonson's _Hymenaei_ hailed her first marriage in 1606, and
was to pass through stormier still. Campion was again selected as the
poet for the actual wedding day. In his mask, sometimes called the _Mask
of Squires_, and danced by lords and gentlemen of the Court, he had the
assistance, not of Jones, but of Constantine de' Servi, who does not
appear to have been very successful. Jonson's _Irish Mask_, which was
given on 29 December and repeated on 3 January, was a comparatively
slight performance, danced by five Englishmen and five Scots. Thomas
Middleton's _Mask of Cupid_, unfortunately lost, was an exceptional
performance given not at Court, but by the City in the Merchant Taylors'
hall on 4 January, after a request from the King that they should do
honour to the earl. Finally the _Mask of Flowers_, the authors of which
are only known by the initials I. G., W. D., and T. B., was given by
Gray's Inn on 6 January, at the charges of Sir Francis Bacon, who had
already taken an active part in promoting the joint Inner Temple and
Gray's Inn mask of the previous year. When Anne married her favourite
maid of honour, Jane Drummond, to Lord Roxborough on 2 February, she
perhaps thought that another mask would be something of an anti-climax,
and the performance in a little paved court at Somerset House took the
shape of a pastoral, Daniel's _Hymen's Triumph_.
After the wedding carnivals of two successive years, the masks of
1614-15 and 1615-16 were comparatively insignificant, and even their
chronology is not quite certain. To one of these winters belongs
Jonson's _Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists_, but it is not certain
to which, and to the other his _Golden Age Restored_. In each year there
were duplicate performances, on 6 and 8 January 1615 and on 1 and 6
January 1616. Both masks were danced by lords and gentlemen of the
Court. That of 1615 was contrived to serve the interests of George
Villiers, who was soon to replace the already tottering Somerset in the
esteem of his royal master. A mask, of which no details are known, seems
also to have been given by the Spanish ambassador in February 1615. Of
masks elsewhere than at Court during 1603-16 there are few to record.
The Princess Elizabeth seems, on at least one occasion, to have had a
mask for her private delectation.[581] One by John Marston formed part
of the entertainment given by the Earl of Huntingdon to Alice Countess
of Derby, at Ashby in August 1607, and one by Campion part of that given
by Lord Knollys to Anne at Caversham on 27 April 1613. William Browne's
_Ulysses and Circe_ glorified the Inner Temple feast on 13 January 1615.
The palmy days of the Jacobean mask close with our period. Henry was
dead; Elizabeth was gone. Anne, ailing and retired during her later
years, died in 1619. She had danced her last mask in 1611. Charles made
his début as an adult masker in 1618, and most of the Court masks to the
end of the reign are Prince's masks. But it takes a Queen to make a
Court, and the English mask had to wait for its _renouveau_ until the
coming of Henrietta Maria.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 513: _Mediaeval Stage_, i. 390.]
[Footnote 514: Ibid. 394; Reyher, 499; from _Harl. MS._ 247, f. 172ᵛ]
[Footnote 515: _Mediaeval Stage_, i. 396.]
[Footnote 516: Leland, _Collectanea_, v. 359; Reyher, 500; from Ralph
Starkey, _Booke of Certain Triumphes_ (_Harl. MS._ 69, f. 29v); Grose
and Astle, _The Antiquarian Repertory_, ii. 249.]
[Footnote 517: Halle, i. 15, 21, 22, 25, 40; Brewer, ii. 2, 1490 _sqq._,
from _Revels Accounts_ (_Misc. Bks. Exch., T. of R._ 217).]
[Footnote 518: Brotanek, 118; Reyher, 14, citing, _inter alia_, _A
Manifest Detection of ... Diceplay_ (_Percy Soc._ lxxxvii), 37, 'If it
be winter season when masking is most in use ... they hire ... a suit of
right masking apparel, and after, invite divers guests to a supper, all
such as be then of estimation, to give them credit by their
acquaintance, or such as ... will be liberal to hazard some thing in a
mumchance; by which means they assure themselves, at the least, to have
supper scot free; perchance to win xxˡᶦ about. And howsoever the common
people esteem the thing I am clear out of doubt, that the more half of
your gay masks in London are grounded upon such cheating crafts, and
tend only the pouling and robbing of the King's subjects'. The dice were
loaded otherwise for Richard II. A 'mummery', with 'foure visards, foure
gownes, a boxe and a drumme', is dramatized in _Soliman and Perseda_
(Boas, _Kyd_, 189), ii. 1, 187, where for 'Charleman is come' (l. 228),
_lege_ 'Christemas is come'. It is in dumb show, which confirms the
supposed etymological connexion with 'mum' (cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, i.
396). 'Mumchance' is a common term for dice-play. But the French
_momon_, _momerie_, and Italian _mumia_ do not appear to have been
specialized in the English sense. 'Some goodly mummery at supper' was
planned for the meeting of Henry VIII and Charles V at Gravelines in
July 1520 (_Rutland Papers, C. S._ 54). Jonson introduces Mumming as a
dancer in his _Masque of Christmas_ (1616).]
[Footnote 519: For France, cf. the examples of 1377, 1389, 1393, 1457,
&c., cited by Brotanek, 287, Prunières, 3; the verses of Charles
d'Orléans (> 1415) for a _mommerie_ of women (ed. d'Héricault, i. 148);
the 'danse en barboire, en laquelle fut dancé à la mode de France, de
l'Allemaigne, d'Espaigne et Lombardye, et à la fin en la manière de
Poitou' at the betrothal of Claude of France and Charles of Austria in
1501 (Jean d'Auton, _Chron. de Louis XII_, ii. 99); and the revels
during the Italian campaigns of Louis at Pavia and Milan in 1507 (Jean
d'Auton, iv. 289, 311). At Milan lords danced 'en masque' and ladies
danced 'a relays les unes après les autres', but it is not definitely
said that ladies and maskers danced together. The 'danse en barboire'
possibly illustrates the enigmatical _barbaturiae_ of which the nuns of
St. Radegund in Poitou were guilty in the eighth century (_Mediaeval
Stage_, i. 362). For Burgundy, cf. Prunières, 10, citing accounts of the
crusaders' Feast of the Pheasant (1454), and the wedding of Duke Charles
and Margaret of York (1468). In 1454 there were dumb shows of the Golden
Fleece, followed by the entry of Grâce-Dieu and her train of Virtues,
who delivered a speech and then 'commencèrent à danser en guise de
mommeries'. In 1468 there were 'entremectz mouvans' of the Labours of
Hercules (Olivier de la Marche, ed. _Soc. H. F._ iii. 134, 143). These
shows were given while the guests were still at table. When they were
over, the tables were cleared away, and the guests danced.]
[Footnote 520: To the _entremetz_ of France correspond the _intermedii_
of Italy. These, as described by Creizenach, ii. 419; D'Ancona, ii. 168,
420; Symonds, _Shakspeare's Predecessors_, 321; _Renaissance in Italy_,
v. 122; Prunières, 28; Cunliffe, _Early English Classical Tragedies_,
xxxix, and in _M. L. A._ xxii. 150 and _M. P._ iv. 597, were
_entr'actes_ to late fifteenth and early sixteenth-century plays, but
very similar shows were given independently at banquets; e. g. the
mimetic _chori_ with Silenus for _risus_ devised by Bergonzio Botta for
the wedding of Giangaleazzo Sforza and Isabella of Aragon at Tortona in
1489 (Calchi, _Nuptiae Mediolaniorum Ducum_ in Graevius, _Thesaurus_,
ii. 1, 509). _Trionfi_ are primarily out-of-door processions with cars.]
[Footnote 521: Halle, i. 40; Brewer, ii. 1497, from _Revels Accounts_.]
[Footnote 522: _Mediaeval Stage_, i. 401; cf. Brotanek, 67.]
[Footnote 523: Evans, xxi; Reyher, 491; Cunliffe in _M. L. A._ xxii.
140.]
[Footnote 524: Cf. Marlowe, _Edward II_, 55 'He haue Italian maskes by
night'. 'Mask' seems to be derived from a Teutonic root related to Lat.
_macula_, and means a 'net' or 'stain'. Both 'maske' and 'maskel' are
M.E. forms; but I do not find the word used in connexion with
disguisings, either for the performance or for the vizard, before 1512.
Halle's book was unfinished at his death in 1547, and for him 'maske'
and its derivative 'masker' are regular for the performance and the
performer. He also uses a 'masker' (i. 215), a 'maskery' (i. 209), 'in
maskeler' (i. 209), 'apparel of maskery' (i. 217), and 'maskyng apparel'
(i. 171, 217; ii. 220). For the face-mask he retains 'viser'. The
_Revels Accounts_ for 1512-22 use 'maskeller' or 'meskeller' as noun
abstract and adjective, and 'maskelyng' or 'meskellyng' as adjective or
participle. 'Masking garments', and 'a maske' for the performance first
appear in a Revels document of 1539. In those of Cawarden's time 'maske'
and its derivatives are established. Jonson (cf. p. 176) seems
responsible for stereotyping the spelling 'masque', which, however, Lyly
(cf. _Works_, ii. 103) had used before him.]
[Footnote 525: Ronsard (ed. Marty-Leveaux), vi. 310.]
[Footnote 526: This is at the end of a _farsa_ by Jacopo Sannazaro given
before Alfonso Duke of Calabria in 1492 (D'Ancona, ii. 98, from _Opere_
of 1723). 'Subito uscirono li trombetti sonando, tutti vestiti
riccamente d'una maniera, l'illustrissimo signore Principe di Capua con
gli altri in mumia, delicatamente vestiti ad una maniera del Signore di
Castiglia ... con torcie in mano ballando. Da poi, ciascuno prese una
Signora per la mano, e ballò la sua alta e bassa; e con le torchie in
mano se ne tornorono: e per quella sera così ebbe fine la festa.' In a
revel at Ferrara in 1473 (Muratori, _Rer. Ital. Script._ xxiv. 244),
Duke Hercules and his fellows danced with the ladies, and then came in
'grande multitudini di mascare', and danced; but it is not clear that
the Duke was a masker, or that the masked persons danced with the
ladies. I should add that I have not been able to make any complete or
first-hand investigation of foreign analogies to the mask. Doubtless the
street masks of the Florentine carnival had a folk origin like that
which I assign to the English mumming; for their elaboration by Lorenzo
de' Medici (1448-92) cf. Symonds, _Renaissance in Italy_, iv. 338;
D'Ancona, i. 253; Prunières, 20. M. Prunières appears to regard the
'taking out' to dance as no part of the original custom, but an
adaptation due to the courts of Ferrara and Modena at the end of the
fifteenth century.]
[Footnote 527: It is significant that John Farlyon in 1534 was appointed
Yeoman of masks, revels, and disguisings; Cawarden in 1544 Master of
revels and masks (_Tudor Revels_, 7, 9; cf. p. 72). In Jonson's _Masque
of Augurs_ (1623) Notch says to the Groom of the Revels, 'Disguise was
the old English word for a masque, Sir, before you were an implement
belonging to the Revels'.]
[Footnote 528: Halle, i. 57, 117, 143, 149, 153, 171, 176, 179, 208,
215, 220, 234, 238, 247, 249, 256; ii. 24, 79, 87, 108, 149, 183, 220,
303, 360; Brewer, ii. 2, 1490; iii. 1548; iv. 418, 1390, 1415, 1603,
from _Revels Accounts_.]
[Footnote 529: Halle, ii. 220.]
[Footnote 530: The descriptions of the devices employed in the 'great
chamber of disguisings' at Greenwich in 1527 (Halle, ii. 86, 108)
suggest that they were fixed. The setting for one of the masks was
certainly revealed 'by lettyng doune of a courtaine', not by wheeling in
a pageant.]
[Footnote 531: The available material for 1547-58 is collected, mainly
from the Revels documents in the _Loseley MSS._, by A. Feuillerat in
_Materialien_, xliv.]
[Footnote 532: Il Schifanoya to Castellan of Mantua (_V. P._ vii. 11),
'As I suppose your Lordship will have heard of the _farsa_ performed in
the presence of her Majesty on the day of the Epiphany, and I not having
sufficient intellect to interpret it, nor yet the mummery performed
after supper on the same day, of crows in the habits of Cardinals, of
asses habited as Bishops, and of wolves representing Abbots, I will
consign it to silence.... Nor will I record the levities and unusual
licentiousness practised at the Court in dances and banquets, nor the
masquerade of friars in the streets of London.']
[Footnote 533: Il Schifanoya to Mantuan Ambassador at Brussels (_V. P._
vii. 27), 'Last evening at the Court a double mummery was played: one
set of mummers rifled the Queen's ladies, and the other set, with wooden
swords and bucklers, recovered the spoil. Then at the dance the Queen
performed her part, the Duke of Norfolk being her partner, in superb
array.']
[Footnote 534: Machyn, 204, 206.]
[Footnote 535: On 31 Jan. (Machyn, 221) 'ther was a play a-for her
grace, the wyche the plaers plad shuche matter that they wher commondyd
to leyff off, and contenent the maske cam in dansyng'.]
[Footnote 536: The succession of masks for 1558-60 is traceable with the
aid of Il Schifanoya from an analysis of the following Revels documents,
(_a_) an inventory of 26 March 1555 (Feuillerat, _Ed. and M._ 180),
(_b_) the accounts from 26 March 1555 to 29 Sept. 1559 (Feuillerat, _Ed.
and M._ 195-242; _Eliz._ 79-108), (_c_) an estimate of the cost of the
1559-60 masks (Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 110), (_d_) a 'rere-account' of the
uses to which the masks inventoried in (_a_) and certain stuffs
subsequently issued to the Masters of the Revels had been put during
1555-60 (Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 18), and (_e_) an inventory of _c._ May
1560 (Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 37). There were fifteen sets of masking
garments in store in 1555, Mariners, Venetian Senators, Turkish
Magistrates, Greek Worthies, Albanian Warriors, Turkish Archers, Irish
Kerns, Galley-Slaves (torch-bearers), Falconers (torch-bearers), Palmers
(torch-bearers), Turkish Commoners (torch-bearers), Huntresses, Venuses,
Nymphs, and Turkish Women. Some of these were no longer serviceable and
became fees; the rest were gradually pulled to pieces during 1555-60 and
used with fresh material in constructing new sets. As a result the
inventory of 1560 contains none of the sets of 1555, but seventeen of
later origin, Patriarchs, Actaeons, Hunters (torch-bearers to Actaeons),
Nusquams, Turkish Commoners (torch-bearers to Nusquams, not the set of
1555), Barbarians, Venetian Commoners (torch-bearers to Barbarians),
Clowns, Hinds (torch-bearers to Clowns), Swart Rutters, Almayns
(torch-bearers to Swart Rutters, although not so described), Moors,
Diana and her Nymphs, Maidens (torch-bearers to Diana), Italian Women,
Fishwives, and Marketwives. The rere-account shows that in the interim
between 1555 and 1560 eleven other sets had come into existence and been
picked to pieces again. There were Almayns (not the 1560 set), Palmers
(not the 1555 set), Irishmen (not the 1555 set), Hungarians, Conquerors,
Mariners, or Shipmen (not the 1555 set), Moorish friars (torch-bearers),
Fishermen (torch-bearers), Astronomers, and unnamed torch-bearers to
Astronomers and to Patriarchs. A number of ecclesiastical costumes had
also been made, of which a few were still in store in 1560, and which
evidently belong to the mask described by Il Schifanoya. It seems clear
from the _Revels Accounts_ that the only new mask between 1555 and the
end of Mary's reign was one of Almayns, Pilgrims, and Irishmen on 25
April 1557 (Feuillerat, _Edw and M._ 225). This accounts for three of
the twelve interim sets. The other nine and the seventeen in the 1560
inventory must all be Elizabethan. The documents give or indicate dates
for most of them. A process of exclusions obliges us to place the
Conquerors, Moors, and Hungarians in the early part of 1559. Here are
three vacant dates. Il Schifanoya tells us that there was a second
company of maskers on Shrove Sunday, besides the Swart Rutters, whom the
accounts assign to that day. The Hungarians would be appropriate
antagonists to the Swart Rutters. There were also two unspecified masks
at the time of the Coronation, one on the next day, 16 Jan., the other
'on the Sondaye seven nighte after the Coronacion', which as 15 Jan. was
itself a Sunday, probably means 22 rather than 29 Jan. As part of the
garments of the Moors had previously been used for the Conquerors
(Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 20), the Moors must have been the later of the two.
The masks of 11 July and 6 August 1559 were probably not given at the
royal cost, as the Revels documents are quite silent about them. My list
agrees in the main with that in Wallace, i. 199, which however has some
errors. There is no evidence for masks on 2 Feb. and 6 Feb. 1559. The
list in Feuillerat, _Eliz._ xiii, is incomplete.]
[Footnote 537: Brantôme, _Hommes illustres et Capitaines françois_ (ed.
Buchon, i. 312), 'La reyne ... donna un soir à soupper, où après se fit
un ballet de ses filles, qu'elle avoit ordonné et dressé, représentant
les vierges de l'Évangile, desquelles les unes avoient leurs lampes
allumées, et les autres n'avoient ny huille ny feu, et en demandoient.
Ces lampes estoient d'argent, fort gentiment faictes et elabourées; et
les dames estoient très-belles, bien honnestes et bien apprises, qui
prindrent nous autres François pour dancer.']
[Footnote 538: Machyn, 275, 276, 'The furst day of Feybruary at nyght
was the goodlyest masket cam owt of London that ever was seen, of a C.
and d' [? 150] gorgyously be-sene, and a C. cheynes of gold, and as for
trumpettes and drumes, and as for torchelyghte a ij hundered, and so to
the cowrt, and dyvers goodly men of armes in gylt harnes, and Julyus
Sesar played.' The last word is in a later hand, and according to
Wallace, i. 200, is a nineteenth-century forgery.]
[Footnote 539: _M. S. C._ i. 144; Collier, i. 178; from _Lansd. MS._ v,
f. 126, endorsed 'Maij 1562'. A warrant of 10 May 1562 for the delivery
of silks for masks and revels to the Master of the Revels is in
Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 114.]
[Footnote 540: I strongly suspect that the second night's mask was
really intended to be one of lords, not ladies.]
[Footnote 541: Machyn, 300. Machyn, 215, 222, 248, 288, 300, records
several masks in the City during 1559-63. The diary ends in August
1563.]
[Footnote 542: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 116, 'the ixᵗʰ of Iune repayringe and
new makinge of thre maskes with thare hole furniture and diuers devisses
and a castle ffor ladies and a harboure ffor lords and thre harrolds and
iiij trompetours too bringe in the devise with the men of armes and
showen at the courtte of Richmond before the Quenes Maiestie and the
ffrench embassitours, &c.']
[Footnote 543: Froude, vii. 199; De Silva to Philip (_Sp. P._ i. 367,
385), 'after supper ... the Queen came out to the hall, which was lit
with many torches, where the comedy was represented. I should not have
understood much of it, if the Queen had not interpreted, as she told me
she would do. They generally deal with marriage in the comedies.... The
comedy ended, and then there was a mask of certain gentlemen who entered
dressed in black and white, which the Queen told me were her colours,
and after dancing a while one of them approached and handed the Queen a
sonnet in English, praising her.' A banquet followed, ending at 2 a.m.]
[Footnote 544: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 116, 'Cristmas ... canvas to couer
diuers townes and howsses and other devisses and clowds for a maske and
a showe and a play by the childerne of the chaple.... The xviijᵗʰ of
Fabruarie ... provicions for a play maid by Sir Percivall Hartts sones
with a mask of huntars and diuers devisses and a rocke, or hill for the
ix musses to singe vppone with a vayne of sarsnett dravven vpp and downe
before them.... Shroftid ... foure maskes too of them nott occupied nor
sene with thare hole furniture which be verie fayr and riche of old stuf
butt new garnished with frenge and tassells to seme new'; cf. De Silva
to Philip of the revel after a tilt on 5 March (_Sp. P._ i. 404). It
began after supper with 'a comedy in English of which I understood just
as much as the Queen told me. The plot was founded on the question of
marriage, discussed between Juno and Diana, Juno advocating marriage and
Diana chastity. Jupiter gave a verdict in favour of matrimony, after
many things had passed on both sides in defence of the respective
arguments. The Queen turned to me and said, "This is all against me".
After the comedy there was a masquerade of Satyrs, or wild gods, who
danced with the ladies, and when this was finished there entered 10
parties of 12 gentlemen each, the same who fought in the foot tourney,
and these, all armed as they were, danced with the ladies; a very novel
ball, surely.']
[Footnote 545: Hume, _Year after Armada_, 283; De Silva to Philip (_Sp.
P._ i. 452), 'a ball, a tourney, and two masks'. These were after supper
and ended at 1.30 a.m.]
[Footnote 546: Pound's speeches are in _Rawl. Poet. MS._ 108 (_Bodl.
MS._ 14601), f. 24; De Silva to Philip (July 1566, _Sp. P._ i. 565), 'a
masquerade and a long ball, after which they entered in new disguises
for a foot tournament'. The chief challenger was Ormond. On Pound's
career as a masker and its strange end, cf. ch. xxiii.]
[Footnote 547: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 119, 'the altering and newe makinge
of sixe maskes out of ould stuff with torche bearers thervnto wherof
iiijᵒʳ hathe byne shewene before vs, and two remayne vnshewen', 124,
125, 126.]
[Footnote 548: Ibid. 129, 134, 139, 146.]
[Footnote 549: Fleay, 19; Brotanek, 25. But the resemblances are only
partial, cf. _M. S. C._ i. 144.]
[Footnote 550: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 153.]
[Footnote 551: G. Gascoigne, _A devise of a Maske for the right
honorable Viscount Mountacute_ (_Works_, i. 75, from _The Posies_ of
1575). The date is fixed by Thomas Giles's letter.]
[Footnote 552: The reproductions in Strutt, _Manners and Customs_, iii,
pl. xi, and Withington, i. 208, omit the wedding table. The pictures
must be later than Sir H. Unton's death in 1596. Ashmole, _Berks_, iii.
313, dates his wedding with Dorothy, daughter of Sir Thomas Wroughton of
Broad Hinton, Wilts, in 1580.]
[Footnote 553: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 409.]
[Footnote 554: Ibid., _Eliz._ 171-81, 'gloves for maskers', 'the lordes
gloves', 'the torcheberers gloves', 'ladye maskers', 'women maskers',
'Haunce Eottes for painting of patternes for maskes', 'the masks on New
Yeres daye', 'the dubble mask', 'a keye for Janus', 'ffyn white lam to
make snoballs', 'spunges for snoballs', 'musk kumfettes ... corianders
... clove cumfettes ... synamon kumfettes ... rose water ... spike water
... gynger cumfettes ... all whiche served for fflakes of yse and hayle
stones in the maske of Ianvs the roze water sweetened the balls made for
snow-balles presented to her Maiestie by Ianvs', 'a nett for the
ffishers maskers', 'berdes for fyshers vj', curled heare for fyshers
capps', 'roches counterfet ... whitings ... thornebackes ... smeltes ...
mackerells ... fflownders', 'wooll to stuf the fishes', 'banketting
frutes', 'basketes of ffrute', 'mowldes to cast the frutes and ffishes
in'.]
[Footnote 555: Ibid. 183, 191.]
[Footnote 556: Ibid. 193-221.]
[Footnote 557: Cf. p. 87.]
[Footnote 558: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 234-46, 'vj bandes for hattes for
maskers', 'gloves for ... maskers', '23ᵒ Decembris ... Mirors or
looking-glasses for the pedlers mask xij small at ijˢ the peece and vj
greater at iiijˢ the peece', '29ᵒ Decembris ... ffayer wryting of pozies
for the mask', '6ᵒ Ianuarii ... ix little hampers at xxᵈ the peece for
the pedlers mask', 'ffyne yolow to wryte vpon the mirrors'.]
[Footnote 559: Laneham, 33; cf. chh. iv, p. 123, and xxiv.]
[Footnote 560: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 264-70.]
[Footnote 561: Cf. ch. xxiv.]
[Footnote 562: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 286, 294; _Sp. P._ ii. 627, 630, 'an
entertainment in imitation of a tournament, between six ladies and a
like number of gentlemen who surrendered to them'. Mr. Tresham and Mr.
Knowles were Knights.]
[Footnote 563: Ibid. 308.]
[Footnote 564: Ibid. 340, 345, '1ᵒ Aprilis 1581, what monnie is to be
allowed in prest for certayne shewes to be had at Whitehal ... The
Mounte, Dragon with the fyer workes, Castell with the fallyng sydes,
Tree with shyldes, Hermytage and hermytt, Savages, Enchaunter,
Charryott, and incydentes to theis cc markes'.]
[Footnote 565: Ibid. 344 (table), 346.]
[Footnote 566: Ibid. 349.]
[Footnote 567: Ibid. 360 (table). The _Jervoise MSS._ (_H. M. C. Various
MSS._ iv. 163) contain verses dated 1586 for a mask from Basingstoke to
Richard Pawlett, doubtless a kinsman of the Marquis of Winchester at
Basing.]
[Footnote 568: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 365, 378. A mask followed the play of
_Catiline_, with which Lord Burghley was entertained at Gray's Inn on 16
Jan. 1588 (_M. S. C._ i. 179).]
[Footnote 569: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 392.]
[Footnote 570: Arthur Throgmorton to Robert Cecil (_Hatfield MSS._ v.
99; cf. _Sh. Homage_, 158), 'Matter of mirth from a good mind can
minister no matter of malice, both being, as I believe, far from such
sourness (and for myself I will answer for soundness). I am bold to
write my determination, grounded upon grief and true duty to the Queen,
thankfulness to my lord of Derby (whose honourable brother honoured my
marriage), and to assure you I bear no spleen to yourself. If I may I
mind to come in a masque, brought in by the nine muses, whose music, I
hope, shall so modify the easy softened mind of her Majesty as both I
and mine may find mercy. The song, the substance I have herewith sent
you, myself, whilst the singing, to lie prostrate at her Majesty's feet
till she says she will save me. Upon my resurrection the song shall be
delivered by one of the muses, with a ring made for a wedding ring set
round with diamonds, and with a ruby like a heart placed in a coronet,
with this inscription _Elizabetha potest_. I durst not do this before I
had acquainted you here with, understanding her Majesty had appointed
the masquers, which resolution hath made me the unreadier: yet, if this
night I may know her Majesty's leave and your liking, I hope not to come
too late, though the time be short for such a show and my preparations
posted for such a presence. I desire to come in before the other masque,
for I am sorrowful and solemn, and my stay shall not be long. I rest
upon your resolution, which must be for this business to-night or not at
all.']
[Footnote 571: Cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, i. 417, and ch. xxiv.]
[Footnote 572: Cf. J. A. Manning, _Memoirs of Sir Benjamin Rudyerd_, 9,
and _Mediaeval Stage_, i. 416, where, however, the date suggested is the
Christmas of 1599-1600. But the Court was not in London that winter, and
the indications of days of the week agree with 1597-8. The manuscript
description written by Rudyerd is dated 'anno ab aula condita 27'. The
Middle Temple hall was built in 1572. The masks in this hall were on 31
Dec. and 7 and 21 Jan. The maskers were accompanied to Court on 6 Jan.
by nine torch-bearers carrying devices, eleven knights, eleven squires,
and a hundred other torches, as well as trumpeters and heralds. 'Sur
Martino', no doubt Richard Martin, the Prince d'Amour, was their leader.
Doubtless they took out ladies, as Mrs. Nevill, afterwards a maid of
honour, is said to have 'borne the bell away' in the revels.]
[Footnote 573: Boississe, i. 415. He says that some gentlemen masked
with the _filles_, of which there is no trace in the other accounts.
Letters from Lady Russell about the wedding are in _Cecil Papers_, x.
121, 175, and it is also referred to by Chamberlain, 79, 83. 'I doubt
not but you have heard of the great mariage at the Lady Russell's ...
and of the maske of eight maides of honour and other gentlewomen in name
of the muses that came to seeke one of theire fellowes', and by Rowland
Whyte (_Sydney Papers_, ii. 195, 197, 201, 203),'Mʳˢ Fitton led, and
after they had done all their own ceremonies, these eight Ladies Maskers
chose eight Ladies more to dance the measures. Mʳˢ Fitton went to the
Queen, and wooed her to dance; her Majesty asked what she was.
"Affection," she said. "Affection!" said the Queen, "Affection is
false." Yet her Majesty rose and danced.' A picture of the Marcus
Gheeraerts school (cf. L. Cust in _Trans. Walpole Soc._ iii. 22)
probably representing Elizabeth's passage through Blackfriars on this
occasion is extant in two versions at Melbury and Sherborne, and has
often been reproduced; e. g. in _Shakespeare's England_, i. _f.p._]
[Footnote 574: Popham to Cecil, 8 Feb. 1602 (_Hatfield MSS._ xii. 47),
'I have so dealt with some of the Benchers of the Middle Temple as I
have brought that the House will be willing to bear 200 marks towards
the charge of what is wished to be done, to her Majesty's good liking,
and if the young gentlemen will be drawn in to perform what is of their
part, I hope it will be effected. Some of the young men have their
humors, but I hope that will be over-ruled, for I send for them as soon
as other business of her Majesty is dispatched. But the Ancients of the
House, who wish all to be done to her Majesty's best content, depend
upon your favour if anything through young men's error should not have
that carriage in the course of it, as they would wish it might not yet
be imputed unto them.' There is no reference to any mask in the records
of the Middle Temple, which in 1601-2 kept a 'solemn' but not a 'grand'
Christmas.]
[Footnote 575: Manningham, 1, 'Song to the Queene at the Maske at Court,
Nov. 2'. The Song begins, 'Mighty Princes of a fruitfull land'. The
November of 1602 is the only one covered by the period of the diary; but
Elizabeth was then at Richmond, rather out of reach of a lawyers' mask.]
[Footnote 576: An Italian model for such printed descriptions may be
found in that of G. Cecchi's Florentine _Esaltazione della Croce_
(1589); cf. A. D'Ancona, _Sacre Rappresentazioni_, iii. 1, 235; Symonds,
_Renaissance in Italy_, iv. 282.]
[Footnote 577: J. A. Lester, _Some Franco-Scottish Influences on the
Early English Drama_ (_Haverford Essays_, 1909), 145, notes the vogue of
the mask at Holyrood under Mary Stuart and the _pompae_ written for such
occasions by Buchanan. He asserts that Anne acquired the taste for masks
during her thirteen years' residence in Scotland, but in fact he cites
no example of a mask proper during 1590-1603, and only one, in 1581,
during the reign of James. There were other forms of mimetic revelry.
The pageants introduced by Bastien Pagez into a banquet at the baptism
of James in 1566 and accompanied with verses by Buchanan are analogous
to those at the baptism of Henry Frederick in 1594 (_Somers Tracts_, ii.
179).]
[Footnote 578: Jonson told Drummond in 1619 (_Conversations_, 4), 'That
next himself, only Fletcher and Chapman could make a mask'. No
independent mask by Fletcher is known, and that in _The Maid's Tragedy_
is probably Beaumont's. Fletcher may have written the Triumph of Time in
_Four Plays or Morall Representations_, which is practically a mask.]
[Footnote 579: Lodge, iii. 58; Beaumont to Villeroy (27 Oct. 1603) in
_King's MS._ 124, f. 175, 'Elle fit jl y' a quelques jourz vn ballet ou
pour mieux dire vne masquarade champêtre. Car il n'y avoit ni ordre ni
depense. Mais Elle se propose d'en faire d'autres plus beaux cet hiver
en recompense et semble que le Roy et ses Principaux Ministres, qui sont
toujourz en Jalousie de son Esprit, soient bien aises de le voir occupé
en cet exercice.']
[Footnote 580: Harington, i. 349, 'One day, a great feast was held, and,
after dinner, the representation of Solomon his Temple and the coming of
the Queen of Sheba was made, or (as I may better say) was meant to have
been made, before their Majesties, by device of the Earl of Salisbury
and others. But alass! as all earthly thinges do fail to poor mortals in
enjoyment, so did prove our presentment hereof. The Lady who did play
the Queens part, did carry most precious gifts to both their Majesties;
but, forgetting the steppes arising to the canopy, overset her caskets
into his Danish Majesties lap, and fell at his feet, tho I rather think
it was in his face. Much was the hurry and confusion; cloths and napkins
were at hand, to make all clean. His Majesty then got up and would dance
with the Queen of Sheba; but he fell down and humbled himself before
her, and was carried to an inner chamber, and laid on a bed of state;
which was not a little defiled with the presents of the Queen which had
been bestowed on his garments; such as wine, cream, jelly, beverage,
cakes, spices, and other good matters. The entertainment and show went
forward, and most of the presenters went backward, or fell down; wine
did so occupy their upper chambers. Now did appear, in rich dress, Hope,
Faith, and Charity: Hope did assay to speak, but wine rendered her
endeavours so feeble that she withdrew, and hoped the King would excuse
her brevity: Faith was then all alone, for I am certain she was not
joyned with good works, and left the court in a staggering condition:
Charity came to the King's feet, and seemed to cover the multitude of
sins her sisters had committed; in some sorte she made obeysance and
brought giftes, but said she would return home again, as there was no
gift which heaven had not already given his Majesty. She then returned
to Hope and Faith, who were both sick and spewing in the lower hall.
Next came Victory, in bright armour, and presented a rich sword to the
King, who did not accept it, but put it by with his hand; and, by a
strange medley of versification, did endeavour to make suit to the King.
But Victory did not tryumph long; for, after much lamentable utterance,
she was led away like a silly captive, and laid to sleep in the outer
steps of the anti-chamber. Now did Peace make entry, and strive to get
foremoste to the King; but I grieve to tell how great wrath she did
discover unto those of her attendants; and, much contrary to her
semblance, most rudely made war with her olive branch, and laid on the
pates of those who did oppose her coming.']
[Footnote 581: _Chamber Accounts_ (1610-11, Apparellings), 'for making
ready the La: Eliz: Lodginges for a maske'.]
VI
THE MASK (_continued_)
The historical sketch given in the last chapter needs to be supplemented
by some analysis of the stage of development which the mask had reached,
in relation to its origins, by the Jacobean period. And first of all, on
the side of scenic effect. Looking back over the reign of Henry VIII, in
the light of what followed, we may discover two fairly distinct types of
masks. There is the mask simple, in which the dancers, with their richly
hued and sparkling costumes, their torch-bearers and their musicians,
may be regarded as furnishing their own decoration. There is the mask
spectacular, to which added éclat is given by the pageant, mobile, or
towards the end of the reign stationary, with its additional lights, its
carvings and mouldings, its gilt and colours, and the elements of
illusion and surprise afforded by its facilities for the concealed entry
of personages. Elizabeth, perhaps as has been hinted upon grounds of
economy, perhaps from the more legitimate and attractive motive of a
special interest in the dancer's art, used mainly the mask simple. But
the pageant was not altogether forgotten, and recurs from time to time
amongst the preparations for festivities on some exceptionally elaborate
scale. The most notable example is perhaps to be found in the devices
for the contemplated meeting with Mary of Scots in 1562, which involved
the construction of a prison, a castle, and an orchard, and of which
even Henry VIII would have had no reason to be ashamed. We hear also of
a rock of fountain for the mask of Diana and Actaeon in 1560, of a
castle and arbour at the visit of Artus de Cossé in 1564, of a rock with
a veil of sarcenet for the mask of hunters in 1565, of a chariot and
castle for the visit of the Duc de Montmorency in 1572, and of a mount,
a castle, an orange tree, and a house for that of the Duc d'Anjou in
1581. The Gray's Inn maskers of 1595 had their Rock Adamantine, and
those of the Middle Temple about 1598 sallied forth from a Heart.
I do not know that any special inferences need be drawn from the fact
that on most of these occasions the English Court was putting its best
foot foremost to entertain a visitor from France, for in fact during the
greater part of Elizabeth's reign France was the only continental
country of the first importance with which she maintained constant
diplomatic relations.[582] Nor is enough known of the development of the
French mask in the middle of the sixteenth century to make it possible
to say how far, if at all, that country then gave the lead to
England.[583] Brantôme reports how Catherine de Médicis would amuse
herself by inventing 'quelques nouvelles danses ou quelques beaux
ballets, quand il faisoit mauvais temps', and the writings of Clément
Marot and Mellin de Saint-Gelais and of the Pléiade contain several sets
of verses composed for the purposes of 'mommeries' and
'mascarades'.[584] I should suppose that the distinction drawn by M. de
Beaumont in 1603 between a 'mascarade' and a 'ballet' corresponds pretty
closely with that made above between the mask simple and the mask
spectacular. The history of the 'ballet' proper in France seems to begin
under Italian influences during the last quarter of the century. Its
pioneer was one Baldassarino da Belgiojoso, a groom of the chamber to
Catherine de Médicis and to her son Henri III, who came to France about
1555 and gallicized his name as Baltasar de Beaujoyeulx. When Henri, not
yet King of France, left Paris to receive the crown of Poland in 1573,
Baldassarino arranged the spectacle for his farewell. Sixteen nymphs
issued from a movable rock, offered gifts, and danced in the hall. A
printed description by Jean Dorat contains engravings of the rock and
the dances, and verses in Latin and French, to which Ronsard and Amadis
de Jamyn contributed.[585] This appears to have been a mask on lines
already familiar in both France and England. But eight years later
Baldassarino got an opportunity for a far more elaborate undertaking.
His _Balet Comique de la Royne_ was devised for the wedding of the
Queen's sister, Mlle de Vaudemont, to the Duc de Joyeuse on 15 October
1581.[586] His own share seems to have lain in the invention of the
general scheme of the entertainment and in the dances; he had the
assistance of M. de la Chesnaye for the verses, Lambert de Beaulieu for
the music, and Jacques Patin for the painting. The Queen herself led the
dancers. There was an intricate combination of choregraphy and
mythological setting. The maskers proper were twelve Naiads in white and
four Dryads in green; the presenters Circe, a Fugitive from her garden,
Glaucus, Thetis, Mercury, Pan, Minerva, Jupiter; the musicians mermaids,
tritons, satyrs, virtues, and others; the torch-bearers twelve pages. At
the top of the hall was a daïs for the royal seats, and to the right and
left in front places for ambassadors. Behind, and also lower down the
hall, were tiers of seats, and above them two galleries; in all 9,000 or
10,000 spectators were present. On the left of the hall was a Gilded
Vault for musicians, on the right the Grove of Pan, and at the foot the
Garden of Circe, both veiled by curtains. In the roof, between the Vault
and the Grove, hung a cloud. On each side of the Garden, trellises
covered the entrance. After a preliminary episode between Circe and the
Fugitive, the Naiads appeared on a movable fountain, and danced twelve
geometrical figures as the 'première entrée du ballet'. They were then
enchanted by Circe, and taken to her garden, with Mercury, who dropped
from the cloud in a vain attempt at rescue. After two 'intermèdes' of
music and song, during which the Dryads entered and the Grove of Pan was
disclosed, came Minerva on a chariot, and called Jupiter from the cloud
and Pan from the Grove for an assault on the Garden. Circe was captured,
and her wand presented to the King. Then the Naiads and Dryads danced
fifteen 'passages' as the 'entrée du grand ballet', and forty more of a
geometrical character for the 'grand ballet' itself. Finally, they
presented the King and gentlemen with 'choses de mer' and appropriate
'devises' or mottoes, and took them out for 'le grand bal' followed by
'bransles' and other dances.
So far as published documents go, the _Balet Comique_ is closely the
prototype of the fully developed 'ballet' or court mask, as we find it
both in France and in England.[587] The Gray's Inn mask of 1595, with
its printed description and its theme of enchantment, confesses an
influence; and there were only two directions in which the devisers of
Henri IV and of James I were able to make any notable advance upon
Baldassarino's model. One of these was the introduction of the antimask,
to which it will be necessary to return; the other was the concentration
of the scenic setting. The setting of the _Balet Comique_ is not
concentrated but dispersed. It is not even all stationary. The interest
of the spectators is not merely divided amongst the Garden of Circe at
the foot of the hall, the Grove of Pan on the right, the musicians'
vault on the left, and the cloud overhead. It is claimed at certain
points by the movable fountain upon which the maskers enter and the
chariot of Minerva. This dispersed setting recurs in the first of Queen
Anne's great masks, Daniel's _Vision of the Twelve Goddesses_, in 1604.
A mountain stood at the lower end of the hall in Hampton Court, and at
the upper end a Cave of Sleep on one side and a Temple of Peace on the
other. A contemporary observer notes an inconvenience of this
arrangement. 'The Halle was so much lessened by the workes that were in
it', writes Dudley Carleton, 'so as none could be admitted but men of
apparance.' This difficulty proved fatal to the dispersed setting, and
in all later Jacobean masks the setting was concentrated in a scene
erected at the lower end of the hall, and ample space was thus left both
for the evolutions of the dancers and for the seating of the
spectators.[588]
This change at least synchronizes with the emergence of Inigo Jones and
the beginning of the architectural domination which for nearly half a
century he was destined to exercise over the mask. His is the first
outstanding name which we can associate with the history of English
scenic decoration. Under Elizabeth and her predecessors the apparel and
pageantry of a mask were the care of the Revels officers, and they
naturally called in such painters and other men of taste about the court
as were likely to prove useful. These were often foreigners. Alfonso
Ferrabosco, the musician, seems to have had the general oversight of an
important mask in 1572, and amongst his collaborators was another
Italian, Petruccio Ubaldini, while Hans Eottes drew the patterns. Eottes
was similarly employed in 1573 and 1574, and Ubaldini was called upon
again in 1579 to write out the speeches of a mask in his native
Italian.[589] The responsibilities of Inigo Jones were much wider than
those of any of these predecessors. His singular name has an Italian
ring, but he was born of London parentage in 1573 and is said to have
been apprenticed to a joiner.[590] Through the generosity of the third
Earl of Pembroke he had opportunities of travel, and spent much of his
early life in Italy and in the service of Christian IV of Denmark. He
seems to have been back in England by 28 June 1603, when the accounts of
the Earl of Rutland record a payment of £10 to 'Henygo Jones, a picture
maker'. He is not known to have taken part in the masks of the following
winter, but Jonson acknowledges that 'the bodily part' of the _Mask of
Blackness_ on 6 January 1605 was his 'design and act', and in August of
the same year he took charge of the plays given before James in the hall
of Christ Church, Oxford, and contrived their changes of scene with the
aid of revolving triangular screens of Italian design. His place as an
architect of court masks was now assured, and even the poets, to whom
the descriptions of the performances naturally fell, found it impossible
to conceal the fact that his functions were at least as important as
their own. Jonson in his earlier descriptions is punctilious in
rendering due credit to his colleague.[591] So too are Daniel and
Campion.[592]
It was not until Caroline days that the smouldering antagonism between
Jonson and Jones broke out into open warfare, and stung Jonson to
various indiscretions, amongst them the ironical outburst of the famous
_Expostulation_--
Painting and carpentry are the soul of masque![593]
Of thirteen spectacular masks given at court from 1605 to 1613 nine were
certainly contrived by Jones, and there is no positive evidence that the
other four were not his.[594] He had also a share in the preparations
for Prince Henry's barriers of 1610. When the prince set up his
household in the following December Jones was appointed surveyor of his
works. After Henry's death he obtained a reversion of a similar
appointment in the royal Office of Works, but this reversion did not
fall in until the death of Simon Basil on 1 October 1615, and after the
marriage of the Princess Elizabeth in 1613 Jones paid a visit of some
duration to Italy. He therefore took no part in the masks for the
Somerset wedding during the following winter. For one at least of these,
Campion's _Mask of Squires_, his substitute was Constantine de' Servi, a
Florentine who had also been in the service of Henry as his architect;
but Campion was not pleased with his coadjutor, and wrote that 'he being
too much of himself, and no way to be drawn to impart his intentions,
failed so far in the assurance he gave that the main invention, even at
the last cast, was of force drawn into a far narrower compass than was
from the beginning intended'. Jones was back in England by 29 January
1615, and was to plan many more masks before his death in 1652. But none
can be definitely ascribed to him before Jonson's _Mask of Christmas_ in
1617. During the latter part of his career he was busy as an architect,
and the present banqueting-house in Whitehall, built during 1619-22,
represents a fragment of one of his grandiose schemes for the complete
reconstruction of the old palace.
The concentrated setting, as it took shape in the first period of Inigo
Jones, appears to have been regularly designed on the principle of what
is sometimes called the 'picture-stage'.[595] It was framed by a
proscenium arch, from side to side of which stretched, at first view, a
curtain. This arch was of a familiar Renaissance type. On either side
were pilasters, or statuesquely modelled figures, or a combination of
the two, which bore up a frieze. The decorations were in harmony with
the theme of the mask and the frieze might contain a scroll or panel
setting forth its title.[596] It cannot perhaps be demonstrated that
Jones invariably used a proscenium from the beginning, but at any rate
by 1608 (_Haddington Mask_) 'the arch' appears to have been a recognized
element of a setting. The most elaborate description of a proscenium is
that written by Jones himself for _Tethys' Festival_ in 1610. On this
occasion the proscenium was itself covered by a curtain until the
audience were seated. It is possible, however, that it sometimes framed
a front curtain. The use of curtains was, of course, no innovation. They
had served, when concealment and revelation were required, both in the
mobile and in the fixed settings of earlier days. Thus for an
Elizabethan mask of 1565, of which the pageant was 'a rock or hill for
the ix musses to singe vppone', the Revels Office had provided 'a vayne
of sarsnett drawen vpp and downe before them'.[597] The Jacobean curtain
itself might form part of the setting. It was painted to represent a
wooded 'landtschap' (_Blackness_), clouds (_Hay Mask_, _Tethys'
Festival_), night (_Beauty_), a red cliff (_Haddington Mask_), a city
wall and gate (_Flowers_). But at an early moment it was removed, to
'discover' a more solidly constructed scene within. Often it is called a
'traverse', and when it is 'drawne' it may either 'slide away', or 'sink
down' (_Marston's Mask_).[598] I have not come across a certain case in
which it was drawn up, either directly by a roller, or diagonally by
cords towards the corners of the proscenium; but these methods may also
have been employed. In some masks the drawing of the curtain
'discovered' the maskers on the scene; in others their entry was
deferred and variously contrived. The maskers, and sometimes the
presenters, had, before the actual dances began, to come forward
through the proscenium arch to the dancing place, which was on the floor
of the hall, or on a stage only slightly raised above it, and was
regularly laid with green cloth by the official 'mattleyer' of the
court.[599] This advance was managed in divers ways. The old device of a
movable pageant might be revived, as an element subsidiary to the fixed
scene, and the maskers brought in on a chariot (_Queens_, _Oberon_), or
enthroned on a floating isle (_Beauty_). They might be let down by a
cloud from the upper part of the scene (_Hymenaei_, _Lords' Mask_). For
the _Mask of Blackness_ Jones made an artificial sea on a wheeled stage,
which lifted them forwards in a concave shell. It was quite effective as
a spectacle, if they stepped in their bravery down a slope (_Hay Mask_)
or a double stairway (_Chapman's Mask_, _Squires_) leading from the
scene to the lower level of the dancing place.
The adoption of the concentrated setting was a matter of convenience; it
did not mean that the mask could dispense with the variety of interest
which the multiplied scenes of the dispersed setting had afforded.
Jones's chief problem as a producer was that of securing this variety of
interest under new conditions, and if possible with some added sensation
of curiosity or surprise. One device was to retain the multiplied
scenes, and to juxtapose them, or to superimpose one upon another within
the frame of the proscenium. It was easy enough to divide the curtain
either vertically or horizontally and to 'draw' the sections separately.
Thus in the _Hymenaei_, which was a double mask, the altar of Hymen and
the globe containing the men maskers were first discovered below.
Subsequently the 'upper part of the scene' opened, and the women maskers
floated out on _nimbi_. In _Lord Hay's Mask_ there was a 'double veil'
of which the lesser part covered a Bower of Flora on the right of the
stage, and the greater part covered a House of Night on the left, and a
grove and hill crowned by a Tree of Diana in the centre. This method
paid homage to the tradition of the dispersed setting; another, which
could be used in combination with the first, was capable of more
intricate development. The manœuvre of the front curtain might be
repeated. The whole, or a fragment, of the inner scene might be shifted,
so as to discover a new vision which had at first been concealed. Often
this was only a local and particular transformation. Thus it was in the
two masks just cited, when the globe behind the altar of Hymen revolved
and showed the maskers seated in a cave, or the trees in the grove of
Diana were drawn into the ground, and the maskers appeared out of their
cloven tops. Similarly the splitting of a rock, to let out personages
concealed therein, is an incident which recurs in more than one mask
(_Haddington Mask_, _Oberon_, _Chapman's Mask_). The development of the
antimask, with the emphatic contrast between the grotesque and the
magnificent which this implied, seems to have been the motive which led
to the introduction of more wholesale changes of scene. In the _Mask of
Queens_ the background for the antimask was a Hell, and when it was over
'the whole face of the scene altered, scarce suffering the memory of
such a thing', and in place of the Hell appeared a House of Fame. In
_Mercury Vindicated_, again, the Laboratory of the antimasks gave way to
a Bower of Nature for the mask proper. In _Oberon_ the antimask was
before a cliff with a rising moon, and thereafter the scene twice
opened, to disclose, first the 'frontispiece' and then the interior of a
palace of Fays. The art of transformation was perhaps carried to its
greatest extent during this period in the _Lords' Mask_ for the Princess
Elizabeth's wedding, of which the Venetian ambassador in his report to
the Signory especially noted the three changes of scene as an
outstanding feature. This elaborate spectacle affords examples of nearly
all the devices of juxtaposition, superimposition, partial and complete
transformation, by which a variety of scenic interest is reconciled with
a concentrated setting. The original scene was horizontally divided. The
lower half, which was first discovered, contained side by side a wood, a
thicket of Orpheus, and a cave of Mania. Before this danced the
antimask. Then a curtain fell from the upper part of the scene, and
discovered amongst clouds Prometheus and eight Stars. The Stars were
individually transformed to men maskers, and the clouds to the House of
Prometheus. Beneath torch-bearers emerged and danced, still in front of
the wood. The whole face of the scene was then overspread with a cloud
on which the men maskers descended. The lower part of the scene was then
changed from a wood to a façade of niches containing statues, which were
individually transformed into women maskers. The mask proper followed,
and when the dancing was over, there was a final change of the whole
scene to a porticoed perspective, leading up to the obelisk of Sibylla.
Even by 1613 the art of Jones had handsomely accomplished its task of
ministering to the pride of the eyes. In his later or Caroline period he
advanced to even greater triumphs, and did not shrink from the
decorative and mechanical difficulties entailed by as many as five
changes of scene.[600] The actual mechanism employed by Jones to obtain
his effects is perhaps better known to us for this later period, in view
of the numerous plans and designs preserved at Chatsworth and elsewhere,
than for the earlier one. The action of a mask was in all cases
'continuous', and therefore he was happily debarred from the awkward
modern convention of a drop-curtain. Jones ultimately worked out a
system of back-cloths and shutters or flats, arranged and painted so as
to produce a perspective and an illusion of solid scenery. These ran in
horizontal grooves, so that those belonging to one scene could be placed
close behind those belonging to another, and each set could be
successively removed by lateral withdrawal. It was, in fact, a
multiplied use of the primitive 'traverse' or sliding curtain. This
system may have already been at his disposal in the Jacobean period; it
was well adapted, in particular, for the splitting of a rock. But it is
clear that he also used a device based upon a different principle, a
_machina versatilis_, which by means of a circular motion was capable of
displaying successively the different faces of a comparatively solid
decorative structure placed upon it. Jonson applies the term _machina
versatilis_ to the House of Fame in the _Mask of Queens_. Presumably the
rotating globe in _Hymenaei_ and the rotating throne of Beauty in the
_Mask of Beauty_ are other examples; and yet another is furnished by
_Tethys' Festival_, where however the _truc_ was used, not to carry
scenery, but to cover a change of scene by directing the attention of
the spectators to three whirling circles of lights and glasses. It is
hardly necessary to dwell upon such subsidiary devices as the trapdoors
in the floor of the stage, or the pulleys by which floating clouds were
let down from the heavens, for such obvious and primitive machinery had
been familiar, long before the advent of Jones, as an element in the
rudimentary technique of the popular theatre.[601]
The approximation of mask to drama entailed by the adoption of the
concentrated setting was not the only point of interaction between these
parallel forms of _mimesis_. In the first instance it was perhaps the
drama, rather than the mask, which underwent an influence. The various
forms of spectacular entertainment with which the mask became entangled
during the fifteenth century might be introduced at more than one moment
in the long story of a Renaissance festival. They were equally well
adapted to enliven the intervals between the courses of a meal, and the
intervals between the parts of an organized dramatic performance. The
detached character of the Senecan chorus, and the Roman practice of
dividing up tragedies and comedies into acts, which was itself a
departure from the Greek principle of continuous action, facilitated
this intrusive development; and in the history of the Italian stage, as
it shaped itself at Ferrara and elsewhere from 1486 until the middle of
the next century, nothing is more remarkable than the tendency to bury
the actual play, tragedy or comedy, classical or modern, in a wilderness
of decorative _intermedii_, ordinarily consisting of dances and song,
framed in some ingenuity of allegorical, mythological, or other
device.[602] It is, I think, a true affiliation which traces to the
_intermedii_ the analogous dumb-shows of English usage.[603] These
belong primarily to the learned court drama, with its admitted classical
and Italian inspiration. To some extent they found their way also on to
the popular stage, which had, moreover, its own simpler devices for the
avoidance of monotony in the way of 'jigs' and 'themes'.[604] But the
influence of the dumb-show upon the drama is not wholly to be measured
by the extent to which it was adopted as a formal element in the
structure of plays. It introduced a spectacular tendency, which
continued to prevail long after the position of the dumb-show as an
interact had been surrendered. Indeed, the extreme Italian development
of the _intermedii_ constituted a danger against which the lovers of a
purer dramatic art were soon in protest.[605] If tragedy and comedy had
not succeeded in absorbing spectacle, they would have been overwhelmed
by it. The first battle was won when it was admitted that the subjects
of the _intermedii_ ought to be related to the theme of the drama, which
was by no means always the case at Ferrara; the second when the
spectacle was taken out of the intervals between the acts and treated as
an integral part of the action. This is the normal, although not of
course the invariable, Elizabethan practice. Elizabethan drama is
abundantly spectacular, and often enough the spectacle is irrelevant or
excessive, but as a rule it is, formally at least, within the plot.
There are the drums and tramplings of battles and trials and funerals.
There are the divine epiphanies in mythological pieces. There are the
endless opportunities afforded for song and dance by banquets,
weddings, and rustic merry-makings. And if all else fails, what more
easy than to introduce a dumb-show in a dream or as a specimen of the
magician's art?[606] A somewhat paradoxical type of incorporated
spectacle is the play within the play, as we find it, for example, in
_Hamlet_, where indeed the inner play has the further elaboration of its
accompanying dumb-show.[607] And with the play within the play comes the
mask within the play. In the _intermedii_ the mask, as already
suggested, tended to lose its individuality. There were dancers, no
doubt, and the dancers were disguised, and might be masked; and there
are signs of an extended use of the term 'mask' to cover such an
entertainment.[608] But the characteristic feature of the mask proper,
the taking out of spectators to dances, did not lend itself to the
conditions of performances given while the spectators sat at meat, or of
performances on the raised and isolated stage of an interlude. When a
mask proper was closely associated with an early Tudor play, it was as
an afterpiece rather than as an inter-act. The dancers of the
_intermedii_ kept to themselves, and if the sexes intermingled it was in
a 'double' choir. But when the spectacles became episodes, instead of
_intermedii_, the central incident of the mask could be restored.
Dancers who were personages of a play could obviously 'take out'
spectators who were also personages of the same play; and the
introduction of a mask, generally as a revel in a royal feast or wedding
banquet, becomes a regular dramatic device at least from the last decade
of the sixteenth century onwards. Perhaps the first example is in an
academic play, Gager's _Ulysses Redux_ of 1592, where at the beginning
of Act II 'Proci larvati alicunde prodeunt, saltantque in scena', and as
we learn from the criticism of Rainolds, some of Penelope's handmaids,
seated amongst the audience, were 'entreated by the wooers to rise and
danse upon the stage'.[609] Shakespeare has a mask in _Love's Labour's
Lost_, and another in _Romeo and Juliet_, to which the episode is handed
down from the ultimate source in Italian narrative.[610] Another early
example is in _1 Richard II_ (iv. 2). Munday has a mask in his _Death of
Robert Earl of Huntingdon_ (_1598_; ii. 2), Dekker (ii. 204) in his
_Whore of Babylon_ (_c. 1607_) and his _Satiromastix_ (_1601_; l. 2302),
and Tourneur, if it was Tourneur, in his _Revenger's Tragedy_ (_c.
1607_; v. 3). These are examples from the public theatres. When the
boys' companies came into existence at the end of the century, dance and
song proved well within their means; and their principal writers,
Marston, Chapman, Middleton, Field, Jonson, all make use of the
mask.[611] So do Beaumont and Fletcher, both in plays for boys and in
plays for men.[612] But the enumeration of earlier names is of itself
enough to dispose of the theory that to Beaumont and Fletcher is due, in
some special way, the transference of the court mask to the popular
stage, and in particular the introduction of Shakespeare to the supposed
new idea. Doubtless the mask in _A Maid's Tragedy_ is set out with
somewhat greater elaboration of presentment than was usual in earlier
plays, and doubtless the antimask of Beaumont's contribution to the
Princess Elizabeth's wedding was furbished up again for the delight of a
popular audience in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_. But it hardly follows that
Shakespeare, after using the mask in _Love's Labour's Lost_ and _Romeo
and Juliet_, had anything to learn from his younger rivals before he
used it in _The Tempest_, and a writer who can assert that Ben Jonson
'did not mix his masques and plays' must have simply forgotten
_Cynthia's Revels_.[613] The mask in this play is of special interest,
because it is Elizabethan and antedates by some four years the first of
the long series of Jonson's Jacobean masks. It occupies, in the quarto
version, the greater part of the last seven scenes of the play. In iv. 5
Arete, a principal lady at court, desires revels for Cynthia, and
Amorphus proposes a 'masque'. Arete undertakes to send for Criticus, and
get his advice.[614] In iv. 6 Criticus hesitates to write for such
revellers as Amorphus and his crew. Arete encourages him. The presence
will restrain them when they are masked, and Cynthia needs the
opportunity to reform them. Criticus then invokes Apollo and Mercury. In
v. 1 Cynthia, awaiting the mask, holds flattering discourse with Arete
on its author. In v. 2 enters 'the first masque'. Cupid 'disguised like
Anteros', presents four virgins from the palace of Perfection, Storge,
Aglaia, Euphantaste, and Apheleia. He interprets their devices, and
presents on their behalf a crystal, in which Cynthia sees her own image.
In v. 3 Cynthia discusses the mask with Criticus and Arete. In v. 4
enters 'the second masque'. Mercury presents and interprets the four
sons of Eutaxia, who are Eucosmos, Eupathes, Eutolmos, and Eucolos. In
iv. 5 'the masques joyne'. They dance the first, second, and third
'straine', while Cupid and Mercury converse, outside the _cadre_ of the
mask. The dancers do not proceed to 'take out' spectators, but that is
presumably because they are interrupted by Cynthia, who bids them unmask
and administers her reproof.
The masks inserted in plays are rarely described with anything like the
fullness of _Cynthia's Revels_, although there is a fair amount of
detail in _The Maid's Tragedy_ and a somewhat less amount in _Your Five
Gallants_ and in _No Wit, no Help, like a Woman's_. It must be borne in
mind that the main action of a mask was mute, and that the stage
directions of the printed texts are not intended to be descriptive.
Moreover, the structural place of the mask in a plot often leads, as in
_Cynthia's Revels_, to its abrupt termination. The disguises cover an
intrigue of murder (_2 Antonio and Mellida_, _Revenger's Tragedy_) or of
robbery (_A Mad World, my Masters_), or of elopement (_A Woman is a
Weathercock_). Or a quarrel breaks out (_Dutch Courtesan_), or a masker
is discovered to be dead (_Satiromastix_). As a rule, too, the
presenters' speeches are omitted or cut short, since it is spectacle,
and not mere dialogue, that is required.[615] Nevertheless, in its main
features, the dramatized mask confirms what we know of the mask from
other sources. It has its dancers, its presenters, its torch-bearers,
and its music.[616] _Your Five Gallants_ adds 'shield boys' to carry the
'devices'. When the performers have finished their measures, they
generally take out the ladies. At the end they unmask, 'honour' the
guests (_A Women is a Weathercock_), and depart, or proceed to a
banquet. And in some interesting points the dramatized mask supplements
other information. To begin with, it is a simpler type of mask than is
represented by the full Jacobean descriptions. For obvious reasons
architectural pageantry could hardly be introduced. In _The Maid's
Tragedy_ there is a rock, in _Satiromastix_ a chair; in _May Day_ Cupid
'descends', a feat, as already noted, well within the compass of an
ordinary theatre. And that is about all. You get the mask as it was
practised at Elizabeth's court, rather than at that of James. Then there
are sometimes subsidiary scenes, which throw light upon aspects of the
mask, not much dwelt on in the Jacobean descriptions. Often there is a
scene of preparation, when the 'maskery' is planned, and a 'device',
'imprezza', or 'mott' ordered of the painter, or 'a few tinsel coats' of
the vizard-maker (_1 Antonio and Mellida_, _Insatiate Countess_, _A Mad
World, my Masters_, _Your Five Gallants_, _A Woman is a Weathercock_).
Or there is a scene of bustle, when a 'state' and canopy are set up in
the 'presence' (_Satiromastix_) and room is made for the dancers, either
by the cry of 'A hall, a hall!' (_Romeo and Juliet_, _May Day_) or by
the more violent ministrations of the torch-bearers (_A Woman is a
Weathercock_) or of court officials. Thus in _The Maid's Tragedy_ the
mask is preluded by the activities of Calianax, the lord chamberlain,
who 'would run raging among them, and break a dozen wiser heads than his
own in the twinkling of an eye', and of Diagoras the gentleman usher,
who is keeping the doors against the impatient crowd without, and
placing the ladies, all except those who come in 'the king's troop', in
a gallery 'above'. There is a similar scene in Beaumont and Fletcher's
_Four Plays in One_, a piece which consists of three short playlets,
divided by 'triumphs' or _intermedii_, and concluded by a mask. This may
be regarded as an experiment, in which the influence of the
mask-tradition has exceptionally modified the typical structure of the
drama. Nor does it stand quite alone. Peele's _Arraignment of Paris_ is
of course spectacular throughout, and the last scene, in which the
golden apple is handed to Elizabeth, is clearly, in its recognition of
the audience, a divergence from the normal detachment of the drama.[617]
Perhaps the same may be said of the epithalamic end of _A
Midsummer-Night's Dream_, but as a rule the element of mask remains an
episode, and does not dominate the play which admits it.
The debt of the mask to the play may be traced in the increased skill in
which the later masks are arranged around a 'device' or dramatic idea.
The mask had had its presenters as far back as Lydgate. Even in a
learned court, the more recondite forms of allegory or mythology
sometimes require explanation. The maskers proper seem to have been
traditionally mum and therefore unable to explain themselves. Let us
remember that they were not professional actors, but English men and
women of good birth and breeding, and that therefore their limbs could
more easily be trained than their wits and voices. If explanation was
required, it must be given in an introductory speech by a subsidiary
performer. Such a spokesman seems to have been known to the Elizabethan
Revels as a 'truchman' or interpreter.[618] In addition to his function
of elucidation he became the natural vehicle of whatever compliment was
to be paid by the mask, and when Arthur Throgmorton wished to turn the
heart of Elizabeth in 1595, we find him undertaking the part himself.
The Elizabethan truchmen do not seem to have got much beyond formal
speeches, and the child dressed as Mercury or Cupid became rather
_banal_ through much repetition. If anything more dramatic was
attempted, either through the presenters, or by dividing the dancers
into a double mask, it was apt to be based upon the mediaeval idea of an
assault. In the device for the abortive masks of 1562 the presenters
were to do most of the fighting. In 1559, on the other hand, it was
successive bands of maskers that rifled and rescued the Queen's maids.
How far the mask of Diana and Actaeon in the following winter took a
dramatic form we do not know. The development of the mask on dramatic
lines seems to have been a slow business. Even Jonson, in _Cynthia's
Revels_, has not got beyond Cupid and Mercury and the formal speeches.
On the other hand, the Gray's Inn mask, which preceded _Cynthia's
Revels_ by some years, and nearly all the Jacobean masks, especially
Jonson's, show a marked progress in this respect. A dramatic idea is
nearly always dominant, and there is ingenuity in grouping the fixed
elements of the mask about it. A comparison between Gascoigne's
treatment of a wedding mask in 1572 and Jonson's in 1608 may serve to
illustrate this. Gascoigne's maskers are Montagues of Italy, who have
been driven by a storm to the shores of England, and take the
opportunity to visit their English kinsmen, in whose house the wedding
happens to be taking place. The idea is not without point, but it is all
expounded in a single and inevitably tedious speech by the truchman,
during which the dancers must remain motionless. When Jonson has to
celebrate the wedding of James Ramsay and Elizabeth Radcliffe in 1608 he
proceeds very differently. Even the curtain introduces the hymeneal
theme with its graceful symbolism of a red cliff. From the top of this
Venus descends with her Graces. She is in search of her son, and bids
the Graces ask whether he is concealed in the eyes or between the
swelling breasts of the ladies in the audience. The Graces sing their
appeal for the discovery of 'Venus' runaway'. Cupid now emerges, with a
train of Joci and Risus, each bearing two torches, who dance a dance of
triumph. Venus captures Cupid, and demands the cause of his jubilation.
He slips away, but the explanation is given by Hymen, in a speech of
flattery to the King on the 'state', to the bridegroom who saved the
King's life, and to the maid of the Red Cliff, who is the bride. Hymen
is followed by Vulcan, who splits the cliff, and discloses a concave
fashioned by his art, in which sit the maskers. They are the twelve
Signs of the Zodiac, to each of whom is assigned some influence upon
marriage. They advance and dance their measures, while Vulcan's
attendants, the Cyclopes, Brontes and Steropes, beat time with their
sledges, and in the pauses of the dancing the musicians, dressed as
priests of Hymen, sing the verses of an epithalamion. How neatly it is
all done! The maskers, the presenters, the torch-bearers, the musicians,
all have their place in the scheme, and contribute towards the
complimenting of the bridal pair.
It would perhaps be difficult to say how far the approximation to drama
in the Jacobean masks was due to the subconscious mental processes of
mask poets who were themselves playwrights, and how far to a deliberate
intention to combine two arts.[619] As a rule it is safe to credit
Jonson, at least, with fully conscious artistry. And here too the model
set by Baldassarino's _Balet Comique_ must not be neglected. The printed
description of this contains a preface, in which Baldassarino justifies
his use of the term 'comique' on the ground that he has arranged his
'balet' in acts and scenes like a comedy, and claims to be an innovator
in this interweaving of poetry with the dance, to which 'le premier
tiltre et honneur' are still left. The Jacobean poets did not essay a
treatment by acts and scenes, which indeed has no great significance
even in the _Balet Comique_. But Baldassarino's main idea, of the
inhibition of the dance by the magic of Circe until the gods come to the
rescue, may fairly be regarded as responsible for the several episodes
of disenchantment or transformation which recur in the work of his
successors.[620]
Jonson's mask for the Ramsay-Radcliffe wedding in 1608 represents a
stage of importance in the evolution of the dramatic form. The entry of
the maskers is preluded by a dance of the torch-bearing Joci and Risus.
In describing his _Mask of Queens_ of the following year, Jonson says,
'And because her majesty (best knowing that a principal part of life in
these spectacles lay in their variety) had commanded me to think on some
dance, or shew, that might precede hers, and have the place of a foil,
or false masque, I was careful to decline, not only from others, but
mine own steps in that kind, since the last year, I had an antimasque of
boys; and therefore now devised that twelve women, in the habit of hags
or witches, sustaining the persons of Ignorance, Suspicion, Credulity,
&c., the opposites to good Fame, should fill that part, not as a masque,
but a spectacle of strangeness, producing multiplicity of gesture, and
not unaptly sorting with the current and whole fall of the device'. I am
not quite sure what Jonson intends by the distinction here drawn between
a 'masque' and a 'spectacle', for in fact the Hags dance 'a magical
dance full of preposterous change and gesticulation', which is
interrupted by a burst of loud music and an alteration in the face of
the scene, heralding the introduction of the Queens in the House of
Fame. However this may be, Jonson's innovation, with its obvious
advantages of added variety, must have been immediately successful, for
in practically all subsequent examples of the period the antimask
appears as a fixed element in the scheme, preceding and setting off what
Beaumont calls the 'maine' mask, and usually divided from it by a change
of scene.[621] There are some slight further elaborations to record. In
_Oberon_, in the _Lords' Mask_, and in _Chapman's Mask_, the antimask is
followed by a dance of torch-bearers, to which also Chapman gives the
name of 'antimask'. _Beaumont's Mask_, the _Mask of Squires_, _Mercury
Vindicated_, and _Browne's Mask_ have each two regular antimasks, and
in the _Mask of Squires_ the second antimask is interpolated in the
middle of the dances of the main mask. There is only one antimask in
_The Twelve Months_, but two dances are assigned to it. The _Mask of
Flowers_ has, besides the antimask 'of dances', a preliminary antimask
'of song'. The name 'antimask' has given some trouble. Jonson's
references to 'a foil, or false masque' and to 'opposites' suggest
clearly enough that he used the prefix 'anti' to indicate an antithesis
or contrast. But in _Tethys' Festival_ Daniel uses the form
'antemasque', and this spelling, probably due to a misunderstanding by
the worthy Daniel of the point of the innovation, recurs in _Chapman's
Mask_ and in _The Twelve Months_.[622] The _Mask of Flowers_, again,
affords a third variation, in 'anticke-maske', and this also, I think,
_pace_ Dr. Brotanek, must have its origin in a misunderstanding.[623] An
'antic' dance is a grotesque dance, and this epithet is often applied to
the personages of the antimasks and their evolutions, from the
_Haddington Mask_ onwards, since the characteristic antithesis which the
antimask renders possible is precisely the antithesis between the
grotesque prelude and the splendour of the main mask that follows.[624]
I want to emphasize the point that this element of contrast introduced
by the juxtaposition of mask and antimask is analogous to what critics
have always regarded as a special feature of the Elizabethan, and
particularly the Shakespearian drama, the juxtaposition of comedy and
tragedy, either in the form of what is called tragicomedy, or by the
inclusion of scenes of 'comic relief' in tragedy proper. It is perhaps
worth noting that in the French masks of 1610 and 1612 printed by
Lacroix we find side by side with the 'grand ballet' elements variously
described as the 'première et plaisante entrée' (1610) and 'la
bouffonnerie' (1612), which appear to serve just the same purpose as the
English antimask.[625] But, of course, I do not mean to suggest that
either in France or in England the grotesque made its way into the mask
for the first time during the seventeenth century. The clowns, mariners,
'wodwoses' and so forth of the earlier Elizabethan revels must have lent
themselves to humorous treatment, and indeed mirth has at all times been
of the essence of revels. There is some reason to think that a
traditional form of grotesque mask at court was the morris. This is of
course a familiar type of folk-dance, and may owe its Tudor name to the
_moresche_, which were dances introduced as _intermedii_ into Italian
plays.[626]
The spectacular and literary elaboration of the Jacobean mask must not
be allowed to blind our eyes to the fact that after all it was not a
dramatic illusion but a choregraphic compliment which remained the
central purpose of the entertainment. Scenery and speech and song occupy
perhaps a disproportionate share of the attention of the poets who, to
their own glorification and that of the architects, wrote the
descriptions; but the greater part of the considerable number of hours
during which the mask lasted was devoted to the actual dancing. And the
dancing involved an intimacy, and not a detachment, in the relation
between performers and spectators. It is true that some of the
traditional features which accompanied the mask, when court ceremonial
first took it up from folk custom, tended under the new conditions to
pass into the state of survivals. Thus the torch-bearers, whether or not
their burning brands represent some original element of ritual in the
folk festival, were certainly _de rigueur_ as a concomitant of the mask
during the sixteenth century. They had two clear functions. They
provided, in dim halls, the abundance of light which was so necessary to
give full value to the bright stuffs and metallic spangles worn by the
dancers. And their own costumes, harmonized or contrasting with those of
the dancers, afforded the variety of interest which otherwise, while the
presenters were still limited to one or two 'truchmen', might have been
lacking. They were always kept in strict subordination to the maskers
proper. They were their attendants; Hinds in a mask of Clowns, Almains
in a mask of Swart Rutters, Moorish friars in a mask of Moors. Their
garments were inferior, taffeta, as against satin or cloth of gold. When
George Ferrers, as Lord of Misrule in 1552, had occasion to complain of
the apparel furnished by the Master of the Revels for his councillors,
he wrote that the gentlemen who were to take the parts 'wolde not be
seen in London so torchebererlyke disgysed for asmoche as they ar worthe
or hope to be worthe'.[627] And when the measures began, they had little
to do, but to stand and look on.[628] In the seventeenth century they
were not so indispensable, either for illumination, which could be
better supplied by fixed lights upon the scene, or for variety.[629] And
with the multiplication of other purposes the room which they took up
could ill be spared. In _Tethys' Festival_, given exceptionally during
the heat of summer, there were no torch-bearers, on the ground that
'they would have pestered the roome, which the season would not well
permit'. And therewith begins a tendency either, as already indicated,
to merge them in the antimask, or to omit them altogether.[630] The
vizard again and the ceremonial unvizarding at the end of the
performance, although usual, and of course essential parts of the
tradition, do not appear to have been quite invariable under James
I.[631] As early as the _Mask of Blackness_ in 1605, blackened faces and
arms were substituted, which, says a contemporary writer, were 'disguise
sufficient' and an 'ugly sight', and the experiment was not repeated. I
do not know that for any historic period there is evidence that the
maskers regularly brought gifts with them, although they sometimes did,
and one may suspect that such gifts represented the 'luck' of the
primitive custom. A jewel was all very well when Arthur Throgmorton
wanted to use a mask as a medium for recovering the lost favour of
Elizabeth.[632] But it may be assumed that Elizabeth would think it a
useless expense, when a mask was only conventionally a surprise visit,
and was really designed on her own instructions in her own Office of the
Revels. And although James did on one occasion pay no less than £40,000
for the jewel used in the mask of Indian and Chinese Knights, this was
in the first year of his reign, when his predecessor's hoarded wealth
was still there for the lavishing, and the special purpose was to be
served of impressing Henri IV through his diplomatic
representative.[633] When there were gifts, they were as a rule
trifling, and incidental to the 'device' of the mask. The abortive
scheme of 1562 provides for a grandguard and a sword and girdle.
Elizabeth got on one occasion flowers of silk and gold, signifying
victory, peace, and plenty; on another snowballs of lamb's wool
sweetened with rose-water in a mask of Janus; on a third looking-glasses
with posies inscribed on them in a mask of Pedlars. In _The Twelve
Goddesses_ the maskers presented their emblems, and Sibylla laid them in
the temple. In the _Mask of Blackness_ the Daughters of Niger presented
their fans. In _Tethys' Festival_ there were a trident for James and a
sword, worth 20,000 crowns, and a scarf for Henry. In the _Mask of
Squires_ Anne plucked a bough from a golden tree, wherewith to
disenchant the Knights. Often the gifts were represented by the merely
conventional offering of a copy of verses, or of shields bearing
_imprese_ or painted allegorical devices, such as were also brought by
the runners in tilts.[634] These sometimes required interpretation and
led to some preliminary 'commoning' with the guests of honour.
Interchanges of wit at this stage between Elizabeth and Mary Fitton in
1600 and James and Philip Herbert in 1604 are upon record. But of course
the chief 'commoning' was when the maskers 'took out' the principal
spectators of the opposite sex to dance. Whether the Jacobean maskers
kissed the ladies whom they took out I do not know, but this was the
earlier custom.[635] At any rate the 'taking out' is the critical moment
of intimacy between performers and spectators in the mask, and serves,
even more than the gifts and even more than the personal compliments in
theme and speech, to distinguish it from the drama.[636] The period of
'intermixed' dancing (_Hymenaei_), which it introduced, served as a
sequel to the greater part of the mask proper, and is sometimes
described as 'the revels' (_Love Freed_; _Twelve Months_). More
precisely, the order of the dancing, subject to minor variations, was as
follows. After the dialogue of presentation and the antimask, the
maskers entered and began a series of 'masque dances' (_Oberon_; _Love
Freed_), 'changes' (_Malecontent_; _Insatiate Countess_), or 'strains'
(_Hymenaei_; _Cynthia's Revels_; _A Woman is a Weathercock_). These are
also called the 'single' dances, to distinguish them from the
'intermixed' dances (_Blackness_) or more usually and simply, the
maskers 'own' dances or the 'new' dances. Sometimes the 'first' dance is
distinguished from the 'main' dance (_Twelve Months_; _Lords' Mask_;
_Mercury Vindicated_; _Golden Age_). After one, two, or three 'new'
dances, the maskers 'dissolved' (_Hymenaei_) and 'took out' for the
'revels'. Finally they gathered again for their 'going off' (_Twelve
Months_), the 'last', 'parting', 'departing' or 'retiring' dance, which
sometimes took them 'into the work' (_Oberon_). If they did not dance
back 'into the work', they probably unmasked at this stage, after a
ceremonial reverence to the company, known as the 'honour' (_Hay Mask_;
_Your Five Gallants_; _A Woman is a Weathercock_).[637] The revels
consisted partly of the solemn figured dances known as 'measures',
partly of 'lighter' dances (_Hay Mask_). Those most often mentioned are
the galliard, coranto, and lavolta; others were the brawl (_Browne's
Mask_), duretto (_Beaumont's Mask_; _Mask of Flowers_), and morasco
(_Mask of Flowers_).[638] Of course, only 'ordinary' measures (_Indian
and Chinese Knights_) and familiar court dances were available for the
revels. The mask dances proper, on the other hand, as the epithet 'new'
indicates, were specially designed and carefully learnt for each
occasion. They appear to have always been 'measures'. Baldassarino
regards 'meslanges geometriques' as being of the essence of the mask.
The dances were a technical matter, with which the poets were not much
concerned, and they do not as a rule attempt any notation, or even
detailed description of the figures. An occasional literary touch was,
however, to their fancy. In _Hymenaei_ some of the figures were 'formed
into letters very signifying to the name of the bridegroom', and again
in the _Mask of Queens_ one of the dances was 'graphically disposed into
letters, and honouring the name of the most sweet and ingenious Prince,
Charles, Duke of York'. These graphic dances, which Bacon deprecates,
were also used in the French _Ballet de Monseigneur le Duc de Vandosme_
of 1610.[639]
It is of a piece with the intimacy between maskers and spectators that
the former appear always to have been volunteers, and that to dance in a
mask, at any rate at court, was not derogatory even to persons of the
highest rank. I have no proof that Queen Elizabeth ever masked in
person, as her father and brother certainly did, but in view of her
notorious fondness for the exercise of the dance it is extremely
probable. Unfortunately we know very little of the personnel of the
Elizabethan masks. The _Revels Accounts_, a source of generous
information on many points, never name the maskers. Scattered notices
elsewhere suggest that they may not infrequently have been the maids of
honour. It was so when Brantôme was present in 1561, and at Anne
Russell's wedding in 1600, when Elizabeth, contrary to the ordinary rule
of sex-exchange, was 'taken' out by Mary Fitton. Among the stray names
of revellers that have floated to us down the stream of time are those
of George Brooke, who came to the scaffold in 1603, and Sir Robert
Carey, who boasts of his share in all court triumphs in 1586.[640]
Naunton is the authority for the statement that Sir Christopher Hatton
first appeared before Elizabeth in one of the masks which were sent from
time to time as the contributions of the Inns of Court to the royal
gaiety.[641] Lists of the dancers in most of the Jacobean masks are
preserved. That of James himself is not among them; he was ungainly and
indolent except on horseback. But Anne danced in her own 'Queen's' masks
of 1604, 1605, 1608, 1609, 1610, and probably 1611, and allowed herself
to be 'taken out' as a compliment to her hosts at Caversham as late as
the summer of 1613. With her in 1610 was the Princess Elizabeth, and in
1608 and 1610 the Lady Arabella Stuart. Henry was 'taken out' as a boy
and 'tost from hand to hand like a tennis bal' by the ladies in the
_Twelve Goddesses_ of 1604.
He masked himself in _Oberon_ (1611) and in the undatable _Twelve
Months_. The only appearance of Charles before 1618 was as Zephyrus
amongst the presenters of _Tethys' Festival_ (1610). Next to Anne
herself, the most conspicuous performer in the Queen's masks was perhaps
Lucy Countess of Bedford, who had already won her reputation as a 'fine
dancing dame' at the end of the previous reign, and whose costume in one
at least of her extant portraits is conjectured to represent masking
attire.[642] Other names which recur frequently in the lists are those
of Elizabeth Countess of Derby and her sister Susan Countess of
Montgomery, Alethea Countess of Arundel, Anne Countess of Dorset, and
Audrey Lady Walsingham; while amongst the men shone the two brothers
Herbert, William Earl of Pembroke and Philip Earl of Montgomery, and
that most splendid and extravagant of all the Jacobean courtiers, James
Lord Hay. The Earl of Somerset does not appear to have been a dancer,
but when the star of George Villiers was rising in 1615 his friends were
careful to give him his opportunity of shining in a mask. It is not
surprising to find that the numerous sons and daughters of the Earl of
Suffolk, Lord Chamberlain, and the Earl of Worcester, Master of the
Horse, who shared the official oversight of the masks, were not seldom
called upon to display their skill. One fears that there must often have
been heart-burnings. Lady Hatton's pique at being left out in 1605
contributed something to the strained relations with her husband, Lord
Coke, which long made mirth for London.[643]
The masks could not dispense altogether with professional assistance. In
the _Mask of Beauty_ the torch-bearing Cupids were 'chosen out of the
best and ingenious youth of the kingdom'. In _Tethys' Festival_ the
presenters included, in addition to the Duke of York, two gentlemen 'of
good worth and respect', who played the Tritons, and the antimask
included eight 'little ladies, all of them the daughters of Earls or
Barons'. But this mask was for the exceptional occasion of the creation
of Henry as Prince of Wales, and Daniel expressly boasts that 'there
were none of inferior sort mixed among these great personages of state
and honour (as usually there have been); but all was performed by
themselves with a due reservation of their dignity'. The normal practice
seems to have been to hire players and their boys for the antimask and
for the speaking parts, which of course required a trained
elocution.[644] Sometimes, however, a part might be taken by one of the
numerous persons employed as devisers or trainers. I do not know that
the statement that 'Ben Jonson turned the globe of the earth standing
behind the altar' in _Hymenaei_ necessarily implies Jonson's personal
presence on the stage, actor though he had been, for in fact the globe
seems to have been moved by unseen machinery, without even the apparent
assistance of a presenter. But the dance-masters Thomas Giles and Jerome
Heron certainly played the Cyclopes in the _Haddington Mask_, and Giles
also played Thamesis in the _Mask of Beauty_. The musicians again, some
or all of whom were generally disguised, were a professional body, of
which the nucleus was probably formed by members of the various bands of
the royal households. Thus John Allen, who sang in the _Mask of Queens_
and the _Mask of Squires_, was 'her majesty's servant', and Nicholas
Lanier, who also sang in the _Mask of Squires_, was one of the King's
flutes. Both musicians and dancing-masters had other important functions
in connexion with the masks, outside the actual performances. The former
had to compose the airs and set them for the musical instruments and the
dances; the latter had to arrange the dances and to drill the
dancers.[645] Campion, being a composer as well as a poet, was naturally
responsible for his own music, and the musical element in his masks
tended to be predominant. Jonson seems generally to have obtained the
co-operation of Alfonso Ferrabosco, probably a son of the Ferrabosco who
was devising masks for Elizabeth about 1572.[646] He was originally a
lutenist, but at the time of his death in 1627 'enjoyed four places,
viz. a musician's place in general, a composer's place, a violl's place,
and an instructor's place to the prince in the art of musique'.[647]
Amongst the musicians who gave minor assistance, either as composers or
as executants, were Thomas Ford (_Chapman's Mask_), John Cooper
(_Lords_; _Squires_), the lutenists Robert Johnson (_Oberon_; _Love
Freed_; _Lords_; _Chapman's Mask_), John and Robert Dowland (_Chapman's
Mask_), and Philip Rossiter (_Chapman's Mask_), and the violinists
Thomas Lupo the elder (_Hay Mask_; _Oberon_; _Love Freed_; _Lords_),
Rowland Rubidge (_Oberon_), and Alexander Chisan (_Oberon_).[648] As
dancing-masters we hear of Thomas Cardell under Elizabeth in 1582;[649]
and under James of Jerome Heron (_Haddington Mask_; _Queens_; _Oberon_;
_Lords_), Confess (_Oberon_; _Love Freed_), Bochan (_Love Freed_;
_Lords_), and Thomas Giles (_Hymenaei_; _Beauty_; _Haddington Mask_;
_Queens_; _Oberon_; _Lords_), who was musician and teacher of the dance
to Henry, and may be identical with the Thomas Giles who became Master
of the Paul's boys in 1584.[650]