The court masks ordinarily took place in what was called the

banqueting-house, but might with more appropriateness have been called

the masking-house, at Whitehall.[651] The occasional exceptions readily

explain themselves. Whitehall was under the ban of plague in the winter

of 1604, and the masks were in the great hall of Hampton Court. During

the winter of 1606, when the Elizabethan banqueting-house had been

pulled down and the Jacobean one was not yet ready, the great hall of

Whitehall itself was used. Here also was given _Chapman's Mask_, on the

second night of the Princess Elizabeth's wedding, doubtless because the

banqueting-house was still encumbered with the scenery belonging to the

_Lords' Mask_ of the previous night. The hall had also been assigned to

_Beaumont's Mask_ on the third night, but when this was put off for a

few days, the greater dignity of the banqueting-house was granted as a

compensation for the disappointment of the dancers. The aspect of the

room and its arrangements are well described in 1618, only a year before

the first Jacobean banqueting-house was burnt down, by Orazio Busino,

almoner to the Venetian ambassador, Piero Contarini.[652] This may be

supplemented by Campion's description of the great hall at Whitehall as

arranged for the mask at Lord Hay's wedding, and by the careful note of

John Finett, then an assistant to the Master of the Ceremonies, upon the

seating of the ambassadors in 1616.[653] At the lower or screen end was

the scene; at the upper end, and divided from the scene by the

dancing-place, was the royal 'state', on a raised daïs and under a

canopy. Behind the state, along the sides of the room to right and left

of the dancing-place, and in galleries above, were tiers of seats, some

of which were divided into boxes. James himself seems always to have

been present, returning if necessary from his hunting journeys for mask

nights, and sometimes starting off again the next morning at daybreak.

Busino's account suggests that he liked to see vigorous and sustained

dancing; but his patience failed him when he was asked to sit through

three masks on successive nights in 1613, and he insisted on putting off

the third, although the maskers had already come, telling Sir Francis

Bacon, who protested that this was to bury them quick, that the

alternative was to bury him quick, for he could last no longer. On the

other hand, he was sufficiently gratified by the _Irish Mask_ in 1613

and _Mercury Vindicated_ in 1615 to be willing to call for a second

performance in each case. With the King sat members of the royal family

and sometimes ambassadors or other specially honoured guests. Finett

records that in 1616 the French, Venetian, and Savoyard ambassadors were

all on the King's right hand, but in places of nicely graded dignity,

'not right out, but byas forward'. The ambassadorial suites appear to

have been accommodated in boxes raised above the level of the state, to

the right and left. Guests of honour, but of lesser honour, might be

placed on special benches assigned to lords and privy councillors.

Evidently the masks were solemn occasions, and the laws of precedence

strictly followed. An allusion in _The Maid's Tragedy_ suggests that

ladies, other than those ladies of the court and ambassadors' wives who

formed the king's 'troop', were ordinarily seated in the galleries.[654]

One of the principal objects of the masks was the entertainment of

ambassadors, and the jealousies amongst them were constantly involving

James and his Council in awkward diplomatic questions.[655] These have

recently been the subject of a special study, and need not here be

described in detail.[656] By far the most important was the standing

conflict for precedence between the representatives of France and Spain.

James consistently refused to commit himself to either claim, and was

careful not to invite both ambassadors to the same function.[657] But

some occasions were more honourable than others, and it seems clear that

in the minds of the ambassadors themselves the bestowal or withholding

of an invitation often counted for a diplomatic triumph or rebuff.

Matters were complicated during the earlier years of the reign by Anne's

far from discreet advocacy of the Spanish cause, and the dispatches of

M. de Beaumont in 1605 and M. de la Boderie in 1608 are largely occupied

with the embarrassment caused to James and the humiliation inflicted

upon those ambassadors themselves by the Queen's determination that her

masks should be graced by the presence of the astute and courtly

Spaniard, Juan de Taxis. In the latter year James had to stave off an

open rupture with Henri IV by an opportune demand for the repayment of a

long-standing debt. The relations between France and Spain were

paralleled by similar feuds for precedence between Venice and Flanders

and between Florence and Savoy, while the King of Spain was naturally

unwilling that his representative should be received on terms of

equality with the representative of Holland and thus appear to

acknowledge the claims of rebellious provinces to rank as a sovereign

state. Occasional visitors of rank had their own points of etiquette to

raise. Thus in 1604 the Duke of Holstein stood for three hours rather

than sit below the Venetian ambassador. Generally speaking, indeed, the

newly established office of Master of the Ceremonies must have been

anything but a bed of roses. The chief mask of the year, which every

ambassador intrigued to attend, was traditionally danced on Twelfth

Night; but often it was put off to a later date, in order to meet

diplomatic exigencies.[658]

The banqueting-house, with the 'state' in it, was probably regarded as

technically part of the Presence Chamber. At any rate, it was under the

supervision of the Lord Chamberlain and the officers of the Chamber,

headed by the Gentleman Usher. They seated the audience, kept the doors

against the turbulent crowds knocking for admission, cleared the

dancing-place when the King was seated, and supplied the principal

guests with programmes or abstracts of the device prepared by the

poet.[659] The Chamberlain's white staff was no mere symbol when there

was whiffling to be done, and even Ben Jonson, 'ushered by my Lord

Suffolk from a mask' on 6 January 1604, the year before his own

sovereignty over masks began, required to be consoled by his fellow in

misfortune, Sir John Roe, with the reminder,--

Forget we were thrust out; it is but thus,

God threatens Kings, Kings Lords, as Lords do us.[660]

Obviously, as John Chamberlain suggests in a letter to Dudley Carleton,

to be befriended at court was to secure the easier admission. But

subject to the limitations of space and the discretion of the

door-keepers, the performances seem to have been open to all comers,

although the wicked wit of the dramatists is apt to suggest that

citizens' wives sometimes found access more readily than the citizens

themselves.[661] It is difficult to say how many the room would hold.

One of De la Boderie's dispatches speaks of 10,000, which was probably a

considerable over-estimate.[662] Many of those who besieged the doors

must of course have been disappointed, and perhaps many of those who got

in experienced more satisfaction than comfort.[663] In order to save

space, it was decreed in 1613 that no ladies should be admitted in

farthingales, and the repetition of the _Irish Mask_ of 1613 and the

_Mercury Vindicated_ of 1615 may have been due in part to an unsatisfied

demand for seats as well as to the intrinsic merit of the performances.

The mask, beginning after supper, was prolonged far into the night. That

at Sir Philip Herbert's wedding lasted three hours; _Tethys' Festival_

was not over until hard upon sunrise. The pent-up audience dissolved in

some confusion. Apparently the Tudor custom of finishing the proceedings

by rifling the pageant and the dresses of their decorations had not been

wholly abandoned.[664] A hardly less riotous scene followed. A banquet

was spread in another room, the great chamber in 1605, the presence

chamber in 1616, the specially built 'marriage' room in 1613. It was

not etiquette for the King to partake of this with his guests, but he

usually conducted the maskers to the tables, and took a survey of them

before he retired. Then the fray began. The banquet was 'dispatched with

the accustomed confusion', says a chronicler in 1604. In 1605 it 'was so

furiously assaulted that down went tables and tressels before one bit

was touched'. _Tethys' Festival_ in 1610 closed with 'views and

scrambling'. At Beaumont's mask in 1613, 'after the King had made the

tour of the tables, everything was in a moment rapaciously swept

away'.[665] Tired and unfed, the ladies made their way out into the

courtyards of the palace, perhaps to find, as in 1604, that chains and

jewels were gone, and that they were even 'made shorter by the

skirts'.[666]

Next day the poets sat down to turn the programmes into books, which the

stationers could print and sell at sixpence each, and so save them from

being pestered for copies of the verses.[667] And the Lord Chamberlain's

Secretary sat down to compare his expenses with his imprests, and to

draw up his accounts for endorsement by his lord and the Master of the

Horse, and presentation at the Exchequer. Any estimate of the cost of

masking that we can now form must be approximate in character. Under

Elizabeth, so long as masks were the care of the Revels, their expenses

naturally appear in the accounts of that office; but in part only, since

requisitions appear to have been made upon the Wardrobe and the Office

of Works, and the services rendered by these departments not charged to

the Revels. Moreover, the methods of bookkeeping employed by the

officers of the Revels did not provide for distinguishing expenditure

upon masks and upon plays when, as was usually the case, both types of

entertainment were in concurrent preparation.[668] It is therefore

rarely that the cost of an Elizabethan mask can be isolated, and still

more rarely that it can be assumed to be complete. Four masks in the

winter of 1559 only cost the Revels £127 11_s._ 2_d._, and it was

estimated that two more at Shrovetide would cost another £100. The

spectacular mask in June 1572 cost £506 11_s._ 8_d._, but it is noted

that the 'Warderobe stuf' was 'excepted' from the reckoning. An

estimate for another spectacular mask in April 1581 amounts to about

£380, and again it is clear that the materials for garments are not

included. It is rather surprising to find that a mask intended to

accompany the embassy to Scotland at the time of James VI's wedding cost

no more than £17 10_s._ 10_d._, but this was a simple mask without a

pageant, and garments already in store were 'translated' for the

purpose.[669] Nor did Elizabeth desire to do any excessive honour to her

cousin. On the other hand, the accounts, and particularly the

inventories attached to those for the earliest years of the reign, show

that the richest materials were used without stint to deck out the

maskers. Clothes of gold and silver, shot with innumerable hues and

often further enriched with embroidered 'works', velvets and sarcenets,

satins, taffetas, and damasks; all recur in a truly royal profusion, and

at a cost of anything up to a guinea or so a yard. The cheaper stuffs

were no doubt used for torch-bearers, and there was room for economy in

the Cologne and Venice gold and silver and other forms of tinsel that

served for fringes and trimmings.[670] Copper lace, as the Duke of

Newcastle gravely informed Charles II at the Restoration, looked as well

as gold for the two or three nights before it tarnished: 'All Queen

Elizabethes dayes shee had itt, & Kinge James.'[671] Burghley's

reorganization of the Revels in 1597 apparently left the office without

any responsibility for the preparation of masks, and it is not clear

what arrangements were made for these during the last few years of the

reign. Under James the Revels claimed fees for the personal attendance

of the officers at masks, for the lighting of the banqueting-house, for

small repairs to its fittings, and for no more.[672] Small sums also

appear in the accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber for services of

the mat-layer in making ready the dancing-floor, and of Grooms of the

Chamber in attendance on the maskers, and in those of the Office of

Works for the erection of stages and scaffolds. The incidence of the

main expenditure of course depended upon whether the mask was ordered

by James himself, or contributed out of the loyalty of others. James

appears to have paid, in whole or in part, for at least fourteen of the

twenty-five court masks traceable during the years 1603-16. These

include the six Queen's masks (_Twelve Goddesses_, _Blackness_,

_Beauty_, _Queens_, _Tethys' Festival_, _Love Freed_), two Prince's

masks (_Oberon_, _Love Restored_), and five other masks by lords and

gentlemen, one at the first Christmas of the reign (_Indian and Chinese

Knights_), one at his daughter's wedding (_Lords_), one at Somerset's

(_Squires_), and two of later date (_Mercury Vindicated_, _Golden Age

Restored_). He may also have paid for the _Mask of Scots_ in 1604 and

the _Irish Mask_ in 1613, but these were probably non-spectacular and

cheap. As to the finance of the Winchester mask of 1603 and of the

_Twelve Months_ nothing is known, or whether the latter, evidently

planned for a Prince's mask, was ever in fact performed. To _Oberon_ and

_Love Restored_ James contributed amounts of at least £387 and at least

£280 respectively, but so far as _Oberon_ is concerned this was by no

means the whole cost, for a sum of £1,076 6_s._ 10_d._ was charged to

Henry's personal account, and it is probable that the burden of _Love

Restored_ was similarly divided. I have no evidence that Anne's personal

account was ever charged with any part of the cost of the Queen's masks.

Certainly it was not so with _Love Freed_ in 1611, for of this mask, and

of this alone, a full balance-sheet happens to be available. It was a

comparatively cheap mask, deliberately so, because _Tethys' Festival_ in

the summer before had been 'excessively costly'. It was intended that it

should cost no more than £600. In fact the total expenditure came to

£719 1_s._ 3_d._ Of this £238 16_s._ 10_d._ went to Inigo Jones on 'his

byll', doubtless for the scenery; £69 17_s._ 5_d._ in minor items of

costume; £292 in 'rewards', making a total of £600 14_s._ 3_d._, of

which £400 had already been received from the Exchequer. This agrees

closely with the original estimate, but there was a further amount of

£118 7_s._ due to the Master of the Wardrobe for materials which he had

supplied for costumes, and the document concludes with a memorandum

signed by the Earls of Suffolk and Worcester to the effect that this

amount, over and above the £600 14_s._ 3_d._, is payable. These lords,

one as Lord Chamberlain, the other as Master of the Horse, seem

regularly to have had the supervision of 'emptions and provisions for

masks given at the royal expense'.[673] The financial procedure was as

follows. At an early date, the King directed a warrant under the privy

seal to the Exchequer, in which the names of the supervising officers

were set out, and the Treasurer was authorized to make payments upon

certificates by them.[674] A letter of 1608 suggests that up to that

date it had been usual to name a maximum cost in the warrant, but

thenceforward the supervising officers seem normally to have had a free

hand.[675] Their own methods varied. Sometimes they asked the Exchequer,

as occasion arose, to pay small sums direct to Inigo Jones and others;

sometimes they wrote acknowledgements on the bills of furnishers, and

sent these forward for Exchequer payment; sometimes they authorized a

subordinate officer to draw one or two large sums and meet the

expenditure out of these. For 'rewards' no doubt the last was the more

convenient way. We find one Bethell, a gentleman usher of the chamber,

thus designated as payee in 1608, Henry Reynolds in 1609, Meredith

Morgan in 1612, 1613, 1614, and 1616, Walter James in 1615, and Edmund

Sadler in 1616.[676] The balance-sheet for _Love Freed_, although it

contains items for the dresses of the presenters, antimaskers, and

musicians, contains none which can be assigned to those of the main

maskers, and there is other evidence for thinking that, even in a royal

mask, the lords or ladies who danced were expected to dress themselves.

Thus John Chamberlain tells us of the _Mask of Squires_ that the King

was to bear the charge, 'all saving the apparel'. The practice, however,

was probably not invariable, for the Exchequer documents relating to

_Tethys' Festival_ contain a silkman's bill for lace used for the

dresses of fourteen ladies. For the _Twelve Goddesses_ warrants were

issued to Lady Suffolk and Lady Walsingham to take Queen Elizabeth's

robes from the wardrobe in the Tower. The list of 'rewards' for _Love

Freed_ can be supplemented from similar lists for _Oberon_ and the

_Lords' Mask_ and a few scattered records. The largest amounts went to

the poets and the architect. Jones had £50 for the _Lords' Mask_ and £40

each for _Love Freed_ and _Oberon_, Jonson £40 for _Love Freed_, Daniel

£20 for _Tethys' Festival_, Campion, being both poet and musician, £66

13_s._ 4_d._ for the _Lords' Mask_. Dancers and composers got from £10

to £40; lutenists and violinists £1 or £2; players £1 each. For the

total cost we are mainly reduced to guess-work, although contemporary

gossip, sometimes a little disturbed at the extravagance, may help us,

if it was not itself based on guess-work.[677] We hear of £2,000 to

£3,000 for the _Twelve Goddesses_ and the two other masks of the first

winter, £3,000 and 25,000 _scudi_ for _Blackness_, 6,000 or 7,000 and

later 30,000 _scudi_ for _Beauty_, £1,500 for _Mercury Vindicated_,

£2,000 for _Queens_, which, however, M. Reyher estimates from Exchequer

documents which he does not print, at more than £4,000.[678] These

figures probably include the contributions of the Wardrobe, as these

were to be repaid out of the special allowances in 1611. There is yet

one other source of information. A return of extraordinary disbursements

of the Exchequer for 1603-9, during which period there were six or seven

royal masks, gives £4,215 under this head, and a similar return for

1603-17, during which there were from fourteen to sixteen, including the

_Vision of Delight_ in 1617, gives £7,500.[679] But this last figure is

specifically stated not to include 'the provisions had out of the

Warderobe and materials and workmen from the Office of the Works'. At a

venture, I should say that a royal mask cost about £2,000 on the

average. Something may also be gleaned about the finance of those masks

that were not wholly charged on the Exchequer. _Oberon_, to which both

James and Henry contributed, was supervised by the chamberlain of

Henry's household, Sir Thomas Chaloner. The Inns of Court masks brought

to the Princess Elizabeth's wedding were paid for out of admission fees

to chambers and levies raised upon the members of the Inns, according to

their status. Chamberlain estimated the cost of the two masks as 'better

than £4,000', and the accounts that have been preserved show that in

fact Chapman's mask cost Lincoln's Inn and the Middle Temple £1,086

8_s._ 11_d._ each, and Beaumont's cost Gray's Inn and the Inner Temple

over £1,200 each. On the other hand, the whole cost of the _Mask of

Flowers_, given by Gray's Inn at the Earl of Somerset's wedding, being

over £2,000, was met by Sir Francis Bacon, who refused an offered

contribution of £500 from Sir Henry Yelverton. The masks at the weddings

of Sir Philip Herbert, Lord Essex, Lord Hay, and Lord Haddington were

all, certainly or probably, complimentary offerings of friends of the

hymeneal couples. Lady Rutland, who danced in _Hymenaei_, paid £80 to

Bethell, and £26 11_s._ more for her own apparel. The _Haddington Mask_

cost each of the twelve dancers £300, and must therefore have been one

of the most expensive masks of the period. Obviously the highest

estimates for the masks do not include the value of the jewels with

which the dancers bedizened themselves. In the _Twelve Goddesses_ Anne

is said to have worn £100,000 worth and the other ladies £20,000 worth.

Of _Hymenaei_ John Pory says, 'I think they hired and borrowed all the

principall jewels and ropes of perle both in court and citty. The

Spanish ambassador seemed but poore to the meanest of them.' Even this

Chamberlain could cap for _Beauty_. 'One lady, and that under a

baroness, is said to be furnished for better than a hundred thousand

pounds. And the Lady Arabella goes beyond her; and the queen must not

come behind.' Thus they revelled it.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 582: Perhaps Jonson's persistent use of 'masque' for the older

'mask' confesses a sense of derivation in his mind.]

[Footnote 583: The data are collected by Prunières, 34.]

[Footnote 584: Brantôme (ed. Soc. H. F.), vii. 346; Prunières, 48 sqq.;

Brotanek, 291.]

[Footnote 585: _Magnificentissimi spectaculi ... in Henrici Regis

Poloniae ... gratulationem Descriptio Io Aurato Poeta Regio Autore_

(1573); cf. Lacroix, i. xxi, and the engraving reproduced by Prunières

as pl. 2. Prunières, 70, thinks that Baltasar had already taken part in

the 'mascarade', half-tilt, half-dance, at the wedding of Henri of

Navarre in 1572.]

[Footnote 586: _Balet comique de la Royne faict aux Nopces de Monsieur

le Duc de Joyeuse et de Mademoyselle de Vaudemont, sa Sœur, par Baltasar

de Beaujoyeulx, Valet de Chambre du Roy et de la Royne, sa Mere_ (1582).

This is reprinted, but without the engravings, by Lacroix, i. 1; cf.

Prunières, 75, who gives one of the engravings as his pl. 3.]

[Footnote 587: Prunières, 94 _sqq._ Lacroix, i. 89, 109, 237, 271, 305,

prints four French masks which allow of a useful comparison with those

of England, viz. _Ballet des Chevaliers François et Béarnois_ (1592),

_Balletz representez devant le Roy_ (1593), _Ballet de Monseigneur le

Duc de Vandosme_ (1610); _Ballet du Courtisan et des Matrones_ (1612);

also a description of _Le Grand Bal de la Reine Marguerite_ (1612),

which shows the relation of the mask to the contemporary non-mimetic

state ball. On French masks of 1605, 1609, 1612, and 1615, cf. Sullivan,

29, 52, 67, 99.]

[Footnote 588: Exceptionally, the main scene was supplemented by a

throne 'in midst of the hall' in the _Mask of Beauty_ and by a mount and

tree at the upper end of the hall in _Tethys' Festival_.]

[Footnote 589: On Hans Eottes, or Eworth, first traceable as Jon

Eeuwowts of Antwerp in 1540, and the considerable body of portrait work

now ascribed to him, cf. L. Cust, _The Painter E_ (_Annual of Walpole

Soc._ ii. 1; iii. 113). On Ferrabosco and Ubaldini, ch. xiv (Italians).]

[Footnote 590: For the career of Jones, cf. _D. N. B._, Reyher, 75; R.

Blomfield in _Portfolio_ (1889), 88, 113, 126; and _Renaissance

Architecture in England_, i. 97; H. P. Horne, _An Essay on the Life of

Inigo Jones, Architect_ in _The Hobby Horse_ (1893), 22, 64; Cunningham,

_Inigo Jones_ (1848). Designs by Jones for the scenery, stage-machinery,

and dresses of masks and other court entertainments are in _Lansdowne

MS._ 1171, and in the collections of the Duke of Devonshire at

Chatsworth and of the Royal Institute of British Architects. They are

mostly of the Caroline rather than the Jacobean period. A few have been

reproduced by Cunningham, Reyher, and Lawrence, ii. 97. P. Simpson (_Sh.

England_, ii. 311) gives eight figures for the _Mask of Queens_.]

[Footnote 591: 'The design and act of all which, together with the

device of their habits, belong properly to the merit and reputation of

Master Inigo Jones, whom I take modest occasion in this fit place to

remember, lest his own worth might accuse me of an ignorant neglect from

my silence' (_Hymenaei_); 'The structure and ornament ... was entirely

Master Jones's invention and design.... All which I willingly

acknowledge for him; since it is a virtue planted in good natures, that

what respects they wish to obtain fruitfully from others they will give

ingenuously themselves' (_Queens_).]

[Footnote 592: 'The artificiall part onely speakes Master Inago Jones'

(_Tethys' Festival_); 'I suppose few have ever seen more neat artifice

than Master Inigo Jones shewed in contriving their motion, who in all

the rest of the workmanship which belonged to the whole invention shewed

extraordinary industry and skill, which if it be not as lively exprest

in writing as it appeared in view, rob not him of his due, but lay the

blame on my want of right apprehending his instructions for the adorning

his art' (_Lords_).]

[Footnote 593: Cunningham, _Jonson_, iii. 211.]

[Footnote 594: _Mask of Blackness_ (1605); _Hymenaei_ (1606);

_Haddington Mask_ (1608); _Mask of Queens_ (1609); _Tethys' Festival_

(1610); _Oberon_ (1611); _Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly_ (1611);

_Lords' Mask_ (1613); _Chapman's Mask_ (1613). The designers of the _Hay

Mask_ (1607), _Beaumont's Mask_ (1613), and the _Mask of the Twelve

Months_ are not named. Jonson says that the scene of the _Mask of

Beauty_ (1608) was 'put in act' by the King's Master Carpenter. This was

an officer of the Works, one William Portington (Jupp, _Carpenters'

Company_, 165). He was not necessarily the designer, but Jonson does

not, as one would expect, mention Jones. _Love Restored_ (1612) had a

chariot, but perhaps no scene. The _Irish Mask_ (1613) seems to be a

Jacobean example of the simple mask. The _Caversham Mask_ (1613) is

another, but this was not at court.]

[Footnote 595: A far more thorough treatment than is possible for me

will be found in the chapter on _La Mise en Scène_, in Reyher, 332.]

[Footnote 596: Designs by Jones for _proscenia_ (of Caroline date) are

reproduced by Lawrence (i. 97), _The Mounting of the Carolan Masques_;

on proscenium titles, cf. Lawrence, i. 46.]

[Footnote 597: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 117; cf. Halle, ii. 87.]

[Footnote 598: An ingenious paper on _The Story of a Peculiar Stage

Curtain_ in Lawrence, i. 109, suggests an affiliation between this

sinking curtain and the Roman _aulaeum_.]

[Footnote 599: _Chamber Accounts_; cf. Reyher, 358.]

[Footnote 600: Reyher, 367.]

[Footnote 601: Cf. ch. xx.]

[Footnote 602: Cf. ch. xix.]

[Footnote 603: Cunliffe, _The Influence of Italian on Early Elizabethan

Drama_ (_M. P._ iv. 597), and _Early English Classical Tragedies_, xl.]

[Footnote 604: F. A. Foster, _Dumb Show in Elizabethan Drama before

1620_ (_E. S._ xliv. 8); cf. ch. xviii.]

[Footnote 605: Cunliffe, xxxi, xxxix.]

[Footnote 606: For the spectacle as dream, cf. _Henry VIII_, iv. 2;

_Cymbeline_, v. 4, which, like the epiphany in _A. Y. L._ v. 4, perhaps

illustrates the point all the better in that it is probably an

interpolation; for the spectacle as magic show, Marlowe, _Dr. Faustus_,

515, 721, 1263; _Macbeth_, iv. 1; _Tempest_, iii. 3, and the mock magic

of _Merry Wives_, v. 5. The mask of _Tempest_, iv. 1, is of course both

mask and magic.]

[Footnote 607: _Hamlet_, iii. 2. 146. On the play within a play, cf. H.

Schwab, _Das Schauspiel im Schauspiel zur Zeit Shaksperes_ (1896).]

[Footnote 608: In _Spanish Tragedy_, i. 5, Hieronimo brings in a

'pompous jest' in which three knights hang up their scutcheons and

capture three kings. This is called a 'mask' (l. 23), but there is no

dance, only a dumb-show interpreted by Hieronimo. Similarly the 'Maske

of Cupid' in Spenser, _F. Q._ III. xii, is merely an allegorical

procession, without a dance. Later, Dekker and Ford's play of _The Sun's

Darling_ (1656) is described on the title-page as 'a moral masque'.]

[Footnote 609: Cf. Boas, 206.]

[Footnote 610: _L. L. L._ v. 2; _R. J._ i. 4, 5. Similarly the mask in

_Hen. VIII_, i. 4, is suggested by the historic source. In _M. V._ ii.

5, 28, Shylock warns Jessica against masks in the street, with their

drum and 'wry-necked fife', but none is shown.]

[Footnote 611: Marston, _1 Antonio and Mellida_ (_1599_; v. 1), _2

Antonio and Mellida_ (_1599_; v. 1, 2), _Dutch Courtesan_ (_1603_; iv.

1), _Malcontent_ (_1604_; v. 2, 3), _Insatiate Countess_ (_c. 1610_; ii.

1); Chapman, _May Day_ (_1602_; v. 1), _Widow's Tears_ (_1605_; iii. 2),

_Byron's Tragedy_ (_1608_; ii. 1); Middleton, _The Old Law_ (a mask in a

tavern, _1599_; iv. 1), _Blurt Master Constable_ (_c. 1600_; ii. 2), _A

Mad World, my Masters_ (_c. 1604-6_; ii. 2, 4, 5), _Your Five Gallants_

(_1607_; iv. 8; v. 1, 2), _No Wit, no Help, like a Woman's_ (_c. 1613_;

iv. 2); Field, _A Woman is a Weathercock_ (_c. 1609_; v. 1, 2); Jonson,

_Cynthia's Revels_ (_1601_; iv. 5, 6; v. 1-5).]

[Footnote 612: _The Coxcomb_ (_1610_; i. 1), _Maid's Tragedy_ (_1611_;

i. 1, 2), _Four Plays in One_ (_1612_; i. v), _Two Noble Kinsmen_ (not

strictly a mask, _1613_; iii. 5), _Henry VIII_ (_1613_; i. 4), _Wit at

Several Weapons_ (_1614_; v. 1).]

[Footnote 613: A. H. Thorndike, _The Influence of the Court-Masques on

the Drama_ (_M. L. A._ xv. 114); _The Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher

on Shakspere_, 130, 148.]

[Footnote 614: I think Criticus must here be taken to be Jonson's

self-portrait. He told Drummond in 1619 that 'by Criticus is understood

Done' (_Conversations_, 6); but the reference there appears to be to the

lost 'preface of his _Arte of Poesie_'. In the folio text of the play

Criticus becomes Crites.]

[Footnote 615: The maskers in _Wit at Several Weapons_, v. i, are

'something like the abstract of a masque'; cf. _R. J._ i. 4. 3--

The date is out of such prolixity.

We'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf,

Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,

Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;

Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke

After the prompter, for our entrance.

]

[Footnote 616: _Satiromastix_, 2325, 'The watch-word in a maske is the

bolde drum'.]

[Footnote 617: I do not wish to exaggerate this detachment. Peele builds

upon the customary prayer for the queen or lord at the end of an

interlude (cf. chh. x, xviii, xxii), and there are the plays with

inductions, such as _The Taming of the Shrew_ and _The Knight of the

Burning Pestle_, in which the personages of the induction mediate

between the action and the audience.]

[Footnote 618: I find 'tronchwoman' (Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 217),

'troocheman' (Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 287), 'trounchman' (Gascoigne, i. 85),

and as interpreters of mimetic tilts 'crocheman' (Halle, i. 13),

'trounchman' (Peele, _Polyhymnia_, 47); also 'an interpreter or a

truchman' accompanying the 'orator speaking a straunge language' in the

train of the Lord of Misrule in 1552-3 (Feuillerat, _Edw. and M._ 89,

123). W. D. Macray has the following note to 'truckman' which appears in

the text of Clarendon, _History_, i. 75, 'i. e. _truchman_ = _dragoman_.

In the old editions the word "interpreter" was substituted as an

explanation; in the last editions "trustman" was given as the reading of

the MS.'. _N. E. D._ gives the earliest use of the word as 1485 and

derives through Med. Lat. _turchemannus_ from Arab. _turjam[=a]n_,

interpreter, whence also _dragoman_.]

[Footnote 619: Generally speaking, the themes of the Jacobean masks are

more literary than those of their Elizabethan precursors. The following

analysis is based upon the disguises of the maskers, which may be

classed under four main heads: _National Types_--(Elizabethan), Moors,

Swart Rutters, Lance-Knights, Hungarians, Barbarians, Venetian

Patriarchs, Italian Women, Venetians, Turks; (Jacobean), Indian and

Chinese Knights, Virginians, Irishmen. _Occupations_--(Elizabethan),

Ecclesiastics, Fisherwives, Marketwives, Astronomers, Shipmen, Country

Maids, Clowns, Hunters, Tilters, Fishermen and Fruitwives, Mariners,

Foresters, Warriors, Pedlars, Seamen; (Jacobean), none. _Inanimate

Objects_--(Elizabethan), none; (Jacobean), Signs of Zodiac, Stars and

Statues, Flowers. _Abstractions_--(Elizabethan), Nusquams, Virtues,

Passions; (Jacobean), Humours and Affections, Ornaments of Court,

Months. _Historical and Mythical Personages_--(Elizabethan), Conquerors,

Huntsmen of Actaeon and Nymphs of Diana, Wise and Foolish Virgins,

Satyrs, Greek Goddesses, Janus, Sages, Wild Men, Amazons and Knights,

Knights of Purpulia, Muses; (Jacobean), Goddesses, Daughters of Niger

(_bis_), Powers of Juno, Knights of Apollo, Sons of Mercury, Nymphs of

English Rivers, Knights of Oberon, Daughters of Morn, Knights of

Olympia, Disenchanted Knights, Sons of Nature, Circe's Lovers, Sons of

Phoebus. It is possible that the mediaeval _barbatoriae_ (_Mediaeval

Stage_, i. 362) were dances representing national types. Jean d'Auton

(_Chroniques_, ii. 99) describes, amongst other _mommeries_ at the court

of Louis XII in 1501, 'une danse en barboire, en laquelle fut dancé à la

mode de France, d'Allemaigne, d'Espaigne et Lombardye, et à la fin en la

manière de Poictou ... lesquelz estoyent tous habillez à la sorte du

pays dont ils dancerent à la mode'.]

[Footnote 620: _Gesta Grayorum_; _Hay Mask_; _Lords' Mask_; _Mask of

Squires_; _Mask of Flowers_; _Browne's Mask_ (introducing Circe). As

late as 1632 Aurelian Townshend and Inigo Jones borrow the episode of

Circe and the Fugitive in _Tempe Restored_.]

[Footnote 621: An exception is _Love Restored_, where the place of an

antimask is taken by the long comic induction by Masquerado, Plutus, and

Robin Goodfellow.]

[Footnote 622: Chapman also uses the phrase 'mocke-maske', which is

analogous to Jonson's 'antimasque'.]

[Footnote 623: Brotanek, 141. I find 'antick Maske' also in an Exchequer

record (Reyher, 509) relating to the _Lords' Mask_ of 1613.]

[Footnote 624: Cf. the opening stage-direction to _James IV_ (1598),

'Enter after Oberon, King of Fayries, an Antique, who dance about a

Tombe'.]

[Footnote 625: Lacroix, i. 241, 262, 291, 296.]

[Footnote 626: The relation of the morris-dance to the folk is described

in _The Mediaeval Stage_, i. 195, but I think that the history of the

name requires further examination. There are traces of morris-dances at

court in 1559 and 1579, and there was a sword-dance on 6 Jan. 1604.]

[Footnote 627: Feuillerat, _Edw. and Mary_, 59.]

[Footnote 628: _Romeo and Juliet_, i. 4. 38, 'I'll be a candle-holder

and look on'; cf. Reyher, 90, citing W. Rankins, _Mirrour of Monsters_

(1587), 'There were certain petty fellows ready, as the custom is in

maskes, to carry torches'; _Westward Hoe_, i. 2, 'He is just like a

torch-bearer to maskers; he wears good clothes, and is ranked in good

company, but he doth nothing'; Overbury, _Characters_ (1614, ed.

Rimbault, 55, _An Ignorant Glory Hunter_), 'In any shew he will be one,

though he be but a whiffler or a torch-bearer'.]

[Footnote 629: A disguising of 1501 had already 'a goodly pageant made

round after the fashion of a lanthorne cast out with many proper and

goodly windows fenestred with fine lawne wher in were more than an

hundred great lightes' (Reyher, 503).]

[Footnote 630: Before 1610 torch-bearers may have been omitted from

_Hymenaei_ and the _Haddington Mask_; after 1610, they are only noticed

in _Oberon_, the _Lords' Mask_, and _Chapman's Mask_.]

[Footnote 631: The descriptions often say nothing of vizards, but

probably they take them for granted, for as late as 1618 Chamberlain

writes of the Gray's Inn _Mask of Mountebanks_ (Birch, ii. 66), 'I

cannot call it a masque, seeing they were not disguised, nor had

vizards'. Similarly the unmasking is rarely described (_Indian and

Chinese Knights_; _Twelve Goddesses_; _Hay Mask_), and may have been

omitted as a formal stage, especially when the maskers danced off into

the pageant.]

[Footnote 632: Cf. p. 168.]

[Footnote 633: Cf. ch. xxiii (Daniel, _Twelve Goddesses_).]

[Footnote 634: Cf. ch. iv.]

[Footnote 635: _R. J._ i. 5. 95; _Hen. VIII_, i. 4. 95,

I were unmannerly to take you out.

And not to kiss you.

The amorous tradition of the 'commoning' which apparently frightened

some of the ladies at Henry's court, survived under Elizabeth. In Lyly's

_Euphues and his England_ (_Works_, ii. 103), Philautus takes Camilla by

the hand in a mask and begins 'to boord hir' in this manner, 'It hath

ben a custome faire Lady, how commendable I wil not dispute, how common

you know, that Masquers do therfore couer their faces that they may open

their affections, & vnder yᵉ colour of a dance, discouer their whole

desires'; cf. Reyher, 23.]

[Footnote 636: _Maid's Tragedy_, i. 1. 9, 'They must commend their King,

and speak in praise Of the assembly, bless the Bride and Bridegroom, In

person of some God; th'are tyed To rules of flattery'.]

[Footnote 637: This old phrase, known to Sir T. Elyot, _The Governour_,

i. 22, is still traditional in folk dances.]

[Footnote 638: On these dances, cf. Reyher, 441.]

[Footnote 639: Lacroix, i. 256, 262.]

[Footnote 640: Goodman, i. 70, 'George Brooks ... brother to Cobham ...

was a great reveller at court in the masques where the queen and

greatest ladies were'; Carey, 6, 'In all triumphs I was one; either at

tilt, tourney, or barriers, in masque or balls'.]

[Footnote 641: Naunton, 44, 'Sir Christopher Hatton came into the court

... as a private gentleman of the inns of court in a mask, and for his

activity and person, which was tall and proportionable, taken into

favour'.]

[Footnote 642: C. C. Stopes, _A Lampoon on the Opponents of Essex, 1601_

(_Sh.-Jahrbuch_, xlvi. 21); Reyher, 98, apparently referring to the

full-length portrait by Marc Geeraerts at Woburn Abbey, reproduced in

Henderson, _James I_, 232. It is a fantastic costume, but not obviously

that of a mask.]

[Footnote 643: Winwood, ii. 40.]

[Footnote 644: _Dekker His Dream_ (1620, _Works_, iii. 7), 'I herein

imitate the most courtly revellings; for if Lords be in the grand

masque, in the antimasque are players'; Jonson, _Love Restored_

(_Works_, iii. 83). 'The rogue play-boy, that acts Cupid, is got so

hoarse, your majesty cannot hear him half the breadth of your chair'.

The accounts for _Oberon_ include £10 to 'xiijⁿ Holt boyes' and £15 to

'players imployed in the maske'; those for _Love Freed_ £10 to '5 boyes,

that is 3 Graces Sphynx and Cupid', and £12 to 'the 12 fooles that

danced', and those for the _Lords' Mask_ £1 each to '12 madfolkes' and

'5 speakers' (Reyher, 508).]

[Footnote 645: The rehearsals were a serious business, lasting in 1616

no less than fifty days; cf. Reyher, 35. There were dress rehearsals;

cf. Osborne in note to p. 206, _infra_.]

[Footnote 646: Cf. p. 163, and _D. N. B._, s.v. Ferrabosco.]

[Footnote 647: Lafontaine, 63.]

[Footnote 648: Reyher, 79.]

[Footnote 649: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 356.]

[Footnote 650: Reyher, 78.]

[Footnote 651: _Blackness_ certainly and _Hymenaei_ probably were in the

Elizabethan room. The Jacobean room was first used for _Beauty_ (10 Jan.

1608). It was also used for _Queens_, _Oberon_, _Lords_, _Beaumont's_,

_Squires_, and _Flowers_, and probably for all others from 1608 to 1616

except _Chapman's_.]

[Footnote 652: Busino, _Anglopotrida_ (_V. P._ xv. 110), describing

Jonson's _Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue_ on 6 Jan. 1618, 'A large hall

is fitted up like a theatre, with well secured boxes all round. The

stage is at one end and his Majesty's chair in front under an ample

canopy. Near him are stools for the foreign ambassadors.... Whilst

waiting for the king we amused ourselves admiring the decorations and

beauty of the house with its two orders of columns, one above the other,

their distance from the wall equalling the breadth of the passage, that

of the second row being upheld by Doric pillars, while above these rise

Ionic columns supporting the roof. The whole is of wood, including even

the shafts, which are carved and gilt with much skill. From the roof of

these hang festoons and angels in relief with two rows of lights. Then

such a concourse as there was, for although they profess only to admit

the favoured ones who are invited, yet every box was filled notably with

most noble and richly arrayed ladies, in number some 600 and more

according to the general estimate;... On entering the house, the cornets

and trumpets to the number of fifteen or twenty began to play very well

a sort of recitative, and then after his Majesty had seated himself

under the canopy alone, the queen not being present on account of a

slight indisposition, he caused the ambassadors to sit below him on two

stools, while the great officers of the crown and courts of law sat upon

benches. The Lord Chamberlain then had the way cleared and in the middle

of the theatre there appeared a fine and spacious area carpeted all over

with green cloth. In an instant a large curtain dropped, painted to

represent a tent of gold cloth with a broad fringe; the background was

of canvas painted blue, powdered all over with golden stars. This became

the front arch of the stage.']

[Footnote 653: Finett, 32. The plan from _Lansd._ 1171 in Reyher, 346,

dates from 1635 and represents the great Hall arranged not for a mask

but for a pastoral; but the general scheme was probably much the same.]

[Footnote 654: _Maid's Tragedy_, i. 2. 32.]

[Footnote 655: Birch, i. 24 (27 Nov. 1603), 'many plays and shows are

bespoken, to give entertainment to our ambassadors'.]

[Footnote 656: Sullivan, _Court Masques of James I_; cf. my notes on the

individual masks in ch. xxiii.]

[Footnote 657: De Silva's dispatches of 1564-6 (cf. p. 26) show that a

precisely similar situation had established itself at Elizabeth's

court.]

[Footnote 658: Beaumont in _B. M. Kings MS._ cxxiv, f. 328, 'le ...

ballet ... de la Reine qui se devoit danser au vendredy dernier jour des

festes de Noël selon la façon d'Angleterre et le plus honnorable pour la

ceremonie qui s'y obserue de tout temps publiquement'; Finett, 6, 'il se

pourroit soustenir que le dernier jour seroit a prendre pour le plus

gran jour comm'il s'entend en plusiours autres cas, et nommement aux

festes de Noël, que le Jour des Roys qui est le dernier se prend pour le

plus gran jour'. The chief masks of 1606-7, 1611-12, 1613-14, and

1614-16, were on 6 Jan. In 1603-4, 1607-8, and 1608-9, the Queen's masks

were planned for that day, but put off. In 1605-6 and 1609-10 the day

was given to barriers.]

[Footnote 659: Cf. p. 39. The accounts for the _Lords' Mask_ include

fees of £1 each to three Grooms of the Chamber; those of _Chapman's

Mask_, given exceptionally in the great Hall, £1 to the Ushers of the

Hall. The manuscript of the _Mask of Blackness_ appears to be an

abstract for use at the performance. In 1613 a Groom of the Chamber was

also paid £7 for 42 nights watching in the banqueting-house while

workmen were there (_Chamber Accounts_).]

[Footnote 660: Donne, _Poems_ (ed. Grierson), i. 414; cf. Jonson,

_Conversations_, 10.]

[Footnote 661: _Four Plays in One_, 2, 'Down with those City-Gentlemen,

&c. Out with those ---- I say, and in with their wives at the back

door'; _Love Restored_, 'By this time I saw a fine citizen's wife or two

let in; and that figure provoked me exceedingly to take it'. Here Robin

Goodfellow is recounting his various attempts to secure admission, as an

engineer, a tirewoman, a musician, a feather-maker of Blackfriars and

the like. Carleton wrote of the mask on 27 Dec. 1604 (_S. P. Dom. Jac.

I_, xii. 6), 'One woeman among the rest lost her honesty for which she

was caried to the porters lodge being surprised at her bassnes on the

top of the taras'.]

[Footnote 662: _Ambassades_, iii. 13.]

[Footnote 663: Osborne, _James_, 75, 'So disobliging were the most

grateful pleasures of the Court; whose masks and other spectacles,

though they wholly intended them for show, and would not have been

pleased without great store of company, yet did not spare to affront

such as come to see them; which accuseth the King no less of folly, in

being at so vast an expense for that which signified nothing but in

relation to pride and lust, than the spectators (I mean such as were not

invited) of madness, who did not only give themselves the discomposure

of body attending such irregular hours, but to others an opportunity to

abuse them. Nor could I, that had none of their share who passed through

the most incommodious access, count myself any great gainer (who did

ever find some time before the grand night to view the scene) after I

had reckoned my attendance and sleep; there appearing little observable

besides the company, and what Imagination might conjecture from the

placing of the Ladies and the immense charge and universal vanity in

clothes, &c.']

[Footnote 664: Jonson, _Mask of Blackness_, 7, 'Little had been done to

the study of magnificence in these, if presently with the rage of the

people, who (as a part of greatness) are privileged by custom to deface

their carcases, the spirits had also perished'; cf. Halle, i. 27, 117.

At _Tethys' Festival_ the Duke of York and six young noblemen led off

the maskers 'to avoid the confusion which usually attendeth the desolve

of these shewes'.]

[Footnote 665: Cf. ch. xxiii; also Busino in _V. P._ xv. 114.]

[Footnote 666: Winwood. ii. 43.]

[Footnote 667: On 2 Feb. 1604, the Earl of Worcester wrote to the Earl

of Shrewsbury of _The Twelve Goddeses_ (Lodge, iii. 87), 'I have been at

sixpence charge with you to send you the book'. He adds that the books

of another _ballet_ were 'all called in'. After the _Mask of Beauty_

Lord Lisle wrote to Shrewsbury (Lodge, App. 102) that he could not get

the verses, because Jonson was busy writing more for the Haddington

wedding.]

[Footnote 668: Cf. ch. iii.]

[Footnote 669: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 110, 153, 168, 345, 392.]

[Footnote 670: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 18, 112, _et passim_.]

[Footnote 671: Newcastle, _On Government_ (S. A. Strong, _Cat. of

Documents at Welbeck_, 223). The direct reference is to tilts, but an

earlier passage runs, 'Well Sʳ Then your Maᵗᶦᵉ is well returned to

White-Halle & ther prepare a maske for twelve-tyde,--Etaliens makes the

Seanes beste,--& all butt your Maᵗᶦᵉ maye have their Glorius Atier

off Coper which will doe as well for two or three nightes as Silver or

Golde & much less charge, which otherwise will bee much founde falte

withall by those thatt attendes your Maᵗᶦᵉ in the maske'.]

[Footnote 672: Cunningham, 203-17; cf. ch. iii.]

[Footnote 673: They certainly supervised _Queens_, _Tethys' Festival_,

_Love Freed_, _Lords' Mask_.]

[Footnote 674: The privy seal of 1 Dec. 1608 for _Queens_ is in _S. P.

D. Jac. I_, xxxviii. 1, and that of 7 Jan. 1613 for the _Lords' Mask_ in

Collier, i. 364; a certificate of 25 May 1610 for _Tethys' Festival_ is

printed by Sullivan, 219, from _S. P. D. Jac. I_, liv. 74.]

[Footnote 675: Sullivan, 201, misdated 27 Nov. 1607 for 1608, from _S.

P. D. Jac. I_, xxxvii. 96. The mask was _Queens_.]

[Footnote 676: Reyher, 508, 520; cf. ch. xxiii.]

[Footnote 677: W. ffarington writes on 7 Feb. 1609 (_Chetham Soc._

xxxix. 151), 'The Comonalty do somewhat murmur at such vaine expenses

and thinke that that money worth bestowed other waies might have been

conferred upon better use, but _quod supra nos, nihil ad nos_'.]

[Footnote 678: Reyher, 72.]

[Footnote 679: Collier, i. 349; _Abstract_, 13. The _Lords' Mask_ is

separately reckoned at £400. This was just about the amount of the

'rewards'.]

VII

THE COURT PLAY

[_Bibliographical Note._--The books cited at the head of ch.

iii, with F. S. Boas, _University Drama in the Tudor Age_

(1914), provide material for this chapter; cf. A. Thaler, _The

Players at Court_ (1920, _J. G. P._ xix. 19).]

The foregoing chapters have illustrated the overflow of the Renaissance

passion for drama, taking shape in the spectacular enrichment of

elements in court life which were not originally mimetic in their

intention; the welcome, the exercise of arms, the dance. They are

subordinate in their interest to us, as they were in fact subordinate by

reason of their occasional character to the play itself, which formed,

both in Elizabeth's reign and in that of James, the staple amusement of

the court winter. The ordinary season for plays was a comparatively

restricted one. Traditionally it began with All Saints, but Elizabeth at

least rarely reached her winter quarters by the beginning of November,

and her revels began with the Christmas festival itself, the twelve days

of ancient licence in Calends and Saturnalia that extended from Nativity

to Epiphany.[680] Within this period the three feasts of St. Stephen,

St. John, and the Innocents, with New Year's Day and Twelfth Night, were

nearly always gladdened by play or mask. Sometimes one of them was

omitted, and sometimes, in substitution or addition, another day, often

the Sunday in Christmas week, was selected. I know no record of a play

on Christmas Day itself. Chamberlain writes in January 1608, 'The king

was very earnest to have one on Christmas night, though, as I take it,

he and the prince received that day, but the Lords told him it was not

the fashion. Which answer pleased him not a whit, but said, "What do you

tell me of the fashion? I will make it a fashion."'[681] But the Chamber

accounts show that he dropped the point. After Twelfth Night there was a

lull, broken perhaps by an occasional play, notably on February 2 at

Candlemas, until a group of two or three at Shrovetide brought revelling

to a conclusion before the rigours of Lent. This was the close of the

official season, and the Revels office had now little to think of but

the annual airing of the wardrobe stuff, at any rate until the progress

came round.

The longest number of plays given before Elizabeth in any one winter

was probably in 1600-1, when there were eleven. During the greater part

of the reign the number ranged from six to ten. For some of the earliest

years only two or three are on record. It is possible that a few may

have escaped notice owing to the absence of a 'reward', or conceivably

the charge of a reward to funds other than those covered by the very

complete accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber.[682] Naturally, if an

Inn of Court or gentlemen such as the sons of Sir Percival Hart played,

they did not take a money payment. The schoolboys of Eton and

Westminster did, but the latter perhaps not from the very beginning. The

only winter for which the Treasurer of the Chamber records no rewards is

that of the plague year 1563-4. But the Revels Office provided for three

plays at Windsor, and if it was thought dangerous to bring companies

from London or elsewhere to court, Eton or the Windsor choir would have

been the natural substitutes. In 1574 again the Revels Office were

furnishing plays at Windsor and Reading by Italians, no payments to whom

can be traced. Elizabeth occasionally ordered a mask outside the winter

season, for some such purpose as the entertainment of an ambassador. I

do not find clear evidence that she ever ordered a play. But, both in

winter and in summer, she was from time to time present at a play given

by some one else, in progress or at a wedding or banquet in London.[683]

James gave the impression, when he first came to England, of taking,

unlike Queen Anne and Prince Henry, 'no extraordinary pleasure' in

plays.[684] But he had a great many more than his predecessor, and

reverted in some years to the early practice of opening the play season

at the beginning of November. Nor, on the other hand, was he strict in

his observance of Lent, and in some years the performances continued at

intervals until after Easter. During his first winter he saw eleven

plays and gradually increased this number, reaching a maximum of

twenty-three in 1609-10. Up to 1615 he never saw less than eleven,

except during 1612-13, the winter of Henry's death, when the number fell

to seven. Moreover, even when he himself escaped to a hunting-box, he

was liberal in ordering additional plays for the prince and court, and

yet others seem to have been charged to the private funds of Anne and

the royal children.[685] The records do not in all years give the dates

of individual performances; but in 1611-12, to take one example, the

programme was as follows. The King himself was present at plays on

October 31, November 1, and November 5, on the four nights after

Christmas, on January 5, on Candlemas, and on Shrove Sunday and Tuesday.

On January 6 was the mask. Most of the intervening days he spent in

visits to his various hunting quarters. Meanwhile there were at least

twenty-six other plays before one or more of the royal children, at

which Anne was probably also present. Two of these were in November, one

in the middle of December, one in Christmas week, eight in January after

Twelfth night, and nine in February, both before and after Lent had

begun. Two plays at the end of March and three in April, none of these

in the King's presence, exhausted the official supply, but not the

enthusiasm of Prince Henry. He spent a fortnight with Anne at Greenwich

during January, and there was 'every night a play', some of which the

Queen probably paid for; and in March he was entertained by the Marquis

of Winchester at supper, again with plays.[686] Occasionally James

ordered a play during the summer; there were four for the entertainment

of the King of Denmark in 1606, of which one, by the Paul's boys, is

not traceable in the Chamber accounts, and one for the Duke of Savoy's

ambassador in 1613. All plays at the Jacobean court was given by

professional companies; if the lawyers came to court, it was not in a

play, but a mask.

Whether the revels were kept at Westminster, Hampton Court, Greenwich,

Richmond, or Windsor, sufficient accommodation could be afforded for a

play in the great hall, which thus for a brief space resumed its ancient

glories as the state apartment of the sovereign. At the first three of

those palaces, there is definite evidence of the use of the hall. But

Whitehall, at least, was spacious enough to offer other alternatives.

The banqueting-house might be available, if it was not occupied by the

preparations for a mask. And performances were sometimes given in the

'great chamber', which at Whitehall was distinct from both the presence

chamber and the 'guard' or 'watching' chamber which served as an

ante-room to the presence.[687] It seems also that provision could be

made, perhaps only on the less public and crowded occasions when the

King was not present, for a stage in the octagonal cockpit, which stood

on the edge of St. James's Park, in the western extension of the

palace.[688] As a courtesy to a royal visitor, a play was given in 1565

at the Savoy, where the Lady Cecilia of Sweden was housed, and in 1614

Anne's pastoral of _Hymen's Triumph_ took place in 'a little square

paved court' at Somerset House.

It is a curious illustration of the functions of the Privy Council as a

household board that, during the whole of Elizabeth's time and the

greater part of that of James, the actors could not get their fee or

'reward', except through the medium of a formal warrant addressed by

that body to the Treasurer of the Chamber. These warrants are not in

existence, but their issue is noted, rather irregularly and

inaccurately, in the collection of minutes known as the Council

register, and they are recited, with their dates and places of

signature, and the names of the actors or managers to whom they

appointed payment to be made on behalf of the companies, in the annual

accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber as audited and declared before

the Exchequer.[689] The amount of the reward was, subject to certain

historical developments, a uniform one. It had been fixed, early in the

reign of Henry VIII, at ten marks (£6 13_s._ 4_d._) a play, and this

rate continued to rule, when Elizabeth came to the throne, and for some

years thereafter. But in 1572 a tendency to an increase shows itself,

and up to 1575 the amounts are irregular. Sometimes the normal fee is

paid, sometimes a double fee of £13 6_s._ 8_d._, sometimes an

intermediate one of £10. The Treasurer of the Chamber records various

explanations of the extra sums. They are 'a more rewarde by her

maiesties owne comaundement', or they are paid in respect of special

charges incurred by the companies, as for example when Farrant had to

bring his boys from Windsor to Whitehall. And after 1575 things had

evidently settled down on the basis of a normal £10, which was

conventionally regarded as made up of £6 13_s._ 4_d._ 'for presentinge'

the play, and £3 6_s._ 8_d._ 'by way of speciall reward'. The formulas

in the accounts are not invariably the same, but they all come to this;

and the shadowy distinction between the two amounts is preserved in the

practice by which, if a play was ordered and then counter-ordered, the

£6 13_s._ 4_d._ was paid, but not the £3 6_s._ 8_d._ The £10 rate was

maintained, with insignificant exceptions, during the rest of

Elizabeth's reign, and was taken over as 'the usuall allowaunce' or 'the

ordinary rates formerly allowed' by James.[690] If, however, a play was

ordered for the Prince only and not the King, the 'speciall rewarde' was

omitted, so far as the Treasurer of the Chamber was concerned, although

it is quite possible that the Prince may have supplied it out of his

privy purse.[691] A quite exceptional amount of £30 was paid to the

King's men for a play at Wilton in December 1603, to cover their 'paynes

and expences' in coming from Mortlake to give the performance. Plague

was raging, and they were probably practicing at Mortlake for the court

entertainments of the following Christmas. It may be added that the

King's company, and that alone, received a subsidy of £30 from the

Treasurer of the Chamber, in aid of its maintenance during this

plague-winter. Similar payments, of £40 and £30 respectively, were made

after the plague-winters of 1608-9 and 1609-10.[692]

In 1614 there was an innovation in the procedure, by which the

responsibility for signing warrants for allowances to players was

transferred from the Privy Council to the Lord Chamberlain; and

thenceforward the payments are recorded in a special section of the

Treasurer's accounts, devoted to expenditure which the Chamberlain had

power to authorize, and most of which had been at one time charged to

the Privy Purse.[693] An example from a later date of a Lord

Chamberlain's warrant for payment is preserved, together with a schedule

of the plays covered by the amount paid. The warrant refers to the

'acquittance for the receipt' of the money, which the Treasurer would

take from the players, and is in fact endorsed with receipts by one of

them for the successive instalments paid, and with a final one for the

whole sum due.[694] References in the _Chamber Accounts_ for 1605-6 and

1609-10 to similar schedules in or annexed to the warrants show that, at

an earlier date, the Privy Council had evidence before them, perhaps

from the Lord Chamberlain, perhaps from the Master of the Revels, as to

the number of plays which a company had given.[695] It is a pity that

the Treasurer of the Chamber only on rare occasions thought it worth

while to record the name of the play for which he was paying. A chance

memorandum of Henslowe's tells us that, as perhaps we might have

guessed, some of the money stuck to the hands of officials in the form

of fees. To get the £10 due to Worcester's men for a play in 1601-2,

Henslowe had had to give the Clerk of the Council 7_s._ for 'geatynge

the cownselles handes to' the warrant, and 10_s._ 6_d._ 'for fese' to

one Mr. Moysse 'at the receuinge of the mony owt of the payhowsse'.[696]

On the other hand, the players got their money pretty quickly; the

warrants were generally signed within a month or so, sometimes within a

day or so, of the performances to which they relate. Considerable delays

during the years 1596-9 possibly reflect the disorganization of the

Revels Office by the disputes of the officers; just as similar delays

about 1615-17 probably reflect the general disorganization of Jacobean

finance.

Plays were given in private houses, as well as at court, and not only

when there was a royal guest to be entertained. As the public theatres

were open by daylight, the companies were easily available for private

engagements after supper. Naturally the record of such occasions has in

most cases perished with the domestic account-books in which it was

entered. But Sir Edward Hoby invited Sir Robert Cecil to a performance

of _Richard II_--at least, I think so--in 1595.[697] The gossip of

Rowland Whyte informs us of the banquets and plays given in honour of

Sir Robert Cecil by Sir Walter Raleigh and other friends on the eve of

his mission to France in 1598, of the two plays at a supper about the

same date by Sir Gilly Meyrick at the rival political head-quarters of

Essex House, and of the performances of _Henry IV_ under its original

title of _Sir John Oldcastle_, when Lord Chamberlain Hunsdon feasted the

Flemish ambassador Louis Verreyken in 1600.[698] Similarly, in 1606 John

Chamberlain went to a play at Sir Walter Cope's, now Holland House, and

'had to squire his daughter about, till he was weary', and in 1613 Sir

Robert Rich had a play for the delectation of the Savoyard ambassador

after a supper in Holborn.[699] An amusing side-light on the improvised

stage-arrangements necessary in private houses is given by a

stage-direction in Percy's _Aphrodysial_, 'Here went furth the whole

Chorus in a shuffle as after a Play in a Lord's howse'.[700] Wealthy

citizens, if they were not too puritanically disposed, could well afford

to follow the lead of the nobles and gentry of the court. And in the

years before the controversy between the corporation and the actors

became acute, a play was thought no inappropriate accompaniment to the

annual feast of a guild, or the welcome or valediction of a civic

dignitary.[701] The domestic plays of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges

had their origin in the Renaissance theories of education, and dispensed

with the professional mimes. A detailed study of them lies outside the

scope of these volumes.[702] The Inns of Court men, too, could hold

their own upon the boards at will. But for their ordinary solace they

were accustomed to take the easier course of calling in professional

aid. At the Inner Temple, Beaumont mentions a Christmas show of Lady

Amity, probably not long after his admission in 1600, and the

Treasurer's accounts of the Inner Temple, which are extant from 1605,

show that from that year to 1611 there was always a play, at a cost of

£5, either upon Candlemas or upon All Saints' Day, and in some years on

both dates. At Candlemas 1611, something must have gone wrong, for on

February 10 the Benchers passed a decree:

'For that great disorder and scurrility is brought into this

House by lewd and lascivious plays, it is likewise ordered in

this parliament that from henceforth there shall be no more

plays in this House, either upon the feast of All Saints or

Candlemas day, but the same from henceforth to be utterly taken

away and abolished.'

At the following feast of All Saints the only expenditure entered by the

Treasurer is of £2 10_s._ for a 'consort' of music and £2 for antics and

puppets. These must have proved but inadequate substitutes, for on

November 24 the period of austerity was brought to an end by the

withdrawal of the interdict.

'Whereas of late years upon the two festival days of All Saints

and Candlemas, plays have been used after dinner for recreation

which have lately been laid down by order in parliament, it is

now ordered that the same order shall henceforth stand

repealed.'

The payments are now resumed, and continue twice a year, generally at

the increased rate of £6 13_s._ 4_d._ At Candlemas 1613 some

misunderstanding seems to have led to a supplementary payment to

'another company of players which were appointed to play the same day'.

On All Saints 1614 and both Candlemas and All Saints 1615, the players

are specified to have been the King's men.[703] From the other Inns the

story is more fragmentary. The devices for the famous Gray's Inn

Christmas of 1594-5, reported in the _Gesta Grayorum_, were mainly due

to the fertile imagination of the lawyers themselves. In addition to the

continuous burlesque of state ceremonies in the court of Purpoole and

the mask sent to Whitehall at Shrovetide, they included a special show

of Amity for the reception of the ambassador of Templaria on January 3.

But this had its origin in the disorders of an earlier revel on

Innocents' Day, when the confusion was so great that the Inner Temple

men left in dudgeon, and the show then intended was not given. To supply

its place, 'a Comedy of Errors (like to _Plautus_ his _Menechmus_) was

played by the players. So that night was begun, and continued to the

end, in nothing but Confusion and Errors; whereupon, it was ever

afterwards called, _The Night of Errors_.' On the following day there

was a trial, and a supposed sorcerer or conjurer was arraigned on the

charge amongst others 'that he had foisted a Company of base and common

Fellows, to make up our Disorders with a Play of Errors and

Confusions'.[704] Similarly the Middle Temple in 1597-8 varied their own

fooling with plays on 28 December and 2 January, which from the absence

of details in the narrative were probably supplied by professional

actors.[705] And this house, too, must have been accustomed to keep

Candlemas with a play, for a note of February 1602 in John Manningham's

diary makes mention of _Twelfth Night_ as given 'at our feast'.[706] The

same practice, known as the Post Revels, prevailed at Lincoln's Inn.

Here the notices are of an earlier date, and preserve the memory of

performances by the Chapel boys in 1565, 1566, and 1580, and by Lord

Roche's, or more probably Lord Rich's, men in 1570.[707]

I have digressed somewhat from the ways of the court. The arrangements

for performances were in the hands of the Revels, and are therefore only

traceable in detail before 1589, after which year the extant accounts of

that office are very summary. As Christmas drew near, symptoms of bustle

began to show themselves in the work-rooms. A good deal of time was

spent in the discovery and preparation of suitable pieces. It would seem

that the available companies were invited to submit the various plays in

which they had exercised themselves by public performance, that these

were then recited, and a selection made from them to the number which

her majesty intended to hear.[708] Both in 1574-5 and in 1576-7 the

accounts record the trying over of plays that were not ultimately given.

These 'rehearsals' or 'proofs' took place in the hall or the 'great

chamber' of St. John's, or the Master's lodgings, and were of an

elaborate character, for it was thought worth while to bring in cumbrous

properties for them and to employ musicians. When the selection had

been made, further rehearsals were required, especially as the texts had

to undergo a process of 'reforming' or editing, in order that they might

be 'convenient' for her majesty's hearing. There had been a bad blunder

at the second Christmas of the reign when 'the plaers plad shuche matter

that they wher commondyd to leyff off'.[709] Sometimes the office called

in special aid to make such alterations; sometimes, as we learn from

Henslowe's diary, the companies employed their own poets to carry them

out, or to write special prologues or epilogues.[710] At first the

perusal of plays appears to have been a common responsibility of the

officers.[711] While Blagrave was in charge, it was supervised by the

Lord Chamberlain, for whose satisfaction rehearsals sometimes took place

at court. Tilney was encouraged by his commission of 1581 to treat it as

his personal function, and charged wages for attendance at the office,

with a porter and three other servitors, but as a rule without his

colleagues, on nearly every day between All Saints and Christmas for the

purpose of carrying it out.[712] All the officers, on the other hand,

were concerned with the provision of the fittings of the stage and the

properties and apparel necessary to furnish a sumptuous appearance for

the players. The details of this provision are so mixed up in the

accounts with those for the masks that they can only occasionally be

assigned to individual plays. The wording of certain entries suggests

that, while some plays required a complete outfit, for others the Revels

was only called upon to supplement what the companies already

possessed.[713] Probably the stuffs employed were less expensive than

those lavished on the masks. Certain articles, such as armour, were

generally hired. Elaborate properties, which might entail the designing

of special 'patterns', had often to be constructed. The fixed

'composition' of £66 6_s._ 8_d._ for all the ordinary charges of plays

imposed upon the office in 1598 cannot have left much margin for apparel

and properties.[714] But probably by this date the companies were

themselves better equipped.

When the actual night of performance arrived, all the officers gave

personal attendance at Court. Here they had, in Tilney's time, until

they were crowded out and driven to hire for themselves, an office and a

chamber for the Master, both of which they kept supplied with fuel and

rushes.[715] They had also to superintend the conveyance of the 'stuff',

either by wagon or by barge and tiltboat, to fit the players with the

gloves which seem to have been _de rigueur_ at a Court performance, and

to furnish such amenities of the tiring-house as 'an iron cradle to make

fire in' and a close-stool.[716] With the officers came a doorkeeper and

three servitors, who probably acted as dressers.[717] As the court

performances were always at night, beginning about 10 p.m. and ending

about 1 a.m., the arrangements for lighting were a constant

preoccupation.[718] From the wire-drawers' bills incorporated in the

accounts we can gather that use was made of candlesticks of various

kinds and sizes, of lanterns, and of branches large and small.

Candelabra were formed of as many as twenty-four branches, each bearing

four lights, and hung upon wires strained across the hall.[719] But here

again the precise provision made for plays cannot be disentangled from

that made for masks. There is no special reference to footlights.

Except for the lighting and the maintenance of a 'music-house', the

situation of which is unknown, the functions of the Revels do not appear

to have extended beyond the tiring-house and the decorative enrichment

of the stage.[720] The fabric, both of the stage and of the seating for

spectators, was a matter for the Works.[721] The 'apparelling' of the

room was under the supervision of the Gentleman Usher of the Chamber,

and in the marshalling of the audience the Lord Chamberlain could count

on the assistance of the 'white staves' of the Household, and of the few

officers who still survived from the once important office of the

Hall.[722] No picture or detailed description of the auditorium

survives.[723] A brief notice of 1594 shows us Elizabeth conspicuous 'in

a high throne, richly adorned', and next to her chair the Earl of Essex,

'with whom she often devised in sweet and favourable manner'.[724] This

high throne was no doubt the 'state', which was brought into the action

of _The Arraignment of Paris_. Something more may be gleaned from the

narratives of royal visits to the universities. That to Cambridge in

1564, indeed, affords no very close analogy, for the structure of the

stage was of quite an abnormal type.[725] It was not in a hall, but in

the chapel of King's College, and was built five feet high right across

the nave from wall to wall. The 'state' for the Queen was placed on the

stage itself, against the south wall. She reached it by a bridge from

the choir door. At the other end of the stage, under the north wall,

stood the actors, with two side chapels to serve for their entrances and

exits. Cecil and Dudley, as Chancellor and High Steward of the

University, 'vouchsafed to hold both books on the scaffold themselves,

and to provide that sylence might be kept with quietness'. I am not

quite clear whether these books were prompt-books, or copies of the

texts, provided in order that the Queen or her train, if they thought

fit, might help out their Latinity. When the Westminster boys brought

the _Miles Gloriosus_ to Court in 1565, they spent 11_s._ on 'one

Plautus geuen to the Queenes maiestie and fowre other unto the

nobilitie', and the _Sapientia Salomonis_ which they gave Elizabeth in

1565-6 is still extant.[726] Only a few other privileged spectators were

allowed on the King's College stage, at the north end. Seats were

provided for ladies and gentlemen in the rood loft, and for the chief

officers of the Court at 'the twoe loer Tables' below the rood loft. The

only lighting was provided by the torches of the guard, who were aligned

along the sides of the stage. At Oxford, on the other hand, where the

plays were given in Christ Church hall, it is reasonable to assume that

the arrangements were directly modelled upon those prevalent in the

palaces.[727] There was, however, one exceptional feature, due to the

desire to enable the Queen to reach the hall, without being incommoded

by the press of spectators. A temporary door was cut in the side of the

hall and a 'proscenium' or 'porch' built in front of it, which was

approached by a wooden 'bridge' or stairway, adorned with a painted roof

and hung with greenery.[728] It was a wise precaution, for

undergraduates were not excluded, as they had been at Cambridge, and the

press on the main staircase of the hall was so great that one of the low

bounding walls was broken down and killed a college cook and two other

persons.[729] The interior appearance of the hall is fully described by

Bereblock. The stage was at the upper or western end, raised high above

a flight of steps. The Queen had a high seat beneath a gilded state, the

exact location of which is not specified. The lords and ladies were

accommodated on scaffolds round the walls, and the lesser personages in

galleries above them. Every kind of lighting device seems to have been

utilized, including 'ramuli' and 'orbes', in which we may see the

'branches' and 'plates' of the Revels Accounts. The Christ Church hall,

with a stage at its upper end, was used again when James came in 1605,

and we hear of a dispute between the academic functionaries and those of

the Household as to the placing of the King's chair. The latter

complained that it was fixed so low that only His Majesty's cheek would

be visible to the auditory; the latter attempted to explain that, by the

laws of perspective, the King would have a much better view than if he

sat higher. There was a solemn debate in the council chamber, resulting

in the decision that a King must not merely see, but be seen, and the

state was moved to the middle of the hall, twenty-eight feet from the

stage, which in fact proved too far, as he could not well hear or

understand the long speeches. The Queen and Prince shared the state with

the King; in front, but on a lower level, were seats for ladies; the

state itself was ringed with lights; on either side were placed nobles;

and the populace thronged around the walls.[730]

I think it may be taken that this seating, with the sovereign in the

middle of the floor and directly opposite the stage, was that ordinarily

employed. It may be illustrated by a French engraving of Louis XIII in

Richelieu's Palais Royal theatre of the mid-seventeenth century, which

also shows very clearly the seating round the walls and the lighting by

means of suspended chandeliers.[731] I notice that Mr. Ernest Law, in

tracing the outlines of the vanished hall of Whitehall, places the stage

at the lower or screen end of the building, and suggests that the pantry

was utilized as a tiring-room.[732] He may have evidence as to this in

reserve; but the Christ Church analogy, for what it is worth, points to

a stage at the upper or daïs end. The Revels Accounts contain many items

bearing upon the scenic decoration of the plays; but, as they were

compiled, unfortunately, to satisfy the financial appetite of

contemporary auditors, rather than to elucidate the archaeological

problems of posterity, they not unnaturally take for granted a

familiarity with the general system of that decoration which we do not

happen to possess. The discussion of the problems, which cannot be

dissociated from those presented by the public theatres, must be left

for treatment, with the aid of the evidences furnished by plays

themselves, in a later chapter.[733] But the actual information

furnished by the accounts may conveniently be summarized at this point.

The outstanding features were evidently certain 'houses', appropriate to

the action of the plays, and specially prepared, with considerable

trouble and expense, for each production, although no doubt the Revels

officers, as in the case of masking garments, exercised their economical

ingenuity where possible in the 'translation' of old material.[734]

These houses appear to have been structures in relief, presumably

practicable for entrances and exits, and perhaps also on occasion for

interior action. Wooden frame-works, fitted with hooped tops, were

covered with painted cloths of canvas, which was strained on with nails

or pins, and was sometimes fringed.[735] From the amount of canvas

used, it may be judged that they were of considerable size.[736] The

painting of the cloths was a matter of skilled workmanship. William

Lyzarde, with thirty assistants, was employed upon it in 1571.[737] In

1572-3 'patternes' were prepared for the play of _Fortune_.[738] In most

of the earlier accounts the houses are only mentioned incidentally and

generically. But in 1567-8 they are stated to have consisted of

'Stratoes howse, Gobbyns howse, Orestioes howse, Rome, the Pallace of

Prosperitie, Scotland and a gret Castell one thothere side'.[739] And

when Edmund Tilney became Master of the Revels in 1579, he introduced,

perhaps under pressure from the auditors, a practice, which lasted for

some years, of including in the preliminary schedule of plays, with

which his accounts began, a note of the specific houses constructed for

each. Thus in 1579-80, there were a country house and a city for _The

Duke of Milan and the Marquis of Mantua_, a city and a battlement for

_Alucius_, a city and a mount for _The Four Sons of Fabius_, a city and

a battlement for _Scipio Africanus_, a city and a country house for an

unnamed play, a city and a town for _Portio and Demorantes_, a city for

a play on the Soldan and a duke, and a great city, a wood, and a castle

for _Serpedon_.[740] In 1580-1 there were a city and a battlement for

_Delight_, a great city and a senate house for _Pompey_, a city and a

battlement for each of two unnamed plays, a house and a battlement for a

third, a city and a palace for a fourth, and a great city for a

fifth.[741] In 1582-3 there were four pavilions for _A Game of the

Cards_, a cloth and a battlement of canvas for _Beauty and Housewifery_,

and a city and a battlement of canvas for each of four other plays.[742]

In 1584-5 there were a great curtain, a mountain, and a great cloth of

canvas for _Phillida and Corin_, a battlement and a house of canvas for

_Felix and Philiomena_, a great cloth and a battlement, well, and mount

of canvas for _Five Plays in One_, a house and a battlement for _Three

Plays in One_, and a house for an unnamed play.[743] It is evident that

decorative variety was sought after. Even when several successive plays

could be fitted into the normal scheme of a city and a battlement, the

stage architects had to prepare a separate device for each.

I think that when the Elizabethans spoke of 'houses' on the stage, they

were perhaps regarding them primarily as the habitations of the actors

rather than of the personages whom these represented. They were the

tiring-houses, in which the actors remained when they were not in action

and to and from which they made their exits and their entrances. At any

rate, the term in its technical use seems wide enough to cover, not

merely the palaces and the more humble domestic edifices which made

appropriate backgrounds to the comings and goings of individual kings

and citizens--of an Orestes, a Dobbyn--but also more elaborate and

composite structures of 'battlements' and 'cities', of which the former

doubtless represented the external view of the walls and gates of a town

or castle, and the latter some internal town scene, a street or

market-place, perhaps before the doors of more than one house in the

narrower sense. We hear of such specialized forms of 'house' as

'pavilions' or tents, the 'Senat howse' used for _Quintus Fabius_ in

1573-4 and the 'prison' which must have formed part of the 'cittie' for

_The Four Sons of Fabius_ in 1579-80. These, and probably other houses,

were no doubt sufficiently practicable for personages to be seen, and in

some cases also heard, inside them; and the senate house was veiled by

curtains, which doubtless remained closed until the proper moment for

interior action to take place. There are other references to curtains,

the mechanism by which they were drawn, and the sarcenet of which they

were made.[744] It has been suggested that some of these were front

curtains, but there is no reason, so far as the evidence in the Revels

Accounts is concerned, why they should not all, like the senate house

curtain, have been veils for individual 'houses', such as were used in

masks, and had been used in the corresponding _domus_ of miracle-plays.

It is possible, although not certain, that some of the 'great cloths'

provided may have been for hangings to the back and side walls of the

stage, rather than for covering houses. There is no reason why these

should not have been painted in perspective, but the extent to which, if

at all, perspective was employed is one of the points on which we are

most in the dark.[745] Subsidiary structures, hollow trees, arbours,

gibbets, altars, wells, gave variety to the action, and helped out the

decorative effect of the houses.[746] For these also timber frames and

canvas served. The hollow tree was doubtless a feature of the wood

scenes, in which the painter's art, whether in relief or in perspective,

was supplemented by the natural foliage of holly and ivy.[747] Elaborate

rocks, such as are familiar in the masks, were also constructed. That

for _The Knight in the Burning Rock_ in 1578-9 required much timber,

carried a chair, and was reached by a scaling ladder. The effect of

burning was produced by lighted _aqua vitae_.[748] I am not quite sure

whether a cloud drawn up and down by a cord and pulleys in the same year

belonged to this play or to a mask, but obviously there was much give

and take between the methods of plays and masks.[749] Spectacular

elements were freely introduced into plays. A 'monster' of hoops and

canvas, with a man moving inside it, was as easy for the managers of a

_Perseus and Andromeda_ in 1572-3 as for those of a _Peter Pan_ in our

own day; and doubtless the character was equally popular.[750] Hounds'

heads were 'mowlded' for the cynocephali in _The History of the

Cenofalles_ of 1576-7.[751] The mediaeval 'devices for hell, and hell

mowthe' were still in vogue in 1571-2, and in the same year _Narcissus_

was enlivened by thunder and lightning and by the sounds of a hunt which

rang through the palace court-yard, and _Paris and Vienna_ by a tourney

and barriers, in which players mounted on hobby-horses contended for a

'christall sheelde'.[752] So far as minor properties and apparel are

concerned, it is often difficult to distinguish the respective needs of

masks and plays in the long lists of provisions which the Revels

officers detail.[753]

Something may be gleaned, to eke out the rather tantalizing indications

of the account-books, from the more descriptive accounts of performances

at the universities. The process is legitimate, because the organization

of such productions was largely in the hands of Revels and Works experts

brought from London by the Lord Chamberlain, who would naturally employ

or adapt the methods already found successful at the Court itself. But

even the university writers take a good deal of contemporary knowledge

for granted. Of the Cambridge visit in 1564 we learn no more than that

two chapels before which the stage was set served for 'houses'; of the

Oxford visit in 1566 that 'palatia' and 'aedes' were built up 'ex

utroque scenae latere', and that a temple in a wood was staged for an

out-of-doors episode; of the Oxford visit of 1592 nothing.[754] Greater

detail is forthcoming in 1605. The chroniclers were interested by the

experiments of 'one Mʳ. Jones, a great Traveller', the result of which

was stupendous in the eyes of the Oxford Public Orator, although an

envious spy from Cambridge declared that he 'performed very little to

that which was expected'. The stage on this occasion was slightly raked,

so that the actors as they entered appeared to be coming down hill. At

the back was a false wall, with a space of five or six paces behind it,

'for their howses and receipt of the actors'. In this wall Jones had set

revolving pillars or peripetasmata, obviously based on the triangular

[Greek: periaktoi] of Vitruvius, whereby 'with the help of other painted

clothes', he was able to change the face of the scene twice in the

course of each play. Thus in _Ajax Flagellifer_ the scene successively

represented first 'Troia et littus Sigaeum', then 'Sylvae et solitudines

horrenda antra et furiarum domicilia', and finally 'Tentoriorum

naviumque facies'. The machines which worked these changes were painted

'motantibus quasi nubibus, ut eas, Sole Britannico statim ingressuro,

aufugientes putares'.[755]

The changing stage of 1605 was obviously an advance from the Elizabethan

methods of twenty years before. But it can hardly be assumed that the

new principles were regularly adopted in the Jacobean Court. In 1614-15

the Revels office was still buying 'canvas for the boothes and other

necessaries for a play called Bartholmewe Faire', and the entry seems to

suggest 'houses' of the old type.[756] Possibly Inigo Jones was not

sufficiently successful with his Oxford mechanism to inspire confidence.

It is not until much later, in Caroline days, that we can clearly

discern him beginning to apply to the presentation of Court plays the

proscenium arch and the other perfected results of his studies in the

mask.[757] There is no obvious trace of the new methods even in his

interesting design for the new Cockpit at Court, which may date from

about 1632. This shows a building 58 feet square without and octagonal

within. Five sides of the octagon are occupied by the auditorium, which

contains a pit with balconies above, and apparently a royal box at the

back; the other three by a stage 35 feet wide and 16 deep, which stands 4½

feet above the pit level, and has a 5-foot apron and a semicircular back

wall of a 15-foot radius. This does not appear to be adapted either for

hangings or for shifting scenes, but is a Palladian façade of two stories

in solid architecture adorned with niches and busts and a tablet inscribed

'Prodesse et delectare'. It is pierced below by a large archway and four

other doors, and above the archway is a single window.[758]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 680: On the earlier custom cf. S. Cox (App. C, No. xliv).

Buggin's memorandum on the Revels in 1573 (_Tudor Revels_, 36)

contemplates the possibility of service at 'Hollantide'.]

[Footnote 681: Birch, i. 69.]

[Footnote 682: Cf. App. B. The _Revels Accounts_ record plays which the

Treasurer of the Chamber did not reward, by the Chapel (1559-60); by

unnamed companies (3 plays) at Windsor (1563-4); by Westminster (_Miles

Gloriosus_; cf. Murray, ii. 168), the Chapel, Sir Percival Hart's sons,

and 'showes' by Gray's Inn (1564-5); by an unnamed company (1567-8); by

an unnamed company (1581-2); and by Gray's Inn (_Misfortunes of Arthur_,

1587-8). For years not covered by these accounts must be added the Inner

Temple _Gorboduc_ (1562), probably their _Gismond of Salerne_ (1566?),

and not impossibly others by Gray's Inn, who, according to Elizabeth in

1595 (_Gesta Grayorum_, 68), 'did always study for Sports to present

unto her'. I cannot understand Collier's unreferenced notice of a

payment to men of George Evelyn (cf. ch. xiii) for a play in 1588. A

letter of 4 Dec. 1592 from the University of Cambridge (_M. S. C._ i.

198, from _Lansd. MS._ 71), deprecating an invitation to play an English

comedy at court, shows that a similar suggestion had been made to

Oxford; there is no evidence that either University actually played. It

is conceivable that plays may sometimes have been rewarded out of the

Privy Purse (cf. ch. ii) instead of by the Treasurer of the Chamber.]

[Footnote 683: Cf. Calendar, _s.a._ 1559 (7 Aug., Paul's at Nonsuch),

1564 (5 July, play at Mr. Sackville's), 1567 (April 13, play before

Elizabeth and Spanish ambassador), 1575 (plays on progress at Lichfield

by Warwick's, at Kenilworth, and at Woodstock), 1578 (Aug., Ipswich play

at Stowmarket), 1579 (play at Osterley), 1595 (Jan., probable

performance of _M. N. D._ at Derby's wedding), 1601 (Aug.,

'playing-wenches' at Caversham), 1601 (29 Dec., play at Hunsdon's in

Blackfriars). There are also, of course, the plays at Oxford and

Cambridge (cf. ch. iv). For these no money reward was paid, but the

Works and Revels met some of the expenses, and the actors got a warrant

for venison out of Woodstock to make a feast.]

[Footnote 684: Cf. p. 7.]

[Footnote 685: Cf. App. B, _s.a._ 1612-13, 1615-16.]

[Footnote 686: For other entertainments of the court with plays by

private hosts, cf. Calendar _s.a._ 1605 (3 Jan., play by Spanish

ambassador for Duke of Holst; 9 < > 14 Jan., _Love's Labour's Lost_ by

Southampton or Cranborne for Anne), 1607 (May 25, _Aeneas and Dido_ by

Arundel for Prince de Joinville).]

[Footnote 687: Cf. also _M. N. D._ iii. 1. 57; _Isle of Gulls_, iii (ed.

Bullen, p. 67), 'in the great Chamber at the Reuels'. The Elizabethan

_Chamber Accounts_ rarely show the room; in 1597-8 the hall at Hampton

Court, in 1600-1 the hall and in 1601-2 the great chamber at Whitehall.

I have examined only a few Jacobean ones on this point; the hall, great

chamber, and banqueting-house, at Whitehall, were all used in 1604-5;

the hall, banqueting-house, and cockpit in 1610-11; the banqueting-house

twice in April 1612-13.]

[Footnote 688: Cf. App. B, _s.a._ 1608-12. On the Cockpit cf. Stowe,

_Survey_, ii. 102, 374; Sheppard, _Whitehall_, 66; W. J. Lawrence in _E.

S._ xxxv. 279; _L. T. R._ i. 38; ii. 23; vii. 49, 61; Adams, 384. I am

not quite clear where the original pit stood. Stowe puts on the right

hand as you go down Whitehall 'diuers fayre Tennis courtes, bowling

allies, and a Cocke-pit, al built by King Henry the eight'. Wyngaerde

and Agas show various buildings here, of which one in Agas is of pit

shape. Faithorne's map of Westminster (1658), which is said to represent

the locality at a much earlier date, shows, just south of the tilt-yard,

a quadrangle divided off from the road by a low boundary wall, with

buildings all round it and an angled building in the midst. This must I

think be the Cockpit, and some of the buildings round it the lodgings

which also bore that name and were occupied by the Princess Elizabeth

before her marriage (Birch, _Charles I_, ii. 213) and by Lady Somerset

in 1615 (_Rutland MSS._ i. 448). Here presumably provision for Cockpit

was made for James in 1604 (cf. p. 53), and Henry and Elizabeth saw

plays in 1608-13 (App. B). But I doubt whether this is the Cockpit shown

in Fisher's Restoration plan of Whitehall and in an engraving, probably

from a seventeenth-century drawing, reproduced in _L. T. R._ ii. 23, and

Adams, 407. This was square externally, and apparently stood farther

west than Faithorne's from the line of the tilt-yard, at the extreme

north-west angle of the palace buildings where they jutted into St.

James's Park. I think Adams is clearly right in identifying this

building with the little theatre a plan of which by Inigo Jones was

published from a Worcester College MS. by H. Bell in _Architectural

Record_ (1913), 262 (cf. p. 234). Adams further identifies it with a

'new theatre at Whitehall' opened about 1632, no doubt to replace the

old Cockpit. If so, Faithorne is clearly out of date. This later Cockpit

was on the site of the present Treasury buildings, and the locality long

continued to bear its name. Treasury letters were dated from the

Cockpit, and the King's speech is said to have been rehearsed there as

late as 1806. The passage leading from Whitehall to the Treasury is

still called the Cockpit passage. A quite distinct cockpit near Birdcage

Walk is marked by the extant Cockpit Steps. It existed by 1720 and was

destroyed in 1816. Whether the angled building shown in this direction

by Wyngaerde can represent it, or a predecessor, I do not know.]

[Footnote 689: Cf. App. B.]

[Footnote 690: There may have been special reasons why the Chapel only

got £15 for two plays in 1583-4, Oxford's £6 13_s._ 4_d._ for a play in

1584-5, the Queen's £20 for three plays in 1587-8, and the Chapel £5 for

a 'showe' in 1600-1. The accounts for 1605-6 seem to point to an

unsuccessful attempt to establish a flat rate of £5 for a 'rewarde' and

£3 6_s._ 8_d._ for a 'more rewarde', for plays before James and Henry

alike. The payments of 17 May 1615 of £43 6_s._ 8_d._ for six plays

before 'his highnes' (which in these accounts generally means the

Prince) perhaps really represent one play before James and five before

Charles.]

[Footnote 691: Henry's accounts for 1610-12 (Cunningham, xiii) include

payments for making ready the Cockpit for plays, and rewards to

musicians and a juggler, but none for players; but Elizabeth lost a play

in a wager in 1612, and Anne paid for two plays at Somerset House in

1615. The only play recorded by the Treasurer of the Chamber as

specially before Anne (10 Dec. 1604) was paid for at £10. Naturally she

was present at plays entered as before the King or Prince, and in 1612

plays paid for at the King's rate seem in fact to have been shown before

Anne and Henry in his absence (cf. App. B).]

[Footnote 692: The £10 fee continued to be paid under Charles I, but by

1630-1 the players had established a claim to an additional £10 if their

service at court lost them a day at the theatre, owing to a journey to

Hampton Court or Richmond or an occasional performance or rehearsal at

Whitehall in the day-time. During 1636-7, however, the theatres were

closed for plague (_M. S. C._ i. 391), and the King's men had an

allowance of £20 a week to maintain them near the court (_S. P. D. Car.

I_, cccxxxvii. 33), and did not get the extra £10 a play; cf. E. Law,

_More about Shakespeare Forgeries_, 37, and the extracts from the _Lord

Chamberlain's Records_ in C. C. Stopes, _Shakespeare's Fellows and

Followers_ (_Jahrbuch_, xlvi. 92).]

[Footnote 693: Cf. ch. ii, p. 66.]

[Footnote 694: The documents are printed by Cunningham, xxiv, and by

Law, _More_, 39, 71, who gives the warrant more fully. They were removed

by Cunningham from the Audit Office, and when returned to the Record

Office were classed in error as papers subsidiary to the Revels

Accounts, instead of to those of the Treasurer of the Chamber. But Law,

_More_, 61, successfully vindicates their authenticity, and I may add

that the dockets of Chamberlain's warrants for other years (_Jahrbuch_,

xlvi. 94) refer to schedules now lost, and that a schedule of the plays

of the King's men for 1638-9 was facsimiled from a private manuscript by

G. R. Wright in _Brit. Arch. Ass. Journal_, xvi. 275, 344 (1860), and in

his _Archaeologic and Historic Fragments_ (1887). In this the claims for

'our day lost' are clearly specified.]

[Footnote 695: The schedule attached to a warrant of 1633 (_Jahrbuch_,

xlvi. 97) appears to have been a bill signed by the Master of the

Revels.]

[Footnote 696: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 109; but his note is a slip.]

[Footnote 697: Cf. ch. xiii (Chamberlain's).]

[Footnote 698: _Sydney Papers_, ii. 86 (30 Jan. 1598), 'My Lord Compton,

my Lord Cobham, Sir Walter Rawley, my Lord Southampton, doe severally

feast Mr. Secretary before he depart, and have plaies and banquets. My

Lady Darby, my Lady Walsingham, Mrs. Anne Russell, are of the company,

and my Lady Rawley'; ii. 90 (15 Feb. 1598), 'Sir Gilley Meiricke made at

Essex House yesternight a very great supper. There were at yt, my Ladys

Lester, Northumberland, Bedford, Essex, Rich; and my Lordes of Essex,

Rutland, Monjoy, and others. They had 2 plaies, which kept them up till

1 a clocke after midnight'; ii. 175 (8 March 1600), 'All this Weeke the

Lords haue bene in London, and past away the Tyme in Feasting and

Plaies; for Vereiken dined vpon Wednesday, with my Lord Treasurer, who

made hym a Roiall Dinner; vpon Thursday my Lord Chamberlain feasted hym,

and made hym very great, and a delicate Dinner, and there in the After

Noone his Plaiers acted, before Vereiken, Sir John Old Castell, to his

Great Contentment'. It seems that, for their patron, the Chamberlain's

men would give up an afternoon.]

[Footnote 699: _S. P. D. Jac. I_, xix. 12 (1606); Birch, i. 243;

Winwood, iii. 461. A gallant might also have his private play at night

in a tavern; cf. Nashe, _Lenten Stuffe_ (1599, _Works_, iii. 148), 'To

London againe he will, to reuell it, and haue two playes in one night,

inuite all the Poets and Musitions to his chamber the next morning'; _A

Mad World, my Masters_, v. i. 78, 'a right Mitre supper;--a play and

all'.]

[Footnote 700: _Aphrodysial_, v. 5, cited by Reynolds, _Percy_, 258.]

[Footnote 701: Machyn, 222, 290, notes a play, either in the Guildhall

or in that of the Lord Mayor's company, on 6 Jan. 1560, and a play at

the Barber Surgeons' feast on 10 Aug. 1562. The Pewterers collected

'playe pence' at their 'yemandrie feast' about 1563 (C. Welch,

_Pewterers_, i. 233). Recorder Fleetwood saw a play at a dinner with the

outgoing sheriffs on 29 Sept. 1575 (_Hatfield MSS._ ii. 116; dated 1573

in error in Murdin, ii. 259, and Nichols, _Eliz._ i. 357).]

[Footnote 702: They are fully treated for the sixteenth century by F. S.

Boas, _University Drama in the Tudor Age_ (1914), and more briefly for

the whole period, with a valuable bibliography, by the same writer, in

_C. H._ vi. 293. I have recorded the extant plays, English and Latin, in

App. K.]

[Footnote 703: Ch. xxiii, s.v. Beaumont; Inderwick, _Inner Temple

Records_, i. lxv, 219; ii. xlix, 23 _sqq._, 56, 64. A payment of 20_s._

'to the players' at the Christmas of 1615 was probably, in view of the

amount, for musicians. The earlier account-books are not preserved. On

the plays, not necessarily professional, of the 1561-2 Christmas, cf.

ch. xxiii, s.v. Brooke.]

[Footnote 704: _Gesta Grayorum_ (M. S. R.), 22, 23. R. J. Fletcher, _The

Pension Book of Gray's Inn_ (1901), prints entries of payments for 'the

play at Shrove-tyde' 1581, of which nothing more is known, and 'the play

in Michaelmas terme' and 'the Tragedie' in 1587-8, in which year the Inn

gave _Catiline_ at home before Lord Burghley on 16 Jan. (_M. S. C._ i.

179) and _The Misfortunes of Arthur_ at court on 28 Feb. Gascoigne's

_Supposes_ and _Jocasta_ were both produced at Gray's Inn in 1566-7. The

Inn was to have entertained the Duke of Bracciano with 'shewes' at

Christmas 1600-1, but he left too soon (Chamberlain, 99; Camden (tr.),

535).]

[Footnote 705: B. Rudyerd, _Memoirs_, 12, 13. The ascription of these

revels to 'the Christmas of 1599' in _Mediaeval Stage_, i. 416, is an

error; cf. p. 169.]

[Footnote 706: Manningham, 18.]

[Footnote 707: J. D. Walker, _Black Books of Lincoln's Inn_, i. xxxiii,

344, 348, 352, 362, 374, 418; ii. 55. It was ordered on 2 Feb. 1565 that

'Mʳ Edwards shall have in reward liijˢ, iiijᵈ for his plee, and his

hussher xˢ, and xˢ more to the children that pleed' (in margin,

'Children of the Quenes Chappell'). The accounts of 1564-5, however,

show £1 18_s._ 2_d._ for a supper and for staff torches, clubs, and

other necessaries for the play, and £1 as reward for the boys; those of

1565-6 £2 to the boys of the Queen's chapel and their master for a play

at the Purification; those of 1569-70 £1 'lusoribus' of 'Lord Roche' at

the Purification; those of 1579-80 £3 6_s._ 8_d._ on 9 Feb. 'to Mʳ

Ferrand [Farrant] one of the Queen's chaplains _pro commedia_'. On 12

May 1598, a levy was made for the expenses of 'the gentlemen that were

actors in the matter of the shew the last Christmas'. No more is known

of this show. On the Inns of Court Christmases generally cf. _Mediaeval

Stage_, i. 413.]

[Footnote 708: The Westminster accounts of 1564-5 (Murray, ii. 168)

include 'at yᵉ rehersing before Sir Thomas Benger for pinnes and sugar

candee viᵈ' and 'the second tyme att the playing of Heautonti, for

pinnes halfe a thousand viᵈ', but there is nothing to suggest that any

play but _Miles Gloriosus_ was given before the Queen. The _Revels

Accounts_ (Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 145, 176, 179, 238, 277, 325, &c.) have

(1571-2), 'playes ... chosen owte of many and ffownde to be the best

that then were to be had, the same also being often pervsed, &

necessarely corrected & amended (by all thafforesaide officers)';

(1572-3), 'muzitians that plaide at the proof of Duttons play' ...

'rushes in the hall & in the greate chambere where the workes were doone

& the playes rezited'; (1574-5) 'at Wynsor ... for peruzing and

reformyng of Farrantes playe' ... 'wheare my Lord of Leicesters menne

showed theier matter of Panecia' ... 'where my Lord Clyntons players

rehearsed a matter called Pretestus', &c.; (1576-7), 'To Whitehall and

back againe to recyte before my Lord Chamberleyn' ... 'to Sᵗ Johns ...

for the play of Cutwell'; (1579-80) 'Thinges ... brought into the

Masters Lodginge for the rehearsall of sondrie playes to make choise of

dyvers of them for her maiestie', &c., &c.]

[Footnote 709: Machyn, 221.]

[Footnote 710: Cf. chh. xxiii, xxiv, s.vv. Chettle (1602); Dekker,

_Fortunatus, Phaethon_; the anonymous _Histriomastix_. The prints of

several plays contain special court prologues or epilogues, e.g. Lyly's

_Campaspe_ and _Sapho and Phaon_.]

[Footnote 711: Buggin's Revels memorandum of 1573 (_Tudor Revels_, 33)

indicates that his proposed Serjeant 'is with the master and the reast

of the officers to be at the rehersall of playes'.]

[Footnote 712: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 326 (1579-80, 50 days), 337 (1580-1,

70 days), table ii (1581-2, 44 days), 352 (1582-3, 62 days), table iii

(1583-4, 56 days), 368 (1584-5, 66 days), 389 (1587-8, 64 days; 1588-9,

57 days). The commission (App. D, No. lvi) authorized the Master to

command players 'to appear before him with all suche plaies tragedies

comedies or showes as they shall haue in readines or meane to sett forth

and them to presente and recite before our said servant or his

sufficient deputie'.]

[Footnote 713: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 145, 193, 286, 320. In 1571-2 all the

plays were 'throwghly apparelled and ffurnished'; in 1573-4 all were

'fytted and ffurnyshed with the store of thoffice and with the

woorkmanshipp and provisions herein expressed'; in 1578-9 the clerk

seems to distinguish between plays furnished with 'sondrey', 'some',

'manie', and 'verie manie' things; in 1579-80 seven out of nine plays

were 'wholie furnyshed in this offyce', and of the others one had

'sondrie' and one 'many' things; cf. Graves, 83.]

[Footnote 714: Cf. ch. iii, p. 93.]

[Footnote 715: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 354, 370, 381, 391; cf. ch. iii, p.

89.]

[Footnote 716: Ibid. 140, 174, 236, 320, 336, 349 (gloves); 338

(cradle); 205 (close-stool). The Westminster boys in 1565 found their

own 'sugar candee', 'comfetts', and 'butterd beere for yᵉ children being

horse' (Murray, ii. 168).]

[Footnote 717: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 337.]

[Footnote 718: Tarlton, 10, records a jest, 'Tarlton having plaied

before the queen till one a clock at midnight'. De Silva describes

entertainments of Elizabeth in private houses early in the reign which

ended at 1.30 and 2 a.m. (ch. v, pp. 161, 162). Under James, a play on 7

Jan. 1610, began at 10 p.m. (_Arch._ xii. 268).]

[Footnote 719: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 159, 202, 216, 300, 353, 368, &c. We

hear of 'high', 'vice', 'stock', 'pricke', 'plate', and 'hand'

candlesticks.]

[Footnote 720: Cunningham, 214 (1611-12), 'For a musik house dore in the

hall and a doore for the musik house in the Bancketing house with

lockes'; possibly that in the hall was used for plays rather than

masks.]

[Footnote 721: Cf. App. B and the Works Account of 'Chardges done for

the revells in the hall' at Shrovetide 1568 in Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 120.

But the Revels themselves had 'to enlardge the scaffolde in the hall' in

1579-80 (327).]

[Footnote 722: Cf. ch. ii, p. 34.]

[Footnote 723: On the woodcut in _Three Lords and Three Ladies of

London_ (1590), cf. _Bibl. Note_ to ch. xviii.]

[Footnote 724: Cf. App. A.]

[Footnote 725: Peck, _Desiderata Curiosa_, ii. 267 (from account of

Matthew Stokys in _Harl. MS._ 7037 (_Baker MS._ 10)); 'For the hearing

and playing whereof was made, by her highness surveyor and at her own

cost, in the body of the church, a great stage containing the breadth of

the church from the one side to the other, that the chapels might serve

for houses. In the length it ran two of the lower chapels full, with the

pillars on a side. Upon the south wall was hanged a cloth of state, with

the appurtenances and half path, for her majesty. In the rood loft,

another stage for ladies and gentlewomen to stand on. And the two lower

tables, under the said rood loft, were greatly enlarged and railed for

the choice officers of the court. There was, before her majesty's

coming, made in the King's College hall, a great stage. But, because it

was judged by divers to be too little, and too close for her highness

and her company, and also far from her lodging, it was taken down. When

all things were ready for the plays, the Lord Chamberlain with Mr.

Secretary came in, bringing a multitude of the guard with them, having

every man in his hand a torch-staff for the lights of the play (for no

other lights were occupied) and would not suffer any to stand upon the

stage, save a very few upon the north side. And the guard stood upon the

ground by the stage side, holding their lights. From the quire door unto

the stage was made as 'twere a bridge, railed on both sides, for the

queen's grace to go to the stage; which was straitly kept.' This account

is also in Nichols, _Eliz._ i. 151. In his first edition Nichols (iii.

27) also gave an account by Nicholas Robinson, which adds the detail

that the stage was 'structura quaedam ex crassioribus asseribus

altitudine pedum quinque'; cf. also Boas, 91.]

[Footnote 726: Cf. ch. xii and App. K.]

[Footnote 727: Plummer, 123 (from Bereblock's account): 'Primo ibi ab

ingenti solido pariete patefacto aditu proscenium insigne fuit, ponsque

ab eo ligneus pensilis, sublicis impositus, parvo et perpolito tractu

per transversos gradus ad magnam Collegii aulam protrahitur; festa

fronde coelato pictoque umbraculo exornatur, ut per eum, sine motu et

perturbatione prementis vulgi, regina posset, quasi aequabili gressu, ad

praeparata spectacula contendere. Erat aula laqueari aurato, et picto

arcuatoque introrsus tecto, granditate ac superbia sua veteris Romani

palatii amplitudinem, et magnificentia imaginem antiquitatis diceres

imitari. Parte illius superiori, qua occidentem respicit, theatrum

excitatur magnum et erectum, gradibusque multis excelsum. Iuxta omnes

parietes podia et pegmata extructa sunt, subsellia eisdem superiora

fuerunt multorum fastigiorum, unde viri illustres ac matronae

suspicerentur, et populus circumcirca ludos prospicere potuit. Lucernae,

lichni, candelaeque ardentes clarissimam ibi lucem fecerunt. Tot

luminaribus, ramulis ac orbibus divisis, totque passim funalibus,

inaequali splendore, incertam praebentibus lucem, splendebat locus, ut

et instar diei micare, et spectaculorum claritatem adiuvare candore

summo visa sint. Ex utroque scenae latere comoedis ac personatis

magnifica palatia, aedesque apparatissimae extruuntur. Sublime fixa

sella fuit, pulvinaribus ac tapetiis ornata, aureoque umbraculo operta,

Reginae destinatus locus erat'; cf. Boas, 99.]

[Footnote 728: I think Feuillerat, _M. P._ 73, must be misled by the

Cambridge analogy and the use of the term 'proscenium' in supposing the

'pons' to have been within the auditorium and the state on the stage.

The 'proscenium' was doubtless the 'porch' taken down after the visit

(Boas, 106). The exterior of the hall has been refaced since 1566, but

Dr. Boas tells me that during some recent alterations an unexplained

aperture was traceable from within.]

[Footnote 729: Cf. ch. iv.]

[Footnote 730: Cf. p. 234.]

[Footnote 731: Jusserand, _Shakespeare in France_ (tr.), 93, pl. xi.]

[Footnote 732: _L. T. R._ vii. 41. In _The Times_ for 3 Dec. 1917 Mr.

Law has a similar reconstruction of the arrangements at Hampton Court,

wherein he assigns the stage to a point before the screens, with the

gallery over the screens for 'upper chamber scenes', rooms behind the

screens for tiring-houses, and a players' supper room, and the Watching

Chamber for rehearsals. But again he produces no evidence.]

[Footnote 733: Cf. ch. xix.]

[Footnote 734: The expenses of 1578-9 (_vide infra_) included the

'mending' of houses. But I agree, broadly, with the argument of Graves,

53, that scenery for a Court performance had to be either new or

renewed.]

[Footnote 735: In 1563-5, 'canvas to couer diuers townes and howsses and

other devisses and clowds' (Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 116); in 1571-2, 'sundry

Tragedies Playes Maskes and sportes with their apte howses of paynted

canvas' (129); in 1572-3, 'sparres to make frames for the players

howses' (175); in 1573-4, 'hoopes for tharbour and topp of an howse' ...

'pynnes styf and great for paynted clothes' ... 'nayles to strayne the

canvas' ... 'canvas to paynte for howses for the players and for other

properties as monsters, greate hollow trees and suche other' ...

'cariage for the fframes for the howses that served in the playes' ...

'iij elme boordes and vij ledges for the frames for the players' ...

'cariage of fframes and painted clothes for the players howses' (197,

201, 203, 204, 218); in 1574-5, 'canvas to make frenge for the players

howse' (244); in 1576-7, 'cariadge ... of a paynted cloth and two

frames' (266); in 1587-9, 'timber bordes and workmanshipp in mending and

setting vp of the houses by greate' (390); in 1587-8 'paynters for ...

clothe for howses' (381); in 1579-80, 'ffurre poles to make rayles for

the battlementes and to make the prison for my Lord of Warwickes men'

(327).]

[Footnote 736: Feuillerat, _M. P._ 69, calculates that enough cloth was

painted in 1580-1, 1582-3, and 1584-5 to allow of about 16 square yards

for every house or other _décor_ used.]

[Footnote 737: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 134.]

[Footnote 738: Ibid. 176.]

[Footnote 739: Ibid. 119.]

[Footnote 740: Ibid. 320.]

[Footnote 741: Ibid. 336.]

[Footnote 742: Ibid. 349.]

[Footnote 743: Ibid. 365.]

[Footnote 744: In 1571-2, 'curtyn ringes' (Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 140); in

1573-4, 'poles and shivers for draft of the curtins before the senat

howse ... curtyn ringes ... edging the curtins with ffrenge ... tape and

corde for the same' (200); in 1576-7, 'a lyne to draw a curteyne' (275);

in 1580-1, a purchase of 8 ells of orange taffeta double sarcenet at 10s

an ell for a curtain for a play (338); in 1584-5 'one greate curteyne'

of sarcenet for _Phillyda and Corin_ (365).]

[Footnote 745: Cf. ch. xix.]

[Footnote 746: In 1572-3, 'an awlter for Theagines' (Feuillerat, _Eliz._

175); in 1573-4, 'lathes for the hollo tree' ... 'one baskett with iiij

eares to hang Dylligence in the play of Perobia ... a iebbett to hang vp

Diligence' ... 'hoopes for tharbour' (199, 200, 203); in 1578-9 'a rope,

a pulley, a basket' (296); in 1584-5, a well for _Five Plays in One_

(365). For Cutwell, rehearsed but not performed in 1576-7 (277), 'the

partes of yᵉ well counterfeit' were brought from the Bell to St.

John's.]

[Footnote 747: In 1572-3, 'a tree of holly for the Duttons playe ...

holly for the forest ... tymber for the forest ... provizion and cariage

of trees and other things to the Coorte for a wildernesse in a playe'

(Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 175, 180); in 1573-4, 'holly and ivye for the play

of Predor' (203); in 1574-5, 'moss and styckes' and holly and ivy (239,

244).]

[Footnote 748: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 306. There were rocks or mountains

also in 1574-5, 1579-80, and 1584-5 (244, 320, 365).]

[Footnote 749: Ibid. 240. It was an old device. Graves, 27, quotes

Palsgrave, _Acolastus_ (1540), 'in stage-playes, when some god or some

saynt made to appeare forth of a cloude; and succoureth the parties

which seemed to be towardes some great danger, through the Soudans

crueltie'.]

[Footnote 750: 'Andramedas picture' ... 'Benbow for playing in the

monster' ... 'canvas for a monster' ... 'hoopes for the monster' (ibid.

175, 176, 181).]

[Footnote 751: Ibid. 265.]

[Footnote 752: Ibid. 140, 141. The 'hunters that made the crye after the

fox (let loose in the Coorte) with their howndes, hornes, and hallowing'

had already been a feature of Edwardes' _Palaemon and Arcite_ at Oxford

in 1566.]

[Footnote 753: Feuillerat, _M. P._ 57, gives an excellent summary of the

data in the Accounts, but his schedule of properties does not attempt to

disentangle masks and plays. The latter were liberally supplied. The

Italians at Reading and Windsor during the progress of 1574, for

example, were furnished with 'golde lether for cronetes', 'shepherdes

hookes', 'lam-skynnes for shepperds', 'arrowes for nymphes', 'a syth for

Saturne', 'iij deveils cotes and heades and one olde mannes fries cote'

(Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 227). Probably the apparel used on the stage was of

less costly materials than that worn by lords and ladies in masks, but

it was doubtless calculated to present the same glittering effect.]

[Footnote 754: Cf. p. 226, and Plummer (from Bereblock), 138, 'Fiunt

igitur in silvis septa marmorea' with three altars.]

[Footnote 755: I. Wake, _Rex Platonicus sive Musae Regnantes_ (1607),

46, 79, 112, 134; Nichols, i. 530 (from account, probably by Philip

Stringer, in _Harl. MS._ 7044, f. 201). Wake thus describes the hall:

'Partem Aulae superiorem occupavit Scena, cuius Proscenium molliter

declive (quod actorum egressui, quasi e monte descendentium, multum

attulit dignitatis) in planitiem desinebat. Peripetasmata scenicaque

habitacula, machinis ita artificiose ad omnium locorum rerumque

varietatem apparata, ut non modo pro singulorum indies spectaculorum,

sed etiam pro Scenarum una eademque fabula diversitate subito (ad

stuporem omnium) compareret nova totius theatralis fabricae facies....

Media cavea thronus Augustalis cancellis cinctus Principibus erigitur,

quem utrinque optimatum stationes communiunt: reliquum inter thronum et

theatrum interstitium Heroinarum Gynaeceum est paulo depressius.' In

_Annus Recurrens_ the scene was a zodiac with a sun moving by artifice,

and the play lasted from the Ram to the Fishes. Stringer adds the

details about the turning pillars, the false wall, and the participation

of Jones.]

[Footnote 756: _Pipe Office, Declared Accounts_ (_Revels_), 2805.]

[Footnote 757: Thorndike, 191.]

[Footnote 758: Cf. p. 217.]