[492] Gawdy, 25, sent his father 'ij small bookes for a token, the one of them was gyven me that day that they rann at tilt, divers of them being gyven to most of the lordes, and gentlemen about the court, and one especially to the Quene'. On 18 Nov. 1595, John Danter entered in S. R. (Arber, iii. 53) 'a new ballad of the honorable order of the Runnynge at Tilt at Whitehall the 17 of November in the 38 year of her Maiesties reign', but it does not appear to be extant.

[493] Cf. ch. xxiii (s.v. Lee).

[494] Gawdy, 67 (n.d. but ascribed by ed. to 1592), 'Uppon the coronation day at nyght ther cam two knightes armed vpp into the pryvy chamber videlicet my L. of Essex and my L. of Cumberland and ther made a challenge that vppon the xxvjth of ffebruary next that they will runn with all commers to mayntayn that ther M. is most worthiest and most fayrest Amadis de Gaule'.

[495] R. Carey, Memoirs, 32.

[496] Cf. ch. xxiii (s.v. Bacon).

[497] Chamberlain, 29, 163; Winwood, i. 271, 274.

[498] Hatfield MSS. xi. 462, 540, 544.

[499] Winwood, ii. 54.

[500] Boderie, ii. 144.

[501] Birch, i. 92.

[502] Rowland Whyte (Lodge, iii. 162) writing of a 'great tilt' in which Montgomery was to take part on 20 May 1605, adds the lines—

The Westminster tilt-yard was, of course, close to the Cockpit.

[503] A. Wilson (Compleat Hist. ii. 686).

[504] Cf. ch. xxiii (s.v. Jonson, Hymenaei).

[505] W. Drummond of Hawthornden, Works (1711), 231; Boderie, i. 58, 105, 136, 173, 185, 260. The challenge of the Knights Errants, who were the Earls of Lennox, Arundel, Pembroke, and Montgomery, is sent by Drummond to a correspondent, with a reply in the same vein, but there is nothing to suggest that he was the author. Ford's (q.v.) Honour Triumphant (1606) is addressed to the four Earls.

[506] There are several extant portraits of Henry in tilting armour; one is engraved in Drayton's Polyolbion (1613). Dillon (A. J. lii. 125; lx. 132) notes that he had five suits of tilting-armour. One, given him by Lee, cost £200. Another, given by Prince de Joinville, is in the Tower. A third, at Windsor, was made by William Pickering at Greenwich, apparently on one of the designs by Jacobe now at South Kensington. As early as 18 Aug. 1604, when he was ten years old, the Constable of Castile saw Henry at pike and horse exercise, and gave him a pony (V. P. x. 178).

[507] Cf. ch. xxiii (s.v. Jonson, Prince Henry's Barriers).

[508] Nichols, ii. 361.

[509] Clephan, 133, 176, from Harl. MSS. 4888, art. 20; cf. App. A.

[510] Rutland MSS. iv. 494, 'Item 31 Martii to Mʳ. Shakspeare in gold about my Lords impreso xliiijˢ. To Richard Burbadge for paynting and making yᵗ in gold xliiijˢ'. Wotton, ii. 17, mentions the 'bare imprese, whereof some were so dark that their meaning is not yet understood, unless perchance that were their meaning, not to be understood'.

[511] Nichols, ii. 549.

[512] Rutland MSS. iv. 508, 'Paid given Richard Burbidg for my lordes shield and for the embleance, 4ˡ. 18ˢ'.

[513] Mediaeval Stage, i. 390.

[514] Ibid. 394; Reyher, 499; from Harl. MS. 247, f. 172ᵛ

[515] Mediaeval Stage, i. 396.

[516] Leland, Collectanea, v. 359; Reyher, 500; from Ralph Starkey, Booke of Certain Triumphes (Harl. MS. 69, f. 29v); Grose and Astle, The Antiquarian Repertory, ii. 249.

[517] Halle, i. 15, 21, 22, 25, 40; Brewer, ii. 2, 1490 sqq., from Revels Accounts (Misc. Bks. Exch., T. of R. 217).

[518] Brotanek, 118; Reyher, 14, citing, inter alia, A Manifest Detection of ... Diceplay (Percy Soc. lxxxvii), 37, 'If it be winter season when masking is most in use ... they hire ... a suit of right masking apparel, and after, invite divers guests to a supper, all such as be then of estimation, to give them credit by their acquaintance, or such as ... will be liberal to hazard some thing in a mumchance; by which means they assure themselves, at the least, to have supper scot free; perchance to win xxˡᶦ about. And howsoever the common people esteem the thing I am clear out of doubt, that the more half of your gay masks in London are grounded upon such cheating crafts, and tend only the pouling and robbing of the King's subjects'. The dice were loaded otherwise for Richard II. A 'mummery', with 'foure visards, foure gownes, a boxe and a drumme', is dramatized in Soliman and Perseda (Boas, Kyd, 189), ii. 1, 187, where for 'Charleman is come' (l. 228), lege 'Christemas is come'. It is in dumb show, which confirms the supposed etymological connexion with 'mum' (cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 396). 'Mumchance' is a common term for dice-play. But the French momon, momerie, and Italian mumia do not appear to have been specialized in the English sense. 'Some goodly mummery at supper' was planned for the meeting of Henry VIII and Charles V at Gravelines in July 1520 (Rutland Papers, C. S. 54). Jonson introduces Mumming as a dancer in his Masque of Christmas (1616).

[519] For France, cf. the examples of 1377, 1389, 1393, 1457, &c., cited by Brotanek, 287, Prunières, 3; the verses of Charles d'Orléans (> 1415) for a mommerie of women (ed. d'Héricault, i. 148); the 'danse en barboire, en laquelle fut dancé à la mode de France, de l'Allemaigne, d'Espaigne et Lombardye, et à la fin en la manière de Poitou' at the betrothal of Claude of France and Charles of Austria in 1501 (Jean d'Auton, Chron. de Louis XII, ii. 99); and the revels during the Italian campaigns of Louis at Pavia and Milan in 1507 (Jean d'Auton, iv. 289, 311). At Milan lords danced 'en masque' and ladies danced 'a relays les unes après les autres', but it is not definitely said that ladies and maskers danced together. The 'danse en barboire' possibly illustrates the enigmatical barbaturiae of which the nuns of St. Radegund in Poitou were guilty in the eighth century (Mediaeval Stage, i. 362). For Burgundy, cf. Prunières, 10, citing accounts of the crusaders' Feast of the Pheasant (1454), and the wedding of Duke Charles and Margaret of York (1468). In 1454 there were dumb shows of the Golden Fleece, followed by the entry of Grâce-Dieu and her train of Virtues, who delivered a speech and then 'commencèrent à danser en guise de mommeries'. In 1468 there were 'entremectz mouvans' of the Labours of Hercules (Olivier de la Marche, ed. Soc. H. F. iii. 134, 143). These shows were given while the guests were still at table. When they were over, the tables were cleared away, and the guests danced.

[520] To the entremetz of France correspond the intermedii of Italy. These, as described by Creizenach, ii. 419; D'Ancona, ii. 168, 420; Symonds, Shakspeare's Predecessors, 321; Renaissance in Italy, v. 122; Prunières, 28; Cunliffe, Early English Classical Tragedies, xxxix, and in M. L. A. xxii. 150 and M. P. iv. 597, were entr'actes to late fifteenth and early sixteenth-century plays, but very similar shows were given independently at banquets; e. g. the mimetic chori with Silenus for risus devised by Bergonzio Botta for the wedding of Giangaleazzo Sforza and Isabella of Aragon at Tortona in 1489 (Calchi, Nuptiae Mediolaniorum Ducum in Graevius, Thesaurus, ii. 1, 509). Trionfi are primarily out-of-door processions with cars.

[521] Halle, i. 40; Brewer, ii. 1497, from Revels Accounts.

[522] Mediaeval Stage, i. 401; cf. Brotanek, 67.

[523] Evans, xxi; Reyher, 491; Cunliffe in M. L. A. xxii. 140.

[524] Cf. Marlowe, Edward II, 55 'He haue Italian maskes by night'. 'Mask' seems to be derived from a Teutonic root related to Lat. macula, and means a 'net' or 'stain'. Both 'maske' and 'maskel' are M.E. forms; but I do not find the word used in connexion with disguisings, either for the performance or for the vizard, before 1512. Halle's book was unfinished at his death in 1547, and for him 'maske' and its derivative 'masker' are regular for the performance and the performer. He also uses a 'masker' (i. 215), a 'maskery' (i. 209), 'in maskeler' (i. 209), 'apparel of maskery' (i. 217), and 'maskyng apparel' (i. 171, 217; ii. 220). For the face-mask he retains 'viser'. The Revels Accounts for 1512-22 use 'maskeller' or 'meskeller' as noun abstract and adjective, and 'maskelyng' or 'meskellyng' as adjective or participle. 'Masking garments', and 'a maske' for the performance first appear in a Revels document of 1539. In those of Cawarden's time 'maske' and its derivatives are established. Jonson (cf. p. 176) seems responsible for stereotyping the spelling 'masque', which, however, Lyly (cf. Works, ii. 103) had used before him.

[525] Ronsard (ed. Marty-Leveaux), vi. 310.

[526] This is at the end of a farsa by Jacopo Sannazaro given before Alfonso Duke of Calabria in 1492 (D'Ancona, ii. 98, from Opere of 1723). 'Subito uscirono li trombetti sonando, tutti vestiti riccamente d'una maniera, l'illustrissimo signore Principe di Capua con gli altri in mumia, delicatamente vestiti ad una maniera del Signore di Castiglia ... con torcie in mano ballando. Da poi, ciascuno prese una Signora per la mano, e ballò la sua alta e bassa; e con le torchie in mano se ne tornorono: e per quella sera così ebbe fine la festa.' In a revel at Ferrara in 1473 (Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script. xxiv. 244), Duke Hercules and his fellows danced with the ladies, and then came in 'grande multitudini di mascare', and danced; but it is not clear that the Duke was a masker, or that the masked persons danced with the ladies. I should add that I have not been able to make any complete or first-hand investigation of foreign analogies to the mask. Doubtless the street masks of the Florentine carnival had a folk origin like that which I assign to the English mumming; for their elaboration by Lorenzo de' Medici (1448-92) cf. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, iv. 338; D'Ancona, i. 253; Prunières, 20. M. Prunières appears to regard the 'taking out' to dance as no part of the original custom, but an adaptation due to the courts of Ferrara and Modena at the end of the fifteenth century.

[527] It is significant that John Farlyon in 1534 was appointed Yeoman of masks, revels, and disguisings; Cawarden in 1544 Master of revels and masks (Tudor Revels, 7, 9; cf. p. 72). In Jonson's Masque of Augurs (1623) Notch says to the Groom of the Revels, 'Disguise was the old English word for a masque, Sir, before you were an implement belonging to the Revels'.

[528] Halle, i. 57, 117, 143, 149, 153, 171, 176, 179, 208, 215, 220, 234, 238, 247, 249, 256; ii. 24, 79, 87, 108, 149, 183, 220, 303, 360; Brewer, ii. 2, 1490; iii. 1548; iv. 418, 1390, 1415, 1603, from Revels Accounts.

[529] Halle, ii. 220.

[530] The descriptions of the devices employed in the 'great chamber of disguisings' at Greenwich in 1527 (Halle, ii. 86, 108) suggest that they were fixed. The setting for one of the masks was certainly revealed 'by lettyng doune of a courtaine', not by wheeling in a pageant.

[531] The available material for 1547-58 is collected, mainly from the Revels documents in the Loseley MSS., by A. Feuillerat in Materialien, xliv.

[532] Il Schifanoya to Castellan of Mantua (V. P. vii. 11), 'As I suppose your Lordship will have heard of the farsa performed in the presence of her Majesty on the day of the Epiphany, and I not having sufficient intellect to interpret it, nor yet the mummery performed after supper on the same day, of crows in the habits of Cardinals, of asses habited as Bishops, and of wolves representing Abbots, I will consign it to silence.... Nor will I record the levities and unusual licentiousness practised at the Court in dances and banquets, nor the masquerade of friars in the streets of London.'

[533] Il Schifanoya to Mantuan Ambassador at Brussels (V. P. vii. 27), 'Last evening at the Court a double mummery was played: one set of mummers rifled the Queen's ladies, and the other set, with wooden swords and bucklers, recovered the spoil. Then at the dance the Queen performed her part, the Duke of Norfolk being her partner, in superb array.'

[534] Machyn, 204, 206.

[535] On 31 Jan. (Machyn, 221) 'ther was a play a-for her grace, the wyche the plaers plad shuche matter that they wher commondyd to leyff off, and contenent the maske cam in dansyng'.

[536] The succession of masks for 1558-60 is traceable with the aid of Il Schifanoya from an analysis of the following Revels documents, (a) an inventory of 26 March 1555 (Feuillerat, Ed. and M. 180), (b) the accounts from 26 March 1555 to 29 Sept. 1559 (Feuillerat, Ed. and M. 195-242; Eliz. 79-108), (c) an estimate of the cost of the 1559-60 masks (Feuillerat, Eliz. 110), (d) a 'rere-account' of the uses to which the masks inventoried in (a) and certain stuffs subsequently issued to the Masters of the Revels had been put during 1555-60 (Feuillerat, Eliz. 18), and (e) an inventory of c. May 1560 (Feuillerat, Eliz. 37). There were fifteen sets of masking garments in store in 1555, Mariners, Venetian Senators, Turkish Magistrates, Greek Worthies, Albanian Warriors, Turkish Archers, Irish Kerns, Galley-Slaves (torch-bearers), Falconers (torch-bearers), Palmers (torch-bearers), Turkish Commoners (torch-bearers), Huntresses, Venuses, Nymphs, and Turkish Women. Some of these were no longer serviceable and became fees; the rest were gradually pulled to pieces during 1555-60 and used with fresh material in constructing new sets. As a result the inventory of 1560 contains none of the sets of 1555, but seventeen of later origin, Patriarchs, Actaeons, Hunters (torch-bearers to Actaeons), Nusquams, Turkish Commoners (torch-bearers to Nusquams, not the set of 1555), Barbarians, Venetian Commoners (torch-bearers to Barbarians), Clowns, Hinds (torch-bearers to Clowns), Swart Rutters, Almayns (torch-bearers to Swart Rutters, although not so described), Moors, Diana and her Nymphs, Maidens (torch-bearers to Diana), Italian Women, Fishwives, and Marketwives. The rere-account shows that in the interim between 1555 and 1560 eleven other sets had come into existence and been picked to pieces again. There were Almayns (not the 1560 set), Palmers (not the 1555 set), Irishmen (not the 1555 set), Hungarians, Conquerors, Mariners, or Shipmen (not the 1555 set), Moorish friars (torch-bearers), Fishermen (torch-bearers), Astronomers, and unnamed torch-bearers to Astronomers and to Patriarchs. A number of ecclesiastical costumes had also been made, of which a few were still in store in 1560, and which evidently belong to the mask described by Il Schifanoya. It seems clear from the Revels Accounts that the only new mask between 1555 and the end of Mary's reign was one of Almayns, Pilgrims, and Irishmen on 25 April 1557 (Feuillerat, Edw and M. 225). This accounts for three of the twelve interim sets. The other nine and the seventeen in the 1560 inventory must all be Elizabethan. The documents give or indicate dates for most of them. A process of exclusions obliges us to place the Conquerors, Moors, and Hungarians in the early part of 1559. Here are three vacant dates. Il Schifanoya tells us that there was a second company of maskers on Shrove Sunday, besides the Swart Rutters, whom the accounts assign to that day. The Hungarians would be appropriate antagonists to the Swart Rutters. There were also two unspecified masks at the time of the Coronation, one on the next day, 16 Jan., the other 'on the Sondaye seven nighte after the Coronacion', which as 15 Jan. was itself a Sunday, probably means 22 rather than 29 Jan. As part of the garments of the Moors had previously been used for the Conquerors (Feuillerat, Eliz. 20), the Moors must have been the later of the two. The masks of 11 July and 6 August 1559 were probably not given at the royal cost, as the Revels documents are quite silent about them. My list agrees in the main with that in Wallace, i. 199, which however has some errors. There is no evidence for masks on 2 Feb. and 6 Feb. 1559. The list in Feuillerat, Eliz. xiii, is incomplete.

[537] Brantôme, Hommes illustres et Capitaines françois (ed. Buchon, i. 312), 'La reyne ... donna un soir à soupper, où après se fit un ballet de ses filles, qu'elle avoit ordonné et dressé, représentant les vierges de l'Évangile, desquelles les unes avoient leurs lampes allumées, et les autres n'avoient ny huille ny feu, et en demandoient. Ces lampes estoient d'argent, fort gentiment faictes et elabourées; et les dames estoient très-belles, bien honnestes et bien apprises, qui prindrent nous autres François pour dancer.'

[538] Machyn, 275, 276, 'The furst day of Feybruary at nyght was the goodlyest masket cam owt of London that ever was seen, of a C. and d' [? 150] gorgyously be-sene, and a C. cheynes of gold, and as for trumpettes and drumes, and as for torchelyghte a ij hundered, and so to the cowrt, and dyvers goodly men of armes in gylt harnes, and Julyus Sesar played.' The last word is in a later hand, and according to Wallace, i. 200, is a nineteenth-century forgery.

[539] M. S. C. i. 144; Collier, i. 178; from Lansd. MS. v, f. 126, endorsed 'Maij 1562'. A warrant of 10 May 1562 for the delivery of silks for masks and revels to the Master of the Revels is in Feuillerat, Eliz. 114.

[540] I strongly suspect that the second night's mask was really intended to be one of lords, not ladies.

[541] Machyn, 300. Machyn, 215, 222, 248, 288, 300, records several masks in the City during 1559-63. The diary ends in August 1563.

[542] Feuillerat, Eliz. 116, 'the ixᵗʰ of Iune repayringe and new makinge of thre maskes with thare hole furniture and diuers devisses and a castle ffor ladies and a harboure ffor lords and thre harrolds and iiij trompetours too bringe in the devise with the men of armes and showen at the courtte of Richmond before the Quenes Maiestie and the ffrench embassitours, &c.'

[543] Froude, vii. 199; De Silva to Philip (Sp. P. i. 367, 385), 'after supper ... the Queen came out to the hall, which was lit with many torches, where the comedy was represented. I should not have understood much of it, if the Queen had not interpreted, as she told me she would do. They generally deal with marriage in the comedies.... The comedy ended, and then there was a mask of certain gentlemen who entered dressed in black and white, which the Queen told me were her colours, and after dancing a while one of them approached and handed the Queen a sonnet in English, praising her.' A banquet followed, ending at 2 a.m.

[544] Feuillerat, Eliz. 116, 'Cristmas ... canvas to couer diuers townes and howsses and other devisses and clowds for a maske and a showe and a play by the childerne of the chaple.... The xviijᵗʰ of Fabruarie ... provicions for a play maid by Sir Percivall Hartts sones with a mask of huntars and diuers devisses and a rocke, or hill for the ix musses to singe vppone with a vayne of sarsnett dravven vpp and downe before them.... Shroftid ... foure maskes too of them nott occupied nor sene with thare hole furniture which be verie fayr and riche of old stuf butt new garnished with frenge and tassells to seme new'; cf. De Silva to Philip of the revel after a tilt on 5 March (Sp. P. i. 404). It began after supper with 'a comedy in English of which I understood just as much as the Queen told me. The plot was founded on the question of marriage, discussed between Juno and Diana, Juno advocating marriage and Diana chastity. Jupiter gave a verdict in favour of matrimony, after many things had passed on both sides in defence of the respective arguments. The Queen turned to me and said, "This is all against me". After the comedy there was a masquerade of Satyrs, or wild gods, who danced with the ladies, and when this was finished there entered 10 parties of 12 gentlemen each, the same who fought in the foot tourney, and these, all armed as they were, danced with the ladies; a very novel ball, surely.'

[545] Hume, Year after Armada, 283; De Silva to Philip (Sp. P. i. 452), 'a ball, a tourney, and two masks'. These were after supper and ended at 1.30 a.m.

[546] Pound's speeches are in Rawl. Poet. MS. 108 (Bodl. MS. 14601), f. 24; De Silva to Philip (July 1566, Sp. P. i. 565), 'a masquerade and a long ball, after which they entered in new disguises for a foot tournament'. The chief challenger was Ormond. On Pound's career as a masker and its strange end, cf. ch. xxiii.

[547] Feuillerat, Eliz. 119, 'the altering and newe makinge of sixe maskes out of ould stuff with torche bearers thervnto wherof iiijᵒʳ hathe byne shewene before vs, and two remayne vnshewen', 124, 125, 126.

[548] Ibid. 129, 134, 139, 146.

[549] Fleay, 19; Brotanek, 25. But the resemblances are only partial, cf. M. S. C. i. 144.

[550] Feuillerat, Eliz. 153.

[551] G. Gascoigne, A devise of a Maske for the right honorable Viscount Mountacute (Works, i. 75, from The Posies of 1575). The date is fixed by Thomas Giles's letter.

[552] The reproductions in Strutt, Manners and Customs, iii, pl. xi, and Withington, i. 208, omit the wedding table. The pictures must be later than Sir H. Unton's death in 1596. Ashmole, Berks, iii. 313, dates his wedding with Dorothy, daughter of Sir Thomas Wroughton of Broad Hinton, Wilts, in 1580.

[553] Feuillerat, Eliz. 409.

[554] Ibid., Eliz. 171-81, 'gloves for maskers', 'the lordes gloves', 'the torcheberers gloves', 'ladye maskers', 'women maskers', 'Haunce Eottes for painting of patternes for maskes', 'the masks on New Yeres daye', 'the dubble mask', 'a keye for Janus', 'ffyn white lam to make snoballs', 'spunges for snoballs', 'musk kumfettes ... corianders ... clove cumfettes ... synamon kumfettes ... rose water ... spike water ... gynger cumfettes ... all whiche served for fflakes of yse and hayle stones in the maske of Ianvs the roze water sweetened the balls made for snow-balles presented to her Maiestie by Ianvs', 'a nett for the ffishers maskers', 'berdes for fyshers vj', curled heare for fyshers capps', 'roches counterfet ... whitings ... thornebackes ... smeltes ... mackerells ... fflownders', 'wooll to stuf the fishes', 'banketting frutes', 'basketes of ffrute', 'mowldes to cast the frutes and ffishes in'.

[555] Ibid. 183, 191.

[556] Ibid. 193-221.

[557] Cf. p. 87.

[558] Feuillerat, Eliz. 234-46, 'vj bandes for hattes for maskers', 'gloves for ... maskers', '23ᵒ Decembris ... Mirors or looking-glasses for the pedlers mask xij small at ijˢ the peece and vj greater at iiijˢ the peece', '29ᵒ Decembris ... ffayer wryting of pozies for the mask', '6ᵒ Ianuarii ... ix little hampers at xxᵈ the peece for the pedlers mask', 'ffyne yolow to wryte vpon the mirrors'.

[559] Laneham, 33; cf. chh. iv, p. 123, and xxiv.

[560] Feuillerat, Eliz. 264-70.

[561] Cf. ch. xxiv.

[562] Feuillerat, Eliz. 286, 294; Sp. P. ii. 627, 630, 'an entertainment in imitation of a tournament, between six ladies and a like number of gentlemen who surrendered to them'. Mr. Tresham and Mr. Knowles were Knights.

[563] Ibid. 308.

[564] Ibid. 340, 345, '1ᵒ Aprilis 1581, what monnie is to be allowed in prest for certayne shewes to be had at Whitehal ... The Mounte, Dragon with the fyer workes, Castell with the fallyng sydes, Tree with shyldes, Hermytage and hermytt, Savages, Enchaunter, Charryott, and incydentes to theis cc markes'.

[565] Ibid. 344 (table), 346.

[566] Ibid. 349.

[567] Ibid. 360 (table). The Jervoise MSS. (H. M. C. Various MSS. iv. 163) contain verses dated 1586 for a mask from Basingstoke to Richard Pawlett, doubtless a kinsman of the Marquis of Winchester at Basing.

[568] Feuillerat, Eliz. 365, 378. A mask followed the play of Catiline, with which Lord Burghley was entertained at Gray's Inn on 16 Jan. 1588 (M. S. C. i. 179).

[569] Feuillerat, Eliz. 392.

[570] Arthur Throgmorton to Robert Cecil (Hatfield MSS. v. 99; cf. Sh. Homage, 158), 'Matter of mirth from a good mind can minister no matter of malice, both being, as I believe, far from such sourness (and for myself I will answer for soundness). I am bold to write my determination, grounded upon grief and true duty to the Queen, thankfulness to my lord of Derby (whose honourable brother honoured my marriage), and to assure you I bear no spleen to yourself. If I may I mind to come in a masque, brought in by the nine muses, whose music, I hope, shall so modify the easy softened mind of her Majesty as both I and mine may find mercy. The song, the substance I have herewith sent you, myself, whilst the singing, to lie prostrate at her Majesty's feet till she says she will save me. Upon my resurrection the song shall be delivered by one of the muses, with a ring made for a wedding ring set round with diamonds, and with a ruby like a heart placed in a coronet, with this inscription Elizabetha potest. I durst not do this before I had acquainted you here with, understanding her Majesty had appointed the masquers, which resolution hath made me the unreadier: yet, if this night I may know her Majesty's leave and your liking, I hope not to come too late, though the time be short for such a show and my preparations posted for such a presence. I desire to come in before the other masque, for I am sorrowful and solemn, and my stay shall not be long. I rest upon your resolution, which must be for this business to-night or not at all.'

[571] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 417, and ch. xxiv.

[572] Cf. J. A. Manning, Memoirs of Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, 9, and Mediaeval Stage, i. 416, where, however, the date suggested is the Christmas of 1599-1600. But the Court was not in London that winter, and the indications of days of the week agree with 1597-8. The manuscript description written by Rudyerd is dated 'anno ab aula condita 27'. The Middle Temple hall was built in 1572. The masks in this hall were on 31 Dec. and 7 and 21 Jan. The maskers were accompanied to Court on 6 Jan. by nine torch-bearers carrying devices, eleven knights, eleven squires, and a hundred other torches, as well as trumpeters and heralds. 'Sur Martino', no doubt Richard Martin, the Prince d'Amour, was their leader. Doubtless they took out ladies, as Mrs. Nevill, afterwards a maid of honour, is said to have 'borne the bell away' in the revels.

[573] Boississe, i. 415. He says that some gentlemen masked with the filles, of which there is no trace in the other accounts. Letters from Lady Russell about the wedding are in Cecil Papers, x. 121, 175, and it is also referred to by Chamberlain, 79, 83. 'I doubt not but you have heard of the great mariage at the Lady Russell's ... and of the maske of eight maides of honour and other gentlewomen in name of the muses that came to seeke one of theire fellowes', and by Rowland Whyte (Sydney Papers, ii. 195, 197, 201, 203),'Mʳˢ Fitton led, and after they had done all their own ceremonies, these eight Ladies Maskers chose eight Ladies more to dance the measures. Mʳˢ Fitton went to the Queen, and wooed her to dance; her Majesty asked what she was. "Affection," she said. "Affection!" said the Queen, "Affection is false." Yet her Majesty rose and danced.' A picture of the Marcus Gheeraerts school (cf. L. Cust in Trans. Walpole Soc. iii. 22) probably representing Elizabeth's passage through Blackfriars on this occasion is extant in two versions at Melbury and Sherborne, and has often been reproduced; e. g. in Shakespeare's England, i. f.p.

[574] Popham to Cecil, 8 Feb. 1602 (Hatfield MSS. xii. 47), 'I have so dealt with some of the Benchers of the Middle Temple as I have brought that the House will be willing to bear 200 marks towards the charge of what is wished to be done, to her Majesty's good liking, and if the young gentlemen will be drawn in to perform what is of their part, I hope it will be effected. Some of the young men have their humors, but I hope that will be over-ruled, for I send for them as soon as other business of her Majesty is dispatched. But the Ancients of the House, who wish all to be done to her Majesty's best content, depend upon your favour if anything through young men's error should not have that carriage in the course of it, as they would wish it might not yet be imputed unto them.' There is no reference to any mask in the records of the Middle Temple, which in 1601-2 kept a 'solemn' but not a 'grand' Christmas.

[575] Manningham, 1, 'Song to the Queene at the Maske at Court, Nov. 2'. The Song begins, 'Mighty Princes of a fruitfull land'. The November of 1602 is the only one covered by the period of the diary; but Elizabeth was then at Richmond, rather out of reach of a lawyers' mask.

[576] An Italian model for such printed descriptions may be found in that of G. Cecchi's Florentine Esaltazione della Croce (1589); cf. A. D'Ancona, Sacre Rappresentazioni, iii. 1, 235; Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, iv. 282.

[577] J. A. Lester, Some Franco-Scottish Influences on the Early English Drama (Haverford Essays, 1909), 145, notes the vogue of the mask at Holyrood under Mary Stuart and the pompae written for such occasions by Buchanan. He asserts that Anne acquired the taste for masks during her thirteen years' residence in Scotland, but in fact he cites no example of a mask proper during 1590-1603, and only one, in 1581, during the reign of James. There were other forms of mimetic revelry. The pageants introduced by Bastien Pagez into a banquet at the baptism of James in 1566 and accompanied with verses by Buchanan are analogous to those at the baptism of Henry Frederick in 1594 (Somers Tracts, ii. 179).