[668] Cf. ch. iii.

[669] Feuillerat, Eliz. 110, 153, 168, 345, 392.

[670] Feuillerat, Eliz. 18, 112, et passim.

[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'.

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

[673] They certainly supervised Queens, Tethys' Festival, Love Freed, Lords' Mask.

[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.

[675] Sullivan, 201, misdated 27 Nov. 1607 for 1608, from S. P. D. Jac. I, xxxvii. 96. The mask was Queens.

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

[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'.

[678] Reyher, 72.

[679] Collier, i. 349; Abstract, 13. The Lords' Mask is separately reckoned at £400. This was just about the amount of the 'rewards'.

[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'.

[681] Birch, i. 69.

[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.

[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.

[684] Cf. p. 7.

[685] Cf. App. B, s.a. 1612-13, 1615-16.

[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).

[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.

[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.

[689] Cf. App. B.

[690] There may have been special reasons why the Chapel only got £15 for two plays in 1583-4, Oxford's £6 13s. 4d. 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 6s. 8d. for a 'more rewarde', for plays before James and Henry alike. The payments of 17 May 1615 of £43 6s. 8d. 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.

[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).

[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).

[693] Cf. ch. ii, p. 66.

[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.

[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.

[696] Greg, Henslowe Papers, 109; but his note is a slip.

[697] Cf. ch. xiii (Chamberlain's).

[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.

[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'.

[700] Aphrodysial, v. 5, cited by Reynolds, Percy, 258.

[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).

[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.

[703] Ch. xxiii, s.v. Beaumont; Inderwick, Inner Temple Records, i. lxv, 219; ii. xlix, 23 sqq., 56, 64. A payment of 20s. '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.

[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).

[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.

[706] Manningham, 18.

[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 18s. 2d. 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 6s. 8d. 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.

[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.

[709] Machyn, 221.

[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.

[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'.

[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'.

[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.

[714] Cf. ch. iii, p. 93.

[715] Feuillerat, Eliz. 354, 370, 381, 391; cf. ch. iii, p. 89.

[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).

[717] Feuillerat, Eliz. 337.

[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).

[719] Feuillerat, Eliz. 159, 202, 216, 300, 353, 368, &c. We hear of 'high', 'vice', 'stock', 'pricke', 'plate', and 'hand' candlesticks.

[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.

[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).

[722] Cf. ch. ii, p. 34.

[723] On the woodcut in Three Lords and Three Ladies of London (1590), cf. Bibl. Note to ch. xviii.

[724] Cf. App. A.

[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.

[726] Cf. ch. xii and App. K.

[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.

[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.

[729] Cf. ch. iv.

[730] Cf. p. 234.

[731] Jusserand, Shakespeare in France (tr.), 93, pl. xi.

[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.

[733] Cf. ch. xix.

[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.

[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).

[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.

[737] Feuillerat, Eliz. 134.

[738] Ibid. 176.

[739] Ibid. 119.

[740] Ibid. 320.

[741] Ibid. 336.

[742] Ibid. 349.

[743] Ibid. 365.

[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).

[745] Cf. ch. xix.

[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.

[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).

[748] Feuillerat, Eliz. 306. There were rocks or mountains also in 1574-5, 1579-80, and 1584-5 (244, 320, 365).

[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'.

[750] 'Andramedas picture' ... 'Benbow for playing in the monster' ... 'canvas for a monster' ... 'hoopes for the monster' (ibid. 175, 176, 181).

[751] Ibid. 265.

[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.

[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.

[754] Cf. p. 226, and Plummer (from Bereblock), 138, 'Fiunt igitur in silvis septa marmorea' with three altars.

[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.