Volume 3 / Book 5 — BOOK V PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS (continued 7)

Catiline his Conspiracy. 1611

1611. Catiline his Conspiracy. Written by Ben: Ionson. For Walter Burre. [Epistles to William Earl of Pembroke, and to the Reader, both signed ‘Ben. Jonson’; Commendatory Verses, signed ‘Franc: Beaumont’, ‘John Fletcher’, ‘Nat. Field’.]

1616. Catiline his Conspiracy. A Tragoedie. Acted in the yeere 1611. By the Kings Maiesties Seruants. The Author B. I. William Stansby. [Part of F₁. After text: ‘This Tragœdie was first Acted, in the yeere 1611. By the Kings Maiesties Servants. The principall Tragœdians were, Ric. Burbadge, Ioh. Hemings, Alex. Cooke, Hen. Condel, Ioh. Lowin, Ioh. Underwood, Wil. Ostler, Nic. Tooly, Ric. Robinson, Wil. Eglestone.’]

1635.... ‘now Acted by his Maiesties Servants’.... N. Okes for I. S.

Edition by L. H. Harris (1916, Yale Studies, liii).—Dissertation: A. Vogt, B. J.’s Tragödie C. und ihre Quellen (1905, Halle diss.).

Bartholomew Fair. 1614

1631. Bartholomew Fayre: A Comedie, Acted in the Yeare, 1614. By the Lady Elizabeths Seruants. And then dedicated to King Iames of most Blessed Memorie; By the Author, Beniamin Iohnson. I. B. for Robert Allot. [Part of F₂. Prologue to the King; Induction; Epilogue. Jonson wrote (n.d.) to the Earl of Newcastle (Harl. MS. 4955, quoted in Gifford’s memoir and by Brinsley Nicholson in 4 N. Q. v. 574): ‘It is the lewd printer’s fault that I can send ... no more of my book. I sent you one piece before, The Fair, ... and now I send you this other morsel, The fine gentleman that walks the town, The Fiend; but before he will perfect the rest I fear he will come himself to be a part under the title of The Absolute Knave, which he hath played with me.’]

Edition by C. S. Alden (1904, Yale Studies, xxv).—Dissertation: C. R. Baskervill, Some Parallels to B. F. (1908, M. P. vi. 109).

No dedication to James, other than the prologue and epilogue, appears to be preserved, but Aubrey, ii. 14, says that ‘King James made him write against the Puritans, who began to be troublesome in his time’. The play was given at Court on 1 Nov. 1614 (App. B), and a mock indenture between the author and the spectators at the Hope, on 31 Oct. 1614, is recited in the Induction and presumably fixes the date of production. One must not therefore assume that a ballad of Rome for Company in Bartholomew Faire, registered on 22 Oct. 1614 (Arber, iii. 554), was aimed at Jonson. Greg, Henslowe Papers, 78, follows Malone and Fleay, i. 80, in inferring from a mention of a forthcoming ‘Johnsons play’ in a letter of 13 Nov. 1613 from Daborne to Henslowe that the production may have been intended for 1613, but I think that Daborne refers to the revival of Eastward Ho! The Induction describes the locality of the Hope as ‘being as durty as Smithfield, and as stinking euery whit’, and possibly glances at the Winter’s Tale and Tempest in disclaiming the introduction of ‘a Seruant-monster’ and ‘a nest of Antiques’, since the author is ‘loth to make Nature afraid in his Playes, like those that beget Tales, Tempests, and such like Drolleries’. There is no actor-list, but in V. iii ‘Your best Actor. Your Field?’ is referred to on a level with ‘your Burbage’. Similarly the puppet Leander is said to shake his head ‘like an hostler’ and it is declared that ‘one Taylor, would goe neere to beat all this company, with a hand bound behinde him’. Field and Taylor were both of the Lady Elizabeth’s men in 1614, while the allusion to Ostler of the King’s men is apparently satirical. The suggestion of Ordish, 225, that Taylor is the water poet, who had recently appeared on the Hope stage, is less probable. The ‘word out of the play, Palemon’ (IV. iii) is set against another, Argalus ‘out of the Arcadia’, and might therefore, as Fleay, i. 377, thinks, refer to Daniel’s Queen’s Arcadia (1605), but the Palamon of T. N. K. was probably quite recent. I see no reason to accept Fleay’s identification of Littlewit with Daniel; that of Lanthorn Leatherhead with Inigo Jones is more plausible. Gifford suggested that the burlesque puppet-play of Damon and Pythias in V. iv may have been retrieved by Jonson from earlier work, perhaps for the real puppet-stage, since ‘Old Cole’ is a character, and in Satiromastix Horace is called ‘puppet-teacher’ (1980) and in another passage (607) ‘olde Coale’, and told that Crispinus and Demetrius ‘shal be thy Damons and thou their Pithyasse’.

The Devil Is An Ass 1616

1631. The Diuell is an Asse: A Comedie Acted in the yeare, 1616. By His Maiesties Seruants. The Author Ben: Ionson. I. B. for Robert Allot. [Part of F₂. Prologue and Epilogue. The play is referred to in Jonson’s letter to the Earl of Newcastle, quoted under Bartholomew Fair.]

1641. Imprinted at London.

Edition by W. S. Johnson (1905, Yale Studies, xxix).—Dissertation: E. Holstein, Verhältnis von B. J.’s D. A. und John Wilson’s Belphegor zu Machiavelli’s Novelle vom Belfagor (1901).

In the play itself are introduced references to a performance of The Devil as a new play, to its playbill, to the Blackfriars as the house, and to Dick Robinson as a player of female parts (I. iv. 43; vi. 31; II. viii. 64; III. v. 38). Probably the production was towards the end rather than the beginning of 1616.

Lost Plays

I do not feel able to accept the view, expounded by Fleay, i. 370, 386, and adopted by some later writers, that A Tale of a Tub, licensed by Herbert on 7 May 1633, was only a revision of one of Jonson’s Elizabethan plays. It appears to rest almost wholly upon references to a ‘queen’. These are purely dramatic, and part of an attempt to give the action an old-fashioned setting. The queen intended is not Elizabeth, but Mary. There are also references to ‘last King Harry’s time’ (I. ii), ‘King Edward, our late liege and sovereign lord’ (I. v). A character says, ‘He was King Harry’s doctor and my god-phere’ (IV. i). The priest is ‘Canon’ or ‘Sir’ Hugh, and has a ‘Latin tongue’ (III. vii). ‘Old John Heywood’ is alive (V. ii).

In 1619 Jonson told Drummond (Laing, 27) ‘That the half of his Comedies were not in print’. The unprinted ones of course included Bartholomew Fair and The Devil is an Ass. He went on to describe ‘a pastorall intitled The May Lord’, in which he figured himself as Alkin. As it had a ‘first storie’, it may not have been dramatic. But Alkin appears in The Sad Shepherd, a fragment of a dramatic pastoral, printed in F₂ with a prologue in which Jonson describes himself as ‘He that hath feasted you these forty yeares’, and which therefore cannot have been written long before his death in 1637. This is edited by W. W. Greg (1905, Materialien, xi) with an elaborate discussion in which he arrives at the sound conclusions that the theory of its substantial identity with The May Lord must be rejected, and that there is no definite evidence to oppose to the apparent indication of its date in the prologue.

It is doubtful whether any of Jonson’s early work for Pembroke’s and the Admiral’s, except perhaps The Case is Altered, ever found its way into print. The record of all the following plays, except the first, is in Henslowe’s diary (cf. Greg, Henslowe, ii. 288).

(a) The Isle of Dogs.

See s.v. Nashe.

(b) On 3 Dec. 1597 he received £1 ‘vpon a boocke w^ch he showed the plotte vnto the company w^ch he promysed to dd vnto the company at crysmas’. It is just possible that this was Dido and Aeneas, produced by the Admiral’s on 8 Jan. 1598. But no further payment to Jonson is recorded, and it is more likely that Dido and Aeneas was taken over from Pembroke’s repertory; and it may be that Jonson had not carried out his contract before the fray with Spencer in Sept. 1598, and that this is the ‘Bengemens plotte’ on which Chapman was writing a tragedy on the following 23 Oct. The theory that it is the Fall of Mortimer, still little more than a plot when Jonson died, may safely be rejected (Henslowe, ii. 188, 199, 224).

(c) Hot Anger Soon Cold.

Written with Chettle and Porter in Aug. 1598 (Henslowe, ii. 196).

(d) Page of Plymouth.

Written with Dekker in Aug. and Sept. 1599 (Henslowe, ii. 205).

(e) Robert the Second, King of Scots.

A tragedy, written with Chettle, Dekker, ‘& other Jentellman’ (probably Marston) in Sept. 1599 (Henslowe, ii. 205).

(f) Additions to Jeronimo.

See s.v. Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.

(g) Richard Crookback.

For this Jonson received a sum ‘in earnest’ on 22 June 1602, but it is not certain that it was ever finished (Henslowe, ii, 222).

Doubtful Plays

Jonson’s hand has been sought in The Captain of the Beaumont (q.v.) and Fletcher series, and the anonymous Puritan (cf. ch. xxiv).

MASKS

Mask of Blackness. 6 Jan. 1605

[MS.] Brit. Mus. Royal MS. 17 B. xxxi. [‘The Twelvth Nights Reuells.’ Not holograph, but signed ‘Hos ego versiculos feci. Ben. Jonson.’ A shorter text than that of the printed descriptions, in present tense, as for a programme.]

S. R. 1608, April 21 (Buck). ‘The Characters of Twoo Royall Maskes. Invented by Ben. Johnson.’ Thomas Thorpe (Arber, iii. 375).

N.D. The Characters of Two royall Masques. The one of Blacknesse, The other of Beautie. personated By the most magnificent of Queenes Anne Queene of Great Britaine, &c. With her honorable Ladyes, 1605. and 1608. at Whitehall: and Inuented by Ben: Ionson. For Thomas Thorp.

1616. The Queenes Masques. The first, Of Blacknesse: Personated at the Court, at White-Hall, on the Twelu’th night, 1605. [Part of F₁.]

Edition in J. P. Collier, Five Court Masques (1848, Sh. Soc. from MS.).

The maskers, in azure and silver, were twelve nymphs, ‘negroes and the daughters of Niger’; the torchbearers, in sea-green, Oceaniae; the presenters Oceanus, Niger, and Aethiopia the Moon; the musicians Tritons, Sea-maids, and Echoes.

The locality was the old Elizabethan banqueting-house at Whitehall (Carleton; Office of Works). The curtain represented a ‘landtschap’ of woods with hunting scenes, ‘which falling’, according to the Quarto, ‘an artificial sea was seen to shoot forth’. The MS. describes the landscape as ‘drawne uppon a downe right cloth, strayned for the scene, ... which openinge in manner of a curtine’, the sea shoots forth. On the sea were the maskers in a concave shell, and the torchbearers borne by sea-monsters.

The maskers, on landing, presented their fans. They gave ‘their own single dance’, and then made ‘choice of their men’ for ‘several measures and corantoes’. A final dance took them back to their shell.

This was a Queen’s mask, danced by the Queen, the Countesses of Bedford, Derby, and Suffolk, the Ladies Rich, Bevill, Howard of Effingham, Wroth, and Walsingham, Lady Elizabeth Howard, Anne Lady Herbert, and Susan Lady Herbert. The ‘bodily part’ was the ‘design and act’ of Inigo Jones.

Sir Thomas Edmondes told Lord Shrewsbury on 5 Dec. that the mask was to cost the Exchequer £3,000 (Lodge, iii. 114). The same sum was stated by Chamberlain to Winwood on 18 Dec. to have been ‘delivered a month ago’ (Winwood, ii. 41). Molin (V. P. x. 201) reported the amount on 19 Dec. as 25,000 crowns. On 12 Dec. John Packer wrote to Winwood of the preparations, and after naming some of the maskers added, ‘The Lady of Northumberland is excused by sickness, Lady Hartford by the measles. Lady of Nottingham hath the polypus in her nostril, which some fear must be cut off. The Lady Hatton would feign have had a part, but some unknown reason kept her out’ (Winwood, ii. 39). The performance was described by Carleton to Winwood, as following the creation of Prince Charles as Duke of York on 6 Jan. (Winwood, ii. 44): ‘At night we had the Queen’s maske in the Banquetting-House, or rather her pagent. There was a great engine at the lower end of the room, which had motion, and in it were the images of sea-horses with other terrible fishes, which were ridden by Moors: The indecorum was, that there was all fish and no water. At the further end was a great shell in form of a skallop, wherein were four seats; on the lowest sat the Queen with my Lady Bedford; on the rest were placed the Ladies Suffolk, Darby, Rich, Effingham, Ann Herbert, Susan Herbert, Elizabeth Howard, Walsingham, and Bevil. Their apparell was rich, but too light and curtizan-like for such great ones. Instead of vizzards, their faces, and arms up to the elbows, were painted black, which was disguise sufficient, for they were hard to be known; but it became them nothing so well as their red and white, and you cannot imagine a more ugly sight, then a troop of lean-cheek’d Moors. The Spanish and Venetian ambassadors were both present, and sate by the King in state, at which Monsieur Beaumont quarrells so extreamly, that he saith the whole court is Spanish. But by his favour, he should fall out with none but himself, for they were all indifferently invited to come as private men, to a private sport; which he refusing, the Spanish ambassador willingly accepted, and being there, seeing no cause to the contrary, he put off Don Taxis, and took upon him El Señor Embaxadour, wherein he outstript our little Monsieur. He was ... taken out to dance, and footed it like a lusty old gallant with his country woman. He took out the Queen, and forgot not to kiss her hand, though there was danger it would have left a mark on his lips. The night’s work was concluded with a banquet in the great Chamber, which was so furiously assaulted, that down went table and tressels before one bit was touched.’ Carleton gives some additional information in another account, which he sent to Chamberlain on 7 Jan. (S. P. D. Jac. I, xii. 6, quoted by Sullivan, 28), as that the ‘black faces and hands, which were painted and bare up to the elbowes, was a very lothsome sight’, and he was ‘sory that strangers should see owr court so strangely disguised’; that ‘the confusion in getting in was so great, that some Ladies lie by it and complain of the fury of the white stafes’; that ‘in the passages through the galleries they were shutt up in several heapes betwixt dores and there stayed till all was ended’; and that there were losses ‘of chaynes, jewels, purces and such like loose ware’. References in letters to one Benson and by the Earl of Errol to Cecil (S. P. D. Jac. I, xii. 16; xix. 25) add nothing material. Carleton’s account of the triumph of the Spanish ambassador is confirmed by reports of the Venetian (V. P. x. 212) and French (B. M. King’s MS. cxxvii, ff. 117, 127^v, 177^v; cf. Sullivan, 196–8) ambassadors. Beaumont had pleaded illness in order to avoid attending a mask on 27 Dec. 1604 in private, and the Court chose to assume that he was still ill on 6 Jan. This gave De Taxis and Molin an opening to get their private invitations converted into public ones. Beaumont lost his temper and accused Sir Lewis Lewknor and other officials of intriguing against him, but he had to accept his defeat.

The Accounts of the Master of the Revels (Cunningham, 204) record ‘The Queens Ma^tis Maske of Moures with Aleven Laydies of honnour’ as given on 6 Jan. Reyher, 358, 520, notes references to the mask in accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber and of the Office of Works, and quotes from the latter items for ‘framinge and settinge vpp of a great stage in the banquettinge house xl foote square and iiij^or foote in heighte with wheeles to goe on ... framinge and settinge vpp an other stage’.

Many of the notices of the Queen’s mask also refer to another mask which was performed ‘among the noblemen and gentlemen’ (Lodge, iii. 114) on 27 Dec. 1604, at the wedding of Sir Philip Herbert and Lady Susan Vere, daughter of the Earl of Oxford. The bride was herself a dancer in the Queen’s mask. The wedding mask, the subject of which was Juno and Hymenaeus, is unfortunately lost. The Revels Accounts (Cunningham, 204) tell us that it was ‘presented by the Earl of Pembroke, the Lord Willowbie and 6 Knightes more of the Court’, and Stowe’s Chronicle, 856, briefly records ‘braue Masks of the most noble ladies’. Carleton gave Winwood details of the wedding, and said (Winwood, ii. 43): ‘At night there was a mask in the Hall, which for conceit and fashion was suitable to the occasion. The actors were the Earle of Pembrook, the Lord Willoby, Sir Samuel [James?] Hays, Sir Thomas Germain, Sir Robert Cary, Sir John Lee, Sir Richard Preston, and Sir Thomas Bager. There was no smal loss that night of chaines and jewells, and many great ladies were made shorter by the skirts, and were well enough served that they could keep cut no better.’ Carleton wrote to Chamberlain (S. P. D. Jac. I, xii. 6, quoted by Sullivan, 25): ‘Theyre conceit was a representacion of Junoes temple at the lower end of the great hall, which was vawted and within it the maskers seated with staves of lights about them, and it was no ill shew. They were brought in by the fower seasons of the yeare and Hymeneus: which for songs and speaches was as goode as a play. Theyre apparel was rather costly then cumly; but theyr dancing full of life and variety; onely S^r Tho: Germain had lead in his heales and sometimes forgott what he was doing.’ There was a diplomatic contretemps on this occasion. At the wedding dinner the Venetian ambassador Molin was given precedence of the Queen’s brother, the Duke of Holstein, to the annoyance of the latter. But after dinner Molin was led to a closet and forgotten there until supper was already begun. Meanwhile the Duke took his place. There was a personal apology from the King, and at the mask Molin was given a stool in the royal box to the right of the King, and the Duke one to the left of the Queen. He preferred to stand for three hours rather than make use of it (Winwood, ii. 43; Sullivan, 25; V. P. x. 206).

Carleton wrote to Winwood (ii. 44), ‘They say the Duke of Holst will come upon us with an after reckoning, and that we shall see him on Candlemas night in a mask, as he hath shewed himself a lusty reveller all this Christmas’. But if this mask ever took place, nothing is known of it.

Hymenaei. 5 Jan. 1606

1606. Hymenaei: or The Solemnities of Masque, and Barriers, Magnificently performed on the eleventh, and twelfth Nights, from Christmas; At Court: To the auspicious celebrating of the Marriage-vnion, betweene Robert, Earle of Essex, and the Lady Frances, second Daughter to the most noble Earle of Suffolke. By Ben: Ionson. Valentine Sims for Thomas Thorp.

1616. Hymenaei, or The solemnities of Masque and Barriers at a Marriage. [Part of F₁.]

This was a double mask of eight men and eight women. The men, in carnation cloth of silver, with variously coloured mantles and watchet cloth of silver bases, were Humours and Affections; the women, in white cloth of silver, with carnation and blue undergarments, the Powers of Juno; the presenters Hymen, with a bride, bridegroom, and bridal train, Reason, and Order; the musicians the Hours.

The locality was probably the Elizabethan banqueting-house, which seems to have been repaired in 1604 (Reyher, 340). ‘The scene being drawn’ discovered first an altar for Hymen and ‘a microcosm or globe’, which turned and disclosed the men maskers in a ‘mine’ or ‘grot’. On either side of the globe stood great statues of Hercules and Atlas. They bore up the ‘upper part of the scene’, representing clouds, which opened to disclose the upper regions, whence the women descended on nimbi.

Each set of maskers had a dance at entry. They then danced together a measure with strains ‘all notably different, some of them formed into letters very signifying to the name of the bridegroom’. This done, they ‘dissolved’ and took forth others for measures, galliards, and corantoes. After these ‘intermixed dances’ came ‘their last dances’, and they departed in a bridal procession with an epithalamion.

The mask was in honour of the wedding of the Earl of Essex and Frances Howard, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, and was probably given by their friends. The only Household expenses appear to have been for the making ready of the room (Reyher, 520), but Lady Rutland’s share seems to have cost the Earl over £100 (Hist. MSS. Rutland Accounts, iv. 457). The dancers were the Countesses of Montgomery, Bedford, and Rutland, the Ladies Knollys, Berkeley, Dorothy Hastings, and Blanch Somerset, and Mrs. A. Sackville, with the Earls of Montgomery and Arundel, Lords Willoughby and Howard de Walden, Sir James Hay, Sir Thomas Howard, Sir Thomas Somerset, and Sir John Ashley. The ‘design and act’ and the device of the costumes were by Inigo Jones, the songs by Alphonso Ferrabosco, and the dances by Thomas Giles.

On the next day followed a Barriers, in which, after a dialogue by Jonson between Truth and Opinion, sixteen knights fought on the side of either disputant (cf. vol. i, p. 146).

The following account was sent by John Pory to Sir Robert Cotton on 7 Jan. (B.M. Cotton MS. Julius C. iii. 301, printed in Goodman, ii. 124; Collier, i. 350; Birch, i. 42; Sullivan, 199):

‘I haue seen both the mask on Sunday and the barriers on Mundy night. The Bridegroom carried himself as grauely and gracefully as if he were of his fathers age. He had greater guiftes giuen him then my lord Montgomery had, his plate being valued at 3000£ and his jewels, mony and other guiftes at 1600£ more. But to returne to the maske; both Inigo, Ben, and the actors men and women did their partes with great commendation. The conceite or soule of the mask was Hymen bringing in a bride and Juno pronuba’s priest a bridegroom, proclaiming those two should be sacrificed to nuptial vnion, and here the poet made an apostrophe to the vnion of the kingdoms. But before the sacrifice could be performed, Ben Jonson turned the globe of the earth standing behind the altar, and within the concaue sate the 8 men maskers representing the 4 humours and the fower affections which leapt forth to disturb the sacrifice to vnion; but amidst their fury Reason that sate aboue them all, crowned with burning tapers, came down and silenced them. These eight together with Reason their moderatresse mounted aboue their heades, sate somewhat like the ladies in the scallop shell the last year. Aboue the globe of erth houered a middle region of cloudes in the center wherof stood a grand consort of musicians, and vpon the cantons or hornes sate the ladies 4 at one corner, and 4 at another, who descended vpon the stage, not after the stale downright perpendicular fashion, like a bucket into a well; but came gently sloping down. These eight, after the sacrifice was ended, represented the 8 nuptial powers of Juno pronuba who came downe to confirme the vnion. The men were clad in crimzon and the weomen in white. They had euery one a white plume of the richest herons fethers, and were so rich in jewels vpon their heades as was most glorious. I think they hired and borrowed all the principal jewels and ropes of perle both in court and citty. The Spanish ambassador seemed but poore to the meanest of them. They danced all variety of dances, both seuerally and promiscue; and then the women took in men as namely the Prince (who danced with as great perfection and as setled a maiesty as could be deuised) the Spanish ambassador, the Archdukes, Ambassador, the Duke, etc., and the men gleaned out the Queen, the bride, and the greatest of the ladies. The second night the barriers were as well performed by fifteen against fifteen; the Duke of Lennox being chieftain on the one side, and my Lord of Sussex on the other.’

Mask of Beauty. 10 Jan. 1608

S. R. 1608, 21 April. [See Mask of Blackness.]

N.D. [See Mask of Blackness.]

1616. The Second Masque. Which was of Beautie; Was presented in the same Court, at White-Hall, on the Sunday night after the Twelfth Night. 1608. [Part of F₁.] The maskers, in orange-tawny and silver and green and silver, were the twelve Daughters of Niger of the Mask of Blackness, now laved white, with four more; the torchbearers Cupids; the presenters January, Boreas, Vulturnus, Thamesis; the musicians Echoes and Shades of old Poets.

The locality was the new banqueting-house at Whitehall. January was throned in midst of the house. The curtain, representing Night, was drawn to discover the maskers on a Throne of Beauty, borne by a floating isle.

The maskers gave two dances, which were repeated at the King’s request, and then danced ‘with the lords’. They danced galliards and corantoes. They then gave a third dance, and a fourth, which took them into their throne again.

This was a Queen’s mask, danced by the Queen, Arabella Stuart, the Countesses of Arundel, Derby, Bedford, and Montgomery, and the Ladies Elizabeth Guildford, Katherine Petre, Anne Winter, Windsor, Anne Clifford, Mary Neville, Elizabeth Hatton, Elizabeth Gerard, Chichester, and Walsingham. The torchbearers were ‘chosen out of the best and ingenious youth of the Kingdom’. The scene was ‘put in act’ by the King’s master carpenter. Thomas Giles made the dances and played Thamesis.

The mask was announced by 9 Dec. (V. P. xi. 74). On 10 Dec. La Boderie (ii. 490) reported that it would cost 6,000 or 7,000 crowns, and that nearly all the ladies invited by the Queen to take part in it were Catholics. Anne’s preparations were in swing before 17 Dec. (V. P. xi. 76). On 22 Dec. La Boderie reported (iii. 6) that he had underestimated the cost, which would not be less than 30,000 crowns, and was causing much annoyance to the Privy Council. On 31 Dec. Donne (Letters, i. 182) intended to deliver a letter ‘when the rage of the mask is past’. Lord Arundel notes his wife’s practising early in Jan. (Lodge, App. 124). The original date was 6 Jan. ‘The Mask goes forward for Twelfth-day’, wrote Chamberlain to Carleton on 5 Jan. (S. P. D. Jac. I, xxxi. 2; Birch, i. 69), ‘though I doubt the new room will be scant ready’. But on 8 Jan. (S. P. D. Jac. I, xxxi. 4; Birch, i. 71) he wrote again:

‘We had great hopes of having you here this day, and then I would not have given my part of the mask for any of their places that shall be present, for I suppose you and your lady would find easily passage, being so befriended; for the show is put off till Sunday, by reason that all things are not ready. Whatsoever the device may be, and what success they may have in their dancing, yet you would have been sure to have seen great riches in jewels, when one lady, and that under a baroness, is said to be furnished far better then a hundred thousand pounds. And the Lady Arabella goes beyond her; and the queen must not come behind.’

The delay was really due to ambassadorial complications, which are reported by Giustinian (V. P. xi. 83, 86) and very fully by La Boderie (iii. 1–75; cf. Sullivan, 35, 201). The original intention was to invite the Spanish and Venetian, but not the French and Flemish ambassadors. This, according to Giustinian, offended La Boderie, because Venice was ‘the nobler company’. But the real sting lay in the invitation to Spain. This was represented to La Boderie about 23 Dec. as the personal act of Anne, in the face of a remonstrance by James on the ground of the preference already shown to Spain in 1605. La Boderie replied that he had already been slighted at the King of Denmark’s visit, that the mask was a public occasion, and that Henri would certainly hold James responsible. A few days later he was told that James was greatly annoyed at his wife’s levity, and would ask him and the Venetian ambassador to dinner; but La Boderie refused to accept this as a compliment equivalent to seeing the Queen dance, and supping with the King before 10,000 persons. He urged that both ambassadors or neither should be invited, and hinted that, if Anne was so openly Spanish in her tendencies, Henri might feel obliged to leave the mission in charge of a secretary. An offer was made to invite La Boderie’s wife, but this he naturally refused. The Council tried in vain to make Anne hear reason, but finally let the mask proceed, and countered Henri diplomatically by calling his attention to the money debts due from France to England. Meanwhile Giustinian had pressed for his own invitation in place of the Flemish ambassador, and obtained it. The Spanish and Venetian ambassadors were therefore present. La Boderie reported that much attention was paid to Giustinian, and little to the Spanish ambassador, and also that James was so angry with Anne that he left for a hunting trip the next day without seeing her. Giustinian admired the mask, which was, James told him (V. P. xi. 86), ‘to consecrate the birth of the Great Hall, which his predecessors had left him built merely in wood, but which he had converted into stone’. Probably this is the mask described in a letter of Lady Pembroke to Lord Shrewsbury calendared without date among letters of 1607–8 in Lodge, iii, App. 121. On 28 Jan. the Spanish ambassador invited the fifteen ladies who had danced to dinner (Lodge, iii. 223; La Boderie, iii. 81). On 29 Jan. Lord Lisle wrote to the Earl of Shrewsbury regretting that he could not send him the verses, because Ben Jonson was busy writing more for the Haddington wedding (Lodge, App. 102).

A warrant for expenses was signed 11 Dec. (S. P. D. Jac. I, xxviii). A payment was made to Bethell (Reyher, 520).

Lord Haddington’s Mask [The Hue and Cry after Cupid]. 9 Feb. 1608

N.D. The Description of the Masque. With the Nuptiall Songs. Celebrating the happy Marriage of Iohn, Lord Ramsey, Viscount Hadington, with the Lady Elizabeth Ratcliffe, Daughter to the right Honor: Robert, Earle of Sussex. At Court On the Shroue-Tuesday at night. 1608. Deuised by Ben: Ionson. [No imprint.]

1616. [Part of F₁.] The maskers were the twelve Signs of the Zodiac in carnation and silver; the antimaskers Cupid and twelve Joci and Risus, who danced ‘with their antic faces’; the presenters Venus, the Graces and Cupid, Hymen, Vulcan and the Cyclopes; the musicians Priests of Hymen, while the Cyclopes beat time with their sledges.

Pilasters hung with amorous trophies supported gigantic figures of Triumph and Victory ‘in place of the arch, and holding a gyrlond of myrtle for the key’. The scene was a steep red cliff (Radcliffe), over which clouds broke for the issue of the chariot of Venus. After the antimasque, the cliff parted, to discover the maskers in a turning sphere of silver. The maskers gave four dances, interspersed with verses of an epithalamion. The mask was given by the maskers, seven Scottish and five English lords and gentlemen, the Duke of Lennox, the Earls of Arundel, Pembroke, and Montgomery, Lords D’Aubigny, De Walden, Hay, and Sanquhar, the Master of Mar, Sir Robert Rich, Sir John Kennedy, and Mr. Erskine. (Quarto and Lodge, iii. 223.) The ‘device and act of the scene’ were supplied by Inigo Jones, the tunes by Alphonso Ferrabosco, and two dances each by Hierome Herne and Thomas Giles, who also beat time as Cyclopes.

Rowland White told Lord Shrewsbury on 26 Jan. that the mask was ‘now the only thing thought upon at court’, and would cost the maskers about £300 a man (Lodge, iii. 223). Jonson was busy with the verses on 29 Jan. (Lodge, App. 102).

Sussex and Haddington intended to ask the French ambassador both to the wedding dinner and to the mask and banquet, but the Lord Chamberlain, having Spanish sympathies, would not consent. In the end he was asked by James himself to the mask and banquet, at which Prince Henry would preside. He accepted, and suggested that Henri should present Haddington with a ring, but this was not done. He thought the mask ‘assez maigre’, but Anne was very gracious, and James regretted that etiquette did not allow him to sit at the banquet in person. La Boderie’s wife and daughter, who danced with the Duke of York, were also present. Unfortunately he did not receive in time an instruction from Paris to keep away if the Flemish ambassador was asked, and did not protest against this invitation on his own responsibility, partly out of annoyance with the Venetian for attending the Queen’s mask without him, and partly for fear of losing his own invitation. The Fleming had had far less consideration than himself (La Boderie, iii. 75–144). So both the French and the Flemish ambassador were present, with two princes of Saxony (V. P. xi. 97).

English criticisms were more kindly than La Boderie’s. Sir Henry Saville described it to Sir Richard Beaumont on the same night as a ‘singular brave mask’, at which he had been until three in the morning (Beaumont Papers, 17), and Chamberlain wrote to Carleton on 11 Feb. (S. P. D. Jac. I, xxxi. 26; Birch, i. 72): ‘I can send you no perfect relation of the marriage nor mask on Tuesday, only they say all, but especially the motions, were well performed; as Venus, with her chariot drawn by swans, coming in a cloud to seek her son; who with his companions, Lusus, Risus, and Janus [? Jocus], and four or five more wags, were dancing a matachina, and acted it very antiquely, before the twelve signs, who were the master maskers, descended from the zodiac, and played their parts more gravely, being very gracefully attired.’

Mask of Queens. 2 Feb. 1609

[MSS.] (a) B.M. Harl. MS. 6947, f. 143 (printed Reyher, 506). [Apparently a short descriptive analysis or programme, without the words of the dialogue and songs.]

(b) B.M. Royal MS. 18 A. xlv. [Holograph. Epistle to Prince Henry.]

S. R. 1609, Feb. 22 (Segar). ‘A booke called, The maske of Queenes Celebrated, done by Beniamin Johnson.’ Richard Bonion and Henry Walley (Arber, iii. 402).

1609. The Masque of Queenes Celebrated From the House of Fame: By the most absolute in all State, And Titles. Anne, Queene of Great Britaine, &c. With her Honourable Ladies. At White-Hall, Febr. 2. 1609. Written by Ben: Ionson. N. Okes for R. Bonian and H. Wally. [Epistle to Prince Henry.]

1616. [Part of F₁.]

Edition in J. P. Collier, Five Court Masques (1848, Sh. Soc. from Royal MS.).

Jonson prefaces that ‘because Her Majesty (best knowing that a principal part of life in these spectacles lay in their variety) had commanded me to think on some dance, or shew, that might precede hers, and have the place of a foil, or false masque: I was careful to decline, not only from others, but mine own steps in that kind, since the last year, I had an antimasque of boys; and therefore now devised that twelve women, in the habit of hags or witches, sustaining the persons of Ignorance, Suspicion, Credulity, &c., the opposites to good Fame, should fill that part, not as a masque, but as a spectacle of strangeness’ [it is called a ‘maske’ in the programme] ‘producing multiplicity of gesture, and not unaptly sorting with the current and whole fall of the device’.

The maskers, in various habits, eight designs for which are in Sh. England, ii. 311, were Bel-Anna and eleven other Queens, who were attended by torchbearers; the antimaskers eleven Hags and their dame Ate; the presenters Perseus or Heroic Virtue and Fame.

The locality was the new banqueting-house at Whitehall (T. of C. Acct., quoted by Sullivan, 54). The scene at first represented a Hell, whence the antimask issued. In the middle of a ‘magical dance’ it vanished at a blast of music, ‘and the whole face of the scene altered’, becoming the House of Fame, a ‘machina versatilis’, which showed first Perseus and the maskers and then Fame. Descending, the maskers made their entry in three chariots, to which the Hags were bound. They danced their first and second dances; then ‘took out the men, and danced the measures’ for nearly an hour. After an interval for a song, came their third dance, ‘graphically disposed into letters, and honouring the name of the most sweet and ingenious Prince, Charles Duke of York’. Galliards and corantoes followed, and after their ‘last dance’ they returned in their chariots to the House of Fame.

This was a Queen’s mask, danced by the Queen, the Countesses of Arundel, Derby, Huntingdon, Bedford, Essex, and Montgomery, the Viscountess Cranborne, and the Ladies Elizabeth Guildford, Anne Winter, Windsor, and Anne Clifford. Inigo Jones was responsible for the attire of the Hags, and ‘the invention and architecture of the whole scene and machine’; Alphonso Ferrabosco for the airs of the songs; Thomas Giles for the third dance, and Hierome Herne for the dance of Hags. John Allen, ‘her Majesty’s servant’, sang a ditty between the measures and the third dance.

As early as 14 Nov. Donne wrote to Sir Henry Goodyere (Letters, i. 199), ‘The King ... hath left with the Queen a commandment to meditate upon a masque for Christmas, so that they grow serious about that already’. The performance was originally intended for 6 Jan. (V. P. xi. 219), but on 10 Jan. Chamberlain wrote to Carleton (Birch, i. 87), ‘The mask at court is put off till Candlemas, as it is thought the Spaniard may be gone, for the French ambassador hath been so long and so much neglected, that it is doubted more would not be well endured’. The intrigues which determined this delay are described in the diplomatic correspondence of the French and Venetian ambassadors (La Boderie, iv. 104, 123, 136, 145, 175, 228; V. P. xi. 212, 219, 222, 231, 234; cf. Sullivan, 47, 212). Hints of a rapprochement between France and Spain had made James anxious to conciliate Henri IV. Even Anne had learnt discretion, and desired that La Boderie should be present at the mask. He was advised by Salisbury to ask for an invitation, which he did, through his wife and Lady Bedford. He had instructions from Henri to retire from Court and leave a secretary in charge if his master’s dignity was compromised. Unfortunately the Spanish ambassador leiger was reinforced by an ambassador extraordinary, Don Fernandez de Girone, and took advantage of this to press on his side for an invitation. Etiquette gave a precedence to ambassadors extraordinary, and all that could be done was to wait until Don Fernandez was gone. This was not until 1 Feb. La Boderie was at the mask, and treated with much courtesy. He excused himself from dancing, but the Duke of York took out his daughter, and he supped with the King and the princes. He found the mask ‘fort riche, et s’il m’est loisible de le dire, plus superbe qu’ingenieux’. He also thought that of the ‘intermédes’ there were ‘trop et d’assez tristes’. The Spanish influence, however, was sufficiently strong, when exercised on behalf of Flanders, to disappoint the Venetian ambassador of a promised invitation, and La Boderie was the only diplomatic representative present. Anne asked Correr to come privately, but this he would not do, and she said she should trouble herself no more about masks.

It was at first intended to limit the cost of the mask to £1,000, but on 27 Nov. Sir Thomas Lake wrote to Salisbury that the King would allow a ‘reasonable encrease’ upon this, and had agreed that certain lords should sign and allow bills for the charges (S. P. D. Jac. I, xxxvii. 96, printed and misdated 1607 in Sullivan, 201). This duty was apparently assigned to Lord Suffolk as Lord Chamberlain and Lord Worcester as Master of the Horse, in whose names a warrant was issued on 1 Dec. (S. P. D. Jac. I, xxxviii. 1). The financial documents cited by Reyher, 520, suggest that the actual payments passed through the hands of Inigo Jones and Henry Reynolds. Reyher, 72, reckons the total cost at near £5,000. This seems very high. A contemporary writer, W. Ffarrington (Chetham Soc. xxxix. 151), gives the estimate of ‘them that had a hand in the business as “at the leaste two thousand pounde”’.

Oberon, the Faery Prince. 1 Jan. 1611

1616. Oberon the Faery Prince. A Masque of Prince Henries. W. Stansby, sold by Richard Meighen. [Part of F₁.]

The maskers were Oberon and his Knights, accompanied by the Faies, ‘some bearing lights’; the antimaskers Satyrs; the presenters Sylvans; some of the musicians Satyrs and Faies.

This was ‘a very stately maske ... in the beautifull roome at Whitehall, which roome is generally called the Banquetting-house; and the King new builded it about foure yeeres past’ (Stowe, Annales, 910). ‘The first face of the scene’ was a cliff, from which the antimask issued. The scene opened to discover the front of a palace, and this again, after ‘an antick dance’ ended by the crowing of the cock, to disclose ‘the nation of Faies’, with the maskers on ‘sieges’ and Oberon in a chariot drawn by two white bears. ‘The lesser Faies’ danced; then came a first and second ‘masque-dance’, then ‘measures, corantos, galliards, etc.’, and finally a ‘last dance into the work’.

This was a Prince’s mask, and clearly Henry was Oberon, but the names of the other maskers are not preserved.

Henry’s preparation for a mask is mentioned on 15 Nov. by Correr, who reports that he would have liked it to be on horseback, if James had consented (V. P. xii. 79), on 3 Dec. by Thomas Screven (Rutland MSS. iv. 211), ‘The Prince is com to St. James and prepareth for a mask’, and on 15 Dec. by John More (Winwood, iii. 239), ‘Yet doth the Prince make but one mask’.

The diplomatic tendency at this time was to detach France from growing relations from Spain, and it was intended that both the masks of the winter 1610–11 should serve to entertain the Marshal de Laverdin, expected as ambassador extraordinary from Paris for the signature of a treaty. But the Regent Marie de Médicis was not anxious to emphasize the occasion, and the Marshal did not arrive in time for the Prince’s mask, which took place on 1 Jan. ‘It looked’, says Correr, ‘as though he did not understand the honour done him by the King and the Prince.’ The Spanish and Venetian ambassadors were therefore invited, and were present. The Dutch ambassador was invited, but professed illness, to avoid complications with the Spaniard. Correr found the mask ‘very beautiful throughout, very decorative, but most remarkable for the grace of the Prince’s every movement’ (Rutland MSS. i. 426; V. P. xii. 101, 106; cf. Sullivan, 61).

None of the above notices in fact identify Henry’s mask of 1 Jan. 1611 with the undated Oberon, but proof is forthcoming from an Exchequer payment of May 1611 for ‘the late Princes barriers and masks’ (text in Reyher, 511) which specifies ‘the Satires and faeries’. The amount was £247 9s., and the items include payments to composers, musicians, and players. We learn that [Robert] Johnson and [Thomas] Giles provided the dances, and Alphonse [Ferrabosco] singers and lutenists, that the violins were Thomas Lupo the elder, Alexander Chisan, and Rowland Rubidge, and that ‘xiijⁿ Holt boyes’ were employed, presumably as fays. There is a sum of £15 for ‘players imployed in the maske’ and £15 more for ‘players imployed in the barriers’, about which barriers no more is known. This account, subscribed by Sir Thomas Chaloner, by no means exhausts the expense of the mask. Other financial documents (Devon, 131, 134, 136; cf. Reyher, 521) show payments of £40 each to Jonson and Inigo Jones, and £20 each to Ferrabosco, Jerome Herne, and Confess. These were from the Exchequer. An additional £16 to Inigo Jones ‘devyser for the saide maske’ fell upon Henry’s privy purse, together with heavy bills to mercers and other tradesmen, amounting to £1,076 6s. 10d. (Cunningham, viii, from Audit Office Declared Accts.). Correr had reported on 22 Nov. that neither of the masks of this winter was to ‘be so costly as last year’s, which to say sooth was excessively costly’ (V. P. xii. 86). The anticipation can hardly have been fulfilled. I suppose that ‘last year’s’ means the Tethys’ Festival of June 1610, as no mask during the winter of 1609–10 is traceable.

Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly. 3 Feb. 1611

1616. A Masque of her Maiesties. Love freed from Ignorance and Folly. W. Stansby, sold by Richard Meighen. [Part of F₁.]

The maskers were eleven Daughters of the Morn, led by the Queen of the Orient; the antimaskers twelve Follies or She-Fools; the presenters Cupid and Ignorance, a Sphinx; the musicians twelve Priests of the Muses, who also danced a measure, and three Graces, with others.

The locality was probably the banqueting-hall. The scene is not described. There were two ‘masque-dances’, with ‘measures and revels’ between them. This was a Queen’s mask, but the names of the maskers are not preserved.

John More wrote on 15 Dec. (Winwood, iii. 239), ‘Yet doth the Prince make but one mask, and the Queen but two, which doth cost her majesty but £600.’ Perhaps the writer was mistaken. Anne had not given more than one mask in any winter, nor is there any trace of a second in that of 1610–11. Correr, on 22 Nov., anticipates one only, not to be so costly as last year’s. It was to precede the Prince’s. It was, however, put off to Twelfth Night, and then again to Candlemas, ‘either because the stage machinery is not in order, or because their Majesties thought it well to let the Marshal depart first’. This was Marshal de Laverdin, whose departure from France as ambassador extraordinary was delayed (cf. Mask of Oberon). He was present at the mask when it actually took place on 3 Feb., the day after Candlemas. Apparently the Venetian ambassador was also invited. (V. P. xii. 86, 101, 106, 110, 115.)

Several financial documents bearing on the mask exist (S. P. D. Jac. I, lvii, Nov.; Devon, 135; Reyher, 509, 521), and show that the contemplated £600 was in fact exceeded. An account signed by the Earls of Suffolk and Worcester, to whom the oversight of the charges was doubtless assigned as Household officers, shows that in addition to £600 14s. 3d. spent in defraying the bills of Inigo Jones and others and in rewards, there was a further expenditure of £118 7s. by the Wardrobe, and even then no items are included for the dresses of the main maskers, which were probably paid for by the wearers. The rewards include £2 each to five boys who played the Graces, Sphinx, and Cupid, and £1 each to the twelve Fools. This enables us to identify Jonson’s undated mask with that of 1611. Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones had £40 each; Alphonso [Ferrabosco] £20 for the songs; [Robert] Johnson and Thomas Lupo £5 each for setting the songs to lutes and setting the dances to violins, and Confess and Bochan £50 and £20 for teaching the dances.

Love Restored. 6 Jan. 1612

1616. Love Restored, In a Masque at Court, by Gentlemen the Kings Seruants. W. Stansby, sold by Richard Meighen. [Part of F₁.]

The maskers were the ten Ornaments of Court—Honour, Courtesy, Valour, Urbanity, Confidence, Alacrity, Promptness, Industry, Hability, Reality; the presenters Masquerado, Plutus, Robin Goodfellow, and Cupid, who entered in a chariot attended by the maskers. There were three dances. Jonson’s description is exceptionally meagre.

The dialogue finds its humour in the details of mask-presentation themselves. Masquerado, in his vizard, apologizes for the absence of musicians and the hoarseness of ‘the rogue play-boy, that acts Cupid’. Plutus criticizes the expense and the corruption of manners involved in masks. Robin Goodfellow narrates his difficulties in obtaining access. He has tried in vain to get through the Woodyard on to the Terrace, but the Guard pushed him off a ladder into the Verge. The Carpenters’ way also failed him. He has offered, or thought of offering, himself as an ‘enginer’ belonging to the ‘motions’, but they were ‘ceased’; as an old tire-woman; as a musician; as a feather-maker of Blackfriars; as a ‘bombard man’, carrying ‘bouge’ to country ladies who had fasted for the fine sight since seven in the morning; as a citizen’s wife, exposed to the liberties of the ‘black-guard’; as a wireman or a chandler; and finally in his own shape as ‘part of the Device’.

There are several financial documents relating to a mask at Christmas 1611, for which funds were issued to one Meredith Morgan (S. P. D. Jac. I, lxvii, Dec.; lxviii, Jan.; Reyher, 521). The Revels Account (Cunningham, 211) records a ‘princes Mask performed by Gentelmen of his High [ ]’ on 6 Jan. 1612. According to Chamberlain, the Queen was at Greenwich ‘practising for a new mask’ on 20 Nov., but this was put off in December as ‘unseasonable’ so soon after the death of the Queen of Spain (Birch, i. 148, 152). Jonson does not date Love Restored, but Dr. Brotanek has successfully assigned it to 1611–12 on the ground of its reference to ‘the Christmas cut-purse’, of whom Chamberlain wrote to Carleton on 31 Dec. 1611 that ‘a cut-purse, taken in the Chapel Royal, will be executed’ (Brotanek, 347; cf. S. P. D. Jac. I, lxvii. 117, and Bartholomew Fair (1614), III. v. 132). This was one John Selman, executed on 7 Jan. 1612 for picking the pocket of Leonard Barry, servant to Lord Harington, on Christmas Day (Rye, 269). I may add that Robin Goodfellow, when pretending to be concerned with the motions, was asked if he were ‘the fighting bear of last year’, and that the chariot of Oberon on 1 Jan. 1611 was drawn by white bears. There is, of course, nothing inconsistent in a Prince’s mask being performed by King’s servants, and the ‘High[ness]’ of the Revels Account may mean James, just as well as Henry. Simpson (E. M. 1. xxxiv) puts Love Restored in 1613–14, as connected with the tilt (cf. p. 393), but there is no room for it (cf. p. 246).

The Irish Mask. 29 Dec. 1613

1616. The Irish Masque at Court, by Gentlemen the Kings Servants. W. Stansby, sold by Richard Meighen. [Part of F₁.]

The maskers were twelve Irish Gentlemen, first in mantles, then without; the antimaskers their twelve Footmen; the presenters a Citizen and a Gentleman; one of the musicians an Irish bard. The Footmen dance ‘to the bag-pipe and other rude music’, after which the Gentlemen ‘dance forth’ twice.

The antimaskers say that their lords have come to the bridal of ‘ty man Robyne’ to the daughter of ‘Toumaish o’ Shuffolke’, who has knocked them on the pate with his ‘phoyt stick’, as they came by. There are also compliments to ‘King Yamish’, ‘my Mistresh tere’, ‘my little Maishter’, and ‘te vfrow, ty daughter, tat is in Tuchland’. It is therefore easy to supply the date which Jonson omits, as the mask clearly belongs to the series presented in honour of the wedding of Robert Earl of Somerset with the Earl of Suffolk’s daughter during the Christmas of 1613–14. The list in Stowe, Annales, 928 (cf. s.v. Campion), includes one on 29 Dec. by ‘the Prince’s Gentlemen, which pleased the King so well that hee caused them to performe it againe uppon the Monday following’. This was 3 Jan.; the 10 Jan. in Nichols, ii. 718, is a misreading of the evidence in Chamberlain’s letters, which identify the mask as Jonson’s by a notice of the Irish element. On 30 Dec. Chamberlain wrote to Alice Carleton (Birch, i. 285), ‘yesternight there was a medley mask of five English and five Scots, which are called the high dancers, amongst whom Sergeant Boyd, one Abercrombie, and Auchternouty, that was at Padua and Venice, are esteemed the most principal and lofty, but how it succeeded I know not’. Later in the letter he added, probably in reference to this and not Campion’s mask, ‘Sir William Bowyer hath lost his eldest son, Sir Henry. He was a fine dancer, and should have been of the masque, but overheating himself with practising, he fell into the smallpox and died.’ On 5 Jan. he wrote to Dudley Carleton (Birch, i. 287), ‘The—— maskers were so well liked at court the last week that they were appointed to perform again on Monday: yet their device, which was a mimical imitation of the Irish, was not pleasing to many, who think it no time, as the case stands, to exasperate that nation, by making it ridiculous’. On the finance cf. s.v. Campion.

Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists. 6 Jan. 1615

1616. Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists at Court by Gentlemen the Kings Seruants. W. Stansby, sold by Richard Meighen. [Part of F₁.]

The maskers were twelve Sons of Nature; the first antimaskers Alchemists, the second Imperfect Creatures, in helms of limbecs; the presenters Vulcan, Cyclops, Mercury, Nature, and Prometheus, with a chorus of musicians.

The locality was doubtless Whitehall. The scene first discovered was a laboratory. After the antimasks it changed to a bower, whence the maskers descended for ‘the first dance’, ‘the main dance’, and, after dancing with the ladies, ‘their last dance’. Donne (Letters, ii. 65) wrote to Sir Henry Goodyere on 13 Dec. [1614], ‘They are preparing for a masque of gentlemen, in which M^r. Villiers is and M^r. Karre whom I told you before my Lord Chamberlain had brought into the bedchamber’. On 18 Dec. [1614] (ii. 66) he adds, ‘M^r. Villiers ... is here, practising for the masque’. The year-dates can be supplied by comparison with Chamberlain’s letters to Carleton. On 1 Dec. 1614 (S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxviii. 65) Chamberlain wrote, ‘And yet for all this penurious world we speake of a maske this Christmas toward which the King gives 1500£ the principall motiue wherof is thought to be the gracing of younge Villers and to bring him on the stage’. It should be borne in mind that there was at this time an intrigue amongst the Court party opposed to Somerset and the Howards, including Donne’s patroness Lady Bedford, to put forward George Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buckingham, as a rival to the Earl of Somerset in the good graces of James I. On 5 Jan. Chamberlain wrote again (S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxx. 1; Birch, i. 290, but there misdated), ‘Tomorrow night there is a mask at court, but the common voice and preparations promise so little, that it breeds no great expectation’; and on 12 Jan. (S. P. D. lxxx. 4; Birch, i. 356), ‘The only matter I can advertise ... is the success of the mask on Twelfth Night, which was so well liked and applauded, that the King had it represented again the Sunday night after [8 Jan.] in the very same manner, though neither in device nor show was there anything extraordinary, but only excellent dancing; the choice being made of the best, both English and Scots’. He then describes an ambassadorial incident, which is also detailed in a report by Foscarini (V. P. xiii. 317) and by Finett, 19 (cf. Sullivan, 95). The Spanish ambassador refused to appear in public with the Dutch ambassador, although it was shown that his predecessor had already done so, and in the end both withdrew. The Venetian ambassador and Tuscan agent were alone present. An invitation to the French ambassador does not appear to have been in question.

Financial documents (Reyher, 523; S. P. D. lxxx, Mar.) show that one Walter James received Exchequer funds for the mask.

I am not quite sure that Brotanek, 351, is right in identifying Mercury Vindicated with the mask of January 1615 and The Golden Age Restored with that of January 1616, but the evidence is so inconclusive that it is not worth while to disturb his chronology. Mercury Vindicated is not dated in the Folio, but it is printed next before The Golden Age Restored, which is dated ‘1615’. Now it is true that the order of the Folio, as Brotanek points out, appears to be chronological; but it is also true that, at any rate for the masks, the year-dates, by a practice characteristic of Jonson, follow Circumcision and not Annunciation style. One or other principle seems to have been disregarded at the end of the Folio, and who shall say which? Brotanek attempts to support his arrangement by tracing topical allusions (a) in Mercury Vindicated to Court ‘brabbles’ of 1614–15, (b) in The Golden Age Restored to the Somerset esclandre. But there are always ‘brabbles’ in courts, and I can find no references to Somerset at all. Nor is it in the least likely that there would be any. Per contra, I may note that Chamberlain’s description of the ‘device’ in 1615 as not ‘extraordinary’ applies better to The Golden Age Restored than to Mercury Vindicated.

The Golden Age Restored. 1 Jan. 1616

1616. The Golden Age Restor’d. In a Maske at Court, 1615. by the Lords, and Gentlemen, the Kings Seruants. W. Stansby, sold by Richard Meighen. [Part of F₁.]

The maskers were Sons of Phoebus, Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, Spenser, and presumably others; the antimaskers twelve Evils; the presenters Pallas, Astraea, the Iron Age, and the Golden Age, with a chorus of musicians.

The locality was doubtless Whitehall. Pallas descended, and the Evils came from a cave, danced to ‘two drums, trumpets, and a confusion of martial music’, and were turned to statues. The scene changed, and later the scene of light was discovered. After ‘the first dance’ and ‘the main dance’, the maskers danced with the ladies, and then danced ‘the galliards and corantos’.

Finett, 31 (cf. Sullivan, 237), tells us that ‘The King being desirous that the French, Venetian, and Savoyard ambassadors should all be invited to a maske at court prepared for New-years night, an exception comming from the French, was a cause of deferring their invitation till Twelfe night, when the Maske was to be re-acted, ... [They] were received at eight of the clock, the houre assigned (no supper being prepared for them, as at other times, to avoid the trouble incident) and were conducted to the privy gallery by the Lord Chamberlaine and the Lord Danvers appointed (an honour more than had been formerly done to Ambassadors Ordinary) to accompany them, the Master of the Ceremonies being also present. They were all there placed at the maske on the Kings right hand (not right out, but byas forward) first and next to the King the French, next him the Venetian, and next him the Savoyard. At his Majesties left hand sate the Queen, and next her the Prince. The maske being ended, they followed his Majesty to a banquet in the presence, and returned by the way they entered: the followers of the French were placed in a seate reserved for them above over the Kings right hand; the others in one on the left. The Spanish ambassadors son, and the agent of the Arch-Duke (who invited himselfe) were bestowed on the forme where the Lords sit, next beneath the Barons, English, Scotish, and Irish as the sonns of the Ambassador of Venice, and of Savoy had been placed the maske night before, but were this night placed with their countreymen in the gallery mentioned.’

Financial documents (Reyher, 523; S. P. D. lxxxix. 104) show Exchequer payments for the mask to Edmund Sadler and perhaps Meredith Morgan.

On the identification of the mask of 1 and 6 Jan. 1616 with The Golden Age Restored, s.v. Mercury Vindicated.

ENTERTAINMENTS

Althorp Entertainment [The Satyr]. 1603

S. R. 1604, March 19. [See Coronation Entertainment.]

1604. A particular Entertainment of the Queene and Prince their Highnesse to Althrope, at the Right Honourable the Lord Spencers, on Saterday being the 25. of Iune 1603. as they come first into the Kingdome; being written by the same Author [B. Jon:], and not before published. V.S. for Edward Blount. [Appended to the Coronation Entertainment.]

Editions in Works and by Nichols, James (1828), i. 176.

The host, Sir Robert Spencer, of Althorp, Northants, was created Lord Spencer of Wormleighton on 21 July 1603. On arrival (25 June) the Queen and Prince were met in the park by a Satyr, Queen Mab, and a bevy of Fairies, who after a dialogue and song, introduced Spencer’s son John, as a huntsman, to Henry; and a hunt followed. On Monday afternoon (27 June) came Nobody with a speech to introduce ‘a morris of the clowns thereabout’, but this and a parting speech by a youth could not be heard for the throng.

Coronation Entertainment. 1604

S. R. 1604, March 19 (Pasfield). ‘A Parte of the Kinges Maiesties ... Entertainement ... done by Beniamin Johnson.’ Edward Blunt (Arber, iii. 254).

1604. B. Jon: his part of King James his Royall and Magnificent Entertainement through his Honorable Cittie of London, Thurseday the 15. of March, 1603. So much as was presented in the first and last of their Triumphall Arch’s. With his speach made to the last Presentation, in the Strand, erected by the inhabitants of the Dutchy, and Westminster. Also, a briefe Panegyre of his Maiesties first and well auspicated entrance to his high Court of Parliament, on Monday, the 19. of the same Moneth. With other Additions. V.S. for Edward Blount. [This also includes the Althorp Entertainment.]

Editions in Works of Jonson, and by Nichols, James (1828), i. 377.

For other descriptions of the triumph and Jonson’s speeches cf. ch. xxiv, C.

Highgate Entertainment [The Penates]. 1604

1616. [Head-title] A Priuate Entertainment of the King and Queene, on May Day in the Morning, At Sir William Cornwalleis his house, at Highgate. 1604. [Part of F₁.]

Editions in Works and by Nichols, James (1828), i. 431.

The host was Sir William Cornwallis, son of Sir Thomas, of Brome Hall, Suffolk. On arrival, in the morning (1 May), the King and Queen were received by the Penates, and led through the house into the garden, for speeches by Mercury and Maia, and a song by Aurora, Zephyrus, and Flora. In the afternoon was a dialogue in the garden by Mercury and Pan, who served wine from a fountain.

Entertainment of King of Denmark. 1606

1616. [Head-title] The entertainment of the two Kings of Great Brittaine and Denmarke at Theobalds, Iuly 24, 1606. [Part of F₁.]

Editions in Works and by Nichols, James, ii. 70.

This consists only of short speeches by the three Hours to James (in English) and Christian (in Latin) on their entry into the Inner Court at Lord Salisbury’s house of Theobalds, Herts. (24 July), and some Latin inscriptions and epigrams hung on the walls. But the visit lasted until 28 July, and further details are given, not only in the well-known letter of Sir John Harington (cf. ch. vi) but also in The King of Denmarkes Welcome (1606; cf. ch. xxiv), whose author, while omitting to describe ‘manie verie learned, delicate and significant showes and deuises’, because ‘there is no doubt but the author thereof who hath his place equall with the best in those Artes, will himselfe at his leasurable howers publish it in the best perfection’, gives a Song of Welcome, sung under an artificial oak of silk at the gates. Probably this was not Jonson’s, as he did not print it. Bond, i. 505, is hardly justified in reprinting it as Lyly’s.

Theobalds Entertainment. 1607

1616. An Entertainment of King Iames and Queene Anne, at Theobalds, When the House was deliuered vp, with the posession, to the Queene, by the Earle of Salisburie, 22. of May, 1607. The Prince Ianvile, brother to the Duke of Guise, being then present. [Part of F₁.]

Editions in Works and by Nichols, James (1828), ii. 128.

The Genius of the house mourns the departure of his master, but is consoled by Mercury, Good Event, and the three Parcae, and yields the keys to Anne. The performance took place in a gallery, known later as the green gallery, 109 feet long by 12 wide. Boderie, ii. 253, notes the ‘espéce de comedie’, and the presence of Prince de Joinville.

Prince Henry’s Barriers. 6 Jan. 1610

1616. The Speeches at Prince Henries Barriers. [Part of F₁.]

Editions in Works and by Nichols, James (1828), ii. 271.

The barriers had a spectacular setting. The Lady of the Lake is ‘discovered’ and points to her lake and Merlin’s tomb. Arthur is ‘discovered as a star above’. Merlin rises from his tomb. Their speeches lament the decay of chivalry, and foretell its restoration, now that James ‘claims Arthur’s seat’, through a knight, for whom Arthur gives the Lady a shield. The Knight, ‘Meliadus, lord of the isles’, is then ‘discovered’ with his six assistants in a place inscribed ‘St. George’s Portico’. Merlin tells the tale of English history. Chivalry comes forth from a cave, and the barriers take place, after which Merlin pays final compliments to the King and Queen, Henry, Charles, and Elizabeth.

Jonson does not date the piece, but it stands in F₁ between the Masque of Queens (2 Feb. 1609) and Oberon (1 Jan. 1611), and this, with the use of the name Meliadus, enables us to attach it to the barriers of 6 Jan. 1610, of which there is ample record (Stowe, Annales, 574; Cornwallis, Life of Henry, 12; Birch, i. 102; Winwood, iii. 117; V. P. xi. 400, 403, 406, 410, 414). It was Henry’s first public appearance in arms, and he had some difficulty in obtaining the King’s consent, but His Majesty did not wish to cross him. The challenge, speeches for which are summarized by Cornwallis, was on 31 Dec. in the presence-chamber, and until 6 Jan. Henry kept open table at St. James’s at a cost of £100 a day. With him as challengers were the Duke of Lennox, the Earls of Arundel and Southampton, Lord Hay, Sir Thomas Somerset, and Sir Richard Preston. There were fifty-eight defendants, of whom prizes were adjudged to the Earl of Montgomery, Thomas Darcy, and Sir Robert Gordon. Each bout consisted of two pushes with the pike and twelve sword-strokes, and the young prince gave or received that night thirty-two pushes and about 360 strokes. Drummond of Hawthornden, who called his elegy on Henry Tears on the Death of Moeliades, explains the name as an anagram, Miles a Deo.

A Challenge at Tilt. 1 Jan. 1614

1616. A Challenge at Tilt, at a Marriage. [Part of F₁ where it follows upon the mask Love Restored (q.v.), and the type is perhaps arranged so as to suggest a connexion, which can hardly have existed.]

Editions in Works and by Nichols, James (1828), ii. 716.

On the day after the marriage, two Cupids, as pages of the bride and bridegroom, quarrelled and announced the tilt. On 1 Jan. each came in a chariot, with a company of ten knights, of whom the Bride’s were challengers, and introduced and followed the tilting with speeches. Finally, Hymen resolved the dispute.

This tilt was on 1 Jan. 1614, after the wedding of the Earl of Somerset on 26 Dec. 1613, as is clearly shown by a letter of Chamberlain (Birch, i. 287). The bride’s colours were murrey and white, the bridegroom’s green and yellow. The tilters included the Duke of Lennox, the Earls of Rutland, Pembroke, Montgomery, and Dorset, Lords Chandos, Scrope, Compton, North, Hay, Norris, and Dingwall, Lord Walden and his brothers, and Sir Henry Cary.

Lost Entertainment

When James dined with the Merchant Taylors on 16 July 1607 (cf. ch. iv), Jonson wrote a speech of eighteen verses, for recitation by an Angel of Gladness. This ‘pleased his Majesty marvelously well’, but does not seem to have been preserved (Nichols, James, ii. 136; Clode, i. 276).

FRANCIS KINWELMERSHE (>1577–?1580).

A Gray’s Inn lawyer, probably of Charlton, Shropshire, verses by whom are in The Paradise of Dainty Devices (1576).

Jocasta. 1566

Translated with George Gascoigne (q.v.).

THOMAS KYD (1558–94).

Kyd was baptized on 6 Nov. 1558. His father, Francis Kyd, was a London citizen and a scrivener. John Kyd, a stationer, may have been a relative. Thomas entered the Merchant Taylors School in 1565, but there is no evidence that he proceeded to a university. It is possible that he followed his father’s profession before he drifted into literature. He seems to be criticized as translator and playwright in Nashe’s Epistle to Greene’s Menaphon in 1589 (cf. App. C), and a reference there has been rather rashly interpreted as implying that he was the author of an early play on Hamlet. About the same time his reputation was made by The Spanish Tragedy, which came, with Titus Andronicus, to be regarded as the typical drama of its age. Ben Jonson couples ‘sporting Kyd’ with ‘Marlowe’s mighty line’ in recording the early dramatists outshone by Shakespeare. Towards the end of his life Kyd’s relations with Marlowe brought him into trouble. During the years 1590–3 he was in the service of a certain noble lord for whose players Marlowe was in the habit of writing. The two sat in the same room and certain ‘atheistic’ papers of Marlowe’s got mixed up with Kyd’s. On 12 May 1593 Kyd was arrested on a suspicion of being concerned in certain ‘lewd and mutinous libels’ set up on the wall of the Dutch churchyard; the papers were discovered and led to Marlowe (q.v.) being arrested also. Kyd, after his release, wrote to the Lord Keeper, Sir John Puckering, to repudiate the charge of atheism and to explain away his apparent intimacy with Marlowe. It is not certain who the ‘lord’ with whom the two writers were connected may have been; possibly Lord Pembroke or Lord Strange, for whose players Marlowe certainly wrote; possibly also Henry Radcliffe, fourth Earl of Sussex, to whose daughter-in-law Kyd dedicated his translation of Cornelia, after his disgrace, in 1594. Before the end of 1594 Kyd had died intestate in the parish of St. Mary Colchurch, and his parents renounced the administration of his goods.

Collection

1901. F. S. Boas, The Works of T. K. [Includes 1 Jeronimo and Soliman and Perseda.]

Dissertations: K. Markscheffel, T. K.’s Tragödien (1886–7, Jahresbericht des Realgymnasiums zu Weimar); A. Doleschal, Eigenthümlichkeiten der Sprache in T. K.’s Dramen (1888), Der Versbau in T. K.’s Dramen (1891); E. Ritzenfeldt, Der Gebrauch des Pronomens, Artikels und Verbs bei T. K.; G. Sarrazin, T. K. und sein Kreis (1892, incorporating papers in Anglia and E. S.); J. Schick, T. K.’s Todesjahr (1899, Jahrbuch, xxxv. 277); O. Michael, Der Stil in T. K.’s Originaldramen (1905, Berlin diss.); C. Crawford, Concordance to the Works of T. K. (1906–10, Materialien, xv); F. C. Danchin, Études critiques sur C. Marlowe (1913, Revue Germanique, ix. 566); T. L. S. (June, 1921).

The Spanish Tragedy, c. 1589

S. R. 1592, Oct. 6 (Hartwell). ‘A booke whiche is called the Spanishe tragedie of Don Horatio and Bellmipeia.’ Abel Jeffes (Arber, ii. 621). [Against the fee is a note ‘Debitum hoc’. Herbert-Ames, Typographical Antiquities, ii. 1160, quotes from a record in Dec. 1592 of the Stationers’ Company, not given by Arber: ‘Whereas Edw. White and Abell Jeffes have each of them offended, viz. E. W. in having printed the Spanish tragedie belonging to A. J. And A. J. in having printed the Tragedie of Arden of Kent, belonginge to E. W. It is agreed that all the bookes of each impression shalbe confiscated and forfayted according to thordonances to thuse of the poore of the company ... either of them shall pay for a fine 10s. a pece.’]

N.D. The Spanish Tragedie, Containing the lamentable end of Don Horatio, and Bel-Imperia: with the pittiful death of olde Hieronimo. Newly corrected, and amended of such grosse faults as passed in the first impression. Edward Allde for Edward White. [Induction. Greg, Plays, 61, and Boas, xxvii, agree in regarding this as the earliest extant edition. Boas suggests that either it may be White’s illicit print, or, if that print was the ‘first impression’, a later one printed for him by arrangement with Jeffes.]

1594. Abell Jeffes, sold by Edward White.

S. R. 1599, Aug. 13. Transfer ‘salvo iure cuiuscunque’ from Jeffes to W. White (Arber, iii. 146).

1599. William White.

S. R. 1600, Aug. 14. Transfer to Thomas Pavier (Arber, iii. 169).

1602.... Newly corrected, amended, and enlarged with new additions of the Painters part, and others, as it hath of late been diuers times acted. W. White for Thomas Pavier.

1602 (colophon 1603); 1610 (colophon 1611); 1615 (two issues); 1618; 1623 (two issues); 1633.

Editions in Dodsley^1–4 (1744–1874, v), and by T. Hawkins (1773, O. E. D. ii), W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. i), J. M. Manly (1897, Specimens, ii), J. Schick (1898, T. D.; 1901, Litterarhistorische Forschungen, xix). Dissertations: J. A. Worp, Die Fabel der Sp. T. (1894, Jahrbuch, xxix, 183); G. O. Fleischer, Bemerkungen über Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy (1896).

Kyd’s authorship of the play is recorded by Heywood, Apology, 45 (cf. App. C, No. lvii). The only direct evidence as to the date is Ben Jonson’s statement in the Induction to Bartholomew Fair (1614), ‘He that will swear Ieronimo or Andronicus are the best plays yet, shall pass unexcepted at here as a man whose judgment shows it is constant, and hath stood still these five and twenty or thirty years’. This yields 1584–9. Boas, xxx, argues for 1585–7; W. Bang in Englische Studien, xxviii. 229, for 1589. The grounds for a decision are slight, but the latter date seems to me the more plausible in the absence of any clear allusion to the play in Nashe’s (q.v.) Menaphon epistle of that year.

Strange’s men revived Jeronymo on 14 March 1592 and played it sixteen times between that date and 22 Jan. 1593. I agree with Greg (Henslowe, ii. 150, 153) that by Jeronymo Henslowe meant The Spanish Tragedy, and that the performances of it are distinguishable from those which the company was concurrently giving of a related piece called Don Horatio or ‘the comedy of Jeronimo’, which is probably not to be identified with the extant anonymous 1 Jeronimo (q.v.). On 7 Jan. 1597 the play was revived by the Admiral’s and given twelve times between that date and 19 July. Another performance, jointly with Pembroke’s, took place on 11 Oct. Finally, on 25 Sept. 1601 and 22 June 1602, Henslowe made payments to Jonson, on behalf of the Admiral’s, for ‘adicyons’ to the play. At first sight, it would seem natural to suppose that these ‘adicyons’ are the passages (II. v. 46–133; III. ii. 65–129; III. xii^a. 1–157; IV. iv. 168–217) which appear for the first time in the print of 1602. But many critics have found it difficult to see Jonson’s hand in these, notably Castelain, 886, who would assign them to Webster. And as Henslowe marked the play as ‘n. e.’ in 1597, it is probable that there was some substantial revision at that date. There is a confirmation of this view in Jonson’s own mention of ‘the old Hieronimo (as it was first acted)’ in the induction to Cynthia’s Revels (1600). Perhaps the 1597 revival motived Jonson’s quotation of the play by the mouth of Matheo in E. M. I. I. iv, and in Satiromastix, 1522, Dekker suggests that Jonson himself ‘took’st mad Ieronimoes part, to get service among the Mimickes’. Lines from the play are also recited by the page in Poetaster, III. iv. 231. In the Induction, 84, to Marston’s Malcontent (1604) Condell explains the appropriation of that play by the King’s from the Chapel with this retort, ‘Why not Malevole in folio with us, as well as Jeronimo in decimo sexto with them’. Perhaps 1 Jeronimo is meant; in view of the stage history of The Spanish Tragedy, as disclosed by Henslowe’s diary, the King’s could hardly have laid claim to it.

The play was carried by English actors to Germany (Boas, xcix; Creizenach, xxxiii; Herz, 66, 76), and a German adaptation by Jacob Ayrer is printed by Boas, 348, and with others in German and Dutch, in R. Schönwerth, Die niederländischen und deutschen Bearbeitungen von T. K.’s Sp. T. (1903, Litterarhistorische Forschungen, xxvi).

Cornelia. 1593

S. R. 1594, Jan. 26 (Dickins). ‘A booke called Cornelia, Thomas Kydd beinge the Authour.’ Nicholas Ling and John Busbye (Arber, ii. 644).

1594. Cornelia. James Roberts for N. L. and John Busby. [‘Tho. Kyd’ at end of play.]

1595. Pompey the Great, his fair Corneliaes Tragedie. Effected by her Father and Husbandes downe-cast, death, and fortune. Written in French, by that excellent Poet Ro: Garnier; and translated into English by Thomas Kid. For Nicholas Ling. [A reissue of the 1594 sheets with a new title-page.]

Editions in Dodsley⁴, iv. 5 (1874) and by H. Gassner (1894).

A translation of the Cornélie (1574) of Robert Garnier, reissued in his Huit Tragédies (1580). In a dedication to the Countess of Sussex Kyd expressed his intention of also translating the Porcie (1568) of the same writer, but this he did not live to do. He speaks of ‘bitter times and privy broken passions’ endured during the writing of Cornelia which suggests a date after his arrest on 12 May 1593.

Lost and Doubtful Plays

The ‘Ur-Hamlet’

Dissertations: J. Corbin, The German H. and Earlier English Versions (1896, Harvard Studies, v); J. Schick, Die Entstehung des H. (1902, Jahrbuch, xxxviii. xiii); M. B. Evans, Der bestrafte Brudermord, sein Verhältniss zu Shakespeare’s H. (1902); K. Meier (1904, Dresdner Anzeiger); W. Creizenach, Der bestrafte Brudermord and its Relation to Shakespeare’s H. (1904, M. P. ii. 249), Die vorshakespearesche Hamlettragödie (1906, Jahrbuch, xlii. 76); A. E. Jack, Thomas Kyd and the Ur-Hamlet (1905, M. L. A. xx. 729); J. W. Cunliffe, Nash and the Earlier Hamlet (1906, M. L. A. xxi. 193); J. Allen, The Lost H. of K. (1908, Westminster Review); J. Fitzgerald, The Sources of the H. Tragedy (1909); M. J. Wolff, Zum Ur-Hamlet (1912, E. S. xlv. 9); J. M. Robertson, The Problem of Hamlet (1919).

The existence of a play on Hamlet a decade or more before the end of the sixteenth century is established by Henslowe’s note of its revival by the Admiral’s and Chamberlain’s on 11 June 1594 (cf. Greg, Henslowe, ii. 164), and some corroborative allusions, but its relationship to Shakespeare’s play is wholly conjectural. The possible coupling of ‘Kidde’ and ‘Hamlet’ in Nashe’s epistle to Menaphon has led to many speculations as to Kyd’s authorship and as to the lines on which the speculators think he would have treated the theme. Any discussion of these is matter for an account of Hamlet.

Kyd’s hand has also been sought in Arden of Feversham, Contention of York and Lancaster, Edward III, 1 Jeronimo, Leire, Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune, Soliman and Perseda, Taming of A Shrew, and True Tragedy of Richard III (cf. ch. xxiv), and in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus.

MAURICE KYFFIN (?-1599).

A Welshman by birth, he left the service of John Dee, with whom he afterwards kept up friendly relations, on 25 Oct. 1580 (Diary, 10, 15, 48). His epistles suggest that in 1587 he was tutor to Lord Buckhurst’s sons. In 1592 he was vice-treasurer in Normandy. His writings, other than the translation, are unimportant.

Andria of Terence > 1587

1588. Andria The first Comoedie of Terence, in English. A furtherance for the attainment vnto the right knowledge, & true proprietie, of the Latin Tong. And also a commodious meane of help, to such as haue forgotten Latin, for their speedy recouering of habilitie, to vnderstand, write, and speake the same. Carefully translated out of Latin, by Maurice Kyffin. T. E. for Thomas Woodcocke. [Epistle by Kyffin to Henry and Thomas Sackville; commendatory verses by ‘W. Morgan’, ‘Th. Lloid’, ‘G. Camdenus’, ‘Petrus Bizarus’, ‘R. Cooke’; Epistle to William Sackville, dated ‘London, Decemb. 3, 1587’, signed ‘Maurice Kyffin’; Preface to the Reader; Preface by Kyffin to all young Students of the Latin Tongue, signed ‘M. K.’; Argument.]

S. R. 1596, Feb. 9. Transfer of Woodcock’s copies to Paul Linley (Arber, iii. 58).

S. R. 1597, Apr. 21 (Murgetrode). ‘The second Comedy of Terence called Eunuchus.’ Paul Lynley (Arber, iii. 83).

S. R. 1600, June 26. Transfer of ‘The first and second commedie of Terence in Inglishe’ from Paul Linley to John Flasket (Arber, iii. 165).

Presumably the Andria is the ‘first’ comedy of the 1600 transfer, and if so the lost Eunuchus may also have been by Kyffin. The Andria is in prose; Kyffin says he had begun seven years before, nearly finished, and abandoned a version in verse.

JOHN LANCASTER (c. 1588).

A Gray’s Inn lawyer, one of the devisers of dumb-shows and director for the Misfortunes of Arthur of Thomas Hughes (q.v.) in 1588.

SIR HENRY LEE (1531–1611).

[The accounts of Lee in D. N. B. and by Viscount Dillon in Bucks., Berks. and Oxon. Arch. Journ., xii (1906) 65, may be supplemented from Aubrey, ii. 30, J. H. Lea, Genealogical Notes on the Family of Lee of Quarrendon (Genealogist, n.s. viii-xiv), and F. G. Lee in Bucks. Records, iii. 203, 241; iv. 189, The Lees of Quarrendon (Herald and Genealogist, iii. 113, 289, 481), and Genealogy of the Family of Lee (1884).]

Lee belonged to a family claiming a Cheshire origin, which had long been settled in Bucks. From 1441 they were constables and farmers of Quarrendon in the same county, and the manor was granted by Henry VIII to Sir Robert Lee, who was Gentleman Usher of the Chamber and afterwards Knight of the Body. His son Sir Anthony married Margaret, sister of Sir Thomas Wyatt, the poet. Their son Henry was born in 1531, and Aubrey reports the scandal that he was ‘supposed brother to Elizabeth’. He was page of honour to the King, and by 1550 Clerk of the Armoury. He was knighted in 1553. By Sept. 1575 he was Master of the Game at Woodstock (Dasent, ix. 23), and by 1577 Lieutenant of the manor and park (Marshall, Woodstock, 160), holding ‘le highe lodge’ and other royal houses in the locality. Probably he was concerned with the foundation of Queen’s Day (cf. ch. i) in 1570, which certainly originated near Oxford, and when the annual tilting on this day at Whitehall was instituted, Lee acted as Knight of the Crown until his retirement in 1590. He used as his favourite device a crowned pillar. He took some part in the military enterprises of the reign, and in 1578 became Master of the Armoury. In 1597 he was thought of as Vice-Chamberlain, and on 23 April was installed as K.G. He was a great sheep-farmer and encloser of land, and a great builder or enlarger of houses, including Ditchley Hall, four or five miles from Woodstock, in the parish of Spelsbury, where he died on 12 Feb. 1611. By his wife, Anne, daughter of William Lord Paget, who died in 1590, he had two sons and a daughter, who all predeceased him. His will of 6 Oct. 1609 provides for the erection of a tomb in Quarrendon Chapel near his own for ‘M^rs. Ann Vavasor alias Finch’. There are no tombs now, but the inscriptions on Lee’s tomb and on a tablet in the chancel, also not preserved, are recorded. The former says:

and the latter adds:

‘He shone in all those fayer partes that became his profession and vowes, honoring his highly gracious Mistris with reysing those later Olympiads of her Courte, justs and tournaments ... wherein still himself lead and triumphed.’

The writer is William Scott, who also, with Richard Lee, witnessed the will. Anne Vavasour does not in fact appear to have been buried at Quarrendon. Aubrey describes her as ‘his dearest deare’, and says that her effigy was placed at the foot of his on the tomb, and that the bishop threatened to have it removed. Anne’s tomb was in fact defaced as early as 1611. Anne was daughter of Sir Henry and sister of Sir Thomas Vavasour of Copmanthorpe, Yorks. She was a new maid of honour who ‘flourished like the lily and the rose’ in 1590 (Lodge, ii. 423). Another Anne Vavasour came to Court as ‘newly of the beddchamber’ after being Lady Bedford’s ‘woman’, about July 1601 (Gawdy, 112, conjecturally dated; cf. vol. iv, p. 67). Anne Clifford tells us that ‘my cousin Anne Vavisour’ was going with her mother Lady Cumberland and Lady Warwick and herself to meet Queen Anne in 1603, and married Sir Richard Warburton the same year (Wiffen, ii. 69, 72). The Queen is said to have visited Sir Henry and his mistress at a lodge near Woodstock called ‘Little Rest’, now ‘Lee’s Rest’, in 1608. After Lee’s death his successor brought an action against Anne and her brother for illegal detention of his effects (5 N. Q. iii. 294), and the feud was still alive and Anne had added other sins to her score in 1618, when Chamberlain wrote (Birch, ii. 86):

‘M^{rs}. Vavasour, old Sir Henry Lee’s woman, is like to be called in question for having two husbands now alive. Young Sir Henry Lee, the wild oats of Ireland, hath obtained the confiscation of her, if he can prove it without touching her life.’

Aubrey’s story that Lee’s nephew was disinherited in favour of ‘a keeper’s sonne of Whitchwood-forest of his owne name, a one-eied young man, no kinne to him’, is exaggerated gossip. Lee entailed his estate on a second cousin.

I have brought together under Lee’s name two entertainments and fragments of at least one other, which ought strictly to be classed as anonymous, but with which he was certainly concerned, and to which he may have contributed some of the ‘conceiptes, Himmes, Songes & Emblemes’, of which one of the fragments speaks.

The Woodstock Entertainment. Sept. 1575

[MS.] Royal MS. 18 A. xlviii (27). ‘The Tale of Hemetes the Heremyte.’ [The tale is given in four languages, English, Latin, Italian, and French. It is accompanied by pen-and-ink drawings, and preceded by verses and an epistle to Elizabeth. The latter is dated ‘first of January, 1576’ and signed ‘G. Gascoigne’. The English text is, with minor variations, that of the tale as printed in 1585. Its authorship is not claimed by Gascoigne, who says that he has ‘turned the eloquent tale of Hemetes the Heremyte (wherw^th I saw yo^r lerned judgment greatly pleased at Woodstock) into latyne, Italyan and frenche’, and contrasts his own ignorance with ‘thaucto^rs skyll’.]

S. R. 1579, Sept. 22. ‘A paradox provinge by Reason and Example that Baldnes is muche better than bushie heare.’ H. Denham (Arber, ii. 360).

1579. A Paradoxe, Proving by reason and example, that Baldnesse is much better than bushie haire.... Englished by Abraham Fleming. Hereunto is annexed the pleasant tale of Hemetes the Heremite, pronounced before the Queenes Majestie. Newly recognized both in Latine and Englishe, by the said A. F. H. Denham. [Contains the English text of the Tale and Gascoigne’s Latin version.]

1585. Colophon: ‘Imprinted at London for Thomas Cadman, 1585.’ [Originally contained a complete description of an entertainment, of which the tale of Hemetes only formed part; but sig. A, with the title-page, is missing. The unique copy, formerly in the Rowfant library, is now in the B.M. The t.p. is a modern type-facsimile, based on the head-line and colophon (McKerrow, Bibl. Evidence, 306).]

Editions (a) from 1579, by J. Nichols, Eliz. i. 553 (1823), and W. C. Hazlitt, Gascoigne, ii. 135 (1870); (b) from MS. by J. W. Cunliffe, Gascoigne, ii. 473 (1910); (c) from 1585, by A. W. Pollard (1910, partly printed 1903) and J. W. Cunliffe (1911, M. L. A. xxvi. 92).

Gascoigne’s manuscript is chiefly of value as fixing the locality of the entertainment, which is not mentioned in the mutilated print of 1585. The date can hardly be doubtful. Elizabeth spent considerable periods at Woodstock in 1572, 1574, and 1575, but it so happens that only in 1575 was she there on the 20th of a month (vide infra and App. B). Moreover, Laurence Humphrey’s Oratio delivered at Woodstock on 11 Sept. 1575 (Nichols, i. 590) refers to the entertainment in the phrase ‘an ... Gandina spectacula ... dabit’. The description takes the form of a letter from an eyewitness, evidently not the deviser, and professing ignorance of Italian; not, therefore, Gascoigne, as pointed out by Mr. Pollard. At the beginning of sig. B, Hemetes, a hermit, has evidently just interrupted a fight between Loricus and Contarenus. He brings them, with the Lady Caudina, to a bower, where Elizabeth is placed, and tells his Tale, of which the writer says, ‘hee shewed a great proofe of his audacity, in which tale if you marke the woords with this present world, or were acquainted with the state of the deuises, you should finde no lesse hidden then vttered, and no lesse vttered then shoulde deserue a double reading ouer, euen of those (with whom I finde you a companion) that haue disposed their houres to the study of great matters’. The Tale explains how the personages have come together. Contarenus loved Caudina, daughter of Occanon Duke of Cambia. At Occanon’s request, an enchantress bore him away, and put him in charge of the blind hermit, until after seven years he should fight the hardiest knight and see the worthiest lady in the world. Caudina, setting out with two damsels to seek him, met at the grate of Sibilla with Loricus, a knight seeking renown as a means to his mistress’s favour. Sibilla bade them wander, till they found a land in all things best, and with a Princess most worthy. Hemetes himself has been blinded by Venus for loving books as well as a lady, and promised by Apollo the recovery of his sight, where most valiant knights fight, most constant lovers meet, and the worthiest lady looks on. Obviously it is all a compliment to the worthiest lady. Thus the Tale ends. The Queen is now led to the hermit’s abode, an elaborate sylvan banqueting-house, built on a mound forty feet high, roofed by an oak, and hung with pictures and posies of ‘the noble or men of great credite’, some of which the French ambassador made great suit to have. Here Elizabeth was visited by ‘the Queen of the Fayry drawen with 6 children in a waggon of state’, who presented her with an embroidered gown. Couplets or ‘posies’ set in garlands were also given to the Queen, to the Ladies Derby, Warwick, Hunsdon, Howard, Susan and Mary Vere, and to Mistresses Skidmore, Parry, Abbington, Sidney, Hopton, Katherine Howard, Garret, Bridges, Burrough, Knowles, and Frances Howard. After a speech from Caudina, Elizabeth departed, as it was now dark, well pleased with her afternoon, and listening to a song from an oak tree as she went by. A somewhat cryptic passage follows. Elizabeth is said to have left ‘earnest command that the whole in order as it fell, should be brought her in writing, which being done, as I heare, she vsed, besides her owne skill, the helpe of the deuisors, & how thinges were made I know not, but sure I am her Maiesty hath often in speech some part hereof with mirth at the remembrance.’ Then follows a comedy acted on ‘the 20 day of the same moneth’, which ‘was as well thought of, as anye thing ever done before her Maiestie, not onely of her, but of the rest: in such sort that her Graces passions and other the Ladies could not [? but] shew it selfe in open place more than euer hath beene seene’. The comedy, in 991 lines of verse, is in fact a sequel to the Tale. In it Occanon comes to seek Caudina, who is persuaded by his arguments and the mediation of Eambia, the Fairy Queen, to give up her lover for her country’s sake.

Pollard suggests Gascoigne as the author of the comedy, but of this there is no external evidence. He also regards the intention of the whole entertainment as being the advancement of Leicester’s suit. Leicester was no doubt at Woodstock, even before the Queen, for he wrote her a letter from there on 4 Sept. (S. P. D. Eliz. cv. 36); but the undated letter which Pollard cites (cv. 38), and in which Leicester describes himself as ‘in his survey to prepare for her coming’, probably precedes the Kenilworth visit. Pollard dates it 6 Sept., but Elizabeth herself seems to have reached Woodstock by that date. Professor Cunliffe, on the other hand, thinks that the intention was unfavourable to Leicester’s suit, and thus explains the stress laid on Caudina’s renunciation of her lover for political reasons. I doubt if there is any reference to the matter at all; it would have been dangerous matter for a courtly pen. Doubtless the writer of the description talks of ‘audacity’, in the Tale, not the comedy. But has he anything more in mind than Sir Henry Lee, whom we are bound to find, here as elsewhere, in Loricus, and his purely conventional worship of Elizabeth?

The Tilt Yard Entertainment. 17 Nov. 1590

There are two contemporary descriptions, viz.:

1590. Polyhymnia Describing, the Honourable Triumph at Tylt, before her Maiestie, on the 17 of Nouember last past, being the first day of the three and thirtith yeare of her Highnesse raigne. With Sir Henrie Lea, his resignation of honour at Tylt, to her Maiestie, and receiued by the right honorable, the Earle of Cumberland. R. Jones. [Dedication by George Peele to Lord Compton on verso of t.p.]

1602. W. Segar, Honor, Military and Ciuill, Book iii, ch. 54, ‘The Originall occasions of the yeerely Triumphs in England’.

Segar’s account is reproduced by Nichols, Eliz. iii. 41, and both in the editions of Peele (q.v.) by Dyce and Bullen. A manuscript copy with variants from the Q. is at St. John’s College, Oxford (F. S. Boas in M. L. R. xi. 300). Polyhymnia mainly consists of a blank verse description and eulogy of the twenty-six tilters, in couples according to the order of the first running of six courses each, viz. Sir Henry Lee and the Earl of Cumberland, Lord Strange and Thomas Gerrard, Lord Compton and Henry Nowell, Lord Burke and Sir Edward Denny, the Earl of Essex and Fulk Greville, Sir Charles Blount and Thomas Vavasor, Robert Carey and William Gresham, Sir William Knowles and Anthony Cooke, Sir Thomas Knowles and Sir Philip Butler, Robert Knowles and Ralph Bowes, Thomas Sidney and Robert Alexander, John Nedham and Richard Acton, Charles Danvers and Everard Digby. The colours and in some cases the ‘device’ or ‘show’ are indicated. Lee is described as

Strange entered ‘in costly ship’, with the eagle for his device; Essex