Note 1430 — Chapter XVII · MASKS AND MISRULE

Stowe, Survey (ed. Thoms), 37, from a fragment of an English chronicle, in a sixteenth-century hand, in Harl. MS. 247, f. 172v (cf. Archaeologia, xxii. 208). I print the original text, which Stowe paraphrases, introducing, e.g., the term ‘maskers’: ‘At ye same tyme ye Comons of London made great sporte and solemnity to ye yong prince: for upon ye monday next before ye purification of our lady at night and in ye night were 130 men disguizedly aparailed and well mounted on horsebacke to goe on mumming to ye said prince, riding from Newgate through Cheape whear many people saw them with great noyse of minstralsye, trumpets, cornets and shawmes and great plenty of waxe torches lighted and in the beginning they rid 48 after ye maner of esquiers two and two together clothed in cotes and clokes of red say or sendall and their faces covered with vizards well and handsomely made: after these esquiers came 48 like knightes well arayed after ye same maner: after ye knightes came one excellent arrayed and well mounted as he had bene an emperor: after him some 100 yards came one nobly arayed as a pope and after him came 24 arayed like cardinals and after ye cardinals came 8 or 10 arayed and with black vizardes like deuils appearing nothing amiable seeming like legates, riding through London and ouer London bridge towards Kenyton wher ye yong prince made his aboad with his mother and the D. of Lancaster and ye Earles of Cambridge, Hertford Warrick and Suffolk and many other lordes which were with him to hould the solemnity, and when they were come before ye mansion they alighted on foot and entered into ye haule and sone after ye prince and his mother and ye other lordes came out of ye chamber into ye haule, and ye said mummers saluted them, shewing a pair of dice upon a table to play with ye prince, which dice were subtilly made that when ye prince shold cast he shold winne and ye said players and mummers set before ye prince three jewels each after other: and first a balle of gould, then a cupp of gould, then a gould ring, ye which ye said prince wonne at thre castes as before it was appointed, and after that they set before the prince’s mother, the D. of Lancaster, and ye other earles euery one a gould ringe and ye mother and ye lordes wonne them. And then ye prince caused to bring ye wyne and they dronk with great joye, commanding ye minstrels to play and ye trompets began to sound and other instruments to pipe &c. And ye prince and ye lordes dansed on ye one syde, and ye mummers on ye other a great while and then they drank and tooke their leaue and so departed toward London.’ Collier, i. 26, speaks of earlier mummings recorded by Stowe in 1236 and 1298; but Stowe only names ‘pageants’ (cf. ch. xxiii). M. Paris, Chronica Maiora (R. S. lvii), v. 269, mentions ‘vestium transformatarum varietatem’ at the wedding of Alexander III of Scotland and Margaret of England in 1251, but this probably means ‘a succession of rapidly changed robes.’