Note 1431 — Chapter XVII · MASKS AND MISRULE

A Chronicle of London (†1442, ed. N. H. Nicolas or E. Tyrrell, 1827), 85 ‘to have sclayn the kyng ... be a mommynge’; Incerti Scriptoris Chronicon (before 1455, ed. J. A. Giles), 7 ‘conduxerunt lusores Londoniam, ad inducendum regi praetextum gaudii et laetitiae iuxta temporis dispositionem, ludum nuncupatum Anglice Mummynge’; Capgrave, Chronicle of England (†1464, R. S.), 275 ‘undir the coloure of mummeris in Cristmasse tyme’; An English Chronicle (†1461-71, C. S.), 20 ‘to make a mommyng to the king ... and in that mommyng they purposid to sle him’; Fabian, Chronicle, 567 ‘a dysguysynge or a mummynge.’ But other chroniclers say that the outbreak was to be at a tournament, e. g. Continuatio Eulogii (R. S. ix), iii. 385; Annales Henrici (R. S. xxviii), 323 ‘Sub simulatione natalitiorum vel hastiludiorum.’ I suppose ‘natalitia’ is ‘Christmas games’ and might cover a mumming. Hall, Chronicle (ed. 1809), 16, makes it ‘justes.’ So does Holinshed (ed. 1586), iii. 514, 516, but he knew both versions; ‘them that write how the king should have beene made awaie at a justs; and other that testifie, how it should have been at a maske or mummerie’; cf. Wylie, Henry the Fourth, i. 93; Ramsay, L. and Y. i. 20.