In "The Court and Times of King James I.," there is a letter from I. Chamberlaine, dated 23rd December, 1613, in which he says:
"Sir Francis Bacon prepares a masque to honour their marriage which will stand him in above £2,000, and, although he has been offered some help by the House, and especially by Mr. Solicitor Sir Henry Yelverton, who would have sent him £500, yet he would not accept it."
The story of this masque was published the following year, with a dedication "to the verie honourable Sir Francis Bacon, His Majesty's Attorney-General."
The dedication states:
"That you have graced in general the Societies of the Innes of Court in continuing them still as third persons with the nobility and Court, in doing the King honour, and particularly Graie's Inne, which, as you have formerly brought to flourish both in the ancienter and younger sort by countenancing virtue in every quality, so now you have made a notable demonstration thereof in the lighter and less serious kind."
The members of this learned Society did not always, it appears, amuse themselves in so discreet a manner, for there is a letter in the same book, "The Court and Times of James I.," relating that:
"The gentlemen of Gray's Inn, to make an end of Christmas, on Twelfth Night, at the dead time of the night, shot off all the chambers (small cannon), which they had borrowed from the Tower, being as many as filled four carts.
"The King, awakened by this noise, started out of his bed, and cried: 'Treason! treason!' So the City was in an uproar, in such sort, as it is said, that the whole Court was raised, and almost in arms, the Earl of Arundel running to the bed-chamber, with his sword drawn, as to rescue the King's person."
The following sketch of a ticket of admission to the masque at Gray's Inn on the 2nd February, 1682, is taken from Nichol's "Progresses of Elizabeth:"
