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 Mr. Villiers is and Mr. Karre whom I told you before my Lord Chamberlain had brought into the bedchamber’. On 18 Dec. [1614] (ii. 66) he adds, ‘Mr. 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.