N.D. F. K. for George Norton.
Edition in Nichols, James (1828), ii. 566.
The maskers, in cloth of silver embroidered with gold, olive-coloured vizards, and feathers on their heads, were Princes of Virginia; the torchbearers also Virginians; the musicians Phoebades or Priests of Virginia; the antimaskers a ‘mocke-maske’ of Baboons; the presenters Plutus, Capriccio a Man of Wit, Honour, Eunomia her Priest, and Phemis her Herald.
The locality was the Hall at Whitehall, whither the maskers rode from the house of the Master of the Rolls, with their musicians and presenters in chariots, Moors to attend their horses, and a large escort of gentlemen and halberdiers. They dismounted in the tiltyard, where the King and lords beheld them from a gallery. The scene represented a high rock, which cracked to emit Capriccio, and had the Temple of Honour on one side, and a hollow tree, ‘the bare receptacle of the baboonerie’, on the other. After ‘the presentment’ and the ‘anticke’ dance of the ‘ante-maske’, the top of the rock opened to disclose the maskers and torchbearers in a mine of gold under the setting sun. They descended by steps within the rock. First the torchbearers ‘performed another ante-maske, dancing with torches lighted at both ends’. Then the maskers danced two dances, followed by others with the ladies, and finally a ‘dance, that brought them off’ to the Temple of Honour.
For general notices of the wedding masks, see ch. xxiv and the account of Campion’s Lords’ mask. The German Beschreibung (1613) gives a long abstract of Chapman’s (extract in Sh.-Jahrbuch, xxix. 172), but this is clearly paraphrased from the author’s own description. It was perhaps natural for Sir Edward Philips to write to Carleton on 25 Feb. (S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxii. 46) that this particular mask was ‘praised above all others’. But Chamberlain is no less laudatory (Birch, i. 226):
‘On Monday night, was the Middle Temple and Lincoln’s Inn mask prepared in the hall at court, whereas the Lords’ was in the banqueting room. It went from the Rolls, all up Fleet Street and the Strand, and made such a gallant and glorious show, that it is highly commended. They had forty gentlemen of best choice out of both houses, and the twelve maskers, with their torchbearers and pages, rode likewise upon horses exceedingly well trapped and furnished, besides a dozen little boys, dressed like baboons, that served for an antimask, and, they say, performed it exceedingly well when they came to it; and three open chariots, drawn with four horses apiece, that carried their musicians and other personages that had parts to speak. All which, together with their trumpeters and other attendants, were so well set out, that it is generally held for the best show that hath been seen many a day. The King stood in the gallery to behold them, and made them ride about the Tilt-yard, and then they were received into St. James’ Park, and so out, all along the galleries, into the hall, where themselves and their devices, which they say were excellent, made such a glittering show, that the King and all the company were exceedingly pleased, and especially with their dancing, which was beyond all that hath been seen yet. The King made the masters [? maskers] kiss his hand on parting, and gave them many thanks, saying, he never saw so many proper men together, and himself accompanied them at the banquet, and took care it should be well ordered, and speaks much of them behind their backs, and strokes the Master of the Rolls and Dick Martin, who were chief doers and undertakers.’
Chamberlain wrote more briefly, but with equal commendation, to Winwood (iii. 435), while the Venetian ambassador reported that the mask was danced ‘with such finish that it left nothing to be desired’ (V. P. xii. 532).
The mask is but briefly noticed in the published records of the Middle Temple (Hopwood, 40, 42); more fully in those of Lincoln’s Inn (Walker, ii. 150–6, 163, 170, 198, 255, 271). The Inn’s share of the cost was £1,086 8s. 11d. and presumably that of the Middle Temple as much. A levy was made of from £1 10s. to £4, according to status, and some of the benchers and others advanced funds. A dispute about the repayment of an advance by Lord Chief Justice Richardson was still unsettled in 1634. An account of Christopher Brooke as ‘Expenditour for the maske’ includes £100 to Inigo Jones for works for the hall and street, £45 to Robert Johnson for music and songs, £2 to Richard Ansell, matlayer, £1 to the King’s Ushers of the Hall, and payments for a pair of stockings and other apparel to ‘Heminge’s boy’, and for the services of John and Robert Dowland, Philip Rosseter and Thomas Ford as musicians. The attitude of the young lawyer may be illustrated from a letter of Sir S. Radcliffe on 1 Feb. (Letters, 78), although I do not know his Inn: ‘I have taken up 30s of James Singleton, which or ye greater part thereof is to be paid toward ye great mask at ye marriage at Shrovetide. It is a duty for ye honour of our Inn, and unto which I could not refuse to contribute with any credit.’
A letter by Chapman, partly printed by B. Dobell in Ath. (1901), i. 466, is a complaint to an unnamed paymaster about his reward for a mask given in the royal presence at a date later than Prince Henry’s death. While others of his faculty got 100 marks or £50, he is ‘put with taylors and shoomakers, and such snipperados, to be paid by a bill of particulars’. Dobell does not seem to think that this was the wedding mask, but I see no clear reason why it should not have been.
HENRY CHEKE (c. 1561).