Brotanek, 346, suggests 1 Jan. 1612 as a probable date. I agree with him that ‘charming all warre from his mild monarchie’ (136) suggests James I, although I do not think that ‘our fairy King’ (137) is necessarily a reminiscence of the Mask of Oberon, especially as this fairy king is James and not Henry. In any case ‘the heart of the yeare’ (132), ‘prime of this newe yeare’ (135), ‘this winter nighte’ (141) do not require a performance on 1 Jan. In fact, April and not January leads the months in the mask. I would add to Brotanek’s notes that April is clearly danced by a Prince of Wales, and that ‘lov’d of all, yett will not love’ fits in with the uncertainty as to Henry’s matrimonial intentions which prevailed in 1612. But he is not very likely to have given two masks in the winter of 1611–12, nor is there any evidence of any mask that winter except the Love Restored of 6 Jan. Of course The Twelve Months may never have been actually performed. I have thought that it might have been the mask abandoned by Anne on account of the death of the Queen of Spain in Dec. 1611 (cf. Jonson, Love Restored). Beauty, ‘our fairy Queene’, is said to be ‘Great president of all those princely revells’ in honour of the ‘fairy King’. But the mask is danced by men, not women, which seems to put a Queen’s mask out of the question. No mask has yet been traced in the winter of 1609–10. I am afraid I must leave the date open. If Henry led the dance, his death in Nov. 1612 gives one limit. The ‘antemasque’ is more likely to have been introduced after than before 1608. The use of Pigwiggen as a fairy name recurs in Drayton’s Nymphidia, published in 1627.
Mask of Flowers. 6 Jan. 1614
S. R. 1614, Jan. 21 (Nidd). ‘The maske of flowers by the gent. of Graies Inne vppon Twelfe Night 1613.’ Robert Wilson (Arber, iii. 540).
1614. The Maske of Flowers. Presented By the Gentlemen of Graies-Inne, at the Court of Whitehall, in the Banquetting House, vpon Twelfe night, 1613. Being the last of the Solemnities and Magnificences which were performed at the marriage of the right honourable the Earle of Somerset, and the Lady Francis daughter of the Earle of Suffolke, Lord Chamberlaine. N. O. for Robert Wilson. [With Epistle to Sir Francis Bacon by I. G., W. D., T. B. These initials, presumably of Gray’s Inn men, have not been identified.]
Editions in Nichols, James (1828), ii. 735, and H. A. Evans, English Masques (1897).
The maskers, in white embroidered with carnation and silver and vizards, were thirteen transformed Flowers; the antimaskers in ‘the anticke-maske of daunce’ Pantaloon, Courtesan, Swiss and his Wife, Usurer, Midwife, Smug and his Wench, Fretelyne, Bawd, Roaring Boy, Citizen, Mountebank, Jewess of Portugal, Chimney-Sweeper and his Wench; the musicians twelve Garden Gods, also described as Priests, and in the ‘anticke-maske of the song’ Miller, Wine Cooper, Vintner’s Boy, Brewer, Skipper, Fencer, Pedlar, Barber; the presenters Invierno, Primavera, Gallus the Sun’s Post, Silenus, Kawasha, and attendants.
The locality was the Banqueting House, at the lower end of which was a ‘travers painted in perspective’, as a city wall and gate, with temples of Silenus and Kawasha on either side. The antimasks represented a challenge, directed by the Sun, between wine and tobacco. ‘The travers being drawne’ disclosed an elaborate garden sloping up to a mount and arbour (33 ft. long × 21 ft. high) with a bank of flowers before it. Upon a charm the flowers vanished to give place to the maskers, who danced their first and second measure, then took ladies, for ‘measures, corantoes, durettoes, morascoes, galliards’, and then ‘daunced their parting measure’, which was followed by compliments to the king and the bride and groom.
For general notices of the Somerset wedding masks, cf. s.v. Campion, Mask of Squires. On 23 Dec. Chamberlain wrote to Carleton (Birch, i. 282), ‘Sir Francis Bacon prepares a masque to honour this marriage, which will stand him in above £2000; and though he have been offered some help by the House, and specially by Mr. Solicitor, Sir Henry Yelverton, who would have sent him £500, yet he would not accept it, but offers them the whole charge with the honour. Marry, his obligations are such, as well to his majesty as to the great lord and to the whole house of Howards, as he can admit no partner’. On 5 Jan. (Birch, i. 288) he briefly notes, ‘Mr. Attorney’s masque is for to-morrow, and for a conclusion of Christmas and these shows together’.
The records of Gray’s Inn confirm Chamberlain’s account, by giving no signs that any expense fell on the Inn. On a letter by Bacon which may refer to this occasion, cf. s.v. Bacon.
Osborne, James, 82, a not very accurate writer, speaks of a Gray’s Inn mask at court, following an Anglo-Scottish quarrel between Mr. Hawley of Gray’s Inn and Mr. Maxwell. Probably he has this mask, which was to honour a Scot, in mind. The quarrel was in fact over in June 1612 (Birch, i. 173). I doubt whether either this mask or the joint Gray’s Inn and Inner Temple mask of 1612–13 had anything to do with it.