When James ascended the throne, Hamlet received, as it were, a new actuality, from the fact that his queen, Anne, was a Danish princess. At the splendid festival held on the occasion of the triumphal procession of King James, Queen Anne, and Prince Henry Frederick, from the Tower through the city, "the Danish March" was brilliantly performed, out of compliment to the Queen, by a band consisting of nine trumpeters and a kettle-drum, stationed on a scaffolding at the side of St. Mildred's Church. How this march went we do not know; but there can be little doubt that from that time it was played in the second scene of the fifth act of Hamlet, where music of trumpets and drums is prescribed, and where, in our days, at the Théâtre-Français, they naïvely play, "Kong Christian stod ved höjen Mast."[3]
[1] Compare New Shakspere Society's Transactions, 1880-86, p. 60.
[2] Tarlton's Jests and News out of Purgatory. Edited by J. O. Halliwell. London, 1844.
[3] The Danish national song of to-day, written by Ewald, and the music composed by Hartmann, 1778.
[XIX]
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL—ATTACKS ON PURITANISM
The fortunes of the company having declined by reason of the competition complained of in Hamlet, it became necessary to intersperse a few comedies among the sombre tragedies on which alone Shakespeare's mind was now bent.