At the English Courts of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, the masque developed in the direction of scenic elaboration and splendour (with music) that made up for its literary shortcomings, at least in its earlier period.
At the French Courts of Henry IV and Louis XIII, what were known as Opera-ballets (later to be separated as opera and ballet) developed a musical richness (with scenic effect) that made up for similar literary shortcomings. Yet again came another form in the Comedie Ballet of Molière.
With the accession of James I of England came the real efflorescence of the English masque, which under the hands of Ben Jonson was to become a fairly balanced harmony of the three arts—the poet’s, the musician’s, and the painter-designer’s.
It must of course be understood that in both the masque and ballet there was dancing; but at the period with which we are now dealing, namely the last decade of the sixteenth and first few decades of the seventeenth centuries, the technique of that art was—for stage purposes—comparatively so primitive as to make it almost a negligible quantity. There was dancing of course—that of “henchmen” and men and boys who performed a Morris, or bouffon-dances; and that of courtier, Court-lady, or even, it might be, a Royal personage, who would take part in the stately Pavane or Almain, now and then unbending sufficiently to dance a Trenchmore (once Queen Elizabeth’s favourite) or Canary.
But it was all either an intrusion, alien to the general purport of the production, or else vastly overshadowed by the chief design, which was to present, with the aid of “disguisings” and elaborate “machines,” a sort of living picture or series of living pictures, expressing some mythological, allegorical episodes or complimentary idea.
The chief aim was splendid pageantry; something mainly to please the eye; and secondarily to charm the ear; without making too great claims upon the intellect.
Among the leading English masque writers during the period we are considering were George Gascoigne, Campion, Samuel Daniel, Dekker, Chapman, William Browne, Beaumont and Fletcher and Jonson.
In France, at the Court of Henri Quatre, and under the direction of his famous minister, the great and grave Sully—who himself took part in them—some eighty ballets were given between 1589 and 1610, apart from state balls and bals masqués.
In England among the more notable masques produced during about the same period were the following:—
1585. The Masque of “Lovely London,” performed before the Lord Mayor.