Again, on New Year’s Day 1515, Henry VIII. performed a ballet with the Duke of Suffolk and two noblemen and four ladies, the young Duchess of Savoy being supposed to be in love with Suffolk. After dancing had been continued for some time, the company took off their vizors, and when they were known, “the Queen heartily thanked the King’s grace for her good pastime, and kissed him.” But on the very day this ballet was performed the King of France died, and his fair bride was left a widow, after having been married less than three months.
Another interesting instance of Court dances at this time is given by Hall, who tells how, on the King’s visit to France with Anne Boleyn—lately made Marchioness of Pembroke—a magnificent reception was given by him at Calais in honour of the French sovereign, at which, after supper, “came in the Marchioness of Pembroke, with seven ladies, in masking apparel of strange fashion, made of cloth of gold, slashed with crimson tinsel satin puffed with cloth of silver and knit with laces of gold. These ladies were led into the state chamber by four damsels dressed in crimson satin, with tabards of pine cypress. Then the lady marchioness took the French king, the Countess of Derby the King of Navarre, and every lady took a lord. In dancing, King Henry removed the ladies’ vizors, so that their beauties were shown.” It was then discovered by the French king that he had been dancing with an old acquaintance—no other than the lovely English maid-of-honour of his first queen; and having conversed with her some time apart, he sent her a present on the next morning of a jewel valued at 15,000 crowns.
Queen Elizabeth was a great patroness of the dance, which accounts for its having flourished in her reign. It is said that she bestowed the office of Lord Chancellor on Sir Christopher Hatton, not so much for his knowledge of the law, but because he wore green bows on his shoes, and danced the pavon to perfection, to whom mention is made in Gray’s humorous lines:—
“Full oft within the spacious walls,
When he had fifty winters over him,
My grave Lord Keeper led the brawls,
The seals and maces danced before him.
His bushy head, and shoe strings green,
His high-crown’d hat and satin doublet,
Moved the stout heart of England’s queen,
Tho’ Pope and Spaniard could not trouble it.”
Many notices occur, too, of Queen Mary’s participation in the revelry of her father’s court, and we find her figuring, in her young days, as a dancer in Court ballets. Some courtly adulator, who had been present at a ball at which many danced with her royal father, appears to have been much struck with her charms, making her appearance the subject of a poetic effusion, wherein he tells us:—
“Ravished I was, that well was me
O Lord! to me so fain [willing]
To see that sight that I did see,
I long full sore again.
I saw a king and a princess
Dancing before my face,
Most like a god and a goddess;
I pray Christ save their grace.”
Charles II. was specially fond of dancing. Writing from Cologne to Henry Bennett on the 18th of August 1655, he says: “Pray, get me pricked down as many new corrants and farrabands, and ‘other little dances’ as you can, and bring them with you, for I have got a small fiddler that does not play ill on the fiddle.”
The last day of the year 1662 concluded with a grand ball at the palace of Whitehall, and Pepys tells us that he got into the room where the dancing was to take place, which was crowded with fine ladies. “By-and-by comes the King and Queen and all the great ones. After seating themselves, all rose again; the King took out the Duchess of York, the Duke the Duchess of Buckingham, the Duke of Monmouth my Lady Castlemaine, other lords other ladies, and they danced ‘the brantle.’ Afterwards the King led a lady a single coranto, and then the lords, one after another, other ladies; very noble it was, and pleasant to see. Then to country-dances, the King leading the first, which he called for by name as ‘Cuckolds all awry,’ the old dance of England. The manner was, when the King dances, all the ladies in the room, and the Queen herself, stand up; and, indeed, he dances rarely, and much better than the Duke of York.” Pepys adds that it was reported the King reprimanded Lady Gerard as he was leading her down the dance, for having spoken against Lady Castlemaine to the Queen, and forbade her to attend her Majesty any more.