intended for Shrove Tuesday, but this seems to have fallen through.[1] I do not know whether the invention of the Court poets had failed, or whether for some other reason Elizabeth had become discontent with masks; but, although there are full Revels Accounts for the winters of 1579-80 and 1580-1, and although plays were numerous, no single performance of a mask is recorded. But the spirit of revelry awoke in 1581, at the coming of French commissioners to complete negotiations for the Anjou marriage in the spring, followed by that of Anjou himself in the autumn. Patterns of masks were prepared and the construction of a mount begun in March.[2] These were not proceeded with at the time, and the famous tilt before the Fortress of Perfect Beauty was substituted as an entertainment for the commissioners. But in the winter there were two masks, and amongst the devices employed were a mount with a castle on the top of it, a dragon, an artificial tree, an artificial lion, and a horse made of wood.[3] These details suggest a revival of the scheme abandoned in the previous spring, for the personal delectation of Anjou.
Court masks are but little in evidence during the next few years. There was one of ladies, with torch-bearers and eight boys, on 5 January 1583, and during the same winter one of Seamen was prepared, but not brought into use.[4] There was a mask in 1583-4, of which no details are given; while for 1585-6 and 1586-7 no information, in the absence of the Revels Accounts, is forthcoming.[5] The accounts for 1584-5 and 1587-8 have a general reference to masks in their headings, which may be no more than common form.[6] In September 1589, however, a mask was prepared to be sent into Scotland, as a compliment to James VI on the occasion of his wedding to Anne of Denmark.[7] It does not appear to have been a very sumptuous affair, and only cost the Revels Office £17 10s. 10d. We are not told what the maskers represented.
- ↑ Ibid. 308.
- ↑ Ibid. 340, 345, '1^o Aprilis 1581, what monnie is to be allowed in prest for certayne shewes to be had at Whitehal . . . The Mounte, Dragon with the fyer workes, Castell with the fallyng sydes, Tree with shyldes, Hermytage and hermytt, Savages, Enchaunter, Charryott, and incydentes to theis cc markes'.
- ↑ Ibid. 344 (table), 346.
- ↑ Ibid. 349.
- ↑ Ibid. 360 (table). The Jervoise MSS. (H. M. C. Various MSS. iv. 163) contain verses dated 1586 for a mask from Basingstoke to Richard Pawlett, doubtless a kinsman of the Marquis of Winchester at Basing.
- ↑ Feuillerat, Eliz. 365, 378. A mask followed the play of Catiline, with which Lord Burghley was entertained at Gray's Inn on 16 Jan. 1588 (M. S. C. i. 179).
- ↑ Feuillerat, Eliz. 392.
