Finally, in the spring of 1602, negotiations were passing between Sir Robert Cecil and Sir John Popham on behalf of the Middle Temple, for some entertainment to gratify the Queen, for which the benchers were prepared to contribute 200 marks.[1] Probably this was a mask, but whether and when it actually came off is not known. It may have been designed to celebrate the coming of the Duke of Nevers and other Frenchmen in the following April, and it may have been the mask a song from which was copied by John Manningham, a member of the Middle Temple, on a fly-leaf of his diary with the date 'Nov. 2'.[2]
Under James I the material for tracing the history of the mask becomes remarkably abundant, owing to the regular practice, of which the Gesta Grayorum is the only Elizabethan example, of issuing elaborate descriptions, with copies of the songs and speeches used, for the information of those unable to be present, and the incidental glorification of performers, poets, and producers.[3] In view of the full details compiled from these descriptions and other sources in the bibliographical appendix, a brief chronicle will suffice for a conclusion of this chapter. The main factors to be borne in mind are, firstly, the personal participation of Queen Anne, who took a special delight in all kinds of spectacle and revelry;[4] secondly, the
- [Footnote: Walpole Soc. iii. 22) probably representing Elizabeth's passage through
Blackfriars on this occasion is extant in two versions at Melbury and Sherborne, and has often been reproduced; e. g. in Shakespeare's England, i. f.p.]*
- ↑ Popham to Cecil, 8 Feb. 1602 (Hatfield MSS. xii. 47), 'I have so dealt with some of the Benchers of the Middle Temple as I have brought that the House will be willing to bear 200 marks towards the charge of what is wished to be done, to her Majesty's good liking, and if the young gentlemen will be drawn in to perform what is of their part, I hope it will be effected. Some of the young men have their humors, but I hope that will be over-ruled, for I send for them as soon as other business of her Majesty is dispatched. But the Ancients of the House, who wish all to be done to her Majesty's best content, depend upon your favour if anything through young men's error should not have that carriage in the course of it, as they would wish it might not yet be imputed unto them.' There is no reference to any mask in the records of the Middle Temple, which in 1601-2 kept a 'solemn' but not a 'grand' Christmas.
- ↑ Manningham, 1, 'Song to the Queene at the Maske at Court, Nov. 2'. The Song begins, 'Mighty Princes of a fruitfull land'. The November of 1602 is the only one covered by the period of the diary; but Elizabeth was then at Richmond, rather out of reach of a lawyers' mask.
- ↑ An Italian model for such printed descriptions may be found in that of G. Cecchi's Florentine Esaltazione della Croce (1589); cf. A. D'Ancona, Sacre Rappresentazioni, iii. 1, 235; Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, iv. 282.
- ↑ J. A. Lester, Some Franco-Scottish Influences on the Early English Drama (Haverford Essays, 1909), 145, notes the vogue of the mask at Holyrood under Mary Stuart and the pompae written for such occasions
