He masked himself in Oberon (1611) and in the undatable Twelve Months. The only appearance of Charles before 1618 was as Zephyrus amongst the presenters of Tethys' Festival (1610). Next to Anne herself, the most conspicuous performer in the Queen's masks was perhaps Lucy Countess of Bedford, who had already won her reputation as a 'fine dancing dame' at the end of the previous reign, and whose costume in one at least of her extant portraits is conjectured to represent masking attire.[1] Other names which recur frequently in the lists are those of Elizabeth Countess of Derby and her sister Susan Countess of Montgomery, Alethea Countess of Arundel, Anne Countess of Dorset, and Audrey Lady Walsingham; while amongst the men shone the two brothers Herbert, William Earl of Pembroke and Philip Earl of Montgomery, and that most splendid and extravagant of all the Jacobean courtiers, James Lord Hay. The Earl of Somerset does not appear to have been a dancer, but when the star of George Villiers was rising in 1615 his friends were careful to give him his opportunity of shining in a mask. It is not surprising to find that the numerous sons and daughters of the Earl of Suffolk, Lord Chamberlain, and the Earl of Worcester, Master of the Horse, who shared the official oversight of the masks, were not seldom called upon to display their skill. One fears that there must often have been heart-burnings. Lady Hatton's pique at being left out in 1605 contributed something to the strained relations with her husband, Lord Coke, which long made mirth for London.[2]
The masks could not dispense altogether with professional assistance. In the Mask of Beauty the torch-bearing Cupids were 'chosen out of the best and ingenious youth of the kingdom'. In Tethys' Festival the presenters included, in addition to the Duke of York, two gentlemen 'of good worth and respect', who played the Tritons, and the antimask included eight 'little ladies, all of them the daughters of Earls or Barons'. But this mask was for the exceptional occasion of the creation of Henry as Prince of Wales, and Daniel expressly boasts that 'there were none of inferior sort mixed among these great personages of state and honour (as usually there have been); but all was performed by themselves with a due reservation of their dignity'. The normal practice seems to have been to hire players and their
