rank as a sovereign state. Occasional visitors of rank had their own points of etiquette to raise. Thus in 1604 the Duke of Holstein stood for three hours rather than sit below the Venetian ambassador. Generally speaking, indeed, the newly established office of Master of the Ceremonies must have been anything but a bed of roses. The chief mask of the year, which every ambassador intrigued to attend, was traditionally danced on Twelfth Night; but often it was put off to a later date, in order to meet diplomatic exigencies.[1]
The banqueting-house, with the 'state' in it, was probably regarded as technically part of the Presence Chamber. At any rate, it was under the supervision of the Lord Chamberlain and the officers of the Chamber, headed by the Gentleman Usher. They seated the audience, kept the doors against the turbulent crowds knocking for admission, cleared the dancing-place when the King was seated, and supplied the principal guests with programmes or abstracts of the device prepared by the poet.[2] The Chamberlain's white staff was no mere symbol when there was whiffling to be done, and even Ben Jonson, 'ushered by my Lord Suffolk from a mask' on 6 January 1604, the year before his own sovereignty over masks began, required to be consoled by his fellow in misfortune, Sir John Roe, with the reminder,—
Forget we were thrust out; it is but thus,
God threatens Kings, Kings Lords, as Lords do us.[3]
Obviously, as John Chamberlain suggests in a letter to Dudley Carleton, to be befriended at court was to secure the easier admission. But subject to the limitations of space and the discretion of the door-keepers, the performances seem to have been open to all comers, although the wicked wit of the dramatists is apt to suggest that citizens' wives sometimes
- ↑ Beaumont in B. M. Kings MS. cxxiv, f. 328, 'le . . . ballet . . . de la Reine qui se devoit danser au vendredy dernier jour des festes de Noël selon la façon d'Angleterre et le plus honnorable pour la ceremonie qui s'y obserue de tout temps publiquement'; Finett, 6, 'il se pourroit soustenir que le dernier jour seroit a prendre pour le plus gran jour comm'il s'entend en plusiours autres cas, et nommement aux festes de Noel, que le Jour des Roys qui est le dernier se prend pour le plus gran jour'. The chief masks of 1606-7, 1611-12, 1613-14, and 1614-16, were on 6 Jan. In 1603-4, 1607-8, and 1608-9, the Queen's masks were planned for that day, but put off. In 1605-6 and 1609-10 the day was given to barriers.
- ↑ Cf. p. 39. The accounts for the Lords' Mask include fees of £1 each to three Grooms of the Chamber; those of Chapman's Mask, given exceptionally in the great Hall, £1 to the Ushers of the Hall. The manuscript of the Mask of Blackness appears to be an abstract for use at the performance. In 1613 a Groom of the Chamber was also paid £7 for 42 nights watching in the banqueting-house while workmen were there (Chamber Accounts).
- ↑ Donne, Poems (ed. Grierson), i. 414; cf. Jonson, Conversations, 10.
