James gave the impression, when he first came to England, of taking, unlike Queen Anne and Prince Henry, 'no extraordinary pleasure' in plays.[1] But he had a great many more than his predecessor, and reverted in some years to the early practice of opening the play season at the beginning of November. Nor, on the other hand, was he strict in his observance of Lent, and in some years the performances continued at intervals until after Easter. During his first winter he saw eleven plays and gradually increased this number, reaching a maximum of twenty-three in 1609-10. Up to 1615 he never saw less than eleven, except during 1612-13, the winter of Henry's death, when the number fell to seven. Moreover, even when he himself escaped to a hunting-box, he was liberal in ordering additional plays for the prince and court, and yet others seem to have been charged to the private funds of Anne and the royal children.[2] The records do not in all years give the dates of individual performances; but in 1611-12, to take one example, the programme was as follows. The King himself was present at plays on October 31, November 1, and November 5, on the four nights after Christmas, on January 5, on Candlemas, and on Shrove Sunday and Tuesday. On January 6 was the mask. Most of the intervening days he spent in visits to his various hunting quarters. Meanwhile there were at least twenty-six other plays before one or more of the royal children, at which Anne was probably also present. Two of these were in November, one in the middle of December, one in Christmas week, eight in January after Twelfth night, and nine in February, both before and after Lent had begun. Two plays at the end of March and three in April, none of these in the King's presence, exhausted the official supply, but not the enthusiasm of Prince Henry. He spent a fortnight with Anne at Greenwich during January, and there was 'every night a play', some of which the Queen probably paid for; and in March he was entertained by the Marquis of Winchester at supper, again with plays.[3] Occasionally James ordered a play during the summer; there were four for the entertainment of the King of Denmark in 1606, of which one,
- ↑ Cf. p. 7.
- ↑ Cf. App. B, s.a. 1612-13, 1615-16.
- ↑ For other entertainments of the court with plays by private hosts, cf. Calendar s.a. 1605 (3 Jan., play by Spanish ambassador for Duke of Holst; 9 < > 14 Jan., Love's Labour's Lost by Southampton or Cranborne for Anne), 1607 (May 25, Aeneas and Dido by Arundel for Prince de Joinville).
the plays at Oxford and Cambridge (cf. ch. iv). For these no money reward was paid, but the Works and Revels met some of the expenses, and the actors got a warrant for venison out of Woodstock to make a feast.
