In the after-supper before the Queen, “they first delivered a well-penned speech to move this worthy knight to leave his vain following of love, and to betake him to heavenly meditation, the secretaries all tending to have him follow matters of state, the soldiers persuading him to war;” but the esquire answered them all in plain English: “That this knight would never forsake his mistress’s love, whose virtue made all his thoughts divine, whose wisdom taught him all true policy, whose beauty and worth were at all times able to make him fit to command armies. He showed all the defects and imperfections of the times, and therefore thought his course of life the best in serving his mistress.” The Queen said, “If she had thought there had been so much said of her, she would not have been there that night.”
A Court masque was the accompaniment of Darnley’s murder, probably arranged, it has been suggested, as one of the episodes of that cruel tragedy. Much has been written on the beauty and romance of the Elizabethan masques, which it was required should be something more than a ballet, or a fancy ball. According to Mr. Thornbury, in his “Shakspere’s England” (vol. ii. p. 371), “the poetry was such as Jonson could write--tender as Anacreon, vigorous as Æschylus; though occasionally tedious, laboured, dull, and rugged, mythology, history, and romance were ransacked to furnish new materials for these plays; the poetry and costume were all but perfect, and the scenery was left to fancy, so well able to realise it. The amusement that delighted such minds as Bacon’s and Jonson’s is not to be sneered at in the nineteenth century.” The sympathy and support, too, which Elizabeth gave to this class of diversion had a more or less lasting effect; but there was an inclination as time went on to introduce many innovations which were not always in good taste.
One of the chief amusements of James I. and his Court were masques and emblematic pageants, and it appears by what is entitled “A Briefe Collection of the Extraordinarie Payments” of the Court of James I., from 1603 to the end of 1609, that the “charges for masks” amounted to £4215.[72] An imposing instance occurred in the year 1610, to commemorate the Queen’s eldest son, Henry, being created Prince of Wales. On this occasion the “whole Court of England, the Queen, the Princess-Royal, and all the aristocratic beauties of the day were busy devising robes, arranging jewels, and practising steps and movements for this beautiful poem of action, in which music, painting, dancing, and decoration, guided by the taste of Inigo Jones, were all called into employment to make the palace of Whitehall a scene of enchantment. In this masque the Court ladies personated the nymphs of the principal rivers, the Queen represented the Empress of Streams, and the little Prince Charles, in the character of Zephyr, attended by twelve little ladies, was to deliver the Queen’s presents to his elder brother, the newly created Prince of Wales, the presentation being the ostensible business of the masque. One of the chief attractions of this entertainment was a ballet, which was so arranged that Prince Charles always danced encircled by his little ladies, all of whom had been so carefully trained that they were rapturously applauded by the whole Court. This festive scene was perhaps one of the brightest and happiest in the Queen’s life, for when in after days some one accidentally recalled it to her memory after the death of Prince Henry, she gave way to the most acute grief.[73]