Besides the expenses which fell upon individuals taking part in the play, or procession, this entertainment cost the two inns £1086 8_s._ 11_d._ About the same time Gray's Inn, at the instigation of Attorney General Sir Francis Bacon, performed 'The Masque of Flowers' before the lords and ladies of the court, in the Banqueting-house, Whitehall; and six years later Thomas Middleton's Inner Temple Masque, or Masque of Heroes' was presented before a goodly company of grand ladies by the Inner Templars.
[20] The propensity of lawyers for the stage, lingered amongst barristers on Circuit, to a comparatively recent date. 'Old stagers' of the Home and Western Circuits, can recall how the juniors of their briefless and bagless days used to entertain the natives of Guildford and Exeter with Shakspearian performances. The Northern Circuit also was at one time famous for the histrionic ability of its bar, but toward the close of the last century, the dramatic recreations of its junior members were discountenanced by the Grand Court.
Of all the masques mentioned in the records of the Inns of Court, the most magnificent and costly was the famous Anti-Prynne demonstration, by which the lawyers endeavored to show their contemptuous disapproval of a work that inveighed against the licentiousness of the stage, and preferred a charge of wanton levity against those who encouraged theatrical performances.
Whilst the 'Histriomastix' rendered the author ridiculous to mere men of pleasure, it roused fierce animosities by the truth and fearless completeness of its assertions; but to no order of society was the famous attack on the stage more offensive than to the lawyers; and of lawyers the members of Lincoln's Inn were the most vehement in their displeasure. The actors writhed under the attack; the lawyers were literally furious with rage--for whilst rating them soundly for their love of theatrical amusements, Prynne almost contrived to make it seem that his views were acceptable to the wisest and most reverend members of the legal profession. Himself a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, he with equal craft and audacity complimented the benchers of that society on the firmness with which they had forbidden professional actors to take part in the periodic revels of the inn, and on their inclination to govern the society in accordance with Puritanical principles. Addressing his "Much Honored Friends, the Right Worshipful Masters of the Bench of the Honorable Flourishing Law Society of Lincoln's Inne," the utter-barrister said: "For whereas other Innes of Court (I know not by what evil custom, and worse example) admit of common actors and interludes upon their two grand festivalls, to recreate themselves withall, notwithstanding the statutes of our Kingdome (of which lawyers, of all others, should be most observant), have branded all professed stage-players for infamous rogues, and stage-playes for unlawful pastimes, especially on Lord's-dayes and other solemn holidayes, on which these grand dayes ever fall; yet such hath been your pious tender care, not only of this societie's honor, but also of the young students' good (for the advancing of whose piety and studies you have of late erected a magnificent chapel, and since that a library), that as you have prohibited by late publicke orders, all disorderly Bacchanalian Grand-Christmasses (more fit for pagans than Christians; for the deboisest roarers than grave civill students, who should be patternes of sobriety unto others), together with all publicke dice-play in the Hall (a most pernicious, infamous game; condemned in all ages, all places, not onely by councels, fathers, divines, civilians, canonists, politicians, and other Christian writers; by divers Pagan authors of all sorts, and by Mahomet himselfe; but likewise by sundry heathen, yea, Christian Magistrates' edicts)."