CHAPTER VII

“Before a place in the dance I fill,Must drink to my health fair Signellile.”

Whereupon Signellile took the horn, and though she

“Drank but a sip to quench her thirst,Her guileless heart in her bosom burst.”

In China dancing has from a remote period held a conspicuous place in Court ceremonies. At the present day it takes the form of an act of homage to the sovereign, for which performance special mandarins are appointed. This dance is performed by the greatest in the land, and at stated times an imposing sight may be witnessed at the imperial palace, when men coming from all parts of Asia render tribute to the Emperor by songs and dances. On one occasion, when the dance was at its glory in China, “the Emperor showed the appreciation he felt for his Viceroys by the number of the dances with which he received them when they came intohis presence. If he was displeased with their administration, he would reprove them silently by allowing only a few dances, performed by a small number of coryphées.” It would seem, too, that emperors “did not disdain the study of the dance, or its performance in public; they generally devoted the autumn to the former, and the spring to the latter, and the feast of ancestors was the greatest occasion for the dance. In 1719 the son of the Emperor danced before his father and the whole assembled Court.”

At the French Court dancing from an early period was in high repute, and the intermezzi or entremets—from which sprang dances—performances held at banquets to entertain the guests whilst waiting for the courses, can be traced back to the year 1237, when St. Louis gave a wedding feast to his brother Robert at Compiègne. It is related that at this feast a knight rode across the hall on horseback over a large tight-rope stretched above the heads of the guests.[51]With the Medicis the splendid dance entertainments were introduced into France; and we read how Catherine de’ Medicis, while plotting the massacre of St. Bartholomew, amused herself by witnessing the antics of a troupe of Italian players, called “I Gelosi,” which consisted of mimic acting varied with comic dances.

It is said that Jacques Coetier, a French physician, was the only person who could curb the uneven spirit of Louis IX., which he did bymaking an artful use of that dread of death to which the King was subject. Thus Coetier, trading on this peculiarity, would often say to his Majesty, “I suppose one of these days you will dismiss me, as you have done many other servants; but mark my words, if you do, you will not live eight days after it.” By repeating this menace from time to time, Coetier not only kept himself in his station, but actually succeeded in persuading the King to bestow upon him valuable presents. He paid, however, considerable attention to the mind of his royal master, and to divert his attention and to amuse him during his indisposition, he would arrange to have rural dances performed under his window.

Henry IV. and his great minister, Sully, were lovers of the ballet, and Louis XIII. danced on the stage with all his Court.

Louis XIV. enjoyed performing various characters in the ballet, a recreation he pursued till he became too corpulent, when he abandoned it for fear of making himself an object of ridicule. Some idea of the importance of dancing at the Court of Louis XIV. can be gained from Molière, who goes so far as to say in theBourgeois Gentilhomme“that the destiny of nations depends on the art of dancing.” Monsieur de Lauzun, the favourite of Louis XIV., owed his fortune to his grace in dancing in the King’s quadrille. And, as Dumas writes, “many more than one nobleman owed the favour he enjoyed at Court to the way he pointed his toe, or moved his leg.” Indeed, Louis XIV. not only busied himself with the composition of ballets, butdanced in them, and took dancing lessons from Beauchamps for twenty years.[52]Until he was thirty-two he danced with professional ballet-dancers, a fad which, it has been said, suggested itself to him from some lines in Racine’sBritannicus, wherein Nero’s dramatic proclivities are ridiculed. His last appearance was on February 13, 1669, in the Ballet of Flora. Indeed, so devoted was Louis to the pastime, that in one ballet he actually played no less than five successive characters, those of Apollo, Mars, a Fury, a Dryad, and a Courtier; and actually submitted to the fatigue of assuming the several costumes, frequently as often as three times during the week.[53]Benserade had the exclusive privilege of composing thelibrettiof these ballets, which, it is said, “were one continued ovation to the young monarch, who was not in his own person exempted from the delivery of the most exaggerated and fulsome self-praise.” But such was the taste of the time.

The Allemande Française—a mediæval German dance introduced into France about the year 1600—was a favourite of Louis XIV. and of Napoleon. Louis XIV. was also specially fond of the courante, which he is said to have performed better than any one else. And it may be added that on the 21st of January 1681, when the then Dauphiness, the Princess de Conti, and some other ladies of thefirst distinction in the Court of Louis XIV., performed a ballet with the opera, calledLe Triomphe de l’Amour, it was received with so much applause, that on the 16th of the following May, when the same opera was acted in Paris, at the Theatre of the Palais Royal, it was thought indispensable for the success of this kind of entertainment to introduce female dancers, who have ever since been a support of the opera.

Among the many amusing anecdotes told of Louis XIV. when still in his minority, it is related that one evening, in 1655, Queen Henrietta and her daughter were invited to see the King dance at a ball, which Anne of Austria gave in her private apartments. The party was of rather a juvenile character; the dancers were from the age of the Princess of England, who was about eleven, to the age of Louis XIV., who was just sixteen. At this time Louis was in love with Marie de Mancini—niece of Mazarin—and as she was not at the party, he chose to dance with her sister, the Duchess de Mercœur, and led her out as his partner in the brawl. But the Queen-Regent observing his action, at once stepped forth, took the niece of Mazarin from him, and commanded him to dance with the young Princess of England. Queen Henrietta, alarmed at the contretemps, assured the King “that her daughter would not dance—she was too young; besides she had hurt her foot, and could not be his partner.” The result was that neither Louis nor the Princess Henrietta danced that evening, the youthful King remarking lateron in a sullen mood that “he did not like little girls.”

In 1640 the Duc d’Enghien, son of Prince Henry of Condé, was affianced to Claire Clémence, a niece of Richelieu, and the account given by the Duc d’Aumale of the marriage and the behaviour of the Prince at the accident which befell his bride whilst dancing, gives far from a pleasing idea of Court refinement at that period: “The marriage was celebrated at the palace of the Cardinal, and was followed by brilliant festivities....Miramehad received the plaudits of an illustrious assembly, at which—a memento of the military processions of Rome—several general officers appeared who were prisoners of war. After a representation had been given, followed by new comic pieces, the theatre was transformed, as it were by enchantment, and the Duc d’Enghien, leading in the Queen, opened the ball with her. It was remarked that the young Duchess, embarrassed in a coranto by the high-heeled shoes she wore to increase her low stature, fell; the Court laughed, and her husband joined in the laughter. The pallor and disordered appearance of the Duc were also noticed.”[54]

Marie Antoinette was fond of dancing, and was a great admirer and patroness of Augustus Vestris, the god of dance, as he was styled. She was instrumental in bringing back the “gavotte” into fashion as a Court and society dance, which had been originally a peasant’s diversion, taking its name from Gap, in Dauphiné. It appears to havebeen introduced at Court in the sixteenth century, “when, to amuse the royal circles, entertainments were given consisting of dances in national costume, performed by natives of the various provinces, and to the sound of appropriate instruments.” Numerous accounts have been given of the brilliant part Marie Antoinette so often played in the festive scenes of the Court of Versailles, the following conveying a faint notion of the grace and popularity which marked her early but ill-fated life: “The ball opened with four quadrilles; in the first the dress was the old costume of France, the second represented a set of morris-dancers, the third was that of the Queen—Tyrolese peasants, the fourth wild Indians.... In the interval between the dances the Queen took occasion to say a kind word to every one. She particularly noticed foreign ladies, among them Lady Ailesbury and three English ladies. They were treated by the Queen with a grace and a courtesy which was much remarked and approved. I shall only add that the Queen every day brings the elegance of the Court to a higher degree of perfection.”[55]

It was owing to a tumble sustained by a royal princess at a Court ball some twenty years ago that waltzing has been forbidden at the State balls at Berlin or Potsdam. And that the polka is not considered altogether free from danger is shownby the fact that the German Emperor one day summoned the generals commanding the various troops stationed in and around Berlin, and directed them to instruct those officers who were not able to dance properly to abstain from attempting to do so at imperial receptions.

Indeed, the history of most countries is full of incidents illustrative of dancing customs at Court, and on certain special occasions it would seem that feats in dancing formed one of the many attractions to amuse royalty. When Isabel of Bavaria, queen of Charles VI. of France, made her public entry into Paris, among other extraordinary exhibitions prepared for her reception was the marvellous performance, according to St. Foix, of a rope-dancer.

ROYAL HOBBIES

Whetherit be Nero constructing his hydraulic clocks, or Prince Rupert experimenting in his laboratory, or Philip of Burgundy contriving houses full ofdiableries, such as hidden trap-doors, undermined floors, and the like, we find the same habit illustrated among rulers of every age and country. When it was suggested to Dr. Johnson that kings must be unhappy because they are deprived of the greatest of all satisfactions, easy and unreserved society, he observed that this was an ill-formed notion. “Being a king does not exclude a man from such society. Great kings have always been social. The King of Prussia, the only great king at present”—this was the Great Frederick—“is very social; Charles the Second, the last King of England who was a man of parts, was social; our Henries and Edwards were all social.”

And this is specially the case with the amusements of royalty, which have oftentimes been of the most rough and arduous nature. But, as Lord Brougham once remarked, “Blessed is the man who has a hobby-horse;” and Cæsar wrote, “Under my tent, in the fiercest struggles of war, I have always found time to think of many otherthings”—a habit which has been recognised as a secret of strength.

A hobby which was destined to have an unforeseen result was that of Peter the Great for boat-building, which manifested itself when he was sixteen years of age, and was accidental. When wandering one day about one of his country estates near the village of Ismaílovo with his companion Timmermann, he espied an old storehouse, on ransacking which with boyish curiosity his eye fell on a boat that lay in a corner, turned bottom upward.

“What is that?” he inquired.

“That is an English boat,” replied Timmermann; “and if you had sails in it, it would go not only with the wind, but against the wind.”

But the boat was too rotten for use, and some time necessarily had to elapse before the little craft was put in working order with a mast and sails. The difficulty, however, was soon overcome by Carsten Brandt, who some years previously had been brought from Holland by the Tsar Alexis for the purpose of constructing vessels on the Caspian Sea, and under his superintendence it was launched on the river Yaúza; “And mighty pleasant it was to me,” writes Peter in the preface to the “Maritime Regulations,” where he describes the beginning of the Russian navy. Henceforth his mind was intent upon boat-building and navigation, and in the year 1691 he went to Lake Plestcheief, where he remained for a fortnight in a small palace built for him on the shore of the lake. “Itwas,” according to Eugene Schuyler,[56]“a small, one-storey wooden house, with windows of mica, engraved with different ornaments, the doors covered for warmth with white felt;” and here he occupied himself with building a ship, and worked so zealously that he was “unwilling to return to Moscow for the reception of the Persian ambassador, and it was necessary for Leo Naŕyshkin and Prince Boris Golitsyn to go expressly to Pereyaslávl to show him the importance of returning for the reception, in order not to offend the Shah.” The boat which he found at Ismaílovo has ever since borne the name of the “Grandsire of the Russian Fleet,” and is preserved with the greatest care in a small brick building near the cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul within the fortress of St. Petersburg. In the year 1870, on the celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of his birth, it was one of the chief objects of interest in the great parade of St. Petersburg; and in 1872 it was conveyed with much pomp and ceremony to Moscow, where for a time it formed a part of the Polytechnic Exposition.

But, as it has been observed, “perhaps one of the most interesting and extraordinary circumstances in the history of mankind is that the despotic monarch of a mighty dominion should descend from his throne and travel as a private person in the train of his own ambassador sent to Holland. On arriving there, he first took up his abode in the Admiralty at Amsterdam, and afterwards enrolled himself among the ship-carpenters, and went to the village of Sardam, wherehe wrought as a common carpenter and blacksmith with unusual assiduity, under the name of Master Peter. He was clad and fed as his fellow-workmen, for he would not allow of vain distinctions.”

In the following year he passed over to England, where, in the space of four months, he completed his knowledge of shipbuilding. After receiving every mark of respect from William III., he left this country accompanied by several English shipbuilders and carpenters, whom he treated with great liberality in his naval dockyards, and subsequently he is said to have written several essays on naval matters.

John Evelyn, in his Diary, alludes to the Emperor’s visit, and under January 1698 makes this entry: “The Czar of Muscovy being come to England, and having a mind to see the building of ships, hired my house at Say’s Court, and made it his Court and palace, new furnished for him by the King.”

And while the Emperor was in his house one of Evelyn’s servants thus wrote to him: “There is a house full of people, and right nasty. The Czar lies next your library and dines in the parlour next your study. He dines at ten o’clock and six at night, is very seldom at home a whole day, very often in the King’s yard or by water, dressed in several dresses. The King is expected here this day; the best parlour is pretty clean for him to be entertained in. The King pays for all he has.”

Peter the Great was also in the habit of frequenting the different workshops and manufactories, andamong the places he frequently visited were the forges of Müller at Istia. It was here that he employed himself in learning a blacksmith’s business, succeeding so well that on one occasion he forged eighteen poods of iron, putting his own particular mark on each bar, one of which is preserved at St. Petersburg. One of his predecessors, Feodor, son of Ivan IV., exercised his strength by ringing church bells, which was one of his favourite hobbies.

Alexander III. of Russia also took great delight in manual labour, and one of his favourite pastimes was to fell huge trees, saw them into planks, plane them, and generally prepare them for the cabinet-maker. His physique, which was exceptionally powerful, enabled him to indulge in this hobby. Some idea of his strength may be gathered from the fact that he could twist and break thick iron pokers and bars with his hand, render pewter tankards into bouquet holders, whereby he justified his title of the “Russian Samson.” In his younger days he was able to bend a bar of iron across his knees, or to burst in a strong door with his shoulder. In this respect he was not unlike William the Conqueror, of whom it is said that no one but himself could bend his bow, and that he could, when riding at full speed, discharge a long-bow with unerring aim. And Edward I., it is reported, was so adroit and active, that he could leap into his saddle by merely putting his hand on it. Charlemagne is reputed to have been so strong as to be able to take a horse-shoe in his hands and snap it. Augustus the Strong of Saxony wasa man of herculean muscular powers, who could lift weights, straighten horse-shoes with his two hands, and go through other exercises which astonished his subjects. And such was the muscular strength of Don Sebastian that, by the mere pressure of his knees, he could make his charger groan and sweat; and it may be added that all manly exercises which required vigour and agility were favourite hobbies of Don Sebastian. When the “wind blew hurricanes and the waves dashed wildly over the bar of Lisbon, the inhabitants of the capital watched often with eager suspense the progress of a small vessel, having at the main the royal standard, as it ploughed its way through the foaming waters, for on board that frail ship was the hope of the nation, King Don Sebastiaõ. ‘There is no bravery, nor merit, nor profit to be gained by going on board in a calm,’ replied the King to the expostulation of his Council.”[57]It may be added, too, that Cymburga of Poland, who was married to Ernest the “Iron,” cracked her nuts with her fingers, and when she trained her fruit trees, she hammered the nails into the wall with her clenched knuckles.

The Albanian Prince, George Castriot, better known as Scanderbeg, was a strong man, for he could cut off a bull’s head at a single stroke. Mahomed II. invited him to send the sword which had performed so remarkable an exploit. It was sent, but the Sultan, finding that it differed not from any other weapon of the kind, expressedhis dissatisfaction. Scanderbeg retorted that he had sent him his sword as desired, but could not send the arm which had wielded it.

Charles V. of Spain had a decided taste, and, as it would seem, talent for mechanical pursuits, and when in Germany had invented a carriage for his own accommodation. After his abdication he would often amuse himself, with his companion Torriano, in making little puppets—soldiers performing their exercises, girls dancing with their tambourines, and if the account be true, wooden birds that could fly in and out of the window.[58]When he entered Nuremberg, of the many forms of welcome which he there encountered, none pleased him more than the artificial eagle which flew to meet him.[59]

He had also a turn for the mathematical sciences, and, like Louis XVI., a passion for timepieces; and the difficulty which he found in adjusting his clocks and watches is said to have drawn from the monarch a philosophical reflection on the absurdity of his having attempted to bring men to anything like uniformity of belief in matters of faith, when he could not make any two of his timepieces agree with each other. On one occasion themaître d’hôtel, much perplexed how to devise a daily supply of rich and high-seasoned dishes to suit his palate, told his royal master—knowing his passion for timepieces—that “he really did not know what he could do, unless it were to serve up his Majesty a fricassee of watches.” And like her illustrious relative, Charles V., Queen Mary had a decided taste for clocks, for they form a prominent article in her yearly expenditure.

And among the many great and useful problems which Charles discussed with Torriano, mention is made of a bold and gigantic project, which was duly accomplished after his death by Gianello, and consisted in raising the waters of the low-lying Tagus to the heights of Toledo. According to Bourgoing, the remains of this ingenious machine are still to be seen on the high rocky peninsula occupied by the city; and, near them, “ruins still more ancient, which must have formed part of an aqueduct designed to convey water to the height of Alcazar, from springs seven or eight leagues distant—a legacy at once useful and magnificent, by which the Romans have marked their residence in more than one place in Spain.”

Speaking of Louis XVI.’s taste for mechanics, we are told how over his private library were a forge, two anvils, and a vast number of iron tools, various common locks, as well as some of a secret and elaborate kind. It was here that “the infamous Gamin, who afterwards accused the King of having tried to poison him, and was rewarded for his calumny with a pension of twelve hundred livres, taught him the art of lock-making. When teaching the King his trade, Gamin took upon himself the tone and authority of a master.” TheKing, according to Gamin, “was good, forbearing, timid, inquisitive, and addicted to sleep; he was fond to excess of lock-making, and he concealed himself from the Queen and the Court to file and forge with me. In order to convey his anvil and my own backwards and forwards, we were obliged to use a thousand stratagems, the history of which would never end.”[60]

In his private apartments were his collection of instruments, charts, spheres, globes, and also his geographical cabinet. And, in addition to these, there were to be seen drawings of maps which he had begun, and others that he had finished. He inherited some from Louis XV., and he often busied himself in keeping them clean and bright.[61]

We may note that amongst the earliest pieces of modern mechanism associated with royalty was a curious water-clock presented to Charlemagne by the Kaliph Haroun al Raschid. In the dial-plate there were twelve small windows, corresponding with the divisions of the hours. The hours were indicated by the opening of the windows, which let out little metallic balls which struck the hour by falling on a brazen bell. The doors continued open till twelve o’clock, when twelve little knights, mounted on horseback, came out at the same instant, and, after parading the dial, shut all the windows, and returned to their apartments.

Another automaton was that of the philosopherJohn Müller, and most elaborate, consisting of an artificial eagle which flew to meet the Emperor Maximilian when he arrived at Nuremberg on the 7th of June 1470. After soaring aloft in the air, the eagle is stated to have met the Emperor at some distance from the city, and to have returned and perched upon the town gate, where it waited his approach. On the Emperor’s arrival the eagle stretched out its wings, and saluted him by an inclination of its body.

A piece of mechanism of an elaborate nature was made by M. Camus for the special amusement of Louis XIV. when a child. It consisted of a small coach, which was drawn by two horses, and contained the figure of a lady within, with a footman and page behind. When this machine was placed at the extremity of a table of the proper size, “the coachman smacked his whip, and the horses instantly set off, moving their legs in a natural manner, and drawing the coach after them. When the coach reached the opposite edge of the table, it turned sharply at a right angle, and proceeded along the adjacent edge. As soon as it arrived opposite the place where the King sat it stopped, the page descended and opened the coach door, the lady alighted, and with a curtsey presented a petition, which she held in her hand, to the King. After waiting some time, she again curtsied and re-entered the carriage. The page closed the door, and having resumed his place behind, the coachman whipped his horses and drove on. The footman, who had previously alighted,ran after the carriage and jumped up behind into his former place.”[62]

Louis XIV. had an inordinate passion for jewels. His most costly possession was the famous crown of Agrippina, a work of consummate art, composed of eight tiers of immense brilliants in a transparent setting. In his private cabinet Louis XIV. “had two immense pedestals of rosewood, in the interior with shifting shelves, in which he kept the most precious of the crown jewels, in order that he might examine and admire them at his ease, an occupation in which he took great delight, nor did he ever hear of a gem of price, either in Asia or Europe, without making strenuous efforts to secure the prize.”

But this crown was the cause of a tragic and apparently mysterious occurrence. When the Princess of Modena passed through France on her way to England, where she was about to become the wife of the Duke of York, Louis gave her a costly reception, nothing on his part being left undone to make her brief sojourn at his Court as enjoyable as possible. It happened that the conversation turned on the forms and fashions of jewellery, which prompted the Marquis de Dangeau, who prided himself on his antiquarian knowledge, to observe that it was in the time of Nero the imperial crown was first arched, whereupon Louis added that he possessed one himself, and which the Marchioness de Montespan would produce. In due time the glittering circlet was broughtforth to excite universal admiration; but when Louis obtained a close view of it, he exclaimed to the Marchioness, “How is this, madam? This is no longer my crown of Agrippina; all the stones have been changed.” The setting was intact, but the brilliants had been replaced by paste.

The mystery was before long solved, it being proved that the maker of the casket had affected an attachment for one of the waiting-women of the Marchioness de Montespan, who during his visits, having free access to where the crown of Agrippina was kept, had substituted the mock for the true diamonds. He was convicted and hanged, upon which occasion Louis XIV. remarked to the Duchess, “He has at least left us the setting, but Cromwell would have seized it whole.”[63]

The Elector Frederick, surnamed “the Wise,” was an indefatigable collector of relics. After his death one of the monks employed by him solicited payment for several parcels he had purchased for “the wise Elector; but the times had changed. He was advised to give over this business. The relics for which he desired payment, it was argued, they were willing to return; that the price had fallen considerably since the Reformation of Luther; and that they would be more esteemed and find a better market in Italy than in Germany.”[64]

The only expensive personal fancy, it is said,of Frederick the Great was for collecting snuff-boxes, of which he left as many as one hundred and thirty, valued at one million three hundred thousand dollars. Lord Malmesbury says that “one could hardly approach the King without sneezing.” Two thousand pounds weight of Spanish snuff had always to be kept in store. Smoking, on the other hand, says Vehse,[65]“was an abomination to Frederick ever since the tobacco in his father’s time.” A female sovereign who indulged in this habit was Catherine II. of Russia.

And in the reign of Alexis the penalty for a man who smoked a pipe of tobacco was to have his nose cut off. This sovereign seems to have had a great dislike of tobacco, but times were to change, and a well-known portrait of Peter the Great represents him sitting in a sailor’s dress enjoying a pipe.

Augustus the Strong of Saxony was a great china fancier, and his credulity in the transmutation of metals was accidentally the cause of the discovery of the celebrated Dresden ware. An apothecary’s lad, named Böttiger, composed a tincture that was supposed to be capable of being transformed into gold. But the reputation of a successful alchemist was fatal to his liberty, and the lad of seventeen was by order of Augustus placed under lock and key, with a complete laboratory at his disposal—a restraint which almost made him mad. The Governor of Konigstein reported on the 12th of April 1702 that “he foamed at the mouth like a horse, roared like a bull, knocked his headagainst the wall, and trembled so violently that two soldiers could not hold him. He considered the commandant to be the Archangel Gabriel; he blasphemed, and drank twelve cans of beer a day without getting drunk.”

Accordingly, the lad was removed to Dresden, where he was allowed a certain liberty, and owing to his flow of animal spirits he had the art of enchanting every one he met. Augustus himself sought his acquaintance, without giving him full liberty. It was whilst pursuing his experiments that Böttiger discovered the Meissen porcelain—commonly called Dresden china—which to Augustus, who, as already stated, was a great china fancier, was as welcome as gold itself, for he had expended vast sums on what is known as the Japan Palace. Many workmen were engaged from Delft to work the new ware, and in 1710 the manufactory of Meissen commenced the supply of the demand, which soon became European.

Böttiger’s fortune and reputation were made, for henceforth he had access to the King as often as he chose, who gave him a ring with his effigy, a young bear, two apes, and credit with the royal banker. And in 1715 he not only obtained his full liberty, but the profits of the porcelain manufactory for life. But he proved himself unequal to success, and he died of his excesses at the early age of thirty-four.[66]

Ludwig II. of Bavaria was a most inveteratebuilder, and in the course of a few years he built the castle of Neuschwanstein, and the palaces of Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee, the last intended by him to be a monument to Louis Quatorze, “who was the supreme God of his mad Olympus.” True to his love of nocturnal expeditions, Ludwig arrived at Chiemsee at midnight, but in spite of all its splendour he failed to find much comfort there, set down as this gorgeous castle was in a wilderness far away from everywhere, and at last he only spent nine days in every year here.

Another sovereign who became a great builder was Stanislaus Leczinski, who, to gratify his hobby, demolished churches, chapels, ducal palaces, castles, towers, and town-houses. According to some, his greatest glory is the Church of Notre Dame de Bon Secours, in which he and his consort, Caroline Opzinska, were entombed. But, writes Dr. Doran, “antiquaries see in this building the ex-king’s greatest crime; for in order to construct it, he demolished the famous old church of the same name, erected by René II., Duke of Lorraine, in gratitude for his victory over Charles, Duke of Burgundy, in 1477, won on the very spot.” The story goes that an honest plasterer, who lived in sight of the old church, was so indignant at the profanation that he walled up his windows that his eyes might not be offended by the continual sight of what was going on. Then there was Henry IV. of France, whose taste for building conduced much to the improvement of his capital.

THE ROYAL HUNT

Itis said that before Alfred the Great was twelve years of age, “he was a most expert and active hunter, and excelled in all the branches of that most noble art, to which he applied with incessant labour and amazing success;” and Harold is represented in the famous Bayeux tapestry with his hounds by his side when brought before William, Duke of Normandy. Early accounts tell us how the privileges of hunting in the royal forests were confined to the King and his favourites, and history records how the New Forest in Hampshire was made by William, and how the park at Woodstock, seven miles in circumference, was walled round by Henry, his son.

But, apart from having been one of the most popular of our royal sports, hunting has not only been associated with many an important crisis in our history, but has had a romantic past. Thus it was when Henry was in the hunting-field, and the glancing aside of Wat Tyrrel’s arrow made him King of England, that an old woman in weird language addressed him thus:—

“Hasty news to thee I bring,Henry, thou art now a king;Mark the words and heed them well,Which to thee in sooth I tell,And recall them in the hour,Of thy regal state and power.”

King John was much attached to the chase, and in Cranbourne Chase, in the parish of Tollard Royal, is an ancient farmhouse known as King John’s Hunting-seat, with which a legendary story is told. One day, it is said, King John, being equipped for hunting, issued forth with the gay pageantry and state of his day. As he rode along he heard a gallant youth address a lady nearly in these words:—

“We will, fair queen, up to the mountain’s top,And mark the musical confusion,Of hounds and echo in conjunction.”

The happy couple left Tollard Royal on horseback, and as they took leave of the King the moon was sinking below the horizon. They were missing for several days, until the King, while hunting with his courtiers, found their lifeless remains. It appeared that when the moon set they must have mistaken their road, and have fallen “into a hideous pit, where both were killed.”

Marguerite, second wife of Edward I., was so keen a huntress that she was eagerly following the chase, when symptoms occurred which forced her to seek in haste the first roof she could reach. It was in a house at Brotherton, a village in Yorkshire, traditionally pointed out for centuries, that her firstborn son, Thomas, afterwards Duke of Norfolk and Grand Marshal of England, first saw the light.

Edward III., at the time he was engaged at war with France, and resident in that country, had with him in his army sixty couples of stag-hounds, and

EDWARD III.

as many hare-hounds, rarely allowing a day to pass without gratifying his favourite taste for hunting.

Tradition, too, long identified “the Queen’s oak” at Grafton as where Elizabeth Woodville waylaid Edward IV. in the forest of Whittlebury, with a fatherless boy in either hand. She threw herself at his feet, and pleaded for the restoration of Bradgate, the inheritance of her children. Her downcast looks and mournful beauty not only gained her suit, but reached the heart of Edward, who on making certain proposals received the memorable answer, “I know I am not good enough to be your queen, but I am too good to become your mistress.”

But what shall be said of Henry VIII., who on that eventful morning—the 19th of May 1536—attired for the chase, with his huntsmen and hounds around him, stood under the spreading oak in Richmond Park, breathlessly awaiting the signal-gun from the Tower which was to announce the execution of his once “entirely beloved Anne Boleyn.” At last, when the sullen sound of the death-gun was heard, he joyously cried, “Ha, ha! the deed is done, uncouple the hounds and away!”

How different were Henry’s feelings on this day to what they had been in 1532, when Cardinal du Bellai, ambassador from Francis I., gave this pleasant picture of another hunting scene in which the ill-fated Anne Boleyn took part: “I am alone every day with the King when we are hunting; he chats familiarly with me, and sometimes Madame Anne joins our party. Each of them is equipped with bow and arrows, which is, as you know, their modeof following the chase. Sometimes he places us in a station to see him shoot the deer; and whenever he arrives near any house belonging to his courtiers, he alights to tell them of the feats he has accomplished. Madame Anne has presented me a complete set of hunting-gear, consisting of a cap, a bow and arrows, and a greyhound. I do not tell you this as a boast of the lady’s favour, but to show how much King Henry prizes me as the representative of our monarch, for whatever that lady does is directed by him.”

Elizabeth was fond of hunting, and the nobility who entertained her in her different progresses made large hunting-parties, which she usually joined if the weather was favourable. “Her Majesty,” says a courtier, writing to Sir Robert Sidney,[67]“is well and excellently disposed to hunting, for every second day she is on horseback, and continues the sport long.” At this time her Majesty had just entered her seventy-seventh year, and she was then at her palace at Oatlands. And oftentimes, when she was not disposed to hunt herself, she was entertained with the sight of the pastime. At Cowdray in Sussex—the seat of Lord Montacute—one day after dinner, we read in Nichols’s “Progresses,” how her Grace saw from a turret “sixteen bucks, all having fayre lawe, pulled down with greyhounds in a laund or lawn.” And many other accounts have been left us of the interest Elizabeth always took in the chase.

James I. found much enjoyment in hunting, andit was a common expression of our ancestors on taking leave of their friends, “God’s peace be with you, as King James said to his hounds.”

Scaliger observed of him, “The King of England is merciful except in hunting, where he appears cruel. When he finds himself unable to take the beast, he frets and cries, ‘God is angry with me, but I will have him for all that.’”“His favourite pastime once nearly cost him his life, for he was thrown headlong into a pond, and very narrowly escaped drowning. On another occasion his bad horsemanship nearly proved fatal to him, for Mr. Joseph Meade writes to Sir Martin Stuteville, 11th January 1622: ‘The same day his Majesty rode by coach to Theobald’s to dinner, ... and after dinner, riding on horseback abroad, his horse stumbled, and cast his Majesty into the New River, where the ice brake; he fell in so that nothing but his boots were seen. Sir Richard Young went into the water and lifted him out.’”Indeed, Sir Richard Baker informs us the King’s riding was so remarkable that it could not with so much propriety be said that he rode, as that his horse carried him. He often hunted in Cranbourne Chase, and in a copy of Barker’s Bible, printed in 1594, which formerly belonged to the family of the Cokers of Woodcotes, in the Chase, are entries of the King’s visits: “The 24th day of August, our King James was in Mr. Butler’s Walke, and found the bucke, and killed him in Vernedich, in Sir Walter Vahen’s Walk.”

In the painting of Queen Anne of Denmarkin her hunting costume, her dogs are introduced by Van Somers; they wear ornamental collars, round which are embossed in gold the letters, A. R.; they are dwarf greyhounds. The Queen holds a crimson cord in her hand in which two of these dogs are linked, and it is long enough to allow them to run in the leash by her side when on horseback. A very small greyhound is begging, by putting its paws against her green cut-velvet farthingale, as if jealous of her attention.

Catherine of Braganza, Queen-Consort of Charles II., loved sport, and from all accounts her hunting establishment was carried on in an elaborate manner, for mention is made of “the master of her Majesty’s bows,” with a salary of £61 attached to his office; “a yeoman of her Majesty’s bows,” “a master of her Majesty’s bucks,” &c. At Oxnead a venerable oak was long pointed out, beneath which, according to local tradition, King Charles and his Queen stood when they shot at the butts. In the year 1676 a silver badge for the marshal of the fraternity of bowmen, of which she was the patroness, was made, weighing twenty-five ounces, with the figure of an archer drawing the long English bow to his ear, with the inscription, “Reginæ Catharinæ Sagitarii,” having also the arms of England and Portugal, with two bowmen for supporters.

James II. oftentimes hunted two or three times a week, and a contemporary thus writes: “His Majesty to-day, God bless him! underwent the fatigue of a long fox-chase. I saw him and hisfollowers return, as like drowned rats as ever appendixes to royalty did.” In the year 1686, when pursuing the dangerous designs which led to his expulsion, he still indulged in the chase, and Sir John Bramston in his Autobiography tells us how on the 3rd of May James hunted the red deer near Chelmsford with the Duke of Albemarle, Prince George of Denmark, and some of the lords of his Court. After a long chase, the King was in at the death between Romford and Brentwood. The same night he supped at Newhall with his fellow-hunters; and on the next day he hunted another stag which lay in Newhall Park, and a famous run they had, for “the gallant creature leaped the paling, swam the river, ran through Brampfield, Pleshie, and the Roothings, and was at last killed at Hatfield.” On this occasion, too, James was in at the death, although most of the lords, including the Duke of Albemarle, were thrown out, much to his delight. But as his horse was spent, and royalty in some need of a dinner, Lord Dartmouth advised to make for Copthall, the seat of the Earl of Dorset, and accordingly he sent a groom to apprise his Lordship that his Majesty would take family fare with him that day. It happened that the Earl was dining out at Rockholts, and the Countess about to pay some visits in the neighbourhood, when the messenger met them, stopped the coach, and announced the royal intent. As her cook and butler were gone to Waltham fair, she would have excused herself on the plea that her lord and servants were out, buta second messenger following close on the heels of the first, she drove home, and sent her carriage to meet his Majesty.

She exerted her energies to excellent purpose, and on his Majesty’s arrival a handsome collation was prepared for him. Well pleased, the King set forth for London, and on the road met the Earl of Dorset returning from Rockholts, who, alighting from his coach, offered his regrets that he had not been at home to entertain his Majesty.

“Make no excuse, my lord,” replied the King, “all was exceedingly well done, and very handsome.”

King William’s favourite diversion was hunting, or rather coursing. In a letter to Lord Portland, dated from Windsor, 1701, his Majesty displays the keen relish he took in this sport: “I am hunting the hare every day in the park with your dogs and mine. The rabbits are almost all killed, and their burrows will soon be stopped up. The day before yesterday I took a stag in the forest with the Prince of Denmark’s hounds, and had a pretty good run as far as this villainous country permits.” It may be remarked that King William’s uncomplimentary epithets touching England and the English have been made the subject of strong comment; but, as it has been observed, the abhorrence of the land he ruled “was not founded on moral detestation of its vilest diversions, in the worst of which he partook.” As shown elsewhere, he was a desperate gambler, and Count Tallard, the French ambassador, mentioning some of his doings, thuswrites: “On leaving the palace King William went to the cock-fight, whither I accompanied him. He made me sit beside him.”

Queen Anne’s principal amusement was hunting. On the 31st of July 1711 Swift writes to Stella from Windsor: “The Queen was abroad to-day in order to hunt, but finding it disposed to rain, she kept in her coach. She hunts in a chaise with one horse, which she drives herself, and drives furiously, like Jehu, and is a mighty hunter, like Nimrod.”

On the 7th of the following month Swift writes to Stella: “I dined to-day with the gentlemen Ushers, among scurvy company; but the Queen was hunting the stag till four this afternoon, and she drove in her chaise above forty miles, and it was five before we went to dinner.”

Her Majesty must have had some skill in driving, or she would probably have met with a series of disasters similar to one which befell her friend the Duchess of Somerset, who was overturned.

Prior to ascending the throne she purchased a cottage lodge in the neighbourhood of Windsor, and every summer she hunted the stag in Windsor Forest. A noble oak with a glass plate affixed to it, intimating that it was called “Queen Anne’s oak,” as beneath its branches she was accustomed to mount her horse for the chase, was long a place of interest.

George II. was often to be found in the hunting-field, and was on such an occasion usually attended by the Queen, one or more of the princesses, the maids of honour, and a number of the courtiersof both sexes. The sport was not unfrequently attended by accident, and one day the Princess Amelia had a narrow escape with her life. This princess was devoted to the pleasures of the field, and in the pursuit of her favourite amusement adopted a costume which more nearly resembled that of the male than the female sex. In the gallery at Hardwicke there is a curious portrait of her—in a round hunting cap and laced coat—which, says Mr. Jesse, “those who are unacquainted with her peculiarities would hardly persuade themselves could be intended for a woman.”

It is recorded of Charlemagne that he was passionately devoted to the chase, and arranged his hunting appointments with every show of luxury, it having been his special delight to show the splendour of his hunting establishment to foreign princes. When hunting, it is said, the organisation was like that “of a military expedition, and resembled the immense battues which the sovereigns of Germany delighted in during the last century. Armies of men beat the woods, and many packs of dogs drove all the animals of a large district into enclosures of nets and snares, when the hunters of the highest rank attacked them on horseback with the lance and the javelin.”

Many of the French monarchs made hunting their favourite pastime. The coronation of Philip Augustus was postponed by the illness of the young prince. He was benighted whilst hunting in the forest of Compiègne, brought home by a peasant, but was so terrified that a very long illness was theresult. The chase was the only sport that Louis XI. cared for, and it is commonly said that he was as selfish and cruel in protecting his preserves as William Rufus himself. It is related that Louis at a later period cut off a Norman gentleman’s ear for shooting a hare on his own grounds. Basin goes so far as to say that Montauban—one of the favourites of Louis XI.—being appointed Chief of Forests and Rivers—showed himself so severe and rapacious in the granting of licences and the punishment of offences connected with the chase, that the entire gentry of the country were filled with rage![68]

The Bois de Boulogne was formed by Francis I., that he might hunt close to his capital, and the Château de Madrid was built in it for his night’s rest. Fontainebleau, with its forty acres of forest, often resounded with the fanfares of the huntsmen, as the King’s gay train galloped through the wooded glades. More than once his life was in danger whilst fighting hand to hand with the wild boars caught in the nets; and one day he was dragged from his saddle by a stag which threw him to the ground. Chambord, once the Versailles of the south, owes its castle to him, which he built, after his imprisonment in Spain, for a hunting lodge.

Louis XIII. was fond of the chase, and Versailles owed its grandeur to his love for hunting. Tired of sleeping in a windmill, or a cabaret, when wearied with his long rides through the forest of St. Leger,he built a small pavilion, which was replaced in 1627 by an elegant château, which under Louis XIV. assumed its later proportions. The latter monarch made his début in boar-hunting at the age of four, and his daily journal betrays the large portion of time given up to it in the midst of events which precipitated the French monarchy to ruin.

The only passion, it is said, ever shown by Louis XVI. was for hunting. On one occasion, writes Soulavie,[69]“he was so much occupied by it that when I went up into his private closets at Versailles, I saw upon the staircase six frames, in which were seen statements of all his hunts when dauphin and when king. In them was detailed the number, kind, and quality of the game he had killed at each hunting-party during every month, every season, and every year of his reign.”

The story goes that when Gustavus reached Paris on June 7, 1784, he went on the same evening to Versailles. But Louis had been hunting, and was at supper at Rambouillet when a courier from Vergennes brought him the news. The King at once retired to Versailles, but not being expected, could find neithervalets-de-chambrenor keys. Accordingly, he was compelled to dress as best he could, and finally made his appearance before his royal guest in two odd shoes—one with a red, the other with a black heel—with odd buckles—one gold, one silver—and the rest of his dress in similar confusion.

The indifference paid by Marie Antoinette toconventional rules observed by those in high station exposed her to censure; but even her opponents have been forced to admit that one of her charms was the genuine kindness she often displayed to persons in a humble sphere of life. Thus, on one occasion, a strange accident happened. The stag, being closely pursued by the hounds during the royal hunt, leaped into an enclosure in which the owner was at work. The animal not seeing any means of escape became furious, ran at the peasant, and struck him two blows with its antlers, inflicting a dangerous wound. His wife, in a state of despair, rushed towards a group of sportsmen she saw at a distance—it was the King and his suite. She cried out for help, telling what had happened to her husband, and then fell down in a swoon. The King gave orders that she should be attended to, and after speaking kindly and compassionately rode away; but the Dauphiness, who had come up, stepped out of her carriage, ran to the woman, made her smell essenced water, which gave her relief, and presented her with all the money she had on her person.

On July 25, 1830, Charles X. of France signed the decrees which abolished the liberty of the press, and on the following day—although it was summertime—he went with the Dauphin to hunt the stag in the forest of Rambouillet. It proved to be an historic hunt, for “it seemed as if he had come to gaze at the scene whence his royalty was to be carried out to be buried.” By half-past nine the following night eight royal carriages and some hired coachesdeposited at the gates of Rambouillet the fugitive King and a part of his terrified family; and thus came to pass the deposition of the last of the Bourbon kings who had reigned in France.

Frederick William I. of Prussia was an enthusiastic huntsman, and attached to the royal household were twelve huntsmen, who, besides their services in the chase, likewise waited at table. During several of his illnesses they had to sit up with him, and to amuse him during his sleepless nights with hunters’ stories. On the other hand, Frederick the Great denounced hunting as cruel, and he used frequently to say, “The butcher does not kill animals for his pleasure, but merely because human society requires them for food; whereas the hunter kills them only for his pleasure, which is detestable. The hunter, therefore, should be placed in the scale of society below the butcher.” Frederick William III., too, never had any taste for hunting, which he called “a cruel miserable pleasure”; and he even gave it as his opinion that his ancestor, Frederick William I., of whom he loved to speak, had been made so harsh and cruel by it.

Ferdinand V., the Catholic, who united the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon by his marriage with Isabella, cared for no other amusement save that of hunting, especially falconry; and Charles V. was fond of the chase. Maximilian II. found his chief pleasure in hunting, and he acquired the celebrated Prater—the Hyde Park of Vienna—which was originally a forest park with preserved game. In one of his letters to his brother-in-law, Albert of Bavaria,dated September 28, 1568, he writes: “I have several times wished from all my heart that you were with us in the Prater, where lots of fine stags have shown themselves, and particularly on Tuesday last, when I had a boar-hunt there, at which I bagged thirty head of game.”

Hunting the boar in the forests which surrounded the royal residence of Cintra was the great delight of Don Sebastian. We are told that he always dismounted to give thecoup de grâceto the boar. Sometimes the wounded beast turned upon his assailant, but none of the cavaliers presumed, however desperate the struggle, to interfere between the King and his savage foe.

A Portuguese monarch who devoted much time to hunting was Alfonso IV., a pursuit he indulged in to the detriment of the State. But his presence one day being essential at Lisbon, he entered the council-chamber full of the adventures of the chase, with which he entertained the nobles present. After concluding his narrative, a nobleman of the first rank thus addressed him:—

“Courts and camps are allowed for kings, not woods and deserts. Even the affairs of private men suffer when recreation is preferred to business; but when the phantasies of pleasure engross the thoughts of a king, a whole nation is consigned to ruin. If your Majesty will attend to the wants and remove the grievances of your people, you will find them obedient subjects; if not, they will look out for another and a better king.”

Alfonso, in the transport of passion, retired, butsoon returned, and said: “I perceive the truth of your remarks. He who will not execute the duties of a king cannot long have good subjects. Remember, from this day forward I am no longer Alfonso the Sportsman, but Alfonso, King of Portugal”—a resolve which he kept with the most rigid determination, becoming one of the greatest of the Portuguese monarchs.

The only accomplishment, it is said, in which Alfonso VI. was a proficient was horsemanship. He once rode full-tilt at a savage bull in a meadow, but the brute so galled his royal assailant with his horns, that “he was unhorsed and nearly lost his life.” Amongst the wild acts of this wretched monarch, we are told how one night, returning from the chase, he charged two inoffensive citizens, sword in hand, and after riding over them would have despatched them, had not the grand huntsman interfered.

Charles III. of Spain was more attached to the sports of the field than the splendour of the monarchy; and it is said that no weather, however bad, could keep him at home. In addition to a most numerous retinue of persons belonging to his hunting establishment, several times a year all the idle fellows in the neighbourhood of Madrid were hired to scour the country, far and wide, and drive the wild boars, hares, and deer into a ring, where they passed before the royal family. Charles also kept in a diary a regular account of the victims to his skill. A short time before his death he boasted to a foreign ambassador that he had killed with his own hand 539 wolves and 5323 foxes. “So that,you see,” he said, with a smile, “my diversion has not been useless to my country.” And it is further said that so devoted was his Majesty to hunting that there were only three days in the year when he did not attend the chase.

Charles IV. was equally fond of hunting, and the first feeling he had of his uncrowned condition was on hearing that the new king had ordered all the wolves and foxes to be destroyed. It was not his son’s policy which disconcerted him, but the suppression of his hunting establishment, which had been his only pleasure for many years.

Amongst the fatalities on the hunting-field may be mentioned the death of Casimir IV., King of Poland, who was thrown from his horse near Cracow, November 3, 1370. During the years that Stanislaus Leczinski reigned, he paid every regard to his preserves, chases, and forests. He took great pride in his deer, which were often so numerous that the harvests were occasionally ruined by them—so destructive were they to the crops. But this monarch, says Dr. Doran, is praised “for having reduced his hunting establishment, and opened his preserves for cultivation.” He certainly did this, but it was not till he was too old to mount a horse, or hold a gun. Before that, if a hungry man snared a hare he was sent to the gallows. But whatever his inconsistencies may have been, Stanislaus continued to win popular affection, than which, says Grimm, he could not have had a more touching funeral oration at the time of his death.

ROYAL MASQUES AND MASQUERADES

AtCourt in bygone years, on occasions of festivity, it was customary for the whole company to appear in borrowed characters, a practice which may be traced back as early as the reign of Edward III. Pageants of this kind were exhibited with great splendour, and at a costly outlay. The magnificent disguisings which took place in the reign of Henry VIII. have long been proverbial. The chief aim seems to have been to surprise the spectators “by the ridiculous and exaggerated oddity of the visors, and by the singularity and splendour of the dresses, everything being out of nature and propriety. Frequently the masque was attended with an exhibition of gorgeous machinery, resembling the wonders of a modern pantomime,”[70]the preparation of which occupied a considerable time.

It was at the Christmas festivities in the year 1509 that Henry VIII. appeared in the disguise of a strange knight, astonishing the Court circle with the grace and vigour of his tilting. Henry was specially fond of disguisings and masquings, and on another occasion he presented himself with his cousin, the Earl of Essex, and other nobles,in the disguise of Robin Hood and his men, “Whereat,” writes Holinshed, “the Queen and her ladies were greatly amazed, as well for the strange sight as for their sudden appearance.”

At Shrovetide soon afterwards, in a grand banquet given at Westminster, Henry, with the Earls of Essex, Wiltshire, and Fitzwalter, appeared in Russian costume, “with furred hats of grey, each of them having a hatchet in hand, and wearing boots with peaks turned up.” The King’s sister, the Princess Mary, danced a masquing ballet, hiding her face under a black gauze mask, as “she had assumed the character of an Ethiop queen.”

In the early part of the year 1510 a royal masque was given to celebrate the birth of Prince Henry, on which occasion Sir Charles Brandon, afterwards Duke of Suffolk, introduced himself before Queen Catherine in the garb of a “hermit poor,” craving permission to tilt in her honour. In the evening, when her Majesty sat in state at Westminster, a nobleman entered to inform her “how that in a garden of pleasure was an arbour of gold, full of ladies, who were very desirous of showing pastime for the Queen’s diversion.”

Catherine graciously replied, “I and my ladies will be happy to behold them and their pastime.”

Then a curtain was drawn aside, and the pageant moved forwards. It was an arbour, covered with gold, above which were twined branches of hawthorn, roses, and eglantines, all made of silk and satin to resemble the natural colours of the flowers. In the arbour were six ladies, dressed in gowns ofwhite and green satin, covered with gold letters of H and K. Near the bower stood the King himself and five lords, dressed in purple satin, likewise covered with the same monograms in solid bullion, and every one had his name in letters of bullion. Then the King and his company danced before Catherine’s throne.

In honour of the marriage of Arthur, Prince of Wales, with Catherine of Aragon, three pageants were exhibited in Westminster Hall. The first was a castle with ladies; the second, a ship in full sail, that cast anchor near the castle; and the third, a mountain with several armed knights upon it, who stormed the castle and obliged the ladies to surrender. The pageant terminated with a dance.

But these Court spectacles were, perhaps, at no period more cultivated in this country than by Henry VIII. and his favourite, Wolsey, in whose strangely contrived shows a moving mountain would sometimes “enter the great hall, adorned with trees, flowers, and herbage, and studded with wild beasts and savage men, which, opening suddenly, would send forth a gay throng of knights and ladies, or allegorical personages, who, having sung and danced before the guests, retired again to their place of concealment.”[71]Such performances, as may be imagined, by their novelty and grotesqueness, rarely failed to create as much fun and amusement among the royal circle as among the privileged persons invited to see them.

When an inventory was taken after the deathof Henry VIII. of all the tapestry, pictures, plate, jewels, and other goods of which he died possessed, it was found that he had no less than ninety-nine vizors, or “masks of sondry sorts,” besides many sets of “maskings heads” at Greenwich, which he and his courtiers were in the habit of wearing.

In her youthful days Queen Mary made her appearance at a pantomimic ballet, when she wore a black crape mask as an Ethiopian princess. In the year 1527 she exhibited herself before the French ambassadors at Greenwich Palace, with five of her ladies, dressed in Icelandic costume; and with six lords, in the costume of the same country, the party “daunced lustily about the hall.”

At another masque, before the same ambassadors, in May of that year, the Princess Mary issued out of a cave with her seven ladies, dressed after the Roman fashion in rich cloth of gold and crimson tinsel, and they danced a ballet with eight lords. It is said that the young Princess soon became emboldened and at her ease when engaged in such royal pageantry; although, as it has been remarked, it seems strange to us nowadays that one so young should have been allowed or encouraged, so attired, to challenge the gaze and criticism of strangers. The only instance, says Payne Collier, in which Queen Mary called on the Master of the Revels to provide for entertainments at Court during her reign was in 1557. On St. Mark’s Day she commanded, for her “regal disport, recreation, and comfort,” a“notorious maske of Almaynes, Pilgrymes, and Irishemen.”

A continual series of pageantry and masquing welcomed Queen Elizabeth’s reception at Kenilworth; and on Shrove Tuesday, 1594, the members of Gray’s Inn got up a burlesque masque for her amusement, with which she was so much pleased that the courtiers, fired with emulation, as soon as the masque was over began to dance a measure, which caused her Majesty to utter this reproof: “What, shall we have bread and cheese after a banquet?”

The Earl of Essex, who took good care to propitiate his royal mistress by all sorts of flattery, on the 17th of November 1596—the anniversary of her accession to the throne—caused a sort of masque to be represented which was thus described by an eye-witness: “My lord of Essex’s device is much commended in these late triumphs. Some pretty while before he came in himself to the tilt, he sent his page with some speech to the Queen, who returned with her Majesty’s glove; and when he came himself, he was met by an old hermit, a secretary of state, a brave soldier, and an esquire. The first presented him with a book of meditations, the second with political discourses, the third with orations of brave-fought battles, the fourth was but his own follower, to whom the other three imparted much of their purpose before their coming in. Another devised with him, persuading him to this and that course of life, according to their own inclinations. Thencomes into the tilt-yard, unthought upon, the ordinary post-boy of London, a ragged villain, all bemired, upon a poor lean jade, galloping and blowing for life, and delivered the secretary a packet of letters, which he presently offered to my lord of Essex; and with this dumb show our eyes were fed for that time.”

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 ascene 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]

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