Volume II 1603-1660 - The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple

I NT RODUCTI ON. xlv
of innes of court, being tenne of each house, every one appoynted in
way of honourable combate to breake three staves, three swords, and
exchange ten blowes apeece (whose names for their worthinesse I
commend to fame) beganne thus each to encounter the other."
The ten gentlemen of our inn were :—Master Crow, of Brasted,
Kent ; Master Vernon, afterwards Baron of the Exchequer in 1627
and Justice of the King's Bench in 1631 ; Master Parsons ; Master
Brocke, of Upton, Cheshire ; Master Chetwood ; Master Sin alman ;
Master Wilde ; Master Chave, of Burlescomb, Devon ; Master
Littleton, afterwards Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and
Lord Keeper ; and Master Treur, probably Thomas Trevor of
Trevallyn, Denbigh, made a Baron of the Exchequer in 1625.
At the barriers held at the banqueting hall when Prince Henry
was created Prince of Wales in 1609-1o, he and all the other gentlemen
who took part in the contests wore plate armour, which, as
described by Meyrick may be found in Nichols,' the weapons being
sword and pike. A similar armament probably was worn by the
gentlemen of the inns of court in 1616, who also encountered
each other with swords. Chamberlain, referring to this matter in
a letter to Sir Dudley Carleton,' is not very complimentary in his
description of the proceedings. " I had almost forgot," he says,
" that our inns of court gentlemen carried themselves but indifferently
at the barriers the night of the Prince's creation, but
specially in their compliments, wherein they were not so graceful as
was to be wished and expected, but in requital they played the man
at the banquet."
In 1618-19 the society produced a masque called " The Masque
of Heroes."' It was written by Thomas Middleton, a very profuse
and second-rate author of poems and plays, and is by no means free
from vulgar indecency. It is claimed by the .writer in his introduction
to be entirely original and intended for the " entertainment of
many worthy ladies " who according to custom were, at the conclusion
1 "Progresses of King James," vol. ii., p. 270.
2 Ibid., vol. iii., p. 226.
"The Inner Temple Masque, or Masque of Heroes. Presented [as an Entertainment
for many Worthy Ladies] by Gentlemen of the Same Antient and Noble
House. Tho. Middleton. London. Printed for John Browne, and are to be sold at
his Shop in S. Dunstanes Churchyard in Fleetstreete. 1619." 4to. See also " Middleton's
Works," by Dyce, London, 1840, vol. v., p. 133, Svo.