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

xlviii INTRODUCTION.
were the grand masquers, sixteen in number, who were carried in
Roman chariots with outriders, trumpeters, and torch-bearers in
great number. The anti-masquers, who represented the comic element,
began by a masque of beggars and cripples mounted on poor
lean jades taken from the dust carts. These were followed by an
anti-masque of birds, which was performed by boys, dressed in
the plumage of owls and other birds, mounted on ponies, accompanied
by running footmen with torches and by a band of pipes
and whistles. Next came an anti-masque of projectors or monopolists,
which is said to have given great pleasure to the populace, as
showing to the king the folly and injustice of the patents of monopoly
for fourteen years which were then being granted. For the
invention and arrangement of this anti-masque, the attorney general,
whose duty it was to draw the patents but who did not favour their
extension, is said by Whitelock to have been mainly responsible.
The poetical part of the masque was, according to Whitelock, put into
the hands of a sub-committee, but it was in fact written by James
Shirley, and it appears among his works.' The masquers assembled
at Ely House, and started thence by Chancery Lane and the Strand
for Whitehall. The inns of court took their places in the procession
by lot, Gray's Inn coming first. " The habits of the sixteen grand
masquers," says Whitelock, " were all the same, their persons most
handsome and lovely, the equipage so full of state and height of
gallantry, that it never was outdone by any representation mentioned
in our former stories. The torches and flaming huge flamboys born by
the sides of each chariot, made it seem lightsome as at noon-day, but
more glittering, and gave a full and clear light to all the streets and
windows as they passed by. The march was slow, in regard of their
great number, but more interrupted by the multitude of the spectators
in the streets, besides the windows, and they all seemed loth to part
with so glorious a spectacle." Arrived at Whitehall, the masque, which
had been well rehearsed, was given in the banqueting hall, the queen
showing her pleasure by coming on to the floor, and herself with the
great ladies of the court joining in the dances with the gentlemen of the
" The Triumph of Peace." Printed by John Norton, for W. Cooke, London, 1634,
and dedicated by him to the four inns of court. See also " English Masques,"
London, 1897, p. 203.
Memorials," vol. i., p. 6o ; fo. ed., p. 2 1