(King's MSS. cxxiv, ff. 328, 359^v, 363, 373, 381, 383^v, 389; cf. Reyher, 519, Sullivan, 193-5). was the object of the Court not to invite both ambassadors together, as this would entail an awkward decision as to precedence. Beaumont was asked first, to the mask on 1 Jan. He hesitated to accept, expressing a fear that it was intended to ask De Taxis to the Queen's mask on Twelfth Night, 'dernier jour des festes de Noël selon la facon d'Angleterre et le plus honnorable de tout pour la cérémonie qui s'y obserue de tout temps publiquement'. After some negotiation he extracted a promise from James that, if the Spaniard was present at all, it would be in a private capacity, and he then dropped the point, and accepted his own invitation, threatening to kill De Taxis in the presence if he dared to dispute precedence with him. On 5 Jan. he learnt that Anne had refused to dance if De Taxis was not present, and that the promise would be broken. He protested, and his protest was met by an invitation for the Twelfth Night to which he had attached such importance. But the Queen's mask was put off until 8 Jan., a Scottish mask substituted on 6 Jan., and on 8 Jan. De Taxis was present, revelling it in red, while Anne paid him the compliment of wearing a red favour on her costume. Reyher, 519, cites references to the Queen's mask in the accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber and of the Office of Works. E. Law (Hist. of Hampton Court, ii. 10) gives, presumably from one of these, 'making readie the lower ende with certain roomes of the hall at Hampton Court for the Queenes Maiestie and ladies against their mask by the space of three dayes'. Allde's edition must have been quickly printed. On 2 Feb. Lord Worcester wrote to Lord Shrewsbury (Lodge, iii. 87): 'Whereas your Lordship saith you were never particularly advertised of the mask, I have been at sixpence charge with you to send you the book, which will inform you better than I can, having noted the names of the ladies applied to each goddess; and for the other, I would likewise have sent you the ballet, if I could have got it for money, but these books, as I hear, are all called in, and in truth I will not take upon me to set that down which wiser than myself do not understand.'
Tethys' Festival. 5 June 1610
1610. Tethys Festiual: or the Queenes Wake. Celebrated at Whitehall, the fifth day of June 1610. Deuised by Samuel Daniel, one of the Groomes of her Maiesties most Honourable priuie Chamber. For John Budge. [Annexed with separate title-page to The Creation of Henry Prince of Wales (q.v.). A Preface to the Reader criticizes, though not by name, Ben Jonson's descriptions of his masks.]
Edition in Nichols, James (1828), ii. 346.
The maskers, in sky-blue and cloth of silver, were Tethys and thirteen Nymphs of as many English Rivers; the antimaskers, in light robes adorned with flowers, eight Naiads; the presenters Zephyrus and two Tritons, whom with the Naiads Daniel calls 'the Ante-maske or first shew', and Mercury. Torchbearers were dispensed with, for
