place in midst of the stage, and the little ladies performed their dance to the amazement of all the beholders, considering the tenderness of their years and the many intricate changes of the dance; which was so disposed, that which way soever the changes went the little Duke was still found to be in the midst of these little dancers. These light skirmishers having
done their devoir, in came the Princesses; first the Queen, next the Lady Elizabeth's Grace, then the Lady Arbella, the Countesses of Arundell, Derby, Essex, Dorset, and Montgomery, the Lady Hadington, the Lady Elizabeth Grey, the Lady Windsor, the Lady Katherine Peter, the Lady Elizabeth Guilford, and the Lady Mary [Anne] Wintour. By that time these had done, it was high time to go to bed, for it was within half an hour of the sun's, not setting, but rising. Howbeit, a farther time was to be spent in viewing and scrambling at one of the most magnificent banquets that I have seen. The ambassadors of Spaine, of Venice, and of the Low Countries were present at this and all the rest of these glorious sights, and in truth so they were.' Brief notices in Stowe's Annales (902, paged 907 in error) and in letters by Carleton to Sir Thomas Edmondes (Birch, i. 114) and by John Noies to his wife (Hist. MSS. Various Colls. iii. 261) add nothing to Finett's account. There were no very serious ambassadorial complications, as the death of Henri IV put an invitation to the French ambassador out of the question (cf. Sullivan, 59). Correr notes with satisfaction that, as ambassador from Venice, he had as good a box as that of the Spanish ambassador, while, to please Spanish susceptibilities, that of the Dutch ambassador was less good (V. P. xi. 507). The mask was 'excessively costly' (V. P. xii. 86). Several financial documents relating to it are on record (Reyher, 507, 521; Devon, 105, 127; Sullivan, 219, 221; S. P. D. Jac. I, liii. 4, 74; lix. 12), including a warrant of 4 March, which recites the Queen's pleasure that the Lord Chamberlain and Master of the Horse 'shall take some paines to look into the emptions and provisions of all things necessarie', another of 25 May for an imprest to Inigo Jones, an embroiderer's bill for £55, and a silkman's for £1,071 5s., with an endorsement by Lord Knyvet, referring the prices to the Privy Council, and counter-signatures by the Lord Chamberlain and the Master of the Horse. In this case the dresses of the maskers seem to have been provided for them. An allusion in a letter of Donne to Sir Henry Goodyere (Letters, i. 240) makes a sportive suggestion for a source of revenue 'if Mr. Inago Jones be not satisfied for his last masque (because I hear say it cannot come to much)'. JOHN DAVIDSON (1549?-1603). A Regent of St. Leonard's College, St. Andrew's, and afterwards minister of Liberton and a bitter satirist on behalf of the extreme Kirk party in Scotland.
The Siege of Edinburgh Castle. 1571
James Melville writes s.a. 1571: 'This yeir in the monethe of July, Mr. Jhone Davidsone an of our Regents maid a play at the mariage of Mr. Jhone Coluin, quhilk I saw playit in Mr. Knox presence, wherin,
