he was told that James was greatly annoyed at his wife's levity, and would ask him and the Venetian ambassador to dinner; but La Boderie refused to accept this as a compliment equivalent to seeing the Queen dance, and supping with the King before 10,000 persons. He urged that both ambassadors or neither should be invited, and hinted that, if Anne was so openly Spanish in her tendencies, Henri might feel obliged to leave the mission in charge of a secretary. An offer was made to invite La Boderie's wife, but this he naturally refused. The Council tried in vain to make Anne hear reason, but finally let the mask proceed, and countered Henri diplomatically by calling his attention to the money debts due from France to England. Meanwhile Giustinian had pressed for his own invitation in place of the Flemish ambassador, and obtained it. The Spanish and Venetian ambassadors were therefore present. La Boderie reported that much attention was paid to Giustinian, and little to the Spanish ambassador, and also that James was so angry with Anne that he left for a hunting trip the next day without seeing her. Giustinian admired the mask,
which was, James told him (V. P. xi. 86), 'to consecrate the birth of the Great Hall, which his predecessors had left him built merely in wood, but which he had converted into stone'. Probably this is the mask described in a letter of Lady Pembroke to Lord Shrewsbury calendared without date among letters of 1607-8 in Lodge, iii, App. 121. On 28 Jan. the Spanish ambassador invited the fifteen ladies who had danced to dinner (Lodge, iii. 223; La Boderie, iii. 81). On 29 Jan. Lord Lisle wrote to the Earl of Shrewsbury regretting that he could not send him the verses, because Ben Jonson was busy writing more for the Haddington wedding (Lodge, App. 102). A warrant for expenses was signed 11 Dec. (S. P. D. Jac. I, xxviii). A payment was made to Bethell (Reyher, 520).
Lord Haddington's Mask [The Hue and Cry after Cupid]. 9 Feb. 1608
N.D. The Description of the Masque. With the Nuptiall Songs. Celebrating the happy Marriage of Iohn, Lord Ramsey, Viscount Hadington, with the Lady Elizabeth Ratcliffe, Daughter to the right Honor: Robert, Earle of Sussex. At Court On the Shroue-Tuesday at night. 1608. Deuised by Ben: Ionson. [No imprint.]
1616. [Part of F_{1}.] The maskers were the twelve Signs of the Zodiac in carnation and silver; the antimaskers Cupid and twelve Joci and Risus, who danced 'with their antic faces'; the presenters Venus, the Graces and Cupid, Hymen, Vulcan and the Cyclopes; the musicians Priests of Hymen, while the Cyclopes beat time with their sledges.
Pilasters hung with amorous trophies supported gigantic figures of Triumph and Victory 'in place of the arch, and holding a gyrlond of myrtle for the key'. The scene was a steep red cliff (Radcliffe), over which clouds broke for the issue of the chariot of Venus. After the antimasque, the cliff parted, to discover the maskers in a turning sphere of silver. The maskers gave four dances, interspersed with verses of
