The Ballad Literature and Popular Music of the Olden Time/Volume 1/Reign of Elizabeth/The Cushion Dance

For other versions of this work, see Joan Sanderson.

The Cushion Dance.

The Cushion Dance was in favour both in court and country in the reign of Elizabeth, and is occasionally danced even at the present day. In Lilly’s Euphues, 1580, Lucilla, says, “Trulie, Euphues, you have mist the cushion, for I was neither angrie with your long absence, neither am I well pleased at your presence.” This is, perhaps, in allusion to the dance, in which each woman selected her partner by placing the cushion before him. Taylor, the water-poet, calls it “a pretty little provocatory dance,” for he before whom the cushion was placed, was to kneel and salute the lady. In Heywood’s A Woman kill’d with Kindness, (which Henslow mentions in his diary, in 1602), the dances which the country people call for are, Rogero; The Beginning of the World, or Sellenger's Round; John, come kiss me now; Tom Tyler; The hunting of the Fox; The Hay; Put on your smock a Monday; and The Cushion Dance; and Sir Francis thus describes their style of dancing:—

“Now, gallants, while the town-musicians
Finger their frets within; and the mad lads
And country lasses, every mother’s child,
With nosegays and bride-laces in their hats,
Dance all their country measures, rounds, and jigs,
What shall we do? Hark! they're all on the hoigh;
They toil like mill-horses, and turn as round;
Marry, not on the toe aye, and they caper,
But not without cutting; you shall see, to-morrow,
The hall floor peck’d and dinted like a mill-stone,
Made with their high shoes: though their skill be small,
Yet they tread heavy where their hob-nails fall.”

When a partner was selected in the dance, he, or she, sang “Prinkum-prankum is a fine dance,” &c.; which line is quoted by Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy; and, “No dance is lawful but Prinkum-prankum,” in The Muses’ Looking-glass, 1638.

In the Apothegms of King James, the Earl of Worcester, &c., 1658, a wedding entertainment is spoken of: and, “when the masque was ended, and time had brought in the supper, the cushion led the dance out of the parlour into the hall.” Selden, speaking of Trenchmore and The Cushion Dance in Queen Elizabeth’s time, says, “Then all the company dances, lord and groom, lady and kitchen-maid, no distinction.”—(See ante p. 82.) In The Dancing Master of 1686, and later editions, the figure is thus described:—

“This Dance is began by a single person, (either man or woman), who, taking a cushion in hand, dances about the room, and at the end of the tune, stops and sings, ‘This dance it will no further go.’ The musician answers, “I pray you, good Sir, why say you so?’—Man. ‘Because Joan Sanderson will not come too.’—Musician. ‘She must come too, and she shall come too, and she must come whether she will or no.’ Then he lays down the cushion before the woman, on which she kneels, and he kisses her, singing, ‘Welcome, Joan Sanderson, welcome, welcome.’ Then she rises, takes up the cushion, and both dance, singing, ‘Prinkum-prankum is a fine dance, and shall we go dance it once again, once again, and once again, and shall we go dance it once again.’ Then making a stop, the woman sings as before, ‘This dance it will no further go.’—Musician. ‘I pray you, madam, why say you so?’—Woman. ‘Because John Sanderson will not come too.’—Musician. ‘He must come too, and he shall come too, and he must come whether he will or no.’ And so she lays down the cushion before a man, who kneeling upon it, salutes her; she singing, ‘Welcome, John Sanderson, welcome, welcome.’ Then he taking up the cushion, they take hands, and dance round, singing as before. And thus they do, till the whole company are taken into the ring; and if there is company enough, make a little ring in its middle, and within that ring, set a chair, and lay the cushion in it, and the first man set in it. Then the cushion is laid before the first man, the woman singing, ‘This dance it will no further go;’ and as before, only instead of ‘Come too,’ they sing, ‘Go fro;’ and instead of ‘Welcome, John Sanderson,’ they sing, ‘Farewell, John Sanderson, farewell, farewell;’ and so they go out one by one as they came in. Note.—The women are kissed by all the men in the ring at their coming in and going out, and likewise the men by all the women.”

This agreeable pastime tended, without doubt, to popularize the dance.

One of the engravings in Johannis de Brunes Emblemata (4to., Amsterdam, 1624, and 1661) seems to represent the Cushion Dance. The company being seated round the room, one of the gentlemen, hat in hand, and with a cushion held over the left shoulder, bows to a lady, and seems about to lay the cushion at her feet.

In 1737, the Rev. Mr. Henley, or “Orator Henley,” as he called himself, advertised in the London Daily Post that he would deliver an oration on the subject of the Cushion Dance.

A political parody is to be found in Poems on Affairs of State, from 1640 to 1704, called, “The Cushion Dance at Whitehall, by way of Masquerade. To the tune of Joan Sanderson.”

Enter Godfrey Aldworth, followed by the King and Duke.
King.	“The trick of trimming is a fine trick, And shall we go try it once again?
Duke.	“The plot it will no further go.
King.	“I pray thee, wise brother, why say you so,” &c.

The tunes of Cushion-Dances (like Barley-Breaks) have the first part in

³
₄, and the last in ⁶
₈ time. The earliest printed copy I have found is in Tablature de Luth, intitulé Le Secret des Muses, 4to., Amsterdam, 1615, where it is called Gaillarde Anglaise. In Nederlandtsche Gedenck-Clanck, Haerlem, 1626, the same air is entitled Gallarde Suit Margriet, which being intended as English, may be guessed as “Galliard, Sweet Margaret.’ It is the following:—

The Galliard (a word meaning brisk, gay; and used in that sense by Chaucer) is described by Sir John Davis as a swift and wandering dance, with lofty turns and capriols in the air. Thoinot Arbeau, in his Orchesographie, 1589, says that, formerly, when the dancer had taken his partner for the galliard, they first placed themselves at the end of the room, and, after a bow and curtsey, they walked once or twice round it. Then the lady danced to the other end, and remained there dancing, while the gentleman followed; and presenting himself before her, made some steps, and then turned to the right or left. After that she danced to the other end, and he followed, doing other steps; and so again, and again. “But now,” says he, “in towns they dance it tumultuously, and content themselves with making the five steps and some movements without any design, caring only to be in position on the sixth of the bar” (pourvu qu’ils tombent en cadence). In the four first steps, the left and right foot of the dancer were raised alternately, and on the fifth of the bar he sprang into the air, twisting round, or capering, as best he could. The repose on the sixth note gave more time for a lofty spring.^[1] “Let them take their pleasures,” says Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy; “young men and maids flourishing in their age, fair and lovely to behold, well attired, and of comely carriage, dancing a Greek Galliarde, and, as their dance requireth, keep their time, now turning, now tracing, now apart, now altogether, now a curtesie, then a caper, &c., it is a pleasant sight.”

The following tune is from The Dancing Master of 1686, called “Joan Sanderson, or The Cushion Dance, an old Round Dance.”

Reverting to the pavan and galliard, Morley says, “The pavan” (derived from pavo, a peacock) “for grave dancing; galliards, which usually follow pavans, they are for a lighter and more stirring kind of dancing.” The pavan was sometimes danced by princes and judges in their robes, and by ladies with long trains held up behind them; but usually the galliard followed the pavan, much in the same manner as the gavotte follows the minuet. Butler, in his Principles of Musick, 1636, says, “Of this sort (the Ionic mood) are pavans, invented for a slow and soft kind of dancing, altogether in duple proportion [common time]. Unto which are framed galliards for more quick and nimble motion, always in triple proportion: and, therefore, the triple is oft called galliard time, and the duple pavan time. In this kind is also comprehended the infinite multitude of Ballads, set to sundry pleasant and delightful tunes by cunning and witty composers, with country dances fitted unto them,… and which surely might and would be more freely permitted by our sages, were they used as they ought, only for health and recreation.”—(p. 8.) At this time Puritanism was nearly at its height.

1. Nares, in his Glossary, refers to Cinque pace, but that was a dance in common time: four steps to the four beats of the bar, and the fifth on a long note at the commencement of the second bar.