British Library, MS Add. 39288, fols. 17r-v
Copy of a letter from
John Chamberlain
to
Sir Dudley Carleton
, 8 January 1620,
London
. In a slim, folio-sized volume of miscellaneous letters, transcriptions of letters,
and State Papers, dating from 1521 to 1631, including letters by members of the royal
household relating to familial and court affairs, in various hands. Chamberlain also
refers here to The French Ambassador's Masque and The Running Masque.
[fol. 17]
All this weeke hath bin spent in mascardes, on munday ye Marquis Buckingam & Hamilton,
ye Earles of Oxford & Mongomerie ye Vicount Purbeck & Lord Hunsdon Sir Henry
Rich Si
r George Goring Sir Thomas Bad
i
ger yonge Maynard
Ackmoutie& Aber Crommie went in a maske to ye French Embassadors, where they found
store of Ladie s & beauties ye greatest & best aboute this towne but besids dancing till after 2
a clocke there past nothing extraordinary nor worth the remembrance but yt their greatest
brauery consisted in copper lace, which in my opinion was uery pore for such parsonages: & ye greate Porter at Courte
[fol. 17v]
being drest like a giant came in bearing ye Earle of Mongomeries page like a hawke
on his fist. The younge French Lady (Sainct Lukes Daughter) gote greate commendacion by here her sober & modest behauiour. The next night ye same maske went to ye Lady Hattons where ye King& Prince was present, & on wednesday to ye Earle of Excesters wi th little or noe alteracion in themselues & not much in ye companie which methinks should be uery tedious & euen tire out ye stomacks of ye French wi th ye surfett of this crambe bis ter cocta. Yester night (they say) they were in ye
same sorte at ye Earle of Warwicks, & this night are to be at ye Lord of Doncasters & on munday (but yt ye King goes away toward Roiston) they made accompt to haue uisited Denmarke howse; which manner of running maske they pretend to borough from ye French, (though for my part I remember no such thing in my
time) but noe doubt but in all other fantasticall fashons so in this we striue to
exceede & vnstrip them. The Princes maske was at
Whitehall
on twelfth night but how things passed there I haue neither heard nor enqu^ ⎡i⎤ re.
Bibliography
Chamberlain (1939), 2.282