Staged on 16 July 1607, the three songs printed here are the fragmentary remains of an opulent entertainment for King James, Prince Henry, and the court at the guildhall of the Merchant Taylors’ Company in London. The occasion, which cost £1,061 5s 1d to mount, consisted of a speech (now lost) by a child actor dressed as an Angel of Gladness and bearing a taper of frankincense (cf. Second Song, 8n., and Heaton and Knowles, 2003, 589); songs by three mariners standing in the company’s pageant ship which had been suspended from the hall roof; a magnificent feast for the guild members, Prince Henry, and members of a Dutch diplomatic mission (the King dined in a specially created separate chamber with music provided by the Chapel Royal); and finally songs of departure, also sung by the sailors in the boat. These events were wrapped round the traditional election of the Master and Wardens of the company, and Prince Henry’s enrolment as a member of the Merchant Taylors’ company. Although the King enjoyed the farewell songs, and ‘caused it to be sung three times over’, the earlier musical entertainment did not fare so well as ‘the multitude and noise was so great that the lutes nor songs could hardly be heard or understood’ (Masque Archive, Electronic Edition, Merchant Taylors, 2).

The Merchant Taylors’ records provide extensive detail about the elaborate preparations for the occasion. In addition to 59 pikes, 17 swans, 407 chickens, 10 owls, 1,300 eggs, 28 barrels of beer, and over 440 gallons of wine, the entertainment was notable for its use of musicians. Twelve lutenists were divided into two groups behind birch screens on either side of the hall, six wind players were over the hall screen to provide ‘cornetts and loud music’, along with both the King’s and Prince’s trumpets and drums, and the City musicians (Masque Archive, Merchant Taylors, 1; Duffin, 2002, 536–7; Heaton, 2003, 2010). The music for the mariners’ songs was set by John Cooper (also known as Giovanni or John Coprario, whose most significant patrons at this time were Queen Anne and Robert Cecil, the Earl of Salisbury), and the King’s meal was accompanied by the choir of the Chapel Royal, led by Nathaniel Giles. Dr John Bull played on an organ brought up from Ruckholt, the Essex home of Sir Michael Hickes, Cecil’s secretary (Duffin, 2002, 537). This musical array did not come cheap and later the company complained that ‘the musicians in the great hall exacted unreasonable sums’, although everyone was well paid, including Cooper for his music (£12), John Hemmings the actor for providing the boy John Rice (£2 and 5s respectively), and Ben Jonson (£20) ‘for making the songs and his directions to others in that business’. From the Merchant Taylors’ records it is clear that Jonson organized much of the occasion and was employed for his knowledge of what would ‘give liking and delight to his majesty’ (Masque Archive, Merchant Taylors, 2).

The choice of a noted aristocratic and court entertainer instead of the other mooted choice, the schoolmaster and scholars of the Merchant Taylors’ school, illustrates the significance of this occasion for company prestige. Heaton (2003, 2010) explores the various motives behind the occasion, including the King’s search for financing; the inter-guild rivalry between the Merchant Taylors and the Clothworkers (who had hosted James and enrolled him as a freeman in June 1607 at the behest of the Lord Mayor, Sir John Watts, also a clothworker); and the involvement of Sir John Swinnerton (son of the current Master of the Company) in attempts to regain the French and Rhenish wine customs farm. The timing of this entertainment and the invitation of the Dutch representatives to attend the event had particular significance. The Dutch visit contributed to the manoeuvring around the planned Dutch treaty with Spain in which the English, although opposed to an Ibero-Dutch agreement, were concerned to avoid costly involvement in military support for the United Provinces while wishing to ensure they were recognized as an independent state. One way to acknowledge Dutch aspirations to statehood was to offer their representatives the diplomatic courtesies usually reserved for ambassadors. Indeed, the ‘extraordinary favours’ offered the Dutch caused the Spanish ambassador to exclaim against their treatment and led to a boycott of the event by Queen Anne (Chamberlain, 1939, 1.245).

The result, although short and fragmentary, is a deft combination of motifs from civic pageantry, with an underlying religiosity, and a celebration of guild power and hospitality. The allusions to Martial and Pliny recall aristocratic entertainments, while the Angel of Gladness echoes Christian injunctions to hospitality and charity. Jonson in effect presents a quasi-religious rite, bringing together King and Company in charitable harmony in pursuit of ‘faith and favour’ (28). In the First Song, 23–8, the language of profit is metamorphosed: the commercial terms of the company are subsumed into an ideal economy of giving and receiving where ‘welcome’ replaces currency and ‘Free gratitude’ replaces profit and loss accounting: ‘Nor is there loss in love’ (26).

The central visual symbol, the ‘gallant ship triumphant’ suspended ‘in the air between them [i.e. the two bands of musicians]’ (Masque Archive, Merchant Taylors, 4), was the Company’s pageant ship, originally built in 1602 for the mayoral procession of Sir Robert Lee. In 1602 the ship was ‘proper and very apt for this occasion’ because Lee and the sheriff for that year, Sir John Swinnerton, were both merchants, and the ship was adopted as a company symbol (Sayle, 1931, 60). In the mayoral pageants, such as Anthony Munday’s Triumphs of Re-United Britannia (1605), the ship was filled with goods that represented the trading interests of the new mayor, including spices, wine, or cloth, and largesse of goods and money was usually distributed to the crowd from aboard boat (Munday, 1605, A4v). In this 1607 entertainment the import and export trade combines influence and finance, although it is represented in the idealized language as a fortunate journey guided by the monarch and his son, in the guise of the stars Arcturus, and Castor and Pollux.

This edition, which draws on the researches of Dr Gabriel Heaton (2003), is based on the manuscripts in the collection of the Marquis of Salisbury, at Hatfield House (JnB 574.8; Cecil Papers, 144/267, 144/273 and 140/114), which may themselves be, or be copied from, the ‘copies of the speech and songs to be given out to the King and Lords’ at the event (Masque Archive, Merchant Taylors, 1). They were first identified and printed by David Lockie, in HMC 9, Salisbury (Cecil) Manuscripts, 19.490–2; and the attribution to Jonson was made by Heaton and Knowles (2003). Duffin (2002) suggests further music and songs that may be linked to this occasion. Unlike other entertainments in this edition, the songs have been treated as separate songs and numbered accordingly, to reflect the fragmentary nature of the text that survives and the absence of the third song.