The Memorable Masque of the Middle Temple and Lincoln's Inn

The Memorable Masque of the Middle Temple and Lincoln's Inn was a Jacobean era masque, written by George Chapman, and with costumes, sets, and stage effects designed by Inigo Jones. It was performed in the Great Hall of Whitehall Palace on 15 February 1613, as one item in the elaborate festivities surrounding the marriage of Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King James I, to Frederick V, Elector Palatine in the Rhineland.

The masque had a Virginia theme; Chapman had been a follower of the Prince of Wales, Prince Henry, before Henry's death in November 1612, and Henry had been a strong backer of the movement to colonize the New World. The principal masquers were stylized as Native Americans, "Princes of Virginia," though without much representative accuracy: they were dressed in "cloth of silver embroidered with gold," with olive-colored masks, though they were also lavishly feathered and equipped with ornaments "imitating Indian work" — an attempt at an effect "altogether estrangeful and Indian-like." The conceit was that these sun-worshippers had come to honor the wedding couple and to accept Christianity.

The celebration began with a torchlit parade down Chancery Lane, headed by fifty gentlemen on horseback, followed by the figures of the anti-masque, boys dressed as baboons in "Neapolitan suits and great ruffs," and the musicians and masquers in chariots. At Whitehall, Jones's stage set was a golden mountain. Next to it on either side were a silver temple, octagonal and domed, and a hollow tree — representing the poles of experience of masque and anti-masque: temple for the masquers, tree for the "baboons." The presenters were figures of classical mythology and personifications typical of the masque form: Plutus; a personified Honor, with Eunomia, one of the three Hours, as her priestess; and Capriccio, a Commedia dell'arte-style figure. The golden rock moved forward toward the viewers, then split open to release the anti-masquers. Later the top of the mountain opened to reveal the principal masquers and a crew of torchbearers. The torchbearers danced with torches lit at both ends; then the masquers danced their dances, finally joined by the audience. The general reaction was highly positive, giving the masque a reputation as one of the best-received works of its type in the Stuart era.

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