Hampton Court ... Illustrated with forty-three drawings by Herbert ...

68 HAMPTON COURT
VI
James I. visited Hampton Court very early in his
reign. Thither, in July 1603, he summoned those
who were liable to be called on to be knighted, and
his first Christmas was spent there with great pomp.
The series of letters from Dudley Carleton to John
Chamberlain,happily to be found in the Record Office,
which are as characteristic a record of the seventeenthcentury
court and political gossip, if not as charming,
as Horace Walpole's are of the eighteenth century,
give many details of gay doings at the Palace. " Male
and female masques " were prepared for Christmas,
and the great hall was turned into a theatre. Shakespeare,
it seems certain, himself played before the
King at this festival; and it is thought that
Henry VIII. was acted in that King's own hall.
Six interludes or plays were acted by Hemynge's
company, four before the King and two before the
young Prince Henry. The climax to the whole
was the performance of the masque of the twelve
goddesses on January 8, in which the Queen herself
played Pallas.
This was but a beginning. Hampton Court under
James I. for the rest of the reign, like Sir Andrew
Aguecheek, " delighted in masques and revels sometimes
altogether."
If it was dramatic, the Palace was also theological.
Elizabeth had been content to go to church in pomp,