The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses was an early Jacobean-era masque, written by Samuel Daniel and performed in the Great Hall of Hampton Court Palace on the evening of Sunday, 8 January 1604. One of the earliest of the Stuart Court masques,A masque for male courtiers was staged two days earlier, on 6 January 1604; the text has not survived. staged when the new dynasty had been in power less than a year and was closely engaged in peace negotiations with Spain,The masque's theme of peace celebrated the ceasefire with Spain, proclaimed by King James in March 1603, and reflected the intense peace negotiations which were to culminate in the Treaty of London at Somerset House in August 1604 and its ratification at Valladolid the following year. Present at the performance was the Spanish ambassador, father of a writer of masques Juan de Tassis y Peralta, 2nd Count of Villamediana. Barroll (ed.), p 175. The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses stood as a precedent and a pattern for the many masques that followed during the next four decades.
Design and music The name of the masque's designer is not recorded in the historical sources; some scholars have argued that he may have been Inigo Jones,Law, pp. 17–18. who had recently returned to England from the royal court of Anne of Denmark's brother Christian IV, and so had a connection with her courtly establishment. The stage set had clear similarities with Jones's later masque work; the set for The Vision consisted of a large mountain, plus a Temple of Peace and a Cave of Sleep at the opposite end of the hall.
Thomas Edmondes wrote that Anne of Denmark's preparations for the new masque required the "use of invention" and the services of Hugh Sanford, who was to "direct the order and course for the Ladies [masque]".Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, vol. 3 (London, 1791), p. 224.Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, 3 (London: Chidley, 1838), p. 84.Herbert Arthur Evans, English Masques (London: Blackie, 1897), p. 1.Barbara D. Palmer, "Court and Country: The Masque as Sociopolitical Subtext", Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England, 7 (1995), p. 346. This may mean that Sanford directed the production, or perhaps coached the movement and choreography of the masquers. No payments to Sanford for this role have been found in the surviving records.John Pitcher, 'Samuel Daniel's Masque "The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses": Texts and Payments', Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England, 26 (2013), p. 36.
Anne of Denmark's privy purse accounts include payment to Alfonso Ferrabosco the younger, an Italian musician in the service of Prince Henry, for "making the songs". Another 29 musicians, not named, were paid for playing in the "rock" and "temple" and dancing.Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark: The Material and Visual Culture of the Stuart Courts (Manchester, 2020), p. 111. This was the second masque of the season, following The Masque of Indian and China Knights performed on 1 January 1604.Martin Butler, The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture (Cambridge, 2008), p. 63. On 6 January there was a masquerade performed by Scottish courtiers in the Queen's presence involving a sword dance, said to be comparable to a Spanish "matachin".Maurice Lee, Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain, 1603-1624 (Rutgers UP, 1972), p. 54. There was also an equestrian show of running at the ring, in "honour of those goddesses", for which a "standing" or grandstand was built for Anne of Denmark.Alan Young, Tudor and Jacobean Tournaments (London, 1987), 205.
The show Daniel's text draws on classical mythology. The presenters are Iris, the Graces, a Sybil, and personifications of Night and Sleep. (These speaking roles were taken by boys and men who were not aristocrats but lower Court functionaries. Aristocratic participants in Court masques generally did not take speaking roles.)For later exceptions to the rule, see The Gypsies Metamorphosed and The Shepherd's Paradise. The musicians who played cornets were dressed as satyrs.
In the masque, Night appears and awakens her son, Sleep, who calls forth a vision for the spectators with his wand (and promptly goes back to sleep). Iris appears at the top of the artificial mountain, and descends to the Temple of Peace, where she tells the Sybil about the coming of the goddesses. The Graces appear on the mountaintop and descend to the floor below, followed by twelve goddesses, descending three by three, to the music of the satyrs. Each goddess is followed by a torchbearer, dressed in white with gold stars. The dozen aristocrats parade to the Temple of Peace as the Graces sing; the main dances ensue.
Among allusions to the recent Union of Crowns of England and Scotland, Venus gave Anne of Denmark an "all combining scarf of Amity". The Scottish lady in waiting, Margaret Stewart, Countess of Nottingham, played Concordia, dressed in national red and white colours, embroidered with a device of clasped hands, presented part-colours roses at the Temple of Peace. Tethys was described as the ocean goddess who encircles the dominion.Martin Butler, The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture (Cambridge, 2008), p. 102-3.
Cast The performance featured Anne of Denmark, the queen consort of King James I, and eleven of the queen's ladies in waiting.Martin Butler, The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture (Cambridge, 2008), p. 101. They were attired as classical goddesses and danced in the masque; the Queen, curiously, did not take the obvious role of Juno, queen of the gods, but rather Pallas Athena. The dozen noble participants and their roles were:
Queen Anne ................. Pallas Countess of Suffolk ........ Juno C. of Hertford ................ Diana C. of Bedford ............... Vesta C. of Derby ............ Proserpine C. of Nottingham ..... Concordia
Lady Rich ..................... Venus Lady Hatton ................ Macaria Lady Walsingham ........ Astraea Susan Vere ..................... Flora Dorothy Hastings ............ Ceres Elizabeth Howard .......... Tethys
Costumes and suppliers The ladies' costumes were sumptuous: "Juno" wore a "sky-colored mantle" embroidered with gold and peacock feathers, with a crown also of gold; "Diana" was dressed a "green mantle" embroidered with silver half moons, "with a croissant of pearls on her head."In Ernest Law's edition of the text, pp. 59–61. The costumes were created by ransacking the wardrobe of the dead Queen Elizabeth.Clare McManus, Women on the Renaissance stage: Anna of Denmark and Female Masquing in the Stuart Court (Manchester, 2002), p. 107. Arbella Stuart reported that Anne of Denmark sent Audrey Walsingham and Lady Suffolk to choose fabrics.Effie Botonaki, 'Elizabeth's Presence in the Jacobean Masque', Alessandra Petrina & Laura Tosi,Representations of Elizabeth I in Early Modern Culture (Palgrave, 2011), p. 148.Ann Rosalind Jones & Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory (Cambridge, 2000), p. 26. According to Dudley Carleton the old gowns supplied embroidered satins, cloth of silver, and cloth of gold for the goddesses.Martin Wiggins, Drama and the Transfer of Power in Renaissance England (Oxford, 2012), pp. 60-1: Maurice Lee, Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain, 1603-1624; Jacobean Letters (Rutgers University Press, 1972) p. 55. Elizabeth I had allowed the use of some of the clothes of Mary I of England in court drama,Janet Arnold, Lost from her Majesties Back (Costume Society, 1980), p. 33 no. 61. but there are very few other records of the re-use and recycling of clothes and masque costume at court in the 17th-century.Barbara Ravelhofer, The Early Stuart Masque: Dance, Costume, and Music (Oxford, 2006), pp. 141–144.
Anne of Denmark also spent at least £1000 on new fabrics for the masque.Jemma Field, 'Female dress', Erin Griffey, Early Modern Court Culture (Routledge, 2022), pp. 397, 404 fn. 23: Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark: The Material Culture of the Stuart Courts (Manchester, 2020), p. 177 fn. 43. She wore a blue mantle with silver embroidery depicting cannon and weapons of war.H. Evans, English Masques (London, 1898), p. 4. Dudley Carleton described Anne's costume as Pallas, "her clothes were not so much below the knee but that we might see a woman had both feet and legs which I never knew before. She had a pair of buskins sett with rich stones, a helmett full of jewells, and her whole attire [helmet] embossed with jewells of severall fashions".Mary Sullivan, Court Masques of James I (New York, 1913), p. 15.Maurice Lee, Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain, 1603–1624 (Rutgers UP, 1972), p. 55.
William Cookesbury supplied feathers for the masque costumes to Audrey Walsingham and Elizabeth Carey.John Pitcher, 'Samuel Daniel's Masque "The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses": Texts and Payments', Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England, 26 (2013), pp. 33, 38. Accounts for the masque show that Mary Mountjoy (Shakespeare's landlady) provided a helmet for the queen; James Duncan, tailor, made the queen's costume; Mrs Rogers made "tires" or headdresses; Christopher Shawe was the embroiderer; Thomas Kendall provided costumes for the professionals; Richard French, haberdasher, provided cloth for the goddess's mantles; Thomas Wilson made the queen's shoes and buskins; Edward Ferres, draper; George Hearne was the painter; William Portington was carpenter and made the temple and rock; Robert Payne was in charge of some of the professional actors; Audrey Walsingham and Elizabeth Carey signed wardrobe acquisitions; John Kirkton was orderer and director of the works (financial director).John Pitcher, 'Samuel Daniel's Masque "The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses": Texts and Payments', Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England, vol. 26 (2013), pp. 17-42 citing TNA LR6/154/9.
The masque cost between two and three thousand pounds to stage. Lady Penelope Rich reportedly wore £20,000 worth of jewels while appearing the masque – though she was outdone by the Queen, who sported fully £100,000 in gems. (This kind of extreme display became characteristic of the courtly masques during the Stuart era, and was a focus of controversy and deep disapproval by wide segments of the public.)
The courtier Roger Wilbraham wrote a summary of his impressions of the entertainments at court in January 1604 and their costs, "King James was at his court at Hampton, where the French, Spanish, and Polonian ambassadors were severallie solemplie feasted, many plaies & daunces with swordes, one mask by English & Scottish lords, another by the Queen's Maiestie & eleven more ladies of her chamber presenting giftes as goddesses. These maskes, especially the laste, costes £2000 or £3000, the aparells, rare musick, fine songes, and in jewels most riche £20,000, the least to my judgment, & [jewels for] her Majestie £100,000, after Christmas was running at the ring by the King & 8 or 9 lords for the honour of those goddesses & then they all feasted together privatelie."Harold Spencer Scott, 'Journal of Roger Wilbraham', Camden Miscellany (London, 1902), p. 66
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