The Masque of Indian and China Knights was performed at Hampton Court in Richmond, England on 1 January 1604.Martin Butler, The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture (Cambridge, 2008), p. 63. The masque was not published, and no text survives. It was described in a letter written by Dudley Carleton.Maurice Lee, Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain, 1603–1624 (Rutgers UP, 1972), pp. 53–54: Mary Sullivan, Court Masques of James I (New York, 1913), p. 192. The historian Leeds Barroll prefers the title, Masque of the Orient Knights.Leeds Barroll, Anna of Denmark, Queen of England: A Cultural Biography (Philadelphia, 2001), p. 83.
Background This masque marked the return of the royal households to London after an outbreak of plague.Leeds Barroll, Anna of Denmark, Queen of England: A Cultural Biography (Philadelphia, 2001), p. 80: Alvin Kernan, Shakespeare, the King's Playwright: Theater in the Stuart Court, 1603–1613 (Yale, 1995), pp. 25–28. The households of Anne of Denmark and Prince Henry had travelled to Winchester, and entertained themselves in October with the masque, Prince Henry's Welcome at Winchester.Martin Wiggins & Catherine Teresa Richardson, British Drama, 1533–1642: 1603–1608, vol. 5 (Oxford, 2015), pp. 51–52. The French ambassador, Christophe de Harlay, Count of Beaumont, heard that Anne of Denmark was planning more superior and costly events for Christmas time, to be realised as this masque and The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses.Pierre Laffleur de Kermaingant, L'ambassade de France en Angleterre sous Henri IV: Mission de Christophe de Harlay, comte de Beaumont (Paris, 1886), p. 131: Letter to M de Villeroy from M de Beaumont, British Library Add MS 30639, f.283v: Another copy, BnF Français 3503, f.116vAnna Whitelock, The Sun Rising: James I and the Dawn of a Global Britain (Bloomsbury, 2025), p. 41. There was also an equestrian show of running at the ring, and a special "standing" was built for Anne of Denmark to use as a grandstand.Alan Young, Tudor and Jacobean Tournaments (London, 1987), 205.
Merry gentlemen A letter written by Arbella Stuart appears to identify the Masque of Knights and another masque as the invention of a group of male courtiers rather than the queen's personal production, writing on 18 December 1603 that she was their confidante, "Certain noblemen (whom I may not yet name to you because some of them have made me of their counsel) intend another. Certain gentlemen of a good sort another".Sarah Gristwood, Arbella: England's Lost Queen (London: Bantam, 2004), p. 284: Sara Jayne Steen, Letters of Arbella Stuart (Oxford, 1994), p. 197. On 21 December Dudley Carleton wrote that the Duke of Lennox was the deviser or producer of the masques to be performed by men, "We shall have a merry Christmas at Hampton Court, for both male and female masques are all ready bespoken, whereof the Duke is rector chori of the one side, and the Lady Bedford of the other".Ernest Law, History of Hampton Court, vol. 2 (London, 1888), p. 6: Leeds Barroll, Anna of Denmark, Queen of England: A Cultural Biography (Philadelphia, 2001), p. 81: Clare McManus, Women on the Renaissance stage: Anna of Denmark and Female Masquing in the Stuart Court, 1590–1619 (Manchester, 2002), p. 100: Barbara Kiefer Lewalski, 'Lucy, Countess of Bedford: Images of a Jacobean Courtier and Patroness', Kevin Sharpe & Steven N. Zwicker, Politics of Discourse: The Literature and History of Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1987), pp. 59, 307 footnote 19: Barbara Lewalski, Writing Women in Jacobean England (Harvard UP, 1993), p. 361 footnote 19 citing TNA SP14/5/20 (f.45r).
The French ambassador, Christophe de Harlay, Count of Beaumont, and the Spanish ambassador Juan de Tassis, 1st Count of Villamediana competed for precedence at court. Beaumont was invited to Lennox's masque and Villamediana was invited to the more prestigious twelfth night masque, The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses. Beaumont took this as a slight, but was compelled to attend the gentleman's masque or sword dance. The controversy delayed the production of The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses.Mark Hutchings & Berta Cano-Echevarría, 'Between Courts: Female Masquers and Anglo-Spanish Diplomacy, 1603–5', Early Theatre, 15:1 (2012), pp. 92–93.
Travellers from afar The general theme of the masque is a visit of knights from distant lands to the new Stuart court in England.Bernadette Andrea, The Lives of Girls and Women from the Islamic World in Early Modern British Literature and Culture (Toronto, 2017), pp. 75–76: Sujata Iyengar, 'Moorish Dancing', Susan P. Cerasano, Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England, 20 (2007), p. 87: Ladan Niayesh, 'Impersonating the Alien in Jacobean Court Masques', Pauline Blanc, Selfhood on the Early Modern English Stage (Newcastle, 2008), p. 88. Their foreigness may have been intended to put into perspective differences between Scottish and English courtiers.Martin Wiggins, Drama and the Transfer of Power in Renaissance England (Oxford, 2012), pp. 58–59. The representation of a Chinese magician in the masque can be seen as an example of cultural appropriation, while the imagined country he describes seems, from Carleton's report, to be a kind of fictionalised Utopia.Jonathan E. Lux, The Invention of China in Early Modern England: Spelling the Dragon (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), pp. 13–17.
English court masques had previously featured arrivals, in January 1512 twelve masquers in disguise, "after the manner of Italy",Jane Ashelford, Dress in the Age of Elizabeth I (Batsford, 1988), p. 126. and in January 1527 Henry VIII and courtier shepherds arrived at Hampton Court.Janette Dillon, The Language of Space in Court Performance, 1400-1625 (Cambridge, 2010), pp. 103-114. Precedents can also be found in the records of the Scottish court. Shepherds arrived at Castle Campbell for a wedding masque in January 1563.Michael Pearce, "Maskerye Claythis for James VI and Anna of Denmark", Medieval English Theatre 43 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2022), pp. 109-110 The Navigatioun by Alexander Montgomerie was probably performed in the Christmas season 1579/80.Roderick J. Lyall, Alexander Mongomerie: Poetry, Politics, and Cultural Change in Jacobean Scotland (Tempe, Arizona, 2005), pp. 70–75: David J. Parkinson, Alexander Montgomerie Poems, vol. 1 (Scottish Text Society Edinburgh, 2000), pp. 90, 97. This masque involved the torchlit entrance at Holyrood Palace of a narrator and his three companions, a "Turk, the More, and the Egyptien".Sarah Carpenter, "The Theatre Scene I", Randall Stevenson and Greg Walker, The Oxford Handbook of Scottish Theatre (Oxford, 2025), p. 35: See, 'Mor(e), Moir', Dictionary of the Older Scottish TongueNandini Das, João Vicente Melo, Haig Z. Smith, Lauren Working, 'Blackamoor/Moor', Keywords of Identity, Race, and Human Mobility in Early Modern England (Amsterdam, 2021), pp. 40–50 The court musicians were bought "mask claithis" comprising red and yellow taffeta with swords and daggers. Montgomerie's prologue alludes to the Magi and Epiphany to represent James VI as the Northern Star. James was also characterised as Solomon. The masque was followed by dancing. The king's favourite, Esmé Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox may have been involved in this entertainment; the narrator describes himself as "german born", meaning he is a cousin.David J. Parkinson, Alexander Montgomerie Poems, vol. 2 (Scottish Text Society Edinburgh, 2000), pp. 72–74, 78: Charles Thorpe McInnes, Accounts of the Treasurer, 1574–1580, vol. 13 (Edinburgh, 1978), p. 301.
At the masque celebrating the baptism of James VI in 1566, Indian nereids had used compasses to navigate their way to Stirling Castle following the Great Bear from the New World.Lesley Mickel, 'Our Hielandmen: Scots in Court Entertainments at home and abroad 1507–1616', Renaissance Studies, 33:2 (April, 2019), pp. 200–201. The Indian knights at Hampton Court may have represented Indigenous peoples of the Americas. During the inaugural Entry of Anne of Denmark into Edinburgh in May 1590, actors portrayed the "Moirs of Ind", who dwelt in harmony and abundance by "Synerdas", who had sailed to Scotland to offer her the wise counsel of their "most willing minds".Clare McManus, Women on the Renaissance stage: Anna of Denmark and Female Masquing in the Stuart Court, 1590–1619 (Manchester, 2002), p. 78.
Role of the Duke of Lennox The performance at Hampton Court may have been influenced by French practice, the ambassador the Comte de Beaumont said Lennox's ballet was organised à la Française and the Earl of Worcester described another of the January masques as a "ballet" rather a masque. Beaumont also mentions a third masque, a ballet d'Écossais, the Scottish masque.John Nichols, Progresses of James the First, vol. 1 (London, 1828), p. 317: Pierre Paul Laffleur de Kermaingant, L'ambassade de France en Angleterre sous Henri IV.: Mission de Christophe de Harlay Comte de Beaumont (Paris, 1895), pp. 175–178. Carleton says this was a masquerade on 6 January by "Scotchmen" in the Queen's presence involving a sword dance comparable to a Spanish matachin.Maurice Lee, Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain, 1603–1624 (Rutgers UP, 1972), p. 54. There are some similarities in Carleton's description of the Masque of Knights with the Ballet des Princes de la Chine performed at the French court in 1601. One of the 1604 masquers, Lord Aubigny, younger brother of Lennox, may have attended this ballet in person.Anne Daye, 'Dancing at Court', Sophie Chiari & John Mucciolo, Performances at Court in the Age of Shakespeare (Cambridge, 2019), p. 147: The French verses for the Ballet des Princes in 1601 were written by Jean Bertaut.
David Bergeron notes in connection with the Masque of Knights that the Duke of Lennox had previously helped to plan the reception of Anne of Denmark in May 1590 and the masque at the baptism of Prince Henry at Stirling Castle in 1594, and mentions that Lord Aubigny hosted Ben Jonson from 1604 onwards.David M. Bergeron, 'The Stuart Brothers in and English Theater', Jim Pearce & Ward J. Risvold, Renaissance Papers (2015), pp. 3–4, 8: David M. Bergeron, The Duke of Lennox, 1574-1624: A Jacobean Courtier's Life (Edinburgh, 2022), pp. 20-1, 174-5.
The show
According to the report of Dudley Carleton,Maurice Lee, Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain, 1603–1624; Jacobean Letters (Rutgers University Press, 1972), pp. 53–54, 9, TNA SP 14/6/21. the masque was staged at night after a performance of a Robin Goodfellow play, probably A Midsummer Night's Dream.Leeds Barroll, Anna of Denmark, Queen of England: A Cultural Biography (Philadelphia, 2001), p. 83.Martin Wiggins & Catherine Teresa Richardson, British Drama, 1533–1642: 1603–1608, vol. 5 (Oxford, 2015), pp. 35–36. The scene opened with Heaven, built in the hall, from where a Chinese magician made a long speech describing his country, comparing it "for strength and plenty" with England.Maurice Lee, Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain, 1603–1624; Jacobean Letters (Rutgers, 1972), p. 53. He announced the arrival of "certain Indian and China knights", whom he had magically conveyed on clouds to Hampton Court. A curtain or "traverse" was pulled back to reveal the masquers playing the knights and carrying torches and lanterns. After some songs, the masquers approached the king in turn.Martin Butler, The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture (Cambridge, 2008), p. 63.