Scotland -- History -- Stuarts, to the Union, 1371-1707
Had Marioreybanks given us the names of those who took part in the
festivities which he describes as having taken place on the occasion of
Lord Fleming's marriage, can we doubt that the Marys would have been
found actively engaged in the open-air performance "in the Parke of
Holyroudhous, under Arthur's Seatt, at the end of the loche"?[56]
Indeed, it is not matter of mere conjecture, but of authentic historical
record, that on more than one occasion Buchanan did actually introduce
the Queen's namesakes amongst the dramatis personæ of the masques
which, as virtual laureate of the Scottish Court, he was called upon to
supply. The _Diurnal of Occurrents_ mentions that "upoun the ellevint
day of the said moneth (February) the King and Quene in lyik manner
bankettit the samin (French) Ambassatour; and at evin our Soveranis maid
the maskrie and mumschance, in the quhilk the Queenis Grace and all hir
Maries and ladies were all cled in men's apperell; and everie ane of
thame presentit ane quhingar, bravelie and maist artificiallie made and
embroiderit with gold, to the said Ambassatour and his gentilmen, everie
ane of thame according to his estate".[57] That this, moreover, was not
the first appearance of the fair performers we also know, for it was
they who bore the chief parts in the third masque acted during the
festivities which attended the Queen's marriage with Darnley; and it was
one of them, perhaps Mary Beton, the scholar of the court, who recited
the verses which Buchanan had introduced in allusion to their royal
mistress's recovery from some illness otherwise unrecorded in history:
Kind Goddess, Health, four Nymphs their voices raise
To welcome thy return and sing thy praise,
To beg as suppliants that thou wouldst deign
To smile benignly on their Queen again,
And make her royal breast thy hallowed shrine,
Where best and worthiest worship shall be thine.
That the four Nymphs mentioned in this, the only fragment of the masque
which has been preserved, were the four Marys, is explained by
Buchanan's commentator, Ruddiman: "Nymphas his vocat quatuor Mariæ Scotæ
corporis ministras, quæ etiam omnes Mariæ nominabantur". It is more than
probable, too, that the Marys were not merely spectators of the masque
which formed a part of the first day's amusements, and of which they
themselves were the subject-matter. It may still be read under the title
of "Pompa Deorum in Nuptiis Mariæ", in Buchanan's Latin poems. Diana
opens the masque, which is but a short mythological dialogue, with a
complaint to the ruler of Olympus that one of her five Marys--the Queen
herself is here included--has been taken from her by the envious arts of
Venus and of Juno:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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