On Twelfth Night, 1614, the ‘Maske of Flowers’ was presented ‘by the Gentlemen of Graies Inn’ in the same Banqueting Hall upon the occasion of the marriage of the Earl of Somerset. This Masque, when published, was dedicated to Sir Francis Bacon, who apparently bore the whole expense of the performance. In 1887 ‘The Masque of Flowers’ was revived, being again performed with great success in Gray’s Inn Hall. Other masques of this and later times are mentioned by Mr. Douthwaite (p. 234 _et seq._). Of the Masque performed by the Inns of Court before Charles I., which has been already referred to, ‘The Triumph of Peace,’ James Shirley, the dramatist, was the author. He had chambers in Gray’s Inn. The form of self-government that obtained at Gray’s Inn was very similar to that which the other Inns enjoyed. The Officer named Treasurer at other Inns was at Gray’s Inn known as the Pensioner. According to Sir Nicholas Bacon and some other Commissioners who drew up a report upon the Houses of Court for the information of Henry VIII., ‘a Pension, or, as some Houses call it, a Parliament,’ was summoned every quarter, or more if need be, ‘for the good ordering of the House, and the reformation of such things as seem meet to be reformed.’ These Pensions or Parliaments were ‘nothing else but a conference of Benchers and Utter Barristers only, and in some other Houses an Assembly of Benchers and such of the Utter Barristers and other ancient and wise men of the House as the Benchers have elected to them before time, and these together are named the Sage Company.’ This report does not mention the Ancients of Gray’s Inn. ‘The Grand Company of Ancients’ consisted of three classes--Barristers called by seniority to that degree; sons of Judges, who by right of inheritance were admitted Ancients; and persons of distinction who, in the words of Fortescue already quoted, were placed in the Inns of Court, not so much to make the Laws their study as to form their manners and to preserve them from the contagion of vice. The Constitution of the Inns, and the correct relation between the Benchers and Junior Members, were not arrived at without certain crises. The internal politics of the Houses were occasionally lively. Thus at the Middle Temple the right of the Benchers to regulate the affairs of the Inn, without reference to the Parliaments of barristers and students to whom, apparently, the right of self-government within certain limits was, by ancient custom, entrusted in the Vacations, was a ground of hot dispute in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The right to hold a Parliament at any time was demanded. The Benchers replied that the Junior Members were only entitled to deliberate and represent on matters occurring in Vacation.[68] The Chapel of Gray’s Inn Loftie describes with equal brevity and justice as ‘ancient, but without interest.’ In 1315 John, Lord Grey, had given lands in [Illustration: GRAYS INN SQUARE