Prince Henry's Welcome at Winchester was a masque produced by Anne of Denmark and performed in 1603 at Winchester on a day between 11 and 17 October.Susan Doran, From Tudor to Stewart: the regime change from Elizabeth I to James I (Oxford, 2024), p. 236.

Plague and a royal progress

Prince Henry (1594–1612) was the son of James VI and I and Anne of Denmark. After the death of Queen Elizabeth in March 1603, James became king in England, an event known as the Union of the Crowns. Prince Henry and his sister, Princess Elizabeth came to stay in England. Elizabeth was at first at Oatlands, then plague came to London in June. After a wardrobe servant died in August, she joined Henry at Nonsuch.Thomas Birch, Life of Prince Henry (Dublin, 1760), p. 37: Horatio Brown, Calendar State Papers Venice, 1603-1607, vol. 10 (London, 1900), p. 87 no. 118. Two members of the queen's household died of plague in September.Horatio Brown, Calendar State Papers Venice, 1603-1607, vol. 10 (London, 1900), p. 92 no. 128. Henry and Elizabeth were moved from Nonsuch to Winchester, thought to be a more healthful place.Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, vol. 3 (London, 1838), pp. 20–1, 36, 38, 140.

Anne of Denmark travelled to Winchester on 17 September 1603.Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, vol. 3 (London, 1838), p. 36. King James and Anne had an audience with the Spanish ambassador, the Count of Villamediana at Winchester on 24 September.Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, vol. 3 (London, 1791), p. 188. On 17 October, when Anne was moving to Wilton House, Thomas Edmondes wrote to the Earl of Shrewsbury that she had done her son, the Prince "the kindness at his coming hither to entertain him with a gallant mask".Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, vol. 3 (London, 1838), p. 58. Prince Henry arrived in Winchester on 11 October and this may have been the day the masque was performed.Martin Wiggins, Drama and the Transfer of Power in Renaissance England (Oxford, 2012), p. 52.

An account of expenses kept by Princess Elizabeth or Anne Livingstone, one of her Scottish companions, covers this period and mentions some details of their journey.Nadine Akkerman, Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Hearts (Oxford, 2021), pp. 28-30, 37-8: HMC Reports on the manuscripts of the Earl of Eglinton etc (London, 1885), pp. 30-32 It includes a payment to "James Duncan's man", a servant of the Queen's tailor and yeoman of the robes James Duncan for carrying gowns from Winchester to Princess Elizabeth's household at Nonsuch.William Fraser, Memorials of the Montgomeries, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1859), p. 247, the account is now National Records of Scotland GD3/6/2 no. 4.

Court theatre in time of plague Few details are known about the masque which took place in October 1603, but it was mentioned in several newsletters. The title given to the event is not contemporary.Martin Wiggins & Catherine Teresa Richardson, British Drama, 1533–1642: 1603–1608, vol. 5 (Oxford, 2015), pp. 51–2. Thomas Cardell, a lutenist and dancing master, was with the Queen.John Pitcher, 'Samuel Daniel's Masque "The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses": Texts and Payments', Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England, 26 (2013), p. 29. The composer and lutenist John Dowland may have been involved; he mentioned meeting the queen at Winchester in the dedication of his Lachrimae.John Leeds Barroll, 'Inventing the Stuart Masque', David Bevington & Peter Holbrook, Politics of the Stuart Court Masque (Cambridge, 1998), p. 123.Mara Wade, Triumphus Nuptialis Danicus: German Court Culture and Denmark (Wiesbaden, 1996), p. 49.Diana Oulton, John Dowland (University of California, 1982), p. 61. At the time, the lutenist and dancing master Thomas Cardell attended the queen and Princess Elizabeth.Andrew Ashbee, Records of English Court Music, 1603–1625, vol. 4 (1991), pp. 2, 74. The queen's secretary, the poet William Fowler, who had written the baptism entertainments for Prince Henry in 1594, was also at Winchester. Fowler wrote to the Earl of Shrewsbury on 11 October from Winchester.John Nichols, Progresses of James the First, vol. 1 (London, 1828), p. 279: Catherine Jamieson & E. G. W . Bill, Calendar of Shrewsbury Papers, vol. 1 (London, 1966), p. 166 citing Lambeth MS 708 f.139.

The performance was an early example of a court masque with female performers. Actors and dancers in previous events in England and Scotland were usually men (including the masque of shepherds at Castle Campbell in January 1563, and the "strangers" masque at the wedding of the wedding of the Earl of Huntly and Henrietta Stuart at Holyrood Palace in 1588. However, Elizabeth I's maids of honour had danced in a masque in 1600 at the marriage of Anne Russell and Henry Somerset, and Mary Fitton had a speaking part.John Leeds Barroll, 'Inventing the Stuart Masque', David Bevington & Peter Holbrook, Politics of the Stuart Court Masque (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 122–123.Peter Davidson & Jane Stevenson, "Elizabeth's Reception at Bisham", Jayne Elisabeth Archer, Elizabeth Goldring, & Sarah Knight, The Progresses, Pageants, & Entertainments of Queen Elizabeth (Oxford, 2007), pp. 221-2. Anne of Denmark had bought masque costume for herself in Scotland in 1591 and 1592, probably for performances at weddings.Michael Pearce, "Maskerye Claythis for James VI and Anna of Denmark", Medieval English Theatre 43 (Cambridge: Brewer, 2022), pp. 109–110, 120–121. The Scottish kirk had objected to "balling" in her household.Michael Pearce, "Anna of Denmark: Fashioning a Danish Court in Scotland", The Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), p. 149.

Arbella Stuart was present and mentioned the Winchester masque in her own letter as "an enterlude, (as ridiculous as it was) but not so ridiculous as my letter". She described the queen's household playing children's games in their Winchester lodging.Steven Veerapen, The Wisest Fool: The Lavish Life of James VI and I (Birlinn, 2023), p. 243: Sarah Gristwood, Arbella: England's Lost Queen (London: Bantam, 2004), p. 290: Sara Jayne Steen, Letters of Lady Arbella Stuart (Oxford, 1994), p. 193.

Lady Anne Clifford had visited Prince Henry at Nonsuch Palace in the first week of October and Clifford's cousin Frances Bourchier joined Princess Elizabeth's household.Jessica L. Malay, Anne Clifford's Autobiographical Writing, 1590–1676 (Manchester, 2018), p. 24. Some time after Michaelmas (11 October), Anne heard of the performance at Winchester, and she recalled that it had damaged the reputation of Anne of Denmark and the women of her court:Kim F. Hall, 'Sexual Politics and Cultural Identity in The Masque of Blackness', Sue-Ellen Case & Janelle G. Reinelt, The Performance of Power: Theatrical Discourse and Politics (University of Iowa, 1991), p. 12.Now there was much talk of a masque which the Queen had at Winchester and how all the ladies about the Court had gotten such ill-names that it was grown a scandalous place, and the Queen herself much fallen from her former greatness and reputation she had in the world.Jessica L. Malay, Anne Clifford's Autobiographical Writing, 1590–1676 (Manchester, 2018), p. 25.

Perhaps the personal participation of the queen and her ladies in the masque or dance caused the scandal.Martin Butler, The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture (Cambridge, 2008), p. 128.Susan Doran, From Tudor to Stuart: The Regime Change from Elizabeth I to James I (Oxford University Press, 2024), p. 236. The adverse comment could reveal gender concerns, making "masques seem less like peaceful celebrations of royal power and virtue than sites of female misrule".Kim F. Hall, Things of Darkness: Economies of Race and Gender in Early Modern England (Cornell University Press, 1996), p. 137.

The queen's household at Winchester may have included; Anna Livingstone, Margaret Stewart, Anna Campbell, Jane Drummond and Margaret Hartsyde.Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark: Material and Visual Culture of the Stuart Courts (Manchester, 2020), pp. 123, 146 fn. 21. Margaret Stewart danced at Basing House in September 1603 and played the part of Concordia in The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses.Berta Cano-Echevarría & Mark Hutchings, 'The Spanish Ambassador and Samuel Daniel's Vision of the Twelve Goddesses: A New Document', English Literary Renaissance, 42.2 (2012), pp. 250, 256.

On 30 October, King James and Anne of Denmark made their Royal Entry to Southampton.Óscar Alfredo Ruiz Fernández, England and Spain in the Early Modern Era: Royal Love, Diplomacy, Trade and Naval Relations (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), p. 87. Before the court returned to London, according to Arbella Stuart, the Spanish ambassador, the Count of Villamediana, organised a dinner for Beaumont's wife, Anne de Rabot, asking her to invite some English ladies. She brought the Countess of Bedford, Lady Penelope Rich, Lady Susan de Vere, and "Lady Dorothy", probably Dorothy Hastings.Sarah Jayne Steen, Letters of Lady Arbella Stuart (Oxford, 1994), p. 192.

Planning masques for Christmas and the New Year The masque at Winchester was mentioned in connections with plans for future court festivities. The French ambassador, Christophe de Harlay, Count of Beaumont, commented that Winchester show was "rustic" in the sense of unsophisticated (rather than in the pastoral genre) and served to raise the queen's spirits, and Anne of Denmark was planning superior and more costly entertainments, realised as The Masque of Indian and China Knights 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.116v The Winchester masque seems to have been for her son, rather than for the entertainment of a diplomatic elite.Martin Wiggins, Drama and the Transfer of Power in Renaissance England (Oxford, 2012), pp. 50–52. John Leeds Barroll suggests it was a "domestic event".John Leeds Barroll, Anna of Denmark, Queen of England: A Cultural Biography (Pennsylvania, 2001), p. 77. Dudley Carleton mentioned plans for Christmas at Windsor Castle, that "many plays and shows are bespoken, to give entertainment to our ambassadors".Philip Yorke, Miscellaneous State Papers, vol. 1 (London, 1778), p. 383, 27 November 1603. Thomas Edmondes wrote that the queen's preparations required the "use of invention" and the services of Hugh Sanford, who was to "direct the order and course for the Ladies".Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, vol. 3 (London, 1791), p. 224. Sanford was a tutor of the Earl of Pembroke.Lesley Lawson, Out of the Shadows: Lucy, Countess of Bedford (London, 2007), p. 57.

Pleasing the ambassadors had become a priority: another French ambassador Louis de l'Hôpital, Sieur de Vitry, had already expressed dissatisfaction with a gift he received from the king.John Nichols, Progresses of James the First, vol. 1 (London, 1828), p. 262. Lord Cecil wrote letters filled with anxiety that the Spanish and French ambassadors, the Count of Villamediana and the Marquis of Rosny, would find their hospitality less than that given the other, or their predecessors.M. S. Giuseppi, HMC Salisbury Hatfield, vol. 15 (London, 1930), pp. 243–4.

References

External links Winchester Masque 1603: Hampshire Archives Trust