manner, with the miscellaneous items of expense
for making the halls ready.

Usually the Court performances, like the masques,
were important, almost official occasions, and many
guests, including the members of the diplomatic
corps, were invited. To provide accommodation
for so numerous an audience, a large room was
needed. Hampton Court possessed a splendid room
for the purpose in the Great Banqueting Hall,
one hundred and six feet in length and forty feet in
breadth. But the palace at Whitehall for many
years had no room of a similar character. For the
performance of a masque there in 1559 the Queen
erected a temporary "Banqueting House." Again,
in 1572, to entertain the Duke of Montmorency,
Ambassador from France, she had a large "Ban-
ketting House made at Whitehall," covered with
canvas and decorated with ivy and flowers gath-
ered fresh from the fields. An account of the struc-
ture may be found in the records of the Office of the
Revels. Perhaps, however, the most elaborate and
substantial of these "banqueting houses" was that
erected in 1581, to entertain the ambassadors from
France who came to treat of a marriage between
Elizabeth and the Duc d'Anjou. The structure is
thus described by Holinshed in his Chronicle: ¹

This year (against the coming of certain commis-
sioners out of France into England), by Her Majes-

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