But Charles was so old and weak
in mind that he could recall nothing except the faint impression that he
had once seen "Will" act a part in one of his own comedies, wherein,
being to personate a decrepit old man, he wore a long beard, and appeared
so weak and drooping and unable to walk that he was forced to be
supported and carried by another person to a table, at which he was
seated among some company who were eating, and one of them sang a song.
And that was Shakespeare!
The whole Bankside, with its taverns, play-houses, and worse, its bear
pits and gardens, was the scene of roystering and coarse amusement. And
it is surprising that plays of such sustained moral greatness as
Shakespeare's should have been welcome.
The more private amusements of the great may well be illustrated by an
account given by Busino of a masque (it was Ben Jonson's "Pleasure
Reconciled to Virtue") performed at Whitehall on Twelfthnight, 1617.
During the play, twelve cavaliers in masks, the central figure of whom
was Prince Charles, chose partners, and danced every kind of dance, until
they got tired and began to flag; whereupon King James, "who is naturally
choleric, got impatient, and shouted aloud, 'Why don't they dance? What
did you make me come here for? Devil take you all, dance!' On hearing
this, the Marquis of Buckingham, his majesty's most favored minion,
immediately sprang forward, cutting a score of lofty and very minute
capers, with so much grace and agility that he not only appeased the ire
of his angry sovereign, but moreover rendered himself the admiration and
delight of everybody.
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