Sir Thomas Benger: Ups and Downs of a Master of the Revels

Abstract

WHEN Lord Protector Somerset fell from power in 1549, his steward of thirteen years, Sir John Thynne, also lost his position at court. After paying fines, forfeiting property, and twice spending time in prison, Thynne withdrew in the early 1550s to Wiltshire, where he dedicated himself to what would be his life's work, the building of Longleat House.1 Thynne's re-location made him more dependent than ever before on his London contacts in order to conduct his legal and business affairs there and to stay abreast of current events in Europe and at court. Because the ‘newsletters’ he received sometimes also reported not only on politics, but also on theatrical entertainments, they shed new light on masques devised by Sir Thomas Benger in the 1560s and on the impact of these entertainments on his career as Master of the Revels. Appointed to that office by warrant on 18 January 1560,2 Benger was immediately under pressure to produce shows appropriate for the celebration of the marriage on Sunday, 25 February of William Brooke, Lord Cobham, and Frances Newton, one of the chamberers of Queen Elizabeth's privy chamber. As one of the letters in the Thynne correspondence makes clear, Benger was up to the occasion. William Honing, who had also lost his position as Clerk of the Privy Council when Somerset fell but continued as one of the clerks of the Signet at this time,3 wrote to Sir John Thynne on 28 February. After noting that the couple solemnly married in the presence of the queen and most of the nobility, Honing reported that ‘that night we had a solempne maske & on shroftewesdaye night a handsom shewe of trivmphe in the hawle besides a fayre maske.’4 Presumably the masques to which Honing alluded included some of those that the accounts of the Revels Office document: one of Nusquams or Clowns for men, another of Actaeon and his hunters for men, and one of Diana and her nymphs for women.5 Honing adds to our knowledge of these court festivities by indicating that there was also a ‘triumph’, that is, ‘a masque-like revel that combined dramatic action with martial combat’6—a form of entertainment that was one of Benger's favourite courtly devices. From Honing's letter we now know that Sir Thomas Benger's career as Master of the Revels began on a high note, for Honing wrapped up his report of the masques by telling Thynne of their impact on Benger's reputation: ‘The newe Mr of the revelles … hath wonne his spurres by his gay devises.’