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At the English Courts of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, the masque developed in the direction of scenic elaboration and splendour (with music) that made up for its literary shortcomings, at least in its earlier period.

At the French Courts of Henry IV and Louis XIII, what were known as Opera-ballets (later to be separated as opera and ballet) developed a musical richness (with scenic effect) that made up for similar literary shortcomings. Yet again came another form in the Comedie Ballet of Molière.

With the accession of James I of England came the real efflorescence of the English masque, which under the hands of Ben Jonson was to become a fairly balanced harmony of the three arts—the poet’s, the musician’s, and the painter-designer’s.

It must of course be understood that in both the masque and ballet there was dancing; but at the period with which we are now dealing, namely the last decade of the sixteenth and first few decades of the seventeenth centuries, the technique of that art was—for stage purposes—comparatively so primitive as to make it almost a negligible quantity. There was dancing of course—that of “henchmen” and men and boys who performed a Morris, or bouffon-dances; and that of courtier, Court-lady, or even, it might be, a Royal personage, who would take part in the stately Pavane or Almain, now and then unbending sufficiently to dance a Trenchmore (once Queen Elizabeth’s favourite) or Canary.