ss of his power, Sergeant Roo ventured to satirize the Cardinal in
a masque with which Gray's Inn entertained Henry VIII. and his
courtiers. Hall records that, "This plaie was so set furth with riche
and costlie apparel; with strange diuises of maskes and morrishes, that
it was highly praised of all menne saving the Cardinall, whiche imagined
that the plaie had been deuised of him, and in greate furie sent for the
said Maister Roo, and toke from hym his coife, and sent him to the
Flete, and after he sent for the yoong gentlemen that plaied in the
plaie, and them highly rebuked and threatened, and sent one of them,
called Thomas Moyle, of Kent, to the Flete; but by means of friendes
Master Roo and he wer deliuered at last." The author stoutly denied that
he intended to satirize the Cardinal; and the chronicler, believing the
sergeant's assertions, observes, "This plaie sore displeased the
Cardinal, and yet it was never meant to him." That the presentation of
plays was a usual feature of the festivals at Gray's Inn may be inferred
from the passage where Dugdale, in his notes on that society, says;--"In
4 Edw. VI. (17 Nov.), it was also ordered that henceforth there should
be no comedies called _Interludes_ in this House out of Term time, but
when the feast of the Nativity of our Lord is solemnly observed. And
that when there shall be any such comedies, then all the society at that
time in commons to bear the charge of the apparel."

Notwithstanding her anxiety for the maintenance of good discipline in
the Inns of Court, Queen Elizabeth encouraged the Societies to celebrate
their feasts with costliness and liberal hospitality, and her taste for
dramatic entertainments increased the splendor and frequency of
theatrical diversions amongst the lawyers. Christopher Hatton's name is
connected with the history of the English drama, by the acts which he
contributed to 'The Tragedie of Tancred and Gismunda, compiled by the
gentlemen of the Inner Temple, and by them presented before her
majestie;' and he was one of the chief actors in that ponderous and
extravagant mummery with which the Inner Temple kept Christmas in the
fourth year of Elizabeth's reign.

The circumstances of that festival merit special notice.

In the third year of Elizabeth's reign the Middle Temple and the Inner
Temple were at fierce war, the former society having laid claim to
Lyon's Inn, which had been long regarded as a dependency of the Inner
Temple. The