Shrove-Tide Dancing: Balls and Masques at Whitehall under Charles II

Abstract

The tradition of the Shrove-tide court entertainment with dancing and music, strong in the first half of the seventeenth century in England, was restored with the monarchy after 1660. Shrove-tide masques, balls and plays, along with dishes of pancakes and fritters, remained a feature of the court calendar to the end of Charles II’s reign. As well as borrowing elements from the Jacobean court masque, some of the entertainments presented before Charles II were modelled on French entertainments staged for Louis XIV. John Blow’s court opera Venus and Adonis may have received its first performance at a Shrove-tide event in 1682/3.