MASQUERADES on The Tudors

The Assault on the "Château Vert" (Green Castle) took place in March 1522 with the theme of the cruelty of unrequited love This was Anne Boleyn's debut at court after returning from France ~ source for the text below is from E.W. Ives' Life and Death of Anne Boleyn

History	The Tudors series
"The performance was put on at York Palace, Wolsey's episcopal palace in Westminster which was later to become Whitehall Palace, with Anne the first queen to live there. It began after supper, with the audience being led into a large chamber, hung with arras and brilliantly lit, and at one end the glittering Château Vert itself.
This was an elaborate wooden construction with three towers, painted green and with battlements in hundreds of pieces of green tinfoil. It contained hidden musicians and standing on the towers were eight ladies".
The 8 court ladies were each cast as one of the qualities of the perfect mistress of chivalric tradition: 1.Beauty - Mary Tudor (Princess Margaret Tudor in the series) 2. Honour - Gertrude Blount, Countess of Devon 3. Perseverance - Anne Boleyn 4.Kindness - Mary Boleyn 5.Constancy - Jane Parker (soon to become Jane Boleyn) 6.Bounty 7.Mercy 8.Pity
"They wore white satin, each with her character or 'reason' picked out twenty four times in yellow satin, and the head-dresses were cauls of Venetian gold offset by Milan bonnets" Example of a bonnet & gold mesh caul from the re
"Opposite them were the 8 male virtues of the ideal courtier ": 1. Amoress [ness] - the King ("Honesty" in the series) 2. Nobleness 3. Youth 4. Attendance 5. Loyalty 6. Pleasure 7. Gentleness 8. Liberty "The men were dressed in caps and coats of cloth of gold and tinsel, with blue velvet buskins and great mantle cloaks of blue satin, each of which had 42 scrolls of yellow damask on which were pasted, in blue letters, the name of the character and appropriate 'poems'."
"Anne was probably in the main tower [with Mary Tudor - Princess Margaret Tudor in the series] which had a burning cresset and, like the other two, a banner - three hearts torn to pieces, a woman's hand gripping a man's heart and a woman's hand turning a man's heart upside down".
"The ladies were protected from assault by 8 choristers [young boys] of the Royal Chapel manning the lower walls and dressed as Indian women, each depicting one of the contrary feminine vices or virtues - 1. Danger 2. Disdain 3. Jealousy 4. Unkindness 5. Scorn 6. Malebouche (Sharp tongue) 7. Strangeness (Off-handedness) 8. ?
"The men entered, led by a spokesman, Ardent Desire, dressed in crimson satin embroidered with burning flames in gold, a role almost certainly played by William Cornish, master of the Children (choristers) of the Chapel Royal and very probably the author, designer and producer of the whole affair.
Then Desire begged the ladies to come down but when Scorn and Disdain announced that they would resist, he called on the courtiers to take the ladies by force."
Food fight! "To a peal of cannon, synchronized from outside, Henry led the attack, bombarding the castle, and its garrison with dates, oranges and 'other fruits made for pleasure' to which the 'ladies', genuine and choristers replied with a barage of sweetmeats and rosewater until Lady Scorn and the rest of the boys retreated, keeping up a defensive fire 'with bows and balls'. ...
.....Female coldness having fled before masculine ardour, the warm and soft qualities were taken prisoner and brought out of the castle to dance"
"When the dancing was over, masks were removed and 'all were known'; they then went off with the audience to a 'costly banquet'. ...Anne thus made her debut on an occasion which allowed her to show off all she had learned in her years abroad"
It would be romantic to imagine that this was the event at which Anne caught the king's eye and she may have but nothing is recorded. In fact Anne was to become secretly betrothed to Henry Percy, son of the Earl of Northumberland, the following year. This was called a "love match" by Wolsey's biographer.
It is likely that at this time, the King was involved with her sister, Mary and it wasn't until 1526, some 4 years later that Henry came to be totally under Anne's spell.