At this point in the reign of King Charles I, two large-scale masque productions were being staged at Court each winter season.
Townshend based his text on a French masque (or ballet de cour) of fifty years before; titled Balet Comique de la Royne, it was written by Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx and performed in 1581 by the French queen, Louise de Vaudemont [REF].