SOURCE: Butler, Martin. “Politics and the Masque: The Triumph of Peace.” The Seventeenth Century 2, no. 2 (July 1987): 117-41.

In the following essay, Butler challenges the notion that Caroline masques were merely dramatic spectacles, arguing instead that court masques were one aspect of Charles I's government by consensus. Focusing on Shirley's Triumph of Peace, Butler analyzes how the production of a masque can generate multiple political meanings.

Recent years have seen much important and suggestive work on the court masque under the early Stuarts. The conditions that generated the masque have been fully documented and, especially, the function of the form as a vehicle of political statement is much better understood than in the past; the masque no longer seems to be inflated flattery but a complex fusion of counsel and compliment. A great deal of this work has come together in the books of Stephen Orgel and Roy Strong...