Ladies Hall

Ladies Hall in Deptford, London is thought to have been the first girls' school in England. Founded in approximately 1615 by Robert White, the school was for aristocratic girls connected with the royal court, and they performed before Queen Anne in May 1617. The school taught basic reading and writing in English, and it is likely they covered other skills a lady was encouraged to acquire, in music, dance, and needlework. Archival evidence for the school and its pupils beyond the published text of Robert White's masque is sparse.

One of Anne Newdigate's daughters, Lettice Newdigate (1604-1625), attended the Ladies Hall or a school in Deptford in July 1617. Her portrait, aged 2, at Arbury Hall, is one of the earliest depictions of an English knot garden.

I. A. Shapiro doubted the existence of Ladies' Hall as a school, believing that it may simply have been where the young gentlewomen attending Anne of Denmark's ladies-in-waiting were housed, and that the ladies there had joined together to perform a play. <!--THE EDITOR, The Review of English Studies Sir, In your February issue Mr. G. G. Hiller states that the 'Ladies Hall' which supplied performers for Robert White's masque of Cupid's Banishment in 1617 was 'an academy for aristocratic girls'.2 Like others he has been misled by John Nichols's suggestion (Progresses of James I, iii. 282) that this was 'probably one of the principal Schools of the period'. Lest Nichols's guess be accepted unquestioned into the compound of fancy and fact that passes for Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatic history, may I propose an alternative explanation ? 1 R.E.S., N.S. xxi (1970), 168-75. 2 R.E.S., N.S. xxi (1970), 2. CORRESPONDENCE 473 In the spring of 1617 King James went on progress to Scotland. After his departure his Queen spent most of her time until the middle of June at her favourite residence, Greenwich Palace (Chamberlain, Letters, ed. McClure, ii. 83). The members of her court were of course with her there, and apartments must have existed for the various grades of the Queen's entourage. It seems probable that one was provided for the 'young Gentlewomen' attending on the chief ladies of the Queen's Court, such as the Countess of Bedford and other Ladies of the Bedchamber, Drawing Chamber, etc., and that it was known as the 'Ladies' Hall'. Queen Anne 'loved gambols'. The 'young Gentlewomen of the Ladies' Hall', possibly at the prompting of Lady Bedford (as White's dedication suggests) and certainly with her encouragement, presented Cupid's Banishment as an entertainment for the Queen 'in Deptford at Greenwich'. That phrase, which describes probably the place of presentation of the masque, not the location of the 'Ladies' Hall', would have seemed less odd in 1617 than it does to us. Deptford was formerly known as 'West Greenwich' while modern Greenwich, including the Palace, was 'East Greenwich'. It seems significant that the manuscript of Cupid's Banishment (now lost) came from the library of John Evelyn (Nichols, op. cit., iii. 283). Evelyn's celebrated residence and gardens at Sayes Court, the manor-house of West Greenwich or Deptford, came to him through his marriage with Mary Browne, only daughter and heiress of Sir Richard Browne. This Sir Richard had been the Master Richard Browne who 'acted Diana' in Cupid's Banishment (Nichols, iii. 285). He was probably then a page at Court, for he subsequently became a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to Charles I, and afterwards Ambassador to France. His participation in Robert White's masque was evidently a matter of pride to his family, for Evelyn noted in the manuscript, 'on the page opposite the title: "twelve yeare old, Richard Browne, 1617, acted herein before Queen Anne"' (Nichols, iii. 283). In fact he became eleven a few days after acting in the masque {Evelyn's Diary, ed. de Beer, iv. 302 n.). As the only known manuscript of Cupid's Banishment once belonged to Richard Browne's son-in-law, who inherited Browne's extensive estate at Deptford, it seems possible that the manuscript came to Evelyn with that estate, and that it had been preserved there because the masque was acted at Sayes Court 'in Deptford at Greenwich'. I. A. SHAPIRO -->

Cupid's Banishment
A masque was produced by the young women of Ladies Hall at Greenwich Palace in 1617, during the absence of James VI and I in Scotland. The published text mentions that a Mistress Ann Watkins acted and spoke as Fortune. The queen's god-daughters presented her with embroideries, representing acorns for "A" and rosemary for "R", the initials of "Anna Regina".

One of the young women who danced in Robert White's Masque of Cupid's Banishment at Deptford in May 1617 was Anne Sandilands, thought to be a daughter of the Scottish courtier Sir James Sandilands of Slamannan Mure.

It has been suggested that it was subversive of the king's authority, after he refused to make Anna of Denmark regent in his absence.