ABSTRACT
The title-page of the manuscript of Cupid's Banishment identifies it more specifically as 'A Maske Presented to Her Majesty By the younge Gentlewomen of the Ladies Hall In Deptford at Greenwich The 4th of May 1617'. The manuscript seems to have been prepared early in the seventeenth century and lay untouched in the library collection of the well-known diarist John Evelyn until the early nineteenth century when it was purchased by William Upcott. It was Upcott who recognized and noted inside the front cover what appears to be Evelyn's handwriting. Interestingly, Evelyn's annotation provides the earliest dramatic link for the masque. 'Richard Browne, 12 years old,' Evelyn wrote, 'acted herein before Queen Anne'; and Browne's daughter Mary married Evelyn in June 1647. Thus, it has long been the scholarly opinion that the manuscript was passed down from Browne to Evelyn.1
