Inigo Jones, Henry Neville, and the Convivium Philosophicum Mock-Guild
Source-control findings: beyond an attendee list
The Convivium Philosophicum has often been used as a loose list of literary names. Recent manuscript research makes it more specific and more interesting. Daniel Starza Smith and collaborators' work on a newly studied Coryate manuscript shows that the group surrounding Coryate behaved like a mock guild: it assigned offices, fined absentees, gave Coryate the role of “our society's Beadle,” and produced or curated satirical verse. See “Sirenaicks, Guilds and a New Coryate Manuscript,” *Review of English Studies* 74 (2023).
The article observes that many diners overlap the Sireniack circle and that, if the occasion was Sireniack, it adds figures including Sir Henry Neville, Henry Goodere, Lionel Cranfield, Arthur Ingram, John West, and Richard Connock. Neuhauser identifies West as probably the member of the colonial West family who became governor of Virginia in 1629. A contemporary rule-poem says that an absent diner “shall be amerciated / Forty pence in issue.” This was structured sociability, not simply people who happened to drink in the same tavern.
Jonson–Jones and full-network audit — 1 September 2026
Jones's place in this evidence is much larger than his architectural nickname in the Convivium. His first court-masque collaboration with Ben Jonson was The Masque of Blackness on 6 January 1605. For roughly twenty-five years Jones designed the scenery, machinery, and costumes for many Jonson masques. For Love Freed in 1611, each received £40. Jonson could acknowledge their shared creative authority: in The Masque of Augurs he wrote that “the invention was divided betwixt Master Jones and me,” and in Love's Triumph called them “we, the inventors.”
Their collaboration eventually became a dispute over artistic control. In 1618–19 Jonson told Drummond that he would use “an Inigo” to express the greatest villain in the world. The final rupture came in 1631; Jonson's Expostulation accused Jones of attempting to become “main Dominus Do-All,” and Jones displaced Jonson from Whitehall masque production after Chloridia. The quarrel concerned the intellectual ownership of a composite art: poetic fable and language, architecture, scenery, costume, machinery, and performance.
Jones also connects directly to other members of the company. He contributed to Coryats Crudities; one manuscript attributes The Censure of a Parliament Fart to Hoskyns, Jones, Martin, and Brooke; Cranfield bought Jones tobacco in 1613 and later used his architectural services at Chelsea; and Arthur Ingram gave Jones a £4 hogshead of claret in 1616. Ingram sent another hogshead to a Mr Martin, probably Richard Martin. These are independent connections, not inferences from shared attendance.
The Ingram, Cranfield, Jones, and probable Martin details are documented in Rebecca Roberts's 2012 Teesside thesis, pp. 100–101: public thesis record.
Full source audit: JONSON CONVIVIUM FULL NETWORK RESEARCH 2026 09 01.
Quoted source passages: Neville and Jones inside the poem
The English verse names Neville through a motto-pun:
Ne let Sir Henry count it vile
Will come with gentle speed.
It then gives Inigo Jones a mock-classical architectural identity:
Inego Ionicke-pillar.
... If Coriate bee not invited,
The jeast will want a tiller.
Public transcription: Charles Mills Gayley, *Shakespeare and the Founders of Liberty in America*. The Folger catalogue describes manuscript copies containing the Latin Convivium and its English version: Folger MS V.a.319.
The pun “Ne let” invokes the Neville name and the family motto Ne vile velis. Jones becomes “Inego Ionicke-pillar,” at once a classical joke and a recognition of his architectural identity. These are individualized roles within a group performance.
Collaborative political satire
The 2023 research reports a Bodleian manuscript note stating that a later portion “was made by Whittakers.” Later stanzas attack or mock major political figures including Chancellor Egerton, Treasurer Cecil, Northampton, and Suffolk. This suggests that the textual object was extended, shared, and politically sharpened by several hands.
The important Neville avenue is therefore not a speculative direct patronage relationship with Jones. It is participation in a rule-bound, pseudonymous, performative environment that joined:
- mock offices and fines;
- Latin and English name play;
- collaborative textual production;
- political satire;
- writers, lawyers, courtiers, projectors, and a theatrical architect.
That environment is highly relevant to how anonymous or collectively circulated dramatic and satirical writing could be made and revised.
What to investigate next
Every surviving manuscript should be collated for additions, changes in the attendee list, handwriting, and the position of the anti-court stanzas. The critical question is whether Neville's name occurs in the earliest layer or a later adaptation. The “Whittakers” note should be tied to named copyists or authors if possible. Jones's own papers and masque networks should then be searched for the same nicknames and diners.
Limits
The poem documents a shared social-textual setting. It does not prove that Neville commissioned Jones, collaborated with him on a masque, or wrote any particular stanza. The quotations above come from published transcriptions; the manuscript pages were not directly inspected in this pass.
Citations and source routes
The recent article, Folger catalogue, and public poem transcription are linked above. Direct manuscript collation remains outstanding.