[51] “They [the Bishop of Mende and the other ecclesiastics of the Queen’s Household] abused the influence which they had acquired over the tender and religious mind of her Majesty, so far as to lead her a long way on foot, through a park, the gate of which had been expressly ordered by the Count de Tilliers [Tillières] to be kept open, to go in devotion to a place (Tyburn), where it has been the custom to execute the most infamous malefactors and criminals of all sorts, exposed on the entrance to a high road; an act, not only of shame and mockery towards the Queen, but of reproach and calumny of the King’s predecessors of glorious memory, as accusing them of tyranny on having put to death innocent persons, whom these people look upon as martyrs, although, on the contrary, not one of them had been executed on account of religion, but for high treason.”—Reply of the Commissioners of his Majesty the King of Great Britain, to Monsieur le Maréschal de Bassompierre, Ambassador Extraordinary from his Most Christian Majesty.
[52] The orthography of this letter is, of course, modernised.
[53] Sir Lewis Lewkenor, Knight. In 1603 an office had been instituted, or rather revived, for the more solemn reception of the Ambassadors by the title of Master of the Ceremonies, with a salary of £200 per annum. Sir Lewis Lewkenor was the first holder of the post. The worthy knight’s emoluments were not confined to his salary, for Stow tells us that when, in March, 1605, he was sent by the Lords of the Council to the foreign Ambassadors to contradict officially a report of James I’s death which had been spread, the Spanish Ambassador was “ravished with a soddaine joy, and gave unto Sir Lewis Lewkner (sic) a very great chaigne of gold, of a large value.”
[54] Greenwich Palace, on the site where now stands the Naval Hospital, had been a favourite residence of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, but the Stuarts appear to have resided there but little.
[55] Sir Edward Sackville, fourth Earl of Dorset (1591-1652). He was one of the handsomest men of his time, and in 1613 had become notorious as the hero of a duel, fought on a piece of ground specially purchased for the purpose near Bergen-op-Zoom, in which he had killed Edward Bruce, second Lord Kinloss, and been himself severely wounded. He had been ambassador in France for a short time in 1621 and again in 1623.
[56] It was customary for Ambassadors Extraordinary to be lodged and entertained at the expense of the sovereigns to whom they were accredited, and we have seen how splendidly Bassompierre was treated at Madrid. Why this practice was departed from on the present occasion was no doubt due to the ill-feeling existing between the two Courts and to the fact that his mission was an unwelcome one, and not to any motive of economy, for in 1610 the Ambassador sent to announce to James I the accession of Louis XIII had been lodged in Lambeth Palace and most lavishly entertained.
[57] It is singular that Bassompierre omits to mention where he lived during his stay in London. It might be supposed that it was at the house of the permanent Ambassador, the Marquis de Blainville, were it not that he states elsewhere that it was in a maison de louage. There was in those days no French Embassy in London, that is to say, a house purchased by the French Government for the accommodation of its representative, and the Ambassadors made their own arrangements. We do not know where Blainville lived, but his predecessor, Bassompierre’s brother-in-law, the Comte de Tillières, rented for a time Hunsdon House, in the Blackfriars. It was during his tenancy of this house, in October, 1623, that a most terrible accident occurred. Some three hundred Catholics had assembled there one evening to hear Mass, when the floor of the room in which the service was being held gave way, with the result that a great number of them were killed or severely injured. The bodies of nearly fifty are said to have been afterwards buried in the garden. This disaster was called the Fatal Vespers. “The Protestants,” observes Croker, “considered it as a judgment of Heaven; the Roman Catholics as a treachery of the Protestants, both sides overlooking in the blindness of bigotry the weakness of an old floor and the weight of the inordinate number of persons crowding upon it.”
[58] François de Rochechouart, Knight of Malta, known also under the name of the Commandeur de Jars, third son of François de Rochechouart, Seigneur de Jars, and Anne de Monceaux. He had been exiled from the Court of France at the time of the arrest of Ornano, and had come to England, where he had been well received.
[59] Buckingham was much incensed against the Court of France, owing to its refusal to receive him as Ambassador Extraordinary in the autumn of the previous year, though what else he could have expected after his audacious attempt to make love to Anne of Austria is difficult to understand. He had also, it appears, a personal grievance against Richelieu upon a point which was then considered of great importance—the right to the title of Monseigneur. The Cardinal had addressed letters to Monsieur le Duc de Buckingham, and the omission of the Monseigneur had given mortal offence to Buckingham.
[60] York House. It had belonged originally to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk; but in the reign of Mary, Heath, Archbishop of York, purchased it for the see. Whence the name which so perplexed Bassompierre. In the reign of James I, Matthews, Archbishop of York, disposed of it to the Crown, and after Lord Chancellors Egerton and Bacon had had it, probably as an official residence, it was granted to Buckingham, who converted it into a sumptuous palace.