[85] Presumably, a French translation.
[86] An indignant newsmonger thus enumerates the penances to which the Queen had, or was supposed to have, been subjected: “Had they not also made her, on St. James’s Day, dabble in the dirt, in a foul morning, from Somerset House to St. James’s, her Luciferian confessor riding by her in his coach? Yea, they have made her spin, to go barefoot, to eat her meat out of treen dishes [dishes made of “tree,” i.e., wooden trenchers], to wait at table and serve her servants, with many other ridiculous and absurd penances; and if these rogues dare thus insult over the daughter, sister and wife of so great Kings, what slavery would they not make us, the people, undergo?”—Ellis’s Letters, Pory to Mead, July 1, 1626.
[87] The fogs of England have been in all ages a sore trial to foreigners. Gondomar, Spanish Ambassador in the time of James I, when someone who was going to Spain waited on him to ask whether he had any commands, replied: “Only my compliments to the sun, which I have not seen since I came to England.” Caraccioli, Neapolitan Ambassador to the Court of George II, in a conversation with that monarch, took the liberty of preferring the moon of Naples to the sun of England.
[88] In a letter to d’Herbault, Bassompierre gives details of this agreement: “First, she [the Queen] has re-established—and this is for her conscience—a bishop and ten priests, a confessor and his coadjutor, and ten musicians for her chapel; that of St. Gemmes is to be finished with its cemetery, and another is to be built for her in her palace of Somerset, at the expense of the King her husband. In attendance on her person she will have of her own nation, two ladies of the bedchamber, three bedchamber-women, a sempstress, and a clear-starcher. In regard to her health, two physicians, an apothecary and a surgeon. For her household, a grand chamberlain, an equerry, a secretary, a gentleman usher of the privy chamber and one of the chamber of presence, a baxter-groom, (i.e., baker), a valet. All her officers of the mouth and goblet will be French.” This was, in all conscience, a sufficiently numerous foreign establishment; but it was scanty in comparison with the army of more or less useless persons located at the English Court on the strength of the first treaty, which, including the servants of the higher officials, amounted to more than four hundred.
It was further stipulated that all the priests detained in prison should be set at liberty, and that the pursuivants, or officials whose duty it was to prosecute Catholics who offended against the Penal Laws, should be abolished.
[89] The Danes, like the Germans, were at this time proverbial throughout Europe for their too great indulgence in the pleasures of the table, and it would appear that Bassompierre’s guest was, as an ambassador should be, a worthy representative of his country.
[90] The royal coaches of this and, indeed, of a much later period, were huge structures, not unlike four-poster beds on wheels, for they had no glass and were sheltered by leather curtains. They were capable of holding eight persons, two of whom were perched on niches, called boots, at each door. These places were usually reserved for some favoured guest or friend of the King or Queen. When Philip V of Spain left Versailles to take possession of his kingdom, Louis XIV took his grandson the first stage of his journey in his own coach, which accommodated the whole Royal family. “The two kings and the Duc de Bourgogne,” says Saint Simon, “sat on one side, the Dauphin, the Duchesse de Bourgogne and the Duc de Berry on the other; the Duc and Duchesse d’Orléans at either door.” A most illustrious coachful! Coaches were introduced into England in the latter part of Elizabeth’s reign. When the Queen went to St. Paul’s to return thanks for the defeat of the Armada, “she did come in a chariot-throne, with four pillars behind to bear a canopy, on the top whereof was a crown imperial, and two lower pillars before, whereon stood a lion and a dragon, supporters of the arms of England, drawn by two white horses.” Two horses would appear to have been the usual number for some time. Buckingham was the first who ventured on six, which, we are told, was looked upon with strong disapproval, as a mark of the “mastering spirit” of the favourite.
[91] The Moorfields were a walk planted with trees, on the north of the city, comprising the Moorfields property, so called, the Middle Moorfields and the Upper Moorfields. Until the beginning of the previous reign, the Moorfields were, according to Stow, “a most noisome offensive place, being a general laystall, loathsome to both sight and smell, ... but, through the pains and industry of Master Nicholas Leate they were reduced from their former vile condition into most fayre and royale walkes.”
[92] “M. Harber” was no doubt Edward Herbert, the celebrated Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who had been Ambassador in France in 1619.
[93] Pembroke was Lord Steward.