When James the First ascended the throne of his united kingdoms, and promised himself and the world long halcyon days of peace, foreign princes, and a long train of ambassadors from every European power, resorted to the English court. The pacific monarch, in emulation of an office which already existed in the courts of Europe, created that of MASTER OF THE CEREMONIES, after the mode of France, observes Roger Coke.[[97]] This was now found necessary to preserve the state, and allay the perpetual jealousies of the representatives of their sovereigns. The first officer was Sir Lewis Lewknor,[[98]] with an assistant, Sir John Finett, who at length succeeded him, under Charles the First, and seems to have been more amply blest with the genius of the place; his soul doted on the honour of the office; and in that age of peace and of ceremony, we may be astonished at the subtilty of his inventive shifts and contrivances, in quieting that school of angry and rigid boys whom he had under his care—the ambassadors of Europe!
Sir John Finett, like a man of genius in office, and living too in an age of diaries, has not resisted the pleasant labour of perpetuating his own narrative.[[99]] He has told every circumstance, with a chronological exactitude, which passed in his province as master of the ceremonies; and when we consider that he was a busy actor amidst the whole diplomatic corps, we shall not he surprised by discovering, in this small volume of great curiosity, a vein of secret and authentic history; it throws a new light on many important events, in which the historians of the times are deficient, who had not the knowledge of this assiduous observer. But my present purpose is not to treat Sir John with all the ceremonious punctilios, of which he was himself the arbiter; nor to quote him on grave subjects, which future historians may well do.
This volume contains the rupture of a morning, and the peace-makings of an evening; sometimes it tells of "a clash between the Savoy and Florence ambassadors for precedence;"—now of "questions betwixt the Imperial and Venetian ambassadors, concerning titles and visits," how they were to address one another, and who was to pay the first visit!—then "the Frenchman takes exceptions about placing." This historian of the levee now records, "that the French ambassador gets ground of the Spanish;" but soon after, so eventful were these drawing-room politics, that a day of festival has passed away in suspense, while a privy council has been hastily summoned, to inquire why the French ambassador had "a defluction of rheum in his teeth, besides a fit of the ague," although he hoped to be present at the same festival next year! or being invited to a mask, declared "his stomach would not agree with cold meats:" "thereby pointing" (shrewdly observes Sir John) "at the invitation and presence of the Spanish ambassador, who, at the mask the Christmas before, had appeared in the first place."
Sometimes we discover our master of the ceremonies disentangling himself and the lord chamberlain from the most provoking perplexities by a clever and civil lie. Thus it happened, when the Muscovite ambassador would not yield precedence to the French nor Spaniard. On this occasion, Sir John, at his wits' end, contrived an obscure situation, in which the Russ imagined he was highly honoured, as there he enjoyed a full sight of the king's face, though he could see nothing of the entertainment itself; while the other ambassadors were so kind as "not to take exception," not caring about the Russian, from the remoteness of his country, and the little interest that court then had in Europe! But Sir John displayed even a bolder invention when the Muscovite, at his reception at Whitehall, complained that only one lord was in waiting at the stairs'-head, while no one had met him in the court-yard. Sir John assured him that in England it was considered a greater honour to be received by one lord than by two!
Sir John discovered all his acumen in the solemn investigation of "Which was the upper end of the table?" Arguments and inferences were deduced from precedents quoted; but as precedents sometimes look contrary ways, this affair might still have remained sub judice, had not Sir John oracularly pronounced that "in spite of the chimneys in England, where the best man sits, is that end of the table." Sir John, indeed, would often take the most enlarged view of things; as when the Spanish ambassador, after hunting with the king at Theobalds, dined with his majesty in the privy-chamber, his son Don Antonio dined in the council-chamber with some of the king's attendants. Don Antonio seated himself on a stool at the end of the table. "One of the gentlemen-ushers took exception at this, being, he said, irregular and unusual, that place being ever wont to be reserved empty for state!" In a word, no person in the world was ever to sit on that stool; but Sir John, holding a conference before he chose to disturb the Spanish grandee, finally determined that "this was the superstition of a gentleman-usher, and it was therefore neglected." Thus Sir John could, at a critical moment, exert a more liberal spirit, and risk an empty stool against a little ease and quiet; which were no common occurrences with that martyr of state, a master of ceremonies!
But Sir John,—to me he is so entertaining a personage that I do not care to get rid of him,—had to overcome difficulties which stretched his fine genius on tenter-hooks. Once—rarely did the like unlucky accident happen to the wary master of the ceremonies—did Sir John exceed the civility of his instructions, or rather his half-instructions. Being sent to invite the Dutch ambassador and the States' commissioners, then a young and new government, to the ceremonies of St. George's day, they inquired whether they should have the same respect paid to them as other ambassadors? The bland Sir John, out of the milkiness of his blood, said he doubted it not. As soon, however, as he returned to the lord chamberlain, he discovered that he had been sought for up and down, to stop the invitation. The lord chamberlain said Sir John had exceeded his commission, if he had invited the Dutchmen "to stand in the closet of the queen's side; because the Spanish ambassador would never endure them so near him, where there was but a thin wainscot board between, and a window which might be opened!" Sir John said gently, he had done no otherwise than he had been desired; which however the lord chamberlain, in part, denied, (cautious and civil!) "and I was not so unmannerly as to contest against," (supple, but uneasy!) This affair ended miserably for the poor Dutchmen. Those new republicans were then regarded with the most jealous contempt by all the ambassadors, and were just venturing on their first dancing-steps, to move among crowned heads. The Dutch now resolved not to be present; declaring they had just received an urgent invitation, from the Earl of Exeter, to dine at Wimbledon. A piece of supercherie to save appearances; probably the happy contrivance of the combined geniuses of the lord chamberlain and the master of the ceremonies!
I will now exhibit some curious details from these archives of fantastical state, and paint a courtly world, where politics and civility seem to have been at perpetual variance.
When the Palatine arrived in England to marry Elizabeth, the only daughter of James the First, "the feasting and jollity" of the court were interrupted by the discontent of the archduke's ambassador, of which these were the material points:—
Sir John waited on him, to honour with his presence the solemnity on the second or third days, either to dinner or supper, or both.
The archduke's ambassador paused: with a troubled countenance inquiring whether the Spanish ambassador was invited. "I answered, answerable to my instructions in case of such demand, that he was sick, and could not be there. He was yesterday, quoth he, so well, as that the offer might have very well been made him, and perhaps accepted."