[72] Compare the pardon of Jean Dael in the Appendix with the story of the Greek steward and the snails, page 122.
[73] L. Guicciardini says of the Netherlanders, ‘La pluspart des gens ont quelque commencement de Grammaire, et presque tous, voire jusques au villageois, sçavent lire et escrire.’—Description de tout le Païs bas, p. 34.
[74] Quacquelben means fowler, or bird trapper; the name is still common at Courtrai.
[75] We take this opportunity of explaining how it comes to pass, that in this Life of Busbecq, in which so much space is assigned to an account of his relations, so small a portion comparatively is devoted to the man himself. Busbecq’s letters are to a great extent an autobiography. It would be impossible to anticipate their contents without robbing them of their freshness.
[76] See Appendix [Itineraries].
[77] He was Ambassador for the two Queens, i.e., Mary Queen of Hungary and Leonora Queen of Portugal and France, sisters of Charles V. and Ferdinand, who after their widowhood lived together in the Netherlands till the abdication of Charles V., when they accompanied their brother to Spain.
[78] Ecuyer (escuier) trenchant. The first of these words supplies the derivations for two English titles (1) squire, (2) sewer; the first being the equivalent of écuyer, and the second of écuyer trenchant. The office of sewer (écuyer trenchant) is alluded to by Milton, Paradise Lost, ix., where the poet speaks of
Marshall’d feast
Served up in hall by sewers and seneschals.
‘Here,’ says Todd in his note, ‘is an allusion to the magnificence of elder days; the marshal of the hall, the sewer and the seneschal having been officers of distinction in the houses of princes and great men. From Minshew’s Guide into Tongues it appears that the marshal placed the guests according to their rank, and saw they were properly arranged, the sewer marched in before the meats and arranged them on the table, and the seneschal was the household steward, a name of frequent occurrence in old law books, and so in French “le grand Seneschal de France,” synonymous with our “Lord High Steward of the King’s household.”’ Busbecq himself held the offices of sewer and seneschal. See Appendix, [Sauvegarde &c.], where Parma gives him the title of ‘Grand maistre d’hostel de la Royne Isabelle.’