t 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."

To this Sir John replied, that the French and Venetian ambassadors
holding between them one course of correspondence, and the Spanish and
the archduke's another, their invitations had been usually joint.

This the archduke's ambassador denied; and affirmed that they had been
separately invited to Masques, &c., but he had never;--that France had
always yielded precedence to the archduke's predecessors, when they were
but Dukes of Burgundy, of which he was ready to produce "ancient
proofs;" and that Venice was a mean republic, a sort of burghers, and a
handful of territory, compared to his monarchical sovereign:--and to all
this he added, that the Venetian bragged of the frequent favours he had
received.

Sir John returns in great distress to the lord chamberlain and his
majesty. A solemn declaration is drawn up, in which James I. most
gravely laments that the archduke's ambassador has taken this offence;
but his majesty offers these most cogent arguments in his own favour:
t