o might feel a personal
attachment for the new monarch; but the facility by which titles were
acquired, was one cause which occasioned so many to crowd to the
metropolis to enjoy their airy honour by a substantial ruin; knighthood
had become so common, that some of the most infamous and criminal
characters of this age we find in that rank.[A] The young females, driven
to necessity by the fashionable ostentation of their parents, were brought
to the metropolis as to a market; "where," says a contemporary, "they
obtained pensions, or sometimes marriages, by their beauty." When
Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, passed to his house, the ladies were at
their balconies on the watch, to make themselves known to him; and it
appears that every one of those ladies had sold their favours at a dear
rate. Among these are some, "who pretending to be _wits_, as they called
them," says Arthur Wilson,[B] "or had handsome nieces or daughters, drew a
great resort to their houses." And it appears that Gondomar, to prevent
these conversaziones from too freely touching on Spanish politics,
sweetened their silence by his presents.[C] The same grossness of manners
was among the higher females of the age; when we see that grave statesman,
Sir Dudley Carleton, narrating the adventures of a bridal night, and all
"the petty sorceries," the romping of the "great ladies, who were made
shorter by the skirts," we discover their coarse tastes; but when we find
the king going to the bed of the bride in his nightgown, to give a
reveille-matin, and remaining a good time in or upon the bed, "Choose
which you will believe;" this bride was not more decent than the ladies
who publicly, on their balconies, were soliciting the personal notice of
Gondomar.

[Footnote A: A statesman may read with advantage Sir Edward Walker on "The
inconveniences that have attended the frequent promotions to Titles, since
King James came to the crown." Sir Edward appears not to disapprove of
these promotions during the first ten years of his reign, but "when
alliance to a favourite, riches though gotten in a shop, persons of
private estates, and of families whose fathers would have thought
themselves highly honoured to have been but knights in Queen Elizabeth's
time, were advanced, then the fruits began to appear. The greater
nobility were undervalued; the ancient baronage saw inferior families
take precedency over them; nobility lost its respect, and a parity in
conversation was