said. The Danish Ambassador did forbear to come thither, as was
supposed, because of Whitelocke being there. The French Resident sat by
Whitelocke, and conversed with him.

The great hall, two stories high, was prepared for the Assembly. An outer
chamber was hung with cloth of Arras; in the antechamber to that were
guards of the Queen's partisans; in the court was a company of
musketeers. The great hall was hung with those hangings which were before
in Whitelocke's lodgings, with some others added, and was very handsome.
On each side of the hall, from the walls towards the middle of the room,
forms were placed, covered with red cloth, for seats for the Members, and
were all alike without distinction, and reached upwards. Three parts of
the length of the hall, in the midst between the seats, was a space or
lane broad enough for three to walk abreast together. At the upper end of
the hall, on a foot-pace three steps high, covered with foot-carpets,
stood the chair of state, all of massy silver, a rich cushion in it, and
a canopy of crimson velvet richly embroidered over it. On the left side
of the chair of state were placed five ordinary chairs of crimson velvet,
without arms, for the five Ricks-officers; and on the same side below
them, and on the other side from the foot-pace down to the forms, in a
semicircular form, were stools of crimson velvet for the Ricks-Senators.

About nine o'clock there entered at the lower end of the great hall a
plain, lusty man in his boor's habit, with a staff in his hand, followed
by about eighty boors, Members of this Council, who had chosen the first
man for their Marshal, or Speaker. These marched up in the open place
between the forms to the midst of them, and then the Marshal and his
company sat down on the forms on the right of the State, from the midst
downwards to the lower end of the hall, and put on their hats. A little
while after them entered at the same door a man in a civil habit of a
citizen, with a staff in his hand, followed by about a hundred and
twenty citizens, deputies of the cities and boroughs, who had chosen him
to be their Marshal. They all took their places upon the forms
over-against the boors in the lower end of the hall, and were covered.
Not long after, at the same door, entered a proper gentleman richly
habited, a staff in his hand, who was Marshal of the Nobility, followed
by near two hundred lords and gentlemen, Members of the Ricksdag, chief
of their resp