An extract from the notebooks of
Sir John
Finet
, assistant to
Sir Lewis Lewkenor
, Master of Ceremonies at the court of
James I. The Ambassador referred to on
page 71 is the French Ambassador Extraordinary, the
Marquis de Cadenet
. The Spanish Ambassador at
this time was Don Diego de Arcunas, Conde de Gondomar.
[p. 71]
On Twelfeday following, the Ambassador and his
cheife followers were brought to Court by the
Earle of
Warwick
to be present at a Maske; he seated as before with the King
, the better sort of the other on a fourme behind the Lords (the
Lord Treasurer
onely and the Marquesse of Hamilton sitting at the upper
end of it) and all the rest in a Box, and in the best places of the Scaffolds on the
right hand of his Majesty. No other
Ambassadors were at that time present or invited.
[p. 73]
When it was thought, that the Spanish Ambassador would have held it an indignity,
and wrong to his Master, to
be present at a Maske seen before by a French
Ambassador (as the last, and the same Maske had been by the Mareshall de Cadenet
at Twelftide) he appeared at it on Shrove-Sunday seated at the left hand of his Majesty
under the State) different from
what had been formerly resolved on, that no Ambassador in regard of their troublesome
Puntillious) should any more sit so with his
Majesty) and had his family placed over a Box at the Kings right hand, in which
were placed the Spanish Ambassadors two Sons together with the Arch-Dutchess Agent.
Bibliography
Nichols (1828), 4.634-5, 647
M. Sullivan (1913), 241-3
Finet, Finetti philoxenis (1656), 71-3