But Sir John,--to me he is so entertaining a personage that I do not care to get rid of him,--had to overcome difficulties which stretched his fine genius on tenter-hooks. Once--rarely did the like unlucky accident happen to the wary master of the ceremonies--did Sir John exceed the civility of his instructions, or rather his half-instructions. Being sent to invite the Dutch ambassador and the States' commissioners, then a young and new government, to the ceremonies of St. George's day, they inquired whether they should have the same respect paid to them as other ambassadors? The bland Sir John, out of the milkiness of his blood, said he doubted it not. As soon, however, as he returned to the lord chamberlain, he discovered that he had been sought for up and down, to stop the invitation. The lord chamberlain said Sir John had exceeded his commission, if he had invited the Dutchmen "to stand in the closet of the queen's side; because the Spanish ambassador would never endure them _so near him, where there was but a thin wainscot board between, and a window which might be opened_!" Sir John said gently, he had done no otherwise than he had been desired; which however the lord chamberlain, _in part_, denied, (cautious and civil!) "and I was not so unmannerly as to contest 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:--