Of court-etiquette few are acquainted with the mysteries, and still
fewer have lost themselves in its labyrinth of forms. Whence its origin?
Perhaps from those grave and courtly Italians, who, in their petty
pompous courts, made the whole business of their effeminate days consist
in _punctilios_; and, wanting realities to keep themselves alive,
affected the mere shadows of life and action, in a world of these
mockeries of state. It suited well the genius of a people who boasted of
elementary works to teach how affronts were to be given, and how to be
taken; and who had some reason to pride themselves in producing the
Cortegiano of Castiglione, and the Galateo of Della Casa. They carried
this refining temper into the most trivial circumstances, when a court
was to be the theatre, and monarchs and their representatives the
actors. Precedence, and other honorary discriminations, establish the
useful distinctions of ranks, and of individuals; but their minuter
court forms, subtilised by Italian conceits, with an erudition of
precedents, and a logic of nice distinctions, imparted a mock dignity
of science to the solemn fopperies of a master of the ceremonies, who
exhausted all the faculties of his soul on the equiponderance of the
first place of inferior degree with the last of a superior; who turned
into a political contest the placing of a chair and a stool; made a
reception at the stairs'-head, or at the door, raise a clash between two
rival nations; a visit out of time require a negotiation of three
months; or an awkward invitation produce a sudden fit of sickness; while
many a rising antagonist, in the formidable shapes of ambassadors, were
ready to despatch a courier to their courts, for the omission or neglect
of a single _punctilio_. The pride of nations, in pacific times, has
only these means to maintain their jealousy of power: yet should not the
people be grateful to the sovereign who confines his campaigns to his
drawing-room: whose field-marshal is a tripping master of the
ceremonies; whose stratagems are only to save the inviolability of
court-etiquette; and whose battles of peace are only for precedence?
When the Earls of Holland and Carlisle, our ambassadors extraordinary to
the court of France, in 1624, were at Paris, to treat of the marriage of
Charles with Henrietta, and to join in a league against Spain, before
they showed their propositions, they were desirous of ascertaining in
what manner Cardinal Richelieu would receive them. The Marquis of
Ville-aux-Clers was employed in this negotiation, which appeared at
least as important as the marriage and the league. He brought for
answer, that the cardinal would receive them as he did the ambassadors
of the Emperor and the King of Spain; that he could not give them the
right hand in his own house, because he never honoured in this way those
ambassadors; but that, in reconducting them out of his room, he would go
farther than he was accustomed to do, provided that they would permit
him to cover this unusual proceeding with a pretext, that the others
might not draw any consequences from it in their favour. Our ambassadors
did not disapprove of this expedient, but they begged time to receive
the instructions of his majesty. As this would create a considerable
delay, they proposed another, which would set at rest, for the moment,
the _punctilio_. They observed, that if the cardinal would feign himself
sick, they would go to see him: on which the cardinal immediately went
to bed, and an interview, so important to both nations, took place, and
articles of great difficulty were discussed by the cardinal's bedside!
When the Nuncio Spada would have made the cardinal jealous of the
pretensions of the English ambassadors, and reproached him with yielding
his precedence to them, the cardinal denied this. "I never go before
them, it is true, but likewise I never accompany them; I wait for them
only in the chamber of audience, either seated in the most honourable
place, or standing till the table is ready: I am always the first to
speak, and the first to be seated; and besides, I have never chosen to
return their visit, which has made the Earl of Carlisle so
outrageous."[96]
Such was the ludicrous gravity of those court etiquettes, or
_punctilios_, combined with political consequences, of which I am now to
exhibit a picture.
When James the First ascended the throne of his united kingdoms, and
promised himself and the world long halcyon days of peace, foreign
princes, and a long train of ambassadors from every European power,
resorted to the English court. The pacific monarch, in emulation of an
office which already existed in the courts of Europe, created that of
MASTER OF THE CEREMONIES, after the mode of France, observes Roger
Coke.[97] This was now found necessary to preserve the state, and allay
the perpetual jealousies of the representatives of their sovereigns. The
first officer was Sir Lewis Lewknor,[98] with an assistant, Sir John
Finett, who at length succeeded him, under Charles the First, and seems
to have been more amply blest with the genius of the place; his soul
doted on the honour of the office; and in that age of peace and of
ceremony, we may be astonished at the subtilty of his inventive shifts
and contrivances, in quieting that school of angry and rigid boys whom
he had under his care--the ambassadors of Europe!
Sir John Finett, like a man of genius in office, and living too in an
age of diaries, has not resisted the pleasant labour of perpetuating his
own narrative.[99] He has told every circumstance, with a chronological
exactitude, which passed in his province as master of the ceremonies;
and when we consider that he was a busy actor amidst the whole
diplomatic corps, we shall not he surprised by discovering, in this
small volume of great curiosity, a vein of secret and authentic history;
it throws a new light on many important events, in which the historians
of the times are deficient, who had not the knowledge of this assiduous
observer. But my present purpose is not to treat Sir John with all the
ceremonious _punctilios_, of which he was himself the arbiter; nor to
quote him on grave subjects, which future historians may well do.
This volume contains the rupture of a morning, and the peace-makings of
an evening; sometimes it tells of "a _clash_ between the Savoy and
Florence ambassadors for precedence;"--now of "_questions_ betwixt the
Imperial and Venetian ambassadors, concerning _titles_ and _visits_,"
how they were to address one another, and who was to pay the first
visit!--then "the Frenchman takes _exceptions_ about _placing_." This
historian of the levee now records, "that the French ambassador gets
ground of the Spanish;" but soon after, so eventful were these
drawing-room politics, that a day of festival has passed away in
suspense, while a privy council has been hastily summoned, to inquire
_why_ the French ambassador had "a defluction of rheum in his teeth,
besides a fit of the ague," although he hoped to be present at the same
festival next year! or being invited to a mask, declared "his stomach
would not agree with cold meats:" "thereby pointing" (shrewdly observes
Sir John) "at the invitation and presence of the Spanish ambassador,
who, at the mask _the Christmas before_, had appeared in the first
place."
Sometimes we discover our master of the ceremonies disentangling himself
and the lord chamberlain from the most provoking perplexities by a
clever and civil lie. Thus it happened, when the Muscovite ambassador
would not yield precedence to the French nor Spaniard. On this occasion,
Sir John, at his wits' end, contrived an obscure situation, in which the
Russ imagined he was highly honoured, as there he enjoyed a full sight
of the king's face, though he could see nothing of the entertainment
itself; while the other ambassadors were so kind as "not to take
exception," not caring about the Russian, from the remoteness of his
country, and the little interest that court then had in Europe! But Sir
John displayed even a bolder invention when the Muscovite, at his
reception at Whitehall, complained that only one lord was in waiting at
the stairs'-head, while no one had met him in the court-yard. Sir John
assured him that in England it was considered a greater honour to be
received by one lord than by two!
Sir John discovered all his acumen in the solemn investigation of "Which
was the upper end of the table?" Arguments and inferences were deduced
from precedents quoted; but as precedents sometimes look contrary ways,
this affair might still have remained _sub judice_, had not Sir John
oracularly pronounced that "in spite of the chimneys in England, where
the best man sits, is that end of the table." Sir John, indeed, would
often take the most enlarged view of things; as when the Spanish
ambassador, after hunting with the king at Theobalds, dined with his
majesty in the privy-chamber, his son Don Antonio dined in the
council-chamber with some of the king's attendants. Don Antonio seated
himself on a stool at the end of the table. "One of the gentlemen-ushers
took exception at this, being, he said, irregular and unusual, that
place being ever wont to be reserved _empty for state_!" In a word, no
person in the world was ever to sit on that stool; but Sir John, holding
a conference before he chose to disturb the Spanish grandee, finally
determined that "this was the _superstition_ of a gentleman-usher, and
it was therefore neglected." Thus Sir John could, at a critical moment,
exert a more liberal spirit, and risk an empty stool against a little
ease and quiet; which were no common occurrences with that martyr of
state, a master of ceremonies!
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:--
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:
that the Venetian had announced to his majesty that his republic had
ordered his men new liveries on the occasion, an honour, he adds, not
usual with princes--the Spanish ambassador, not finding himself well for
the first day (because, by the way, he did not care to dispute
precedence with the Frenchman), his majesty conceiving that the
solemnity of the marriage being one continued act through divers days,
it admitted neither _prius_ nor _posterius_: and then James proves too
much, by boldly asserting, that the _last day_ should be taken for the
_greatest day!_--as in other cases, for instance in that of Christmas,
where Twelfth-day, the last day, is held as the greatest.
But the French and Venetian ambassadors, so envied by the Spanish and
the archduke's, were themselves not less chary, and crustily fastidious.
The insolent Frenchman first attempted to take precedence of the Prince
of Wales; and the Venetian stood upon this point, that they should sit
on chairs, though the prince had but a stool; and, particularly, that
the carver should not stand before him. "But," adds Sir John, "neither
of them prevailed in their reasonless pretences."
Nor was it peaceable even at the nuptial dinner, which closed with the
following catastrophe of etiquette:--
Sir John having ushered among the countesses the lady of the French
ambassador, he left her to the ranging of the lord chamberlain, who
ordered she should be placed at the table next beneath the countesses,
and above the baronesses. But lo! "The Viscountess of Effingham
standing to her _woman's right_, and possessed already of her proper
place (as she called it), would not remove lower, so _held the hand_ of
the ambassadrice, till after dinner, when the French ambassador,
informed of the difference and opposition, called out for his wife's
coach!" With great trouble, the French lady was persuaded to stay, the
Countess of Kildare and the Viscountess of Haddington making no scruple
of yielding their places. Sir John, unbending his gravity, facetiously
adds, "The Lady of Effingham, in the interim, forbearing (with rather
too much than little stomach) both her supper and her company." This
spoilt child of quality, tugging at the French ambassadress to keep her
down, mortified to be seated at the side of the Frenchwoman that day,
frowning and frowned on, and going supperless to bed, passed the
wedding-day of the Palatine and Princess Elizabeth like a cross girl on
a form.
One of the most subtle of these men of _punctilio_, and the most
troublesome, was the Venetian ambassador; for it was his particular
aptitude to find fault, and pick out jealousies among all the others of
his body.
On the marriage of the Earl of Somerset, the Venetian was invited to the
masque, but not the dinner, as last year the reverse had occurred. The
Frenchman, who drew always with the Venetian, at this moment chose to
act by himself on the watch of precedence, jealous of the Spaniard newly
arrived. When invited, he inquired if the Spanish ambassador was to be
there? and humbly beseeched his majesty to be excused, from
indisposition. We shall now see Sir John put into the most lively action
by the subtle Venetian.
"I was scarcely back at court with the French ambassador's answer, when
I was told that a gentleman from the Venetian ambassador had been to
seek me, who, having at last found me, said that his lord desired me,
that if ever I would do him favour, I would take the pains to come to
him instantly. I, winding the cause to be some new buzz gotten into his
brain, from some intelligence he had from the French of that morning's
proceeding, excused my present coming, that I might take further
instructions from the lord chamberlain; wherewith, as soon as I was
sufficiently armed, I went to the Venetian."
But the Venetian would not confer with Sir John, though he sent for him
in such a hurry, except in presence of his own secretary. Then the
Venetian desired Sir John to repeat the _words_ of his own
_invitation_, and _those_ also of his own _answer_! which poor Sir John
actually did! For he adds, "I yielded, but not without discovering my
insatisfaction to be so peremptorily pressed on, as if he had meant to
trip me."
The Venetian having thus compelled Sir John to con over both invitation
and answer, gravely complimented him on his correctness to a tittle! Yet
still was the Venetian not in less trouble: and now he confessed that
the king had given a formal invitation to the French ambassador,--and
not to him!
This was a new stage in this important negotiation: it tried all the
diplomatic sagacity of Sir John to extract a discovery; and which was,
that the Frenchman had, indeed, conveyed the intelligence secretly to
the Venetian.
Sir John now acknowledged that he had suspected as much when he received
the message; and not to be taken by surprise, he had come prepared with
a long apology, ending, for peace sake, with the same formal invitation
for the Venetian. Now the Venetian insisted again that Sir John should
deliver the invitation in the _same precise words_ as it had been given
to the Frenchman. Sir John, with his never-failing courtly docility,
performed it to a syllable. Whether both parties during all these
proceedings could avoid moving a risible muscle at one another, our
grave authority records not.
The Venetian's final answer seemed now perfectly satisfactory, declaring
he would not excuse his absence as the Frenchman had, on the most
frivolous pretence; and farther, he expressed his high satisfaction with
last year's substantial testimony of the royal favour, in the public
honours conferred on him, and regretted that the quiet of his majesty
should be so frequently disturbed by these _punctilios_ about
invitations, which so often "over-thronged his guests at the feast."
Sir John now imagined that all was happily concluded, and was retiring
with the sweetness of a dove, and the quietness of a mouse, to fly to
the lord chamberlain, when behold the Venetian would not relinquish his
hold, but turned on him "with the reading of another scruple, _et hinc
illæ lachrymæ!_ asking whether the archduke's ambassador was also
invited?" Poor Sir John, to keep himself clear "from categorical
asseverations," declared "he could not resolve him." Then the Venetian
observed, "Sir John was dissembling! and he hoped and imagined that Sir
John had in his instructions, that he was first to have gone to him
(the Venetian), and on his return to the archduke's ambassador." Matters
now threatened to be as irreconcileable as ever, for it seems the
Venetian was standing on the point of precedency with the archduke's
ambassador. The political Sir John, wishing to gratify the Venetian at
no expense, adds, "he thought it ill manners to mar a belief of an
ambassador's making," and so allowed him to think that he had been
invited before the archduke's ambassador!
This Venetian proved himself to be, to the great torment of Sir John, a
stupendous genius in his own way; ever on the watch to be treated _al
paro di teste coronate_--equal with crowned heads; and, when at a tilt,
refused being placed among the ambassadors of Savoy and the
States-general, &c., while the Spanish and French ambassadors were
seated alone on the opposite side. The Venetian declared that this would
be a diminution of his quality; _the first place of an inferior degree
being ever held worse than the last of a superior_. This refined
observation delighted Sir John, who dignifies it as an axiom, yet
afterwards came to doubt it with a _sed de hoc quære_--query this! If it
be true in politics, it is not so in common sense, according to the
proverbs of both nations; for the honest English declares, that "Better
be the _head_ of the yeomanry than the _tail_ of the gentry;" while the
subtle Italian has it, "_E meglio esser testa di Luccio, che coda di
Storione_;" "better be the head of a pike than the tail of a sturgeon."
But before we quit Sir John, let us hear him in his own words, reasoning
with fine critical tact, which he undoubtedly possessed, on right and
left hands, but reasoning with infinite modesty as well as genius. Hear
this sage of _punctilios_, this philosopher of courtesies.
"The Axiom before delivered by the Venetian ambassador was _judged_ upon
_discourse_ I had with _some of understanding_, to be of value in a
_distinct company, but might be otherwise in a joint assembly_!" And
then Sir John, like a philosophical historian, explores some great
public event--"As at the conclusion of the peace at Vervins (the only
part of the peace he cared about), the French and Spanish meeting,
contended for precedence--who should sit at the right hand of the pope's
_legate_: an expedient was found, of sending into France for the pope's
_nuncio_ residing there, who, seated at the right hand of the said
_legate_ (the legate himself sitting at the table's end), the French
ambassador being offered the choice of the next place, he took that at
the legate's left hand, leaving the second at the right hand to the
Spanish, who, taking it, persuaded himself to have the better of it;
_sed de hoc quære_." How modestly, yet how shrewdly insinuated!
So much, if not too much, of the Diary of a Master of the Ceremonies;
where the important personages strangely contrast with the frivolity and
foppery of their actions.
By this work it appears that all foreign ambassadors were entirely
entertained, for their diet, lodgings, coaches, with all their train, at
the cost of the English monarch, and on their departure received
customary presents of considerable value; from 1000 to 5000 ounces of
gilt plate; and in more cases than one, the meanest complaints were made
by the ambassadors about short allowances. That the foreign ambassadors
in return made presents to the masters of the ceremonies from thirty to
fifty "pieces," or in plate or jewels; and some so grudgingly, that Sir
John Finett often vents his indignation, and commemorates the indignity.
As thus,--on one of the Spanish ambassadors-extraordinary waiting at
Deal for three days, Sir John, "expecting the wind with the patience of
an _hungry entertainment_ from a _close-handed ambassador_, as his
_present to me_ at his parting from Dover being but an old gilt livery
pot, that had lost his fellow, not worth above twelve pounds,
accompanied with two pair of Spanish gloves to make it almost thirteen,
to my shame and his." When he left this scurvy ambassador-extraordinary
to his fate aboard the ship, he exults that "the cross-winds held him in
the Downs almost a seven-night before they would blow him over."
From this mode of receiving ambassadors, two inconveniences resulted;
their perpetual jars of _punctilio_, and their singular intrigues to
obtain precedence, which so completely harassed the patience of the most
pacific sovereign, that James was compelled to make great alterations in
his domestic comforts, and was perpetually embroiled in the most
ridiculous contests. At length Charles I. perceived the great charge of
these embassies, ordinary and extraordinary, often on frivolous
pretences; and with an empty treasury, and an uncomplying parliament, he
grew less anxious for such ruinous honours.[100] He gave notice to
foreign ambassadors, that he should not any more "defray their diet,
nor provide coaches for them," &c. "This frugal purpose" cost Sir John
many altercations, who seems to view it as the glory of the British
monarch being on the wane. The unsettled state of Charles was appearing
in 1636, by the querulous narrative of the master of the ceremonies; the
etiquettes of the court were disturbed by the erratic course of its
great star; and the master of the ceremonies was reduced to keep blank
letters to superscribe, and address to any nobleman who was to be found,
from the absence of the great officers of state. On this occasion the
ambassador of the Duke of Mantua, who had long desired his parting
audience, when the king objected to the unfitness of the place he was
then in, replied, that, "if it were under a tree, it should be to him as
a palace."
Yet although we smile at this science of etiquette and these rigid forms
of ceremony, when they were altogether discarded a great statesman
lamented them, and found the inconvenience and mischief in the political
consequences which followed their neglect. Charles II., who was no
admirer of these regulated formalities of court etiquette, seems to have
broken up the pomp and pride of the former master of the ceremonies; and
the grave and great chancellor of human nature, as Warburton calls
Clarendon, censured and felt all the inconveniences of this open
intercourse of an ambassador with the king. Thus he observed in the case
of the Spanish ambassador, who, he writes, "took the advantage of the
license of the court, where no rules or formalities were yet established
(and to which the king himself was not enough inclined), but all doors
open to all persons; which the ambassador finding, he made himself a
domestic, came to the king at all hours, and spake to him when, and as
long as he would, without any ceremony, or _desiring an audience
according to the old custom_; but came into the bed-chamber while the
king was dressing himself, and mingled in all discourses with the same
freedom he would use in his own. And from this never-heard-of license,
introduced by the _French_ and the _Spaniard at this time, without any
dislike in the king, though not permitted in any court in Christendom_,
many inconveniences and mischiefs broke in, which could never after be
shut out."[101]