[Footnote 91:  The word in the original is insistance; an expressive word as used by the French ambassador; but which Boyer, in his Dictionary, doubts whether it be French, although he gives a modern authority; the present is much more ancient.]

[Footnote 92:  The Duke of Norfolk was, “without comparison, the first subject in England; and the qualities of his mind corresponded with his high station,” says Hume.  He closed his career, at length, the victim of love and ambition, in his attempt to marry the Scottish Mary.  So great and honourable a man could only be a criminal by halves; and, to such, the scaffold, and not the throne, is reserved, when they engage in enterprises, which, by their secrecy, in the eyes of a jealous sovereign, assume the form and the guilt of a conspiracy.]

[Footnote 93:  Hume, vol, v. c. 39; at the close of 1566.]

[Footnote 94:  Dr. Birch’s Life of this Prince.]

[Footnote 95:  Harleian MS., 6391.]

[Footnote 96:  La Vie de Card.  Richelieu, anonymous, but written by J. Le Clerc, 1695, vol. i. pp. 116-125.]

[Footnote 97:  “A Detection of the Court and State of England,” vol. i. p. 13.]

[Footnote 98:  Stowe’s Annals, p. 824.]

[Footnote 99:  I give the title of this rare volume.  “Finetti Philoxensis:  Some choice Observations of Sir John Finett, Knight, and Master of the Ceremonies to the two last Kings; touching the reception and precedence, the treatment and audience, the punctilios and contests of forren ambassadors in England. Legati ligant Mumdum. 1656.”  This very curious diary was published after the author’s death by his friend James Howell, the well-known writer; and Oldys, whose literary curiosity scarcely anything in our domestic literature has escaped, has analysed the volume with his accustomed care.  He mentions that there was a manuscript in being, more full than the one published, of which I have not been able to learn farther.—­British Librarian, p. 163.]

[Footnote 100:  Charles I. had, however, adopted them, and long preserved the stateliness of his court with foreign powers, as appears by these extracts from manuscript letters of the time: 

Mr. Mead writes to Sir M. Stuteville, July 25, 1629.

“His majesty was wont to answer the French ambassador in his own language; now he speaks in English, and by an interpreter.  And so doth Sir Thomas Edmondes to the French king; contrary to the ancient custom:  so that altho’ of late we have not equalled them in arms, yet now we shall equal them in ceremonies.”

     Oct. 31, 1628.

“This day fortnight, the States’ ambassador going to visit my lord treasurer about some business, whereas his lordship was wont always to bring them but to the stairs’ head, he then, after a great deal of courteous resistance on the ambassador’s part, attended him through the hall and court-yard, even to the very boot of his coach.”—­Sloane MSS. 4178.]