lodgings in the palace.[1] He made the arrangements for the progress.[2] He received the ambassadors and others entitled to a royal audience and conducted them into the presence.[3] He was liable to be rated by the Queen if there was not enough plate on the cupboard.[4] He not merely planned the revels but himself kept order in the banqueting-hall. And for this purpose the white staff, which was the symbol of his office, was a practical instrument ready to his hand.[5] The delivery of this white staff to him by the Sovereign constituted his appointment, which was during pleasure; and at its
- [Footnote: King's house; he disposeth of all things above stairs, he hath a greater
command of the King's guard than the captains hath, he makes all the chaplains, chooseth most of the King's servants, and all the pursuivants; there being then no dean of the King's chapel, he disposeth of all in the chapel.']: M^r. May that translated Lucan having felt the weight of his staff: which had not his office and the place, being the Banqueting-house, protected, I question whether he would ever have struck again'. This was in Feb. 1634 (Strafford Papers, i. 207).]
- ↑ Young, Mary Sidney, 16, gives from Sydney Papers, i. 271, and manuscripts several letters of 1574-8 from Lady Sidney to Lord Chamberlain Sussex about her accommodation at court. Heneage reported to Hatton on 2 Apr. 1585 (Nicolas, Hatton, 415) the Queen's anger with the Lord Chamberlain for allowing Raleigh to be put in Hatton's lodging. Lord Hunsdon apologizes to Sir Robert Cecil for his ill lodging in 1594 (Hatfield MSS. iv. 504).
- ↑ Cf. ch. iv.
- ↑ Cf. App. F. Secretary Walsingham in 1590 refers an applicant for an audience to the Lord Chamberlain, 'who otherwise will conceave, as he doth alreadie, that I seke to drawe those matters from him' (Hatfield MSS. iv. 3).
- ↑ Sp. P. ii. 606. The default was at the reception of Alençon's envoys in Aug. 1578. The Calendar makes Sussex 'Lord Steward', but the original (Documentos Inéditos, xci. 270) has 'gran Camarero'. In 1582, at the reception of a lord mayor, 'some young gentilman, being more bold than well mannered, did stand upon the carpett of the clothe of estate, and did allmost leane upon the queshions. Her Highnes found fault with my Lord Chamberlayn and M^r Vice-Chamberlayn, and with the Gentlemen Ushers, for suffering such disorders' (Fleetwood to Burghley in Wright, ii. 174).
- ↑ Cf. ch. vi, p. 205, on the misadventure of Jonson and Sir John Roe in 1603; also Jonson's Irish Mask (1613), 12, 'Ish it te fashion to beate te imbasheters here, and knoke 'hem o' te heads phit te phoit stick?', and Beaumont and Fletcher, Maid's Tragedy (c. 1611), I. ii. 44, 'I cannot blame my lord Calianax for going away: would he were here! he would run raging amongst them, and break a dozen wiser heads than his own in the twinkling of an eye'. John Chamberlain says of Comptroller Sir Thomas Edmondes in 1617 (Birch, i. 385), 'They say he doth somewhat too much flourish and fence with his staves, whereof he hath broken two already, not at tilt, but stickling at the plays this Christmas', and Osborne, James, 75, of Philip, Earl of Pembroke, that 'he was intolerable choleric and offensive, and did not refrain, whilst he was Chamberlain, to break many wiser heads than his own [vide supra
