The Entertainment of the Two Kings of Great Britain and Denmark, AT THEOBALDS, JULY 24, 1606. THE ENTERTAINMENT, &c.] "The King of Denmark (Christian IV.) arrived in England on a visit to his sister, Queen Anne, on Thursday, the 17th of July; and on the Thursday following, the 24th, the royal brothers rode together to Theobalds, in Hertfordshire, where the Earle of Salisbury, for four days together, feasted them and all their traine according to their estates and dignities, shewing them many signs of love, duty, and heartie welcome."-Stow. This visit was a political misfortune. The arrival of his Danish Majesty was the signal for "Heavy-headed revel east and west." The Danes brought with them their habitual propensity to drinking, and James and his courtiers complimented the strangers by partaking of their debaucheries. In allusion to the Entertainment before us, Sir John Harrington says (Nugæ Ant. vol. i. p. 348), "The lord of the mansion is overwhelmed in preparations at Theobalds, and doth marvellously please both kings with good meat, good drink, and good speeches." Queis Horæ summam contribuere fidem. Ad Serenissimum Jacobum. Miraris, cur hospitio te accepimus Horæ, Cujus ad obsequium non satis annus erat? Nempe quod adveniant ingentia gaudia rarò, Et quando adveniant vix datur hora frui. Ad Serenissimum Christianum. Miraris, cur hospitio te accepimus Horæ, Quas Solis famulas Græcia docta vocat? Talis ab adventu vestro lux fulsit in ædeis, Ut dominus solem crederet esse novum. Others, at their departure. Ad Serenissimum Jacobum. Hospitio qui te cepit, famulantibus Horis, Cedere abhinc, nulla concomitante, sinit; Nempe omneis horas veniendi duxit amicas, Sed discedendi nulla minuta probat. Ad Serenissimum Christianum. Te veniente, novo domus hæc frondebat amictu; Te discessuro, non prout ante viret : Nempe, sub accessu solis, novus incipit annus, Et, sub discessu squalida sævit hyems. then possessed, and few of his contemporaries on the Continent wrote Latin verse with more taste or elegance. Of Owen's epigrams, which were little better than strings of puns, Jonsca always spoke with contempt. An Entertainment of King James and Queen Anne, at Theobalds, WHEN THE HOUSE WAS delivered UP, WITH THE POSSESSION, TO THE ENTERTAINMENT AT THEOBALDS.] Norden, in his Survey of Hartfordshire, speaks of "Thebauldes as a most stately house erected from the first foundation, by the Rt. Hon. Syr Will. Cecyl, Kt., Lord Theasorer of England. To speake of the state and beauty thereof at large, as it deserveth, for curious buildings, delightful walkes, and pleasant conceits within and without, and other things very glorious and ellegant to be seene, would challenge a greate portion of this little treatise; and therefore leaste I should come short of that due commendation that it deserveth, I leave it, as indeed it is, a princely seate." James appears to have been sensible of its beauties, and to have lost little time in becoming master of the residence. In 1607 (the year after the King of Denmark was "Entertained" there), he exchanged the Manor of Hatfield for Theobalds, when Ben's poetical talents were again exerted. As Salisbury was a wary man, it is probable he was no loser by the bargain. The court in which Jonson's verses were sung or said" is described in a survey made in 1650, preserved in the Augmentation Office, "as a quadrangle of 110 feet square, on the south of which were the queen's chapel (with windows of stained glass), her presence chamber, privy chamber, bed chamber, and coffee chamber. The princes' lodgings were on the north side; on the east side was a cloister, over which was the green gallery, 109 feet by 12, excellently well painted round with the several shires in England, and the armes of the Noblemen and gentlemen in the same. Over this gallery was a leaded walk (looking eastward towards the dialcourt and the highway), on which were two lofty arches of bricke of no small ornament to the house, and rendering it comely and pleasant to all that passed by." The greater part of this mansion was destroyed by order of the Parliament the year after this survey was made (1651), and every vestige was removed in 1765. The Prince Joinville was Charles de Lorraine; eldest son of Henry de Lorraine, first Duke of the branch of Guise and Chevreuse, surnamed Baldpate; he was born the 20th of August, 1571. He was arrested with many others on the day of the execution of Blois, and confined in the Castle of Tours, whence he escaped in 1591. He was received at Paris with loud acclamations of joy by the populace, who, it is said by L'Advocat, would have elected him king but for the jealousy of the Duke de Mayence, his uncle. It was this prince who slew with his own hand the brave St. Pol. He submitted to Henry IV. in 1594, and obtained the government of Provence; afterwards he was employed by Louis XIII., but the Cardinal de Richelieu, fearing the power of the house of Guise, obliged him to quit France. Charles retired into Provence, and died at Cuna in the Siennois, 30th of September, 1640, leaving a numerous family by his wife, Henrietta Catherine de Joyeuse.-GILCHRIST. The King and Queen, with the Princes of Wales and Lorraine, and the nobility, being entered into the gallery after dinner, there was seen nothing but a traverse of white across the room: which suddenly drawn, was discovered a gloomy obscure place, hung all with black silks, and in it only one light, which the Genius of the house held, sadly attired; his Cornucopia ready to fall out of his hand, his gyrland drooping on his head, his eyes fixed on the ground; when, out of this pensive posture, after some little pause, he brake and began. GENIUS. Let not your glories darken, to behold The place and me, her Genius here, so sad; Who, by bold rumour, have been lately told, That I must change the loved lord I had. And he, now in the twilight of sere age,1 Begin to seek a habitation new ; And all his fortunes, and himself engage Unto a seat his fathers never knew. And I, uncertain what I must endure, Since all the ends of destiny are obscure. MERCURY. [From behind the darkness.] Despair not, Genius, thou shalt know thy fate. And withal, the black vanishing, was discovered a glorious place, figuring the Lararium, or seat of the household gods, where both the Lares and Penates were painted in copper colours; erected with columns and architrabe, frieze and cornice, in which were placed divers diaphanal glasses, filled with several waters, that shewed like so many stones of orient and transparent hues. Within, as farther off, in landscape, were seen clouds riding, and in one corner, a boy figuring Good Event attired in white, hovering in the air, with wings displayed, having nothing seen to sustain him by, all the time the show lasted. At the other corner, a Mercury descended in a flying posture, with his caduceus in his hand, who spake to the three Parcæ, that sate low in a grate, with an iron roof, the one holding the rock, the other the spindle, and the third the sheers, with a book of adamant lying open before them. But first the Genius, surprised by wonder, urged this doubt. GENIUS. [Aside.] What sight is this, so strange and full oi state! The son of Maia, making his descent Unto the fates, and met with Good Event ? MERCURY. Daughters of Night and Secrecy, attend ; You that draw out the chain of destiny, Upon whose threads, both lives and times depend, And all the periods of mortality; The will of Jove is, that you straight do look The change, and fate unto this house decreed, And speaking from your adamantine book, Unto the Genius of the place it read; That he may know, and knowing bless his lot, That such a grace beyond his hopes hath got. CLOTHO. [Reads.] "When underneath thy roof is seen When all these glories jointly shine, GENIUS. But is my patron with this lot content, So to forsake his father's monument? Or is it gain, or else necessity, Or will to raise a house of better frame, That makes him shut forth his posterity Out of his patrimony, with his name? MERCURY. Nor gain, nor need; much less a vain desire To frame new roofs, or build his dwelling higher; He hath, with mortar, busied been too much, That his affections should continue such. And he, now in the twilight, &c.] The age: but his constitution was broken by labour, Earl of Salisbury was now in his forty-fourth and he died of a complication of disorders about year; somewhat early for the twilight of sere | five years after this period. GENIUS. Do men take joy in labours, not t'enjoy? Or doth their business all their likings spend? Have they more pleasure in a tedious way, Than to repose them at their journey's end? MERCURY. Genius, obey, and not expostulate; It is your virtue and such Powers as you, Should make religion of offending fate, are true. LACHESIS. The person for whose royal sake, She is the grace of all that are : Jurned I before? could I commit a sin situation, contrivance, prospects, and other necessaries fit for a complete seat, gives way to few in England." With respect to Theobalds, James seems to have had an early predilection for it. Here he resided some time before his coronation; here, as we have seen, he entertained his royal guest, here he frequently retired from the cares of state, and here he closed his mortal career on the 27th March, 1625. In that despicable tissue of filth and obscenity, of falsehood and malignity, by Sir Antony Weldon, called the "Court of King James," and lately dragged from obscurity by the Scotch booksellers, Cecil is said "to have made so good an exchange that he sold his house for fifty years purchases, and that so cunningly as hardly to be discerned but by a curious sight". which of course this wretched scribbler possessed. The fact is, that he got Hatfield Chase in exchange, a manor of little value to the king, The Editors of Weldon term this Entertainas it was then a mere waste or common. Cecil ment one of the most ingenious of Jonson's inclosed it to the ruin of his popularity, but the Masques. It is certainly an ingenious little ultimate advantage of the country, and raised piece; but they cannot have gone far in our upon it a structure which, says Camden, "for poet, who speak of it in such terms. END OF VOL. II. |