1611.] PASSING EVENTS. 157 



men who arrived, and sojourned at the palace, to teach 

 the Prince of Wales dancing and fencing. ^^" 



In February, 161 1, his Majesty arrived at New- 

 market and stayed there for nearly a month, ign. 

 when polemical, political, petitioning, and February, 

 similar topics are recorded, but never a word transpires 

 relating to the Turf.f In the autumn the king and 

 court made another visit, arriving on Sunday, Novem- 

 ber II. Sir Roger Aston,** Master of the Wardrobe, 

 appears to be the acting secretary between the king 

 and Salisbury. He records that twelve falcons arrived 

 there from Denmark for the king, and six for the 

 minister, of which latter the king had taken two, and 

 hopes he (Salisbury) will not be angry. The diplo- 

 matic and foreign affairs are followed in turn with the 

 sports of the place, in which his Majesty was quite 

 at home. On the 22nd the ambassador of the King 

 of Sweden arrived,' had an audience, and went hunting 

 with the king. The state of the roads between the 

 metropolis and Newmarket, as usual, called for, and 

 doubtless merited, the execration bestowed upon that 

 venerable highway by the travellers of the period, 

 high and low. J On the 28th the king w^as still at 

 Newmarket, " somewhat troubled with a humor in his 



* Pells, Issue Book, sub data, MS., P.R.O. 



t State Papers, Dom., vol. Ixi. The celebration of the mass at the 

 Spanish Embassy and in the Tower of Lbndon — the inhabitants of Epping 

 Forest to be exempt from purveyance — sixteen horses in ordinary for the 

 Duke of York (afterwards Charles I.) — Sir R. Stewart's petition for two 

 out of every hundred trees belonging to the king's manors, "his former 

 grant of lops and tops not sufficing to pay his creditors " — Sir Thomas 

 Bartlett committed to the Tower for begging, to the prejudice of the 

 Scots, etc., etc. 



% Ibid., vol. Ixvii. 



