1613.] THE KING AND QUEEN OF BOHEMIA. 163 



James close upon ^100,000. The high contracting 

 parties were entertained by the Templars at a sump- 

 tuous mask, with which his Majesty was so pleased 

 that he, in return, entertained the masquers, " but at 

 the cost of the Prince [Henry ?] and his followers, who 

 laid a wager for the charges of the feast, and lost it by 

 runninof at the rinof." * 



In March, the king, the Prince of Wales, the royal 

 bride and bridegroom, attended by the Lord Chan- 

 cellor,"^ the principal ministers of State, with an enor- 

 mous following, arrived at Newmarket, where they 

 enjoyed the sports peculiar to the place to their hearts' 

 content. Here the royal bride selected the hounds 

 and hunters which she took with her to Bohemia, and 

 when the Palgrave bore her away from Rochester, in 

 the following month, those accessories of the chase con- 

 stituted the cargo of a good-sized vessel. Soon after 

 their departure, " the king escaped a great danger at 

 Newmarket, by reason of the foundation of the house 

 where he lay began to sink on one side, so that the 

 doors and windows flew open, and they were fain to 

 carry him out of his bed with all possible expedition ; 

 but the next day he removed to Thetford." f 



Notwithstanding this contretemps, the king paid 

 another visit to Newmarket in November, when he 

 was, as usual, attended with the twenty-one preachers 

 in ordinary " for the sporting journeys." 



'*'' Thomas Egerton, whose surname was assumed from 

 a manor in Cheshire so called, possessed by his father's 



* State Papers, Dom., vol. Ixxii. 



t Chamberlain to Carleton. "The Court of James I.," vol. i., p. 233. 



