1617.] PROJECTED ROYAL ACADEMY. 199 



to serve for one as for the other (the different qualities of 

 their Masters considered) but were sent two, or three of the 

 chiefe of them to the Table of the Groome of the Stoole, the 

 Lord Foiton, the rest dined after with the Princes Waiters. 



" When dinner was done, the King retyred himselfe, and 

 left the Ambassadors there in the withdrawing Chamber to 

 attend there his returne, which was an houre after, and then 

 holding with him a private conference, with whom I entering, 

 his Majesty drew out my Sword and knighted with it the 

 Ambassador. From thence the Ambassador went (by assig- 

 nation from the Prince, who would save him, he said, his 

 offered paines of going to his Inn and returning) straight to 

 his Highnesse Lodgings, and after a short Audience, took his 

 leave. His Majesty by the mediation of Sir James Spence, 

 was pleased (besides giving him a Patent for conformation of 

 his Knight-hood) to add a marke of honour to his Coate of 

 Armes. The next day we left Newmarket, dined at Cam- 

 bridge, saw the best CoUedges there, lay the first night at 

 Newport neare Audley end (which rare Building of the Earle 

 of Sufifolks the Ambassador also saw), lodged the next night 

 at Waltham, and after ten dayes absence were againe at 

 London." * 



We must not omit to mention that during this 

 royal sojourn at Newmarket a scheme for founding a 

 Royal Academy in England w^as started by Edmund 

 Bolton, an eminent scholar and antiquary of that 

 period. This was the second year of George Villiers' 

 introduction at Court, and there can hardly be a 

 doubt that Bolton saw, in the rising influence of 

 his countryman and distant kinsman, a circumstance 

 favourable to the success of his desisfn. It must be 

 mentioned, to the honour of the reigning favourite, 

 that he was a lover and encouraeer of the arts and 



* *' Finetti Philoxenis/' pp. 41-45. 



