In the following year the prince was a principal actor in the mask, and the French ambassador took umbrage, because the Spanish ambassador was invited. This schism was beyond Sir John Finett’s controul; a correspondence ensued, but the French ambassador was recalled before his time had expired. Many of the disputes remind one of the points of etiquette respecting the old French court privilege of the tabouret—as to wearing a cocked hat fore and aft, as it is called, or athwart the head—as to wearing a hat always in a club-room, or in the House of Commons, if a member—as to the number of yards to a peeress’ train—as to the feather in the cap of a Highland chief or chieftain—as to the persons entitled to wear long-tailed wigs, or short-tailed wigs, or wigs with a curly tail—and many other equally important points. However, etiquette is probably necessary for the good rule of society, and high and low have their own regulations. We find, in the East, it is considered a highly aristocratic privilege, on ceremonial occasions, that the palanquin should be borne crossways, instead of lengthways, probably because it has a greater chance of being in the way; but it is thought of so much importance, that a few years since, Sri Sunkur Bharti, and Sidha Lingayah Charanti, whoever those grandees might have been, contested the point by appeal to the privy council. The practice of giving New Year’s Gifts and Christmas Boxes remained as before; the value of the gifts to the king having become quite a matter of regulation. An earl, for instance, was to buy a new purse of about 5_s._ price, and put in it twenty pieces of 20_s._ value each, and go to the presence chamber on New Year’s Day, about eight in the morning, and give them to the lord chamberlain; then to go to the jewel house for a ticket to receive 18_s._ 6_d._ as a gift, and give 6_d._ there for a box for the ticket; then to go to Sir Wm. Veall’s office, and receive the 18_s._ 6_d._; then to the jewel house again, and choose a piece of plate of about thirty ounces weight, and mark it, and fetch it away in the afternoon, give the gentleman that delivered it to him 40_s._ in gold, and to the box 2_s._ and to the porter 6_d._ On New Year’s Day, 1604, the young prince, then in his tenth year, gave his father as his gift, a short Latin poem, in hexameter verse, which no doubt delighted the king. In 1610, he gave his sister, for his New Year’s Gift, a cabinet of ivory, wrought with silver; five years before this, when she was eight years of age, she had received from the corporation of Coventry a pair of fat oxen, as their gift at this season; certainly a very substantial mark of respect, but a sort of _bon-bon_ that would somewhat astonish the royal nursery at present.