It is amusing, however, to find him, in the early days of his greatness, learning horsemanship. James was passionately fond of seeing others exhibit on horseback. One of his favourite places of resort was Newmarket. The King generally joined in all country amusements, drawn in a litter, a mortal inward disease even then making that gentle movement necessary; whilst the young and noble thronged around him on their steeds, set off in all the bravery of costly caparisons. Prince Henry had, during his brief career, set the fashion of a fondness for horse-racing, and James, who suffered so many of his accomplished son’s higher objects to become extinct in his grave, maintained in all its prosperity that diversion. Newmarket, henceforth, was a favourite place of resort. Amongst the late Prince’s equerries was a Frenchman named St. Antoine, whose feats are frequently the subject of comment in the newsletters of the day. It was in the depth of the winter when James, attended by twenty earls and barons, repaired to Newmarket. There was little accommodation for them in that place, and the gay company were obliged to bestow themselves in the poor villages around. Every morning, whilst at this resort, Villiers was mounted on horseback, and taught to ride;[96] and his progress in the King’s favour seemed to be commensurate with his prowess. This was in the December of the year 1615. On the fourth of January, 1615-16, Villiers was appointed Master of the Horse, instead of the Earl of Worcester, who resigned all his posts into the King’s hands, and was made Lord Privy Seal.[97] Footnote 96: Probably by Mons. St. Antoine, the equerry to M. Henry. He was engaged as a riding-master, as we find by Endymion Porter’s letters, (State Paper Office, Domestic) to many persons of condition. Footnote 97: Nichols’s Progresses, 7, 1, iii., 131. This mark of royal preference gave a fresh impetus to the decline of Somerset’s fortunes. In a masque written by Ben Johnson, and performed at court, a bold allusion was made to the sinking prosperity of the Earl, and a hint thrown out of his suspected crime. The play was entitled, “The Golden Age Restored,” and these lines excited considerable attention and speculation— “Jove can endure no longer Your great ones should your less invade: Or that your weak, _though bad_, be made, A prey unto the stronger.” The “weak” was conjectured to be Overbury, and the delicacy of the allusion has been pronounced by a modern critic[98] “to be above all praise.” The masque was followed by a banquet, at which the new Master of the Horse doubtless assisted, attired in all the splendours which his now adequate means enabled him to assume. Footnote 98: Gifford. Ben Jonson’s Works.