caused by the supposed identification of his kingdom with scenes of the romances of chivalry. {161} After the ceremony the King and the Queen walked through an immense crowd to the palace side by side, and entered the great hall,[23] which the narrator (No. 2) calls the "hall of Poncia," for the wedding banquet. A high table, eight yards long, was placed on a daïs, and at it sat the King and Queen, the latter being on the right and in a finer chair than her husband. Gardiner sat at the end of the high table, and on the floor were four other tables, where the nobles, to the number of 158, partook of the feast. Before the King and Queen stood Lords Pembroke and Strange with the sword and staff of state, and all the courtly ceremony of saluting the dishes as they are brought in, and doffing bonnets to the throne, even in the absence of the Queen, is set forth with admiring iteration by the form-loving Spaniards. Their jealous eyes, too, do not fail to notice that the Queen takes precedence in everything. Not only has she the best chair, but she eats from gold plate, whilst her consort eats from silver. This, they say, is no doubt because he is not yet a crowned king, and it will be altered later. All the tables are served with silver, except some large dishes; and great sideboards of plate stand at each end of the hall. The buffet behind the high table had over a hundred great pieces of gold and silver plate, with a "great gilt clock half as high as a man," and a fountain of precious marble with a gold rim. There were four services of meat and fish, each service consisting of thirty dishes,[24] {162} and minstrels played during the feast, whilst the solid splendour and pompous ceremony appear to have impressed all the Spaniards with wonder not unmixed with envy. It is, indeed, here that the jealousy of the courtier narrator (Nos. 3, 4, and 5) first bursts out. The only Spaniard who was allowed to serve the King was Don Iñigo de Mendoza, son of the Duke of Infantado, who was cup-bearer, and four yeomen of the mouth, who helped; but "as for any of the Prince's own stewards doing anything, such a thing was never thought of, and not one of us took a wand in our hands, nor does it seem likely we ever shall, neither the controller nor any one else, and they had better turn us all out as vagabonds." The Earl of Arundel presented the ewer with water for the King's hands, and the Marquis of Winchester the napkin. The ewer, we are {163} told (narrative No. 6), contained "not water, but white wine, as is the custom here."