which reminded them, they say, of the books of chivalry. Indeed, nothing is more curious than the grave seriousness with which all the Spanish narrators refer to England as the land of Amadis and of Arthur and his knights, and their attempts to identify localities and characteristics of England with the descriptions they have read of the land of romance, which they firmly believe to be England and not Brittany. The Prince and his party entered by a little back door, and ascended a narrow, winding staircase to the Queen's closet. She was in a "long narrow room or corridor where they divert themselves," surrounded by four or five aged nobles and as many old ladies, the Bishop of Winchester being also with her, and the whole party, we are told, was marvellously richly dressed, the Queen herself wearing a {156} black velvet gown cut high in the English style without any trimming, a petticoat of frosted silver, a wimple of black velvet trimmed with gold, and a girdle and collar of wonderful gems. She was walking up and down when the Prince entered, and as soon as she saw him went quickly towards him and kissed her hand before taking his. In return he kissed her on the mouth "in the English fashion," and she led him by the hand to a chair placed by the side of her own under a canopy. The Queen spoke in French and her future husband in Spanish, and they thus made themselves well understood. Whilst they were in animated converse the Lord Admiral (Lord William Howard), "who is a great talker and very jocose," risked some rather highly flavoured jokes, which the free manners of the time apparently permitted. The two lovers sat under their brocade canopy chatting for a long time; but this probably seemed somewhat slow to the bridegroom, who, after asking the Queen to give her hand for all his Spaniards to kiss, as they loved her well, begged to be allowed to see her ladies, who were in another room. The Queen went with him, and as the ladies approached two by two he kissed them all "in his way" with his plumed cap in his hand, "so as not to break the custom of the country, which is a very good one." Whether the Queen thought it good on this occasion is not clear; but when her lover wanted to leave directly the extensive osculation was over she would not let him go, but carried him off for another long talk with her. "No wonder," says the narrator (No. 2), "she is so glad to get him and to see what a gallant swain he is." When he had to leave {157} her she playfully taught him to say "Good-night," and he made this the excuse for going to the ladies again to say it to them; but when he reached them he had forgotten the outlandish words, and had to come back to the Queen to ask her, "whereat she was much pleased," but probably less so when he found it necessary to go back once more to the ladies to salute them with "God ni hit," Car, the Marquis of Pescara's servant (narrator No. 6), in describing this interview says that the Queen's