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Rh rank as a sovereign state. Occasional visitors of rank had their own points of etiquette to raise. Thus in 1604 the Duke of Holstein stood for three hours rather than sit below the Venetian ambassador. Generally speaking, indeed, the newly established office of Master of the Ceremonies must have been anything but a bed of roses. The chief mask of the year, which every ambassador intrigued to attend, was traditionally danced on Twelfth Night; but often it was put off to a later date, in order to meet diplomatic exigencies.

The banqueting-house, with the 'state' in it, was probably regarded as technically part of the Presence Chamber. At any rate, it was under the supervision of the Lord Chamberlain and the officers of the Chamber, headed by the Gentleman Usher. They seated the audience, kept the doors against the turbulent crowds knocking for admission, cleared the dancing-place when the King was seated, and supplied the principal guests with programmes or abstracts of the device prepared by the poet. The Chamberlain's white staff was no mere symbol when there was whiffling to be done, and even Ben Jonson, 'ushered by my Lord Suffolk from a mask' on 6 January 1604, the year before his own sovereignty over masks began, required to be consoled by his fellow in misfortune, Sir John Roe, with the reminder,—

Obviously, as John Chamberlain suggests in a letter to Dudley Carleton, to be befriended at court was to secure the easier admission. But subject to the limitations of space and the discretion of the door-keepers, the performances seem to have been open to all comers, although the wicked wit of the dramatists is apt to suggest that citizens' wives sometimes