CHAPTER YIH.

The marked discourtesy of the Pope might well have irri- cuap.tated the meekest of princes. But the only effect which it ■produced on James was to make him more lavish of caresses Consc _and compliments. While Castelmaine, his whole soul festered orationwith angry passions, was on his road back to England, the Nuncio atNuncio was loaded with honours which his own judgmentwould have led him to reject. He had, by a fiction often usedin the Church of Rome, been lately raised to the episcopaldignity without having the charge of any see. He was calledArchbishop of Amasia, a city ofPontus, the birthplace ofStrabo and Mithridates. James insisted that the ceremony ofconsecration should be performed in the chapel of SaintJames’s Palace. The Vicar Apostolic Leyburn and two Irishprelates officiated. The doors were thrown open to thepublic; and it was remarked that some of those Puritans whohad recently turned courtiers were among the spectators. Inthe evening Adda, wearing the robes of his new office, joinedthe circle in the Queen’s apartments. James fell on his kneesin the presence of the whole Court and implored a blessing.

In spite of the restraint imposed by etiquette, the astonishmentand disgust of the bystanders could not be concealed.* It waslong indeed since an English sovereign had knelt to mortalman; and those who saw the strange sight could not but thinkof that day of shame when John did homage for his crownbetween the hands ofPandolph.

In a short time a still more ostentatious pageant was per- His pub-formed in honour of the Holy See. It was determined that 1 ?' 1 ?'the JNuncio should go to Court in solemn procession. Somepersons on whose obedience the King had counted showed,on this occasion, for the first time, signs of a mutinous spirit.

* Barillon, May 1687.

Macaulay, History. III.

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