The next day the Secretary of State and his Lady came to visit
me: she had, at my arrival, sent me a present of sweetmeats. My
husband had left in this person's family one of his pages to improve
himself in writing and reading the Spanish tongue, until his return
again to that Court, when he went the last year to England, in
consideration of which we presented his Lady with a piece of India
plate, of about two hundred pounds sterling. They were both very
civil, worthy persons, and had formerly been in England, where the
King, Charles the First, had made his son an English Baron.[Footnote:
No record is known to exist of any foreigner having been created a
Peer by Charles the First: nor does it appear likely from the names of
persons created Baronets by Charles the First, that Lady Fanshawe
could mean Baronet. The splendid and elaborate work entitled the
"Memorias Genealogicas da Casa de Sousa," does not advert to the
circumstance.] She told me in discourse one day this of a French
Ambassador, that had lately been in that Court, and lodged next to
her:--
There was a numerous sort of people about the Ambassador's door, as is
usual amongst them. A poor little boy, that his mother had animated
daily to cry for relief so troublesomely, that at last the Ambassador
would say, 'What noise is that at the gate of perpetual screaming? I
will have it so no more:' upon which they carried the child to his
mother, and bade her keep him at home, for it screamed like a devil,
and if it returned, the porter swore he would punish him severely.
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