The royal apartments were richly adorned with tapestry and marquetry, vases of silver and mirrors in gilded frames.

A pension of more than forty thousand pounds sterling was annually paid to James from the French Treasury.

He had a guard of honour composed of some of the finest soldiers in Europe.

If he wished to amuse himself with field sports, he had at his command an establishment far more sumptuous than that which had belonged to him when he was at the head of a great kingdom, an army of huntsmen and fowlers, a vast arsenal of guns, spears, buglehorns and tents, miles of network, staghounds, foxhounds, harriers, packs for the boar and packs for the wolf, gerfalcons for the heron and haggards for the wild duck.

His presence chamber and his antechamber were in outward show as splendid as when he was at Whitehall.