[Lord Clarendon confirms, in some measure, this account.  “There was a numerous family of men and women, that were sent from Portugal, the most improper to promote that conformity in the queen that was necessary for her condition and future happiness that could be chosen; the women, for the most part, old, and ugly, and proud, incapable of any conversation with persons of quality and a liberal education:  and they desired, and indeed had conspired so far to possess the queen themselves, that she should neither learn the English language, nor use their habit, nor depart from the manners and fashions of her own country in any particulars:  which resolution,” they told, “would be for the dignity of Portugal, and would quickly induce the English ladies to conform to her majesty’s practice.  And this imagination had made that impression, that the tailor who had been sent into Portugal to make her clothes could never be admitted to see her, or receive any employment.  Nor when she came to Portsmouth, and found there several ladies of honour and prime quality to attend her in the places to which they were assigned by the king, did she receive any of them till the king himself came; nor then with any grace, or the liberty that belonged to their places and offices.  She could not be persuaded to be dressed out of the wardrobe that the king had sent to her, but would wear the clothes which she had brought, until she found that the king was displeased, and would be obeyed; whereupon she conformed, against the advice of her women, who continued their opiniatrety, without any one of them receding from their own mode, which exposed them the more to reproach.”—­Continuation of Clarendon’s Life, p. 168.  In a short time after their arrival in England, they were ordered back to Portugal.]

Among the men were Francisco de Melo, brother to the Countess de Panetra; one Taurauvedez, who called himself Don Pedro Francisco Correo de Silva, extremely handsome, but a greater fool than all the Portuguese put together:  he was more vain of his names than of his person; but the Duke of Buckingham, a still greater fool than he, though more addicted to raillery, gave him the additional name of Peter of the Wood.  He was so enraged at this, that, after many fruitless complaints and ineffectual menaces, poor Pedro de Silva was obliged to leave England, while the happy duke kept possession of a Portuguese nymph more hideous than the queen’s maids of honour, whom he had taken from him, as well as two of his names.  Besides these, there were six chaplains, four bakers, a Jew perfumer, and a certain officer, probably without an office, who called himself her highness’s barber.  Katharine de Braganza was far from appearing with splendour in the charming court where she came to reign; however, in the end she was pretty successful.