Choose the word **closest in meaning** to *condescension*. "The king, who out of his royal **condescension** would oftentimes visit his principal nobility."

In its older positive sense, *condescension* meant *graciously stooping to mingle with one's inferiors* — a virtue in royalty. Modern English has narrowed it to a *pejorative* (talking down to people), but in Lamb's nineteenth-century usage the older positive meaning still operated. King Duncan's *royal condescension* is a compliment: he humbled himself to visit his nobles.