From Chapter 2:
When Robert, Earl of Essex, and Henry, Earl of Southampton, were tried for high treason in Westminster Hall on February 19, 1600-1, the members of the House of Lords, who with the Judges formed the Court, if we may believe the French Ambassador of the time, behaved in a remarkable and unseemly manner. In a letter to Monsieur de Rohan, the Ambassador declared that while the Earls and the Counsel were pleading, their lordships guzzled and smoked; and that when they gave their votes condemning the two Earls, they were stupid with eating and "yvres de tabac"—drunk with smoking. This was probably quite untrue as a representation of what actually took place; but it would hardly have been written had smoking not been a common practice among noble lords.

From Chapter 8:
In the whole sixteen volumes of Walpole's correspondence, as so admirably edited by Mrs. Toynbee, there is scarcely a mention of tobacco; and the same may be said of other collections of letters of the same period—the Selwyn letters, the Delany correspondence, and so on. Neither Walpole nor any member of the world in which he lived would appear to have smoked. In Miss Burney's "Evelina," 1778, from the beginning to the end of the book there is no mention whatever of tobacco or of smoking. Apparently the vulgar Branghtons were not vulgar enough to smoke. Such use of tobacco was considered low, and was confined to the classes of society indicated in the preceding chapter. One of the characters in Macklin's "Love à la Mode," 1760, is described as "dull, dull as an alderman, after six pounds of turtle, four bottles of port, and twelve pipes of tobacco."