ELIZABETH, SECOND QUEEN REGNANT OF ENGLAND AND IRELAND CHAPTER I. - Birth of Elizabeth at Greenwich Palace-Chamber of the Virgins-Remark of - -- We now come to the most distinguished name in the annals of female It is not, perhaps, the most gracious office in the world to perform, calm light of truth, the flaws which mar the bright ideal of Spenser's "Glorianna," and Shakespeare's "Fair vestal throned by the west." Like the wise and popular Augustus Caesar, Elizabeth understood the importance of acquiring the good will of that class whose friendship or enmity goes far to decide the fortunes of princes; the might of her throne was supported by the pens of the master spirits of the age. Very different might have been the records of her reign, if the reasoning powers of Bacon, the eloquence of Sidney, the poetic talents of Spenser, the wit of Harrington, and the genius of Shakespeare had been arrayed against her, instead of combining to represent her as the impersonification of all earthly perfection-scarcely, indeed, short of divinity. It has been truly said, however, that no man is a hero to his valet de chambre, and it is impossible to enter into the personal history of England's Elizabeth without showing that she occasionally forgot the dignity of the heroine among her ladies in waiting, and indulged in follies which the youngest of her maids of honour would have blushed to imitate. The web of her life was a glittering tissue, in which good and evil were strangely mingled, and as the evidences of friend and foe are woven together, without reference to the prejudices of either, or any other object than to show her as she was, the lights and shades must sometimes appear in strong and even painful opposition to each other, for such are the inconsistencies of human nature, such the littlenesses of human greatness. Queen Elizabeth first saw the light at Greenwich palace, the favourite abode of her royal parents, Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn. Her birth is thus quaintly but prettily recorded by the contemporary historian, Hall:"On the 7th day of September, being Sunday, between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, the queen was delivered of a faire ladye, on which day the duke of Norfolk came home to the christening." The apartment in which she was born was hung with tapestry representing the history of holy virgins, and was from that circumstance called the Chamber of the Virgins. When the queen, her mother, who had eagerly anticipated a son, was told that she had given birth to a daughter, she endeavoured, with ready tact, to attach adventitious importance to her infant, by saying to the ladies in attendance:-"They may now, with reason, call this room the Chamber of Virgins, for a virgin is now born in it on the vigil of that auspicious day, on which the church commemorates the nativity of the Virgin Mary."' Heywood, though a zealous eulogist of the Protestant principles of Elizabeth, intimates that she was under the especial patronage of the blessed Virgin from the hour of her birth, and for that cause devoted to a maiden life. "The lady Elizabeth," says he, "was born on the eve of the Virgin's nativity, and died on the eve of the Virgin's annunciation. Even that she is now in heaven with all those blessed virgins that had oil in their lamps." 'Leti's Life of Queen Elizabeth. Notwithstanding the bitter disappointment felt by king Henry at the sex of the infant, a solemn Te Deum was sung in honour of her birth, and the preparations for her christening were made with no less magnificence than if his hopes had been gratified by the birth of a male heir to the crown. The solemnization of that sacred rite was appointed to take place on Wednesday, 10th of September, the fourth day after the birth of the infant princess. On that day the lord mayor, with the aldermen and council of the city of London, dined together at one o'clock, and then, in obedience to their summons, took boat in their chains and robes, and rowed to Greenwich, where many lords, knights, and gentlemen, were assembled to witness the royal ceremonial. All the walls between Greenwich palace and the convent of the Grey Friars were hung with arras and the way strewn with green rushes. The church was likewise hung with arras. Gentlemen with aprons and towels about their necks guarded the font, which stood in the middle of the church, it was of silver and raised to the height of three steps, and over it was a square canopy of crimson satin fringed with gold-about it, a space railed in, covered with red say. Between the choir and chancel, a, closet with a fire had been prepared lest the infant should take cold in being disrobed for the font. When all these things were ready, the child was brought into the hall of the palace, and the procession set out to the neighbouring church of the Grey Friars; of which building no vestige now remains at Greenwich. The procession began with the lowest rank, the citizens two and two led the way, then gentlemen, esquires, and chaplains, a gradation of precedence, rather decidedly marked, of the three first ranks, whose distinction is by no means definite in the present times; after them the aldermen, and the lord mayor by himself, then the privy council in robes, then the peers and prelates followed by the earl of Essex, who bore the gilt covered basons; then the marquis of Exeter, with the taper of virgin wax; next the marquis of Dorset, bearing the salt, and the lady Mary of Norfolk (the betrothed of the young duke of Richmond) carrying the chrisom, which was very rich with pearls and gems; lastly came the royal infant, in the arms of her great-grandmother, the dowager duchess of Norfolk, under a stately canopy which was supported by the uncle of the babe, George Boleyn lord Rochford, the lords William and Thomas Howard, the maternal kindred of the, mother, and lord Hussey, a newly made lord of the Boleyn blood.) The babe was wrapped in a mantle of purple velvet, with a train of regal length, furred with ermine, which was duly supported by the countess of Kent, assisted by the earl of Wiltshire, the grandfather of the little princess, and the earl of Derby. On the right of the infant. marched its great uncle, the duke of Norfolk, with his marshal's staff-on the other, the duke of Suffolk. The bishop of London, who performed the ceremony, received the infant at the church door of the Grey Friars, assisted by a grand company of bishops and mitred abbots; and, with all the rites of the Church of Rome, this future great Protestant queen received the name of her grandmother, Elizabeth of York. Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, was her godfather, and the duchess of Norfolk and marchioness of Dorset her godmothers. After Elizabeth had received her name, garter, king-at-arms cried aloud :— "God of his infinite goodness, send a prosperous life and long, to the high and mighty princess of England, Elizabeth!" Then a flourish of trumpets sounded, and the royal child was borne to the altar, the gospel was read over her, and she was confirmed by Cranmer, who, with the other sponsors, presented the christening gifts. He gave her a standing cup of gold, the duchess of Norfolk a cup of gold fretted with pearls, being completely unconscious of the chemical antipathy between the acidity of wine and the misplaced pearls. The marchioness of Dorset gave three gilt bowls, pounced, with a cover; and the marchioness of Exeter three standing bowls, graven and gilt, with covers. Then were brought in wafers, comfits, and hypocras, in such abundance that the company had as much as could be desired. The homeward procession was lighted on its way to the palace with five hundred staff torches, which were carried by the yeomen of the guard and the king's servants, but the infant herself was surrounded by gentlemen bearing wax flambeaux. The procession returned in the same order that it went out, save that four noble gentlemen carried the sponsor's gifts before the child, with trumpets flourishing all the way preceding them, till they came to the door of the queen's chamber. The king commanded the duke of Norfolk to thank the lord mayor and citizens heartily in his name for their attendance, and after they had powerfully refreshed themselves in the royal cellar, they betook themselves to their barges. The queen was desirous of nourishing her infant daughter from her own bosom, but Henry, with his characteristic selfishness, forbade it, lest the frequent presence of the little princess in the chamber of her royal mother should be attended with inconvenience to himself. He appointed for Elizabeth's nurse the wife of a gentleman named Hokart, whom he afterwards ennobled; and he invested the dutchess-dowager of Norfolk with the office of state governess to the new-born babe, giving her for a residence the fair mansion and all the rich furniture, which he had bestowed on Anne Boleyn when he created her marchioness of Pembroke, with a salary of six thousand crowns.2 The lady Margaret Bryan, whose husband, sir Thomas Bryan, was a kinsman of queen Anne Boleyn, was preferred to the office of governess in ordinary to Elizabeth, as she had formerly been to the princess Mary: she was called "the lady mistress." Elizabeth passed the two first months of her life at Greenwich Palace, with the queen her mother, and during that period she was frequently taken for an airing to Eltham, for the benefit of her health. On the 24 of December, she was the subject of the following order in council:— "The king's highness hath appointed that the lady princess Elizabeth (almost three months old) shall be taken from hence towards Hatfield upon Wednesday next week; that on Wednesday night she is to lie and repose at the house of the earl of Rutland at Enfield, and the next day to be conveyed to Hatfield, and 'Ibid - Leti. there to remain with such household as the king's highness has established for the same."1 Hertford Castle was first named, but scratched through and changed to Hatfield. A few weeks afterwards she became, in virtue of the act of Parliament which settled the succession, in default of heirs male to Henry VIII., on the female issue of that monarch by Anne Boleyn, the heiress-presumptive to the throne, and her disinherited sister, the princess Mary, was compelled to yield precedency to her. Soon after this change in the prospects of the unconscious babe, she was removed to the palace of the bishop of Winchester, at Chelsea, on on whom the charge of herself and her extensive nursery appointments were thrust. When she was thirteen months old, she was weaned, and the preliminaries for this important business were arranged between the officers of her household and the cabinet ministers of her august sire, with as much solemnity as if the fate of empires had been involved in the matter. The following passages are extracted from a letter from sir William Powlet to Cromwell, on this subject: "The king's grace, well considering the letter directed to you from my lady Brain and other my lady princess' officers, his grace, with the assent of the queen's grace, hath fully determined the weaning of my lady princess to be done with all diligence." He proceeds to state that the little princess is to have the whole of any one of the royal residences thought best for her, and that consequently he has given orders for Langley to be put in order for her and her suite; which orders, he adds— "This messenger hath, withal, a letter from the queen's grace to my lady Brian, and that his grace and the queen's grace doth well and be merry, and all theirs, thanks be to God.-From Sarum, Oct. 9th." Scarcely was this nursery affair of state accomplished, before Henry exerted his paternal care in seeking to provide the royal weanling with a suitable consort, by entering into a negociation with Francis I. of France for a union between this infant princess and the duke of Angoulême, the third son of that monarch. Henry proposed that the young duke should be educated in England, and stipulated that he should hold 'Strype, vol. i., p. 236. The air of this beautiful village agreed so well with the royal infant, that Henry VIII. built a palace there, of which the husband of her governess, lady Bryan, was given the post of keeper; and so lately as the time of Charles II., one room in the Manor-house, as it was afterwards called, was known by the name of queen Elizabeth's nursery. There is an old mulberry tree in the gardens, which claims the honour of having been planted by her hand. The king also erected a conduit at Kensington for supplying the nursery palace with spring water. This conduit still exists within her majesty's forcing grounds, on the west side of Kensington palace green; it is a low building, with walls of great thickness, the roof covered with bricks instead of tiles: the roof is groined with rude arches, and the water pours copiously into a square reservoir. Tradition declares that it was used by queen Elizabeth, when a child, as a bathing house; it is therefore regarded with peculiar interest.-Faulkner's Kensington, p. 26 The letter occurs in 1534. State Papers, Cromwell's correspondence, in the Chapter-house, Bunde P. |