Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth, Volumes I & II — 13 - Volume I, Chapter IX. 1558 and 1559, part 2

The costume of the age was splendid.

Gowns of velvet or satin, richly trimmed with silk, furs, or gold lace, costly gold chains, and caps or hoods of rich materials adorned with feathers or ouches, decorated on all occasions of display the persons not of nobles or courtiers alone, but of their crowds of retainers and higher menials, and even of the plain substantial citizens.

Female attire was proportionally sumptuous.

Hangings, of cloth, of silk, of velvet, cloth of gold or silver, or "needlework sublime," clothed on days of family-festivity the _upper chamber_[38] of every house of respectable appearance; these on public festivals were suspended from the balconies, and uniting with the banners and pennons floating overhead, gave to the streets almost the appearance of a suit of long and gayly-dressed saloons.

Every circumstance thus conspired to render the public entry of queen Elizabeth the most gorgeous and at the same time the most interesting spectacle of the kind ever exhibited in the English metropolis.

[Note 38: As long as that style of domestic architecture prevailed in which every story was made to project considerably beyond the one beneath it, the upper room, from its superior size and lightsomeness, appears to have been that dedicated to the entertainment of guests.

] Her majesty was first to be conducted from her palace in Westminster to the royal apartments in the Tower; and a splendid water procession was appointed for the purpose.

At this period, when the streets were narrow and ill-paved, the roads bad, and the luxury of close carriages unknown, the Thames was the great thoroughfare of the metropolis.

The old palace of Westminster, as well as those of Richmond and Greenwich, the favorite summer residences of the Tudor princes, stood on its banks, and the court passed from one to the other in barges.

The nobility were beginning to occupy with their mansions and gardens the space between the Strand and the water, and it had become a reigning folly amongst them to vie with each other in the splendor of their barges and of the liveries of the rowers, who were all distinguished by the crests or badges of their lords.

The corporation and trading companies of London possessed, as now, their state-barges enriched with carved and gilded figures and "decked and trimmed with targets and banners of their misteries."

On the 12th of January 1559 these were all drawn forth in grand array;

and to enliven the pomp, "the bachelor's barge of the lord-mayor's company, to wit the mercers, had their barge with a _foist_ trimmed with three tops and artillery aboard, gallantly appointed to wait upon them, shooting off lustily as they went, with great and pleasant melody of instruments, which played in most sweet and heavenly manner."

In this state they rowed up to Westminster and attended her majesty with the royal barges back to the Tower.

Her passage through the city took place two days after.

She issued forth drawn in a sumptuous chariot, preceded by trumpeters and heralds in their coat-armour and "most honorably accompanied as well with gentlemen, barons, and other the nobility of this realm, as also with a notable train of goodly and beautiful ladies, richly appointed."

The ladies were on horseback, and both they and the lords were habited in crimson velvet, with which their horses were also trapped.

Let it be remarked by the way, that the retinue of fair equestrians constantly attendant on the person of the maiden queen in all her public appearances, was a circumstance of prodigious effect; the gorgeousness of royal pomp was thus heightened, and at the same time rendered more amiable and attractive by the alliance of grace and beauty; and a romantic kind of charm, comparable to that which seizes the imagination in the splendid fictions of chivalry, was cast over the heartless parade of courtly ceremonial.

It was a very different spirit, however, from that of romance or of knight-errantry which inspired the bosoms of the citizens whose acclamations now rent the air on her approach.

They beheld in the princess whom they welcomed the daughter of that Henry who had redeemed the land from papal tyranny and extortion; the sister of that young and godly Edward,--the Josiah of English story,--whose pious hand had reared again the altars of pure and primitive religion; and they had bodied forth for her instruction and admonition, in a series of solemn pageants, the maxims by which they hoped to see her equal or surpass these deep-felt merits of her predecessors.

These pageants were erections placed across the principal streets in the manner of triumphal arches: illustrative sentences in English and Latin were inscribed upon them; and a child was stationed in each, who explained to the queen in English verse the meaning of the whole.

The first was of three stories, and represented by living figures: first, Henry VII.

and his royal spouse Elizabeth of York, from whom her majesty derived her name; secondly, Henry VIII.

and Anne Boleyn; and lastly, her majesty in person; all in royal robes.

The verses described the felicity of that union of the houses to which she owed her existence, and of concord in general.

The second pageant was styled "The seat of worthy governance," on the summit of which sat another representative of the queen; beneath were the cardinal virtues trampling under their feet the opposite vices, among whom Ignorance and Superstition were not forgotten.

The third exhibited the eight Beatitudes, all ascribed with some ingenuity of application to her majesty.

The fourth ventured upon a more trying topic: its opposite sides represented in lively contrast the images of a decayed and of a flourishing commonwealth; and from a cave below issued Time leading forth his daughter Truth, who held in her hand an English bible, which she offered to the queen's acceptance.

Elizabeth received the volume, and reverently pressing it with both hands to her heart and to her lips, declared aloud, amid the tears and grateful benedictions of her people, that she thanked the city more for that gift than for all the cost they had bestowed upon her, and that she would often read over that book.

The last pageant exhibited "a seemly and mete personage, richly apparelled in parliament robes, with a sceptre in her hand, over whose head was written 'Deborah, the judge and restorer of the house of Israel.'

" To render more palatable these grave moralities, the recorder of London, approaching her majesty's chariot near the further end of Cheapside, where ended the long array of the city companies, which had lined the streets all the way from Fenchurch, presented her with a splendid and ample purse, containing one thousand marks in gold.

The queen graciously received it with both hands, and answered his harangue "marvellous pithily."

To crown the whole, those two griesly personages vulgarly called Gog and Magog, but described by the learned as Gogmagog the Albion and Corineus the Briton, deserted on this memorable day that accustomed station in Guildhall where they appear as the tutelary genii of the city, and were seen rearing up their stately height on each side of Temple-bar.

With joined hands they supported above the gate a copy of Latin verses, in which they obligingly expounded to her majesty the sense of all the pageants which had been offered to her view, concluding with compliments and felicitations suitable to the happy occasion.

The queen, in few but cordial words, thanked the citizens for all their cost and pains, assured them that she would "stand their good queen," and passed the gate amid a thunder of applause.

Elizabeth possessed in a higher degree than any other English prince who ever reigned, the innocent and honest arts of popularity; and the following traits of her behaviour on this day are recorded by our chroniclers with affectionate delight.

"'Yonder is an ancient citizen,' said one of the knights attending on her person, 'which weepeth and turneth his face backward: How may it be interpreted?

that he doth so for sorrow or for gladness?'

With a just and pleasing confidence, the queen replied, 'I warrant you it is for gladness,'" "How many nosegays did her grace receive at poor women's hands!

How many times staid she her chariot when she saw any simple body offer to speak to her grace!

A

branch of rosemary given her grace with a supplication by a poor woman about Fleet-bridge was seen in her chariot till her grace came to Westminster[39]."

[Note 39: Holinshed's Chronicles.

] The reader may here be reminded, that five-and-twenty years before, when the mother of this queen passed through London to her coronation, the pageants exhibited derived their personages and allusions chiefly from pagan mythology or classical fiction.

But all was now changed; the earnestness of religious controversy in Edward's time, and the fury of persecution since, had put to flight Apollo, the Muses, and the Graces: Learning indeed had kept her station and her honors, but she had lent her lamp to other studies, and whether in the tongue of ancient Rome or modern England, Elizabeth was hailed in Christian strains, and as the sovereign of a Christian country.

A people filled with earnest zeal in the best of causes implored her to free them once again from popery; to overthrow the tyranny of error and of superstition; to establish gospel truth; and to accept at their hands, as the standard of her faith and the rule of her conduct, that holy book of which they regarded the free and undisturbed possession as their brightest privilege.

How tame, how puerile, in the midst of sentiments serious and profound as these, would have appeared the intrusion of classical imagery, however graceful in itself or ingenious in its application!

Frigid must have been the spectator who could even have remarked its absence, while shouts of patriotic ardor and of religious joy were bursting from the lips of the whole assembled population.

The august ceremonies of the coronation, which took place on the following day, merit no particular description; regulated in every thing by ancient custom, they afforded little scope for that display of popular sentiment which had given so intense an interest to the procession of the day before.

Great perplexity was occasioned by the refusal of the whole bench of bishops to perform the coronation service;

but at length, to the displeasure of his brethren, Ogelthorp bishop of Carlisle suffered himself to be gained over, and the rite was duly celebrated.

This refractoriness of the episcopal order was wisely overlooked for the present by the new government; but it proceeded no doubt from the principle, that, the marriage of Henry VIII.

with Catherine of Arragon having been declared lawful and valid, the child of Anne Boleyn must be regarded as illegitimate and incapable of the succession.

The compliance of Ogelthorp could indeed be censured by the other bishops on no other ground than their disallowance of the title of the sovereign; in the office itself, as he performed it, there was nothing to which the most rigid catholic could object, for the ancient ritual is said to have been followed without the slightest modification.

This circumstance has been adduced among others, to show that it was rather by the political necessities of her situation, than by her private judgement and conscience in religious matters, that Elizabeth was impelled finally to abjure the Roman catholic system, and to declare herself the general protectress of the protestant cause.

Probably, had she found herself free to follow entirely the dictates of her own inclinations, she would have established in the church of which she found herself the head, a kind of middle scheme like that devised by her father, for whose authority she was impressed with the highest veneration.

To the end of her days she could never be reconciled to married bishops; indeed with respect to the clergy generally, a sagacious writer of her own time observes, that "_caeteris paribus_, and sometimes _imparibus_ too, she preferred the single man before the married[40]."

[Note 40: Harrington's "Brief View."

] She would allow no one "to speak irreverently of the sacrament of the altar;" that is, to enter into discussions respecting the real presence;

she enjoined the like respectful silence concerning the intercession of saints; and we learn that one Patch, who had been Wolsey's fool, and had contrived, like some others, to keep in favor through all the changes of four successive reigns, was employed by sir Francis Knolles to break down a crucifix which she still retained in her private chapel to the scandal of all good protestants.

A remarkable incident soon served to intimate the coolness and caution with which it was her intention to proceed in re-establishing the maxims of the reformers.

Lord Bacon thus relates the anecdote: "Queen Elizabeth on the morrow of her coronation (it being the custom to release prisoners at the inauguration of a prince) went to the chapel;

and in the great chamber one of her courtiers, who was well known to her, either out of his own motion, or by the instigation of a wiser man, presented her with a petition, and before a great number of courtiers besought her with a loud voice that now this good time there might be four or five more principal prisoners released: these were the four evangelists, and the apostle St. Paul, who had been long shut up in an unknown tongue, as it were in prison; so as they could not converse with the common people.

The queen answered very gravely, that it was best first to inquire of themselves whether they would be released or not[41]."

[Note 41: Bacon's "Apophthegms."

] It was not long, however, ere this happy deliverance was fully effected.

Before her coronation, Elizabeth had taken the important step of authorizing the reading of the liturgy in English; but she forbade preaching on controverted topics generally, and all preaching at Paul's Cross in particular, till the completion of that revision of the service used in the time of Edward VI.

which she had intrusted to Parker archbishop-elect of Canterbury, with several of her wisest counsellors.

It was the zeal of the ministers lately returned from exile, many of whom had imbibed at Geneva or Zurich ideas of a primitive simplicity in Christian worship widely remote from the views and sentiments of the queen, which gave occasion to this prohibition.

The learning, the piety, the past sufferings of the men gave them great power over the minds and opinions of the people, who ran in crowds to listen to their sermons;

and Elizabeth began already to apprehend that the hierarchy which she desired to establish would stand as much in need of protection from the disciples of Calvin and Zwingle on one hand, as from the adherents of popery on the other.

There is good reason to believe, that a royal proclamation issued some time after, by which all manner of plays and interludes were forbidden to be represented till after the ensuing hallowmass, was dictated by similar reasons of state with the prohibition of popular and unlicensed preaching.

From the earliest beginnings of the reformation under Henry VIII.

the stage had come in aid of the pulpit; not, according to the practice of its purer ages, as the "teacher best of moral wisdom, with delight received," but as the vehicle of religious controversy, and not seldom of polemical scurrility.

Several times already had this dangerous novelty attracted the jealous eyes of authority, and measures had in vain been taken for its suppression.

In 1542 Henry added to an edict for the destruction of Tyndale's English bible, with all the controversial works on both sides of which it had been the fertile parent, an injunction that "the kingdom should be purged and cleansed of all religious plays, interludes, rhymes, ballads, and songs, which are equally pestiferous and noisome to the peace of the church."

During the reign of Edward, when the papists had availed themselves of the license of the theatre to attack Cranmer and the protector, a similar prohibition was issued against all dramatic performances, as tending to the growth of "disquiet, division, tumults and uproars."

Mary's privy-council, on the other hand, found it necessary to address a remonstrance to the president of the North, respecting certain players, servants to sir Francis Lake, who had gone about the country representing pieces in ridicule of the king and queen and the formalities of the mass; and the design of the proclamation of Elizabeth was rendered evident by a solemn enactment of heavy penalties against such as should abuse the Common-prayer in any interludes, songs, or rhymes[42].

[Note 42: Warton's "History of English Poetry," vol. iii.

p. 202 _et seq.

_] CHAPTER X.

1559. Meeting of parliament.

--Prudent counsel of sir N. Bacon.

--Act declaratory of the queen's title.

--Her answer to an address praying her to marry.

--Philip II.

offers her his hand.

--Motives of her refusal.

--Proposes to her the archduke Charles.

--The king of Sweden renews his addresses by the duke of Finland.

--Honorable reception of the duke.

--Addresses of the duke of Holstein.

--The duke of Norfolk, lord R. Dudley, the marquis of Northampton, the earl of Rutland, made knights of the garter.

--Notices of the two last.

--Queen visits the earl of Pembroke.

--His life and character.

--Arrival and entertainment of a French embassy.

--Review of the London trained-bands.

--Tilt in Greenwich park.

--Band of gentlemen-pensioners.

--Royal progress to Dartford, Cobham Hall, Eltham, and Nonsuch.

--The earl of Arundel entertains her at the latter place.

--Obsequies for the king of France.

--Death of Frances duchess of Suffolk.

--Sumptuary law respecting apparel.

--Fashions of dress.

--Law against witchcraft.