Mrs. Lang
The Book of Princes and Princesses
So matters went on for six years, and though Philippa was not very happy with her husband, and had no children to comfort her, there was always queen Margaret to go to for help, and consolation. But in 1412 Margaret died, and then Philippa felt lonely indeed. However, she still strove to help her subjects, and had more power than most queens, because the king was always fighting with his neighbours, and left her to rule as she thought best. When her cares pressed heavily she used to go for a holiday to a Swedish convent, and there got strength to carry on her work. And thus, in harness, she died in 1430 at the age of thirty-seven; and nine years later king Eric, who had at last wearied out the patience of his people, was driven from the throne.
THE TROUBLES OF THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH
'What reign in English history do you like best to read about?'
I think that if you were to put this question to twenty children you would get the same answer from at least fifteen.
'Oh, Queen Elizabeth's, of course!' And in many ways they would be quite right. After the long struggle of the Wars of the Roses, which had, a hundred years before, exhausted the country, the people were losing the feeling of uncertainty and anxiety that had possessed them for so many years, and were eager to see the world and to make new paths in many directions. The young men were so daring and gallant, so sure of their right to capture any ship laden with treasure they might meet on the high seas, so convinced that all other nations – and Spaniards in particular – which attacked them, were nothing but pirates and freebooters, whose fit end was 'walking the plank' into the sea, or being 'strung up on the yard arm,' that, as we read their stories, we begin to believe it too! And when we leave Drake and Frobisher and the rest behind, and turn to sir Walter Raleigh throwing down his cloak in the mud for the queen to tread on, and the dying sir Philip Sidney, on the field of Zutphen, refusing the water he so much needed because the wounded soldier beside him needed it still more, we think that, after all, those days were really better than these, and life more exciting. If, too, we should chance to love books better than tales of war, we shall meet with our old friends again in the beautiful songs that almost every gentleman of those times seemed able to make – Sidney, and Raleigh, and many another knight, as well as Shakespeare, and Marlowe, and Ben Jonson. The short velvet tunics and the small feathered hats, which was the ordinary dress of the young men of the period, set off, as we see in their portraits, the tall spare figures and faces with carefully trimmed pointed beards of the courtiers who thronged about the queen. While the head and crown of them all, restless, energetic, courageous as any man among them, was Elizabeth herself.
Yes, there is a great deal to be said for the children's choice.
But perhaps you would like to hear something of the life the queen led before she ascended the throne, which was not until she was twenty-five. As, no doubt, you all know, Henry VIII. had put away his wife Katharine of Aragon, aunt of the emperor Charles V., in order to marry the beautiful maid of honour Anne Boleyn; and his daughter Mary had shared her mother's fate. It was all very cruel and unjust – and in their hearts every one felt it to be so; but Henry managed to get his own way, and in January, 1533, made Anne Boleyn his wife.
It was on September 7, in that same year, that Elizabeth was born in the palace of Greenwich, in a room that was known as the 'Chamber of the Virgins,' from the stories told on the tapestries that covered the walls. The king was greatly disappointed that the baby did not prove to be a boy, but as that could not be helped he determined to make the christening as splendid as possible. So, as it was customary that the ceremony should take place a very few days after the child's birth, all the royal secretaries and officers of state were busy from morning till night, writing letters and sending out messengers to bid the king's guests assemble at the palace on the afternoon of September 10, to attend 'the high and mighty princess' to the convent of the Grey Friars, where she was to be given the name of her grandmother, Elizabeth of York.
At one o'clock the lord mayor and aldermen and city council dined together, in their robes of state; but the dinner did not last as long as usual, as the barges which were to row them to Greenwich were moored by the river bank, and they knew Henry too well to keep him waiting. The palace and courtyard were crowded with people when they arrived, and a few minutes later the procession was formed. Bishops wore their mitres and grasped their pastoral staffs, nobles were clad in long robes of velvet and fur, while coronets circled their heads. Each took his place according to his rank, and when the baby appeared in the arms of the old duchess of Norfolk, with a canopy over her head and her train carried behind her, the procession set forth, the earl of Essex going first, holding the gilt basin, followed by the marquis of Exeter and the marquis of Dorset bearing the taper and the salt, while to lady Mary Howard was entrusted the chrisom containing the holy oil. In this order the splendid company passed down the road which led from the palace and the convent, between walls hung with tapestry and over a carpet of thickly-strewn rushes.
But in spite of the grandeur of Henry's preparations, the godparents of the baby were neither kings nor queens, but only Cranmer, the newly-made archbishop of Canterbury, the old duchess of Norfolk, and lady Dorset. Henry knew full well that it would have been vain to invite any of the sovereigns of Europe to stand as sponsors to his second daughter: they were all too deeply offended at his divorce from Katharine of Aragon and at the quarrel with the Pope. He did not, however, vex himself in the matter, and took pleasure in seeing that the ceremony was as magnificent as if the child had had a royal princess for a mother, instead of the daughter of a mere country gentleman. At the close of the service the Garter King-at-Arms advanced to the steps of the altar, and facing the assembled congregation cried with a loud voice: 'God of His infinite goodness send a prosperous life and long to the high and mighty Princess Elizabeth of England.' Then a blast of trumpets sounded through the air, and the first act of little Elizabeth's public existence began among the noise and glitter that she loved to the end.
By this time it was growing dark, and everybody was hungry. As the church was not very far from the palace, it might have been expected that the company would return there and sit down to a great banquet; but this was not Henry's plan. Instead, he had ordered that wafers, comfits and various kinds of light cakes should be handed round in church, with goblets full of hypocras to wash them down. When this was over, and the christening presents given, the procession re-formed in the same order, and lighted by five hundred torches set out for the palace by the river side, where their barges were awaiting them.
For three months the baby was left with her mother at Greenwich, under the care of her godmother, the duchess of Norfolk, and lady Bryan, kinswoman to Anne Boleyn, who had brought up princess Mary. After that she was taken to Hatfield, in Hertfordshire, and then moved to the country palace of the bishop of Winchester, in the little village of Chelsea. The bishop's consent does not seem to have been asked, for the king never troubled himself to inquire whether the owners of these houses cared to be invaded by a vast number of strangers. If he wished it, that was enough, and the poor bishop had to give up his own business, and spend all his time in making arrangements for the heiress of England – for so she was now declared to be – the rights of Mary being set aside. Right glad must he have been when the king's restless temper removed the baby again into Hertfordshire, to a house at Langley, and sought to provide her with a husband. The prince chosen, first of a long line of suitors, was Charles duke of Orleans, the third son of Francis I. of France. The match was in some ways a good one; but Henry wanted so many things which the French king could not grant that the plan had to be given up. In any case it could hardly have come to pass, as the boy died before his bride had reached her twelfth birthday.
Having contrived to get rid of one wife when he was tired of her, Henry saw no reason why he should not dispose of his second for the same cause. Therefore, when he took a fancy to wed Jane Seymour, maid of honour to Anne, he thought no shame to accuse the queen of all sorts of crimes. One day the booming of the Tower guns told that the Traitors' gate leading down to the Thames had been opened, and Anne, whose life had been passed in pleasure and gaiety, stepped out of the barge; the laughter had died out of her eyes and the colour from her face. Well she knew the fate that awaited her, and in her heart she felt it was just. Had she not in like manner supplanted queen Katharine, and thrust her and her daughter from their rightful place? Thus she may have thought as her guards led her to her cell, from which she walked on May 19 to the scaffold on Tower Hill.
'The young lady,' says Thomas Heywood, 'lost a mother before she could do any more but smile upon her.' But ten days later her vacant throne was filled by Jane Seymour, whose brothers, Edward earl of Hertford and sir Thomas Seymour, were constantly seen at Court. Elizabeth, no longer heiress of the crown, had been sent down to Hunsdon, in Hertfordshire, under the care of lady Bryan and her kinsman Shelton, and here she was left, forgotten by everyone, and without any money being allowed for her support. As for clothes, she had really none, 'neither gown, nor petticoat, nor no manner of linen, nor kerchiefs, nor rails (or nightgowns), nor sleeves, nor many other things needed for a child of nearly three years old.' Neither, according to the rest of lady Bryan's letter to the king's minister, Thomas Cromwell, does she seem to have been provided with proper food. Lady Bryan evidently did not get on well with master Shelton, who shared her charge, and complains that he knows nothing about children, and wished Elizabeth to dine and sup every day with the rest of the household, and that 'it would be hard to restrain her grace from divers meats and fruits and wines that she would see on the table.' No doubt it was hard, for Elizabeth was always rather greedy, and set much store by what she ate and drank. Just at this time, too, simple food was specially necessary for her, as she had 'great pain with her great teeth which come very slowly forth'; and most likely she was rather cross and fretful, as children are apt to be when they have toothache; so lady Bryan is sorry for her, and 'suffers her grace to have her will,' more than she would give her at other times. But when her teeth are 'well graft,' or cut, her governess trusts to God 'to have her grace after another fashion than she is yet, for she is as toward (or clever) a child and as gentle of conditions as ever I saw in my life.'
It was not only lady Bryan whose soul was filled with pity at the forlorn situation of the little girl, whose birth had been made the occasion of such rejoicings. Her sister, princess Mary, now restored to favour, also entreated the king on her behalf, but we are not told if their letters produced the changes prayed for.
One day in October, 1537, when Elizabeth was just four and Mary about twenty-one, a messenger rode up to the house at Hunsdon, clad in the king's livery, and craved permission to deliver a letter to the princess. He was shown into the hall, and there, in a few moments, the two sisters appeared. Bowing low before them, the man held out the folded paper, bound with a silken thread and sealed with the royal arms of England. Mary took it, guessing full well at its contents, which were, indeed, what she had supposed. A boy had been born to the queen, Jane Seymour, and the king summoned the prince's sisters to repair without delay to Westminster in order to be present at the christening of the 'Noble Impe.'
Elizabeth, full of excitement, listened open-mouthed as princess Mary told her that they had a little brother, and were to ride next morning to London to see him in the palace. Like her father Henry VIII., whom she resembled in many ways, the little princess loved movement of any kind, and all her life was never so happy as in journeying from place to place, as the number of beds she is supposed to have slept in testify. Like the king also, she loved fine clothes; and the old chroniclers never fail to describe what the king wore in the splendid pageants in which he delighted. His taste seems to have been very showy and rather bad. At one time he is dressed in crimson turned up with green, at another he is gorgeous in a mixture of red and purple. Elizabeth, we may be sure, was arrayed in something very fine, as she proudly carried the chrisom containing the holy oil, with which the baby was to be anointed. Princess Mary, his godmother, held him at the font, and when the ceremony was over, and they left the chapel, the king's two daughters went into the room where lay the dying queen.
From that day Elizabeth had a new interest in life. She felt as if the little prince belonged to her, and when he gave signs of talking, she was sent for to London by the king 'to teach and direct him.' She made him a little shirt as a birthday present, and as he grew older she taught him easy games, and told him stories out of books. By-and-by she begun to repeat to him simple sentences in French, or Latin, or Italian, and when his tutors took him away, or she grew tired of being governess, she would practise her music on the viols, or try some new stitch in needlework.
In this way time slipped by, and Elizabeth had passed her sixth birthday, when it became known at Court that the king was about to wed a fourth wife, and that his choice had fallen on princess Anne of Cleves. This new event was of the deepest interest to Elizabeth, and she at once, with her father's permission, wrote the bride a funny stiff note, 'to shew the zeal with which she devoted her respect to her as her queen, and her entire obedience to her as her mother.'
This letter gave great pleasure to the German bride, and laid the foundation of a lasting friendship between the two. For though rather big and clumsy, and not at all to Henry's taste, Anne was very kind-hearted, and grateful to the little girl for her welcome. All the more did she value Elizabeth's affection because it was plain, from nearly the first moment, that the king had taken a violent dislike to her, and though she knew he would not dare to cut off her head, as he had done Anne Boleyn's, because she had powerful relations, yet she felt sure he would find some excuse to put her away. And so he did after a very few months; but during all that time Anne busied herself with the interests and lessons of the young princess, and when the decree of divorce was at last pronounced, begged earnestly that Elizabeth might still be allowed to visit her, as 'to have had the princess for a daughter would be a greater happiness than to be queen.'
In reading about Elizabeth in later years we feel as if she much preferred the company of men to women; but in her childhood it was different, and the three stepmothers with whom she was brought in contact were all very fond of her. Jane Seymour, of course, she hardly knew, and besides, Elizabeth was only four when she died. But when the pretty and lively Katharine Howard stepped speedily into the place of the 'Flanders Mare' (for so, it is said, Henry called the stout Anne of Cleves), she insisted that the child should take part in all her wedding fêtes, and being herself a cousin of Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth's mother, gave the princess the place of honour at the banquets. Elizabeth, no doubt, was flattered and pleased at the honours heaped on her, but in her secret heart she would rather have been with Anne of Cleves.
Henry's marriage with Katharine Howard came to an end even more swiftly than his marriages were wont to do. This one only lasted six months, and after the queen's execution, which took place in February 1542, Elizabeth was sent to rejoin her sister Mary in the old palace of Havering-atte-Bower. Here she remained in peace for a whole year, as the king was too busy with affairs of state, with rebellions in Ireland and a war with Scotland, to think about her, or even about a new wife. Still, marriage, either for himself or somebody else, was never far from Henry's mind, and soon after he not only offered Elizabeth's hand to the young earl of Arran, who did not trouble himself even to return an answer, but tried to obtain that of the baby queen of Scotland, Mary Stuart, for prince Edward. We all know how ill this plan succeeded, and that in the end, when Henry was dead and the English had again invaded Scotland, queen Mary was hurried by guardians over to France, and Edward VI. left to seek another bride. 'We like the match well enough, but not the manner of the wooing,' said the Scots, so Mary became queen of France as well as queen of Scotland.
But all these things were still four years ahead, and Henry had yet to marry his sixth and last wife, Katharine Parr, the rich widow of lord Latimer.
This event took place during the year 1543, when Katharine had been only a few months a widow. Unlike three out of her five predecessors her ancestry was as noble as that of the king himself, to whom, indeed, she was fourth cousin. Her mother had brought her up carefully and taught her to write her own language well, besides having her instructed in those of other countries. She insisted, too, on the child spending much of her time at needlework, which Katharine particularly hated, and escaped whenever she could. However, in spite of her dislike, she grew very clever with her fingers, and some beautiful pieces of embroidery still remain to show her skill. Katharine was fair and gentle, and full of sense and kindness, and as she was known to be a great heiress, her suitors were many. Before she was twenty she had been twice married, and had several stepchildren, and as she was often at Court, where many of her relations filled important offices, she was no stranger to Henry, who had great respect for her judgment. At Lord Latimer's death she was only thirty, and hardly was he buried when sir Thomas Seymour, the king's handsome and unscrupulous brother-in-law, began to woo her for his wife. Perhaps it was because he was so different from either of her previous husbands that lady Latimer fell in love with him, but before the marriage could be accomplished Henry stepped in, and Seymour retired in haste. He knew better than to cross his sovereign's path! So six months after Latimer's death, his widow became queen of England, and Elizabeth went to live with her fourth stepmother.
All her life Elizabeth was able, when she thought it worth her while, to make herself pleasant in whatever company she might be in; tyrannical and self-willed as she often proved in after-years, she invariably managed to control her temper and thrust her own wishes aside if she found that it was her interest to do so. She had learned this in a hard school; but luckily she had the gift of attracting friends and keeping them, and as a child there was not one of her mother's successors on the throne – little though they had in common – who did not delight in Elizabeth's presence. Queen Katharine at once obtained the king's consent to fetch her to Whitehall, and to give her rooms next to the queen's own. Here the princess, now ten years old, could work under Katharine's eye, with her brother Edward, and, as Heywood says, 'Most of the frequent tongues of Christendom they now made theirs: Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, were no strangers,' and by the time she was twelve Elizabeth knew a little about mathematics, astronomy and geometry; but history was her favourite study, and many were the hours she passed with old chronicles in her lap. Love of music she inherited from her father, who composed anthems, which you may still hear sung; and needlework had always been a pleasure to her, so that she had plenty to do all day. Now, every one would declare that so much time spent over books was very bad for her, but Elizabeth never seemed any the worse, and could ride over heavy roads from dawn to dark without the least fatigue. If you wish to see a specimen of her labours you can find one in the British Museum, where lies a little book she made for her stepmother when she was staying at Hertford, which bears the date December 20, 1545! It is a translation in French, Latin and Italian, done by Elizabeth herself, of some meditations and prayers written by the queen, and copied by the princess in a beautiful clear hand. The cover appears to be made of closely worked stitches of crimson silk on canvas, with the initials K. P. raised in blue and silver, which time has sadly tarnished. Perhaps it was meant for a Christmas present and a surprise for the queen, who must have been very pleased with her gift.
Prince Edward was a delicate child, and most likely for that reason he was sent down by his father to live at Hatfield House, with Elizabeth to keep him company. Hatfield had formerly belonged to the bishops of Ely; but a mere question of possession mattered no more to Henry than it had done to Ahab before him, and, like Ahab, he took for his own the land he coveted, and gave the unwilling bishops other property in exchange. Here in the park, through which the river Lea ran on its way to join the Thames, Edward and Elizabeth could wander as they pleased, while inside the beautiful house, part of which had been built in the reign of Edward IV., they did their lessons with the excellent tutors the king had chosen for them. One of these, Sir Anthony Cooke, was allowed to have his daughters with him, and these young ladies, afterwards as famous for their learning as their father, were destined to be closely bound up in Elizabeth's life, as the wives of Bacon and of Burleigh. So, 'these tender young plants, being past the sappy age,' as Heywood poetically calls them, spent some happy months, till an event happened which changed everything for everybody.
On January 30, 1547, Elizabeth was at Enfield, where she had been passing the last few weeks, when to her surprise she beheld, as dusk was falling, her brother, whom she imagined to be at Hertford, riding up to the house with his uncle, Edward Seymour earl of Hertford on one side, and sir Anthony Brown on the other. The prince glanced up at the window and waved his hand as she leant out, but Elizabeth, who was quick to notice, thought that, even in the dim light, the faces of his escort looked excited and disturbed. In a few minutes they were all in the room, where a bright fire was blazing on the huge hearth, and then, hat in hand, the earl told them both that their father was dead, and that his son was now king of England.
The brother and sister gazed at each other in silence. Then Elizabeth buried her head on Edward's shoulder, and they wept bitterly and truly. As yet neither of them had suffered much from Henry's faults, and though Edward had been his favourite just because he was a boy and his successor, he had been proud of Elizabeth's talents and her likeness to himself. Thus, while many in England who had trembled for their heads felt his death to be a deliverance, to two out of his three children it was a real sorrow. Poor Mary had suffered too much, both on her own account and on her mother's, to have any feeling but a dull wonder as to her future.
The reading of the king's will did something, however, to soothe her bitter recollections, for it placed her in the position which was hers by right, heiress of the kingdom should her brother die childless, and in like manner Elizabeth was to succeed her. Meanwhile, they both had three thousand a year to live on – quite a large sum in those days – and ten thousand pounds as dowry, if they married with the consent of the young king and his council.
The moment that Henry was dead Katharine Parr left the palace and went to her country house at Chelsea – close to where Cheyne pier now stands; and here she was immediately joined by Elizabeth, at the request of the council of regency. Katharine had been in every way a good wife to Henry, and had nursed him with a care and skill shown by nobody else during the last long months of his illness. He depended on her entirely for the soothing of his many pains, yet it was at this very time that he listened to the schemes of her enemies, who were anxious to remove her from the king's presence, and consented to a bill of attainder being brought against her, by which she would have lost her head. Accident revealed the plot to Katharine, and by her cleverness she managed to avert the danger – though she never breathed freely again as long as the king was alive.
The old friendship between Katharine and her stepchildren was destined to receive a severe shock, and in this matter the two princesses were in the right, and the queen wholly wrong. It came about in this way.
As far as we can gather from the rather confused accounts, sir Thomas Seymour, Katharine Parr's old lover, a man as greedy and ambitious as he was handsome, had taken advantage of Henry's affection for him to try to win the heart of the princess Elizabeth, not long before the king's death. As she was at that time living at Hertford, under the care of a vulgar and untrustworthy governess, Mrs. Ashley, it would have been easy for Seymour to ride to and fro without anyone in London being the wiser. Certain it is that, from whatever motive, he was most anxious to marry her, and a month after her father's death wrote, it is said, a proposal to the princess in person – a very strange thing to do in those days, and one which would assuredly bring down on him the wrath of the council. But Elizabeth was quite able to manage her own affairs, and answered that she had no intention of marrying anybody for the present, and was surprised at the subject being mentioned so soon after the death of her father, for whom she should wear mourning two years at least.
Although Seymour thought highly of his own charms, he had a certain sort of prudence and sense, and he saw that for the time nothing further could be gained from Elizabeth. He therefore at once turned his attention to the rich widow whom the king had formerly torn from him, and with whom he felt pretty sure of success. He was not mistaken; and deep indeed must have been Katharine's love for him, as she consented to throw aside all the modesty and good manners for which she was famed and to accept him as a husband a fortnight after the king's burial, and only four days after he had been refused by Elizabeth, with her knowledge and by her advice.
The marriage seems to have followed soon after, but was kept secret for a time.
It is difficult to say whether Mary or Elizabeth was more angry when these things came to light. Elizabeth had, as we know, been almost a daughter to Katharine, but she and queen Mary had always been good friends, and many little presents had passed between them. At her coronation Katharine had given the princess, only three years younger than herself, a splendid bracelet of rubies set in gold, and when Mary was living at Hunsdon a royal messenger was often to be seen trotting down the London road, bearing fur to trim a court train, a new French coif for the hair, or even a cheese of a sort which Katharine herself had found good eating. Mary accepted them all gratefully and gladly, and passed some of her spare hours, which were many, in embroidering a cushion for the closet of her stepmother.
And now, in a moment, everything was changed, and both princesses saw, not only the insult to their father's memory in this hasty re-marriage, but also the fact that royalty itself was humbled in the conduct of the queen, who should have been an example to all. Mary wrote at once to her sister, praying her to mark her disapproval of the queen's conduct by leaving her house and taking up her abode at Hunsdon. Elizabeth, however, though not yet fourteen, showed signs of the prudence which marked her in after-life, and answered that having been placed at Chelsea by order of the king's council, it would not become her to set herself up against them. Besides, she feared to seem ungrateful for the previous kindness of the queen.
But though living under the protection of the queen-dowager, either at Chelsea or in the country village of Hanworth, Elizabeth had her own servants and officers of the household, amounting in all to a hundred and twenty people. It was very unlucky in every way that the governess chosen to be her companion should have been her kinswoman, Mrs. Ashley, a good-natured, vulgar-minded woman, who was never so happy as when she was weaving a mystery. Of course Katharine took care that the princess passed many hours in the day in lessons from the best tutors that could be found, but still there was plenty of time left when the governess, whose duty kept her always by the girl's side, could tell her all manner of silly stories and encourage her foolish fancies. At length, about Whitsuntide 1548, the queen's ill-health put an end to this state of things, and Elizabeth was sent down, with all her servants, to the castle of Cheshunt, then under the command of sir Anthony Denny; and from there she wrote a letter to her stepmother, thanking her for the great kindness she had ever received from her, and signing it 'your humble daughter Elizabeth.' After this, they wrote frequently to each other during the following three months, which proved to be the last of Katharine's life. By the end of the summer she was dead, leaving a little daughter behind her, and bequeathing to Elizabeth half of the beautiful jewels she possessed.
