1558 AND 1559.
General joy on the accession of Elizabeth.--Views of the nobility--of
the middling and lower classes.--Flattery with which she is
addressed.--Descriptions of her person.--Her first privy-council.--Parry
and Cecil brought into office.--Notices of each.--Death of cardinal
Pole.--The queen enters London--passes to the Tower.--Lord Robert Dudley
her master of the horse.--Notices respecting him.--The queen's treatment
of her relations.--The Howard family.--Sir Richard Sackville.--Henry
Cary.--The last, created lord Hunsdon.--Preparations in London against
the queen's coronation.--Splendid costume of the age.--She passes by
water from Westminster to the Tower.--The procession described.--Her
passage through the city.--Pageants exhibited.--The bishops refuse to
crown her.--Bishop of Carlisle prevailed on.--Religious sentiments of
the queen.--Prohibition of preaching--of theatrical exhibitions.
Never perhaps was the accession of any prince the subject of such keen
and lively interest to a whole people as that of Elizabeth.
Both in the religious establishments and political relations of the
country, the most important changes were anticipated; changes in which
the humblest individual found himself concerned, and to which a vast
majority of the nation looked forward with hope and joy.
With the courtiers and great nobles, whose mutability of faith had so
happily corresponded with every ecclesiastical vicissitude of the last
three reigns, political and personal considerations may well be supposed
to have held the first place; and though the old religion might still be
endeared to them by many cherished associations and by early prejudice,
there were few among them who did not regard the liberation of the
country from Spanish influence as ample compensation for the probable
restoration of the religious establishment of Henry or of Edward.
Besides, there was scarcely an individual belonging to these classes who
had not in some manner partaken of the plunder of the church, and whom
the avowed principles of Mary had not disquieted with apprehensions that
some plan of compulsory restitution would sooner or later be attempted
by an union of royal and papal authority.
With the middling and lower classes religious views and feelings were
predominant The doctrines of the new and better system of faith and
worship had now become more precious and important than ever in the eyes
of its adherents from the hardships which many of them had encountered
for its sake, and from the interest which each disciple vindicated to
himself in the glory and merit of the holy martyrs whose triumphant exit
they had witnessed. With all the fervor of pious gratitude they offered
up their thanksgivings for the signal deliverance by which their prayers
had been answered. The bloody tyranny of Mary was at an end; and though
the known conformity of Elizabeth to Romish rites might apparently give
room for doubts and suspicions, it should seem that neither catholics
nor protestants were willing to believe that the daughter of Anne
Boleyn could in her heart be a papist. Under this impression the
citizens of London, who spoke the sense of their own class throughout
the kingdom, welcomed the new queen as a protectress sent by Heaven
itself: but even in the first transports of their joy, and amid the
pompous pageantries by which their loyal congratulations were expressed,
they took care to intimate, in a manner not to be misunderstood, their
hopes and expectations on the great concern now nearest to their hearts.
Prudence confined within their own bosoms the regrets and murmurs of the
popish clergy; submission and a simulated loyalty were at present
obviously their only policy: thus not a whisper breathed abroad but of
joy and gratulation and happy presage of the days to come.
The sex, the youth, the accomplishments, the graces, the past
misfortunes of the princess, all served to heighten the interest with
which she was beheld: the age of chivalry had not yet expired; and in
spite of the late unfortunate experience of a female reign, the romantic
image of a maiden queen dazzled all eyes, subdued all hearts, inflamed
the imaginations of the brave and courtly youth with visions of love and
glory, exalted into a passionate homage the principle of loyalty, and
urged adulation to the very brink of idolatry.
The fulsome compliments on her beauty which Elizabeth, almost to the
latest period of her life, not only permitted but required and delighted
in, have been adverted to by all the writers who have made her reign and
character their theme: and those of the number whom admiration and pity
of the fair queen of Scots have rendered hostile to her memory, have
taken a malicious pleasure in exaggerating the extravagance of this
weakness, by denying her, even in her freshest years, all pretensions to
those personal charms by which her rival was so eminently,
distinguished. Others however have been more favorable, and probably
more just, to her on this point; and it would be an injury to her memory
to withhold from the reader the following portraitures which authorize
us to form a pleasing as well as majestic image of this illustrious
female at the period of her accession and at the age of five-and-twenty.
"She was a lady of great beauty, of decent stature, and of an excellent
shape. In her youth she was adorned with a more than usual maiden
modesty; her skin was of pure white, and her hair of a yellow colour;
her eyes were beautiful and lively. In short, her whole body was well
made, and her face was adorned with a wonderful and sweet beauty and
majesty. This beauty lasted till her middle age, though it
declined[31]." &c.
[Note 31: Bohun's "Character of Queen Elizabeth."]
"She was of personage tall, of hair and complexion fair, and therewith
well favored, but high-nosed; of limbs and feature neat, and, which
added to the lustre of those exterior graces, of stately and majestic
comportment; participating in this more of her father than her mother,
who was of an inferior allay, plausible, or, as the French hath it, more
debonaire and affable, virtues which might suit well with majesty, and
which descending as hereditary to the daughter, did render her of a more
sweeter temper and endeared her more to the love and liking of her
people, who gave her the name and fame of a most gracious and popular
prince[32]."
[Note 32: Naunton's "Fragmenta Regalia."]
The death of Mary was announced to the two houses, which were then
sitting, by Heath bishop of Ely, the lord-chancellor. In both
assemblies, after the decorum of a short pause, the notification was
followed by joyful shouts of "God save queen Elizabeth! long and happily
may she reign!" and with great alacrity the members issued out to
proclaim the new sovereign before the palace in Westminster and again at
the great cross in Cheapside.
The Londoners knew not how to contain their joy on this happy
occasion:--the bells of all the churches were set ringing, bonfires were
kindled, and tables were spread in the streets according to the
bountiful and hospitable custom of that day, "where was plentiful
eating, drinking, and making merry." On the following Sunday _Te Deum_
was sung in the churches; probably an unexampled, however merited,
expression of disrespect to the memory of the former sovereign.
Elizabeth received the news of her own accession at Hatfield. We are not
told that she affected any great concern for the loss of her sister,
much less did any unbecoming sign of exultation escape her; but,
"falling on her knees, after a good time of respiration she uttered this
verse of the Psalms; _A Domino factum est istud, et est mirabile oculis
nostris_[33]: which to this day we find on the stamp of her gold; with
this on her silver, _Posui Deum adjutorem meum_[34]."[35]
[Note 33: It is the Lord's doing, it is marvellous in our eyes.]
[Note 34: I have chosen God for my helper.]
[Note 35: "Fragmenta Regalia."]
Several noblemen of the late queen's council now repairing to her, she
held at Hatfield on November the 20th her first privy-council; at which
she declared sir Thomas Parry comptroller of her household, sir Edward
Rogers captain of the guard, and sir William Cecil principal secretary
of state, all three being at the same time admitted to the
council-board. From these appointments, the first of her reign, some
presages might be drawn of her future government favorable to her own
character and correspondent to the wishes of her people.
Parry was the person who had filled for many years the office of her
cofferer, who was perfectly in the secret of whatever confidential
intercourse she might formerly have held with the lord-admiral, and
whose fidelity to her in that business had stood firm against all the
threats of the protector and council, and the artifices of those by whom
his examination had been conducted. That mindfulness of former services,
of which the advancement of this man formed by no means a solitary
instance in the conduct of Elizabeth, appeared the more commendable in
her, because she accompanied it with a generous oblivion of the many
slights and injuries to which her defenceless and persecuted condition
had so long exposed her from others.
The merit of Cecil was already in part known to the public; and his
promotion to an office of such importance was a happy omen for the
protestant cause, his attachment to which had been judged the sole
impediment to his advancement under the late reign to situations of
power and trust corresponding with the opinion entertained of his
integrity and political wisdom. A brief retrospect of the scenes of
public life in which he had already been an actor will best explain the
character and sentiments of this eminent person, destined to wield for
more than forty years with unparalleled skill and felicity, under a
mistress who knew his value, the energies of the English state.
Born, in 1520, the son of the master of the royal wardrobe, Cecil early
engaged the notice of Henry VIII. by the fame of a religious dispute
which he had held in Latin with two popish priests attached to the Irish
chieftain O'Neal. A place in reversion freely bestowed on him by the
king at once rewarded the zeal of the young polemic, and encouraged him
to desert the profession of the law, in which he had embarked, for the
political career.
His marriage with the sister of sir John Cheke strengthened his interest
at court by procuring him an introduction to the earl of Hertford, and
early in the reign of Edward this powerful patronage obtained for him
the office of secretary of state. In the first disgrace of the protector
he lost his place, and was for a short time a prisoner in the Tower; but
his compliant conduct soon restored him to favor: he scrupled not to
draw the articles of impeachment against the protector; and
Northumberland, finding him both able in business and highly acceptable
to the young monarch, procured, or permitted, his reinstatement in
office in September 1550.
Cecil, however, was both too wary and too honest to regard himself as
pledged to the support of Northumberland's inordinate schemes of
ambition; and scarcely any public man of the day, attached to the
protestant cause, escaped better in the affair of lady Jane Grey. It is
true that one writer accuses him of having drawn all the papers in her
favor: but this appears to be, in part at least, either a mistake or a
calumny; and it seems, on the contrary, that he refused to
Northumberland some services of this nature. It has been already
mentioned that his name appeared with those of the other
privy-councillors to Edward's settlement of the crown; and his plea of
having signed it merely as a witness to the king's signature, deserves
to be regarded as a kind of subterfuge. But he was early in paying his
respects to Mary, and he took advantage of the graciousness with which
she received his explanations to obtain a general pardon, which
protected him from all personal danger. He lost however his place of
secretary, which some have affirmed that he might have retained by
further compliances in religion. This however is the more doubtful,
because it cannot be questioned that he must have yielded a good deal on
this point, without which he neither could nor would have made one of a
deputation sent to conduct to England cardinal Pole the papal legate,
nor probably would he have been joined in commission with the cardinal
and other persons sent to treat of a peace with France.
But admitting, as we must, that this eminent statesman was far from
aspiring to the praise of a confessor, he will still be found to deserve
high commendation for the zeal and courage with which, as a member of
parliament, he defended the interests of his oppressed and suffering
fellow-protestants. At considerable hazard to himself, he opposed with
great freedom of speech a bill for confiscating the property of exiles
for religion; and he appears to have escaped committal to the Tower on
this account, solely by the presence of mind which he exhibited before
the council and the friendship of some of its members.
He is known to have maintained a secret and intimate correspondence with
Elizabeth during the time of her adversity, and to have assisted her on
various trying occasions with his salutary counsels; and nothing could
be more interesting than to trace the origin and progress of that
confidential relation between these eminent and in many respects
congenial characters, which after a long course of years was only
terminated by the hand of death;--but materials for this purpose are
unfortunately wanting.
The letters on both sides were probably sacrificed by the parties
themselves to the caution which their situation required; and among the
published extracts from the Burleigh papers, only a single document is
found relative to the connexion subsisting between them during the reign
of Mary. This is a short and uninteresting letter addressed to Cecil by
sir Thomas Benger, one of the princess's officers, in which, after some
mention of accounts, not now intelligible, he promises that he and sir
Thomas Parry will move the princess to grant his correspondent's
request, which is not particularized, and assures him that as his coming
thither would be thankfully received, so he wishes that all the friends
of the princess entertained the same sense of that matter as he does.
The letter seems to point at some official concern of Cecil in the
affairs of Elizabeth. It is dated October 24th 1556.
The private character of Cecil was in every respect exemplary, and his
disposition truly amiable. His second marriage with one of the learned
daughters of sir Anthony Cook conferred upon him that exalted species of
domestic happiness which a sympathy in mental endowments can alone
bestow; whilst it had the further advantage of connecting him with the
excellent man her father, with sir Nicholas Bacon and sir Thomas Hobby,
the husbands of two of her sisters, and generally with the wisest and
most conscientious supporters of the protestant interest. This great
minister was honorably distinguished through life by an ardor and
constancy of friendship rare in all classes of men, but esteemed
peculiarly so in those whose lives are occupied amid the heartless
ceremonial of courts and the political intrigues of princes. His
attachments, as they never degenerated into the weakness of favoritism,
were as much a source of benefit to his country as of enjoyment to
himself; for his friends were those of virtue and the state. And there
were few among the more estimable public men of this reign who were not
indebted either for their first introduction to the notice of Elizabeth,
their continuance in her favor, or their restoration to it when
undeservedly lost, to the generous patronage or powerful intercession of
Cecil.
On appointing him a member of her council, the queen addressed her
secretary in the following gracious words:
"I give you this charge, that you shall be of my privy-council, and
content yourself to take pains for me and my realm. This judgement I
have of you, that you will not be corrupted with any gift, and that you
will be faithful to the state, and that, without respect of my private
will, you will give me that counsel that you think best: And that if you
shall know any thing necessary to be declared to me of secrecy, you
shall show it to myself only, and assure yourself I will not fail to
keep taciturnity therein. And therefore herewith I charge you[36]."
[Note 36: "Nugae Antiquae."]
Cardinal Pole was not doomed to be an eye-witness of the relapse of the
nation into what he must have regarded as heresy of the most aggravated
nature; he expired a few hours after his royal kinswoman: and Elizabeth,
with due consideration for the illustrious ancestry, the learning, the
moderation, and the blameless manners of the man, authorized his
honorable interment at Canterbury among the archbishops his
predecessors, with the attendance of two bishops, his ancient friends
and the faithful companions of his long exile.
On November 23d the queen set forward for her capital, attended by a
train of about a thousand nobles, knights, gentlemen, and ladies, and
took up her abode for the present at the dissolved monastery of the
Chartreux, or Charterhouse, then the residence of lord North; a splendid
pile which offered ample accommodation for a royal retinue. Her next
remove, in compliance with ancient custom, was to the Tower. On this
occasion all the streets from the Charterhouse were spread with fine
gravel; singers and musicians were stationed by the way, and a vast
concourse of people freely lent their joyful and admiring acclamations,
as preceded by her heralds and great officers, and richly attired in
purple velvet, she passed along mounted on her palfrey, and returning
the salutations of the humblest of her subjects with graceful and
winning affability.
With what vivid and what affecting impressions of the vicissitudes
attending on the great must she have passed again within the antique
walls of that fortress once her dungeon, now her palace! She had entered
it by the Traitor's gate, a terrified and defenceless prisoner, smarting
under many wrongs, hopeless of deliverance, and apprehending nothing
less than an ignominious death. She had quitted it, still a captive,
under the guard of armed men, to be conducted she knew not whither. She
returned to it in all the pomp of royalty, surrounded by the ministers
of her power, ushered by the applauses of her people; the cherished
object of every eye, the idol of every heart.
Devotion alone could supply becoming language to the emotions which
swelled her bosom; and no sooner had she reached the royal apartments,
than falling on her knees she returned humble and fervent thanks to that
Providence which had brought her in safety, like Daniel from the den of
lions, to behold this day of exaltation.
Elizabeth was attended on her passage to the Tower by one who like
herself returned with honor to that place of his former captivity; but
not, like herself, with a mind disciplined by adversity to receive with
moderation and wisdom "the good vicissitude of joy." This person was
lord Robert Dudley, whom the queen had thus early encouraged to aspire
to her future favors by appointing him to the office of master of the
horse.
We are totally uninformed of the circumstances which had recommended to
her peculiar patronage this bad son of a bad father; whose enterprises,
if successful, would have disinherited of a kingdom Elizabeth herself no
less than Mary. But it is remarkable, that even under the reign of the
latter, the surviving members of the Dudley family had been able to
recover in great measure from the effects of their late signal reverses.
Lord Robert, soon after his release from the Tower, contrived to make
himself so acceptable to king Philip by his courtier-like attentions,
and to Mary by his diligence in posting backwards and forwards to bring
her intelligence of her husband during his long visits to the continent,
that he earned from the latter several marks of favor. Two of his
brothers fought, and one fell, in the battle of St. Quintin's; and
immediately afterwards the duchess their mother found means, through
some Spanish interests and connexions, to procure the restoration in
blood of all her surviving children. The appointment of Robert to the
place of master of the ordnance soon followed; so that even before the
accession of Elizabeth he might be regarded as a rising man in the
state. His personal graces and elegant accomplishments are on all hands
acknowledged to have been sufficiently striking to dazzle the eyes and
charm the heart of a young princess of a lively imagination and absolute
mistress of her own actions. The circumstance of his being already
married, blinded her perhaps to the nature of her sentiments towards
him, or at least it was regarded by her as a sufficient sanction in the
eyes of the public for those manifestations of favor and esteem with
which she was pleased to honor him. But whether the affection which she
entertained for him best deserved the name of friendship or a still
tenderer one, seems after all a question of too subtile and obscure a
nature for sober discussion; though in a French "_cour d'amour_" it
might have furnished pleas and counterpleas of exquisite ingenuity,
prodigious sentimental interest, and length interminable. What is
unfortunately too certain is, that he was a favorite, and in the common
judgement of the court, of the nation, and of posterity, an unworthy
one; but calumny and prejudice alone have dared to attack the
reputation of the queen.
Elizabeth had no propensity to exalt immoderately her relations by the
mother's side;--for she neither loved nor honored that mother's memory;
but several of the number may be mentioned, whose merits towards
herself, or whose qualifications for the public service, justly entitled
them to share in her distribution of offices and honors, and whom she
always treated with distinction. The whole illustrious family of the
Howards were her relations; and in the first year of her reign she
conferred on the duke of Norfolk, her second-cousin, the order of the
garter. Her great-uncle lord William Howard, created baron of Effingham
by Mary, was continued by her in the high office of lord-chamberlain,
and soon after appointed one of the commissioners for concluding a peace
with France. Lord Thomas Howard, her mother's first-cousin, who had
treated her with distinguished respect and kindness on her arrival at
Hampton Court from Woodstock, and had the further merit of being
indulgent to protestants during the persecutions of Mary, received from
her the title of viscount Bindon, and continued much in her favor to the
end of his days.
Sir Richard Sackville, also her mother's first-cousin, had filled
different fiscal offices under the three last reigns; he was a man of
abilities, and derived from a long line of ancestors great estates and
extensive influence in the county of Sussex. The people, who marked his
growing wealth, and to whom he was perhaps officially obnoxious,
nicknamed him Fill-sack: in Mary's time he was a catholic, a
privy-councillor, and chancellor of the court of Augmentations; under
her successor he changed the first designation and retained the two
last, which he probably valued more. He is chiefly memorable as the
father of Sackville the poet, afterwards lord Buckhurst and progenitor
of the dukes of Dorset.
Sir Francis Knolles, whose lady was one of the queen's nearest
kinswomen, was deservedly called to the privy-council on his return from
his voluntary banishment for conscience' sake; his sons gained
considerable influence in the court of Elizabeth; his daughter, the
mother of Essex, and afterwards the wife of Leicester, was for various
reasons long an object of the queen's particular aversion.
But of all her relations, the one who had deserved most at her hands was
Henry Carey, brother to lady Knolles, and son to Mary Boleyn, her
majesty's aunt. This gentleman had expended several thousand pounds of
his own patrimony in her service and relief during the time of her
imprisonment, and she liberally requited his friendship at her first
creation of peers, by conferring upon him, with the title of baron
Hunsdon, the royal residence of that name, with its surrounding park and
several beneficial leases of crown lands. He was afterwards joined in
various commissions and offices of trust: but his remuneration was, on
the whole, by no means exorbitant; for he was not rapacious, and
consequently not importunate; and the queen, in the employments which
she assigned him, seemed rather to consult her own advantage and that of
her country, by availing herself of the abilities of a diligent and
faithful servant, than to please herself by granting rewards to an
affectionate and generous kinsman. In fact, lord Hunsdon was skilled as
little in the ceremonious and sentimental gallantry which she required
from her courtiers, as in the circumspect and winding policy which she
approved in her statesmen. "As he lived in a ruffling time," says
Naunton, "so he loved sword and buckler men, and such as our fathers
wont to call men of their hands, of which sort he had many brave
gentlemen that followed him; yet not taken for a popular or dangerous
person." Though extremely choleric, he was honest, and not at all
malicious. It was said of him that "his Latin and his dissimulation were
both alike," equally bad, and that "his custom in swearing and obscenity
in speech made him seem a worse Christian than he was."
Fuller relates of him the following characteristic anecdote. "Once, one
Mr. Colt chanced to meet him coming from Hunsdon to London, in the
equipage of a lord of those days. The lord, on some former grudge, gave
him a box on the ear: Colt presently returned the principal with
interest; and thereupon his servants drawing their swords, swarmed about
him. 'You rogues,' said my lord, 'may not I and my neighbour change a
blow but you must interpose?' Thus the quarrel was begun and ended in
the same minute[37]."
[Note 37: "Worthies" in Herts.]
The queen's attachment to such of her family as she was pleased to
honor with her notice, was probably the more constant because there was
nothing in it of excess or of blindness:--even Leicester in the height
of his favor felt that he must hold sacred their claims to her regard:
according to Naunton's phrase, he used to say of Sackville and Hunsdon,
"that they were of the tribe of Dan, and were Noli me tangere's."
After a few days spent in the Tower, Elizabeth passed by water to
Somerset Place; and thence, about a fortnight after, when the funeral of
her predecessor was over, to the palace of Westminster, where she kept
her Christmas.
Busy preparation was now making in her good city of London against the
solemn day of her passage in state from the Tower to her coronation at
Westminster. The usages and sentiments of that age conferred upon these
public ceremonials a character of earnest and dignified importance now
lost; and on this memorable occasion, when the mingled sense of
deliverance received and of future favor to be conciliated had opened
the hearts of all men, it was resolved to lavish in honor of the new
sovereign every possible demonstration of loyal affection, and every
known device of festal magnificence.
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._]