things about these magic visits, as Betty had of course noticed,
was that they were able to whisk from one place to another in a few
seconds, instead of having to walk a long way to reach different parts
of London.
“Are we going over to Southwark?” she asked, when they were half-way
across the Bridge.
“Yes, but before we get there I must explain what we are going to see,
and find out how much you know about the great men who are living now
in this sixteenth century with Elizabeth reigning. We’ll sit down in
the porch of the Chapel of St. Thomas.”
“This is where we sat before, two hundred years ago, when Richard the
Second was king,” murmured Betty.
“And there are the English people still coming and going over London
Bridge as almost in the same place they come and go in our own century
to-day! People of the same character,—the descendants of those men
and women we saw in the fourteenth century, and of these we see now in
their doublets and hose, their ruffs and hoops. It’s only their dress
that changes after all,” said Godmother, as though speaking to herself.
“The Great War has proved that.... But I mustn’t forget we are in the
sixteenth century now, and not the twentieth,” she added, smiling, “and
you shall tell me, Betty, the names of some of the great men who are
either living in London now, or at least often come to it.”
“Well, Sir Francis Drake, and Sir John Hawkins, and Sir Walter
Raleigh,” began Betty, thinking hard.
“Yes, those are three of the great sailors. Now let us have some of the
great writers.”
“Shakespeare, and Kit Marlowe, and——” Betty hesitated. “Oh yes,
Edmund Spenser and Ben Jonson, and——”
Godmother nodded. “There are many more, but let us keep to the four men
you’ve mentioned. Out of those four, three of them are play-writers,
Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Ben Jonson. When you see a Shakespeare play
now, you go to a big theatre, don’t you, where according to what you
can afford, you sit either in the stalls or dress circle, or upper
circle, or pit, or gallery? Facing you, is a large stage, with scenery
arranged to represent the different scenes of the play as they pass,
and sometimes this scenery is very beautiful. Curtains go up and down
to hide, or to reveal the stage at the right moments, and the audience
sits in comfort in what is often a fine building.”
“Yes,” said Betty, nodding her head.
“Now, remembering our modern theatres, come and see the places in which
Shakespeare’s plays are acted in this sixteenth century in which we
find ourselves!”
They went on over the bridge to that part of Southwark lying along the
shore of the river, which is now called Bankside. But instead of the
modern warehouses and breweries lining the river, with the streets of
South London stretching away and away beyond, Betty saw only a single
row of small gabled houses along the top of a mound.
“Before that bank was thrown up, all the ground on this south side of
the river was under water at high tide,” explained Godmother. “Now, as
you see, meadows and gardens stretch behind these houses and it is all
fertile land.”
“What are those funny-looking buildings dotted about in the fields?”
Betty asked. “I don’t mean the inns, because I remember them, from the
time of Richard the Second. There’s the _Tabard_, where we saw the
pilgrims. But there are two or three buildings sticking up like towers.
Do you see?”
“Those are the theatres. Come and see one of them. We’ll go into one
that has just been built—_The Globe_, as it is called.”
Betty followed the old lady wonderingly as she led the way to the
right, along a path by the river till they came close to a curious,
tall, six-sided building. Over its door was an inscription in Latin.
“What does it mean?” Betty asked, as she gazed at this strange
“theatre.”
“Well, we may translate it ‘_All the world’s a stage_.’”
“Why, that’s in ‘Shakespeare!’”
“Yes, and no doubt Shakespeare had that very inscription in mind when
he wrote the line a few years ago—remember we are in Elizabeth’s
reign!—in _As you Like It_.”
“Are they acting now? The play can’t have begun yet. There’s such a
noise going on inside.”
Betty glanced about her at the crowd entering the theatre. Every now
and then a boat rowed across from the opposite shore, would land a
company of richly-dressed young men who, laughing and swaggering,
pushed their way through the throng and went into the building.
“We’ll go too,” said Godmother.
In a moment Betty found herself in a round wooden place, part of which
was open to the sky, though the stage facing her, was protected by an
overhanging thatched roof. Three galleries, one above the other, ran
round the theatre, and these were thronged with people. On the stage,
which jutted out into the open-air part of the building, another
smaller stage was set with a gallery above it, filled with musicians
in funny tall hats trimmed with ribbons. Some young men were sitting
actually on the stage itself, while the poorer people stood in the
open space in front of it, with nothing but the sky above their heads.
There was a perfect babel of noise, for hawkers were moving about
calling nuts and ale and apples to sell, the young gallants on the
stage were playing at dice and quarrelling, and the whole place seemed
in confusion. Then there was a flourish of trumpets from the musicians’
gallery and suddenly everything was quiet.
“There have been two trumpet sounds before we came in,” Godmother
explained. “This third one means that the play is going to begin.”
“I know what it is,” whispered Betty. “I saw some funny little
play-bills on the door outside. It’s _Richard the Second_—and that’s
all about the very reign we were in when we came to old London last
time!”
Her eyes were now fixed on the stage, which was hung round with
curtains, and strewn with green rushes. There was no scenery except one
roughly-painted canvas stretched across the back of the smaller stage,
above which, on a board, was written _King Richard’s Palace_.
“That was _Westminster_, wasn’t it?” whispered Betty, just as King
Richard himself, John of Gaunt and a train of nobles walked on to the
stage, and the King began his first speech.
“_Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured, Lancaster_——”
“But they’re none of them dressed a bit like the people they’re meant
to be,” she objected. “They’re wearing the same sort of clothes as the
people in the audience have on!”
“Yes, the Elizabethans don’t trouble about that,” Godmother replied,
“and neither right costume nor proper scenery makes good acting, you
know. If we had time to stay and listen, we should hear this play very
well acted. Do you notice how breathlessly quiet the audience is?”
Betty followed her guide reluctantly out of this strange theatre,
looking back at the curtain-hung stage, with the young men in their
short velvet cloaks, seated on stools close to the players, at the
crowd standing in the open space under the blue sky, and at the
circular galleries thronged with people.
“So that’s how the theatres we go to now, began, I suppose?” she asked.
“Not quite. Even that rough, simple sort of building we’ve just left is
an advance upon what the grandfathers of these people saw in the way
of stage performances. Till the Globe, and one or two other theatres
(which I’ll show you in a minute) were built, a few years ago, the
plays were acted in the courtyards of inns. Let us come into the yard
of this one, and I’ll explain.”
They went under an archway, and found themselves outside the Falcon Inn.
“There,” said Godmother, pointing to the wooden galleries into which
the rooms of the tavern opened. “Inns like this one, were the first
theatres. The stage was a number of boards laid upon trestles, and
placed at the end of the courtyard. The poorer people stood here where
we are standing, in the middle of the yard, and from the galleries,
the richer people looked on. You see how the same sort of arrangement
goes on in the new Globe theatre, only it is built in a _circle_,
instead of in a square, and the stage at least, is protected from
the weather by a roof. If you think of any theatre in our own day,
you will see that there’s more than a memory in it, of these inns,
and that rough building from which we’ve just come. The _pit_ is the
yard, or open space. The Dress Circle and ‘Gallery’ correspond to the
galleries round the inn, or round a building like the _Globe_. So the
most modern up-to-date play-house in _our_ century is really only the
great-great-grandchild of the play-house in Elizabeth’s day!”
“And even before _her_ time there were the miracle plays, where at
least there was a stage and actors,” said Betty. “Do they still act
miracle plays, now, in this sixteenth century?”
Godmother shook her head. “Not often. The people, you see, are better
educated now, and have grown out of them—especially as they have
splendid stirring plays written by great men who are alive amongst
them, like Shakespeare and Marlowe and Ben Jonson. We may have learnt
how to make fine scenery and luxurious theatres in our day, but we
can’t write plays like William Shakespeare’s. By the way,” she added,
“he lives over here in Southwark, not far from the great church of St.
Saviour’s. He hasn’t yet left London to go back to his old home in
Stratford-on-Avon.”
“I do hope we shall see him!” Betty exclaimed.... “What are these other
buildings along the river, Godmother?”
“Some of them are theatres, more or less like the Globe, with pretty
names such as the _Rose_ and the _Swan_. That place some way farther
up, where you see a crowd of people and a few roofs, is the famous
Paris-Gardens, where poor wretched bears are kept, and baited for
the people’s amusement. A horrible so-called sport! But the rich
young noblemen enjoy the sight quite as much as the roughs do, and
Paris-Gardens is a very fashionable place of amusement.”
“But they have to come over the river to it every time,” Betty
observed. “I wonder why all the theatres and amusements were put here,
and not close to where the rich people live?”
“There’s a reason for that. In London there’s a very strong party,
growing every year stronger, called the Puritan party. These men hate
the theatre, and think all amusement ‘godless,’ and as many of them
are men who manage city affairs, they won’t allow theatres in London
itself. But here in Southwark, they have no power, so that’s why the
theatres are over on this south side of the river, where the Puritans
can’t prevent them from being built.”
“Queen Elizabeth isn’t like that, though, is she? Like the Puritans, I
mean?”
“Not a bit,” laughed Godmother. “She loves every kind of amusement,
acting and dancing especially. She dances herself, though she’s getting
quite old. You remind me that now we’ve seen something of the life of
the people in their business and pleasure, we must also take a glimpse
of the Court and of the men and women surrounding the Queen. Not that
she shuts herself away from her subjects. Far from it. Never was there
a queen so popular as ‘Good Queen Bess!’ Every time she moves from one
place to another there is a triumphal procession. To-day, for instance,
she is coming back from her palace at Greenwich, which is down the
river there, and she will ride in state through the Chepe.”
“Oh! can’t we see her?” Betty implored.
“Certainly we will.”
They hastened over the bridge, and much more quickly than they could
have made the journey in what Betty called _un_-magic time, found
themselves somehow or other seated at a window overlooking the Chepe.
The market-place below was gaily decorated and crowded by eager people.
Soon cheers announced that the Queen was in sight, and in a moment or
two she passed the window from which they were leaning, riding on a
white horse covered with splendid trappings. A very handsome young man
dressed in white and silver, with a blue velvet cloak flung back from
his shoulder, led the horse by the bridle.
“That’s the Earl of Essex,” Godmother said. “The Queen’s present
favourite.”
Betty glanced at him admiringly, and then at the Queen, who was
gorgeous in velvet and jewels, her long cloak falling in heavy folds
about her. She wore a red frizzled wig, and her face was lined and old.
Evidently the people loved her, for they cheered themselves hoarse, and
as she passed, fell on their knees in the road. Every now and then, in
answer to their shouts of welcome, she bowed and exclaimed in a clear
voice, “Thank ye, my good people!” Following her came a crowd of pretty
ladies, some in litters, others on horseback, and all beautifully
dressed in white.
[Illustration]
“Those are the Maids of Honour,” Godmother explained, “and
these”—as a train of gallant noblemen rode by—“are the courtiers who
always travel about with the Queen.”
[Illustration: THE ROYAL BARGE]
“She’s going to the palace of Westminster, I suppose?” Betty inquired.
“No. Don’t you remember I told you that the kings and queens of England
no longer live there? Since we last saw London, a great new palace has
risen—the Palace of Whitehall.”
“We drove down Whitehall this morning!”
“We did. And if you remember, I told you to imagine all the houses
on the left of it swept away so that the river could be seen. Well,
the Whitehall Palace in which Queen Elizabeth lives part of the year,
covers all the ground between St. James’s Park and the Thames, as you
will see in a moment. The Queen will ride down to the river now, and
finish the journey by water, so let us follow her.”
The procession was out of sight by this time, but when Betty reached
the river, she saw the Queen just stepping into a huge painted and
gilded boat, drawn up against one of the landing stages.
“That’s the royal barge,” Godmother told her. “It’s been waiting there
for her. We’ll get into this little boat and follow it up to Whitehall.
Little does our waterman know that he will have two invisible
passengers to row!”
Betty laughed as she sprang into the boat. It was the first time
to-day that she had been on the river, and she could scarcely contain
her delight at the beauty of the scene. On the surface of the clear
sparkling water, floated numberless barges following the splendid one
in which the Queen, her Maids of Honour, and several courtiers were
seated. The barges were painted with bright colours and had gilded
prows, and brilliant canopies of silk were stretched above them. Swans
with snowy wings circled round the barges, from many of which came the
sound of music and singing.
Looking back, she saw London Bridge with its quaint houses clinging to
it like limpets, and the throngs of people leaning from the windows
watching the crowded procession of boats moving towards Whitehall.
“Oh, Godmother, if only the river looked like this _now_—in our time,
I mean! All bright and clear, with no smoke about, and with all these
beautiful barges on it!”
“Yes, as you see, in Queen Elizabeth’s day people use the river as the
means of getting from one part of London to another. It is the great
water road of the city, and in this age, one takes a boat, or enters a
barge—instead of a taxi or an omnibus.”
“There are ever so many more great houses on the banks than there were
in Richard the Second’s time,” Betty exclaimed, looking at the splendid
mansions, each one standing in its own garden, stretching in a line
along the Strand. The Strand, however, she noticed was still more or
less of a country road, with fields and orchards at the back of it.
“The Savoy Palace still stands, you see,” Godmother said, “though
it has been rebuilt. That great pile not far from it with the round
towers, is Durham House, where Lady Jane Grey was born. Elizabeth has
lately given it to Sir Walter Raleigh, the famous sailor and writer. He
has a little study up in that turret.”
“He’s one of Elizabeth’s favourites, isn’t he? Oh yes, it was Walter
Raleigh who once put down his cloak for the Queen to walk on. What a
lovely view over the river he must have from his study.”
“That’s York House,” Godmother went on, pointing to the next mansion,
“and there lives another famous man of Elizabeth’s day, Sir Francis
Bacon. Later on, in the next reign, it will be the home of the great
Duke of Buckingham, and there’s still a tiny bit left of it in our own
day, which you can see when you turn down out of the Strand to go to
Charing Cross Underground Station.”
“I know! A big stone gate?”
Godmother nodded. “Which of course at that time stood at the edge of
the water. It was the Water Gate to the Duke of Buckingham’s palace.
But to-day of course we shall not see it, for it isn’t yet built. We’ve
passed Somerset House, but——”
“Somerset House?” interrupted Betty. “_That’s_ still standing anyway!
The front of it is in the Strand, and the back looks over the river,
doesn’t it? Why, King’s College is part of Somerset House, and people I
know, go there for examinations!”
“Yes. Somerset House still stands, and is a fine place, but it has
all been rebuilt in quite a different style from the house we’ve just
passed.” There was a moment’s silence before Godmother said: “Here
is the royal landing-place for Whitehall! The Queen and her train
of attendants have gone up the steps into the palace, which, by the
way, you mustn’t think of as one big house, but rather as a number
of separate buildings, scattered over the ground where now stand all
the big Government offices like the Foreign Office, the Home Office,
the Colonial Office, where, in our day, the business of governing our
country is done. Elizabeth’s father, Henry the Eighth, has not long ago
added to, and rebuilt much of the palace which he took from his famous
minister, Cardinal Wolsey. Whitehall belonged to Wolsey before he fell
into disgrace, and King Henry was only too glad to get such a splendid
palace. You can see from here, the line of a great hall he added to it.
It’s there that some of the masques of which his daughter Elizabeth is
so fond, are often acted.”
“Masques? What are they?” Betty inquired. “Aren’t we going to see the
palace?” she went on in the same breath.
“I think we’ll leave the palace till the next of our magic visits to
London, when we shall see it at the height of its glory. We can land
here though, and sit in this part of the royal garden while I tell you
something about the Court Masques.”
Betty followed her godmother up some steps from the landing-stage, and
sat down beside her on a marble bench behind which ran a yew hedge,
shutting off the view of the palace beyond.
“Let me see if I can guess where we are now, if we were back in our own
time, I mean,” she began. “I suppose this shady walk would be the part
of the Victoria Embankment near Westminster Bridge?”
“That’s about right,” agreed Godmother approvingly. “Right and left of
us we should see bridges crossing the river where now we see none at
all. For London Bridge is out of sight, and that’s the only one that
yet exists.
“But now let me tell you a little about the Court Masques.... You saw
how very roughly and simply the splendid plays of Shakespeare and
the other play-writers, are performed in the newly-built theatres on
Bankside? Well, there’s nothing rough or simple about the performances
called _masques_ which take place sometimes in the palace yonder,
sometimes in one or other of the beautiful halls of the great houses
scattered about the city. These masques are not true plays. They are
generally little scenes written for special occasions—the Queen’s
birthday perhaps, or the anniversary of the day she came to the throne,
for instance. They are usually written in the form of an allegory,
in which such figures as Justice, Mercy, or Love appear. But they
are presented with the utmost magnificence in the way of dresses and
scenery, and beautiful surroundings, and it has become the fashion
for the great noblemen as well as the Queen to keep companies of
well-trained actors ready to perform whenever a masque or a play is
to be given at Court. The Queen has groups of children trained to act
in these masques, some of which are written by true poets, like Ben
Jonson, and the scenery and costumes are designed by true artists.
Inigo Jones is one of them. But the best of the masques written by Ben
Jonson and ‘produced,’ as we say, in our century, by Inigo Jones, will
be given in a few years’ time, when James the First is king. I want you
to remember, however, that the sixteenth century is the great time for
plays of all sorts. We saw how the theatres on Bankside were crowded.
Everywhere, not only in the theatres, but in private houses, and public
halls, acting is going on, and plays are being written to meet the
taste for it. This is the great age of the drama and London is full of
geniuses who are play-writers and poets.”
“Oh! I think it’s even more interesting than the last time we saw
it—in the Middle Ages,” Betty declared, as they stepped again into the
boat whose waterman seemed to have been waiting for them. “I should
love to stay in Queen Elizabeth’s London for weeks.”
“We’ve only had a glimpse of it,” said Godmother, “but even this
glimpse is enough, I hope, to show you that London is full of life and
energy in the sixteenth century. Full of great men who love and are
proud of England, and have already made her a famous country. If we
had stayed longer just now at the Globe theatre where _King Richard
the Second_ was being played, we should have heard what Shakespeare
wrote this very year about England. He put his own thoughts about our
country into the mouth of the dying John of Gaunt, who calls England
‘this little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea,’ and,
later in his speech,
‘This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world ...
... England bound in by the triumphant sea.’
It is good to think that Shakespeare is living in London now, and has
been for many years a Londoner.”
“I do wish we could see him!” sighed Betty.
It was growing dusk. Lights were already twinkling from the windows of
the great houses on the Strand, but the last glow of sunset lingered
on the river, where the swans floated between the stately barges that
passed to and fro.
“‘_Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song_,’” quoted Godmother,
after a long silence.
“What is that?” Betty asked.
“It’s the line with which each verse of a beautiful poem ends. It was
written not long ago by Edmund Spenser, who is one of the great poets
of this marvellous time, and he composed it in honour of the marriage
of two girls, the ladies Elizabeth and Katherine Somerset. We are
passing their home,” replied Godmother, pointing to Somerset House.
“The Thames _is_ running softly,” said Betty, as they drew near to a
landing-stage on the Southwark side of London Bridge. “Isn’t it all
quiet?”
And indeed there was a strange hush everywhere. Even the boatman’s oars
made no sound as he drew them out of the water, and when they landed
and walked up a lane with a row of gabled houses on one side of it, the
people they passed, flitted by like ghosts.
It was nearly dark now, and only one dim lantern slung on a rope across
the lane showed the way. Every now and then, however, a man or boy
passed, carrying a lighted torch which flung a ruddy glare across the
road.
“We are passing St. Saviour’s Church,” said Betty, looking up at its
tower dark against the stars.
Just as she spoke, a man wrapped in a cloak hurried by, making no
sound, and entered a house opposite the church. The light from a torch
fell for a moment upon him, giving Betty a glimpse of him before he
closed the door.
[Illustration]
“That’s William Shakespeare,” whispered Godmother.
* * * * *
Betty rubbed her eyes.
“Oh! I’m so sorry to come back!” she exclaimed, glancing round the
parlour.
“To come _forward_, you mean,” Godmother corrected her, smiling. “We’ve
leapt more than three hundred years onwards since a second ago.”
“Can’t we go at once to Southwark while it’s all fresh in my mind?”
urged Betty. “I should like to see how that part of London where we’ve
just seen Shakespeare, looks now.”
“Very well. We can’t have the car out again, but we’ll go on the top
of an omnibus that runs over London Bridge, and you shall see all that
remains to be seen, of the Southwark Shakespeare knew when he lived
there.”
Rather more than half an hour later as they approached the south end of
the bridge, Godmother pointed to the right. “That’s where you saw the
Globe and the Rose theatres, and farther down the river, you remember
we saw in the distance Paris-Gardens.”