Branden, Duke of Suffolk, and daughter of Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset,
was a lady of an amiable person, an engaging disposition, and
accomplished parts; and being of an equal age with the late king [Edward
VI.], she had received all her education with him, and seemed to possess
greater facility in acquiring every part of manly and polite literature.
She had attained a similar knowledge of the Roman and Greek languages,
besides modern tongues; had passed most of her time in an application to
learning, and expressed a great indifference for other occupations and
amusements usual with her sex and station. Roger Ascham, tutor to the
Lady Elizabeth, having one day paid her a visit, found her employed in
reading Plato, while the rest of the party were engaged hunting in the
park; and on his admiring the singularity of her choice, she told him
that she received more pleasure from that author than the others could
reap from all their sport and gaiety.
Her heart, full of this passion for literature and the elegant arts, and
of tenderness towards her husband [Lord Guildford], who was deserving of
her affections, had never opened itself to the flattering allurements
of ambition, and the intelligence of her elevation to the throne was
nowise agreeable to her. She even refused to accept of the present;
pleaded the preferable title of the two princesses; expressed her dread
of the consequences attending an enterprise so dangerous, not to say
criminal; and desired to remain in the private station in which she was
born. Overcome at length by the entreaties rather than the reasons of
her father and father-in-law, and above all of her husband, she
submitted to their will, and was prevailed on to relinquish her own
judgment.
It was then usual for the kings of England, after their accession, to
pass their first days in the Tower, and Northumberland thither conveyed
the new sovereign. All the councillors were obliged to attend her to
that fortress, and by this means became in reality prisoners in the
hands of Northumberland, whose will they were necessitated to obey.
Orders were given by the council to proclaim Jane throughout the
kingdom, but their orders were executed only in London and the
neighbourhood. No applause ensued. The people heard the proclamation
with silence and concern; some even expressed their scorn and contempt;
and one Pot, a vintner's apprentice, was severely punished for this
offence. The Protestant teachers themselves, who were employed to
convince the people of Jane's title, found their eloquence fruitless;
and Ridley, Bishop of London, preached a sermon to that purpose, which
wrought no effect upon his audience.
After the defeat of Northumberland's and another rebellion, warning was
given the Lady Jane to prepare for death--a doom which she had long
expected, and which the innocence of her life, as well as the
misfortunes to which she had been exposed, rendered nowise unwelcome to
her. The queen's zeal, under colour of tender mercy to the prisoner's
soul, induced her to send divines, who harassed her with perpetual
disputations; and even a reprieve for three days was granted, in hopes
that she should be persuaded during that time to pay, by a timely
conversion, some regard to her eternal welfare. The Lady Jane had
presence of mind in those melancholy circumstances not only to defend
her religion by all the topics then in use, but also to write a letter
to her sister in the Greek language, in which, besides sending her a
copy of the Scriptures in that tongue, she exhorted her to maintain in
every feature a like steady perseverance.
It had been intended to execute the Lady Jane and Lord Guildford
together on the same scaffold at Tower Hill; but the council, dreading
the compassion of the people for their youth, beauty, innocence, and
noble birth, changed their orders, and gave directions that she should
be beheaded within the verge of the Tower. She saw her husband led to
execution, and, having given him from the window some token of
remembrance, she waited with tranquillity till her own appointed hour
should bring her to a like fate. She even saw his headless body carried
back in a cart, and found herself more confirmed by the reports which
she heard of the constancy of his end, than shaken by so tender and
melancholy a spectacle. Sir John Gage, constable of the Tower, when he
led her to execution, desired her to bestow on him some small present
which he might keep as a perpetual memorial of her. She gave him her
table-book, on which she had just written three sentences on seeing her
husband's dead body--one in Greek, another in Latin, a third in English.
On the scaffold she made a speech to the bystanders, in which the
mildness of her disposition led her to take the blame wholly on herself,
without uttering one complaint against the severity with which she had
been treated; that she justly deserved this punishment for being made
the instrument, though the unwilling instrument, of the ambition of
others; and that the story of her life, she hoped, might at least be
useful, by proving that innocence excuses not great misdeeds, if they
tend anywise to the destruction of the commonwealth. After uttering
these words, she caused herself to be disrobed by her women, and, with a
steady serene countenance, submitted herself to the executioner.
TARQUINIA MOLZA.
[1600.]
HILARION DE COSTE.
Camillas Molza, Knight of the Order of St James in Spain, who was son of
the great Frances Maria Molza of Modena, orator and excellent poet,
having remarked from her early years the bounty and excellence of her
spirit, sent her with her brothers to learn the principles of grammar.
John Politian, a native of Modena, very learned in all the sciences,
very virtuous, and of holy life, became her master. She apprehended also
the humane letters, learned to write well, and to compose correctly,
under the care of Lazarus Labadini, a celebrated grammarian of the time,
reducing his instruction to practice in elegant compositions in prose
and verse. She became well versed in the rhetoric of Aristotle under
Camillus Corcapini. The mathematician Antonio Guarini taught her the
knowledge of the sphere. She became intimately acquainted with poetry
under the famous philosopher Patricio, with logic and general philosophy
under P. Latoni, and also attained to an entire and perfect knowledge of
the Greek tongue. Rabi Abraham taught her the principles of the Hebrew
language, as her uncle had taught her before; the consequence of all
which was that, with her inclination to study so well observed by these
great men, she made such notable progress, that it became easy for her
to solve the most subtle questions in theology.
Nor did she stop here. John Maria Barbier, a man of great knowledge and
judgment, introduced her to the refinements of the Tuscan language, in
which she not only composed many elegant verses, but also many letters
and other works, much esteemed by the most accomplished and learned men
of Italy. With her more peculiar inventions, she mixed up a quantity of
translations of Greek and Latin works, in which she expressed so happily
and properly the thoughts of the authors, that she reduced the reader to
doubt whether she had not a better knowledge of these languages than of
her own. She afterwards applied herself to music, to entertain her and
divert her from more serious studies, and soon surpassed all the dames
who had been in use to sing with great applause, and to ravish the ears
with admiration. She acquired the conduct of her voice by the true rules
of books of the best authors, of whom many had the ambition to show her
something rare; and, while playing on instruments, she could join her
voice with such address and science as could not be equalled. And so
much did she excel in this, that Alfonso, the second Duke of Ferrara, a
judicious prince, and who had an extreme passion for all fair and good
things, was ravished with admiration, having found more of the
marvellous in this dame than he had looked for. A little afterwards she
instituted the celebrated concert of dames, who did her so much honour,
that they always called her into their company, that, by her presence,
she might perfect the choir she had formed.
[Having lost her husband, says Bayle, this admirable woman, though left
without children and still young, wished to remain unmarried; while her
grief was so remarkable, that she might have been compared to
Artemisia. She was by the senate and Roman people honoured with the
title of Incomparable, and invested by patent with the right of a Roman
citizen,--a privilege extended to the whole house of Molza.]
[Illustration: From a Painting at St. James's. 1580.
(reproduction of signature of Queen Mary)]
MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.
[BORN 1542. DIED 1587.]
ROBERTSON.
To all the charms of beauty and the utmost elegance of external form,
Mary added those accomplishments which render their impression
irresistible. Polite, affable, insinuating, sprightly, and capable of
speaking and writing with equal ease and dignity. Sudden, however, and
violent in all her attachments, because her heart was warm and
unsuspicious. Impatient of contradiction, because she had been
accustomed from her infancy to be treated as a queen. No stranger, on
some occasions, to dissimulation, which in that perfidious court where
she received her education was reckoned among the necessary arts of
government. Not insensible to flattery, or unconscious of that pleasure
with which almost every woman beholds the influence of her own beauty.
Formed with the qualities which we love, not with the talents that we
admire, she was an agreeable woman rather than an illustrious queen. The
vivacity of her spirit, not sufficiently tempered with sound judgment,
and the warmth of her heart, which was not at all times under the
restraint of discretion, betrayed her both into errors and into crimes.
To say that she was always unfortunate will not account for that long
and almost uninterrupted succession of calamities which befell her; we
must likewise add, that she was often imprudent. Her passion for Darnley
was rash, youthful, and excessive; and though the sudden transition to
the opposite extreme was the natural effect of her ill-requited love,
and of his ingratitude, insolence, and brutality, yet neither these nor
Bothwell's artful address and important services can justify her
attachments to that nobleman. Even the manners of the age, licentious as
they were, are no apology for this unhappy passion; nor can they induce
us to look on that tragical and infamous scene which followed upon it
with less abhorrence.
Humanity will draw a veil over this part of her character which it
cannot approve, and may perhaps prompt some to impute her actions to her
situation more than to her dispositions; and to lament the unhappiness
of the former, rather than accuse the perverseness of the latter. Mary's
sufferings exceed, both in degree and duration, those tragical
distresses which fancy has feigned to excite sorrow and commiseration;
and while we survey them, we are apt altogether to forget her frailties:
we think of her faults with less indignation, and approve of our tears,
as if they were shed for a person who had attained much nearer to pure
virtue.
With regard to the queen's person, a circumstance not to be omitted in
writing the history of a female reign, all contemporary authors agree in
ascribing to Mary the utmost beauty of countenance and elegance of shape
of which the human form is capable. Her hair was black, although,
according to the fashion of that age, she frequently wore borrowed
locks, and of different colours. Her eyes were a dark grey, her
complexion was exquisitely fine, and her hands and arms remarkably
delicate, both as to shape and colour. Her stature was of an height that
rose to the majestic. She danced, walked, and rode with equal grace.
Her taste for music was just; and she both sung and played upon the lute
with uncommon skill. Towards the end of her life, long confinement, and
the coldness of the houses in which she had been imprisoned, brought on
a rheumatism which often deprived her of the use of her limbs. No man,
says Brantome, ever beheld her person without admiration and love, or
will read her history without sorrow.
GABRIELLE D'ESTREES.
[1576.]
DAVENPORT ADAMS.
The most famous of the beauties of France, and whose renown is
inseparably associated with the glory of the most popular of the French
monarchs, was born at the Chateau de Coeuvres, near Soissons, in the
year 1576. Her father was a gallant soldier, who had deserved well of
his country, Antoine D'Estrees, Marquis de Coeuvres. At an early age
Gabrielle gave promise of a remarkable beauty, when time should have
developed the fair proportions, rounded the slender figure, and lent
expression to the radiant face. Though her mother was notorious for the
looseness of her life, the daughter showed a high sense of purity, and
her reserve was the despair of all the young nobles in her
neighbourhood. She reached the age of seventeen without knowing what it
was to love, and her heart was as innocent as her loveliness was without
blemish.
Shortly after the accession of Henri Quatre to his precarious throne, he
despatched on a mission to Monsieur D'Estrees the first gentleman of his
chamber, the handsome and accomplished Duke de Bellegarde. This
brilliant courtier gazed with wonder on the beauty so long concealed in
the obscurity of a feudal castle. Her tresses glowed with burnished
gold; her blue eyes sparkled with a dazzling fire, her complexion was
radiantly fair, her nose well shaped and aquiline, her mouth was well
fitted with pearly teeth, and her lips resembled the all-compelling bow
of the god of love. A stately throat, a gently swelling bust, a rounded
arm and slender hand--these completed the charms which a fascinating
address and natural elegance of movement rendered still more
irresistible.
Bellegarde saw and loved; nor was his evident devotion unpleasing to
Mademoiselle D'Estrees, who had never before encountered a cavalier so
handsome, so gallant, and so chivalrous. The course of true love seemed
with this fortunate twain to run most smoothly; for though Gabrielle had
been betrothed from her childhood to Andre de Brancas Sieur de Villars,
brother of the Marquis de Villars, who had married her elder sister
Juliette, the Marquis de Coeuvres could not resist his daughter's
entreaties, and consented to affiance her to the Duke de Bellegarde. He
was not, indeed, insensible to the advantages of an alliance with a
noble so powerful and wealthy, and who stood so high in the favour of
King Henry. The lovers exchanged rings in his presence; the duke
presented his lady-love with his portrait, and then returned to his
duties at court, where his engagement to an unknown beauty excited great
astonishment.
At this time Henri Quatre was holding his court at Mantes, and relieving
the sterner toils of empire by sharing in the banquet and the song. The
dames and demoiselles of Mantes were often the themes of the merry talk
of the jocund monarch and his courtiers, and much surprise was expressed
at the indifference with which the Duke de Bellegarde conducted himself
among them. They could not conceive that a country maiden could be any
worthy rival of the dazzling _dames de la cour_. The duke replied that
not one of them could hope to equal _la dame des ses pensees_, the
beautiful Gabrielle D'Estrees. Henry laughed at the lover's infatuation.
Bellegarde, piqued at his incredulity, invited him to accompany him to
the Chateau de Coeuvres. The king promised; and thus, as Mademoiselle
de Guise sagely observes, "the hopeful lover became the artificer of his
own misfortunes," for it was due to that ill-omened visit that he
perilled his happiness, and lost the favour of the king.
As the chateau was at no great distance from Senlis, where Henry
afterwards was, he and the courtiers rode hastily forward. Henry was
received with the welcome due to so brave a king; and the beautiful
Gabrielle did homage to him by kissing his hand, and proffered the
winecup for his refreshment. Her loveliness burst upon the astonished
monarch, as the glories of the new world broke on the dazzled eyes of
Columbus. Fresh, and pure, and unsophisticated, it took captive the
royal heart, and the memories of all former loves paled before the
fervency of this new passion. When he retired to Senlis, he summoned
thither the Marquis de Coeuvres and his daughter, under pretext that
the marquis might take his oaths as a member of the royal council. The
summons was most unacceptable to Gabrielle, who complained bitterly that
Henry's attentions sullied her maiden fame, while she grieved at the
popular rumour that her lover Bellegarde had been ensnared by the charms
of Mademoiselle de Guise. On her arrival at Senlis, she offered
Bellegarde to consent to a private marriage as the only means of evading
the "evil designs" of his majesty; but the duke was not chivalrous
enough to dare the royal wrath. The king persisted in demanding
Bellegarde's submission. He visited the beauty in the hope of soothing
her disappointment and moderating her anger; but she wept continually,
and, flinging herself on her knees, implored him to restore to her her
affianced husband. When she found him immovable, she rose and abruptly
left the apartment, and during the night quitted Senlis, and returned to
her father's castle.
Meanwhile, engaged in war, Henry joined his principal officers at La
Fere. It was at this epoch that he resolved on the most romantic and
adventurous passage of his romantic and adventurous life. He set out
from La Fere early in the dim, misty morning of the 18th November,
accompanied by twelve cavaliers. At a village about nine miles from
Coeuvres he quitted his attendants, and prosecuted his journey on
foot, in the disguise of a peasant. To complete the transformation he
carried a sack of straw on his head. It was difficult for even the
invincible Gabrielle to resist so surprising a proof of her royal
lover's devotion. She did not allow herself, however, to succumb too
quickly. The reception was cold and ungracious. Mademoiselle professed
to be disgusted with the coarse, rude garb assumed by the royal
adventurer; but a brief conversation having followed, a visible
relenting on the part of the flattered beauty so cheered the enamoured
Henry, that, on taking leave, he said to Madame Villars, "I have now a
good heart that nothing will go wrong with me, but all things prosper. I
am going to pursue the enemy, and in a day or two _ma belle_ will hear
what gallant exploits I have accomplished for love of her."
The king's visit to the chateau was not attended by any disastrous
consequences. He returned to La Fere in safety, and his devotion to the
lady became well known all over France; but her father was determined
to save her honour by a method not unusual in those days. He chose a
husband for his daughter, and intimated that no option would be allowed
her. This was Monsieur de Liancourt, who was many years her senior, and
a widower, with nine children,--wealthy, ignorant, weak in mind, and
disagreeable in person. In vain Gabrielle appealed to the king against a
marriage which was little better than "a living death." Henry was well
pleased with an event which he foresaw would vanquish the beauty's last
lingering reluctance. He said "he would cause her to be carried away
within one hour of the celebration of her espousals." Her marriage took
place at Coeuvres in January 1591, and she made her preparations to
escape immediately from the bridegroom she loathed to the gallant Henry.
The following day a royal order exiled Monsieur de Liancourt.
Thenceforth Gabrielle reigned supreme in the heart of Henri Quatre.
ANNE, DUCHESS OF PEMBROKE.
[1589.]
BISHOP RAINBOW.
This lady was daughter of George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, and born
in 1589. She was first married to the Earl of Dorset, and secondly to
the Earl of Pembroke. She had a clear soul shining through a vivid body;
her body was durable and healthful, her soul sprightful, of great
understanding and judgment, faithful memory, and ready wit. She had
early gained knowledge as of the best things; so an ability to discourse
in all commendable arts and sciences, as well as in those things which
belong to persons of her birth and sex to know. For she could discourse
with virtuosos, travellers, scholars, merchants, divines, statesmen, and
with good housewives, in any kind; in so much that a prime and elegant
wit, Dr Donne, well seen in all human learning, and afterwards devoted
to the study of divinity, is reported to have said of this lady in her
younger years, "that she knew well how to discourse of all things, from
predestination to slea-silk." Although she knew wool and flax, fine
linen and silk, things appertaining to the spindle and distaff, yet "she
could open her mouth with wisdom," knowledge of the best and highest
things. If she had sought fame rather than wisdom, possibly she might
have been ranked among those wits and learned of that sex of whom
Pythagoras, or Plutarch, or any of the ancients, have made such
honourable mention.
Authors of several kinds of learning, some of controversies very
abstruse, were not unknown to her. She much commended one book, William
Barclay's dispute with Bellarmine, both, as she knew, of the Popish
persuasion; but the former less papal, and, she said, had well stated a
main point, and opposed that learned cardinal for giving too much power
even in temporals to the pope over kings and secular princes, which she
seemed to think the main thing aimed at by the followers of that court;
to pretend to claim only to govern directly in spirituals, but to intend
chiefly, though indirectly, to hook in temporals, and in them to gain
power, dominion, and tribute; money and rule being gods to which the
Roman courtiers and their partisans chiefly sacrifice.
As she had been a most critical searcher into her own life, so she had
been a diligent inquirer into the lives, fortunes, and characters of
many of her ancestors for many years. Some of them she has left
particularly described, and the exact annals of diverse passages, which
were most remarkable in her own life ever since it was wholly at her own
disposal, that is, since the death of her last lord and husband, Philip,
Earl of Pembroke, which was for the space of twenty-six or twenty-seven
years.
From this her great diligence, as her posterity may find in reading
those abstracts of occurrences in her own life, being added to her
heroic fathers' and pious mothers' lives, dictated by herself, so they
may reap greater fruits of her diligence in finding the honours,
descents, pedigrees, estates, and the titles and claims of their
progenitors to them, comprised historically and methodically in three
volumes of the larger size, and each of them three or four times fairly
written over; which, although they were said to have been collected and
digested in some parts by one or more learned heads, yet were they
wholly directed by herself, and attested in the most parts by her own
hand.
ESTHER INGLIS.
[1600.]
BALLARD.
Remarkable for her caligraphy, the chief thing I have to mention
concerning her. All that see her writing are astonished at it, upon the
account of its exactness, its fineness, and variety; and many are of
opinion that nothing can be more exquisite. Gazius, Ascham, Davies,
Gething, Lyte, and many others, have been celebrated for their
extraordinary talents this way; but this lady has excelled them all,
what she has done being almost incredible. One of the many delicate
pieces she wrote was in the custody of Mr Samuel Kello, her
great-grandson, in 1711. Others are remaining at the Castle of
Edinburgh. Mr Hearne saw one in the hands of Philip Harcourt, Esq.,
entitled, "Historiae Memorabiles Genesis, per Estheram Inglis, Edinburgi.
Anno 1600."
In the archives of Christ's Church, in Oxford, are the Psalms of David,
written in French with her own hand, and presented to Queen Elizabeth by
Mrs Inglis herself; and were by that princess given to this library. In
the archives in Bodley's Library are two more of her manuscripts,
preserved with great care. One of them is entitled "Les Six Vingts et
Six Quartains de Guy de Faur Sieur de Pybrae, escrits Esther Inglis,
pour sin dernier adieu ce 21 jour de June 1617." In the second leaf this
in capital letters: "To the Right Worshipfull my very singular friende,
Joseph Hall, Doctor of Divinity and Dean of Worchester, Esther Inglis
wisheth all increase of true happiness, Junii 21, 1616." In third leaf,
her head, painted on a card, and pasted upon the leaf.