The Rectory, Tregwynfrid, Tenby, S. W.
* * * * *
"THE LUNEBURG TABLE."--QUEEN ELIZABETH'S LOVE OF PEARLS.
In the _Travels_ of Hentzner, who resided some time in England in the
reign of Elizabeth, as tutor to a young German nobleman, there is given
(as most of your readers will doubtless remember) a very interesting
account of the "Maiden Queen," and the court which she then maintained
at "the royal palace of Greenwich." After noticing the appearance of the
presence-chamber,--"the floor, after the English fashion, strewed with
hay,"--the writer gives a descriptive portrait of her Majesty. He
states,--
"Next came the Queen, in her sixty-fifth year, as we were told,
very majestic; her face oblong, fair, but wrinkled; her eyes
small, but black and pleasant; her nose a little hooked; her
lips narrow, and her teeth black (a defect the English seem
subject to, from their too great use of sugar). She had in her
ears two _pearls_, with very rich drops.[2] She wore false hair,
and that red."
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Then comes the passage to which I beg to call especial attention,
and on which I have to invite some information:
"Upon her head a small crown, _reported to be made of some of
the gold of the celebrated Luneburg table_."
What was this table? The work from which I quote (_Recollections of
Royalty_, vol. ii. p. 119.) has a note hereon, merely remarking that,
"at this distance of time, it is difficult to say what this was." If,
anything, however, can be gleaned on the subject, some of the readers of
"N. & Q." in some one of the "five _quarters_" of the world will
assuredly be able to answer this Query.