slow in those days, and many times she stopped to rest and to receive
guests who came to give their homage to the daughter-in-law of the
emperor. But at length the town was in sight, and a halt was called, so
that Blanche might be gaily dressed in one of her grand new dresses,
while her golden coronet was placed upon her flowing hair and her collar
of pearls was hung round her neck. Then she mounted the white horse with
silver trappings which had been sent expressly for her, and wondered as
she did so what Philippa would have thought of him. The emperor was not
present at Cologne, for business had kept him elsewhere, but his son
Lewis, the bridegroom, was awaiting her at the gate, with an escort of
nobles behind him. He looked, as Philippa had said, good and kind and
very pleased to see her, and that was all that Blanche cared for, as,
unlike queen Isabel, she had no wish to be 'a great lady.' But her
attendants felt that a slight had been put on their king and their
country, and murmured among themselves at the emperor's absence. However
they were wise enough to hold their peace in the presence of the
Germans, and not to mar the wedding festivities with cross faces. And
Blanche was married three days later in Dick Whittington's famous gold
brocade, and once more she gave away the prizes at a tourney.
Perhaps the feelings of the English might have been soothed if they had
seen the welcome given their princess by the emperor in his palace of
Heidelberg, and his admiration of her beauty. She touched his heart by
her modesty and unselfishness, and he felt he had done well in choosing
his son's wife. Blanche was grateful for his kindness, and soon loved
him and her husband dearly, while she was never tired of standing at the
windows of the castle, whose ruins you may see to-day, looking over the
broad Rhine and the vine-clad mountains. Here she had more time for
reading, too, as there were no great Court ceremonies that needed her
presence, and her husband would tell her tales of bygone emperors, and
teach her how to speak his native tongue, which she found much more
difficult than French.
'How _can_ I remember all those different endings?' she cried, 'and by
the time I come to the verb, I have quite forgotten what I was going to
say! and Lewis—who bade her call him 'Ludwig'—would laugh, and relate
to her the brave deeds of Henry the Fowler, or recite some verses of the
'Lay of the Nibelungs,' till Blanche would stop her ears at the
cruelties of Brunhilda and Chriemhild. Or if the days were fine the
husband and wife would go out together, and visit some church or
citizen's house that was being built, and Lewis, who had much skill in
these things, would show Blanche the wonderful carving or bid her mark
the fine proportions of the architecture. Blanche—the 'electoral
princess'—would have liked to stay in Heidelberg, but after awhile she
was obliged to leave Cologne to go to Alsace, and preside over a Court
again. She always did what came in her way pleasantly and graciously,
but she was very sorry to give up her happy life, with its books and
music and church-building, and pass her time in public ceremonies, even
though the little Court of Alsace was much quieter and more homely than
that of either Richard II. or her own father. But the climate did not
agree with her, and as she grew older she also grew more delicate. This
she managed to conceal from her husband who was busy with many things,
fearing to distress him, and she kept gay words and a smile for everyone
as long as she possibly could. But at length she grew too weak to ride
or walk, and by-and-by lay amongst pillows at her window gazing at the
mountains, and now and then saying a word to her husband, who never left
her when he could help it.
One day, early in May, when the birds were singing and the streams
gurgling, he returned from a long journey to find Blanche lying with a
little son beside her and a look of rapture on her face.
'Ah, you will get better now!' he cried joyfully, noting the happiness
in her eyes; but she said nothing, only kissed his hand, and drew it
towards the baby. And she was right: from that moment she grew worse,
and a few days later she was dead, leaving this one child behind her.
Hardly sixteen! yet how well and nobly she had filled the place and done
the duties that had been given her!
---------------------
The news of Blanche's death was a terrible grief to her father in
England, and to her sister Philippa, who had been for nearly three years
queen of Denmark. It was not that they ever saw her—perhaps they never
would—but they felt she was _there_, thinking about them and caring for
them; and what joyful days those were when a special courier or
travelling knight brought them letters from her! Yet as she read with
streaming eyes what her brother-in-law, 'the lord Lewis,' had written,
Philippa's heart ached for herself, as well as for the dead girl.
Blanche's life at least had been happy from first to last, but to
Philippa some bad days had already come, and others were casting shadows
before them.
Except for parting from Blanche, Philippa had also had a happy
childhood, and she being very lively and full of plans, nobody ever felt
dull in her presence. No sooner had Blanche set out on her journey to
Cologne than Henry was obliged to go into Wales, and he left Philippa
and her second brother, John, duke of Bedford, together with the
children of the late earl of March, under the care of Sir Hugh Waterton
at Berkhamstead Castle. It was summer, and the pretty Hertfordshire
commons were golden with gorse and sweet with bushes of wild roses and
honeysuckle, and, strictly guarded though they were, Philippa and the
rest had many a merry gallop over the grass, for her love of horses had
become a passion with her. Sometimes, when they were tired of playing,
she and John used to walk soberly up and down the alleys in the castle
garden, talking of their new stepmother—for even before the departure
of Blanche Henry had been married 'by proxy' to the widowed duchess of
Bretagne, Jane of Navarre.
'She _sounded_ kind in the letter she wrote,' said Philippa in a
doubtful tone, 'and if Blanche had been here I should not have been
afraid. But suppose she should be like the stepmothers in the nursery
tales, and send me down into the kitchen to do scullion's work!'
'And do you think the king would not miss you and bring you back?' asked
John mockingly. 'Oh, Philippa, what nonsense you talk, and what a bad
scullion you would make!' and they both laughed, and Philippa's tears,
which had been very near her eyes, went back to their proper place.
'Besides,' continued John, 'remember that she will not be here for many
months yet, and during all that time _you_ will have to take Blanche's
place, and preside at the pageants and tourneys. And then, when she
_does_ come, she will bring her daughters, the ladies Blanche and
Marguérite, with her.'
'Just like the nursery tales,' thought Philippa to herself; but before
she could say more the little Mortimers ran up to say that the sun was
now sinking, and they could have a game of hoodman blind without getting
too hot. And in chasing her cousins all over the garden Philippa forgot
the terrors of a stepmother.
She need not, however, have been afraid. When queen Jane and her
daughters arrived at Winchester, wearied with their long, cold, and
muddy ride all the way from Falmouth, their hearts warmed to the
handsome, bright-faced child standing a little behind her father in the
hall of the castle. Philippa's own fears melted away like snow as she
saw how pale and tired they all looked, and with genuine kindness (mixed
perhaps with a feeling of importance) she ordered hot possets to be
brought instantly to warm them, and begged them to be seated in the
great chimney-place till supper was ready.
Though her new subjects never forgave queen Jane for having a large
train of French people ever about her, which was foolish and ill-judged
on her part, she always showed great wisdom in her dealings with her
husband's daughter. She knew that, owing to her mother's early death and
her sister's marriage, Philippa had had a great deal more liberty than
most princesses of her age, and that it would be very hard for her to be
banished from court festivities, or to remain in the background like her
own little girls. Perhaps she, too, had read some of the nursery tales,
which are the same all over the world, and remembered about cruel
stepmothers and ill-treated stepdaughters; but at any rate, as far as
possible, she left Philippa alone, and the child saw this and was
grateful. She was quite content with her life and her playfellows, and
tried to forget the marriage which had been arranged for her at
Berkhamstead, and which threatened to put an end to it all!
While they had been living in Hertfordshire an embassy had arrived from
Margaret, queen of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, seeking a wife for Eric,
her great-nephew and successor. Considering that it was only six years
since the three kingdoms had been united in one, and that Eric,
changeable, weak and hasty, showed small signs of following in his
aunt's footsteps, and being able to hold the kingdom together, we cannot
help wondering why Henry did not refuse Margaret's offer and wait for a
better match. But, curiously enough, he seemed quite satisfied, and only
stipulated that three years should pass before the contract was
fulfilled. Philippa breathed a sigh of thankfulness. There was so little
traffic with the North in those days that it seemed strange and far
away; and besides, she was very happy as she was, and did not want to be
married at all. But three years! Oh, that was an eternity! and as at
present the marriage only meant, as far as she was concerned, the title
of 'Queen of Denmark' and an establishment of her own, with as many
horses as she could wish for, she enjoyed the pleasures she had, and
shut her eyes to the price that must be paid for them. By-and-by there
came the moment when her trousseau had to be got ready, but Philippa
took far more heed of the housings and trappings of her horses, and of
the cushions for her coaches, than of her own gowns, which queen Jane,
whose taste was not bound down by strict fashion, ordered after her own
fancy. In those days court dresses were embroidered with precious
stones, and cost immense sums, and Philippa's wedding dress of cloth of
gold, with the stomacher of pearls, cost the enormous sum of 250_l._ She
was surprised and delighted when she saw it, and only wished Blanche
could see it too, for she _thought_, though she was not quite sure, that
it was even finer than the gold brocade of Master Whittington.
All these things and a great many more having been prepared for her
benefit, Philippa set out to pay some farewell visits to the friends and
relations she was never likely to see again. Between each visit she went
back to her father at Eltham, for she wished to spend as much time as
possible with him and the queen, who was now very lonely, as her own two
daughters had returned to Brittany. Philippa's very last visit was to
the bishop of Durham, and after that was ended the king and his four
sons, together with the Swedish ambassadors who had been sent to escort
the bride, took her to Lynn in Norfolk. From here, says the chronicler
Stow, 'in the month of May, 1406, dame Philip, the youngest daughter of
king Henry, accompanied by divers lords spiritual and temporal, was
shipped to the North and so conveyed to Denmark, where she was married
to the king of that country in a city called London.' The vessel in
which Philippa sailed was, of course, very different from anything _we_
can imagine, and even when fitted up for a princess must have been very
uncomfortable. It was the largest in the English navy, but would have
looked very small in our eyes, and must have rolled terribly. The
admiral of the North Sea was in command, and he placed on board some of
the unwieldy cannon then used, in case pirates or foreign ships should
be met with; but no mishap of any sort occurred, and Philippa landed
safe in Sweden, where queen Margaret and the young king Eric gave her a
hearty welcome. After a short rest they journeyed to Lund (or 'London'
as Stow calls it), the old Swedish Capital in the very south of the
country, where Philippa's marriage and her coronation took place.
From the day that Philippa set foot on board the vessel she left her
childhood behind her. She felt that she was going, alone and for ever,
to a land of which she knew nothing, with a language and customs
entirely strange to her. It was enough to make a brave man sad, and
Philippa was barely thirteen, yet she dared not show her grief or her
fears for the sake of her father and brothers who were watching her
anxiously. So she smiled and chattered up to the very last moment, and
then came a storm of tears, as she clung silently to one after the
other. However, she had contrived to banish all traces of sorrow by the
time she reached Sweden, and queen Margaret saw with pleasure the good
sense and dignity which marked her behaviour. A girl who cared only for
amusement would have been a bad wife for the young king, and have
encouraged him to be more idle than he was already. But Philippa, she
was sure, was made of different stuff, and would some day walk in her
own footsteps—if only she was sensible and would listen to her counsel!
Philippa _did_ listen, and it speaks highly for her that, though for the
last five years she had been suffered to do very much as she liked, and
had lived more with horses than with books, she now, by the queen's
wish, went meekly back to her lessons, and spent several hours a day in
learning the history and Sagas (old stories) and languages of the three
countries over which she was now queen. Margaret herself, queen of all
three kingdoms, taught her the special laws and customs of each, and
Philippa, to her surprise and delight, took an interest in everything,
and tried with all her might to do the things that Eric her husband left
undone—which were many. Very soon the people came to know this, and
they thanked her in their hearts and loved her dearly.
So matters went on for six years, and though Philippa was not very happy
with her husband, and had no children to comfort her, there was always
queen Margaret to go to for help, and consolation. But in 1412 Margaret
died, and then Philippa felt lonely indeed. However, she still strove to
help her subjects, and had more power than most queens, because the king
was always fighting with his neighbours, and left her to rule as she
thought best. When her cares pressed heavily she used to go for a
holiday to a Swedish convent, and there got strength to carry on her
work. And thus, in harness, she died in 1430 at the age of thirty-seven;
and nine years later king Eric, who had at last wearied out the patience
of his people, was driven from the throne.
_THE TROUBLES OF THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH_
'WHAT reign in English history do you like best to read about?'
I think that if you were to put this question to twenty children you
would get the same answer from at least fifteen.
'Oh, Queen Elizabeth's, _of course_!' And in many ways they would be
quite right. After the long struggle of the Wars of the Roses, which
had, a hundred years before, exhausted the country, the people were
losing the feeling of uncertainty and anxiety that had possessed them
for so many years, and were eager to see the world and to make new paths
in many directions. The young men were so daring and gallant, so sure of
their right to capture any ship laden with treasure they might meet on
the high seas, so convinced that all other nations—and Spaniards in
particular—which attacked _them_, were nothing but pirates and
freebooters, whose fit end was 'walking the plank' into the sea, or
being 'strung up on the yard arm,' that, as we read their stories, we
begin to believe it too! And when we leave Drake and Frobisher and the
rest behind, and turn to sir Walter Raleigh throwing down his cloak in
the mud for the queen to tread on, and the dying sir Philip Sidney, on
the field of Zutphen, refusing the water he so much needed because the
wounded soldier beside him needed it still more, we think that, after
all, those days were really better than these, and life more exciting.
If, too, we should chance to love books better than tales of war, we
shall meet with our old friends again in the beautiful songs that almost
every gentleman of those times seemed able to make—Sidney, and Raleigh,
and many another knight, as well as Shakespeare, and Marlowe, and Ben
Jonson. The short velvet tunics and the small feathered hats, which was
the ordinary dress of the young men of the period, set off, as we see in
their portraits, the tall spare figures and faces with carefully trimmed
pointed beards of the courtiers who thronged about the queen. While the
head and crown of them all, restless, energetic, courageous as any man
among them, was Elizabeth herself.
Yes, there is a great deal to be said for the children's choice.
---------------------
But perhaps you would like to hear something of the life the queen led
before she ascended the throne, which was not until she was twenty-five.
As, no doubt, you all know, Henry VIII. had put away his wife Katharine
of Aragon, aunt of the emperor Charles V., in order to marry the
beautiful maid of honour Anne Boleyn; and his daughter Mary had shared
her mother's fate. It was all very cruel and unjust—and in their hearts
every one felt it to be so; but Henry managed to get his own way, and in
January, 1533, made Anne Boleyn his wife.
It was on September 7, in that same year, that Elizabeth was born in the
palace of Greenwich, in a room that was known as the 'Chamber of the
Virgins,' from the stories told on the tapestries that covered the
walls. The king was greatly disappointed that the baby did not prove to
be a boy, but as that could not be helped he determined to make the
christening as splendid as possible. So, as it was customary that the
ceremony should take place a very few days after the child's birth, all
the royal secretaries and officers of state were busy from morning till
night, writing letters and sending out messengers to bid the king's
guests assemble at the palace on the afternoon of September 10, to
attend 'the high and mighty princess' to the convent of the Grey Friars,
where she was to be given the name of her grandmother, Elizabeth of
York.
---------------------
At one o'clock the lord mayor and aldermen and city council dined
together, in their robes of state; but the dinner did not last as long
as usual, as the barges which were to row them to Greenwich were moored
by the river bank, and they knew Henry too well to keep him waiting. The
palace and courtyard were crowded with people when they arrived, and a
few minutes later the procession was formed. Bishops wore their mitres
and grasped their pastoral staffs, nobles were clad in long robes of
velvet and fur, while coronets circled their heads. Each took his place
according to his rank, and when the baby appeared in the arms of the old
duchess of Norfolk, with a canopy over her head and her train carried
behind her, the procession set forth, the earl of Essex going first,
holding the gilt basin, followed by the marquis of Exeter and the
marquis of Dorset bearing the taper and the salt, while to lady Mary
Howard was entrusted the chrisom containing the holy oil. In this order
the splendid company passed down the road which led from the palace and
the convent, between walls hung with tapestry and over a carpet of
thickly-strewn rushes.
---------------------
But in spite of the grandeur of Henry's preparations, the godparents of
the baby were neither kings nor queens, but only Cranmer, the newly-made
archbishop of Canterbury, the old duchess of Norfolk, and lady Dorset.
Henry knew full well that it would have been vain to invite any of the
sovereigns of Europe to stand as sponsors to his second daughter: they
were all too deeply offended at his divorce from Katharine of Aragon and
at the quarrel with the Pope. He did not, however, vex himself in the
matter, and took pleasure in seeing that the ceremony was as magnificent
as if the child had had a royal princess for a mother, instead of the
daughter of a mere country gentleman. At the close of the service the
Garter King-at-Arms advanced to the steps of the altar, and facing the
assembled congregation cried with a loud voice: 'God of His infinite
goodness send a prosperous life and long to the high and mighty Princess
Elizabeth of England.' Then a blast of trumpets sounded through the air,
and the first act of little Elizabeth's public existence began among the
noise and glitter that she loved to the end.
By this time it was growing dark, and everybody was hungry. As the
church was not very far from the palace, it might have been expected
that the company would return there and sit down to a great banquet; but
this was not Henry's plan. Instead, he had ordered that wafers, comfits
and various kinds of light cakes should be handed round in church, with
goblets full of hypocras to wash them down. When this was over, and the
christening presents given, the procession re-formed in the same order,
and lighted by five hundred torches set out for the palace by the river
side, where their barges were awaiting them.
---------------------
For three months the baby was left with her mother at Greenwich, under
the care of her godmother, the duchess of Norfolk, and lady Bryan,
kinswoman to Anne Boleyn, who had brought up princess Mary. After that
she was taken to Hatfield, in Hertfordshire, and then moved to the
country palace of the bishop of Winchester, in the little village of
Chelsea. The bishop's consent does not seem to have been asked, for the
king never troubled himself to inquire whether the owners of these
houses cared to be invaded by a vast number of strangers. If _he_ wished
it, that was enough, and the poor bishop had to give up his own
business, and spend all his time in making arrangements for the heiress
of England—for so she was now declared to be—the rights of Mary being
set aside. Right glad must he have been when the king's restless temper
removed the baby again into Hertfordshire, to a house at Langley, and
sought to provide her with a husband. The prince chosen, first of a long
line of suitors, was Charles duke of Orleans, the third son of Francis
I. of France. The match was in some ways a good one; but Henry wanted so
many things which the French king could not grant that the plan had to
be given up. In any case it could hardly have come to pass, as the boy
died before his bride had reached her twelfth birthday.
---------------------
Having contrived to get rid of one wife when he was tired of her, Henry
saw no reason why he should not dispose of his second for the same
cause. Therefore, when he took a fancy to wed Jane Seymour, maid of
honour to Anne, he thought no shame to accuse the queen of all sorts of
crimes. One day the booming of the Tower guns told that the Traitors'
gate leading down to the Thames had been opened, and Anne, whose life
had been passed in pleasure and gaiety, stepped out of the barge; the
laughter had died out of her eyes and the colour from her face. Well she
knew the fate that awaited her, and in her heart she felt it was just.
Had she not in like manner supplanted queen Katharine, and thrust her
and her daughter from their rightful place? Thus she may have thought as
her guards led her to her cell, from which she walked on May 19 to the
scaffold on Tower Hill.
---------------------