MISS ELIZABETH RUSSELL.
On the 27th of October, 1575, there was a grand christening at
Westminster. The tiny baby, wrapped in a mantle of crimson velvet, was
carried with royal pomp into the Abbey. Some of the most splendid and
famous personages of the day attended to do honor to the child, and the
queen's majesty was godmother.
Who was this baby? Why was all this display and ceremony expended on an
infant only five days old?
The little girl was of noble birth. She was daughter of John, Baron
Russell, second son of the Earl of Bedford, one of that famous family
which has given England some of her best statesmen for hundreds of
years. Her mother was a daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, of Gildea Hall in
Essex, "a man of the ancient equanimity and worship," well known for
his goodness and learning. Sir Anthony brought up his daughters to
follow in his own footsteps. They were noble and accomplished
gentlewomen and learned withal, for they could write easily in Greek,
Latin and Italian, as well as in their own tongue. One of them, Mildred,
married Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh, Queen Elizabeth's
famous councillor and adviser. Anne was wife of Sir Nicholas, afterwards
Lord Chancellor Bacon, whose son was the great philosopher, Francis
Bacon, Lord Verulam. Elizabeth, Lady Russell, the mother of our "child
of Westminster," had been married before to Sir Thomas Hobby, ambassador
to France. And when he died in 1566, Queen Elizabeth wrote a letter full
of affection and esteem to his widow. In this letter she praises the
dead Sir Thomas; and then goes on:
And for yourself, we cannot but let you know that we hear
out of France such singular good reports of your duty well
accomplished toward your husband, both living and dead, with
other your sober, wise and discreet behaviour in that court
and country, that we think it a part of great commendation
to us and commendation to our country, that such a
gentlewoman hath given so manifest a testimony of virtue in
such hard times of adversity. And therefore, though we
thought very well of you before, yet shall we hereafter make
a more assured account of your virtues and gifts; and
where-insoever we may conveniently do you pleasure, you may
be thereof assured. And so we would have you rest yourself
in quietness, with a firm opinion of our special favour
towards you. Given under our signet, at our city of Oxford,
the ---- of September, 1566, the eighth year of our reign.
Your loving friend,
ELIZABETH R.
It was "at our city of Oxford" that we chanced upon this letter. Reading
in the Bodleian Library, at the end of the great cross gallery lined
with rows of books, tier upon tier, we sat in the month of September,
1884, at a quiet table beside a huge stone-mullioned window. One of its
casements of leaded panes, guarded with brown rusty iron bars, was open.
In the acacia-tree outside a bird was singing. Beyond the delicate green
foliage, untouched by any thought of autumn, the towers and spires of
the glorious city rose above red and gray roofs. The silence about us
was only broken by the crisp turning of leaves or the stealthy foot-fall
of the attendants bringing fresh heaps of books to the half-dozen busy
workers. There was a fragrant smell of old books--of leather
bindings--so dear to the student's heart. The warm, sweet outer air and
hot sunshine streamed in at the open window. "The merry, merry Christ
Church bells--one, two, three, four, five, six," chimed the quarters;
and "Mighty Tom" tolled the hours as the morning stole by only too
quickly.
Two hundred and eighteen years ago in this very month of September,
Queen Elizabeth was at Oxford, on her way to or from Kenilworth Castle,
and she wrote the letter to Lady Hobby with those same Christ Church
bells chiming the quarters and the hours within hearing of her lodgings.
What times those were! The fortunes of England under Elizabeth were
recovering from long disgrace and decay. The foundation of the Royal
Exchange, by Sir Thomas Gresham, in that very year 1566, gave English
trade an impetus of which we in England and America are reaping the
benefits. English ships under such men as Drake and Frobisher, Sir
Richard Grenville and Sir Humphrey Gilbert, were sailing the seas,
fighting the Spaniards, and bringing home the wealth of every country in
the known globe to the port of London. A few years later, Drake in his
little vessel with eighty men would sail through the straits of
Magellan, and load his bark with gold-dust and silver ingots, with
pearls, diamonds and emeralds, the spoils of the "great galleon that
sailed once a year from Lima to Cadiz," and Raleigh would name Virginia
after Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen.
But something more precious than commerce, or mere tangible wealth, was
reviving in England. The prosperity of Elizabeth's reign was signalized
by an outburst of literature such as the world has seldom seen. In 1566
Edmund Spenser was fourteen; Sir Philip Sidney was twelve; and William
Shakespeare was a little two-year-old lad playing about his father's
black and white half-timbered house in sunny Stratford-on-Avon. What
need to go further? Those three names alone are enough, to say nothing
of the host of other writers--Bacon and Fulke Grenville with the
philosophers and the essayists, Hakluyt and his library of voyages and
travels, Michael Drayton and the patriotic poets. These were some of the
men who as statesmen, soldiers, discoverers, poets, have made the
Elizabethan age the synonym for all that is most splendid, most
brilliant at home and abroad.
Nine years after the queen's letter from Oxford, Elizabeth Hobby, who
had meanwhile married Lord Russell, took refuge at Westminster from the
plague which was then prevalent in London--that is to say in what we now
call the city, where all the grand folks of those days lived.
Having obtained so much favor from Dr. Goodman, Dean of
Westminster, as to have her lodgings within the late
dissolved Abbey,
her little daughter was born in the precincts on October 22, 1575. Lord
Russell wrote to announce the fact to his brother-in-law Lord Burleigh.
He was sorely disappointed at the child being a girl. "I could have
wished with all my heart to have had a boy:" but as that could not be
he would like a wise man "rejoice in having a girl." Then he goes on to
ask Lord Burleigh to pray the queen to be the baby's godmother. The
queen willingly granted the request; for her old admiration for Lady
Russell had by no means abated. Being at Windsor she sent Lady Warwick
as her deputy, "attended by Mr. Wingfield, the queen's gentleman usher,
to direct all things in the same cathedral."
Mr. Wingfield caused "a traverse of crimson taffeta"--a kind of
enclosure or regal pew if there be such a thing--to be set on the right
side of the altar, near the steps within the chancel; and in the
traverse a carpet, a chair and cushions of state. This was for the
deputy, Lady Warwick, who, as she represented the queen, was treated as
if she were royal.
Then a great basin was set up in the middle, near to the
high table, a yard high, upon a small frame for the purpose
covered with white linen, and the basin set thereon with
water and flowers about the brim.
[Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH.--_From painting in the English National
Portrait Gallery._]
On Thursday, October 27, at ten o'clock, all was ready. The witnesses
and a great company were assembled; and they proceeded from the Deanery
through the cloister. First came the gentlemen in waiting; then the
knights in their places; the barons and earls in their degree. Then the
godfather--none other than that famous and brilliant personage, Robert
Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the only man whom the great Queen Elizabeth
really loved--her cousin, "Sweet Robin." If you ever come to
Warwickshire go to Kenilworth Castle, and see the remains of the grand
Hall where he received the queen with more than royal state at three
different times. Then go to Warwick, and see his effigy in the Beauchamp
Chapel, lying beside his third wife, whom he married after poor Amy
Robsart's death.
Look at the Earl's handsome proud face; and then picture him to
yourselves as he walked through the cloisters and into the noble Abbey,
magnificent in dress and bearing, in the heydey of his youth, splendor
and prosperity at little Bess Russell's christening. After the godfather
came the unconscious baby--the centre of all this display--wrapped
in a mantle of crimson velvet, guarded with two wrought
laces of gold, having also over the face a lawn, striped
with bone lace of gold athwart, and powdered with gold
flowers and white wrought thereon.
She was carried by the nurse, Mrs. Bradshaw. Her second godmother, the
Countess of Sussex--Frances Sidney, aunt of Sir Philip Sidney, and
foundress of Sidney-Sussex College at Cambridge, followed her. Then a
gentleman usher. And then the Countess of Warwick, deputy for the queen.
Her train was borne by Lady Russell's two sisters, Lady Burleigh and
Lady Bacon; and after them came "other ladies and gentlemen, many."
The deputy went within the traverse, the rest remaining without, while
the Dean made a short address. After it was over
Lady Bacon took the child and brought it to the font, where
the Dean attended in his surplice. Then the Earl Leicester
approached near to the traverse, and there tarried until the
deputy came forth, from whence they leisurely proceeded to
the font, the deputy's train still borne, where she
christened the child by the name of Elizabeth; which done
the deputy retired back into the traverse again, and the
nurse took the child, and came down, and there dressed it.
Now comes one of the most impressive and picturesque episodes in the
story.
The account says--
In the meantime, Mr. Philip Sidney came out of the Chapel
called St. Edward's shrine having a towel on his left
shoulder, and with him came Mr. Delves, bearing the basin
and ewer. Then the deputy came forth, her train borne, and
they two kneeling, she washed.
Imagine Philip Sidney, then twenty-three years old, appearing from the
Confessor's Chapel, which as I have explained lies directly behind the
altar, with his towel over his shoulder, to kneel before the good and
charming Countess of Warwick--Philip Sidney, that exquisite and noble
soul, the very type and pattern of all that is most beautiful and
admirable in the age of Elizabeth.
Fair as he was brave, quick of wit as of affection, noble
and generous in temper, dear to Elizabeth as to Spenser, the
darling of the Court and of the camp; his learning and his
genius made him the centre of the literary world which was
springing into birth on English soil.
Poet, philosopher, chivalrous knight errant, grave councillor, what
wonder that he was the idol of the whole country? And the story of his
death, which we all know, but of which I, for one, never tire, was a
fitting close to the thirty-two years of this Bayard without fear and
without reproach. He threw away his life to save the army of his queen
in Flanders. As he lay dying he called for water. But when it was
brought and the bottle was put to his lips he saw a poor soldier dying
near him, and bade them give it to him. "Thy necessity," he said, "is
greater than mine." And so he died. This was the man who humbly served
Lady Warwick, the deputy, at our baby's christening.
Then other gentlemen with two basins and ewers, came to the
Countess of Sussex and the Earl of Leicester; and they
having washed, immediately came from the aforesaid place of
St. Edward's shrine, gentlemen with cups of hippocras and
wafers; that done, they all departed out of the Church
through the choir, in such order as before, the Lady Bacon
carrying the child, and so the said ladies and godfather
went into the Lady Russell's chamber.
Then the company went to dinner, "a stately and costly delicate
banquet;" and grace being said by Lord Russell's chaplain, the lords
washed, and after rose and returned to Lady Russell's rooms.
The baby Bess, like babies nowadays, had her christening presents: "By
the queen's majesty a great standing cup; Countess of Sussex a standing
cup; Earl of Leicester a great bowl."
So the pretty child's life began; ushered into that splendid and
brilliant court with all the pomp and circumstance possible. Not only is
the record of her baptism curious because it gives us a vivid picture of
the court at that time, and a glimpse of many famous men and women who
were present at it: but christenings have been few and far between at
Westminster. For a long while they ceased altogether; and during this
century up to about 1868 the few baptisms have been those of children of
members of the Abbey body. Since that date a very few children, more or
less connected with Westminster, have been christened each year in Henry
the Seventh's chapel. And on the last page of the register for 1883,
there is the name of a little grandson of Alfred, Lord Tennyson--the
Poet Laureate--a baby well-deserving such an honor, for his grandfather
claims descent from King Edward the Third; and from his mother, whose
wedding took place in the Abbey, he inherits the blood of Robert Bruce.
The next we hear about our little Bess is some years later, when we
learn that she and her younger sister, Anne, were appointed maids of
honor to the queen. Their mother, Lady Russell, who was brilliant and
vivacious, as well as learned in Latin and Greek, had considerable
influence with Queen Elizabeth, and seems to have used her "kind
enchantments" in the service of peace and goodwill at court. Towards the
close of her reign sad days had come upon the great queen. She was
growing old--though she could not bear to acknowledge the fact. Some of
those in whom she had trusted most proved false to her--like Essex. Her
splendid progresses through the country, her three thousand dresses,
could no longer cheer the sad, lonely old woman, who had outlived so
many of her early friends and counsellors. The violent Tudor temper
which she inherited from her father became more and more ungovernable,
and sometimes it showed itself towards the unlucky maids of honor.
"The Queen," says Sir Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney, in 1600:
hath of late used the fair Miss Brydges (daughter of the
Lord Chandos), with words and _blows_ of anger; and she with
Miss Russell, were put out of the coffer-chamber, lying
three nights at Lady Stafford's, before they could return to
their wonted waiting.
And what was their offence? They had ventured to take medicine without
leave; and had broken some rule of court etiquette by "going through the
private galleries to see the lords and gentlemen play at the _ballon_."
This was early in 1600. But shortly afterwards the queen, with one of
her capricious changes of temper, made the full _amende_ for her words
and blows of anger to poor Bess Russell, on the occasion of her sister
Anne's marriage to Lord Herbert, son and heir to Edward, fourth Earl of
Worcester. On June 9, 1600, Lady Russell went to court to fetch her
daughter Anne away, "of whom the queen in public used as gracious
speeches as she had been heard to indulge in of any." She sent her lords
and maids in waiting to escort the bride and her mother to their house
at Blackfriars. "All went in a troop away"--the court attendants filling
eighteen coaches.
The marriage took place on June 16 at Blackfriars, and the queen honored
the ceremony with her presence. The bride met the queen at the
waterside, where Lord Cobham, who had offered Her Majesty the use of his
house, had provided a "lectica made like half a litter, wherein she was
carried by six knights to Lady Russell's house." The mere name
Blackfriars now conjures up a vision of the smokiest and dirtiest parts
of smoky, dirty, dearly-beloved London. A vision of grimy houses crowded
together, and piled up story on story to utilize every inch of the space
that is now so valuable--of tall factory chimneys; Powell's glass-works;
bustling wharves; huge warehouses; of yelling railway trains, whistling
and thundering over the great iron bridges that span the Thames; of
penny steamboats; of heavy barges on the muddy river all defiled by the
great city that presses down to its banks. St. Paul's dome, the grand
old Tower of London, and the towers and spires of Sir Christopher Wren's
"fifty new churches," pierce the smoke and the haze, and rise above the
roofs of the busiest part of the city. The only trees to be seen are the
planes on the embankment, along that waterside where the bride met the
queen. Is this a fit place for a brilliant court to come to a gay
wedding?
[Illustration: MONUMENT TO MISS ELIZABETH RUSSELL.]
Happily we know what Blackfriars was like in Elizabethan days. At
Sherbourne Castle in Dorsetshire, Lord Digby possesses a most
interesting picture supposed to be painted by Isaac Oliver, of this very
procession from the waterside. There is a pleasant background of fields
and trees with two or three fine houses standing on the wooded slopes of
Holborn hill. The queen, clad in a long-waisted dress covered with
jewels, and wearing a great ruff open at the throat, which was then only
worn by young unmarried women, is seated in a chair under a light canopy
borne by six knights. Anne Russell, the bride, walks directly behind the
litter, in huge hooped skirt of white, with a richly worked and
bejewelled bodice. She wears an open ruff like the queen's, which shows
her throat. Her mother and Lucy Harrington, Countess of Bedford, who are
her supporters, have close ruffs that cover their necks, and are dressed
in black and gray with rich jewels. Nobles splendidly habited, go
before, two and two; and ladies follow, among whom we may suppose that
the fair Bess Russell figures. Lord Herbert, the bridegroom, carries the
right end of the pole that supports the litter, and reaches his left
hand back to his pretty bride who is close behind him. Next him a slim
and exquisitely dressed figure is thought by Mr. Scharf F. S. A. to be
Sir Walter Raleigh, who had just returned with Lord Cobham from a
mission in Flanders.
After the marriage the queen dined with the wedding party at Lady
Russell's, where "the entertainment was great and plentiful; and the
mistress of the feast much commended for it." At night--for in those
days dinners were early--she went to Lord Cobham's where she supped. And
after supper came a memorable masque of eight ladies, each
clad in a skirt of cloth of silver, a rich waistcoat
wrought with silks and gold and silver, a mantle of
carnation taffeta cast under the arm, and their hair loose
about their shoulders curiously knotted and interlaced. The
masquers were Lady Dorothy (Sidney), Miss Fitton, Miss
Carey, Miss Onslow, Miss Southwell, Miss Bess Russell, Miss
Darcy, and Lady Blanch Somerset, who danced to the music
that Apollo brought; and a fine speech was made of a _ninth_
muse, much to her praise and honor. "Delicate," says the
narrator, "it was to see eight ladies so prettily and richly
attired." Miss Fitton led; and after they had finished their
own ceremonies, the eight lady masquers chose eight other
ladies to dance the measures. Miss Fitton went to the queen
and wooed her to the dance. The queen asked what she was.
"Affection," was the answer. "Affection!" said the queen,
"affection is false!" yet she rose and danced as did the
Marchioness of Winchester.
Poor, sad old queen, clinging like a child--like the true daughter of
her hapless mother Anne Boleyn--to any amusement, excitement, display,
that could divert her weary thoughts from her loneliness, from the
burdening cares of state; with her bitter jibe at the falseness of
affection, yet rising and dancing a measure with her maids of honor. It
is as pathetic a picture as one can look upon.
So ends the record of the gay wedding at Blackfriars. But alas! within a
fortnight the marriage rejoicings were turned into mourning. Our
beautiful Bess Russell, the child of the court, the child of the Abbey,
was consumptive. She grew rapidly worse, and a fortnight after her
sister Anne's wedding she was dead. Her illness indeed, at the last, was
so sudden that it gave rise to an absurd story, which was commonly
believed one hundred and fifty years ago; namely, that she died of the
prick of a needle in her finger which produced gangrene. This however is
a mere fable, and only came into existence some seventy years after her
death. She was buried in Westminster Abbey--that Abbey under whose
shadow she was born, within whose walls she was christened. Well may
Dean Stanley call her "the child of Westminster."
Her beautiful monument stands in the Chapel of St. Edmund, near that of
her father, and of John of Eltham. She sits "in a curiously wrought
osier chair," leaning her head upon her hand, and pointing at the skull,
on which her right foot rests, with an expression on her face of great
sadness and sweetness. On the richly carved pedestal upon which the
figure is placed are engraved these words: "_Dormit, non mortua
est_"--she is not dead but sleeping--and below on a scroll we read that
to the "sacred and happy memory of Elizabeth Russell" this monument is
dedicated by her afflicted sister Anne.
Sweet Bess Russell's effigy is remarkable in more ways than one. It is
the first of all in the Abbey that is seated erect. Hitherto kings,
princes, warriors, noble ladies have been content to lie in profound
repose, their hands crossed or folded in prayer. Lord Russell's figure
on his splendid monument hard by, shows the first sign of restlessness.
He lies on his side, supporting his head on his elbow. At his feet is
the son he wished for so greatly--little Francis--who only lived a few
months; and graceful figures of his two daughters in mourning robes
support the coat of arms above. In a few years the effigies will begin
to kneel--as in the case of Sir Francis Vere's noble tomb where four
kneeling knights carry his arms on a slab resting upon their shoulders.
So intensely alive do they look that Roubillac the famous sculptor was
found standing wrapt before them, and when questioned said softly, with
his eyes fixed on the fourth knight, "Hush! hush! he will speak
presently!" A little later they will sit--then stand, like Walpole's
beautiful mother. Then they will gesticulate with the orators, and rise
out of the tomb, or the sea, and soar among the clouds, in the execrable
taste of the last century. All this new movement and life in marble, was
ushered in by pretty Elizabeth Russell and her worthy father; so that
their monuments mark a very distinct period in the history of the Abbey.
The reign, too, of her royal godmother inaugurated the "recognition of
the Abbey as a Temple of Fame." Queen Elizabeth loved the Abbey, and the
chapels were crowded with the "worthies" who served her so loyally and
faithfully. Henceforth not only kings and princes were to be buried in
the Church of Henry the Third, but all who were great and wise in action
or in thought, statesmen, soldiers, poets, were to rest within the walls
of the Pantheon of the English Nation.