_Tennyson_ (Vol. vii., p. 84.).--Will not the following account by Lord
Bacon, in his _History of Henry VII._, of the marriage by proxy between
Maximilian, King of the Romans, and the Princess Anne of Britany,
illustrate for your correspondent H. J. J. his last quotation from
Tennyson?
"She to me
Was proxy-wedded with a bootless calf,
At eight years old."
"Maximilian so far forth prevailed, both with the young lady and with
the principal persons about her, as the marriage was consummated by
proxy, with a ceremony at that time in these parts new. For she was not
only publicly contracted, but stated, as a bride, and solemnly bedded;
and after she was laid, there came in Maximilian's ambassador with
letters of procuration, and in the presence of sundry noble personages,
men and women, put his leg, stripped naked to the knee, between the
espousal sheets," &c.