Chapter XI (1)

Henry the Eighth -- His Person and Character -- Modern
Qualifications of it considered -- Passages respecting him from
Lingard, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and others -- His additions to
Whitehall -- A Retrospect at Elizabeth -- Court of James
resumed -- Its gross Habits -- Letter of Sir John Harrington
respecting them -- James's Drunkenness -- Testimonies of
Welldon, Sully, and Roger Coke -- Curious Omission in the
Invective of Churchill the Poet -- Welldon's Portrait of James
-- Buckingham, the Favourite -- Frightful Story of Somerset --
Masques -- Banqueting House -- Inigo Jones and Ben Jonson --
Court of Charles the First -- Cromwell -- Charles the Second --
James the Second.

We have said more about Wolsey than we intend to say of Henry the Eighth; for the son of the butcher was a great man, and his master was only a king. Henry, born a prince, became a butcher; Wolsey, a butcher, became a prince. And we are not playing upon the word as applied to the king; for Henry was not only a butcher of his wives, he resembled a brother of the trade in its better and more ordinary course. His pleasures were of the same order; his language was coarse and jovial; he had the very straddle of a fat butcher, as he stands in his doorway. Take any picture or statue of Henry the Eighth--fancy its cap off, and a knife in its girdle, and it seems in the very act of saying, "What d'ye buy? What d'ye buy?" There is even the petty complacency in the mouth, after the phrase is uttered.

And how formidable is that petty unfeeling mouth, in the midst of those wide and wilful cheeks! Disturb the self-satisfaction of that man, derange his bile for an instant, make him suppose that you do not quite think him

"Wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best,"

and what hope have you from the sentence of that mass of pampered egotism?

Let us not do injustice, however, even to the doers of it. What better was to be looked for, in those times, from the circumstances under which Henry was born and bred--from the son of a wilful father, and an unfeeling state marriage--from the educated combiner of church and state, instinctively led to entertain the worldliest notions of both, and of heaven itself--from the inheritor of the greatest wealth, and power, and irresponsibility, ever yet concentrated in an English sovereign? It has been attempted of late by various writers (and the attempt is a good symptom, being on the charitable side,) to make out a case for Henry the Eighth, as if he were a sort of rough but honest fellow, a kind of John Bull of that age, who meant well upon the whole, and thought himself bound to keep up the conventionalities of his country. We know not what compliment is intended to be implied by this, either to Henry or his countrymen; but really when a man sends his wives, one after the other, to the scaffold, evidently as much to enable him to marry another as to vindicate any propriety--when he "cuts" and sacrifices his best friends and servants, and pounces upon their goods--when he takes every license himself, though he will not allow others even to be suspected of it--when he grows a brute beast in size as well as in habits, and dies shedding superfluous blood to the last--we cannot, for our parts, as Englishmen, but be glad of some better excuses for him of the kind above stated, than such as are to be found in the roots of the national character, however jovial. Imagine only the endearments that must have passed between this man and Anne Bullen, and then fancy the heart that could have sent the poor little, hysterical, half-laughing, half-crying thing to the scaffold! The man was _mad_ with power and vanity. That is his real excuse.

It has been said, that all which he did was done by law, or at least under the forms of it, and by the consent, sometimes by the recommendation, of his statesmen. The assertion is not true in all instances; and where it is, what does it prove but that his tyrannical spirit had helped to make his statesmen slaves? They knew what he wished, and notoriously played the game into his hands. When they did not, their heads went off. That circumstances had spoilt them altogether, and that society, with all its gaudiness, was but in a half-barbarous state, is granted; but it is no less true, that his office, his breeding, and his natural temper, conspired to make Henry the worst and most insolent of a violent set of men; and he stands straddling out accordingly in history, as he does in his pictures, an image of sovereign brutality.

Excessive vanity, aggravated by all the habits of despotism and luxury, and accompanied, nevertheless, by that unconscious misgiving which is natural to inequalities between a man's own powers and those which he derives from his position, is the clue to the character of Henry the Eighth. Accordingly, no man gave greater ear to tale-bearers and sowers of suspicion, nor resented more cruelly or meanly the wounds inflicted on his self-love, even by those who least intended them, or to whom he had shown the greatest fondness. The latter, indeed, he treated the worst, out of a frenzy of egotistical disappointment; for his love arose, not from any real regard for their merits, but from what he had taken for a flattery to his own. Sir Thomas More knew him well, when, in observation to some one who had congratulated him on the King's having walked up and down with his arm around his neck, he said that he would have that neck cut in two next day, if the head belonging to it opposed his will. He not only took back without scruple all that he had given to Wolsey, but he went to live in the houses of his fallen friend and servant--places which a man of any feeling and kindly remembrance would have avoided. He was very near picking a murderous quarrel with his last wife, Catherine Parr, on one of his theological questions. And how did he conduct himself to the memory of poor Anne Bullen, even on the day of her execution? Hear Lingard, who, though no partizan of his, thinks he must have had some heinous cause of provocation, to induce him to behave so roughly:--

"Thus fell," says the historian, "this unfortunate Queen within
four months after the death of Catherine. To have expressed a
doubt of her guilt during the reign of Henry, or of her
innocence during that of Elizabeth, would have been deemed a
proof of disaffection. The question soon became one of
religious feeling, rather than of historical disquisition.
Though she had departed no farther than her husband from the
ancient doctrine, yet, as her marriage with Henry led to the
separation from the communion of Rome, the Catholic writers
were eager to condemn, the Protestant to exculpate her memory.
In the absence of those documents which alone could enable us
to decide with truth, I will only observe that the King must
have been impelled by some powerful motive to exercise against
her such extraordinary, and, in one supposition, such
superfluous vigour. Had his object been (we are sometimes told
that it was) to place Jane Seymour by his side on the throne,
the divorce of Anne without execution, or the execution without
the divorce, would have effected his purpose. But he seemed to
have pursued her with insatiable hatred. Not content with
taking her life, he made her feel in every way in which a wife
and a mother could feel. He stamped on her character the infamy
of adultery and incest; he deprived her of the name and right
of wife and Queen; and he even bastardized her daughter, though
he acknowledged that daughter to be his own. If then he were
not assured of her guilt, he must have discovered in her
conduct some most heinous cause of provocation, which he never
disclosed. He had wept at the death of Catherine (of Arragon);
but, as if he sought to display his contempt for the character
of Anne, he dressed himself in white on the day of her
execution, and was married to Jane Seymour the next
morning."[339]

Now, nothing could be more indecent and unmanly than such conduct as this, let Anne have been guilty as she might; and nothing, in such a man, but mortified self-love could account for it. Probably he had discovered, that in some of her moments of levity she had laughed at him. But not to love him would have been offence enough. It would have been the first time he had discovered the possibility of such an impiety towards his barbarous divinityship: and his rage must needs have been unbounded.

What Providence may intend by such instruments, is one thing: what we are constituted to think of them, is another: charitably, no doubt, when we think our utmost; but still with a discrimination, for fear of consequences. As to what was thought of Henry in his own time or afterwards, we must not rely on the opinion of Baker, Holinshed, and other servile chroniclers, of mean understanding and time-serving habits, who were the least honourable kind of "waiters upon Providence," taking the commonest appearances of adversity and prosperity (so to speak) for vice and virtue, and flattering every arbitrary and conventional opinion, as though it were not to perish in its turn. We are to recollect what More said of him (as above) in his confidential moments and Wolsey in his agony, and Pole and others, when, having got to a safe distance, they returned him foul language for his own bullying, and blustered out what was thought of him by those who knew him thoroughly. Observe also the manifest allusions in what was written upon the court of those days, by one of the wisest and best of its ornaments, Sir Thomas Wyat--a friend of Anne Bullen's. The verses are entitled, "Of a Courtier's Life," and it may be observed, by the way, that they furnish the second example, in the English language, of the use of the Italian _rime terzette_, or triplets, in which Dante's poem is written, and which had been first introduced among us by Sir Thomas's friend, the Earl of Surrey (another of Henry's victims):--

Mine owne John Poynes, sins ye delight to know
The causes why that homeward I me draw
And flee the prease of courtes whereso they goe,
Rather than to live thrall _under the awe_
_Of lordly lookes_, wrapped within my cloke,
_To will and lust_ learning to set a law,
It is not, that because I storme or mocke
The power of those whom fortune here hath lent
Charge over us, of right to strike the stroke;
But true it is, that I have alway ment
Less to esteeme them, than the common sort
Of outward thinges that judge in their entent;

* * * * *

My Poynes, I cannot frame my tong to fayn,
To cloke the truth, for praise, without desert,
Of them that list all vice for to retayne;
I cannot _honour_ them that set theyr part
_With Venus and with Bacchus their life long_,
Nor hold my peace of them although I smart
I cannot crouch, nor _kneele_ to such a wrong,
TO WORSHIP THEM LIKE GOD ON EARTH ALONE,
_That are as wolves these sely lambs among_.

(Here was a sigh perhaps to the memory of his poor friend Anne):--

I cannot wrest the law to fyll the coffer
With innocent blood to feed myselfe _fat_,
And do most hurt where that most help I offer
I am not he that can allow the state
Of hye Cæsar, and damn Cato to die;

(an allusion probably to Sir Thomas More).

Affirm that favill (fable-lying) hathe a goodly grace
In eloquence, and _cruelty to name_
_Zeale of justice_, and change in time and place;
And he that suffreth offence without blame,
Call him pitiefull, _and him true and playne
That raylest reckless unto each man's shame_;
Say he is rude, that cannot lye and fayne,
_The lecher a lover_, AND TYRANNY
TO BE RIGHT OF A PRINCE'S RAIGNE;
I cannot, I;--no, no;--it will not be;
This is the cause that I could never yet
Hang on their sleeves, that weigh, as thou maist see,
A chippe of chaunce more than a pound of wit;
This makes me at home to hunt and hawke,
And in foul weather at my book to sit;
In frost and snowe, then with my bowe stalke;
No man doth marke whereso I ryde or goe;
In lustie leas at libertie I walke.

Towards the conclusion, he says he does not spend his time among those who have their wits _taken away_ with _Flanders cheer and "beastliness:"_--

Nor I am not, where truth is given in prey
For money, and prison and treason of some
A common practice used night and day;
But I am here in Kent and Christendom,
Among the Muses, where I read and ryme;
Where if thou list, mine owne John Poynes, to come,
Thou shalt be judge how I do spend my time.

Among the poems of Surrey, is a sonnet in reproach of "Sardanapalus," which probably came to the knowledge of Henry, and may have been intended to do so.

It was in Whitehall that Henry made his ill-assorted marriage with Anne Bullen; Dr. Lingard says in a "garret;" Stowe says in the royal "closet." It is likely enough that the ceremony was hurried and sudden;--a fit of will, perhaps, during his wine; and if the closet was not ready, the garret was. The clergyman who officiated was shortly afterwards made a bishop.

Henry died in Whitehall; so fat, that he was lifted in and out his chamber and sitting-room by means of machinery.

He was "_somewhat_ gross, or, as we tearme it, bourlie," says time-serving Holinshed.[340]

"He _laboured_ under the _burden_ of an extreme fat and unwieldy body," says noble Herbert of Cherbury.[341]

"The king," says Lingard, "had long indulged without restraint
in the pleasures of the table. At last he grew so _enormously
corpulent_, that he could neither support the weight of his own
body, nor remove without the aid of machinery into the
different apartments of his palace. Even the fatigue of
subscribing his name to the writings which required his
signature, was more than he could bear; and to relieve him from
this duty, three commissioners were appointed, of whom two had
authority to apply to the paper a dry stamp, bearing the
letters of the king's name, and the third to draw a pen
furnished with ink over the blank impression. An inveterate
ulcer in the thigh which had more than once threatened his
life, and which now seemed to baffle all the skill of the
surgeons, added to the irascibility of his temper."[342]

It was under this Prince (as already noticed) that the palace of the Archbishop of York first became the "King's Palace at Westminster," and expanded into that mass of houses which stretched to St. James's Park. He built a gate-house which stood across what is now the open street, and a gallery connecting the two places, and overlooking a tilt-yard; and on the park-side he built a cockpit, a tennis-court, and alleys for bowling; for although he put women to death, he was fond of manly sports. He was also a patron of the fine arts; and gave an annuity and rooms in the palace to the celebrated Holbein, who is said to have designed the gate, as well as decorated the interior. It is to Holbein we are indebted for our familiar acquaintance with his figure.

The reader is to bear in mind, that the street in front of the modern Banqueting-house was always open, as it is now, from Charing Cross to King Street, narrowing opposite to the south end of the Banqueting-house, at which point the gate looked up it towards the Cross. Just opposite the Banqueting-house, on the site of the present Horse Guards, was the Tilt-yard. The whole mass of houses and gardens on the river side comprised the royal residence. Down this open street then, just as people walk now, we may picture to ourselves Henry coming with his regal pomp, and Wolsey with his priestly; Sir Thomas More strolling thoughtfully, perhaps talking with quiet-faced Erasmus; Holbein, looking about him with an artist's eyes; Surrey coming gallantly in his cloak and feather, as Holbein has painted him; and a succession of Henry's wives, with their flitting groups on horseback or under canopy;--handsome, stately Catherine of Arragon; laughing Anne Bullen; quiet Jane Seymour; gross-bodied but sensible Anne of Cleves; demure Catherine Howard, who played such pranks before marriage; and disputatious yet buxom Catherine Parr, who survived one tyrant, to become the broken-hearted wife of a smaller one. Down this road, also, came gallant companies of knights and squires, to the tilting-yard; but of them we shall have more to say in the time of Elizabeth.

We see little of Edward the Sixth, and less of Lady Jane Grey and Queen Mary, in connection with Whitehall. Edward once held the Parliament there, on account of his sickly condition; and he used to hear Latimer preach in the Privy garden (still so called), where a pulpit was erected for him on purpose. As there are gardens there still to the houses erected on the spot, one may stand by the rails, and fancy we hear the voice of the rustical but eloquent and honest prelate, rising through the trees.

Edward has the reputation usually belonging to young and untried sovereigns, and very likely deserves some of it; certainly not all--as Mr. Sharon Turner, one of the most considerate of historians, has shown. He partook of the obstinacy of his father, which was formalised in him by weak health and a precise education; and though he shed tears when prevailed upon to assign poor Joan of Kent to what he thought her eternity of torment, his faults assuredly did not lie on the side of an excess of feeling, as may be seen by the cool way in which he suffered his uncles to go to the scaffold, one after another, and recorded it in the journal which he kept. He would probably have turned out a respectable, but not an admirable sovereign, nor one of an engaging character. Years do not improve a temperament like his.

Even poor Lady Jane Grey's character does not improve upon inspection. The Tudor blood (she was grand-daughter of Henry's sister) manifested itself in her by her sudden love of supremacy the moment she felt a crown on her head, and her preferring to squabble with her husband and his relations (who got it her), rather than let him partake her throne. She insisted he should be only a Duke, and suspected that his family had given her poison for it. This undoes the usual romance of "Lady Jane Grey and Lord Guildford Dudley;"--and thus it is that the possession of too much power spoils almost every human being, practical or theoretical. Lady Jane came out of the elegancies and tranquillities of the schools, and of her Greek and Latin, to find her Platonisms vanish before a dream of royalty. She rediscovered them, however, when it was over; and that is something. She was brought up a slave, and therefore bred to be despotic in her turn; but habit, vanity, and good sense alike contributed to restore her to the better part of herself at the last moment.

We confess we pity "Bloody Mary," as she has been called, almost as much as any unfortunate sovereign on record. She caused horrible and odious suffering, but she also suffered horribly herself, and became odious where she would fain have been loved. She had a bigoted education and a complexional melancholy; was stunted in person, plain in face, with impressive but gloomy eyes; a wife with affections unrequited; and a persecuting, unpopular, but conscientious sovereign. She derived little pleasure apparently from having her way, even in religious matters; but acted as she did out of a narrow sense of duty; and she proved her honesty, however perverted, by a perpetual anxiety and uneasiness. When did a charitable set of opinions ever inflict upon honest natures these miseries of an intolerant one?

It was under Elizabeth that Whitehall shone out in all its romantic splendour. It was no longer the splendour of Wolsey alone, nor of Henry alone, or with a great name by his side now and then; but of a Queen, surrounded and worshipped through a long reign by a galaxy of the brightest minds and most chivalrous persons ever assembled in English history.

Here she comes, turning round the corner from the Strand, under a canopy of state, leaving the noisier, huzzaing multitude behind the barriers that mark the precincts of the palace, and bending her eyes hither and thither, in acknowledgment of the kneeling obeisances of the courtiers. Beside her are Cecil and Knolles, and Northampton, and Bacon's father; or, later in life, Leicester, and Burleigh, and Sir Philip Sidney, and Greville, and Sir Francis Drake (and Spenser is looking on); or, later still, Essex, and Raleigh, and Bacon himself, and Southampton, Shakspeare's friend, with Shakspeare among the spectators. We shall see her by and by, at that period, as brought to life to us in the description of Heutzner the traveller. At present (as we have her at this moment in our eye) she is younger, of a large and tall, but well-made figure, with fine eyes, and finer hands, which she is fond of displaying. We are too apt to think of Elizabeth as thin and elderly, and patched up; but for a good period of her life she was plump and personable, warranting the history of the robust romps of the Lord Admiral, Seymour; and till her latter days (and even then, as far as her powers went), we are always to fancy her at once spirited and stately of carriage, impulsive (except on occasions of ordinary ceremony), and ready to manifest her emotions in look and voice, whether as woman or Queen; in a word, a sort of Henry the Eighth corrected by a female nature and a better understanding--or perhaps an Anne Bullen, enlarged, and made less feminine, by the father's grossness. The Protestants have represented her as too staid, and the Catholics as too violent and sensual. According to the latter, Whitehall was a mere sink of iniquity. It was not likely to be so, for many reasons; but neither, on the other hand, do we take it to have been anything like the pattern of self-denial which some fond writers have supposed. Where there is power, and leisure, and luxury, though of the most legitimate kind, and refinement, though of the most intellectual, self-denial on the side of enjoyment is not apt to be the reigning philosophy; nor would it reasonably be looked for in any court, at all living in wealth and splendour.

Imagine the sensations of Elizabeth, when she first set down in the palace at Whitehall, after escaping the perils of imputed illegitimacy, of confinement for party's sake and for religion's, and all the other terrors of her father's reign and of Mary's, danger of death itself not excepted. She was a young Queen of twenty-five years of age, healthy, sprightly, good-looking, with plenty of will, power, and imagination; and the gallantest spirits of the age were at her feet. How pitiable, and how respectable, become almost all sovereigns, when we consider them as human beings put in possession of almost superhuman power; and when we reflect in general how they have been brought up, and what a provocative to abuse at all events becomes the possession of a throne! We in general spoil them first;--we always tempt them to take every advantage, by worshipping them as if they were different creatures from ourselves;--and then we are astonished that they should take us at our word. How much better would it be to be astonished at the likeness they retain to us, even in the kindlier part of our weaknesses.

By a very natural process, considering the great and chivalrous men of that day, Elizabeth became at once one of the greatest of Queens and one of the most flattered and vain of women. Nor were the courtiers so entirely insincere as they are supposed to have been, when they worshipped her as they did, and gave her credit for all the beauty and virtue under heaven. On the contrary, the power to benefit them went hand-in-hand with their self-love to give them a sincere though extravagant notion of their mistress; and the romantic turn of the age and its literature, its exploits, its poetry, all conspired to warm and sanction the enthusiasm on both sides, and to blind the admiration to those little outward defects, and inward defects too, which love at all periods is famous for overlooking--nay, for converting into noble grounds of denial, and of subjection to a sentiment. Thus Elizabeth's hook nose, her red hair, nay, her very age and crookedness at last, did not stand in the way of raptures at her "beauty" and "divine perfections," any more than a flaw in the casket that held a jewel. The spirit of love and beauty was there; the appreciation of the soul of both; the glory of exciting, and of giving, the glorification;--and all the rest was a trifle, an accident, a mortal show of things, which no gentleman and lady can help. The Queen might even swear a good round oath or so occasionally; and what did it signify? It was a pleasant ebullition of the authority which is above taxation; the Queen swore, and not the woman; or if the woman did, it was only an excess of feeling proper to balance the account, and to bring her royalty down to a level with good hearty human nature.

It has been said, that as Elizabeth advanced in life, the courtiers dropped the mention of her beauty; but this is a mistake. They were more sparing in the mention of it, but when they spoke they were conscious that the matter was not to be minced. When her Majesty was in her sixty-second year, the famous Earl of Essex gave her an entertainment, in the course of which she was complimented on her "_beauty_" and _dazzling outside_, in speeches written for the occasion by Lord, then "Mr. Francis, Bacon."[343] Sir John Davies, another lawyer, who was not born till she was near forty, and could not have written his acrostical "Hymns" upon her till she was elderly, celebrates her as awakening "thoughts of young love," and being "beauty's rose indeed;"[344] and it is well known that she was at a reverend time of life when Sir Walter Raleigh wrote upon her like a despairing lover, calling her "Venus" and "Diana," and saying he could not exist out of her presence.

At the entrance from Whitehall to St. James's Park, where deer were kept, was the following inscription, recorded by Heutzner, the German traveller:--

"The fisherman who has been wounded learns, though late, to beware:
But the unfortunate Actæon always presses on.
The chaste Virgin naturally pitied;
But the powerful Goddess revenged the wrong.
Let Actæon fall a prey to his dogs,
An example to youth,
A disgrace to those that belong to him!
May Diana live the care of Heaven,
The delight of mortals,
The security of those that belong to her."

Walpole thinks that this inscription alluded to Philip the Second, who courted Elizabeth after her sister's death, and to the destruction of his Armada. It might; but it implied also a pretty admonition to youth in general, and to those who ventured to pry into the goddess's retreats.

It was about the time of Essex's entertainment that the same traveller gives the following minute and interesting account of her Majesty's appearance, and of the superhuman way in which her very dinner-table was worshipped. He is describing the manner in which she went to chapel at Greenwich:--

"First went Gentlemen, Barons, Earls, Knights of the Garter,
all richly dressed and bare-headed; next came the Chancellor,
bearing the seals in a silk purse, between two, one of which
carried the royal sceptre, the other the sword of state in a
red scabbard, studded with golden fleurs-de-lis, the point
upwards; next came the Queen, in the fifty-sixth year of her
age (as we were told), very majestic; her face oblong, fair but
wrinkled; her eyes small, yet 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 very rich pearls with drops;
she wore false hair, and that red: upon her head she had a
small crown, reported to have been made of some of the gold of
the celebrated Lunebourg table; her bosom was uncovered, as all
the English ladies have it till they marry; and she had on a
necklace of exceeding fine jewels; her hands were small, her
fingers long; and her stature neither tall nor low; her air was
stately; her manner of speaking mild and obliging. The day she
was dressed in white silk, bordered with pearls of the size of
beans, and over it a mantle of black silk shot with silver
threads; her train was very long, the end of it borne by a
Marchioness; instead of a chain, she had on an oblong collar of
gold and jewels. As she went along in all this state and
magnificence, she spoke very graciously, first to one and then
to another (whether foreign ministers, or those who attended
for different reasons), in English, French, or Italian; for
besides being very well skilled in Greek and Latin, and the
languages I have mentioned, she is mistress of Spanish, Scotch,
and Dutch. Whoever speaks to her, it is kneeling; now and then
she raises some with her hand. While we were there, William
Slawater, a Bohemian Baron, had letters to present to her, and
she, after pulling off her glove, gave him her right hand to
kiss, sparkling with rings and jewels, a mark of particular
favour. Whenever she turned her face as she was going along,
everybody fell down on their knees. The ladies of the court
followed next to her, very handsome and well shaped, and for
the most part dressed in white. She was guarded on each side by
the Gentlemen Pensioners, fifty in number, with gilt
battle-axes. In the ante-chamber next the hall, where we were,
petitions were presented to her, and she received them most
graciously, which occasioned the acclamation of 'God Save the
Queen Elizabeth!' She answered it with 'I thanke youe, myne
good peupel.' In the chapel was excellent music; as soon as it
and the service was over, which scarce exceeded half an hour,
the Queen returned in the same state by water, and prepared to
go to dinner.

"A gentleman entered the room bearing a rod, and along with him
another bearing a table-cloth, which, after they had both
kneeled three times with the utmost veneration, he spread upon
the table, and after kneeling again they both retired; then
came two others, one with the rod again, the other with a
salt-cellar, a plate, and bread; when they had kneeled as the
others had done, and placed what was brought upon the table,
they too retired with the same ceremonies performed by the
first: at last came an unmarried lady, (we were told she was a
Countess), and along with her a married one, bearing a tasting
knife; the former was dressed in white silk, who when she had
prostrated herself three times in the most graceful manner,
approached the table, and rubbed the table with bread and salt,
with as much awe as if the Queen had been present. When they
had waited there a little while, the Yeoman of the Guard
entered, bare headed, clothed in scarlet with golden roses upon
their backs, bringing in each turn a course of dishes, served
in plate, most of it gilt. These dishes were received by a
gentleman in the same order they were brought, and placed upon
the table, while the lady taster gave to each guard a mouthful
to eat of the particular dish he had brought, for fear of any
poison. During the time that this guard (which consist of the
tallest and stoutest men that can be found in all England,
being carefully selected for this service), were bringing
dinner, twelve trumpets and two kettle drums made the hall ring
for half an hour together. At the end of all this ceremonial a
number of unmarried ladies appeared, who with particular
solemnity lifted the meat from the table and conveyed it to the
Queen's inner and more private chamber, where after she had
chosen for herself, the next goes to the ladies of the court.

"The queen dines and sups alone, with very few attendants; and
it is very seldom that anybody, foreigner or native, is
admitted at that time, and then only at the intercession of
somebody in power."[345]

A "Character of Queen Elizabeth," written by Edmund Bohun, Esq., published in "Nichols's Progresses," has given the following account of her daily habits:--

"Before day, every morning, she heard the petitions of those
that had any business with her, and, calling her secretaries of
state, and masters of requests, she caused the order of
councils, proclamations, patents, and all other papers relating
to the public, to be read, which were then depending; and gave
such order in each affair as she thought fit, which was set
down in short notes, either by herself, or her secretaries. As
often as anything happened that was difficult, she called her
great and wise men to her; and proposing the diversity of
opinions, she very attentively considered and weighed on which
side the strongest reason lay, ever preferring that way which
seemed most to promote the public safety and welfare. When she
was thus wearied with her morning work, she would take a walk,
if the sun shined, into her garden, or otherwise in her
galleries, especially in windy or rainy weather. She would then
cause ---- Stanhop, or Sir Henry Savill, or some other learned
man, to be called to walk with her, and entertain her with some
learned subject; the rest of the day she spent in private,
reading history, or some other learning, with great care and
attention; not out of ostentation, and a vain ambition of being
always learning something, but out of a diligent care to enable
herself thereby to live the better, and to avoid sin; and she
would commonly have some learned man with her, or near her, to
assist her; whose labour and industry she would well reward.
Thus she spent her winter.

"In the summer time, when she was hungry, she would eat
something that was of light and easy digestion, in her chamber,
with the windows open to admit the gentle breezes of wind from
the gardens or pleasant hills. Sometimes she would do this
alone, but more commonly she would have her friends with her
then. When she had thus satisfied her hunger and thirst with a
moderate repast, she would rest awhile upon an Indian couch,
curiously and richly covered. In the winter time she observed
the same order; but she omitted her noon sleep. When her day
was thus spent, she went late to supper, which was ever
sparing, and very moderate. At supper she would divert herself
with her friends and attendants; and if they made her no
answer, she would put them upon mirth and pleasant discourse
with great civility. She would also then admit Tarleton, a
famous comedian and a pleasant talker, and other such like men,
to divert her with stories of the town, and the common jests or
accidents; but so that they kept within the bounds of modesty
and chastity. In the winter time, after supper, she would
sometimes hear a song, or a lesson or two played upon the lute;
but she would be much offended if there was any rudeness to any
person, any reproach or licentious reflection used. Tarleton,
who was then the best comedian in England, had made a pleasant
play; and when it was acted before the Queen, he pointed at Sir
Walter Rawleigh, and said,--'See, the knave commands the
Queen;' for which he was corrected by a frown from the Queen;
yet he had the confidence to add, that he was of too much and
too intolerable a power; and going on with the same liberty was
so universally applauded by all that were present, that she
thought fit for the present to bear these reflections with a
seeming unconcernedness. But yet she was so offended, that she
forbad Tarleton and all her jesters from coming near her table,
being inwardly displeased with this impudent and unreasonable
liberty. She would talk with learned men that had travelled, in
the presence of many, and ask them many questions concerning
the government, customs, and discipline used abroad. She loved
a natural jester, that would tell a story pleasantly, and
humour it with his countenance, and gesture, and voice; but she
hated all those praters who made bold with other men's
reputation, or defamed them. She detested, as ominous and
unfortunate, all dwarfs and monstrous births. She loved little
dogs, singing birds, parrots, and apes; and when she was in
private, she would recreate herself with various discourses, a
game at chess, dancing, or singing. Then she would retire into
her bedchamber, where she was attended by married ladies of the
nobility, the Marchioness of Winchester, then a widow, the
Countess of Warwick, and the Lord Scroop's Lady, whose husband
was governor of the West Marshes. She would seldom suffer any
one to wait upon her there, except Leicester, Hatton, Essex,
Nottingham, and Sir Walter Rawleigh, who were more intimately
conversant with her than any other of the courtiers. She
frequently mixed serious things with her jests and her mirth;
and upon festival-days, and especially in Christmas time, she
would play at cards and tables, which was one of her usual
pastimes; and if any time she happened to win, she would be
sure to demand the money. When she found herself sleepy, she
would take her leave of them that were present with much
kindness and gravity, and so betake her to her rest; some lady
of good quality, and of her intimate acquaintance, always lying
in the same chamber. And besides her guards, that were always
upon duty, there was a gentleman of good quality, and some
others, up in the next chamber, who were to wake her in case
anything extraordinary happened.

"Though she was endowed with all the goods of nature and
fortune, and adorned with all those things which are valuable
and to be desired, yet there were some things in her that were
capable of amendment, nor was there any mortal, whose virtues
were not eclipsed by the neighbourhood of some vices or
imperfections. She was subject to be vehemently transported
with anger; and when she was so, she would show it by her
voice, her countenance, and her hands. She would chide her
familiar servants so loud, that they that stood afar off might
sometimes hear her voice. And it was reported, that for small
offences she would strike her maids of honour with her hand:
but then her anger was short, and very innocent; and she
learned from Xenophon's book of the Institution of Cyrus, the
method of curbing and correcting this unruly and uneasy
passion. And when her friends acknowledged their offences, she
with an appeased mind easily forgave them many things. She was
also of opinion, that severity was safe, and too much clemency
was destructive; and, therefore, in her punishments and
justice, she was the more severe."

Some of the panegyric in this account must be taken with allowance; as, for instance, in what is said of the maiden modesty of Elizabeth's ears. It would be far easier than pleasant to bring proofs to the contrary from plays and other entertainments performed in her presence, and honoured with her thanks. Some of the licenses in them would be held much too gross for the lowest theatre in our days. Allowance, however, is to be made for difference of times; and considering the grave assumptions that must have been practised at court in more than one respect, and made most likely a matter of conscience towards the community, it may have been none of the least exquisite of them, that what was understood to all the masculine ears present, was unintelligible to those of "Diana," even though she had a goddess's knowledge as well as beauty.

Of one thing, it surprises us that there could ever have been a question; namely, that Elizabeth was a great as well as fortunate sovereign,--a woman of extraordinary intellect. To the undervaluing remark that she had wise Ministers, it was well answered that she chose them; and if, like most other people, she was less wise and less correct in her conduct than she had the reputation of being, nothing, on that very account, can surely be thought too highly of the wonderful address with which she succeeded in sitting upon the top of the Protestant world as she did throughout her whole reign, supreme over her favourites as well as her Ministers--the refuge of struggling opinion, and the idol of romance.

Enter James I., on horseback, fresh from hunting, clad all in grass green, with a green feather, shambling limbs, thick features, a spare beard, and a tongue too big for his mouth. He looks about him at the by-standers, half frightened; yet he has ridden boldly, and been "in at the death."

The sensations of James the First on getting snugly nestled in the luxurious magnificence of Whitehall must, if possible, have been still more prodigious than those of Elizabeth in her triumphant safety. Coming from a land comparatively destitute, and a people whose contentiousness at that time was equal to their valour, and suddenly becoming rich, easy, and possessor of the homage of Elizabeth's sages and cavaliers, the lavish and timid dogmatist must have felt himself in heaven. There are points about the character of this prince, which it is not pleasant to canvass; but we think the whole of it (like that of other men, if their history were equally known,) traceable to the circumstances of his birth and breeding. He was the son of the accomplished and voluptuous Mary, and the silly and debauched Darnley; his mother, during her pregnancy, saw Rizzio assassinated before her face; Buchanan was his tutor, and made him a pedant, "which was all," he said, "that he could make of him;" he was a king while yet a child;--and from all these circumstances it is not to be wondered at that he was at once clever and foolish--confident, and, in some respects, of no courage--the son of handsome people, and yet disjointedly put together--and that he continued to be a child as long as he existed.

Granger, a shrewd man up to a certain pitch, makes a shallow remark upon what Sir Kenelm Digby has said on one of these points in James's history. "Sir Kenelm Digby," says he, "imputes the strong aversion James had to a drawn sword, to the fright his mother was in, during her pregnancy, at the sight of the sword with which David Rizzio, her secretary, was assassinated in her presence. 'Hence it came,' says this author, 'that her son, King James, had such an aversion, all his life-time, to a naked sword, that he could not see one without a great emotion of the spirits, although otherwise courageous enough; yet he could not over-master his passion in this particular. I remember, when he dubbed me knight, in the ceremony of putting the point of a naked sword upon my shoulder, he could not endure to look upon it, but turned his face another way; insomuch, that, in lieu of touching my shoulder, he had almost thrust the point into my eyes, had not the Duke of Buckingham guided his hand aright.' 'I shall only add," continues Granger, "to what Sir Kenelm has observed, that James discovered so many marks of pusillanimity, when the sword was at a distance from him, that it is needless in this case to allege that an impression was made upon his tender frame before he saw the light."[346] And then he makes another objection, which, though not so obviously unfounded, is perhaps equally so; for effects must have causes of some sort; and among the mysteries of our birth and being, what is more probable, than that the same wonders by which we exist at all, should cause the peculiarities of our existence? The same "tender frame" would produce the general pusillanimity, as well as the particular.

Before we continue our remarks on the court of James the First, we must look back a moment at that of Elizabeth, to say, that Tallis, Bird, and others, gave dignity to the service of Elizabeth's chapel at Whitehall, by their noble psalmody and organ-playing. Her Majesty, one day, not in quite so appropriate a strain, looked out of her closet in the chapel, and lectured a preacher out loud, for talking indiscreetly of people's age and dress in a sermon!

The Court of James the First was a great falling off from that of Elizabeth, in point of decency. It was Sir Toby keeping house after the death of Olivia; or a fox-hunting squire succeeding to the estate of some courtly dame, and mingling low life with high. The open habit of drinking to intoxication, so long the disgrace of England, seems first to have come up in this reign; yet James, who indulged in it, was remarkable for his edicts against drunkenness. Perhaps he issued them during his fits of penitence; or out of a piece of his boasted "kingcraft," as a blind to his subjects; or, at best, as intimations to them, that the vulgar were not to take liberties like the gods. James's court was as great in inconsistency as himself. His father's grossness, his mother's refinement, and the faults common to both, were equally to be seen in it--drunkenness and poetry, dirt and splendour, impiety with claims to religion, favouritism without principle, the coarsest and most childish buffoonery, and the exquisite fancies of the masque.

When Christian IV. of Denmark, brother of James's queen, came into England to visit him, both the kings got drunk together. Sir John Harrington the wit, translator of Ariosto (the best English version of that poet, till Mr. Stewart Rose's appeared), has left a letter on the subject of the court revels of those days, which makes mention of these royal elegancies, and is on every account worth repeating:--

SIR JOHN HARRINGTON TO MR. SECRETARY BARLOW.

[From London] 1606.

"My good Friend,

"In compliance with your asking, now shall you accept my poor
accounte of rich doings. I came here a day or two before the
Danish King came, and from the day he did come till this hour,
I have been well nigh overwhelmed with carousal and sports of
all kinds. The sports began each day in such manner and such
sorte, as well nigh persuaded me of Mahomet's paradise. We had
women, and indeed wine too, of such plenty, as would have
astonished each beholder. Our feasts were magnificent, and the
two royal guests did most lovingly embrace each other at table.
I think the Dane hath strangely wrought on our good English
nobles; for those whom I could never get to taste good liquor,
now follow the fashion, and wallow in beastly delights. The
ladies abandon their sobriety, and are seen to roll about in
intoxication. In good sooth, the parliament did kindly to
provide his Majestie so seasonably with money, for there have
been no lack of good livinge, shews, sights, and banquetings
from morn to eve.

"One day a great feast was held, and after dinner the
representation of Solomon, his temple, and the coming of the
Queen of Sheba was made, or (as I may better say) was meant to
have been made before their Majesties, by device of the Earl of
Salisbury and others. But, alas! as all earthly things do fail
to poor mortals in enjoyment, so did prove our presentment
thereof. The lady who did play the Queen's part did carry most
precious gifts to both their Majesties; but forgetting the
steppes arising to the canopy, overset her caskets into his
Danish Majestie's lap, and fell at his feet, though I think it
was rather in his face. Much was the hurry and confusion;
cloths and napkins were at hand to make all clean. His Majestie
then got up, and would dance with the Queen of Sheba; but he
fell down and humbled himself before her, and was carried to an
inner chamber, and laid on a bed of state, which was not a
little defiled with the presents of the Queen, which had been
bestowed on his garments; such as wine, cream, jelly,
beverage, cakes, spices, and other good matters. The
entertainment and show went forward, and most of the presenters
went backward or fell down; wine did so occupy their upper
chambers. Now did appear, in rich dress, Hope, Faith, and
Charity. Hope did essay to speak, but wine rendered her
endeavours so feeble that she withdrew, and hoped the king
would excuse her brevity. Faith was then all alone, for I am
certain she was not joyned to good works, and left the court in
a staggering condition. Charity came to the King's feet, and
seemed to cover the multitude of sins her sisters had
committed; in some sorte she made obeyance, and brought giftes,
but said she would return home again, as there was no gift
which heaven had not already given his Majesty. She then
returned to Hope and Faith, who were both sick ... in the lower
hall. Next came Victory, in bright armour, and presented a rich
sword to the King, who did not accept it, but put it by with
his hand; and by a strange medley of versification, did
endeavour to make suit to the King. But Victory did not triumph
long; for, after much lamentable utterance, she was led away
like a silly captive, and laid to sleep in the outer steps of
the anti-chamber. Now did Peace make entry, and strive to get
foremoste to the King; but I grieve to tell how great wrath she
did discover unto those of her attendants; and much contrary to
her semblance, made rudely war with her olive-branch, and laid
on the pates of those who did oppose her coming."[347]

We suspect that some excuse might be found for James's tendency to drinking, in the same lax and ricketty constitution which made him timid and idle. His love of field sports might indeed have given him strength enough to counteract it, had he been forced into greater economy of living; but the sportsman is seldom famous for eschewing the pleasures of the table; he thinks he has earned, and can afford, excess; and so he can, more than most men. James would have died of idleness and repletion at half the age he did, had he not been a lover of horseback; but when he got to his table he loved it too well; one excess produced another; the nerves required steadying; and the poor disjointed, "ill-contrived" son of Mary (to use a popular, but truly philosophic epithet,) felt himself too stout and valiant by the help of the bottle, not to become overfond of it when he saw it return. All his feelings were of the same incontinent maudlin kind, easily flowing into temptation, and subjecting themselves to a ruler. The bottle governed him; the favourite governed him; his horse and dogs governed him; pedantry governed him; passion governed him; and when the fit was over, repentance governed him as absolutely.

Sir Anthony Welldon (a discharged servant of James's for writing a banter upon Scotland, and therefore of doubtful authority concerning him, but credible from collateral evidence, and in some respects manifestly impartial,) says that there was an organised system of buffoonery for the King's amusement, at the head of which were Sir Edward Souch, singer and relater of indecent stories, Sir John Finet, composer of ditto, and Sir George Goring, master of the practical jokes! Sir George sometimes brought two fools riding on people's shoulders, and tilting at one another till they fell together by the ears. The same writer says that James was not addicted to drinking; but in this he is contradicted by every other authority, and indeed a different conclusion may be drawn from what Sir Anthony himself subsequently remarks. Sully (Henry the Fourth's Sully, who was at one time ambassador to James, and who tells us that the English monarch usually spent part of the afternoon in bed, "sometimes the whole of it,") says that his custom was "never to mix water with his wine;"[348] and Sir Roger Coke says he was--