The Town Part 43

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 l.u.s.tie 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-a.s.sorted 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 n.o.ble 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]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOLBEIN'S GATE OF WHITEHALL PALACE.]

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 ma.s.s 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 c.o.c.kpit, 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 ma.s.s 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 a.s.sign poor Joan of Kent to what he thought her eternity of torment, his faults a.s.suredly 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 "b.l.o.o.d.y 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 wors.h.i.+pped through a long reign by a galaxy of the brightest minds and most chivalrous persons ever a.s.sembled in English history.

Here she comes, turning round the corner from the Strand, under a canopy of state, leaving the noisier, huzzaing mult.i.tude behind the barriers that mark the precincts of the palace, and bending her eyes. .h.i.ther 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, Ess.e.x, 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 wors.h.i.+pping 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 wors.h.i.+pped 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 n.o.ble 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 Ess.e.x 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 Actaeon always presses on.

The chaste Virgin naturally pitied; But the powerful G.o.ddess revenged the wrong.

Let Actaeon 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 G.o.ddess's retreats.

It was about the time of Ess.e.x'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 wors.h.i.+pped. 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, pet.i.tions were presented to her, and she received them most graciously, which occasioned the acclamation of 'G.o.d 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 pet.i.tions 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 s.h.i.+ned, 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 a.s.sist 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 chast.i.ty. 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 n.o.bility, 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, Ess.e.x, 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 Inst.i.tution of Cyrus, the method of curbing and correcting this unruly and uneasy pa.s.sion. 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 a.s.sumptions 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 G.o.ddess'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 gra.s.s 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 dest.i.tute, 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 canva.s.s; but we think the whole of it (like that of other men, if their history were equally known,) traceable to the circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sa.s.sinated 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sa.s.sinated 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 pa.s.sion 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 n.o.ble 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 G.o.ds.

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 coa.r.s.est 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,