replied, 'I thank you, my good people!' Bearing in mind this description and contrasting it with the overflowing flattery of all the poetasters, we may smile with Horace Walpole, and exclaim with him, "What! all this worship offered to an old woman with bare neck, black teeth, and false red hair!"

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CHAPTER V.

Visits of Sully to King James I. at Greenwich.-Demolition of the Palace of Placentia. - Building of a New Palace. Origin, and completion of the Hospital. The Funeral of Nelson.-The View from the Hill.-The Legend of St. Alphege.-The humours of Greenwich Fair.

HE history of the old palace of Greenwich, after the death of Elizabeth, loses its chief attractions. With her died its gaiety and splendour; the long proces

sions by water, the rural pavilions in the park, the maskings and revellings by moonlight, the tilting by day, and the flattering verses of the rhymers, all ceased together;-and James, in the ensuing summer, took up his abode in Greenwich without ostentation, and without welcome. The new King did not like to hear of his predecessor. He frowned upon those who suggested the peacefulness or the splendour of her reign, and the name of Elizabeth was heard in her halls no more.

Soon after his accession, the sage Marquis de Rosni, better known by his subsequent title of Duke de Sully, complimented the King on the part of his great master Henry IV. Sully went by water to Greenwich in the barges of the King, accompanied by a hundred and twenty gentlemen of his household; the banks of the river being lined with the multitudes of London to witness the procession. "I was shown into a chamber," says the Duke in his Memoirs, "to partake of a collation, contrary to the usual custom of England, which is not to regale ambassadors, or offer them even so much as a glass of water. His Majesty having sent to request my presence, it took me a quarter of an hour before I could reach the foot of the throne-a delay which was occasioned as much by the crowd of courtiers who were there already, as by my having ordered my whole household to walk before me. The King no sooner saw me, than he came down two steps from the throne, and would have come down the whole of them, so eager was he to embrace me, had not one of the ministers (Cecil) whispered in his ear that he ought not to go any further. 'If I,' replied the King aloud, honour this ambassador more than I have done others, I do not expect that

After

it should become a precedent. I bear him a peculiar love and esteem for the affection which I know he bears to me, for his constancy to our religion, and for his fidelity towards his master.' But I cannot tell," adds Sully, "all the flattering things he said of me." this public audience, the King made him ascend to the highest step of the throne, where they had a long private conversation about various matters: the virtues of Henry IV.-the designs of Spain-but chiefly about hunting, to which, as is well known, James was passionately addicted.

A few days afterwards Sully had a second audience, when the King led him away alone, through several apartments, into a little private gallery, meanly enough furnished, where they had another long conversation about the affairs of Europe. Sully's third visit to Greenwich was to dine with the King. It was on a Sunday, the 29th of June, 1603, and Sully arrived at ten in the morning, with all the gentlemen of his household. He first went to church with the King, and nothing particular passed till the service was over, and they had sat down to dinner, when James began to talk to him about his favourite diversion of hunting, and the state of the weather as influencing it.

was.

Sully was surprised to see that the domestics all went upon their knees to serve the Kinga piece of regal pomp which he had not been accustomed to in his own country. During nearly all dinner time the discourse was about hunting, when accidentally the name of Elizabeth was introduced. James spoke of her with contempt, and even went so far as to say, that long before the death of that princess, he in Scotland swayed her counsels, and disposed of all her ministers, by whom he asserted he was much better served and obeyed than she "He then," says Sully, "asked for wine, and his custom is never to mix any water with it, and holding his glass in his hand towards Beaumont and me, drank to the health of the King, Queen, and royal family of France. I acknowledged the honour, and proposed the royal family of England, making particular mention of his children, when the King bent down his head and whispered in my ear that he should propose as the next toast-the double union which he contemplated between the two royal families. I received the proposition with every outward sign of joy, and also whispered that I was sure Henry would not hesitate for an instant between his good brother and ally of England, and the King of Spain, who had

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