consort to the throne of England, were asserted by Francis II., he was a sickly youth, inheriting neither the talents nor the judgment of his father. The nominal power of France and Scotland, both passed into the hands of Mary Stuart's uncles, the princes of Lorraine and Guise; but the rival factions, both political and religious, by which they were opposed and impeded on every side, deprived them of the means of injuring Elizabeth, who, on her part, actively employed agents, as numerous as the arms of Briarius, in sowing the seeds of discord, and nursing every root of bitterness, that sprang up in those unhappy realms. The fulminations of John Knox against female government had incited the reformed party, to resist the authority of the queen dowager, Mary of Lorraine, to whom the regent Arran, had in 1555, reluctantly resigned his office. The queen-regent, after an ill-judged, fruitless struggle to crush the progress of the Reformation, summoned the earl of Arran, who had recently accepted the French dukedom of Chatelherault, to her aid, as the most powerful peer in Scotland, and the next in succession to the throne, on which, in fact he had, from the first, cast a longing regard. He was the head of the potent house of Hamilton, but his designs had been checked by the rival faction of the earl of Lenox, and subsequently by the more popular and able party of the young queen's illegitimate brother, the earl of Murray; and now, although he gave his lukewarm succour to the queen-regent in her need, he suffered himself to be deluded by the English cabinet, with the idea that the crown might be transferred, from the brows of his absentee sovereign to his own, or rather, to those of his heir, the earl of Arran, to whom queen Elizabeth had been offered in her childhood, by her father, Henry VIII.'

There is every reason to believe, that Cecil seriously meditated uniting the island crowns by a marriage between his royal mistress and young Arran, if the Hamilton party in Scotland had succeeded, in deposing queen Mary, and placing him on the throne. The young earl, who had been colonel of the Scotch guards at Paris, had, in anticipation of a more brilliant destiny, embraced the reformed religion, and, as it was supposed, at the suggestion and with the aid of Throckmorton, Elizabeth's ambassador at Paris, absconded from the French service; and after visiting Geneva, to arrange his plans with the leaders of that church, he came privately to England. The secret and confidential conference which he held with queen Elizabeth, on the 6th of August, must have taken place at the ancient palace of Eltham, where she arrived on the preceding day. Arran was young and handsome, but weak-minded; at times, indeed, subject to the direful malady which clouded the mental perceptions of his father and brothers, just the subject for the royal coquette, and her wily premier, to render a ready tool in any scheme, connected with hopes of aggrandizement for himself.

As the plan and limits of this work will not admit of launching into the broad stream of general history, the events of the Scotch campaign. which commenced with Elizabeth sending an army and a fleet to aid the insurgent lords of the congregation, in defending themselves against

'Forbes' State Papers; Lingard; Sharon Turner.

'Lingard.

Mary, Deen constituted, by the authority of parliament, joint sovereign of the order with his royal consort. Elizabeth having no wish to hold any dignity in partnership with him, yet desiring to do all things with proper courtesy, caused his banner to be removed to the second stall on the prince's side, intimating that he continued a knight companion of the order, though he had, by the death of the queen his wife, lost the joint sovereignty. Philip, however, returned the garter by the hands of the queen's ambassador, lord Montague, who had been sent to negotiate a peace; but Elizabeth did not accept his resignation, and he continued a companion of the order till his death, notwithstanding the hostile character of his subsequent proceedings towards England.'

Elizabeth's first chapter of the order was certainly held in St. George's hall at Greenwich, for we find, that the same afternoon she went to Baynard's castle, the earl of Pembroke's place, and supped with him; and after supper she took boat, and was rowed up and down on the river Thames, hundreds of boats and barges rowing about her, and thousands of people thronging the banks of the river to look upon her majesty, rejoicing to see her, and partaking of the music and sights on the Thames. It seems there was an aquatic festival in honour of the welcome appearance of their new and comely liege lady on the river, for the trumpets blew, drums beat, flutes played, guns were discharged, and fireworks played off, as she moved from place to place. This continued till ten o'clock at night, when the queen departed home.2

By thus showing herself so freely and condescendingly to her people, she made herself dear and acceptable unto them. Well, indeed, had nature qualified Elizabeth to play her part, with eclat, in the imposing drama of royalty, by the endowments of wit, eloquence, penetration, and self-possession, joined to the advantages of commanding features and a majestic presence. She had, from childhood upwards, studied the art of courting popularity, and perfectly understood how to please the great body of the people. The honest-hearted mechanical classes, won by the frank manner, in which she dispensed the cheap, but dearlyprized favours of gracious words and smiles, regarded her with feelings approaching to idolatry; and as for the younger nobles and gentlemen of England, who attended her court, they were, almost to a man, eager for the opportunity of risking their lives in her service; and she knew how to improve the love and loyalty of all ranks of her subjects, to the advancement of her power and the defence of het realm.

The pecuniary aids granted by her first parliament to queen Elizabeth, though only proportioned to the extreme necessity of the crown, at that period, were enormous, for, besides the tenths, first fruits, and impropriations of church property, which had been declined by Mary, and the grant of tonnage and poundage for life, they voted a subsidy of two and eightpence in the pound on all movable goods, and four shillings on land, to be paid in two several payments. How such a property tax was ever gathered, after a year of famine and pestilence, must indeed

'History of the Order of the Garter, by Sir H. Nicolas, vol. i., pp. 184, 188, 189. Nichols' Progresses. by statute 1st Eliz., cap. 21.

3

appear a marvel to those, who witness the irritation and inconvenience caused to the needy portion of the middle classes, by the infliction of a comparatively trivial impost at present. It is always easy to convince the wealthy, of the expediency of sacrificing a part to save the whole; therefore, Elizabeth and her acute premier, Cecil, laid a heavier burden on the lords of the soil, and those, who derived their living from ecclesiastical property, than on those, whose possessions were limited to personals, which, at that time were chiefly the mercantile and mechanical classes.

The destitution of the crown having been thus relieved, a series of pageants and festivities were wisely ordained by the queen, as a sure means of diverting the attention of the good people of London and its neighbourhood, from past troubles and present changes. Stowe gives a quaint account of her majesty coming, in great state, to St. Mary's, Spital, to hear a sermon delivered from the cross, on which occasion she was attended, by one thousand men in harness, with shirts of mail, pikes, and field-pieces, with drums and trumpets sounding. The procession was closed by morris-dancers and two white bears in a cart, These luckless animals were, of course, to furnish a cruel pageant for the recreation of the queen and her loving citizens, after the sermon was ended.

In a letter of the 14th of April, that eminent reformer, Jewel, laments, that the queen continued the celebration of mass in her private chapel. It was not till the 12th of May, that the service was changed, and the use of Latin discontinued. "The queen," observes Jewel, "declines being styled the head of the church, at which I certainly am not much displeased." Elizabeth assumed the title of governess of the church, but she finally asserted her supremacy, in a scarcely less authoritative manner than her father had done, and many Catholics were put to death for denying it.

Touching the suitors for Elizabeth's hand, Jewel tells his Zurich correspondent that nothing is yet talked about the queen's marriage, yet there are now courting her the king of Sweden, the Saxon (son of John Frederic, duke of Saxony), and Charles, the son of the emperor Ferdinand, to say nothing of the Englishman, sir William Pickering. I know, however, what I should prefer; but matters of this kind, as you are aware, are rather mysterious, and we have a common proverb, that marriages are made in heaven." In another letter, dated May 22, 1559, he says, "that public opinion inclines towards sir William Pickering, a wise and religious man, and highly gifted as to personal qualities."

Jewel is the first person, who mentions Pickering among the aspirants for the hand of queen Elizabeth. He had been employed on diplomatic missions to Germany and France, with some credit to himself, and the queen bestowed so many marks of attention upon him, that the Spanish ambassador, as well as our good bishop and others, fancied that he had as fair a chance of success, as the sons of reigning princes. He is also mentioned by Camden "as a gentleman of moderate fortune, but comely person." It is possible that Pickering had performed some secret service for Elizabeth, in the season of her distress, which entitled

him to the delusive honour of her smiles, as there is undoubtedly some mystery in the circumstance of a man, scarcely of equestrian rank, encouraging hopes so much above his condition. Be this as it may, he quickly vanished from the scene, and was forgotten.

On the 23d of May, a splendid embassy from France, headed by the duke de Montmorenci, arrived, for the purpose of receiving the queen's ratification of the treaty of Cambresis. They landed at the Tower wharf, and were conducted to the bishop of London's palace, where they were lodged. On the following day, they were brought in great state by a deputation of the principal nobles of the court, through Fleetstreet, to a supper-banquet with the queen, at her palace at Westminster, where they were entertained with sumptuous cheer and music till after midnight. On the following day they came gorgeously apparelled to dine with her majesty, and were recreated afterwards, with the baiting of bears and bulls. The queen's grace herself and the ambassadors stood in the gallery, looking on the pastime, till six in the evening. On the 26th, another bull and bear baiting was provided, for the amusement of the noble envoys at Paris garden, and on the 28th, when they departed, they were presented with many mastiffs, for the nobler purpose of hunting their wolves.'

On the 11th of June, at eight o'clock at night, the queen and her court embarked in their barges at Whitehall, and took their pleasure on the river, by rowing along the bank, and crossing over to the other side, with drums beating and trumpets sounding, and so to Whitehall again. The Londoners were so lovingly disposed to their maiden sovereign, that when she withdrew to her summer bowers at Greenwich, they were fain to devise all sorts of gallant shows, to furnish excuses for following her there, to enjoy, from time to time, the sunshine of her presence. They prepared a sort of civic tournament in honour of her majesty, July 2d, each company supplying a certain number of men at arms, 1400 in all, all clad in velvet and chains of gold, with guns, morris pikes, halberds, and flags, and so marched they over London Bridge, into the duke of Suffolk's park at Southwark, where they mustered before the lord mayor; and in order to initiate themselves into the hardships of a campaign, they lay abroad in St. George's Fields all that night. The next morning they set forward in goodly array, and entered Greenwich Park at an early hour, where they reposed themselves till eight o'clock, and then marched down into the lawn, and mustered in their arms, all the gunners being in shirts of mail. It was not, however, till eventide that her majesty deigned to make herself visible to the doughty bands of Cockaine chivalry they cannot properly be called, for they had discreetly avoided exposing civic horsemanship to the mockery of the gallant equestrians of the court, and trusted no other legs than their own, with the weight of their valour and warlike accoutrements, in addition to their velvet gaberdines and chains of gold, in which this midsummer bevy had bivouacked in St. George's Fields on

'Strype and Nichols.

the preceding night. At five o'clock, the queen came into the gallery of Greenwich park gate, with the ambassadors, lords, and ladies-a fair and numerous company. Then the lord marquis of Northampton, (queen Katharine Parr's brother whom, like Edward VI., Elizabeth ever treated as an uncle,) her great uncle, lord William Howard, lord admiral of England, and the lord Robert Dudley, her master of the horse, undertook to review the city muster, and to set their two battles in array, to skirmish before the queen, with flourish of trumpets, alarum of drums, and melody of flutes, to encourage the counter champions to the fray. Three onsets were given, the guns discharged on one another, the Moorish pikes encountered together with great alarm, each ran to his weapon again, and then they fell together as fast as they could, in imitation of close fight, while the queen and her ladies looked on. After all this, Mr. Chamberlain, and divers of the commoners of the city, and the wifflers, came before her grace, who thanked them heartily, and all the city; whereupon was given the greatest shout ever heard, with hurling up of caps, and the queen showed herself very merry. After this was a running at tilt; and, lastly, all departed home to London.

As numerous, if not as valiantly disposed a company, poured down from the metropolis to Woolwich on the morrow: for on that day, July 3d. the queen went in state to witness the launch of a fine new ship of war, which, in honour of her, was called "The Elizabeth."

The gallantry of the city muster inspired the gentlemen of the court with loyal emulation, and they determined to tilt on foot, with spears before the queen, also, in Greenwich Park. The challengers were three, the earl of Ormond, sir John Perrot, and Mr. North, and there were defendants of equal prowess with lances and swords. The whole of the queen's band of pensioners were, however, to run with spears, and preparations were made for a royal and military fête champêtre, such as might be imitated, with admirable effect, in Windsor park even now. It was both the policy and pleasure of the last of the Tudor sovereigns, to keep her loving metropolis in good humour, by allowing the people to participate, as far at least as looking on went, in her princely recreations. Half the popularity of Elizabeth proceeded from the care she took, that the holidays of her subjects should be merry days. "If ever any person had either, the gift or the style to win the hearts of people," says Hayward, "it was this queen." But to return to her July evening pageant, in the green glades of Greenwich park. A goodly banqueting house was built up for her grace with fir poles, and decked with birch branches and all manner of flowers, both of the field and garden, as roses, July flowers, lavender, marygolds, and all manner of strewing herbs and rushes. There were also tents set up for providing refreshments, and a space made for the tilting. About five in the afternoon came the queen, with the ambassadors and the lords and ladies of her train, and stood over the park gate, to see the exercise of arms, and afterwards the combatants chasing one another. Then the queen took her horse, and, accompanied by three ambassadors and her retinue, rode to the sylvan pavilion, where a costly banquet was provided for her