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| You must no more call it York Place--that is past;
For since the Cardinal fell that title's lost;
'Tis now the King's, and called Whitehall.
Shakespeare's Henry VIII., Act IV., sc. 1.
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| The moment that we pass out of the Strand, or make our way from the into , and wander either westwards through into , or in a south-west direction past towards the venerable Abbey of , we must feel, if we know anything of the history of our country under the Tudors and the Stuarts, that we are treading on ground which is most rich in historic memories. In fact, it may be said without fear of contradiction that the triangular space which lies between the new Palaces of and St. James's, and the old Palace at , is holy ground, having been the scene of more important events in English history than all which have been witnessed by the rest of the cities of London and together. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the following chapter will not be deficient in interest. And this is scarcely to be expected, seeing that for all this part of |
p.338 | London, and for this period in the annals of Great , we have the most abundant stores of material provided--not merely in the gossiping Diaries of Evelyn and Pepys, but in the memoirs and correspondence of scores of statesmen, courtiers, and writers, from the Augustan era of Queen Anne down to Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, the late Duke of Buckingham, and Lord William Lennox.
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| Nothing can be further from our purpose than to write a complete history-either topographical or biographical--of the Palace of . To attempt to do so would be in effect to write the history of our Tudor and Stuart sovereigns; a task which has been so well done by Miss Lucy Aiken as to render it needless for us to attempt a rival account. was, however, as Walpole tells us, the most polite court in Europe;
and if it was not a school of morals, at all events it was a school of manners, such as would make a fine gentleman
or fine lady
of the age. And therefore a few brief sketches of the palace as Englishmen find it in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, of James I. and Charles I., may not be a task either impossible or unattractive to our readers. It is to be feared, however, that the standard of morality was not very high among the female part of the Court at , at the close of the reign of Charles II. Macaulay, at all events, writes:-- In that court a maid of honour who dressed in such a manner as to do full justice to a white bosom, who ogled significantly, who danced voluptuously, who excelled in pert repartee, who was not ashamed to romp with lords of the bedchamber and captains of the guards, to sing sly verses with a sly expression, or to put on a page's dress for a frolic, was more likely to be followed and admired, more likely to be honoured with royal attentions, more likely to win a rich husband, than Jane Grey or Lucy Hutchinson would have been. In such circumstances the standard of female attainments was necessarily low, and it was more dangerous to be above that standard than to be beneath it. Extreme ignorance and frivolity were thought less unbecoming in a lady than the slightest tincture of pedantry. Of the too celebrated women whose faces we still admire on the walls of Hampton Court few indeed were in the habit of reading anything more valuable than acrostics, lampoons, and translations of the Clelia and the Grand Cyrus.
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| It is remarked in the New View of London,
published in , that heretofore there have been many courts of our kings and queens in London and Westminster , as the Tower of London , where some believe Julius Caesar lodged, and William the Conqueror; in the Old Jewry , where Henry VI.; Baynard's Castle, where Henry VII.; Bridewell , where John and Henry VIII.; Tower Royal , where Richard II. and Stephen; the Wardrobe, in Great Carter Lane , where Richard III. [resided]; also at Somerset House , kept by Queen Elizabeth, and at Westminster , near the Hall, where Edward the Confessor, and several other kings, kept their courts. But of later times,
continues the writer, the place for the Court, when in town, was mostly Whitehall , a very pleasant and commodious situation, looking into St. James's Park , the canal, &c., on the west, and the noble river of Thames on the east; Privy Garden, with fountain, statues, &c., and an open prospect to the statue at Charing Cross on the north.
With these few words of preface let us proceed.
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| [extra_illustrations.3.338.1] was known as when in the possession of Cardinal Wolsey, with whose history the palace is so intimately connected. But long before that time it had been in lay hands. We read that it was erected on lands originally belonging to Odo, a goldsmith, and that Hubert de Burgh, Lord Chief Justice of England under John and Henry III., and who gained himself a name in the Crusades, had a mansion on this very site; having purchased the latter from the Dean and Chapter of , to whom it had been previously given or bequeathed. He left his house, about the year , to the monastery of Black Friars or Dominicans, whose principal abode at that time was in . They sold it to Walter de Grey, Archbishop of York, who settled it not on his family, but on his successors in that see, as their town residence, whence it was called ; and it was not until it passed out of their hands into those of King Henry-how is known to every reader of a child's History of England--that it came to be known as ; a change of name which, if not duly recorded at the Heralds' College,
is, at all events, notified by Shakespeare in the lines quoted at the head of this chapter.
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| To give a detailed account of all the scenes which the Palace of witnessed in its heyday and prime, when it was the favourite abode of our Tudor and Stuart sovereigns, would really be--as we have said--to write a history of the courts and cabinets of each successive monarch from the Reformation down to the Revolution-a task which would be impossible within the limits of this book, and foreign to the purpose which we have in view. But we cannot here, in justice to our subject, forbear the due encomium to Cardinal Wolsey. We do not attempt to defend his political |
p.339 | character, or the arrogant means by which he supported it. But he made his greatness subservient to the improvement and decoration of his country. , Oxford, and are existing monuments of his liberality; and the recollection that he exhibited at his palace at of all that was exquisite in art, refined in taste, elegant in manners, and respectable in literature, should urge us, at the same time that we pity and regret the failings of this great minister, to applaud his public spirit, and give deserved honour to the greatness of his munificence.
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| The sumptuous style of living adopted by Wolsey here is known to every child who has read the History of England-how he formed his domestic establishment on the model of the royal court, ranging those under his roof under classes, to each of which a separate table was assigned, including a company of young noblemen who were placed in his household in order to receive a polite education; how he was waited on by a with a gold chain round his neck, by yeomen of the barge, by a master of the horse and grooms of the stable, and a tribe of secretaries, grooms, and yeomen of the chamber, amounting in all to nearly a persons. Such was the proud state which my Lord Cardinal of York
kept at , which in the end drew down upon him the envy and wrath of his sovereign.
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| Here Wolsey was visited by Henry not only privately, but also in state; and we find in Shakespeare graphic pictures of the ambitious cardinal, his sensual master, and the court manners of the period in which he lived. His gentleman usher, George Cavendish, also thus writes, in his Life and Death of Thomas Woolsey,
a work reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany.
The extract, though long, is worth preserving here as a picture complete in itself:-- He lived a long season ruling all appertaining to the King by his wisdom, and all other weighty matters of foreign regions with which the King of this realm had any occa sion to intermeddle. All ambassadors of foreign potentates were always despatched by his discre tion, to whom they had always access for their despatch. And when it pleased the King's Majesty, for his recreation, to repair unto the Cardinal's house, as he did at divers times in the year, at which times there wanted no preparation or goodly furniture, with viands of the finest sort that might be provided for money or friendship such pleasures were then devised for the King's comfort and consolation as might be invented o by man's wit imagined. The banquets were se forth with masks and mummeries in so gorgeous a sort. and costly manner that it was a heaven to behold. There wanted no dames or damsels meet or apt to dance with the maskers, or to garnish the place for the time with other goodly disports. Then was there all kind of music and harmony set forth, with excellent voices both of men and children. I have seen the King suddenly come in thither in a mask, with a dozen of other maskers, all in garments like shepherds, made of fine cloth of gold and fine crimson satin paned, and caps of the same, with vizors of good proportion of visnomy; their hairs and beards either of fine gold wire or else of silver, and some being of black silk: having sixteen torchbearers, besides their drums, and other persons attending upon them, with vizors, and clothed all in satin of the same colours. And at his coming, and before he came into the hall-ye shall understand that he came by water to the water-gate without any noise- where, against his coming, were laid charged many chambers, and at his landing they were all shot off, which made such a rumble in the air that it was like thunder. It made all the noblemen, ladies, and gentlemen to muse what it should mean coming so suddenly, they sitting quietly at a solemn banquet; under this sort :-- First , ye shall perceive that the tables were set in the chamber of presence, banquet-wise covered, my Lord Cardinal sitting under the cloth of estate, and there having his service all alone; and then was there set a lady and a nobleman, or a gentleman and gentlewoman, throughout all the tables in the chamber on the one side, which were made and joined as it were but one table. All which order and device was done and devised by the Lord Sands, Lord Chamberlain to the King; and also by Sir Henry Guildford, Comptroller to the King. Then immediately after this great shot of guns the Cardinal desired the Lord Chamberlain and Comptroller to look what this sudden shot should mean, as though he knew nothing of the matter. They, thereupon looking out of the windows into Thames, returned again, and showed him that it seemed to them there should be some noblemen and strangers arrived at his bridge, as ambassadors from some foreign prince. With that quoth the Cardinal, I shall desire you, because ye can speak French, to take the pains to go down into the hall to encounter and to receive them according to their estates, and to conduct them into this chamber, where they shall see us, and all these noble personages, sitting merrily at our banquet, desiring them to sit down with us, and to take part of our fare and pastime. Then they went incontinent down into the hall, where they received them with twenty new torches, and conveyed them up into the chamber, with such a number of drums and fifes as I have seldom seen together at one time in any masque. At their arrival into the chamber, two and two together, they went directly before the Cardinal, where he sat, saluting him very reverently; to whom the Lord Chamberlain for them said, Sir, forasmuch as they be strangers and can speak no English, they have desired me to declare unto your grace thus: they, having understanding of this your triumphant banquet, where was assembled such a number of excellent fair dames, could do no less, under the supportation of your good grace, but to repair hither, to view as well their incomparable beauty as for to accompany them at mumchance, and then after to dance with them, and so to have of them acquaintance. And, sir, they furthermore require of your grace license to accomplish the cause of their repair. To whom the Cardinal answered that he was very well contented they should do so. Then the maskers went first and saluted all the dames as they sat, and then returned to the most worthiest, and there opened a cup full of gold with crowns and other pieces of coin, to whom they set divers pieces to cast at-thus perusing all the ladies and gentlemen; and some they lost, and of some they won. And thus done they returned unto the Cardinal with great reverence, pouring down all the crowns in the cup, which was about 200 crowns. At all, quoth the Cardinal, and so cast the dice, and won them all at a cast, whereat was great joy made. Then quoth the Cardinal to my Lord Chamberlain, I pray you show them that it seemeth me that there should be amongst them some noble man, whom I suppose to be much more worthy of honour to sit and occupy this room and place than I; to whom I would gladly, if I knew him, surrender my place, according to my duty. Then spake to them my Lord Chamberlain in French, declaring my Lord Cardinal's mind; and they, rounding him again in the ear, my Lord Chamberlain said to my Lord Cardinal, Sir, they confess that there is among them such a noble personage, whom, if your grace can appoint him from the other, he is content to disclose himself and to accept your place most worthily. With that the Cardinal, taking a good advisement among them, at the last quoth he, Meseemeth the gentleman with the black beard should be even he. And with that he arose out of his chair, and offered the same to the gentleman in the black beard with his cap in his hand. The person to whom he offered then his chair was Sir Edward Neville, a comely knight of a goodly personage, that much more resembled the King's person in that mask than any other. The King, hearing and perceiving the Cardinal so deceived in his estimation and choice, could not forbear laughing, but plucked down his vizor and Master Neville's also, and dashed out with such a pleasant countenance and cheer that all noble estates there assembled, seeing the King to be there amongst them, rejoiced very much. The Cardinal eftsoons desired his Highness to take the place of estate; to whom the King answered that he would go first and shift his apparel; and so departed and went straight into my Lord's bed-chamber, where was a great fire made and prepared for him, and there new apparelled him with rich and princely garments. And in the time of the King's absence the dishes of the banquet were clean taken up, and the tables spread again with new and sweet perfumed cloths, every man sitting still until the King and his maskers came in among them again, every man being newly apparelled. Then the King took his seat under the cloth of estate, commanding no man to remove, but sit still as they did before. Then in came a new banquet before the King's Majesty and to all the rest through the tables; wherein, I suppose, were served two hundred dishes or above, of wondrous costly meats and devices subtilly devised. Thus passed they forth the whole night with banqueting, dancing, and other triumphant devices, to the great comfort of the King and pleasant regard of the nobility there assembled.
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| It is hoped that this long quotation will be pardoned by the reader, on account of the graphic picture which it presents to his eyes of the inner life of Whitehall
in the days of the Henry.
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| It was at the masque
above described that the fickle-minded monarch cast his admiring eyes on the ill-fated [extra_illustrations.3.340.1] . Within a few short months Palace was the scene where Wolsey took a final leave of all his greatness.
The profusion of rich things-hangings of cloth of gold and of silver; thousands of pieces of fine holland; the quantities of plate, even of pure gold, which covered great tables, all of which were seized by his cruel and rapacious master--are so many proofs of his amazing wealth, splendour, and pride. It was from that the great Lord Cardinal
entered his barge to be rowed to Esher, after his disgrace. As every reader of history knows, the Palace passed into the possession of the Crown upon the fall of Cardinal Wolsey. It was granted by Act of Parliament to [extra_illustrations.3.340.2] because the old Palace nigh to the Monastery of St. Peter is now, and has long before been in a state of ruin and decay.
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| Henry VIII. seems to have taken a delight in his buildings at , to which he added many sumptuous apartments. He also formed a collection of pictures, to which considerable additions were made by the unfortunate Charles I. Henry, as a sovereign, shows a strange admixture of barbarity and culture; his cruelty could not suppress his love of the arts; and his love of the arts could not soften his savage nature. The prince who, with the utmost sang froid , could burn Protestants and Catholics, take off the heads of the partners of his bed one day, and celebrate new nuptials on the next, had, notwithstanding, a strong taste for refined pleasures. He cultivated architecture and painting, and invited from abroad artists of the first merit.
Accordingly he commissioned Holbein to build a new gate at with bricks of colours, light and dark alternately, and disposed in a tesselated fashion; but of this we shall have more to say in a future chapter.
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| In the reign of Edward VI., it appears, there was an outdoor pulpit or preaching-place in of the court-yards of the palace; and here Bishop Latimer, after his release from the Tower, and also many others, were in the habit of preaching, on Sundays and holidays, to the King and the Protector, while many of all ranks resorted thither.
Owing to the delicate constitution of the young king, the Parliament was held at on occasion during his reign.
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| On the last day of , soon after her accession, Queen Mary rode in great state from the Tower, through the City, to . The citizens received her with such respect that on her alighting at the Palace at Whitehall she publicly thanked the Lord Mayor. On the following day she was crowned with the greatest magnificence. The Lord Mayor, attended by twelve of the chief citizens, officiated as chief butler; for which service the Mayor received a gold cup and cover, weighing seventeen ounces, as his fee.
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| Palace was attacked by the rioters under Sir Thomas Wyatt, and from it Elizabeth was conveyed a prisoner to the Tower, by order of her sister Mary, who had kept her in a kind of honourable custody.
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| Here Lord Brooke and Sir Philip Sidney took a chief part in the tilting-matches and other pageants by which the marriage of Queen Mary with Philip of Spain was enlivened. It was this Lord Brooke (see Vol. II., p. ) who, though no mean scholar, and an able statesman, declared that he wished to be known to posterity only as Shakespeare's friend, Ben Jonson's master, and the patron of Lord Chancellor Egerton. In , Elizabeth made the same royal progress in equal state, and amid even greater rejoicings than had ushered in the reign of her sister Mary.
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| In Elizabeth's time, it would appear, there were great doings at on several occasions. Not only were tournaments instituted, but there were revels and maskings, and various other mummeries.
Queen Elizabeth, as every reader of history knows, was passionately fond of dancing; in this sport she would occupy herself on rainy days in her palace, dancing to the scraping of a tiny fiddle; and it is impossible not to admire her humour whenever a messenger came to her from her cousin, James VI. of Scotland ; for Sir Roger Ashton assures us that, as often as he had to deliver any letters to her from his master, on lifting up the hangings he was sure to find her dancing, in order that he might be able to tell James, from his own observation, how little chance there was of his early succession to the throne.
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| Her library at was well stored with books--not only in English and French, but in Greek and Italian; and her autographs show that she was skilful in penmanship. Among the other distinguished foreigners who visited her here was her lover, the Duc of Anjou, whom she received with every species of coquetry. On the , was held in this yard the most sumptuous tournament ever celebrated,
in honour of the French commissioners sent over from France to propose the alliance. A banquetinghouse, most superbly ornamented, was erected within its precincts, at the expense of more than . The gallerie adjoining to Her Majestie's house at Whitehall ,
says Holingshed, in his Chronicles,
whereat her person should be placed, was called, and not without cause, the Castell or fortresse of perfect Beautie!
Romantic fooleries!
is the quiet remark of the antiquary Pennant; and it were well if every comment as terse as this were equally just. Though -and- years of age, the queen received every outward sign of flattery that the charms of could claim. The fortresse of perfect Beautie
was assailed by Desire and his foster-children. The combatants on both sides were persons of the rank, and a regular summons was sent to the possessor of the Castell
with a song, of which this is a part:--
Yield, yield, O yield, ye that this fort do hold,
Which seated is in Honour's spotless field:
Desire's great force no forces can withhold,
Then to Desire's desire, O yield, O yield!
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p.342 | This ended, we are told that two cannons were fired off, one with sweet powder, and the other with sweet water; and after these were stores of pretty scaling-ladders, and then the footmen threw floures and such fancies against the walls, with all such devices as might seem fit shot for Desire.
In the end Desire was repulsed and forced to make submission; and thus ended an amorous foolery
which thepatient reader may find described at full length in Weldon's Court of King James.
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| All Christmas plays were performed before the Court by the children of the Chapel Royal;
and we read in Ben Jonson's Life that his was put on this stage by those juvenile actors. We read also of a masque by Ben Jonson being performed at by command of the Queen, who appeared in it herself, along with several of the ladies of her Court. Inigo Jones, it appears, contributed to the splendour of these masques, embellishing them with every grace and propriety of scenic decoration; at all events, Mr. Gerard writes to Lord Strafford: Such a splendid scene built over the altar at Somerset House , The Glory of Heaven. Inigo Jones never presented a more curious piece in any of the masques at Whitehall .
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| , indeed, was the scene of many gorgeous entertainments, but none, perhaps, of its shows was more attractive than the magnificent masque got up by the Inns of Court, as a mark of love and duty to their majesties,
just at the time when Prynne, the sedition-monger, had published of his scurrilous works. We read that in ,
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this masque was brought to by the loyal barristers, who, as we know and have already explained, were of old addicted to such shows. Henry Lawes undertook the music; Inigo Jones was machinist; and Selden's antiquarian lore was called into request, in order to ensure accuracy in the costumes. The masque itself, entitled , was from the courtly pen of Shirley. At length the great day arrived. From Ely House, on Holborn Hill , the procession set forth down Chancery Lane . A hundred gentlemen of the Inns of Court, all splendidly mounted, were followed by an anti-masque of grotesque figures; then came four chariots, carrying in as many companies the masquers from the four inns. On their arrival at Whitehall The Triumph of Peace was acted at the Banqueting House. It was a comic allegory of the social pleasures of peace, ending with a gorgeous tableau, in which the other deities appeared, all grouped round the peaceful goddess Irene.
The performance itself, which cost about , caused a perfect , and is often mentioned by writers of the time. A fortnight later Carew's masque, , was acted on the same boards at Whitehall-Lawes and Inigo Jones helping as before-by Charles I. himself, assisted by a dozen or so of his courtiers. In fact, the masque--as an intermediate step between the pastoral idyll, which is purely ideal, and the reality of the drama proper-at this time had become the favourite form which private theatricals
assumed in the time of our last Tudor and our Stuart sovereigns, and its home was the Palace of White. |
p.343 p.344 | hall. The masque, as such, is styled by pleasant and witty Leigh Hunt the only glory of King James' reign, and the greatest glory of Whitehall .
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| In the palace was a private theatre, with a little stage, the contrivance of Inigo Jones, whom Ephraim Hardcastle, in the , does not hesitate to call the father of scene-painting in England.
Elegant masques were performed here by his Majesty's servants,
in the reign of James I. These pieces,
says Horace Walpole, were sometimes composed at the command of the king in compliment to the nuptials of certain lords and ladies of the Court;
and he grows positively eloquent in their praise, as a custom productive of much good, by encouraging marriage among the young nobility.
Ben Jonson was the poet, Inigo Jones the inventor of the decorations, Laniere and Ferrabosco composed the symphonies, and the king, queen, and young nobility danced in the interludes. To such an extent was the splendour of these shows
celebrated at the rival court of the Tuilleries and Versailles that the same author asserts that they formed the model which was followed in the celebrated of Louis le Grand.
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| of the officers of the Court was the Master of the Revels,
whose office was created in , by Henry VIII.-a fitting compliment to the theorywe can hardly say the fiction--which made the stageplayers of the date his Majesty's servants.
Mr. Frost, in his Old Showmen of London,
tells us that all the professors of the various arts of popular entertainment had to pay an annual licence duty to the Master of the Revels, whose jurisdiction extended over all wandering minstrels, and every who blew a trumpet publicly, except (strangely enough) the King's Players.
The seal of his office, used under sovereigns in succession, engraved on wood, was formerly in the possession of the late Mr. Francis Douce, by whose permission it was engraved for Smith's Ancient Topography of London,
where it may be seen. The legend round it was SIGILL: OFFIC: Jocor : Mascar: et: Revell: Dni: Regis.
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| From the same authority) Frost's Old Showmen of London
) we learn that the office of Master of the Revels, which had been held by Thomas Killigrew, the Court jester, was conferred, at his death, on his son Charles. Concerning this son the of has the following advertisement : Whereas, Mr. John Clarke, of London, bookseller, did rent of Charles Killigrew, Esq., the licensing of all ballad-singers for five years, which time is expired at Lady-day next; these are therefore to give notice to all ballad-singers that take out licenses at the Office of the Revels, at Whitehall , for singing and selling of ballads and small books, according to ancient custom. And all persons concerned are hereby desired to take notice of and to suppress all mountebanks, rope-dancers, prize-players, ballad-singers, and such as make show of motions and strange sights, that have not a license in red and black letters, under the hand and seal of the said Charles Killigrew, Esq., Master of the Revels to His Majesty.
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| The Tilt-yard adjoining the Palace,
says Pennant, was the delight of Queen Elizabeth, who was remarkable not only for the strength of her common sense and the violence of her disposition, but for her absurd and romantic vanity.
Here, in her year, with wrinkled face, red periwig, little eyes, hooked nose, skinny lips, and black teeth,
to use the phrase of Hentzner in his Travels,
she could drink in the flatteries of her favourite courtiers. Essex, by the lips of his squire,
here told her of her beauty and her worth; and a Dutch ambassador here assured her Majesty that he had undertaken the voyage to see her Majesty, who for beauty and wisdom excelled all the other beauties in the world!
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| In the collection of letters made by the late Mr. E. Lodge is from Mr. Brackenbury to Lord Talbot, in which occurs the following passage, illustrative of Queen Elizabeth's love of her Tiltyard:-- These sports were great, and done in costly sort, to Her Majesty's great lykinge The nineteenth day, being St. Elizabeth's Day, the Erle of Cumberland, the Erle of Essex, and my Lord Burley dyd chaleng all comers, six courses apeace, which was very honourablye performed.
The walls of the palace, however, if they had tongues, could tell some amusing stories of Elizabeth's passions and tantarums ;
for instance, in the same collection we read, in a letter from John Stanhope to Lord Talbot, Thys night, God wylling, she [the queen] will go to Richmond, and on Saturday next to Somersett House; and yf she could overcome her passyon agst my Lo. of Essex for his maryage no doubt she would be much the quyeter; yett she doth use ytt more temperately than was thought for, and (God be thanked) she
doth not strike all she thretes .
Clearly she was a hard hitter
when the Tudor blood within her was fairly roused.
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| The following account of the process of serving up the queen's dinner
we take from Hentzner's Travels in England,
published in the reign of Elizabeth :
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| While the Queen was at prayers in the antechapel, a gentleman entered the room, having a rod, and along with him another who had a tablecloth, which, after they had both knelt 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-seller, a plate, and bread: when they had knelt as the others had done, and placed what was brought upon the table, they also retired, with the same ceremonies performed by the first . At last came an unmarried lady (we, says Hentzner, were told she was a countess), and along with her a married one , bearing a tastingknife; 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 plates with bread and salt, with as much awe as if the Queen had been present. When they had waited there a little while, the yeomen of the guard entered, bare-headed, clothed in scarlet, with a golden rose upon their backs, bringing in at each turn a course of twenty-four 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 of the guard a mouthful to eat of the particular dish he had brought, for fear of any poison. During the time that this guard (which consists of the tallest and stoutest men that can be found in all England, being carefully selected for this purpose) were bringing dinner, twelve trumpets and two kettledrums 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 off the table, and conveyed it into the Queen's inner and more private chamber, where, after she had chosen for herself, the rest went to the ladies of the Court. The Queen dined and supped alone, with very few attendants, and it was very seldom that anybody, native or foreigner, was admitted at that time, and then onlyat the intercession of somebody in power.
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| Bishop Goodman, in his MSS. Memoirs of the Court of James I.,
in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, tells us that it was Queen Elizabeth's constant custom, even to a late period of her reign, a little before her coronation day,
to come from Richmond to London, and to dine with the Lord Admiral (the Earl of Effingham), at his house at , and then to set out from , when it was dark night,
for , where the Lord Mayor and aldermen met her. All the way long from Chelsea to Whitehall ,
he adds, was full of people to see her.
The vain and silly queen appears to have liked to make these entries into London by night, because the torchlight did not reveal her wrinkles so much as the day. In her yearly journeys,
writes the bishop, at her coming to London, you must understand that she did desire to be seen and to be magnified; but in her old age she had not only great wrinkles, but she had a goggle throat, with a great gullet hanging out, as her grandfather, Henry VII., is painted withal.
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| From and after the reign of Elizabeth the Court no longer oscillated between Greenwich, the Tower, and , moving about the goods and chattels of the Crown as occasion served. Though the Tower was still theoretically the seat of all the great attributes of royalty, and was sometimes occupied by the sovereign upon occasions of extraordinary solemnity, yet, from this time forth, became the settled and fixed centre of courtly splendour and magnificence, so as soon to form a history of its own.
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| Lord Orrery, in a letter addressed to Dr. Birch, in , observes, I look upon anecdotes as debts due to the public, and which every man, when he has that kind of cash by him, ought to pay.
It is with a strong feeling of the truth of this remark that we here introduce or anecdotes concerning the former occupants of .
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| It is on record that in , when Christian IV. of Denmark, brother of the queen of James I., came to London to visit his brother-in-law, both kings got drunk together, in order to celebrate their happy meeting. An account of their shameful debauch on this occasion, which may well make us blush for royalty, will be found in Mr. John Timbs's Romance of London;
but, in mercy to the memory of James, we will not repeat its details here.
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| It was here that Lord Monteagle communicated to James I.'s ministers the singular letter which was the cause of the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, and Guy Fawkes was examined in the king's bed-chamber.
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| John Evelyn describes the interior of the King's Library here with great minuteness:-- Sept. 2, 1680 .-I had an opportunity, his Majesty being at Windsor, of seeing his private library at Whitehall at my full ease. I went with the expectation of finding some curiosities, but though there are about a thousand volumes, there were few of importance that I had not perused before. They consisted chiefly of such works as had been dedicated or presented to him, a few histories, some travels and French books, abundance of mapps and sea-chartes, entertainments, and pomps, buildings and pieces relating to the navy, and some mathematical instruments; but what was most rare were three or four Romish Breviaries, with a good deal of miniature and monkish painting and gilding, one of which is most excellently done, both as to the figures, grotesques, and compartments, to the utmost of that curious art. There is another, in which I find written by the hand of King Henry VII. his giving it to his deare daughter Margaret (afterwards Queen of Scots), in which he desires her to pray for his soule, subscribing his name at length. There is also the processe of the philosopher's great Elixir, represented in divers pieces of excellent miniature; but the discourse is in High Dutch, a MS. There is also another MS., in 4 to, of above 300 yeares old, in French, being an Institution of Physicke, and in the botanical parts the plants are curiously painted in miniature; also a folio MS. of good thicknesse, being the severall exercises, as Theames (sic ), Orations, Translations, &c., of King Edward VI., all written and subscribed with his own hand very legible, and divers of the Greeke interleaved and corrected after the manner of schoolboys' exercises, and that exceedingly well and proper, and with some Epistles to his preceptor, which show'd that young prince to have been extraordinarily advanced in learning, and as Cardan (who had been in England) affirmed, stupendiously knowing for his age. There is likewise his Journal, no lesse testifying his early ripeness and care about affaires of state.
A great part of this library, there is reason to fear, perished in the fire which destroyed the palace, as will be related in a following chapter.
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| Here George Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buckingham, came, when quite a young man, in the reign of James I., to make his fortune at Court;
to which, it would seem, he brought nothing, if we may judge by what Lord Clarendon tells us, but good looks and personal graces. He came to Whitehall ,
says his biographer, in a reign when the Scots were as numerous there as the English,
and was fortunate in finding a friend in Sir John Graham, who presented him to the king, in the hopes of so cutting out the other royal favourite, Somerset. In this he was successful, and young Villiers was made cupbearer to the king, and received the honour of knighthood in the Queen's bed-chamber at Whitehall , with the Prince's rapier, and sworn one of the Gentlemen of His Majesty's Bedchamber.
He next was promoted to the Mastership of the Horse, and other honours soon followed. Henceforth Villiers becomes the silly and pedantic king's dear child and gossip, Steenie,
and his Court history is interwoven with that of the walls of old . The duke, it may be added, lived in greater pomp than any nobleman of his time, having horses to his carriage, which, from its singularity, made him the stare of the people, as did also his being carried about in a chair on men's shoulders; the noise and exclamations against it were so great that the people would openly upbraid him in the streets, as the means of bringing men to so servile a condition as horses; but in a short time chairs became common, and the carrying of them was looked upon as a profitable employment-so various and fickle are the fancies of the time! In dress he was extravagant beyond precedent, for in a MS. in the Harleian library, quoted in Mr. Oldy's Life of Raleigh,
it says:-- It was common with him at any ordinary dancing to have his cloaths trimmed with great diamond buttons, and to have diamond hatbands, cockades, and earrings, to be yoked with great arid manifold knots of pearl--in short, to be manacled, fettered, and imprisoned in jewels, insomuch that at--his going over to Paris, in 1625 , he had twenty-seven suits of cloaths made, the richest that embroidery, lace, silk, velvet, gold, and gems could contribute; one of which was a white uncut velvet, set all over, both suit and cloak, with diamonds, valued at fourscore thousand pounds , besides a great feather stuck all over with diamonds; as were also his sword, girdle, hatband, and spurs.
His entertainments to the king were also of the most sumptuous order; in them the good, easy James would take rather more than prudence dictated; for he was of those who never mixed water with his wine.
When we mention Villiers travelling with horses, we may as well add here that the proud
Earl of Northumberland, Henry Percy, on his release from the Tower, where he had been confined after the conspiracy of Guido Fawkes, on hearing that Buckingham drove his coach and --then a great novelty-thought that if the king's favourite used horses, ordered to be put before his own, and drove these along the Strand to , passing, of course, along the
of . |
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Footnotes:
[extra_illustrations.3.338.1] Whitehall [] Treasury--Whitehall [extra_illustrations.3.340.1] Anne Boleyn [extra_illustrations.3.340.2] Henry VIII. |
