“That will it, heartily!” returned the Queen. “Ho, for a horse!”
A noble steed, white as snow, and brilliantly caparisoned, was brought forward immediately, and drawn up before her. She paused to survey him a moment, and, seemingly pleased with his appearance, then caught up the rein, and suffered herself to be raised to the saddle. When she had settled herself on the saddle, she turned to Lord Hunsdon, and, with a smile, directed him, as her lieutenant, to mount a horse at her side. The ladies and cavaliers of her train mounted in her rear, and, the whole party being horsed, the Queen led the way, in company with Lord Hunsdon, towards the neighbouring field.
The gate of the fort on the London side, leading to Tilbury Level, had been thrown wide open, in order that the cavalcade might sustain no delay; and a strong force of archers, selected from the Queen’s guard, walled the avenue on either side, so as to keep it clear of the crowd. But the appearance of the Queen in the gateway quickly altered this state of things. The guard of archers was broken through in a moment; the people covered the lately open avenue like dust; and the roar of the artillery itself, though proceeding from the adjacent batteries, was lost in a tremendous shout of “God save the Queen!”
Never before or since were subjects so intoxicated at the presence of their sovereign. Men threw themselves down before her, in the dust, to be trampled on by her horse; young gallants threw up their plumed caps, when, from the density of the crowd, they could never hope to recover them, merely to show how they held everything to be hers; and afar off, above a thousand heads, were seen young children, waving their tiny arms, and invoking Heaven’s benison on their matchless monarch.
Again and again did the Queen acknowledge, by bowing her head, and waving her fair hand, the gratification she felt at the popular greeting; but her courteous responses only prolonged the enthusiasm of the multitude. To attempt to penetrate the dense mass seemed to be a project that no one would ever think of: the poor archers, after one vain effort, relinquished all hope of opening the Queen a passage, and were content to be jammed up helpless: only the Queen herself, whose resolution nothing could subdue, knew how to clear the broken avenue.
Availing herself of a moment when all eyes were fixed on her, she raised her hand in the air, and the loud acclamations of the multitude, which had just before made the welkin shake, subsided into a dead silence.
“Good people, my loving children,” the Queen then cried, “you must needs let me pass!”
Her words fell on the crowd like magic; a road was opened for her on the instant; and amidst renewed acclamations, and the thunder of the contiguous batteries, the monarch and her train passed forward, and entered the area of the level.