NO. 13. GREENWICH AS IT IS NOW.
Sometimes, when she wanted to be amused, plays were acted in the great hall of the palace, and she sat in her chair of state with her ladies about her and looked on. I wonder if any of these plays were written by Shakespeare? Perhaps they were; it is even possible that Shakespeare himself may have acted before her, for he had come to London from his country home two years before the Spanish Armada sailed up the English Channel to conquer England; and during the last five years of her reign, whenever Elizabeth went up the river in her barge, she passed the round wooden theatre, called the Globe, where his plays were acted, for it was in Southwark on the south bank. There is no sign of it now; a great brewery has been built over the place where once it stood.
These were the days when English sailors fought the Spanish on the high seas, because they claimed all the New World as their own and strove to keep everyone else out of it. From the windows or the terrace of her palace did the Queen ever watch ships sailing down the river to take part in this struggle, or in another,—a struggle with winds and waves, ice and snow, as the sailors tried to explore the unknown coasts of America? Once at least we know she did, for Admiral Frobisher's two little ships fired a salute to her as they dropped down the river. He was going to search for gold and for the North-West Passage round the north of America to the Pacific. He found no passage and no gold though he went again and yet again to the cold North. How often Englishmen searched for that passage; how hard they found it to believe that there is no way for ships through those icy seas!
NO. 14. PLACENTIA, THE OLD PALACE AT GREENWICH.
Those were stirring times. Often sailors came home with wonderful tales to tell; and thus, in September, 1580, a ship, called the Pelican, sailed into Plymouth Sound, and all England rang with the news of her coming, for she was Admiral Drake's ship. Nearly three years before he and his sailors had left England in her; they had fought the Spanish, they had taken great treasure, money and jewels, and they had sailed round the world. Now they were safe home again. Do you wonder that the Queen wanted to see the ship which had made such a voyage? She told Drake to bring the Pelican round to Deptford, which is very near Greenwich; and she went on board and took part in a great feast which was given in her honour; and she knighted Drake on the deck of his own ship. How proud Englishmen were of him! One of them said the Pelican ought to be hoisted up to the top of the tower of St. Paul's Cathedral, to take the place of the spire which had been destroyed by lightning some time before. Was not this a mad plan? Of course, it was never carried out. For many a year the old ship lay in Deptford Dockyard just as the Victory lies now in Portsmouth Harbour; and people used to visit her, and even have supper on board her. When she was very old she was broken up; out of some of her timbers a chair was made and presented to Oxford University.