CHAPTER III.
THE CHIEF COLLECTOR AND THE AUGMENTORS OF THE OLD ROYAL AND PUBLIC LIBRARY AT ST. JAMES’.
‘Death never makes such effectual demonstration of his power, as when he singles out the man who occupies the largest place in public estimation;—as when he seizes upon him whose loss is felt, by thousands, with all the tenderness of a family bereavement;—puts a sudden arrest, ... before the infirmities of age had withdrawn him from the labours of usefulness;— ... and sends the fearful report of this his achievement through the streets of the city, where it runs, in appalling whispers, among the multitude.’—
Thomas Chalmers.
Life of Henry, Prince of Wales, son of James I, and virtual Founder of the ‘Royal Library.’—Its Augmentors and its Librarians.—Acquisition of the Library of the Theyers.—Incorporation with the Collections of Cotton and of Sloane.
Book I, Chap. III. Life of Henry, Prince of Wales.
Henry, Prince of Scotland, and afterwards of Wales, was born at Stirling Castle on the 19th of February, 1594. King James had married Anne of Denmark more than four years before the Prince’s birth, but a certain grotesqueness which had marked some of the characteristic circumstances of the marriage in Norway (in 1589) was not without its counterpart among the incidents that came to be attendant on the subsequent event at home. One of these incidents is thus narrated in the quaint narrative of a Scottish courtier who made it his business to chronicle the movements of the Court with newsmanlike fidelity:—‘Because the chappell royal was ruinous and too little, the King concluded that the old chappell should be utterly rased, and a new [one] erected in the same place that should be more large, long, and glorious, to entertain the great number of strangers’ who were expected to be present at the baptism. The interval demanded for the restoration of this decayed chapel at Stirling entailed an unusual delay between the child’s birth and his baptism, but it gratified the King by enabling him to send invitations far and wide. Had all of them met with acceptance they would have resulted in the presence of a cloud of witnesses, such as had rarely been seen in Scotland upon any the most famous occasion of courtly rejoicing.
Prince Henry’s Baptism at Stirling.
For the presence of two guests in particular James was anxious. He wished to see an ambassador extraordinary from the Court of Elizabeth, and another from that of Henry the Fourth. Henry would not gratify his wish, and the omission was much resented. Elizabeth, on the other hand, was ostentatiously swift to comply, but her willingness was well nigh defeated by one of the common accidents of life. She had fixed her choice on the brilliant Earl of Cumberland, whose love of magnificence was scarcely less prominent than was his love of adventure. He could grace a royal festivity, as conspicuously as he could lead a band of eager soldiers, or a crew of daring navigators. Just as the Earl’s costly preparations for his embassy were completed, he fell sick. Some days were lost in the hope of his speedy recovery, but the Queen was soon obliged to nominate the Earl of Sussex in his stead. Sussex had then to make preparations in turn. The day fixed for the ceremony in Scotland had to be more than twice postponed, in order to ensure his presence. In all, more than six months elapsed before the babe was really baptized. We will hope that the Court Chronicler exaggerates a little when he tells us that ‘the time intervening was spent in magnificent banquetting and revelling.’ |True Reportarie of the baptisme of the Prince of Scotland, MS. Addit., 5795 (B. M.).| If so, the potations at Stirling must have vied with those of Elsinore.
When the long-expected day arrived (30 August, 1594) the child lay ‘on a bed of estate richly decored ... with the story of Hercules.’ The old Countess of Mar lifted him into the arms of Lennox, and by him the babe was transferred to those of the English ambassador who held him during baptism. Then Patrick Galloway, we are told, learnedly entreated upon a text from the 21st chapter of Genesis.
The Bishop of Aberdeen taught, in his turn, upon the Sacrament of Baptism—first in the vulgar tongue and then in Latin—and his discourse was followed by the twenty-first Psalm, ‘sung to the great delectation of the noble auditory,’ and also by a panegyric upon the Prince, delivered in Latin verse, from the pulpit. Then came a banquet, at which ‘six gallant dames’ had the cruel task assigned them of performing ‘a silent comedy.’ To the banquet succeeded a ‘desart of sugar,’ drawn in upon a triumphal chariot. The original programme had provided that this richly-laden chariot should be drawn by a lion, for whose due tameness the projector had pledged himself. But to King James a lion, like a sword, was at all times an unpleasant object. He said that it would affright the ladies, and that ‘a black-moore’ would be a more safe propeller. Banquet and dessert together lasted from eight o’clock in the evening until three of the following morning. At intervals, the cannon of Stirling Castle roared, until, says our chronicler, ‘the earth trembled therewith.’