PUBLISHERS' NOTE
The contents of this volume have been taken from Mr. Gilliat's larger book entitled "Heroes of the Elizabethan Age," published at five shillings.
STORIES OF ELIZABETHAN HEROES
CHAPTER I
THE ELIZABETHAN WORLD
Before we touch upon the lives of some of the heroes of the Maiden Queen, it were well to consider briefly what life was like in those days, and how it differed from our own.
When on a November day in 1558 Sir Nicholas Throckmorton spurred his steaming horse to Hatfield, in haste to inform the Princess Elizabeth that Queen Mary was dead, he was bidden to ride back to the Palace of St. James's and request one of the ladies of the bedchamber to give him, if the Queen were really dead, the black enamelled ring which her Majesty wore night and day. So cautious had the constant fear of death made Anne Boleyn's daughter.
Meanwhile a deputation from the Council had arrived at Hatfield to offer to the new Queen their dutiful homage.
Elizabeth sank upon her knees and exclaimed: "A Domino factum est istud, et est mirabile in oculis nostris" ("This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes")—a text which the Queen caused to be engraved on her gold coins, in memory of that day of release from anxiety. For the poor young Princess had lived for years in a state of alarm; she had been imprisoned in the Tower, the victim of plots for and against her; she had been kept under severe control at Woodstock under Sir Henry Bedingfeld, where she once saw a milkmaid singing merrily as she milked the cows in the Park, and exclaimed, "That milkmaid's lot is better than mine, and her life far merrier."