“When people are glad, their joy will reveal itself,” answered his friend.
“There might well be reason for me to rejoice, but you are a Catholic, why should you welcome the Lady Elizabeth?”
“Is she Catholic or Protestant?” asked the other with a smile. “Who knows? There’s one thing sure, she’ll have a merry court, trade will be the gainer, and she’ll marry no foreign prince.”
“Perhaps having a new queen will also prevent another season of the plague and give us greater crops,” laughed the first; and then he added more seriously, “Catholic or Protestant, I believe that there be few in the land who will not rejoice to see the death-fires no longer blaze at Smithfield.”
A week later the queen rode from Hatfield to London. Hundreds of noble lords and ladies were in her retinue, and the number increased with every mile. The road was lined with people who shouted, “Queen Elizabeth! Queen Elizabeth! Long may she reign! God save the queen!” Children gazed at her eagerly, while their mothers wept tears of joy, and young men knelt and cried out their vows of loyalty and devotion. Many of the bishops of the realm came in procession to greet her and begged to kiss her hand.
“Did you see that?” whispered a woman to her neighbor. “The queen wouldn’t give her hand to the cruel bishop of London. She knows well it’s because of him that more than one good man’s been burned at the stake. Oh, but she’ll be a good queen, God bless her!”
The lord mayor and the aldermen came in their scarlet robes to escort her to the palace, and a few days later she went in state to the Tower of London. The streets were strewn with fine gravel, rich tapestries adorned the walls, banners waved, trumpets sounded, boys from St. Paul’s school made Latin speeches in her praise, and great companies of children sang joyful songs of welcome.
Elizabeth looked very handsome as she rode into the city on horseback, wearing a habit of the richest purple velvet. She replied to everyone’s greeting, and made little Latin speeches in answer to those of the schoolboys. At last she came to the Tower, and this time she entered, not at the Traitors’ Gate, but through the royal entrance, and passed between long lines of soldiers, drawn up, not to keep watch over a prisoner, but to do honor to a queen.