In the Days of Queen Elizabeth

by Eva March Tappan

So the question was discussed, and it was finally decided that Mary should be kept as a prisoner and tried before special commissioners appointed for the purpose. At the end of this investigation Elizabeth declared that she had been proved neither innocent nor guilty. That question was dropped, but in spite of her angry protest and her demands to be set free, the queen of Scotland was kept in England for eighteen years, treated in many respects with the deference due to a sovereign, but guarded as closely as any prisoner.

In the midst of these complications that required the keenest acumen of the most vigorous intellect, Elizabeth did not lay aside her whims and vanities. One of her favorite customs was that of wearing an “impress,” a device somewhat like a coat of arms, which was changed as often as the wearer chose. Each “impress” had a motto, and the queen used a different one almost every day. One of her mottoes was, “I see and am silent;” another was, “Always the same.”

At one time she devoted herself to the works of the early Christian writers, but she found leisure to complain of the poor portraits that people were making of her. They were not nearly so handsome as she thought they ought to be, and she actually had a proclamation drawn up forbidding all persons to attempt her picture until “some special cunning painter” should produce a satisfactory likeness. Her “loving subjects” were then to be permitted to “follow the said pattern.”

For even the most “cunning artist” to satisfy both her Majesty and himself must have been a difficult matter, for she positively forbade having any shade given to her features. “By nature there is no shade in a face,” said the queen, “it is only an accident.”

Another of her foibles was that of wearing the dress of different countries on different days, one day Italian, the next day French, and so on. It seems not to have been easy to have these gowns made in England, and Elizabeth sent to the continent for a dressmaker. The secretary of state had been the one ordered to draw up the proclamation restraining all save the “cunning artist” yet to be discovered from making her picture, and now we find him ordering the English ambassador to France to “cause” his wife to find the queen “a tailor that hath skill to make her apparel both after the French and the Italian manner.” This command was given only a few days after the murder of Lord Darnley which aroused all England.

Elizabeth always enjoyed going about among her subjects, and one of her early visits was to the University of Cambridge. She entered the town on horseback in a habit of black velvet. Her hat was heaped up with feathers, and under it she wore a sort of net, or head-dress, that was all ablaze with precious stones. The beadles of the university gave her their staffs, signifying that all power was in her hands. She could not hold them all, and she gave them back, saying jestingly, “See that you minister justice uprightly, or I will take them into mine hands again.” According to ancient custom at a royal visit, she was presented with two pairs of gloves, two sugarloaves, and some confectionery. Long orations were made to her. She was praised as showing forth all the virtues, and although she sometimes interrupted the orators by saying, “That is not true,” she commended them at the end so warmly that they had no fear of having offended her.

She did not hesitate to break in upon any speaker, and the next day, when the minister was preaching, she sent a noble lord to tell him to put his cap on. Another high official was despatched to him before he left the pulpit to inform him that the queen liked his sermon. This was on Sunday morning. That evening the chapel was made into a theatre, and an old Latin play was acted for her amusement.

Elizabeth went from college to college, and at each she listened to an oration in her praise and received the usual gift of gloves, sugarloaves, and confectionery. Cambridge had long expected the honor of this visit, and the members of the various learned societies had made preparations for it by composing poems of welcome and praise in Greek, Hebrew, and several other languages. Copies of these verses had been richly bound, and the volume was presented to her as a memorial of her welcome.

All the sermons and speeches and plays were in Latin, and near the close of the queen’s stay, a humble petition was made to her that she would speak to her hosts in that language.

“I am but a poor scholar,” said she, “but if I might speak my mind in English, I would not stick at the matter.”