Sir Aubrey de Vere, in his little-known poem Mary Tudor, struck a right chord, in putting into the mouth of the unhappy Queen the words:—
Vampyre Calumny
Shall prey on my remains. My name shall last
To fright the children of the race I love.
But the real Mary was perhaps a truer prophet, when she foresaw the dawn of a better day, and chose for her motto the device—
Veritas temporis filia.
FOOTNOTES:
[708] Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., vol. v., p. 156.
[709] Peter Frarin of Antwerp, Master of Arts, and Bachelor of both laws, writing in the next reign says enthusiastically: “I could declare unto you how the traitorous gospellers of England gathered a main host against their most virtuous lady Queen Marie, the rare treasure, the peerless jewel, the most perfect pattern and example of our days. How they shot arrows and darts against her court gates, conspired her death, devised to poison and kill her with a dagg at one time, with a privy dagger at another time, reviled her, called her bastard, butcher; printed seditious books against her, wherein they railed at her like hell-hounds, and named her traitorous Marie, mischievous Marie” (An oration against the unlawful insurrection of the Protestants of our time under Pretence to reform Religion, Louvain, 1565).