CHAPTER I.
BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD—EARLY MARRIAGE PROJECTS.
1516-1525.
It was characteristic of the times in which the Princess Mary was born, that she should be ushered into the world with a pageant. England had but lately been roused from the lethargy to which the penuriousness of Henry VII. had condemned it, and good-fellowship, display and revelry were the order of the day.
Music and masquerades delighted the young King, and were a fitting background to his florid beauty, brilliant talents and sanguine temperament. The country, in its recoil from the asceticism of parsimony, no less than from the asceticism of mediæval piety, was well content to amuse itself, and Christmas revels, April jollities and May-day masques were supplemented by tilting at the ring, feasting and tournaments, that made the whole year round a “playing holiday”.
But the desire of the nation was an heir to the greatness, wealth and glory which the English people rejoiced to see centred in their eighth Henry. Three times had their hope been doomed to disappointment, when on the 19th February[1] 1516, Katharine of Arragon gave birth to a daughter. The universal satisfaction was scarcely lessened by the fact that the infant was not the longed-for prince, and in an ecstasy of joy, the Londoners lighted bonfires, roasted oxen whole, and caused the wine to flow merrily in the streets.
Two days later, the Princess, nearly the whole of whose life was to be so great a contrast to its rosy dawn, was baptised with much circumstance and pomp at Greenwich. From the palace gates to the church of the Friars Observants, the well-gravelled path was strewn with rushes, and hung with arras. At the great doors of the church a pavilion covered with tapestry had been erected, and here the child waited with her sponsors to receive the preliminary rites before being carried into the sacred building. Then the procession was formed, and swept through the grand entrance, only used on the most solemn occasions.
The church was resplendent with cloth of gold, precious stones, pearl embroideries, and tapestries from the famous looms of Europe. First walked a goodly array of the nobility, preceding the silver font, brought the day before from Canterbury,[2] and carried by the Earl of Devon, supported by Lord Herbert of Cherbury. The taper was held by the Earl of Surrey, the salt by the Marquis, the chrism by the Marchioness of Dorset. The Lord Chamberlain followed, with the Lord Steward on his right, and under a rich canopy, held by four knights, was the royal infant, in the arms of the Countess of Surrey. On each side of her walked the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk. The sponsors at the font were the Cardinal of York (Wolsey), the Lady Katharine, sister of the Prince of Castile (afterwards Charles V.) and the Duchess of Norfolk. Immediately after the baptism followed the bishoping or rite of confirmation, at which the Countess of Salisbury, the celebrated Margaret Plantagenet, daughter of the Duke of Clarence, was sponsor. By her descent from Edward IV. she was a near kinswoman of Mary’s, and was appointed her governess or principal guardian, next to the king and queen.