In the collection at South Kensington, too, was the portrait of the man who brought the news of Mary's death to Elizabeth at Hatfield, one of her commanders in Scotland in 1547, and one of the many who supped once too often with my Lord of Leicester, and died in 1570, after eating figs at that table, where the wariest guests were careful only to taste the same dishes as my lord ate of.
Among the pictures, which are hung through the house, are the portraits of the great Lord Burghley, and his two sons; various portraits of Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary of England; and Queen Mary of Scotland, at the age of sixteen. Here are the Earl of Leicester of Elizabeth's reign; James I. and Charles I.; Philip of Spain: Van Tromp; the famous Charles of Sweden, and Peter the Great of Russia; various members of the Salisbury family; and the curious picture of Horselydown Fair, described at pp. [254-258]. In the Great Hall, which has a minstrels' gallery, ornamented with carvings of figures and animals, heraldry, &c. are a picture, life-size, of the white horse on which Queen Elizabeth rode at Tilbury Fort: and ten large paintings of Adam and Eve.
The Lady Elizabeth kept her state at Hatfield with no small cost and splendour. At a subsequent period, after her imprisonment at Woodstock, her Highness obtained permission to reside once more at Hatfield, under the guardianship of Sir Thomas Pope, who not only extended to her the kindest care and most respectful attention, but devised, at his own cost, sports and pastimes for her amusement. "The fetters in which he held her," says Agnes Strickland, "were more like flowery wreaths flung lightly around her, to attract her to a bower of royal pleasaunce, than aught which might remind her of the stern restraint by which she was surrounded during her incarceration in the Tower, and subsequent sojourn at Woodstock." Thus, we read of maskings in the Great Hall at Hatfield, banquets, and "the play of Holophernes," which Queen Mary misliked.
When Queen Mary visited her sister at Hatfield, Elizabeth adorned her great state chamber for Her Majesty's reception, with a sumptuous suite of tapestry, representing the Siege of Antioch, and had a play performed after supper, by the choir-boys of St. Paul's; at the conclusion of which one of the children sang, and was accompanied on the virginals by the Princess herself.
Hatfield, during Elizabeth's reign, remained vested in the crown. At her decease, however, her successor, King James, exchanged it with Sir Robert Cecil for the palace of Theobalds, and thenceforward Hatfield has continued uninterruptedly in the possession of the noble family of Salisbury. Sir Robert Cecil was styled by his royal mistress, Elizabeth, "the staff of her declining age," and was so highly esteemed by King James, that his Majesty created him successively Baron Cecil, Viscount Cranbourne, and Earl of Salisbury; conferred on him the blue riband of the Garter, and finally appointed him Lord High Treasurer of England. About this period, his lordship laid the foundations of the present mansion of Hatfield, which he finished in 1611, in a style of equal splendour with that of Burghley, which his father had erected in the preceding reign. The year after the completion of Hatfield, worn out by the cares of state the Earl of Salisbury died at Marlborough, in Wiltshire, on his way to London: he was interred in Hatfield Church, under a stately monument. How striking an example does the closing year of his life present! In his last illness, he was heard to say to Sir William Cope: "Ease and pleasure quake to hear of death; but my life, full of care and miseries, desireth to be dissolved."
He had some years previously (1603) addressed a letter to Sir James Harrington, the poet, in nearly the same querulous tone: "Good Knight," saith the minister, "rest content, and give heed to one that hath sorrowed in the bright lustre of a court, and gone heavily on even the best seeming fair ground. 'Tis a great task to prove one's honesty, and yet not mar one's fortune: you have tasted a little thereof in our blessed Queen's time, who was more than a woman, and, in truth, sometimes less than a woman. I wish I waited now in your presence-chamber, with ease at my food, and rest in my bed. I am pushed from the share of comfort, and know not where the winds and waves of a court will bear me. I know it bringeth little comfort on earth; and he is, I reckon, no wise man that looketh this way to heaven."
Hatfield is a very interesting seat, not only for its association with the past, but for its presenting, at this moment, a picture of the baronial life of two centuries and a half since. The Hall of the ancient Palace remains; the historic Oak is preserved; the vineyard was in existence when Charles I. was conveyed here a prisoner to the army, and its famous yew walk is left; and the deer are still numerous. The mansion has been restored to its pristine magnificence; the landscape gardening is fine. The noble owner of Hatfield has devoted a portion of his domains to the pastimes of the people; and on every occasion, whether it be the reception of royalty, or the entertainment of the toilers of the country, it is carried out in the generous spirit of olden English hospitality. And this princely place lies within a score of miles of the metropolis and its three million of people, who are brought almost to the park gates within an hour's railway journey.