Betty stood before the figure of Queen Elizabeth, whose waxen face is pinched and worn, and really most horrible to look at.
“Didn’t she die propped up on the floor in all her State robes?” asked Betty.
“Oh, here’s the old Coronation Chair, isn’t it?”—Page [113].
“Yes,” was Mrs. Pitt’s reply. “It isn’t any wonder that she looked like that, is it? She is said to have been beautiful in her youth, but later, she became so very ugly that her ladies-in-waiting got false looking-glasses, for they didn’t dare to allow their mistress to see her wrinkles.”
After lingering for a short time in the grand old Abbey, they all mounted a bus and rode down to Bishopsgate Street to take lunch, at Crosby Hall.[A] This splendid old example of a London mediæval palace (having had a varied career since its great days), is now turned into a restaurant, and our party took seats at a long table in what was once the Banqueting-hall.
“This is really a very historic old house,” declared Mrs. Pitt. “It was built in 1470 by Alderman Sir John Crosby, who died about the time it was finished, and it passed into the hands of the Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III. Here, that cruel man had the news of the successful murder of the little Princes in the Tower, and here held his great feasts—in this room, I suppose.”
They were all looking about at the lofty hall with its carved oak ceiling, minstrels’ gallery, stained-glass windows, and large fireplace.
“This has recently all been restored, and I suppose it gives us a very slight idea of its past glory. Later on, Sir Thomas More lived here, and then Philip Sidney’s sister, the Countess of Pembroke, owned it. Shakespeare mentions it in his play of ‘Richard III,’ you know. In mediæval times, there were many great houses in London (Baynard’s Castle and Cold Harbour foremost among them), but all except a little part of Crosby Hall have disappeared. The owners of these houses, the wealthy nobles, lived in great magnificence, having four, six, or even eight hundred servants. Just fancy how large the establishments must have been! In Queen Elizabeth’s day, the French Ambassador was lodged here with four hundred retainers. At that time, there were more great palaces in London than there were in Verona, Florence, Venice, and Genoa, all counted together; but instead of being situated on the Grand Canal or in a spacious square, the English palaces stood in narrow, filthy streets, surrounded by the poor hovels of the common people.—It seems to me that our lunch is a long time coming,” she commented.