After the marriage the queen dined with the wedding party at Lady Russell's, where "the entertainment was great and plentiful; and the mistress of the feast much commended for it." At night—for in those days dinners were early—she went to Lord Cobham's where she supped. And
after supper came a memorable masque of eight ladies, each clad in a skirt of cloth of silver, a rich waistcoat wrought with silks and gold and silver, a mantle of carnation taffeta cast under the arm, and their hair loose about their shoulders curiously knotted and interlaced. The masquers were Lady Dorothy (Sidney), Miss Fitton, Miss Carey, Miss Onslow, Miss Southwell, Miss Bess Russell, Miss Darcy, and Lady Blanch Somerset, who danced to the music that Apollo brought; and a fine speech was made of a ninth muse, much to her praise and honor. "Delicate," says the narrator, "it was to see eight ladies so prettily and richly attired." Miss Fitton led; and after they had finished their own ceremonies, the eight lady masquers chose eight other ladies to dance the measures. Miss Fitton went to the queen and wooed her to the dance. The queen asked what she was. "Affection," was the answer. "Affection!" said the queen, "affection is false!" yet she rose and danced as did the Marchioness of Winchester.
Poor, sad old queen, clinging like a child—like the true daughter of her hapless mother Anne Boleyn—to any amusement, excitement, display, that could divert her weary thoughts from her loneliness, from the burdening cares of state; with her bitter jibe at the falseness of affection, yet rising and dancing a measure with her maids of honor. It is as pathetic a picture as one can look upon.
So ends the record of the gay wedding at Blackfriars. But alas! within a fortnight the marriage rejoicings were turned into mourning. Our beautiful Bess Russell, the child of the court, the child of the Abbey, was consumptive. She grew rapidly worse, and a fortnight after her sister Anne's wedding she was dead. Her illness indeed, at the last, was so sudden that it gave rise to an absurd story, which was commonly believed one hundred and fifty years ago; namely, that she died of the prick of a needle in her finger which produced gangrene. This however is a mere fable, and only came into existence some seventy years after her death. She was buried in Westminster Abbey—that Abbey under whose shadow she was born, within whose walls she was christened. Well may Dean Stanley call her "the child of Westminster."
Her beautiful monument stands in the Chapel of St. Edmund, near that of her father, and of John of Eltham. She sits "in a curiously wrought osier chair," leaning her head upon her hand, and pointing at the skull, on which her right foot rests, with an expression on her face of great sadness and sweetness. On the richly carved pedestal upon which the figure is placed are engraved these words: "Dormit, non mortua est"—she is not dead but sleeping—and below on a scroll we read that to the "sacred and happy memory of Elizabeth Russell" this monument is dedicated by her afflicted sister Anne.
Sweet Bess Russell's effigy is remarkable in more ways than one. It is the first of all in the Abbey that is seated erect. Hitherto kings, princes, warriors, noble ladies have been content to lie in profound repose, their hands crossed or folded in prayer. Lord Russell's figure on his splendid monument hard by, shows the first sign of restlessness. He lies on his side, supporting his head on his elbow. At his feet is the son he wished for so greatly—little Francis—who only lived a few months; and graceful figures of his two daughters in mourning robes support the coat of arms above. In a few years the effigies will begin to kneel—as in the case of Sir Francis Vere's noble tomb where four kneeling knights carry his arms on a slab resting upon their shoulders. So intensely alive do they look that Roubillac the famous sculptor was found standing wrapt before them, and when questioned said softly, with his eyes fixed on the fourth knight, "Hush! hush! he will speak presently!" A little later they will sit—then stand, like Walpole's beautiful mother. Then they will gesticulate with the orators, and rise out of the tomb, or the sea, and soar among the clouds, in the execrable taste of the last century. All this new movement and life in marble, was ushered in by pretty Elizabeth Russell and her worthy father; so that their monuments mark a very distinct period in the history of the Abbey. The reign, too, of her royal godmother inaugurated the "recognition of the Abbey as a Temple of Fame." Queen Elizabeth loved the Abbey, and the chapels were crowded with the "worthies" who served her so loyally and faithfully. Henceforth not only kings and princes were to be buried in the Church of Henry the Third, but all who were great and wise in action or in thought, statesmen, soldiers, poets, were to rest within the walls of the Pantheon of the English Nation.
CHAPTER VII.
THE PRINCESSES SOPHIA AND MARY.
In 1603 a great change came over the destinies of England. Queen Elizabeth, the last of the house of Tudor, died. And James of Scotland, the first of those Stuart kings who were to bring civil war, ruin and disgrace on our land, came to the throne. A hundred years before, the rich Tudor architecture had taken the place in Westminster of the grave Gothic of the Middle Ages. Now the strong rule of the Tudors—often unscrupulous, but generally able—was in like manner succeeded by the extravagant misrule of the Stuarts.