Her christening upon the fifth of May, was conducted on the most gorgeous scale that had ever been seen in England. Many peers were raised to higher rank, and numbers of knights were created barons in honor of the occasion. The chapel at Greenwich palace was hung with green velvet and cloth of gold. "A very rich and stately font of silver and gilt, most curiously wrought with figures of beasts, serpents, and other antique works,"[52] stood under a canopy of cloth of gold twelve feet square. The child was carried from the queen's lodgings by the countess of Derby, under a canopy borne by eight barons. Dukes and bishops, earls and barons went before the Earl of Northumberland, who bore a gilt basin; and the Countess of Worcester came after him, "bearing a cushen covered with Lawne, which had thereon many jewels of inestimable price."[53] The Lady Derby's train was borne by the greatest countesses in the land; and the baby's "train of the mantle of purple velvet, embroidered round about with gold, and furred with ermines,"[54] was borne by noblemen. The Archbishop of Canterbury christened the little princess. Her godparents were the Duke of Holstein, brother to the queen, the Lady Arabella Stuart, and the Countess of Northumberland. And when the christening was over, "the heralds put on their coats, the trumpets sounded."
King at arms, "making low reverence unto the King's Majesty,"[55] proclaimed the little girl's name aloud in the chapel.
Times have happily changed since those days. Contrast all this fuss and cold formality with a simple christening that took place only a week ago in England. A little royal duke, in whose veins the blood of the Stuarts still flows, was brought to the font of the quiet village church of Esher in Surrey. Very peaceful and unpretentious was the baby Duke of Albany's christening—poor little fatherless boy. But there were none present who did not truly love and honor the widowed grandmother who held him in her arms and the young widowed mother who stood by, or mourn for the accomplished, studious father, who died but a few months ago. Which is likely to have the happiest childhood—the little Guelph wrapped in the pure white Honiton-lace robe in which all the children and grandchildren of Queen Victoria have been christened; or the little Stuart in her purple velvet train, among the cloth-of-gold, and heralds, and grandees of James the First's heartless, luxurious, extravagant court?
Babies were differently treated in those days. Now, be they children of a queen, or of the humblest commoner, they stay safe at home in their nice, warm nurseries, under their mother's eye. But the royal children of that date were sent off to be cared for "by trusty persons of quality." Little Princess Mary was given into the charge of Lady Knyvett. And on the first of June, when she was not two months old, she was taken down to Stanwell where Sir Thomas Knyvett lived.
He was allowed twenty pounds per week for the diet of the princess and of her suite, consisting of six rockers, and several inferior attendants; but the king took upon himself the payment of their wages, the expenses of her removals from house to house, of her apparel, coach and horses, etc.[56]
THE MONUMENTS OF PRINCESS SOPHIA AND PRINCESS MARY.