Historic Girlhoods, Part One

by Rupert Sargent Holland

Of the four children who had run out of the Westminster garden three years before only one was still living, the merry Barnaby Fitzpatrick. He became a great soldier, and was known as the Baron of Upper Ossory in Ireland when the Princess Elizabeth succeeded her sister Mary and became "Good Queen Bess." The world had not been very kind to young Edward Tudor nor to Guildford Dudley nor to Jane Grey. It was their misfortune to have been born so near the throne. All their lives they were really prisoners. There are few girls in history whose fate was as tragic as that of Jane, the little "Nine Days' Queen of England."

VI
Mary Queen of Scots
The Girl of the French Court: 1542-1587

Henry II, King of France, was riding into his good city of Rouen. The townspeople, eager to show their loyalty and glad of a chance holiday, had decked both the streets and themselves in all the hues of the rainbow. Henry the King and his company of gallant gentlemen rode into the city by the great highway that led from Paris, and Catherine his Queen, with her ladies, came up the winding river Seine in decorated barges, taking their course in and out among the many emerald isles like slow, calm-moving swans. The King stopped by the bridge that crossed the Seine in the heart of the city, and throwing his horse's reins to a page, descended the bank to the margin of the river, and handed the Lady Catherine to shore. He was a brilliant king, with much of the charm of his father Francis I, who had met England's Bluff King Hal on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and he bore himself towards his Queen with a noble grace. Her hand in his he led her up from the shore and over the crimson carpets the good people of Rouen had spread in their streets, to a pavilion fluttering with flags, where seats had been placed for them. Behind the King and Queen came the ladies-in-waiting and Henry's gentlemen, and each man tried to imitate his royal master and hand his lady up the steps of the pavilion with as fine an air. Several people were already awaiting the royal guests in the stand, and among them was a girl, about ten years old, who was sitting in a big armchair, and smiling at the people in the street below, at the flags and bunting, the music and the cheers.

As the King and Queen reached the top step of the pavilion the little girl rose and stood with one hand resting on the arm of her chair. Her face was pale, but her features were very lovely, so that any one would have predicted she would some day be a great beauty. Her eyes were the rich brown called chestnut, and her hair, which waved back from her forehead, was the same color. She wore a white satin cap, fastened very low on one side of her head, with a rosette of ostrich feathers, held by a ruby brooch. Her dress was of white damask, fitting closely, with a small ruff of scalloped point lace, below which hung a collar of rubies. About her waist was a girdle set with the same red stones. Her sleeves were very large and patterned with strings of pearls. She made a lovely picture as she stood before the big crimson-lined chair.

King Henry bent, and raising the girl's small hand, touched it to his lips. "How is our little Queen of Scots?" said he. "Our little bride-to-be of France?"

"Well, please your Majesty," answered the little girl, quite self-possessed, "and glad to meet your Highness here."

Then Catherine the Queen, stooping, kissed the girl on each cheek. "Dear Lady Mary, you are a very gem, as sweet as any I have ever laid eyes on. Come sit beside me and tell me of your mother."

So the ten-year-old girl, already Queen of Scotland, and lately brought to France to marry the Dauphin Francis, took her seat with the royal pair, and watched the great pageant which now wound through the Rouen streets. It was a clear, fresh noon, with just enough breeze from the Seine to ruffle the folds of the innumerable banners. First in the great procession came the friars and monks in their gray and brown robes and with their sandaled feet. Then followed the city clergy, the gorgeous Archbishop in his robes of state, with priests bearing gold and silver crosses in a long line after him, and white-clad boys swinging censers to the time of a low rhythmic chant.

"Here come the different guilds," said a gentleman of the court, who stood by the chair of small Queen Mary. "See the rich salt merchants in their gray taffeta, with black velvet caps and long white feathers."