CHAPTER VI
THE QUEEN IN SPLENDOUR
The Court of Queen Elizabeth was almost as itinerant as that of Henry the Second. The Queen understood thoroughly that for a sovereign to be at once loyally served and wholesomely feared it is not enough to sit still in one place. She must be seen by her people: they must realise by ocular demonstration how great is her power and authority; they must learn it by the sight of her person glittering with jewels and all glorious with silk and velvet; by the splendour of her train; by the noble lords who attend her; by the magnificence of the entertainment she receives. Nearly every year of her long reign was marked by one or more Progresses; some of her nobles she visited more than once: she was the guest of Cecil at Theobalds on twelve different occasions, each visit costing the host two or three thousand pounds; three times she visited Leicester at Kenilworth. These Progresses, though they belong not to the history of London, must be borne in mind in thinking of this long and glorious reign.
HAMPTON COURT
From a print in the British Museum.
When Elizabeth was not travelling she resided at Whitehall, at St. James’s, at Greenwich, at Hampton Court, Windsor, Richmond, Nonsuch, Chelsea, Hunsdon. In moving from one palace to another a huge quantity of plate and furniture had to be carried about. And during the change of residence the City bells were set ringing. If the Queen went by river, or from Westminster to Greenwich, she was attended by the barges of the Mayor and the Companies, all newly painted and beautified: they had artillery on board, and there was a great shooting of guns; also there was “great and pleasant melodie of instruments which plaed in most sweet and heavenly manner.”
On the day before her coronation the Queen received the Pageant devised in her honour by the City of London.
A full account of this Pageant is preserved in a tract first printed in 1604, and reproduced in Nichols’s Progresses of Queen Elisabeth. It is too long to quote in full. The following, therefore, is greatly abridged from the original:—
“Entryng the Citie was of the People received marveylous entirely, as appeared by the assemblie, prayers, wishes, welcomminges, cryes, tender woordes, and all other signs, which argue a wonderfull earnest love of most obedient subjectes towarde theyr soveraigne. And on thother side, her Grace, by holding up her hand and merie countenance to such as stode farre of, and most tender and gentle language to those that stode nigh to her Grace, did declare herselfe no leswe thankefully to receive her Peoples good wyll than they lovingly offered it unto her. To all that wyshed her Grace well, she gave heartie thankes, and to such as bade God save her Grace, she sayde agayne God save them all, and thanked them with all her heart: so that on eyther syde there was nothing but gladnes, nothing but prayer, nothing but comfort. The Quenes Majestie rejoysed marveilously to see that so exceadingly shewed towarde her Grace, which all good Princes have ever desyred. I meane so earnest love of subjectes, so evidently declared even to her Grace’s owne person, being carried in the middest of them.”... “Thus therefore the Quenes Majestie passed from the Towre till she came to Fanchurche, the people on eche side joyously beholdyng the viewe of so gracious a Ladye theyr Quene, and her Grace no lesse gladly notyng and observing the same. Nere unto Fanchurch was erected a scaffolde richely furnished, whereon stode a noyes of instrumentes and a chylde in costly apparell, which was appoynted to welcome the Quenes Majestie in the hole Cities behalfe. Against which place when her Grace came, of her owne wyll she commaunded the chariot to be stayde, and that the noyes might be appeased tyll the chylde had uttered his welcome oration, which he spake in English meter as here followeth:—
‘O pereles Soveraygne Quene, behold what this thy Town