CHAPTER XI IN THE CHAPEL OF HENRY VII.

On November 17, 1558, Mary died, and that very day Parliament met in old Westminster Palace "to proclaim without further halt of time the Lady Elizabeth as queen of this realm." Shouts of "God save Queen Elizabeth" resounded through the walls, and outside the cry "Long live our Queen Elizabeth" was taken up with heartfelt intensity by the people, who believed, and not in vain, that with her their deliverance had come. She had suffered, they had suffered, both in the same great cause, and now together they were standing in the dawn of a day which promised to be fair and radiant. The Spanish influence, which they hated passionately, as Englishmen have ever been wont to hate foreign interference, had received its death-blow, for here was a queen, "born mere English, here among us, and therefore most natural to us," who understood them, and whom they could freely trust. No wonder that there were no signs of mourning for the dead queen, only irrepressible joy and relief at the accession of the new sovereign they were prepared to love so loyally. But no wonder either that the echoes of the cheers which reached the Abbey fell on some hearts which could not respond to them. To Fakenham, with his handful of monks, those shouts of joy were as a death-knell, though the Abbot himself may have had some hopes that Elizabeth would remember how he had pleaded with Mary for her freedom.

The coronation festivities, which began January 15, put London in a delirium of rejoicings, and though the royal exchequer was so low that there was no money available for costly preparations, the people more than compensated for this by the pageants and decorations they organised out of the fulness of their hearts. "The queen," says an officer who followed the procession, "as she entered the city was received with prayers, welcomings, cries and tender words, with all those signs which argue the earnest love of subjects towards their sovereign. She, by holding up her hands and glad countenance to such as stood afar off, and most tender language to those that stood near, showed herself no less thankful to receive the people's goodwill than they to offer it, and to such as bade 'God save her Grace,' she said in return, 'God save you all,' so that the people were wonderfully transported at the loving answers and gestures of the queen."

Only one bishop could be found to read the coronation service, as those few Protestants who had escaped with their lives across the seas had not yet returned from their exile, and the Roman Catholics refused to assist, though no alterations were introduced into the service, excepting that the Litany, the Gospel, and the Epistle were ordered to be read in English. This bishop, with the singers, met the queen at Westminster Hall on the following day, a Sunday, and to the fine old hymn, "Hail, Festal Day," the procession wended its way into the Abbey, and the solemn ceremony took place.

Nor did Elizabeth at first make any changes in the Abbey services. It was her desire, she declared at the opening of her Parliament ten days later, "to unite the people of the realm in one uniform order," and though she was determined that the English Church should be utterly severed from Roman control, and that the Bible should be an open book, she understood the bulk of her people well enough to know that, as Bishop Creighton has so clearly put it, "what they wished for was a national church, independent of Rome, with simple services, not too unlike those to which they had been accustomed." So, at the state service in the Abbey on this occasion, the Mass was celebrated with the usual ritual, though the sermon was preached by a certain Doctor Cox, who was a vigorous Protestant.

Elizabeth's first Parliament gave over to her all the religious houses revived by her sister, and she decided to once more make Westminster a Cathedral church, though without a bishopric. Possibly if Fakenham had been a more time-serving man, he might have managed to stay on under the new regime as Dean, but he was uncompromisingly true to his principles; he refused to acknowledge any one but the Pope as head of the Church, and in the House of Lords he made a strong speech against the English Prayer-Book. His reign at Westminster had been a short one, but he had not failed in his duty towards the precious trust committed to his care. The Confessor's Chapel, shrine of the English saint, was still the greatest treasure of the Abbey, and to this he had caused the body of the king, hidden, you will remember, by the monks at the first threat of dissolution, to be carried back "with the most goodly singing and chanting ever heard," after he had repaired the shrine itself to the best of his ability, assisted by Queen Mary, who had sent him some jewels. Moreover, in Parliament he successfully defended the right of sanctuary, so that this remained for some time longer at least an Abbey privilege, and altogether it is pleasant to remember this last Abbot as one who was true to the light as he saw it, a kindly, moderate, honest man, a firm friend, a fair enemy, a fine solitary figure standing out among his fellows. It is said that when in 1560 the bill was passed in Parliament which decided the fate of Westminster and the other remaining monasteries, a messenger who came to bring the news to Abbot Fakenham found him busy planting young elms in the Dean's yard.

"Cease thy labours, my lord Abbot," he said. "This planting of trees will avail thee nothing now."

But the old Abbot was not so mean-spirited.

"I verily believe," he made answer, "that so long as this church endureth, it shall be kept for a seat of learning."

And he went on contentedly with his work.

He lived for twenty-five years after he left the Abbey, under a certain amount of restraints, and great efforts were made to induce him to change his faith. But he never wavered, and so far as possible withdrew from all controversy, spending his time and his substance among the poor. "Like an axil tree, he stood firm and fixed in his own judgments," says Fuller, "while the times, like the wheels, turned backwards and forwards round him."

Westminster stood aloof from the keen religious controversies which raged around, and quietly stepped into its new position. It was now neither a monastery nor a cathedral, but a "collegiate church," as it is to-day, with its Dean and Chapter and its school. Very little, if anything, happened to disturb the peace of the Abbey under the rule of its three excellent Deans appointed by Elizabeth—Bill, Goodman, and Andrewes; the only sign of the times which deserves noticing being that more and more it became the custom to bury distinguished people not of royal blood within these honoured walls. Otherwise we may well quote the words of Widmore, who in summing up this epoch in Westminster history, concludes—"It may here be remarked that though misfortunes and disturbances in a place give opportunity to an historian to make observations and show his eloquence, while they also entertain the reader, yet peace and quietness are good proofs both of the happiness of the times and the discretion of those who govern."

On the 24th of March 1603, Elizabeth died after a reign of forty-four years, during which she had never lost her hold over the hearts and minds of her people. As a woman she had her failings and weaknesses, but as a queen she had done right well for England, and "round her, with all her faults, the England we know grew into the consciousness of its destiny.... She saw what England might become, and nursed it into the knowledge of its power."

The outburst of grief at her death was her people's acknowledgment of the debt they owed her. They had trusted her, and not in vain; she had understood them, had served them, and had loved them. On the day of her burying at Westminster "the city was surcharged with multitudes of all sorts, in the streets, houses, windows, leads, and gutters, and when they beheld her statue lying on the coffin, set forth in royal robes, having a crown upon the head thereof, a ball and sceptre in either hand, there was such a general sighing, weeping, and groaning as the like hath not been seen or known in the memory of man, neither doth any history mention any people, time, or state to make the like lamentation for the death of their sovereign."

Nor did her memory fade away with her life, for her tomb, which you will find in the north aisle of Henry VII.'s Chapel, became familiar to her people throughout the length and breadth of the land, "a lovely draught of it being pictured in the London and country churches."

The monument raised to her memory by James I. is a fine one of its kind, and the sculptor has given us an impression of her strength and power as she lies sleeping there in royal state, guarded by lions, though I think we cannot help missing the exquisite little figures of saints and angels banished in deference to the increasingly severe views of the English Churchmen. Here is the translation of the Latin inscription round the monument, which certainly described, and in no way exaggerated, the feelings of the nation towards her:—

"To the eternal memory of Elizabeth, Queen of England, France, and Ireland, Daughter of Henry VIII., Grand-daughter of Henry VII., Great-Grand-Daughter of Edward IV. Mother of her Country. A Nursing Mother of religion and all liberal Sciences, skilled in many languages, adorned with excellent adornments both of body and mind, and excellent for princely virtues beyond her sex. Religion to its primitive purity restored; peace settled; Money restored to its just value; Domestic Rebellions quelled; France relieved when involved with internal divisions; The Netherlands supported, the Spanish Armada vanquished; Ireland, almost lost by rebels, eased by routing the Spaniards; the Revenues of both Universities much enlarged; and lastly, all England enriched. Elizabeth, during forty-five years, a very prudent Governor, a victorious and triumphant Queen, most pious and most happy, at her calm death in her seventieth year, left her remains to be placed in this Church which she preserved, until the hour of her Resurrection in Christ."

In arranging for this lengthy epitaph, James could not fail to be reminded that Queen Mary, who lay in the same tomb as Elizabeth, was passed over in cold silence, so he added a simple sentence pathetic in its restraint, almost an appeal on behalf of the one whose life had been such a failure.

"Here rest we two sisters Elizabeth and Mary, fellows both in throne and grave, in the hope of one resurrection."
TOMB OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.
TOMB OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.

In life everything had tended to separate them, but in death they lay together at peace.

James erected another monument in this chapel, on the southern side, and this was to the memory of his mother, the ill-fated Mary Queen of Scots. She had been buried at Peterborough, but her son, when he came into the inheritance which was his, through her, very rightly caused her to be buried among the kings and queens of England. Here again death reconciled two implacable foes, so that Mary Queen of Scots lies opposite to Elizabeth in this chapel of the Tudors. The marble figure, with its sweet, finely-cut face and its graceful draperies and its delicate lacework, is full of charm, and makes familiar to us one whose fascinating beauty was her own undoing.

And now we come to a new phase in the history of the Abbey; for though after the days of Queen Elizabeth several kings and queens of England were buried within its walls, to none of them was a monument raised, not so much even as an inscription was cut on the stones over their graves. With the Stuarts began a new race of kings, and under their rule there grew up a new set of relations between king and subjects. They preached the doctrine of the divine right of kings, declaring themselves to be above any laws which their people might desire to make through Parliament, so the battle had to be fought out between king and Parliament, a battle so fierce that it brought once more civil war to England, cost Charles the First his life, and caused James II. to flee to foreign lands. But from that struggle with its many errors there at last developed

    "That sober freedom out of which there springs
    Our loyal passion for our temperate kings,"

which holds together to-day the throne and the nation as never before in our island story.

So you will see how, as the people became more and more the ruling force in England, it was the representatives of the people—statesmen, soldiers, sailors, writers, musicians, travellers, thinkers, discoverers, and benefactors—who stepped into the foremost places, and who were thought worthy of a resting-place among the great kings of old in the Abbey, while, with a few exceptions, the sovereigns of England were buried at Windsor, now the most important of all the royal palaces.

It is in Henry VII.'s Chapel that James I. himself was buried in the founder's tomb, and his wife Anne of Denmark lay close to him. Near at hand you will see a beautiful little monument of a baby in a cradle, which marks the grave of Princess Sophia, a baby daughter of James I. The king gave orders at her death that she should be buried "as cheaply as possible, without any solemnity," but in spite of this, and although she was only two days old, a great number of lords, ladies, and officers of state attended, followed the little coffin, which was brought up on a black draped barge from Greenwich, and which was met at the Abbey by the heralds, the dean and prebends, with the choir, while an antiphon was sung to the organ. The royal sculptor, Nicholas Pourtian, was allowed the sum of one hundred and forty pounds for her monument, and he must have been a great lover of children or he could not have thought out anything so charming as this yellow-tinted, lace-covered cradle with its tiny baby occupant.

Nor is the inscription less pretty in idea than the monument, for it tells us how Sophia, "Royal Rosebud, snatched away from her parents, James, King of Great Britain, Ireland and France, and Queen Anne, that she might flourish again in the Rosary of Christ, was placed here."

Next to her is her sister Mary who lived to be two, and then died of fever, saying many times over in her wanderings these same words, "I go, I go, away I go." Hers too is a very natural little figure, in spite of the stiff straight clothes and the quaint cap; and the carver has put a great deal of life into the weeping cherubs, to whom surely not the most rigid Puritan could have objected. In this same corner were laid, some years later, the bones found by some workmen under the stairs at the Tower of London, supposed to be those of the little princes who had been murdered there, so that at last King Edward the Fifth and his brother were honourably buried near their more fortunate sister Elizabeth of York.

The tomb of Mary Queen of Scots is really a Stuart vault, and it might almost be called the vault of Royal Children, for more than thirty are buried under it. Here, without any monument, but an inscription on the floor, lies Henry, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of James, who gave such high promise both of character and ability, that he had won the hearts of the people, and more especially of the Puritans, in a remarkable degree. James, though holding very unsatisfactory views as to the rights and duties of a king, had nevertheless brought up his son wisely and had educated him most carefully. Before he was six he had been instructed "how to behave towards God, how to behave when he should come to be king, and how to behave in all those matters which were right or wrong according as they were used;" and when he was only nine he wrote in Latin to his father giving an account of the books he had been reading, which included Cicero's Epistles.

According to the law of Scotland, the heir to the throne was not allowed to be brought up by his parents, but was sent to Stirling Castle, to be under the care of the Earl of Mar, who held the right to be the hereditary guardian, and this accounts for the many letters which passed between the little prince and the king and queen. When Elizabeth died and James became king of Great Britain, he had to go hastily to London, but about a year later he sent for the queen to come "with the bairns to Windsor, where he prayed God they should all have a blyth meeting." As they arrived there during the festival of St. George, Prince Henry was at once made a Knight of the Garter, and his "princely carriage and his learned behaviour" on that occasion greatly impressed every one who saw him. The coronation of James was fixed for St. James's Day, but because of the plague raging in London, all the fair pageants and the public rejoicings were hastily countermanded, so that the ceremony was almost a private one, even the usual procession through the city being left out. Great was the disappointment of the Londoners, though they were promised that so soon as the plague had disappeared the king, with the queen and their children, would visit the city with all the state of a coronation procession.

One part of this coronation service was of special interest; and to many people it meant the fulfilment of an old prophecy. For more than eight hundred years before these words had been roughly carved on the sacred stone of Scone—

    If Fates go right, where'er this stone is found
    The Scots shall monarchs of that realm be crowned.

And now, seated on the Coronation Chair which held that stone, James VI. of Scotland was crowned as James I. of England.

Prince Henry was still brought up away from home, first in company with his sister, the merry and witty little Princess Elizabeth, who afterwards married the Elector Palatine. Brother and sister were devoted to each other: both were full of the highest spirits, ready for any adventure; both loved riding and games, and would "mount horses of prodigious mettle;" and it was a great grief to them when they were parted, though, woman-like, Elizabeth fretted the longer. Prince Henry was more of a philosopher.

"That you are displeased to be left in solitude I can well believe," he wrote to her; "you women and damsels are sociable creatures. But you know those who love each other best cannot always be glued together."

Meanwhile Henry took up his residence at Hampton Court. The Gunpowder Plot left a deep impression on him, for had it succeeded he would have lost his life, and he became still more serious and thoughtful, making friends only with those who could teach him something about the many things in which he took an interest, ships, guns, fortifications, books, foreign lands, politics and so on. For Sir Walter Raleigh, that adventurous sailor and treasure-hunter, now a prisoner in the Tower, he had the greatest affection, and spent many hours walking up and down the terrace with him talking of ships and the sea, to the great delight of the old man, who found him an enthusiastic and intelligent companion and at one with him in his opinion that a strong navy meant peace for England. In vain Henry pleaded with his father to set free this prisoner who had committed no crime save that of offending Spain. But James and his son were of very different natures, and James was always doggedly obstinate. "No one but the King would shut up such a bird in a cage," said the boy sadly.
INTERIOR LOOKING EAST.
INTERIOR LOOKING EAST.

In 1610 he was created Prince of Wales and there were great festivities in the White Chamber of Westminster Palace, as there, in the presence of the Lords and Commons, he knelt before the king, wearing a robe of purple velvet, to receive the crown of Llewellyn. Once again he won all hearts, and the members of Parliament congratulated themselves that so worthy a prince was heir to the throne. He became more and more the idol of the people, and indeed rarely if ever since the days of Edward, the Black Prince, had a king's son been so full of promise. But to the utter grief of the nation he died two years later, after a short illness.

"Are you pleased to submit yourself to the will of God?" asked the Archbishop, when all hope was given up.

"With all my heart," the boy answered simply.

"I had written him a treatise on the 'Art of War by Sea,'" said Raleigh, when the sad news reached him. "But God hath spared me the labour of finishing it. I leave him therefore in the hands of God."

When the long funeral procession passed through the streets "there was a great outcry among all people," and it was to the sounds of weeping and wailing that the boy-prince, who had won so much love and respect, was carried to Westminster Abbey. There, close to him, was laid more than forty years later, his dearest sister, Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, who, after a sadly adventurous life, spent her last few years peacefully in London, cared for and watched over by Lord Craven, whose devotion to her had been lifelong, as unchanging as it was chivalrous.

Another brother and sister are buried here, Anne, the little daughter of Charles I., and Prince Henry, his third son. Anne died before all those troubles began, which saddened the childhood of her brothers and sisters, and made them prisoners in the hands of their father's enemies, as she was only four when she fell into a fast consumption.

"I am not able," she said wearily, the night she died, "to say my long prayer, but I will say my short one. 'Lighten mine eyes, O Lord, lest I sleep in death.'"

Little Henry, the Duke of Gloucester, was extraordinarily like his uncle Henry in every way, old for his age, clever, thoughtful, "with a sweet method of talking, and a judgment much beyond his years." He was taken from his father almost before he knew him, and was, with his sister, also a Princess Elizabeth, kept practically a prisoner in London by the Puritan party. But he was not unkindly treated, for so engaging was he both in conversation and in manners, that many of the Puritans thought he would make a good ruler for England if only he were strictly brought up, and kept away from the influence of his mother or the court.

When the sentence of death was passed on King Charles, he asked to see the two of his children who were in London, and after some delay the request was granted. Awe-struck, the little couple came into his presence, and the king seems to have grasped what was likely to happen. He lifted the Duke of Gloucester on to his knee. "Sweetheart," he said, "they will cut off thy father's head, and mark, child, perhaps they will make thee a king. But you must not be a king while your brothers Charles and James be living."

"I will be torn in pieces first," answered the white-faced child, with a determination which made so great an impression on Charles, that even at that sad moment he rejoiced exceedingly; while the little Duke, who up till now had rarely seen his father, could carry away as a last memory the picture of one whose courage was highest when the need for it was greatest, and who, if he had faced life weakly, met death bravely.

With his sister he was taken to Carisbrooke Castle, but here his existence was very sad, for Princess Elizabeth, like her sister Anne, fell into a consumption, and not being properly cared for, she died. So lonely was he now, that those who had the charge of him, still nursing the idea that one day he might become king, sent him abroad to Leyden, with a tutor, and here he won for himself the pleasant reputation of being "a most complete gentleman and rarely accomplished."

With the Restoration Henry gladly returned to England, and at once begged his brother to find him some work to do, as "he could not bear an idle life." So he was made Lord Treasurer. He proved himself to be a good man of business, while in his leisure hours he gathered round him men of letters and learning, and soon became as popular in London as he had been in Leyden. Then a sudden attack of smallpox killed him, and once again a funeral procession wended its way to Westminster amid signs of very real sorrow. For his fair life had won him many friends and never an enemy.

Of Prince Rupert, who was buried in this vault, that gallant soldier in the Royalist cause, more in another chapter, and this one shall end with a few words about the luckless "Lady Arabella Stuart." She was a cousin to James I., as her father's brother was the Earl of Darnley who had married Mary Queen of Scots; but besides this she was of royal birth, and her grandmother, the Countess of Lennox, whose tomb you will find close by, claimed, as you will see inscribed thereon, to have "to her great-grandfather Edward IV., to her grandfather Henry VII., to her uncle Henry VIII., to her grandchild James VI. and I." Arabella's father had committed the unpardonable offence of marrying without Queen Elizabeth's permission Elizabeth Cavendish, the daughter of the celebrated Bess of Hardwick, and for so doing the young couple were promptly sent to the Tower, in company with both the mothers-in-law, one of whom, the Countess of Lennox, had already twice been imprisoned for matters of love—an early attachment of her own to Thomas Howard, and the marriage of her elder son to Mary Queen of Scots. The young Earl of Lennox died very soon after his marriage, and Elizabeth relented so far as to allow yearly ￡400 a year to his widow and ￡200 to his little daughter Arabella.

When she was twelve, Arabella was sent for by the queen to London, and being very handsome as well as clever, she soon began to attract attention. The Roman Catholic party, always on the look-out for a weapon to use against the crown, turned their attentions to her, and her position became a dangerous one, though she herself was entirely loyal and very prudent. The great Lord Burleigh, however, was always her good friend, and when James came to the throne, he gave him a wise hint to "deal tenderly with this high-spirited and fascinating young lady." James took his advice, and Arabella lived at his court, nominally as the governess of the Princess Elizabeth, but actually as if she herself had been a daughter. She was a favourite with all, especially with Henry Prince of Wales, for she was highly educated and a most delightful companion. But though she had many lovers, she would look at none of them, declaring "she had no mind for marriage." However, unfortunately for her, she lost her heart to William Seymour, whom she married in spite of the disapproval of James. And then began her troubles, for Seymour was utterly unworthy of her, and had only married her to advance his own position. When he was put into the Tower, and his wife was kept as a prisoner at Lambeth, his only idea was to make good his own escape, leaving Arabella to her fate; whilst she, still believing in him, risked everything to set him free. It was only when she found that he had fled to Ostend without her that the full force of her sorrows overwhelmed her.

She had hardly a friend, for even Prince Henry seems to have sided for once with his father, and greatest of all was the bitterness of realising that her husband cared nothing for her. He did not even write to her, lest in so doing he might endanger his own safety.

She was sent to the Tower, where first her health, then her mind gave way, and she became as a little child, singing nursery songs, prattling of childish things. Death was a merciful release. Secretly, by dead of night, she was taken from the Tower to the Abbey on a barge, and buried without any ceremony in the vault under the tomb of her aunt. She had often described herself as the "most sorrowful creature living," and, indeed, I think that under this tomb in Henry VII.'s chapel lie three royal women of the Stuart race whose lives were all the saddest tragedies, Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth of Bohemia, and the Lady Arabella. "God grant them all a good ending," as the old chroniclers were wont to say. At least now, after life's fitful fever, they sleep well in the calm of the old Abbey.