ther, whose especial darling she was. It is said she shared the instruction which he there received from his learned preceptors, sir John Cheke, doctor Cox, and sir Anthony Cooke. Elizabeth, after her accession to the throne, made Cox bishop of Ely, and bestowed great favour on Cooke and his learned daughters, lady Bacon and lady Burleigh. They were the companions of her youth, and afterwards the wives of two of her most esteemed ministers of state.

The tender love that endeared Edward and Elizabeth to each other, in infancy, appears to have ripened into a sweeter, holier friendship, as their kindred minds expanded, "for," says sir Robert Naunton, "besides the consideration of blood, there was between these two princes a concurrence and sympathy of their natures and affections, together with the celestial bond, conformity in religion, which made them one." In December, 1546, when the brother and sister were separated, by the removal of Elizabeth to Enfield and Edward to Hertford, the prince was so much afflicted that she wrote to him, entreating him to be comforted, and to correspond with her; he replied in these tender words:

"The change of place, most dear sister, does not so much vex me as your departure from me. But nothing can now occur to me more grateful than your letters. I particularly feel this, because you first began the correspondence and challenged me to write to you. I thank you most cordially both for your kindness and the quickness of its coming, and I will struggle vigorously that if I cannot excel you I will at least equal you in regard and attention. It is a comfort to my regret that I hope shortly to see you again if no accident intervene.'

The next time the royal brother and sister met was on the 30th of January, 1547, when the earl of Hertford and

past, situated on the brow of a pleasant hill, overlooking the ancient town of Bishop's Hatfield, with the river Lea winding through its grounds: the most antiquated part of the building was erected by Morton, bishop of Ely, in the reign of Edward IV., and a little square pleasure garden, with its hedges clipped in arches, is kept precisely in the same state as when Elizabeth sported therein with her little brother. She received a grant of this demesne from her brother's regency in 1550, and resided with some splendour and magnificence therein during the last years of her sister's life. The cradle of Elizabeth is shewn here.-History of Hatfield House, by P. F. Robinson, F.A.S.

1 Strype.

sir Anthony Brown brought young Edward privately from Hertford to Enfield, and there, in the presence of the princess Elizabeth, declared to him and her the death of the king their father. Both of them received the intelligence with passionate tears, and they united in such lamentations as moved all present to weep. "Never," says Hayward," was sorrow more sweetly set forth, their faces seeming rather to beautify their sorrow than their sorrow to cloud the beauty of their faces."

The boy-king was conducted the next day to London, preparatory to his inauguration; but neither the grief which he felt for the death of his parent, nor the importance of the high vocation to which he had been thus early summoned, rendered him forgetful of his sweetest sister, as he ever called Elizabeth; and in reply to the letter of condolence, which she addressed to him, on the subject of their mutual bereavement, he wrote "There is very little need of my consoling you, most dear sister, because from your learning you know what you ought to do, and from your prudence and piety you perform what your learning causes you to know." In conclusion, he compliments her on the elegance of her sentences, and adds, "I perceive you think of our father's death with a calm mind."

By the conditions of her royal father's will, Elizabeth was placed the third in the order of the royal succession after himself, provided her brother and sister died without lawful issue, and neither queen Katharine Parr nor any future queen bore children to the king. In point of fortune, she was left on terms of strict equality with her elder sister-that is to say, with a life annuity of three thousand pounds a year, and a marriage portion of ten thousand pounds, provided she married with the consent of the king her brother and his council; otherwise she was to forfeit that provision.

More than one historian has asserted that sir Thomas Seymour made a daring attempt to contract marriage

1 Life of Edward VI.

Sharon Turner; Burnet.

with the youthful princess Elizabeth, before he renewed his addresses to his old love, Katharine Parr. He had probably commenced his addresses to the royal girl before her father's death, for her governess, Katharine Ashley, positively deposed that it was her opinion that if Henry VIII. had lived a little longer, she would have been given to him for a wife. Leti tells us, that the admiral offered his hand to Elizabeth, immediately after king Henry's death: she was then in her fourteenth year. According to Sharon Turner, the ambitious project of the admiral was detected and prevented by the council; but Leti, who, by his access to the Aylesbury MSS., appears to have obtained peculiar information on the private history of the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., assures us, that the refusal proceeded from Elizabeth herself. He gives us a truly frenchified version of the correspondence which passed between her and Seymour, exactly a month after the death of Henry VIII.;' for Seymour's letter, in which he requests the young princess to consent to ally herself to him in marriage, is dated February 26, 1547; and Elizabeth, in her reply, February 27, tells him, "That she has neither the years nor the inclination to think of marriage at present, and that she would not have any one imagine that such a subject had even been mentioned to her, at a time when she ought to be wholly taken up in weeping for the death of the king her father, to whom she owed so many obligations, and that she intended to devote at least two years to wearing black for him, and mourning for his loss; and that even when she shall have arrived at years of discretion, she wishes to retain her liberty, without entering into any matrimonial engagement."

Four days after the admiral received this negative, he was the accepted lover of his former fiancée, the queendowager Katharine Parr. Elizabeth, who had been, on the demise of the king her father, consigned by the council of the royal minor, her brother, to the care and

1 Leti's Life of Queen Elizabeth.

tutelage of queen Katharine, with whom she was then residing, was, according to our author, much displeased at the conduct of that lady, not only on account of the precipitation with which she had entered into a matrimonial engagement, which was considered derogatory to the honour due to the late king's memory, but because she had induced her to reject the addresses of the admiral, by representing to her how unsuitable such an alliance would be to her, in every point of view. Now, although the queen-dowager only performed her duty, as the widow of the deceased majesty of England, in giving such counsel to the orphan princess, to whom she had undertaken the office of a mother, her own proceedings, by rendering the motives of her advice questionable, excited reflections little to her advantage in the mind of Elizabeth, and perhaps sowed the first seeds of the fatal jealousy which afterwards divided them.

According to Leti, the princess Mary, who was no less offended than Elizabeth, at the indecorous haste of their royal stepmother's marriage, wrote to Elizabeth, offering her a residence in her house, entreating her to quit that of the queen-dowager, and come to her, that both might unite in testifying their disapproval of this unsuitable alliance.

Elizabeth, however, young as she was, had too much self-command to commit herself by putting a public affront on the best-loved uncle of the king her brother, who was by no means unlikely to supersede Somerset in his office of protector; neither did she feel disposed to come to a rupture with the queen-dowager, whose influence with king Edward was considerable: therefore, in reply to her sister, she wrote a very political letter,'

1 The whole of this curious letter may be seen in Leti's Life of Elizabeth; but, unfortunately, our author's desire of rendering his book entertaining has led him to modernize the language and construction so considerably, that very few traces are discernible of the peculiar style of that princess. The readers of the 17th and 18th centuries neither understood nor valued documentary history; hence Leti, who had access to so many precious, and now inaccessible records, in the collection of his friend the earl of Aylesbury, and also to our national archives, as historiographer

66 telling her that it behoved them both to submit with patience to that which could not be cured, as neither of them were in a position to offer any objection to what had taken place, without making their condition worse than it was; observing, that they had to do with a very powerful party, without themselves possessing the slightest credit at court; so that the only thing they could do was to dissemble the pain they felt at the disrespect with which their father's memory had been treated. She excuses herself from accepting Mary's invitation, "because," she says, the queen had shewn her so much friendship, that she could not withdraw herself from her protection without appearing ungrateful;" and concludes in these words:"I shall always pay the greatest deference to the instructions you may give me, and submit to whatsoever your highness shall be pleased to ordain.” The letter is without date or signature.

66

For a year, at least, after the death of her royal father, Elizabeth continued to pursue her studies under the able superintendence of her accomplished stepmother, with whom she resided, either at the dower palace at Chelsea, or the more sequestered shades of Hanworth. Throckmorton, the kinsman of queen Katharine Parr, draws the following graceful portrait of the manners of the youthful princess at this era of her life:

"Elizabeth there sojourning for a time

Gave fruitful hope of blossom blown in prime.

"For as this lady was a princess born,

So she in princely virtues did excel;

Humble she was, and no degree would scorn,

To talk with poorest souls she liked well;

The sweetest violets bend nearest to the ground,
The greatest states in lowliness abound.

to king Charles II., only availed himself of such facts as were of a ro mantic character, and presented the royal letters of the 16th century in phraseology more suitable to the era of Louis XIV. than that of Edward VI.; consequently, many things that were true in substance have been doubted, because of the inconsistent form in which they were introduced.