The Princess ELIZABETH at HATFIELD; ASHRIDGE; in the TOWER; afterwards at RICHMOND, WINDSOR, WOODSTOCK, RICOT, WINGe, COLNEBROKE, and again at HATfield, 1553-1558'.

In the year 1553, the Princess Elizabeth, afterwards Queen, having been before treated with much insolence and inhumanity 2, was placed under the care and inspection of Sir Thomas Pope 3. Mary cherished that antipathy to the certain Heiress of her Crown and her Successor, which all Princes who have no Children to succeed naturally feel. But the most powerful cause of Mary's hatred of the Princess, with whom she formerly lived in some degree of friendship 4, seems to have arisen from Courtney Earl of Devonshire.

The person, address, and other engaging accomplishments 5, of this young Nobleman, had made a manifest impression on the Queen 6. Other circumstances also contributed to render him an object of her affection; for he was an Englishman, and nearly allied to the Crown; and consequently could not fail of proving acceptable to the nation. The Earl was no stranger to these favourable dispositions of the Queen towards him. Yet he seemed rather to attach himself to the Princess; whose youth and lively conversation had more prevailing charms than the pomp and power of her Sister. This preference not only produced a total

From Warton's Life of Sir Thomas Pope, 1780, pp. 62-112.

"This day my Ladye Jane was behedede wtin the Towre, and the Lorde Gylforde her husbonde on the Towre hill; and gret execuc'on shalbe don this wyke, as well in London as in all other places wher the rebells dwelte. This day my Lord of Deyneshire was sent to the Towre, wt a gret compenye of the garde: my L. Elisabethe was sent for III dayes ago; but as yet she is not comen, whatsoevr the let is." Robert Swift to the Earl of Shrewsbury, Feb. 12, 1553-4. Lodge's Illustrations of British History, vol. I. p. 190.

Fox, edit. 1684, iii. 798. Speed, &c.

4 Strype, Eccl. Mem. iii. 14. 17. 82.-At Queen Mary's coronation, the Lady Elizabeth rode in the first chariot, with Lady Anne of Cleves, after the Queen's litter in the procession from the Tower to Westminster. Strype, ib. 36. See also Holinshed, Chron. iii. 1152. col. 1.

5 He was polite, studious, and learned; an accurate master of the languages, skilled in the mathematics, painting, and music. He lived a prisoner in the Tower, from fourteen to twenty-six years of age; when he was set at liberty by Queen Mary, at her accession. Strype, Eccl. Mem. iii. 339.

6 Burnet, History of the Reformation, ii. 255.

8 Burnet, Ref. ii. 273. Collier, Eccl. Hist. ii. 352. 362.

7 Godwin, p. 339.

change in Mary's sentiments with regard to the Earl, but forced her openly to declare war against Elizabeth.

The antient quarrel between their Mothers remained deeply rooted in the malignant heart of the Queen1: and she took advantage from the declaration made by Parliament in favour of Catherine's marriage, to represent her Sister's birth as illegitimate. Elizabeth's inclination to the Protestant Religion still further heightened Mary's aversion: it offended her bigotry, disappointed her expectations, and disconcerted her politics. These causes of dislike, however, might perhaps have been forgotten by degrees, or, at least would have ended in secret disgust. But, when the Queen found that the Princess had obstructed her designs in a matter of the most interesting nature, female resentment, founded on female jealousy, and exasperated by pride, could no longer be suppressed.

So much more forcible, and of so much more consequence in public affairs, are private feelings, and the secret undiscerned operations of the heart, than the most important political reasons. Monsieur Noailles, however, the French Ambassador at the Court of England during this period, with the true dignity of a mysterious Statesman, seems unwilling to refer the Queen's displeasure to so slight a motive: and assigns a more profound intrigue as the foundation of Courtney's disgrace. Domestic incidents operate alike in every station of life; and often form the greatest events of history. Princes have their passions in common with the rest of mankind.

Elizabeth, being now become the public and avowed object of Mary's aversion, was openly treated with much disrespect and insult. She was forbidden to take place, in the Presence-chamber, of the Countess of Lenox and the Duchess of Suffolk, as if her legitimacy had been dubious 3. This doctrine had been insinuated by the Chancellor Gardiner, in a Speech before both Houses of Parliament 4. Among other arguments enforcing the necessity of Mary's marriage, he particularly insisted on the failure of the Royal Lineage; artfully remarking, that none of Henry's descendants remained, except the Queen and the Princess Elizabeth 5. Her friends were neglected or affronted. And while her amiable qualifications every day drew the attention of the young Nobility, and rendered

her universally popular, the malevolence of the vindictive Queen still encreased. The Princess, therefore, thought it most prudent to leave the Court: and before the beginning of 1554, retired to her house at Ashridge in Hertfordshire 1.

In the mean time, Sir Thomas Wyat's rebellion, above-mentioned, broke out, in opposition to the Queen's match with Philip of Spain. It was immediately pretended that the Princess Elizabeth, together with Lord Courtney, was privately concerned in this dangerous conspiracy, and that she had held a correspondence with the Traitor Wyat. Accordingly Sir Edward Hastings, afterwards Lord Loughborough, Sir Thomas Cornwallis, and Sir Richard Southwell, attended by a troop of horse, were ordered to bring her to Court 2. They found the Princess. sick, and even confined to her bed, at Ashridge3. Notwithstanding, under pretence of the strictness of their commission, they compelled her to rise: and, still continuing very weak and indisposed, she proceeded in the Queen's litter by slow journeys to London4. At the Court, they kept her confined, and without company, for a fortnight: after which Bishop Gardiner, who well knew her predominant disposition to cabal and intrigue, with nineteen others of the Council, attended to examine her concerning the Rebellion of which she was accused. She positively denied the accusation. However, they informed her, it was the Queen's resolution she should be committed to the Tower, till further enquiries could be made. The Princess immediately wrote to the Queen, earnestly entreating that she might not be imprisoned in the Tower, and concluding her letter thus: "As for that Traytor Wiat, he might paraventur write me a letter; but, on my faith, I never received any from him. And as for the copie of my letter sent to the Frenche King, I pray God confound me eternally, if ever I sent him word, message, token, or

"Wherein our most worthie and ever famous Queen Elisabeth lodged as in her owne, beinge then a more stately house, at the tyme of Wyatt's attempte in Queen Maryes dayes." Norden's Discription of Hartfordshire, written 1596, pag. 12. edit. 1723.”

'See Holinshed's Chronicle, iii. 1151. seq. from Fox.

'Amb. de Noailles, whose papers are cited by Carte, calls this a favorable illness. “Since," he adds, it seems likely to save Mary from the crime of putting her Sister to death by violence." Carte, iii. 306. • Her manner of coming to London is thus described in a manuscript chronicle, often cited hereafter. "The same tyme and daye, between four and fyve of the clocke at night, my Lady Elisabeth's Grace came to London, through Smithfielde, untoo Westminster, with c velvet cotts after her Grace. And her Grace rod in a charytt opyn on both sydes: and her Grace [had] ryding after her a 100 in cotts of fyne redde gardy'd with velvett; and so through Flet-strete unto the Court through the Quenes garden, hir Grace being sycke." MSS. Cotton, Vitell. F. 5.

5 Holinshed, ut supra.

letter, by any menes1." Her oaths, and her repeated protestations of innocence, were all ineffectual. She was conveyed to the Tower, and ignominiously conducted through the Traitors' gate 3.

At her first commitment, only three men and three women of the Queen's servants were appointed for her attendants. But even these were forbidden to bring her meat; and she was waited on for this purpose by the Lieutenant's servants, or even by the common soldiers. But afterwards, two Yeomen of her chamber, one of her robes, two of her pantry and ewry, one of her buttery, one of her cellar, another of her larder, and two of her kitchen, were allowed, by permission of the Privy Council, to serve at her table. No stranger, or visitor, was admitted into her presence. The Constable of the Tower, Sir John Gage, treated her very severely, and watched her with the utmost vigilance. Many of the other prisoners, committed to the same place on account of the rebellion, were often examined about her concern in the conspiracy: and some of them were put to the rack, by way of extorting an accusation. Her innocence, however, was unquestionable: for, although Wyat himself had accused her, in hopes to have saved his own life by means of so base and scandalous an artifice, yet he afterwards denied that she had the least knowledge of his designs; and lest those denials which he made at his examinations might be insidiously suppressed, and his former depositions alledged against her adopted in their stead, he continued to make the same declarations openly on the scaffold at the time of his execution 3.

There was a pretence, much insisted on by Gardiner, that Wyat had conveyed to her a bracelet, in which the whole scheme of the plot was inclosed. But Wyat acquitted her of this and all other suspicions4. After a close imprisonment of some days, by the generous intercession of Lord Chandos, Lieutenant of the Tower, it was granted that she might sometimes walk in the Queen's lodgings5, in the presence of the Constable, the Lieutenant, and three of the Queen's ladies; yet on condition that the windows should be shut. She then was indulged with walking in a little garden, for the sake of fresh air: but all the shutters which looked towards the garden were ordered to be kept close.

Such were their jealousies, that a little boy of four years old, who had been

Camden's Eliz. per Hearne, vol. i. editor. præfat. p. 78.

. May 18. As MSS. Cott. Vitell. F. 5.

› Holinshed, ut supra.

Strype, Eccl. Mem. iii. 97.

> Concerning these apartments in the Tower, see the very judicious and ingenious Mr. Walpole's Historic Doubts concerning Richard the Third.

accustomed every day to bring her flowers, was severely threatened if he came. any more; and the child's father was summoned and rebuked by the Constable. But Lord Chandos being observed to treat the Princess with too much respect, he was not any longer entrusted with the charge of her; and she was committed to the custody of Sir Henry Bedingfield, of Oxburgh in Norfolk', a person whom she had never seen nor knew before. He brought with him a new guard of one hundred soldiers, cloathed in blue; which the Princess observing, asked with her usual liveliness, If Lady Jane's scaffold was yet taken away.

About the end of May 2 she was removed from the Tower, under the command of Sir Henry Bedingfield, and Lord Williams of Thame, to the Royal manor or Palace at Woodstock 3. The first night of her journey she lay at Richmond; where being watched all night by the soldiers, and all access of her own private attendants utterly prohibited, she began to be convinced, that orders had been given to put her privately to death. The next day she reached Windsor, where she was lodged in the Dean's house near St. George's Collegiate Chapel. She then passed to lord Williams's seat at Ricot in Oxfordshire, where she lay; and "was verie princelie entertained both of knights and ladies." But Bedingfield was highly disgusted at this gallant entertainment of his Prisoner. During their journey, Lord Williams and another Gentleman playing at chess, the Princess accidentally came in, and told them she must stay to see the game played out, but this liberty Bedingfield would not permit4.

Arriving at Woodstock, she was lodged in the Gatehouse of the Palace, in an apartment remaining complete within these fifty years with its original arched roof of Irish oak, curiously carved, painted blue sprinkled with gold, and to the

He was firmly attached to the Queen's interests. Beside his government of the Tower, he was Knight Marshal of the Queen's army, Captain of her Guards, Vice-chamberlain to the Queen, and a Privy Counsellor. She also granted him a yearly pension of £.100 for life, and part of the forfeited estate of Sir Thomas Wyat. Blomefield's Norfolk, iii. 481. He is often, by mistake, written Beningfield, Benfield, &c.

2 "Of Saterdaye, at one of the cloke at afternone, my Lady Elisabet he was delyv'ed out of the Towre by the Lord Tresorer and my Lord Chamb'leyn, and went to Richemonde (on her way to the old Palace of Woodstock, where she remained in confinement till the end of April in the next year,) by water furthewyt er she landyd; wher she shalbe attended upon by sundrye of garde, and some officers of ev'y office in the Quene's howse, but how long she shall co'tinewe there I know not." Robert Swift to the Earl of Shrewsbury, May 20, 1554. Lodge, vol. I. p. 193.

3 MSS. Cotton. Vitell. F. 5. "The xx daye of May my Lady Elisabeth, the Quenes Sister, came out of the Tower, and toke hir barge at the Tower-wharffe, and so to Rychmond, and from thens unto Wyndsor, and so to Wodstoke." • Holinshed, ut supra.