last retaining its name of Queen Elizabeth's chamber1. Holinshed gives us three lines which she wrote with a diamond on the glass of her window; and Hentzner, in his Itinerary of 15983, has recorded a Sonnet4, which she had written with a pencil on her window-shutter. In the Bodleian Library at Oxford, there is an English Translation of Saint Paul's Epistles, printed in the black letter, which The old Royal Manor, or Palace, at Woodstock, was besieged in the grand Rebellion, and much damaged in the siege. The furniture was afterwards sold, and the buildings portioned out by Cromwell, or his agents, to three persons. Two of them, about 1652, pulled down their portions for the sake of the stone. The third suffered his part to stand, which consisted of the gate-house in which the Princess Elizabeth was imprisoned, and some adjoining ruinous buildings. After the rebellion, Lord Lovelace turned this gate-house into a dwelling-house, and lived in it for many years. As to its adjoining ruins, persons now living remember standing a noble porch, and some walls of the hall; the walls and magnificent windows of the chapel; several turrets at proper distances; and could trace out many of the apartments. Sir John Vanbrugh, while Blenheim Palace was building, had taste enough to lay out £.2000 in keeping up the ruins. But afterwards Lord Treasurer Godolphin observed to Sarah, Duchess-dowager of Marlborough, that a pile of ruins in the front of so fine a seat was an unseemly object, all the old buildings, and amongst the rest the Princess Elizabeth's gate-house, were entirely demolished and erased. Aubrey, the Antiquary, acquaints us that in the old hall there were two rows of pillars, as in a church; and that the arches were of the zigzag Norman shape. He has left us, in his manuscript, drawings of the windows in the larger apartments, and in the chapel and hall. Aubrey's Chronologia Architectonica, MSS. in Mus. Ashmol. Oxon. fol. pag. 7. Of fair Rosamond's Bower, which literally signifies no more than a chamber, and which was a kind of a pleasure-house on the south-west side of the old Palace, some ruinous remains are still remembered: particularly, an apartment over Rosamond's well. This well, which is a large, clear, and beautiful spring, paved and fenced about the inside with stone, was undoubtedly a bath, fountain, or reservoir, for the convenience of the Bower, or perhaps of the Palace. The author of the History of Allchester, written 1622, tells us, that "the ruins of Rosamond's Bower are still to be seen against the court-gate." Apud Kennett's Paroch. Antiq. p. 694. Hen. VII. built much here: particularly the front and principal gate of the Palace. On this gate was his name, and an English rhyme, importing that he was the founder. Wake's Rex Platonicus, edit. Oxon. 1607, pag. 6. 4to. It was a favourite seat of our Kings, who all resided here from Henry I. to Charles I. Queen Elizabeth in particular, notwithstanding her imprisonment here, perhaps on that account, was remarkably fond of living at this Palace: and she became a considerable benefactress to the town of Woodstock. A small etching of a prospect of the Princess Elizabeth's chamber and its adjoining ruins, done, a few years before they were destroyed, in 1714, was published by J. Whood. the Princess used while she was here imprisoned; in a blank leaf of which, the following paragraph, written with her own hand, and in the pedantry of the times, yet remains: "I walke many times into the pleasant fieldes of the Holye Scriptures; where I plucke up the goodlisome herbs of sentences by pruning, eate them by reading, chawe them by musing, and laie them up at length in the high seate of memorie, by gathering them together. That so having tasted the sweetnes, I maye the lesse perceave the bitternesse of this miserable life'." The covers are of black silk; on which she had amused herself with curiously working, or embossing, the following inscriptions and devices in gold twist. On one side, on the border, or edge, GLUM PATRIA. SCOPUS VITÆ XPVs. CHRISTO VIVE. In the middle a heart; and about it, ELEVA COR SURSUM IBI UBI E. C. [i. e. est Christus.] On the other side, on the border, BEATUS QUI DIVITIAS Carcer hic est testis, qui gaudia cuncta removit, Sed tamen inde tuo fallaci fidere vento A. D. M.D.LV. O Fortune! how thy restless wavering state Hath borne me, and the joys I quit. And freeing those that Death had well deserved: So God send to my foes all they have thought. ELIZABETH, Prisoner. Inter MSS. 242. 12mo. In the same Library is a translation by the Princess Elizabeth, into Latin, of an Italian sermon of Occhini.-Calligraphy was a requisite accomplishment of those times, and it is accordingly written, on vellum, with uncommon elegance, in her own hand. It is dedicated in Latin to her Brother, King Edward, to whom she sends it as a new-year's gift. The dedication is dated Enfield, December 30. Bibl. Bodl. Arch. D. 115. 8vo. Another volume in the Bodleian Library (Arch. B. 82.) contains "Sentences and Phrases collected by Queen Elizabeth in the 13th and 14th years of her age." See the Preface to the present Volume. SORIPTURÆ LEGENS VERBA VERTIT IN OPERA. In the middle a star, and about it, VICIT OMNIA PERTINAX VIRTUS E. c. [i. e. Elisabethæ Captiva; or, Elisabetha Captiva.] One is pleased to hear these circumstances, trifling and unimportant as they are, which shew us how this great and unfortunate Lady, who became afterwards the Heroine of the British Throne, the favourite of her people, and the terror of the world, contrived to relieve the tedious hours of her pensive and solitary confinement. She had, however, little opportunity for meditation or amusement. She was closely guarded; yet sometimes suffered to walk into the gardens of the Palace. "In this situation," says Holinshed, "no marvell, if she hearing upon a time out of hir garden at Woodstocke a certain milkmaide singing pleasantlie, wished herself to be a milkmaide, as she was; saying, that her case was better, and life merrier." After being confined here for many months, she procured a permission to write to the Queen; but her importunate keeper Bedingfield intruded, and overlooked what she wrote. At length, King Philip interposed, and begged that she might be removed to the Court. But this sudden kindness of Philip, who thought Elizabeth a much less obnoxious character than his father Charles the Fifth had conceived her to have been, did not arise from any regular principle of real generosity, but partly from an affectation of popularity4, and partly from a refined sentiment of policy, which made him foresee that, if Elizabeth was put to death, the next lawful Heir would be Mary Queen of Scots already betrothed to the Dauphin of France, whose succession would for ever join the sceptres of England and France, and consequently crush the growing interests of Spain 5. This circumstance has given occasion to an elegant ballad by Shenstone. Holinshed, ut supra. 3 When she came to the Crown, says Holinshed, she discharged Bedingfield from the Court, telling him, that whenever she should happen to have a State Prisoner who required to be "hardlie handled and strictlie kept," she would send for him. Holinshed, p. 117. col. 2. But there is some reason to suspect, that Fox, from whom Holinshed transcribes, has aggravated, in his account, Sir Henry's usage of the Princess. After she was Queen, he was very often at Court; and her Majesty visited him in a Progress, 1578. And though she frequently called him her Jaylor, yet this seems rather to have been a term of Royal familiarity than of contempt. Though I doubt not that he treated the Princess with no great compassion or delicacy; a circumstance which reflects honour on her forgiveness. See Blomefield's Norfolk, iii. 481. He affected to treat the Princess with much respect. In an examination, cited by Holinshed, it appears that, accidentally passing her in a chamber of the Palace, he paid her such obeisance as to fall with one knee to the ground, notwithstanding his usual state and solemnity. Chron. iii. 1160. col. 1. However, it is said, that, out of gratitude 5 Camden, Eliz. per Hearne, vol. i. Apparatus, p. 21. |