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water to Greenwich, and uniting with the procession from the Palace, marched to the Friars Church, where the ceremony was performed, the walls being hung with rich tapestry, and the way thither being strewn with green rushes. The citizens began the procession, walking two and two, and were followed by a long line of Barons, Bishops, and Earls. The splendid and haughty Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex, then advanced, bearing the gilt basons. Henry, Marquis of Dor set, father of Lady Jane Grey, William Courtney, Marquis of Exeter, cousin to the King, and Lady Mary Howard, the beautiful daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, bearing certain superstitious applications, employed according to the Popish usage, in the celebration of the rite, appeared the next in order. The royal infant, wrapped in a mantle of purple velvet, having a long train furred with ermine, was carried by one of her godmothers, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. The Dowager Duchess of Dorset was the other godmother. The Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the only Peers of that rank then in England, supported the lady who had charge of the child; and the train was borne by the Countess of Kent, a descendant of the House of York, as

sisted by Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire, the happy and exalted grandfather of the distinguished infant, and by Edward Stanley, third Earl of Derby.

A rich and gorgeous canopy, supported by four Nobles, was borne over the young Elizabeth, and the ceremony of baptism was performed by Stokesley, Bishop of London. A solemn benediction was afterwards pronounced by the great father of the English Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was so eminently instrumental in causing the nation to awake from their long sleep of ignorance, and cast off the foreign and degrading yoke of Rome. The ceremony was performed at a silver font, surmounted by a crimson canopy, which had previously been placed in the centre of the church.

The principal actors on this remarkable occasion are thus briefly noticed, for the purpose of stating, that within a very short period, the great majority of them became the victims of tyranny, intolerance, or superstition. In a few hours all this empty pageantry passed away, and in a few years many, who bore the greatest share in it, found their titles, dignity, and pomp, insufficient to protect their nearest relatives or themselves

from the hand of violence. How vain is all the parade of courts and all the ceremonies of princes! They are only vain shows. They are necessary, indeed, to support the dignity of the realm, and to give employment to the poor, but those evince but little wisdom, who pride themselves on such distinctions, and associate happiness with such unsatisfying pageants.

When the Princess, whose august admission into the outward pale of the church, was so pompously celebrated, was only three years old, her poor mother was unjustly and frivolously divorced from Henry, and barbarously executed on a false charge, and she of course became an object of neglect herself. Her altered situation was described in the most pitiable manner by her governess, the Lady Bryan, to the Minister of State. The changes of this mortal life, though so frequently repeated and so singularly instructive, seldom meet the consideration they deserve, and few profit by their occurrence. Yet there is something so striking in the contrast between the baptism of Elizabeth and her condition on the death of her mother, that the letter of her titled instructress, which describes it, deserves unmutilated insertion.

"Now, so it is, my Lady Elizabeth is put from that degree she was before; and what de gree she is at now, I know not but by hearsay. Therefore I know not how to order her, nor myself, nor none of her's that I have the rule of; that is, her women and her grooms. Beseeching you to be good Lord to my Lady and all her's, and that she may have some raiment. For she hath neither gown, nor kirtle, nor petticoat, nor no manner of linen, nor foresmocks, nor handkerchiefs, nor sleeves, nor rails, nor stitchets, nor mufflers, nor biggins. All these, her Grace's mostake,* I have driven off as long as I can, that by my troth, I cannot drive it any longer. Be seeching you, my Lord, that you will see that her Grace may have what is needful for her, as I trust ye will do; that I may know from you by writing how I shall order myself; and what is the King's grace and pleasure and your's, that I shall do in every thing.

"My Lord, Mr. Shelton saith he is the master of this house: what fashion that shall be, I cannot tell: for I have not seen it before. I trust

*This word is unintelligible. It may signify, that she must take or get those things.

your Lordship will see the house-honourably ordered, howsoever it hath been ordered before.

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My Lord, Mr. Shelton would have my Lady Elizabeth to dine and sup every day at the board of estate. Alas! My Lord, it is not meet for a child of her age to keep such rule yet. I promise you, my Lord, I dare not take it upon me to keep her in health, and she keep rule. For there she shall see divers meats and fruits, and wine: which would be hard for me to restrain her Grace from it. You know, my Lord, there is no place of correction there. And yet she is yet too young to correct greatly. I know well, and she be there, I shall neither bring her up to the King's Grace's honour nor her's, nor to her health, nor to my poor honesty; wherefore I show your Lordship this my desire. Beseeching you, my Lord, that my Lady may have a mess of meat to her own lodging, with a good dish or two, that is meet for her Grace to eat of.

"God knoweth my Lady hath great pain with her great teeth, and they come slowly forth: and causeth me to suffer her Grace to have her will more than I would. I trust to God, and her teeth were well grafted, to have her Grace after another fashion than she is yet: so I trust the

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