BOOK I
THE COURT
See where she comes, lo! where, In gaudy green arraying, A prince of beauty rich and rare Pretends to go a-Maying.
_Triumphs of Oriana._
I
ELIZABETH AND JAMES
[_Bibliographical Note._--The formal history of the period is covered, with the exception of the years 1588-1603, by J. A. Froude, _History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Armada_ (1856-70), and S. R. Gardiner, _History of England from the Accession of James I to the Outbreak of the Civil War_ (1863-84). A beginning towards filling the gap has been made in vol. i of E. P. Cheyney, _History of England from the Defeat of the Armada to the Death of Elizabeth_ (1914), in which the organization of the court and administration is very fully treated. For specifically social history may be added J. R. Green, _History of the English People_ (1877-80), an expansion of the same writer's _Short History of the English People_ (1874), and H. D. Traill, _Social England_ (1893-7). Shorter surveys are A. D. Innes, _England under the Tudors_ (1905), A. F. Pollard, _History of England, 1547-1603_ (1910), G. M. Trevelyan, _England under the Stuarts_ (1904), F. C. Montague, _History of England, 1603-60_ (1907), all with detailed bibliographies, of which Professor Pollard's is notably full and good. The chief contemporary chronicles are those of Holinshed (1577), Stowe (1580, &c.), and Camden (1615-25), while personalia and Court details are preserved in R. Naunton, _Fragmenta Regalia_ (1641), J. Finett, _Philoxenis_ (1656), E. Bohnn, _Character of Queen Elizabeth_ (1693), and the malicious pamphlets collected by Sir W. Scott in his _Secret History of the Court of James the First_ (1811). Court life is the main theme of L. Aikin, _Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth_ (1818) and _Memoirs of the Court of James I_ (1822), and of A. Strickland, _The Life of Queen Elizabeth_ (1840), while the best biographical studies of the sovereigns are E. S. Beesly, _Queen Elizabeth_ (1892), M. Creighton, _Queen Elizabeth_ (1896), and T. F. Henderson, _James I_ and _VI_ (1904). Court ceremonies are treated in J. Nichols, _Progresses of Elizabeth_ (2nd ed., 1823). Contemporary England is pictured in W. Harrison, _Description of Britain_ (1577), and W. B. Rye, _England as Seen by Foreigners_ (1865), and the extracts in J. D. Wilson, _Life in Shakespeare's England_ (1911). The studies of social details in N. Drake, _Shakespeare and his Times_ (1817), and G. W. Thornbury, _Shakspere's England_ (1856), are now superseded by the combined work of many collaborators in _Shakespeare's England_ (1916), where special bibliographies on numerous subjects will be found. Shorter books of interest are H. Hall, _Society in the Elizabethan Age_ (1886), H. T. Stephenson, _The Elizabethan People_ (1910), and P. H. Ditchfield, _The England of Shakespeare_ (1917). London may be specially studied in C. L. Kingsford's edition (1908) of J. Stowe's _Survey of London_ (1598) and in W. J. Loftie, _History of London_ (1883), H. B. Wheatley, _London Past and Present_ (1891), T. F. Ordish, _Shakespeare's London_ (1904), W. Besant, _London in the Time of the Stuarts_ (1903), _London in the Time of the Tudors_ (1904), _London South of the Thames_ (1912), H. T. Stephenson, _Shakespeare's London_ (1905), J. A. de Rothschild, _Shakespeare and his Day_ (1906), H. A. Harben, _A Dictionary of London_ (1918), and the publications of the _London Topographical Society_; Westminster in J. T. Smith, _Antiquities of Westminster_ (1807), and E. Sheppard, _The Old Royal Palace of Whitehall_ (1902); and the royal houses generally in F. Chapman, _Ancient Royal Palaces in and near London_ (1902), R. S. Rait, _Royal Palaces of England_ (1911), A. W. Clapham and W. H. Godfrey, _Some Famous Buildings and their Story_ (1913), and the numerous monographs cited in the notes to the present chapter. Perhaps the most useful books of general reference are _The Dictionary of National Biography_, G. E. C[okayne]'s _Complete Peerage_, W. A. Shaw's _The Knights of England_, and _The Victoria History of the Counties of England_.
Behind and beyond these treatises, much social and personal material is available in prints or abstracts of official and private letters and analogous documents. The following is not an exhaustive list of sources. There are the _Calendars of State Papers_, of which the _Domestic_, _Foreign_, _Scottish_, _Spanish_, and _Venetian Papers_ are the most valuable. There are the Privy Council minutes in J. R. Dasent, _Acts of the Privy Council_ (1890-1907), and those of the Welsh Council in R. Flenley's _Calendar_ (1916). There is, unfortunately, no collection of the letters missive of Elizabeth. There are full texts, by no means only of treaties, in T. Rymer's _Foedera_ (1704-35). Proclamations are calendared in R. Steele, _Bibliography of Royal Proclamations_ (1910-11), and London civic correspondence in _Analytical Index to the Remembrancia_ (1878). There are the _Reports of the Historical Manuscripts Commission_, covering private collections, of which the _Hatfield MSS._ (papers of Lord Burghley and Sir R. Cecil) are by far the most important, while the _Rutland MSS._, _Loseley MSS._ (Sir T. Cawarden and Sir W. More), _Pepys MSS._ (Earl of Leicester), _Finch MSS._ (Sir T. Heneage), and _Middleton MSS._ are also useful. With these may be classed J. E. Jackson, _Longleat Papers_ (_Wilts. Archaeological Magazine_, xiv, xviii, xix), I. H. Jeayes, _Catalogue of the Muniments at Berkeley Castle_ (1892, George Lord Hunsdon), and H. W. Saunders, _Stiffkey MSS._ (1915, Sir Nathaniel Bacon). There is a long series of collections of letters from the seventeenth century onwards, in some of which the interest is mainly diplomatic, in others ecclesiastical, in others again personal; _Cabala_ (1654, Lord Burghley), D. Digges, _The Compleat Ambassador_ (1655, Sir F. Walsingham), E. Sawyer, _Winwood Memorials_ (1725), F. Peck, _Desiderata Curiosa_ (1732), A. Collins, _Sydney Papers_ (1746), T. Birch, _Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth_ (1754, Anthony Bacon), S. Haynes and W. Murdin, _A Collection of State Papers_ (1740-59, Lord Burghley), L. Howard, _A Collection of Letters_ (1753), H. Harington, _Nugae Antiquae_ (1769, 1804, Sir J. Harington), Earl of Hardwicke, _Miscellaneous State Papers_ (1778), E. Lodge, _Illustrations of British History and Manners_ (1791, 1838), A. Clifford, _Sadleir Papers_ (1809), H. Ellis, _Original Letters Illustrative of English History_ (1825-46), A. J. Kempe, _Loseley MSS._ (1835), T. Wright, _Queen Elizabeth and her Times_ (1838), G. Goodman, _Court of King James I_ (1839), J. P. Collier, _Egerton Papers_ (1840, Sir T. Egerton), H. Robinson, _Zurich Letters_ (1842-5), T. Birch, _Court and Times of James I_ (1848), J. Bruce, _Letters of Elizabeth and James I_ (1849), J. Bruce and T. T. Perowne, _Correspondence of M. Parker_ (1853), S. Williams, _Letters of John Chamberlain_ (1861), I. H. Jeayes, _Letters of Philip Gawdy_ (1906). There are biographies, in which also collections of letters are often included; J. Smyth, _Lives of the Berkeleys_ (_c._ 1618), _Memoirs of Robert Carey_ (1577-1627), J. Strype, _Sir T. Smith_ (1698), T. Birch, _Henry Prince of Wales_ (1760), N. H. Nicolas, _William Davison_ (1823), E. Nares, _William Cecil Lord Burghley_ (1828-31), J. H. Wiffen, _The House of Russell_ (1833), J. W. Burgon, _Sir T. Gresham_ (1839), N. H. Nicolas, _Sir C. Hatton_ (1847), W. B. Devereux, _The Devereux, Earls of Essex_ (1853), J. Spedding, _Francis Bacon_ (1861-74), E. Edwards, _Sir W. Raleigh_ (1868), E. T. Bradley, _Arabella Stuart_ (1889), B. C. Hardy, _Arbella Stuart_ (1913), E. Gosse, _John Donne_ (1899), L. P. Smith, _Sir H. Wotton_ (1907), Mrs. A. Richardson, _The Lover of Queen Elizabeth_ (1907), A. H. Mathew and A. Calthrop, _Sir T. Matthew_ (1907), C. Stählin, _Sir F. Walsingham und seine Zeit_ (1908), M. A. E. Green, _Elizabeth Electress Palatine and Queen of Bohemia_ (1909), A. Cecil, _Sir R. Cecil, Earl of Salisbury_ (1915). The Camden Society has published the diaries of John Dee (1842), Henry Machyn (1848), John Manningham (1868), Sir Francis Walsingham (1870), and Sir Roger Wilbraham (1902). Finally the ambassadorial dispatches analysed in the calendars are supplemented, for Scotland by Sir James Melville's _Memoirs_ (1827), for the Netherlands by J. Kervyn de Lettenhove, _Relations politiques des Pays-Bas et de l'Angleterre_ (1882-1900), for Spain by the _Correspondencia de Felipe II con sus embajadores en Inglaterra_ (_C. D. I._ lxxxvii, lxxxix-xcii) and the _Viaje de Juan Fernandez de Velasco á Inglaterra_ (_C. D. I._ lxxi), and for France by many publications, of which C. P. Cooper, _Correspondance diplomatique de La Mothe Fénelon_ (1838-75), the _Mémoires_ (1850) of the Duc de Sully, and _Ambassades de M. de la Boderie en Angleterre_ (1750) are the richest in court detail.]
AT the close of the Middle Ages, the mimetic instinct, deep-rooted in the psychology of the folk, had reached the third term of its social evolution. After colouring the liturgy of the Church and the festival celebrations of the municipal guilds, it had attached itself, in an outgrowth of minstrelsy, to the household of the sovereign, which had now definitely become, with the advent of the Tudors, the centre of the intellectual and artistic life of the country. It will be manifest, in the course of the present treatise, that the palace was the point of vantage from which the stage won its way, against the linked opposition of an alienated pulpit and an alienated municipality, to an ultimate entrenchment of economic independence. On the literary side the _milieu_ of the Court had its profound effect in helping to determine the character of the Elizabethan play as a psychological hybrid, in which the romance and the erudition, dear to the bower and the library, interact at every turn with the robust popular elements of farce and melodrama. It is worth while, therefore, to attempt to recover something of the atmosphere of the Tudor Court, and to define the conditions under which the presentation of plays formed a recurring interest in its bustling many-coloured life.
In every court the personality of the sovereign is naturally a dominant factor. Who shall say with what bitter discretion learnt in the hard school of adversity, or with what burden of secret policy for the shaping of the nation's destiny in critical hours, Elizabeth mounted the steps of her throne when her summons came in 1558. Our concern, at least, is with externalities. Elizabeth, at twenty-five, was a young and attractive queen, with her full share of the sensuous Tudor blood, and of her father's early gust for colour and for amusement, for jewels and for pageantry. 'Regina tota amoribus dedita est venationibusque, aucupiis, choreis et rebus ludicris insumens dies noctesque,' wrote one of her own subjects in 1563; and the dispatches of the Spanish and Venetian diplomatists strike the same note.[1] Although these things had their appeal for her to the end, she was perhaps not so utterly absorbed in them, even at the beginning, as the observers thought. Yet it was assuredly the love of excitement and spectacle, no less than the desire to win the heart of London, that led her to encourage by her presence the revived folk-festivals of the citizens and the lawyers, the morris dances and May-games by land and water, and the Midsummer watch, which she hurried from Richmond to behold _incognita_ from the Earl of Pembroke's house at Baynard's Castle. There was much talk of marriage for her in these early years. Philip of Spain himself, incredible as it now sounds, the Kings of Denmark and Sweden, the Archdukes Charles and Ferdinand of Austria, the Duke of Nemours, the Earl of Arran, and of her own subjects, the Earl of Arundel, Lord Robert Dudley, Sir William Pickering, were some of the possible consorts whose names passed from mouth to mouth. The gaiety of Whitehall was enhanced by the outward show of courtship, the embassies and their trains, the gifts and compliments, the receptions and banquets. But it soon became apparent that, from policy or from temperament, the Queen had no serious intention of trusting herself in marriage. Gradually the troops of suitors faded away. Dudley alone was left, and with Dudley the Tudor lack of reticence, which had already brought Elizabeth into trouble as a girl, permitted familiarities wherein hostile and interested critics soon found material for a scandal. Whether her heart or her senses, now or at any time, were touched cannot be said. After all, Dudley had, as time went on, to share her favours, such as they were, with Hatton and with Oxford, with Heneage and with Raleigh and with Blount. But it is to our purpose that, when the embassies were gone, and Elizabeth became more and more involved in the web of political intrigues, and began to lose her looks and her health, the court which had started so brilliantly might well have sunk into the commonplace of middle age, had it not been for the presence of a band of high-spirited youths, bound in the interests of their careers to maintain the traditions of official gallantry, and above all to incur no small expense in leading the revels for the recreation of an imperious and critical mistress. For although Elizabeth loved magnificence, she loved economy more. The repair of a ruined exchequer was one of the primary objects and triumphs of her statecraft. Her household, although stately, was by no means on her father's, or even her sister's, scale of expenditure. The splendours of her jewel-house and even of her wardrobe largely owed their origin to the _strenae_ of successive New Years. A similar policy governed the ordering of her amusements. Her Christmas annals afford no parallels to the costly masks, with their marvels of architectural decoration, which had glorified the court of Henry and were to glorify that of James. Her masks, at least those she paid for, were dances, not pageants. The great spectacles of the reign were liturgies, undertaken by her gallants, or by the nobles whose country houses she visited in the course of her annual progresses. The most famous of all, the 'Princely Pleasures of Kenilworth' in 1575, was at the expense of Dudley, to whom the ancient royal castle had long been alienated. Gradually, no doubt, the financial stringency was relaxed. Camden notes a growing tendency to luxury about 1574; others trace the change to the coming of the Duke of Alençon in 1581.[2] Elizabeth had found the way to evoke a national spirit, and at the same time to fill her coffers, by the encouragement of piratical enterprise, and the sumptuous entertainments prepared for the welcome of Monsieur were paid for out of the spoils brought back by Drake in the _Golden Hind_.[3] The Alençon negotiations, whether seriously intended or not, represent Elizabeth's last dalliance with the idea of matrimony. They gave way to that historic pose of unapproachable virginity, whereby an elderly Cynthia, without complete loss of dignity, was enabled to the end to maintain a sentimental claim upon the attentions, and the purses, of her youthful servants. The strenuous years, which led up to the final triumph over the Armada in 1588, spared but little room for revels and for progresses. They left Elizabeth an old woman. But with the removal of the strain the spirit of gaiety awoke. The entertainments during the progresses of 1591 and 1592 hardly yield to those of 1575 in the cost and ingenuity of their symbolical devices. Essex, the darling of these later years, perhaps found it easier to keep the court alive with tilts and masks, than to play his required part in the sentimental comedy. The love of the dance endured with Elizabeth to the verge of the grave. Her share in the Twelfth Night revels of 1599 was reported to Spain with the sarcastic comment that 'the head of the Church of England and Ireland was to be seen in her old age dancing three or four gaillards'. A year or so later, she was still dancing 'gayement et de belle disposition' at the wedding of Anne Russell, and in April 1602 she trod two gaillards with the Duke of Nevers.[4] It was near the end of her life, too, when her desire to see Falstaff in love inspired Shakespeare, to the regret of those who sentimentalize over Falstaff, with the racy English farce of _The Merry Wives of Windsor_. During these last years of all, there was a touch of fever in her restless activity. She needed much entertainment both within doors and without in the course of 1600, and her wearied statesmen resented the arduousness of the progress upon which she resolved on the verge of sixty-seven. She went a-Maying at Highgate in 1601 and at Lewisham in 1602. During the next winter her councillors provided a special series of festivities, with the object of inducing her to spend Christmas in London, instead of at Richmond; and we learn that the Court 'flourisht more then ordinarie' with plays, only a month before the indomitable lady took to her bed, and died of no very clearly ascertained disease, but in 'a settled and unremoveable melancholy'.
When James came to London he adopted the traditional splendours of the English Court, in place of the simpler style of living to which he had been accustomed in Edinburgh. His scale of expenditure, indeed, was from the beginning far in excess of Elizabeth's, and landed him before long in considerable embarrassment of the purse. For this there were various reasons: the necessity of keeping up supplementary establishments for a queen consort and an heir apparent, the personal inclination of Anne of Denmark for ostentatious prodigality, the crowd of hungry Scots demanding provision for their needs; above all, no doubt, the absence of any statesmanlike instinct for financial control. There is plenty of evidence that the dignity and sobriety which, on the whole, had characterized Elizabeth's Court soon vanished under the lax rule of her successors. But extravagance and wantonness, although deplorable in themselves, are not necessarily unfriendly to the arts. The transference of the leading companies of players to the direct service of the royal households made it clear that the drama would occupy no less important a place in the new order of things than it had done in the old. And in fact the yearly tale of performances at court soon doubled and trebled that which had sufficed for the Christmas 'solace' of Elizabeth. Doubtless the King had some personal taste for the drama, though perhaps less than other members of his family.[5] He had long entertained the English actor, Laurence Fletcher, into his service and shown him high favour, and Jonson is our authority for the statement that Shakespeare's plays did 'take', not only 'Eliza' but 'our James'. But his great preoccupation was the hunt, to which he hurried on every opportunity, regardless of the discontent of London and even of the claims of business. Anne, on the other hand, brought up in a court which had been one of the first to come under the influence of the English players abroad, and wedded into a court from which the Kirk had never succeeded in expelling the French habits of amusement domiciled by Mary Queen of Scots, found her chief pleasure in the spectacular arts; and to her influence is mainly due that great development of the Jacobean mask, which gave such scope to the exercise of courtly pens, and to the remarkable decorative genius of Inigo Jones.[6] Anne's interest in all forms of the drama, which even led her to the innovation of visiting a theatre, was fully shared by the royal children, and combined in Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, with a passion for the knightly exercise of the tilt to prolong into the seventeenth century the Renaissance tradition of spectacular feats of arms. The death of this beloved prince, to whom the thoughts of England, disillusioned of his father, turned as the hope of the future, fell near the end of our period. The splendour of the Court festivities reached a climax with the wedding of the Princess Elizabeth in 1613, and faded even before the death of Anne herself in 1619. It had its revival under Henrietta Maria.
The Court was a movable institution, constituted by the actual presence of the sovereign. Abundant choice both of 'standing houses' or 'houses of abode' and of country manors was available.[7] The most important palaces, under Elizabeth, were five in number, Whitehall, Hampton Court, Greenwich, Richmond, and Windsor. All of these stood upon the river, and all except Windsor and in part Greenwich dated structurally from the reign of Henry VII or that of Henry VIII. The ancient palace of Westminster, with its royal chapel of St. Stephen and its great hall built by William Rufus and rebuilt by Richard II, served for coronations and for the housing of Parliament and the courts of justice. But it was no longer used as a royal residence, and the name of one of its principal chambers, the 'white hall', had been transferred to the neighbouring structure of York Place, originally begun by Wolsey, and surrendered to Henry VIII, a fruitless sacrifice, at the moment of the great Cardinal's downfall in 1530.[8] This was the metropolitan palace. It was an extensive and irregular pile, covering many acres. Through its centre ran the highway from London to Westminster, piercing two arched gateways, of which the northern one was the work of Holbein. The hall and chapel, with the royal lodgings, galleries, and privy garden, stood on the east, and were connected with the river by a flight of privy stairs. On the west, reached by galleries over the gateways, were many additional lodgings, grouped round a cockpit, a tennis-court, and a tilt-yard. At the back of these lay St. James's Park.[9] Richmond and Hampton Court, a few miles up the river, and Greenwich, a few miles down, were all accessible by river as well as by road, and the royal barge lay ready in its bargehouse opposite Whitehall, off Paris Garden on the Surrey side. Both for Court and city the Thames was a frequented water-way. Richmond had been built by Henry VII to replace the older palace of Sheen, destroyed by fire in 1497.[10] Hampton Court, also upon the site of an earlier royal manor-house, was like Whitehall a monument of the architectural taste of Wolsey, and like Whitehall became part of the spoil of Henry VIII, by whom it was completed.[11] Greenwich owed its origin to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who gave it the name of 'Placentia' or 'Pleasaunce'. It had been enlarged by Henry VII and was the birthplace and the favourite habitation of Henry VIII.[12] Windsor, on the other hand, which stood in a wide hunting domain some score or more of miles up the river, was an ancient fortress of the English kings. William the Conqueror had built it; William of Wykeham had added to it for Edward III, who established the college of St. George within its walls upon an older foundation of Henry I, and made it the habitation of his chivalric Order of the Garter. Elizabeth modified the mediaeval aspect of the castle, by adding a library and a garden terrace.[13]
Some older royal residences in London had long been converted to other purposes. The Tower served as a wardrobe or storehouse and a prison, but was only occupied by the sovereign on the eve of a coronation.[14] The Wardrobe on St. Andrew's Hill was assigned to the Master of the Wardrobe as an office and personal lodging.[15] The Savoy held a hospital, together with various sets of lodgings.[16] Baynard's Castle had been granted to the Herberts, nominally as keepers, in 1546.[17]
Crosby Hall was the abode of wealthy merchants.[18] Somerset House, the unfinished palace of the Protector on the Strand, had been made over to Elizabeth as princess by Edward VI in 1552. She sometimes occupied it, in order to be near the city, but more usually kept it available for foreign visitors or favoured courtiers.[19] For the latter purpose it was supplemented by Durham House, farther westwards on the Strand, which Henry VIII had acquired by exchange from the see of Durham in 1536.[20] Most of the ecclesiastical buildings, which had reverted to the Crown on the dissolution of the religious orders, such as the Blackfriars, the Whitefriars, and the Charterhouse, had been alienated.[21] Elizabeth retained the priory of St. John in Clerkenwell, and placed there some of the minor Household offices, including that of the Revels.[22] Somewhat retired from the press of city life lay St. James in the Fields, built on the site of an old leper hospital by Henry VIII in 1532. It ranked almost as a country house. A park, enclosed in 1537 and adorned with the artificial water known as Rosamund's Pool, separated it from Whitehall, and on the other side of it stretched the enclosures of Hyde and Marylebone Parks.[23] There were many country houses still farther afield. Oatlands, on the Surrey border of Windsor Forest, served for hunting.[24] To this, and to Nonsuch in Surrey, the Queen often made resort.[25] Eltham, in Kent, was another hunting ground, convenient of access from Greenwich. Visits were paid from time to time to Havering Bower in Essex, Enfield in Middlesex, Hatfield, where Elizabeth had lived as a princess, in Hertfordshire, the monastic spoil of Reading Abbey in Berkshire, Woodstock in Oxfordshire, and the ancient capital of Winchester in Hampshire.[26] But for the most part these, and yet other royal castles and manors in more distant counties, slept peacefully under the privileged sway of their constables and keepers.[27] There were some changes at the succession of James. Somerset House was assigned to Queen Anne, and a not very successful attempt was made to re-name it Queen's Court. This appellation was revived when the creation of an Earl of Somerset in 1613 seemed suggestive of confusion, and then abandoned in favour of Denmark House.[28] Nonsuch, Havering, and Hatfield, with many other manors, were also assigned to Anne as part of her dowry. Hatfield was exchanged in 1607 with Lord Salisbury for Theobalds, to which James rather than Anne appears to have taken a fancy, and the transfer gave occasion for a characteristic entertainment by Ben Jonson. Oatlands was given to Anne in 1611 and Greenwich in 1613.[29] At the beginning of the reign Oatlands had been the royal nursery for Henry and Elizabeth, and it continued to be Henry's country home for some years.[30] Elizabeth, however, was soon placed in the charge of Lord Harington, first at Exton in Rutlandshire and then at Combe Abbey in Warwickshire. When she came to Court in 1608, a house was found for her at Kew. Both she and Henry sometimes resided at Hampton Court and at Whitehall, where they were lodged in that part of the palace known as the Cockpit, on the border of St. James's Park.[31] But St. James's Palace itself was reserved for the ultimate use of Henry, and here he set up his establishment as Prince of Wales in 1610 and died in 1612. Richmond and Woodstock were given him for country houses, and at his death he was also buying up interests in Sheen House and Kenilworth.[32] For Charles Holdenby or Holmby House in Northamptonshire was bought in 1605, and on his brother's death he succeeded to St. James's.[33] The King was thus left with Whitehall, Hampton Court, and Windsor as his principal palaces. Naturally those of his wife and son remained available for occasional visits, and the hunting facilities of Theobalds and Woodstock were an agreeable addition to those of Hampton Court and Windsor themselves.[34] But they did not suffice for James, who set about providing himself with hunting quarters in various localities. The most important of these was Royston Priory, on the borders of Cambridgeshire and Herts., which he bought after a year's trial in 1604 and enlarged into a house of some pretensions.[35] Others were at Newmarket, Thetford, Hinchinbrook, Ware, and Woking, while stables were kept up at St. Albans and Reading.[36] Theobalds, Royston, and Newmarket were all reached by a private road, maintained, like the King's Road to Hampton Court and another to Greenwich, by James himself.[37]
The arrangement of the principal rooms of a Tudor palace can be well studied on the plan of Hampton Court.[38] There is a great Hall, and at the back of it the entrance to a Great Chamber. At Hampton Court and Richmond this appears to have served also as a Guard or Watching Chamber, but at Whitehall the Guard Chamber and the Great Chamber were distinct.[39] Out of the Great Chamber opens the Presence Chamber, and out of this again the Privy Chamber, which gives admittance to the private apartments of the sovereign. These included one or more Parlours or Withdrawing Chambers, as well as the Bed Chamber.[40] From the opposite end of the Great Chamber runs a gallery, which passes round two sides of a court and leads to the royal Closet, overlooking and forming part of the Chapel. Into this gallery also opens the Council Chamber. The Presence Chamber and the Privy Chamber were the essential elements of the scheme, and had to be contrived, no matter how humbly the Court was lodged.[41] The Presence Chamber seems to have been open to any one who was entitled to appear at Court at all. Access to the Privy Chamber, on the other hand, where Elizabeth dined and supped and sat with her ladies, was jealously reserved for privy councillors and other favoured persons.[42] At Whitehall there were also a Privy Gallery and a Privy Garden, which counted as parts of the Privy Chamber.[43] Occasionally ambassadors or distinguished foreign visitors might have audience there, or even in a Withdrawing Chamber.[44] But ordinarily presentations were made in the Presence Chamber, and here the crowd of courtiers waited on Sundays for the ceremony of the Queen's going to chapel. Paul Hentzner has described the scene as he saw it at Greenwich in 1598.[45]
In the Presence Chamber, too, Hentzner saw the royal table laid and the ceremony of tasting performed, before the royal dishes were carried to a more private apartment. An ancient custom by which the sovereign occasionally dined in state in the Presence Chamber, and was served by great nobles of the realm upon the knee, from cupboards of massy plate, had fallen into disuse, but was revived by James.[46] In the Hall, or if more convenient in the Great Chamber, plays were given.[47] For this purpose the dimensions, in the larger palaces, were fully adequate. The hall of Hampton Court is 115 ft. × 40 ft., that of Windsor 108 ft. × 33 ft., that of Eltham, locally known as King John's Barn, 100 ft. × 36 ft. These alone survive, but the hall of Richmond is known to have been 100 ft. × 40 ft., and that of Whitehall 100 ft. × 45 ft.[48] But for an exceptional entertainment, such as a great banquet or mask, more space was desirable, and temporary structures, known as banqueting-houses, were erected as required. The device had already been employed by Henry VIII. A banqueting-house had been one of the splendours at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, and two others, one of which was called the 'long house', or 'disguising house', were decorated by Holbein for the reception of a French embassy at Greenwich in 1527.[49] Edward VI also had had a banqueting-house in Hyde Park for the reception of another French embassy in 1551.[50] In the first year of Elizabeth's reign she used four banqueting-houses, one for the French ambassadors at Westminster in May, two others at Greenwich and Cobham Hall in July,[51] and a fourth at Horsley in August. A later one, prepared at Whitehall in June 1572 for the reception of the Duke of Montmorency, required 116 workmen to decorate it at a cost of £224. It was hung with birch and ivy, and garnished with bushels of roses and honeysuckles from the royal gardens.[52] Finally, one even more elaborate was erected, also at Whitehall, for the coming of Alençon's ambassadors in 1581.[53] This, although only constructed of fir and deal, was strong enough to stand until 1606. James then had it pulled down and replaced by a new one of brick and stone, which was ready in time for the Christmas festivities of 1607.[54] This in its turn stood until 12 January 1619, when it was destroyed by fire, and in its place arose the stately edifice of Inigo Jones, which still glorifies Whitehall.[55] A supplementary room of more temporary character was put up for the Princess Elizabeth's wedding in 1613.[56]
The mediaeval court had been largely an ambulatory one. The principal feasts, at which the King wore his crown, were generally kept in one of the great cities--Westminster, Winchester, Gloucester; and for the rest of the year the household passed by short 'removes' from castle to castle and manor to manor throughout the realm. For this there were economic as well as political reasons. Many mouths had to be fed, and it was easier and less onerous upon the country to devour one local storehouse after another, than to organize an effective transport from the various sources of supply to a single capital. But with the new political stability and the enhanced royal wealth, which followed the coming of the Tudors, a more settled order of things prevailed. Henceforward the greater part of the year was spent at one or other of the 'standing houses' within reach of the administrative head-quarters on the Thames, and the wanderings were confined to a 'progress' of one or two summer months, during which the sovereign took the air, and hunted, and made his presence familiar to his outlying subjects. Under Elizabeth the year may be said to have begun in the middle of November, when she returned to London, generally by road from one of the Surrey palaces through Chelsea. The event, at any rate during the later years of the reign, almost took rank as a ceremony of state. The Queen came by night, with the Master of the Horse leading her palfrey by the bridle and a great noble carrying the sword. Ambassadors were invited to be present, and the Lord Mayor and citizens were called upon to don their rich gowns and chains and give a torchlight welcome.[57] The date was no doubt determined, partly by the approach of winter, partly by that of Accession Day or, as it was often but incorrectly called, Coronation Day, on 17 November. This anniversary, from 1570 onwards, was kept with a solemn celebration, which appears to have originated spontaneously in or near Oxford, to have been adopted throughout the country, to have been revived during the next reign as an indication of popular discontent with James, and to have been still traceable in the form of a holiday at the Exchequer and at the schools of Westminster and Merchant Taylors in 1827.[58] It was on this day that the tilt-yard of Westminster blazed with the pageantry and rang with the spears of the manhood of England, gathered under the leadership of Sir Henry Lee to do honour to the virgin Queen. The Earl of Essex gave the final touch of flattery to the occasion in 1592 by appearing in his collar of SS, 'a thing unwonted', except on days of the most solemn ceremony.[59] In 1588, after the Armada, Elizabeth ordered a renewal of the tilting upon 19 November, which happened to be St. Elizabeth's day, but this second triumph seems to have been only occasional.[60]
Christmas was ordinarily kept at Whitehall; the occasional substitution of Richmond, Greenwich, Hampton Court, or even Windsor is sometimes to be explained by the prevalence of the plague in London, sometimes perhaps by nothing more than a royal whim. But during the years of strain which preceded the Armada Elizabeth appears to have shunned Whitehall as much as possible, not merely at Christmas but at all times, probably from a sense that her personal security could be better provided for in some more compact and less accessible abode.[61] Whether in Whitehall or elsewhere, the twelve days of Christmas, from the Nativity to the Epiphany, were a season of high revels. I do not find that Elizabeth, like her father and brother, ever appointed a Lord of Misrule, although there is some trace of an election of a King of the Bean on the last and greatest day of all, Twelfth Night.[62] But Twelfth Night itself, with St. Stephen's, St. John's, Innocents', and New Year's Day, were regularly appointed for plays and masks, which often overflowed on to other nights during the period. Sometimes, too, there was another tilt, or a barriers in the hall or banqueting-room. And on New Year's Day it was etiquette for the lords and ladies at Court and many of the officers of the household to present the Queen with the New Year gifts or _strenae_ which had been immemorial in European courts since the days of the Roman Empire, while she in turn rewarded the donors with gilt plate from the royal jewel house and distributed largess amongst her personal attendants and other customary recipients.[63]
The revels were renewed for Candlemas (2 Feb.) and for Shrovetide, either at the Christmas head-quarters or at some other palace to which the Court had meanwhile removed. Some part of the early spring was nearly always spent away from Westminster, and during her later years Elizabeth not infrequently left part of the household behind her and made a short 'by progress' to the house of Lord Burghley at Theobalds or that of Sir Thomas Gresham at Osterley or some other favoured courtier. The rest of the spring and summer was divided between Westminster and the river palaces, to and from which the Queen went by land or water, dining on the way, often at Chelsea or at the house of one John Lacy at Putney, and breaking the long journey from Greenwich to Richmond or Hampton Court by a night's rest, generally at the archiepiscopal abode of Lambeth. It was customary to ring the church bells as she entered or left a parish, and the entries of payments to ringers in the accounts of churchwardens serve as a convenient clue to her comings and goings. Easter, with the distribution of alms and washing of feet on Maundy Thursday, and Whitsuntide were kept as ecclesiastical, rather than secular, feasts. On 23 April, St. George's Day, the Queen went in procession about the Court with the Knights of the Garter and the Chapel in their copes. This was the occasion for the choosing of new knights, but their subsequent installation at a Garter feast took place without the Queen at Windsor, whither they rode in great and costly splendour.[64] During the summer there might be another tilt, and the Queen is recorded to have kept 'Mayings' on 1 May and to have taken part from time to time in other survivals of the ancient folk festivals.[65] About July she started for her 'progress', which might occupy from one to two months, according to her fancy, or if there was to be no regular progress, departed for one of the more sequestered houses, Windsor or Reading, Oatlands or Nonsuch, where she delighted to spend the autumn. During this period fell her birthday, on 7 September.[66]
The Jacobean calendar underwent certain modifications, largely determined by the King's sporting instincts. James kept his Court for the most part at Whitehall, Hampton Court, and Windsor. After the winter of 1603, when plague held him at Hampton Court, his Christmasses and Shrovetides were invariably at Whitehall, and hither he always proceeded at the end of October, in time for the celebration of All Saints' Day on 1 November.[67] On 5 November was kept, after 1605, the anniversary of Gunpowder Plot, and to this day, in course of time, the winter bonfires of folk custom transferred themselves.[68] The Twelve Nights, with Candlemas and Shrovetide, remained the chief seasons for plays and masks, but the plays were greatly increased in number. One was often given on All Saints' Day (1 Nov.) to usher in the winter, and others were called for at intervals during the winter months. James was also regularly at Whitehall on his Accession Day, 24 March, which, like his predecessor, he honoured with a tilt.[69] He maintained the tradition of the progress, generally choosing the direction of such hunting grounds as Sherwood, Wychwood, the New Forest, or Salisbury Plain; and during the course of his progress, on 5 August, he celebrated another anniversary, that of his delivery from the Gowry conspiracy in 1600. On this day ambassadors were expected to pursue him from London and offer their congratulations.[70] The progress generally ended at Havering early in September.[71] Thereafter the household was established at Windsor or Hampton Court until winter began again. But James's personal life was a far less settled one than that of Elizabeth. He disliked London, and at all times of the year, and wherever the Court might be, he was constantly leaving the greater part of it behind, referring the transaction of business to the Privy Council, and betaking himself with the Master of the Horse and Sir Thomas Lake, a clerk of the signet who acted as his private secretary, to Theobalds or Royston, or some other hunting box, at which his favourite pursuit might be conveniently enjoyed. From thence he would hurry back, often for a day or two only, when some office of state or Court ceremony urgently demanded his attendance. There is abundant evidence that this abnormal passion for the chase had much to do with the early unpopularity of James. It led to neglect of business, the grave inconvenience of ministers, excessive purveyance, and the trampling of crops; and the popular discontent soon found vent in libels on the stage and elsewhere. But James said that he could not lead a sedentary life and must study his health above all things.[72]
During both reigns the normal tenor of Court life was naturally disturbed from time to time by some exceptional event. Parliaments required to be opened in state, although neither Sovereign was fond of summoning Parliaments.[73] The thanksgiving for the Armada on 24 November 1588 was a notable day of triumph for Elizabeth. James did not win battles, but he created his son Prince of Wales in 1610 and married his daughter in 1613 with considerable pomp. In 1607, being in need of a loan, he fluttered city life by dining with the Lord Mayor on 12 June and the Merchant Taylors on 16 July.[74] The arrival of extraordinary ambassadors or other foreign visitors of importance necessitated frequent provision for their entertainment. The constant relations which Elizabeth maintained with France led to a number of special missions, for one purpose or another, diplomatic or complimentary, throughout the reign. The most interesting of these, from the point of view of an annalist of Court revels, were concerned with the negotiations, already referred to, for a marriage with the Duke of Alençon, afterwards Duke of Anjou and 'Monsieur' of France, the brother of Henri III. These began in 1578 and came to a head in 1581, when a visit by Francis de Bourbon, Dauphin de Montpensier, and other commissioners in the spring was followed by another by Anjou himself in November, which lasted over Christmas to the following February. Both occasions were honoured with sumptuous tilts and other entertainments. Before and after Monsieur came in 1572 Francis Duke of Montmorency and Marshal of France, in 1601 Marshal Biron, and in 1602 the Duke of Nevers. Biron appears to have been a substitute for his master, Henri IV, whom Elizabeth would have welcomed, but who apparently could not bring himself to face the perils of the Channel crossing. Chapman puts the comment in the Queen's mouth:
We had not thought that he whose virtues fly So beyond wonder and the reach of thought, Should check at eight hours' sail, and his high spirit, That stoops to fear less than the poles of heaven, Should doubt an under-billow of the sea, And, being a sea, be sparing of his streams.[75]
Of visitors from other lands than France may be noted Cecilia, Margravine of Baden and sister of the King of Sweden, in 1565, Feother Pissenopscoia, an ambassador in search of a bride for Ivan I, Tsar of Muscovy, in 1583, and Ludovic Verreyken, ambassador from the archiducal court of Flanders in 1600. Visits were expected from Mary of Scots in 1562 and from James in 1590, but in fact Mary never came until she was a fugitive or James until he was King.[76] Elizabeth, however, on her side, sent complimentary embassies for the intended wedding of James in 1589, and the baptism of his son Henry in 1594. The most important visitor to James himself was the Queen's brother, Christian, King of Denmark, who came twice. His elaborate state visit in July and August 1606 left several unpleasant memories behind it. The Kings fell out over James's indifference to Christian's sister. Hunting bored Christian and James disliked being outshone by his brother-in-law in running at the ring. Nor did the subjects more readily mix, for the Danes thought the English haughty, and the English thought the Danes gross; and in particular the heavy drinking habits of the north, although by no means uncongenial to James personally, led to scenes which were scandalous in the eyes of all who remembered the austerer fashions of Elizabeth.[77] It was a general relief when Christian decided to abridge the period originally set down for his stay. He came again, briefly and informally, in 1614. Other Jacobean visitors were the Duke of Holstein, another brother of the Queen, in 1604, the Prince de Joinville in 1607, the Prince of Brunswick, a nephew of the Queen, in 1610, the Duc de Bouillon in 1612, and the Elector Palatine, for his wedding with the Princess Elizabeth, in the same year. James received congratulations on his accession from ambassadors extraordinary sent by the Emperor and the Kings of France and Spain, as well as from other representatives of minor powers. Subsequently Juan de Velasco, Constable of Castile, came as ambassador extraordinary from Spain, with other Spanish and Flemish commissioners, for the signing of a treaty of peace in 1604, and had the honour of being waited upon by Shakespeare as groom of the chamber.[78]
In addition to extraordinary ambassadors there were generally also permanent or 'lieger' ambassadors in residence. These varied in number with the shifting diplomacies of the time. France was the foreign country most constantly represented at Elizabeth's Court.[79] There was generally also a Scottish ambassador. Diplomatic relations with Spain were broken off in 1584;[80] and there were no Italian ambassadors, in spite of overtures to Venice, until the last few months of the reign, when the Doge and Senate sent over the Secretary Scaramelli.[81] The accession of James and the peace with Spain brought about a considerable change in international relations, and henceforward there were regularly 'lieger' ambassadors from France, Spain, Venice, and Flanders, as well as ambassadors or agents from the Dutch states, Savoy and Florence. For the entertainment of these an occasional dinner or supper with the King sufficed, together with invitations to such ceremonies of state, revels, and tilts as were held in ordinary course. But the revels were perturbed and an infinity of trouble given to the officials who organized them by the persistent jealousies and disputes for precedence which prevailed amongst the diplomatic representatives themselves. The records of these intrigues, which especially centred round the great Court masks, and often determined the dates on which they were held, occupy much space in the dispatches sent home to Paris and to Venice, and furnished Sir John Finet in 1656 with material for the curious pages of his _Philoxenis_. The rival claims of the 'Catholic' King of France and the 'most Christian' King of Spain to be regarded as the first Sovereign in Christendom had already caused trouble as far back as 1564.[82] The question had naturally been in abeyance during the rupture with Spain. Under James it broke out again, and each ambassador had the strictest order from his government not to abate a jot or tittle of his full claims to precedence. James, being _rex pacificus_, had no desire to commit himself to a decision on so knotty a point, and did his best to evade it, by not inviting both ambassadors to the same festivity. But even then one festivity differed from another in glory, and the attempt to keep an even balance gave rise to endless _tracasseries_. During the earlier years it seems clear that a variety of causes, amongst which must be counted his own superior astuteness, a liberal distribution of bribes, the Spanish proclivities of Anne, and probably also the deliberate trend of James's foreign policy, enabled Juan de Taxis to snatch more than one advantage from his French rivals. He secured an invitation to the Queen's mask both in 1604 and 1605. This double rebuff led to a change in the French embassy, and a similar success of De Taxis in 1608 so infuriated Henri IV that he threatened to withdraw his ambassador altogether, until James judged it discreet to call his attention to the still unpaid financial obligations which he had incurred to the English Crown in the previous reign. After the death of Henri in 1610 and the consequent _rapprochement_ between France and Spain, the balance of political forces shifted, and, for a time at least, the English Court laid itself out to gratify rather than humiliate the French. Minor bones of precedence were worried between Venice and Flanders, and between Florence and Savoy, while the Spanish ambassador took offence if he was asked to appear in public with the representative of the revolted Spanish provinces of the Netherlands.[83]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Francis to Sir Thomas Chaloner (Dec. 1563) in Froude, vii. 92; cf. _Sp. P._ i. 10, 127; _V. P._ vii. 80, 101.]
[Footnote 2: Camden (tr.), 179; Bohun, 345, from R. Johnston, _Hist. rerum Brit._ (1655), 353; Carey, 2.]
[Footnote 3: _Sp. P._ iii. 91.]
[Footnote 4: _Sp. P._ iv. 650; Chamberlain, 99, 126; _Hatfield MSS._ xii. 253; Boissise, i. 415; Beaumont, 21; Goodman, i. 17.]
[Footnote 5: Carleton to Chamberlain, Jan. 15, 1604 (_S. P. D., Jac. I_,