“That Elizabeth was a woman endowed with a masculine mind,” said Mr. Wilmot, “that she was prudent, wise, and energetic to an extraordinary degree, and that she deserves to be ranked amongst the most illustrious of sovereigns, cannot be denied; and yet, contrary to Roger Ascham’s assertions, respecting her early simplicity, we find her, after ascending the throne, uniting to all this greatness of character, a vanity so unbounded, and a love of admiration so childish and weak, that we start at the contrast and inconsistency, displayed at times by this wonderful female.

“Contemporary historians have left on record several descriptions of the public festivities then in fashion; and though it must be allowed, that the spirit of the age fostered this romantic turn of disposition; yet we can hardly help mingling a smile of ridicule, with our admiration of the loftier traits of her mind, when we peruse the accounts of the entertainments with which the queen was wont to be amused, even to a late period of life. Holinshed, with his usual minuteness, has entered very fully into the relation of these festivities; and I shall abridge, for your amusement, one of the many narrations he presents us with.

“In one of her progresses, which were very frequent, she stopped at Norwich, where she was received by the mayor and corporation, with every demonstration of joy, and with a variety of orations and most doggrel rhyme.

“Two days after her arrival, Mercury, in a blue satin doublet, lined with cloth of gold, his garments ‘cut and slashed in the finest manner,’ with a peaked hat of the same colour, as though it would cut and sever the wind asunder; and on the same, a pair of wings, and wings at his feet, in a coach, most extraordinarily painted with birds and naked spirits, hanging by the heels in the air and clouds, and with horses winged and painted, appeared at her window, and invited her to go abroad, and see more shows; and a kind of mask, in which Venus and Cupid, with wantonness and riot, were discomfited, in no very gentle manner, by the goddess of Chastity and her attendants, was exhibited in the open air.

“A troop of nymphs and fairies lay in ambush for her return from dining with the earl of Surry; and in the midst of these heathenish exhibitions, the minister of the Dutch church waited his opportunity to offer to her the grateful homage of his flock. After this oration, a very curious compliment was paid her, in the form of a monument, on which was artificially graven the scriptural history of Joseph; and in the middle of the same device, was a figure of a serpent, entwining itself around a dove, which bore this sentence: ‘Wise as the serpent, and meek as the dove.’

“It appears that the inventing of masks, devices, and pageants, for the recreation of the queen in her progresses, was a distinct profession. George Ferrers, formerly commemorated as inventor of pastimes to Edward the Sixth; one Goldingham; and Churchyard, author of the Worthieness of Wales, of some legends in the Mirror of Magistrates, and of a prodigious quantity of verse on various subjects, were the most celebrated proficients in this branch: all three are handed down to posterity, as contributors to the ‘princely pleasures of Kenilworth;’ and the two latter, as the managers of the Norwich entertainments.

“But although it is not my intention to enter into all the pageants which were exhibited, during the six days of the queen’s stay at Norwich, I cannot, however, pass over the very original one, representing a battle between six gentleman, apparelled only in doublet, hose, and helmet on the head: during which, ‘the legs and arms of men, well and lively wrought, were to be let fall, in numbers, on the ground, as bloody as might be.’ A violent shower of rain prevented Elizabeth’s enjoying this delicate exhibition; and the following day she left the city, passing under wreaths, made of flowers, extended from each side of the street, and mixed with garlands, coronets, pictures, rich cloths, and a thousand devices; whilst songs of lamentation for her departure, and orations on the high honour she had done the inhabitants, saluted her ear, till she reached the purlieus of Norwich.

“Whilst I am willing to allow,” said Mrs. Spencer, “that taste was as yet in its infancy, and the ludicrous incongruities, and pedantic labour, exhibited in these diversions, are characteristic of a semi-barbarous age; still I cannot but express my surprise, that a mind so highly gifted as was that of Elizabeth, could find amusement in such uncouth representations, and puerile performances. But I have not yet, Sir, remarked any evidence of personal vanity. These festivities were contrived by her subjects, not ordered by herself; and she was, in politeness, obliged to listen to the eulogiums of her people, even though the subject were in praise of herself.”

“That is true,” replied Mr. Wilmot; “but I think you will alter your opinion, when you have the account of the entertainments that were conducted by the queen, in honour of the proposals of marriage made to her by the duke of Anjou.

“She caused to be erected, on the south-west side of the palace of Whitehall, a vast banqueting-house, made of timber, covered with canvass, and painted on the outside with a work called rustic, resembling stone. It was lighted with two hundred and ninety-two windows; whilst, from festoons of ivy and holly, hung pendants of flowers, mixed with fruits of various kinds; amongst which, pomegranates, oranges, pompions, cucumbers, grapes, and carrots are named. The whole was spangled with gold; whilst, between the festoons, appeared the ceiling, painted with a sky, sun, sunbeams, and stars, intermingled with scutcheons of the royal arms. Three hundred and seventy workmen were employed in its construction, and one thousand seven hundred and forty-four pounds expended upon it.

“In this artificial palace the French ambassadors were received, and most ‘royally banqueted and feasted’ by the maiden queen; whilst her ministers were employed in drawing up, by her command, the marriage articles.

“Meanwhile, several of the gentlemen and nobles, anxious to participate in the gay illusion and courtly pleasures of the day, agreed amongst themselves, to prepare a triumph; ‘the sumptuous service of which, and the valiant manner of performing it, redounding,’ according to Holinshed, ‘to their endless fame and honour.’ The plan was as follows:

“The young earl of Arundel, lord Windsor, Philip Sidney, and Fulke Greville, called themselves the four foster-children of Desire; and to that end of the tilt-yard where the queen was seated, their refined homage gave the name of the Fortress of Perfect Beauty. This castle her majesty was summoned to surrender, in an adulatory message, conveyed by a boy, dressed in red and white, the colours of Desire; and it is not the least part of this singular entertainment, that the first message was delivered to her on a Sunday, as she returned from chapel.

“On her refusal, a day was fixed for the celebration of the pageant; and on that morning, a mount, placed upon wheels, was rolled into the tilt-yard, and the four cavaliers, in superb armour and accoutrements, and each at the head of a splendid troop, rode into the yard. When they had passed, in military order, before the queen, the boy who had given her the former defiance, addressed her again, in a strain so quaint and fulsome, that it would neither tend to your improvement nor pleasure, were I to repeat it.

“When this harangue was finished, (during the recital of which, music was heard within the mount, and the mount itself rose up in height,) the device was moved close to the queen, the music sounded, and one of the boys, accompanied by cornets, sung a fresh summons to the fortress; and when that was ended, another boy, turning to the foster-children and their retinue, sung an alarm, ‘with a pleasant voice and a seemly countenance: which ended, the cannons were shot off, the one with sweet powder, and the other with sweet water, very odoriferous and pleasant; and the noise of the shooting was very excellent concent of melody within the mount. And after that, was store of pretty scaling-ladders, and the footmen threw flowers, and such fancies, against the walls, with all such devices as might seem fit shot for Desire: all which did continue till the time the defendants came in.’

“These were about twenty in number, and each accompanied by his servants. Amongst them was Sir Henry Leigh, who came running in as unknown; and, after breaking six lances, went out again. Of this gentleman I shall have occasion to speak hereafter. Trumpeters and pages attended, and speeches were severally delivered to the queen, on the part of these knights, several of whom assumed fantastic characters; and surely none more so than Sir Thomas Perrot and Anthony Cook, who thought proper to personate Adam and Eve; being begirt with apples and fruit, and the latter having hair hung all down his helmet. These knights ‘were accompanied by an angel.’

“The messengers, on the part of Sir Thomas Ratcliff, described their master ‘as a forlorn knight, whom despair of achieving the fate of his peerless and sunlike mistress, had driven out of the haunts of men, into a cave of the desert, where moss was his bed, moss his ceiling, moss his candle, and moss, watered with salt tears, his food.’ Even here, the report of this assault on the fortress of Peerless Beauty, reached his ears, and roused him from his solitude—from bondage to a living death; and, in token of his devoted loyalty and inviolable fidelity to his excellent and divine lady, he had sent her his shield, hewn out of the hard cliff, only enriched with moss; which he begged her to accept, as the ensign of her fame, and the instrument of his glory; prostrating himself at her feet, as ready to undertake any adventures, in hopes of her gracious favour.

“On the part of the four sons of Sir Thomas Knolles, Mercury appeared, and described them as the legitimate sons of Despair, brethren to hard mishap, suckled with sighs, and swathed up in sorrow, weaned in woe, and dry-nursed by Desire; long time fostered with favourable countenance, and fed with sweet fancies; but now, of late, alas! wholly given over by grief and disgrace, with despair, &c.

“The speeches being ended, probably to the relief of the hearers, the tilting commenced, and continued till night, with some fresh circumstances of magnificence, and a few more harangues. At length the challengers presented to their sovereign an olive bough, in token of their humble submission; and both parties were dismissed by her, with thanks and commendations.

“I told you I would give you some account of Sir Henry Leigh, whose formal resignation of the office of queen’s champion, so long his glory and delight, and which took place four years preceding this last pageant, forms one of those romantic ceremonies which mark so well the age of Elizabeth. The gallant earl of Cumberland was his destined successor, and the momentous transfer was effected after the following fashion.

“Having first performed their respective parts in the chivalrous exercises of the band of knight-tilters, Sir Henry and the earl presented themselves to her majesty, at the foot of the gallery where she was seated, surrounded by her ladies and nobles, to view the games.

“They advanced to slow music, and a concealed performer accompanied the strain with the following song:

“During the performance, there arose out of the earth a pavilion of white taffeta, supported on pillars resembling porphyry, and formed to imitate the temple of the vestal virgins. A superb altar was placed within it, on which were laid some rich gifts for her majesty. Before the gate stood a crowned pillar, embraced by an eglantine; to which a votive table was attached, inscribed, ‘to Elizabeth.’ The gifts and the tablet being, with great reverence, delivered to the queen, the aged knight being in the mean time disarmed, he offered up his armour at the foot of the pillar, and, kneeling, presented the earl of Cumberland to her majesty; praying her to accept of him as a knight, and to continue these annual exercises. The proposal being graciously accepted, Sir Henry armed the earl, and mounted him on his horse: this done, he clothed himself in a long velvet gown, and covered his head, in lieu of a helmet, with a buttoned cap of the country fashion.”

“This is by far the most elegant ceremony you have described, Sir,” said Mrs. Spencer; “but I cannot help lamenting, that the distinguished character of Elizabeth should be sullied with such weakness.”

“We will turn,” said Mr. Wilmot, “from the contemplation of her defects, to view her in those affairs, when the strength of her character appears in all its native lustre—when the sacred feelings of the moment, lent to her words and actions that energy and dignity, which so often gained her the admiration of hoary statesmen, and of surrounding nations. You have heard of the threatened attack of the Spanish Armada, and the vigorous measures that were taken to defend the country against the threatened invasion. When all the preparations of defence were finally arranged, the queen resolved to visit, in person, her camp at Tilbury, for the purpose of encouraging her troops.

“Mounted on a noble charger, with a general’s truncheon in her hand, a corslet of polished steel laced on over her magnificent apparel, and a page in attendance, bearing her white plumed helmet, she rode bare-headed, from rank to rank, with a courageous deportment and a smiling countenance; and, amid the affectionate plaudits and shouts of military ardour, which burst from the animated and admiring soldiery, she addressed them in the following short and spirited harangue.

“‘My loving people, we have been persuaded, by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you, I do not desire to live, to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear: I have always so behaved myself, that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects.

“‘And therefore I am come amongst you at this time, not as my recreation or sport; but being resolved, in the midst and heat of battle, to live or die amongst you all: to lay down, for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England too; and think foul scorn, that Parma, or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm.

“‘To which, rather than any dishonour should grow by me, I myself will take up arms; I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.

“‘I know, already, by your forwardness, you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the mean time, my lieutenant-general shall be in my stead, than whom, never prince commanded more noble and worthy subjects; not doubting, by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.’”

“It is, indeed, a noble speech,” said Mrs. Spencer; “and one can imagine the loud plaudits that would ensue, when she had ended her address. If I am not mistaken, it was about this time that newspapers were introduced.”

“Yes,” answered Mr. Wilmot: “the intense interest in public events, excited in every class by the threatened invasion of Spain, gave rise to the introduction, into this country, of one of the most important inventions of social life, that of newspapers. Previous to this period, all articles of intelligence had been circulated in manuscripts; and all political remarks, which the government had found itself interested in making to the people, had issued from the press in the shape of pamphlets; of which, many had been composed during the administration of Burleigh, either by himself, or under his direction. But the peculiar convenience, at such a juncture, of uniting the two objects in a periodical publication, becoming obvious to the ministry, there appeared, some time in the month of August, 1558, the first number of the English Mercury, a paper resembling the present London Gazette, which must have come out almost daily; since the number 50, the earliest specimen of the work now extant, is dated July 23rd of the same year. This interesting manuscript is preserved in the British Museum. But (said Mr. Wilmot, turning to Susan and Ann) I think that you both know the Royal Exchange.”

“Yes, Sir,” they replied; “but we do not know who built it.”

“It was built,” answered Mr. Wilmot, “by Thomas Gresham, a merchant. Born of a family at once enlightened, commercial, and wealthy, he had not only imbibed their spirit and their virtues; but, fortunately for himself, neither the advantages of the education he had received at Cambridge, nor his own superior attainments, tempted him to quit the walk of life for which he was intended, and in which he afterwards so eminently distinguished himself.

“His father, Sir Richard Gresham, had been agent to Henry the Eighth, for negotiations of loans with the merchants of Antwerp; and the abilities of young Gresham were soon discovered, by the eminent services he rendered, when in a similar capacity to Edward the Sixth, by redeeming the credit of the king, then sunk to the lowest ebb by the mismanagement of his father’s immediate successor. Under Elizabeth he enjoyed the same appointment, to which was added that of queen’s merchant; and it appears, by the official letters of the times, that he was occasionally consulted in political as well as pecuniary affairs. He was a spirited promoter of the infant manufactures of his country, several of which owed their origin to him.

“By his assiduity and commercial talents, he rendered himself one of the most opulent merchants in the kingdom; and the queen showed her sense of his merit, by bestowing on him the office of knighthood.

“Gresham had been always liberal and patriotic; but the death of his only son, in 1564, determined him to render his country his principal heir.

“Hitherto the citizens of London had been unprovided with any building in the shape of a Burse, or an Exchange, such as Gresham had been accustomed to see abroad, in the commercial cities of Flanders; and he now munificently offered, if the city would give him a piece of ground, to build one at his own expence.

“The edifice was begun accordingly, in 1566, and finished within three years. It was a quadrangle of bricks, with walks on the ground-floor for merchants, (who now ceased to transact their business in the middle aisle of St. Paul’s Cathedral,) with vaults for warehouses beneath, and a row of shops above; from the rent of which the proprietor sought some remuneration for his great charges. But the shops did not immediately find customers; and it was partly with a view of bringing them into vogue, that the queen promised to give her countenance to the undertaking, in January, 1571. Holinshed gives the following particulars of this visit. On the twenty-third of January, the queen, accompanied by her nobility, came from Somerset House, and entered the city by Temple Bar, Fleet-street, and by the north side of the Burse, to Sir Thomas Gresham’s in Bishopsgate-street, where she dined. After dinner, her grace, returning through Cornhill, entered the Burse on the south side; and, after she had viewed every part thereof, above the ground, especially the Pawne, which was richly furnished with all sorts of the finest wares in the city, she caused proclamation to be made by the sound of trumpet, that it should henceforth be called the Royal Exchange.

“Gresham offered the shops rent-free, for a year, to such as would furnish them with wares and wax-lights, against the coming of the queen; and the proposal produced a very sumptuous display. Afterwards, the shops of the Exchange became the favourite resort of the fashionable of both sexes. The building was destroyed by the fire of 1666; and the divines of that day, according to their custom, pronounced this catastrophe a judgment on the avarice and unfair dealing of the merchants, and the pride, prodigality, and luxury of the purchasers and idlers, by which it was frequented and maintained.”

“Then the present Exchange is not the building erected by Sir Thomas?” said Ann.

“No, my dear,” replied Mr. Wilmot: “the first stone of the second fabric was laid by Charles the Second, who rode in state into the city for this purpose, in 1667. It bears the original title, and was erected in about three years, at the expence of £80,000.”

Mrs. Spencer remarked, that Gresham was a splendid benefactor to the city of London; for, besides the Royal Exchange, he left his magnificent residence in Bishopsgate-street, as a college for the benefit of the citizens of London. He thought that, as the inhabitants of that city possessed much money, a proportionate quantity of knowledge and learning should be diffused among them. He bequeathed annuities for public lectures in divinity, law, physic, and astronomy, geometry, music, and rhetoric: his house was appointed for the residence of the lecturer, and there the lectures were to be read. But Gresham College is now turned into the Excise Office.

“Did I understand you, Sir,” said Susan, “that the aisle of St. Paul’s was formerly used by the merchants of London, as a resort in which to transact business?”

“You may well ask the question, indeed,” answered Mr. Wilmot; “and, in replying to it, I shall first tell you, that, in the year 1441, the beautiful steeple of St. Paul’s was struck by lightning; (it was the loftiest in the kingdom;) and, together with the bells and roof, was utterly destroyed. Never did parties in religion run higher than about this period of the reign of Elizabeth. The manner in which this accident was commented upon, by adverse disputants, not only marks the temper of the times; but informs us to how many purposes this building, professedly devoted to divine worship, was appropriated.

“A papist immediately dispersed a paper, representing this accident as a judgment from Heaven, for the discontinuance of the meeting, and other services, which used to be performed in the church, at different hours of the day and night. Pilkington, bishop of Durham, who preached at Paul’s Cross, after the accident, was equally disposed to regard it as a judgment; but on the sins of London in general, and particularly on certain abuses, by which the church had formerly been polluted. In a tract, published in answer to that of the papists, he afterwards gave an animated description of the practices of which this cathedral had been the theatre; curious, in the present day, as a record of forgotten customs.

“He said, ‘No place had been more abused than St. Paul’s had been, nor more against the receiving of Christ’s gospel; wherefore it was more wonderful that God had spared it so long, than that he overthrew it now. * * From the top of the spire, at coronations, or other solemn triumphs, some, for vain-glory, had thrown themselves down by a rope, and so killed themselves, vainly to please other men’s eyes. At the battlements of the steeple, sundry times, were used their popish anthems, to call upon their gods, with the torch and taper, in the evenings. In the top of one of the pinnacles was Lollard’s Tower, where many an innocent soul had been cruelly terminated and murdered. In the middest alley was their long censer, reaching from the roof to the ground; as though the Holy Ghost came down in their censing, in likeness of a dove. In the arches, men complained of wrong and delayed judgments in ecclesiastical causes; and divers had been condemned there by Annas and Caiphas, for Christ’s cause. Their images hung on every wall, and pillar, and door, with their pilgrimages, and worshipping of them; passing over their massing and many altars, and the rest of their popish service.

“‘The south-side alley was for usury and popery; the north for simony; and the horse-fair in the midst, for all kinds of bargains, meetings, brawlings, murders, and conspiracies. The font, for ordinary payments of money, as well known to all men as the beggar knows his dish; so that without and within, above the ground and under, over the roof and beneath, from the top of the steeple and spire down to the floor, not one spot was free from wickedness.’

“How the divines of that age reconciled these violents philippics against those who differed from them in religious views, with the injunction left by the apostle, in his masterly delineation of Christian charity, is not for me to determine,” said Mr. Wilmot. “You will observe, that the practice of making St. Paul’s a kind of exchange, for transactions of all kinds of business, and a place of meeting for idlers of all sorts, is here alluded to: it is frequently mentioned by writers of this and the two succeeding reigns; and when, and by what means the custom was put an end to, does not appear.

“It was here that Sir Nicholas Throgmorton held a conference with an emissary of Wyatt’s: it was here that one of the bravos, engaged in the noted murder of Alden of Feversham, was hired. It was in St. Paul’s that Falstaff is made to say, he bought Bardolph.

“In bishop Earl’s admirable little book, called, ‘Microcosmography,’ the scene is described with all the wit of the author, and somewhat of the quaintness of his age, which was that of James the First. He says, ‘Paul’s walk is the land’s epitome, or you may call it the lesser isle of Great Britain. It is more than this; the whole world’s map, which you may here discern in the perfectest motion, jostling and turning. It is the great exchange of all discourse; and no business whatever, but is here stirring and afoot. It is the synod of all pates politic joined and laid together, in most serious posture; and they are not half so busy at the parliament. It is the market of young lecturers, whom you may cheapen here at all rates and sizes. It is the general mint of all lies, which were, like the legends of popery, first coined and stamped in the church. All inventions are emptied here; and not a few pockets. The best sign of a temple in it, is, that it is the thieves’ sanctuary.

“‘The visitants are all men, without exception; but the principal inhabitants and possessors are, stale knights, and captains out of service, men of long rapiers and breeches, which, after all, turn merchants here, and traffic for news. Some make it a preface to their dinner; but thriftier men make it their ordinary, and board here very cheap.’”

The bell now rang, and company was announced. Susan and Ann quitted the gallery with reluctance; but not before they had obtained a promise from Mr. Wilmot, that they should visit it again on the following day.