Читать книгу The Queens and the Hive - Edith Sitwell - Страница 19
ОглавлениеChapter Eleven
On the Saturday before the Coronation, the Queen went by water to her state apartments in the Tower—this being the custom with sovereigns about to be crowned.
Her progress was accompanied by ‘such a gathering of ships, galleys, brigantines’, wrote a Venetian eye-witness, Il Schifanoya, in a letter to the Castellan of Mantua, ‘of such splendour that he was reminded of Ascension Day at Venice, when the Signory go to espouse the sea’.
Drums beat. Cannon thundered. Bells played. Music sounded. And almost louder than these were the roars of the crowd watching from the banks.
The Queen’s barge was covered with tapestries, both externally and internally, and was towed by a long galley rowed by forty men, with a band of music. Her Majesty having passed the Bridge, the guns from the Tower roared in welcome. She entered by her private stair seen, said Il Schifanoya, ‘by but few persons’.
On Saturday the 14th of January 1559, the Procession of Recognition began in the morning and continued throughout the afternoon. This being over, she went in state to Westminster.
As she passed to her litter through the gates of the Tower, the Queen stood still for a moment, and, looking up to heaven, said: ‘O Lord, Almighty and everlasting God, I give Thee most humble thanks that Thou hast been so merciful unto me as to spare me to behold this joyful day; and I acknowledge that Thou hast dealt mercifully and wonderfully with me, as Thou didst with Thy servant Daniel, whom Thou deliveredst out of the den, from the cruelty of the raging lions; even so I was overwhelmed, and only by Thee delivered. To Thee only, therefore, be thanks, honour, and praise for ever. Amen.’
Her Majesty entered her litter.
‘The Court so sparkled with jewels and gold collars’, wrote Il Schifanoya, ‘that they cleared the air, though it snowed a little.’
Amidst the shouts of acclamation from the crowds, the Queen passed from street to street in the city beneath houses hung with carpets, rich stuffs, and cloth of gold, windows from which banners floated.
On both sides of the streets were ‘wooden barricades on which the merchants and artisans of every trade leant in long black gowns with hoods of red and black cloth, such as are usually worn by the doctors of universities in Italy, with all their ensigns, banners, and standards....’ ‘The number of horses was in all 1000, and last of all came Her Majesty in an open litter, trimmed down to the ground with gold brocade with a raised pile, and carried by two very handsome mules covered with the same material, and surrounded by a multitude of porters in crimson velvet jerkins studded with massive gilt silver, with the arms of a red and white rose on their breasts and backs, and the letters E.R., for Elizabeth Regina. ... The Gentlemen Pensioners of the Axe walked at her side, with hammers in their hands, and clad in crimson damask, given them by the Queen for livery.
‘Behind her litter came Lord Robert Dudley, Master of the Horse, mounted on a very fine charger, and leading a white hackney, covered with cloth of gold. Then came the Lord Chamberlain and other Lords of Her Majesty’s Privy Chamber, who were followed by nine pages dressed in crimson satin on very handsome chargers richly caparisoned, with their Governor and Lieutenant.’
The noise was like that of the sea.
The Queen passed through a triumphal arch ‘which’, said Il Schifanoya, ‘was very lofty, divided into three floors. In the first were King Henry the Seventh, of the House of Lancaster, with a large red rose in front of him, and his wife the Queen Elizabeth of the House of York, with another large white rose in front of her, both in royal robes.
‘On the second floor above these were seated King Henry the Eighth with a white and red rose in front of him, with the pomegranate between them, and Queen Anne Boleyn, mother of the present Queen, with a white eagle and a gold crown on the head and a gilt sceptre in its right talon, the other resting on a hillock; and ... in front of her, small branches of little roses, the coat of arms and device of the same Queen.
‘On the third floor above, a Queen was seen in majesty, to represent the present one, who is descended from the aforesaid.
‘Externally and above, as façade, there were the royal arms of England, trophies, festoons, etc.
‘Further on, she came to the Conduit, which is a small tower having eight points called the Standard, and on it were painted to the life all the Kings and Queens chronologically in their royal robes down to the present day.
‘At a short distance hence she found the great Cross, like a pyramid, completely gilt and somewhat renovated, with all the saints, in relief, they being neither altered nor diminished....’
‘The crowds lining the streets’, says Miss Elizabeth Jenkins, in the best description of the scene that I have read, ‘broke into exclamations at the sight of her, with prayers, welcoming cries and tender words.’[1] Those within ear-shot heard her reply to them ‘in most tender language’, those who could see her saw her gesture with her hands towards them. As she was borne along, some sixth sense told her when to halt. ‘How often stayed she her chariot when she saw some simple body approach to speak to her.’ What they saw when they pressed up to the chariot was a straight and narrow figure in a cloth-of-gold dress, under a cloth-of-gold mantle with an ermine cape. From a gold circlet, limp strands of red-gold hair fell down, framing the delicacy and strangeness of an oval, pale face, a face with faint brows spanned like Norman arches, and heavy-lidded golden eyes, smiling at them.
Sometimes the procession would halt, that the Queen might receive a little bunch of grey winter rosemary from a poor woman. ‘How many nosegays’, wrote George Ferrers, an officer in the procession, ‘did Her Grace receive at poor women’s hands! ... That bunch of rosemary given to Her Majesty with a supplication about [near] Fleet Street Bridge, was seen in her chariot when Her Grace came to Westminster not without the wondering of such as knew the presenter, and noticed the Queen’s reception of the same.’
Or she would pause to receive a purse of crimson satin containing a thousand marks in gold from the Recorder of the City on behalf of the Lord Mayor. Thanking ‘My Lord Mayor, his brethren and all’, she said, ‘and whereas, Master Recorder, your request is that I may continue your good lady and Queen, be ye assured, that I will be as good a lady unto you as ever Queen was to a people’.
In Cheapside she was seen to smile, and being asked the reason, replied, ‘Because I have just heard one say in the crowd, “I remember old King Harry the Eighth”.’
