Читать книгу The Queens and the Hive - Edith Sitwell - Страница 20
ОглавлениеChapter Twelve
Mass was served for the Coronation at Westminster Abbey, ‘which was decorated’, wrote Il Schifanoya, ‘with the handsomest and most precious tapestries that were ever seen, they having been purchased by King Henry the Eighth, representing at one side the whole of Genesis, on the other side the Acts of the Apostles, from a design by Raphael d’Urbino; and the other chambers were hung with the history of Caesar and Pompey. At one of the sides the buffet was prepared with raised steps, on which were 140 gold and silver drinking cups, besides others which were below for the service.
‘The Queen was received by the Archbishop and another Bishop, they having previously perfumed her with incense, giving her the holy water and the pax, the choristers singing; then the Earl of Rutland followed her Majesty with a plain naked sword without any point, signifying Ireland, which has never been conquered; then came the Earl of Exeter with the second sword; the third was borne by Viscount Montague; the Earl of Arundel having been made Lord Steward and High Constable for that day, carried the fourth (sword) of royal justice with its scabbard loaded with pearls. The Orb was carried by the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Marshal, and in advance were knights clad in the ducal fashion, carrying the three crowns, they being three Kings-at-Arms; they bore the three sceptres, with their three crowns of iron, silver, and of gold on their heads, and in their hands three naked iron swords, signifying the three titles of England, France, and Ireland.
‘In this way they proceeded to the Church, the Queen’s long train being carried by the Duchess of Norfolk, after whom followed the Lord Chamberlain, upon purple cloth spread on the ground; and, as Her Majesty passed, the cloth was cut away by those who could get it.
‘Then followed the duchesses, marchionesses, and countesses, dragging their trains after them.’
Who then remembered that other glittering train at the ceremony of the 10th of September 1533—that company ‘like shadows haunting faerily the brain’—the beings that seemed planets with their long gold trains like the heat of the sun, and that would so soon be gone?
For even then, at the christening of this child of a great fate, the shadow of a triumph brought about by Death was present. Some of those glittering beings would die by the axe, some by a strange and unexplainable accident.
But now the shadow of Death seemed far away.
‘On Her Majesty’s arrival’, continued Il Schifanoya, ‘all the bells in London ringing, she ascended her lofty tribune erected behind the high altar and the choir, and being thus exhibited to the people, it was asked if they wished her to be crowned Queen. Whereupon they all shouted “Yes” and all the organs, pipes, trumpets and drums playing, the bells also ringing, it seemed as if the world would come to an end.
‘Descending from her throne, the Queen placed herself under the royal canopy; and then the choristers began the Mass, which was sung by the Dean of the Chapel and her Chaplains.
‘The Mass concluded, Her Majesty then retired behind the High Altar, and having offered up her crown, robes, and regalia in St. Edward’s Chapel, she appeared again, robed in violet velvet, ermine, and a crown of state, and the great train returned to Westminster Hall.
‘Meanwhile, the Lord Marshal, the Duke of Norfolk, and the Lord Steward, the Earl of Arundel, in accordance with their offices, proceeded to arrange the banquet....’ They were attired in ‘short capes according to the Spanish fashion—the Earl of Arundel in cloth of gold, and the Duke of Norfolk in silver tissue, both their capes being lined with sables.
‘They then mounted two fine chargers, each of which had housings of the same material as their rider’s apparel, the Duke’s horse being covered with white lions rampant. The Duke was bare-headed, and had a silver truncheon in his hand, indicating the office of Lord Marshal. Arundel bore a silver staff in his hand, indicating the office of Lord Constable, who for that day commanded the Duke and everybody. Each of them went about the victuals; and after 3 P.M. when the Queen commenced washing her hands, the water and the napkins were given her by the noblemen who had waited on Her Majesty as server and as carver: Lord Howard of Effingham, Lord High Admiral, and the Earl of Sussex, the former carving, and the latter placing and removing the dishes, both of them serving on their knees.
‘Beside Her Majesty stood the two Earls who had supported her to the Abbey by the arms: Shrewsbury and Pembroke, with the sceptre and orb in their hands; the others likewise being in the Queen’s presence with the aforesaid iron swords. They all remained covered with their Coronets on their heads, and although Her Majesty spoke occasionally to some of them, they never uncovered, except when she drank all their healths, thanking them for the trouble they had taken....’
•••••
According to Holinshed, ‘Sir Edward Dimmocke, Knight, her Champion-in-Office, came riding into the hall in faire complet armour, mounted upon a beautiful courser richly trapped in cloth of gold and ... cast down his gauntlet, with offer to fight with him in her quarrell that should denie her to be the righteous and lawful Queene of this Realme. The Queene, taking a cup of gold full of wine, drank to him thereof, and sent it to him for his fee, together with the cover. Now after this, at the serving of the wafers, the Lord Mayor of London went to the cupboard, and filling a cup of gold with ipocrasse, bare it to the Queene and kneeling before her, tooke it, gave it her, and she receiving it of him and drinking of it, gave the cup with the cover to the said Lord Mayor for his fee, which cup and cover weighed sixteen ounces Troy weight.
‘The Banquet lasted till the ninth hour of the night’ (1 hour, 18 minutes, A.M.) and ‘shortly afterwards, Her Majesty rose, and by a covered way returned to the Palace of Westminster by water.’
•••••
So great was her exhaustion, owing to this, and a severe cold, that the Queen remained in bed for a week. Then, on the 28th of January, she was carried to the first Parliament of the reign.
She listened, in the House of Lords, to a speech by the Lord Chancellor on the change in religion, the alteration in the penal laws, and the necessity for heavy taxation in order to carry on the war with France.
Then, in the House of Commons, the Queen having taken her place on the throne, Sir Nicholas Bacon rose and spoke:
The Parliament, he said, must eschew all private interests. They must avoid frivolous arguments and quiddities, and, moreover, they were required by the Queen to ‘eschew contumelious and opprobrious words, as “heretic”, “schismatic”, and “Papist”, as causes of displeasure and malice, enemies to concord and unity, the very marks which they were now to shoot at’.
He told Parliament that the Crown had fallen to ‘a princess that never for private affection would advance the quarrel of a foreign prince and impoverish her realm’; a princess to whom ‘nothing—no worldly thing under the sun was so dear to her as the love and goodwill of her subjects’.
•••••
The young woman whose childhood had been spent in dependence on her father’s whims, and who was now Queen of England, lived surrounded by magnificence.
Her bedroom at Windsor Castle was that in which King Henry the Sixth had been born. The Queen’s bed, wrote her contemporary Hentzner, ‘is covered with curious hangings of embroidery work. The tapestry represented Clovis, King of France, with an angel presenting to him the fleur-de-lis. ...’ This tapestry was a prize taken from France by Henry V.
In the room was a table of red marble with white streaks, and a cushion ‘most curiously wrought by Her Majesty’s own hands.’
At Hampton Court, ‘in one chamber were the rich tapestries, which are hung up when the Queen gives audience to foreign ambassadors; there were numbers of cushions ornamented with gold and silver, many counterpanes and coverlids of beds, lined with ermine ...’ and from the windows, the Queen could look down on the great flower gardens.
At Whitehall, the queen’s bed was ‘ingeniously composed of woods of different colours, with quilts of silk velvet, gold, silver, and embroidery’. And the room contained two little silver cabinets, ‘in which’, said Hentzner, ‘the Queen keeps her paper, and which she uses for writing-boxes. Also a little chest, ornamented with pearls, in which she keeps her bracelets and rings.’
Here the young woman born to be Queen spent her days.
‘Her Highness’, her godson Sir John Harington wrote, years afterwards, ‘was wont to soothe her ruffled temper with reading every morning, when she had been stirred to passion at the Council, or other matters had overthrown her gracious disposition. She did much admire Seneca’s wholesome advisings when the soul’s quiet is fled away, and I saw much of her translating thereof.
‘Her wisest men and best Councillors were oft so troubled to know her will in matters of state, so covertly did she pass her judgment, as seemed to leave all to their discreet management; but when the business did turn to better advantage, she did most cunningly commit the good issue to her own honour and understanding; but when aught fell out contrary to her will and intent, the Council were in great strait to defend their own acting and not blemish the Queen’s good judgment. Herein, her wise men did often lack more wisdom, and the Lord Treasurer [William Cecil, later Lord Burleigh] would oft shed a plenty of tears on any miscarriage, well knowing the difficult part was not so much to mend the matter itself, as his mistress’s humour, and yet did he most share her favour and goodwill, and to his opinion she would oft-time submit her own pleasure in great matters. She did keep him till late at night in discoursing alone, and then call out another at his departure, and try the depth of all around her sometime.
‘Walsingham* had his turn, and each displayed his wit in private. On the morrow, everyone did come forth in her presence, and discourse at large; and if they dissembled with her, or stood not well to her advisings before, she did not let it go unheeded, and sometimes not unpunished. Sir Christopher Hatton† was wont to say, “the Queen did fish for men’s souls, and had so sweet a bait that no-one could escape from her net-work”.
‘In truth, I am sure her speech was such as none could refuse to take delight in, when frowardness did not stand in the way. I have seen her smile, in sooth with great liking to all around, and cause every one to open his most inward thought to her, when on a sudden she would ponder in private on what had passed, write down all their opinions, and draw them out as occasion required, and sometime disprove to their faces what had been delivered before. Hence, she knew every one’s part, and by thus “fishing”, as Hatton said, “she caught many poor fish who little knew what snare was set for them”.’
