Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/177

Rh greatest benefits that ever God gave me is, that he sent me so sharp and severe parents and so gentle a schoolmaster. For when I am in presence either of father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else; I must do it as it were in such weight, measure and number, even so perfectly as God made the world; or else I am so sharply threatened—yea, presently sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobs and other ways (which I will not name for the honour I bear them), that I think myself in hell, till time come that I must go to Mr. Elmer; who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning that I think all the time nothing whiles I am with him. And when I am called from him I fall on weeping, because whatsoever I do else but learning is full of grief, trouble, and fear." Likewise the Princess Elizabeth so displeased her father that she was sent away from Court for a whole year, when he at last forgave her. The learning of the Princess Mary rivalled that of Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey. At the age of twelve she was "ripe in the Latin tongue," at