Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/209

 1489 the queen took her chamber with much ceremony at Westminster on Allhallows eve, and was delivered, 29 Nov., of a daughter, Margaret, destined to be ancestress of the royal line of Great Britain. During her confinement Elizabeth received in her chamber a great embassy from France, headed by Francis, sieur de Luxembourg, a kinsman of her own (ib. 239, 249). The next family event was the birth of her second son Henry, afterwards Henry VIII, at Greenwich on 28 June 1491. Next year she had a daughter, Elizabeth, named probably after her mother, Elizabeth Woodville, who died about that time. This child only lived three years, and was buried in Westminster Abbey in September 1495. Then followed Mary, born, according to Sandford, in 1498, but more probably in 1496, who became the queen of the aged Louis XII of France; Edmund, born in 1499, who died next year; and Catherine, born in 1503, who also died an infant. An interesting account is given by Erasmus of the children of the family as they were in 1500, when he visited the royal nursery (Catalogus Erasmi Lucubrationum, 1523, Basle, f. a b).

In 1492 Henry VII invaded France, and formed the siege of Boulogne, but receiving satisfactory offers from the French king soon made peace and returned to England. Henry's poet laureate and historiographer, ], insinuates that the frequent and anxiously affectionate letters addressed to him by his queen had some influence in promoting his early return. And though even Andreas admits that there were more potent reasons, we may presume that the letters were a fact. In the summer of 1495 Elizabeth went with the king into Lancashire, when they visited, at Lathom, the Earl of Derby, whose brother, Sir William Stanley, had not long before been put to death for treason.

In June 1497 we meet with an interesting entry in the privy purse expenses of Henry VII: 'To the queen's grace for garnishing of a salett, 10l.,' indicating, apparently, that either with a view to a proposed expedition against Scotland, or when he went to meet the rebels at Blackheath, Elizabeth ornamented his helmet with jewels with her own hands. In October following, when the king had gone west ward to meet Perkin Warbeck, the Venetian ambassador reported that he had put his queen and his eldest son in a very strong castle on the coast, with vessels to convey them away if necessary (Ven. Cal. vol. i. No. 756). When Perkin and his wife were captured, Henry sent the latter to Elizabeth, who took her into her service.

In 1500 the queen went with Henry to Calais, where they stayed during the greater part of May and June. The long-projected marriage of their son Arthur took place in November 1501; but to the bitter grief of both parents he died on 2 April following. A touching account is preserved of the manner in which they received the news (, Collectanea, v. 373-4), and the story, written by a contemporary pen, seems to show that Henry was not altogether such a cold, unsympathetic husband as is commonly supposed.

That the blow told upon Elizabeth's health seems probable from several indications. A payment to her apothecary 'for certain stuff of his occupation' occurs in her privy purse expenses on 9 April 1502, and in the following summer she was ill at Woodstock (Privy Purse Expenses, 8, 37). Moreover, it was the last year of her life. But it may be that she was in delicate health before Arthur's death; for in March of the same year, when the only known book of her accounts begins, she appears to have despatched various messengers to perform pilgrimages on her account and make offerings at all the most favoured shrines throughout the country. In January 1503 she was confined once more, this time in the Tower of London, and on 2 Feb. gave birth to her last child, Catherine. Soon after she became dangerously ill, and a special physician was sent for from Gravesend (ib. 96). But all was of no avail. She died on her birthday, 11 Feb., at the age of thirty-eight.

There seems always to have been but one opinion as to the gentleness and goodness of Elizabeth. Sir Thomas More wrote an elegy for her. A Spanish envoy reported that she was 'a very noble woman, and much beloved,' adding the further remark that she was kept in subjection by her mother-in-law, the Countess of Richmond. Neither is there any doubt about her beauty, to which testimony still is borne by her effigy in Westminster Abbey, as well as by various portraits. She was rather tall for her sex, and had her mother's fair complexion and long golden hair.



ELIZABETH (1533–1603), queen of England and Ireland, was born at Greenwich on 7 Sept. 1533. She was the daughter of