Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/210

 Henry VIII, by Anne Boleyn [q. v.], whose secret marriage had been celebrated in the previous January. Three days after her birth (10 Sept.) she was baptised at the church of the Grey Friars at Greenwich by Stokesley, bishop of London, Cranmer, who had been consecrated archbishop of Canterbury that same year, standing as her godfather. The ritual was that of the Roman church, and the ceremonial was conducted with great pomp and magnificence. Margaret, lady Bryan, mother of the dissolute but gifted Sir Francis Bryan [q. v.], was appointed governess to the young princess, as she had previously been to her sister, the Princess Mary. Lady Bryan proved herself to be a careful and affectionate guardian, who, under circumstances of extraordinary difficulty, consistently kept in view the interests of her ward. During the first two or three years of her infancy the princess was moved about from house to house. Sometimes she was at Greenwich, sometimes at Hatfield, sometimes at the Bishop of Winchester's palace at Chelsea. On Friday, 7 Jan. 1536, Queen Catherine died at Kimbolton. On Friday, 19 May, Queen Anne Boleyn was beheaded. Next day the king married Jane Seymour. On 1 July the parliament declared that the Lady Mary, daughter of the first queen, and the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of the second, were equally illegitimate, and that 'the succession to the throne be now therefore determined to the issue of the marriage with Queen Jane.' Less than six months before (Sunday, 9 Jan.), Henry, in the glee of his heart at Queen Catherine's death, 'clad all over in yellow, from top to toe, except the white feather he had in his bonnet,' had sent for the little princess, who was 'conducted to mass with trumpets and other great triumphs,' and after dinner, 'carrying her in his arms, he showed her first to one and then to another.'

On 12 Oct. 1537 Queen Jane was delivered of a son, and on the 24th she died. There was a male heir to the throne at last. At his christening Elizabeth, then four years old, carried the chrysom, or baptismal robe, and in the procession that followed she passed out of the chapel hand in hand with her sister Mary, eighteen years her senior. Parliament might declare the two illegitimate, but it was for the king to say whether or not he would accept the sentence and give it his flat. In the years that followed, Elizabeth and the young prince passed much of their childhood together; their education was very carefully looked to, and all authorities agree in saying that Elizabeth exhibited remarkable precocity, acquired without difiicidty some knowledge of Latin, French, and Italian, and showed respectable proficiency in music. When Anne of Cleves came over to be married to the king in January 1540, that much injured lady was charmed with the grace and accomplishments of the little princess, and one of the earliest of her letters which has been preserved is addressed to Anne very shortly after the marriage; another eight years later, in the Record Ofiice, shows that kindly and familiar intercourse was kept up between the two, probably till the death of the queen dowager in 1548. The marriage with Anne of Cleves [q. v.] was dissolved on 9 July 1540. Henry married Catherine Howard on the 28th, and beheaded her on 13 Feb. 1543. On 12 July of that same year he married his last wife, Catherine Parr. The new queen was exactly the person best qualified to exercise a beneficial influence upon the princess, now in her tenth year, and there is reason to believe that the daughter learned to love and respect the stepmother who, it is said, not only proved herself a staunch friend to the royal maiden, but, herself a woman of quite exceptional culture and literary taste, took a deep and intelligent interest in the education of Elizabeth and her brother. During this and the next few years we find her with her sister giving audience to the imperial ambassadors during this summer of 1543, and present at her father's last marriage in July, sometimes residing with the Princess Mary at Haveringatte-Bower, sometimes occupying apartments at Whitehall, sometimes at St. James's, sometimes with her brother at Hatfield, and it must have been during her visits there to the prince that Sir John Cheke, as tutor to the prince, from time to time gave her some instruction. Her own residence from 1544 and a year or two after appears to have been at one of Sir Antony Denny's houses at Cheshunt, and it was here and at Enfield that young William Grindal, the bishop's namesake, was her tutor, and at Enfield, probably, that he died in 1548 (, Cheke, p. 9). This young man seems to have taught her more than any one else, though in her frequent visits to her brother she had the benefit of Cheke's advice and tuition, and once while at Ampthill, whither the prince had gone for change of air, Leland,the great bibliophile, happening to come in to visit his old friend, Cheke asked the princess to address the other in Latin, which to Leland's surprise she did upon the spot, thereby extorting from the old scholar a tribute of admiration in four Latin verses, which Strype has duly preserved (p. 32). It was at Enfield, in presence of her brother, that she received the news of her father's death, 28 Jan. 1547.