Page:Hutton, William Holden - Hampton Court (1897).djvu/117

Rh hair she wore a large pearl of the size of a hazel-nut. The people standing on both sides fell on their knees, but she showed herself very gracious, and accepted with an humble mien letters of supplication from rich and poor. Her train was carried behind her by a countess, then followed twelve young ladies of noble birth, children of counts or lords, afterwards twenty-four noblemen, called jarseirer in English, with small gilt hunting-spears. There are also one hundred of these, though not all on duty at the same time, for they take it in turns. Both sides of the gallery, as far as the Queen walked through it to the chapel, were lined by the guard bearing arms. As the day was almost gone, there was no sermon, only singing and delivering prayers. Then the Queen returned as she had come, and went to her rooms, and when on her passing the people fell on their knees, she said in English, 'I thank you with all my heart.'"

We can imagine the scene as we stand now in the "Haunted Gallery," through part of which the Queen would pass into the "royal pew" looking down upon the chapel. But it is not only there that Elizabeth has left her memorials. The fine window that looks out on the privy garden at the end of the south front bears the Tudor rose crowned and the inscription "E.R. 1568."

As to the Palace itself, it is clear that she was