FOOTNOTES:

HENRY FREDERICK, PRINCE OF WALES.HENRY FREDERICK, PRINCE OF WALES.

The prince was keenly interested in all foreign countries, and kept himself well informed upon their politics and customs by the large correspondence he now carried on with distinguished persons both at home and abroad. When he was just thirteen his curiosity caused no little amusement at the French Court. Prince Henry had long wished for an opportunity of learning something about the fortifications of Calais. And when the Prince de Joinville, who had been on a visit to England, returned to Paris, Henry sent an engineer of his own in the French prince's train, who made a careful examination of Calais and of the Rix-bank. This came to the ears of the French ambassador, who wrote in hot haste to the Court at Fontainebleau and to the Governor of Calais. But Henri Quatre was only entertained at the boyish inquisitiveness of his young cousin, and sent back word that he did not consider the occurrence betokened any dangerous designs upon the kingdom of France.

A far more important report was sent in to the prince in the same year by his gunner, Mr. Robert Tindal. This gunner was employed by the Virginia Company established in 1606, to make a voyage to America. He set out on December 19, 1606, with Captain Christopher Newport, in a fleet of three ships, and arrived at Chesapeake Bay about the beginning of May, 1607. A letter which hewrote to the prince on his arrival is in the Harleian collection of MSS., together with his journal of the voyage and a map of the James River. In his letter, dated Jamestown in Virginia, the twenty-second of June, 1607, he says:

that this river was discovered by his fellow-adventurers, and that no Christian had ever been there before; and that they were safely arrived and settled in that country, which they found to be in itself most fruitful, and of which they had takena real and public possession in the name and to the use ofthe King his Highness's father.[74]

It seems to bring our young prince nearer to American children, to know that his youthful imagination was fired by accounts of the wonderful unexplored Western land—to think of him poring over the map of Richmond and the beautiful James River. What would he have thought, could he have foreseen a tithe of the wonders which have come to pass on those Transatlantic shores—the marvels of modern civilization; the railroads stretching away into the wilderness of which Robert Tindal only saw the outskirts; the telegraph linesthat bind together Europe and America; and, above all, the great nation that has grown out of the first bands of hardy adventurers who went out to Virginia with the prince's gunner, or who fled from King James's stern rule a few years later to the bleak New England coast.

The account of these distant voyages must have been especially interesting to Prince Henry; for of all matters pertaining to the welfare of his country that which occupied his attention most was the British Navy. Sir Walter Raleigh was the young prince's close friend. From his childhood the boy attached himself to the last of the Elizabethan heroes, visiting him in his prison in the Tower, and taking council with him as he grew older on all matters of war and seamanship. He made many efforts to obtain Raleigh's release, and is reported to have said that "no king but his father would have kept such a bird in a cage." But it was in vain; and the prince was happily spared the shame of seeing his glorious friend die on the scaffold, a sacrifice to Spain—the very power from which Raleigh had fought and toiled to save his country in Elizabeth'sdays. When Henry was ten years old, the Lord High Admiral Howard ordered a little ship to be built for the prince's instruction and amusement, by Phineas Pett, one of the Royal shipwrights at Chatham. This ship was twenty-eight feet long by twelve wide, "adorned with painting and carving, both within board and without." Can you imagine a more delightful possession for a boy of ten than this beautiful little ship, gay with ensigns and pennants? No wonder that he "shewed great delight in viewing" her, when she was brought to anchor outside the Tower where he and the king were then lodging. And his delight must have increased when he went on board her at Whitehall a few days later, accompanied by the Lord Admiral, Lord Worcester, and various other noblemen.

They immediately weighed, and fell down as far as Paul's Wharf, under both topsails and foresail, and there coming to anchor, his Highness, in the usual form, baptized the ship with a great bowl of wine, giving her the name ofDisdain.[75]

Mr. Pett, the builder, was on board; and theprince took him at once into his service, and formed a warm friendship with him.

From this time the boy's interest in the navy grew keen; and we find constant mention made of visits to the Royal Dockyard at Woolwich, where, under Mr. Pett's guidance the prince was thoroughly instructed in questions of ships and shipping. He closely watched the building of a splendid vessel which the king gave him for his own. She was launched in 1610; and was the largest ship that had then been built in England. "The keel was an hundred and fourteen feet long, and the cross-beam forty-four feet. It was able to carry sixty-four pieces of great ordnance, and the burthen was fourteen hundred tons."[76]On September 24, the King, the Queen, the Duke of York,[77]Princess Elizabeth, and a large company, went with Prince Henry to see his great ship launched. But owing to the narrowness of the dock, the launch failed. So the prince had to return next morning; and in the midst of a terrific thunderstorm he stood on her deck as she floated out into the river, giving her the name,Prince Royal. Next year Henry determined to examine personally into the condition of the navy. He therefore made a private journey to Chatham, and spent three days closely inspecting all the shipping and storehouses there, and at Queenborough, Stroud, and Gravesend, making careful notes of the state of each ship in his own notebook from Mr. Pett's and Sir Robert Mansel's information, "no other persons being suffered to come near."

In January, 1610, Prince Henry gave a great banquet to his father at St. James's Palace, where he now kept his separate Court and gathered round him the most promising young men in the kingdom. The banquet was preceded by a tourney at Whitehall, in which the prince took part, in the presence of the king and queen, the foreign ambassadors and all the greatest personages of the realm. Princess Elizabeth helped her brother to do the honors of the banquet, and distributed the prizes won at the tilting match, which were trinkets garnished with diamonds, the king handing themto her. The banquet was not over till ten at night; by which time King James, who was easily bored, especially with anything done by his son, had gone away. But Henry and Elizabeth, full of the enjoyment of young hosts, went off to a comedy which lasted two hours, and then returned to the gallery, where a fresh supper had been set. It was a most gorgeous affair. The crystal dishes were filled with sweetmeats of all shapes—fountains of rosewater, windmills, dryads, soldiers on horseback, pleasure gardens, the planetary system, etc. Prince Henry led his sister twice round the table to see all these marvels, and they then departed, leaving the company to their own devices. A most crazy company it must have been. For, no sooner had the prince and princess gone, than "the guests scrambled for the plunder, broke down the table and carried off, not only the supper, but all it was served in, to the very water bottles."[78]

In this same year Henry was created Prince of Wales. This was the occasion for further display, such as King James delighted in. There wereprocessions of barges on the river, banquets, splendid dresses, tilting matches in the Tiltyard, and a solemn and magnificent ceremony "within the great white chamber in the palace of Westminster," when, in the presence of both Houses of Parliament and an immense company, the prince was declared Prince of Great Britain and Wales. Robed in purple velvet he knelt before the king, who gave him with his own hands the crown, the sword, the ring, and the gold rod of the principality over which Llewellyn once ruled. A very gallant young figure must our prince have been. He was sixteen years old; a tall, well-made lad, with somewhat broad shoulders and a small waist. His hair was auburn; his face long, with a broad forehead; "a piercing eye; a most gracious smile, with a terrible frown."

Henry had some years before been created Duke of Cornwall. And although these titles and dignities sound very grand and imposing for a boy of sixteen, yet his father's warning was fulfilled in his case. The augmentation of honours that fell to him, was "but in cares and heavy burthens."He was not merely a ruler in name. He managed his estates well and wisely. Not only were his tenants more contented and happy, and better off than they had ever been before; but by his good management he so improved the value of his lands, that they brought him in an immensely increased revenue.

Besides the three palaces we have mentioned, Prince Henry purchased with his own money, in 1612, beautiful Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire, from the widow of the famous Earl of Leicester. And in the same year King James gave his son another house connected closely with the story of Leicester and Amy Robsart—Woodstock Manor in Oxfordshire. But the prince's days were numbered, and as far as we know he never visited his new purchase of Kenilworth. His health was not in a satisfactory state in this year of 1612, and he was careless about it. While he was staying at his palace of Richmond in June, he took great delight in swimming in the Thames after supper on the warm summer evenings; a most dangerous practice for any one. His attendants besought him togive it up. But he, like most of the Stuarts, was fond of his own way. He was deaf to all entreaties, and went on with his swimming. He also took much pleasure in walking beside the Thames in the moonlight, "to hear the sound and echo of the trumpets," regardless of the evening dews which rose cold and damp along the river. Then in exceedingly hot weather, he made a desperate journey on horseback, of ninety-six miles in two days, from Richmond to Belvoir Castle, to meet the king who was on a great progress—riding sixty miles the first day in nine hours. The progress ended at Woodstock, where the prince entertained his father and mother and Princess Elizabeth, after making several hasty and fatiguing journeys thither to see that all was in order in his new manor. He then returned to Richmond and busied himself with preparations for the coming of the young Elector Palatine, on whose marriage with Princess Elizabeth all Henry's hopes were fixed.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY FROM THE NORTH.WESTMINSTER ABBEY FROM THE NORTH.

The Elector arrived. But already Prince Henry was seriously ill. However his "pluck," as we should say now, carried him on for a time. He removed with his court to St. James's to receive the young Elector, for whom he conceived a great friendship. He even played a tennis match with his future brother-in-law on the twenty-fourth of October. But the next day he was much worse, and could with difficulty manage to go to church (it was a Sunday), and dine afterwards with the king. This was the last time he went out; for in the afternoon he was seized with sudden faintness and sickness and had to take his leave. That night he was in a burning fever. The ignorant physicians of those days mismanaged him hopelessly. Some of their remedies to lower the fever sound almost too absurd to be treated seriously—such as a cock, newly-killed, split down the back and applied all reeking hot to the soles of his feet. Raleigh from his prison sent him a cordial, which the old hero's enemies of course pretended was poison. However after it had been duly tested, the prince was allowed to take it, and it gave him temporary relief. But nothing availed. He grew worse and worse. His faithful friend, Archbishop Abbot, came to him and prayed with him. Thefever increased in violence. And on the fifth of November, the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, the archbishop told the prince of his extreme danger, and asked him if he should die, "whether or no he was well pleased to submit himself to the will of God?" To which the prince replied, "with all his heart."

A few hours later the end was near. Henry was past speaking; and the archbishop, leaning over him, called upon him to believe, to hope and trust only in Christ. He then spoke louder:

Sir, hear you me? hear you me? hear you me? If you hear me, in certain sign of your faith and hope in the blessed resurrection, give us, for our comfort, a sign by lifting up your hands. This the prince did, lifting up both his hands together.

And the archbishop with bitter tears, poured out by his Highness's bedside, a most pathetic prayer. At a quarter before eight that evening the hopes of the country were gone. Henry, Prince of Wales, was dead, who, had he lived, might have changed the whole course of events in English history during the seventeenth century. And theheir to the crown was Charles, Duke of York, destined within forty years to die upon the scaffold.

While our gallant young prince lay dying, the king showed himself as selfish and indifferent as we might expect. He came once to visit his son: but fearing that the fever might be contagious, he went away without seeing him, and retired to Theobalds, Lord Salisbury's estate. The Princess Elizabeth was kept away from the prince for the same reason. But she tried her best to see him, coming disguised in the evening to St. James's and endeavoring to gain access, but in vain, to her dearly-loved brother, who asked for her constantly during his illness—almost his last intelligible words being, "Where is my dear sister?"

But if his father showed want of feeling, the whole English nation mourned their young prince. He was buried at Westminster Abbey on the seventh of December, with all possible pomp. Prince Charles and the Elector Palatine were the chief mourners, attended by a train of two thousand mourners. Through the streets, throngedwith weeping people, wound the great procession, with banners carried by nobles, led horses draped in black bearing the scutcheons of the prince's different titles and estates, all the notables of England and Scotland, clergy and peers, privy councillors and ambassadors. Then came the funeral car bearing the coffin, on which lay a beautiful effigy of the prince, dressed in his state robes; and the sight of it "caused a fearful outcry among the people, as if they felt their own ruin in that loss."[79]

Henry, Prince of Wales, was laid to rest in the south aisle of Henry the Seventh's Chapel, in the vault which had just been made to receive his grandmother, the unhappy Mary, Queen of Scots, whose body had been removed there a month before. Over Mary's grave King James erected a monument even more magnificent than Queen Elizabeth's in the north aisle. Yet not a thought did the selfish father give to the grave of his son.

But Prince Henry's memorial is a less perishable one than "brass or stony monument." He has left behind him a memory fragrant with allthat makes youth lovely and manhood noble—the record of a pure and good life, which will last, as the memory of every good life must last, when stone and marble has crumbled to dust.

Note.—While writing the above words on Gunpowder Plot, Jan. 24, 1885, Westminster Hall, the House of Commons and the White Tower in the Tower of London, all closely connected with the histories of these children of Westminster, were partially wrecked by "forces"—to use the words of an Austrian writer—"such as to make those of Guy Fawkes' time look almost childish."

FOOTNOTES:[71]"Bavin." Hampshire for faggot.[72]There are many different versions of this old rhyme in the different counties of England. I give the Hampshire one exactly as it is used.[73]Birch. Life of Henry, Prince of Wales. p. 379.[74]Birch. p. 91.[75]Birch, p. 39.[76]Birch, p. 208.[77]Afterwards Charles the First.[78]Green's Princesses. Vol. V. p. 170.[79]State Papers. Dec. 19, 1612.

[71]"Bavin." Hampshire for faggot.

[72]There are many different versions of this old rhyme in the different counties of England. I give the Hampshire one exactly as it is used.

[73]Birch. Life of Henry, Prince of Wales. p. 379.

[74]Birch. p. 91.

[75]Birch, p. 39.

[76]Birch, p. 208.

[77]Afterwards Charles the First.

[78]Green's Princesses. Vol. V. p. 170.

[79]State Papers. Dec. 19, 1612.

On the north side of Henry the Seventh's Chapel, close to King Henry's tomb, there is a small side chapel, divided off by a low wall of carved stone, and almost filled up by a magnificent monument. A splendid personage of the time of Charles the First, remarkably handsome, and dressed in robes of state, lies on the tomb beside his fair wife. Allegorical figures stand at the four corners. The recumbent effigies are in brass, richly gilded. Behind their heads kneel three children, a boy and two girls, beautifully carved in marble; and above this trio an exquisite child leans on his elbow, tired out with grief and fallen gently asleep.

Standing beside this tomb, Dean Stanley says:

We seem to be present in the Court of Charles as we look at its fantastic ornaments ("Fame even bursting herself, andtrumpets to tell the news of his so sudden fall") and its pompous inscriptions calling each State in Europe severally to attest the several virtues of this "Enigma of the World."[80]

Who, we may well ask, is this man who lies buried among the tombs of the kings of England, in state far exceeding that accorded to many sovereigns?

Every one who has read the history of the reigns of James the First and Charles the First will remember the most famous, and perhaps most dangerous of all the court favorites who helped to bring ruin upon England—George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.

His story reads like a chapter out of theArabian Nights:

Never any man in any age, nor, I believe, in any country or nation, rose in so short a time to so much greatness of honour, fame, and fortune, upon no other advantage or recommendation than the beauty and gracefulness of his person.[81]

Young and exceedingly handsome, George Villiers, the son of a Leicestershire squire, was taken into favor by James the First, on the disgrace of his first favorite, the Earl of Rochester. In an incredibly short space of time "Steenie," as his royal masters called him, rose through every rank of the peerage to a dukedom, and to the actual direction of English policy. Haughty, reckless, selfish, his only good quality was his personal bravery.

This was the man whose evil influence made itself felt throughout England, who plunged the country into disastrous wars and encouraged King Charles in those fatal measures which at last brought him to the scaffold. When Charles the First came to the throne in 1625, Buckingham was at the height of his glory and power. In vain did Parliament remonstrate with the king. In vain did they petition him again and again to rid himself of a favorite who was becoming more hated and dreaded by the country each year. In vain did they impeach Buckingham. Charles, in his blind affection, took all the blame of the duke's deeds upon himself—burnt the remonstrance of the Commons—and actually dissolved Parliament in order to save his favorite.

But what the Commons of England failed to do, came to pass by the hand of one discontented man.

The Duke of Buckingham, after wasting men, money, and English prestige in one disastrous expedition to help the French Protestants at La Rochelle, was on the eve of setting out for a second attempt to relieve the beleagured town. He was at Portsmouth, and was to embark the very next day, when he was stabbed by John Felton, a lieutenant in the navy who had been disappointed of promotion.

All England and the court rejoiced at the death of the favorite. But King Charles "flung himself upon his bed in a passion of tears when the news reached him."[82]On his first visit to the widowed Duchess of Buckingham he promised to be a father to her sons. He ordered the duke to be buried in the Chapel of Henry the Seventh—which hitherto had been reserved for anointed kings. And it is George Villiers who lies in state to this day on the splendid tomb we have been looking at.

Soon after the duke's death, the lovely boy who leans sleeping above his father's monument was born.

The king stood godfather to the baby at his christening, together with Francis, Earl of Rutland, the duchess's father. "After some compliments who should give the name," the king called the baby Francis, and the grandfather gave him his benediction, which was in the very pleasant form of seven thousand pounds a year.

King Charles faithfully kept the promise he had made the duchess. Alas! it had been well for him had he kept all other promises as faithfully. He was indeed a father to young Francis and to his handsome, headstrong, worthless elder brother the young Duke of Buckingham.

The boys were brought up with the royal children under the same tutors and governors. They were sent quite young to Trinity College, Cambridge, where their names were entered in the college-book in the same year as that of Prince Charles. And here among other famous and learned men, they made the acquaintance of Abraham Cowley, the poet, who had lately published his pastoral comedy "Love's Riddle," which had been performed by members of the college.

TOMB OF GEORGE VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.TOMB OF GEORGE VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.

From Cambridge the two brothers went to travel under the care of Mr. William Aylesbury, who was appointed their tutor by the king. But their sojourn abroad was short.

Public affairs had been growing darker and darker at home. And at last, in 1642, there was an open breach between the king and the Parliament. The Royal Standard was raised at Nottingham, August 25, and England was plunged into civil war, the most horrible of all scourges that can come on any country.

Francis Villiers was fourteen years old, and his brother, the young duke, a year older. Boys as they were, they now tried to show their gratitude to the king for his care of them. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War they hastened back to England. The king's headquarters were at Oxford; and his nephew, the famous Prince Rupert, kept the whole country between Oxford and London in constant alarm with his sudden raids and fierce skirmishes. To Oxford then the two young brotherscame. They were a beautiful pair, inheriting from both their parents "so graceful a body, as gave lustre to the ornament of the mind." Full of headstrong courage, they "laid their lives and their fortunes at the king's feet," and chose Prince Rupert and Lord Gerard as their tutors in the art of War. They soon had their first lesson; for they were present at the storming of the Close at Lichfield on March 2, 1643. When they returned to Oxford, happily without harm after their first fight, their mother, the duchess, was very angry with Lord Gerard for "tempting her sons into such danger." But he told her it was by the boys' own wish, "and the more the danger the greater the honor."

Parliament at first seemed to look on this escapade as a serious offence, for they seized upon the brothers' estates. But they were soon restored in consideration of the two boys' extreme youth. However, says Bryan Fairfax, their historian, "the young men kept it (their fortune) no longer than till they came to be at an age to forfeit it again."[83]

To keep these young fire-eaters out of fresh honorable danger, the king placed them in the care of the Earl of Northumberland, and sent them abroad again. They spent the next four or five years in France and Italy, living chiefly in Florence and Rome, where they kept as great state as many sovereign princes. It was the fashion of those days to send young noblemen for a time to foreign countries; and the result in a good many cases was that they abjured Protestantism and returned to England either concealed or avowed Roman Catholics. But the Villiers brothers "brought their religion home again, wherein they had been educated under the eye of the most devout and best of kings."[84]

The moment at which the young men returned was a critical one. The royal cause had been going from bad to worse. And at the beginning of 1648 England was in the hands of Cromwell and Fairfax. The king, given up by the Scots the year before to the Parliamentarians, was a prisoner at Carisbrooke Castle in the Isle of Wight. The Royalist forces were scattered and broken; and it seemed an almost hopeless task to make any further resistance in the king's behalf. Nevertheless, there were still a few faithful followers left; and the old English love for the monarchy still blazed up here and there in fierce outbursts against the Parliament and its army. But the Parliamentarians despised all these attempts, until in the spring of 1648 a serious rising took place in Kent, which was suppressed after a heavy fight at Maidstone. It was just at this juncture that the young Duke of Buckingham and his brother Francis returned to England. Strong, active, and courageous, they were burning with zeal to venture their large estates for the crown on the first opportunity.

They had not long to wait.

No sooner was the Kentish rising quelled than the Royalists crossed the Thames into Essex, and collected a large force at Colchester, intending from thence to march on London. Fairfax invested the town, and beseiged it for two months until it fell, August 27.

Meanwhile the Earl of Holland had offered hisservices to the queen, his late mistress, in Paris, and informed her of his resolution to adventure everything for the king. The young Villiers threw in their lot with Lord Holland, and declared themselves ready and willing to sacrifice their estates and their lives if need be in the royal cause. The siege of Colchester which engaged the main body of the army under Fairfax seemed to offer a good opportunity for a rising nearer London. The young Duke of Buckingham was made General of the Horse. Lord Francis Villiers and various other young noblemen were given other posts. And these hot-blooded lads, impatient for action, urged Lord Holland to begin his perilous undertaking without further delay.

Unhappily for them the whole business was miserably mismanaged. Such a rising could only hope to succeed if it were kept the most profound secret. But so far from being a secret, it was, says Clarendon, "the common discourse of the town." There was a great appearance every morning at Lord Holland's lodging of officers who were known to have served the king—.

his commission showed in many hands; and no question being more commonly asked than—when doth my Lord Holland go out? and the answer—Such and such a day; and the hour he did take horse, when he was accompanied by an hundred horse from his house was publickly talked of two or three days before.[85]

But these indiscretions were not all. The first rendezvous was to be at Kingston-on-Thames—the charming old town full of old red brick houses, and sunny walled gardens full of lilacs and laburnums and cedars of Lebanon, ten miles southwest of London. Here Lord Holland stayed for two nights and one whole day, expecting numbers to flock to his standard, "not only of officers, but of common men who had promised and listed themselves under several officers."[86]During his stay, some officers and soldiers, both of foot and horse did come. But the greater number of those who resorted to Kingston were "many persons of honor and quality," who came down from London for the day in their coaches to visit the little army, and returned to town again, "to provide what was still wanting and resolved to be with him soon again."

LORD FRANCIS VILLIERS.LORD FRANCIS VILLIERS.

Is it not a pitiable story? Want of plan, of management, of forethought, of seriousness. The whole thing arranged like a play upon the stage. The fair ladies, and the gallant cavaliers in their curly wigs and deep Vandyke collars, driving down on the hot summer day to visit their friends, and laugh and talk over the great victory that without doubt they would win—the victory that would restore the king to his throne, and drive the Parliamentarians into the sea. And beautiful young Francis Villiers, in the heyday of his youth and strength—his debts all paid two days before[87]—longing for a chance to strike a blow for the king who had been a father to him.

How the grim puritan soldiers must have laughed at such a set of amateurs in the art of War. They were not far-off—those grave fighting men.

The chief officer with Lord Holland's band was one Dalbeer, a Dutch malcontent. He seems to have been as incompetent as the rest of the little army; for he kept no watch at night round the camp.

Early on the morning of July 7, the Parliamentary Colonel Rich, "eminent for praying but of no fame for fighting," surprised the town with a troop of horse. There was a general scrimmage. No one was ready to receive them. Lord Holland and a number of his followers made the best of their way out of the town, never offering to charge the enemy. Most of the footsoldiers and some of the officers "made shift to conceal themselves until they found means to retire to their close mansions in London."[88]

But Francis Villiers alone seems to have made a stand. At the head of his troop, his horse having been killed under him, he

got to an oak-tree in the highway about two miles from Kingston, where he stood with his back against it, defending himself, scorning to ask quarter, and they barbarously refusing to give it; till with nine wounds in his beautiful face and body, he was slain.[89]

So died Francis Villiers, in the twentieth year of his age—"This noble, valiant and beautiful youth," says Fairfax. "A youth of rare beauty and comeliness," says Clarendon. And so ended the unhappy fight of Kingston. Dalbeer defended himself till he was killed. Lord Holland with a hundred horse, wandered away and was caught at an inn at St. Neot's in Hertfordshire and thence sent prisoner to Windsor, of which place he had but lately been constable. The Duke of Buckingham reached London, and hid until he could escape to Holland "where the prince was; who received him with great grace and kindness."[90]And in six months the king for whom young Francis had died, was led out to execution at Whitehall.

Lord Francis' body was brought by water from Kingston up the Thames to York House in the Strand; and was then embalmed and laid in his father's vault in Henry the Seventh's Chapel.

The late duke's magnificent monument, and the position in which it was placed, gave rise to much comment at the time. No monument had been erected to King James. And when Charles the First sent for Lord Weston "to contrive the work of the tomb" for his favorite, Lord Weston, putting into words the opinion of the greater part of England "told his Majesty that not only our nation, but others, would talk of it, if he should make the duke a tomb, and not his father."[91]

The tomb, however, was made. Henry the Seventh's Chapel for the first time was opened to a person not of royal lineage. And by the irony of fate, this burial of a royal favorite paved the way for the interments of many others in the next thirty years who were not of royal blood, and were bitterly opposed to kings and all that pertained to them, save power.

Two years after Francis Villiers was killed at Kingston, Ireton, Cromwell's son-in-law, was buried in a vault at the extreme east of Henry the Seventh's Chapel. Then came Blake, the first of England's naval heroes—Colonel Mackworth, one of Cromwell's Council—Sir William Constable, one of the regicides—Worsley, Oliver's "great and rising favorite." And Bradshaw, Lord President of the High Court of Justice, was laid "in a superb tomb among the kings."

Ten years after Francis Villiers' death, Cromwell's favorite daughter—the sweet Elizabeth Claypole—was buried in a vault close to the entrance of the Villiers Chapel. She was the "Betty" of Cromwell's earlier letters, "who belongs to the sect of the seekers rather than the finders. Happy are they who find—most happy are they who seek."[92]

The great Protector never held up his head after the death of this lovable woman; and within a month of his daughter's funeral "his most serene and renowned highness, Oliver, Lord Protector, was taken to his rest"[93]in the same Chapel in which we have spent so much time of late.

If we needed any fresh proof that the great Abbey of Westminster is a sign and symbol of reconciliation, here is one. Within its walls Kings and Covenanters, Puritan women, and gallant young Cavalier nobles who fought against those women's husbands and fathers, lie side by side. The feuds, the hatreds, the heart-burnings, the differences, political and religious, are all forgotten; and nothing is left but the common brotherhood of man with man, in the still peaceful atmosphere of the Abbey Church of St. Peter.

FOOTNOTES:[80]Stanley. "Memorials of Westminster." p. 237.[81]Clarendon. Vol. I. p. 16.[82]"Short History of English People." Green, p. 488.[83]"Life of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham." Bryan Fairfax.[84]Fairfax.[85]Clarendon. Vol. XI. p. 102.[86]Ibid. Vol. XI. p. 102.[87]When he left London he ordered his steward, Mr. John May, to bring him a list of his debts, and he so charged his estate with them, that the Parliament, who seized on the estate, payed the debt.—Fairfax.[88]Clarendon. Vol. XI. p. 104.[89]Fairfax.[90]Clarendon. Vol. XI. p. 105.[91]"Court and Times of Charles the First." Vol. I. p. 391.[92]Carlyle's Cromwell. Vol. I. p. 295.[93]Commonwealth Mercury. Sep. 2-9, 1658.

[80]Stanley. "Memorials of Westminster." p. 237.

[81]Clarendon. Vol. I. p. 16.

[82]"Short History of English People." Green, p. 488.

[83]"Life of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham." Bryan Fairfax.

[84]Fairfax.

[85]Clarendon. Vol. XI. p. 102.

[86]Ibid. Vol. XI. p. 102.

[87]When he left London he ordered his steward, Mr. John May, to bring him a list of his debts, and he so charged his estate with them, that the Parliament, who seized on the estate, payed the debt.—Fairfax.

[88]Clarendon. Vol. XI. p. 104.

[89]Fairfax.

[90]Clarendon. Vol. XI. p. 105.

[91]"Court and Times of Charles the First." Vol. I. p. 391.

[92]Carlyle's Cromwell. Vol. I. p. 295.

[93]Commonwealth Mercury. Sep. 2-9, 1658.

In 1637 a little daughter was born to King Charles the First, at St. James's Palace. Archbishop Laud christened her privately twelve days later; and she was named after her aunt, Anne of Austria, Queen of France.

There were great rejoicings at the baby's birth. The University of Cambridge alone produced more than one hundred and thirty odes, in which she and her sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, were compared to Juno, Minerva, Venus, the Fates, the Graces, the Elder Muses, and many other classic celebrities. In the face of all these protestations of loyal affection no one would imagine that within six years Princess Anne's father would be fighting with his own subjects for his throne and his liberty,and that two of his children would be in the hands of his enemies.

But little Anne was spared these sad experiences. Very soon after her birth she was assigned her place in the royal nursery at Richmond, with her regular suite of attendants, ten in number. From her earliest infancy she was extremely delicate. "A constant feverish cough showed a tendency to disease of the lungs;" and before she was four years old she died of consumption. The short account of her death is most touching:

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