well-affected humility, refused at first, declaring, that "if she might speak her mind in English she would not stick at the matter; but that she feared to speak in Latin before so great an assembly of learned men;" but finally she yielded to their importunities, on being assured that "nothing might be said openly to the University in English ;" and delivered what the chronicler terms "a very eloquent, sententious, and comfortable oration in Latin; signifying in the same both her good-will toward learning itself, and also her great favour toward the learned." When it was ended, "all being marvellously astonished. . spoke forth in open voice, Vivat Regina !'-but she wished that all who heard her oration had drunk of the flood of Lethe. And so departed cheerfully to her lodging." The next morning she took her departure, having first heard several farewell orations: among others, one from Mr. Thomas Preston, with whom she was so well pleasedhis being a very handsome man contributing, as some said, not a little to her pleasure-that she gave him £20, and dubbed him "her scholar."

The graceful ease with which Elizabeth adapted herself to the tastes of whatever portion of her subjects she visited, was remarkable, and contributed very much

to her constant popularity with all classes of her people James I. visited Cambridge in 1615; and his awkward behaviour afforded a singular contrast to the familiar dignity of his predecessor. He meddled with the disputations, made bad jokes on passing subjects, was fidgetty at the chapels, slept at the tragedies, laughed indecorously at the satirical touches in the comedies— and was, in short, not an inch a king. When Elizabeth was at Cambridge, care was taken that honours should be conferred with the reserve that marked all her favours, and made them so valuable. Only seventeen persons, and they mostly of the highest rank or eminence, received the honorary degree of M.A. At James's visit M.A.'s were made in crowds. Men obtained the academic title with as little claim to it as in the Scotch Universities of the last generation, or the German or American of the present. It became a common jest. Every man who found the fee, received the honour. Ben Jonson, speaking of one of the characters, in his 'Staple of News,' says,

"He is my barber, Tom;

A pretty scholar, and a master of arts,
Was made, or went out, master of arts in a throng
At the University."

(Act. 2. Scene 1,)

Ar the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the order of the Knights Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem was safe and flourishing, and its prior and brethren little dreamt that within forty years their magnificent house of St. John's of Clerkenwell would be nearly demolished, to build up a palace for a proud lord and semi-king out of its fallen towers,-at that period, a district of some thousand acres, through which the Thames flowed from Ditton to Walton on the Surrey shore, and from Teddington to Hanworth on the Middlesex bank, was a large manorial property belonging to the great order of military monks; and in the heart of this property of Hampton Court was a manor-house, and a chapel of the manor. Here, in this wide sandy level, which the wintry floods of the Thames inundated and fertilized-where little corn was grown—where rabbits were the chief habitants lived a priest and a few of the humbler brethren of the order, with no great store of the riches which made some of the proud Preceptories objects of envy to barons and burghers. By an inventory yet extant, we learn that the brethren of Hampton Court had no more splendid furniture for their altar than a chalice of silver, a pix of copper, and two candlesticks of latten; that there were only two chairs to accompany twenty bedsteads; that their dining-table was a board with tressels; but that their kitchen was well furnished with brass pot, and cauldron, and frying pan, and salting trough. The great Wolsey, in the most palmy days of his influence-before the passions of his master had developed the fierceness of his will, and the growing tyrant "was young and lusty, disposed all to mirth and pleasure, and to follow his desire and appetite"- made a bargain with the Prior of Saint John for the manor of Hampton Court. This was in the year 1515. The Lord Archbishop of York very soon changed the character of the place. The poor manor-house was swept away; the rank meadows which skirted the Thames were transformed into curious knotted gardens; a great palace arose, as if by magic, at the bidding of the profuse and tasteful Cardinal; and here, within two years of his purchase of the place, did he surround himself with the pomp of kings, and maintain a state which even the most absolute king has rarely practised. The fragments of letters, which the mice, and the cook, and the threadpaper-seeking sempstress have been kind enough to spare, let us into the realities of historical character far better than Foedera and Rolls of Parliament. Thomas Allen, a retainer of the Earl of Shrewsbury, thus describes, in a letter written to the Earl in 1517, the proud distance at which Wolsey kept himself from the approach even of the servants of the great and powerful :

"I followed him to the Court, and there gave attendance, and could have no answer. Upon Friday last he came from thence to Hampton Court, where he

lieth: the day after I besought his Grace I might know his pleasure: I could have no answer then. Upon Monday last, as he walked in the Park at Hampton Court, I besought him I might know if he would command me any service; he was not pleased with me that I spake to him. The Sunday before I delivered the letter unto him that Ralph Leche brought; I can have no answer. He that shall be a suitor unto him may have no other business but give attendance unto his pleasure: he that shall do so is needful to be a wiser man nor I am. I saw no better remedy but come without answer to pursue such things in London as your Lordship commands to be done, except I would have done as my Lord Dacre's servant doth; which came with letters for the King his Grace five months since, and yet have no answer; and another, servant of the Deputy of Calais, in like wise, which came before he rode to Walsingham: I hear that he answered them, If ye be not content to tarry my leisure, depart when ye will.' This is truth, I had liefer your Lordship commanded me to than to deliver unto him letters, and bring answer of the same. When he walks in the Park he will suffer no suitor to come nigh unto him, but commands him away as far as a man will shoot an arrow." (Lodge's Illustrations &c., Vol. I, p 28.) What a picture is this of the "high blown pride" of the butcher's son of Ipswich. Amidst the rosemary bushes which he has planted, and the old thorns and yews which have been green for generations, walks the proud Cardinal,—a portly man, somewhat short and burly,-dressed luxuriantly, though his robes of state and his cardinal's hat are reserved for public view. He is devising some toy to please his fitful master, or scheming some master-stroke of policy to outwit the diplomatists of Paris and Rome. "He will suffer no suitor to come nigh unto him, but commands him away as far as a man will shoot an arrow." It was not so in the days when he was chaplain to Henry VII., and having received a commission to execute a business of trust in France, took his leave of the king at Richmond about noon, rode to London with all speed, went on board the common barge to Gravesend, posted to Dover, sailed in the packet to Calais, rode that night to meet the emperor, transacted his business with success, and was back at Richmond by the fourth night from his departure: "Where he, taking his rest for that time until the morning, repaired to the king at his first coming out of his Grace's bed-chamber toward his closet to hear mass. Whom when he saw he checked him for that he was not past on his journey. Sir,' quoth he, if it may stand with your highness' pleasure, I have already been with the emperor, and despatched your affairs, I trust to your Grace's contentation."" (Cavendish, Life of Wolsey.) This was indeed a man to push his way to the highest posts, in days when civil business was in great part an affair of

solemn routine. Thus won he his first great preferment, the Deanery of Lincoln. How he laboured to mount the slippery steep of greatness for the rest of his life is for history to tell. We have to connect him with the days of his prosperity at Hampton Court, when he raised its courts and its gateways, and decorated its roofs with purple and gold. Cavendish, in a curious poem, has well impersonated him in this his favourite palace:—

My buildings sumptuous, the roofs with gold and byse*
Shone like the sun in mid-day sphear,
Craftily entaylled+ as cunning could devise,
With images embossed, most lively did appear;
Expertest artificers that were both far and near,
To beautify my houses, I had them at my will:
Thus I wanted nought my pleasures to fulfil.

My galleries were fair, both large and long,
To walk in them when that it liked me best;
My gardens sweet, enclosed with walles strong,
Embanked with benches to sit and take my rest;
The knots so enknotted, it cannot be expressed;
With arbours and aisles so pleasant and so dulce,
The pestilent airs with flavours to repulse.

My chambers garnished with arras fine,
Importing personages of the liveliest kind:
And when I was disposed in them to dine,
My cloth of estate there ready did I find,
Furnished complete according to my mind;
The subtle perfumes of musk and sweet amber,

There wanted none to perfume all my chamber."

Another master soon claimed the fair galleries and the sweet gardens and the garnished chambers of Hampton Court. Henry grew jealous that a subject should have a nobler palace than himself; and, in 1526, the Cardinal surrendered the manor and all its grandeur to the King. But Wolsey appears still to have visited Hampton Court as a master, even when he had made it a peace-offering to the tyrant. Cavendish has described a great supper which Wolsey here gave to the French ambassador and his suite in 1527. The Cardinal, "booted and spurred," and coming amongst his guests "before the second course," is as remarkable a picture of the man as that of Thomas Allen :-" Now was all things in a readiness, and supper-time at hand. My lord's officers caused the trumpets to blow, to warn to supper; and the said officers went right discreetly in due order, and conducted these noble personages from their chambers unto the chamber of presence where they should sup. And they, being there, caused them to sit down; their service was brought up in such order and abundance, both costly and full of subtleties, with such a pleasant noise of divers instruments of music, that the Frenchmen, as it seemed, were rapt into a heavenly paradise. Ye must understand that my lord was not there, ne yet come, but they being merry and pleasant with their fare, devising and wondering upon the subtleties. Before the second course, my Lord Cardinal came in among them, booted and spurred, all suddenly, and bade them proface; at whose coming they would have risen and given place with much joy. Whom my lord commanded to sit still, and keep their rooms; and straightways, being not shifted of his riding apparel, called for a chair, and sat himself down in the midst of the table, laughing

and being as merry as ever I saw him in all my life. Anon came up the second course, with so many dishes, subtleties, and curious devices, which were above a hundred in number, of so goodly proportion and costly, that I suppose the Frenchmen never saw the like. * * * * Then my lord took a bowl of gold,

which was esteemed of the value of five hundred marks, filled with hypocras, whereof there was plenty, putting off his cap, said, 'I drink to the King my sovereign lord and master, and to the King your master,' and therewith drank a good draught. And when he had done, he desired the Grand Master to pledge him cup and all, the which cup he gave him; and so caused all the other lords and gentlemen in other cups to pledge these two royal princes. Then went cups merrily about, that many of the Frenchmen were fain to be led to their beds. Then went my lord, leaving them sitting still, into his privy chamber to shift him; and making there a very short supper, or rather a small repast, returned again among them into the chamber of presence, useing them so nobly, with so loving and familiar countenance and entertainment, that they could not commend him too much." But the laughing and merry Wolsey of the supper at Hampton Court must have even then seen the dark shadows which coming events threw before. The divorce of Catherine was the sunken rock upon which his prosperous bark was wrecked. Wolsey was pliant enough; but he was too great to be wholly the tool of his unscrupulous master. During the sitting of the Court at Blackfriars, in which with the legate of the Pope he presided as judge, the King sent for him "at the breaking up one day of the court to come to him unto Bridewell. And to accomplish his commandment he went unto him, and being there with him in communication within his grace's privy chamber from eleven until twelve of the clock and past at noon, my lord came out and departed from the King and took his barge at the Black Friars, and so went to his house at Westminster. The Bishop of Carlisle being with him in his barge said unto him, (wiping the sweat from his face,) Sir,' quoth he, 'it is a very hot day.' Yea,' quoth my Lord Cardinal, if ye had been as well chafed as I have been within this hour, ye would say it were very hot.""

A few short months and Wolsey is impeached. The proud man falls from his high estate, the most subdued and abject of fortune's outcasts. A little longer solace of ecclesiastical pomp and rank-some access of real humility-more mortification of pridebitter degradation and fear-and then a painful journey to his rest in the grave. On the 29th November, 1530, died the great Cardinal in Leicester Abbey. On the 30th his body has the lot of the humblest,"earth to earth." His faithful servant, Cavendish, sets out to ride in haste to Hampton Court, where the King is disporting himself in the seat of luxury which his minister had created. What a graphic picture is Cavendish's narrative of his interview with the avaricious voluptuary, who had scarcely a thought to give

to the great heart he had broken, as long as there was a money-bag to be secured :— 'Upon the morrow I was sent for by the King to come to his grace; and being in Master Kingston's chamber in the court, had knowledge thereof, and repairing to the King, I found him shooting at the rounds in the park, on the backside of the garden. And perceiving him occupied in shooting, thought it not my duty to trouble him: but leaned to a tree, intending to stand there, and to attend his gracious pleasure. Being in a great study, at the last, the King came suddenly behind me, where I stood, and clapped his hand upon my shoulder; and when I perceived him, I fell upon my knee. To whom he said, calling me by name, 'I will,' quoth he, 'make an end of my game, and then will I talk with you;' and so departed to his mark, whereat the game was ended.

6

Then the King delivered his bow unto the yeoman of his bows, and went his way inward to the palace, whom I followed; howbeit he called for Sir John Gage, with whom he talked, until he came at the garden postern gate, and there entered; the gate being shut after him, which caused me to go my ways. And being gone but a little distance the gate was opened again, and there Sir Harry Norris called me again, commanding me to come in to the King, who stood behind the door in a night-gown of russet velvet, furred with sables: before whom I kneeled down, being with him there all alone the space of an hour and more, during which time he examined me of divers weighty matters concerning my lord, wishing that liever than twenty thousand pounds that he had lived. Then he asked me for the fifteen hundred pounds, which Master Kingston moved to my lord before his death. 'Sir,' said I, 'I think that I can tell your grace partly where it is.' 'Yea, can you?' quoth the King; then I pray you tell me, and you shall do us much pleasure, nor it shall not be unrewarded.' 'Sir,' said I, 'if it please your highness, after the departure of David Vincent from my lord at Scroby, who had then the custody thereof, leaving the same with my lord in divers bags, sealed with my lord's seal, he delivered the same money in the same bags sealed unto a certain priest (whom I named to the King), safely to keep to his use.' 'Is this true?' quoth the King. Yea, sir,' quoth I, without all doubt. The priest shall not be able to deny it in my presence, for I was at the delivery thereof.' 'Well then,' quoth the King, 'let me alone, and keep this gear secret between yourself and me, and let no man be privy thereof, for if I hear any more of it, then I know by whom it is come to knowledge.' 'Three may,' quoth he, 'keep counsel, if two be away; and if I thought my cap knew my counsel, I would cast it into the fire and burn it. And for your truth and honesty ye shall be one of our servants, and in that same room with us, that ye were with your old master.''

Within a few weeks after this remarkable interview with Cavendish, we find Henry, who seems to have had a passion for moving about from palace to palace,

66

keeping a solemn Christmas" at Greenwich. But in the May of 1530, we can trace him, by the entries in his book of 'Privy Purse Expenses,' edited by Sir N. H. Nicolas, to Hampton Court. From this unquestionable authority we learn much of the habits of this Amurath of England. His life seems to have passed in a round of amusements-hunting, hawking, angling, archery, bowls, and tennis, with shovel-board and backgammon on rainy days or dull evenings. He was a most prodigal gambler, as we learn from the entries of large wagers which he lost. But, as we know through the same source, he was in some degree a student, when he had a sufficient object to occupy his mind. Intent upon his divorce from Catherine, he was a deep reader of canon law; and in November, 1530, when this great question was under debate, he surrounded himself at Hampton Court with books from all quarters: "Item. Paid to Jolly Jack for bringing the King's books from York Place to Hampton Court, 5s." -"Item. Paid to the Abbot of Reading's servant in reward for bringing books to Hampton Court, 40s." From 1531 to 1535 the Hall of this palace was in course of erection by its new master. An old Hall was removed; the present magnificent Hall sprang up. The regal pile saw strange mutations of fortune within its walls. Here Lord Rochford, the unhappy brother of Anne Boleyn, in 1531, was winning forty pounds of his loving sovereign; in 1536 the same kind master sent him to the scaffold. In 1533 his idolized Anne here sat in her estate, and revelled in rich masks and disports, with interlude and banquet: in 1536 she gave her "little neck" to the axe of the headsman. "The court of England," says an old historian “was now like a stage, whereon are represented the vicissitudes of ever-various fortune; for within one and the same month it saw Queen Anne flourishing, accused, condemned, executed, and another assumed unto her place both of bed and honour." The other "assumed unto her place" had the happiness of dying under nature's painful ministrations, and not by the knife of the murderer. Jane Seymour, in 1537, was here released from the fears which must have always haunted the bed of a wife of Henry, when she gave birth to Edward VI. Anne of Cleves, "the Flanders mare,' here found a stall during the preparations for her divorce; and then, when she was removed to Richmond, and had no dread that a sharper process might separate her from her lord, Catherine Howard was exhibited at Hampton Court in a holiday-pageant or two, and was in due time conducted to the block and the sawdust. At last came Catherine Parr; and Hampton Court saw her marriage. The tyrant, now grown bloated and unwieldy, and unable to hunt the stag in the forests of Hainault or Windsor, made the country round Hampton Court a royal chace, after the old Norman fashion of depopulation. Here he rode and feasted for a short year or two. Here Surrey, at the dangerous festivals of the last of six queens, saw Geraldine, if we may believe his amatory verse ;

'Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine."