Travels in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and Fragmenta regalia; or, Observations on Queen Elizabeth, her times and favourites online

in which the Queen's closet is quite transparent, having its window
of crystal. We were led into two chambers, called the presence, or
chambers of audience, which shone with tapestry of gold and silver
and silk of different colours: under the canopy of state are these
words embroidered in pearl, "VIVAT HENRICUS OCTAVUS." Here is
besides a small chapel richly hung with tapestry, where the Queen
performs her devotions. In her bedchamber the bed was covered with
very costly coverlids of silk: at no great distance from this room
we were shown a bed, the tester of which was worked by Anne Boleyn,
and presented by her to her husband Henry VIII. All the other
rooms, being very numerous, are adorned with tapestry of gold,
silver, and velvet, in some of which were woven history pieces; in
others, Turkish and American dresses, all extremely natural.

In the hall are these curiosities:

A very clear looking-glass, ornamented with columns and little
images of alabaster; a portrait of Edward VI., brother to Queen
Elizabeth; the true portrait of Lucretia; a picture of the battle of
Pavia; the history of Christ's passion, carved in mother-of-pearl;
the portraits of Mary Queen of Scots, who was beheaded, and her
daughter; {17} the picture of Ferdinand, Prince of Spain, and of
Philip his son; that of Henry VIII. - under it was placed the Bible
curiously written upon parchment; an artificial sphere; several
musical instruments; in the tapestry are represented negroes riding
upon elephants. The bed in which Edward VI. is said to have been
born, and where his mother Jane Seymour died in child-bed. In one
chamber were several excessively rich tapestries, which are hung up
when the Queen gives audience to foreign ambassadors; there were
numbers of cushions ornamented with gold and silver; many
counterpanes and coverlids of beds lined with ermine: in short, all
the walls of the palace shine with gold and silver. Here is besides
a certain cabinet called Paradise, where besides that everything
glitters so with silver, gold, and jewels, as to dazzle one's eyes,
there is a musical instrument made all of glass, except the strings.
Afterwards we were led into the gardens, which are most pleasant;
here we saw rosemary so planted and nailed to the walls as to cover
them entirely, which is a method exceeding common in England.

Kingston, a market town.

Nonesuch, a royal retreat, in a place formerly called Cuddington, a
very healthful situation, chosen by King Henry VIII. for his
pleasure and retirement, and built by him with an excess of
magnificence and elegance, even to ostentation: one would imagine
everything that architecture can perform to have been employed in
this one work. There are everywhere so many statues that seem to
breathe so many miracles of consummate art, so many casts that rival
even the perfection of Roman antiquity, that it may well claim and
justify its name of Nonesuch, being without an equal; or as the post
sung -


"This, which no equal has in art or fame,
Britons deservedly do NONESUCH name."


The palace itself is so encompassed with parks full of deer,
delicious gardens, groves ornamented with trellis-work, cabinets of
verdure, and walks so embrowned by trees, that it seems to be a
place pitched upon by Pleasure herself, to dwell in along with
Health.

In the pleasure and artificial gardens are many columns and pyramids
of marble, two fountains that spout water one round the other like a
pyramid, upon which are perched small birds that stream water out of
their bills. In the Grove of Diana is a very agreeable fountain,
with Actaeon turned into a stag, as he was sprinkled by the goddess
and her nymphs, with inscriptions.

There is besides another pyramid of marble full of concealed pipes,
which spurt upon all who come within their reach.

Returned from hence to London.


A SHORT DESCRIPTION OF ENGLAND.


Britain, consisting of the two kingdoms of England and Scotland, is
the largest island in the world, encompassed by the ocean, the
German and French seas. The largest and southern part of it is
England, so named from the Angli, who quitting the little territory
yet called Angel in the kingdom of Denmark, took possession here.
It is governed by its own King, who owns no superior but God. It is
divided into thirty-nine counties, to which thirteen in Wales were
added by Henry VIII., the first who distributed that principality
into counties; over each of these, in times of danger, a lord
lieutenant, nominated by the King, presides with an unlimited power.
Every year some gentleman, an inhabitant of the place, is appointed
sheriff; his office is to collect the public moneys, to raise fines,
or to make seizures, and account for it to the Treasury; to attend
upon the judges, and put their sentence in execution; to empanel the
jury, who sit upon facts, and return their verdict to the judges
(who in England are only such of the law, and not of the fact); to
convey the condemned to execution, and to dertermine in lesser
causes, for the greater are tried by the judges, formerly called
travelling judges of assize; these go their circuits through the
counties twice every year to hear causes, and pronounce sentence
upon prisoners.

As to ecclesiastical jurisdiction, after the Popes had assigned a
church and parish to every priest, Honorius, Archbishop of
Canterbury, about the year 636, began to divide England in the same
manner into parishes: as it has two Provinces, so it has two
Archbishops: the one of Canterbury, Primate and Metropolitan of all
England; the other of York: subject to these are twenty-five
bishops, viz., twenty-two to Canterbury, the remaining three to
York.

The soil is fruitful, and abounds with cattle, which inclines the
inhabitants rather to feeding than ploughing, so that near a third
part of the land is left uncultivated for grazing. The climate is
most temperate at all times, and the air never heavy, consequently
maladies are scarcer, and less physic is used there than anywhere
else. There are but few rivers; though the soil is productive, it
bears no wine; but that want is supplied from abroad by the best
kinds, as of Orleans, Gascon, Rhenish, and Spanish. The general
drink is beer, which is prepared from barley, and is excellently
well tasted, but strong, and what soon fuddles. There are many
hills without one tree, or any spring, which produce a very short
and tender grass, and supply plenty of food to sheep; upon these
wander numerous flocks, extremely white, and whether from the
temperature of the air, or goodness of the earth, bearing softer and
finer fleeces than those of any other country: this is the true
Golden Fleece, in which consist the chief riches of the inhabitants,
great sums of money being brought into the island by merchants,
chiefly for that article of trade. The dogs here are particularly
good. It has mines of gold, silver, and tin (of which all manner of
table utensils are made, in brightness equal to silver, and used all
over Europe), of lead, and of iron, but not much of the latter. The
horses are small but swift. Glasshouses are in plenty here.


OF THE MANNERS OF THE ENGLISH.


The English are serious, like the Germans; lovers of show, liking to
be followed wherever they go by whole troops of servants, who wear
their masters' arms in silver, fastened to their left arms, a
ridicule they deservedly lie under. They excel in dancing and
music, for they are active and lively, though of a thicker make than
the French; they cut their hair close on the middle of the head,
letting it grow on either side; they are good sailors, and better
pirates, cunning, treacherous and thievish; above three hundred are
said to be hanged annually at London; beheading with them is less
infamous than hanging; they give the wall as the place of honour;
hawking is the general sport of the gentry; they are more polite in
eating than the French, devouring less bread, but more meat, which
they roast in perfection; they put a great deal of sugar in their
drink; their beds are covered with tapestry, even those of farmers;
they are often molested with the scurvy, said to have first crept
into England with the Norman Conquest; their houses are commonly of
two storeys, except in London, where they are of three and four,
though but seldom of four; they are built of wood, those of the
richer sort with bricks; their roofs are low, and, where the owner
has money, covered with lead.

They are powerful in the field, successful against their enemies,
impatient of anything like slavery; vastly fond of great noises that
fill the ear, such as the firing of cannon, drums, and the ringing
of bells, so that it is common for a number of them, that have got a
glass in their heads, to go up into the belfry, and ring the bells
for hours together for the sake of exercise. If they see a
foreigner very well made, or particularly handsome, they will say,
"It is a pity he is not an Englishman!"


THE ILLUSTRIOUS FAMILIES OF ENGLAND


Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, hereditary Marshal of England: the
duchy is extinct for rebellion, the last duke being beheaded.

Grey, Duke of Suffolk, attainted under Queen Mary.

Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel in his mother's right, and of Surrey
by his father, son of the abovementioned Duke of Norfolk, he himself
condemned for high treason, and his titles forfeited.

Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford, hereditary Chamberlain of England.

Percy, Earl of Northumberland, descended from the Dukes of Brabant.

Charles Nevill, Earl of Westmoreland, banished into Holland, and
deprived of his fortunes and dignities for rebellion.

Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury.

Grey, Earl of Kent, has but a small estate.

Stanley, Earl of Derby, and King of Man.

Manners, Earl of Rutland.

Somerset, Earl of Worcester, descended from a bastard of the
Somerset family, which itself is of the royal family of the
Plantagenets.

Clifford, Earl of Cumberland.

Ratcliff, Earl of Sussex.

Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon, of the line of York, by the mother's
side.

Bourchier, Earl of Bath.

Ambrose Sutton, alias Dudley, Earl of Warwick, died a few years
since, childless.

Wriothesly, Earl of Southampton.

Russell, Earl of Bedford.

Herbert, Earl of Pembroke.

Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, son of the Duke of Somerset, who
was beheaded in the reign of Edward VI.

Robert Sutton, or Dudley, Earl of Leicester, brother of the Earl of
Warwick, died a few years ago.

Robert d'Evereux, Earl of Essex, and of Ewe in Normandy, created
hereditary Marshal of England in 1598.

Charles Howard, of the Norfolk family, created Earl of Nottingham,
1597, Lord High Admiral of England, and Privy Counsellor.

Fynes, Earl of Lincoln.

Brown, Viscount Montacute.

Howard, of the Norfolk family, Viscount Bindon.

Nevill, Baron Abergavenny; this barony is controverted.

Touchet, Baron Audley.

Zouch, Baron Zouch.

Peregrine Bertie, Baron Willoughby of Eresby and Brooke, Governor of
Berwick.

Berkley, Baron Berkley, of the ancient family of the Kings of
Denmark.

Parker, Baron Morley.

Dacre, Baron Dacre of Gyllesland: this barony is vacant.

Dacre, Baron Dacre of the South: he died four years since, and the
barony devolved to his daughter.

Brook, Baron Cobham, Warden of the Cinque Ports.

Stafford, Baron Stafford, reduced to want; he is heir to the family
of the Dukes of Buckingham, who were hereditary Constables of
England.

Gray, Baron Gray of Wilton.

Scroop, Baron Scroop of Boulton.

Sutton, Baron Dudley.

Stourton, Baron Stourton.

Nevill, Baron Latimer, died some years since without heirs male; the
title controverted.

Lumley, Baron Lumley.

Blunt, Baron Montjoy.

Ogle, Baron Ogle.

Darcy, Baron Darcy.

Parker, Baron Montegle, son and heir of Baron Morley; he has this
barony in right of his mother, of the family of Stanley.

Sandys, Baron Sandys.

Vaux, Baron Vaux.

Windsor, Baron Windsor.

Wentworth, Baron Wentworth.

Borough, Baron Borough, reduced to want.

Baron Mordaunt. Baron Eure.

Baron Rich. Baron Sheffield.

Baron North, Privy Counsellor, and Treasurer of the Household.

Baron Hunsdon, Privy Counsellor, and Lord Chamberlain.

Sackville, Baron Buckhurst, Privy Counsellor.

Thomas Cecil, Baron Burleigh, son of the Treasurer.

Cecil, Lord Roos, grandson of the Treasurer, yet a child: he holds
the barony in right of his mother, daughter to the Earl of Rutland.

Howard of Maltravers, son of the Earl of Arundel, not yet restored
in blood.

Baron Cheyny.

Baron Cromwell. Baron Wharton.

Baron Willoughby of Parham.

Baron Pagett, in exile, attainted.

Baron Chandois. Baron St. John.

Baron Delaware: his ancestors took the King of France prisoner.

Baron Compton, has squandered almost all his substance.

Baron Norris.

Thomas Howard, second son of the Duke of Norfolk, Baron Audley of
Saffronwalden, in his mother's right.

William, third son of the Duke of Norfolk, is neither a baron, nor
yet restored in blood.

Thus far of noble families.


We set out from London in a boat, and fell down the river, leaving
Greenwich, which we have spoken of before, on the right hand.

Barking, a town in sight on the left.

Gravesend, a small town, famous for the convenience of its port; the
largest Dutch ships usually call here. As we were to proceed
farther from hence by water, we took our last leave here of the
noble Bohemian David Strziela, and his tutor Tobias Salander, our
constant fellow-travellers through France and England, they
designing to return home through Holland, we on a second tour into
France; but it pleased Heaven to put a stop to their design, for the
worthy Strziela was seized with a diarrhoea a few days before our
departure, and, as we afterwards learned by letters from Salander,
died in a few days of a violent fever in London.

Queenborough: we left the castle on our right; a little farther we
saw the fishing of oysters out of the sea, which are nowhere in
greater plenty or perfection; witness Ortelius in his Epitome, &c.

Whitstable; here we went ashore.

Canterbury; we came to it on foot; this is the seat of the
Archbishop, Primate of all England, a very ancient town, and,
without doubt, of note in the time of the Romans.

Here are two monasteries almost contiguous, namely of Christ and St.
Augustine, both of them once filled with Benedictine Monks: the
former was afterwards dedicated to St. Thomas a Becket, the name of
Christ being obliterated; it stands almost in the middle of the
town, and with so much majesty lifts itself, and its two towers, to
a stupendous height, that, as Erasmus says, it strikes even those
who only see it at a distance with awe.

In the choir, which is shut up with iron rails, are the following
monuments:-

King Henry IV., with his wife Joan of Navarre, of white marble.

Nicholas Wootton, Privy Counsellor to Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary,
and Elizabeth, Kings and Queens of England.

Of Prince Edward, Duke of Aquitaine and Cornwall, and Earl of
Chester.

Reginald Pole, with this inscription:


"The remains of Reginald Pole, Cardinal and Archbishop of
Canterbury."


Cardinal Chatillon.

We were then shown the chair in which the bishops are placed when
they are installed. In the vestibule of the church, on the south
side, stand the statues of three men armed, cut in stone, who slew
Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, made a saint for this
martyrdom; their names are adjoined -

Tusci, Fusci, Berri. {18}

Being tired with walking, we refreshed ourselves here with a
mouthful of bread and some ale, and immediately mounted post-horses,
and arrived about two or three o'clock in the morning at Dover. In
our way to it, which was rough and dangerous enough, the following
accident happened to us: our guide, or postillion, a youth, was
before with two of our company, about the distance of a musketshot;
we, by not following quick enough, had lost sight of our friends; we
came afterwards to where the road divided; on the right it was down-
hill and marshy, on the left was a small hill: whilst we stopped
here in doubt, and consulted which of the roads we should take, we
saw all on a sudden on our right hand some horsemen, their stature,
dress, and horses exactly resembling those of our friends; glad of
having found them again, we determined to set on after them; but it
happened, through God's mercy, that though we called to them, they
did not answer us, but kept on down the marshy road at such a rate,
that their horses' feet struck fire at every stretch, which made us,
with reason, begin to suspect they were thieves, having had warning
of such; or rather, that they were nocturnal spectres, who, as we
were afterwards told, are frequently seen in those places: there
were likewise a great many Jack-a-lanterns, so that we were quite
seized with horror and amazement! But, fortunately for us, our
guide soon after sounded his horn, and we, following the noise,
turned down the left-hand road, and arrived safe to our companions;
who, when we had asked them if they had not seen the horsemen who
had gone by us, answered, not a soul. Our opinions, according to
custom, were various upon this matter; but whatever the thing was,
we were, without doubt, in imminent danger, from which that we
escaped, the glory is to be ascribed to God alone.

Dover, situated among cliffs (standing where the port itself was
originally, as may be gathered from anchors and parts of vessels dug
up there), is more famous for the convenience of its port, which
indeed is now much decayed, and its passage to France, than for
either its elegance or populousness: this passage, the most used
and the shortest, is of thirty miles, which, with a favourable wind,
may be run over in five or six hours' time, as we ourselves
experienced; some reckon it only eighteen to Calais, and to Boulogne
sixteen English miles, which, as Ortelius says in his "Theatrum,"
are longer than the Italian.

Here was a church dedicated to St. Martin by Victred, King of Kent,
and a house belonging to the Knights Templars; of either there are
now no remains. It is the seat of a suffragan to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, who, when the Archbishop is employed upon business of
more consequence, manages the ordinary affairs, but does not
interfere with the archiepiscopal jurisdiction. Upon a hill, or
rather rock, which on its right side is almost everywhere a
precipice, a very extensive castle rises to a surprising height, in
size like a little city, extremely well fortified, and thick-set
with towers, and seems to threaten the sea beneath. Matthew Paris
calls it the door and key of England; the ordinary people have taken
into their heads that it was built by Julius Caesar; it is likely it
might by the Romans, from those British bricks in the chapel which
they made use of in their foundations. See Camden's "Britannia."

After we had dined, we took leave of England.


FRAGMENTA REGALIA


OR, OBSERVATIONS ON THE LATE QUEEN ELIZABETH, HER TIMES, AND
FAVOURITES. WRITTEN BY Sir Robert Naunton, MASTER OF THE COURT OF
WARDS. A.D. 1641.


To take her in the original, she was the daughter of King Henry
VIII. by Anne Boleyn, the second of six wives which he had, and one
of the maids of honour to the divorced Queen, Katharine of Austria
(or, as the now styled, Infanta of Spain), and from thence taken to
the royal bed.

That she was of a most noble and royal extract by her father will
not fall into question, for on that side was disembogued into her
veins, by a confluency of blood, the very abstract of all the
greatest houses in Christendom: and remarkable it is, considering
that violent desertion of the Royal House of the Britons by the
intrusion of the Saxons, and afterwards by the conquest of the
Normans, that, through vicissitude of times, and after a
discontinuance almost of a thousand years, the sceptre should fall
again and be brought back into the old regal line and true current
of the British blood, in the person of her renowned grandfather,
King Henry VII., together with whatsoever the German, Norman,
Burgundian, Castilian, and French achievements, with their
intermarriages, which eight hundred years had acquired, could add of
glory thereunto.

By her mother she was of no sovereign descent, yet noble and very
ancient in the family of Boleyn; though some erroneously brand them
with a citizen's rise or original, which was yet but of a second
brother, who (as it was divine in the greatness and lustre to come
to his house) was sent into the city to acquire wealth, AD
AEDIFICANDAM ANTIQUAM DOMUM, unto whose achievements (for he was
Lord Mayor of London) fell in, as it is averred, both the blood and
inheritance of the eldest brother for want of issue males, by which
accumulation the house within few descents mounted, IN CULMEN
HONORIS, and was suddenly dilated in the best families of England
and Ireland: as Howard, Ormond, Sackville, and others.

Having thus touched, and now leaving her stirp, I come to her
person, and how she came to the crown by the decease of her brother
and sister.

Under Edward VI. she was his, and one of the darlings of Fortune,
for, besides the consideration of blood, there was between these two
princes a concurrency and sympathy of their natures and affections,
together with the celestial bond (confirmative religion), which made
them one; for the King never called her by any other appellation but
his sweetest and dearest sister, and was scarce his own man, she
being absent; which was not so between him and the Lady Mary.

Under her sister {19} she found her condition much altered; for it
was resolved, and her destiny had decreed it, for to set her
apprentice in the school of affliction, and to draw her through that
ordeal-fire of trial, the better to mould and fashion her to rule
and sovereignty: which finished, Fortune calling to mind that the
time of her servitude was expired, gave up her indentures, and
therewith delivered into her custody a sceptre as the reward of her
patience; which was about the twenty-sixth of her age: a time in
which, as for her internals grown ripe, and seasoned by adversity,
in the exercise of her virtue; for, it seems, Fortune meant no more
but to show her a piece of variety and changeableness of her nature,
but to conduct her to her destiny, I.E., felicity.

She was of person tall, of hair and complexion fair, and therewith
well favoured, but high-nosed; of limbs and features neat; and,
which added to the lustre of these external graces, of a stately and
majestic comportment, participating in this more of her father than
of her mother, who was of an inferior alloy, plausible, or, as the
French hath it, more DEBONAIRE and affable: virtues which might
well suit with majesty, and which, descending as hereditary to the
daughter, did render her of a sweeter temper, and endeared her more
to the love and liking of the people, who gave her the name and fame
of a most gracious and popular princess.

The atrocity of the father's nature was rebated in her by the
mother's sweeter inclinations; for (to take, and that no more than
the character out of his own mouth) HE NEVER SPARED MAN IN HIS
ANGER, NOR WOMAN IN HIS LUST.

If we search farther into her intellectuals and abilities, the
wheel-course of her government deciphers them to the admiration of
posterity; for it was full of magnanimity, tempered with justice,
piety, and pity, and, to speak truth, noted but with one act of
stain, or taint, all her deprivations, either of life or liberty,
being legal and necessitated. She was learned, her sex and time
considered, beyond common belief; for letters about this time, or
somewhat before, did but begin to be of esteem and in fashion, the
former ages being overcast with the mists and fogs of the Roman {20}
ignorance; and it was the maxim that over-ruled the foregoing times,
that IGNORANCE WAS THE MOTHER OF DEVOTION. Her wars were a long
time more in the auxiliary part, and assistance of foreign princes
and states, than by invasion of any; till common policy advised it,
for a safer way, to strike first abroad, than at home to expect the
war, in all which she was ever felicitous and victorious.

The change and alteration of religion upon the instant of her
accession to the crown (the smoke and fire of her sister's
martyrdoms scarcely quenched) was none of her least remarkable
actions; but the support and establishment thereof, with the means
of her own subsistence amidst so powerful enemies abroad, and those