HER FIRST FLIRTATION.

The reins of government had been taken by the Earl of Hertford (Duke of Somerset), maternal uncle of the young King "Josiah," while his brother, Sir Thomas Seymour, was appointed Lord High Admiral,-unscrupulous novi homines, Protestants by profession and plunderers by trade. Only a few weeks at the most had elapsed from the death of Henry, when the younger of these, a handsome and daring man of thirty, asked her hand in marriage. Repulsed at once, he simply wheeled round his attentions to her step-mother, and married the royal widow straight off. Elizabeth had a separate establishment of one hundred and twenty persons, but she lived in the same house as the learned Queen-Dowager, and under her guardianship. Seymour, by his stroke of politic marriage, was placed in excellent circumstances for prosecuting the courtship at his ease. At Chelsea, and other mansions of his own or Catharine's, he was guilty of indecent and vulgar antics such as marching bare-legged into her room of a morning, patting her in a manner that was more familiar than seemly, and otherwise fondling and teazing her-even in his wife's presence; but Catharine could wink no longer at his gallantry when she caught him with his arm round the maiden's waist. Elizabeth, scarcely fifteen, was packed off to Cheshunt, still, however, in the loving thoughts of her step-mother, who could forgive a little thoughtless frivolity in a brilliant girl, to whom she could say, without fear of turning her head, "I believe you are destined by Heaven to be the Queen of England."

In a few months after this separation the giddy princess lost her best female friend. The path was again cleared to the gallant wooer, whose art of fascination raised against him a suspicion of magic. He played with high and dangerous stakes. He sought, by presents of money for ignoble purposes, to win over the boy-king to press under the notice of Parliament the treatment Edward experienced from Somerset; he aimed at bringing about the marriage of Edward and Lady Jane Grey, so as to attach a strong party among the nobles, and then, as the crowning achievement, marrying Elizabeth and perhaps reaching the throne. He did not suffer the grass to grow beneath his feet. He secured fit agents in Thomas Parry, Elizabeth's cofferer, and Catharine Ashley, her governess, one of the most accomplished women in England. They

plied her fancy by frequently dwelling on his love and worth, so effectively that with her own permission the inexorable Seymour one day appeared at the stately mansion of Ashridge, in Herts, where she had taken up her residence. Although Elizabeth was able to dissemble before him, doubtless Kate Ashley would let him know that behind the curtain the mention of his name brought the blushes to mantle her cheeks. Blushing maiden as she was, the daughter of Henry VIII. had not lived in the atmosphere of those times of base intrigue and light regard for human heads, without learning what was min essential than the Latin and Greek taught her by Grindal and Ascham.-the value of cantica and craft. Even with the crimson on her clearcomplexioned face she said.-from no virgin modesty, we fear," Castles in the air!" -I will do as God shall put into my mind:" and when she consented to Seymour's visit, she wa wise enough to look ahead for probable rocks and insert a proviso, "not without the permission. of the Council."

Her levity leaked out, and the Duchess of Somerset personally reprimanded the govertass for permitting "my Lady Elizabeth's going in the night in a barge upon the Thames and for other light parts." Seymour's bubble was ready to burst. He was a traitor to himself. He ha gained a strong party for the Protector's oVEZthrow; but a greedy man, who wantonly bauble about the Princess's fortune, boasted of "speely climbing" above the Lord Privy Seal, and brardished a paper which he declared to be a chara against the Protector, was doomed to failure, His brother seized him and sent him to the Tower, in January 1549. Thither, too, were sel.: Parry and Ashley. Seymour had not the privi lege of a fair trial. On the 4th of March a Bill of Attainder was passed, and sixteen days later he perished on the scaffold.

On the arrest of her two domestics, Elizabeth was placed under restraint by Sir Robert Tyrwhi*. at Hatfield, in Herts. After an outburst of tearon learning the fate of her two servants, ste assumed the calmness which was her strength and power through life. No bold question or cunning insinuation took her off her guard, and Sir Robert was forced to confess that she hath a good wit, and nothing is to be gotten from her but by great policy." She allowed to no amorous intimacy, but merely that her relations had been those of business. "My Lord," wrote this gul who had "a soul to be saved," "there goeth rumours abroad which be greatly against both my honour and honesty, which above all things

I esteem, which be these, that I am in the Tower and with child by my Lord-Admiral. . . . I shall most heartily desire your Lordship that I may come to Court after your first determination, that I may show myself there as I am." Foiled by a girl of fifteen, who could talk with such placid hardihood on the most delicate of matters, the Protector turned his attention to her domes. ties, and wrung from them the confessions on which our narrative is based. When these were presented to her, so keenly suspicious had her mind become at this early stage of life, she took care to examine the signatures, so as to be assured of their genuineness. In fact, she went no further than her servants' statements, and the wiliest and most experienced statesmen in all England were thoroughly outwitted. Kate was removed from her position as governess, and the troublesome task devolved on Lady Tyrwhit. Elizabeth had now driven home to her once for all, that in the days and people amid which and whom she lived only a hair-breadth divided a scaffold from a throne. A story is told, and it is not improbable, that she showed no sign of sorrow when informed of Seymour's fate, but remarked with the calmness of a critical biographer, “This day died a man with much wit and very little judgment." It is now manifest that Elizabeth might play with hearts and heads, but that her heart would never break nor her head go to the block.

LOVE'S AFTERMATH.

The shock-how much from love, how much from shame?-that followed her first introduction to the arena of responsible life in those ruthless and cunning times was deep and protracted. She became depressed and sank into a dangerous liness. The strain continued for a year, but at last the poison of the wound had passed through her nature. Meanwhile her suffering brought forth some tenderness from the Court; her two beloved domestics returned to her household; and the wisest head in England, the incorruptible secretary of Edward VI., William Cecil,-afterwards her own leading counsellor when she reached the throne,-seems to have been received into her confidence. She was no foolish Rosalind. It would be hard to find in Elizabeth from this time forward any trace of gentle feeling, except perhaps some thirteen years later, when she, believing herself to be dying of small-pox, confessed her love for Robert Dudley to the sage statesmen who stood in terror by her bed. The iron scourge of the "stern, rugged nurse," Adver. sity, did not teach her to melt at the woe of

others. From her first trampled passion she emerged a cold and wary woman. She turned away from the scandal of the Court to serious study, burying in her heart the secret of her freaks and follies with the late Lord Admiral; "* and possibly its shadow never crossed her path visibly from the outside world, save once when she was Queen, and dealt in deeper and wider plots. Sir John Harrington presented her with a portrait of the handsome innamorato of her blushing girlhood, along with a sonnet in which that Orlando was thus referred to:

"Of person rare, strong limbs, and manly shape, By nature formed to serve in sea or land; Yet against nature, reason, and just laws, His blood was spilt, guiltless, and without cause." All who have paid attention to the growth of education in England are sufficiently well acquainted with the learning and works of that stout Yorkshireman, Roger Ascham. If he had any sin worth speaking of, it may have been that of fondness for cock-fighting; but against this possible item of extravagance in his nature -a humble reflex of the ferocious life of his exalted neighbours-must be set his ardent pursuit of learning amid the narrow straits of poverty. He was a Protestant not only in religion but in education; and in "The Scholemaster," left unfinished at his death in 1568, he denounced the barbarous system of teaching then in vogue, which consisted in cramming the young memory, with the result of turning out mere "lubbers," and when memory was at fault bringing down the ruthless rod on the helpless victims. advocated "education," in the true sense of the word, with all the force of his logic and wit. Multum non multa" was the motto he adopted from the Roman Pliny; the school was by his method to become "a sanctuary from fear;" it was to develop, not to stifle, the energies of the mind; it was to set the "wit" at work, to try the judgment, to train the memory to a habit of sure retentiveness. "Pleasure," said this renowned scholar, "allureth love; love hath lust to labour; labour always obtaineth his purpose."'

He

It was well for the wounded heart of the Princess that at this crisis she found a teacher like Ascham, with whom accuracy and understanding were combined principles; she learned not merely to turn an elegant expression, but to hold intelligent converse with the mighty dead of Greece and Rome. The day opened with the Greek Testament, and this was followed by the speeches of Isocrates and the tragedies of Sophocles, in

Tennyson's drama, “Queen Mary."

that the prophetic belief of Catharine Parr had never died out of her memory?

Once more she saw the tables turned against her sister she, in her youthful bloom, witnessed the fascination that her tall figure and queenly bearing, her lovely eyes, and, not least, her small, elegant, coquettish hand had upon the lords of Edward's Court; and how meagre and ungraceful a welcome had been vouchsafed to her grave sister, over whose once fair, pure face the sorrows of neglect had now wrought emaciation and wrinkles, and who, with her suite, came to a Protestant Court with rosaries and crosses, flaunting her hatred of the new faith. But Elizabeth was the pink of perfection; her solid learning and her sober garb and ways awakened in the heart of Edward, now a lad of fourteen, all the love that had slumbered since their simple childhood; he addressed her as his “sweet sister Temperance." The Reformed party looked up to the daughter of Anne Boleyn with respect, and Lady Jane Grey herself pointed to her as a model of propriety, declining to wear some apparel of cloth of gold and velvet sent by the Princess Mary; for, said she, “my Lady Elizabeth followeth God's Word." It will appear curious that the rich attire and precious jewels bequeathed by King Henry were only once looked at by her until the political necessities of Mary's reign compelled her to wear them; that "her maidenly apparel which she used in King Edward's time made the noblemen's wives ashamed to be dressed and painted like peacocks, being more moved with her most virtuous example than all that ever Faul or Peter wrote touching that matter;" and that when Mary of Guise, mother of Mary, Queen of Scots, set all the ladies of the Court to curl and double curl in French style, she alone "altered nothing, but kept her old maidenly shamefacedness." If we follow her from this display of October 1551 to her retreat at Hatfield, we shall find the same strict humility,-a slender retinue, mere trifling sums spent on clothing, a few serious books, a very little charity, and a balance to her credit at the end of the year.

The cards played by Northumberland on the pallet of the dying Prince were soon revealed. Elizabeth was to have been disposed of somehow, perhaps packed off to Denmark as wife of Christian III., while Edward signed away to this upstart duke's daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, the crown which Henry VIII. had bequeathed to his own daughters. When all was over with the Prince, they received an invitation in his name, but Elizabeth, either warned or wary, did not move from her retreat in Herts.

FROM PURITAN TO CATHOLIC.

It was everything to Elizabeth that she should stand by her father's will and appear as a firm supporter of kingly authority. The proposal of the Duke of Northumberland, after the procla mation of Lady Jane, that she should resign her title for a pension, she rejected with boldness and prudence, on the ground that she had no claim until the claim of Mary was dealt with. She made no movement whatever; she was, or pretended to be, ill, until the cause of Mary had proved victorious and the people had called that princess to the throne with an almost frantic enthusiasm. When London streets were illumined with bonfires, and the people sang and shouted and banqueted and tossed their caps on Mary's proclamation, then did this wise sister move down to London at the head of five hundred horsemen clad in the colours of the Queen.

In the triumph of the hour Mary received her warmly; but in many hearts the sight of the two sisters as they rode together through the citythe one prematurely worn, the other in the freshness of maidenhood, looking like an embodied memory of her great father-must have awakened a sigh of regret that the crown had not fallen on the younger brow. Amid all the pomp she loved so well, Elizabeth must have known that a dark arch lay before her, that Mary's narrow creed was certainly laden with disaster. The first note of quarrel sounded from the tomb of Edward, when Elizabeth refused to accompany her sister to a requiem mass in the Tower. The divorce of Catharine of Arragon was yet unrepealed, the insults and injuries of Anne Boleyn were yet unavenged; and the Queen must have known that the name of her sister, whose deep and farseeing craft she little dreamed of, was not only the watchword of the great Protestant party but far more popular than her own. With an honest simplicity Mary set herself heroically to the conversion of her sister. After a wasted month of rigorous example she determined that Elizabeth must become a Catholic or leave the Court. Elizabeth knew how to yield (as we shall afterwards observe in her dealings with the Parliament), and, with affected simplicity, shed tears of love in ample profusion at her sister's feet, declaring that she knew no creed but that in which she had been strictly trained. The result, as may be guessed, was her conversion. Mary, at least, believed her.

In the ceremonies of the coronation Elizabeth ook rank next to the Queen, dressed in a robe of

crimson velvet, and sitting in a chariot drawn by six horses and covered with cloth of silver. Her meekness, however, stopped short at the passing of an Act of Parliament repealing the divorce of Catharine of Arragon; she stormed, and for days declined to see the Queen. If simple Mary, under the influence of the wily Imperial ambassador, thought of depriving Elizabeth of her right of succession to the throne, withheld all tokens of affection, and allowed none of the Court ladies to visit her without permission, the Princess appeared serene and joyful amid the adoration of the gallant youths who thronged the Court.

Perhaps she learned of the dark suggestion instilled into Mary's mind that she ought, for the Queen and Church's sake, to be committed to the Tower, and it was with a relieved heart that she made her way with a brilliant guard of honour towards Ashridge, on the 6th of December, 1553, with a gift of Mary's richest jewels, in return for her own assurance that her belief in the old religion was conscientious. On arriving at the mansion where her love had been awakened six years before by the visit of the Admiral, she wrote, with the seeming earnestness of a true Catholic, for crosses and other appointments for her chapel. Mary complied with gladness; but deep at the bottom of her soul there rankled the memory of her mother's wrong, and the dread fear that the daughter of Anne Boleyn would be the cause of further mischief.

SENT TO THE TOWER.

There were rumours of conspiracy afloat, the centre, if not the head, of these being the handsome Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon, a scion of the White Rose. Of the twenty-six years of his life, fourteen had been spent in the Tower. Restored by Mary to the honours of his father, whom Henry VIII. had sent to the scaffold, he at once became a popular favourite, and even aspired to the hand of the Queen. Around him the plotters gathered for Mary's overthrow. First of all were the Protestants, who relied upon his marriage with the daughter of Anne Boleyn, goaded into revolt by the revival of Popery; there were the defeated supporters of Lady Jane, ready, if other course were not open, to strike for Elizabeth; there was a vast body of pure patriots, determined to prevent a foreigner like Philip of Spain from marrying their Queen and degrading England to the position of an outlying fief of his empire; and behind all these was concealed the sovereign of France, jealous of any accession of power to his great continental rival. Elizabeth could not be unaware of this deep

dissatisfaction. Bishop Gardiner, who had almos a paternal affection for Courtenay, obtained from the "young fool " a confession of something lile a plot, and that a marriage to Elizabeth had been suggested. He would sooner return to tie Tower, boasted Courtenay, than ally himself to her. The conspirators were forced into action in January. On the 25th of that month Sir Thomas Wyatt, the most conspicuous figure of the insurrection, sent advice to Elizabeth to retire from Ashridge to Donnington Castle, so as to be at a greater distance from London and from peril: so did Sir James Croft. The Queen heard of this, and invited her to court, with the promise of a hearty welcome. The Princess expressed her horror at the conspiracy, but remained at Ashridge on the plea of illness. She fortified and garrisoned the house. The defeat of Wyatt was followed by his execution on the 11th of April.

Whatever has been said as to the cruelty of Elizabeth's arrest, and although Mary's confessor," the Imperial ambassador, had shown a deadly spleen against that same princess for the safety of the Faith, Elizabeth's seizure was perfectly justifiable on the evidence in the possession of the Government. With due care, attended by physicians from the Queen, the Princess was conducted from her country residence, a little over thirty miles from London, learning by the way the terrible news of the execution of the noble and innocent companion of her childhood, Lady Jane Grey. She was ill indeed; she was seized with fainting fits, and only after four days did she reach Highgate (15th February, 1554). Her state of absolute exhaustion rendered her incapable of further progress for a week, and during that period of dreadful suspense wild reports were spread: by some that she was suffering from poison; by others that she bore with her the same shameful secret as when a girl of fourteen she had accepted the caresses of Seymour. But the haughty, self-reliant Tudor was mistress of herself again, and as she came down in her open litter from the heights of Highgate towards the city, she showed no trace of fear; while the crowds that pressed around her gazed in silence or with sighs and tears on her pale. determined face and the white dress that clothed her as a symbol of her innocence. She was imprisoned in the Palace of Whitehall.

Wyatt confessed that the aim of the conspiracy had been to place Elizabeth on the throne and save England from a hateful connection with Spain. It was decided by the Council that she should be committed to the Tower. She might