CHAPTER XIII.
GREENWICH.
"On Thames's bank, in silent thought we stood
Where Greenwich smiles upon the silver flood;
Struck with the seat that gave Eliza birth,
We kneel, and kiss the consecrated earth,
In pleasing dreams the blissful age renew,
And call Britannia's glories back to view,
Behold her cross triumphant on the main,
The guard of commerce and the dread of Spain."—Dr. Johnson's "London."
Situation and Origin of the Name of Greenwich—Early History of the Place—The Murder of Archbishop Alphege—Encampments of the Danes—The Manor of Greenwich—The Building of Greenwich Palace, or "Placentia"—Jousts and Tournaments performed here in the Reign of
Edward IV.—Henry VIII. at Greenwich—Festivities held here during this Reign—Birth of Queen Elizabeth—The Downfall of Anne
Boleyn—Marriage of Henry VIII. with Anne of Cleves—Will Sommers, the Court Jester—Queen Elizabeth's Partiality for Greenwich—The
Order of the Garter—The Queen and the Countryman—Maunday Thursday Observances—Personal Appearance of Queen Elizabeth—Sir
Walter Raleigh—Greenwich Palace settled by James I. on his Queen, Anne of Denmark—Charles I. a Resident here—The Palace during
the Commonwealth—Proposals for Rebuilding the Palace—The Foundation of Greenwich Hospital.
The town and parliamentary borough of Greenwich,
which we now enter, lies immediately eastward of
Deptford, from which parish it is separated by the
river Ravensbourne. As to the origin of the
name, Lambarde, in his "Perambulations of Kent,"
says that in Saxon times it was styled Grenevic—that is, the "green town;" and the transition from
vic to wich in the termination is easy. Lambarde
adds that in "ancient evidences" it was written
"East Greenewiche," to distinguish it from Deptford, which, as we have already stated, is called
"West Greenewiche" in old documents. Under
the name of West Greenwich it returned two members to Parliament, in the reign of Elizabeth; but
no fresh instance of such an honour is recorded in
its subsequent history. Down to about the time
of Henry V. the place was known chiefly as a
fishing-village, being adapted to that use by the
secure road or anchorage which the river afforded
at this spot. It was a favourite station with the
old Northmen, whose "host" was frequently
encamped on the high ground southward and
eastward of the town, now called Blackheath. In
the reign of King Ethelred, when the Danes made
an attack on London Bridge, a portion of their
fleet lay in the river off Greenwich, whilst the remainder was quartered in the Ravensbourne Creek
at Deptford. It was to Greenwich that, after
their raid upon Canterbury in 1011, the Danes
brought Archbishop Alphege to their camp, where
he was kept a prisoner for several months; and
the foundation of the old parish church of Greenwich, which we shall presently notice, was probably
intended to mark the public feeling as to the
memorable event that closed his personal history.
A native of England, St. Alphege was first abbot
of Bath, then Bishop of Winchester, in A.D. 984,
and twelve years later translated to the see of
Canterbury. On the storming of that city by the
Danes under Thurkill, in the year above mentioned,
he distinguished himself by the courage with which
he defended the place for twenty days against their
assaults. Treachery, however, then opened the
gates, and Alphege, having been made prisoner,
was loaded with chains, and treated with the
greatest severity, in order to make him follow
the example of his worthless sovereign Ethelred,
and purchase an ignominious liberty with gold.
Greenwich, as we have stated, at that time formed
the Danish head-quarters, and hither the archbishop was conveyed. Here he was tempted by
the offer of a lower rate of ransom; again and
again he was urged to yield by every kind of
threat and solicitation. "You press me in vain,"
was the noble Saxon's answer; "I am not the
man to provide Christian flesh for Pagan teeth
by robbing my poor countrymen to enrich their
enemies." At last the patience of the heathen
Danes was worn out; so one day, after an imprisonment of seven months' duration (the 19th
of April, 1012—on which day his festival is still
kept in the Roman Catholic Church), they sent
for the archbishop to a banquet, when their blood
was inflamed by wine, and on his appearance
saluted him with tumultuous cries of "Gold! gold!
Bishop, give us gold, or thou shalt to-day become
a public spectacle." Calm and unmoved, Alphege
gazed on the circle of infuriated men who hemmed
him in, and who presently began to strike him with
the flat sides of their battle-axes, and to fling at
him the bones and horns of the oxen that had
been slain for the feast. And thus he would have
been slowly murdered, but for one Thrum, or
Guthrum, a Danish soldier, who had been converted by Alphege, and who now in mercy smote
him with the edge of his weapon, when he fell
dead. "It is storied," writes Hone, in his "Everyday Book," quoting from the "Golden Legend,"
"that when St. Alphege was imprisoned at Greenwich, the devil appeared to him in the likeness of
an angel, and tempted him to follow him into a
dark valley, over which he wearily walked through
hedges and ditches, till at last, when he was stuck
in a most foul mire, the devil vanished, and a real
angel appeared, and told St. Alphege to go back
to prison and be a martyr; and so he gained a
martyr's crown. Then after his death, an old
rotten stake was driven into his body, and those
who drove it said, that if on the morrow the stake
was green, and bore leaves, they would believe;
whereupon the stake flourished, and the drivers
thereof repented, as they said they would, and the
body being buried at St. Paul's Church, in London,
worked miracles."
From the encampments of the Danes in this
place may possibly be traced the names of East
Coombe and West Coombe, two estates on the
borders of Blackheath—coomb, as well as comp,
signifying a camp.
The manor of Greenwich, called in the early
records East Greenwich, as we have already seen,
belonged formerly to the abbey of St. Peter at
Ghent. It remained in the possession of the
monks, however, but for a very short time, being
seized by the Crown upon the disgrace of Odo,
Bishop of Bayeux. At the dissolution of the alien
priories it was granted by King Henry V. to the
monastery of Sheen, or Richmond. Henry VI.
granted it to his uncle, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who was so pleased with the spot that he
built on it a palace, extending, with its various
courts and gardens, from the river to the foot of
the hill on which the Observatory now stands.
Upon his death it became again the property of
the Crown. The royal manors of East and West
Greenwich and of Deptford-le-Strond still belong
to the sovereign, whose chief steward has his
official residence at Macartney House, on Blackheath.
According to Lysons, in his "Environs of
London," however, there appears to have been
a royal residence here as early as the reign of
Edward I., when that monarch "made an offering
of seven shillings at each of the holy crosses in
the chapel of the Virgin Mary, at Greenwicke, and
the prince an offering of half that sum;" though
by whom the palace was erected is not known.
Henry IV. dated his will from his "Manor of
Greenwich, January 22nd, 1408," and the place
appears to have been his favourite residence. The
grant of 200 acres of land in Greenwich, made by
Henry VI. to Duke Humphrey, in 1433, was for
the purpose of enclosing it as a park. Four years
later the duke and Eleanor, his wife, obtained a
similar grant, and in it licence was given to its
owners to "embattle and build with stone" their
manor of Greenwich, as well as "to enclose and
make a tower and ditch within the same, and a
certain tower within the park to build and edify."
Accordingly, soon after this, Duke Humphrey
commenced building the tower within the park,
now the site of the Royal Observatory, which was
then called Greenwich Castle; and he likewise
rebuilt the palace on the spot where the west
wing of the Royal Hospital—or, more properly
speaking, Royal Naval College—now stands, which
he named from its agreeable situation, Pleazaunce,
or Placentia; but this name was not commonly
used until the reign of Henry VIII. Edward IV.
enlarged the park, and stocked it with deer, and
then bestowed the palace as a residence upon
his queen, Elizabeth Woodville. In this reign a
royal joust or tournament was performed at Greenwich, on the occasion of the marriage of Richard,
Duke of York, with Anne Mowbray. In 1482
the Lady Mary, the king's daughter, died here;
she was betrothed to the King of Denmark, but
died before the solemnisation of the marriage.
Henry VII. having—as shown in a previous page (fn. 1) —committed Elizabeth, queen of Edward IV., on
some frivolous pretence, to close confinement in
the Abbey at Bermondsey, where some years afterwards she ended her days amidst poverty and
solitude, the manor and appurtenances of Greenwich came into his possession. He then enlarged
the palace, adding a brick front towards the riverside; finished the tower in the park, which had
been commenced by Duke Humphrey; and built
a convent adjoining the palace for the Order of
the Grey Friars, who came to Greenwich about
the latter end of the reign of Edward IV., "from
whom," says Lambarde, "they obtained, in 1480,
by means of Sir William Corbidge, a chauntrie,
with a little Chapel of the Holy Cross." The
convent above mentioned, after its dissolution in
the reign of Henry VIII., was re-founded by Queen
Mary, but finally suppressed by Elizabeth soon
after her accession.
Henry VIII. was born at Greenwich in June,
1491, and baptised in the parish church by the
Bishop of Exeter, Lord Privy Seal. This monarch
spared no expense to render Greenwich Palace
magnificent; and, perhaps from partiality to the
place of his birth, he resided chiefly in it, neglecting for it the palace at Eltham, which had been
the favourite residence of his ancestors. Many
sumptuous banquets, revels, and solemn jousts, for
which his reign was celebrated, were held at his
"Manor of Pleazaunce." On the 3rd of June, 1509,
Henry's marriage with Catherine of Arragon was
solemnised here. Holinshed, in his "Chronicles,"
informs us how that on May-day, in 1511, "the
king lying at Grenewich, rode to the wodde to
fetch May; and after, on the same day, and the
two dayes next ensuing, the King, Sir Edward
Howard, Charles Brandon, and Sir Edward Nevill,
as challengers, held jousts against all comers. On
the other parte the Marquis Dorset, the Earls of
Essex and Devonshire, with other, as defendauntes,
ranne againste them, so that many a sore stripe
was given, and many a staffe broken." On May
15th other jousts were held here, as also in 1516,
1517, and 1526. In 1512 the king kept his
Christmas at Greenwich "with great and plentiful
cheer," and in the following year "with great
solemnity, dancing, disguisings, mummeries, in a
most princely manner." In an account of Greenwich and Hampton Court Palaces, in Chambers'
Journal, the writer observes:—"Henry VIII., up
to middle age, always kept Christmas with great
festivity at one or other of these palaces. Artificial
gardens, tents, &c., were devised in the hall, out of
which came dancers, or knights, who fought. After
a few years Henry contented himself with a duller
Christmas, and generally gambled a good deal on
the occasion. In the brief reign of Edward VI. a
gentleman named Ferrers was made the 'Lord of
Misrule,' and was very clever in inventing plays
and interludes. The money lavished on these
entertainments was enormous; one of his lordship's
dresses cost fifty-two pounds, and he had besides
a train of counsellors, gentlemen ushers, pages,
footmen, &c. Mary and Elizabeth both kept
Christmas at Hampton Court; but the entertainments of the latter were far gayer than those of
her sister."
The following amusing account of these Christmas
festivities may be appropriately quoted here from
Hall's "Chronicles:"—"The king, after Parliament
was ended, kept a solemne Christemas at Grenewicke to chere his nobles, and on the twelfe daie
at night, came into the hall a mount, called the
riche mount. The mount was sett ful of riche
flowers of silke, and especially full of brome
slippes full of coddes; the braunches were grene
sattin, and the flowers flat gold of damaske,
whiche signified Plantagenet. On the top stode
a goodly bekon, gevyng light; rounde about the
bekon sat the Kyng and five other, al in coates
and cappes of right crimosin velvet, embroudered
with flat golde of damaske; the coates set full of
spangelles of gold. And four woodhouses drewe
the mount till it came before the Quene, and
then the Kyng and his compaignie descended and
daunced; then sodainly the mount opened, and
out came sixe ladies, all in crimosin satin and
plunket embroudered with gold and perle, and
French hoddes on their heddes, and thei daunced
alone. Then the lordes of the mount took the
ladies, and daunced together; and the ladies
re-entred, and the mount closed, and so was
conveighed out of the hall. Then the Kyng
shifted hym and came to the Quene, and sat at
the banqute, which was very sumpteous." At
the Christmas festivities in 1515 was introduced
the first masquerade ever seen in England. The
following account of it and the other ceremonies
on the occasion, given in the work above quoted,
may not prove uninteresting, as it affords some
insight into the amusements of the period:—"The Kyng this yere kept the feast of Christmas
at Grenewich, wher was such abundance of viandes
served to all comers of any honest behaviors, as
hath been few times seen; and against New-yere's
night was made, in the hall, a castle, gates, towers,
and dungeon, garnished with artilerie and weapon
after the most warlike fashion; and on the frount
of the castle was written, Le Fortresse dangerus;
and within the castle wer six ladies clothed in
russet satin laid all over with leves of golde, and
every owde knit with laces of blewe silke and
golde, on ther heddes coyfes and cappes all of
gold. After this castle had been carried about
the hal [hall], and the Quene had behelde it, in
came the Kyng with five other appareled in coates,
the one halfe of russet satyn spangled with spangels
of fine gold, and the other halfe rich clothe of
gold; on ther heddes caps of russet satin, embroudered with workes of fine gold bullion. These
six assaulted the castle, the ladies seyng them so
lustie and coragious wer content to solace with
them, and upon further communicacion to yeld the
castle, and so thei came down and daunced a long
space. And after the ladies led the knightes into
the castle, and then the castle sodainly vanished
out of ther sightes. On the daie of the Epiphanie,
at nighte, the Kyng with xi other wer disguished
after the manner of Italie, called a maske, a thing
not seen afore in Englande; thei wer appareled
in garmentes long and brode, wrought all with
gold, with visers and cappes of gold; and, after
the banket doen, those maskers came in with six
gentlemen disguised in silke, bearing staffe torches,
and desired the ladies to daunce; some wer content,
and some that knewe the fashion of it refused,
because it was not a thing commonly seen. And
after thei daunced and commoned together, as
the fashion of the maske is, thei tooke ther leave
and departed, and so did the Quene and all the
ladies."
At the palace here both of the daughters of
Henry VIII., Mary and Elizabeth, first saw the
light. On the 13th of May, 1515, the marriage of
Mary, Queen Dowager of France (Henry's sister),
with Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, was publicly solemnised in the parish church of Greenwich.
Of the many splendid receptions and sumptuous
entertainments of foreign princes and ministers,
that which was given here in 1527 to the French
ambassadors appears to have been particularly
striking; so much so, in fact, that honest old John
Stow is obliged to confess that he "lacked head
of fine wit, and also cunning in his bowels," to
describe it with sufficient eloquence. This embassy, we are told, that it might correspond with
the English Court in magnificence, consisted of eight
persons of high quality, attended by six hundred
horse; they were received with the greatest honours,
"and entertained after a more sumptuous manner
than had ever been seen before." The great
tilt-yard was covered over, and converted into a
banqueting-room. The Hampton Court banquet
given by Wolsey to the same personages just
before was, says the annalist, a marvellously sumptuous affair; yet this at Greenwich excelled it "as
much as gold excels silver," and no beholder had
ever seen the like. "In the midst of the banquet
there was tourneying at the barriers, with lusty
gentlemen in complete harness, very gorgeous, on
foot; then there was tilting on horseback with
knights in armour, still more magnificent; and
after this was an interlude or disguising, made in
Latin, the players being in the richest costumes,
ornamented with the most strange and grotesque
devices. This done," Stow further tells us, "there
came such a number of the fairest ladies and
gentlewomen that had any renown of beauty
throughout the realm, in the most rich apparel
that could be devised, with whom the gentlemen
of France danced, until a gorgeous mask of gentlemen came in, who danced and masked with these
ladies. This done, came in another mask of ladies,
who took each of them one of the Frenchmen by
the hand to dance and to mask. These women
maskers every one spoke good French to the
Frenchmen, which delighted them very much to
hear their mother tongue. Thus was the night
consumed, from five of the clock until three of the
clock after midnight."
"After the king's marriage to Anne Boleyn,"
writes Charles Mackay, in his "Thames and its
Tributaries," "he took her to reside at Greenwich;
and when it pleased him to declare the marriage
publicly, and have her crowned, he ordered the
Lord Mayor to come to Greenwich in state, and
escort her up the river to London. It was on
the 19th of May, 1533, and Father Thames had
never before borne on his bosom so gallant an
array. First of all the mayor and aldermen, with
their scarlet robes and golden chains, followed
by the common councilmen in their robes, and
by all the officers of the City in their costume,
with triumphant music swelling upon the ear, and
their gay banners floating upon the breeze, walked
down to the water-side, where they found their
own barges ready to receive them, and fifty other
barges filled with the various City companies, awaiting the signal of departure. Then, amid the firing
of cannon, and the braying of trumpets, the procession started. A foist, or large flat-bottomed boat,
took the lead, impelled by several fellows dressed
out to represent devils, who at intervals spouted
out blue and red flames from their mouths, and
threw balls of fire into the water. 'Terrible and
monstrous wild men they were,' says Stow, 'and
made a hideous noise. In the midst of them sat a
great red dragon, moving itself continually about,
and discharging fire-balls of various colours into
the air, whence they fell into the water with a
hissing sound. Next came the Lord Mayor's barge,
attended by a small barge on the right side filled
with musicians. It was richly hung with cloth of
gold and silver, and bore the two embroidered
banners of the king and queen, besides escutcheons
splendidly wrought in every part of the vessel. On
the left side was another foist, in the which was a
mount, and on the mount stood a white falcon,
crowned, upon a root of gold, environed with
white and red roses, which was the Queen's device,
and about the mount sat virgins, singing and playing melodiously.' Then came the sheriffs and
the aldermen, and the common councilmen and
the City companies, in regular procession, each
barge having its own banners and devices, and
most of them being hung with arras and cloth of
gold. When they arrived at Greenwich, they cast
anchor, 'making all the while great melody.' They
waited thus until three o'clock, when the queen
appeared, attended by the Duke of Suffolk, the
Marquis of Dorset, the Earl of Wiltshire, her
father, the Earls of Arundel, Deroy, Rutland,
Worcester, Huntingdon, Sussex, Oxford, and many
other noblemen and bishops, each one in his barge.
In this order they rowed up the Thames to the
Tower stairs, where the king was waiting to receive
his bride, whom he kissed 'affectionately and with
a loving countenance,' in sight of all the people
that lined the shores of the river, and covered all
the housetops in such multitudes that Stow was
afraid to mention the number, lest posterity should
accuse him of exaggeration."
PLACENTIA, 1560.
Here, on the 7th of September following, was born,
writes Miss Lucy Aikin, "under circumstances as
peculiar as her after life proved eventful and illustrious," Elizabeth, daughter of King Henry VIII. by
his second consort, Anne Boleyn. Her birth is thus
quaintly but prettily recorded by the contemporary
historian Hall:—"On the 7th day of September,
being Sunday, between three and four o'clock in
the afternoon, the queen was delivered of a faire
ladye, on which day the Duke of Norfolk came
home to the christening." The Princess was baptised on the Wednesday following, in the midst of
great pomp and ceremony, at the neighbouring
church of the Grey Friars, but of which ancient
edifice not a single vestige is now remaining.
OLD CONDUIT, GREENWICH PARK, IN 1835.
In 1536, on May-day, after a tournament, Anne
Boleyn, the mother of the Princess Elizabeth, was
arrested here by order of the king, who saw her
drop her handkerchief, and fancied that it was
meant as a signal to one of her admirers. She
was beheaded on the 19th of the same month, on
Tower Hill, as every reader of English history
knows.
"The royal couple," observes Charles Mackay,
in his work on the "Thames and its Tributaries,"
"had continued to reside alternately at the palaces
of Placentia and Hampton Court until the year
1536, when poor Anne Boleyn became no longer
pleasing in the eyes of her lord. On May-day
in that year Henry instituted a grand tournament
in Greenwich Park, at which the queen and her
brother, Lord Rochford, were present. The sports
were at their height, when the king, without
uttering a word to his queen or anybody else,
suddenly took his departure, apparently in an illhumour, and proceeded to London, accompanied
by six domestics. All the tilters were surprised
and chagrined; but their surprise and chagrin were
light in comparison to those of Anne Boleyn. The
very same night her brother and his friends, Norris,
Brereton, Weston, and Smeton, were arrested and
conveyed up the river to the Tower, bound like
felons. On the following morning the queen
herself was arrested, and a few hours afterwards
conveyed to the same prison, where, on the fifth
day of her captivity, she indited that elegant and
feeling epistle to her tyrant, dated from her 'dolefull prison in ye Tower,' which every one has read
and hundreds have wept over. The king had long
suspected her truth; and the offence he took at
the tilting match was that she had dropped her
handkerchief, accidentally it would appear, but
which he conceived to be a signal to a paramour.
On the 19th, the anniversary of her coronation
and triumphal procession from Greenwich three
years before, her young head was smitten from her
body by the axe of the executioner, within the
precincts of that building where she had received
the public kiss, in sight of the multitudes of
London! Alas! poor Anne Boleyn!"
Here, in January, 1540, Henry VIII., "magnanimously resolving to sacrifice his own feelings
for the good of his country—for once in his life,"
as Miss Lucy Aikin remarks with dry humour, was
married "with great magnificence, and with every
outward show of satisfaction," to his fat and ungainly consort, Anne of Cleves. Three years later
the king here entertained twenty-one of the Scottish
nobility, whom he had taken prisoners at Salem
Moss, and gave them their liberty without ransom.
It was here that Will Sommers, the Court fool to
Henry VIII., was chiefly domesticated. He used
his influence with the king in a way that few Court
favourites—not being "fools"—have done before
or since. He tamed the royal tyrant's ferocity,
and occasionally, at least, urged him on to good
and kind actions, himself giving the example by
his kindness to those who came within the humble
sphere of his influence and act. Armin, in his
"Nest of Ninnies," published in 1608, thus describes this laughing philosopher: "A comely fool
indeed, passing more stately; who was this forsooth? Will Sommers, and not meanly esteemed
by the king for his merriment; his melody was of
a higher straine, and he lookt as the noone broad
waking. His description was writ on his forehead,
and yee might read it thus:—
'Will Sommers, born in Shropshire, as some say,
Was brought to Greenwich on a holy day;
Presented to the king, which foole disdayn'd
To shake him by the hand, or else ashamed;
Howe're it was, as ancient people say,
With much adoe was wonne to it that day.
Leane he was, hollow-ey'd, as all report,
And stoope he did, too; yet in all the Court
Few men were more belov'd than was this foole,
Whose merry prate kept with the king much rule.
When he was sad the king and he would rime,
Thus Will he exil'd sadness many a time.
I could describe him, as I did the rest;
But in my mind I doe not think it best.
My reason this, howe'er I do descry him,
So many know him that I may belye him;
Therefore to please all people one by one,
I hold it best to let that paines alone.
Only thus much: he was the poore man's friend,
And help'd the widdows often in the end;
The king would ever grant what he did crave,
For well he knew Will no exacting knave;
But wisht the king to do good deeds great store,
Which caus'd the Court to love him more and more.'"
It is a comfort to think that Henry VIII. had at
least one honest and kind-hearted counsellor, even
though he was a—Court fool.
Henry VIII. at one period of his reign was
so much attached to Greenwich Palace, that he
passed more of his time there than at any of his
other royal abodes. He adorned and enlarged it
at considerable expense, and made it so magnificent
as to cause Leland, the antiquary, to exclaim with
rapture, as he gazed upon it—
"How bright the lofty seat appears,
Like Jove's great palace, paved with stars!
What roofs! what windows charm the eye!
What turrets, rivals of the sky!"
Such, at least, is Hasted's translation of Leland's
Latin verses. During the reign of the two succeeding sovereigns, Greenwich lost that renown for
gaiety which it had acquired from the festivals
and constant hospitality of Henry VIII. Here
his son, the boy-king, Edward VI., died on the
6th of July, 1553, not without some suspicion of
poison; and here Dudley sent for the Lord Mayor,
and aldermen and merchants of London, and
showed them a forged will, or letters patent, giving
the crown to the Lady Jane Grey, who had married
his son.
Mary, too, during her brief reign, was an occasional resident at the Palace of Placentia. It is
recorded that on one occasion of her sojourn here
a very singular accident occurred. The captain of
a vessel proceeding down the Thames, observing
the banner of England floating from the walls,
fired the customary salute in honour of royalty.
By some oversight the gun was loaded, and the ball
was driven through the wall into the queen's apartments, to the great terror of herself and her ladies.
None of them, however, received any hurt.
With the reign of Elizabeth the glories of
Greenwich revived. It was her birthplace, and
the favourite residence of her unfortunate mother;
and during the summer months it became, for the
greater part of her reign, the principal seat of her
Court. In the year of her accession she here
reviewed a large force of companies, raised by the
citizens of London in consequence of the Duke of
Norfolk's conspiracy. The number of men present
on this occasion was 1,400, and the proceedings
included a mock fight in the park, which, we are
told, "presented all the appearances of a regular
battle, except the spilling of blood." The following is the account of the "entertainment," as told
by Miss Agnes Strickland, in her "Lives of the
Queens of England:"—" The Londoners were so
lovingly disposed to their maiden sovereign, that,
when she withdrew to her summer bowers at
Greenwich, they were fain to devise all sorts of
gallant shows to furnish excuses for following her
there, to enjoy from time to time the sunshine
of her presence. They prepared a sort of civic
tournament in honour of her Majesty, July 2nd,
each company supplying a certain number of men
at arms, 1,400 in all, all clad in velvet and chains
of gold, with guns, morris pikes, halberds, and
flags, and so marched they over London Bridge,
into the Duke of Suffolk's park, at Southwark,
where they mustered before the Lord Mayor;
and, in order to initiate themselves into the hardships of a campaign, they lay abroad in St. George's
Fields all that night. The next morning they set
forward in goodly array, and entered Greenwich
Park at an early hour, where they reposed themselves till eight o'clock, and then marched down
into the lawn, and mustered in their arms, all
the gunners being in shirts of mail. It was not,
however, till eventide that her Majesty deigned to
make herself visible to the doughty bands of
Cockaine—chivalry they cannot properly be called,
for they had discreetly avoided exposing civic horsemanship to the mockery of the gallant equestrians
of the Court, and trusted no other legs than their
own with the weight of their valour and warlike
accoutrements, in addition to their velvet gaberdines and chains of gold, in which this midsummer
bevy had bivouacked in St. George's Fields on the
preceding night. At five o'clock the queen came
into the gallery of Greenwich Park gate, with the
ambassadors, lords, and ladies—a fair and numerous company—to witness a tilting match, in
which some of the citizens, and several of her
grace's courtiers took part."
While Elizabeth kept Court at her natal palace
of Greenwich, she regularly celebrated the national
festival on St. George's Day, with great pomp,
as the Sovereign of the Order of the Garter,
combining, according to the custom of the good
old times, a religious service with the picturesque
ordinances of this chivalric institution. "All her
Majesty's chapel came through the hall in copes,
to the number of thirty, singing, 'O God the
Father of heaven,' &c., the outward court to the
gate being strewed with green rushes."
Elizabeth's first chapter of the Order of the
Garter was certainly held in St. George's Hall, at
Greenwich; for we find that the same afternoon she
went to Baynard's Castle, the Earl of Pembroke's
place, and supped with him, and after supper she
took boat, and was rowed up and down on the
river Thames, hundreds of boats and barges rowing
about her, and thousands of people thronging the
banks of the river to look upon her Majesty, all
rejoicing at her presence, and partaking of the music
and sights on the Thames. It seems there was an
aquatic festival, in honour of the welcome appearance of their new and comely liege lady on the
river; for the trumpets blew, drums beat, flutes
played, guns were discharged, and fireworks played
off, as she moved from place to place. This continued till ten o'clock, when the queen departed
home.
Great hospitality was exercised in the palace at
Greenwich, which no stranger who had ostensible
business there, from the noble to the peasant, ever
visited, it is said, without being invited to either
one table or the other, according to his degree.
No wonder that Elizabeth was a popular sovereign,
and her days were called "golden;" for the way to
an Englishman's heart is a good dinner.
The royal park was the scene of a good story,
thus told by Miss Agnes Strickland:—" One of
her majesty's purveyors having been guilty of some
abuses in the county of Kent, on her removal
to Greenwich, a sturdy countryman, watching the
time when she took her morning walk with the
lords and ladies of her household, placed himself
conveniently for catching the royal eye and ear,
and when he saw her attention perfectly disengaged,
began to cry, in a loud voice, 'Which is the
queen?' Whereupon, as her manner was, she
turned herself towards him, but he continuing his
clamorous question, she herself answered, 'I am
your queen; what wouldst thou have with me?'
'You,' rejoined the farmer, archly gazing upon her
with a look of incredulity, not unmixed with admiration—'you are one of the rarest women I ever
saw, and can eat no more than my daughter Madge,
who is thought the properest lass in our parish,
though short of you; but that Queen Elizabeth I
look for devours so many of my hens, ducks, and
capons, that I am not able to live.' The queen,
who was exceedingly indulgent to all suits, offered
through the medium of a compliment, took this
homely admonition in good part, inquired the purveyor's name, and finding that he had acted with
great dishonesty and injustice, caused condign
punishment to be inflicted upon him;" indeed, our
author adds that "she ordered him to be hanged,
his offence being in violation of a statute-law
against such abuses."
Holinshed relates in his "Chronicle," that in
1562, at the reception of the Danish ambassadors
here, there was a bull-bait, at the end of which the
people were delighted with the sight of a horse
with an ape on his back—a sight which, no doubt,
gave birth to the sign named among those of
London two centuries ago, in the Spectator, (fn. 2) the
"Jackanapes on Horseback."
The old annalists make constant mention of other
proceedings of Elizabeth at Greenwich. One interesting ceremony which has been described was
that enacted on Maundy Thursday, on March 19,
1572. The Court being then located here, the
queen, according to ancient custom, washed the
feet of the poor on that festival, in remembrance
of our Saviour washing the feet of the apostles.
"Elizabeth will scarcely be blamed in modern
times," writes Agnes Strickland, "because she
performed the office daintily. The palace hall,"
she continues, "was prepared with a long table on
each side, with benches, carpets, and cushions,
and a cross-table at the upper end, where the
chaplain stood. Thirty-nine poor women, being
the same number as the years of her Majesty's age
at that time, entered, and were seated on the
forms; then the yeoman of the laundry, armed
with a fair towel, took a silver basin filled with
warm water and sweet flowers, and washed all
their feet, one after the other; he likewise made a
cross a little above the toes, and kissed each foot
after drying it; the sub-almoner performed the
same ceremony, and the queen's almoner also.
Then her Majesty entered the hall, and went to a
priedieu and cushion, placed in the space between
the two tables, and remained during prayers and
singing, and while the gospel was read, how Christ
washed His apostle's feet. Then came in a procession of thirty-nine of the queen's maids of
honour and gentlewomen, each carrying a silver
basin with warm water, spring flowers, and sweet
herbs, having aprons and towels withal. Then
her Majesty, kneeling down on the cushion placed
for the purpose, proceeded to wash, in turn, one of
the feet of each of the poor women, and wiped
them with the assistance of the fair bason-bearers;
moreover, she crossed and kissed them, as the
others had done. Then, beginning with the first,
she gave each a sufficient broad cloth for a gown,
and a pair of shoes, a wooden platter, wherein was
half a side of salmon, as much ling, six red herrings, two manchetts, and a mazer, or wooden cup,
full of claret. All these things she gave separately.
Then each of her ladies delivered to her Majesty
the towel and the apron used in the ablution, and
she gave each of the poor women one a-piece.
This was the conclusion of the ladies' official duty
of the maundy. The treasurer of the royal chamber,
Mr. Heneage, brought her Majesty thirty-nine small
white leather purses, each with thirty-nine pence,
which she gave separately to every poor woman.
Mr. Heneage then supplied her with thirty-nine red
purses, each containing twenty shillings; this she
distributed to redeem the gown she wore, which
by ancient custom was given to one chosen among
the number." Our readers will remember that part,
but part only, of the same ceremony is still annually
performed by some representative of the sovereign
on each Maunday Thursday, at Whitehall. (fn. 3)
In Hentzner's "Itinerarium" ("A Journey into
England"), written at the close of the sixteenth
century, will be found a graphic account of the
court of Queen Elizabeth, at Greenwich Palace,
in the latter years of her reign. The writer tells
us how he was admitted to the Presence Chamber,
which he found hung with rich tapestry, and the
floor," after the English fashion, strewed with
hay" [rushes]. It was a Sunday, when the attendance of visitors was greatest; and there were
waiting in the hall the Archbishop of Canterbury,
the Bishop of London, a great number of councillors
of state, officers of the court, foreign ministers,
noblemen, gentlemen, and ladies. At the door
stood a gentleman dressed in velvet, with a gold
chain, ready to introduce to the queen any person
of distinction who came to wait upon her. The
queen passed through the hall on her way to
prayers, preceded in regular order by gentlemen,
barons, earls, knights of the Garter, all richly
dressed and bareheaded. Immediately before the
queen came the Lord Chancellor, with the seals in
a red silk purse, between two officers bearing the
royal sceptre and the sword of state. The queen
wore a dress of white silk, bordered with pearls
of the size of beans, her train borne by a
marchioness. As she turned on either side, all
fell on their knees. She "spoke graciously first to
one, then to another, whether foreign ministers, or
those who attended for different reasons, in English,
French, and Italian." The ladies of the court,
"very handsome and well-shaped, and for the
most part dressed in white, followed next to her,
and fifty gentlemen pensioners, with gilt battle-axes,
formed her guard." In the ante-chamber, next
the hall, she received petitions most graciously;
and to the acclamation, "Long live Queen
Elizabeth!" she answered, "I thank you, my good
people." After the service in the chapel, which
lasted only half an hour, the queen returned in
the same state as she had entered. The table had
been set "with great solemnity" in the banquetingroom, but the queen dined in her inner and private
chamber. "The queen dines and sups alone, with
very few attendants; and it is very seldom that
anybody, foreign or native, is admitted at that time,
and then only at the intercession of somebody in
power." The German traveller is particular in
describing with exact minuteness the personal
appearance of the queen, who was then in her
sixty-fifth year, and "very majestic:" "her face,"
he says, "was oblong, fair but wrinkled; her eyes
small, yet black and pleasant; her nose a little
hooked; her lips narrow, and her teeth black (a
defect the English seem subject to, from their too
great use of sugar). She had in her ears two
pearls with very rich drops; she wore false hair,
and that red. Upon her head she had a small
crown. Her bosom was uncovered, as all the
English ladies have it till they marry; and she had
a necklace of exceeding fine jewels." We may
add here that in Walpole's "Catalogue of Royal
and Noble Authors" there is a curious head of
Queen Elizabeth when old and haggard, done with
great exactness from a coin, the die of which was
broken. A striking feature in the queen's face
was her high nose, which is not justly represented
in many pictures and prints of her. She was
notoriously vain of her personal charms, and,
affirming that shadows were unnatural in painting,
she ordered one artist, Isaac Oliver, to paint her
without any. There are three engravings of her
Majesty after this artist, two by Vertue, and one, a
whole length, by Crispin de Pass, who published
portraits of illustrious personages of this kingdom
during the sixteenth century.
Greenwich Palace was, as we have just seen,
much mixed up with the domestic life of Queen
Elizabeth; but it was not all sunshine with her, as
the following episode, told by Miss Agnes Strickland, will show:—"The terror of the plague was
always uppermost in the minds of all persons in
the sixteenth century, at every instance of sudden
death. One day, in November, 1573, Queen
Elizabeth was conversing with her ladies in her
privy chamber, at Greenwich Palace, when, on a
sudden, the 'mother of the maids' was seized
with illness, and expired directly in her presence.
Queen Elizabeth was so much alarmed at this
circumstance, that in less than an hour she left
her palace at Greenwich, and went to Westminster,
where she remained."
On the return of Sir Walter Raleigh to England,
with a high reputation for courage and discretion,
after successfully quelling the disturbances of the
Desmonds, in Munster, he was introduced to Queen
Elizabeth at Greenwich Palace, and soon obtained
a prominent position in the Court. His advancement is said to have been greatly promoted by
an almost fantastic display of gallantry, which he
made on one occasion before the queen. He was,
it is stated by some historians, "attending her
Majesty in a walk, when she came to a place where
her progress was obstructed by a mire. Without a
moment's hesitation he took off his rich plush
cloak, and spread it on the ground for her footcloth. She was highly pleased with this practical
flattery, and it was afterwards remarked that this
sacrifice of a cloak gained him many a good suit."
The grounds of Saye's Court have been fixed upon
by some writers as the scene of this little episode;
others, however, state that Raleigh placed his
cloak on the landing-stage opposite the palace at
Greenwich on one occasion when her Majesty
alighted from her barge, the customary floor-cloth
having by some oversight been forgotten.
The antiquarian reader will not have forgotten
the fact that ladies, when as yet coaches had not
been invented and introduced into England, were
accustomed to make their journeys on horseback,
seated on pillions behind some relative or servingman. In this way Queen Elizabeth, when she
went up to London from her palace at Greenwich,
used to seat herself behind her Lord Chancellor or
Chamberlain.
In 1605 James I. settled Greenwich Palace and
Park on his queen, Anne of Denmark, who forthwith rebuilt with brick the garden front of the
palace, and laid the foundation of a building near
the park, called the "House of Delight," in which
the governor of Greenwich Hospital afterwards
resided, and which now forms the central building
of the Royal Naval Schools. In the following
year the Princess Mary, daughter of James I., was
christened at Greenwich with great solemnity.
Charles I. resided much at Greenwich previous
to the breaking out of the civil war; and Henrietta
Maria so "finished and furnished" the house which
Anne of Denmark had begun, that, as Philipott,
the Kentish historian, wrote, "it far surpasseth
all other houses of the kind in England." Inigo
Jones was employed as the architect to superintend
the work carried on in the building, and it was
completed in 1635. Rubens was frequently in
attendance on the Court of Charles at Greenwich;
and it is stated that Queen Henrietta was anxious
to form a cabinet of pictures here, and to have the
ceilings and walls of her oratory and other rooms
painted by Jordaens or Rubens, and that negotiations were entered into with those painters for the
purpose, but pecuniary or political difficulties intervened. Most of the ceilings in the palace were
subsequently painted for Charles I. by Gentileschi.
Some idea of the general external appearance of
the palace at this time may be obtained from what
is called "The Long View of Greenwich," printed
in 1637; it is to be seen among the etchings of
Hollar, in a few choice collections. It was originally dedicated to Queen Henrietta Maria; and it
is said that Hollar worked this plate for a publisher
for thirty shillings! The latter, finding the queen's
unpopularity to interfere with the sale of the plate,
induced Hollar to erase the dedication, and to substitute in its place a copy of verses which are found
in some impressions. In the foreground is the
observatory hill and park, with ladies promenading,
and in the distance we see the parish church, and
the shipping on the river. The palace, by the
river-side, appears as an irregular Gothic structure
with two towers. In the middle distance stands a
more modern mansion, apparently in the middle of
a corn-field. As already mentioned by us, (fn. 4) over
the buttery there formerly stood two rude wooden
figures, known as "Beer" and "Gin;" they are
now in the Tower of London.
OLD PALACE OF GREENWICH, IN 1630.
King Charles left Greenwich palace with the fatal
resolution of taking his journey northward, and
the turbulent state of the times prevented him
from again visiting it. In the night of the 3rd of
November, 1642, three companies of foot and a
troop of horse were sent by the Parliament to
search the town and palace of Greenwich for concealed arms; but, says Lysons, "they found only a
few two-handed swords without scabbards." On
the king's death, in 1648, the palace passed out of
the royal keeping. In 1652, the Commonwealth
requiring funds for their navy, the House of Commons resolved "that Greenwich House, park, and
lands should be immediately sold for ready money."
A survey and valuation of them was ordered to be
made, just as had been done in the case of Hyde
Park, (fn. 5) and finally an ordinance was passed for
carrying the sale into execution. Particulars were
accordingly made out of the "Hoby stables" and
other smaller premises belonging to the palace,
which were sold, but no further proceedings as to
the rest of the estate were taken at this time.
John Evelyn, in his "Diary," under date of April
29, 1652, writes: "We went this afternoone to see
the Queene's House at Greenwich, now given by
the rebells to Bulstrode Whitlock, one of their
unhappy counsellors and keepers of pretended
liberties." In 1654, when the Crown lands were
sold, Greenwich was reserved, and eventually it was
appropriated to the Lord Protector as a residence.
On the restoration of Charles II., in 1660, it reverted to the Crown, with the other royal demesnes.
The king, finding the old palace greatly decayed
by time, and the want of necessary repairs during
the Commonwealth, ordered it to be taken down,
and a new palace was commenced in its place.
One wing of this new palace was completed at a
cost of £36,000, and now forms, with additions,
the west wing of the present edifice. Sir John
Denham, the poet, was at that time the royal surveyor, or official architect; but as he knew little
of building practically, he employed Webb, the
son-in-law of Inigo Jones, from whose papers his
designs are said to have been made. Evelyn
evidently did not think much of Sir John's qualifications as an architect, for he writes in his
"Diary," under date of October 19, 1661: "I
went to London to visite my Lord of Bristoll,
having first been (sic) with Sir John Denham (his
Majesty's surveyor), to consult with him about the
placing of his palace at Greenwhich, which I would
have had built between the river and the Queenes
house, so as a large square cutt should have let in
the Thames like a bay; but Sir John was for
setting it on piles at the very brink of the water,
which I did not assent to, and so came away,
knowing Sir John to be a better poet than architect."
A VIEW OF THE ANCIENT ROYAL PALACE CALLED PLACENTIA.
(From a Print published by the Society of Antiquaries in 1767, after an Early Drawing.)
"His Majesty," writes Evelyn, under date of
January 24, 1662, "entertained me with his intentions of building his Palace of Greenwich, and quite
demolishing the old one; on which I declared my
thoughts." What his "thoughts" were, he does
not tell us; but probably they were in accordance
with those of his brother "diarist," Samuel Pepys,
who, on March 4th, 1663–4, writes: "At Greenwich I observed the foundation laying of a very
great house for the king, which will cost a great
deal of money." On the 26th of July of the following year, Pepys writes: "To Greenwich, where I
heard the king and duke are come by water this
morn from Hampton Court. They asked me
several questions. The king mightily pleased with
his new buildings there." A few years later—viz.,
in March, 1669—Pepys, after recording a visit paid
to him by "Mr. Evelyn, of Deptford, a worthy
good man," and his own visit subsequently to
Woolwich, goes on to tell us how that he returned
"thence to Greenwich by water, and there landed
at the king's house, which goes on slow, but is very
pretty."
The widowed Queen of Charles I., Henrietta
Maria, spent several months at Greenwich after the
restoration of her son; bonfires were lit to greet
her on her arrival here. She continued to keep
her Court in England till July, 1665, when she
finally embarked for France. She died at Colombe,
near Paris, in 1669; and her son, James II., says
of her that "she excelled in all the good qualities of
a good wife, a good mother, and a good Christian."
Notwithstanding the apparent eagerness of King
Charles II., at first, for the construction of the
palace and the improvements of the grounds, he
seems to have given up the idea of continuing the
work after the completion of the wing mentioned
above, and nothing further was done to the building either by him or his successor to the crown.
As William III. divided his time between Kensington and Hampton Court, Greenwich was no
longer thought of as a royal residence; but Queen
Mary conceived even a nobler use for the then
unfinished building. Charles II. had, in 1682,
laid the foundation of the hospital at Chelsea for
disabled soldiers; but this was only completed by
William and Mary in 1690. Mary, we are told,
thought there should be a similar hospital for disabled seamen. "Amid the rejoicings called forth
by the great victory of La Hogue, in May, 1692,
the feelings of the queen were harrowed by the
large number of maimed and wounded soldiers
landed at our naval ports. William was in
Holland, and Mary, as his vicegerent, after making
every possible provision for the wounded, now
publicly declared in her husband's name that the
building commenced by Charles should be completed, and should be a retreat for seamen disabled
in the service of their country." As such we shall
deal with it in the following chapter.