LITMIR.BIZ

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should be the playmate of the sweet-tempered little fellow who was his only son and heir. Lady Margaret was troubled because Edward’s best coat was “only tinsel” instead of cloth of gold, and because he had “never a good jewel to set on his cap;” but this was nothing to the little prince so long as he had his sister. Lady Margaret wrote to the king that she wished he could have seen the prince, for “the minstrels played, and his Grace danced and played so wantonly that he could not stand still.” Elizabeth taught him to speak, and for his sake she even conquered her dislike to the “prick of the needle,” for when his second birthday came and the rich nobles of the kingdom sent him jewels and all sorts of beautiful things made of gold and silver, she gave him a tiny cambric shirt, every stitch of which had been made by the little fingers of his six-year-old sister. Mary sent him a cloak of crimson satin. The sleeves were of tinsel. It was heavily embroidered with gold thread and with pansies made of pearls.

      It was about this time that King Henry sent an officer of high rank expressly to bestow the royal blessing upon the two princesses. On his return he reported to the king the grateful message that Mary had sent.

      “And how found you her Grace, the Lady Elizabeth?” asked King Henry.

      “Truly, your Majesty,” replied the chancellor, “were the Lady Elizabeth not the offspring of your illustrious Highness, I could in no way account for her charm of manner and of speech. ‘I humbly thank his most excellent Majesty,’ she said, ‘that he has graciously deigned to think upon me, who am verily his loving child and his true and faithful subject.’”

      “She is but six years old,” mused Henry. “Were those her words?”

      “I would gladly have had pen and paper,” answered the chancellor, “that no one of them should have been lost, but I give the message as it has remained in my memory. She asked after your Majesty’s welfare with as great a gravity as she had been forty years old.”

      More than one trouble came to the older princess. Soon after the king had sent his blessing to the two sisters, a councilor came to Mary with a message of quite another character.

      “It is his Majesty’s pleasure,” said he, “that your Grace should receive the Duke Philip of Germany as a suitor for your hand.” This German duke was a Protestant, and Mary was a firm Roman Catholic, but she dared not refuse to obey the king’s bidding.

      “I would gladly remain single,” said she, “but I am bound to obey his Majesty. I would, too, that the duke were of my own faith, but in so weighty a matter I can do naught save to commit myself to my merciful father and most sovereign lord, knowing that his goodness and wisdom will provide for me far better than I could make provision for myself.”

      The duke sent her a beautiful diamond cross, but before a year had passed, she was bidden by the king to return the gift. Henry had wedded a German wife, and had treated her so badly that Mary’s betrothal was broken.

      There were sad times in England in those days. When Henry VIII. wished to marry Anne Boleyn, he asked the Pope to declare that his marriage to the mother of Mary was not lawful. The Pope refused. Henry then asked the opinion of several universities in England, Italy, and France, and it is probable that his question was accompanied by either bribes or threats. The universities declared the first marriage unlawful, but the Pope would not yield. Henry then declared that the English church should be free from the Pope, and that the king himself was properly the supreme head of the church in his own kingdom.

      There were tyrants, and most cruel tyrants before the days of Henry VIII., but they were generally satisfied to rule men’s deeds. Henry was determined to rule his subjects’ most secret thoughts. If he suspected that a man did not believe that his divorce was right, he would pursue the man and force him to express his opinion. If the man was too honest to tell a falsehood, he was imprisoned or executed, for Henry said that it was treason to refuse to acknowledge that the king of England was at the head of the church of England. Many of the noblest, truest men in the land were put to death for this reason. This was not all, for although Henry would not acknowledge the authority of the Pope, he nevertheless declared that he was a Roman Catholic, and that all Protestants were heretics and deserved to be burned to death. The result of this strange reasoning was that if a man was a Protestant, he ran the risk of being burned at the stake, while if he was a Roman Catholic, he was in danger of being hanged.

      Mary was often at the court. She must have heard her father’s brutal threats against all those who did not love his will. One after another of her childhood’s friends was beheaded or burned at the stake; her old teacher, her mother’s chaplain, and the beloved countess to whose care her mother had confided her as an infant. Not a word or look of criticism might she venture, for the despot would hardly have hesitated to send his own daughter to the stake if she had dared to resist him in this matter.

      The case was quite different with Elizabeth and Edward. They knew little of burnings and executions. Whatever of gentleness and kindness was in King Henry was shown to the children, especially to his son. The little ones played and studied together. “My sweetest and dearest sister” was the little boy’s name for Elizabeth. She was a favorite wherever she went. The king married three times after the death of Jane Seymour, and each of these stepmothers was fond of the merry, pleasing little girl.

      The first of the three was the German princess. She was rather slow and dull, and Henry took a great dislike to her. When the little Elizabeth, then about seven years old, begged to be allowed to come to court to see the queen, King Henry roared, “Tell her that her own mother was so different from this woman that she ought not to wish to see her.” This was the only time that he ever spoke of Anne Boleyn.

      Elizabeth met the new stepmother after a short delay, and this lady was so charmed with the little maiden that she begged to see much of her, the only favor that she ever asked of the king. The next wife was a distant relative of Anne Boleyn, and when she dined in public, she gave the place opposite herself to the child. “She is of my own blood,” said the queen, “and it is only right that she should be next to me.”

      At Henry’s last marriage Mary and the two children were present, and this new queen became like the others a warm friend of Elizabeth, who was now fully ten years old. Henry must have felt some affection for Anne Boleyn, for he was never displeased to hear the praises of her daughter. He seemed beginning to have a real fondness for the child, and one day he looked at her keenly and said:—

      “There’s more than one that would be glad to have you. Would you be married, Elizabeth, or would you stay with your books and birds and viols and lutes?”

      “I would fain do that which your Majesty bids,” answered the child. “I know well that what your Majesty commands is ever the thing which is best.”

      “She’s a child of wisdom,” declared Henry with a smile of gratification, “and I’ll do more for her than anyone can guess.” Then said he to Elizabeth:—

      “It shall be brought about that you shall become the bride of some great man. If any German emperor plays you false, he shall feel the weight of my hand. How would it please your Grace to marry a prince of Portugal?” he asked playfully, for he was in a rarely good humor, “or perhaps Philip of Spain? Philip will be a king, and he would make you a great lady. Would it please you to wed one that would make you a queen?”

      “Far rather would I wed one that I could make a king,” answered the child, drawing herself up to her full height.

      “What!” cried the king, his face changing in a moment, and his eyes flashing ominously. The girl seemed looking not at the king, but far away into some distant future. She did not see the warning glance of the queen.

      “I would fain be so beautiful and so great,” said she, “that whoever came near me should admire me and should beg me to become his wife. I would say no to one and all, but by and by I would choose one for myself. Him I would raise to be as great as I, and I would——” Elizabeth of England, even as a child, rarely forgot herself, but she was absorbed in the picture that she was making, and she stopped only when she felt the silence and saw her father’s wrathful gaze fixed upon her. His eyes were

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