QUEEN ELIZABETH'S MAIDS OF HONOUR.*
To read this exceedingly light and vivacious book after studying the more serious works on Queen Elizabeth which have been published lately is like taking up a copy of Vogue after reading the Quarterly Itericw. Whether Miss Violet Wilson has absolute authority for all the entertaining stories she tells may be doubted, but perhaps it is sufficient that they should be entertaining and give us an extraordinarily vivid picture of the Court life of the day. We see " Gloriana " gorgeous in her ruffs and her farthin- gales, surrounded by a bevy of beautiful maidens all dressed alike in shimmering white and silver, which must have thrown the magnificent figure of the auburn-haired Queen into high relief. Indeed, Elizabeth could never bear to part with her wonderful colour scheme, and in later years took to a series of wigs which she was clever enough to adapt in size and shape to match her different gowns. Let no one think that tho art of make-up is a modern symptom of decadence. The ladies of Queen Elizabeth's Court painted their faces with perfect sang- froid, as, indeed, we may gather from the tart interchange of repartee between Viola and Olivia in Twelfth Night, when Olivia is persuaded to raise the veil which she has assumed to receive the Duke's messenger. " Excellently done, if God did all," exclaims Viola, to which Olivia replies, " 'Tis ingrain, air; 'twill endure wind and weather." Wind and weather were the last things which Elizabeth's maids of honour Could afford to face, but we may hope that, at any rate, in these early days the young Queen and her maidens formed a picturesque group which owed little to the compounders of cosmetics. There is a charming picture of the girls vatting on gay hued cushions in the winter evenings and crowding round the chief gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber, Mrs. Blanche Parry—who obviously exercised all the functions of duenna to the maids of honour—to have their fortunes told. Light-hearted these young ladies certainly were, for Sir Francis Knollys, the Treasurer of the royal household, was so unfortunate as to lodge next door to their dormitory, and the gossips of the day had it that he was much disturbed by the noise next door, for " the Mayas of Honour used to frisk and hey about in the next room to his extreme disquieto at nights." Certainly Elizabethan ideas of comfort differed extremely from ours, and the modern reader,
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• Queen Maids of licnotei. By Violet wrlscn. Lambe : Lane. 1165. Lida •
accustomed to wardrobes and hangers on which to support her garments when not in use, will wonder how the maids managed their beautiful costumes, herded as they were into one large dormitory in which all toilet operations had to be undertaken.
How is it possible to appear in shining garments of white shot
with silver when the only place you can dress in is a dormitory filled with other girls and their clothes ? We may surmise that to serve a mistress who possessed more than one hundred gowns a considerable variety of costumes was necessary, and gowns must have taken a huge amount of cupboard room when they were so voluminous as those which were in fashion in the sixteenth
eentory I Although Elizabeth required her ladies to do her credit, yet the richness of their apparel must be restrained into a fitting background for her own glories. There is an amusing anecdote of Lady Mary Howard, who had a gorgeous velvet dress embroidered with pearls in which she stood out from the background of the silver-clad maids of honour nearly as con- spicuously as did the Queen herself. The Queen insisted on trying it on, and as she was a great deal too big for it, Lady Mary Howard, when asked whether it " was not made too short and ill-becoming," agreed with rather too much alacrity. " Why, then,' snapped the Queen, if it becomes not me as being too short, I am minded it shall never become you as being too fine, so it fitteth neither well.'" No wonder the loss of such a beautiful garment made its owner so angry that she risked even the Queen's wrath by neglecting the duties of her office.
It is quite a relief to turn from all this amusing, though trivial, gossip to the chapter on the Armada, in which the author dwells chiefly on the feelings and preparations of the civilian population. The extreme similarity of the events of August, 1585, and of August, 1914, is most striking. " The English gentry of the younger sort' offered themselves as volunteers, and taking leave of their parents, wives and children, did with incredible cheerfulness hire ships at their own charge, and, in pure love to their country, joined the grand fleet in vast numbers.' " Besides the preparation for defence, some pre- cautions were necessary with regard to the questions of the feeding of the people and to the prices of food :— -
" To provide for the feeding of so many extra people, and prevent a sudden rise in prices, the Privy Council wrote a letter to the Lord Mayor, ' requiring him to take order with the bakers, brewers, and all other victuallers in and about the cittie that they make forthwith an extraordinary provision of all sorts of victualles against the repair thereto of certain numbers of horsemen and footmen appointed to garde her majestie's person, so as by his lordship's care there be no scarcetio or lecke, and to avoid exaction or enhansmont of prices more then is cause, to appoint certain aldermen to have charge of the ordering and containinge of prices of victualles within a competent and reasonable rate.' " In the well-known visit which the Queen paid to the camp at Tilbury, the maids of honour were disappointed in their
hopes of being present when the Queen reviewed the troops, " as Elizabeth decided to go alone. The ladies decked out their mistress in one of her most magnificent dresses, over which, to show a martial spirit, she donned a corselet of polished steel. As the white-plumed helmet proved both uncomfortable and unbecoming, she rode forth bareheaded, and it was carried
behind by a page." The author informs us that, " to keep the country informed of the trend of events during such a critical time, Elizabeth and her ministers issued a newspaper called the English Merearie, which informed a trembling nation
' that the Spanish Armada was seen on the 20th ult. in the chops of the Channel, making for its entrance with a favourable gale.' " Miss Wilson ought to know that this is a notorious forgery—the work of Philip Yorke. When after the defeat of the Armada the Queen went in state to St. Paul's to give public thanksgiving, the city companies lined one side of the road, and gentlemen of the Inns of Court the opposite. " Mark the Courtiers,' said Francis Bacon, standing with the lawyers ; those who bow first to the citizens are in debt ; those who bow first to us are at law." Miss Wilson, however, fails to give
her authority for this amusing anecdote. Although the Queen was getting on for sixty at this time, the frolics at Court were quickly resumed after the defeat of the Armada. We cannot, however, imagine why the author in her description of Elizabeth Vere's wedding to the Earl of Derby should think it necessary to give a synopsis of the plot of the Midsummer Night's Dream. It may well be true that the play was written for this occasion, but the modern reader of this volume hardly requires two pages of description of the episode of Pyramus and Thisbe. The true
history of Mary Fitton, which is given in some of the later chapters, is not particularly edifying, but the portrait of this lady, which appears as the frontispiece to the book, shows her as extremely attractive according to the standards of that day and quite a possible candidate for the honour of being " the dark lady of the sonnets."
The book ends with the Essex tragedy, and the author shows us a pathetic picture of Elizabeth still making a brave show of vigour, and still surrounded by young maids of honour clad in the same white and silver as their mothers and grandmothers had been before them. The last scene at Richmond will cause the reader to feel once more that strange mixture of admira- tion, contempt and pity which Elizabeth and her failings never fail to inspire. " The word went round that Her Majesty had commanded a mirror to be brought to her. Ladies of the bedchamber and maids of honour alike trembled, for the Queen had not seen her reflection for twenty years or more. Elizabeth took the glass so reluctantly brought to her, and saw not the beautiful reflection of her memory, but a lean, haggard, wrinkled old woman." Such was the tragedy of this great woman sovereign. In the end she thought only of her faded beauty, not of the inestimable service which she had rendered to England, and yet England throughout her life had been her passion. Was it, indeed, the authentic fire of patriotism which had burned in her veins, or had she merely been moved by a conception of herself as a wise and beautiful figure swaying the whole civilized world by her personal charm and her statecraft ?
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