I. ELIZABETH’S MOTHER

1533-1536

Greenwich.–The hospital.–Its inmates.–Greenwich Observatory.–Manner of taking time.–Henry the Eighth.–His character.–His six wives.–Anne Boleyn.–Catharine of Aragon.–Henry discards her.–Origin of the English Church.–Henry marries Anne Boleyn.–Birth of Elizabeth.–Ceremony of christening.–Baptism of Elizabeth.–Grand procession.–Train-bearers.–The church.–The silver font.–The presents.–Name of the infant princess.–Elizabeth made Princess of Wales.–Matrimonial schemes.–Jane Seymour.–The tournament.–The king’s suspicions.–Queen Anne arrested.–She is sent to the Tower.–Sufferings of the queen.–Her mental distress.–Examination of Anne.–Her letter to the king.–Anne’s fellow-prisoners.–They are executed.–Anne tried and condemned.–She protests her innocence.–Anne’s execution.–Disposition of the body.–The king’s brutality.–Elizabeth’s forlorn condition.

TRAVELERS, in ascending the Thames by the steamboat from Rotterdam, on their return from an excursion to the Rhine, have often their attention strongly attracted by what appears to be a splendid palace on the banks of the river at Greenwich. The edifice is not a palace, however, but a hospital, or, rather, a retreat where the worn out, maimed, and crippled veterans of the English navy spend the remnant of their days in comfort and peace, on pensions allowed them by the government in whose service they have spent their strength or lost their limbs. The magnificent buildings of the hospital stand on level land near the river. Behind them there is a beautiful park, which extends over the undulating and rising ground in the rear; and on the summit of one of the eminences there is the famous Greenwich Observatory, on the precision of whose quadrants and micrometers depend those calculations by which the navigation of the world is guided. The most unconcerned and careless spectator is interested in the manner in which the ships which throng the river all the way from Greenwich to London, “take their time” from this observatory before setting sail for distant seas. From the top of a cupola surmounting the edifice, a slender pole ascends, with a black ball upon it, so constructed as to slide up and down for a few feet upon the pole. When the hour of 12 M. approaches, the ball slowly rises to within a few inches of the top, warning the ship-masters in the river to be ready with their chronometers, to observe and note the precise instant of its fall. When a few seconds only remain of the time, the ball ascends the rem