no LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 



here much during her short and troublous reign ; and 

 perhaps her fondness for this Palace came from the 

 association of her early youth, when she was the centre 

 of attraction. Greenwich cannot always have been 

 pleasant for the Princess Mary, for here came Anne 

 Boleyn. From Greenwich she was escorted in state to 

 London by the Lord Mayor, who was summoned by the 

 King to fetch her, and from Greenwich she was taken up 

 the river, her last melancholy journey to the Tower. The 

 oak under which Henry VIII. is said to have danced 

 with her is still standing. It is a huge, old, hollow stem, 

 though quite dead, kept upright by the ivy. The trunk 

 has a hole 6 feet in diameter, and it is known as Queen 

 Elizabeth's Oak, as tradition also says she took refresh- 

 ments inside it. It was fitted with a door, and those who 

 transgressed the rules of the Park were confined in this 

 original prison. It was at Greenwich that Queen Eliza- 

 beth was born ; and to Greenwich Henry brought his 

 fourth bride, when poor Anne Boleyn's short-lived favour 

 was at an end, and Jane Seymour dead. The less beautiful 

 Anne of Cleves, who so signally failed to please the King, 

 was escorted in state from Calais by thirty gentlemen, 

 with their servants, " in cotes of black velvet with cheines 

 of gold about their neckes." On January 3, 1540, the 

 King rode up from the Palace to meet her on Blackheath 

 with noblemen, knights, and gentlemen, and citizens, all 

 in velvet with gold chains. The King rode a horse with 

 rich trappings of gold damask studded with pearls, a 

 coat of purple velvet slashed with gold, and a bonnet 

 decorated with " unvalued gems." Anne came out of 

 her tent on the Heath to meet him, clad in cloth of gold, 

 and mounted on a horse with trappings embroidered with 

 her arms, a lion sable. She rode right through the Park 



