LAMBETH PALACE 



fury by the wind, was rough, the rain splashed on the decks of the 

 light craft, and added physical discomfort to the captives' mental 

 misery. The voyage had to be broken at Lambeth, where many 

 a time, in happier days, the favourite had landed from Elizabeth's 

 gilded and cushioned barge of state. How bitter must have been 

 the contrast between then and now ! 



The boat was moored to the landing-place at the foot of the 

 Water Tower. Archbishop Whitgift, apprised of the unexpected 

 visit, met the noblemen at the head of the stairs ; the flaring light 

 from a cresset, fell full on his grey head and grave face. He was 

 visibly distressed. " My lord," he said sadly, addressing the 

 fallen favourite, " I am indeed concerned to see this time when 

 you are brought here thus ! '' But it would require the pen of a 

 Carlyle, the brush of a Rembrandt, to paint that scene ! Suffice 

 to say, that by and by, when the storm abated, the barge was 

 remanned, the prisoners took their places, and by the same watery 

 way that had swept Sir Thomas More, Anne Boleyn, and others 

 to their doom, the Earl of Essex passed to his, and, in his passing, 

 broke an old Queen's heart ! 



" She is much disfavoured and unattired," wrote her godson, 

 Sir John Harrington ; ; ' she disregardeth every costly cover that 

 cometh to her table, and eateth little but manchet and succory 

 pottage. . . . Her Highness hath worn but one change of raiment 

 for many daies," a pregnant sign in one whose love of dress was 

 notorious. 



Among so many tragic happenings at the old archiepiscopal 

 residence, it is a relief to meet with a romantic story of true love. 

 By a clandestine marriage, which upset the royal plans, two lovers 

 of high degree had incurred the displeasure of Charles I. The 

 bride was the Lady Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of the Earl of 

 Lennox, and ward and kinswoman to the King, whose purpose it 

 had been to unite the great Scottish houses of Lennox and Argyle, 

 by the bestowal of her hand on the Marquis of Lome. But the 

 girl had vastly preferred the Lord Montravers, heir to the earldom 

 of Arundel (the duchy of Norfolk being then under attainder). 

 For supposed connivance in the match, her parents were sent to 

 the Tower, but Charles, for all his extravagant notions of the 

 divine right of kings, was no tyrant, and he merely punished the 

 rebellious pair by committing them to the care of Archbishop 



51 4* 



