GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 
so long after she had “ shuffled off this mortal coil,” and when 
flattery could no longer reach or move her, that tender, graceful 
epithet could be applied to her by the servants and dependents 
who knew her best. 
Its testimony does not stand alone. Numerous other memorials 
to the great queen-regnant, erected after her death when the recol- 
lection of her was still green and vivid, tell the same story, and 
equally express the love, veneration, and admiration of her subjects 
for the “ good Queen Bess.” 
Prime favourite at this time, of his sovereign, Leicester bends 
smilingly towards her saddle-bow; gay words are on his lips, 
exultation in his heart, for never again will Robert Dudley be so 
near his ambition’s goal as at this moment. 
On her left rides the great Burleigh, but recently made Lord 
Treasurer. To him she now and then addresses a few gracious 
words, for Elizabeth, with the wit to choose her servants well, 
knows also how best to bind them to her service. 
Behind Burleigh comes his brother-in-law, Sir Nicholas Bacon, 
distinguished father of a much more famous son, and they are 
followed by a bevy of fair ladies and many courtiers. A number 
of Jackeys, and a detachment of those yeomen of the guard who 
were the institution of the Queen’s grandfather, Henry VIL, 
bring up the rear of a procession which, in splendour and brilliancy 
of apparel and accoutrements, far exceeds any pageant of modern 
times. It passes from the arch to the courtyard, and scintillates 
for some brief minutes in the sunshine. There is a trampling of 
horses’ feet and rapid dismounting, a clatter of arms, the ringing 
of steel upon stone, and then its constituent parts break up into 
many-tinted, moving fragments, resembling the bits of coloured 
glass in a kaleidoscope, and, in true kaleidoscopic fashion, they 
separate, and come together again. They form into knots and 
groups before the door of the Great Hall: some of these follow 
the Queen to the principal entrance, to which the Archbishop 
hurries to receive her; and others wander off into the gardens 
behind the Water Tower, and that other tower that is the com- 
paratively recent erection of the late Archbishop Cranmer. But, 
even as one looks, the day-dream fades, and resolves itself into 
nothing more romantic than a group of very tall, well-grown, Boy 
Scouts, lads of sixteen or seventeen, whose picturesque costume, 
48 
