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 
