Nothing like this sickly and appalling joy could be seen in the times of
Elizabeth. There were masques and balls and tournaments at the court,
and gay revels as the stately Queen went from castle to castle, and
palace to palace, in her visits to her princely subjects. But such
amusements did not form the chief object or occupation of the court of
Elizabeth. The Queen, and those who had grown up with her, had
passed through too many dangers and witnessed too much suffering to
allow them to become frivolous or very light-hearted. They had lived
among scenes of cruelty, persecution, and death. Their childhood had
witnessed the successive horrors of the reign of Henry VIII, and their
youth had suffered from the bloody fanaticism of Mary. Sorrow and
tribulation had overspread the morning of their life like a cloud.
Miss Aikin, in the beginning of her charming work upon the court of
Queen Elizabeth, has described the gorgeous procession which filed along
the streets of London at the baptism of the infant princess. The same
picture also forms the closing scene of Shakespeare's _Henry VIII_.
As we look upon the gay and splendid train, marching in their robes of
state, beneath silken canopies, and then glance our eye along the map of
history till we trace almost every actor in the pageant to a bloody
grave, we can scarcely believe that it is a scene of joy and festivity
that we are witnessing.
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