CARDINAL WOLSEY'S DOWNFALL.

11

well "-to all his greatness. Having directed that a careful inventory should be taken of his valuable plate and costly stores, which he ordered to be delivered over to the King, “he took barge at his privy stairs, and so went by water to Putney," on his way to Esher. In December, 1529, he surrendered his palace into the hands of his royal master, shortly after which the name of York House was prohibited, and that of Whitehall substituted in its stead.

1st Gent.

3rd Gent.

So she parted,

And with the same full state paced back again
To York-place, where the feast is held.

Sir,
You must no more call it York-place; that's past.
For, since the Cardinal fell, that title's lost;
'Tis now the King's, and called Whitehall.

I know it;

But 'tis so lately alter'd, that the old name
Is fresh about me.

King Henry VIII., act iv., sc. 1.

After the disgrace of Wolsey, Henry seems to have lost no time in occupying the palace of his discarded favourite, for, in November, the same year, we find him giving audience at Whitehall to a deputation from the House of Commons, and here, on the 6th of December following, he conferred Earldoms on the Viscounts Rochford and Fitzwalter, and Lord Hastings.

How changed the scene where Queens intwined their bowers!
Where fountains sparkled 'midst a blaze of flowers!

Where Kings embarked upon the silvery Thames,

Begirt with Gartered lords and jewelled dames;

While Pleasure bade the bannered vessel glide,

And music float upon the laughing tide!

Yes, changed the scene where Wolsey loved to rove ;
Where Henry strayed with Boleyn in the grove;

Yet still Imagination's eye can trace

The mighty churchman in his pride of place;
Can paint the splendour of his daily board,
The liveried army and the menial lord!
But where are now the more than regal state,
The summer guests, the suppliants at his gate?

12

ANNE BOLEYN'S MARRIAGE.

Calmly he sleeps in Leicester's cloistered aisle,
Safe from a people's hate, a tyrant's smile;
And alien guards and alien guests are there
Where Henry's throne usurps his favourite's chair;
While Beauty's stately form and dazzling eye
Relume the lighted hall and gallery high.

See youthful Mary, plighted bride of France,

Half pleased, half angry, turn from Brandon's glance;
See where, with flashing eyes and angry mien,
In lonely state sits Henry's injured Queen;
See Surrey whisper his enamoured line

In tender dalliance to his Geraldine;
But mark, in yonder rich recess apart,
Where Henry woos the lady of his heart;
Toys with her small, soft hand, allays her fears,
And pleads his suit to no offended ears,
While she, the envy of that glittering ring,
Fans while she chides the ardour of her King.
Ill-fated Boleyn ! when thy footsteps strayed

With hearts as light through Hever's hawthorn glade,
Without a care beyond thy birds and flowers,
The blithest warbler in thy native bowers;
Then, when young Percy, seated by thy side,
Took thy fair hand, and claimed thee for his bride,
Or, weaving rose-wreaths for thy peerless brow,
Stole the sweet kiss that ratified his vow;
Was not that May-time of thy life more blest
Than now a tyrant lures thee to his breast?
Fair, transient plaything for a tyrant's lust,
Too soon shall time and rivals breed mistrust;
Possession cloy, satiety begin,

And venial faults be blackened into sin.

So! darkly lower the gathering clouds of fate;

Gleams the keen axe, and yawns the Traitor's gate;

And Boleyn's dying smile, and parting moan

Arraign the charms she bartered for a throne.—J. H. J.

The marriage of Henry to the ill-fated Anne Boleyn took place at Whitehall, on the 25th of January, 1533. On that day, according to Stow-" King Henry privately married the Lady Anne Boleyn in his closet at Whitehall, being St. Paul's day." Early in the morning, it seems, Dr. Lee, one of the royal chaplains-afterwards Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry-was sent for to perform mass in the King's

HOLBEIN'S GATEWAY.

13.

closet, where he found with the King Anne Boleyn and her train-bearer Mrs. Savage, afterwards Lady Berkeley, and two of the grooms of the bedchamber. According to Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Archbishop Cranmer assisted at the

ceremony.

Henry made great additions to Whitehall. Having purchased and enclosed the ground now known as St. James's Park, he raised a tennis-court, cock-pit, and bowling-green, on the site of the present Treasury and the public offices adjoining. He built also a splendid gallery overlooking the tilt-yard, on the site of a part of the present Horse Guards and Dover House. These buildings Henry connected with the old palace by a magnificent gateway and arch— from the designs of Holbein-which spanned the street immediately below the present Banqueting House. From the gallery above mentioned, Henry, and subsequently his daughter Elizabeth, were accustomed to view the jousts and tournaments in the tilt-yard below. From this gallery also, when, in May, 1539, the invasion of England was threatened by the Catholic potentates of Europe, Henry reviewed no fewer than fifteen thousand armed citizens, consisting of gunners, pikemen, archers and billmen, whose appearance Holinshed describes as presenting a magnificent sight. Holbein's beautiful gate was removed in 1750 for the purpose of widening the street. It had been the intention of William Duke of Cumberland, the son of George the Second, to rebuild it at the top of the Long Walk at Windsor, but for some reason the design was never put into execution.

Whatever may have been the faults of Henry the Eighth, he has at least the merit of having been a munificent patron of the arts. He himself combined the accomplishments of a scholar, a musician, an architect, and a poet. The collection of pictures which he made at Whitehall was the found

14

DEATH OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.

ation of the famous gallery formed by Prince Henry, and his brother Charles the First. Raffaelle and Titian were severally invited by Henry to England, while Holbein had apartments at Whitehall, where he was engaged, at an annual salary of two hundred florins, to decorate the interior of the palace.

At Whitehall Henry signed his will on the 30th of December, 1547, and here, on the 28th of January following, he died. Latterly he had become more fretful and impatient, and as many persons had suffered as traitors during his reign for foretelling his death, it was long before any one could be found bold enough to apprise him that his condition was a dangerous one. At length the task was undertaken by Sir Anthony Denny, owing to whose exhortations the King would seem to have been induced to send for Archbishop Cranmer, before whose arrival, however, at the palace, Henry had become speechless. Nevertheless, on the Archbishop desiring him to give some sign of his dying in the faith of Christ, he pressed the prelate's hand, and almost immediately expired.

During the brief reign of the studious and accomplished Edward the Sixth, Whitehall presented a very different aspect to what it had worn in the days of his father. In the Privy Gardens-so recently filled with the beauty and chivalry of the land-Bishop Latimer was to be seen preaching from a raised pulpit to the young King and a devout audience; while the hours of the night which Henry had devoted to revelry and the dance were passed by his successor in study, meditation, and prayer.

Tell me what light in yonder turret gleams,
The one, lone light that o'er the water streams?
There sits the sceptred boy, the student King,
For whom no charms the dance or banquet bring.

WHITEHALL IN ELIZABETH'S TIME.

Though all youth's young desires are round him strown,
With more than earthly beauty and a throne,
For him in vain the Flatterer spreads his net,

Or Beauty lures with eyes of luscious jet.
Immersed in holy or in classic lore,

His ermine lies discarded on the floor.
Yet, ah! too well Affection's eye can trace
Consumption's hectic burning on his face;
But hovering Angels watch o'er Virtue's friend,
And Faith and Hope conduct him to his end,

Well pleased the blameless sufferer lies him down,

To change an earthly for a heavenly throne.- J. H. J.

15

During the reign of Queen Mary we discover little or no interest connected with Whitehall; unless, indeed, we record the fact that hence her coronation procession passed by water to Westminster; her sister Elizabeth bearing the crown before her.

With the accession of Queen Elizabeth, however, Whitehall resumed its ancient glory. The last time, apparently, she had slept under the roof had been on the night on which she had been led here a prisoner for her presumed share in Sir Thomas Wyatt's conspiracy. Here it was that she received the startling tidings that she was to be incarcerated in the Tower, and hence she was led, on Palm Sunday, 1554, to the private water-entrance of the palace, where a boat was in waiting to convey her to the fatal fortress within the walls of which the axe had fallen on the neck of her "unfortunate mother, Anne Boleyn.

After the accession of Elizabeth, Whitehall became the scene of her pastimes and other diversions, and here she surrounded herself with those eminent statesmen, scholars, and poets, whose names have thrown so much lustre on her reign.

1

Behold, refulgent on her throne of gold,
Eliza girt by many a warrior bold;