or 18? July 26, 1549? No. 8, No exact year can be assigned to this letter, but it Et. 15, 17, evidently refers to the same period as the remainder of Group 1. "O King . . . the reason that you have not, for so long a time, seen any letters from me is... because the pain in my head precluded all modes of writing.... Truly, I am both ashamed and grieved that I must so often make excuses of this kind. . . . I am somewhat restored to health. . . . I think I ought now to resume my long interrupted duty of writing." -Elizabeth to Edward. (Wood, Letters of Roy, and No. 9, Ill. Lad., vol. iii. p. 227.) This undated letter also belongs plainly to Group 1. Et. 16-17?" Whereas before this time, most serene and illustrious Feb. 14, king, I have given no letter to your Majesty, and 1550? returned no thank for the singular kindness and brotherly love that you have shown me, I beg that you will not think this should be attributed to forgetfulness of benefits, far from it-nor to slothfulness which is most unbecoming to me but to other very just causes. For whilst I often attempted to write to your majesty, some ill health of body especially headache recalled me from the attempt. For which reason I hope that your Highness will accept my feeling towards you instead of letters."-Elizabeth to Edward. (Harl. MS. 6986, Art. 12.) No. 10, Æt. 17. Sept. 15, 1550. No. II, Æt. 17. Sept. 22, 1550. No. 12, Æt. t. 18. April 21, 1552. "I had forgotten to say to you that her Grace commanded me to say to you, for the excuse of her hand, that it is not now as good as she trusts it shall be; her Grace's unhealth hath made it weaker, and so unsteady, and that is the cause."-Thos. Parry to Cecil. (Mumby, The Girl. of Q. El. p. 75.) "Her Grace hath been long troubled with rheums (a term evidently used both for colds and rheumatism. For use in the latter sense, vide item No. 157, infra) but now, thanks be the Lord! meetly well again, and shortly ye shall hear from her Grace again."-Thos. Parry to Cecil, at command of Elizabeth. (Tytler, Eng. under Edw. VI. and Mary, vol. i. p. 322.) "I commit your Majesty to His hands, most humbly craving pardon of your Grace that I did write no sooner; desiring you to attribute the fault to my evil head, and not to my slothful hand."-Elizabeth to Edward. (Wood, Letters of Roy. and Ill. Lad., vol. iv. p. 225.) No. 14, "I hope, most illustrious King, that I shall readily obtain pardon that for such a long interval of time you have received from me so few letters either returning thanks for your benefits or at least bearing witness to my due regard for you, especially as no kind of forgetfulness of you whom I never can or ought to forget has been the cause of the delay."— Elizabeth to Edward. (Wood, Letters of Roy, and Ill. Lad., vol. iii. p. 230.) The exact date is conjectural, except that it is Æt. 15-19. clear that it belongs to this same Group 1. Although I would study nothing so much as to escape... even the slightest suspicion of ingratitude, I nevertheless fear that I may seem to have fallen into it; because, having ever received so many favours from your majesty, I yet have, in so long an interval, sent no letters, whereby you might discern at least, the signs of a grateful heart; for which omission, as there are just and necessary causes, I hope and am likewise assured that your majesty will readily absolve me from every charge of ingratitude; for a disease of the head and eyes has come upon me, which has so grievously troubled me ever since my coming to this abode, that, although I often attempted to write your majesty, I have, even to this day, ever been recalled from my purpose and resolution. As this affection, by the aid and assistance of the great and good God, has now somewhat abated, I have considered that I ought no longer to defer the duty of writing."-Elizabeth to Edward. (Wood, Letters of Roy. and Ill. Lad., vol. iii. p. 234.) No. 14a, Æt. 19. NEW Circa July 6, 1553. No. 14aa, Æt. 20. Dec. 6-15, 1553. Group 2.-21st and 22nd years (1553-4-5) Elizabeth reported ill, but contemporary authority not discovered. Cf. Mumby, p. 81, and Strickland's Elizabeth, p. 66, 1842 ed. Elizabeth quitted the Court on December 6 for Ashridge; but before she reached it she was taken so ill that she had to send for the Queen's horse litter; we find no statement of the nature of this illness, except that it may be connected with the swelling in No. 15 infra, which is dated some two months later.-(Renard to Charles V., from London, December 17, 1553.) No. 14b, Æt. 20. Jan. 27 ? 1554. No. 14C, Æt. 20. Jan. 27? 1554. No. 14d, In answer to a letter from Mary summoning her to Court, which letter is of January 26, Elizabeth sent an oral message that she was too ill at present to travel; that as soon as she was able she would come, and prayed her majesty's forbearance for a few days.' (Strype, Mem. iii., Part I. p. 127.) Besides the above oral message, the high officials deputed by Mary to guard and watch Elizabeth, for she was under the strictest surveillance, being suspected of complicity in the Wiatt rebellion, sent a letter to the Lord Chancellor on their own behalf stating: That . . . we attend on my Lady Elizabeth's Grace our mistress, in hope of her amendment to repair towards the Queen's Highness, whereof we have as yet no apparent likelihood of health." (Idem.) Elizabeth sent word to the Queen to send her own physician to Ashridge so that she might see that Jan. 29, 1554. Elizabeth was ill.-(Renard, Imperial Ambassador, to Charles V.) No. 14e, 1554. At 10 in the evening of Saturday, February 10, three high officials of England reached Ashridge under positive orders to bring Elizabeth to Court at once, if it could be done without endangering her life. By the first clause of the following quotation and from the second clause from the last, it is quite certain that Mary sent her own physicians as Elizabeth requested or demanded some days previous to the arrival of the aforesaid officials. In view of the very grave suspicions against Elizabeth in the mind of her sister, the chances are that Mary lost no time in finding out whether or not Elizabeth was really ill; and we must therefore believe that Mary's physicians reached Ashridge about January 28. The errand of the commissioners was so urgent that they compelled Elizabeth at once to admit them, "being before advertised of her state by your highness's physicians, by whom we did perceive the state of her body to be such, that without danger to her person, we might well proceed to require her... to repair to your highness ... she much feared her weakness to be so great that she should not be able to travel, and to endure the journey without peril of life, and therefore desired some longer respite until she had better recovered her strength; but in conclusion, upon the persuasion, as much of us as of her own No. 14f, Æt. 20. Same date as 1554. council and servants, . . . she is resolved to remove hence to-morrow towards your highness, with such journeys as by a paper, herein enclosed, your highness shall perceive; (the itinerary was 6 miles for the first day, and 8, 7, 7, and 5 miles for the succeeding days)... her grace much desireth . . . that she may have a lodging, at her coming to court, somewhat further from the water (the Thames) than she had at her last being there; which your physicians, considering the state of her body, thinketh very meet, who have travailed very earnestly with her grace, both before our coming, and after, in this matter."—The Lord Admiral W. Howard, Sir Edw. Hastings, and Sir Thos. Cornwallis to the Queen. (The Queen sent her horse litter to fetch the princess, another proof of her real condition.) The Commissioners "found hir at the same time so sicke in hir bed, and verie feeble and weake of last above, bodie. . . On the next (the 2nd morning after their Feb. 11, arrival) they had hir forth as she was, verie faint and feeble, and in such case that she was readie to swound (swoon) three or foure times between them.. (She was) all sicke in the litter . . . (At St. Albans she was) feeble in body ... (At Highgate she) being verie sicke, tarried.. -Holinshed, iii. p. 1153. Fox Acts and Mons., iii. p. 792, ed. 1684 to same effect. Here at Highgate she remained an entire week, for the reason and in the condition described in the next item, before she could be brought the last five miles to Westminster. No. 15, Feb. 21, 1554. "The most beautiful spectacles one may see in Et. 20. this city and in all the countryside are the gibbets, hung with the heads of the bravest and most valiant men of the kingdom. . . . The princess Elizabeth for whom no better fate is forseen, is about seven or eight miles from here, so very ill that nobody longer anticipates anything except her death . . . she is so swollen and weakened that she is a pitiful sight."-De Noailles, French Ambassador at London, to Paris. (De Noailles, vol. iii. p. 77.) No. 16, 1554. Madame Elizabeth, sister of the said lady, arrived Thursday in this city (London), so ill with dropsy or some swelling which has attacked her whole body and even her face, that those who have seen her No. 17, No. 18, Feb.24, 1554. Æt. 201. March 12, 1554. No. 19, Æt. 20 and do not promise her long to live. I believe that on account of this illness she will not be able to accompany her sister, but will remain here, if she live that long.' -De Noailles to Paris. (De Noailles, vol. iii. pp. 86 and 87.) "Her countenance was pale."-Renard to Chas. V. 66 They tell me that Madame Elizabeth, sister of the queen, will be soon thrust into the Tower, no matter how ill she may be; and she almost entirely swollen."-De Noailles to Paris. (De Noailles, vol. iii. p. 125.) "My lady Elizabeth's grace continually in helthe accustomed with thonelye swellyng in the visage at June 9, 1554. certayn tymes excepted."-Bedingfield Papers, p. 174. 10 mos. No. 20, 10 mos. June 22, 1554. "Doctour owens letter to me. Plesyth yt that I Et. 20 and have understonde by my 1. off the quenys highnes most honorabyll counsell, that my ladye Elizabeths grace ys trobled wth ye swellyng In hir face, & also of her armes and hands. Syr, the occasion off theis affects ys off that hyr gracs bodye ys replenyshed with mannye colde and waterysh humors, wch wyll not be taken awaye but by pergacons mete & convenient for that prpose. But for as moche as thys tyme off the yere, and speciallye the distemperaunce off the wether, doth not permitte to minister purgacons, her grace must have sum pacience untyll the tyme off the yere shall bee more meter for medisyns. Bedingfield Papers. (Dr. Owen's letter to Bedingfield.) No.21,Æt.20 Elizabeth wants a "phesician" sent to her.and 10 mos. Council's letter to Bedingfield. June 25, 1554. Æt. 20 and IO mos. June 25-29, 1554. "First... that that my 1. Elizabeth's grace ys daylye vexed wth the swellyng in the face and other parts off her bodye, & graunte that shee maye have doctour Huycke, accompanied wth doctour Wendye or doctour Owen, the quenes maiesties phesicons, Immediatelye to repare unto hir, whoese counsell she velouslye desyreth, to devise remedie for swellyng in her face and other parts off hir bodye, wch I dooe see hir grace often vexed wth all...."-Bedingfield to Gage. |