MARY THE FIRST,

QUEEN REGNANT OF ENGLAND.

FEW queens have encountered during youth so many or such trying vicissitudes as fell to the lot of Mary, the only child of Henry the Eighth and Katharine of Arragon, the first queen-regnant of England. The historians, who would fairly represent the character and conduct of this queen, should take into account the treatment she received at a period of life when it was most calculated to have a bad effect on her. Whether we look back on the splendour and state with which the early years of her childhood were surrounded, or on the sudden reverse from regal magnificence to almost positive privation, to which the reckless caprice of her royal father exposed her, it must be admitted that both were highly detrimental to the formation of her character; and this reflection should serve as an extenuation for many of the faults which in after-life drew on her the censure of historians and the dislike of posterity. Mary entered life at Greenwich Palace on the 18th of February, 1516. Although the birth of a daughter must have been some disappointment to Henry, who so earnestly desired to have a male heir to the throne, he had the good feeling to abstain from revealing it, and received the Princess Mary as graciously as he had done the two sons which the queen had previously presented him, and whose premature deaths had occasioned both their parents so much regret. The royal infant was consigned to the care of the Countess of Salisbury, a lady whose high character equalled her distinguished birth, and proved the wisdom of the queen's selection of her. To Katharine Pole was confided the nurture of the princess, so that no ignoble blood should mingle with that of the royal stream that flowed in her veins, her wet-nurse being in no remote degree connected with the Countess of Salisbury. The splendour of the preparations for the baptism, and the rich gifts presented to the infant, are satisfactory evidence that her birth was known to be gratifying to the king. The ceremony took

place at the Grey Friars' church, which was contiguous to the palace in which she was born, three days after her birth, the Princess Katharine Plantagenet and the Duchess of Norfolk serving as her godmothers, and Cardinal Wolsey as her godfather. No ceremonial of regal state was omitted on this solemn occasion. A grand procession, formed of the noblest in the land, accompanied the Countess of Salisbury, who bore the infant to the church, and a guard of knightsbanneret encircled it. It was not the sponsors alone who bestowed costly gifts on the Princess Mary, her relations vied with each other in their offerings.

This child, unlike the two infant princes who had preceded her, was extremely healthy. She passed the first two or three years of her life beneath the immediate care of her mother, often caressed by the king, who delighted in fondling her, and taking her in his arms. When Mary was weaned, her wet-nurse, Katharine Pole, was dismissed, and the Lady Margaret Bryan became attached to the nursery-establishment of the young princess; the Countess of Salisbury retaining her appointment of state-governess, and directress of the household, the expenditure of which was wholly confided to her. The establishment was on a princely scale, including a chamberlain, a treasurer, and an accountant, a lady of the bedchamber, a chaplain, a clerk of the closet, and a numerous retinue of domestics of a subordinate grade, maintained at considerable cost. Ditton Park, in Buckinghamshire, was chosen as the residence for the heiress-apparent to the throne, its vicinity to Windsor Castle affording a facility for the child being frequently taken to the queen. So soon had the education of Mary commenced, that when only three years old its fruits were visible in her dignified demeanour, rational remarks, and courteous reception of those permitted to approach her. It is asserted that she played on the virginals with considerable skill at an age when children are supposed to be too young to commence the study of music, and that she acquitted herself to the admiration of her hearers this last part of the statement may be easily believed, when we consider how prone those admitted to the presence of royalty are to exaggerate the accomplishments attributed to every branch of it. During the absence of Henry and Katharine in France, to grace the Field of the Cloth of Gold, they were furnished with frequent details of the welfare of their daughter by the privy council, who visited her at the palace at Richmond, where she then took up her abode. Mary is described as being, at that period, not only a healthy, but a handsome child, of a lively disposition. The custom of offering rich gifts to

royalty at Christmas, and on other festivals, was then much practised; and those presented to the princess by her relatives, sponsors, and the nobility of the court, were very costly; those offered by her godfather, Cardinal Wolsey, being the most so of all.

Mary had attained her sixth year, when the Emperor Charles the Fifth visited England, and a treaty of marriage was entered into, as stated in the life of Katharine of Arragon. The emperor quitted England, leaving the youthful princess fully impressed with the belief that she was one day to become his bride.

Katharine was most desirous that her daughter should prove worthy of the elevated station she was expected to fill; and to effect this point she consulted Ludovicus Vives, a man esteemed among the most learned of his time, on the education of the Princess Mary. His instructions bear the evidence not only of his erudition, but of his strict morality; for he prohibited the perusal of all light books, as calculated to draw her attention from graver ones, and to corrupt her imagination, while he recommended serious and religious works, of which he sent a list. Of the child's natural abilities and application a notion may be formed by the fact, that at eight years old she was able to translate Latin into English with a facility that merited the commendations of her preceptor.

While Mary was pursuing a system of education that left but too little time for the indulgence of the pleasures of childhood-pleasures as necessary for health in the first stage of youth as sunshine is for the expansion of flowers-Henry was beginning to entertain a project that must inevitably lead to the destruction of the treaty, which had in all probability induced the queen to adopt so rigid a code.

The divorce of the mother, the niece of the Emperor of Spain, must, of course, annihilate every prospect of the marriage of the daughter with that sovereign.

But while Henry was meditating the most cruel injury he could inflict on the mother, he was lavishing on his daughter all the gauds of state and all the splendour befitting the heiress of his kingdom. With

a character like his, in which dissimulation formed so striking a feature, it may be surmised that this ostentatious exhibition of Mary as the successor to his throne may have originated in a scheme to procure her some advantageous marriage before his divorce. Well aware that the very plea he meant to urge for the attainment of this divorce must, if allowed, destroy her claim to the crown by fixing the stigma of illegitimacy on her birth, it could only be for the purpose of imposing