Hampton Court ... Illustrated with forty-three drawings by Herbert ...

QUEEN ELIZABETH 61
Y
Though Elizabeth is not one of those great English
rulers whose lives are associated indissolubly with the
Palace, she spent much of her reign there, and it was
there, more than anywhere, that the scandals which the
State Papers so freely hint at were most notorious.
An ingenious writer endeavoured some years ago,
before a body of Oxford historical students, to prove
that Robert Devereux,Earl ofEssex, was really Queen
Elizabeth's son. The whole scandal belongs to the
history — or the legends — of Hampton Court. And
so no less do the merry stories of her talks in the
gardens with ambassadors, of her secret interviews
with eligible suitors; and above all that charming
scene, which Sir Walter Scott so much delighted in,
when Andrew Melville,baited with questions by the
vain woman, at last admitted that Mary, his queen,
"
was the taller. She is too high," quoth Eliza-
beth, " for Iam myself neither too high nor too
low." 1 At Hampton Court much of the tragedy
of Mary was unravelled. Elizabeth there was most
luxurious, most subtle, most intriguing: the atmos-
1 OnecannotforgetScott'sdelightfulparalleltothis(Diary,December
12,1825) : — "Hogg came to breakfastthis morning, having takenand
brought for his companion the Galashiels bard, David Thomson, as
to a meeting of 'huzz Tividale poets.' The honest grunter opines
with a delightful naivetd that Moore's verses are far owre sweet —
answeredby Thomson that Moore's ear or notes,Iforget which, were
finely strung. 'They are far owre finely strung,' replied he of the
Forest, ' for mine arejust reeght! :"