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

QUEENLY STATE 63
hair she wore a large pearl of the size of a hazelnut.
The people standing on both sides fell on
their knees, but she showed herself very gracious,
and accepted with an humble mien letters of supplication
from rich and poor. Her train was carried
behind her by a countess, then followed twelve
young ladies of noble birth, children of counts
or lords, afterwards twenty-four noblemen, called
farseirer1 in English, with small gilt hunting-spears.
There are also one hundred of these, though not all
on duty at the same time, for they take it in turns.
Both sides of the gallery, as far as the Queen walked
through it to the chapel, were lined by the guard
bearing arms. As the day was almost gone, there
was no sermon, only singing and delivering prayers.
Then the Queen returned as she had come, and went
to her rooms, and when on her passing the people
fell on their knees, she said in English, ' Ithank you
with all my heart.' "
We can imagine the scene as we stand now in the
" Haunted Gallery," through part of which the
Queen would pass into the "royal pew" looking
down upon the chapel. But it is not only there
that Elizabeth has left her memorials. The fine
window that looks out on the privy garden at the
end of the south front bears the Tudor rose crowned
and the inscription "E.R. 1568."
As to the Palace itself, it is clear that she was
1Dr. von Biilow suggests " Yeomen of the Guard: " they were
probably lords-in-waiting.