Ashley, and cried out:
"I have not so behaved that you need put more mistresses upon me!"
Altogether, she was too much for Sir Robert, and he was wise enough to
recognize her cleverness.
"She hath a very good wit," said he, shrewdly; "and nothing is to be
gotten of her except by great policy." And he added: "If I had to say
my fancy, I think it more meet that she should have two governesses
than one."
Mr. Hume notes the fact that after the two servants of the princess had
been examined and had told nothing very serious they found that they
had been wise in remaining friends of the royal girl. No sooner had
Elizabeth become queen than she knighted the man Parry and made him
treasurer of the household, while Mrs. Ashley, the governess, was
treated with great consideration. Thus, very naturally, Mr. Hume says:
"They had probably kept back far more than they told."
Even Tyrwhitt believed that there was a secret compact between them,
for he said, quaintly: "They all sing one song, and she hath set the
note for them."
Soon after this her brother Edward's death brought to the throne her
elder sister, Mary, who has harshly become known as Bloody Mary. During
this time Elizabeth put aside her boldness, and became apparently a shy
and simple-minded virgin. Surrounded on every side by those who sought
to trap her, there was nothing in her bearing to make her seem the head
of a party or the young chief of a faction. Nothing could exceed her in
meekness. She spoke of her sister in the humblest terms. She exhibited
no signs of the Tudor animation that was in reality so strong a part of
her character.
But, coming to the throne, she threw away her modesty and brawled and
rioted with very little self-restraint. The people as a whole found
little fault with her. She reminded them of her father, the bluff King
Hal; and even those who criticized her did so only partially. They
thought much better of her than they had of her saturnine sister, the
first Queen Mary.
The life of Elizabeth has been very oddly misunderstood, not so much
for the facts in it as for the manner in which these have been arranged
and the relation which they have to one another. We ought to recollect
that this woman did not live in a restricted sphere, that her life was
not a short one, and that it was crowded with incidents and full of
vivid color. Some think of her as living for a short period of time and
speak of the great historical characters wh
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