cting him to communicate
to the Privy Council the joyful news.

The most sumptuous royal christening ever seen was in bustling preparation
in and about her sick-chamber; and that no circumstance of state should be
lacking, the mother herself, only four days after the birth, was forced to
take part in the exhausting ceremony. In the chapel at Hampton Court,
newly decorated like the splendid banqueting-hall adjoining, where the
initials of Jane carved in stone with those of the King, and her arms and
device on glowing glass and gilded scutcheon still perpetuate her fleeting
presence, the christening ceremony was held by torchlight late in the
chill autumn evening. Through the long draughty corridors, preceded by
braying trumpets and followed by rustling crowds of elated courtiers, the
sick woman was carried on her stately pallet covered with heavy robes of
crimson velvet and ermine. Under a golden canopy, supported by the four
greatest nobles in the land, next to Norfolk, who was one of the
godfathers, the Marchioness of Exeter bore the infant in her arms to the
scene of the ceremony; and the Princess Mary, fiercely avid of love as she
ever was, held the prince at the font. Suffolk, Arundel, and doomed
Exeter, with a host of other magnates, stood around; whilst one towering
handsome figure, with a long brown beard, carried aloft in his arms the
tiny fair girl-child of Anne, the Lady Elizabeth, holding in her dainty
hands the holy chrisom. It was Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, looked
at askance by the rest as a new man, but already overlapping them all as
the uncle of the infant prince. During the _Te Deum_ and the long, pompous
ceremony of the baptism the mother lay flushed and excited upon her couch;
whilst the proud father, his broad face beaming with pride, sat by her
side, holding her hand.

It was hard upon midnight when the Queen gave her blessing to her child
and was carried back to her chamber, with more trumpet blasts and noisy
gratulation. The next day, as was to be expected, she was in a high fever,
so ill that she was confessed and received extreme unction. But she
rallied, and seemed somewhat amended for the next few days, though ominous
rumours were rife in London that her life had purposely been jeopardised
in order to save that of the child at birth.[181] They were not true, but
they give the measure of the public estimate of Henry's character, and
have been made the most of by Sanders, Rivadeneyra, and