e being illuminated with a thousand
lamps artificially disposed, the king and queen supped in it; the
princess being seated at the same table, next to the cloth of estate.
After supper she was served with a perfumed napkin and a plate of
"comfects" by lord Paget, but retired to her ladies before the revels,
masking, and disguisings began. On St. Stephen's day she heard mattins
in the queen's closet adjoining to the chapel, where she was attired in
a robe of white satin, strung all over with large pearls; and on
December the 29th she sat with their majesties and the nobility at a
grand spectacle of justing, when two hundred spears were broken by
combatants of whom half were accoutered in the Almaine and half in the
Spanish fashion.

How soon the princess again exchanged the splendors of a court for the
melancholy monotony of Woodstock does not appear from this document, nor
from any other with which I am acquainted; but several circumstances
make it clear that we ought to place about this period an incident
recorded by Holinshed, and vaguely stated to have occurred soon after
"the stir of Wyat" and the troubles of Elizabeth for that cause. A
servant of the princess's had summoned a person before the magistrates
for having mentioned his lady by the contumelious appellation of a
_jill_, and having made use of other disparaging language respecting
her. Was it to be endured, asked the accuser, that a low fellow like
this should speak of her grace thus insolently, when the greatest
personages in the land treated her with every mark of respect? He added,
"I saw yesterday in the court that my lord cardinal Pole, meeting her in
the chamber of presence, kneeled down on his knee and kissed her hand;
and I saw also, that king Philip meeting her made her such obeisance
that his knee touched the ground."

If this story be correct, which is not indeed vouched by the chronicler,
but which seems to bear internal evidence of genuineness, it will go far
to prove that the situation of Elizabeth during her abode at Woodstock
was by no means that opprobrious captivity which it has usually been
represented. She visited the court, it appears, occasionally, perhaps
frequently; and was greeted in public by the king himself with every
demonstration of civility and respect;--demonstrations which, whether
accompanied or not by the corresponding sentiments, would surely suffice
to protect her from all harsh or insolent treatment on the part of thos