reading and research, an additional
store of anecdotes and observations might unquestionably have been
amassed; but it is hoped that of those assembled in the following pages,
few will be found to rest on dubious or inadequate authority; and that a
copious choice of materials, relatively to the intended compass of the
work, will appear to have superseded the temptation to useless
digression, or to prolix and trivial detail.

The orthography of all extracts from the elder writers has been
modernized, and their punctuation rendered more distinct; in other
respects reliance may be placed on their entire fidelity.

MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.

VOL. I.

CHAPTER I.

1533 TO 1536.

Birth of Elizabeth.--Circumstances attending the marriage of her
parents.--Public entry of Anne Boleyn into London.--Pageants
exhibited.--Baptism of Elizabeth.--Eminent persons present.--Proposal of
marriage between Elizabeth and a French prince.--Progress of the
reformation.--Henry persecutes both parties.--Death of Catherine of
Arragon.--Disgrace of Anne Boleyn.--Her death.--Confesses an obstacle to
her marriage.--Particulars on this subject.--Elizabeth declared
illegitimate.--Letter of lady Bryan respecting her.--The king marries
Jane Seymour.

On the 7th of September 1533, at the royal palace of Greenwich in Kent,
was born, under circumstances as peculiar as her after-life proved
eventful and illustrious, ELIZABETH daughter of king Henry VIII. and his
queen Anne Boleyn.

Delays and difficulties equally grievous to the impetuous temper of the
man and the despotic habits of the prince, had for years obstructed
Henry in the execution of his favourite project of repudiating, on the
plea of their too near alliance, a wife who had ceased to find favor in
his sight, and substituting on her throne the youthful beauty who had
captivated his imagination. At length his passion and his impatience had
arrived at a pitch capable of bearing down every obstacle. With that
contempt of decorum which he displayed so remarkably in some former, and
many later transactions of his life, he caused his private marriage with
Anne Boleyn to precede the sentence of divorce which he had resolved
that his clergy should pronounce against Catherine of Arragon; and no
sooner had this judicial ceremony taken place, than the new queen was
openly exhibited as such in the face of the court and the nation.

An unusual ostentation of magnificenc