Constance Sherwood: An Autobiography of the Sixteenth Century. Fullerton Georgiana

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      "'Ah,' cried my lord, when Meg had ended her song, beshrew me, if Monsieur Sebastian's madrigals are one-half so dainty as this English piece of harmony.' And then, – for his lordship's head is at present running on pageants such as he witnessed at Nonsuch and at Oxford, – he would have me call into the garden Madge and Bess, whilst he fetched his brothers to take part in a May game, not indeed in season now, but which, he says, is too good sport not to be followed all the year round. So he must needs dress himself as Robin Hood, with a wreath on his head and a sheaf of arrows in his girdle, and me as Maid Marian; and Meg, for that she is taller by an inch than any of us, though younger than him and me, he said should play Little John, and Bess Friar Tuck, for that she looks so gleesome and has a face so red and round. 'And Tom,' he cried, 'thou needst not be at pains to change thy name, for we will dub thee Tom the piper.' 'And what is Will to be?' asked my Lady Bess, who, since I be titled Countess of Surrey, must needs be styled My Lady William Howard.' 'Why, there's only the fool left,' quoth my lord, 'for thy sweetheart to play, Bess.' At the which her ladyship and his lordship too began to stamp and cry, and would have sobbed outright, but sweet Madge, whose face waxes so white and her eyes so large and blue that methinks she is more like to an angel than a child, put out her little thin hands with a pretty gesture, and said, 'I'll be the fool, brother Surrey, and Will shall be the dragon, and Bess ride the hobby-horse, an it will please her.' 'Nay, but she is Friar Tuck,' quoth my lord, 'and should not ride.' 'And prithee wherefore no?' cried the forward imp, who, now she no more fears her grandam's rod, has grown very saucy and bold; 'why should not the good friar ride, an it doth pleasure him?'

      "At the which we laughed and fell to acting our parts with no little merriment and noise, and sundry reprehensions from my lord when we mistook our postures or the lines he would have us to recite. And at the end he set up a pole on the grass-plat for the Maying, and we danced and sung around it to a merry tune, which set our feet flying in time with the music:

      Madge was not strong enough to dance, but she stole away to gather white and blue violets, and made a fair garland to set on my head, to my lord's great content, and would have me unloose my hair on my shoulders, which fell nearly to my feet, and waved in the wind in a wild fashion; which he said was beseeming for a bold outlaw's bride, and what he had seen in the Maid Marian, who had played in the pageant at Nonsuch. Mrs. Fawcett misdoubted that this sport of ours should be approved by Mr. Charke, who calls all stage-playing Satan's recreations, and a sure road unto hell; and that we shall hear on it in his next preachment; for he has held forth to her at length on that same point, and upbraided her for that she did suffer such foolish and profane pastimes to be carried on in his grace's house. Ah me! I see no harm in it; and if, when my lord visits me, I play not with him as he chooses, 'tis not a thing to be expected that he will come only to sing psalms or play chess, which Mr. Charke holds to be the only game it befits Christians to entertain themselves with. 'Tis hard to know what is right and wrong when persons be of such different minds, and no ghostly adviser to be had, such as I was used to at my grandmother's house.

      "All, Mistress Constance! when I last wrote unto you I said troubles was the word in every one's mouth, and ere I had finished this letter – which I was then writing, and have kept by me ever since – what, think you, has befallen us? 'Tis anent the marriage of his grace with the Queen of Scots; which I now do wish it had pleased God none had ever thought of. Some weeks since my lord had told me, with great glee, that the Spanish ambassador was about to petition her majesty the queen for the release of her highness's cousin; and Higford and Bannister, and the rest of his grace's household – whom, since Mr. Martin went beyond seas, my lord spends much of his time with, and more of it methinks than is beseeming or to the profit of his manners and advancement of his behavior – have told him that this would prepare the way for the greatly-to-be-desired end of his grace's marriage with that queen; and my lord was reckoning up all the fine sports and pageants and noble entertainments would be enacted at Kenninghall and Thetford when that right princely wedding should take place; and how he should himself carry the train of the queen-duchess when she went into church; who was the fairest woman, he said, in the whole world, and none ever seen to be compared with her since the days of Grecian Helen. But when, some days ago, I questioned my lord touching the success of the ambassador's suits, and the queen's answer thereto, he said: 'By my troth, Nan, I understand that her highness sent away the gooseman, for so she entitled Senor Guzman, with a flea СКАЧАТЬ