sence of her husband, or the death of Charles the Fifth, appears to have affected the mind of the dying Queen, was one to which Bishop Godwin obscurely alludes; - namely, the disappointment of finding herself affected with a dropsical disorder, when she had fondly hoped that the alteration in her personal appearance gave a promise of her producing an heir to the throne. There are extant, in the State Paper Office, copies of a very curious circular letter, in which the words "son," or "daughter," are left blank, which were intended to be filled up and transmitted to the different European courts, immediately after the queen's accouchement. From St. James's, the body of the deceased Queen was carried in great state to Westminster Abbey. "Her funeral," says Bishop Kennett, "was celebrated on the 13th and 14th of December, with a pomp suitable to her quality. Her body was brought from St. James's, where she died, in a splendid chariot, with attendants and ceremony usual on such occasions; and so by Charing Cross to Westminster Abbey. It was met at the church door with four bishops, and the Lord Abbot mitred. Her body being brought into the church lay all night under the hearse with watch. On the next day, December 14th, was the queen's mass, and White, Bishop of Winchester, made her funeral sermon."

We have no record of either Queen Elizabeth, or James the First having kept their court at St. James's. During the reign of the latter sovereign,

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it was set apart as the residence of the gifted, the witty, the virtuous, and precocious Henry, Prince of Wales,-the Marcellus of his age,-who kept his court here with considerable magnificence during the life-time of his father. It was a court comprised of beauty, and chivalry, and genius; where the young were the most welcome, but where literary acquirements were still more distinguished than personal gallantry, and where virtue was of far more consideration than beauty. The daily path of the author has been for many years through the silent silent courts of St. James's palace, and seldom has he wandered through them without peopling them in imagination with the splendid but soberly retainers of the chivalrous young prince, and imagining that in such or such a part of the palace he passed the night in study and contemplation, or that in such a chamber he breathed his last. Here he constantly entertained the young, the gallant, and the beautiful of both sexes; retaining about his person a number of young gentlemen, whose spirit of chivalry and literary tastes assimilated with his own. We are informed by his faithful follower, Sir Charles Cornwallis, that though the most beautiful women of the court and city were invited to his entertainments, yet that he could never discover the slightest inclination on the Prince's part to any particular beauty. A great proof of the Prince's popularity is the manner in which his court at St. James's was attended; the attendance at his levees being much more numerous than at that of the

King himself. So jealous was James at this circumstance, that he once made use of the remarkable words," Will he bury me alive?" Though pleasure was not excluded, his establishment was governed with discretion, modesty, and sobriety, and with an especial reverence for religious duties.

It may here be observed that in 1610 his household amounted to no less than four hundred and twentysix persons, of whom two hundred and ninety-seven were in the receipt of regular salaries.* The death of this promising and accomplished young prince took place in St. James's Palace on the 6th of November, 1612, after a long illness which he bore with exemplary piety and resignation. "On Sunday, the 25th of October," we are told, "he heard a sermon, the text in Job, Man that is born of woman, is of short continuance, and is full of trouble.' After that he presently went to Whitehall, and heard another sermon before the King, and after dinner, being ill, craved leave to retire to his own court, where instantly he fell into sudden sickness, faintings, and after that a shaking, with great heat and headache, that left him not whilst he had life." The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Dean of Rochester remained by his bed-side, and prayed with him during his illness. Cornwallis says, "he bore his sickness with patience, and as often recognition of his faith, his hopes, and his

See "Wilson's Life of James the First." Detection.

Birch and Coke's

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appeals to God's mercy, as his infirmity, which afflicted him altogether in his head, would possibly permit." Prince Henry when he died was only in his nineteenth year.

When Charles the First, on the death of his brother, became Prince of Wales, he occasionally resided at St. James's, and here, with the assistance of Sir Kenelm Digby, he formed his fine collection of statues, which was dispersed during the civil troubles. After his accession to the throne, we find no occasion of his keeping his court here; though it is remarkable that his beautiful consort, Henrietta Maria, selected it, on every practicable occasion, in preference to Whitehall, as the place of her confinement. Her first-born, indeed, who died an infant, was born at the palace of Greenwich, and the apartment is said still to exist, in what is now the school attached to the hospital. Her second and third sons, however, Charles and James,—successively kings of England, were both born at St. James's; and here, also, Henrietta was confined with her second daughter, Elizabeth; that interesting child, the darling of her ill-fated father, over whom Charles wept his last tear in their interview in St. James's palace the day previous to his execution. Having communicated to her his last injunctions,-" Sweetheart," he said, "you will forget this."-"No," she replied, "I shall never forget it while I live;" and with many tears promised to write down the particulars,-a promise which she faithfully kept, as is proved by the in

teresting account which the royal child drew up of her last interview with her father, which is still extant.

When, in 1638, the intrigues of Cardinal Richelieu drove Mary de Medicis from the court of her son Louis the Thirteenth, and when France no longer afforded a safe asylum to the widow of Henry the Fourth, her daughter Henrietta invited her to England, and St. James's Palace was fixed upon as the place of her residence. The spirit of puritanism was then alive, and the arrival of a Popish and unfriended Princess in the metropolis, not only aroused the fury of the bigoted populace, but it was with the greatest difficulty that the military could be induced to interfere in protecting her from their insolence and violence: before the equipage of the exiled Queen entered the gates of St. James's palace, three persons were actually killed in the riots. Waller, on the occasion of her arrival in England, complimented the unfortunate queen with a poetical address, in which affectation of learning, false wit, and strained compliments, constitute the principal ingredients. Fenton tells us in his notes to that poet, that "at length the Queen was lodged safe in St. James's Palace, where, for about three years, she enjoyed a pension of three thousand pounds a month!" Her continued residence in England was highly displeasing to the Parliament, who petitioned the king to remove her out of the kingdom; at the same time softening their ungracious and in