as her baby brother must have been glad to be allowed to rest.

Only a few days later came the death of the mother of the little prince. Greatly as King Henry disliked black, he wore it for four months, even on Christmas day. Elizabeth was probably at Hunsdon, but Mary spent Christmas with her father. She did not forget the little sister, but sent her a box decorated with silver needlework made by her own hand. She gave the baby brother a cap which must have been very elaborate, for it cost enough to pay the wages of a working man for four months. To the baby’s nurse she sent a bonnet that cost half as much as the cap. Another gift, which she herself made, was a cushion covered with rich embroidery.

This baby brother was a delight to both the princesses. Mary went often to see him, and looked after him as if he had been her own child, and to Elizabeth he was the most precious thing in all the world. “I pray you, take me to see my brother,” she often pleaded. One day the older sister said to her, “Elizabeth, is there aught that I can do to please you greatly?”

“I would gladly go to see my brother,” was the child’s answer.

“That cannot well be,” said Mary. “Is there nothing better that you can wish?”

“No, sister.”

“But there is surely one thing better. When it is two of the clock, stand you close by the west window of the hall, and what is to come will come.”

Clocks were not very common in those days, but there was one in the hall at Hunsdon, and the excited little girl watched the hands move slowly around until they marked the hour of two. What was to come?

A little after two a single rider appeared. “Make way for his Grace, Edward, Prince of Wales!” he cried. Then came the trumpeters and, following them, the nobles. After the nobles came the royal baby for whom all this ceremonial had been arranged. He lay in the arms of his nurse, “Mother Jack,” and was borne in a litter. The upright poles were heavily gilded, and the canopy was of the richest white silk edged with a golden fringe. Clusters of white plumes were fixed at each corner. On the shoulders of eight men rested the shafts of the chair. All around it gathered noble lords and ladies, mounted on horses whose trappings were marked with the monogram of many a family of rank and power. Every man wore a sword to defend the heir of England’s king, if need should arise, and stalwart guards marched on either side.

“It’s my own little brother,” cried Elizabeth.

“And he comes to abide with us for a while,” said Mary. “Is not that better, my little sister, than going to him to pay a visit of a day?”

“Will Lady Margaret grant me leave to show him my birds and my rabbits? He shall play on my virginals, if he will; and, truly, I’ll not mind the sharp prick of the needle, if I may but sew a dress for him. I would fain learn to make letters with the needle, sister Mary, that I might sew one all myself on everything that he will wear. Oh, it will be an ‘E,’ even as it is on whatever is mine.”

It is quite possible that the next few years were the happiest that Elizabeth ever knew. She was four years older than Edward, and she had been so carefully trained by Lady Margaret that King Henry was glad that she should be the playmate of the sweet-tempered little fellow who was his only son and heir. Lady Margaret was troubled because Edward’s best coat was “only tinsel” instead of cloth of gold, and because he had “never a good jewel to set on his cap;” but this was nothing to the little prince so long as he had his sister. Lady Margaret wrote to the king that she wished he could have seen the prince, for “the minstrels played, and his Grace danced and played so wantonly that he could not stand still.” Elizabeth taught him to speak, and for his sake she even conquered her dislike to the “prick of the needle,” for when his second birthday came and the rich nobles of the kingdom sent him jewels and all sorts of beautiful things made of gold and silver, she gave him a tiny cambric shirt, every stitch of which had been made by the little fingers of his six-year-old sister. Mary sent him a cloak of crimson satin. The sleeves were of tinsel. It was heavily embroidered with gold thread and with pansies made of pearls.

It was about this time that King Henry sent an officer of high rank expressly to bestow the royal blessing upon the two princesses. On his return he reported to the king the grateful message that Mary had sent.

“And how found you her Grace, the Lady Elizabeth?” asked King Henry.

“Truly, your Majesty,” replied the chancellor, “were the Lady Elizabeth not the offspring of your illustrious Highness, I could in no way account for her charm of manner and of speech. ‘I humbly thank his most excellent Majesty,’ she said, ‘that he has graciously deigned to think upon me, who am verily his loving child and his true and faithful subject.’”

“She is but six years old,” mused Henry. “Were those her words?”

“I would gladly have had pen and paper,” answered the chancellor, “that no one of them should have been lost, but I give the message as it has remained in my memory. She asked after your Majesty’s welfare with as great a gravity as she had been forty years old.”

More than one trouble came to the older princess. Soon after the king had sent his blessing to the two sisters, a councilor came to Mary with a message of quite another character.

“It is his Majesty’s pleasure,” said he, “that your Grace should receive the Duke Philip of Germany as a suitor for your hand.” This German duke was a Protestant, and Mary was a firm Roman Catholic, but she dared not refuse to obey the king’s bidding.

“I would gladly remain single,” said she, “but I am bound to obey his Majesty. I would, too, that the duke were of my own faith, but in so weighty a matter I can do naught save to commit myself to my merciful father and most sovereign lord, knowing that his goodness and wisdom will provide for me far better than I could make provision for myself.”

The duke sent her a beautiful diamond cross, but before a year had passed, she was bidden by the king to return the gift. Henry had wedded a German wife, and had treated her so badly that Mary’s betrothal was broken.

There were sad times in England in those days. When Henry VIII. wished to marry Anne Boleyn, he asked the Pope to declare that his marriage to the mother of Mary was not lawful. The Pope refused. Henry then asked the opinion of several universities in England, Italy, and France, and it is probable that his question was accompanied by either bribes or threats. The universities declared the first marriage unlawful, but the Pope would not yield. Henry then declared that the English church should be free from the Pope, and that the king himself was properly the supreme head of the church in his own kingdom.

There were tyrants, and most cruel tyrants before the days of Henry VIII., but they were generally satisfied to rule men’s deeds. Henry was determined to rule his subjects’ most secret thoughts. If he suspected that a man did not believe that his divorce was right, he would pursue the man and force him to express his opinion. If the man was too honest to tell a falsehood, he was imprisoned or executed, for Henry said that it was treason to refuse to acknowledge that the king of England was at the head of the church of England. Many of the noblest, truest men in the land were put to death for this reason. This was not all, for although Henry would not acknowledge the authority of the