played a prominent part in the festivities of this period, and the following illustration shows how they went a-mumming.
[Illustration: RIDING A-MUMMING AT CHRISTMASTIDE.]
Queen Mary died on November 17, 1558, and her half-sister,
in perilous times, for plots of assassination were rife, and England was engaged on the side of Spain in war with France. But the alliance with Spain soon came to an end, for Queen Elizabeth saw that the defence of Protestantism at home and peace with France abroad were necessary for her own security and the good of her subjects. She began her reign by regarding the welfare of her people, and she soon won and never lost their affection.
With the accession of Queen Elizabeth there was a revival of the courtly pomp and pageantry which were marked characteristics of her father's reign. Just before the Christmas festival (1558) the new queen made a state entry into the metropolis, attended by a magnificent throng of nobles, ladies, and gentlemen, and a vast concourse of people from all the country round. At Highgate she was met by the bishops, who kneeled by the wayside and offered their allegiance. She received them graciously and gave them all her hand to kiss, except Bonner, whom she treated with marked coldness, on account of his atrocious cruelties: an intimation of her own intentions on the score of religion which gave satisfaction to the people. In the pageantry which was got up to grace her entry into London, a figure representing "Truth" dropped from one of the triumphal arches, and laid before the young Queen a copy of the Scriptures. Holinshed says she revived the book with becoming reverence, and, pressing it to her bosom, declared that of all the gifts and honours conferred upon her by the loyalty of the people this was the most acceptable. Yet Green,[51] in describing Elizabeth's reign, says: "Nothing is more revolting in the Queen, but nothing is more characteristic, than her shameless mendacity. It was an age of political lying, but in the profusion and recklessness of her lies Elizabeth stood without a peer in Christendom."
Sir William Fitzwilliam, writing to Mr. More, of Loseley, Surrey, a few weeks after the accession of Elizabeth, as an important piece of Court news, says: "You shall understand that yesterday, being Christmas Day, the Queen's Majesty repaired to her great closet with her nobles and ladies, as hath been accustomed in such high feasts; and she, perceiving a bishop preparing himself to mass, all in the old form, tarried there until the gospel was done, and when all the people looked for her to have offered according to the old fashion, she with her nobles returned again from the closet and the mass, on to her privy chamber, which was strange unto divers. Blessed be God in all His gifts."