QUEEN OF HENEY THE SEVENTH. lution gave umbrage to the Yorkists, and greatly troubled Elizabeth, who heard with anxiety the rumours that Henry intended to marry, either the heiress of Brittany or Lady Catherine Herbert, and who, according to Andreas, thus meditated on the subject :— " So, even at last, thou hast, Ο God, regarded the humble, and not despised their prayers ; I well remember that my most noble father, of famous memory, meant to have bestowed me in marriage upon this most comely Prince ! Oh that I were now worthy of him ; for, as I have lost my father and protector, I sorely fear me that he will take a wife from foreign parts, whose beauty, age, fortune, and dignity, will more please him than mine ! Oh that I could acquaint my mother, or some of the lords, with my fears ; but I dare not, nor have I the courage to discourse with him himself on the subject, lest in so doing I might discover my love. "What will be I cannot divine, but this I know, that Almighty God always succours those who trust in Him ; therefore will I cease to think, and repose my whole hope in Thee. Oh my God, do Thou with me according to Thy mercy." After the ravages of the terribly fatal disease, known as the sweating sickness, had somewhat abated, Henry the Seventh was crowned, with the usual ceremony, at Westminster, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, on the thirtieth of October, 1485; and when the Commons, in the subsequent December, presented to him the usual grant of tonnage and poundage for life, they coupled with it a petition, requesting him to take to wife and consort the Princess Elizabeth, which marriage they hoped God would bless with a progeny of the race of kings. Henry answered, " that it would give him pleasure to comply with their request ;" and after costly preparations had been made, and, the royal pair being within tho forbidden degrees, an ordinary dispensation had been obtained from the Pope's resident legate, Henry and Elizabeth were united in wedlock, by Cardinal Bonrchier, at Westminster, on the eighteenth of January, 1486. "The most wished day of marriage between King Henry the Seventh and the Princess Elizabeth being come," says Andreas, " it was celebrated by them with all religious and glorious magnificence, and by the peop] c with bonfires, songs, and banquets, throughout London, both men and women, rich and poor, beseeching God to bless the King and Queen, and grant them a numerous progeny." Not satisfied with the dispensation already granted, Henry applied for another, to the Pope himself. The Pontiff in his rescript, after confirming Henry's title to the throne, declared, that to put a period to the bloody wars caused by the rival claims of the house of York, he willingly confirmed the dispensation already granted, for tbe marriage of Henry the Seventh to the Princess Elizabeth, the eldest daughter and true heir of Edward the Fourth, of immortal memory ; and after pronouncing the children issuing from the marriage legitimate, he confirmed the act of settlement passed by the parliament in 14S5, and pronounced the meaning of the act to be, that if the Queen should die without issue, before the King, or if her issue should not survive their father, the children of Henry by any other lawful wife should succeed him by hereditary right. The Queen, immediately after her marriage, gave evidence, that the last clause in this bull, which, in truth, was a gross injustice to her sisters, would prove needless. Whilst her husband made a progress through the northern counties, Elizabeth, by his express desire, retired to Winchester castle, where she gave birth to a son and heir, a month earlier than was expected. The chamber in which the Queen was confined, was hung all round with cloth of arras. The King's mother, the Countess of Richmond, "made ordinances as to what preparation is to be made against the deliverances of the Queen ; as, also, for the christening of the child when she shall be delivered." They mention every particular " of the furniture of her highness* chamber, and the furniture appertayning to her bedde, how the church shallbe arraicd againste the christeninge, how the child shall go to be