princes of the
blood royal, and supplied it with a quantity of early-printed books and a
miscellaneous gathering of wreckage from the monasteries. During several
succeeding reigns there were 'studies' and galleries of books at
Whitehall and Windsor Castle, at Greenwich and Oatlands, or wherever the
Court might be held. It is said that in the time of Henry VIII. the best
English collection belonged to Bishop Fisher. 'He had the notablest
library,' said Fuller, 'two long galleries full, the books sorted in
stalls, and a register of the name of each book at the end of its
stall.' This great storehouse of knowledge the Bishop had intended to
transfer to St. John's College at Cambridge; but on his disgrace it was
seized by Thomas Cromwell and dispersed among his greedy retainers.

Under the Protector Somerset the Protestant feeling ran high. Martin
Bucer's manuscripts were bought for the young King; and the Reformer's
printed books were divided between Archbishop Cranmer and the Duchess of
Somerset. About the same time an order was issued in the name of Edward
VI. for purging the King's library at Westminster of missals, legends,
and other 'superstitious volumes'; and their 'garniture,' according to
the fashion of the time, was bestowed as a perquisite upon a grasping
courtier.

[Illustration: BINDING EXECUTED FOR QUEEN ELIZABETH.]

Queen Elizabeth was naturally fond of fine books. She had a small
collection before she reached the throne, and became in due course the
recipient of a number of splendid presentation volumes. There is a copy
of a French poem in her praise in the public library at Oxford: its pages
are full of exquisite portraits and designs, and on the sides there are
'brilliant bosses composed of humming-birds' feathers.' As a child she
had bound her books in needle-work, or in 'blue corded silk, with gold
and silver thread,' in the style afterwards adopted by the sisters at
Little Gidding in the time of Charles I. Her Testament, most carefully
covered by her own handiwork, contains a note quoted by Mr. Macray in his
'Annals of the Bodleian Library'; it refers to her walks in the field
of Scripture, where she plucked up the 'goodlie greene herbes,' which she
afterwards ate by her reading, 'and chawed by musing.' Her gallery at
Whitehall made a gallant show of MSS. and classics in red velvet, with
gilt clasps and jewelled sides, and all the French and Italian books
standing by in morocco and gold. Archbishop