held at
the same time in honor of her grandfather the King of Denmark's visit.
But the baby only lived two days, and was hastily baptized "Sophia,"
after the Queen of Denmark. James the First gave orders that she should
be buried "as cheaply as possible, without any solemnity or
funeral."[49] Nevertheless he made a contract with Nicholas Poutrain,
the royal sculptor, for her monument, the cost of which was not to
exceed one hundred and forty pounds. And we find that her coffin was
very solemnly conveyed up the river by barge, covered with black velvet,
accompanied by three other barges covered with black cloth and bearing
many nobles, lords, ladies, and the officers-of-arms, to the Parliament
stairs at Westminster. Thence the procession went to the south-east
door of the Abbey, where it was met by the great lords of the Council,
the Heralds, and chief officers of the court, the

Dean and Prebends with the choir; and so they passed to King
Henry the Seventh's chapel where there was an Antiphon sung
with the organ; in the meantime the Body was interred in a
Vault at the end of the Tomb then erecting for Queen
Elizabeth.[50]

[Illustration: THE CRADLE TOMB.]

The chief mourner was that unhappy Lady Arabella Stuart, king James'
cousin, who, years after, ended her troubled life in the Tower, and was
brought like little baby Sophia "by the dark river," and laid in the
same grave as Mary, Queen of Scots, her kinswoman.

Upon the same altar step there is another monument to a little
princess--Sophia's sister Mary. She was the third daughter of James the
First: but the first princess of the new dynasty who was born in
England, and the first royal child baptized in the Reformed Church. As
"three quarters of a century had elapsed since a child was born to the
Sovereign of England," great were the rejoicings on little Mary's birth
upon the eighth of April, 1605. Bonfires were lighted, church bells were
rung all day long, and there were scrambles for money in the streets.

There is a curious account of the clothes provided for this first
princess of Great Britain, which shows us how royal babies were dressed
then. She had

a carnation velvet cradle, fringed with silver fringe, and
lined with carnation satin; a double scarlet cloth to lay
upon the cradle in the night; a cradle cloth of carnation
velvet with a train, laid with silver, and lined with
taffety to lay upon the cradle; two sm