The Commissioners thus described arrived at Greenwich Stairs, and were at
once ushered into the palace, a residence which had been much enlarged
and decorated by Henry VIII.

They were received with stately ceremony. The presence-chamber was hung
with Gobelin tapestry, its floor strewn with rushes. Fifty-gentlemen
pensioners, with gilt battle-ages, and a throng of 'buffetiers', or
beef-eaters, in that quaint old-world garb which has survived so many
centuries, were in attendance, while the counsellors of the Queen, in
their robes of state, waited around the throne.

There, in close skull-cap and dark flowing gown, was the subtle,
monastic-looking Walsingham, with long, grave, melancholy face and
Spanish eyes. There too, white staff in hand, was Lord High Treasurer
Burghley, then sixty-five years of age, with serene blue eye, large,
smooth, pale, scarce-wrinkled face and forehead; seeming, with his
placid, symmetrical features, and great velvet bonnet, under which such
silver hairs as remained were soberly tucked away, and with his long dark
robes which swept the ground, more like a dignified gentlewoman than a
statesman, but for the wintery beard which lay like a snow-drift on his
ancient breast.

The Queen was then in the fifty-third year of her age, and considered
herself in the full bloom of her beauty. Her, garments were of satin and
velvet, with fringes of pearl as big as beans. A small gold crown was
upon her head, and her red hair, throughout its multiplicity of curls,
blazed with diamonds and emeralds. Her forehead was tall, her face long,
her complexion fair, her eyes small, dark, and glittering, her nose high
and hooked, her lips thin, her teeth black, her bosom white and liberally
exposed. As she passed through the ante-chamber to the presence-hall,
supplicants presented petitions upon their knees. Wherever she glanced,
all prostrated themselves on the ground. The cry of "Long live Queen
Elizabeth" was spontaneous and perpetual; the reply; "I thank you, my
good people," was constant and cordial. She spoke to various foreigners
in their respective languages, being mistress, besides the Latin and
Greek, of French, Spanish, Italian, and German. As the Commissioners were
presented to her by Lord Buckhurst it was observed that she was
perpetually gloving and ungloving, as if to attract attention to her
hand, which was esteemed a wonder of beauty. She spoke French with purity
and elegance, but with a drawling