condition to get out of bed. The proper official poured water,
the proper official engineered the washing, the proper official
stood by with a towel, and by-and-by Tom got safely through the
purifying stage and was ready for the services of the Hairdresser-
royal. When he at length emerged from this master’s hands, he was
a gracious figure and as pretty as a girl, in his mantle and
trunks of purple satin, and purple-plumed cap. He now moved in
state toward his breakfast-room, through the midst of the courtly
assemblage; and as he passed, these fell back, leaving his way
free, and dropped upon their knees.
After breakfast he was conducted, with regal ceremony, attended by
his great officers and his guard of fifty Gentlemen Pensioners
bearing gilt battle-axes, to the throne-room, where he proceeded
to transact business of state. His ‘uncle,’ Lord Hertford, took
his stand by the throne, to assist the royal mind with wise
counsel.
The body of illustrious men named by the late King as his
executors appeared, to ask Tom’s approval of certain acts of
theirs–rather a form, and yet not wholly a form, since there was
no Protector as yet. The Archbishop of Canterbury made report of
the decree of the Council of Executors concerning the obsequies of
his late most illustrious Majesty, and finished by reading the
signatures of the Executors, to wit: the Archbishop of
Canterbury; the Lord Chancellor of England; William Lord St. John;
John Lord Russell; Edward Earl of Hertford; John Viscount Lisle;
Cuthbert Bishop of Durham–
Tom was not listening–an earlier clause of the document was
puzzling him. At this point he turned and whispered to Lord
Hertford–
“What day did he say the burial hath been appointed for?”
“The sixteenth of the coming month, my liege.”
“‘Tis a strange folly. Will he keep?”
Poor chap, he was still new to the customs of royalty; he was used
to seeing the forlorn dead of Offal Court hustled out of the way
with a very different sort of expedition. However, the Lord
Hertford set his mind at rest with a word or two.
A secretary of state presented an order of the Council appointing
the morrow at eleven for the reception of the foreign ambassadors,
and desired the King’s assent.
Tom turned an inquiring look toward Hertford, who whispered–
“Your Majesty will signify consent. They come to testify their
royal masters’ sense of the heavy calamity which hath visited your
Grace and the realm of England.”
Tom did as he was bidden. Another secretary began to read a
preamble concerning the expenses of the late King’s household,
which had amounted to 28,000 pounds during the preceding six
months–a sum so vast that it made Tom Canty gasp; he gasped again
when the fact appeared that 20,000 pounds of this money was still
owing and unpaid; {4} and once more when it appeared that the
King’s coffers were about empty, and his twelve hundred servants
much embarrassed for lack of the wages due them. Tom spoke out,
with lively apprehension–
“We be going to the dogs, ’tis plain. ‘Tis meet and necessary
that we take a smaller house and set the servants at large, sith
they be of no value but to make delay, and trouble one with
offices that harass the spirit and shame the soul, they
misbecoming any but a doll, that hath nor brains nor hands to help
itself withal. I remember me of a small house that standeth over
against the fish-market, by Billingsgate–”
A sharp pressure upon Tom’s arm stopped his foolish tongue and
sent a blush to his face; but no countenance there betrayed any
sign that this strange speech had been remarked or given concern.
A secretary made report that forasmuch as the late King had
provided in his will for conferring the ducal degree upon the Earl
of Hertford and raising his brother, Sir Thomas Seymour, to the
peerage, and likewise Hertford’s son to an earldom, together with
similar aggrandisements to other great servants of the Crown, the
Council had resolved to hold a sitting on the 16th of February for
the delivering and confirming of these honours, and that meantime,
the late King not having granted, in writing, estates suitable to