For were it not so, to-day would have been to the whole court a day
of rejoicing, of congratulations.
To-day was Elizabeth's birthday; fourteen years ago to-day, Anne
Boleyn's daughter had seen the light of this world.
"Anne Boleyn's daughter!" That was the secret of her seclusion. That
was why none of the ladies and lords of the court had remembered her
birthday; for that would have been at the same time a remembrance of
Anne Boleyn, of Elizabeth's beautiful and unfortunate mother, who
had been made to atone for her grandeur and prosperity by her death.
Moreover, the king had called his daughter Elizabeth a bastard, and
solemnly declared her unworthy of succeeding to the throne.
Her birthday, therefore, was to Elizabeth only a day of humiliation
and pain. Reclining on her divan, she thought of her despised and
joyless past, of her desolate and inglorious future.
She was a princess, and yet possessed not the rights of her birth;
she was a young maiden, and yet doomed, in sad resignation, to
renounce all the delights and enjoyments of youth, and to condemn
her passionate and ardent heart to the eternal sleep of death. For
when the Infante of Spain sued for her hand, Henry the Eighth had
declared that the bastard Elizabeth was unworthy of a princely
husband. But in order to intimidate other suitors also, he had
loudly and openly declared that no subject should dare be so
presumptuous as to offer his hand to one of his royal daughters, and
he who dared to solicit them in marriage should be punished as a
traitor.
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