[Illustration: MONUMENT TO MISS ELIZABETH RUSSELL.]
Happily we know what Blackfriars was like in Elizabethan days. At Sherbourne Castle in Dorsetshire, Lord Digby possesses a most interesting picture supposed to be painted by Isaac Oliver, of this very procession from the waterside. There is a pleasant background of fields and trees with two or three fine houses standing on the wooded slopes of Holborn hill. The queen, clad in a long-waisted dress covered with jewels, and wearing a great ruff open at the throat, which was then only worn by young unmarried women, is seated in a chair under a light canopy borne by six knights. Anne Russell, the bride, walks directly behind the litter, in huge hooped skirt of white, with a richly worked and bejewelled bodice. She wears an open ruff like the queen's, which shows her throat. Her mother and Lucy Harrington, Countess of Bedford, who are her supporters, have close ruffs that cover their necks, and are dressed in black and gray with rich jewels. Nobles splendidly habited, go before, two and two; and ladies follow, among whom we may suppose that the fair Bess Russell figures. Lord Herbert, the bridegroom, carries the right end of the pole that supports the litter, and reaches his left hand back to his pretty bride who is close behind him. Next him a slim and exquisitely dressed figure is thought by Mr. Scharf F. S. A. to be Sir Walter Raleigh, who had just returned with Lord Cobham from a mission in Flanders.
After the marriage the queen dined with the wedding party at Lady Russell's, where "the entertainment was great and plentiful; and the mistress of the feast much commended for it." At night--for in those days dinners were early--she went to Lord Cobham's where she supped. And
after supper came a memorable masque of eight ladies, each clad in a skirt of cloth of silver, a rich waistcoat wrought with silks and gold and silver, a mantle of carnation taffeta cast under the arm, and their hair loose about their shoulders curiously knotted and interlaced. The masquers were Lady Dorothy (Sidney), Miss Fitton, Miss Carey, Miss Onslow, Miss Southwell, Miss Bess Russell, Miss Darcy, and Lady Blanch Somerset, who danced to the music that Apollo brought; and a fine speech was made of a _ninth_ muse, much to her praise and honor. "Delicate," says the narrator, "it was to see eight ladies so prettily and richly attired." Miss Fitton led; and after they had finished their own ceremonies, the eight lady masquers chose eight other ladies to dance the measures. Miss Fitton went to the queen and wooed her to the dance. The queen asked what she was. "Affection," was the answer. "Affection!" said the queen, "affection is false!" yet she rose and danced as did the Marchioness of Winchester.