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He sent for a scrivener to lusty London,

He was the best in that citie;

He taught us both to write and read full soon—

If it please you, full soon you shall see—

Lauded be God, I had such speed

That I can write as well as he,

Both English and also French,

And also Spanish, if you had need."[#]

[#] The Princess Cicely.

[#] Humphrey Brereton, Lord Stanley's squire, and the writer of the poem, was present at the conference, and we may therefore take him to record the exact statements made by the Princess Elizabeth.

Certainly, the black-letter hand was one requiring far more effort and pains than the modern running or Italian hand. The caligraphy of the Lady Bessy (afterwards Queen Elizabeth of York) which has descended to posterity, would lead to the melancholy conclusion that if she wrote as well as the best scriveners in London, the productions of inferior penmen must have been illegible indeed. It really is the case; for of all periods in English history (alas, excepting the present century!) the worst writing is found in that which runs from the close of the Wars of the Roses to the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth. A document dating from the reign of King John is like copper-plate in comparison with the atrocious scrawls of some writers of the Reformation period.

Before that year was ended, Pope Paul thought proper to confer upon Louis XI. of France the title of "Most Christian King." It was no sooner heard of than it was gleefully seized by Edward IV., under his character of soi-disant King of France. We may also conclude that Proud Cis snatched at it with considerable self-gratulation, since a charter of hers, dated in this very year, adds it to her titles. She styles herself "the excellent Princess, mother of the Most Christian Prince, our Lord and son, Edward, and lately wife of the most excellent Prince Richard, by right King of England and of France, and Lord of Ireland."[#] Further than this, even Cicely's ambition dared not to venture; yet it seems almost surprising that she did not step across the very little gulf which lay between all these high-sounding epithets and the one which would have involved them all—the coveted name of Queen.