Lives of the last four princesses of the royal house of Stuart

188 THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH. [1648.
Sion House had been the prison of an unfortunate
queen, who had been carried up that broad sparkling
river, to die on a scaffold, untried, doomed by act of
attainder. There, too, the spotless Lady Jane Grey, had
been reluctantly compelled to pass a portion of her joyless
wedded life, with the Duke and Duchess of Northumber-
land, her unbeloved father and mother-in-law, usurpers of
the Percy honours. Lady Jane Grey's last voyage from
Sion House, had been to the Tower, and to the scaffold.
Was it possible for the youthful captive, Elizabeth Stuart,
to forget the names and sad fates of the royal ladies, who
had preceded her as occupants of the joyless state apart-
ments of Sion House— one only a hundred and five
years, the other, fifty-eight years previous to her own
time. No pen has chronicled the themes of her
melancholy musings, during the weary months the blame-
less Princess Elizabeth, and her innocent little brother,
were confined at Sion House ; but who that is familiar
with the tearful stories of Queen Catherine Howard, and
Lady Jane Grey, can doubt that they were often present,
in fancy, to the young royal captive, during her solitary
hours at Sion. None but Princes in adversity, can know
how passing sad the calamities of royalty are to the
royal.
In August, 1 G48, Parliament decided on mocking the
King with the treaty of Newport in the Isle of Wight.
The Earl of Northumberland was one of the commis-
sioners, so the Princess would hear from time to time
tidings of her beloved King and father's health, during the
tedious and deceptive treaty. The King, however, sent
his faithful attendant, Thomas Herbert, to London, with
various letters to his faithful friends, among others, one to
the Princess Elizabeth, who had just been removed with
little Gloucester to St. James's palace. Herbert waited