Queen Elizabeth in the Garden by Trea Martyn

Author:Trea Martyn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BlueBridge
Published: 2008-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

A fine orchard was an important status symbol, and high-quality fruit made a luxurious and seductive gift. In the early stages of the marriage negotiations between Elizabeth and Alençon’s handsome brother the Duke of Anjou (now the King of France) - which Dudley dared to mock at Kenilworth in his show featuring a country wedding, with a youthful bridegroom and an old and ugly bride - Elizabeth sent Dudley to France to deliver a basket of apricots to Anjou, ‘with her commendations, that he might see that England was a country good enough to produce fair fruits’. The French ambassador reported to Anjou that ‘these fine apricots showed very well that she had fair and good plants in her realm, where I wished that grafts from France might in time produce fruits even more perfect’. Pleased by the ambassador’s flirtatious response, Elizabeth sent Anjou a stag so that he might see the venison of England’s forests as well as the fruits of its gardens, adding that she looked forward to hunting with him and to showing him all the beautiful places in her kingdom.

In early 1578, Martin told Cecil that he had left with Gerard a gift of six superb pearmain (pear-shaped apple) trees, to be planted among the cherry trees, adding that Harris had grafted scions from the pearmain on to the rennet (a French dessert apple) trees. Martin also sent a basket of fruit and promised Cecil fruit from his new pearmain and ‘pond pear’ trees by Easter.

Cecil’s interest in fruit trees dated from early in the reign. In the 1560s, he used his contacts in France to procure rare exotics, such as orange, lemon and pomegranate trees. When he sent his eldest son, Thomas, to Paris for a year in order to complete his education, Cecil seized the opportunities that this provided to enhance his gardens.

He first wrote to his son’s guardian, Sir Thomas Windebank, with a request to send him any new plants that he came across and to find him a French gardener. In March 1561, on hearing that Sir Francis Carew was buying citrus and other exotic trees in Paris for his garden at Beddington, Cecil urged Windebank to follow suit:

Mr Carew means to send home certain orange, pomegranate, lemon and myrtle trees. I have already an orange tree, and if the price be not much, I pray you procure me a lemon, a pomegranate, and a myrtle tree, and help that they may be sent home to London “with Mr Carew’s trees, and beforehand send me in writing a perfect declaration how they ought to be used, kept and ordered.

Two weeks later, Windebank reported to Cecil that he had sent the trees and that Carew had helped choose them. Although the arrangement had saved the cost of transportation, Windebank feared that Cecil might still think the exotics too pricey. Windebank added that he was also sending

a lemon tree and two myrtle trees in two pots, which cost me both a crown, and the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.