About this time, there seems to have been a growing attachment on the part of the court ladies to “lytel dogges” as pets. When Catherine of Aragon was queen, each maid of honor to Her Majesty was allowed one maid, and _a spaniel_. Anne Boleyn followed the example of her predecessor--at least where dogs were concerned. The tell-tale account-books name several of her favorites, but refer most often to a greyhound, Urian, which, owing to an unruly disposition, was often in trouble. Once it killed a cow, but Henry recompensed the cow’s owner by a present of ten shillings. This was in Anne’s day of prosperity, when she and hers could do no wrong in the king’s sight. A few years later, when the son she had hoped for was born dead, and Henry’s dislike was apparent to all; when ill, sad and apprehensive, we see her once more with her dogs. The king is away, taking his pleasure, and she mopes alone at Greenwich Palace. Here, in what was called the Quadrangle Court, we are told that she “would sit for hours in silence and abstraction, or seeking a joyless pastime playing with her little dogs, and setting them to fight each other.” A few weeks more, and the curtain fell on poor Anne with her short-lived royalty; erelong, too, on Henry himself, his sickly son, and unhappy daughter Mary; and now, amidst general rejoicing, Elizabeth mounted the throne. This remarkable queen, in whose character blended some very masculine traits with others equally feminine, revealed her twofold nature in amusements as well as in more serious affairs. She was fond of singing-birds, of apes, and little dogs; but much fonder of the chase and bear or lion baitings. Her greatest pet was the famous wardrobe which at her death numbered three thousand dresses, and of which a queer specimen is shown in a painting by Zucchero at Hampton Court. He has depicted her in a loose short robe, figured with birds and flowers, and wearing an Oriental cap. Her expression is decidedly ill-tempered, and rather vain. One cannot help congratulating her many suitors on their lack of success. As in dress, so in other things--Elizabeth liked to be thought original; and her fancy for the tiny hunting-dogs called beagles, made them the fashion during her reign. It is to this whim that Dryden’s lines refer: “The graceful goddess was array’d in green-- About her feet were little beagles seen That watched with upward eye the Motions of their queen.”