"For mine own part, good reader, let me boast a little of my garden,
which is but small, and the whole area thereof little above 300 foot of
ground, and yet, such hath been my good luck in purchase of the variety
of simples, that, notwithstanding my small ability, there are very near
300 of one sort and another contained therein, no one of them being
common or usually to be had. If, therefore, my little plat void of all
cost of keeping be so well furnished, what shall we think of those of
Hampton Court, Nonesuch, Theobald's, Cobham Garden and sundrie others
appertaining to divers citizens of London whom I could particularly
name?"
VI
_Tudor Gardens_
Several men of the New Learning, who, like Shakespeare, lived into the
reign of James I, advanced many steps beyond the botanists of the early
days of Queen Elizabeth. The old Herbals--the "Great Herbal," from
the French (1516) and the "Herbals" published by William Turner, Dean
of Wells, who had a garden of his own at Kew, treat of flowers chiefly
with regard to their properties and medical uses.
The Renaissance did indeed "paint the lily" and "throw a perfume on
the violet"; for the New Age brought recognition of their esthetic
qualities and taught scholastic minds that flowers had beauty and
perfume and character as well as utilitarian qualities. Elizabeth as
Queen had very different gardens to walk in than the little one in the
Tower of London in which she took exercise as a young Princess in 1564.
Let us look at some of them. First, that of Richmond Palace. Here the
garden was surrounded by a brick wall and in the center was "a round
knot divided into four quarters," with a yew-tree in the center.
Sixty-two fruit-trees were trained on the wall.
This seems to have been of the old type--the orchard-garden, where a
few old favorite flowers bloomed under the trees and in the central
"knot," or bed. In the Queen's locked garden at Havering-atte-Bower
trees, grass, and sweet herbs seem to have been more conspicuous than
the flowers. The Queen's gardens seem to have been overshadowed by
those of her subjects. One of the most celebrated belonged to Lord
Burleigh, and was known as Theobald's. Paul Hentzner, a German traveler
who visited England in 1598, went to see this garden the very day that
Burleigh was buried.
He described it as follows:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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