as a convert the sister of Christian IV, as she could the daughter of Gustavus Adolphus.
Beyond these traces of her relation to the main currents of English life and opinion in the first quarter of the seventeenth century there is little to be noted in the biography of Anne of Denmark. Among the ladies of her court, Lucy, countess of Bedford, the friend of Donne and the patroness of Jonson, Daniel, and many other poets, had earliest obtained her confidence; another favourite was the well-known Lady Anne Clifford, daughter of the proud Earl of Cumberland, and successively countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery; a third was the Mrs. Drummond, afterwards Lady Roxborough, already mentioned. The voluble Sir Robert Carey was at one time much trusted by her, and spoken of as her favourite. Her partiality for Lord Herbert of Cherbury rests on his own evidence, which is to be found in some of the most delightfully coxcombical passages in the whole range of biographical literature (Life of Edward, Lord H. of C., written by himself, pp. 148–53, ed. 1826). Among the officers of her household were Sir George Carew as vice-chamberlain and receiver, Lawrence Hyde as attorney-general, and Sir Matthew Lister as physician-in-ordinary. She had another physician named Schoverus, who, like her chaplain Seringius, may have been of Danish origin; and she was, of course, likewise attended by the great Mayerne, whose pension of 400l. from her, added to the same sum from the king and ‘many other commodities,’ so deeply excited the jealousy of Casaubon. (Mayerne's sagacious saying of the queen is preserved, that she ‘has the faith in the baths which often leads to a cure.’) To the last, however, she seems to have had about her one if not more of the attendants whom she had brought with her from her Danish home. (‘Beloe, the queen's man,’ is probably mis-spelt for Bülow.) ‘Anna, the queen's Danish maid,’ is frequently mentioned; according to Miss Strickland her name was Anna Kroas; and doubtless she is the person who, under the name of ‘Mrs. Anna Maria,’ is stated to have walked at the queen's funeral. She had attended her mistress at her deathbed; and one would fain disbelieve the story, already referred to, that after the queen's death she was with another culprit ‘clapt up for embezzling of jewels (as it is thought) to the value of 30,000l.’ (Chamberlain to Carleton, 31 May 1619; see Nichols, Progresses of James I, iii. 549).
Queen Anne had suffered for many years—since 1612 at all events—from a malady which had been at first thought to be gout, but which ultimately, after much and at times almost unbearable suffering, declared itself as dropsy. About Christmas 1618 her case was thought dangerous, though not desperate, and she was then still able to attend a whole sermon, preached in her inner chamber by the Bishop of London. Already, in accordance with the habits of shameless greed which characterised court and society under James I, the courtiers began to ‘lay about them,’ and plot for the distribution of the spoils. She lay at Hampton Court, while the king was at Newmarket, where he fell seriously ill. Her condition improved slightly in January and February; nor was it till 2 March that she died. During her last illness she had been free from pain, her vitality having, as the autopsy afterwards showed, wasted away. She had expressed a wish to see her husband, but her death seems after all to have been rather sudden, so that, notwithstanding reports to the contrary, she died without a will, leaving her affairs, as has been already stated, in some confusion. Her funeral, after being long deferred—partly, it would seem, for want of money—took place on 13 May; some thought it ‘very dull;’ according to a more balanced judgment it ‘was better than that of Prince Henry, but fell short of Queen Elizabeth's; the chariot and six horses in which her effigy was drawn were most remarkable’ (Chamberlain to Carleton, Brent to Carleton, Cal. of State Papers, 14 and 15 May 1619).
Between 18 Nov. and 16 Dec. 1618, ‘a mighty blazing comet which appeared in Libra, whose bearded beams covered the Virgin sign,’ had been visible in England; and the common people ‘thought this great light in heaven was sent as a flambeau to the queen's funeral; their dark minds not discovering, while this blaze was burning, the fire of war that broke out in Bohemia, wherein many thousands perished’ (Arthur Wilson). In truth, no mighty life was extinguished when this Anna Regina died (it was in this form that her name and title had been ‘danced in letters’ in a mask at Greenwich two years before). But there is evidence enough that she had been a popular queen; when she had been ill she had been ‘wished well;’ ‘she cannot do amiss,’ it had been trusted, ‘that has so many good wishes;’ and a few days after her decease she was said to be ‘much lamented, having benefited many and injured none; she died most willingly, and was more comely in death than ever in life’ (Sir Gerard Herbert to Carleton, 16 March 1619, in Cal. of State Papers). Simple tributes of kindly feeling such as this have a better historical value
