Fifty-gentlemen pensioners, with gilt battle-ages, and a throng of 'buffetiers', or beef-eaters, in that quaint old-world garb which has survived so many centuries, were in attendance, while the counsellors of the Queen, in their robes of state, waited around the throne.
There, in close skull-cap and dark flowing gown, was the subtle, monastic-looking Walsingham, with long, grave, melancholy face and Spanish eyes.

There too, white staff in hand, was Lord High Treasurer Burghley, then sixty-five years of age, with serene blue eye, large, smooth, pale, scarce-wrinkled face and forehead; seeming, with his placid, symmetrical features, and great velvet bonnet, under which such silver hairs as remained were soberly tucked away, and with his long dark robes which swept the ground, more like a dignified gentlewoman than a statesman, but for the wintery beard which lay like a snow-drift on his ancient breast.
The Queen was then in the fifty-third year of her age, and considered herself in the full bloom of her beauty.

Her, garments were of satin and velvet, with fringes of pearl as big as beans.

A small gold crown was upon her head, and her red hair, throughout its multiplicity of curls, blazed with diamonds and emeralds.

Her forehead was tall, her face long, her complexion fair, her eyes small, dark, and glittering, her nose high and hooked, her lips thin, her teeth black, her bosom white and liberally exposed.