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 THE LOVER OF 
 QUEEN ELIZABETH 
 
 BEING THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL OF LEICESTER 
 
 1533-1588 
 
 By 
 
 MRS AUBREY RICHARDSON 
 
 'A Creature of my own" 
 
 ELIZABETH. 
 ' Some noblemen will be men." 
 
 Archbishop PARKER. 
 
 ' Of greatest ones, he greatest in his place, 
 Sate in the bosome of his Soveraine, 
 And RIGHT AND LOYALL did his word maintaine. 
 EDMUND SPENSER. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 T. WERNER LAURIE 
 
 CLIFFORD'S INN 
 
 LONDON 
 
 E.C,
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 QUEEN ELIZABETH (Hatfield Portrait) *. . Frontispiece 
 
 LORD EOBEET DUDLEY . . . . facing page 32 
 
 MAEY QUEEN OF SCOTS AND LORD DARNLEY 136 
 
 THE EARL OF SUSSEX . . . . 158 
 
 MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS . . . . 182 
 
 THE EARL OF LEICESTER .... 198 
 
 LADY SHEFFIELD ..... ,, 216 
 
 ELIZABETH, BURGHLEY, AND WALSINGHAM . 236 
 
 THE EARL OF WARWICK . . . . 288 
 
 THE EARL OF LEICESTER .... 304 
 
 ELIZABETH AS "AIDING FRIEND" .* . 332 
 
 LEICESTER IN THE NETHERLANDS '. * . 336 
 
 LEICESTER ON HORSEBACK .... 354 
 
 QUEEN MARY PREPARED FOR EXECUTION . 369 
 
 "HIS LAST LETTER" (facsimile) . . 385
 
 THE LOYER OF QUEEN ELIZABETH 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IN the great firmament of human personality, 
 no star shines with a fiercer light than Elizabeth, 
 Queen of England. And of the numerous 
 satellites that revolve about her, radiating an 
 effulgence that is their own and hers, the one 
 whose beams most dazzle star-gazers, is Robert 
 Dudley, Earl of Leicester. 
 
 These two were born into an age when the 
 influence of the planets on human destiny and 
 on human character was held to be direct 
 and all-determining. It was the hour when 
 astronomy was hardly ousting astrology from 
 the category of the sciences. 
 
 The period of Elizabeth and of Leicester 
 was the renascent period of history. In their 
 time, the spirit of the ancients re-incarnated. 
 Learning, art, and literature came to birth in 
 the modern world. Invention and discovery 
 re-emerged from Time's womb. Science and 
 Religion were reconstructed and reformed. To
 
 2 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 that birth and to that emergence, to that recon- 
 struction and to that reformation, the Queen 
 of England and her Supreme Favourite contri- 
 buted not a little. Indeed, they were them- 
 selves among the most remarkable products of 
 the Renascence. Their lives and their- characters 
 exemplify unmistakably the "new" spirit then 
 breathing on Society. The virtues and the 
 vices of Protestantism and of Paganism were 
 incongruously mixed in their compositions. 
 
 To understand the character, and to trace 
 the destiny of Leicester aright, one must 
 examine his heredity, and look into the circum- 
 stances of his early life. 
 
 His father was that John Dudley who was 
 raised to the peerage as Viscount Lisle, by 
 Henry VIII. His mother was Jane, daughter 
 and heiress of Sir Edward Guilford, to whom 
 the guardianship of John Dudley had been 
 given by the King, upon the execution of 
 his father, Edmund Dudley. This Edmund 
 Dudley, Leicester's grandfather, married Eliza- 
 beth, daughter of Edward Grey, and of another 
 Elizabeth who was sister and co-heir of Thomas 
 Talbot, Viscount Lisle, a descendant of the 
 famous Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. 
 After the death of Edmund Dudley, Elizabeth 
 [Grey] married Arthur Plantagenet, a natural 
 son of Edward IV., who was created Viscount 
 Lisle. Of Edmund Dudley, the great Lord
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 3 
 
 Bacon said he was " one that could put hateful 
 business into good language." This facility 
 was handed down to his grandson Robert. 
 Edmund was beheaded on Tower Hill. While 
 in the Tower he wrote a book he entitled 
 "The Tree of Commonwealth," in which he 
 insisted on the necessity of piety and of the 
 sense of Christian fellowship in a Prince. The 
 tone of his work was very different from that 
 of another book of instruction for Princes, 
 published in Europe at the same period. It 
 was the doctrine of Nicholas Macchiavelli that 
 it was " convenient " for the mind of a Prince 
 to be " at his command, and flexible to all 
 the puffs and variations of fortune ; not for- 
 bearing to be good whilst it is in his choice, 
 but knowing how to be evil when there is a 
 necessity." 
 
 The teachings of both these instructors of 
 Princes bore fruit in the lives of Edmund 
 Dudley's descendants. His son John began 
 his career in the godliness of purpose, inculcated 
 by his father. But as John grew great, he 
 relaxed hold upon principle, and adopted the 
 Macchiavellian doctrine of convenience. John's 
 son, "the illustrious Prince" Robert Dudley, 
 Earl of Leicester, reversed the order his father 
 observed. In his early manhood he adhered 
 to the maxims of the Florentine ; he responded 
 in the end to some of the exhortations of his
 
 4 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 grandsire. Yet his mind was ever "at his 
 command, and flexible to all the puffs and 
 variations of fortune." He could not have 
 been Elizabeth's favourite, without the sovereign 
 grace of self-control, nor without the, to her, 
 more serviceable attribute of flexibility. 
 
 But a closer environment than that of the 
 age in which he grew, and a nearer heredity 
 than that of a grand-parent, shaped the princely 
 temper of Elizabeth's Leicester to the form 
 in which history presents it to us. The Court 
 of England was the home of his nature, and 
 the hot-bed of his genius. The pageantry and 
 the power of palace life had supreme attractions 
 for both his parents. To be high at Court 
 was the greatest good life offered for father 
 and for mother ; to be out of favour with the 
 reigning Monarch, the last evil of existence. 
 We learn this of the father in actions of his 
 we become acquainted with in following the 
 career of his son. That the mother of Robert 
 was also set on greatness we are informed 
 by her own telling. 
 
 In the last will and testament of " the Right 
 Noble and Excellent Princess Lady Jane," 
 who was " wife to the High and Mighty 
 Prince, John Dudley, late Duke of North- 
 umberland, by whom she had issue eight sons 
 and five daughters," the mother of Leicester 
 wrote in her " very own hand " :
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 5 
 
 "My will is earnestly and effectually that 
 little solemnity be made for me, for I had 
 ever have a thousandfold, my debts to be 
 paid and the poor to be given unto, than any 
 pomp to be showed upon my wretched carcase 
 that has had at times too much in this world, 
 full of all vanities, deceits and guiles ; and 
 who ever doth trust to this transitory world, as 
 I did, may happen to have an overthrow, as I 
 had ; therefore to the worms will I go as I 
 have before written." 
 
 Yet the woman's scorn in dying of the 
 honours dear in life, was only half sincere. 
 Another clause in her will provided for a certain 
 commemoration of her greatness. 
 
 " I will . . . have ... a stone laid upon 
 my grave accordingly as the heralds shall think 
 meet, with the whole arms of father and 
 mother upon the stone graven." 
 
 But she declared against the practice of 
 embalming : 
 
 "In no wise let me be opened after I am 
 dead. ... I have not lived to be very bold 
 before women, much more I should be loth 
 to come into the hands of any living man, 
 be he Physician or Surgeon." 
 
 In the temperament of the mother who 
 wrote these directions and confessions, we find 
 the key to the character of the Earl of Leicester. 
 We can see whence came the spirit that made
 
 6 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 him accept honours with a gracious contempt, 
 and take to authority as a duck takes to water. 
 We discern also the source of his self-contain- 
 ment, and discover the root of that reserve 
 which in him, as in her who bore him, was 
 the manifestation of a personal pride too deep 
 to be expressed in vanity. 
 
 Leicester was no popinjay and no glutton. 
 It was of design that his array was gorgeous ; 
 of intention that he loaded his table with 
 costly viands, and sat long at banquets. From 
 her reign's beginning to his life's end he was 
 the most conspicuous noble of Elizabeth's Court, 
 and for long he was the declared lover of the 
 Queen. It was to do honour to his native 
 country, and to glorify the woman he sought 
 to marry, as much as to gratify his own 
 ambition, that he lived in state and practised 
 in all its details, the Prince's art of deportment. 
 
 His training in that art was thorough. He was 
 as rigorously educated as Edward VI. himself. 
 But although grounded in Latin, and schooled 
 in modern languages, in the approved royal 
 fashion of his day, his mind imbibed scientific 
 learning more readily than classical. Roger 
 Ascham praised to him " the ability of inditing 
 that is in you naturally," and Thomas Wilson 
 (a Doctor of Laws and a Master of the Court 
 of Requests), who had " familiar conference " 
 with Leicester from his boyhood, had " sufficient
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 7 
 
 proof" of his "careful mind, even in reading, 
 not only of the Latin, but also of the Italian 
 good and sound writers, to know and under- 
 stand the best used government and the 
 chief laws that have been made in all ages." 
 Wilson observed also that he who had the 
 mind " thus godly inclined to know " had also 
 a " good mind " to put his knowledge in 
 practice. 
 
 Leicester received impressions quickly, and 
 represented them with facility and force. His 
 literary style is excellent. He preferred 
 mathematical to linguistic studies. He never 
 learned to speak French with fluency ; but 
 other educations than those of the schoolroom 
 fitted him for his part in life. Manly exercises 
 and sports were included in the curriculum 
 of his training, and in his eighteenth year 
 he began in earnest his apprenticeship to the 
 calling of a favourite. 
 
 The Viscount Lisle had been one of the 
 sixteen trustees of the kingdom named in 
 the will of Henry VIII. And when Edward 
 Seymour, Earl of Hertford, the young King's 
 uncle, laid swift hands on the reins of govern- 
 ment, Lisle was made Earl of Warwick and 
 Great Chamberlain of England, and given the 
 castle and manor of Warwick, and " divers 
 other great lordships and lands." By 1549, 
 Seymour, who had become Duke of Somerset
 
 8 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 and Lord-Protector, was in disgrace with the 
 populace and with the nobles. Lord Warwick, 
 the soldier and diplomat, assumed the governor- 
 ship of Edward, by whom he was later created 
 Duke of Northumberland. With him to Court, 
 Dudley brought his sons, Lord John, Lord 
 Ambrose, and Lord Robert. Robert was at 
 once attached to the person of the young 
 Sovereign. Warwick's next concern as it was 
 doubtless also the concern of his good Countess 
 was to marry his likely boys to well-dowered 
 brides. The eldest, by a contrivance of the 
 young King to reconcile Warwick and Somerset, 
 was married to Lady Anne Seymour. Ambrose 
 was given for his bride a daughter of an 
 Attorney- General. And on the 4th of June 
 1550, at the Royal Palace of Sheen, Lord 
 Robert Dudley became the husband of Amy 
 Robsart. Before the ceremony, the boy-King 
 conferred the honour of knighthood on the 
 bridegroom of eighteen. And Edward recorded 
 the fact of Lord Robert's wedding in his diary 
 curtly, displaying his boyishness by the note : 
 
 " After which marriage, there were certain 
 gentlemen that did strive who should first take 
 away a goose's head, which was hanged alive 
 on two cross-posts." 
 
 The sports of men are barbarous. 
 It is unlikely that Lord Robert had any 
 previous knowledge of Amy Robsart, who was
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 9 
 
 the only legitimate child of the Norfolk squire, 
 Sir John Robsart of Siderstern, by his marriage 
 with a widow, whose children by her first 
 husband one Roger Appleyard, Squire of 
 Stansfield, Norfolk were separately provided 
 for. In the "good old days," parents made 
 the marriages of their children on approved 
 business lines. Amy was her father's co-heiress, 
 and the owner of considerable property. It 
 has been assumed that her country breeding 
 and simple tastes ill -fitted her for Court life. 
 We may believe she had not been instructed 
 in the classic lore that was the fashionable 
 education for the daughters of the nobles of 
 her time. It is doubtful whether she could 
 write. But the tradition that makes her fair, 
 gentle, and trusting, need not be disbelieved. 
 The Duke and Duchess of Northumberland 
 would not have approved an ungainly or an 
 uncouth bride for their handsome young son. 
 And the fact that, nearly two years after their 
 marriage, the Duke settled Hemsby Manor, 
 near Yarmouth, on "Robert Dudley, Lord 
 Dudley, my son, and the Ladie Amie his 
 wife," and that the Duchess, in her will, left 
 to Amy as to her other daughters-in-law, a 
 Court gown (of "wrought velvet"), are proof 
 that Lord Robert's wife was regarded by her 
 husband's family as a fit mate of his dignity. 
 The portrait of Amy Robsart, drawn by Sir
 
 io The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Walter Scott, is not so fallacious as is the 
 history he has attached to the portrait. Both 
 the fine novel of " Kenilworth," and the old-time 
 Ballad of Cumnor Hall, on which " Kenilworth " 
 was founded, are wholly misleading in regard 
 to the circumstances of her life, and the 
 character of her relations to Lord Robert 
 Dudley. Amy was certainly not present at 
 the great festival at Kenilworth ; and she was 
 never Countess of Leicester. Her death 
 occurred before the manor of Kenilworth was 
 bestowed on her husband, and before he was 
 ennobled. 
 
 Yet the true story of Amy Robsart is as 
 pitiful as the imagined one. Her marriage 
 with Lord Robert was to him, to his family, 
 and to her relations, satisfactory enough. The 
 prestige and the influence of the Dudleys were 
 advantageous to all the Robsart connections. 
 The Dudleys had the Robsart money, so they 
 were satisfied. 
 
 In the early days of their married life, the 
 young couple lived on their Norfolk lands. 
 Lord Robert, however, was much at Court. 
 He was made Master of the Buckhounds for 
 life in 1551, and, in the following year, was 
 appointed one of the six gentlemen of the 
 King's Privy Chamber. 
 
 But now the young King's health was failing. 
 He was in rapid consumption, and kept close
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 11 
 
 in his apartments. There could be but one end. 
 Those about him began to consider the fate 
 that would be theirs under a new Sovereign. 
 As a consequence of an earlier enthusiasm, 
 and for more selfish reasons of a later time 
 Edward VI. was an uncompromising Protestant 
 Northumberland had identified himself with 
 the Reforming party in England. There would 
 be short shrift for him and his if the Princess 
 Mary followed her brother on England's throne. 
 An Act of Parliament had given to King 
 Henry the power to dispose by will of the 
 succession to his sovereignty. There were 
 many claimants for Edward's reversion, and 
 much doubt in the minds of the lawyers, 
 though little in that of the people, as to who 
 was entitled to succeed the Prince. Following 
 the dictates of natural affection, and inclining 
 to his people's sense of justice, Henry had 
 named Mary to succeed Edward, should he 
 die without heirs of his body. Elizabeth was 
 to succeed Mary in the like case. After 
 these, the Sovereign appointed the descendants 
 of his younger sister Mary to be his heirs. 
 The line of his elder sister Margaret he 
 passed over. The marriage of Margaret's son, 
 King James V. of Scotland, to a Princess 
 of France Mary of Guise had drawn France 
 and Scotland too closely together to make a
 
 12 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Scottish Prince an acceptable Sovereign for 
 the English. 
 
 The young King was easily persuaded that 
 his power of demising the crown was equal 
 to his father's. But an Act of Parliament 
 had bestowed on Henry the authority for an 
 unconstitutional proceeding. Edward acted by 
 virtue of his kingship alone ; and, boy though 
 he was, acted with all the insistance of an 
 autocrat. Archbishop Cranmer's objections 
 were peremptorily over-ruled. The dying 
 youth set his hand to the testament that put 
 aside the claims of both his sisters, and 
 delegated his regal power to the grandchild 
 of his father's younger sister, who had been 
 Queen of France for a season, and after- 
 wards married Charles Brandon, Duke of 
 Suffolk. The child of this union, the Lady 
 Frances Brandon, had become the wife of 
 Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset. They had 
 three daughters, Jane, Catherine, and Mary. 
 Edward named the eldest of these three 
 the heiress of his kingdom. Northumberland 
 married his fourth surviving son Lord 
 Guilford Dudley to the Lady Jane Grey. 
 And he united, at the same time, the Lady 
 Catherine Grey to the son of the Earl of 
 Pembroke, and gave his daughter, the Lady 
 Catherine Dudley to Lord Hastings, son of 
 the Earl of Huntingdon, a descendant of
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 13 
 
 George, Duke of Clarence. Then Edward 
 died. 
 
 For three days Northumberland kept the 
 fact of the King's death secret, while he made 
 cunning preparation for the securing of the 
 Princess Mary, and the proclamation of 
 " Queen " Jane. Full account of the decep- 
 tions practised to attain this end, belongs to 
 another story. This one concerns Lord 
 Robert Dudley, who, at the head of a Com- 
 pany of Horse, rode northward from the 
 capital to meet Mary on her way to her 
 "dying" brother, who was really dead. Lord 
 Robert was to give the Princess "safe' 
 conduct to the Tower. His escort of honour 
 was to be the escort of her fate. But Mary 
 had friends as well as foes at Court. The 
 hunting - lodge at Hunsdon, where Lord 
 Robert expected to seize his prey, was empty. 
 Orders were sent after him to follow the 
 fugitive along any track she might have left, 
 and the Duke despatched also his eldest son, 
 by courtesy Lord Warwick, to scour the 
 country in the likely direction of her flight. 
 Both young men had their father's commands 
 to act as swiftly and as desperately as might 
 be necessary, to prevent the Princess from pro- 
 claiming herself the Queen. Lord Warwick 
 and Lord Robert were commissioned to decoy 
 Mary with any lie, and, should she turn
 
 14 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 defiant, to connive at her assassination. But 
 they never overtook her, and two days later 
 she issued her Proclamation at Keninghall, a 
 house of the Duke of Norfolk. 
 
 At this crisis in the Dudley destinies, every 
 member of the family acted without scruple. 
 Faithless to England's Queen by law, they 
 were faithful to one another. In London, 
 the Duchess of Northumberland matched her 
 ambition with her lord's, and worked day 
 and night with him to establish the greatness 
 of their house. Their daughter Mary, Lady 
 Sidney, wife of Sir Henry Sidney in whose 
 arms King Edward had died, also took part 
 in the operations carried on in the name of 
 " Queen " Jane. When it had become evident 
 that Edward had only a few more hours, 
 perhaps only a few more minutes, to live, the 
 Duchess of Northumberland had gone to 
 Suffolk House for her son Guilford's bride. 
 Neither Jane nor her mother would allow 
 that the time had come for the ending of 
 the family arrangement, whereby the young 
 Lord , and Lady Guilford Dudley were to 
 live apart until of riper years for matrimony. 
 Only six weeks had passed since their 
 wedding-day. But, prompted by his mother, 
 Lord Guilford came himself and begged 
 Jane, on her duty to him as her husband, 
 to go with him. The child-wife yielded. She
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 15 
 
 went with Lord Guilford and his mother to 
 Chelsea, where they kept her strictly until 
 Lady Sidney, with the deceptive tale that 
 her father had for Lady Jane a message of 
 highest moment from the King, bore her off 
 to Zion House at Isleworth, where the nobles 
 and their ladies who supported, or pretended 
 to support, Northumberland, came to declare 
 to her Edward's death and his will concerning 
 her. The surprised and gratified girl, who 
 believed most sincerely that only a Protestant 
 was a fit Monarch for England, replied to the 
 great ones who acclaimed her, that she had 
 never dreamed of such high destiny, but that 
 if she were called to reign, she prayed for 
 grace to act as might be best for God's glory 
 and His people's good. 
 
 On the third day of her "reign," it became 
 known to her Council that Mary had eluded the 
 dashing pursuit of Lord Warwick and Lord 
 Robert, and that nobles and gentlemen from 
 many counties were flocking to her at Kening- 
 hall. With his sons, Lord Ambrose and Lord 
 Robert, the self-appointed champion of English 
 Protestantism went to do battle with the 
 hereditary genius of Roman Catholicism. "All 
 men crowd to see us, but no man cries God 
 bless us," said Northumberland gloomily, as he 
 rode at the head of his troops, between the 
 silent lines of Londoners, who gathered to
 
 1 6 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 watch his departure. He felt himself to be 
 marching to his doom. Before he came to 
 Keninghall many of his soldiers had deserted. 
 
 At first news of Northumberland's approach, 
 Mary left Keninghall for Framlingham, a more 
 formidable stronghold of the Catholic Howards. 
 On her way she only just escaped falling into 
 the hands of Lord Robert Dudley and his 
 Company of Horse. But this Prince of many 
 future good fortunes had not the chance that 
 day to take prisoner his lawful Queen. Had 
 he done so, the history of England, of himself, 
 and of that later Queen who made his greatness, 
 would have to be re-written. The seizing of 
 Mary would have meant the establishment on 
 the throne of Jane. And who knows if the 
 great Elizabeth had ever come by her own ? 
 
 As things turned out, Mary set her standard 
 flying at Framlingham on the 16th July 1553. 
 On the 31st of the same month she made her 
 triumphal entry into London. Her sister 
 Elizabeth had place in the procession as Princess 
 of England. The train of Mary was sufficiently 
 brilliant although Northumberland and his sons 
 were not included in it. The Duke had been 
 taken at Cambridge by Lord Arundel, his 
 subordinate on the Council that proclaimed 
 " Queen " Jane. 
 
 Too late Northumberland threw up his cap 
 and cried, " Hurrah ! " for Mary. Lord Robert
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 17 
 
 Dudley was arrested at Lynn, where he had 
 read in the market-place the Proclamation of 
 " Queen " Jane. The star of his early fortunes 
 had declined. The conjunction of his destiny 
 with that other destiny that was to raise his 
 to all ascendancy, had not yet taken place. 

 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IT was a portent that the Tower had never 
 before been so full of prisoners as at the first 
 coming to London of Mary, the Queen. 
 
 In the Beauchamp Tower, the Dudley family 
 was lodged Warwick and Guilford on the 
 middle floor ; Robert on the lower ; Ambrose 
 and Henry in the " Nuns' Bower " ; Jane in 
 the deputy-lieutenant's house; the Duke in the 
 gate-house. 
 
 No need to tell of the way by which North- 
 umberland, Lady Jane, and Lord Guilford 
 quitted the gaol of gaols. The lad, Henry, 
 appears to have been early allowed to slip out 
 and join his stricken mother. The four remain- 
 ing brothers though all forswore their Pro- 
 testant faith were kept prisoners for a year 
 and more. 
 
 On the stone wall of the lower room into 
 which Lord Robert first was flung, he carved 
 his name : 
 
 ROBERT DUDLEY. 
 
 Upon the execution of the unhappy Guilford, 
 
 18
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 19 
 
 Robert joined Warwick in the upper room, and, 
 to this day, there may be seen the beguilements 
 of the three brothers in their misery. Lord 
 Guilford carved the name JANE. Two bears 
 and a ragged staff surmount the name of 
 Warwick, and around the badges and the 
 name they signify are wreathed symmetrically 
 roses, acorns geraniums, honeysuckles. The 
 initial letters of these flowers stand for Robert, 
 Ambrose, Guilford, and Henry. But other 
 meanings lurk within the blossoms. The rose 
 suggests Ambrose, and the oak Robert. A 
 sprig of oak the device of Lord Robert 
 with the letters R. D. appears also on the 
 wall. 
 
 During their year of incarceration in the 
 stern chamber they made decorative, Lord 
 Ambrose and Lord Robert were visited by 
 their wives. One need know but a little of the 
 heart of such a woman as was Amy Robsart, 
 to assert that these days were not the least 
 happy ones of her married life. Then, at 
 least, Robert Dudley was all her own. Out 
 in the great world, his fancy was drawn this 
 way and that by many a lode-star. He had 
 so many interests, so many ambitions, so many 
 pre-occupations. Love was of his life a thing 
 apart, and he expected of women that they 
 also should cultivate affection in plots, and 
 make of existence a garden of many interests.
 
 2O The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 But when that great world was shut out, and 
 Lord Robert was forced to find his interests 
 and amusements within a given space, then 
 all the courtesies and the tendernesses, all the 
 gay humours and the facile sentimentalities 
 that were natural flowers of his being, were 
 for the gathering of the faithful wife whose 
 devotion would be the greater in proportion to 
 the depth of the affliction of the husband to 
 whom she belonged. We may not pity Amy 
 Dudley for the time when her Robert lay in 
 the Tower; we may pity her perhaps in the 
 time before. We must pity her thereafter. 
 But at the moment, it was her woman's glory 
 to console the man to whom she had been 
 given, "for better for worse." 
 
 There is no evidence to show that her empire 
 over her husband was disputed, even when, in 
 the progress of events, the Princess Elizabeth 
 became a co-prisoner with Lord Robert. A 
 latter-day calumniator of Queen Elizabeth and 
 the Earl of Leicester has built up a theory 
 of the parentage of the great Lord Bacon, and 
 of the Queen's later favourite, Robert, Earl 
 of Essex, on a cryptographic revelation of the 
 supposed fact of the marriage at this time of 
 Elizabeth and Lord Robert Dudley. But the 
 cypher if there be one that reveals this 
 circumstance, cannot have been penned by a 
 co-temporary. All the world knew of Lord
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 21 
 
 Robert's marriage to Amy, and it is impossible 
 that any union, regular or irregular, could 
 have taken place in the Tower. The Dudley 
 brothers were all closely confined. 
 
 After their father's execution, Ambrose 
 received licence to walk on the leads of Cold 
 Harbour and Guilford had the same privilege 
 for Beauchamp Tower. Doubtless to Warwick 
 and to Robert were also allotted certain areas 
 of exercise. Elizabeth's first indulgence was 
 that of sometimes walking in the Queen's 
 lodging in the presence of the Constable, the 
 Lieutenant, and three of Queen Mary's ladies. 
 Later on she was allowed to promenade in 
 the garden, after the shutters of all over- 
 looking windows had been carefully closed. 
 A little boy of four who ran to her with some 
 flowers, as she took exercise, was severely 
 threatened, and his father summoned before 
 the Constable and rebuked. Facilities for 
 love-making between prisoners, were to say 
 the least restricted. 
 
 And, although Elizabeth was fair, rompish, 
 crafty, and anything but retiring, and Robert 
 Dudley graceful, ingratiating and of "very 
 goodly person," they had both, at the moment, 
 too much to lose, and too little to gain by 
 an association, to have entered into one. It 
 does not square with the nature of either that
 
 22 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 at this juncture they indulged in even a 
 fanciful regard for one another. 
 
 In the month of October 1554, the three 
 brothers were set free. Queen Mary had 
 married Philip of Spain in August, and from 
 the first moment of the new King's coming, 
 the Duchess of Northumberland had laboured 
 to procure, through Spanish influences, the 
 release of her sons. The poor, deprived lady, 
 dying in her only remaining house a Guil- 
 ford inheritance of Hales Owen, bequeathed 
 to the Duchess of Alva her green parrot, 
 "having nothing worthy for her else." She 
 left a small memento "with commendations 
 for the great friendship " he had shown to her 
 in making her have so many friends about 
 the King's Majesty to the Lord "Donague 
 Damondesay." Two other Spaniards the 
 Duke of Salva and the Duke of Mathenon 
 had tokens demised to them with thanks for 
 having done her sons good, "beseeching them, 
 for God's sake, to continue the good lords to 
 my sons in their needs, and my trust is that 
 God will requite them." 
 
 "And my sons all three" is another 
 bequest, " I leave them to the King's Majesty 
 and Her Highness behind me." And the 
 careful Duchess proceeded to provide against 
 royal forgetfulness by bribing the royal 
 attendants :
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 23 
 
 "I give Mistress Clarencieux my tawny 
 velvet jewel coffer ; I give to my Lady Paget 
 my high-backed gown of wrought velvet ; to 
 my Lord Paget one of my black enamelled 
 rings I did use to wear ; to my Lady Sandys 
 another of them, of the less sort." 
 
 One may not wonder at the concern of the 
 dying mother for the future of the three boys, 
 who were the only survivors of the eight she 
 had borne, of the six who had grown to 
 years. For besides her boy Guilford, Lord 
 Warwick had received a death - warrant in 
 the Tower. With Ambrose and Robert, he 
 had passed from his cell to the home of 
 his sister, Mary Sidney, at Penshurst. But 
 within ten days from the time of his libera- 
 tion he died. Neither he nor his surviving 
 brothers had been restored in blood. They 
 were accounted of no rank, and they could 
 neither reclaim nor inherit property. 
 
 In the midst of the lengthy will, in the 
 drawing of which she was at pains to note 
 no lawyer or other man of business helped 
 her, Duchess Jane bethought her suddenly 
 that dispositions to persons attainted of high 
 treason, could not take effect. She had 
 divided her property very equally among her 
 children and her children-in-law, giving only 
 to Ambrose, in whom his father's titles might 
 one day be revived, her real estate and a
 
 24 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 larger sum of money than to the others. By 
 a second disposition, she gave all she possessed 
 wholly to her executors, of whom her son-in- 
 law, Sir Henry Sidney, was the first named, 
 "trusting in their fidelity that they will have 
 special regard and consideration to the advance- 
 ment and help of my children as to them 
 shall seem good." 
 
 Praying always for the advancement of her 
 children, the Duchess laid down her pen at 
 last, but not before she had pictured faithfully 
 her worldliness and her womanliness, her brisk 
 practicality, and her maternal care. 
 
 The war in Flanders King Philip waged 
 against the French, provided the first oppor- 
 tunity the brothers had of fighting for their 
 own. At the siege of St Quintin, Robert 
 Dudley was Master of Ordnance. And so 
 effectually did he display his dash, capacity, 
 and horsemanship, that he was singled out 
 by Philip to be his special messenger to his 
 Queen. During this siege young Henry 
 Dudley lost his life. Ambrose, Robert, Mary 
 (Lady Sidney), and Catherine (Lady Hastings, 
 afterwards Countess of Huntingdon), were all 
 the Dudleys who remained to profit by the 
 Act of Parliament (4 and 5 Philip and Mary) 
 that reversed their attainder, and bestowed 
 upon them fullest rights to enjoy all lands,
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 25 
 
 tenements, and hereditaments that should at 
 any time descend upon or revert to them. 
 
 When Elizabeth mounted the throne, Lord 
 Robert Dudley stood at her footstool, erect, 
 untainted in honour or in name. It was 
 cause of wonder to the envious and the 
 ungenerous not at the moment, but after- 
 wards, when favours were multiplied that 
 the new Queen made him almost immediately 
 her Master of the Horse, and that in the first 
 year of her reign she bestowed on him the 
 Garter. It was forgotten that his elder brother, 
 John, had been similarly distinguished by her 
 brother Edward. The Dudleys, if not through 
 Duke John, through Duke John's mother and 
 through Duchess Jane, were men of high 
 degree. The blood of the Beauchamps, Talbots, 
 Greys, Berkely's and Lisles flowed richly in 
 their veins. 
 
 It has been said by a genius among historians 
 that, "with the single exception of Leicester," 
 Elizabeth's sagacity was unerring in her choice 
 of "precisely the right men for the work she 
 set them to do." But did John Richard Green, 
 when he wrote those words, fully consider the 
 purpose for which Elizabeth selected Dudley ? It 
 is certain that there was much in the character 
 of Lord Robert bound to prove harshly anti- 
 pathetic to persons of reflection and good morals, 
 bred up in the nineteenth century. It is certain
 
 26 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 also, that Dudley had qualities prejudicial to 
 him as a Minister of State. But Elizabeth 
 did not choose him for a councillor. She did 
 not ask from him the infinite patience, the 
 unremitting labour, the balanced judgment, 
 and the apprehensive outlook that served her 
 so well in Cecil. She did not throw upon him 
 the responsibilities and the trusts that she 
 heaped on Sir Thomas Smith, on Lord Sussex, 
 and on Sir Francis Walsingham. She made 
 him only her Master of the Horse, her chief 
 of the Court revels her Favourite. That he 
 became the subtle agent of her variable will, 
 her intelligencer of the dispositions of her 
 people, her negotiator in business speculations, 
 the dispenser of her royal bounties, and her 
 representative and chamberlain in respect of 
 the thousand and one interests, pursuits, arts, 
 sciences, and activities that she shared with 
 and promoted among her subjects, is due to the 
 subsequent developments of his intellect and 
 intentions, not to her anticipations of him. In 
 her heirless household, she created him in all 
 but name a Prince. Here was one who, in 
 understanding and in artificiality, was her peer ; 
 a man she could bare her soul to unashamed ; 
 who could speak piously and do impiously; 
 who could act on a moment's call unfettered 
 by any scruples, impeded by no preconceptions. 
 Their relations were unmoral, not immoral.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 27 
 
 Withering experience had blighted in each the 
 more spontaneous feelings. Very little of the 
 primitive man remained in Dudley ; almost 
 nothing of the primitive woman in Elizabeth. 
 We shall see how strong was the chain of 
 imagination and design that bound them 
 together ; how powerful were the interests and 
 characteristics that drove them apart. 
 
 In the meantime, we may take instructive 
 peeps at the bearing and office of Dudley in 
 the beginning of Elizabeth's reign. 
 
 On Saturday, 14th January 1559, Queen 
 Elizabeth made her State entry into London. 
 She was crowned on the 15th. Dressed in "a 
 royal robe of very rich cloth of gold, with a 
 double-raised stiff pile, and, on her head, over 
 a coif of cloth of gold, beneath which was her 
 hair," a "plain, gold crown without lace, as 
 a Princess, but covered with jewels," Elizabeth 
 rode in "an open litter, trimmed down to 
 the ground with gold brocade," and carried by 
 two very handsome mules, also covered with 
 gold brocade. A multitude of footmen in 
 crimson velvet jerkins, massively studded in 
 silver gilt, with arms of a white and a red 
 rose on their breasts and backs, and the letters 
 E.R. wrought in relief, surrounded her, while on 
 either hand walked the Gentlemen Pensioners, 
 clad in crimson damask, hammers in hand. 
 Behind this gorgeous cortege came Lord Robert
 
 28 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Dudley, mounted on a very fine charger, lead- 
 ing a white hackney with trappings of cloth 
 of gold. 
 
 Perhaps it was on this hackney that, within 
 a few weeks of her accession, Elizabeth, 
 "apparelled in purple velvet, with a scarf 
 about her neck," had ridden from Charterhouse 
 to the Tower of London. On that occasion 
 also, "next after her" rode Robert Dudley. 
 
 On the 2nd of July following, the City of 
 London, to prove its loyalty, and to accustom its 
 burgesses to campaigning and to the exercise of 
 arms, sent a muster of fourteen hundred men 
 to lie out all night in St George's Fields, and 
 to march early the next morning to Greenwich 
 Park. Elizabeth, accompanied by ambassadors 
 of foreign sovereigns, and attended by many 
 lords and ladies, appeared in the gallery above 
 the gateway of Greenwich Palace about five 
 in the afternoon, when Lord Robert Dudley, 
 with the Marquis of Northampton, the Lord 
 Admiral Clinton, and "divers other lords and 
 knights," rode to and fro among the bands 
 " to set them in array to skirmish " before the 
 Queen. 
 
 In their " coats of velvet and chains of gold, 
 with guns, pikes, halberds, and flags," the 
 gunners being "in shirts of mail," the London 
 volunteers must have made an imposing show. 
 The Queen's delight and satisfaction at their
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 29 
 
 turn - out were heartily expressed. Whether 
 Lord Robert's eye for smartness and efficiency 
 was gratified, is not recorded. But either then, 
 or a little later, he became aware of the dis- 
 inclination among the citizens generally, to "war- 
 like gear." It was thought that "apprentices 
 and handycraftesmen men" having "liberty to 
 be trayned . . . wolde thereby fall into such 
 idleness and insolency that many wolde never be 
 reduced again into any good order or service." 
 
 Little Englandism of this kind was detestable 
 to Lord Robert. And when, as Earl of 
 Leicester, he came to be at the head of 
 England's forces, the early exploits of the 
 cockneys in Greenwich Park did not plead 
 with him for London train -bands with which 
 he would have nothing to do, "as knowing 
 what burghers are." 
 
 So we see Elizabeth's Master of Horse in 
 attitudes more or less special to his office. 
 Other glimpses of him in the early years of 
 her reign are indicative of the variety of interests 
 that claimed the Favourite of the Queen. 
 
 One of the first cares of his more intimate 
 office had been to introduce into the secret 
 councils of his mistress a man of science and 
 of necromancy, whose "calculations" could be 
 relied upon to excite the imagination of the 
 Queen, and lead her to the belief that her 
 destiny and her Favourite's were one.
 
 30 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Dr John Dee, of Mortlake, was a scholar 
 of considerable scientific attainment, but he 
 was also a wonder-worker, a spiritualist, and a 
 prognosticator of fates. In the time of Mary, 
 he had been cast into prison for calculating 
 the nativities of the Queen, the King, and the 
 Princess Elizabeth, and for endeavouring by 
 enchantments to destroy Mary. Undoubtedly, 
 his forecasts were flattering to the Princess, 
 though in his " Compendious Rehearsall " of 
 his life, he has denied that there was any 
 treason to the monarchs in his proceedings. 
 
 Before the coronation of Elizabeth, " by 
 commandment of Lord Robert," Dee " wrote 
 at large and delivered for Her Majesty's use " 
 what in his judgment, "the ancient astrologers 
 would determine of the election day of such 
 a time, as was appointed for Her Majesty to 
 be crowned in." And, since it was the chief 
 employment of Dee's professional life to cast 
 horoscopes, it was doubtless also, at this time, 
 and by commandment of Lord Robert, that 
 those calculations of nativity were made that 
 established the belief that Elizabeth and her 
 Favourite were born under planets that 
 determined a "strait conjunction of their 
 minds." Certain it is that Dr Dee composed 
 a " Book of Astrologie " for the Queen's use 
 a curious production containing diagrams 
 and designs that may mean anything or
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 31 
 
 nothing, according to the faith and instruction 
 of the reader of them. 
 
 And all through the years that the Favourite 
 lived at the side of the Queen, Elizabeth's 
 curiosity concerning the arts and discoveries 
 of Dr Dee, persisted. In 1571, at the instance 
 of Lord Leicester, Dr Dee was despatched to 
 Germany to confer with other doctors con- 
 cerning an ailment from which Her Majesty 
 suffered. And on the 10th of March 1575, 
 according to a note in Dr Dee's diary : 
 
 " The Queen's Majesty with her most Honour- 
 able Privy Council, and other her lords and 
 nobility, came purposely to have visited my 
 library ; but finding that my wife was within 
 four hours before buried out of the house, 
 Her Majesty refused to come in; but willed 
 me to fetch my glass so famous, and to show 
 unto her some of the properties of it which I 
 did ; Her Majesty (being taken down from her 
 horse by the Earl of Leicester, Master of the 
 Horse, by the Church wall of Mortlake) did 
 see some of the properties of that glass to Her 
 Majesty's great contentment and delight, and 
 so in most gracious manner did thank me." 
 
 Elizabeth and her Favourite were then forty- 
 four years of age. Yet if, as the Queen peered 
 into the magic crystal, a vision of romance and 
 of fate rose before her eyes, we may be sure 
 the dark countenance of the Earl of Leicester 
 had a place in it. Her Master of Horse
 
 32 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 stood by. He was at her side, too, upon 
 another occasion when the machinations of 
 Dee brought her, presumably, contentment 
 and delight. For when later, in 1577, an 
 image of the Queen with a pin through its 
 heart was found in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Dr 
 Dee was again to the fore, "satisfying the 
 request" of Her Majesty and Council in 
 "godly and artificial manner." His incanta- 
 tions ended, the licensed sorcerer, in company 
 with Mr Secretary Wilson, who had witnessed 
 all his proceedings, declared to the Queen 
 what he had done for her protection from 
 witchcraft ; " Her Majesty then sitting without 
 the Privy Garden by the landing - place at 
 Richmond, the Honourable Earl of Leicester 
 being also by." 
 
 It was in the third year of Elizabeth's reign 
 that Lord Robert Dudley interceded with her 
 for the "Society of the House" of the Inner 
 Temple, to retain Lyon's Inn, which the 
 fellowship of the Middle Temple was trying 
 to appropriate as a recompense for the loss of 
 Strand Inn, upon the building of Somerset 
 House. We read in a garrulous chronicle, 
 that 
 
 "through Dudley's intercession there was a 
 stop made therein, and the Society of the 
 Inner Temple did then enact that no person 
 of their society should ever be retained as
 
 Lord Robert Dudley.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 33 
 
 council against Lord Leicester or his heirs, 
 and that the arms of the said Lord Robert 
 should be set up and placed in some 
 convenient place in the Hall as a con- 
 tinual monument of his Lordship's favour to 
 them." 
 
 And besides the " continual monument," 
 still to be seen of the curious in the Inner 
 Temple, members signalised their gratitude by 
 making Lord Robert the chief personage of 
 the grand masque and feast with which they 
 celebrated Christmas in the fourth year of 
 Elizabeth. After the grandiloquent fashion of 
 these amusements, Lord Robert was constituted 
 Constable and Marshal of the Court of Merri- 
 ment, and had bestowed on him the title of 
 Palaphilos. 
 
 Of Palaphilos as he appeared at the lawyers' 
 feast, we have the description that he was "a 
 man of tall personage, a manly countenance, 
 somewhat brown of visage, strongly featured, 
 and thereto comely proportioned in all linea- 
 ments of body." 
 
 This is an instant account of him in his 
 twenty-ninth year, set down by an ambassador 
 from the Venetian Republic. It corresponds 
 exactly with the tradition of the physical 
 qualities of Elizabeth's favourite that remained 
 in the minds of his countrymen when he had
 
 34 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 become bald, rubicund, and almost portly. The 
 same tradition survived when the waxen hue 
 of death had paled his brown visage, and when 
 his glittering black eye had been dimmed for 
 ever. 
 
 "A man of a flourishing age and comely 
 feature of body and limbs," wrote Camden. 
 "Tall and singularly well-featured, of a sweet 
 aspect, but high foreheaded, which was of no 
 discommendation," was Naunton's description. 
 
 Lord Robert Dudley did not lack what 
 greatness lies in physical strength and beauty. 
 Neither did he fail in the knowledge of how 
 to make a success of his array. When, at 
 fifty-four years of age, he stepped upon Dutch 
 shores, the protector of the liberties of the 
 boors, the bargemen, and the brewers of Holland, 
 his satins, velvets, laces, jewels, and feathers 
 were astounding. " Everybody is wondering 
 at the great magnificence of his clothes," wrote 
 a conscientious local reporter of the glory that 
 had descended upon Utrecht. At ah 1 times 
 his garments and his accoutrements were the 
 admiration and the despair of the gilded youth 
 of England, who aspired to copy them. 
 
 His horsemanship and athleticism were also 
 most wonderful to foreigners. The refractory 
 Irish chieftain, Shan O'Neil, when he was the 
 "guest" of Elizabeth in 1562, petitioned Her
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 35 
 
 Majesty to allow him to attend on the Lord 
 Robert. 
 
 " That he might learn to ride after the English 
 fashion, to run at the tilt, to hawk, to shoot and 
 use such other good exercises as the said good 
 lord was most apt unto."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE singular regard of Elizabeth for Lord 
 Robert Dudley, and his constant attendance on 
 her both officially as Master of the Horse, and 
 unofficially as boon- companion of her leisure, 
 led very early in her reign to the stirring of 
 many jealousies, and to the circulation of many 
 scandals. Within a year of her accession, 
 Elizabeth gave to Lord Robert, a messuage 
 at Kew, the sites of the monasteries of Watton 
 and Meux in Yorkshire, the lieutenancy of 
 Windsor Castle and Forest, and a profitable 
 licence to export woollen goods free of duty. 
 
 Men's tongues were not shortened because 
 the Queen rapidly restored Lord Ambrose to 
 forfeited dignities and titles. She made him 
 chief pantler for coronations in 1559, and Earl of 
 Warwick in 1561 ; and quickly appointed Lady 
 Sidney a Woman of the Bedchamber. But 
 it was not alone the benefactions his Sovereign 
 heaped on him, that made Lord Robert 
 Dudley remarked upon and remarkable. It 
 was Elizabeth's frank delight in the young man's 
 company ; their caresses and their endearments ; 
 their communications by day and by night, 
 
 36
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 37 
 
 that, as was natural and as was right, angered 
 puritans, provoked statesmen, and shocked am- 
 bassadors. And of all these things puritans' 
 anger, statesmen's annoyance, and diplomatists' 
 horror Robert Dudley bore the brunt. It 
 was the vice of Lord Robert, and his seduction 
 of the Queen, the pulpits raged against ; it 
 was the persuasions and the oppositions of 
 Lord Robert, Elizabeth's other ministers com- 
 plained of; it was the duplicity and the faith- 
 lessness of Lord Robert, diplomatists declared 
 would prove the ruin of England. Yet hi the 
 game they played ; in the front they presented 
 to the world ; in their true and seeming devo- 
 tions ; in their real and apparent faithlessnesses, 
 Elizabeth and Lord Robert were one. 
 
 The first question on men's lips, when 
 Elizabeth mounted the throne, was whom 
 will the Queen marry ? The popular mind 
 was no more prepared at the death of Mary 
 than it had been at the death of Edward, to 
 imagine a Queen sole. The "device" for the 
 succession, as dictated by Edward, before it 
 was touched up by the hand of Northumber- 
 land, left the throne to the King's heirs male ; 
 failing these, to the heirs male of the Lady 
 Jane Grey, of the Lady Catherine Grey et 
 sequitur. A son of the King's cousin was to 
 take precedence of the King's own daughter. 
 Edward had not been aware of his near end
 
 38 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 when he made the will. He expected to have 
 a son of his own in due course. Northumber- 
 land had known well enough that he was 
 dying, and had provided a King for England 
 in his own boy Guilford. There were Catholics 
 in England who would have preferred the 
 otherwise unpopular " long lad," Henry Darnley, 
 to Mary Stuart, as a Sovereign for England, 
 simply because Darnley was a man. There 
 were Protestants who would sooner have had 
 the Earl of Huntingdon for a Monarch, than 
 either Elizabeth or Jane, for the sole reason 
 that Lord Huntingdon was a male. With 
 Catherine de Medici ruling Queen-Mother of 
 France, with Mary Stuart reigning Queen of 
 Scotland, and with Elizabeth Tudor on the 
 throne of England, men yet believed that it 
 was not in the power of females to grasp 
 sceptres, and that the government of a woman 
 was no government. 
 
 The marriage of Elizabeth's sister, Mary, 
 had been most unpopular. 
 
 One element of the great rejoicings over 
 Elizabeth's accession had been delight that 
 Spanish influence was overthrown. Yet, with 
 strange inconsistency, no sooner was the new 
 Queen crowned, than a Spanish match began 
 to be spoken of for her. Both Lord Robert 
 and Elizabeth knew that if a marriage had 
 to be, an English union would be the more
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 39 
 
 popular one. There existed in their day no 
 established custom of mating royalty only with 
 royalty. The Earl of Arundel and Sir William 
 Pickering, the latter a person of good looks 
 and "excellent gravity," but of no birth to be 
 accounted of, were both well-supported suitors 
 for Elizabeth's hand. Yet the right man was 
 hard to find. 
 
 As for Elizabeth herself, she replied to the 
 deputation of her first Parliament, who urged 
 her to take a husband they did not presume 
 to name a candidate for the office that she 
 had already joined herself to a husband, 
 namely the Kingdom of England. And she 
 made clear her determination to devote her- 
 self to that husband by many symbols of 
 phrase and gesture. Taking from her finger 
 the ring placed there at her Coronation, she 
 held it up for her "estates" to gaze upon. 
 
 " Behold the Pledge of this my wedlock," 
 she exclaimed. And after a pause, she pleaded : 
 "And do not upbraid me with miserable lack 
 of children ; for every one of you, and as many 
 as are Englishmen, are Children and Kinsmen 
 to me; of whom, if God deprive me not 
 (which God forbid), I cannot without injury 
 be accounted barren." Then after promising to 
 do nothing prejudicial to the Commonwealth, 
 but if she entered another course of life to 
 " take such a husband as near as may be, as
 
 4O The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 will have as great a care of the Commonwealth 
 as myself," she concluded with the much and 
 variously quoted peroration : " And to me it 
 shall be full satisfaction ... if when I shall 
 let my last breath, it be ingraven upon my 
 Marble Tomb, Here lieth Elizabeth which 
 reigned a Virgin and died a Virgin''' 
 
 Elizabeth was twenty - five years of age, 
 handsome, vigorous, popular ; the hope of 
 every party in the state. It was known that 
 she was neither a fanatic nor a devotee. It 
 was thought that in Protestantism she would 
 go no further than restoring the non - papal 
 Catholicism of Henry VIII. She had con- 
 formed to all the ceremonial re-established by 
 Mary. But it was believed that her early 
 training, and her liberality of thought, would 
 make her a friend to all reformers. 
 
 From the moment that it became certain 
 that Queen Mary would have no child, it had 
 been the policy of King Philip to treat the 
 Princess Elizabeth with special favour. By 
 his means she had been set free from the 
 Tower, and allowed to appear at Court as 
 heiress-presumptive of the kingdom. 
 
 But Elizabeth was no longer Princess on 
 sufferance. By universal acclamation she was 
 Queen. And she had all the self-sufficiency 
 of her years ; those years in which the timidities 
 of girlhood have been outgrown, and the
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 41 
 
 experiences of life have not yet destroyed 
 the illusion of self - importance. It has been 
 questioned whether Elizabeth was ever sincere 
 even at that moment of triumphant vanity, 
 in which she first found herself England's 
 Queen in asserting her desire for a maiden 
 life. It is certain that in her declaration to 
 De Quadra, Bishop of Arras (King Philip's 
 ambassador in England), that she wished she 
 had been a nun, she was wholly insincere. 
 There may have been moments when the 
 vacuities and the limitations of a cloistered 
 existence beckoned to her as a blessed alter- 
 native from the contentions and perplexities 
 of a regal life ; but her nature and her habits 
 were the antitheses of those that go to the 
 making of a religious. A convent was an 
 impossible domicile for the genius of Elizabeth. 
 But it is not therefore certain that in spirit, 
 and by temperament, she was not a votary of 
 the maiden state. The woman who not only 
 rebels against maternity, but who is also 
 without elementary instincts of wifehood ; who 
 is sufficient unto herself, and unconscious all 
 her life of any inclination to surrender, is 
 a creature of whose existence the world is 
 but beginning to be convinced. It is not 
 the province of the biographer to discuss the 
 worth or the unworth of the type. The 
 historian of character, as of events, is con-
 
 42 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 cerned only with what is. Women of this 
 kind exist. Potentially, at least, they have 
 always existed. There are among them those 
 who make use of their immunity from certain 
 impulses for a bad end; and those who all 
 but disregarding the fact that they are immune 
 devote their more specialised powers and 
 intelligencies to noble endeavour. 
 
 Many episodes and circumstances of Eliza- 
 beth's history justify the supposition that she 
 was so immune, and that she used her abnormal 
 self-containment for definite and precise purposes. 
 How far those purposes were good for England, 
 and how far they were bad for Society ; how far 
 they contributed to the material prosperity of 
 the realm, and how far they militated against 
 the spiritual well - being of her people, the 
 readers of the story of her relations to Robert 
 Dudley may determine. 
 
 The first evidences we have of the sincerity 
 of Elizabeth's ambition to remain husbandless 
 all her days, are her own activity and Lord 
 Robert's in starting many marriage projects. 
 So hardy were the enterprises of Dudley, so 
 various the proposals he supported, that he 
 almost betrayed the secret that was between 
 the Queen and him, which secret was to use 
 to the utmost the political asset of Elizabeth's 
 single blessedness, but to use it always, so as 
 never to impair its value. The Elizabeth who
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 43 
 
 should be Imperial, who should be England 
 free, unpledged, inviolate, and independent, 
 must not be subservient, must not even be 
 perpetually allied to any foreign influence, to 
 any set of religious ideas, to any political 
 party, to any one man. 
 
 The answer to the proposal of Philip was 
 prompter and less equivocal than any answer 
 ever made by Elizabeth, either as Princess or 
 as Queen, to a suitor for her hand. She had 
 nothing to gain in personal safety, and nothing 
 for England's good, by further coquetries with 
 her late sister's widower, and for the marrying 
 of her brother-in-law, the initial step would 
 have had to be the obtaining of a dispensation 
 from the Pope. Now it was a papal dispensa- 
 tion that had been the root of all the trouble 
 of her father's reign ; the fount of all the 
 misery she and her half-sister of bitter memory, 
 had drunk of so deeply and so long. Philip 
 was set aside. So also was another candidate in 
 the Spanish interest the Archduke Ferdinand. 
 
 A French aspirant was put forward. But 
 the marriage of the Scottish girl-Queen Mary, 
 to the Dauphin, made the rejection of a French 
 suitor an imperative need. The power of France 
 was paramount in Scotland. Mary of Guise was 
 the Queen-Regent of her daughter's minority 
 in the northern kingdom, and the Dauphin and 
 Dauphiness had audaciously quartered the arms
 
 44 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 of England, and were styled in France, King 
 and Queen of Scotland and England. By all 
 laws of descent, Scottish Mary was heiress- 
 presumptive to the English throne. James V. 
 of Scotland, her father, had been son to 
 Margaret, elder sister of Henry VIII., by her 
 first marriage with James IV. In the eyes 
 of Catholics, Elizabeth was an illegitimate child 
 of her father, and no Princess ; the Queen 
 of Scots rightful Queen of England. The 
 position now of Mary Stuart as Consort of 
 France's future King, was justification enough 
 of the Act of the English Parliament that 
 had empowered Henry VIII. to set aside the 
 line of Margaret. The claims to England's 
 Queenship asserted for Mary by her French 
 kin, were indignantly rebuffed by the main 
 body of ' the English nation. Not only was 
 the idea of another Catholic Mary on the throne 
 unwelcome, but English Elizabeth, "daughter 
 to old Harry th' Eighth," as men loved to 
 call her, and she loved to be called although 
 Heaven knew old Harry th' Eighth had had his 
 seasons of unpopularity both with his daughter 
 and with the country was the ruler England 
 wanted, to the exclusion of all Frenchified 
 misses. If Mary had been Queen instead of 
 Elizabeth, who had been ruler in England 
 but the French King? The prejudices and 
 feuds of centuries could not be quieted in an
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 45 
 
 hour. It was bad enough that French influence 
 was so dominant in the near land of the Scots. 
 In this opinion there were Scots who shared. 
 Protestantism was making its way in the 
 northern kingdom, and the Protestants of 
 Scotland desired the friendship of their English 
 neighbours. 
 
 Sir William Cecil appointed by Elizabeth 
 her Secretary of State, at her first Council 
 at Hatfield, was a man without fanaticism, yet 
 a convinced Protestant. The first business 
 of his administration was the settlement of 
 religion. With a view to the surer establish- 
 ment of Protestantism, and also with the design 
 of checking French and Spanish power, Cecil 
 conceived the idea of secretly encouraging the 
 dissentients from the Franco- Catholic rule in 
 Scotland, and of promoting a friendship between 
 the Protestants of both countries, by marrying 
 Elizabeth to the Scottish heir - presumptive, 
 the Earl of Arran. 
 
 The plan was not discouraged by Elizabeth. 
 Indeed, she joined in it with a zest that raised 
 the highest hopes in Cecil. He had yet to 
 learn that Elizabeth's taste for experiences of 
 the kind was insatiable, and that years would 
 be added to years, before custom could stale 
 the pleasure of receiving attentions, in any 
 way to be construed as amorous. Whether 
 politically or personally, the bringing of men
 
 46 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 to her feet was the pastime Elizabeth loved. 
 The Earl of Arran was smuggled by Cecil 
 out of France into England ; was hidden in 
 the minister's house for a time, and surrepti- 
 tiously visited there by the Queen. Arran 
 was a curious weakling, who subsequently 
 became pronouncedly insane. His deficiencies 
 must have proclaimed themselves to Elizabeth 
 during their clandestine interviews. There is 
 no touch-stone of the mental strength of a 
 man, to be compared with that of love-making. 
 And when the lady wooed is decidedly wide 
 awake, and all her sighing and simpering of 
 design to provoke declarations and to test the 
 quality of the wooer, shortcomings of virility 
 and intelligence must quickly be discovered. 
 But had the romantic ardour of a Raleigh, 
 the fanciful sentimentality of a Hatton, and 
 the calm audacity of a Leicester, been com- 
 bined in Arran, he could not have prevailed 
 with Elizabeth. She had no intention of 
 attracting the enmity of the Catholic party, 
 of the French, or of the Queen of Scots, by 
 identifying herself, as this marriage Cecil 
 reckoned on would have identified her, with 
 Protestants, and the disaffected generally. Yet 
 she coquetted with the idea of it, and let 
 Cecil think her inclined to it, for some little 
 time. 
 
 Great, therefore, was the grievance of the
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 47 
 
 Secretary against the Favourite when he dis- 
 covered that Lady Sidney, on behalf of her 
 brother Lord Robert, had been entertaining 
 De Quadra with professions of the Queen's 
 readiness to marry the Archduke Charles, 
 cousin of Philip, and a younger son of the 
 Austrian Emperor. Lady Sidney told the 
 Bishop that a plot had been formed to murder 
 the Queen and Lord Robert at Lord Arundel's, 
 and that the acuteness of Elizabeth's danger, 
 and the unsettled state of Scotland where 
 subjects were rebelling against their lawful 
 Sovereign had so alarmed the Queen, that 
 she had determined to marry. Lord Robert 
 confirmed his sister's story, and announced 
 himself willing to put before Her Majesty the 
 advantages of an Austrian match. 
 
 When De Quadra spoke to the Queen herself 
 on the matter, Elizabeth asked that the Emperor 
 would send his son to England for her to see. 
 Other Princesses married for interest ; she would 
 marry for love. The Bishop demurred. The 
 Archduke could not come without assurance 
 that Her Majesty would not be displeased. 
 Elizabeth smiled, and said if he had no fear 
 but that, he might come when he would. She 
 added, in affected embarrassment, that she was 
 afraid he might hear things said of her which 
 might not please him. 
 
 " Let not your Majesty trouble about that,"
 
 48 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 was the reply of De Quadra ; " we know too 
 well what really passes in this Court to be 
 moved by idle rumours. Had we given credit 
 to the talk of the world, we would not have 
 desired to see the Archduke here." 
 
 This answer seemed to please Elizabeth. On 
 her side, the purpose of the audience had been 
 rather to ascertain the view held by foreign 
 courts of her relations with Dudley, than to 
 bring the match with the Archduke nearer. 
 The Sovereigns of Europe did not yet appear 
 to be scandalised. 
 
 De Quadra wrote to his master : 
 
 "There are ten or twelve Ambassadors of 
 us, all competing for Her Majesty's hand ; and 
 they say the Duke of Holstein is coming next, 
 as a suitor for the King of Denmark. The 
 Duke of Finland who is here for his brother, 
 the King of Sweden, threatens to kill the 
 Emperor's man ; and the Queen fears they will 
 cut each others' throats in her presence." 
 
 One would believe hi the escape of the Court 
 from this sensation, had it not been the Queen 
 who expressed the fear of it. To be the heroine 
 of such a dramatic moment had not been all 
 unpleasant to the young woman whose delight 
 it was to breed follies hi men. Yet it was 
 of diplomacy that the Queen coquetted with 
 each suitor in turn. When the time came for 
 Lord Robert to go over from the Spanish to 
 the Swedish interest, De Quadra was not
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 49 
 
 surprised. But he was astounded to hear 
 " from a person who usually gives me true 
 information, that Lord Robert had sent instruc- 
 tions to have his wife poisoned ; and that ah 1 
 the dallying with us, all the dallying with the 
 Swede, all the dallying which there will be with 
 the rest, one after the other, is merely to keep 
 Lord Robert's enemies in play, till his villainy 
 about his wife can be executed. I have learnt 
 also certain other things as to the terms on 
 which the Queen and Lord Robert stand to 
 one another, which 1 could not have believed." 
 
 And when the Spaniard reminded the Queen 
 of what Lady Sidney had said to him about 
 the Archduke, Elizabeth, with shameless 
 mendacity, replied : " No doubt Lady Sidney 
 had meant well, but she had spoken without 
 commission." The Bishop "burst out at this," 
 and Elizabeth was "very ill-pleased at being 
 forced so far to declare herself." 
 
 Indeed, she had gone so far in the affair, 
 that Lord Paget said she must now accept the 
 Austrian marriage. The Duke of Norfolk, who 
 believed that it was on account of Lord Robert 
 that the Queen held back from the Archduke, 
 said that the Favourite should "never die in 
 his bed unless he gave over his preposterous 
 pretensions." A few days later, Lord Robert 
 told the Duke that whoever advised the Queen 
 
 to marry a stranger was no good Englishman. 
 
 D
 
 50 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 High words passed. Dudley stood his ground. 
 Norfolk threatened to leave the Court, and to 
 retire to Framlingham. 
 
 Little wonder that, as De Quadra noted, 
 Lady Sidney was disquieted, and that she 
 quarrelled with her brother over his retreat 
 from the Spanish negotiations. Lady Sidney 
 remembered the reign of Mary, when Philip's 
 interest was exerted for the Dudleys. She 
 could not blow hot and cold. She could follow 
 well enough the progress of ideas evinced in 
 Elizabeth's refusal of Philip, in her considera- 
 tion of the suit of Arran, in her revulsion from 
 Protestantism under the fierce pulpit reproaches 
 of her friendship with Lord Robert, and in her 
 entertainment of the match with the Catholic 
 Archduke. She could even simple woman and 
 fond sister engage in a manoeuvre that had 
 for an objective the confusion of the scandal- 
 mongers. For the fact of Dudley going himself 
 to the Ambassador, and negotiating, on terms, 
 the marriage of Elizabeth with the Archduke, 
 might be supposed to dispel the belief that the 
 Favourite sought to be to his Queen anything 
 more than her confidential adviser for her own 
 and the nation's good. But Lady Sidney could 
 not be false to professions, and neither she nor 
 any other could believe it was the plan of 
 Lord Robert to keep his Queen unwed, and 
 to maintain his rank of supreme favourite of
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 51 
 
 a maiden ruler. She could not yet understand 
 the curious and fascinating office which Dudley's 
 own commanding parts, and the Queen's bizarre 
 imagination, had thrust upon him. 
 
 But now the inevitable was to happen. The 
 penalty attached to eccentricity, idiosyncrasy, 
 abnormality call it what one will is never to 
 be avoided. 
 
 Robert Dudley had a wife. His wife as is 
 the way with many good wives had little 
 care for or understanding of his greater hopes 
 and larger ambitions. Yet it does not appear 
 that they quarrelled. Indeed, they seem to 
 have been on the best of terms. 
 
 We should have much light on the true 
 story of Amy Robsart, and learn more of the 
 true story of the lord, her husband, if we could 
 ascertain precisely, why, after the coming of 
 Elizabeth to the throne, Lady Robert Dudley 
 had no settled home, but journeyed much to 
 and fro ; going sometimes to London, though 
 never staying there long. From the carefully 
 kept account books of herself and her husband, 
 one learns that she had command of sufficient 
 money to gratify every change and turn of 
 her woman's fancy in dress, and to have horses 
 always in readiness to take herself and her 
 suite to the next country house she desired to 
 visit. From time to time, at the different 
 places she remained at, she was joined by my
 
 52 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 lord, ridden from the Court. He would stay 
 and dine, play at the cards, perhaps sleep a 
 night or two, and then, a foot in the stirrup, 
 and the Master of the Queen's Horse was off 
 again on his royal mistress's service. The lands 
 in Norfolk had still to be managed. And on 
 an occasion, the Lady Robert wrote (or dictated 
 to her Secretary) a letter that gives just a 
 glimpse such a short, cursory glimpse ! into 
 her home relations with her husband. It was 
 addressed to an agent of her lord's in Norfolk. 
 
 "MR FLOWERDEW, I understand by Gryse 
 that you put him in remembrance of that you 
 spake to me of, concerning the going of certain 
 sheep at Siderstern ; and although I forgot to 
 move my lord thereof, before his departing, 
 he being sore troubled with weighty affairs, 
 and I not being altogether in quiet for his 
 sudden departing, yet, notwithstanding, knowing 
 your accustomed friendship towards my lord and 
 me, I neither may nor can deny you that 
 request, in my lord's absence, of mine own 
 authority, yea, and it were a greater matter, 
 as if any good occasion may serve you to try 
 me ; desiring you further that you will make 
 the sale of the wool so soon as is possible, 
 although you sell it for VI 's. the stone, or 
 as you would sell for yourself; for my lord 
 so justly required me, at his departing, to see 
 those poor men satisfied, as though it had been 
 a matter depending upon life ; wherefore I force 
 not to sustain a little loss thereby to satisfy 
 my lord's desire, and so to send that money 
 to Gryse's house to London, by Bridewell, to
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 53 
 
 whom my lord hath given order for the payment 
 thereof. And thus I end, always troubling you, 
 wishing that occasion may serve me to requite 
 you ; until that time I must pay you with my 
 thanks, and so to God I leave you. 
 
 " From Mr Hyde's, this VII of August, your 
 assured, during life, 
 
 " AMYE DUDDLEY." 
 
 There is a wifely touch in the phrase, "he 
 being sore troubled with weighty affairs, and 
 I not being altogether in quiet for his sudden 
 departing." The business that troubled Dudley 
 was, unquestionably, that of the Queen's 
 marriage. Lady Robert's words convey the 
 impression it may have been part of her 
 loyalty as Dudley's wife deliberately to choose 
 words to convey it that she was concerned 
 with, as well as for her husband. In any case, 
 matters were reaching a climax at the Court. 
 And if only stray fragments of the gossip, going 
 about in town for months past, had been 
 scattered throughout the country, poor Amy 
 must have known that men were saying the 
 Queen would have no husband but my Lord 
 Robert, and that the design was between 
 Elizabeth and her Favourite to get rid of the 
 Lady Amy by the means either of divorce or 
 of poison. 
 
 Men of state, who were also leaders of the 
 Liberal and Protestant party, heads of noble 
 houses who desired a return to the " old order "
 
 54 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 of society and religion ; foreign ambassadors who 
 had the interests of their several countries to 
 consider ; and men and women of the world who 
 held that an unmarried woman not a nun 
 must be necessarily immoral, were all anxious 
 to settle Elizabeth with a husband, who should 
 serve their cause, insure their greatness, or 
 restore its lost reputation to the Court. The 
 refusal of Elizabeth to choose that husband, 
 and the persistence of her coquetry with a 
 married man, could breed but one thought 
 that she was desperately in love with that 
 man. Furthermore, when it began to be stated 
 in the royal circle, that the wife of Dudley 
 was in poor health, it required no special 
 malice of invention for men to say, and to 
 believe, that a plan was in order for the wife's 
 destruction. It is not, however, beyond the 
 bounds of possibility that Lady Amy was 
 afflicted with some special mental or physical 
 distress. The facts that, although Lord Robert's 
 purse was at her command and she spent 
 largely of it, she had not to order the expenses 
 of a great establishment ; that she was indulged 
 in constant change and excitement of a mild 
 order ; and that Cumnor Hall belonged to a 
 former Court physician, though let to Sir 
 Anthony Forster at the time Lady Amy went 
 there on her last visit, point perhaps to the 
 conclusion that her health was not good, and
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 55 
 
 that a special mode of living had been prescribed 
 for it. Before Amy's tragedy overtook her, it 
 was said that she had cancer. After the event, 
 there was a suggestion that she was hysterical, 
 or of unsound mind. That all these things 
 were disbelieved by those who wished to dis- 
 believe them, is matter of course. Yet stranger 
 things are true. It was easier in the sixteenth, 
 than in the twentieth, century, to hold the 
 greatest guilty of foul play. It came naturally 
 enough to people of the time of Lady Amy 
 to take the view that the Queen and her 
 Favourite were conspiring to end her life. Yet 
 it is permissible to believe that they did not 
 so conspire. 
 
 The sinister view is at once supported and 
 refuted by a letter from De Quadra to the 
 Duchess of Parma (Philip's regent in the 
 Netherlands), written on llth September 1560. 
 
 " Since my last letter to your Highness, so 
 many and unexpected matters have taken place 
 here that I think it right to give you immediate 
 information of them. 
 
 " On the 3rd of this month the Queen spoke 
 to me about her marriage with the Archduke. 
 She said she had made up her mind to marry, 
 and that the Archduke was to be the man. 
 She has just now told me drily that she does 
 not intend to marry, and that it cannot be. 
 
 " After my conversation with the Queen, I 
 met the Secretary Cecil, whom I knew to be
 
 56 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 in disgrace. Lord Robert I was aware, was 
 endeavouring to deprive him of his place. 
 
 " With little difficulty I led him to the subject, 
 and after many protestations and entreaties that 
 I would keep secret what he was about to tell 
 me, he said that the Queen was going on so 
 strangely that he was about to withdraw from 
 her service. It was a bad sailor, he said, who 
 did not make for port when he saw a storm 
 coming, and for himself he perceived the most 
 manifest ruin impending over the Queen through 
 her intimacy with Lord Robert. The Lord 
 Robert had made himself master of the business 
 of the State, and of the person of the Queen, 
 to the extreme injury of the realm, with the 
 intention of marrying her ; and she herself was 
 shutting herself up in the palace to the peril 
 of her health and life. That the realm would 
 tolerate the marriage, he said that he did not 
 believe ; he was therefore determined to retire 
 into the country, although he supposed they 
 would send him to the Tower before they 
 would let him go. 
 
 "He implored me for the love of God to 
 remonstrate with the Queen, to persuade her 
 not utterly to throw herself away as she was 
 doing, and to remember what she owed to 
 herself and to her subjects. Of Lord Robert, he 
 twice said he would be better in Paradise than here. 
 
 " I could only reply that I was most deeply 
 grieved ; I said he must be well aware how 
 anxious I had always been for the Queen's 
 well-doing. I had laboured as the King my 
 master had directed me, to persuade her to 
 live quietly, and to marry with how little 
 effect he himself could tell. I would try again, 
 however, as soon as I had an opportunity.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 57 
 
 " He told me the Queen cared nothing for 
 foreign Princes ; she did not believe she stood 
 in any need of their support. She was deeply 
 in debt, taking no thought how to clear herself, 
 and she had ruined her credit in the city. 
 
 " Last of all, he said they were thinking of 
 destroying Lord Robert's wife. They had 
 given out that she was ill ; but she was not 
 ill at all; she was very well, and was taking 
 care not to be poisoned ; God, he trusted, would 
 never permit such a crime to be accomplished, 
 or allow so wicked a conspiracy to prosper. 
 
 " This business of the Secretary cannot but 
 produce some great results, for it is terrible. 
 Many men I believe are as displeased as he, 
 especially the Duke of Norfolk, whom he 
 named to me as one of those most injured by 
 Lord Robert, and most hostile to him. 
 
 " The day after this conversation, the Queen 
 on her return from hunting told me that Lord 
 Robert's wife was dead, or nearly so, and 
 begged me to say nothing about it. Assuredly, 
 it is a matter full of shame and infamy, but 
 for all this I do not feel sure that she will 
 immediately marry him, or indeed that she will 
 marry at all. She wants resolution to take 
 any decided step ; and, as Cecil says, she 
 wishes to act like her father. 
 
 " These quarrels among themselves and Cecil's 
 retirement from office will do no harm to the 
 good cause. We could not have to do with 
 any one worse than he has been ; but likely 
 enough a revolution may come of it. The 
 Queen may be sent to the Tower, and they 
 may make a King of Lord Huntingdon who 
 is a great heretic, calling in a party in France 
 [i.e. the Huguenots] to help them, because they
 
 58 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 know that when they aim at injuring religion, 
 they have nothing to hope for from His 
 Majesty [King Philip]. I have my suspicions 
 on both these points. It is quite certain that 
 the heretics wish to have Huntingdon made 
 King. Cecil himself told me that he was the 
 true heir to the crown; Henry the Seventh 
 having usurped it from the House of York. 
 That they may have recourse to the French I 
 dread, from the close intimacy which has grown 
 up between Cecil and the Bishop of Valence. 
 It may be that I am over-suspicious, but with 
 such people it is always prudent to believe 
 the worst. Certain it is they say openly they 
 will not have a woman over them any more ; 
 and this one is likely to go to sleep in the 
 palace, and to wake with her lover in the 
 Tower. The French, too, are not asleep. Even 
 Cecil says Non dormit Judas. We can be 
 sure of nothing except of revolution and 
 change. If I made up to them, they would 
 trust me and tell me all ; but I have no 
 orders what to do, and until I receive instruc- 
 tions I shall listen to both sides and temporise. 
 Your Highness will be pleased to give me 
 directions. I show the Catholics all the atten- 
 tion in my power ; and they are not so broken, 
 but what, if His Majesty will give the word, 
 they will resist the machinations of the rest. 
 It is important that His Majesty should know 
 that there is no hope of improvement in the 
 Queen; she will be his enemy and her own 
 to the last, as I have always told him. 
 
 " Since this was written, the death of Lord 
 Robert's wife has been given out publicly. The 
 Queen said in Italian that ' she had broken her 
 neck.' It appears she fell down a stair-case."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 " IT appears she fell down a stair-case." 
 
 Over three centuries have passed since these 
 words were written. Two coroners' inquests, a 
 government enquiry, the comments and criticisms 
 of many generations of historical students, the 
 coming to light by degrees of a number of 
 official despatches and private letters, have not 
 made any clearer the mystery of Lady Robert 
 Dudley's death. We have only inference to 
 guide us in our search after the truth of the 
 matter. It appeared at the time, it appears 
 now, that she fell down a stair-case. How she 
 fell, whether thrown by false hands, whether 
 by her own act of desperation, whether by an 
 accident, is not known. 
 
 She was found dead at the stairs' foot. But 
 no testimonies show how she came there. 
 
 Suspicion fell on her husband, and on the 
 Queen. Minions of Dudley and of Her Majesty 
 were supposed to have performed the timely act 
 
 59
 
 60 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 of removing the obstacle of their marriage. It 
 was supposed also that, in despair over the loss 
 of her husband's affection and consideration, she 
 made of herself a rash sacrifice to his advance- 
 ment. There were few who took the view 
 more charitable to all that her death came by 
 misadventure. 
 
 All the views are supported by possibility. 
 Among all the wild improbabilities of Sir 
 Walter Scott's story of the tragedy, the one, 
 not probability, but possibility, is that the 
 hapless Amy may have been lured on to the 
 stair-case by a simulation of her husband's call. 
 But there is no suggestion in history, for the 
 piteous, pretty tale. And the likelihood does 
 not lie on the side of her death occurring by 
 the order of the husband, or with the con- 
 nivance of the Queen. 
 
 On the strength of all the ugly stories and 
 gruesome anticipations that were Court and 
 common gossip anent the Queen, her Favourite, 
 and the disregarded wife, and for the reason 
 that, on the 9th or 10th of September, Elizabeth 
 told the Spanish ambassador that Lady Robert 
 was "dead, or nearly so," it has been held by 
 some historians that Dudley and Elizabeth were 
 murderers by intention. But it was just the 
 circulation of the ugly stories and of the grue- 
 some anticipations that would have prevented 
 the Queen and Lord Robert bringing about a
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 61 
 
 death by violence for poor Amy, even if it had 
 been in their hearts to wish it for her. Their 
 after words and conduct prove certainly that 
 they felt the event to be the most inopportune 
 that could have happened. 
 
 On the day that Elizabeth told De Quadra 
 that Amy was "dead, or nearly so," she was 
 dead. News of some disaster to her, though 
 not the full particulars, had already travelled 
 from Cumnor Hall to Windsor Castle, and Lord 
 Robert had already sent a confidential agent, 
 one, " Cousin Blount," to Cumnor to ascertain 
 the details of an event that he knew to be 
 untoward for Amy. To this agent, the follow- 
 ing letter from Lord Robert was despatched 
 very shortly after his starting. 
 
 " COUSIN BLOUNT, Immediately upon your 
 departing from me there came to me Bowes, by 
 whom I do understand that my wife is dead, 
 and, as he saith, by a fall from a pair of stairs. 
 Little other understanding can I have of him. 
 The greatness and the suddenness of the mis- 
 fortune doth so perplex me, until I do hear 
 from you how the matter standeth, or how this 
 evil should light upon me, considering what the 
 malicious world will bruit, as I can take no 
 rest. And, because I have no way to purge 
 myself of the malicious talk that I know the 
 wicked world will use, but one which is the 
 very plain truth to be known, I do pray you, 
 as you have loved me, and do tender me any 
 my quietness, and as now my special trust is 
 in you, that you will use all the devices and
 
 62 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 means you can possible, for the learning of the 
 truth ; wherein have no respect to any living 
 person. And as by your travail and diligence, 
 so likewise by order of law, I mean by calling 
 of the Coroner, and charging him to the utter- 
 most from me to have good regard to make 
 choice of no light or slight persons, but the 
 discreetest and [most] substantial men for the 
 juries, such as for their knowledge may be able 
 to search thoroughly and duly, by all manner 
 of examinations, the bottom of the matter, and 
 for their uprightness will earnestly and sincerely 
 deal therein without respect ; and that the body 
 be viewed and searched accordingly by them ; 
 and in every respect to proceed by order and 
 law. In the meantime, Cousin Blount, let me 
 be advertised from you by this bearer with all 
 speed how the matter doth stand. For, as the 
 cause and the manner thereof doth marvellously 
 trouble me, considering my case, many ways, 
 so shall I not be at rest till I may be ascertained 
 thereof; praying you even as my trust is in 
 you, and as I have ever loved you, do not 
 dissemble with me, neither let anything be hid 
 from me, but send me your true conceit and 
 opinion of the matter, whether it happened by 
 evil chance or by villainy. And fail not to let 
 me hear continually from you. And thus fare 
 you well in much haste ; from Windsor this 
 IXth of September, in the evening [1560]. Your 
 loving friend and kinsman much perplexed. 
 
 "R. D." 
 
 " I have sent for my brother Appleyard, 
 because he is her brother, and other of her 
 friends also to be there, that they may be privy, 
 and see how all things do proceed."
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 63 
 
 Thomas Blount replied : 
 
 " May it please your Lordship to understand 
 that I have received your letter by Bristo, the 
 contents whereof I do well perceive ; and that 
 your Lordship was advertised by Bowes upon 
 my departing that my Lady was dead ; and also 
 your strait charge given unto me that I should 
 use all the devices and policies that I can for the 
 true understanding of the matter, as well as by 
 mine own travail as by the order of law, as in 
 calling the Coroner, giving him charge that he 
 choose a discreet and substantial jury for the 
 view of the body, and that no corruption be 
 used or person respected. Your Lordship's great 
 reasons, that maketh you so earnestly search to 
 learn the truth, the same with your earnest 
 commandment, doth make me to do my best 
 therein. The present advertisement I can give 
 to your Lordship at this time is, too true it is 
 that my Lady is dead, and, as it seemeth, with 
 a fall ; but yet how or which way I cannot 
 learn. Your Lordship shall hear the manner 
 of my proceeding since I came from you. The 
 same night I came from Windsor I lay at 
 Abingdon all that night; and because I was 
 desirous to hear what news went abroad in the 
 country, at my supper I called for mine host, 
 and asked him what news was thereabout, taking 
 upon me I was going into Gloucestershire. He 
 said there was fallen a great misfortune within 
 three or four miles of the town ; he said my 
 Lord Robert Dudley's wife was dead ; and I 
 axed how ; and he said by a misfortune, as he 
 heard, by a fall from a pair of stairs ; I asked 
 him by what chance ; he said, he knew not : I 
 axed him what was his judgment, and the 
 judgment of the people ; he said some were
 
 64 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 supposed to say well and some evil. That is 
 your judgment ? said I. By my troth, said 
 he, I judge it a misfortune because it chanced 
 in that honest gentleman's house ; his great 
 honesty, said he, doth much curb the evil 
 thoughts of the people." 
 
 So much for the capacity and for the methods 
 of the agent Lord Robert employed in the 
 delicate and most anxious matter of ascertain- 
 ing the impression created immediately and 
 locally by the event that synchronised too 
 closely with the forecasts of Lord Robert's 
 enemies, not to be a disastrous one for him as 
 well as for the poor victim of his greatness. 
 
 The story of the last hours of hapless Amy, 
 pieced together from the statements of several 
 members of the Cumnor Hall household, and 
 verified by the oaths of a Coroner's Court, 
 is as follows : It was the day (Sunday) of 
 Abingdon Fair. Lady Robert rose very early 
 and announced her desire that all the house- 
 hold should go to the Fair. Her own suite of 
 attendants was, apparently, considerable. There 
 were other servants in the house in the employ 
 of Sir Anthony Forster. So insistent was she 
 that all the servants, from the lowest to the 
 highest, should have the day out, that she was 
 " very angry " with " any of her own sort that 
 made reason for tarrying at home," and gave 
 vent to her annoyance in a loud complaint to
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 65 
 
 a Mrs Odingsells, a widow who lived in Sir 
 Anthony Forster's house, and who was sister to 
 that William Hyde with whom Amy had been 
 staying in the previous year, when she wrote 
 the letter about her lord being " sore troubled 
 with weighty affairs." 
 
 Although a gentlewoman, and no dependent 
 of the Dudleys, the Lady Robert wished to 
 send Mrs Odingsells also to the Fair. But 
 the widow said it was no day for a gentle- 
 woman to go ; the morrow would be a better 
 day. At this, Amy showed more temper, 
 saying Mrs Odingsells "might choose and go 
 at her pleasure, but all her's should go." Her 
 insistence appeared unreasonable to those about 
 her, and she was asked "who should keep her 
 company if they all went ? " She replied that 
 Mrs Owen should dine with her. Now, Mrs 
 Owen was the wife of the retired physician, 
 from whom Sir Anthony Forster rented Cumnor, 
 and with whom, it has been supposed, Amy 
 was placed on account of his cunning in the 
 use of medicines. But if Amy were "taking 
 care not to be poisoned," it is evident that 
 she was not exercising her precautions against 
 the Owens. Nor could she have had any fear 
 of Sir Anthony Forster, who was in the house, 
 and whose going to the Fair she did not suggest. 
 Unless, indeed, "the strange mind in her" led 
 
 E
 
 66 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 her, believing that poison was to come, to plot 
 deliberately that it should come quickly. 
 
 One, Pirto probably Amy's maid "who 
 doth dearly love her," scouted the idea that 
 her mistress sought self- destruction. " She 
 was a good and virtuous gentlewoman," so 
 Pirto answered Blount, when he suggested the 
 theory of suicide, "and daily would pray upon 
 her knees." And "divers times," good Pirto 
 added, the Lady Robert had been heard to 
 pray to God to "deliver her from despera- 
 tion." But Pirto was insistent that there was 
 no insanity in her lady's mind. "No, good 
 Mr Blount," she urged, " do not judge so of 
 my words ; if you should so gather, I am sorry 
 I said so much." But Blount had his ideas ; 
 "truly the tales I hear of her maketh me to 
 think she had a strange mind in her, as I will 
 tell you at my coming," was his comment to 
 Lord Robert on the evidence of Pirto. And 
 if we may consider the statements of Pirto 
 to be quoted by Blount without travesty or 
 exaggeration, it seems that the faithful maid 
 protested just a thought too much. By her 
 faith, she did judge the death of her lady 
 to be "very chance, and neither done by man 
 nor by herself. " Yet why was Pirto so sure ? 
 If done by man, those who loved the lady 
 thus "piteously slain" would have desired the 
 culprit to be brought to punishment. If by
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 67 
 
 her own act she rushed upon her doom, these 
 same devoted ones would swear that it came 
 upon a chance. 
 
 In any case, Blount was able to assure Lord 
 Robert that, already llth September and 
 before his coming, the most of the jury were 
 chosen and they were, in his judgment, " as 
 wise and as able men to be chosen upon such 
 a matter as any men, being but country- 
 men, as ever I saw." He added he had good 
 hope they would " conceal no fault if any 
 be ; for as they are wise, so are they, as I 
 hear part of them, very enemies to Anthony 
 Forster." 
 
 It was all to the good for the carriage of 
 justice that Forster was not popular in his 
 immediate neighbourhood. His doings would 
 be the more thoroughly searched. Yet the 
 innkeeper at Abingdon had told Blount that 
 he judged the tragedy a "misfortune, because 
 it chanced in that honest gentleman's house ; 
 his great honesty," mine host asserted, "doth 
 much curb the evil thoughts of the people." 
 
 But evil thoughts were rampant, and Lord 
 Robert at his house at Kew was in deepest 
 anxiety. " Until I hear from you again how 
 the matter falleth out in very truth, I cannot 
 be in quiet," he wrote to his " Cousin Blount " 
 on September 12th, and again affirmed his 
 desire that the jury shall "according to their
 
 68 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 duties, earnestly, carefully, and truly deal in 
 this matter, and find it as they shall see it fall 
 out." 
 
 A circumstance held by enquirers of our own 
 day, to place Lord Robert under deep suspicion, 
 was his remaining at Court, and neither immedi- 
 ately flying to Cumnor, nor subsequently attend- 
 ing the ceremonious funeral of his wife at 
 Oxford. But, apart from the facts that attend- 
 ance at the inquest and personal direction of 
 the disposition of Lady Robert's body and 
 affairs would have caused suspicion of his 
 influence militating against the course of justice, 
 and that the " chief mourner " at State funerals 
 in those days was always a deputy, and of the 
 same sex as the deceased, it was impossible for 
 him to go upon a journey. Upon the receipt 
 of definite news of his wife's death, the Queen 
 had ordered Lord Robert into seclusion. From 
 what spot whether the Tower or an apartment 
 of some palace where Elizabeth was not he 
 wrote the letter to Cecil that proves him to 
 have been in disgrace and his liberty curtailed, 
 is not known. But this is clear, the perspicuous 
 but angered Secretary who, in his recent speech 
 with the Spanish Ambassador, had brought rail- 
 ing accusation against Dudley, visited the 
 suspected man in durance, and came away 
 persuaded of his innocence. 
 
 If it were possible for an Elizabethan states-
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 69 
 
 man to feel any self-reproach for actions of 
 self-interest and treachery to colleagues, Cecil, 
 during his interview with Lord Robert, may 
 have felt some pangs of remorse for his earlier 
 conference with De Quadra. It is true, that 
 while Cecil had been absent upon State affairs 
 in Scotland, Lord Robert had made a throw 
 for the leadership of the Protestants, and the 
 Secretary, upon his return, had found himself 
 no longer the unchallenged head of the national 
 party. These facts and the absorption of the 
 Queen's time and interest by Lord Robert, 
 were natural goads to Cecil to make friends 
 with Spain, and to widen the breach between 
 Lord Robert and the Philipians. The news 
 of a catastrophe at Cumnor precipitated his 
 action. With a celerity that marks his genius 
 for affairs, Cecil provided at once for all 
 contingencies. Should the bad news from 
 Cumnor be confirmed, Elizabeth and Lord 
 Robert might find themselves so condemned 
 of popular opinion as to make their future 
 conduct of public business impossible. In that 
 case, Cecil, by dissociating himself from the 
 event before it could be supposed he had known 
 of its happening, gained credit of the party 
 that must come to power if Protestantism lost 
 favour. On the other hand, if the reputation of 
 Queen and Favourite remained unscathed, the 
 support of the Catholics and of Spain would
 
 yo The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 be a needed strength to the Secretary, now 
 that he had lost influence through Dudley's 
 greatness. The ability of the Favourite to 
 convince him of a loyalty to their Queen, 
 different in character from any that would be 
 dreamed of by one of the Cecil temperament, 
 brought about an understanding between the 
 two men of opposite natures, who, for good 
 or for ill, were the councillors who exercised 
 the most potent influence over the mind and 
 actions of Elizabeth of any of her advisers. 
 
 This is the letter of Lord Robert Dudley 
 to Sir William Cecil, sent from the writer's 
 retreat after the recipient had visited him. 
 
 "September, 1560. 
 
 " SIR, I thank you for your being here, and 
 the great friendship which you have shown 
 towards me I shall not forget. I am very 
 loath to wish you here again, but I would 
 be very glad to be with you there. I pray 
 you let me hear from you what you think 
 best for me to do. If you doubt, I pray you 
 ask the question, for the sooner you can advise 
 me thither, the more I shall thank you. I am 
 sorry so sudden a chance should breed me so 
 great a change; for methinks I am here all 
 this while as it were in a dream, and too far 
 too far from the place where I am bound to 
 be ; when methinks also this long idle time 
 cannot excuse me from the duty I have to 
 discharge elsewhere. 1 pray you help him 
 that sues to be at liberty out of so great 
 bondage. Forget me not though you see me
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 71 
 
 not, and I will remember you and fail ye not, 
 and so wish you well to do. In haste this 
 morning, R. DUDLEY." 
 
 " I beseech you, sir, forget not to offer up the 
 humble sacrifice you promised me." 
 
 Unless this letter were written of the deep 
 design to convince Cecil of an alienation which 
 did not really exist, but which was assumed 
 of Elizabeth and Lord Robert in order to divert 
 every breath of suspicion from the Queen, it 
 is very direct evidence that Her Majesty highly 
 disapproved of the Lady Robert's death, occur- 
 ring at the time and in the manner that it did. 
 
 The missive of the Favourite under arrest has 
 in it a ring of distress too genuine to have been 
 assumed, and we have the touch of poetry 
 that is in all natural expression, in the words 
 " methinks I am here all this while as it were in 
 a dream and too far too far from the place where 
 I am bound to be." Was that place Cumnor 
 Hall or Windsor Castle? Those who know 
 what manner of man was Dudley, will answer 
 unhesitatingly, Windsor Castle. In his history 
 of Elizabeth's reign, Mr Froude quotes this 
 letter, yet says in condemnation of its writer, 
 " a husband on receiving an account of the 
 sudden and violent death of a lady, in whom 
 he had so near an interest, might have been 
 expected to have at least gone in person to the 
 spot." The saying is fatuous, yet the worst
 
 72 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 that Froude believed of Dudley was that 
 followers of his, with the idea of rendering 
 their patron a signal service, used the murderous 
 method of removing from his path the obstacle 
 to his elevation to regal power, and that Dudley 
 and the Queen both too happy in the prospect 
 thus opened before them connived at the 
 event, after its happening, by not insisting on a 
 particular investigation into the circumstances 
 of Amy's death. But Dudley's letters to his 
 " Cousin Blount," and the Queen's actions im- 
 mediately upon hearing of the catastrophe, do 
 not support the theory of connivance, although 
 the anterior conduct of Elizabeth and her 
 Favourite provoked the suspicions entertained 
 of them. 
 
 Elizabeth marked the restoration to favour of 
 her Master-of-the-Horse, by announcing her 
 intention of bestowing a peerage on him. The 
 patent was drawn up and brought to her for 
 signature. But with a parade of temper, she 
 slashed the parchment and cut it in pieces before 
 the eyes of the anticipator of ennoblement. 
 She would not make a peer, she declared, of 
 the son and the grandson of traitors. Thus she 
 brought him high; then sent him low. Yet 
 she gave promise to him of eventual raising. 
 His reproaches of her captiousness met with 
 a clap on the cheeks, and a " No, no, the bear 
 and the ragged staff is not so soon overthrown."
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 73 
 
 The effect of poor Amy's death had not been 
 to subdue the levity of Elizabeth, and all over 
 Europe shocking tales of the Queen and Lord 
 Robert were being repeated. "I hear," said 
 the youthful Queen-Dauphine [Mary Stuart] 
 cynically, "the Queen of England is to marry 
 her Horse-keeper, who has done away with his 
 wife to make room for her." This remark, and 
 others like it, flying round in Paris, roused 
 in the English Ambassador Sir Nicholas 
 Throckmorton the most fearful anxieties for 
 the repute of England and of England's Queen. 
 He was frenzied with indignation against the 
 audacious lordling, whose devotions were so 
 compromising to Elizabeth, and, failing to get 
 any re-assuring letter from England, he sent 
 from France a subordinate of his embassy to 
 remonstrate with Her Majesty. Elizabeth 
 provoked, quizzed, and wordily belaboured the 
 plucky emissary. " She would an' she would 
 not" say if a marriage with my Lord Robert 
 was in prospect. It was the same when courtiers 
 asked her to marry my lord. She would " pup 
 with her lips" and declare that she would not 
 marry a subject, " men would come and ask for 
 my lord's grace." They told her she could 
 make her husband a King, but " that she would 
 in no wise agree to." Neither would she agree 
 to orders being given in the Court that were 
 contradictory to her own.
 
 74 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 " God's death, my Lord, I have wish'd you 
 well," she said to " Sweet Robin," on an 
 occasion when he presumed to assert authority, 
 "but my favour is not so confin'd to you 
 that others shall not share it with you. I will 
 have but one Mistress here and no Master." 
 
 Year by year Lord Robert was made to 
 know himself, though always the first of them 
 but one of a crowd of votaries at the Queen 
 of England's shrine. 
 
 "I have many servants," she told him in 
 the hearing of the Court, "to whom I will 
 show countenance, and resume my regards at 
 pleasure."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE Protestant pulpits that had been loud in 
 criticism of the " greatness " of Lord Robert 
 Dudley with Elizabeth while his wife lived, 
 were louder still in denunciation of the under- 
 standing between the Queen and her Master 
 of Horse, after Lady Amy's death. 
 
 Elizabeth had favoured the Reformers, and 
 she hated Rome. But the zeal for morality 
 in the Protestant preachers became an offence 
 to her. The pendulum of Reform had swung 
 too far. There was need for more " order " 
 in religion. The Queen put candles on the 
 altar of her chapel, and permitted vestments 
 to her priests. Since the indulgence which, 
 under pressure from Cecil, she had extended 
 to the "gospellers," was being so hatefully 
 abused, she would show the conventicles and 
 her Chief Secretary that she could make to 
 herself friends of the Mammon of Catholicism. 
 
 The emissary of King Philip was again 
 approached. This time, Sir Henry Sidney 
 the Lord Robert's brother-in-law was spokes- 
 
 75
 
 76 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 man. No Sovereign had ever a more hard- 
 working, a more conscientious, or a worse 
 requited servant than Sir Henry. In politics 
 he followed the practices of the times. He 
 could negotiate and intrigue like his colleagues. 
 But, no more than the Lady Mary, his wife, 
 was he double by nature. Such tortuous 
 mazes of duplicity, as the Queen and her 
 Favourite walked in, Sir Henry did not 
 tread. If he could follow their involutions, he 
 possibly doubted the ultimate wisdom even 
 the expediency of them. The proposal he 
 took to De Quadra gained sincerity from the 
 reputation of the bearer. It differed from 
 that which the Lady Mary had first made to 
 the Ambassador. This time the Dudley- Sidney 
 " combine " was not to promote the candidature 
 for Elizabeth's hand of a foreign Prince. Spain 
 was asked to give support to the pretensions 
 of Lord Robert himself. 
 
 " The marriage," Sir Henry told De Quadra 
 in January 1561, " is now in everybody's mouth." 
 The Queen, herself, was anxious for it. Sir 
 Henry was surprised the Ambassador did not 
 seize an opportunity to gain Lord Robert's 
 good - will. The King of Spain would find 
 Lord Robert as ready to obey him as would 
 he one of His Majesty's own vassals. " The 
 Queen and Lord Robert were lovers," so De 
 Quadra reported Sir Henry's words, " but they
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 77 
 
 intended honest marriage, and nothing wrong 
 had taken place between them which could 
 not be set right with His Majesty's help." 
 As to Lady Dudley's death, " Sidney averred, 
 he had examined carefully into the circum- 
 stances, and he was satisfied that it was 
 accidental." He frankly admitted, however, 
 that the circumstances were suspicious, and 
 acknowledged that there were many who did 
 not share his view. 
 
 Not knowing how Philip would take the 
 formal suggestion of Dudley's marriage with 
 the Queen, the Ambassador met the overtures 
 of Sidney haughtily. Sir Henry was reminded 
 of all that had passed between De Quadra and 
 Lady Sidney in the affair of the Archduke, 
 and of how Her Majesty had deceived both 
 her Lady-in- Waiting and the Ambassador of 
 Spain. Sidney was of opinion that Elizabeth's 
 personal interest in Lord Robert would lead 
 her to treat these negotiations with more 
 seriousness than she had bestowed on the 
 advances of the foreigner. He represented 
 that the Queen's maidenly instincts prevented 
 her from introducing the subject, but that she 
 awaited only the King of Spain's consent to 
 conclude the marriage. Lord Robert would 
 offer his services to Philip to the extent of 
 his power ; especially he would assist in restor- 
 ing the religion. He would support the policy
 
 78 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 of a General Ecclesiastical Council. De Quadra 
 as a good bishop should said religion ought 
 not to be complicated with love matters. 
 " Whether married, or wishing to be married, 
 if the Queen were a Christian, she would take 
 religion to be between God and herself." 
 Lord Robert, however, was determined to 
 keep religion well to the front in his negotia- 
 tions. At an interview he himself had with 
 De Quadra, he declared that rather than that 
 England should not be represented on the 
 General Council there was then talk of hold- 
 ing, he would attend it himself. 
 
 Communications with Spain were slow in 
 the sixteenth century, and Philip was a 
 deliberate correspondent. Though intelligent 
 and ingenious, his diplomacy failed because 
 his decisions always came too late. This was 
 good for England. It was good also for Lord 
 Robert. Dudley had the design of marrying 
 Elizabeth, if he could. He meant to remain 
 her Favourite if he could not. But he did not 
 really intend to take her as his bride from the 
 hand of Spain. His professions to De Quadra 
 were made with the object of gaining time, 
 and of giving a knock to the Puritans who 
 opposed his union. In spite of all treacheries 
 and of all defections, the reliance of Dudley, 
 as of Elizabeth, was ultimately on the loyalty 
 and on the patriotism of the English people.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 79 
 
 De Quadra had not yet received instructions 
 from his master when a month after his 
 interview with Sir Henry Sidney he had a 
 conversation on the matter broached, with 
 Elizabeth herself. In this audience the Queen 
 fancifully told the Ambassador "after much 
 circumlocution," that she would make him her 
 ghostly father, and he should hear her confes- 
 sion. The confession was that " she was no 
 angel." She had a high regard for the many 
 excellent qualities she saw in Lord Robert. 
 She had not resolved to marry either him or 
 any one ; only every day she felt more and 
 more the want of a husband. She thought 
 her own people would like to see her married 
 to an Englishman. Then she asked De Quadra 
 and by her question revealed what in her 
 own mind was the crux of the matter of an 
 English marriage what His Majesty would 
 think " if she married one of her household, 
 as the Duchess of Suffolk had done, and the 
 Duchess of Somerset whom she used to laugh 
 at?" 
 
 It is seen that Elizabeth's determination was 
 forming if not already formed not to marry 
 an inferior, and in particular not to render 
 wifely submission to one she had it is her 
 own phrase "raised from the dust." She was, 
 however, to be flattered by flatteries of her 
 Robin. In reply to her remarks about the
 
 80 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 kind of marriages made by her aunt, the 
 French Queen -Dowager, to Charles Brandon, 
 Duke of Suffolk, and by the widow of the 
 Lord - Protector Edward Seymour, Duke of 
 Somerset with plain Mr Francis Newdigate, 
 the Bishop said he had never spoken on the 
 subject with the King of Spain. But, marry 
 with whom she would, His Majesty would be 
 pleased. He well knew the high character 
 which was borne by the Lord Robert. 
 
 Sails were trimming indeed ! It was not so 
 very long since De Quadra had described Lord 
 Robert as "the worst and most procrastinating 
 young man I ever saw in my life, heartless, 
 spiritless, treacherous, and false." But that was 
 when the worst young man was opposing a 
 Spanish marriage, and not in a position to 
 negotiate with Spain for his own. The courtly 
 words of the Ambassador pleased the Queen. 
 " With an air of much satisfaction," De Quadra 
 stated, " she said she would speak to me 
 again, and meanwhile she would promise to 
 do nothing without your Majesty's sanction. 
 She evidently wished that I should say more, 
 but I refrained for fear of making a mistake, 
 and because she is what we know her to be." 
 
 What was this ? A woman " possessed with 
 a hundred thousand devils ? " 
 
 In those words De Quadra had once described 
 the young Queen. He also, upon an occasion,
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 81 
 
 gave it as his opinion that Elizabeth was quite 
 insane. 
 
 The impression he carried away from this 
 audience appears to have been that England's 
 Queen was an undisciplined young woman, 
 wholly infatuated with a man there were 
 difficulties about her marrying. The Bishop 
 left with her a hope of the Power of Spain 
 and of the Church Catholic being on the side 
 of a match with Dudley. 
 
 " Carried away by passion as she is, she 
 may fly into some opposite extravagance," he 
 wrote to Philip. " The heretics are full of 
 energy ; they have intelligence with Germany, 
 France, and Scotland. Your own Low Countries 
 are in no safe condition ; and if we let this 
 woman become desperate, she may do some- 
 thing that may fatally injure us, although she 
 destroy herself at the same time." 
 
 But infatuated with Lord Robert in the 
 ordinary meaning of the phrase, Elizabeth was 
 not. Both she and Dudley, though priming 
 De Quadra with every hope of their reversion 
 to the Romish religious system, and with every 
 belief that their marriage was impossible without 
 the aid of Spain, were determined, both of 
 them, that by no folly of their own would they 
 destroy themselves. Rather was it by their 
 follies that they saved themselves. And that 
 they did emerge triumphant, with their policies 
 
 and with their loyalties to their country and to 
 
 F
 
 82 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 the reformed religion intact, is evidenced by 
 De Quadra's own statements. 
 
 Early in April, the Court went to Greenwich, 
 where, it was believed, a Nuncio was to be 
 received. Greenwich was chosen in order that 
 the papal emissary might not be exposed to 
 dangers to his person by a progress through 
 Protestant London. But it was soon made 
 clear to De Quadra that no Nuncio was to 
 come. " The Queen had changed her mind, 
 and would act like a woman, and the blame 
 would be thrown upon Lord Robert," said 
 Lord Robert's brother-in-law, Sir Henry Sidney. 
 Lord Robert did indeed devotedly perform for 
 England the function of receiving much of the 
 blame of the Queen's frequent changes of mind 
 and policy. In any case, blame had to be 
 thrown on some one now. Sir Henry pitched 
 it on to Elizabeth. De Quadra laid it at the 
 door of Cecil and the Queen's Council. The 
 Catholic nobles of England, ignoring what the 
 Favourite had effected for their peace, cast the 
 onus on Dudley. 
 
 At the meeting of the Knights of the Garter, 
 on St George's Day, the Earl of Sussex pro- 
 posed an address to the Queen, recommending 
 the Lord Robert to her for her husband. The 
 elder peer had no love for the lordling he called 
 " the gipsy," but he wanted Elizabeth to 
 "follow so much her own affection as by the
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 83 
 
 looking upon him whom she should choose, 
 omnes ejus sensus titillarentur, which shall be 
 the readiest way with the help of God to bring 
 us a blessed Prince." 
 
 And Sussex believed that Robert Dudley was 
 the man by whom alone Elizabeth's womanhood 
 was stirred. 
 
 The Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Arundel, 
 and Lord Montague promptly refused their 
 assent. In the end, an address was presented 
 recommending marriage, without naming a 
 bridegroom. The Queen was angry. " When 
 she married she would consult her own pleasure, 
 not that of her Council." 
 
 For all her anger, the reply was as non- 
 committal as her remarks in general. A 
 favourite response of hers to any urging of 
 Dudley by name came to be that she would 
 marry Lord Robert " when she chose," or, better 
 still, " when she decided to do so." The nearest 
 approach to self-committal was, perhaps, six 
 months later, when she told De Quadra (accord- 
 ing to the account of De Quadra himself) that 
 she knew no one better, fitter to be her husband 
 than Lord Robert, she would be grateful, there- 
 fore, if the Princes, her allies, and especially His 
 Majesty of Spain, would recommend him to her, 
 that she might be able to say she was acting 
 with the advice and the approval of her friends. 
 As the statement did not draw from the wily
 
 84 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Bishop the pledge the Queen hoped for, she 
 broke out in a pet with " whether His Majesty 
 consented or not she would marry Lord Robert 
 when she chose, but if it were done without His 
 Majesty's help, Lord Robert would be little 
 obliged to him." The Bishop laughed, and said 
 she had better make no more delays or excuses. 
 Let her give Lord Robert what he wanted, and 
 she might rest assured the King would be well 
 pleased. 
 
 In the meantime, His Majesty was anything 
 but " well - pleased " with the course affairs 
 were taking in England, and his Ambassador, 
 for many reasons, had serious fault to find 
 with the Favourite, and definite quarrels to 
 pick with the English Government. 
 
 On the 27th of April, De Quadra wrote to 
 Lord Robert a long letter, carefully composed 
 and formally signed, in which he declared, with 
 some heat, his innocence of participation in any 
 plot among Catholics to murder the Queen. 
 Rumours of conspiracies to kill Elizabeth, and 
 with her the Lord Robert, were rife. Some 
 among the many stories circulated, directly 
 accused De Quadra of the foul intention. 
 This accusation he sought to rebut. But his 
 principal reason, as he said, for writing the 
 letter was to repeat seriatim all the promises 
 Dudley and others had made concerning a 
 General Council of the Church. He thought
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 85 
 
 the repetition of them to their chief enunciator 
 would provoke the English Government to give 
 a favourable answer about the coming of the 
 Nuncio from the Pope to patronise Elizabeth, 
 and to reconcile England once more with Rome. 
 In this letter, De Quadra said concerning 
 the accusation of his designs on the Queen's 
 life: 
 
 " I should have wished to satisfy the world 
 publicly with respect to it, the defamation 
 having been public, but considering that I 
 cannot do this at the present time without 
 prejudice to your Lordship and your affairs 
 which I have in hand " these affairs were 
 the marriage of Lord Robert with the Queen 
 " I have decided to keep silent for the 
 present, and only justify myself to your Lord- 
 ship that you may inform Her Majesty, as it 
 is probable the counsellors will have given to 
 both of you the information disseminated by 
 the public voice." 
 
 The Queen read and re-read this letter which 
 narrated all the dealings between the Sidneys, 
 Lord Robert, and De Quadra. But the writer's 
 hopes of it, in the matter of the Nuncio, were 
 not realised. When De Quadra spoke with 
 Elizabeth two days afterwards, he "found in 
 her no more decision than usual." She com- 
 plained that some of the imprisoned bishops, 
 and other papists in London, were spreading 
 the report that she had promised to turn 
 Catholic at the instance of Lord Robert, and
 
 86 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 were saying that they received their informa- 
 tion from men of De Quadra's household. 
 The object of the prisoners in publishing such 
 statements, Elizabeth averred, was to disturb 
 the Protestants, and make them take arms 
 against her. And the Queen asked De Quadra 
 if it were true that the Spanish King had 
 promised Lord Robert his friendship on con- 
 dition of the restoration of religion. The 
 Ambassador said Philip had promised nothing, 
 but, on hearing of Lord Robert's "good- will" 
 towards religion, His Majesty had ordered his 
 Ambassador to thank him, praise his good 
 intentions, and promise him continuation of 
 the favour ever shown him. Elizabeth said 
 she did not think Lord Robert had ever 
 promised religion should be restored, but the 
 Ambassador reminded her of his professions 
 about a General Council. 
 
 Elizabeth's official reply to Philip's demands 
 for her representation on a General Church 
 Council, and for her reception of a Nuncio, 
 were in the negative. England could not 
 attend the Ecclesiastical Parliament of which 
 the Pope of Rome was to be not merely a 
 president but a dictator. A Nuncio could 
 not be admitted to the country since it was 
 against the laws and good policy of the realm 
 to welcome a papal emissary. This then was 
 practically the conclusion of the whole matter
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 87 
 
 of Lord Robert's negotiations with Rome and 
 Spain for his marriage with Elizabeth. Fit- 
 fully, for some years, the subject cropped up 
 again. There was no finality in the mind of 
 Dudley, or in that of his royal mistress. But 
 what sincerity there had been in the advances 
 on either side was now eliminated. In a 
 despatch to King Philip, on the 3rd of June, 
 De Quadra passed this verdict on the " recent 
 negotiations " : 
 
 "I have come to the conclusion that the 
 foundation of it was to prevent the Queen 
 of Scots from marrying into your Majesty's 
 family, as they knew that with that claim, 
 and the Catholic party with you as well as 
 your Majesty's own forces, a great change 
 could suddenly be brought about here. To 
 check this, and to get time to provide against 
 emergency, they thought necessary to make a 
 great show of wishing to amend their ways as 
 regards religion, and subject themselves to the 
 devotion and protection of your Majesty, from 
 which intention the Queen herself probably 
 was not averse, particularly if she saw herself 
 driven in a corner by this business of the Queen 
 of Scots." 
 
 What " this business of the Queen of Scots " 
 was, and how Lord Robert was concerned in 
 it, will be told in another chapter. In this 
 one is described the character of the overtures 
 to Spain and to Rome, in making which Lord 
 Robert has been deemed false to his country
 
 88 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 and to the Protestant faith. The view of the 
 wily Ambassador that all the negotiations were 
 to "get time to provide against emergency," 
 sums them up very justly. Yet in spite of 
 the perspicuity of his judgment, De Quadra 
 still went on bandying words with Elizabeth 
 and the Favourite, as if he still believed 
 their advances and their professions to be 
 sincere. In any case, the persistent cleric 
 meant to obtain, if he could, better treatment 
 for the " bishops and other papists " who had 
 recently been committed to the Tower, and 
 for certain priests who, because of the good 
 theory of Elizabeth's rule that no one should 
 suffer for their opinions, had been "exposed 
 on the pillory as conjurers and necromancers." 
 The priests had been found "making a figure 
 of the nativities of the Queen and Lord Robert, 
 with I know not what other strange things," 
 and they had fallen into the hands of men 
 "glad to make priests ridiculous." 
 
 De Quadra took the opportunity, when invited 
 to a river-party given by the Lord Robert on 
 Midsummer Day, to ask the Queen whether she 
 thought her Ministers had done good to their 
 country by making a laughing-stock of Catholics, 
 and he told her she should look better to them, 
 and not allow headstrong, violent men to guide 
 her in so serious a matter as religion. " She 
 listened patiently," the Bishop wrote, but was
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 89 
 
 not to be drawn into argument. Indeed, her 
 mood was sportive and, with Lord Robert, she 
 baited the grave Spaniard. In the afternoon, 
 on the gallery of Lord Robert's barge, the 
 Ambassador found himself alone with the Queen 
 and his splendid young host, who " began to talk 
 nonsense." They " went so far " the words are 
 the Bishop's " that Lord Robert at last said as 
 I was on the spot there was no reason why they 
 should not be married if the Queen pleased." 
 
 Elizabeth took up the ball thus tossed. 
 Perhaps the Bishop did not understand sufficient 
 English ! 
 
 "I let them trifle in this way for a time," 
 remarked the worthy Churchman. Then he 
 spoke solemnly. If Dudley and the Queen 
 would be guided by him, they would shake 
 off the tyranny of the men who oppressed the 
 realm, i.e., the Protestants and restore religion 
 and good order. Then they could marry when 
 they pleased, and gladly would he be the priest 
 to unite them. 
 
 Truly a glorious prospect! A Roman wedding 
 ceremonial for the Protestant Queen of Eng- 
 land, with a Spanish Bishop to administer the 
 sacrament ! 
 
 Let the heretics complain if they dared, the 
 ecclesiastic told the sportive pair before him ; 
 with the Majesty of Spain at her side the 
 Queen might defy danger. At present, he
 
 QO The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 complained, "it seemed she would marry no 
 one who displeased Cecil and his companions." 
 
 Heedless of the sunny irresponsibility of a 
 Thames Regatta Day, although the mood of 
 those he lectured actively reflected it, the 
 Bishop "enlarged on this point." He confided 
 later to his King and Master, the reason of his 
 tediousness. 
 
 "... unless I can detach her and Lord 
 Robert from the pestilential heresy with which 
 they are surrounded, there will be no change. 
 If 1 can once create a schism, things will go as 
 we desire. This, therefore, appears to me the 
 wisest course to follow. If I keep aloof from 
 the Queen, I leave the field open to the heretics. 
 If I keep her in good humour with your Majesty 
 there is always hope especially if the heretics 
 can be provoked into some act of extravagance. 
 They are irritated to the last degree to see 
 me so much about the Queen's person. 
 
 "Your Majesty need not fear that I shall 
 alienate the Catholics. Not three days ago, 
 those persons whom your Majesty knows of 
 sent to me to say that their party was never so 
 strong as at this moment, nor the Queen and 
 Council so universally abhorred." 
 
 There are informations in this letter not 
 intended to be conveyed ; and evidences also of 
 the scope and of the limitations of the Bishop's 
 vision. 
 
 It was true that little could be done in the 
 Catholic interest until the Queen and her 
 Favourite were detached from the "pestilential
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 91 
 
 heresies " of England. But from those heresies, 
 neither Lord Robert, nor the woman he served, 
 intended to be detached. Even while Dudley 
 kept the Bishop in tow, and gained the counten- 
 ance of Spain for the suit he pressed, or affected 
 to press, he was offering to the Huguenots of 
 France the support they desired from England, 
 if they would aid his cause with England's 
 Queen. The Bishop discovered his defection, 
 and taxed him with it. Lord Robert, unabashed, 
 declared he was but "practising" with the 
 French Protestants, and that both he and the 
 Queen were as anxious as ever to receive one 
 another from the hands of Philip. The Bishop 
 did not accuse Lord Robert of "practising" 
 with him, but there were always reservations in 
 the opinions of the Spaniard. Bolstered by the 
 hopes of the sanguine Catholic party, De Quadra 
 believed that only by the help of Spain could 
 Elizabeth safely become the wife of her Favourite. 
 He believed also that it was the infatuated desire 
 of the Queen to marry Dudley. In these beliefs 
 he was wrong. Yet the rejection by Elizabeth 
 of all other suits had brought even Cecil to the 
 point of requesting the Spanish Ambassador 
 to ask his Master, in his turn, to request of 
 Elizabeth that she would marry an Englishman. 
 Cecil had not desired to have Dudley named by 
 Philip, but he had admitted that to ask the 
 Queen to marry a countryman of her own, was
 
 92 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 tantamount to asking her to take Lord Robert. 
 Now, if the thought of this marriage had been so 
 odious to the English Protestants as De Quadra 
 represented, Cecil would never have gone even 
 so far in promoting it. Again the statements of 
 the Bishop himself disclose some causes of 
 Puritan disaffection, which did not proceed 
 directly from the conduct of the Lord Robert 
 and the Queen. 
 
 " There is always hope especially if the 
 heretics can be provoked into some act of 
 extravagance," are words that betray many 
 secrets. The " heretics " had undoubtedly been 
 provoked already, and provoked, moreover, by 
 "these persons whom your Majesty knows of." 
 
 Who were those persons ? 
 
 Upon the coming to her own of "Bloody 
 Mary," Elizabeth had ridden into London at 
 her sister's side acknowledged, tacitly, Princess of 
 England. Later, in the reign of that Queen, 
 the sister she desired to trust, but could not, 
 was acknowledged again tacitly the heiress- 
 presumptive. But in the intermediate time, 
 and for a considerable period, a Princess of 
 the Blood the Lady Margaret Douglas, 
 afterwards Countess of Lennox had been 
 led by the Queen's favours, to believe herself 
 Mary's successor on the throne. This Princess, 
 the daughter of Margaret, elder sister of 
 Henry VIII. (Queen-Dowager of Scotland), by 
 her second marriage with the Earl of Angus,
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 93 
 
 was reputed to have urged Elizabeth's execu- 
 tion upon Mary. She had certainly offered to 
 Elizabeth, in Mary's time, some unforgettable 
 insults. Yet Elizabeth had received her at her 
 Court, and had given her there the precedence 
 of her rank. 
 
 The tolerance of Elizabeth had not, how- 
 ever, won over the Lady Margaret. She did 
 not forget that her boys Lord Darnley and 
 Lord Charles Stuart were of both Scottish 
 and English blood -royal. Lord Darnley had 
 been early taught to count himself a near 
 heir to the crowns of England and of Scotland, 
 and the castle of Lord Lennox in Yorkshire 
 was a rallying place of the rebels of the 
 North. "Under colour of her conscience," 
 Lady Lennox continued to use "her beads, 
 auricular confession, and the pinning of idols 
 and images above her bed, and the bed of the 
 Lord Darnley," long after these things had 
 been forbidden by the law of England. In 
 the Lennox household, Elizabeth was spoken 
 of as a "bastard," and the Lady Margaret's 
 fool was allowed "to rail at the Queen and 
 Lord Robert." Francis Yaxlee, a Gentleman (?) 
 of the Bed - chamber, furnished Lady Lennox 
 with constant intelligence of the "goings on" 
 only the vulgar expression denotes the vulgar 
 view of the proceeding of Elizabeth and her 
 Favourite. We may be sure the informer put 
 the worst construction, as is the practice of
 
 94 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 informers in all ages and in all societies, on 
 the dealings of the most talked of personages 
 in the realm. " She herself," the statement 
 is De Quadra's, " did set forth the Queen of 
 Scots' title, declaring what it were to have 
 both realms in one, meaning the conjunction 
 of her son to the Scottish Queen, who should 
 be King both of Scotland and of England." 
 
 All these treacheries were not known to 
 Elizabeth at the time. In her desire to 
 propitiate and to manage all parties, she had 
 overlooked Lady Lennox's past offences. No 
 one was quicker to understand than the Queen 
 of many practices, how under one regimen, a 
 person, for reasons, may blow hot, and under 
 another, may blow cold. 
 
 But Lady Lennox had other occupations than 
 that of currying favour with the Sovereigns to 
 whom she owed allegiance. She was a definite 
 agent of the Court of Rome, and a pronounced 
 ally of Spain. The spread of much of the foul 
 gossip concerning the Queen and the Lord 
 Robert was due to an organised plan of action, 
 whereof the Lady Margaret was the instigator. 
 The letters of De Quadra give good indication 
 that not only did Lady Lennox and her party 
 continually beseech the active interest of Spain 
 in the Catholic interest, but they spared no pains 
 to circulate among the Protestants just those 
 tales of, and insinuations against, the Queen 
 that would be most detestable to Puritan con-
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 95 
 
 sciences, and which, in their reaction, through 
 the indignation of the preachers, would afford 
 the greatest perplexity and annoyance to a 
 maiden ruler. 
 
 Here, then was, a volcanic England, over 
 which it was Elizabeth's task to hold sway! 
 Had she at once been aware of all the ramifica- 
 tions of treachery about her, she had perhaps 
 walked more circumspectly in the beginning. 
 And yet one doubts. The courage and the 
 defiance of the Tudors rose as danger threatened. 
 
 In splendid defiance of interfering foreign 
 powers, and of the insubordination of home 
 subjects, Elizabeth Tudor and Robert Dudley 
 took the path of their own demarcation. They 
 almost persuaded the Spaniards and the Papists 
 of their desire to re-establish " order " in religion, 
 and, by these persuasions, they delayed the 
 conjunction of Spain with the Catholic party 
 in England. They kept France at bay by 
 negotiations with the Huguenots, with the 
 Protestant and Patriotic party in Scotland, and 
 with this same powerful Spain whose alliance 
 with England was the veritable bogey of the 
 French nation. And, despite all they had to 
 endure from " hot-gospellers," they showed them- 
 selves intrepidly English by making common 
 cause with Cecil in his suppression of the Mass, 
 and in his rejection of the Pope's offer to send 
 a Nuncio to England to deal with the Queen 
 for a settlement of religion.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE persuasions of Catholic Spain and the 
 requests of Protestant English lords alike, were 
 powerless to make Elizabeth give herself to 
 Lord Robert as his wife. There grew in her 
 a dislike of marriages for all members of her 
 Court, whether women or men. Yet, all the 
 year past, she had been busy matchmaking for 
 her "good sister," the Queen of Scots. 
 
 In December 1560, the young King of France 
 was gathered to his fathers, and Mary Stuart, 
 who had boasted of a triple crown of Scotland, 
 France, and England made graceful surrender 
 of one kingdom. Though never Queen of 
 England, she was " by the laws of all nations " 
 heiress-presumptive to the English crown. And 
 she was a focus for the plans, and a figure-head 
 for the party of the English Catholics, compared 
 with whom Lady Lennox was but the shadow 
 of a shade. 
 
 Another heiress - presumptive, to whom the 
 parliamentary Act and the testamentary dis- 
 position of Henry VIII. gave her right, was the 
 
 96
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 97 
 
 Lady Catherine Grey, the beloved sister of Lady 
 Jane. Elizabeth had taken Lady Catherine to 
 live at Court, and had allowed her a certain 
 precedence as Princess of the Blood, but had 
 never treated her with any kindness. Her 
 position was different from that she had been 
 accorded in the late Queen's reign. The Catholic 
 inclinations of Lady Catherine had insured her 
 a consideration from both Mary and Philip. 
 And when Elizabeth refused two Archdukes in 
 succession, and it began to be doubted whether 
 she had any intention of marrying at all, a 
 scheme was set afoot to match Lady Catherine 
 with an Austrian Prince. " I keep on good 
 terms with Lady Catherine. She promises me, 
 for her part, not to change her religion, and 
 not to marry without my consent," wrote the 
 Ambassador for the nonce of Philip, in March 
 1559. But infidelity to promises was a Tudor 
 characteristic, and some of the Protestantism of 
 the family of Grey survived in Lady Catherine. 
 In little more than a year from the time Spain 
 was reassured concerning her, she made a secret 
 marriage in furtherance of a purely English, 
 if not a wholly Protestant, design with Lord 
 Hertford, the son of the late Protector Somerset, 
 and the hereditary enemy of the Dudleys. We 
 have the declaration of Queen Elizabeth in 
 September 1561, that "there had been great 
 practices and purposes," and that " many persons 
 
 6
 
 98 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 of high rank were known to have been privy to 
 the marriage." It was supposed that in a 
 moment of disgust with the Queen, because 
 of the negotiations between the Sidneys and 
 De Quadra for the marriage of Lord Robert, 
 Cecil conceived the plot. Lord Arundel the 
 "White Horse," it was the hope of some, 
 Elizabeth might marry in preference to her 
 "Horse-keeper," the Earl of Bedford Lord St 
 Lo, his wife the famous " Bess of Hardwick," 
 and a few others were concerned in it. The 
 manoeuvre had been intended as a provision, 
 not as a menace, and had been so secretly 
 managed that it was hard, even in its revela- 
 tion, to convict any save the chief parties. 
 Lady Catherine and her husband paid the full 
 penalty of their rashness. The Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, for the cause of Lady Catherine's 
 earlier marriage in form to Lord Herbert, at 
 the time of Northumberland's great throw for 
 power, pronounced her marriage in fact with 
 Lord Hertford null, and her child to be born 
 illegitimate. The unfortunate mother of the 
 babe defamed, never again tasted the sweets 
 of liberty. Lady Catherine languished for 
 seven years in captivity, and then died. Lord 
 Hertford was kept in the Tower until after 
 her death, and, even then, was subjected to a 
 semi-imprisonment for some years longer. 
 In the meantime, there were high words at
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 99 
 
 Court. Lord Robert spoke insolently to 
 Arundel. Arundel let fly with reminders of 
 dark happenings at Cumnor. The effect of 
 the sensation, generally, was to clear the way 
 for the acknowledgment of Scottish Mary as 
 heiress to Elizabeth's throne. She had a right 
 to it Elizabeth herself could not gainsay. 
 But the days were not yet for the English 
 Queen to put aside hope of an heir of her 
 own body. And to proclaim an heiress-pre- 
 sumptive so unequivocally Catholic, of such 
 prominence and so befriended as was Mary, 
 was for Elizabeth to put a premium on her 
 own assassination. Yet, if Mary would 
 relinquish absolutely the title of Queen of 
 England, during Elizabeth's lifetime, Elizabeth 
 agreed to consider her claim as heiress-pre- 
 sumptive. But Mary would not divest herself 
 of the regal name, unless, by an Act of the 
 English Parliament, she should be declared next 
 in succession after Elizabeth and her children. 
 It was against all the principles and policies 
 of Elizabeth's rule to give the pledge Mary's 
 sagacity demanded. The two Queens were 
 now opposed ; in battle array, if with flag 
 of truce flying, they were set over against one 
 another to strive for dominance. The duel 
 had begun, of which the last prick and final 
 thrust were delivered at Fotheringay, twenty- 
 six years later.
 
 ioo The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 And if Elizabeth had the strength, the 
 resolution, and the faith in herself, which 
 finally prevailed over all Mary's enthusiasms 
 and graces, Mary had equal skill in parry, 
 and practised the greater variety of strokes. 
 It was Mary who desired, and who almost 
 obtained by her persistence, a meeting with 
 Elizabeth. Who knows, if the Queens had 
 ever met, how matters would have fared ? 
 
 Elizabeth would not risk the face-to-face 
 and hand - to - hand conflict. She designed, 
 however, to clip the wings of Mary's o'er- 
 topping ambition by giving her in marriage 
 to a creature of her own. 
 
 The first candidate naturally thought of, 
 was the fifteen-year-old Lord Darnley, but 
 the Catholic proclivities and intriguing pro- 
 pensities of his mother prevented Elizabeth 
 from putting him forward. The man, she 
 finally and definitely proposed, was Lord 
 Robert Dudley. 
 
 At certain stages of the negotiations for this 
 marriage Elizabeth had a real desire to see 
 her favourite joined to the heiress-presumptive, 
 and the crown settled on his children. The 
 whole story of Elizabeth's life confirms her 
 frequent statements that she had no disposition 
 for marriage. It was also true, as she often 
 took occasion to remark, that there might arise 
 circumstances compelling her to a politic union.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 101 
 
 At this time, there was no reason to be called 
 pressing for her own marriage, except that of 
 despoiling Mary of her claims. 
 
 But if she could render those claims innocuous 
 by marrying her to a safe man, and, at the same 
 time, could confer the greatest honour possible, 
 next to marriage with herself, on him who owed 
 his distinction to her selection of him, and was 
 therefore, to the mind of Elizabeth, distinguished 
 indeed, Elizabeth felt she would be performing 
 at once a tour de force of politics, and a highly 
 benevolent act. She had moods in which she 
 could not contemplate the loss of the com- 
 panionship of Lord Robert. In those moods, she 
 persuaded herself, and endeavoured to persuade 
 others, that she was making a costly sacrifice of 
 her own happiness for that of her " sister " and 
 her "brother." Preferably to the only avail- 
 able Prince of the Blood Lord Darnley who 
 had claims of his own to kingship of the Isle, 
 and who was in the Catholic interest, she 
 would give a "most illustrious Prince" of her 
 own instituting, whose affections were towards 
 Protestantism, and who had, of himself, no 
 pretensions whatever to England's or to 
 Scotland's sovereignty. 
 
 About this time appeared a book upholding 
 the claims on the succession of the Lady 
 Catherine, whose popularity had been increased 
 by her giving birth, in the Tower, to a second
 
 IO2 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 child by the Earl of Hertford. In the publica- 
 tion of this book Cecil had had a hand, and 
 Lord Robert, by messages sent through Roger 
 Ascham ; and by his own " using " of Hales, the 
 author, at Windsor, had shown himself as 
 agreeable as Cecil to the book's argument. 
 This argument was, that the birth of the Lady 
 Frances Brandon, Marchioness of Dorset, had 
 been legitimate, although the first wife of her 
 father had been yet alive when he married 
 Mary Tudor. It was not an argument 
 agreeable to those who desired a Catholic 
 succession in England. King Philip wrote to 
 his Ambassador the successor of De Quadra : 
 
 " I have read what you say of the book on 
 the succession ; of the Queen's anger ; and of 
 the suspicions indicated to you by Lord Robert, 
 that Cecil was at the bottom of it. I avail 
 myself of the occasion to tell you my opinion 
 of that Cecil. I am in the highest degree 
 dissatisfied with him. He is a confirmed 
 heretic ; and if, with Lord Robert's assistance, 
 you can so inflame the matter as to crush him 
 down and deprive him of all further share in 
 the administration, I shall be delighted to have 
 it done." 
 
 But though Lord Robert practised the regal 
 habit of excusing himself by throwing the blame 
 on others, he never could have been so false to 
 England and to his Queen as to attempt to 
 crush down Cecil, even had such a task been
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 103 
 
 as possible as the lethargic Monarch of Spain 
 imagined. And aggravated as Cecil often was 
 by Lord Robert's cunning, and by the graces 
 and the wiles of him that were the supposed 
 impediments to the Queen's acceptance of a 
 royal suitor, the sagacious Secretary seems 
 always to have regarded the Favourite as 
 " safe " in the Liberal and non-papal interests. 
 This opinion was fully justified by the after 
 career of Lord Robert. His dealings with 
 Spain and Rome, so strongly condemned by 
 ultra - Protestant and free - thinking historians, 
 were only dealings. And they were the com- 
 plements and extensions of Elizabeth's own 
 political practices. 
 
 On the 2nd of July 1564, De Silva (for this 
 was the name of the rather inferior substitute 
 for the clever De Quadra, who had died the 
 year before), wrote to Philip : 
 
 " Lord Robert is more pressing than ever in 
 offering his assistance to your Majesty. The 
 gentleman of whom I spoke tells me that Lord 
 Robert has still hopes of the Queen, and that, 
 if he succeeds, the Catholic religion will be 
 restored. Again cautioning me to be secret, 
 he informed me that Lord Robert was in com- 
 munication with the Pope about it, and had 
 agents continually residing at the Papal Court. 
 ... I suspect the French have been trying to 
 make use of Lord Robert. His father, people 
 tell me, had large French connections."
 
 IO4 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Not only were the French trying to make 
 use of Lord Robert, but Lord Robert was 
 making use of the French. Yet in the Spano- 
 Romish negotiations, the Favourite continued to 
 play up to his royal mistress with an histrionic 
 skill equal to her own. At Richmond, in July, 
 the two acted their little comedy to perfection. 
 De Silva was received by the Queen with 
 "pointed kindness." She took him aside (she 
 was in the garden with her ladies on his arrival), 
 and kept him for an hour, talking the whole 
 time of the King, his master. " After supper," 
 De Silva related, " she had more conversation 
 with me, and as it was then late I thought it 
 time to take my leave ; but the Queen said I 
 must not think of going ; there was a play to 
 be acted which I must see. She must retire 
 to her room for a few minutes she said, but she 
 would leave me in the hands of Lord Robert. 
 The Lord Robert snatched the opportunity of 
 her absence to speak of his obligations to your 
 Majesty, and to assure me that he was your 
 most devoted servant. She returned almost 
 immediately, and we adjourned to the theatre." 
 De Silva adds in regard to the performance 
 that followed this one, "the piece was a 
 comedy . . . the plot as usual turned on 
 marriage." But he had not eyes for the " lever 
 de ridean" which had been the true drama of 
 the evening. Could one expect " eyes " for
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 105 
 
 deep-seeing from the gentleman who stated that 
 the Queen spoke with "unaffected sincerity"? 
 When De Silva had been four months in 
 England he began to see through things a 
 little better. 
 
 In the meantime, the design of Lord Robert's 
 marriage with the Scottish Queen was much 
 discussed, although all hint of it was studiously 
 withheld from De Silva. To avoid making any 
 promises on behalf of Mary, her envoy, Sir 
 James Melville, suggested to Elizabeth that 
 the matter of his mistress's marriage whether 
 to Archduke Charles, Lord Darnley, Lord 
 Robert, or another should be referred to a 
 commission to be composed of the Earl of 
 Murray and Secretary Maitland on behalf of 
 Scotland, and to the Earl of Bedford and 
 Lord Robert on behalf of England. 
 
 " Ah, you make little of Lord Robert, naming 
 him after the Earl of Bedford ! " exclaimed 
 Elizabeth haughtily. "I mean to make him a 
 greater Earl, and you shall see it done. I 
 take him as my brother and my best friend." 
 
 So it came about that Lord Robert Dudley 
 was created Earl of Leicester a title apper- 
 taining to the progeny of Kings of England 
 in virtue of their rank as Dukes of Lancaster 
 on Michaelmas Day 1564. His supporters 
 were the Earls of Sussex, Huntingdon, and 
 Warwick. He had previously been invested
 
 io6 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 as Baron of Denbigh ; the Lords Hunsdon, 
 Clinton, and Strange accompanying him to 
 the Presence. 
 
 The Earl of Leicester received his initiation 
 to his new honours with becoming gravity. 
 He took the belt and collar "sitting upon his 
 knees " before the Queen ; the Scottish Envoy 
 and the French Ambassador standing on either 
 hand to witness the fulfilment of Elizabeth's 
 promise. The solemnity of the men of state, 
 as of the Court darling, fitted the occasion. 
 But the frolicsome Queen must needs tickle 
 her " dear brother " in the neck as she per- 
 formed the investiture. In his account of the 
 scene, no particular surprise at the action was 
 expressed by the sententious Melville. He 
 had already seen Elizabeth dance "high and 
 disposedly," and had been skittishly slapped 
 and pushed by the august lady on an occasion 
 when it had been her pleasure to consider herself 
 surprised by him while playing on her virginals. 
 
 The patent of nobility, for some time 
 dangled before the eyes of her Favourite, was 
 now definitely bestowed. Elizabeth had con- 
 trived the matter so that it should be without 
 prejudice to her own reputation, and without 
 undue flattery to the man ennobled. She 
 made him a peer to fit him for marriage with 
 another Queen. 
 
 As for the new - made Earl, although his
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 107 
 
 peerage had been bestowed upon him by a 
 somewhat invidious method, his purposes were 
 well served. He had gained a prize, and at 
 the same time had supported, as he always 
 supported, the designs of the woman he 
 hoped to keep in the "good tune" of marry- 
 ing with himself. Yet Lord Robert was 
 careful not to be too deeply involved in the 
 meshes of the net wherein Elizabeth hoped 
 to drag Mary of Scotland in the wake of 
 English interests. 
 
 When the time came for Sir James Melville 
 to leave the English Court, he was invited 
 by Leicester to "sail in his barge down the 
 water of Thames to London, which was ten 
 miles from Hampton Court." On the way, 
 the consummate courtier told Mary's emissary 
 that he was so well acquainted with him by 
 report that he dared to be so homely as to 
 ask what the Queen of Scots thought of the 
 bridegroom and of the marriage that had been 
 proposed. Melville answered coldly, as he 
 had been by his Queen commanded. Where- 
 upon Leicester began "to purge himself of 
 so proud a pretence as to marry so great a 
 Queen . . . alleging the invention of that 
 proposition to have proceeded of Master Cecil, 
 his secret enemy." Said English Leicester, as 
 translated by Scotch Melville: "Gif I should 
 have seemed to desire that marriage, I should
 
 io8 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 have tint the favour of baith the Querns." 
 And he prayed that it would please her 
 Scottish Majesty not to impute unto him, 
 but unto the malice of his enemies, the 
 "lourd" fault. When Melville finally went 
 north, he bore "writings" from the Earl of 
 Leicester to the Earl of Murray, to excuse 
 him at the Queen's hands. 
 
 After Mary had been informed, "at great 
 length," of all the " handling " of Sir James 
 in England, she asked him whether he thought 
 Elizabeth meant as truly towards her in her 
 heart as she did outwardly in her speech. 
 Melville replied that in his judgment there was 
 neither plain dealing nor upright meaning, and 
 having already hindered Mary's marriage with 
 the Archduke, Charles of Austria, Elizabeth 
 was now offering Leicester, whose acceptance 
 she desired as little as that of the other. 
 Mary gave Melville her hand, and vowed she 
 would never marry the "new - made Earl." 
 Albeit, a short time after, as Melville himself 
 has related, Lord Murray and Lord Bedford 
 met at Berwick to "treat upon the marriage 
 with Leicester," which treaty was entered into 
 on the English side with "slenderer offers and 
 less effectual dealing than was looked for." 
 Meanwhile the Earl of Leicester had written 
 "so discreet and wise letters unto my Lord 
 Murray for his excuses, that the Queen [Mary]
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 109 
 
 appeared to have so good liking of him that 
 the Queen of England began to fear and 
 suspect that the said marriage might per- 
 chance take effect." 
 
 What a reflex of Elizabeth's own art were 
 these machinations of her Favourite ! He had 
 his way with both women. While making a 
 certain bid for the Scottish Queen's favour, 
 he kept within bounds of loyalty to his own 
 Sovereign, and helped forward the true English 
 policy of delaying a marriage for Mary with 
 a foreign potentate, and of preventing an 
 immediate junction through a union of 
 Darnley and Mary of the interests of the 
 Scottish and English Catholics. 
 
 "The gentleman sent hither from the Court 
 of Scotland has returned, and this Queen has 
 written by him to say that for various reasons 
 there will be no Parliament this year. The 
 succession question therefore will be allowed 
 to rest. She says she is not so old that her 
 death need be so perpetually dragged before 
 her. 
 
 " Cecil has intimated to the heretical bishops 
 that they must look to their clergy ; the Queen 
 is determined to bring them to order, and will 
 no longer tolerate their extravagances." 
 
 These words that tell their own tale are 
 from a letter from De Silva to his King on 
 9th October. The faithful scribe continued : 
 
 "He desires them to be careful how they 
 proceed against the Catholics ; the Queen will
 
 no The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 not have her good subjects goaded into sedition 
 by calumnies on their creed, or by irritating 
 enquiries into their conduct. I am told that 
 the bishops do not like these cautions. 
 
 " Cecil understands his mistress, and says 
 nothing to her but what she likes to hear. 
 He thus keeps her in good humour, and 
 maintains his position. Lord Robert is obliged 
 to be on terms with him, although at heart 
 he hates him as much as ever. Cecil has 
 more genius than the rest of the council put 
 together, and is therefore envied and hated on 
 all sides. 
 
 "The Queen, happening to speak to me 
 about the beginning of her reign, mentioned 
 that circumstances had at first obliged her to 
 dissemble her real feelings in religion ; but God 
 knew, she said, that her heart was sound in 
 His service ; with more to the same purpose : 
 she wanted to persuade me she was orthodox, 
 but she was less explicit than I could have 
 wished. 
 
 "I told her (she knew it already) that the 
 preachers railed at her in the most insolent 
 language for keeping the cross on the altar of 
 her chapel. She answered that she meant to 
 have crosses generally restored throughout the 
 realm. 
 
 " Again and again she has said to me, ' I 
 am insulted both in England and abroad for 
 having shown more favour than I ought to 
 the Lord Robert. I am spoken of as if I 
 were an immodest woman. I ought not to 
 wonder at it : I have favoured him, because 
 of his excellent disposition, and for his many 
 merits ; but I am young and he is young, and 
 therefore we have been slandered. God knows,
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 1 1 T 
 
 they do us grievous wrong, and the time will 
 come when the world will know it also. 1 do 
 not live in a corner a thousand eyes see all 1 
 do, and calumny will not fasten on me for 
 
 ever.' '' 
 
 These are the words of Elizabeth, as trans- 
 lated from the Spanish of De Silva, by the 
 emotional historian, Mr James Anthony 
 Froude. A later decipherer of the Simancas 
 Manuscripts, of more critical temper, renders 
 the same phrases : " My life is in the open, 
 and I have so many witnesses that I cannot 
 understand how so bad a judgment can have 
 been formed of me." 
 
 The version of Mr Martin A. S. Hume is 
 undoubtedly the most exact yet the spirit that 
 was in Elizabeth concerning these calumnies is 
 not too theatrically expressed by Mr Froude. 
 In six months the Queen was again emitting 
 the same note of virtuous indignation. 
 
 " There is a strong idea in the world," said 
 Elizabeth this time, "that a woman cannot 
 live unless she is married, or at all events if 
 she refrains from marriage, she does so for some 
 bad reason, as they said of me that I did 
 not marry because I was fond of the Earl of 
 Leicester, and that I would not marry him 
 because he had a wife already. Although he 
 has no wife alive now, I still do not marry, 
 notwithstanding that I was spoken to about 
 it, even on behalf of my brother the King [of 
 Spain]. But what can we do ? We cannot
 
 112 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 cover every one's mouth, but must content 
 ourselves with doing our duty and trust in 
 God, for the truth will at last be made manifest. 
 He knows my heart which is very different from 
 what people think, as you will see some day." 
 
 These words from the Spanish Calendar 
 are as sentimental and as emphatic as any 
 Mr Froude has put into the mouth of his 
 admired Elizabeth. And, whatever else they 
 indicate, they show that it had become the 
 policy of Elizabeth and of Leicester to assert 
 their freedom from any personal bonds to one 
 another. 
 
 About this time Lady Lennox was told, 
 by Leicester himself, that all thought of a 
 marriage was now given up, and De Silva 
 noted that the Favourite was "now attending 
 to affairs carefully, which was different from 
 what he used to do." This announcement was 
 significant, if belated. Two years had passed 
 since Leicester as Lord Robert Dudley 
 had surprised the world by his capacity for, 
 and understanding of, work. In 1562, the 
 Queen had had a severe attack of small-pox. 
 Lying on what she believed to be her death- 
 bed, she had protested that "although she 
 loved, and had always loved, Lord Robert 
 dearly, as God was her witness, nothing 
 improper had ever taken place between them." 
 
 On recovering from the crisis of her illness,
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 113 
 
 she had begged the Council to make Lord 
 Robert Protector of the Realm, with a title 
 and 20,000 a year. This could not be. Lord 
 Robert was, however, put into the Council 
 to despatch all business for the Queen, and, 
 on account of her disfigurement, all audiences 
 were to Lord Robert except a few to the 
 Duke of Norfolk. Since then, his industry in 
 affairs had been remarkable, and, although 
 Elizabeth quickly became herself again, his 
 position and power had grown daily. After 
 Court receptions, and at other seasons of royal 
 entertainment, ambassadors and all guests of 
 distinction were invited to sup with the Earl 
 of Leicester. His expenses for feasts and 
 pageants were great. No wonder, therefore, 
 that the Queen bestowed on him treasure in 
 the shape of lands, monopolies, patents, and 
 licences. As Leicester himself remarked at 
 another time, "the least war being admitted, 
 cannot be maintained without great charge." 
 In that prolonged battle of scheme and 
 counter - scheme with the powers of Europe, 
 in which the Queen appointed Leicester 
 Captain - General of her diplomatic forces, 
 treasure had to be expended, and there is no 
 justice in pelting the Favourite with abuse, 
 because, in the provision of the treasure, 
 Elizabeth adopted the means of her day, 
 and, in spending it, Leicester considered the
 
 ii4 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 demands of political and social circumstance. 
 The administration of Elizabeth was remark- 
 able for its economy. If it had not been for 
 the few wars she undertook, she might never 
 have called for any parliamentary subsidies, 
 and it is universally admitted that her state- 
 craft prevented many wars. In that state- 
 craft, Leicester, by the peculiarity of his 
 position in Elizabeth's favour, as well as by 
 his own inclination, was a coadjutor more 
 forceful than any. Even at this time, he had 
 the character of being an advocate of peace. 
 " I believe he desires to please everybody, as 
 he seems well-disposed, and has no inclination 
 to harm," was the opinion of De Silva after 
 he had begun to see through many of the 
 "tricks" the Queen and Leicester were so 
 fond of playing. 
 
 It is descriptive of the Favourite and of his 
 methods that, at this period, he was at once 
 consulting amicably with Cecil in regard to 
 the Scottish Queen's marriage ; aiding Arch- 
 bishop Parker in the establishment of Protestant 
 Church methods ; interceding with the Queen 
 for the abandonment of certain Catholic 
 "reforms" in the matters of the marriages of 
 the clergy and the wearing of distinctive 
 ecclesiastical " gowns " ; sending out as spies, 
 throughout Europe and to Rome, renegade 
 Catholics of whom it was given out that they
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 115 
 
 were leaving England for the better exercise of 
 their Catholicism abroad ; and professing a con- 
 tinued devotion to the Spanish King. 
 
 "The Lord Robert, whom they now call 
 Earl of Leicester " (wrote De Silva at the same 
 time that he recorded Elizabeth's disavowal of 
 her intention of marrying her Favourite), "has 
 been with me again, repeating his protestations 
 of a desire to be of use to your Majesty. He 
 mentioned particularly the troubles in the Low 
 Countries, and the necessity of taking steps to 
 pacify them. 
 
 " I assured him of the confidence which your 
 Majesty felt in his integrity, and of the desire 
 which you entertained for his advancement. I 
 repeated the words which the Queen had used 
 to me about religion ; and I said that now when 
 she was so well disposed there was an opportunity 
 for him which he should not allow to escape. If 
 the Queen could make up her mind to marry 
 him, and to re-unite England to the Catholic 
 Church, your Majesty would stand by him, and 
 he should soon experience the effects of your 
 Majesty's good- will towards him; the Queen's 
 safety should be perfectly secured, and he should 
 be himself maintained in the reputation and 
 authority which he deserved. 
 
 " He answered that the Queen had put it off 
 so long that he had begun to fear she would 
 never marry him at all. He professed him- 
 self very grateful for my offer, but of religion 
 he said nothing. In fact he is too wanting in 
 skill in such matters to take a resolute part on 
 either side, unless when he has some other object 
 to gain. 
 
 " I told him the dependence of the Catholics
 
 1 1 6 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 was wholly on the Queen and himself. To him 
 they attributed the preservation of the bishops 
 and of the other prisoners, and I said that 
 by saving their lives he had gained the good- 
 will of all Christian Princes abroad and of all 
 the Catholics at home, who as he well knew 
 were far more numerous than those of the new 
 religion. The heretics notoriously hated both 
 him and his mistress, and had not the Catholics 
 been so strong would long ago have given them 
 trouble; the Queen could see what was before 
 her in the book on the succession, which after all 
 it appeared she was afraid to punish. 
 
 " His manner was friendly, but I know not 
 what he will do. Had the Catholics as much 
 courage as the heretics, he would declare for 
 them quickly enough, for he admits that they 
 are ar the larger number ; things are in such a 
 state that the father does not trust his child." 
 
 De Silva's four months' experience of the 
 " sincerities " of Elizabeth and her Leicester 
 had taught him many things. He was already 
 doubting -7- as De Quadra had so decidedly 
 doubted the good intentions of the Queen 
 and her Favourite for the restoration of the 
 Pope's sway. Lord Robert's concern for the 
 pacification of the Netherlands was a concern 
 the emissary of Philip was bound to consider 
 superfluous if not insidious. No political 
 development was so much dreaded of Spain, 
 as an understanding between England and the 
 Low Countries. In both of these countries 
 Protestants abounded. De Silva's surmise that
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 117 
 
 "had the Catholics as much courage as the 
 heretics," Leicester "would declare for them" 
 is only a surmise. And by his own statement 
 he admitted that the Protestants were the 
 sturdier community. He admitted, also, that 
 the Queen's " orthodoxy " was a dubious matter, 
 in spite of her resolution to have crosses in the 
 churches. It was hard for the Latin mind to 
 understand the forces alive in England, which 
 the English Queen and the English Leicester 
 understood so well ; though, indeed, the pro- 
 fessions of the two to Spain were shockingly 
 insincere. 
 
 Among all the shifts and prevarications of 
 her speech, the words in which Elizabeth gave 
 impassioned denial to the calumnies of herself 
 and Lord Leicester have a ring of sincerity. 
 These words, De Silva told his Monarch, she 
 had repeated to him again and again. Yet 
 they were words the Spanish King and his 
 Ambassador were little concerned to hear. 
 What did they, as men of the world, and as 
 quite unmoral, if not immoral, practisers of 
 statecraft, care about the secret relations of the 
 English Queen and her Favourite? It was 
 rather the personal sense in Elizabeth, of wrong 
 inflicted by malicious tongues, that made her 
 cry aloud for those who ran to hear: "/ do 
 not Uve in a corner a thousand eyes see all 
 I do, and calumny will not fasten on me 
 forever / "
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 ELIZABETH did not attract Leicester by any 
 purely womanly attributes of a higher kind. 
 Yet there is no evidence that the lower allure- 
 ments of sex called to him in her. She was 
 always dominant, always Queen, despite her 
 grotesque coquetries of action, and her homely 
 indelicacies of speech. And he, studying her, 
 sought to stir her imagination, to excite her 
 pity, to propitiate her temper, to abet her 
 politics, and to aid her plans. He provided 
 constant food for her fancy, constant opportunities 
 for her self-display, and constant occasions for 
 the exercise of her statecraft. And he pleased 
 her supremely by affecting to be dazzled by 
 her physical charm, her personal beauty, her 
 compelling womanhood. He interpreted and 
 presented her to a line of favourites, and the 
 devotions always due to Queenship forever 
 prevented the dispelling of her maiden dream 
 that it was satisfaction enough for any man, 
 who worshipped her beauty and her talent, 
 simply to be allowed to worship. 
 
 More and more, as her isolation became con- 
 
 118
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 1 19 
 
 firmed, her attractions turned to repulsions 
 through their self-consciousness. And Leicester's 
 assaults of flattery, though undoubtedly the only 
 means by which any kind of capitulation could be 
 obtained, were largely responsible for the peculiar 
 development that took place in her character. 
 This development, inhuman and diabolic as it 
 seemed in some aspects, was yet a develop- 
 ment that preserved the life of Elizabeth, and 
 established the integrity of her realm. 
 
 And the incomparable Leicester, though he 
 would complain now and again, for political 
 purposes, of this one and of that one parti- 
 cularly of Cecil who influenced the Queen 
 against marriage with himself, knew all the time 
 that the influence that brought them together, 
 yet kept them still apart, was the influence 
 of Elizabeth's self. He had many methods of 
 assailing the virginity of her spirit. One was 
 her diversion with mask and pageant ; another 
 the delivery to her, through stage characters, 
 of homilies of greater or less length, on the 
 advantages of, and necessities for, matrimony. 
 
 At an entertainment given by the Favourite 
 to his Queen in March 1565, a masque was 
 enacted, in which advices to marry were pointed. 
 Juno and Diana contended with each other 
 anent the blessedness of the single and married 
 states. Jupiter himself appeared, heard the 
 arguments on both sides, summed up the
 
 I2O The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 respective claims of the goddesses, then gave 
 the palm to Juno. " This is against me," said 
 Elizabeth good - humouredly to the Spanish 
 Ambassador, who was making at the time one 
 of many efforts to gain her hand for Archduke 
 Charles. And the oft- chronicled allegorical and 
 topographical pageant with which Leicester 
 entertained Elizabeth at Kenilworth in July 
 1575, should in the design of her host have 
 been concluded with a device of goddesses and 
 nymphs entitled " The Masque of Zabeta," by 
 the Court poet Gascoigne. 
 
 Zabeta was a nymph of Diana, who became 
 a great queen. She resisted the beguilements 
 of Juno, and remained "in constant vow of 
 chaste, unspotted life." The descriptions of 
 her nymph, given by Diana, leave no doubt as 
 to what great Queen is signified. 
 
 "My sister first, which Pallas hath to name, 
 
 Envied Zabeta for her learned brain. 
 My sister Venus feared Zabeta's fame, 
 
 Whose gleams of grace her beauty's blaze did stain. 
 Apollo dread to touch an instrument, 
 
 Where my Zabeta chanced to come in place : 
 Yea, Mercury was not so eloquent, 
 
 Nor in his words had half so good a grace, 
 My stepdame Juno, in her glittering guise, 
 
 Was nothing like so heavenly to behold. ..." 
 
 Iris, sent by Juno, implored this Virgin 
 Paragon to " consider all things by the proof," 
 and then she shall find "much greater cause 
 to follow Juno than Diana."
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 121 
 
 In conclusion, Iris delivered the following 
 prophecy : 
 
 " Where you now in Princely port 
 Have passed one pleasant day, 
 A world of wealth at will 
 You henceforth shall enjoy 
 In wedded state, and therewithal 
 Hold up from great annoy 
 The staff of your estate ; 
 Oh Queen, oh, worthy Queen, 
 Yet never wight felt perfect bliss 
 But such as wedded been." 
 
 But the planned diversions of the "one 
 pleasant day" were not completed. A careful 
 reporter of the proceedings has left it on record 
 that he could not attribute the cause of the 
 omission of the " device " to " any other thing 
 than to a lack of opportunity and season- 
 able weather." A recent writer 1 has advanced 
 the theory that " Her Majesty preferred not to 
 be so directly courted in similitudes." Yet, 
 neither in similitude, nor in earnest, did Elizabeth 
 at any time prefer not to be courted. We may 
 presume that greater causes than the exigencies 
 of the weather prevented the delivery of the 
 exhortations put into the mouth of Iris. So 
 far back as 1566, Leicester's hopes of marriage 
 with Elizabeth had appeared to be dead. But 
 the minds of both Queen and Favourite were 
 so curiously elastic, that the cutting short 
 
 1 Mr Felix E. Schelling in " The Queen's Progress, and other 
 Elizabethan Sketches."
 
 122 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 of a project of either, did not always result 
 in the project's destruction. Rather did the 
 severance serve as a process of fissure, whereby 
 two or more separate plans, each bearing some 
 resemblance to the original thought entity, 
 started into being. Yet, since their aims 
 coalesced, and their methods matched, it is 
 likely that Leicester withdrew the masque from 
 the programme of the day, for fear the direct 
 suggestion of " Iris " might prove an offence 
 to some other lover then being kept in play. 
 The masque was suppressed, but Leicester 
 had propitiated and enlivened his Elizabeth 
 by the surprises, tiltings, mock -fights, bear- 
 baitings, rustic bridals, declamations of comic 
 and mythological apparitions, swimming of 
 grotesque monsters of the deep, and whatnot 
 of frolic and scenic representation, that formed 
 the memorable pageant of Kenilworth. 
 
 And Leicester further assailed the fortress 
 of his Queen's completeness by constituting 
 himself her partner in display of her linguistic 
 accomplishments, in assertions of her erudition, 
 and in exercises of her wit. The visits of the 
 Queen to Cambridge in August 1564, and to 
 Oxford in 1566, were triumphs almost as great 
 for Leicester as for Elizabeth. Upon the 
 advice of their Chancellor, Sir William Cecil, 
 the authorities of Cambridge University, some 
 time before the coming of the Queen, directed
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 123 
 
 letters to Lord Robert, the High Steward of 
 the University, humbly desiring his honour to 
 "commend all their doings to the Prince, and 
 to be a mean that all should be taken in good 
 part." In a long letter, Lord Robert replied 
 that they need be in no fear that the exercises 
 designed for the Queen's entertainment would 
 not by her be taken in good part, and he 
 promised in every way to further the exer- 
 tions of the University, "with my purse to 
 assiste and spend with youe; and myne owne 
 selfe att your commandment." 
 
 Early on the day of the Queen's arrival 
 in Cambridge, Sir William Cecil, the Vice- 
 Chancellor, and all the Heads, received the 
 Favourite "at the King's College then called 
 the Court." Leicester rode thither from the 
 town bounds, "all the Bedells going before 
 him bareheaded." " And there, after he had 
 saluted Sir William Cecyl, he first did peruse 
 the Queen's lodging, and after the Church, 
 and the way that the Queen should come to 
 the same." 
 
 Within a few months of the date of this 
 Cambridge visit, Leicester was made Chancellor 
 of the University of Oxford. He found learn- 
 ing and discipline at a very low ebb there, 
 and lost no time in instituting a better order 
 for "the advancement of true religion, virtue, 
 and learning."
 
 124 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 In an important note sent to the University 
 in July 1565, he marvelled and was sorry that 
 his " well-devised orders " had been ill observed 
 and kept; marvelled "at the minds of men 
 so soon altered from their own device and 
 purpose"; and was sorry "for the evident 
 hurt of that University, which hath heretofore 
 been counted the right eye of England, and 
 a light to the whole realm." He assured the 
 learned men he wrote to, that he would be 
 "loath to see the University fall any wise in 
 decay," so long as his charge continued over 
 it. Therefore his letter was to pray, and to 
 require the authorities to " look more straightly " 
 to their own orders, in particular to those 
 which directly touched " Learning and Religion, 
 as Sermons, public Exercise and Disputations, 
 whereby all Universities stand and keep their 
 name ; not neglecting either such inferior 
 orders as are appointed necessary." And 
 Leicester showed his determination to have 
 the reforms he prescribed carried out, by an 
 ultimatum : 
 
 "Else shall the want of your good con- 
 formities herein (being for your own benefits) 
 cause me for want of being able to do good, 
 as willingly release the charge I have, as I 
 did with very good mind toward you all, care- 
 fully receive it for the well discharging my 
 duty therein." 
 
 The internal evidence of this letter is
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 125 
 
 sufficient to prove that Leicester had a very 
 real sense of the importance to a nation of 
 good learning and exact religion. In the 
 reply of the University, while defending them- 
 selves against some misrepresentations of com- 
 plainants to Leicester, the authorities promised 
 to guard against abuses, and that nothing 
 thereafter should be committed that might 
 justly be offensive to his Lordship. They 
 entreated the continuance of his protection, 
 and acknowledged gratefully his recent defence 
 of their privileges in obtaining the transference 
 of an action brought in the Court of Common 
 Pleas to the Court of the Chancellor of the 
 University, where it was an ancient privilege 
 to have suits against Masters of Colleges 
 which this one was tried. 
 
 The intercession of Leicester, on behalf of 
 University privileges, recalls the earlier inter- 
 vention of his in favour of the rights of the 
 Inner Temple against the Middle Temple. 
 His interests were quick and many in regard to 
 the learned bodies and the responsible institu- 
 tions of the country. He was genuinely and 
 most patriotically concerned for the encourage- 
 ment of Art and Learning. He maintained a 
 troop of actors, and " Leicester players" were 
 the first "stock" company to give dramatic 
 performances in England. At the head of 
 his company was James Burbage, the father 
 of the original representative of Hamlet.
 
 126 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 These domestic activities and concerns of 
 his were hardly perceived, and certainly not 
 understood by the foreign ambassadors, whose 
 letters are now too much relied upon for 
 data of Leicester's life and character. The 
 informations of the envoys were derived mainly 
 from the disaffected and the designing of the 
 Court circle. The feeling and condition of the 
 country at large could not be known to 
 them. Other archives than those of Simancas 
 and of Venice furnish the world with elucida- 
 tions of the character of Leicester. They are 
 the records of the English seats of learning, 
 of the English Church, and of the English 
 Government; contemporaneous biographies of 
 colleagues and associates of Leicester; and 
 whole volumes of correspondence of Leicester 
 himself, and of others of Elizabeth's men of 
 state. There are the records also of the lives 
 of the poets, historians, and adventurers, of 
 whom Leicester was the patron. One must 
 search them all to estimate aright the character 
 of him, Edmund Spenser sung of as 
 
 "A mightie prince, of most renowned race, 
 Whom England high in count of honour held, 
 And greatest ones did sue to gain his grace, 
 Of greatest ones, he greatest in his place, 
 Sate in the bosome of his soveraine, 
 And right and loyale did his word maintaine." 
 
 And these records reveal Leicester to us a 
 man of many weaknesses, but of great parts, 
 of some vices, though not destitute of virtues ;
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 127 
 
 a man for all his " practices " and dissemblings, 
 single-hearted in his devotion to England, and 
 unaffected in his admiration of England's Queen; 
 a man who, above all, was sumptuous in his 
 views of life, and magnificent in his designs for 
 Society. All that was best and most resplendent 
 in intellect, in talent, and in achievement, were 
 the " properties " he sought out for decoration 
 of the daily scene of existence, whether for 
 himself, for his Queen, or for that country 
 of his, which his efforts and his ambitions 
 assisted to make great. 
 
 Yet there was a sinister aspect to his 
 activities. "A most accomplished Courtier, 
 free and bountiful to soldiers and students," 
 he was yet " a cunning Time - Server and 
 Respecter of his own advantages," and "he 
 preferred Power and Greatness . . . before 
 solid Virtue." 
 
 A year after Leicester sent his admonitory 
 letter to the Oxford dons, the Queen, on pro- 
 gress, made her famous visit to the University, 
 and it was shown to Leicester that lectures, 
 disputations, and public exercises formed part 
 of the curriculum. We have no record of 
 any speech by Leicester on the occasion 
 although, accompanied by Cecil, he made his 
 own State entry into the town two days before 
 Her Majesty's arrival. But the Greek and 
 Latin orations of Elizabeth were fully reported, 
 as well as her gibe to Dr Humphreys, who
 
 128 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 had objected to the ecclesiastical habit she 
 desired to impose upon the clergy. As in 
 scarlet robe and hood, the learned doctor 
 approached to kiss the hand of Majesty, 
 this bolt flew at him : " That loose gown 
 becomes you mighty well, Mr Doctor, I 
 wonder your notions should be so narrow." 
 
 Leicester had the toil of the Oxford recep- 
 tion ; the Queen, as was fitting, the glory. 
 Yet the noise of the visit as of the one to 
 Cambridge redounded to the fame of Leicester 
 also. People began to recognise in him a 
 true encourager of learning, and of much of 
 what a philosopher of later time has desig- 
 nated "sweetness and light." 
 
 In "the spacious times of great Elizabeth," 
 Leicester was certainly one who enlarged the 
 interests of the people, and raised high the 
 national ideals. He laboured also to convince 
 Elizabeth of the true power and independence 
 that were hers. He believed that everything 
 that assisted the development of the mind of 
 man contributed to national and to individual 
 greatness. Of the value of moral character, 
 he had not a proper sense. His services to 
 the Universities especially to Oxford were 
 real, although undertaken, in part, with the 
 design of establishing his own importance 
 and proclaiming the celebrity of his Queen 
 as the great patroness of learning the true 
 Minerva of her age.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 129 
 
 Leicester further established his influence 
 over Elizabeth by giving himself after the 
 sentimental and mystical fashion of the day 
 a name that was a symbol of his devotion to, 
 and of his care for, her. To be symbolical in 
 dress, in gesture, and in speech, was the delight 
 of Elizabethans. The Queen's own tastes in 
 allegory are commemorated by the many fanci- 
 ful portraits that exist of her. Chief among 
 these, and most interesting, is the picture by 
 Zucchero at Hatfield, which has the motto, 
 " Non sine Sole Iris" and in which Elizabeth 
 the sun of many iridescent reflections bears a 
 rainbow in her hand. Twisted on her sleeve and 
 in her hair are jewelled serpents emblems of 
 wisdom. Within her ruff is hung a miniature 
 glove of mail. She had the courage of a warrior 
 when she list. And over her under-dress, flower- 
 embroidered, she wears a cloak studded with 
 human eyes and ears. That this cloak was a 
 marvel of needlework is evident by the painter's 
 reproduction of it ; and it was marvellous in 
 other ways. In this curious even horrify- 
 ing garment Elizabeth presented herself to 
 her subjects with ever-open ears and eyes 
 all -knowing, all -seeing. The omniscience of 
 her regality was her chief conceit. 
 
 And even as the Queen listened for the first 
 faint reverberations of an alarm of the national 
 peace ; even as she surveyed her people's best 
 
 achievements with satisfaction, and discerned 
 
 i
 
 130 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 their faults with censure, so also were the eyes 
 of her Favourite ever watching for and over 
 her. Leicester called himself the "eyes" of 
 Elizabeth. He was the " look-out " man of the 
 ship of State, the Queen's clear-visioned deputy, 
 the guardian with and for her of the national 
 welfare and the national quiet. 
 
 "Your great favour thus oft and so far to 
 
 send to know how your poor 'eyes' doth" 
 
 Leicester drew the symbol, he did not write 
 
 the words " is greatly beyond the reach of his 
 
 thanks that already for 1,000 benefits stands 
 
 your bondman," are lines of a letter to Elizabeth 
 
 written most probably in 1571. He gave also 
 
 in this letter an assurance that he who watched 
 
 over the Queen's interests had also a regard 
 
 for the woman who was the Queen. After 
 
 giving an account of an ailment from which 
 
 he suffered, and for which he had found relief 
 
 in "the commodity of a bath," he told her: 
 
 "Meantime it shall be most comfort to your 
 
 poor 'eyes' to hear that you continue your 
 
 health." And further: "Nothing is better for 
 
 your health than exercise, and no one thing 
 
 has been a greater hindrance thereto, than your 
 
 overlong abode in that corrupt air about the 
 
 city." 
 
 Again, in 1575, shortly after the conclusion 
 of the successful Kenilworth revels, Leicester 
 wrote two letters in which concern for the
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 131 
 
 " perfect health " it was his " continual prayer " 
 for Elizabeth to enjoy, and anxiety for his own 
 return to "the wonted place of comfort, our 
 heaven in earth," to be again witness of the 
 "good and blessed state" of "the joy and life of 
 us all/' were explicitly stated, while his loyal 
 devotion was implicitly declared by repeated 
 introduction of his symbol 6 6 (eyes). Ingenuity 
 in device was a sure passport to Elizabeth's 
 favour. Leicester's ingenuity, as also his affec- 
 tion, are exemplified in the following phrases, 
 occurring in two letters : 
 
 "I most humbly thank my moost gracious 
 lady for her great comfort showed toward her 
 absent 6 6, by the testimony of her own sweet 
 hand, which never yieldeth less joy than greatest 
 contentation both to body and mind. And as 
 it is not possible hereby to express the least 
 part of those comforts it brings, so do I now 
 haste me to be a further partaker of those 
 greater joys (the only upholder of life and all), 
 which is your blessed presence. . . . Your 
 Majesty's most faithful and most bounden 6 6, 
 
 "R. LEYCESTER." 
 
 And the device of eyes is further, and most 
 curiously, inserted in the capital letter of the 
 
 word Queen, thus : " My gracious Qv." The 
 
 second letter terminates " Your Majesty's moost 
 humble and most bond, 
 
 "R. LEYCESTER." 
 
 Few things in a man are so gratifying to the 
 woman he pays homage to, than his having
 
 132 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 eyes to see the shifts and turns of her health, 
 and the sympathy or the art to suggest to her 
 the remedies she most delights in. The common 
 taste in Leicester and in Elizabeth for exercise, 
 their joy in horsemanship, their eagerness for 
 the chase, rendered them good company for one 
 another. Others of her nobles and gallants were 
 sportsmen besides her Master of the Horse, but 
 not all of them, if any, were concerned to give 
 her a comrade's share in their pastimes. 
 
 Whether Leicester rode beside the Queen, as 
 they journeyed from country-house to country- 
 house, "hunting by the way," or whether she 
 looked on as he held the lists against all 
 comers, tilted in the jousts, or played at tennis, 
 it was always Leicester's way to associate her, 
 the woman, with himself, the man, in the 
 sports both loved. 
 
 The incident of Leicester carelessly snatching 
 the Queen's kerchief to mop his brow when 
 he was "sweaty" in the tennis court, and the 
 other event of Elizabeth, disguised as her maid's 
 maid, stealing past her guard to behold Lord 
 Robert "shooting a match in the Park" with 
 Lord Windsor, though counted by " old " nobles 
 as an action of Use - Majeste on the part of 
 Leicester, and a movement of indecorum on 
 the part of Elizabeth, are evidences truly that 
 the Favourite could pay Her Majesty the dear 
 compliment of treating her as a sportswoman, 
 and forgetting she was a Queen.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 IT was an indication of the national temper 
 that at Cambridge an eulogy on virginity had 
 been included in the exercises that celebrated 
 Elizabeth's visit ; and at Oxford one of the 
 subjects of disputation had been the necessity 
 of a Sovereign declaring his or her successor. 
 A debate was held on the relative advantages 
 of hereditary and elective monarchy. The 
 Queen, by her comments, appeared to favour the 
 elective principle. Elizabeth always believed 
 her unequivocal title to the throne to lie in the 
 suffrages of her people. This belief Leicester 
 studied to conserve in her. On this principle, 
 his own title to kingship, and in particular his 
 right to the office of King Consort, was as 
 good as anybody's. 
 
 It had ever been a notion of the Dudleys 
 that the King should be the " canning," the 
 able man. But Leicester's abilities were not 
 quite great enough, or of the right order, to 
 prevail over other qualities in him that inevit- 
 ably raised prejudices in the popular mind. 
 
 It was now six years since his poor Amy's 
 133
 
 134 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 terrible fall, yet Cecil noted in a Minute-paper 
 of this year, 1566, that her death " had infamed " 
 the Favourite. And in 1566, the nation as 
 shown by the Oxford orations, by an infinity of 
 Privy Council notes, and by a strongly worded 
 petition of Parliament was again pressing to 
 know its heir. Of all that had previously 
 offered, the Archduke Charles, and my Lord of 
 Leicester, were the only two suitors now to 
 be counted on. 
 
 The arguments for and against these two, 
 were drawn up by the exact and contemplative 
 Cecil in some tables that are sufficiently curious, 
 and sufficiently informing for one of them to be 
 copied here. 
 
 It is seen that the chief objections Cecil had 
 to Leicester, are precisely the qualifications that, 
 in pursuance of their joint policy, the Queen and 
 and her Favourite reckoned as points in his 
 favour. To mate with any Prince of Europe 
 would have joined her indissolubly either to 
 Catholic or to Protestant interests, and while 
 giving her a friend, would have raised up for 
 her some formidable enemies. The peace of 
 England could not have been preserved, as it 
 was preserved for many years, by Elizabeth's 
 superb craft, and by Leicester's devotion to her 
 methods, had Elizabeth yielded to the supplica- 
 tions of her councillors, and, either in 1566, 
 or at any earlier or later period, given herself
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 135 
 
 CONVENIENT PERSON. 
 
 CAROLUS. 
 
 EARL OF LEICESTER. 
 
 In birth 
 
 Nephew and brother 
 
 Born son of a Knight, 
 
 
 of an Emperor 
 
 his grandfather 
 
 
 
 but a squire 
 
 In degree . 
 
 An Archduke born 
 
 An Earl made 
 
 In age 
 
 Of and never 
 
 Meet 
 
 
 married 
 
 
 In beauty and 
 
 
 
 constitution . 
 
 To be judged of 
 
 Meet 
 
 In wealth . 
 
 By report 3,000 ducats 
 
 All of the Queen and 
 
 
 by the year 
 
 in debt 
 
 In friendship 
 
 The Emperor, the 
 
 None but such as 
 
 
 King of Spain, the 
 
 shall have of the 
 
 
 Dukes of Saxony, 
 
 Queen 
 
 
 Bavaria, Cleves, 
 
 
 
 Florence, Ferrara, 
 
 
 
 and Mantua 
 
 
 In education 
 
 Amongst Princes 
 
 In England 
 
 
 always 
 
 
 In knowledge . 
 
 All qualities belong- 
 
 Meet for a courtier 
 
 
 ing to a Prince, 
 
 
 
 languages, wars, 
 
 
 
 hunting, and riding 
 
 
 In likelihood to 
 
 His father Ferdinando 
 
 ' Nuptise steriles.' 
 
 bear children . 
 
 hath therein been 
 
 No brother had 
 
 
 blessed with multi- 
 
 children and yet 
 
 
 tude of children. 
 
 their wives have 
 
 
 His brother Maxi- 
 
 Duchess of 
 
 
 milian hath plenty. 
 
 Norfolk. Himself 
 
 
 His sisters of 
 
 married and no 
 
 
 Bavaria, Cleves, 
 
 children 
 
 
 Mantua, and Poland 
 
 
 
 have already many 
 
 
 
 children 
 
 
 In likelihood to 
 
 His father Ferdinando 
 
 Nuptiae carnales a 
 
 love his wife . 
 
 et supra 
 
 laetitia incipiunt 
 
 
 
 et in luctu termin- 
 
 
 
 antin 
 
 In reputation 
 
 Honoured of all men 
 
 Ha ted by many. His 
 
 
 
 wife's death
 
 136 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 in marriage to a member of a reigning House 
 of Europe. 
 
 In 1566, negotiations for her marriage with 
 the young King of France had been begun. 
 The Queen - Mother, Catherine de Medici, 
 sent ambassadors with a present of a state 
 coach and two camels to Elizabeth, and the 
 Order of St Michael for two nobles of her 
 appointment. Elizabeth designated the Earl 
 of Leicester, who, on grounds that are still 
 obscure, asked the Queen to allow him to refuse 
 the decoration. She insisted on his acceptance 
 of it, and had to be very emphatic also in 
 commands to the Duke of Norfolk to be a 
 recipient with Leicester of the French Order. 
 Norfolk had the " old " nobles' grudge against 
 the "new." But the Queen was determined 
 that the St Michael should go to Leicester as 
 to one of the two chief nobles of her Court, 
 and not as to her one favourite. When the 
 proposals of the French King were withdrawn, 
 Leicester obtained from the ambassadors a 
 recommendation of his own pretensions for 
 Elizabeth's hand. These pretensions were not 
 now serious, but the recommendations of foreign 
 powers put Leicester into a more assured posi- 
 tion for future negotiations for his Sovereign, 
 both at home and abroad. 
 
 While the pourparlers with the French went 
 on, Elizabeth had continued to press Leicester 
 on Mary Stuart. But, in 1565, Mary married
 
 Queen Nary and Lord Darnley.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 137 
 
 Darnley, and, in the early days of 1566, it was 
 known that her child was to be born. 
 
 In this situation, those opposed to a Stuart 
 rule, and to a Stuart claimancy, felt more 
 strongly than ever that the only hope for 
 England lay in the speedy marriage of the 
 English Queen to a foreign Prince. By their 
 words and actions, Leicester and Elizabeth 
 appeared to share the feeling of the Council, 
 the Parliament, and the Nation. But it was 
 policy, not affection, that led the Queen and 
 her Favourite they two against the world 
 to decide that there should be no marriage 
 with the Archduke or with another. 
 
 Leicester was now chief minister of state. 
 His diligence in affairs became marked. He 
 kept his distance, and sought applause for his 
 disinterestedness. There were special reasons 
 at the moment for the display of self-sacrifice 
 in the patriotic cause. The question of his 
 connivance at the death of his wife was again 
 disturbing men's minds. 
 
 John Appleyard, who had come to be in 
 greatly reduced circumstances, made an attempt 
 to extort blackmail from Leicester by the asser- 
 tion that the jury of the inquest on the Lady 
 Amy's death had been suborned. Being examined 
 by the Council, he made a written admission of 
 his " mistake," and an acknowledgment that in 
 the copy of the verdict supplied to him by
 
 138 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 the Council, he not only found "such proofs, 
 testified under the oaths of fifteen persons, how 
 his late sister by misfortune happened of death, 
 but also such manifest and plain demonstra- 
 tion thereof as hath fully and clearly satisfied 
 him." 
 
 Even if the ghost of Leicester's past had not 
 walked inopportunely, it is doubtful whether 
 the old make-believe of an intention to wed 
 Leicester would have been assumed by Elizabeth. 
 She wanted to prove to Mary, to Darnley, 
 and to their following that she had friends and 
 Catholic friends to her power. She desired to 
 persuade her people that a greater Prince than he 
 to be born in Edinburgh, would soon spring to 
 being, on English soil. 
 
 Leicester took his part aptly in the game 
 Elizabeth played. He joined with her in 
 deceiving her nobles and statesmen, as to her 
 willingness to yield to their representations and 
 requests, and in hoodwinking the Spaniards as 
 to her readiness to further the papist cause, 
 by allowing the Archduke to hear Mass when 
 he came to England as her husband. 
 
 The envoy, De Silva, who, on his first 
 coming to England, had been so ingenuous, 
 and had taken Elizabeth and Leicester to be 
 as guileless as himself, was not now convinced 
 of the Favourite's disinterestedness. Like many 
 originally simple-minded people, De Silva had
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 139 
 
 been brought to the point of confusing imagina- 
 tion with discernment. A few months earlier, 
 he had evolved the idea that Elizabeth and 
 Leicester had been for some time married. 
 He said Lady Northampton, who was no 
 partisan of Leicester, bore herself towards him 
 in such a way presumably with such respect 
 that it could only be conceived that his 
 relations with the Queen were not so irregular 
 as had been supposed. " It is nothing to 
 Princes to hear evil without giving cause of it," 
 was his compassionate comment. And, when 
 the negotiations for the Austrian marriage were 
 reopened, De Silva had to be specially assured 
 by personages "in the know," that Elizabeth 
 was free to contract herself. Yet, with incon- 
 sistency, the Spaniard noted that, in opposition 
 to Leicester, Lady Northampton encouraged 
 Elizabeth to marry the Archduke. By good 
 chance, rather than by good judgment, the 
 divining one hit on the fact that Leicester's 
 furtherance of the Archduke's cause, as well as 
 a coolness that was observed about this time 
 between him and the Queen, were all "art- 
 fulness," and a blind to deeper purposes. 
 
 It was on the 4th of February 1566 that 
 the little play began. De Silva went to 
 Greenwich Court in reference to the Austrian 
 marriage under discussion, and found the 
 Queen and Lord Leicester " walking in the
 
 140 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 lower gallery of the garden." Leicester drew 
 aside to allow the Ambassador's approach, and 
 Elizabeth praised her Favourite to De Silva, 
 and told him that, at the very moment of his 
 appearance, Leicester had been "persuading 
 her to marry for the sake of the country and 
 herself, and even on his account, as every one 
 thought he was the cause of her remaining 
 single, which made him unpopular with all 
 her subjects." 
 
 To convince the world and Philip's Ambas- 
 sador that he was not influencing the Queen 
 against a marriage of state, Leicester left the 
 Court a few days later; "the rumour being 
 he was going to his own home." But he 
 went no further than Lord Pembroke's house, 
 Baynard's Castle ; and the Queen, in disguise, 
 but accompanied by the Lord High Admiral 
 Clinton and Lady Clinton it must have been 
 a very transparent disguise, resembling perhaps 
 the travelling titles of modern royalties 
 followed him next day, and dined with him 
 and the others at Lord Pembroke's house. 
 "After dinner," De Silva noted with exact- 
 ness, " the Queen returned to Greenwich, Lord 
 Pembroke went to his estates, and Lord 
 Leicester retired to his house." 
 
 In this absence of the Favourite a despatch 
 from Elizabeth's commissioner (for her marriage) 
 at Vienna, was put before the Queen for signa-
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 141 
 
 ture. In it she had to promise "if the Arch- 
 duke will come to England to marry him, unless 
 there be some apparent impediment." 
 
 Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, the Minister who 
 at the beginning of the reign had been loudly 
 denunciatory of the relations of Elizabeth and 
 Lord Robert, had now become an attached 
 follower and good friend of Leicester. It was 
 he who sent to the absent Minister full account 
 of the contents of the despatches intended for 
 the Archduke. His letter concluded with the 
 words : " I did understand Her Majesty had 
 deferred the signing . . . until your Lordship's 
 coming." How fertile was the genius of 
 Elizabeth of causes for putting matters off! 
 Cecil was another who wrote to Leicester of 
 the state of affairs. His Lordship replied : 
 
 " I heartily thank you, Mr Secretary, for your 
 gentle and friendly letter, wherein I perceive 
 how far Her Majesty hath resolved touching 
 the matter she dealt in on my coming away. 
 I pray God Her Highness may so proceed 
 therein as may bring but contentation to her- 
 self, and comfort to all that be hers. Surely 
 there can be nothing that shall so well settle 
 her in good estate as that way I mean her 
 marriage, whensoever it shall please God to 
 put her in mind to like and to conclude. I 
 know Her Majesty hath heard enough thereof, 
 and I wish to God she did hear that more that 
 here abroad is wished and prayed for. Good- 
 will it doth move in many, and truly it may 
 easily appear necessity doth require of all. We
 
 142 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 hear ourselves much also when we be there, 
 but methinks it is good sometimes that some 
 that be there should be abroad, for that is 
 sooner believed that is seen than heard ; and 
 in hope, Mr Secretary, that Her Majesty will 
 earnestly intend that which she hath of long 
 time not yet minded, and delay no longer her 
 time, which cannot be won again for any gift, 
 I will leave that with trust of happiest success, 
 for that God hath left it the only means to 
 redeem us in this world." 
 
 In this letter, written by Leicester to the 
 man who had more power than any to discredit 
 his influence with the Queen, and who was, at 
 the moment, opposing Elizabeth's inclination 
 for him, there were many insincerities. But 
 it was genuine, as an expression of Leicester's 
 conviction, that what he had heard "abroad" 
 (that was without the Court circle in ordinary 
 paths of English life) made it necessary for 
 him, for the present, to follow the policy of 
 promoting Elizabeth's marriage with the Arch- 
 duke. The general political situation was 
 inspiration of the view that "God had left" 
 the marriage "the only means to redeem us 
 in this world." To marry the English Queen 
 to the cousin of Spanish Philip and son of 
 the Austrian Emperor, was the one sure way 
 of escape from the dangers of the heirship to 
 England of Mary and Darnley. But in view 
 of the events that went before, and that
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 143 
 
 followed after, one may accept the opinion 
 of De Silva that in all they said and did 
 in this matter, Elizabeth and Leicester were 
 feigning. 
 
 The need for feigning was destroyed by 
 a sudden event. On the 9th of March, not 
 long after Leicester's return to Court, Rizzio, 
 the much-favoured Secretary of Mary, Queen 
 of Scots, was slain in her cabinet at the 
 instance of her husband, Darnley. The dis- 
 credit cast by the foul deed on the Stuart 
 party, made for the security of Elizabeth on 
 her throne. Mary and her Consort had to 
 bend their wits to keep their Scottish crowns. 
 No force was left in them to scheme for 
 English ones. 
 
 But before news of the northern tragedy 
 reached Greenwich a southern comedy had 
 begun, which the all too penetrating De Silva 
 took to be played entirely in set scene and 
 given phrase. We who may follow the text 
 of the playlet, with a commentary of sur- 
 rounding and subsequent facts not known to 
 De Silva, find in the speeches and actions of 
 the characters more spontaneity than was 
 discovered by the Spaniard to whom the 
 " dissembling English way " was often be- 
 fogging. 
 
 One of the causes for Leicester espousing 
 the cause of the Archduke so De Silva
 
 144 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 asserted had been that he had proved to 
 himself, by a trick, that Elizabeth had no 
 longer any affection for him. He had been 
 advised to the course, so De Silva asserted, 
 by Throckmorton, "who rules Leicester." The 
 plan was for Leicester first to pretend to fall 
 in love with one of the Queen's ladies, and 
 then to ask leave to go to his country-house, 
 as other nobles did. In the first experiment, 
 Leicester chose Lettice (Knollys) Viscountess 
 Hereford, described by the Spaniard as "one 
 of the best-looking ladies of the Court, and 
 daughter of a first cousin of the Queen, with 
 whom she is a great favourite." It is well to 
 remember how and when one first hears of 
 Lettice in connection with Leicester. But even 
 as "the lover of Queen Elizabeth" made pro- 
 fession of a new attachment, Elizabeth herself 
 we do not know if hers were the provocative 
 or the retaliatory act threw looks of favour 
 on a certain Heneage, "who served in her 
 chamber." 
 
 This development was not part of the plan of 
 Leicester and Throckmorton, and the Favourite 
 forgot dignity, and entered into a " dispute." 
 
 In dudgeon, at the preferment of Heneage, 
 Leicester asked leave to go to his house. The 
 Queen turned on him furiously, upbraided him 
 for his quarrel with Heneage, and with his 
 attentions to the Viscountess. It was Heneage
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 145 
 
 who left the Court. Leicester retired only as 
 far as his own apartments, where he sulked 
 for three or four days. Then the Queen sent 
 for him. Cecil and Sussex intervened to 
 smooth over the affair ; both Elizabeth and 
 Leicester shed tears, and he returned to his 
 former favour. One does not know why the 
 enemies of the Favourite interceded for him. 
 Probably there was no getting the Queen to 
 do any business with Leicester absent from 
 the Council Board. The first act of Leicester 
 on his restoration, was to bring Heneage back 
 " to avoid gossip," and Cecil told De Silva : 
 "Leicester held his ground as usual. The 
 Queen made a show of it for her own 
 purposes." King Philip, on hearing the whole 
 relation, passed the judgment that it was 
 evident the Queen was in love with Leicester, 
 and it was no good to press any other suitor 
 on her. 
 
 Presuming that the events occurred exactly 
 as related by De Silva, which is dubious, what 
 were the "purposes" of the Queen in playing 
 off Heneage against Leicester, and then in 
 soundly rating Leicester for paying attention 
 to the Viscountess? Did she seek only to 
 teach the lesson that her royal amusements 
 must never be interfered with, and that her 
 favours could never be distributed for her? 
 Or was the purpose deeper, and did Leicester
 
 146 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 aid it with the subtlety that was his ? In any 
 case, the King of Spain had been convinced that 
 the affections of Elizabeth were fixed, and that 
 the Queen of England, secure in an undivided 
 Council, was strong in her own dominions. 
 And it is certain that at this time the French 
 were urging upon Elizabeth a marriage with 
 Leicester, and Leicester was informing Cecil 
 that the Queen would never marry any one 
 but himself. 
 
 It is a greater tribute to the genius for dis- 
 simulation and misrepresentation in the two, 
 that in only a few weeks' time the arrange- 
 ments for the Austrian marriage were once 
 more being seriously considered at Vienna and 
 at Madrid, and that, as the new year (1566) 
 broke, it was believed that Leicester was in 
 disgrace at Court. How deep was this 
 " disgrace," it is for those who follow the 
 relations of the Queen and Favourite from 
 beginning to end to judge. Certainly Heneage 
 was presuming on Elizabeth's continued kind- 
 ness, and on Leicester's dislike of scenes. 
 
 It was Twelfth Night, and the festive lords 
 and ladies were gathered round the Queen, 
 playing forfeits. It was the turn of Heneage 
 to cry a penance for my Lord of Leicester, and 
 he put into the mouth of the Favourite, to ask 
 the Queen, this question : " Which is the 
 stronger, an evil opinion instilled by an informer,
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 147 
 
 or jealousy?" Leicester "played the game," 
 and without comment put the question haughtily. 
 The Queen replied, probably with intention, 
 that both were powerful, but, in her opinion, 
 jealousy had the greater force. 
 
 Next day Leicester was very angry with the 
 upstart in Elizabeth's grace, but the affair 
 cooled again, and Leicester remained the trusted 
 adviser of Her Majesty, whom the impertin- 
 ences of her parlour pets could not permanently 
 disturb. Yet one must believe that his anger 
 on the occasion was real. It was Leicester's 
 first encounter with a rival in the fondness 
 of Elizabeth. He was to learn by experience 
 how, himself, to attract those bright particles 
 to whom the iridescence of the Queen's gay 
 fancy imparted a changeable lustre and a 
 variable influence. 
 
 Another "affair" followed speedily on that 
 with Heneage. When Leicester returned to 
 the Court after that ostentatious absence of his 
 in February, Lord Ormonde "an Irishman, 
 of good position, thirty years old, and a great 
 friend of Heneage " was a new favourite. And 
 when, in March, Leicester went away again, it 
 was supposed that he left out of pique, and that 
 he thought a few more days of absence would 
 bring the Queen to her senses. But it was 
 known that he went to visit his sister, Lady 
 Huntingdon, who was ill ; and we have the
 
 148 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 evidence of extant letters to show that he and 
 the Queen corresponded amiably while he was 
 absent, and that business about exchange of 
 lands kept him employed at Kenilworth. He 
 was also at Oxford labouring for some of those 
 reforms he was to see carried out there on the 
 occasion of his visit with the Queen to the 
 University in the ensuing summer. 
 
 Nevertheless, Elizabeth had some grounds of 
 offence against him, and his plans did work to 
 "bring her to her senses." Shortly after his 
 departure the Queen said to Lord Hunsdon, in 
 the hearing of her Court: "My lord, it hath been 
 often said that you should be Master of the Horse, 
 but it is now like to prove true." Yet before 
 Leicester came back in April it was believed 
 that the letter the Queen sent, and her messages 
 delivered by a Gentleman of the Chamber, con- 
 tained entreaties for his return, and that when 
 he wrote at last, begging for fifteen days more 
 grace, she refused them, and ordered him back 
 at once. 
 
 But De Silva noted that on Leicester's return 
 Lord Ormonde was still in favour, and on 
 July 1st, nearly three months later, he painted 
 vividly a scene at a " supper, masquerade, and 
 ball" given by the Earl of Sussex to celebrate 
 the marriage of his sister. At this feast, 
 Elizabeth, by way of showing herself still " in " 
 with the Austrian marriage, made much of De
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 149 
 
 Silva, but she "greatly praised" to him the 
 "talent and good parts of Lord Ormonde" 
 while she displayed affection for Leicester. 
 " She is a great chatterer, and the people, even 
 the aristocracy, are offended at her manner of 
 going on, but everything is put up with," was 
 the Spaniard's comment on her behaviour at 
 Lord Sussex's party. 
 
 Yet De Silva knew that "everything" was 
 not "put up with." In May it had been 
 known to him, as to others, that the Arch- 
 bishop of York [Thomas Young], a friend 
 of Leicester, had admonished the Queen in 
 regard to her conduct, and had told her that 
 people were speaking ill of her favour to Lord 
 Ormonde. The Queen had turned on the 
 prelate in one of those royal rages, for which 
 she is famous, and with "great roughness and 
 hard words," had "threatened to prosecute 
 him." The matter ended " at the instance " 
 of Leicester. And after the Queen's impartial 
 display of endearments to both Ormonde and 
 Leicester at the Sussex marriage-feast, De Silva 
 noted: "Leicester and Ormonde are friends, 
 though Leicester does not want a rival, and 
 Ormonde aspires to be one." And again : "The 
 Queen greatly favours Leicester's party, but all 
 her near relatives, whom she esteems, are on 
 the other side." 
 
 These relations would be Lord Hunsdon,
 
 150 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 the Duke of Norfolk, and Lady Hereford 
 all cousins, of the Boleyn blood, of Queen 
 Elizabeth. The " other side " was the side 
 of Cecil, Sussex, and Arundel. De Silva's 
 discernment was not altogether at fault when 
 he commented on his own statement : "It 
 must be all a trick to retain them both." 
 
 And a " trick " of Leicester being now 
 and then in disgrace was also played. In 
 August the Queen was captious about a pro- 
 jected visit to Kenilworth, her first visit to 
 this castle which had been in the possession 
 of Leicester since 1563, when also the manor, 
 lordship, and castle of Denbigh, and lands in 
 Lancashire, Surrey, Rutland, Carmarthen, York, 
 Cardigan, and Brecknock were conferred on 
 him. Since then some twenty other estates 
 had come into his hands, and, in 1565, he 
 had had granted to him a licence to retain 
 one hundred persons, and was made Chancellor 
 of the County Palatine of Chester. 
 
 One of Elizabeth's excuses for not going to 
 Kenilworth, after she had planned to do so, 
 was that she did not wish to throw upon 
 Leicester the expense of her visit. It was 
 unusual for the Queen to be thoughtful in 
 this way, but Leicester only thanked her 
 for her consideration. His gratitude had the 
 effect that he intended. Her Majesty set out 
 for Kenilworth towards the end of August,
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 151 
 
 proceeding thence on her already recorded 
 progress to Oxford. Yet we find Cecil, in 
 this month, writing to France that Leicester 
 was not a person of so much consequence as 
 formerly. 
 
 The cloud that obscured the consequence of 
 Leicester was a passing one. He was the 
 elect of Elizabeth for his lifetime ; only in 
 this year of chop and change in their relation- 
 ship, something happened to start both though 
 with ever such a fine dividing line between 
 them on separate courses. The individual in 
 each had received a certain impulse of develop- 
 ment by which the other was untouched. 
 
 The evidences are that during Leicester's 
 short absence from the Court in February, he 
 had, by his hearing and seeing of things not 
 to be heard or perceived in the palace of the 
 Queen, come to a decision as to the policy 
 England, as distinct from Elizabeth, needed. 
 His later and longer absence in March and 
 April did not lead to that decision's undoing. 
 Leicester had been "abroad"; he had escaped 
 from the atmosphere of intrigue, pretence, and 
 dissimulation, which had become the breath of 
 Elizabeth's life. His eyes had been turned 
 from continual watching of the checks and 
 counter - checks of the European chess - board ; 
 and he had been shown that there were 
 " powers that be " in popular wills and con-
 
 152 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 sciences, as well as in the authorities of 
 sovereigns. 
 
 On the other hand, Elizabeth had learned 
 in his absence that he was not the only lord 
 in England who could be amusing. There 
 were others, striplings and bearded men, who 
 had attractions and parts that were a joy to 
 contemplate, and a delight to see exercised for 
 her entertainment and her honour. A lull in 
 the anxious businesses of her reign enabled 
 her to take her pleasure for a time ; and she 
 desired to put off declaring an heir, and to 
 sport and to divert herself without regard 
 to that subject matrimony which was the 
 death's head at all her feasts. 
 
 But Leicester returned to Court full of the 
 keen, popular desire for the naming of a 
 successor. The appointment of an heir was 
 a political necessity upon which ah 1 parties 
 were agreed. There was no need to defer 
 the appointment for Elizabeth's select purpose 
 of balancing parties. The hour was come 
 when the claim of Mary could be set aside 
 with little offence to any. The visit to his 
 sister may be an indication that Leicester had 
 some hope of the naming of Lord Huntingdon. 
 But the Lady Catherine Grey was still alive, 
 and she had sons. In any case, Leicester 
 was one of the group of noble lords who, in 
 November, strongly supported the petition
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 153 
 
 from Parliament praying to know the crown's 
 heir. 
 
 Elizabeth was very angry with the courtiers 
 of hers nobles all who joined in this attempt 
 to force her hand. And she stood up to them 
 in a manner that was her own. The Duke of 
 Norfolk, she called to his face, a traitor and 
 a conspirator. And when the Earl of Pembroke 
 told her it was not right to treat Norfolk 
 badly, since he and the others were considering 
 the good of the country, and giving her advice 
 which, if she did not adopt, it was their duty 
 to offer ; she told him shortly he talked like a 
 swaggering soldier. To Leicester she said she 
 had thought that if all the world abandoned 
 her, he would not have done so. He vowed 
 he would die at her feet, "That has nothing 
 to do with the matter," she snapped. Then 
 she turned on Lord Northampton. It was his 
 present countess who had attempted covertly 
 to separate Elizabeth and Leicester, and to 
 gain Her Majesty for the Archduke. But he 
 had had another countess who had been put 
 away with legal formulas to make room for 
 the one Elizabeth favoured. 
 
 Now the ingenuities of Northampton made 
 him fair quarry. His advices were contemptu- 
 ously pooh-poohed. He had better bring up 
 the arguments that had been used for his 
 marrying again, when he had a wife living,
 
 154 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 and not mince words with his Queen. Her 
 tirades ended with a declaration that she would 
 order them all under arrest. But she did not 
 carry out her threat. They were, however, 
 commanded not to appear before her again 
 until they received permission, and in the loss 
 of so many of her advisers, she went to De 
 Silva for sympathy. Him she told that all 
 these lords were against her, and asked him 
 what he thought of the ingratitude of 
 Leicester, after she had shown him so much 
 kindness and favour that her honour had 
 suffered. Cecil, she said, was her only friend. 
 One does not know by what wiles Cecil got 
 himself excluded from the general disgrace. 
 Perhaps because he pressed on her her 
 marriage rather than her appointment of a 
 successor. 
 
 In December, though the Queen was still 
 complaining of Leicester's part in the affair, 
 she was saying she thought he had acted for 
 the best, and was deceived. She was certain 
 he would sacrifice his life for hers, and, if one 
 of them had to die, he would willingly be the 
 one. So his somewhat irrelevant protest about 
 dying at her feet had not been unavailing with 
 the woman he knew so well. 
 
 In the New Year 1567 Leicester was 
 known to be returning to the Queen's good 
 graces.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 IT has been seen that the time had come for 
 the aims of the Queen and her Favourite to 
 diverge, and for their characters to develop 
 along lines that, from being at first only not 
 quite parallel, became more and more removed. 
 Yet for twenty - two years longer, we may 
 trace Leicester's career as councillor, and mark 
 him even in his unique and unapproachable 
 rank of Favourite acting with Cecil as first 
 minister of the realm ; busy with affairs, civil, 
 military, and ecclesiastical ; maintaining his 
 self-appointed office of Her Majesty's "Eyes"; 
 plying his craft as a physician of the national 
 ills ; identifying himself with causes ; and 
 working for reforms. From time to time, he 
 followed ideas and projects, and men called 
 him a traitor; he defined, while he widened 
 the path of religious reformation, and it was 
 thought that all he did was of hypocrisy; he 
 gave of his strength and his wealth unsparingly 
 to his country and to his Sovereign and he 
 was styled a minion and a debauchee. It is 
 not contended that Leicester's methods were 
 superior to the methods of his period and 
 
 155
 
 156 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 class. All the leading Ministers of Elizabeth's 
 government, received bribes from foreign rulers, 
 though, as has been said by a present - day 
 examiner of records, for many of the " presents " 
 given, small value was received. Traffic in 
 places under Government, and in offices in the 
 Church, was more or less openly carried on 
 by nearly all statesmen, and the fashion of 
 spoliating ecclesiastics for the benefit of the 
 laity above all of the aristocratic laity was 
 a " good old custom," started by " bluff King 
 Hal," that was not all iniquitous, though one 
 does not wish to see it revived. It is true 
 that Leicester received bribes from the Spanish 
 and the French kings, and that commissions 
 on various kinds of deals financial, political, 
 religious, literary, and educational were 
 charged by him for licences, patents, charters, 
 orders in Council, secretaryships, guardianships, 
 and what not. But then commissions of the 
 kind were part of the very system of Society 
 in his day, and Leicester was not the only 
 Minister who distributed his interests "on 
 agency lines." 
 
 But Leicester is said to have exceeded 
 them all in the rewards he took for pro- 
 moting to bishoprics. In a " Brief View 
 of the State of the Church," Sir John 
 Harington tells the "pretty tale" of a Bishop 
 of Winchester of his day, being in "pleasant
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 157 
 
 talk" with the Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 Winchester compared his revenue with that 
 of Canterbury : " Your Grace's will show 
 better in the rack, but mine will be found 
 more in the manger," said he. A courtier, 
 who was present, replied, " It might be so in 
 diebus illis" He added, " The rack stands so 
 high in sight, that it is fit to keep it full, but 
 that may be since that time some have with a 
 provideatur swept some provender out of the 
 manger." Sir John Harington commented : 
 "And because this metaphor comes from the 
 stable, I suspect it was meant by the Master 
 of the Horse." 
 
 Leicester was certainly not less mercenary 
 or less business - like than others, who were 
 nobles of Elizabeth's Court, and Councillors of 
 Elizabeth's Board. On the contrary, he was 
 more grasping and more speculative than 
 most. It was a ceaseless endeavour of his to 
 put money in his purse. Whether he ever 
 made the least attempt to prevent it running 
 out again, is a doubtful matter. He did not 
 share his Queen's fault of niggardliness. He 
 was always in debt, because he always spent 
 freely. He entertained royally, not always 
 because he wanted to do so, but because the 
 duties of his office and his Queen's gracious 
 condescension in visiting him, and in allow- 
 ing him to receive England's visitors on her
 
 158 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 behalf, obliged him to be royal in hospitality. 
 It was impossible for him to be satisfied with 
 such incomes as flowed towards him. He had 
 to tap currents of supplies. He was forced to 
 devise and to manipulate various sources of 
 wealth. That is to say, he had to do these 
 things in a pushing world, and with a close 
 employer, if he desired to maintain his great- 
 ness, together with the greatness of the tasks 
 he undertook and of the aims he followed. That 
 he did so desire, was not altogether to the 
 disadvantage of the England of Elizabeth, 
 neither was it to the disadvantage of the 
 England of to-day. 
 
 In 1567 there was talk of the Earl of Sussex 
 going to Vienna to take the Garter to the 
 Emperor, and to arrange preliminaries of a 
 marriage between Elizabeth and the Arch- 
 duke Charles that marriage that was never 
 to get beyond " preliminaries " 1 De Silva, 
 in his correspondence with Spain, noted that 
 Leicester's party was persuading against the 
 mission. The talk and the persuasions went 
 on for six months before Lord Sussex finally 
 departed. With him it was said by the 
 direction of Leicester, who wished to have a 
 friend on the spot to put spokes into the 
 wheel of negotiation went Lord North. 
 
 Leicester, in whom eye-opening experiences 
 of life beyond Court circles, had impressed a
 
 Thomas Radclyffe, Earl of Sussex.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 159 
 
 deep sense of the value of Protestantism as a 
 separate religious system, was now at cross- 
 swords with Cecil, Sussex, and Norfolk, who 
 advocated the Austrian alliance. Between 
 Sussex and Leicester there had never been 
 any love lost. Sussex had sounded the top- 
 note of his patriotism when he had advocated 
 Leicester's marriage with Elizabeth in 1561. 
 
 Much water had flowed beneath London 
 Bridge in the six years since then. Sussex 
 had been in Ireland for Her Majesty. There, 
 his weakness and his want of faith had assisted 
 disastrous policies. These, upon his return, 
 were criticised by Leicester. A quarrel took 
 place at the Council Board. Sussex approached 
 Leicester, and complained that some one had 
 told the Queen that he had helped the Irish 
 against the Queen's own people. By his 
 indeterminate action this was exactly what 
 he had done, but, of course, not of intention, 
 and Sussex flung out at Leicester that "who- 
 ever said so lied," and he could prove it. 
 Leicester made no reply in the Queen's 
 presence. But Her Majesty rapped out a 
 sharp rebuke of the uncourtly manners of my 
 Lord of Sussex. After the Council, Leicester's 
 friends gathered round him, telling him he 
 ought to take further notice of the matter. 
 
 The next day the Favourite asked Sussex for
 
 160 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 an explanation of his conduct. Sussex was 
 not of those who stand up to their opposers 
 with persistence, and he had been enjoined by 
 the Queen to make friends with Leicester, so 
 he replied that his words had been intended 
 only for the persons who had accused him. 
 The matter ended, and both noblemen made 
 show of being on their former terms, but 
 thenceforward, for some time, the followers of 
 the two took care to go armed, and to keep 
 close in groups for their own and their master's 
 protection. The opinion Sussex ever held of 
 Leicester may be known from the circum- 
 stances that, in 1565, the "old" noble said 
 of the " new " that he had only two ancestors, 
 a father and a grandfather, and both of them 
 were traitors ; and that in 1583, when Sussex 
 lay upon his death-bed, his words of warning 
 to the gentlemen of his party gathered round 
 him were : " Beware of that gipsy, for he shall 
 be too hard for any of you ! " 
 
 Certainly Leicester was too hard for Sussex 
 as for Cecil, Norfolk, and their adherents 
 among peers and commons in the early months 
 of 1567. And the fates aided Leicester in his 
 hardness. 
 
 In the first days of January, the embassy 
 to Vienna had been the most pressing State 
 necessity. Elizabeth herself told the nation 
 she was resolved to marry, and by the line
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 161 
 
 she took in religious matters, she indicated the 
 direction in which her hand was to be given. 
 The Archduke was supposed to be a Liberal 
 Catholic. There were yet Protestants in 
 England and elsewhere Cecil among them 
 who believed, even at the epoch of the Great 
 Schism, that a Liberal Catholicism was possible. 
 
 Is Leicester to be judged the lesser patriot, 
 and the more hypocritical religionist, because 
 he opposed ultramontanism in all its manifesta- 
 tions, and because, rather than promote a 
 marriage for Elizabeth with a foreign Prince 
 which would commit her to a perpetual peace 
 with the oppressor of the Netherlands, and the 
 enemy of all free institutions, he assiduously 
 kept her in mind of the disadvantages of a 
 foreign union, and of the advantages if a union 
 had to be of an English one? 
 
 The first aid to the projects of Leicester was 
 the murder of Darnley. That cold-blooded 
 crime of a man insanely brutal, and of a woman 
 outraged, desperate, and lovesick, disturbed the 
 policies of all Europe, blasted the life and 
 prospect of a young Queen, rich in beauty, 
 talent, intelligence, and charm, and gave pause 
 to the activities on behalf of Elizabeth's 
 marriage. The events that followed in swift 
 succession Mary's hushing up of enquiries ; 
 her marriage with Bothwell ; the battle of 
 Carberry Hill ; her incarceration in Loch Leven 
 
 L
 
 1 62 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Castle destroyed for ever the popularity of the 
 claim of the Scottish Queen upon the English 
 succession, and prevented, for a time, even the 
 most Catholic and the most casuistical from 
 deeming her an acceptable heiress-presumptive. 
 
 Yet no more bewildering blow was ever 
 struck at Elizabeth than was inflicted by the 
 crime of her sister - sovereign. Like Mary, 
 Elizabeth had been bred in the belief that 
 " Kings can do no wrong," and that though 
 Queens may sin against God, their subjects 
 may not judge them. We have the picture 
 of the attitude of Elizabeth when the news 
 of Mary's arrest by her lords first reached 
 London, in two letters of Leicester, one 
 written to the Queen's dictation as the very 
 hand of Her Majesty, the other, the com- 
 position of Leicester himself. 
 
 These letters were addressed to Throck- 
 morton, who had been sent to the northern 
 capital as a special emissary from the Queen of 
 England on behalf of the Queen of Scots. In 
 the official despatch, Leicester directed Throck- 
 morton "to use all means to let the Queen 
 of Scotland know the Queen's grief for her and 
 how much she takes care for her relief," and 
 " the Queen takes the doings of these lords 
 to heart, as a precedent most perilous for 
 any Prince." In his private communication, 
 Leicester told Throckmorton that his " other
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 163 
 
 letter was written by the Queen's command- 
 ment," but " to be plain " with him, the Queen 
 was "in great mislike with these lords for this 
 strange manner of proceeding with their natural 
 Sovereign." There is no persuading the Queen, 
 so he averred, " to disguise or use policy, for she 
 breaks out to all men her affection in this matter, 
 and says most constantly that she will become an 
 utter enemy to that nation if that Queen perish." 
 He confessed the acts of Mary to be loathsome 
 and foul for any Prince, yet was her punishment 
 most unnatural. People had plain command- 
 ment in the Scriptures to obey and love their 
 Sovereigns, though they be evil. He wrote 
 "not to serve his Sovereign but for conscience 
 sake. Though the Queen [of Scots] has de- 
 served punishment at God's hand, she has 
 deserved better consideration at some of her 
 servants' hands." 
 
 These words of Leicester were a confession of 
 his faith, and they formed the text of Throck- 
 morton's official remonstrances with the Scottish 
 lords. They are evidences to us of how great 
 was the dismay of Elizabeth at the culmination 
 of the tragedy in the north. Yet the downfall 
 of Mary Stuart removed a pressing occasion for 
 the foreign marriage, and provided Leicester 
 with justification for laying before his Queen 
 a list of reasons against a mixed union, such
 
 164 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 as many of Elizabeth's faithful peers and 
 commons desired for her. 
 
 Leicester's objections were that the marriage 
 of Queen Mary to Philip of Spain had exposed 
 her to much trouble, and "put England in 
 danger of the Spanish yoke ; that the manners, 
 inclination, and disposition of foreigners could 
 not easily be discovered, which were yet very 
 necessary to be known in a husband, who by an 
 inseparable tie was to become one with his wife ; 
 that it was excessively disagreeable to be con- 
 tinually conversant with strange customs and a 
 strange language ; that the children of a foreign 
 bed had generally an odd intermixture in their 
 composition ; that by the frequent concourse of 
 foreigners new usages were introduced, and 
 alterations made in a Commonwealth ; that for 
 a Princess to marry with a foreigner, was to 
 add strength and increase to her husband's 
 dominions, to subject herself and her people to 
 another's command, and to lay open the secrets 
 of her kingdom to a stranger ; that it was 
 natural for every man to love his native country, 
 and a foreign husband could not avoid prefer- 
 ring his own countrymen to the English ; that 
 England had no need of foreign aid, but had 
 strength enough to defend itself against any 
 exterior force; that the accession of another 
 kingdom was the new addition of greater cares, 
 expenses, and trouble, and that empires were oft
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 165 
 
 overburdened by their own weight ; that it was 
 unjustly urged in disgrace to the Nobility, that 
 the Royal Dignity was impaired by a marriage 
 at home, since even the Majesty of Kings, 
 which was founded on virtue, was originally 
 derived from Nobility and Noblemen were in a 
 manner the roots of the royal stock ; and hence 
 the Kings of England, in their letters to Dukes, 
 Marquesses, Earls, and Viscounts, have ever 
 given them the titles of Cousins." Leicester 
 further reminded Elizabeth of kingly ancestors 
 of hers including her own father who had 
 thought it no derogation of their honour to 
 raise to the throne women of less than royal 
 rank. Even a "new" lord like Leicester, was 
 peer to a lady of the status of Anne Boleyn! 
 But not alone these reasons, which seem to 
 indicate that the list was prepared by Leicester 
 from purely self-interested motives, were of the 
 kind to outweigh with Elizabeth the reasons 
 of supposed state-interest which the approvers 
 of the mixed marriage advanced. The sugges- 
 tions of the unpleasantness of not knowing 
 the " manners, inch' nation, and disposition " of 
 one who "by an inseparable tie was to become 
 one flesh with his wife," and that "for a 
 Princess to marry with a foreigner" was to 
 "subject herself and her people to another's 
 command," were just of the intimate kind 
 that appeals to a woman. The reminder that
 
 1 66 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 "the accession of another kingdom was the 
 new addition of greater cares, expenses, and 
 trouble " was one bound to prevail with a 
 housewife so diligent in cutting down expenses 
 as Elizabeth. Yet the reminder was a very 
 just one. The Archduke was without means, 
 and had begun the negotiations by making 
 excessive demands in the way of personal 
 allowances. However selfish the ultimate 
 design of Leicester in drawing up his reasons, 
 it must be admitted that they had force. 
 One cannot be sure that children born to 
 Elizabeth and the Archduke would have had 
 any odder " intermixture in their compositions " 
 than the children of Elizabeth and Leicester 
 might have had. But poetic licence may be 
 allowed to one so thoroughly convinced, when 
 other counsellors were in a panic, that " England 
 had no need of foreign aid, but had strength 
 enough to defend itself against any exterior 
 force." 
 
 For " England," Leicester might have 
 written " Elizabeth." He saw strengths in 
 his Queen where other men saw only weak- 
 nesses. He alone knew all the secret forces 
 of Elizabeth's many turns and shifts ; of her 
 practices and her affabilities ; of her supposed 
 humours ; and of her assumed rages and whims. 
 And he believed, as Elizabeth believed, that,
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 167 
 
 by a continuance of policy, England could 
 be kept strong and rendered independent of 
 foreign supports. In the opinion of Cecil, 
 Norfolk, Sussex, and many others, policy had 
 had its day. Danger loomed, and only a 
 marriage any marriage, but preferably a royal 
 marriage could bestow "contentment on the 
 English people, by its hope of issue " ; give 
 "avoidance of bloodshed in a disputed succes- 
 sion"; secure the advantage to the Queen of 
 " the companionship of a virtuous prince " ; 
 and lead to a universal peace. 
 
 So high were the hopes of those who should 
 have known that the grounds for their hopes 
 were small, that they counted on the Prince's 
 probable conversion, and the good effect through- 
 out Europe that such a change of faith would 
 produce. However, the Archduke was brought 
 to the point of agreeing to abandon in England 
 the open hearing of the Mass, and to have it 
 said privately in any place the Queen might 
 appoint. He further expressed his willingness to 
 accompany Elizabeth to services of the Estab- 
 lished Church. These concessions had been 
 made with the consent of the King of Spain. 
 It was given neither to Sussex nor to Cecil, 
 at this stage, to perceive the slow formation 
 of the monstrous Catholic league. And when 
 the horrible massacre of St Bartholomew's Day 
 took place, Leicester was as much aghast at
 
 1 68 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 the ruthlessness of the crime as were any of his 
 colleagues. But he does seem to have been 
 the first of the Ministers to perceive the work- 
 ing of a vicious spirit in the Catholicism of 
 the day, and was certainly in the van of those 
 who made it the glory of England to champion 
 single - handed the oppressed Protestants of 
 Holland. Leicester's vision of the future for 
 England was a vision of peace, a peace main- 
 tained by " practices," but a peace in which 
 all things of the soul religion, poetry, learn- 
 ing, and free institutions should flourish and 
 grow great. 
 
 The vision of Sussex communicated to Cecil, 
 while the seer was still in Vienna, was a vision 
 of war and ruin. Without the marriage of 
 Elizabeth with Archduke Charles, he foresaw 
 "discontent, disunion, bloodshed of her people 
 perhaps in her own time for this cause and 
 the ruin of the realm in the end ; which bloody 
 time threateneth little respect of religion, but 
 much malice and revenge for private ambition 
 on all sides ; which many by wilful blindness 
 for other respects will not see, and yet put on 
 spectacles to search a scruple under colour of 
 religion" 
 
 It is true that Leicester was blind to the 
 lurid picture of the England of the near 
 future, which Sussex painted in the colours 
 of his fancy. Yet, whether the Favourite
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 169 
 
 required very powerful spectacles to discover 
 a scruple against the coming of the Austrian 
 bridegroom, is a question that, at this time, 
 hardly needs answering. There were objec- 
 tions of fact, of convenience, and of principle 
 to the marriage. That there might also be 
 in it some advantages of a nearer and more 
 practical kind than those Leicester looked for, 
 is also true. Some idea of the turmoil he 
 created by his determined opposition, now that 
 he believed opposition to be a "safe" policy, 
 is obtained from the following letter from one 
 designated " Sir J. S." to the Earl of Derby. 
 
 "For the news which I know you are most 
 anxious to hear of which is of the Duke 
 Charles, and of my Lord of Sussex's proceedings 
 therein there is and hath been such working 
 to overthrow that ; as the like hath not been 
 which is pitiful to hear of. The Council here 
 at this present are in manner divided touching 
 the same, and it is made a matter of religion, 
 and they say they do it for conscience' sake. 
 But God knoweth what conscience is in them 
 which go about to hinder it. My Lord of 
 Leicester, my Lord Steward (Pembroke), my 
 Lord Marquis (Northampton) and the Vice- 
 Chamberlain (Heneage) be against his coming 
 in. ... My Lord Chamberlain (Howard of 
 Effingham), my Lord Admiral (Clinton), Mr 
 Secretary (Cecil) and Mr Controller (Crofts) 
 do wish his coming in. Whereupon Jewel 
 made a sermon at Paul's Cross upon Sunday 
 was sennight, his theme being: * Cursed be
 
 1 70 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 he that goeth about to build again the walls 
 of Jericho' meaning thereby the bringing in 
 of any doctrine contrary to this." 
 
 Direct opposition of this kind was annoyance 
 enough to those who were for the " coming in " 
 of the Archduke. It was easily believed by 
 sophists, even by sophists of the Protestant 
 party, that the " reasonable " Catholicism of the 
 Austrian Prince was no menace to religious 
 peace. Men of tolerant views and of balanced 
 minds, like Cecil, considered it no hard thing 
 for moderate men of all religious parties to join 
 forces in treading a via media. And Elizabeth 
 who was so convinced of the practicability of 
 an infinite variety of opinion co-existing with 
 an absolute uniformity of worship, would, of 
 herself, have found no insuperable religious 
 objections to the " coming in " of the Arch- 
 duke. It was reserved for Leicester to alarm 
 the Government and to worry the Queen with 
 the fear of a confederation between the Pope, 
 the Emperor, the Kings of Spain and France, 
 and other Catholic Princes which should have 
 for its objective a "settlement of religion," and 
 the bringing back of Elizabeth to submission 
 to the Pope. It was all very well for unimagina- 
 tive workers like Cecil to disbelieve in such a 
 confederation. His genius was for dealing with 
 things as they were, for interlocutory dialogue 
 with suspects, for bringing criminals to justice,
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 171 
 
 for providing supplies for national expenditure, 
 for saying the apt word in a disputation, and 
 for veiling the true thought in a negotiation. 
 It was natural also for hot alarmists and feeble 
 administrators like Sussex, and for those of 
 pronouncedly Catholic sympathies like Norfolk, 
 to see only the advantages of compromising 
 with the Papists. And it was policy in Philip 
 to pish and pshaw over the suggestion that 
 the monarchs of middle Europe were likely to 
 combine in a persuasion to the Queen of 
 England to abandon her "singularity" in 
 religion and, failing success to their persuasion, 
 in a dispossession of the kingdom of the excom- 
 municate Princess. But such a confederacy 
 was possible, if not probable, and not far distant 
 events were soon to prove to all men that, in 
 the sixteenth century, a Catholic sway was 
 inevitably a sway of tyranny. The " look-out " 
 man of the English Government he who was 
 the " eyes " of Elizabeth discerned the quarter 
 from which storms approached more accurately 
 than Ministers less mercurial than he. The 
 rumblings, Cecil, Sussex, and Norfolk took to 
 be signs of interior tempests, Leicester doubted 
 were blasts of an alien invasion. 
 
 This divergence of men's minds, and this vari- 
 ance of their apprehensions, explain much of the 
 misunderstanding of Leicester's attitude at this 
 period. Although the Queen's " outward shows
 
 172 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 of favour had greatly toned down," it was still 
 to be seen that Leicester had the most influence 
 with her of any one. But the character he had 
 earned by his own earlier "practices," and that 
 had been bestowed upon him by the jealousy of 
 men less handsome, less gifted, or less imagina- 
 tive than himself, was certainly of a kind to lead 
 men to doubt his disinterestedness. 
 
 In November (1567) the Duke of Norfolk 
 wrote to Cecil: 
 
 "My good- will to the match remains as firm 
 as ever it was, and by the reasonable demand 
 of the Archduke is more increased." And he 
 contended that, " If the matter may come to 
 indifferent hearing, there will be as earnest 
 Protestants that will maintain it, making not 
 religion a cloke for every shower, as the other, 
 perhaps for private practices naming one thing 
 or minding another, will shew reason to over- 
 throw it." 
 
 In the fashion of his day, Norfolk became 
 more obscure as he grew more emphatic. But 
 there is no mistaking "the other" who named 
 one thing and minded another. It was Leicester 
 who blocked the match which had Norfolk's 
 good -will. And Leicester had on his side, 
 among others, the Earl Pembroke and Sir 
 Thomas Heneage, " Protestants," if not the 
 most spiritually minded, at least of no mean 
 order of intellect. But Norfolk's quarrel was
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 173 
 
 wholly with Leicester. Later in the same 
 month, he wrote again to Cecil : 
 
 " If matters being hot be so soon cooled, I 
 pray God there grow no danger to them that 
 you and I have much care of. I like not the 
 practices that now so fast work. My ears have 
 glowed to hear that I have heard within these 
 two days concerning nuptial devices. First they 
 mind to fight with their malicious tongues, and 
 afterwards I warrant they will not spare weapons 
 if they may." 
 
 But Norfolk's last anxiety was groundless. 
 The hands of Leicester and his followers were 
 always guiltless of weapons in the fight they 
 waged for Protestantism. And it was the 
 "nuptial devices" of Norfolk and the Scottish 
 Queen, not of Leicester and the English one, 
 that proved, in the end, a treachery to England. 
 Sussex, too, had another word to say concerning 
 Protestant support of the Austrian suitor. 
 
 " If Protestants be but Protestants," he wrote 
 to Cecil from Vienna, " I mistrust not a good 
 resolution. If some Protestants have a second 
 interest which they cloke with religion and place 
 be given to their Council, God defend the 
 Queen's Majesty with His mighty hand, and 
 dispose of us all at His pleasure." 
 
 Place was certainly given to the counsel of 
 Leicester, and the mission of Sussex failed, as 
 perhaps it was always meant to fail. The 
 Queen had not abandoned her habit com-
 
 174 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 plained of by Sir Henry Sidney in the earlier 
 negotiations with Austria of changing her 
 mind, and letting the blame of it fall on 
 others, in particular on the favoured Robert. 
 But that he and his supporters were not 
 without tolerance and judgment in their 
 Protestantism, is proved by Leicester's opposi- 
 tion to the extremer Puritanical methods of 
 Church government to which Archbishop 
 Parker was inclining. To give one instance 
 (which even the Ambassador of "His Most 
 Catholic Majesty" approved), when the Arch- 
 bishop desired to impose the oath of the 
 supremacy of the Queen over the Church, on 
 the lawyers in the Court of Arches, Lords 
 Pembroke, Leicester, and Ormonde were 
 among the first to render aid in preventing 
 the molestation of those who declined to take 
 the oath. And the moderate, yet definite, 
 character of the Protestantism, which, as a 
 man of culture and of calculation, Leicester 
 had been led to champion, is well shown in 
 an account given by the Spanish Ambassador 
 of a conversation he had with Lord Leicester, 
 as the two rode side by side in the train of 
 the Queen, as she proceeded on a spring day 
 in 1568 to her Palace of Greenwich. By 
 the way, Leicester made a long speech to his 
 companion, to the effect that, hi the interests 
 of the King of Spain, and for the welfare of
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 175 
 
 the dominions in Flanders, it was advisable to 
 adopt some lenient and peaceful course with 
 regard to religion and the punishment of those 
 who had misbehaved themselves in the States 
 of Holland. " He pointed out," so De Silva 
 continued, "how strong the new religion was 
 in Germany and the States, and said that 
 even in some parts of Spain things are not 
 quite so assured as is thought; nor in Italy 
 either, especially near Rome. He spoke, he 
 said, as a servant of your Majesty, and he 
 desired your peace and prosperity, although 
 he knew his words would be of little avail, 
 as he was a Protestant." 
 
 These words, both the tone and the sense 
 of them, reveal to us a different Leicester from 
 the one, who only a year or two before, had 
 "feigned," "practised," and bargained with the 
 Spaniards. He was now unequivocally in the 
 Protestant interest. And that his being in that 
 interest, his persuading the Queen against her 
 marriage with the Austrian, and his constant 
 devotion to her, had not rendered her unpopular, 
 we have the evidence of a very pretty and a 
 very significant mid-summer scene in " Merrie 
 England." Again it is De Silva who paints 
 the picture, gravely elaborating detail in the 
 usual manner of His Spanish Majesty's envoys. 
 
 " The Queen," he wrote on 10th July 1568, 
 " arrived in this city on the 6th in good health,
 
 176 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 and continued her progress, which, as I have 
 said, will only be in the neighbourhood, as she 
 is careful to keep near at hand when troubles 
 and disturbances exist in adjacent countries. 
 . . . She was received everywhere with great 
 acclamations and signs of joy ; as is customary 
 in this country ; whereat she was extremely 
 pleased, and told me so, giving me to under- 
 stand how beloved she was by her subjects, 
 and how highly she esteemed this, together 
 with the fact that they were peaceful and con- 
 tented, while her neighbours on all sides are in 
 such trouble. She attributed it all to God's 
 miraculous goodness. She ordered her carriage 
 to be taken sometimes where the crowd seemed 
 thickest, and stood up and thanked the people. 
 Amongst others there approached her a pre- 
 sentable - looking man who exclaimed : Vivat 
 Regina, Honi soit qui mal y peme, where- 
 upon she said to me : ' This good man is a 
 clergyman of the old religion.' I replied I 
 was very glad he should show so openly the 
 good-will with which the Catholics had always 
 served their Sovereign, and that she might be 
 sure their fidelity was advantageous to her, 
 in order to check the disobedient people in 
 the country. For this reason I had several 
 times advised her not to allow them to be 
 molested and maltreated." 
 
 This was good advice from a representative 
 of one who had started on a course of both 
 molesting and maltreating the Protestants of the 
 Netherlands, and whose hands were red with 
 the blood of Count Montmorenci de Home, 
 and of Count Lamoral Egmont, who, although
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 177 
 
 Catholics, had been unwilling to fight for the 
 re-establishment of the penal laws, and of 
 the Inquisition. Perhaps Elizabeth deemed 
 the council an impertinence, for she answered, 
 with a crushing docility, that she had in the 
 matter of showing toleration to Catholics 
 always followed the advice of De Silva, and 
 would continue to do so. She finished with 
 a declaration that might be taken as a knock 
 for De Silva's master, that "one of the 
 things she had prayed to God for when she 
 came to the throne was that He would give 
 her grace to govern with clemency and with- 
 out bloodshed, keeping her hands stainless." 
 
 She then remarked on the "justice" accom- 
 plished in Flanders, but, so De Silva states, 
 was not so severe as she had been on a previous 
 occasion, he having in the meanwhile explained 
 the situation to her. 
 
 The explanations that had appeared to satisfy 
 Elizabeth did not appease Leicester. He also 
 mentioned the subject to De Silva that day. 
 "What seems to aggrieve them most," De 
 Silva noted, "is that the persons [Egmont and 
 Home] were not heard in their defence." Silva 
 denied that this was the case to Leicester and 
 to Sussex. But Sussex said the King's envoy 
 spoke as a King's envoy, not as a man. He 
 would yet think very differently. 
 
 Sussex was an Englishman. Perhaps he no 
 
 M
 
 178 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 longer regretted the spoilt union of his Queen 
 with the " moderate " Catholic Prince, who was 
 cousin and vassal of the oppressor of the Nether- 
 lands. In any case, in this discussion with De 
 Silva, he was on the side of him he deemed 
 the union's spoiler.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 AMONG the many traitorously dishonest deal- 
 ings imputed to the Earl of Leicester, are his 
 intrigues on behalf of the Scottish Queen in 
 her captivity to the English one. 
 
 Yet a shrewd policy and a keen prevision 
 drew Leicester into his plans and negotiations 
 with regard to Mary. The habit in Leicester 
 of rapid calculation his quick-reckoning mind 
 prompted him constantly to acts that appeared 
 fickle and treacherous. His mathematics it is 
 true had ever a dash of imagination in them. 
 Colleagues, who thought they walked with 
 him, were often exasperated by finding him 
 on ahead. " He was seldom behindhand with 
 his gamesters . . . they always went with the 
 loss," was the verdict on his methods of one 
 who came under the influence of Leicester's 
 good haters. But Leicester was not a gamester 
 in the sense of being a votary of chance. He 
 played his cards as the result of calculation. That 
 he was sometimes mistaken in the values of 
 the personages and occurences he dealt with, is 
 
 to say that he was human and very often erred. 
 
 179
 
 180 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 As an example of the rapidity with which 
 he formed projects and put them into execu- 
 tion, we have the fact that directly it became 
 known that Mary had married Bothwell and 
 had married him, moreover, with severest 
 Protestant rites, Leicester busied himself to 
 obtain Spanish aid in getting Mary's child to 
 England, to be brought up by his grandmother, 
 Lady Lennox. The plan was cleverly con- 
 ceived. Spain was to be drawn by the religious 
 question Baby James must not be educated 
 by Calvinistic Bothwell and by the policy of 
 depriving France of all influence over the 
 Scottish King to be. And Elizabeth would 
 have the child with the child's dangerous 
 grandmother in her own keeping. 
 
 A letter from Leicester to Cecil, that bears 
 date 16th June 1567, gives a picture of the 
 situation, of Elizabeth's dismay and hesitation, 
 and of the close relations in policy of the 
 Favourite and the Secretary, that is sufficiently 
 vivid to be copied almost word by word. 
 
 " Mr Secretary, upon the receipt of your letter, 
 I repaired to Her Majesty and shewed her the 
 letter which came from my Lord of Bedford 
 [in Scotland] to myself as also yours to me . . . 
 thus much my Lord [of Bedford] writes to me 
 that the lords have not yet agreed to deliver 
 their Prince out of their own possession, albeit 
 they and he shall always remain under Her 
 Majesty's protection, if Her Majesty will any
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 181 
 
 way assist them in their lawful action which 
 they seem only to pretend 1 against the Lord 
 of Bothwell, and not at all to teach their 
 Sovereign, wherewithal, his lordship writeth 
 that the Queen there is judged for certain to 
 be with child which maketh their cause, as also 
 the Prince's, the more dangerous. And how the 
 ambassador there doth labour to have the lords 
 at the French King's devotion with large and 
 great offers for the obtaining of the Prince. 
 Her Majesty . . . seemed not to be satisfied 
 neither resolved well what to answer because 
 she hath not, she said, the lords' full resolution, 
 but seemed that she would have the lords to 
 depend upon her and still so encouraged to do, 
 and that in all lawful things for the surety of 
 their Prince she will help them. The matter 
 of that Queen being with child, Her Majesty 
 somewhat mused at it and thinks it will greatly 
 touch her, appearing so soon after her marriage 
 whereby it will be thought all was not well 
 before, but agreed, being so, the more the 
 matter is to be thought on touching the lords 
 and the Prince. I moved Her Majesty also 
 for her opinion touching my Lord of Lennox 
 to have him conferred withal for his advice 
 which way the Prince might be conveyed to 
 his hands. ... I told Her Majesty as much as 
 I could the necessity of the matter for speed 
 to be used and how much it concerned her, and 
 desired to know when her pleasure was to 
 have my Lord of Lennox here. She said when 
 he would make suit for it. I answered that he 
 had already sent to me to know divers times, 
 then she said she would first know when the 
 ambassadors would come to take their leave 
 
 1 The words to pretend are crossed through in the original.
 
 1 82 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 of her, and then she would appoint my lord 
 some day this week to come hither. This is, 
 Mr Secretary, the effect of as much as I could 
 have of Her Majesty at this time. If you have 
 any other matter . . . than I have here before 
 written to move her, I pray you send it to her 
 and write two or three words of your mind 
 also." 
 
 But the situation in Scotland developed 
 more quickly than even Leicester could fore- 
 cast, or Bedford and Cecil manipulate and 
 avert it. The infant King very soon became 
 a hostage of their liberties, too valuable for 
 the Scottish lords to part with into any hands, 
 or upon any terms. 
 
 When Mary came to England, without 
 giving to Elizabeth time to prepare for her 
 reception, the question that perplexed the 
 Council of Elizabeth at the moment, and for 
 many a year, was what shall we do with her? 
 The charms and the distresses, the beauty and 
 the ingenuities of the Queen in exile, worked 
 on men's minds and sympathies. Her bearing 
 was all that was winning. Politically, it was 
 out of the question for Catholics to believe 
 in her guilt. Lady Catherine was now dead. 
 Her boys, in the eyes of the law, were only 
 natural sons. Her sister, the Lady Mary Grey, 
 besides being personally unfitted for queenly 
 dignities, had married a gentleman of quite 
 inferior degree, and was in her turn in dis-
 
 Mary, Queen of Scots.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 183 
 
 grace at Court. Lord Huntingdon had shown 
 himself indisposed to take up his claim to the 
 throne, though he proved a staunch gaoler 
 for Mary Stuart. England sorely needed a 
 legitimately descended heir. 
 
 It is not therefore to be wondered at, that 
 when the Earl of Murray, or the Bishop of Ross, 
 or the Duke of Norfolk himself each of these 
 has been named as the instigator of the scheme 
 suggested to Leicester that Mary should be 
 married to the Duke, and that upon certain 
 conditions she should re-obtain the Crown of 
 Scotland in possession, and be awarded the 
 Crown of England in reversion, Leicester 
 quickly took up the idea. Before entering 
 into the scheme, Norfolk had been thus 
 addressed by Throckmorton : "I forewarn 
 you if you do anything in this matter take 
 Leicester's counsel first, for you will hardly 
 of yourself get the Queen's assent." But even 
 with the counsel of Leicester, Elizabeth's 
 approval was not easy to obtain. And Mary, 
 adept in diplomacy if her affections were 
 not involved, when courted and flattered by 
 Leicester, on behalf of Norfolk, replied that 
 she could enter into no engagement without 
 the Queen of England's sanction. 
 
 Did Mary, rare diviner, see through Leicester, 
 as no other of those he conspired with at this 
 time, saw through him ? For there was a plot
 
 184 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 within a plot. Of the outer one no great 
 secret was made. Leicester early discussed 
 its objects with Elizabeth herself, though it 
 is doubtful if he told her of his cordial letter 
 to Mary, " assuring her of the good- will of all 
 the nobility, and the certainty of her succeed- 
 ing to the Crown of England if Queen 
 Elizabeth should die without issue." Of the 
 inner plot, Leicester had to make very sure 
 he had all the threads in hand before he gave 
 them over to Cecil to unravel. It had its 
 origin in Spain, or at least hi the Spanish 
 Embassy. De Spes the emissary who suc- 
 ceeded De Silva was a man of commoner 
 type than any who had preceded him. He 
 came, as Leicester was quick to discover and 
 to resent, more as a spy and an informer than 
 as a Minister. His sojourn in this country 
 had but just begun when Cecil put him under 
 arrest for insolent intermeddling in English 
 political affairs. 
 
 Fear was growing among the councillors, of 
 an attack by Spain on England, and Cecil 
 and Leicester, each in his own way, worked 
 for the cutting off of the train of circumstance 
 that might at any moment flare out in war. 
 Cecil took the high-handed way, while Leicester 
 sinuously coiled himself round the confidences 
 of the conspirators. 
 
 A plot existed to release De Spes, to arrest
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 185 
 
 Cecil, and to restore to Spain certain cargoes 
 of treasure recently seized, not on the high 
 seas, but in the ports of England, by British 
 buccaneers. Of these spoils the Queen and 
 some of her Ministers including Leicester 
 had had pickings. Concerned in the plot 
 were the Bishop of Ross Mary's agent at 
 Elizabeth's Court the Duke of Norfolk, the 
 Earl of Arundel, and as the others fondly 
 believed the Earl of Leicester. But time 
 and again their schemes for dragging Cecil 
 down from the head of affairs ; for rendering 
 up to Spain the money Elizabeth was con- 
 sidering whether she should " borrow " ; and for 
 releasing De Spes, came to nothing, because, 
 as De Spes complained, at the crucial moment 
 Leicester " softened," and declared he would tell 
 the Queen. Through him, at last, the project 
 came to the knowledge of Cecil, who quickly 
 worked for its confounding. The "perfidies" 
 of Leicester stood his country in good stead. 
 
 Not altogether to the harm of England 
 either, was his opposition of Cecil's designs 
 of forming an open league of Protestant 
 states and interests, to invite, at this moment 
 of internal contention, a declaration of "holy 
 war" from Spain, France, and all adherents 
 to the Papacy. But not all of Leicester's 
 operations were disinterested, and some words 
 of Norfolk to the Favourite gave hope to him
 
 1 86 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 that, with Norfolk's help, he might yet be 
 King - Consort of England. In any case, the 
 curious conversation reported by De la Mothe 
 Fdnelon the French Ambassador as taking 
 place about this time, deserves a record. It 
 serves to show that certain familiarities between 
 Leicester and the Queen, extraordinary to 
 modern notions, had not the significance which 
 writers of chroniques scandaleuses attach to 
 them. Other times, other manners ! 
 
 The levee of King or Queen was once an 
 actual ceremonial of getting out of bed and 
 dressing. It cannot, however, be argued that, in 
 the sixteenth century, the bounds of propriety 
 were strictly observed when a Master of 
 Horse arrogated the privileges of a Lady of 
 the Bedchamber. Leicester, however, showed 
 no confusion when Norfolk, in pursuance of 
 a suggestion of Lord Arundel, taxed the 
 Favourite with the circumstance that, having 
 the entree to the Queen's chamber when she 
 was in bed, he had taken it upon himself to 
 hand her her chemise, and that, on other 
 occasions, he had dared to kiss her without 
 being invited to do so. Norfolk told Leicester 
 that if he were sure of marrying the Queen he 
 should own it, and behave in a becoming and 
 proper manner; in which case the Duke said 
 he would aid him to the best of his power. 
 Leicester thanked Norfolk for the offer of his
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 187 
 
 support, and said the Queen had indeed 
 treated him with so much encouragement that 
 he had ventured on certain familiarities with 
 her; but they were honourable familiarities. 
 He expected shortly to know her final 
 determination, and would then follow the 
 Duke's advice either to own an intention of 
 marriage between them, or, if it were other- 
 wise, to put an end to their intimacy. These 
 things were easy to promise, since Leicester 
 knew how impossible Elizabeth found it to 
 make a final determination in any matter. 
 
 That the plan for Mary's marriage was no 
 hole-in-corner business, is proved by the vote 
 of the Council on 27th August 1569. A good 
 majority then agreed that the succession should 
 be settled by the union of the Queen of Scots 
 with an English peer. The "greatest in the 
 land" subsequently signed a bond to support 
 Norfolk, and, following on the Council, a 
 private meeting of Ministers was held in the 
 Earl of Pembroke's rooms at Greenwich Palace. 
 At this meeting the Duke of Norfolk made 
 the proposition that all present should wait 
 upon Elizabeth in a body, and make known 
 their wishes, "fearing that the fewer they 
 were, the greater should be the burden." 
 
 Norfolk was indeed in mortal terror of his 
 Queen. Many a time so he subsequently 
 stated he would have announced his position
 
 1 88 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 frankly to her, but that, at sight of her, his 
 tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, and 
 he was struck dumb. Even at a distance, 
 messages from the dread Elizabeth threw him 
 into an ague. Others among the Council 
 were as terrified as he. It was impossible for 
 them to make up their minds to brave the 
 "Presence," even if supported by one another. 
 Leicester came to the rescue with the opinion 
 that "he thought it not well to have it 
 broken to Her Majesty by a number, because 
 he knew Her Majesty's nature did like better 
 to be dealt withal by one or two." He offered 
 to speak to her himself, if Cecil would support 
 him. Cecil was not then present. He had 
 had no part in the vote, and it was not known 
 if he would help the plan. That Leicester 
 desired his aid is indication that the Favourite 
 had already come to the opinion expressed a 
 little later that Cecil " could do more with the 
 Queen in an hour, than others in seven years." 
 Nothing was formally agreed upon, and 
 Leicester did not speak at once ; perhaps he 
 did not have the opportunity. Norfolk was 
 provided with an occasion, but one of his 
 terrible shivering fits came on ; " he was fain 
 to get him to bed without his dinner." When 
 he recovered from his ague, the Court had 
 gone to Richmond. Elizabeth was on progress 
 towards Hampshire. The Duke proceeded to
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 189 
 
 Richmond by water, and came upon Leicester 
 near his house at Kew, fishing in the river. 
 Leicester had dared the venture. " Some 
 babbling women," he said, "had made Her 
 Highness believe that they intended to go 
 through the enterprise without making Her 
 Majesty privy to it," but he had persuaded 
 her that this was not so. What more was 
 to be looked for, Leicester could not say. 
 This is the account of the incident, given by 
 Norfolk in the "Confession" he wrote in the 
 Tower. It is perhaps all that one not present 
 at the interview between the Queen and 
 Favourite could presume to tell of its character ; 
 but Camden supplies some picturesque details 
 of Leicester's method of divulging the project. 
 They may or may not be true. His account 
 is that Leicester, being asked by Norfolk to 
 impart the scheme to Her Majesty, put off 
 doing so from time to time, till at length, 
 falling sick or pretending sickness at Titchfield, 
 he was visited by the Queen. He then dis- 
 closed the whole matter to her, asking her 
 pardon with sighs and tears. But neither a 
 sojourn nor a sickness at Titchfield square with 
 the fact of Leicester having told Norfolk at 
 Kew, where he was calmly "fishing in the 
 river," that Her Majesty, who, since the meet- 
 ing in Lord Pembroke's room, had proceeded 
 only from Greenwich to Richmond, was now
 
 190 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 fully informed of the scheme, though no one 
 could tell what would follow. We do not 
 know if Cecil had assisted in telling Her 
 Majesty, but he certainly backed Leicester up 
 in counselling the Duke Leicester having 
 broken the ice to go himself to the Queen 
 and make a clean breast of everything. And 
 Leicester was at the further pains to open 
 the matter again with Elizabeth at a time 
 when Norfolk was at hand to follow up the 
 advantage gained for him. 
 
 In the Duke's "Confession" we have the 
 picture of a morning scene in the Queen's privy 
 chamber he came on " unawares." A child was 
 playing on a lute. Beyond, upon the doorstep 
 leading out from the palace room into the 
 August sunshine, sat Elizabeth, lowly enthroned. 
 Leicester was at her feet. He pleaded the cause 
 of Norfolk. Seeing who entered, the Favourite 
 rose and went away. He told the Duke after- 
 wards that the Queen was just at the point 
 of yielding to his pleas. What might not the 
 sunshine, the child's lute, and the " soft " tones 
 of Leicester effect? Elizabeth called across 
 the room to Norfolk, and waited for him to 
 speak. But his " stomach failed " ; and after 
 some inconsequent words, he rushed from the 
 Presence, almost persuaded to abandon the 
 whole design. 
 
 The good humour to which Leicester's
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 191 
 
 methods had brought Her Majesty was not 
 disturbed by Norfolk's gawkish fright. At 
 dinner she gave the prospective bridegroom 
 "a nip, bidding him take heed to his pillow." 
 This playfulness was a little grim. It was 
 not many months since Norfolk had dis- 
 claimed all intention of marrying "so wicked 
 a woman" as Mary, Queen of Scots. "I 
 love to sleep upon a safe pillow," he had 
 said ; " and if I should go about to marry 
 with her, knowing as I do that she pretendeth 
 a title to the present possession of your 
 Majesty's crown, your Majesty might justly 
 charge me with seeking your own crown from 
 your head." 
 
 The Queen fared further on her progress to 
 the Marquis of Winchester's house at Basing- 
 stoke. All those about her on her journey 
 were of the advice of Leicester that the 
 Scottish Queen should marry the English 
 Duke. Yet Elizabeth instinctively distrusted 
 Norfolk. The attitude of all parties is repre- 
 sented not inaccurately in a letter from De 
 Spes to the Duke of Alva on September 6th : 
 
 " The Bishop of Ross has been a second time 
 with me, bringing a letter from his mistress, 
 in which she expresses her desire to be of use 
 to His Majesty, and to the Catholic religion. 
 One day, it seems as if the Queen of England 
 would allow the marriage ; the next she will
 
 1 92 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 not hear of it. Leicester is said to take the 
 Duke's part, the Duke giving him hopes, that 
 after the expected changes, he will be allowed 
 to keep his present position, and even to 
 marry the Queen. Last Saturday the Queen 
 of England was in such alarm that she told 
 Leicester emphatically that the marriage 
 between the Duke and the Queen of Scots 
 should not be. She said that if she consented 
 she would be in the Tower before four months 
 were over. Norfolk has been forbidden to 
 leave the Court, and she means to speak to 
 him." 
 
 Elizabeth was right in having suspicions of 
 Norfolk. She had, however, no adviser to tell 
 her how deeply she should suspect him. Cecil 
 believed him to be well-intentioned, and even 
 Leicester took him to be at heart a loyalist. 
 It was reserved for students of the latter part 
 of the nineteenth century to discover all the 
 treacheries of Norfolk. The record of them 
 was hidden away for many generations in 
 Spanish archives. Yet, when Norfolk suddenly 
 left the Court, giving out that he was going 
 to London, but proceeding, as was soon 
 discovered, to Keninghall, it became obvious 
 that things were wrong. There had been 
 some popular outbreaks in Norfolk and 
 Suffolk, and the Duke's presence in those 
 counties could only embolden the disaffected. 
 The Queen sent after him with orders to 
 return at once to the Court. He hesitated,
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 193 
 
 but obeyed the command upon the assurance 
 of Leicester that he had nothing to fear if he 
 obeyed. A letter from Cecil of October 3rd 
 describes the position of those at Court. 
 
 " The Queen's Majesty," wrote the Treasurer, 
 " hath willed my Lord of Arundel and my Lord 
 of Pembroke to keep their lodgings here, for 
 that they were privy of this marriage intended, 
 and did not reveal it to Her Majesty; but I 
 think none of them so did with any evil 
 meaning ; and of my Lord Pembroke's intent 
 herein, I can witness that he meant nothing 
 but well to the Queen's Majesty, my Lord 
 Lumley also is restrained ; the Queen's Majesty 
 hath also been grievously offended with my 
 Lord Leicester, but considering he hath 
 revealed all that he saith he knoweth of 
 himself, Her Majesty spareth her displeasure 
 the more towards him." 
 
 So much for the inner and outer plots in 
 which Leicester was concerned with Norfolk in 
 1569. But a more formidable project still 
 had been brewing for some months past. 
 Shortly after the collapse of the Duke's 
 marriage scheme, Lord Sussex was dispatched 
 to York to quell the disturbances that had 
 arisen in the northern counties where the 
 great feudatory chiefs of the old faith 
 were prepared to rise in arms at a given 
 signal, and to make war upon Elizabeth and 
 ah 1 conformers to the State religion. Among 
 the belligerents were the Earls of Cumberland,
 
 194 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Westmoreland, and Northumberland. With 
 these, Leicester certainly had correspondences. 
 The plan was for their bands to march south, 
 to release Mary from her English prison, 
 and to set her upon the English throne. That 
 Leicester had ever any intention, as has been 
 stated, of tearing the crown from the head 
 of his beloved Elizabeth, of sending the 
 stoutest Protestants among the bishops over 
 to Flanders to be subjected to the "justice" 
 of the Duke of Alva, or of arranging a 
 marriage for Mary Stuart with a princely 
 nominee of Spain, is not to be believed in 
 the light of all his earlier and later history. 
 He was at the Queen's right hand when the 
 rebels of the north were eventually subdued. 
 And what faith the Spanish party had in 
 such professions as he made, is shown by the 
 existence, a few months later, of a design for 
 the seizure of the Queen, the Favourite, the 
 Treasurer, and the Earl of Bedford ; and for 
 the taking of the English fleet at Rochester, 
 by Spanish troops and Spanish warships. 
 
 How "well-affected" Leicester really was to 
 the "interest" of the Queen of Scots, and 
 how traitorous (?) to the English Queen at 
 this time, is perhaps best shown in a " long, 
 cumbersome letter," as Leicester himself called 
 it, that he wrote to Sussex while that noble- 
 man was still in York, and very ill-equipped
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 195 
 
 for the purpose under orders to quell the 
 rising of the northern Catholics. 
 
 Leicester, as usual, wished to subdue the 
 rebellion by management ; to disarm the rebels 
 by granting their requests upon terms. He 
 wrote to Sussex for the reason, as he told 
 him, that "the place you hold presently doth 
 require all the understanding that may be, to 
 the furtherance of Her Majesty's good estate," 
 and reminded him that the Queen had "for 
 the State of Scotland," to choose whether 
 "the Queen of Scotland, by her subjects 
 lately deprived," or "the young King, her 
 son, crown'd and set up in her place," was 
 "the person sufficient to hold the principal 
 place," and which of them was the "most 
 fit" for Elizabeth "to maintain and join in 
 amity with." 
 
 " To be plain with your Lordship," Leicester 
 continued, "the most in number [of the 
 Council] do altogether conceive Her Majesty's 
 best and surest way is to maintain and con- 
 tinue the young King in this his estate, and 
 thereby to make her whole party in Scotland, 
 which, by the settling him with the cause of 
 religion is thought most easiest, most safest, 
 and most probable for the perpetual quieting 
 and benefit to her own estate, and great 
 assurance made of such a party, and so small 
 charges thereby. . . . The reasons against the
 
 196 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 other are these: the title that the Queen 
 claimed to this crown; the overthrow of 
 religion in that country ; the impossibility of 
 any assurance for the observing of any pact 
 or agreement made between our Sovereign 
 and her." 
 
 Despite all these good reasons for the 
 maintenance of James, Leicester confessed 
 himself to be on the other side. "And God 
 is my Judge, whether it be for any other 
 respect in this world, but that I suppose, and 
 verily believe, it may prove best for Her 
 Majesty's own quietness during her time." 
 And Leicester showed himself the man of 
 business as well the man of State, by point- 
 ing out that "though it may be granted, the 
 former advise the better way," it layeth not 
 in Her Majesty's power "to go thorough 
 withal"; the reason being that "by the 
 taking into her protection the King and the 
 Faction, she must enter into a war for it. 
 And as the least war being admitted cannot 
 be maintained without great charge, so such 
 a war may grow, France or Spain setting in 
 foot, as may cause it to be an intolerable war. 
 Then being a war, it must be treasure that 
 must maintain it." With great exactness 
 Leicester enumerated the difficulties in the 
 way of finding " treasure," and continued :
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 197 
 
 " Besides, we are to remember what already 
 we have done; how many ways, even now 
 together, the Realm hath been universally 
 burdened. 
 
 "First, for the keeping of new bands after 
 the furnishing of armour; and therein, how 
 continually the charge sooner hath grown, than 
 subsidies payed. 
 
 "And lastly, the marvellous charge in most 
 countries against the late rebellion, with this 
 loan of money on the neck of it." 
 
 After more acute observations on the financial 
 position of the country, the " cumbersome " letter 
 continues : 
 
 "And now, my Lord, I will show you such 
 reasons as move me to think as I do. In 
 worldly causes men must be governed by 
 worldly policies ; and yet so to frame them, 
 as God, the Author of all, be chiefly regarded. 
 From Him we have received Laws, under 
 which all men's policies and devices ought to 
 be subject; and through His ordinance the 
 Princes of the earth have authority to give 
 Laws, by which also all Princes have the 
 obedience of the people. And tho' in some 
 points I shall deal like a worldly man for my 
 Prince, yet I hope that I shall not forget that 
 I am a Christian, nor my duty to God." 
 
 After which characteristic piece of sixteenth- 
 century religionism, Leicester went on in more 
 business-like strain : 
 
 " Our question is this : Whether it be meeter 
 for our Sovereign to maintain the young King
 
 198 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 of Scotland and his authority ; or upon com- 
 position restore the Queen of Scots into her 
 Kingdom again ? To restore her simply we are 
 not of opinion, for so I must confess a great 
 oversight, and doubt no better success than 
 those that do object most perils to ensue. . . . 
 It is granted and fear'd of all sides that the 
 cause of any trouble or danger to Her Majesty 
 is the title the Queen of Scotland pretends to 
 the Crown of this Realm. . . . If it be so, 
 Whether doth the setting up the Son in the 
 Mother's place, from whence his title in the 
 opinion of those Princes, or no, notwithstand- 
 ing she remain a Prisoner? It appeareth 
 plainly, No; for there is continual labour and 
 means made from the greatest Princes, our 
 neighbours, to the Queen's Majesty, for restor- 
 ing the Queen of Scotland to her Estate 
 and Government, otherwise they protest open 
 relief and aid for her. Then though Her 
 Majesty do maintain the young King in his 
 present Estate, yet it appears that other 
 Princes will do the contrary : And having any 
 advantage, how far they will proceed, men 
 may suspect. And so we must conceive, that 
 as long as this difference shall continue, by the 
 maintaining of these two, so long shall the 
 same cause remain, to the trouble and danger 
 of the Queen's Majesty. And now to avoid 
 this while she lives, what better mean is there 
 to take this cause away, but by her own con- 
 sent to renounce and release all such Interest 
 or Title as she claimeth, either presently or 
 hereafter, during the life of Her Majesty and 
 the Heirs of her body. . . . 
 
 " Then must we consider, what may be 
 assurances, for here is the difficulty : For that
 
 Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 199 
 
 objections be, that Princes never hold promises 
 longer than for their own commodity, and what 
 security soever they put in, they may break if 
 they will. All this may be granted ; but yet 
 that we must grant also, that Princes do daily 
 treat and deal one with another, and of necessity 
 are forced to trust to such bonds and assurances 
 as they contract by. And as there is no such 
 surety to be had in worldly matters, but all 
 are subject to many casualties ; yet we see 
 such devices made, even among Princes, as doth 
 tie 'em to perform that, which if they might 
 conveniently choose, they would not. And in 
 this matter of the Queen of Scotland, since she 
 doth offer both to leave the cause of the 
 difference that is between the Queen's Majesty 
 and her, and also to give all surety that may 
 be by ourselves devised to observe the same ; 
 I do not see but such means may be devised 
 to tie her so strongly, as though she would 
 break, yet I cannot find what advantage she 
 shall get by it. For beside, that I would have 
 her own simple renunciation to be made by the 
 most substantial instrument that could be 
 devised, the assent of some others should con- 
 firm the same also. Her own Parliaments at 
 home should do the like with the full authority 
 of the whole estates. They should deliver her 
 son and such other principal Noblemen of her 
 Realm for Hostages, as the Queen's Majesty 
 should name. She should also put into Her 
 Majesty's hands some one piece or two of her 
 Realm, and for such time as should be thought 
 meet by Her Majesty, except Edinburgh. The 
 Queen's Majesty might also by ratifying this by 
 a Parliament here, make a forfeiture if the 
 Queen of Scotland, should anyway, directly or
 
 2oo The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 indirectly go about to infringe this agreement 
 of all such Titles and Claims that did remain in 
 the Queen of Scotland, after Her Majesty never 
 to be capable of any authority or sovereignty 
 within this Realm. These I would think to be 
 sufficient bonds to bind any Prince, specially no 
 mightier than she is. And this much more 
 would I have, that even as she shall be thus 
 bound, for the relief of her Title, to the Queen's 
 Majesty and her issue ; so shall she suffer the 
 Religion received and establish'd in Scotland 
 already, to be confirmed, and not altered. In 
 like sort, the amity between these two Realms 
 to be such and so frankly united, as no other 
 league with any foreign Prince should stand in 
 force to break it. For I think verily, as the first 
 is chiefest touching Her Majesty's own person, 
 so do I judge the latter, I mean, the confirma- 
 tion of the Religion already there received, to be 
 one of the assuredst and likeliest means to hold 
 Her Majesty a strong and continual party in 
 Scotland. The trial hereof hath been already 
 sufficient, when Her Majesty had none other 
 interest at all, but only the maintenance of the 
 true Religion, the same cause remaining still, 
 the same affection in the same persons that do 
 profess it, I trust, and it is like, will not change. 
 And though the Scots Queen should now be 
 settled in her Kingdom again, yet is she not 
 like to be greater or better esteemed now than 
 heretofore, when both her authority was greater, 
 and her good-will ready to alter this Religion, 
 but could not bring it to pass. No more is it 
 like, these further provisions being taken, she 
 shall do it now. And the last cause also is 
 not without great hope of some good success. 
 For as the oppression of strangers heretofore
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 201 
 
 had utterly wearied them of that yoke, so hath 
 this peaceable time between them and us made 
 known the liberty of their own, and the 
 commodity of us their neighbours." 
 
 The worst fault that can be found with the 
 policies of this letter is that Leicester left out of 
 his calculations the pride of the Scots. That 
 they, whatever the promises of their Queen, 
 would have humbled themselves to deliver up to 
 Elizabeth such valuable hostages of persons and 
 places, as Leicester reckoned on, is not likely. 
 Some substantial pledges they might have given. 
 The letter as a whole bears admirable testimony 
 to Leicester's capacity for business, to his 
 genuine concern for the security of Elizabeth 
 and for the maintenance of her state, to his 
 sensible views on financial questions, and to his 
 economical methods of administration. " Some 
 noblemen will be men." Leicester was also a 
 statesman and an Englishman.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 To maintain his place of adviser and confidant 
 to the consortless Queen, and to keep alive in 
 her, her early ambition for a maiden sovereignty, 
 Leicester deprived himself, in part, of his man- 
 hood. He forfeited independence of mind and 
 denied himself personal indulgences in order to 
 create a medium, in which the chief character- 
 istics of Elizabeth should be preserved unaffected 
 by the disillusions of an ordinaiy experience, or 
 by the consciousness of a peculiar loneliness. 
 
 The atmosphere of flattery and adulation 
 Leicester breathed about her, became the vital 
 air of Elizabeth's being. Yet so great were the 
 intellectual ability and the power of detachment 
 in both, that the two philanderers, triflers, 
 sinners, call them as one will emerged from 
 the gaseous element of their own generating 
 when they sat down to letters of business, or 
 took their places at the Council Board. They 
 returned to an atmosphere, high charged with 
 compliments, conceits, and fantastic familiarities, 
 
 when they re-entered the Privy Chamber. 
 
 202
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 203 
 
 It had come to be the chief pleasure of 
 Elizabeth to hold in the toils of her fascination, 
 some troubadour, gallant, lover, other than 
 Leicester, on whom, in a sense, the mantle of 
 Leicester fell. We have seen how she entered 
 into coquetries with Sir Thomas Heneage, who 
 was a respectably married man with a wife, who 
 came to Court with him, though remembering 
 the usual attitude of Elizabeth towards her 
 favourite's spouses, one doubts if she came 
 often. A charmer of a little later period than 
 Heneage, was Sir Christopher Hatton. He 
 had been appointed a Gentleman - Pensioner 
 about 1564, but it was not until 1568 that 
 Elizabeth took special notice of him. Then his 
 graceful dancing suddenly evoked enthusiasm. 
 The story goes that Leicester instantly grew 
 jealous, and told the Queen that, since she was 
 so delighted with Hatton 's accomplishment, he 
 would engage a dancing-master to amuse her. 
 " Pish ! I will not see your man, it is his 
 trade \ " was the rejoinder. 
 
 There appears to be no authority for this 
 story, though Agnes Strickland tells it. But 
 it echoes the truth of Elizabeth's liking for 
 people who did things out of their trades. 
 Leicester was Master of the Horse ; yet the 
 least part of his occupations and industries re- 
 lated to the stable. He rode finely and cared 
 well for his charges. But more absorbing than
 
 2O4 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 his duties in the royal mews, were those to 
 which he was so constantly called in the 
 Council Room and Presence Chamber. And 
 more grateful still to Elizabeth than the counsels 
 and the flatteries of Leicester, were his manners, 
 his accomplishments, and the art of his bearing 
 and attire. 
 
 Leicester's jealousy, if he ever had jealousy 
 for Hatton, was not of long duration. Both 
 Hatton and Heneage were early considered of 
 Leicester's party at Court. Their friendship 
 strengthened as the years went on. Elizabeth's 
 engouement for the delightful Hatton was 
 neither gradual nor restrained. He was a 
 man of ability beneath the peculiar fantasies 
 of his speech and behaviour. But not his 
 ability so much as his ecstatic admiration of 
 herself, Elizabeth found charming. Very soon 
 Hatton's name was joined with Leicester's in 
 scandals circulated by the ignorant and the 
 envious. 
 
 Archbishop Parker, writing to Cecil, told of 
 a man, examined by the Mayor of Dover, who 
 had uttered " most shameful words " against 
 the Queen, " namely that the Earl of Leicester 
 and Mr Hatton should be such towards her 
 as the matter is so horrible, that they would 
 not write it down." 
 
 It was inevitable that men of the " common 
 herd " should not think otherwise of Elizabeth's
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 205 
 
 relations with her favourites than is " too 
 horrible " to write down. The fantasies and 
 the familiarities of self-conscious " souls " are 
 stuff and nonsense, if not rank immorality to 
 materialists. And the majority of men and 
 women are materialists in their judgments of 
 one another. Elizabeth and her "lovers" un- 
 doubtedly knew that, at times, they skated 
 on thin ice. The peril of their sport gave 
 edge to its enjoyment; but their pastimes 
 may be more properly considered as play of 
 intellect than as indulgence of sense. They 
 substituted for real emotions, artificial conceits. 
 They toyed with sentiment and revelled in 
 imagery. 
 
 Hatton came upon the scene of Elizabeth's 
 personal life at an opportune time for Leicester. 
 He who was the Queen's "eyes," as well as 
 her " Sweet Robin," could leave her to the 
 diversion of coquetting with her "lidds" one 
 of the Queen's pet names for Hatton while 
 he, for on him despised Nature was taking a 
 sure revenge, passed passionate hours in the 
 company of Lady Sheffield. 
 
 Besides being her "lidds," Hatton was also 
 for Elizabeth her "sheep" or "mutton," her 
 "peccora campi" and her " bell-wether." The 
 biographer of Hatton (Sir H. Nicholas) has 
 supposed the term "bell-wether" to indicate 
 his position as Captain of the Queen's Guard.
 
 206 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 He offers no explanation of the other names. 
 The designation " lidds " seems to him specially 
 obscure. It is only a surmise that the "sheep" 
 or "mutton" was destined thus early in the 
 thoughts of Elizabeth for the woolsack on 
 which he subsequently took his seat. But the 
 name "lidds" may more surely be interpreted. 
 Leicester being the " eyes " of the Argus of her 
 people's needs, Hatton, by a natural sequence, 
 became the "lids" of those "eyes." In the 
 entrancing presence of Hatton, Elizabeth could 
 " steep her senses in forgetfulness " of every 
 anxious care. 
 
 The lines of Ovid's Metamorphoses, rendered 
 subsequently by Dryden, 
 
 " The head of Argus (as with stars the skies) 
 Was compassed round and wore a hundred eyes ; 
 But two by turns their lids in slumber steep," 
 
 must have been familiar to such students of the 
 classics as were Elizabeth and her favourites. 
 
 The language of rapture in which Hatton 
 invariably addressed the Queen, was hyper- 
 bolic enough to luh 1 even Elizabeth's active 
 mentality to repose. He was indeed the 
 master of extravagance. Only one highly 
 skilled in the verbal art of expressing more 
 than it is possible for any man to feel, 
 could have supplied the lack of Leicester to 
 Elizabeth. And Hatton certainly did prove a 
 substitute for, if not a supplanter of, Leicester
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 207 
 
 in the favours of the Queen. As an example 
 of the heights of ecstasy touched by his 
 language, we may take his letter of 5th June 
 1573, when he was two days on his journey 
 to Spa, whither he had been ordered for 
 his health. With him, by Her Majesty's 
 express command, travelled Dr Julio, an 
 Italian physician to the Queen and Leicester: 
 
 "The time of two days hath drawn me 
 further from you than ten, when I return, can 
 lead me towards you. Madam, I find the 
 greatest lack that ever poor wretch sustained. 
 No death, no, nor hell, no fear of death shall 
 ever win of me my consent so far to wrong 
 myself again as to be absent from you one 
 day. . . . The great wisdom I find in your 
 letters, with your Country counsels, are very 
 notable, but the last word is worth the bible. 
 Truth, truth, truth. Ever may it dwell in 
 you. I will ever deserve it. My spirit and 
 soul (I feel) agreeth with my body and life, 
 that to serve you is a heaven, but to lack 
 you is more than hell's torment unto me. My 
 heart is full of woe. Pardon (for God's sake) 
 my tedious writing. It doth much diminish 
 (for the time) my great grief. I will wash 
 away the faults of these letters with the drops 
 from your poor Lydds, and so enclose them. 
 Would God I were with you but for one hour. 
 My wits are overwrought with thoughts. I 
 find myself amazed. Bear with me, my most 
 dear sweet Lady. Passion overcometh me. I 
 can write no more. Love me ; for I love you. 
 God, I beseech thee, witness the same on behalf 
 of thy poor servant. Live for ever. Shall I
 
 2o8 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 utter this familiar term (farewell) ? Yea, ten 
 thousand, thousand farewells. He speaketh it 
 that most dearly loveth you. I hold you too 
 long. Once again I crave pardon, and so bid 
 your own poor Lidds farewell. 
 
 " Your bondman everlastingly tied, 
 
 " CH. HATTON." 
 
 June 1573. 
 
 And again, after the Queen had sent him a 
 token of a little branch of gold, Hatton wrote : 
 
 "The branch of the sweetest bush I will 
 wear and bear to my life's end. God doth 
 witness I feign not. It is a gracious favour, 
 most dear and welcome unto me. Reserve it 
 to the sheep, he hath no tooth to bite, whereas 
 the Boar's tusk may both rase and tear. . . . 
 Humbly on the knees of my soul I pray God 
 bless you for ever. Your slave and EveR 
 
 ,-* 
 
 Though Leicester was without jealousy of 
 Hatton, it is evident that Hatton was not free 
 from the fierce passion in regard to the Earl 
 of Oxford, who is signified by the Boar. The 
 cypher of Hatton's signature as of his usual 
 address 
 
 A,
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 209 
 
 in his letters to the Queen, we may leave to 
 experts in occultism to interpret. The symbol 
 in " EveR your own " is not difficult to under- 
 stand. 
 
 Yet filled as his letters are with what 
 resembles the very rhapsody of passion, we 
 have proof that, though Hatton and Elizabeth 
 went very far in emotional indulgences and in 
 mutual understanding, the keystone of their 
 relations was that frenzy of homage from 
 subjects to their Queen, which Elizabeth knew 
 so well how to kindle, and which is memorialised 
 in the many eulogies of the professed poets 
 and men of letters of her day. 
 
 Read Spenser's praise of " Fair Eliza." 
 
 " Tell me have ye seen her angelike face, 
 
 Like Phoebe fayre ? 
 Her heavenly haveour, her princely grace, 
 
 Can you well compare ? 
 The redde rose medled with the white yfere, 
 In either checke depeincten lively chere : 
 Her modest eye, 
 Her majestie, 
 Where have you seen the like but there ? 
 
 "I sawe Phoebus thrust out his golden hede, 
 
 Upon her to gaze ; 
 But when he saw howe broad her beams did sprede, 
 
 It did him amaze. 
 
 Hee blusht to see another sunne belowe, 
 Ne durst again his fine face outshowe. 
 
 Let him, if hee dare, 
 
 His brightnesse compare 
 With hers to have the overthrowe." 
 
 o
 
 2io The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 " Her words were like a stream of honny fleeting, 
 The which doth softly trickle from the hive : 
 Hable to melt the hearer's heart unweeting, 
 And eke to make the dead againe alive. 
 Her deeds were like great clusters of ripe grapes, 
 And fill the same with store of timely wine. 
 Her looks were like beames of the Morning Sun, 
 Forth looking through the windows of the east, 
 When first the fleecie cattell have begun 
 Upon the perled grasse to make their feast. 
 Her thoughts are like the fume of frankincense, 
 Which from a golden censer forth doth rise, 
 And throwing foth sweet odours mounts fro thence 
 In rolling globes up to the vauted skies. 
 There she beholds with high aspiring thought, 
 The cradle of her owne creation, 
 Emongst the seats of angels heavenly wrought, 
 Much like an angell in all forme and fashion." 
 
 Read also the verses made by Sir Philip 
 Sidney, and presented by him to the Queen 
 on his bended knee. 
 
 "Her inward worth all outward show transcends, 
 Envy her Merits with Regret Commends, 
 Like sparkling gems her Vertues draw the Sight 
 And in her Conduct She is alwaies Bright ; 
 When She imparts her thoughts, her words have force, 
 And Sence and Wisdom flow in Sweet Discourse." 
 
 Shakespeare's eulogy must also be quoted. 
 
 " She shall be ... 
 
 A pattern to all princes living with her, 
 
 And all that shall succeed : Saba was never 
 
 More covetous of wisdom and fair virtue, 
 
 Then this pure soul shall be : all princely graces, 
 
 That mould up such a mighty piece as this is, 
 
 With all the virtues that attend the good, 
 
 Shall still be doubled on her : truth shall murse her
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 211 
 
 Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her; 
 
 She shall be loved, and fear'd : her own shall bless her ; 
 
 Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn, 
 
 And hang their heads with sorrow : good grows with her : 
 
 and those about her 
 
 From her shall read the perfect ways of honour." 
 
 Language cannot more highly extol charms 
 and virtues in a Sovereign, or graces and kind- 
 nesses in a woman. Yet no one is scurrilous 
 enough to see impropriety in the poet's praises. 
 Hatton's eulogies, though they go unrhymed, 
 and though he had undoubtedly free access to 
 his mistress's presence, need not be maliciously 
 construed. 
 
 In another letter of the same period, the 
 Favourite, on his travels, concluded a passage 
 of more than usual fervour with the words : 
 "Live for ever most excellent creature, and 
 love some man to show yourself thankful for 
 God's high labour in you. I am too far off to 
 hear your answer to this salutation." 
 
 The answer hoped for was probably that 
 Elizabeth had determined either to wed in 
 England, and take Leicester, or to conclude 
 a French marriage then in negotiation. Two 
 fragments of letters of the Queen discovered 
 by the biographer of Hatton at the Record 
 Office, that bear internal evidence of having 
 been written to Hatton at this time, serve 
 to show how Elizabeth regarded the pas- 
 sionate pleadings of her " sheep," her " boars "
 
 212 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 or her " Sweet Robins," when they over- 
 stepped the mark of the accepted courtliness 
 of the day. 
 
 " A question once was asked me thus : Must 
 aught be denied a friend's request? Answer 
 me yea or nay. It was said Nothing. And 
 first it is best to scan what a friend is, which 
 I think nothing else but friendship's harbour. 
 Now it foUoweth what friendship is, which I 
 deem to be one uniform consent of two minds, 
 such as virtue links, and nought but death 
 can break . . . for friend leaves he to be, that 
 doth demand more than the giver's grant with 
 reason's leave may yield. And if so, then my 
 friend no more ; my foe. God send thee mend. 
 And if needly thou must will, yet at the least, 
 no power be thine to achieve thy desire. For 
 where minds differ and opinions swerve, there 
 is scant a friend in that company. But if my 
 hap have fallen in so happy a soil, as one such 
 be found that wills but that beseems, and I 
 be pleased with that he so allows, I bid myself 
 farewell, and then I am but his." 
 
 The "one such" who could make Elizabeth 
 bid herself farewell, was never found. And 
 the apostrophes of her "lovers" become less 
 significant when we read not in questionable 
 poets' rhapsodies, but in ordinary social letters 
 from irreproachable men of State phrases hi 
 which it was the habit of her servants not only 
 to address, but to refer to their mistress. Sober 
 Burghley, writing to Hatton in 1582, in reply 
 to a letter of condolence for family bereave-
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 213 
 
 ment, declared that he besought God to be his 
 comfort, "as in some part I feel thereof, by 
 the comfortable messages sent to me and mine 
 by His principle Minister, my Sovereign sweet 
 Lady, the Queen's Majesty, whom I pray God 
 to preserve from all grief of mind and body, 
 whereby her poor people may long enjoy her, 
 as a mother and a nurse of general peace." 
 
 And Bishop Aylmer addressed Leicester in 
 1583 in these terms : " I fear not, therefore, my 
 good Lord, in this strait that I am in" [he 
 had offended Leicester in some way] " to appeal 
 from this Lord of Leicester . . . unto my old 
 Lord of Leicester, who in his virtue of mild- 
 ness and of softness [which the apostle so 
 commendeth] hath carried away the praise 
 from all men. . . . Our Gracious Queen, when 
 she was highly displeased with me for Mr Rich, 
 yet the beams of her grace, soon upon my 
 humble writing to Her Majesty, as it were 
 dispersed the clouds of her indignation. Oh, 
 my Lord ! will God forgive and Her Majesty 
 forget, and my Lord of Leicester retain, and 
 keep that which is not worth the keeping, I 
 mean the remembrance of offences ? . . ." 
 
 Friendship between man and man was also 
 expressed in words that to modern ears sound 
 more than necessarily sentimental and adulatory. 
 
 Heneage wrote to Hatton : " I find your most 
 honourable and kind remembrance of your poor
 
 214 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 friend, that, when he seeth you not, desireth 
 nothing more than to hear from you . . . the 
 whilst and ever I will love and honour you, as 
 I have cause." 
 
 And at another time the favourite Heneage 
 addressed the favourite Hatton in affectionate 
 manner, and went on to tell him of Her 
 Majesty's kindly reception of a token of a 
 bucket a tiny charm of gold sent for the 
 purpose of bailing out " water." Whether from 
 his love of nautical adventure, or as a play 
 upon his name, Sir Walter Raleigh had the 
 soubriquet of "water." 
 
 " Sir," wrote Heneage, " your knowledge of 
 my love shah 1 suffice, I trust, to satisfy you of 
 my best endeavour to do that which may best 
 content you. I received your letter with your 
 token to Her Majesty . . . and presented her 
 withal . . . which she took in her hand smiling, 
 and said * there was never such another' . . . 
 that which I was wiUed to write unto you is 
 this : that ... if Princes were like Gods (as 
 they should be) they would suffer no element 
 so to abound as to breed confusion." 
 
 Heneage was also enjoined to recall to Hatton 
 the fact that his Queen was a " Shepherd," 
 therefore her " sheep " must remain dear to her. 
 
 The dear "Prince" who sent the message, 
 undoubtedly thought herself a greater than 
 Canute, and able to say to engulphing elements : 
 Thus far and no farther !
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 215 
 
 Her presentation of herself in the character 
 of Shepherd is a reminder of the prevailing 
 literary conceit, so wonderfully elaborated by 
 Spenser. In The Faerie Queene, all personages 
 of innocent intentions and lively fancy are 
 designated " Shepherds." And the pretty 
 games of love and jealousy, hope and despair, 
 joined in by the sophisticated Elizabeth and 
 her far from ingenuous courtiers, by a quaint 
 conceit, were believed to be the untrammelled 
 sportings of simple children of Nature. 
 
 " Shepherds," in the sixteenth century, 
 " souls " in the nineteenth, are creatures of 
 kindred breed. And while even so harshly 
 misjudged, are even as fatuously self-deceived. 
 
 So much has been written of the relations 
 of Elizabeth and of Hatton, both because 
 Leicester's story is directly connected with 
 them, and because, by implication, the final 
 innocency of Hatton's association with the 
 Queen is added proof that the "privautes" 
 between Leicester and Elizabeth, were always, 
 as he declared, " honnetes privautes" None of 
 the love-making between Elizabeth and 
 Leicester bore so close a resemblance to illicit 
 intercourse as the flirtations of the Queen and 
 Hatton sometimes assumed. And yet, from 
 the facts presented to us, it would be an 
 absurdity to think that Hatton was for 
 Elizabeth an accepted lover.
 
 216 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Of very different character from that of 
 the relations of Elizabeth and her Favourite 
 of favourites, was the nature of the associa- 
 tion of that Favourite with Lady Sheffield. 
 Shakespeare's 
 
 "little western flower, 
 Before, milk-white, now purple with love's wound," 
 
 springing in the path of the " Imperial V r otaress," 
 who moved on " fancy-free," has been held to 
 be that Douglass, daughter of the first Lord 
 Howard of Effingham, who became the wife, 
 and was left the widow, of John, Lord Sheffield. 
 It is reasonable to suppose that the incidents of 
 " A Midsummer Night's Dream," were suggested 
 to Shakespeare by his sight, as a boy, of the 
 pageant of marvels wherewith Leicester greeted 
 his Queen at Kenilworth in 1575. But it is 
 doubtful if the flower, "before milk-white" 
 on which the bolt of Cupid, who took certain 
 aim 
 
 " At a fair vestal, throned by the west ; " 
 
 fell at last, was Lady Sheffield. At the time of 
 the midsummer masque, this lady had been 
 contracted twice over to Lord Leicester, and 
 was then the mother, by him, of a boy two 
 years old. Yet the blossom 
 
 " purple with love's wound, 
 And maidens call it love-in-idleness." 
 
 might very fitly typify the Lady Sheffield.
 
 Douglass, Lady Sheffield.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 217 
 
 The story of her passion for Leicester is the 
 old, old story of the pretty wife, languishing in 
 country boredom, divesting herself of self- 
 respect and modesty, at the sight of a gallant 
 of the town. A legend in the Holies family 
 (Lord Sheffield's sister was married to a Holies) 
 tells how Queen Elizabeth being on progress 
 through Lincolnshire, was entertained by the 
 Earl of Rutland at Belvoir Castle, where the 
 fair, frail Douglass and her husband were 
 summoned, with the rest of the county, to 
 greet the Queen. It tells also how, after the 
 Court had moved on from Lincolnshire, letters 
 came from the Favourite to Lord Sheffield's 
 wife. Douglass, inadvertently, dropped one of 
 these. The inquisitorial Holies sister-in-law 
 picked it up and read it. In it, Leicester con- 
 sidered the removing of an " obstacle . . . which 
 hindered full fruition of their contentments." 
 
 When Lord Sheffield, after denouncing his 
 wife's conduct, died, it was said Leicester had 
 bribed an Italian doctor supposedly Julio 
 to poison him. Lady Douglass then expected 
 Leicester would (as he had promised) marry her. 
 But after cohabiting with her for some time, 
 and having his "base son" by her, he married 
 the Lady Essex. It is evident from this 
 account that the Holies ancestors had no 
 knowledge of any ceremonial of marriage 
 having been celebrated between Lady Sheffield
 
 218 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 and Leicester. The poisoning episode is un- 
 doubtedly fictitious. Not one of the many 
 charges of poisoning, preferred against the 
 much libelled Earl, was proved at the time. 
 And all the evidence now to be produced 
 contradicts the charges. 
 
 Lord Sheffield died in 1568, leaving behind 
 him a two-year son. The "little western 
 flower" was no longer in the bud when she 
 met Leicester. In 1573, the Favourite and 
 Lady Douglass joined hands under some reli- 
 gious form in the presence of Sir Edward 
 Horsey, Robert Sheffield, Esq. and his lady, 
 Dr Julio, and six other persons. 
 
 When Leicester's boy, Robert, was born, so 
 the boy's mother subsequently stated, the Earl 
 wrote to Lady Douglass a letter, in which he 
 " thank'd God for the birth of his said son, who 
 might be the comfort and staff of their old 
 age," and he subscribed himself "Your loving 
 husband, Rob. Leicester." After this, she was 
 served in her chamber as a Countess, until fear- 
 ing noise of it should get to the Queen's ears, 
 the Earl forbade it. 
 
 All these statements were accepted by a 
 Court of Charles I., reversing the decision of 
 a Court of James I., and Letters Patent were 
 granted by Charles for " creating Alice Lady 
 Dudley" (the wife of baby Robert, grown a 
 man) "a Duchess of England." But by that
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 219 
 
 time the crown of England had become loaded 
 with responsibilities towards the Dudley estates 
 in general, and the manor of Kenilworth in 
 particular, and some satisfaction was due from 
 the King to a family well or base born that 
 had been so deprived. 
 
 It was never discovered by Elizabeth that 
 her Favourite and the beautiful Douglass had 
 exchanged vows, though she made efforts to 
 ascertain the truth about their relations. On 
 llth May 1573, Lord Gilbert Talbot at Court 
 wrote to his father, the Earl of Shrewsbury: 
 
 "My Lord Treasurer, 1 even after the old 
 manner, dealeth with matters of the State only, 
 and beareth himself very uprightly. My Lord 
 of Leicester is very much with Her Majesty, 
 and she sheweth the same great good affection 
 to him that she was wont; of late, he hath 
 endeavoured to please her more than heretofore. 
 
 " There are two sisters now in the Court that 
 are very far in love with him, as they have been 
 long, my Lady Sheffield and Frances Howard : 
 they of like striving who shall love him better 
 are at great wars together, and the Queen 
 thinketh not well of them, and not the better 
 of him ; by this means there is spies over 
 him. . . . My Lord of Oxford is lately grown 
 into great credit; for the Queen's Majesty 
 delighteth more in his personage, and his dancing 
 and valiantness, than any other. I think Sussex 
 doth back him all that he can ; if it were not 
 for his fickle head, he would sure pass any of 
 
 1 Cecil was created Baron Burghley, February 1571, and became 
 Treasurer about the same time.
 
 22O The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 them shortly. My Lady Burghly unwisely 
 has declared herself (as it were) jealous, 1 which 
 is come to the Queen's ear ; whereat she hath 
 been not a little offended with her, but now she 
 is reconciled again. At all these love matters 
 my Lord Treasurer winketh, and will not 
 meddle any way. Hatton is sick still .... 
 the Queen goeth almost every day to see how 
 he doth. Now is there devices, chiefly by 
 Leicester (as I suppose), and not without 
 Burghly 's knowledge, how to make Mr Edward 
 Dyer as great as ever was Hatton; for now, 
 in this time of Hatton's sickness, the time is 
 convenient. It is brought thus to pass. Dyer 
 lately was sick of a consumption, in great 
 danger; and, as your Lordship knoweth, he 
 hath been in displeasure these two years: it 
 has made the Queen believe that his sickness 
 came because of the continuance of her dis- 
 pleasure towards him, that, unless she would 
 forgive him, he was like not to recover; and 
 hereupon Her Majesty hath forgiven him, and 
 sent unto him a very comfortable message : 
 now he is recovered again, and this is the 
 beginning of this device. These things I learn 
 of such young fellows as myself." 
 
 Leicester grew weary of Lady Sheffield before 
 long. In 1577 he tried to break altogether the 
 connection that, because of the Queen's certain 
 anger, should it be revealed, he had insisted on 
 keeping secret. In an arbour of the Park at 
 Greenwich he offered Douglass 700 a year to 
 ignore their relations ever afterwards. The 
 
 1 Lord Oxford was married to a daughter of the Treasurer and 
 Lady Burghley.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 221 
 
 sum was equivalent to 7,000 to - day. She 
 subsequently made a great virtue of her refusal 
 to sell her boy's legitimacy. One does not 
 know all the truth of the story. But within 
 a year of this refusal, and upon the marriage 
 of Leicester to Lady Essex, Douglass married 
 Sir Edward Stafford. 
 
 It has been said that the circumstances that 
 the validity of the union of Lady Sheffield 
 with Stafford, and the legality of Leicester's 
 subsequent marriage, were never questioned, are 
 no disproof that Leicester and Lady Sheffield 
 had not been ceremonially wedded. It is 
 proof, however, that something was wanting in 
 the solemnisation of their union, and that it 
 had been contrived so as to be easily ignored. 
 Here, again, the libellers have dragged in 
 the poisoning tendencies of Leicester. Lady 
 Sheffield, forsooth, married Sir Edward Stafford 
 because Leicester had begun to administer 
 doses of poison to her. The accusation is 
 preposterous. Yet by constant throwing, some 
 mud sticks, and in view of Leicester's real 
 sophistries and cruelties, and of the reckless 
 assertions and re - assertions of his murderous 
 proclivities by his enemies, one is not surprised 
 at the stigma of the author of "Fragmenta 
 Regalia": "He was too well seen in the 
 aphorisms and principles of Nicholas, the 
 Florentine, and in the reaches of Cagsar 
 Borgia."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 BENEATH all the dishonest methods of Elizabeth's 
 policy, one honest intent persisted. It was her 
 true wish to be at peace with all parties within, 
 and with all nations without, her realm. " I'll 
 have no war, no war," she thundered at the 
 Council Board, and by withholding to the last 
 pinch the wherewithal for the purchase of 
 armaments and the payment of men, she gave 
 even more forcible expression to her fixed desire. 
 Leicester, too, was a child of civilisation. He 
 abhorred carnage, and was a lover of peace. 
 
 In view, therefore, of the Queen's unchanging 
 design, and of his own strong inclination, it 
 cannot be accounted his disloyalty that, though 
 aware of the treasonable correspondences with 
 Spain, of Norfolk, Arundel, Lumley, and other 
 friends of theirs, he yet, while Norfolk still lay 
 in the Tower, brought back to the Council 
 Board nobles implicated with him, and sub- 
 sequently urged the Queen to deliver Norfolk 
 himself. He believed that friendly treatment of 
 
 unfriendly people rendered them less inimical. 
 
 222
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 223 
 
 In any case, he meant to manage all parties in 
 the Queen's interests and, while strengthening 
 the defences of the country in the royal dock- 
 yards, as well as at his own castle of Kenilworth, 
 he resisted to the uttermost all proposals of 
 fellow-councillors that he conceived might widen 
 the divisions of home-parties, or cause ruptures 
 with foreign nations. Yet war with France 
 was now supposed to be imminent. 
 
 England had already given a hospitable recep- 
 tion to Huguenot refugees, and Elizabeth had 
 replied to the reiterated applications of the 
 French Court for the relief of Mary, that " she 
 would not be herself the author to hazard her 
 own person, her estate and honour, the quietness 
 of her realm and people, without further con- 
 sideration how, in doing it, she could maintain 
 her crown and public peace among her subjects." 
 
 In answer to these rebuffs of Elizabeth, there 
 had been delivered by the French Ambassador 
 frequent threats of war. From more irre- 
 sponsible sources, had come hints of a plot 
 under the direction of the Cardinal of Lorraine 
 Mary's uncle for the assassination of the 
 Queen of England and of Cecil, and for the 
 placing of Mary on the throne. In addition 
 to these terrors, Elizabeth knew that a Bull of 
 Excommunication against her had been privately 
 fulminated in Rome. Leicester was, therefore, 
 keener than ever for the release of Mary upon
 
 224 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 terms; thereby, as he believed, securing peace 
 and religion in the two realms, and investing 
 Elizabeth with the queenly grace of mercy. 
 
 In May 1570, a special council for the 
 discussion of Scotch affairs was held, at which 
 the Lord Keeper and the Favourite enunciated 
 their respective views with clarity. Sir Nicholas 
 Bacon declared that " Her Majesty was deceived 
 and trifled with. The men whose advice 
 she was preparing to follow were the secret 
 servants of the Queen of Scots." Then, in com- 
 mendation of the long understanding between 
 the English Government and the Scottish 
 Covenanters, he proceeded : " Go on as you 
 have begun, and there will soon be no Queen's 
 party, no French party, no Catholic party to 
 trouble that country more. English influence 
 will be supreme there, and religion, the 
 Protestant religion, will be established beyond 
 reach of error from end to end of Britain. No 
 advice but this will be given to a Sovereign 
 by any loyal Englishman." And, pointing 
 to Leicester, Bacon added : " You, my lord, 
 pretend to be loyal to your Mistress, and you 
 are in league with the worst of her enemies. 
 If France lands a force in England to try to 
 take the Queen of Scots from us, with Her 
 Majesty's permission, I would strike her head 
 from her shoulders with my own hands." 
 
 Leicester replied with his usual dignity and
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 225 
 
 control : "In what I said, I spoke according 
 to my honour and my conscience. I will 
 maintain my opinion, if necessary with my 
 life, against all who impugn it. It is my 
 duty as a councillor to declare what I truly 
 think. Her Majesty may do as she will; I 
 hold to my own convictions, and I speak for 
 others besides myself." 
 
 Elizabeth was pleased with neither speaker, 
 but most displeased with Bacon. His counsels 
 were like himself, she said, rash and dangerous. 
 Her cousin's life should not be touched, not 
 for a second realm. She would sooner die 
 herself. At his peril, the Lord Keeper must 
 ever again speak such words to her. 
 
 It was characteristic of the great Queen 
 that she let fly her anger against both parties, 
 and followed the advices of each, up to 
 a certain point. The Queen of Scots was 
 still kept fast in an English stronghold; but 
 no aggressive Protestant league was formed. 
 Nevertheless, as a counterpoise to Catholic 
 plottings for and with Mary, friendship with 
 the French Huguenots was maintained, and 
 a conference of Scottish and English lords was 
 arranged for the discussion of the terms of 
 release of Mary on Leicester's lines. 
 
 Throughout the period of the war between 
 the Guises and the Huguenots, Cardinal 
 
 Chatillon, brother of Admiral Coligny, and 
 
 P
 
 226 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 the Vidame de Chartres had found an asylum 
 in England. When the Cardinal left England 
 in September 1570 he told the Queen she 
 could not please the Protestants of all nations 
 better than by marrying Leicester. This was 
 equivalent to telling her that she was un- 
 approachable and majestic as the Sovereign 
 of Protestant liberties, and that she Eegina 
 Ceolorum, reincarnate in the Protestant cause 
 had brought forth in her kingdom, a true 
 prophet of the "new" religion. 
 
 The number and diversity of the symbols, 
 under which Elizabeth was regarded, was 
 legion. And because he understood so well 
 the taste of his Queen, and desired so greatly 
 to keep her and her kingdom self-contained, 
 Leicester, to whom an actual marriage with 
 Elizabeth would have been merely an incident 
 of a general plan, set himself once again to 
 minister actively to her sense of victorious 
 maidenhood. 
 
 On New Year's Day, 1571, the Favourite's 
 gift to Her Majesty was "a jewel containing 
 a painting in which the Queen was represented 
 on a great throne, with the Queen of Scots in 
 chains at her feet, begging for mercy; whilst 
 Spain and France were covered by waves of 
 the sea, and Neptune and the rest of them 
 [presumably the gods and goddesses] were bow- 
 ing to Her Majesty." "With these vanities,"
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 227 
 
 sneered De Spes, "they flatter her to the top 
 of her bent." 
 
 But the objects, for which Leicester flattered 
 his Sovereign in this way, were not all per- 
 ceived of De Spes. Spy though he was, he 
 saw only half the game at this, or at any 
 other time. He did not know that with the 
 view of preventing a talked-of marriage of a 
 French Prince with the Queen of Scots, as 
 well as for signalising that truce between 
 Catholics and Protestants, which the Treaty 
 of St Germains had declared, and which the 
 general ignoring of the Excommunication of 
 Elizabeth seemed to confirm, Leicester was 
 assisting his Queen in angling for the Duke 
 of Anjou, brother of the French King, as a 
 husband for herself. 
 
 In the first days of the negotiations, so 
 well was the secret kept that, in January 1571, 
 De Spes informed his master that Leicester 
 was dismayed at the sudden turn given to 
 the English treaty with France by Cardinal 
 Chatillon proposing a marriage between Anjou 
 and Elizabeth. Yet this "turn" had been an 
 integral part of the scheme from the first. 
 At least five months before, "the negotiations 
 for making a French - Catholic Prince, King- 
 Consort of England under Huguenot control" 
 had been begun. The mere proposal of the 
 plan had " sufficed to overthrow " Mr M. A. S.
 
 228 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Hume is quoted " all international combina- 
 tions, set France and Spain by the ears, turned 
 the Guises as relatives of Mary Stuart against 
 their principal supporter [the Duke of Anjou] 
 in France, and reduced the Queen of Scots 
 herself to quite a secondary element in the 
 problem." 
 
 Since an earlier scheme of the French had 
 been the marrying of Anjou to Mary, one 
 is not surprised to learn that in marrying 
 Elizabeth to the Duke, Leicester and Cecil 
 were "for once" (?) in accord. 
 
 It had been found impossible to release the 
 Scottish Queen, as Leicester had designed. 
 Every month, if not every week, fresh evidence 
 came to hand of her active plottings with 
 the disaffected of Elizabeth's subjects, and of 
 her persistent arrangements for the landing in 
 England of a Spanish force, to proclaim her 
 Queenship and Elizabeth's bastardy. Mary's 
 life as one politician said was but a step to 
 Elizabeth's death. The Duke of Norfolk con- 
 tinued his treasonable correspondence with, 
 and for, her, though she had once more higher 
 views, and was manoeuvring for a marriage 
 with the French princeling, who was so true 
 a Guise and so confirmed a Papist, that the 
 French King announced to the English 
 Ambassador his resolve to separate his brother 
 from the " superstitious friars " who nourished
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 229 
 
 his " new holiness." It was the desire, equally 
 of the Queen- Mother, and of the leaders of 
 the Huguenot party in France, to rid their 
 country of the fanatical Prince, round whom 
 the extreme Catholic party rallied. Chatillon 
 and the others, who looked to English 
 Elizabeth, and to her Leicester, for the 
 support of Protestantism in France, thought 
 to draw the claws of Anjou, by making 
 him Elizabeth's husband. Elizabeth and 
 Leicester sought the match for the reason 
 that there seemed at the moment no way for 
 her to "remain long quiet and safe, without 
 such a strong alliance as marriage must bring." 
 In any case, it was desirable to decoy Anjou 
 from advances to the Scottish Queen. And 
 though Guisan-French interest was undesirable 
 in England as in Scotland, it was better to 
 allow that interest than to have a third power 
 [Spain] stepping in. 
 
 It was not, however, from wholly patriotic 
 causes, that Leicester so hardly pushed the 
 marriage of his Sovereign at this time. It had 
 been his policy and his patriotism to appear 
 to favour the Austrian marriage for Elizabeth, 
 when it was forward, while he had played 
 the Queen's game, in raising obstacles to its 
 celebration. But in his promotion of Elizabeth's 
 suit of Anjou, he was single - minded enough. 
 For his own sake, as well as for England's,
 
 230 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 he desired at the moment to see her married. 
 Perhaps the little " western flower " was jealous 
 of the " Imperial Votaress " ! In any case, 
 Leicester was cohabiting with Lady Sheffield, 
 and for fear of the Queen's anger, and of the 
 loss of his influence with her, he did not dare 
 to transform his "love-in-idleness" into love- 
 in-duty. But let Elizabeth give herself to a 
 princely husband, and it might be permitted 
 to him to take a wife of less than royal degree. 
 Upon the dispatch to Paris of Sir Francis 
 Walsingham, as special Ambassador for the 
 French alliance, Leicester had been vociferous 
 in declaring that the Queen must be made to 
 marry. Yet, when the French Ambassador 
 De la Mothe Fe'nelon first approached him 
 with the proposal of Anjou, the Favourite 
 made a virtue of his eagerness. He said he 
 had been always against an Austrian alliance, 
 but as the Queen had determined not to marry 
 a subject, he would sacrifice his own chance 
 in favour of Monsieur. After their long 
 recommendation of Leicester as King-Consort, 
 the French could not do less than give the 
 charge and credit of the new negotiations to 
 him. He accepted the charge, and such 
 douceurs as accompanied it, willingly enough. 
 Yet he seemed to be a little doubtful if the 
 parti were altogether to be commended. " I 
 confesse our estate requireth a match, but God
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 231 
 
 send us a good one, and meet for all parties," 
 was a phrase of one of his first letters to 
 Walsingham in Paris. 
 
 Cecil, created hi February 1571 Lord 
 Burghley, was extremely anxious for the 
 alliance. Now, as always, Elizabeth was for 
 him only a figure-head of State. His chief 
 concerns in arranging the match were to 
 settle the form of religion to be allowed to 
 Anjou in England, and to gain assistance 
 in driving the Spaniards out of Flanders. 
 Leicester, more careful for the woman in 
 Elizabeth, was anxious to know how the 
 person of Monsieur was likely to please her 
 whom an envoy of Monsieur had aptly desig- 
 nated " Madame 1'Isle." The Island Queen 
 had had those about her for many a long 
 year, who were calculated, for grace, manliness, 
 and beauty, to give her a delicate and a 
 distinguishing eye. One cannot therefore be 
 sure that the description of the Prince that 
 Walsingham sent to Leicester on January 
 the 28th was encouraging. Anjou was three 
 inches taUer than Walsingham one does not 
 know how high that was " his body very good 
 shape, his legs long and thin, but reasonably 
 well - proportioned." What help he had to 
 supply the defects of Nature, Walsingham did 
 not know. But the Ambassador found the 
 Prince not "so well coloured as when I was
 
 232 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 last here." A picture of him done by a 
 French courtier for Walsingham, and doubt- 
 less remitted by him to Leicester, gave greater 
 promise of attracting Elizabeth's fancy. 
 
 " It is his misfortune," wrote the insinuating 
 Frenchman, "that his portraits do not do him 
 justice. . . . His eyes, that gracious turn of 
 the mouth when he speaks, that sweetness 
 which wins over all who approach him, cannot 
 be reproduced by pen or pencil. . . . Do not 
 ask me whether he has inspired the passion of 
 love ! He has conquered wherever he has cast 
 his eyes." 
 
 Leicester seems to have felt no jealousy of 
 such a charmer, though we may be sure the 
 attributes described commended their owner to 
 Elizabeth. In April, we find Walsingham 
 who had come to be regarded politically as 
 Leicester's alter ego assuring Cecil that his 
 Lordship "findeth well to allow of any 
 marriage which Her Majesty liketh, though 
 otherwise wrongfully doubted, so especially of 
 this that is now in Treaty." Leicester's own 
 letters confirm the statement of Walsingham. 
 
 Agreement to the marriage conditions of 
 Elizabeth, not being obtained by Walsingham 
 as quickly as was hoped, Leicester wrote in 
 March (1571): 
 
 " We perceive they deal very daintily, and 
 doubt much Her Majesty's intention to 
 marriage, at least that she had rather hear of
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 233 
 
 it than perform it. But, assuredly, I do verily 
 believe Her Majesty's mind therein is other- 
 wise than it hath been, and more resolutely 
 determined than ever. . . . The person of 
 Monsieur is very well liked of, his conversation 
 is hardest known. I see Her Majesty misliketh 
 not of his estate ; for she is of mind to marry 
 with the greatest ; and he is left almost alone, 
 the greatest to be had. The conditions will be 
 all : wherein I am right glad, and we are bound 
 to thank God to see Her Majesty so well to 
 stand to the maintenance of Religion. For as 
 there will be no great difficulty in respect of 
 his person and estate to cause a marriage 
 between them, so yet 1 perceive with the 
 impeachment any way of the true Religion 
 here now established, she will for no cause 
 deal with him, as you may perceive by Her 
 Majesty's own letters to you. Albeit, she doth 
 not mean in respect of his policy to drive him 
 in open shew, in the meantime, to renounce his 
 own profession, but conditionally, that if they 
 should match, then wholly to maintain this, as 
 well privately as publicly. God send Her 
 Majesty always during her life, so to stand to 
 the defence of so just a cause, and withal His 
 blessings upon her for us all, that we may live 
 and see her bring forth of her own body, as may 
 hereafter succeed her as well in that happiness 
 as in the enjoining of her kingdom." 
 
 It will be seen from this letter, which, since 
 it was to Walsingham, there is no cause to 
 consider deliberately deceptive, that Leicester 
 had persuaded himself, since the Queen was 
 persuaded, that Anjou's person was not to be
 
 234 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 misliked. About his "conversation" his bear- 
 ing, manners, and mode of thought opinion 
 was suspended. Elizabeth had now quite con- 
 vinced her favourite that she meant to marry 
 only with the "greatest," and, as Leicester 
 admitted, Anjou, although seventeen years 
 younger than Elizabeth, was "alone the 
 greatest to be had." Yet already Leicester 
 showed himself anxious about " conditions," and 
 opposed to any "impeachment" of "the true 
 Religion here now established." He supported 
 the Queen's policy of not driving the Duke 
 "in open shew, in the meantime, to renounce 
 his own profession," but, "if they should 
 match," to require her bridegroom to observe 
 the Anglican practices "as well privately as 
 publicly." 
 
 Lord Burghley, although stoutly Protestant, 
 was more upon the side of law, order, and the 
 prelates, than was Leicester. He had no 
 Puritan prejudices. One cannot believe that 
 in his heart Leicester had any either; but he 
 had given pledges for their advancement. It 
 was more important for him than for Burghley 
 to prevent any restoration of the Catholic 
 offices. Undoubtedly, he believed with one of 
 the Spanish Ambassadors that the first openly 
 celebrated Mass in London would be the 
 signal of a bloody revolution. But at first the 
 assurances of the French King had persuaded
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 235 
 
 both statesmen that Anjou was as likely as not 
 to be converted to Protestantism. Leicester 
 was the first of the two to harbour doubts of 
 such an outcome of the negotiations. He was 
 suspected by Burghley of persuading the Queen 
 to make her conditions impossibly stringent. 
 
 " It was strange," the Lord Secretary wrote 
 to Walsingham, "that any one man should 
 give comfort to the Ambassador in the cause, 
 and yet the same man to persuade the Queen's 
 Majesty that she should persist. Both these 
 things are done, but I dare not affirm by any 
 one." 
 
 As in March, Leicester had informed Wal- 
 singham that " Her Majesty hath only broken 
 of this matter with my Lord Burghley and me," 
 one may not doubt that the adviser referred 
 to, but not named by Burghley in May, was 
 Leicester. De la Mothe Fenelon certainly 
 thought Leicester to be in the French interest. 
 " Unless he is entirely sans foy, he is with 
 us." In his dealings with foreign emissaries, 
 the Favourite, like his mistress, was only too 
 often sans foy. Yet it is possible that in the 
 course of months Leicester's opinions had 
 modified. Burghley had made up his mind 
 to a course of policy, and was determined to 
 go through with it ; breaking on the wheel 
 of State the butterfly of Elizabeth's tastes 
 and whims. But Leicester, from the first, 
 had given some consideration to the human
 
 236 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 side of the question. He had desired from 
 Walsingham particular account of Anjou's 
 appearance and health. We have heard what 
 the gentleman looked like. Particulars of his 
 physical condition were not so easy to obtain. 
 The report sent by Walsingham, who certainly 
 did not do much to advance the marriage, was 
 not the pleasantest kind of report to receive 
 of a prospective bridegroom. " Touching the 
 health of his person, I find the opinions diverse, 
 and I know not what to credit, but, for my 
 part, I forbear to be over curious in the search 
 thereof, for divers respects." 
 
 These ambiguous phrases did not satisfy 
 Leicester. He made other enquiries, and 
 received the information that Anjou had some 
 unpleasant complaint a " leprosy " it was 
 called. Diseases were not very well defined 
 in those days. Mr Froude, in his splendidly 
 detailed history of Elizabeth's reign, makes a 
 pathetic picture of "the poor Huguenots" in 
 France, "telling Walsingham, in tears, that an 
 affront from England would bring back the 
 Guises, and end in a massacre of themselves," 
 while Leicester worked privately upon the 
 Queen, feeding her, through her Ladies of the 
 Bedchamber, with stories of Anjou's infectious 
 disorder, "assisting his Penelope to unravel at 
 night the web which she had woven under 
 Cecil's direction in the day."
 
 Queen Elizabeth, with Lord Burghley and 
 Sir Francis Walsingham.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 237 
 
 That Leicester could consider nastiness and 
 indecency in a marital relation a deterrent to 
 a stroke of good policy, was considered by Mr 
 Froude, and has perhaps been considered by some 
 later historians, a crime in the Favourite, while 
 Burghley's complete disregard of Elizabeth's 
 ultimate pleasure and satisfaction in her marriage 
 was accounted as a virtue. Leicester was, in 
 some respects, too civilised for the age he lived 
 in ; he was also in some respects in advance of 
 the mean of sentiment of the age we live in. 
 
 By September, it was plainly seen that 
 Leicester was doubting the Queen's intention 
 to proceed in the matter. He had come to 
 doubt also the wisdom and the expediency of 
 urging her on. Burghley also had been brought 
 to the view that the affair was dead. Leicester 
 wrote: 
 
 "There is no new accident of the marriage 
 matter to write of, and I suppose my Lord 
 of Burleigh hath written plainly to you his 
 opinion how little hope there is that ever it 
 will take place, for surely I am now persuaded 
 that Her Majesty's heart is nothing inclined to 
 marry at all, for the matter was ever brought to 
 as many points as we could devise, and always 
 she was bent to hold with the difficultest. For 
 my part, it grieveth my heart to think of it 
 seeing no way, so far as I can think, serveth, 
 how she can remain long quiet and safe, without 
 such a strong alliance as marriage must bring, 
 for other amities may serve for a time, but there
 
 238 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 is no account to be made of them longer than to 
 serve the turn of each party, and Her Majesty's 
 years running away so fast causeth me almost 
 to despair of long quietness. ..." 
 
 Oh, traitor Leicester, who must ever 
 remember Elizabeth was mortal, though he, 
 himself, had raised her by his glorifications to 
 a heaven of self - satisfaction, in which she 
 fancied herself immortal ! 
 
 Leicester further described the attitude of 
 Elizabeth in the words: 
 
 " Her Majesty is still persuaded they will 
 yield in the matter of Religion for Monsieur, 
 and so doing, she seemeth that she will, 
 according to her word, proceed ; but to say 
 my conscience, I think she had rather be 
 stood fast to it; and rather increased some 
 hard point than yielded in it : well, I commit 
 them to Almighty God, with my continual 
 prayer for her long preservation." 
 
 At the moment, Catherine de Medici and 
 her son the King had been disposed to "yield 
 in the matter of religion," but by the beginning 
 of the year 1572, Anjou's adherence to " High 
 Mass . . . with priest, sub-deacon, chalice, altar, 
 bells, candlesticks, paten, singing-men, the four 
 mendicant orders, and all the thousand devils," 
 was found to be absolute. So Leicester set to 
 work on an offensive and defensive alliance with 
 France that would stand without the sacrifice 
 of a woman in the prime of her health,
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 239 
 
 intelligence, and beauty, to a diseased youth, 
 "dominated by voluptuousness." 
 
 And Leicester had come now to see, with 
 Burghley, a way out of difficulty and danger 
 for Elizabeth, if she could but be induced to 
 take it. This way was the punishment of 
 Mary of Scotland, and of the Duke of Norfolk, 
 and the joining with France in a declaration 
 of war against Philip in the Netherlands. But 
 Elizabeth shrank ever from decisive action, and 
 hated to pass final condemnation on any one 
 connected with her by ties of blood or bonds 
 of friendship. In particular, on her cousin, 
 consecrated to the queenly destiny and her 
 own next heir, she detested to give judgment. 
 By the laws of all nations, and of common 
 human practice in her day, Mary now merited 
 the sentence of death. Yet Elizabeth would 
 not sign the warrant the estates of her realm 
 demanded of her. She would, however, have 
 given Mary up to the Scottish people on the 
 condition of their delivering the death-thrust. 
 This could not be done. It was the same 
 with regard to sending an army into Flanders. 
 Horrible atrocities were being perpetrated there 
 in the name of religion, and for the exaction of 
 taxes. Moreover, the Pope's Bull of Excom- 
 munication and Deposition had been nailed to 
 the door of the Bishop of London's palace, 
 and the conspiracies of Spain with Mary were 
 getting thicker every day.
 
 240 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 But Elizabeth would not put to death the 
 Scottish arch - conspirator and she would not 
 declare war. She consented only to the long 
 deferred execution of Norfolk. 
 
 It was becoming a mania with Elizabeth 
 not to disturb the status quo of European 
 politics. Her madness, however, was not with- 
 out a method. Yet the method congenial to 
 her feminine temperament the method of 
 suspense, of coquetry, and of a thousand 
 pretences was not a method, in the extremes 
 to which Elizabeth was now carrying it, to 
 be followed by a masculine mind, even by a 
 mind so sinuous and dissembling as Leicester's. 
 It is defiance to some of the most literary of 
 our English historians to say so, yet it is 
 perhaps permissible for an anxious student of 
 motives, feelings, and facts, to believe, that 
 Leicester's association with the Puritan party 
 was beginning to have an effect upon him 
 that was, in some sort, morally beneficial. 
 
 He had joined himself to the party upon an 
 intellectual conviction that liberty of thought 
 and belief had to come into the world. He 
 had shown his determination in favour of the 
 severest Protestant school, by his preferment 
 of the men and methods of that school in the 
 University of which he was Chancellor, and 
 in dioceses and livings of which he had the 
 disposition. He was now to display it more
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 241 
 
 conspicuously by his championship of the dis- 
 tressed States of Holland, and by his under- 
 standing with William of Orange. Of words in 
 the matter he spoke directly as few as his great 
 taciturn ally; but he worked for England's inter- 
 ference in the Netherlands, and for her final 
 defiance of a Papal and a Spanish overrule. 
 
 The treaty now being drafted with France 
 was the beginning of this business. Had 
 Elizabeth been other than she was, it had 
 been perhaps possible, even with Catherine 
 de Medici a party to it, to leave "love- 
 matters" out of it altogether. But not alone 
 the Queen of England's delight in being 
 sought for her own self, but the fear among 
 her councillors as well as among French 
 diplomats that she would never, if left to 
 herself, hold to her word, made Catherine 
 desire, and Leicester and the rest acquiesce 
 in, the plan of putting a marriage between 
 Elizabeth and Catherine's third son, D'Ale^on, 
 in the place of the marriage broken off, of 
 Anjou and Elizabeth. 
 
 So, when in May 1572, the Duke of 
 Montmorenci and one De Foix were sent 
 to obtain the Queen of England's ratifica- 
 tion of the treaty, the end of which was "to 
 bridle the greatness of the King of Spain," 
 these special envoys were instructed to offer the 
 hand of the youngest brother of the French
 
 242 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 King to Queen Elizabeth, and to say that 
 "marriage was the surest bond of treaties." 
 
 The envoys were royally welcomed to 
 England, and most sumptuously entertained 
 by the Queen at Windsor, and by Leicester 
 and Burghley in their respective houses. To 
 make the Court gorgeous enough to dazzle 
 nobles accustomed to the splendours of a 
 royal entourage, glorious from far longer time 
 than that of England's Queen, Leicester sent 
 an order into Flanders for much cloth of gold 
 and other rich stuffs for princely apparel. In 
 addition to the proposals for the Queen's 
 hand, Montmorenci brought with him the 
 offer of a Bourbon Princess for the Favourite. 
 But, as at the time when a Princess of Cleves 
 had been proposed to him as a bride by Austria, 
 Leicester paid no regard to the offer. These 
 were not honours that allured him. His 
 patriotism was firm ; his ambition not all self- 
 seeking. It was partly because he thought he 
 had in himself the power to make England 
 great that he desired greatness. A Princess as 
 a mate was no incitement to one for whom a 
 Queen had been a comrade. 
 
 At the same time that Montmorenci and 
 De Foix were being welcomed to England, 
 Admiral Lord Clinton and the Earl of Lincoln, 
 with the counterpart treaty for the signature of 
 the French King, were magnificently feted in
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 243 
 
 Paris. And in June, Leicester gave to Lord 
 Lincoln the encouraging news that "it seems 
 Her Majesty meaneth to give good ear" to the 
 suit of the Due d'Alencon, if of course there 
 was a saving clause "if his person be in any 
 way to content." And he instructed Lincoln 
 that he would do well to observe the Duke 
 thoroughly, and "to enquire diligently of his 
 disposition." Leicester added : "I would be 
 glad to receive a word or two from you what 
 ye think of him, I mean his person." No one 
 could think any more of him, it seemed, than 
 that he was swarthy and pock-marked ; not so 
 tall as his brother, and very thick-set. His legs, 
 in the portrait of him that is most familiar, are 
 excessively thin. The doubt whether Art had 
 been used to supply Nature's defects in his 
 nether limbs, which had disturbed Walsingham 
 in regard to Anjou's calves, could not have 
 exercised the mind of Lincoln when describing 
 Alen9on. The pock-marks were the greatest 
 obstacle to the free course of Elizabeth's 
 affections, if we are to believe Elizabeth's own 
 account of her hesitations. Lord Burghley, 
 ever concise and ready to take an advantage, 
 suggested that France should compensate for 
 her Princeling's pock-marks by throwing Calais 
 into the bargain with him. 
 
 Loaded with presents of gold and silver plate, 
 but with no conclusions of arrangements for
 
 244 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 the marriage, the Ambassadors of both nations 
 returned to their own countries. The next 
 step was the sending to England of La Mole, 
 a youthful spark from whom the fancy of 
 Elizabeth quickly took flame. Leicester intro- 
 duced La Mole to the Queen's presence at a 
 private interview, at which only the friend of 
 Anjou, Leicester himself, Sir Thomas Smith, 
 and La Mothe Fe'nelon were present. The 
 next day, the French lad had a formal audience. 
 His messages were to the effect that the King 
 of France could not fully carry out the treaty 
 between himself and England, in regard to 
 hampering the power of Spain. The Catholic 
 powers were already alarmed, and the King 
 was being menaced by Philip, by the Guises, 
 and by Rome. The Huguenot faction was no 
 longer to be tolerated, though of the doom so 
 speedily to fall, La Mole gave no hint. Indeed 
 he had received none. 
 
 Meanwhile, the English Court was all blandish- 
 ment and gaiety. Elizabeth was on progress, and 
 carried with her to Kenilworth the ingratiating 
 French boy. There she presided at a supper, 
 drank his health, languished, and chattered, 
 played on the spinet, deprecated, invited, and 
 deferred the marriage business. Leicester stood 
 sponsor to the Queen's talkativeness, the sub- 
 stance and wording of which had been carefully 
 drafted beforehand by Burghley. So craftily
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 245 
 
 could Elizabeth disguise business beneath 
 frivolity (!). 
 
 La Mole remained for twenty-one days with 
 the Court, and then left Windsor for London 
 on his way to Paris. But he was not to quit 
 England as easily as he had come. While the 
 Queen was out hunting on the day following La 
 Mole's departure, a despatch was handed to her. 
 In the saddle, in Windsor Great Park, Elizabeth 
 read the first account that came to England of 
 the massacre of St Bartholomew. Word went 
 after La Mole and La Mothe Fenelon that they 
 were to be detained in their own rooms, until 
 Her Majesty knew if Sir Francis Walsingham, 
 Leicester's nephew Sir Philip Sidney, and others 
 of her servants in Paris, were safe. It fell to 
 Leicester to write to France the official letter 
 declaring the horror of the Queen's majesty, 
 of himself, and of all England, at the terrible 
 crime that had been perpetrated. 
 
 "The lamentable tragedy," wrote the Earl 
 to Walsingham, "that hath been there used 
 of late, doth make all Christians look for a 
 just revenge again at God's hands, as it hath 
 pleased him to fear us, and so pinch us in the 
 meantime with the scourge of correction, by 
 the sufferance of his people thus to be murdered, 
 but our sins deserve this and more ; but I trust 
 he will hold his holy hand over us, not to reward 
 us altogether as we deserve. ..." 
 
 Thus far, the natural outburst of indignation,
 
 246 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 with an infusion of the Puritan's consciousness 
 of sin ! But Leicester had also to consider the 
 necessary moral attitude of his Government. 
 
 "If that King be author and doer of this 
 act, shame and confusion light upon him," was 
 his denunciation of the authority in whose 
 name the dark crime had been committed. 
 But, fortunately for the peace of two realms, 
 Leicester was able to add : " The Ambassador 
 [Fenelon] hath inwardly dealt of late with 
 me, and would have me believe that we shall 
 shortly see that this matter is not the King's, 
 and that he doth detest it so much as he will 
 make revenge of it. God grant it may be so, 
 but you may easily understand it, and surely 
 you shall do well, inwardly, as Her Majesty 
 hath written unto you (but warily) to discover 
 it, even with himself; and if it may appear 
 he stands in any fear of his person, or doubts 
 his force to assist him, I know Her Majesty 
 will venture twenty thousand of her best 
 subjects for him and with him, in so good 
 a quarrel." 
 
 Elizabeth did not put her "twenty thousand" 
 in the field. It was more politic to believe 
 as was doubtless true of the young King 
 that the rulers of France had not personally 
 desired a butchery so universal. The negotia- 
 tions for the marriage of Anjou were resumed ; 
 but the people of England reserved their
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 247 
 
 opinion of the guilt of the royal youth and 
 his unscrupulous mother, and, for a time, the 
 responses of Elizabeth to the re-advances of 
 the French, were kept secret. Leicester was 
 still for the treaty, and still antagonistic to 
 Spain. The Queen had reverted to all her 
 old insincerity. The "pock-marks" were just 
 the kind of pretext she had the knack of 
 using to her own advantage. Leicester was 
 satisfied that the popular cause was served by 
 the insincerity of the negotiations.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 IT is a rare, if not an impossible, thing for 
 man or woman to play with fire day by day, 
 for years in succession, and never to burn a 
 finger. There came the time in the life of 
 Elizabeth when her valiant attitude towards 
 men and matrimony, inflicted a real injury 
 on her womanhood, and when Leicester, like 
 Frankenstein, found himself responsible for 
 the existence of a human being whose con- 
 duct and conversation were too appalling and 
 embarrassing to be tolerated. 
 
 The wooing of Elizabeth by the Due 
 d'Alen9on by the death of Charles XII. 
 and the succession to the throne of the 
 Due d'Anjou as Henry III., become, in his 
 turn, Due d'Anjou makes a story of passion 
 and politics that has no counterpart in the 
 published history of the world. For the credit 
 of human nature, one hopes it has few replicas 
 in the private experiences of mankind. It 
 had its instance in statecraft and in policy 
 in the particular form of statecraft and in 
 
 248
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 249 
 
 the particular kind of policy practised by Eliza- 
 beth of England, and Elizabeth's Favourite, 
 Leicester. 
 
 Emboldened by her past successes it is 
 perhaps more exact to call them her past im- 
 munities Elizabeth coquetted, procrastinated, 
 and prevaricated with the second Anjou to an 
 extent that even she, the Intriguante par 
 excellence of the nations, had not previously 
 dared with any one. Leicester, though declin- 
 ing from the policy of gaining French help 
 in destroying Spanish dominion in the Nether- 
 lands, was so satisfied that his Queen's aversion 
 from marriage was fixed, that he gave com- 
 placent assistance to Elizabeth in her flattering 
 reception of the advances of the young Prince, 
 while he opposed, with his Sovereign, Anjou's 
 design of being the sole aid of the "oppressed 
 people" of the Netherlands, and the single- 
 handed humiliator of "the pride of Spain." 
 
 Leicester had backed his belief in the future 
 independence and greatness of the States of 
 Holland under an Orange rule, by advancing 
 considerable sums of money to the Nether- 
 landers ; others of the English had done the 
 same. Was there ever a war, for the most 
 righteous cause, that was not, in some sense, 
 a war of shareholders ? Yet Britain, true to 
 her higher mission, gave also for the defence 
 of Liberty her chivalrous young sons. England
 
 250 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 was ready herself to be the One Deliverer of 
 the Low Countries from the yoke of the 
 oppressor ; and Leicester was ready to represent 
 the One Deliverer in his own person. But 
 the Queen desired no heroics ; she wanted to 
 keep Anjou out of Holland. If a French 
 Prince got the credit of rescuing the Nether- 
 lands from slavery, English prestige and 
 English trade would suffer. So all her cajolery 
 was exerted to draw Anjou from his design. 
 
 The Duke professed undying affection for 
 the goddess on England's throne. He was 
 determined, so it was said, to marry " either 
 the Queen or the Netherlands." It was his 
 truer determination to gain possession of both. 
 He attempted the matter in earnest when, in 
 July 1578, he sent an agent to England to 
 tell the Queen "he would be directed by her 
 in all his actions in the Low Countries." The 
 intimation had previously been conveyed that 
 if Elizabeth did not smile upon his projects, he 
 would go over to Don John, Philip's recently 
 appointed pacificator of the provinces, who had 
 succeeded ill enough in pacifying anything or 
 anybody. Elizabeth had provided in her own 
 way for the prevention of Don John's success in 
 the fulfilment of his set task, by secretly aiding 
 Hans Casimir (a German Princeling) to enter 
 Flanders with a strong force of mercenaries. 
 Leicester was a firm friend to the enterprises 
 of the Protestant Casimir.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 251 
 
 In the meantime, emissaries of Anjou were 
 entertained as only one who never forgets that 
 angels, unawares, may be at her board, can 
 entertain. The Queen was on progress in the 
 Eastern Countries and the Earl of Sussex, as 
 acting Lord Steward, had seen to it that a 
 plentiful supply of plate should be on her side- 
 board at each stopping-place. As usual, at 
 political junctures of the kind being celebrated, 
 Sussex was gushingly eager for Elizabeth to 
 marry. But Elizabeth was less eager for a 
 wedding than for a show of her wealth, and for 
 a display of the subserviency of her nobles. 
 At table with the envoys she found great fault 
 that so little plate had been brought to adorn 
 the stages of her progress. Sussex protested 
 that more plate was being carried than had 
 ever been taken by English Sovereigns on their 
 progresses. The Queen shouted at him to 
 hold his tongue for a rogue, and said the more 
 she did for people like him, the worse they 
 became. Lord North, on being appealed to, 
 said there was very little silver, and agreed it 
 was the fault of Sussex. The baited peer 
 waited for North outside the banqueting room, 
 called him a knave, and threatened to give him 
 a thrashing. Leicester, the suave, intervened, 
 and told Sussex " Knave " was not a name to 
 apply to a gentleman of Lord North's quality. 
 
 The Spanish Ambassador related this episode
 
 252 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 to prove how quickly Elizabeth's councillors 
 were "brought to discord." But these Court 
 flarings, to which the Queen herself so often 
 set match, were only ignitions of wills and 
 tempers of the members of one household, 
 and, moreover, of a household less divided than 
 outsiders hoped and thought. It is not easy 
 to determine the true quality and real meaning 
 of quarrels in the homes of our neighbours. 
 Very often the foreign representatives at 
 England's Court had to learn the lesson that it 
 is as unwise to interfere between two quarrelling 
 Englishmen, or to calculate on their permanent 
 disunion, as it is to attempt to adjust the 
 differences, or to depend upon the finality of 
 the divisions between a bickering husband and 
 wife. Between Sussex and Leicester there 
 was certainly a strong antipathy. Yet even 
 they agreed, at times, to sink their differences 
 and to unite in a policy or a plan. 
 
 On this occasion, it is not easy to determine 
 how much they were united, or how much 
 opposed. Sussex was for the French marriage, 
 and Leicester still for the French treaty, 
 although he urged upon Elizabeth that her 
 strength and safety were the better sustained 
 by continued emphasis of her insularity. But 
 as to the measure of the consideration to be paid 
 to the French emissaries, there was an interest- 
 ing difference of opinion. North had helped to
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 253 
 
 make a fool of Sussex who, since he was then 
 as always, anxious to get Elizabeth married, 
 must be supposed to have wished to do honour 
 to the guests ; and North was Leicester's 
 protege. Then the young Earl of Oxford 
 Burghley's son-in-law, and a most distinguished 
 libertine and coxcomb, whom Sussex had 
 recommended to the honour of a favourite 
 chose further to mar the pleasantness of the 
 occasion by refusing the command of the 
 Queen to dance before the Ambassadors. He 
 professed to be readier to serve Don John in the 
 Netherlands than to be the sport of Frenchmen. 
 Sussex, his sponsor for Elizabeth's favour, was 
 in the pay of Spain. 
 
 It will be seen, therefore, that the motives 
 that led Leicester and Sussex to give the 
 envoys from France welcome, were of a 
 different nature. Those of Sussex domestic, 
 sentimental, and of the type of impulse that 
 leads the "heavy father" of comedy to say 
 " Bless you, my che-ildren," while Leicester but 
 kept the French in play as cover and support 
 of the deeper, sterner intentions with which he 
 was now animated. These intentions were to 
 constitute England a harbour of refuge for the 
 free spirit of dissent, enquiry, and better principle 
 that had riven asunder the Rome - enslaved 
 Church; to make Elizabeth the Guardian 
 Angel of Protestantism throughout the world ; 
 and to add to the English crown the fair jewel
 
 254 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 of the dominion of the States of Holland, 
 Flanders, and Brabant Leicester, be it added, 
 to be the Lord-Lieutenant of those States. 
 We shall see how Elizabeth coquetted with 
 and kept in play those intentions, even as 
 she philandered with Anjou, and alternately 
 encouraged and rebuffed the Governments of 
 Spain and France. 
 
 In January 1579, there came to England 
 a Gentleman of the Household of the Due 
 d' Anjou, whose persistence and ingenuity, 
 though not his impish spirit and indecent 
 talk, were worthy of a higher cause than 
 that he had undertaken, partly, as it would 
 seem, of his own volition. The genius of 
 this conscious sprite of mischief, named by 
 Elizabeth her "monkey," was for insinuating 
 and suggestive chatter that kept a perpetual 
 blush on women's countenances, and was 
 provocative of emotions, he was content, 
 with a chuckle, to leave to others to respond 
 to. Yet the gibbering trifler could rage 
 downright, and be downright vindictive too. 
 His name, Jean de Simier, was deemed by 
 Elizabeth to be a play upon his simian 
 nature. Monkeys can be angry and spiteful 
 in good earnest. But, before he lost temper, 
 Simier languished and laughed, coaxed, teased, 
 and simulated the transports of a passion 
 he sought vicariously to stimulate in Eliza-
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 255 
 
 beth herself. And the little ape succeeded ; 
 succeeded, at least, to a point. He brought 
 the Queen of England to a state of personal 
 consciousness and excitement no other lover 
 of hers had ventured to provoke in her. 
 
 Simier wasted no time in adorations ; he 
 made love. He did not celebrate the Queen's 
 immortal parts or quail before the goddess in her. 
 He spoke not of her mental excellencies, or of 
 the beauties of her spirit. He talked and it 
 was talk Elizabeth liked to hear of her personal 
 graces, and continually asserted his own and 
 his master's impatience to gaze upon the Isis 
 of Anjou's destiny unveiled. The ingenious 
 Frenchmen, the " Monkey," and the " Frog " 
 for " Frog," Elizabeth designated the princely 
 oddity himself when he arrived had doubtless 
 planned this new method of attack on the 
 integral princeliness of Elizabeth. Against 
 other kinds of assaults, the Queen of England 
 had defended the castle of her maidenhood, 
 with preliminary batteries of archness certainly, 
 but, in the end, with flinty walls of unimpres- 
 sionability and watery moats of discursiveness. 
 
 There was no beating about the bush with 
 De Simier. To English courtiers might be 
 left the practice of those modish " amorosities," 
 which, so a cotemporary historian declared, 
 only conjecture can say whether they were 
 "natural, or merely poetical and personated."
 
 256 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Simier meant to invoke in Elizabeth a clamor- 
 ous appetite all the fiercer because wakened 
 so late in life. He assailed such modesty 
 and such delicacy as dwelt in her, with the 
 thousand rhapsodies, paroxysms and pro- 
 fessions, experience, and his Gallican tempera- 
 ment informed him, must work like poison 
 in the blood of any Princess so vain and so 
 self - conscious as Elizabeth. The indecent 
 assault upon the sensuality of the child of 
 Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, had its result. 
 
 "This discourse rejuvenates the Queen; she 
 has become more beautiful and blooming than 
 she was fifteen years ago," was the pronounce- 
 ment of the French Ambassador. 
 
 When matters came to this point, Leicester 
 forgot policy, and remembered that his Sovereign 
 was a woman one, whom by many vows and 
 declarations, he had promised to love and to 
 honour ; to protect even against herself. He 
 remembered also that he was an Englishman, 
 and Simier a dirty little foreigner. Even the 
 vaporous blood of Hatton boiled as he saw 
 Elizabeth stooping from her estate of majesty, 
 and her attitude of jolly, good fellowship, which, 
 however gawkish at times, was, in its inner 
 impulse, a proud attitude, and yielding her ear, 
 and her company to one whose mother- wit and 
 glib patter could not disguise the lechery of his 
 nature, and the criminality of his antecedents.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 257 
 
 Any feelings of rivalry there might have been 
 between Elizabeth's favourites were swallowed 
 on the instant that a change of tone in their 
 Queen's love-converse was heard. They had 
 all winked at, even smiled upon her follies and 
 vanities, while those follies and those vanities 
 were the expression only of an exuberant 
 mentality, an indomitable conceit and strong 
 affections in which there was no shame. But 
 when the Queen giggled, bridled, and ogled like 
 a wench of the town ; when her audacities in 
 the decolletage required of single women became 
 strangely marked ; when she took to spending 
 hours with Simier in deshabille, and, not content 
 with asking those who took her messages to the 
 Prince if they had thought to mention to him 
 the beauty of her hand and foot, became pos- 
 sessed to give Anjou's deputy, ocular proof of 
 her general shapeliness, Leicester and her other 
 stalwarts were goaded to an indignation that, for 
 all the fortunes to be won, and the peace to be 
 purchased by their silence, had to be expressed. 
 
 But before that hour came, Leicester, accord- 
 ing to his wont, played the Queen's game 
 assiduously. On the evening of Simier's first 
 audience, he made a great supper for the 
 envoy; the supper was followed by a ball, 
 given by the Queen. So amiable was 
 Leicester's treatment of Simier during the 
 
 early weeks of his stay in this country, that, 
 
 R
 
 258 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 in February, Mendoza the lately - appointed 
 Ambassador of Philip was making deter- 
 mined endeavours, by suavity, to win over the 
 Favourite from his friendliness with France. 
 
 Don Bernardino de Mendoza, one of an 
 aristocratic family of statesmen, was the 
 wisely - appointed successor of the underbred 
 "spy," De Spes. Between the going of De 
 Spes, and the coming of Mendoza, there had 
 been an interval of years ; so great had been 
 the danger for England of the residence in 
 London of the accredited agent of a Govern- 
 ment plotting actively for the release of Mary 
 Stuart. 
 
 Mendoza was an adept in methods that had 
 their acceptable features. Yet, for all the 
 acceptability of his ways, he did not find the 
 Earl of Leicester as easy to bribe and to cajole 
 as had been Lord Robert Dudley, in the days 
 of Mendoza's predecessors. "I ... find it very 
 difficult to bring him round or hold him for 
 any great length of time, however much we 
 may give in, unless he is forced by circum- 
 stances. In the meanwhile, I will entertain 
 him with trifles." The " trifles " had to become 
 substantiate before long, so opposed to Spain 
 became all the councillors, even Sussex. In 
 May, the advices of Mendoza to his Sovereign 
 included the information : " Hatton, although 
 attached to your Majesty's service, has joined
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 259 
 
 Leicester in the French affair, so that if your 
 Majesty thinks fit, a jewel worth 1,500 may 
 be sent, and he may be entertained until we 
 see how he goes on. ... If your Majesty thinks 
 well, it would be desirable to give something 
 handsome to Leicester, just to make him think 
 we have not found him out." 
 
 Within a few months from Mendoza's coming, 
 all the English councillors were in receipt of 
 "presents" from both French and Spanish 
 Governments. Simier had come to England 
 laden with jewels for the adornment of the 
 courted bride and the bedazzlement of her 
 favourites. The councillors put the presents 
 in their pockets, pinned them on their breasts, 
 or stuck them in their caps, and went the way 
 their British inclinations prompted them. 
 
 In March, the French Ambassador, jealous 
 of Simier and pushing to have his own finger 
 rather than the "monkey's" in the pie of the 
 entente cordiale of the hour, was treating with 
 Leicester for the granting of Elizabeth's re- 
 iterated request that before matters proceeded 
 further, Alen9on should pay her a visit. The 
 French urged that it was not becoming the 
 dignity of their Prince to proceed to England 
 in person until the marriage-contract was signed 
 and sealed. Leicester replied for the Council 
 that this course was most undesirable, and 
 pressed for the Duke to come in May, when
 
 260 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 ' the English Parliament would be sitting. Then 
 he and his friends would ask the estates of 
 the realm to back the French suit, and thus 
 ah 1 the country could unite in requesting the 
 Queen to marry Anjou. This project seemed 
 not undesirable to the French. To Leicester 
 it was most desirable, since nothing was surer 
 than that Parliament would oppose the union. 
 And it was the first intention of the Queen 
 and of Leicester so to contrive matters that, 
 when the negotiations for the marriage had 
 to be broken off, the blame of the severance 
 should lie on Religion and on the Parliament. 
 But the French demanded stouter pledges of 
 the Queen's good faith. 
 
 Matters approached a crisis. Whatever their 
 private opinions and wishes, the English 
 councillors knew that the English people had 
 not forgotten " St Bartholomew." The bloody 
 pageant that celebrated the wedding - day of 
 Protestant Henry of Navarre and Margaret of 
 Valois Anjou's sister might be repeated to 
 signalise the union of Anjou himself and 
 Protestant Elizabeth. In any case, Anjou 
 could not be acquitted, even by less panicy 
 politicians than the Puritan representatives of 
 the boroughs and shires of England, of a 
 secondary intention of setting at liberty the 
 Scottish Queen, and, in the event of the death 
 of his first wife (Elizabeth) without a child, of
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 261 
 
 marrying Mary (of course under papal dispensa- 
 tion), and thus securing his own and his sister- 
 in-law's succession. 
 
 Besides these objections to a treaty once 
 deemed by Elizabeth's Ministers so desirable, 
 there were those of its precipitation of war 
 with Spain, and of its introduction into the 
 Netherlands of a rival influence to that of 
 England. It was not to be supposed that 
 France, any more than Spain, would allow 
 Anjou and Elizabeth to enjoy calmly the 
 honours and the profits of the suzerainty of 
 the Netherlands. And for a dominion of some 
 kind for Elizabeth in the Low Countries, 
 Leicester was now working. Burghley alone, 
 of the Council, showed inclination to temporise 
 with Spain. He thought the Queen had gone 
 too far in aiding the refugees from the Spanish 
 wrath in Holland, and in supporting with 
 money grants the administration of William 
 the Silent. Not that he had not a desire, as 
 anxious as that of Leicester and his following, 
 to see Protestantism established in all countries, 
 but he believed that Elizabeth weakened her 
 position as a foe to Spanish oppression by 
 underhand helping of the oppressed. War with 
 Spain on just grounds, and for a righteous 
 excuse, was what Burghley, even now that his 
 coadjutor Sir Nicholas Bacon had been taken 
 from his side by death, still wanted. But
 
 262 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 until the opportunity for open conflict came, 
 he wished to temporise. Leicester also was not 
 averse from certain conciliations. Elizabeth 
 was always ready for understandings. 
 
 In view of all these interests and considera- 
 tions, as well as of others it were tedious 
 to enumerate, the treaty Anjou's envoy and 
 France's resident Ambassador pressed for, could 
 not be agreed offhand. Elizabeth, who had 
 found the hardy blandishments of her "monkey" 
 so seductive, and who was revelling in a corres- 
 pondence with a Prince, the weakness of whose 
 orthography was atoned for by the ardour of 
 his sentiments, was undoubtedly reluctant to 
 bring the affair to issue. She apprehended the 
 opposition of her people, and the fascinations 
 of Anjou's novel method of love-making had 
 not yet turned to ennui. 
 
 So when Simier threatened to leave England 
 in two days unless a reply to his demands for 
 the coronation of Anjou immediately after mar- 
 riage, for the Duke's association with the Queen 
 in the Government and in the distribution of 
 offices, and for the bestowal on him of an annual 
 stipend of 60,000, were given, Elizabeth carried 
 the " monkey " and Castlenau de Mauvissiere 
 the new resident French Ambassador to 
 Wanstead with her, summoning at the same 
 time Burghley, Leicester, Sussex, and Wal- 
 singham. Wanstead was Leicester's seat near
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 263 
 
 Greenwich. In the Favourite's house, discussion 
 could be more free than in the Royal Palace. 
 Elizabeth wished this discussion to be final, 
 but she intended its outcome to be a further 
 postponement of the treaty's confirmation, on 
 the ground that as her Ministers were opposed 
 to the concessions demanded, though she herself 
 desired the union, further time would have to 
 be allowed to bring the country round to her 
 view of the matter. 
 
 At Wanstead, the four councillors remained 
 all day and far into the night in conference, but 
 the Queen's disinclination to dismiss Simier or 
 to rebuff Anjou prevented them from coming to 
 a decision. On the return to town of Leicester's 
 business -like house-party, a full meeting of the 
 Council was held at Whitehall, to which Simier 
 was bidden. He was told at once that his 
 request for the association of Anjou with the 
 Queen in the management of her country's 
 affairs and in the appointment to offices could 
 not be acceded to, and was asked to wait in 
 an adjoining room while the points of the 
 coronation and the annual grant came under 
 discussion. This he did, and the questions were 
 debated, the vote of the Englishmen going in 
 the end for the views of the newly-appointed 
 Lord Chancellor Bromley, who had been raised 
 to his post on the recommendations of Leicester 
 and Hatton, these two, as it was believed, having
 
 264 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 assisted his preferment with the express design 
 of gaining the support of his high office for 
 the defeat of the match with France. French- 
 men, the uncompromising Bromley urged, were 
 the traditional enemies of England, and were 
 dangerous guests to harbour. The marriage was 
 unpopular; there was little likelihood of any 
 issue. Sussex was the one dissentient. The 
 sands were running out, and it was now or 
 never for the realisation of his dream of seeing 
 the wedding of his maiden- Queen. Poor Sussex ! 
 His Nunc Dimittis was never to be sung. 
 
 When Simier had information of the decision 
 of the Council, his anger knew no bounds, and 
 he performed all the antics of the enraged of 
 the Simian race. He rushed from the Council 
 Chamber, banged the door in the face of Sussex 
 who had made to console him, and flew to the 
 Queen, who waited in the garden for results. 
 She flamed at her " monkey's" heat, swore she 
 would marry and defy them all, affected a deep 
 melancholy of disappointment, and, by night- 
 time, dispatched a letter to Anjou full of 
 protests of unchangeable affection. 
 
 Elizabeth now probably congratulated herself 
 on being in a position to blot out the marriage 
 clauses of the treaty, and to preserve only the 
 bonds of friendship it insured. But matters 
 were not to settle themselves so easily, and the 
 dangerous employments of her hours of leisure
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 265 
 
 were to continue. Before her letter reached 
 Anjou a new envoy had been started off with 
 splendid presents for Leicester and others of the 
 lords. Anjou further upset the calculations of 
 the Queen by declaring that he would marry 
 her on her own terms, if his attendance, in 
 private, at the mass might be allowed ; and he 
 announced his determination to come himself 
 to England in the middle of August. The 
 visit was to be incognito, so perhaps the 
 gorgeous clothes for the courtiers, and other 
 adornments for the Court that had been 
 prepared for the State coming anticipated in 
 May, were not required to be displayed. 
 And Leicester, if ever in his life he had a 
 grudging thought concerning money, must 
 have grudged the 4,000 crowns' worth of 
 crimson, black and coloured velvet, satin and 
 silk, and the 400 worth of gold and silver 
 tissue he had ordered from Flanders in the 
 previous April. 
 
 In any case, the waiting interval for the 
 coming of the Prince was a period hard to 
 be borne with. In anticipation of her suitor's 
 appearance, Elizabeth indulged in all the lover- 
 like impatiences and preoccupations proper 
 enough between a young affianced pair, but 
 odious in a schemer of forty-six, who, in spite 
 of all avowals, had no intention of entering 
 the married state, and who played at love
 
 266 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 with her suitor's deputy and not with her 
 would-be husband himself. For hours she 
 would be closeted with Simier, while Leicester 
 was detailed to keep Castlenau amused with 
 hunting, and the like. When she invited 
 Simier to dine at her table, Leicester was 
 bidden to invite Castlenau to his. Not a day 
 passed but the Queen sent for her "monkey" 
 from the French Embassy, and once, in her 
 impatience, she came in her barge to the 
 river-gate of Castlenau's residence so early in 
 the day that the ape was not fully dressed, 
 and had to go out to greet her with only his 
 doublet on. The people said their Queen had 
 drunk of a love-philtre. Where was Doctor 
 Dee with his "godly and artificial" methods to 
 deliver her from the ungodly spell? Leicester 
 does not appear to have employed his arts on 
 this occasion. On the contrary, the supple 
 Favourite went to work in a dogged, down- 
 right, natural manner. He believed Elizabeth 
 to be beside herself. She was reaching the 
 climacteric of her years, and fierce Dame 
 Nature was revenging herself upon her daughter 
 for many curious avoidances of her power. In 
 her reckless humour, and under the influence of 
 an adept in provocation, the Queen might give 
 herself irrevocably to the young wooer who 
 had, with her, the hereditary title to call such 
 men as Leicester, servants.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 267 
 
 Great as was the moral danger of Simier's 
 society, the political danger of the companion- 
 ship of Anjou would be greater. Leicester 
 implored his Queen not to sign the passport 
 that should frank the French Prince to her 
 kingdom. 
 
 But the fascination of Simier prevailed, and 
 the Favourite took the bold step of retiring from 
 Court, and shutting himself up at Wanstead, 
 feigning an illness engendered by his Queen's 
 perversity. Elizabeth was alarmed. She 
 wanted her Leicester's aid in ah 1 her machina- 
 tions. With some secrecy, she foUowed him 
 to Wanstead, and stayed for two whole days 
 hi his house, striving, in all probability, to 
 gain him over to her view of the situation, 
 which was, undoubtedly, that she only played 
 with Anjou, as she had played before with 
 suitors, for a politic end, and that she was still 
 mistress of herself, and in no danger of over- 
 stepping bounds. But Leicester could not be 
 persuaded that ah 1 that she had said and done 
 was "play-acting." He would not at once 
 recover from his illness of desperation. And 
 since the Queen would not abandon her flirta- 
 tions with the offensive Frenchman, an attempt 
 was made it has been said at the instigation 
 of Leicester and of Hatton to assassinate him. 
 But neither the Frenchman nor the Queen 
 was a coward, and both were furious.
 
 268 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 The grounds for believing Leicester and Hatton 
 to have resorted to this desperate method to 
 deliver Elizabeth from the thraldom of Simier's 
 insinuations, are that the attempt was made 
 by one of the Queen's guard, of which Hatton 
 was the captain, and that the suspicion of 
 Simier himself fell immediately upon Leicester. 
 Desperate ills require desperate remedies. The 
 sinfulness of attempting the life of a fellow- 
 creature was not regarded then as it is now. 
 Yet such an attempt if Leicester made the 
 attempt cannot be justified, except upon the 
 principle that attacks upon the honour of a 
 woman honourably beloved, justify retaliations 
 on the life of the attacker by the one animated 
 by the nobler affection. In any case, the 
 lynch - law that to this day holds a sway 
 over sexual relationships had been applied not 
 long before by Simier himself. For Simier 
 had come to Elizabeth's side fresh from a 
 tragedy in which he had played the part of 
 Malatesta, and his brother and his wife had 
 been a true Paolo and a true Francesca. But 
 a man's own revenges are things apart from 
 those of other men. Simier flew at the noble 
 lord he presumed to have aimed at his life. 
 And more hurtful than any physical blow it 
 had been in his power to inflict, was the arrow 
 of accusation the "monkey" let fly. 
 
 For some months Leicester had been married.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 269 
 
 The fact of the duly-solemnised union of the 
 widow of Walter, Earl of Essex, with Robert, 
 Earl of Leicester, was an open secret in the 
 Court, the Queen alone not sharing it. Now 
 she was informed of the true state of affairs, 
 and her rage at the murderous affront to Simier 
 was mild in comparison to that she hurled at 
 the Favourite who had deceived her, and at 
 the "she- wok " who had devoured her pride 
 and her darling. 
 
 Leicester was denounced before all the Court, 
 and not only dismissed the presence of his 
 Sovereign, but imprisoned in a fort in Green- 
 wich Park ; the while, to further humiliate and 
 insult him, Simier was carried ostentatiously 
 to the Palace, and assigned a lodging near the 
 Queen. One may picture the delight of the 
 trickster. All his schemes had worked. He was 
 the intimate of Elizabeth, the recipient of her 
 confessions of impatience to behold her Prince, 
 the ouster of the Favourite whose influence 
 protected England from French inroads. 
 
 In August, Anjou came on his secret 
 visit. Elizabeth's satisfaction was immense. 
 Her pock-marked lover became her gre- 
 nouille the froggie Frenchman that he was ! 
 Embraces were indulged in, tokens exchanged, 
 a diamond engagement ring of fabulous worth 
 placed upon the Queen's finger. And Anjou 
 saw his lady dance; as "high and disposedly,"
 
 270 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 we may be sure, as nearly twenty years before 
 she had danced before the Ambassador of the 
 Queen of Scots. Then, after two days of 
 delirium, the Prince and his mischief-making 
 henchman dropped quietly down the Thames 
 with the tide, and sailed out upon the channel 
 satisfied, and more than satisfied, with the enter- 
 tainment they had received, and confident that 
 the pledges Elizabeth had given them were 
 guarantees of a devotion that must inevitably 
 endure.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE sailing of the Frenchmen left the coast 
 clear for Leicester. Yet he was still in disgrace. 
 The account of his retirement provided by the 
 family history of the Dudleys and Sidneys, is 
 that his withdrawal from Court was voluntary, 
 a sturdy protest against the projected marriage 
 he deemed so ill-advised. But apart from the 
 informations of foreign recounters of events left 
 undescribed by those of his own household, the 
 distresses of Leicester at this time, and for four 
 or five years afterwards, have been too decidedly 
 chronicled by his own pen to have been all 
 assumed. Some design, however, may have 
 mingled with the grief of a letter to Hatton 
 that was almost certainly written about this 
 time. Leicester had been summoned to a 
 Council, but "forebore to go," being "troubled 
 and grieved both in heart and mind. I am not 
 unwilling, God knows, to serve Her Majesty, 
 wherein I may, to the uttermost of my life, but 
 most unfit at this time to make repair to that 
 
 place, where so many eyes are witnesses of my 
 
 271
 
 272 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 open and great disgrace, delivered from Her 
 Majesty's mouth." 
 
 Yet as soon as Anjou departed, Leicester 
 emerged. The Queen received him in private 
 audience. When he came out from the inter- 
 view, his emotion was remarked. And so far 
 was Leicester emboldened by the understanding 
 then established, that a little later, when the 
 marriage question came again before the Council 
 and, under the persuasions of the presents so 
 liberally distributed by Simier, some of the 
 more venal (or was it more sensible of obliga- 
 tion?) voted for a neighbourly rapprochement, 
 Leicester headed the group of nobles who threw 
 themselves on their knees before the Queen 
 and besought her, as she loved England and 
 the English, not to marry a French Prince. 
 Not satisfied to take arms of entreaty alone 
 against Elizabeth's vanity, Elizabeth's madness, 
 and Elizabeth's ingenuities, Leicester provided 
 himself and the popular party with a collection 
 of elaborately reasoned arguments and stirring 
 sentiments of patriotism, brought together by 
 his accomplished young nephew, Philip Sidney, 
 in his Letter to Queen Elizabeth, touching her 
 marriage to Monsieur. 
 
 In this epistle Her Majesty was besought 
 to consider the "goods or evils" that would 
 come to her in her "estate or person" by the 
 marriage. " To your estate, what can be added
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 273 
 
 to the being an absolute born, and accordingly 
 respected Princess? But, as they say, the 
 Irishmen are wont to call over them that die, 
 they are rich, they are fair, what needed they 
 to die so cruelly ? Not unfitly of you, endow'd 
 with felicity above all others, a man might well 
 ask, what makes you in such a calm to change 
 course? to so healthful a body to apply so 
 unsavoury a medicine? What can recompense 
 so hazardous an adventure ? " 
 
 And Sidney told the Queen that her " inward 
 force" apart from the treasures which are the 
 sinews of her crown consisted in her subjects. 
 These subjects, "generally inexpert hi warlike 
 defence," were divided into two mighty factions 
 " bound upon the never-dying knot of religion." 
 To one of these factions Elizabeth's "happy 
 government " had " granted the free exercise of 
 eternal truth," and by her own "dealings both 
 at home and abroad against the adverse party," 
 her state was "so entrapped," that it would be 
 impossible for her without excessive trouble to 
 pull herself out of "the party so long main- 
 tained." This party, therefore, was her chief, 
 if not her sole strength, but it would be 
 "galled, if not aliened," by the Queen taking 
 for a husband "a Frenchman and a Papist, in 
 whom (howsoever fine wits may find further 
 dealings or painted excuses) the very common 
 people know this, that he is a son of a Jezebel
 
 274 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 of our age ; that his brother made oblation of 
 his own sister's marriage, the easier to make 
 massacres of our brethren in belief; that he 
 himself, contrary to his promise and all grate- 
 fulness, having had his principal estate by the 
 Huguenots' means, did sack Lacharists, and 
 utterly spoil them by fire and sword." It is 
 to be remembered that Sidney was in Paris at 
 the time of the horrible massacre, and that the 
 impression then received was still vivid. 
 
 After instancing the dangers and charges of 
 housing a foreign and Catholic prince in 
 England, and reminding the Queen that the 
 "unspeakable comfort" of children appertains 
 no more to Monsieur than "to any other to 
 whom the height of good haps were allotted" 
 to be her husband, young Philip told her 
 further that "the honourablest thing that can 
 be to a well-establish'd monarchy is 'standing 
 alone, with good foresight of government . . . 
 those buildings being ever most strongly durable 
 which lean to none other, but remain from their 
 own foundation.' ' His peroration was divided 
 into a tirade and an apostrophe. The tirade 
 came first. 
 
 "As for this man, as long as he is but 
 Monsieur in might and a Papist in profession, 
 he neither can nor will greatly shield you ; 
 and if he grow to be King, his defence will be 
 like Ajax's shield, which rather weighed them 
 down than defended those that bore it." The
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 275 
 
 apostrophe followed : " Against contempt, if 
 there be any, which I will never believe, let 
 your excellent virtues of piety, justice, and 
 liberality, daily, if it be possible, more and 
 more shine : Let such particular actions be 
 found out (which be easy, as I think, to be 
 done), by which you may gratify e all the hearts 
 of the people ; let those in whom you find trust, 
 and to whom you have committed trust in your 
 weighty affairs, be held up in the eyes of your 
 subjects; lastly, doing as you do, you shall be 
 as you be, the example of Princes, the ornament 
 of this age, the comfort of the afflicted, the 
 delight of your people, and the most excellent 
 fruit of your progenitors, and the perfect mirror 
 of your posterity." 
 
 The passage in italics not underlined by 
 Sidney is a plea for Leicester which, under 
 the circumstances, must be regarded as a very 
 moderate and quite justifiable demand. But 
 though Elizabeth read the letter and took no 
 exception to its arguments, she included there- 
 after in her displeasure against the uncle, a 
 dissatisfaction with the nephew. A quarrel 
 with the Earl of Oxford added to the young 
 man's offences. Sidney retired from Court to 
 Wilton, the place of his sister, Mary, married 
 to the Earl of Pembroke he who had been 
 the first husband of the ill - fated Catherine 
 Grey, and who was to be, by " Sidney's sister," 
 the father of the Lord Pembroke celebrated as 
 the friend of Shakespeare. In his retirement, 
 Sir Philip wrote his master-piece, "The Countess
 
 276 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 of Pembroke's Arcadia," and devoted himself to 
 purely literary pursuits. 
 
 Leicester could not attain to the serenity that 
 came by nature to his nephew, though even 
 that paragon of virtue and gentle singer of 
 Arcadian joys made, in his time, the cynical 
 admission " Need obeys no law and forgets 
 blushing." 
 
 With Leicester, the need to maintain the 
 habits of his princeliness and the mental freedom 
 only to be purchased by absence of material 
 anxieties, made him ever quick to divert chan- 
 nels of wealth. For some time after the revenge 
 of Simier, the influence of Leicester was at a 
 discount, and his income reduced. In 1850, he 
 reminded the French Ambassador that the 
 Government of Henri Trois had failed of late 
 to make him any presents ; and this, although 
 he had had to sell his plate to recoup himself 
 for his outlays on behalf of France. He also 
 displayed towards the Spanish dolers of bribes 
 some of that gratitude which is the lively sense 
 of favours to come, by hints of an anxiety 
 to bring about a new secret treaty between 
 Spain and England. Indeed some treaty with 
 Spain had come to be a necessity, unless 
 Elizabeth could be persuaded either to marry 
 the still willing Anjou, or to pay the " charges " 
 of an occupation of the Netherlands. And the 
 two actions most repugnant to her nature were
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 277 
 
 marrying and paying. In the following year 
 it was noted that Sussex, Burghley, and Crofts 
 were favouring the once again revived French 
 marriage scheme, in order to oppose Leicester. 
 So the whirligig of politics spun round ! 
 
 But Leicester was now withdrawing his 
 opposition. Elizabeth's tenacity had outlasted 
 his. When he was once more seen in his old 
 place at Court, he was in favour of the French 
 alliance. 
 
 And Elizabeth, having had her way with him, 
 having put him in a corner for a naughty boy 
 for daring to remark upon his betters and having 
 punished him for the Use-majeste of lighting a 
 little fire of love upon his domestic hearth, when 
 outside the skies were all ablaze with the glory 
 of England's sun ! Elizabeth having done these 
 things, was somewhat appeased, and began to 
 miss the long-enjoyed understandings. Yet she, 
 of all women, was not likely to bestow whole- 
 hearted pardon. Reminders of his misdoings 
 were not lacking in the revived intercourse 
 of Queen and Favourite; neither did she fail 
 to celebrate to others of her councillors, her 
 wonderful grace and mercy in receiving Leicester 
 back. 
 
 In April 1581, there arrived in England a 
 wonderful embassy from France, headed by a 
 prince of the blood, and composed of a glittering 
 suite of nobles, to treat anew for the marriage
 
 278 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 of Anjou and Elizabeth, or, at least, to form a 
 league of open war against Spain. 
 
 The French King now agreed to be at the 
 charges of a war if the Queen of England 
 would marry his brother. If she would not 
 many, France would share with England the 
 expense of the inevitable campaign. Leicester, 
 remembering the lengths to which Elizabeth 
 had gone in promises two years before, went 
 to her on the eve of the coming of the pleni- 
 potentiaries, and pointed out the danger she 
 was in by carrying the matter so far. He was 
 more certain now than the Queen was her- 
 self, that she would never marry. He knew 
 also her marvellous disinclination to pay a fair 
 price for even the most substantial advantages 
 to her kingdom. But Elizabeth had anticipated 
 this encounter with Leicester's cautions, and 
 was armed for it. If the Embassy became too 
 pressing, she would send for the Duke himself 
 and buy him off with a money grant. So 
 it had come to that. Rather than marry, 
 Elizabeth would pay. There was hope, in such 
 a case, that matters could be advanced. 
 
 Once more the Queen and her Favourite 
 were colleagues in an intricate policy. They 
 played into each other's hands right royally. At 
 a supper given by the Earl of Sussex, Elizabeth 
 expressed her approval of the overtures of the 
 French to Leicester, and assured the envoys
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 279 
 
 that her Favourite had done his best to forward 
 their views. This was in May. 
 
 But in August the Queen was still coquet- 
 ting, and Walsingham, again her Ambassador 
 in Paris, wrote to her a stern letter. His 
 distance from her probably emboldened him, 
 although he did not lack the ordinary courage 
 of a man. In this letter, he said that to 
 give the French 
 
 "occasion to think that your Majesty dallies 
 with them both in marriage and in league, 
 cannot but greatly exasperate them against 
 you ; and how your Majesty shall be able to 
 bear alone the malice of Spain, France, and 
 Scotland for such a concurrence against you 
 is to be looked for I do not see. You have 
 to consider whether you had not better join 
 with France against Spain, than have them 
 both, with Scotland, to assail you. . . . The 
 solution is very easy. The only difficulty rests 
 upon charges. It were hard your treasure 
 should be preferred before safety. For the 
 love of God, Madam, look to your own 
 estate, and think there can grow no peril so 
 great to you as to have war break out in 
 your own realm, considering what a number 
 of evil subjects you have. Your Majesty 
 cannot redeem the peril at too dear a price. 
 Bear with my boldness, and interpret the 
 same to the care I have of your Majesty's 
 preservation." 
 
 An honest letter, characteristic of Sir Francis. 
 " Leicester, whose spirit is Walsingham," had 
 been a description of the Favourite upon one
 
 280 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 occasion by an Ambassador of Spain whose 
 interests were being disregarded of the spirit 
 and body alike. It is certain the character 
 of Leicester grew sturdier, and his plans 
 developed, as his association with Walsingham 
 became closer. During the blank interval, 
 when Leicester had been little about the 
 Court, a marriage had taken place between 
 Sir Philip Sidney and Walsingham 's daughter. 
 Leicester now supported the arguments con- 
 tained in the letter from Walsingham, in 
 Paris. This letter reached the Queen at a 
 moment when her mind was most chaotic, and 
 her feelings most contradictory in regard to 
 the French affair. The acid in its composition 
 served as a precipitant. Elizabeth raved and 
 stormed, dissolved into hysterics, and sobbed 
 like a little child. It was all the fault of 
 Leicester. She had sacrificed herself, her reputa- 
 tion, and her better judgment fop Leicester. He 
 had persuaded her to her ruin. On Walsingham, 
 too, blame was poured. He had done his 
 message ill had betrayed her. 
 
 Monsieur wanted her money. The King of 
 France wanted money. She would keep her 
 money, and they should have none of it. 
 Even Burghley did not have a very happy 
 time that day. He told her "if she would 
 not marry, she must spend." 
 
 She replied, if she must have war, she would
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 281 
 
 have the marriage, too. But all her councillors 
 knew that she meant to have neither, if she 
 could help it. Burghley and some of the more 
 practical ones were of opinion that the only 
 way out of the blind alley Elizabeth had led 
 them into was to make friends with Spain, 
 bargaining for good terms for the Nether- 
 lands, restoring the long "borrowed" Spanish 
 treasure, and restraining the buccaneering enter- 
 prises of Drake and other founders of England's 
 sea -power. But this was no programme for 
 Leicester's following. Before any negotiations 
 had been entered into between William of 
 Orange and the Duke of Anjou, the States 
 had asked to have Leicester sent to them 
 with an English force, and there had been 
 much talk of sending him. But, as usual 
 with Elizabeth, the "charges" had prevented 
 his going. 
 
 Leicester, however, had never ceased to work 
 for Elizabeth's eventual response to the call of 
 the Dutch. The Catholic states of Belgium had 
 preferred the assistance of a Catholic prince. 
 Now or never was the opportunity for England 
 and her most distinguished "prince" to ge,t 
 foot in the business of the Netherlands. 
 
 Leicester, with Walsingham, Hatton, and his 
 other allies, were vehement that no treasure 
 should be restored to Spain. Rather let it 
 be expended for the assistance of the French
 
 282 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Huguenots and the struggling Dutch. As 
 for terms with Philip, it would be better to 
 push Anjou in as a figure - head of English 
 help ; better to have the French in Flanders 
 than that the power of Philip from the coasts 
 of Portugal to the northern seas should be 
 consolidated. 
 
 So Anjou came again in October, and 
 Leicester gave him smiling welcome ; enter- 
 tained him ; served him on bended knee. 
 Simier, too, came about the same time, but 
 he had lost the favour of Anjou since his 
 first visit, and had other fish to fry than that 
 for Monsieur's eating. His interests now were 
 for the French King, and he was conciliatory 
 to Spain. Elizabeth was loverlike enough with 
 Monsieur her " moor," her " Italian," her still 
 hideous little " frog " 1 Leicester assisted the 
 French alliance in the way the Queen required, 
 but he found his temper hard to contain when, 
 once more, he saw the " chaste huntress " of his 
 English woods acting realistically her part of a 
 beguiling French Venus. 
 
 In November, the Favourite made an effort 
 to bustle the Prince off to Flanders with three 
 ships and 30,000. The States were prepared 
 to take the oath of allegiance to him. There 
 seemed to be no cause to prevent his going ; 
 but the Earl of Sussex, still animated by the 
 praiseworthy desire to see Elizabeth respectably
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 283 
 
 married, and still under the mistaken impression 
 that only the influence of Leicester prevented 
 her establishment among matrons, warned Anjou 
 not to go with pledges ; they would never be 
 redeemed. The King of France and the Queen- 
 Mother also cooled off a little about this time, 
 and their change of face made Elizabeth only 
 more satisfied that she could follow her plan 
 with impunity. She went so far that on the 
 morning of 22nd November, in the gallery 
 at Whitehall, she declared, in the presence 
 of Leicester, Walsingham, and the French 
 Ambassador, that the Duke of Anjou should 
 be her husband, and turning to the long- 
 cajoled creature, she kissed him on the mouth. 
 Drawing a ring from her hand, she gave it 
 to him as a pledge. Anjou placed his ring 
 on her finger, and the Queen almost immedi- 
 ately summoned the ladies and gentlemen from 
 the presence - chamber and repeated to them, 
 in clear tones, what she had just said. 
 
 The "dodge" of Elizabeth this time was the 
 same as that once resorted to by Leicester. 
 She meant to put the onus of forbidding the 
 match on Parliament and the French King. 
 She and Anjou were united; it was only a 
 question of the "terms" of two governments. 
 These terms had yet to be agreed. 
 
 But Leicester was not so sure that terms 
 would not be arranged. Were not Ministers
 
 284 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 and subjects, too sick to death with the long 
 philandering? The cause of Holland, which 
 Anjou, in some sort, represented, was a popular 
 one. St Bartholomew's " Feast " was not 
 forgotten, but there had been no repeti- 
 tions of its crimes. And Leicester himself 
 was now committed to the bolder move 
 the straighter course. He wanted Anjou in 
 Brabant as a forerunner of England's aid, not 
 as representing in his own insignificant person 
 the true emancipator of the Flemings and 
 the Dutch. Leicester was soon circulating his 
 belief that the Queen's act of betrothal was 
 only another subterfuge to keep the French 
 in play ; but he joined with Hatton in making 
 a terrible to do about the business. By his 
 contrivance, ladies of the Court wailed and 
 lamented the terrible sacrifice Elizabeth was 
 to make of her beauty to French interests. 
 Hatton pleaded with her, with tears and sighs. 
 Leicester asked her sarcastically if she were a 
 maid or a wife. She replied a maid, since the 
 conditions for her union privately discussed 
 with Anjou could never be fulfilled. He 
 then advised her to send the Duke a message 
 to the effect that her attachment to him would 
 be greater as a friend than if he were her 
 husband. This put the would-be husband into 
 a terrible rage. He cursed the inconstancy of 
 women, and hinted at revenge.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 285 
 
 Elizabeth renewed her insidious policy of 
 kisses, blandishments, and the ordinary famili- 
 arities of the affianced, and appointed Leicester, 
 with Burghley, Bromley, and Sussex, to meet 
 in conference the French King's latest envoy, 
 just arrived. The upshot of this meeting was 
 Leicester's proposal in Council for a large 
 money aid to Anjou or the French King, on 
 the condition of their making war upon Spain 
 in the Netherlands. This proposal was, of 
 course, objectionable to Elizabeth. She was 
 still confident of her own powers of " manage- 
 ment." Leicester's confidence in her keeping 
 her head under all circumstances was not as 
 strong as it had been once, and he desired, 
 not the butchery, but the policy and the 
 righteousness of this war that had to be. 
 
 The abominable seed of mischief Simier 
 got into a quarrel just about this time with 
 some of Anjou's followers, and these enemies 
 of his own nation sought the aid of Leicester 
 in exterminating the little germ of infection. 
 Leicester was held to be responsible for ways 
 whereby cut-throats were hired to do the dark 
 business. Simier again escaped, and again 
 appealed to England's Queen. The Royal 
 lady called the Earl of Leicester to his face 
 a murderous poltroon, only fit for the gallows ; 
 but when asked to add injury to insult, she 
 said he was too powerful to be disgraced all
 
 286 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 at once. And this excuse she made for him 
 after Simier had once more tried to revenge him- 
 self upon the Favourite for his supposed assist- 
 ance in attempting his life, by an attempt to 
 revive the Queen's anger against Leicester's wife. 
 But Leicester was playing Elizabeth's game 
 too helpfully to be visited with any disfavour 
 then. Anjou was persuaded that Leicester 
 was the best friend he had in England. In 
 the end, the aims of both Queen and Favourite 
 were gained. Anjou left London laden with 
 Elizabeth's "pledges." His affianced, herself, 
 sped him on his journey as far as Canterbury. 
 The Earl of Leicester, with the Lord Howard 
 (Lord High Admiral), Sir Philip Sidney, and 
 others, accompanied him to Flushing. The 
 Duke entered the town in state. On his 
 right hand rode William of Orange (the 
 Silent) ; on his left, the Queen of England's 
 Master of Horse. 
 
 The Master of Horse was at his side also 
 when he took the oath of his coronation with 
 upraised hand, and was vested in the cap and 
 mantle of Brabant ; Leicester walked after- 
 wards in procession with Monsieur down the 
 lily - strewn streets. The enthusiasm of the 
 populace was "impossible to describe." But 
 the thunders of joy that resounded through 
 the crowd were louder for the pledge of 
 Leicester's presence than for that of the Prince
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 287 
 
 of France. The letters from his Queen that 
 the English nobleman presented to the lords 
 of the States and the Prince of Orange, con- 
 tained her entreaties to receive and honour the 
 Highness sent to reign over them, as long as 
 he observed the terms he had agreed, and to 
 reverence him as Elizabeth's affection and his 
 own rank required. The Queen would do all 
 that in her lay to maintain the authority of 
 the Prince. 
 
 Before Anjou left England, Lord Sussex had 
 urged him to keep Leicester in Flanders. But 
 to Leicester and to Lord Howard had been 
 entrusted the money-bags. They were the 
 masters of the expedition. And Leicester had 
 secret instructions to arrange with William the 
 Silent for the long detention of Anjou. He 
 it was, not Leicester, who was never to come 
 back to England. The Favourite left his 
 Sovereign's princely fiance "stranded like a 
 hulk upon a sandbank." This was just what 
 Elizabeth desired. Yet she still played the 
 part of a forlorn maiden, and declared she 
 would give a million to have her " frog " 
 swimming in the Thames again, instead of 
 being left to croak alone in the stagnant 
 marshes of the Low Countries.
 
 FAMILY devotion was a characteristic of the 
 Dudleys, root and stem. We have seen how 
 Lady Sidney, the gentlest and truest of them 
 all, supported the ambitious schemes of her 
 father and of Leicester, though she was too 
 honest by nature not to lose patience with 
 her brother when he doubled on his track. 
 Yet she recognised great parts and endearing 
 qualities in Leicester, and believed him guilt- 
 less of the grosser crimes imputed to him. 
 Her husband was constant in the defence of 
 his brother-in-law, and Sir Henry was a man 
 of integrity. It was he who made rigorous 
 enquiry into the death in Ireland of the Earl 
 of Essex supposed to have been poisoned by 
 the direction of the Favourite, in order that 
 he might marry Lady Essex. Examination of 
 facts left it indisputable that Essex died of 
 dysentery, brought on by drinking impure 
 water. The Earl of Warwick too, a man of 
 action rough, and lacking the sweetness, as 
 
 Elizabeth herself said, of Leicester, but " brave 
 
 288
 
 Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 289 
 
 enough and noble enough to deserve the 
 hand of a princess" was, for all his life, his 
 brother's sturdy and devoted friend. Warwick 
 had no jealousy of Leicester, but regarded his 
 high place at Court, and in the councils of 
 the nation, as the fitting tribute of a genius 
 there was no gainsaying. And Leicester him- 
 self, whatever his covert cruelties to his first 
 wife Amy, and to his second mate Douglass, 
 was unfailing in kindness to all members of 
 his father's house. Affairs of State never 
 pressed so heavily upon him, that he could 
 not also concern himself with family affairs. 
 
 In the midst of the business of the war 
 with Scotland he found time to correspond 
 with the Earl of Bedford at Berwick, in 
 regard to a match between his brother and 
 Bedford's daughter. To his nephew Philip and 
 his niece Mary, he was ever gracious and 
 benevolent. He provided the dowry of Mary 
 when he brought about her marriage with 
 Lord Pembroke. He had also a hand in the 
 marriage of Philip with the daughter of Sir 
 Francis Walsingham. His desire was strong to 
 found a family ; to see grow up around him 
 children who should be the interest and the 
 comfort of those days when personal greatness 
 would have lost its taste, and the excite- 
 ments of political scheming have become 
 stale. Through the dark mists of the future
 
 290 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 especially of the future he and others 
 thought to be nearer than it was, when 
 Elizabeth of England should be no more a 
 dream beckoned to him. It was the hereditary 
 "familiar" of the Dudley nature the dream 
 of seeing one of his own name and line upon 
 the throne of England. Very early, as we 
 have seen, in his association with Elizabeth, 
 he knew that from her he would never receive 
 the title of King-Consort. And he had no 
 taste for marriage with any other Princess or 
 presumptive - heiress, not even with Mary 
 Stuart "Mistress of Enchantments whereby 
 men are bewitched ! " But he had the desire 
 of marrying a son of his to a claimant for the 
 succession. And it seems to have been this 
 wish, rather than any inclination to regularise, 
 for her sake, his irregular union with Lady 
 Sheffield, that led Leicester to go through 
 a form of marriage with the infatuated 
 Douglass. 
 
 He desired to render his son's parentage 
 indisputable, in order that at any time, if 
 occasion served, he might declare him his 
 child. Obscurity overhangs the second marital 
 venture of the Favourite. This alone is clear ; 
 there was nothing in it that was creditable, 
 unless it were Leicester's determination that 
 his "base son" should be recognised as his. 
 
 On the third conjugal episode of his career,
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 291 
 
 light falls a little obliquely, but light is thrown. 
 One of the most prejudiced historians of the 
 Favourite's character wrote of him that he was 
 "much given formerly to Women, and in his 
 latter Days doating extremely upon Marriage." 
 Whatever this may mean, it is certain that in 
 the beauty and in the understanding of Lettice, 
 Countess of Essex, the Earl of Leicester found 
 contentment. Original, opulent, and affectionate 
 creature that she was, she managed him, while 
 she loved him. Their union was twice cele- 
 brated ; once in some private manner at Kenil- 
 worth, and again by solemnisation in accordance 
 with the rites and ceremonies of the Church of 
 England, at Wanstead. 
 
 It is said that the lady's father, Sir Francis 
 Knollys, insisted upon the second ceremonial, 
 knowing Leicester's propensity for illegal forms 
 of marriage. This looks as if old Knollys, a 
 particularly well-balanced and worthy person, 
 much concerned for the respectability of him- 
 self and his family, was quite convinced that 
 the second marriage of Leicester had been no 
 marriage, and that his lordship was perfectly 
 free to enter into a new contract. The fact 
 of the Wanstead wedding was known through- 
 out the Court. Only Elizabeth was left in 
 ignorance of it. 
 
 It was understood among Elizabeth's courtiers 
 that favourites of the Queen had no wives.
 
 292 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 More and more the Queen was being worshipped 
 by statesmen, by poets, by discoverers, and by 
 all the learned and the noble of the land, as 
 the Divine Agent of Regality for England, a 
 creation rather than a creature, a being half- 
 goddess and half-woman, concerning whom the 
 ordinary laws that govern the relationships of 
 men and women could not be observed. It 
 was understood that by the maintenance of 
 certain imaginations and delusions, Elizabeth 
 preserved the self-confidence and the sense of 
 infallibility that were essential to her in her 
 combat with the great temporalities and greater 
 spiritualities arrayed against her. 
 
 She had been angry enough with her Favourite 
 for his marriage, and for his apparent instiga- 
 tion of attempts upon the life of Simier. She 
 had been annoyed also at his participation in 
 the kingly honours paid to the Due d'Anjou 
 at Flushing. Yet in 1583, she once more 
 extended favour to him. On St George's Day, 
 in that year, he held for Her Majesty an 
 Institution of the Order of the Garter, and 
 in January 1584 he was one of the five 
 councillors Walsingham being spokesman 
 who gave Mendoza his conge on the grounds 
 that he had corresponded with the Queen of 
 Scots, encouraged her to rely for support on 
 Spain, formed plans for her escape, joined with 
 traitorous English Catholics in projects for
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 293 
 
 bringing in the Duke of Guise to conquer 
 England, and constituted his house a rendez- 
 vous for conspiring Jesuits and other disaffected 
 subjects of the Queen of England. 
 
 But the sunshine of that face, on which men 
 declared they could not gaze for its blinding 
 brightness, was again to be darkened. Faint 
 rumblings of a storm had been heard for some 
 ten years past, but only at this moment did it 
 burst on Leicester. Elizabeth, who never went 
 on Progress without a retinue of traitors, and 
 who persistently ignored disaffection for its 
 confusion, had seasons when she exploded in 
 invective against treacheries of quite a minor 
 kind, if she did not discern treason in words 
 and deeds that only just failed of owning her 
 the highest concern, political and personal, of 
 the one accounted treasonable. In this case 
 it was that one disloyalty of Leicester his 
 consciousness that his Queen was mortal, and 
 that after her some one else must reign in 
 England that led to all the trouble. 
 
 As far back as 1577, the Queen had been 
 aware of certain intelligences existing between 
 her Favourite and that " shrew " of many house- 
 holds, Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury. In 
 1574, following on to a "political" reconcilia- 
 tion between Margaret, Countess of Lennox, 
 and the murderers of Margaret's son Darnley, 
 a "political" wedding had taken place between
 
 294 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Margaret's younger son, Charles Stuart by the 
 death of his father in 1571 become Earl of 
 Lennox and Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of 
 Lady Shrewsbury in her previous marriage with 
 Sir William Cavendish. The chief contrivers 
 of this marriage were undoubtedly the two 
 mothers, though the affair had many promoters 
 among Spanish spies and Catholic agents. It 
 was accounted a means of strengthening the 
 position of Mary Queen of Scots in the event 
 of the decease of Elizabeth. 
 
 Lennox, after Mary and James, was next 
 heir in blood to the Queen of England. Both 
 he and his young wife were absolutely pliable 
 to the wills of their respective mothers ; both 
 domineering and intriguing women, prepared 
 at the instant Elizabeth should, by any means, 
 be carried out of the world, to do homage 
 to Mary. But the life of Mary also was 
 one that demanded to be heavily insured. 
 The young King of Scots was likewise in pre- 
 carious case. England might never allow an 
 alien Prince to become master of her realm. 
 The Earl of Lennox was no unlikely successor 
 to Elizabeth. His marriage at Rufford Abbey 
 brought about the result for which all parties 
 were undoubtedly prepared. The bride and 
 bridegroom and their two mothers were 
 summoned to the capital, and temporarily im- 
 prisoned hi the Tower. Her ability to act a
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 295 
 
 part stood the Countess of Shrewsbury in good 
 stead. During her detainment, she made friends 
 with the Queen's most powerful favourite. Of 
 Leicester, Gilbert Talbot wrote to his father, 
 Lord Shrewsbury, after the release and return 
 to Chatsworth of Lady Shrewsbury : 
 
 " I never knew man in my lyfe more joy full 
 for their frende than he at my Lady's noble and 
 wyse governm't of her sealfe at her late leaving 
 here, saynge that he hartely thanked God of so 
 good a frende & kynseman of yo r L. and that 
 you are matched w th so noble & good a wyfe." 
 
 But in addition to the "wise government of 
 her self" which made her inevitably admirable 
 to a long practiser of the art of control, Lady 
 Shrewsbury had other helps to her deliverance. 
 The Earl of Shrewsbury pledged to the Queen 
 his good faith that his wife had not "any 
 other intent or respect than wyth reverent 
 dutie towards your Ma^e she ought." Lady 
 Shrewsbury ill repaid her husband for his 
 championship of her in this affair. 
 
 But before she dealt the blow at her husband 
 and his Royal charge that is the disgrace of 
 her womanhood, other developments of the 
 Shrewsbury -Lennox scheme had taken place. 
 The union of Lennox and Elizabeth Cavendish 
 resulted in a daughter the Lady Arabella Stuart 
 whose luckless birth preceded the deaths of 
 both her unfortunate young parents by only a
 
 296 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 few short months. This precious sprig of Royalty 
 was nurtured by Lady Shrewsbury with the 
 utmost care and solicitude. The promises of her 
 descent apart, she seems to have nestled to a 
 place in her grandmother's heart that no other 
 babe of the many stern Bess had reared had 
 ever reached to. And we may be sure the 
 busy, forward mind of her grandmother's friend, 
 the Earl of Leicester, would be quickly filled 
 with some scheme for the child's future which 
 should include an advantage to his own house, 
 as well as to the Protestant cause in England. 
 Indeed it may almost be said that Leicester 
 participated from the first in the arrangement, 
 whereof one looked-for result was the produc- 
 tion of offspring, negotiable in the interests of 
 the succession. For it is a curious fact that 
 at the time the RufFord Abbey marriage was 
 celebrated, the rumour was about in London 
 that Leicester and others had the design of 
 seizing the baby-King of Scotland, killing him 
 and his mother, and marrying a son of the 
 deceased Lady Catherine Grey and Lord 
 Hertford to a daughter of the Queen and 
 Leicester, who was kept hidden, although a 
 small battalion of bishops was ready to come 
 forward at the critical moment and swear to 
 the child's legitimacy. This statement was a 
 riot of imagination, but it serves to show the 
 belief of the moment that Leicester was con-
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 297 
 
 cerned in some provision for the succession, and 
 the only actual provision then being taken was 
 this marriage of the parents of Lady Arabella 
 Stuart. 
 
 When Arabella was a two - year child, 
 Leicester visited Chatsworth and Buxton, 
 being regally entertained in both places by 
 Lord and Lady Shrewsbury. The Favourite 
 appears to have approved, at the time, the 
 Shrewsburys' treatment of the Scottish Queen, 
 who was still being served as a Royal visitor, 
 and not "straitly kept" as a State prisoner. 
 And he probably endorsed to his Queen some 
 of the frequent applications for money grants 
 made to her by the Earl for the charges of 
 his ward, and by the Countess for a certain 
 "portion" promised by Elizabeth to that 
 "jewel" of her grandmother, Arabella. 
 
 In any case, some apprehensions of too 
 great friendliness between the Favourite and 
 the Shrewsburys were aroused. But it was 
 Elizabeth's policy just then not to ascertain 
 too particularly the designs among her courtiers 
 and others, of which the still most innocent 
 babe, Arabella, was the centre. She betrayed 
 her uneasiness at the situation of affairs at 
 Chatsworth only by a letter of sarcastic thanks 
 for the entertainment of Leicester, the cost of 
 which had evidently been insisted upon by the 
 Shrewsburys.
 
 298 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 "Right trusty," wrote Elizabeth to the Earl 
 and Countess on the 4th of June 1577, " Being 
 given to understand from our cousin, the Earl 
 of Leicester, how honourably he was lately 
 received and used by you and our cousin the 
 Countess at Chatsworth, and how his diet is 
 by you both discharged at Buxton, we should 
 do him great wrong holding him in that place 
 in our favour in which we do, in case we should 
 not let you understand in how thankful sort we 
 accept the same at your hands which we do 
 not acknowledge to be done unto him but to 
 our own self; and therefore do mean to take 
 upon us the debt, and to acknowledge you both 
 as our creditors so as you can be content to 
 accept us for debtor, wherein is the danger 
 unless you cut off some part of the large allow- 
 ance of diet you give him, lest otherwise the 
 debt thereby may grow to be so great as we 
 shall not be able to discharge the same, and 
 so become bankrupt. And therefore we think 
 it for the saving of our credit meet to prescribe 
 unto you a proportion of diet which we mean 
 in no case you shall exceed, and that is to allow 
 him by the day, for his meat, two ounces of 
 flesh, referring the quality to yourselves, so as 
 you exceed not the quantity, and for his drink 
 the twentieth part of a pint of wine to comfort 
 his stomach, and as much of St Anne's sacred 
 water as he listeth to drink. On festival days, 
 as is meet for a man of his quality, we can be 
 content you shall enlarge his diet by allowing 
 unto him for his dinner the shoulder of a wren, 
 and for his supper a leg of the same, besides 
 his ordinary ounces. The like proportion we 
 mean you shall allow to our brother of Warwick, 
 saving that we think it meet, that in respect
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 299 
 
 that his body is more replete than his brother's, 
 that the wren's leg allowed at supper on festival 
 days be abated, for that light supper agreeth 
 best with rules of physic. This order our 
 meaning is you shall inviolably observe, and 
 so may you right well assure yourselves of a 
 most thankful debtor to so well-deserving a 
 creditor." 
 
 This letter had a further point than that of 
 informing the hosts of Leicester that the Queen 
 considered hints of theirs concerning the charges 
 of his entertainment to be in exceedingly bad 
 taste. It was a playful twitting of Lord 
 Leicester, Lord Warwick, and other "curers" 
 at the baths, with the abstemious diet they 
 prided themselves upon. 
 
 From Buxton, at this time, Leicester wrote 
 to Burghley: 
 
 " We observe our physician's orders diligently, 
 and find great pleasure both in drinking and 
 bathing in the water. I think it would be 
 good for your Lordship, but not if you do as 
 we hear your Lordship did last time ; taking 
 great journeys abroad ten or twelve miles a 
 day, and using liberal diet, with company 
 dinners and suppers. We take another way, 
 dining two or three together, having but one 
 dish of meat at most, and taking the air afoot 
 or on horseback, moderately." 
 
 In 1577, Leicester contemplated the marriage 
 of his son by Douglass Sheffield with the Lady 
 Arabella, but the birth of his child by Lady
 
 300 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Essex altered his first design. The "noble 
 Imp, Robert of Dudley, Baron of Denbigh," 
 whose little remains rest beside those of father 
 and mother in the Lady Chapel of the Parish 
 Church of St Mary, Warwick, is described upon 
 his tombstone as " a Childe of greate Parentage, 
 but of farre greater Hope and Towardness." 
 We may not now know if in truth the child 
 of Robert and Lettice Leicester was more 
 "toward" than is common with those of his 
 "tender age." He must have been about five 
 when "taken from this transitory unto Ever- 
 lastinge Life." It is likely that a son of such 
 parents would be of a grace and of an intelli- 
 gence beyond the mean of his years. He was 
 certainly of a hope "farre greater" even than 
 his parentage, for by marriage with Arabella, 
 his parents intended him to become one day 
 that which his father had missed being King- 
 Consort of England. 
 
 Yet even upon a hope so high, Leicester 
 could not rest. The bow of his ambitions 
 had a second string. In March 1583, we hear 
 of a proposal made to the King of Scotland, 
 on behalf of Leicester and Walsingham, that 
 he should marry Dorothy, second daughter 
 of Leicester's wife by her first husband, Lord 
 Essex. And with the proposal it was attempted 
 to pledge the young Monarch not to change 
 his religion if acknowledged by the English
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 301 
 
 Catholics. The reward of such a pledge was 
 to be a declaration by the English judges that 
 James was heir to the Crown of England. 
 
 Mary of Scotland earnestly entreated the 
 French Ambassador to make known to Elizabeth 
 Leicester's design for her son's marriage, being 
 certain that the plan " would rouse her womanly 
 jealousy, and make her very indignant." It is 
 supposed that Mauvissiere did not at once take 
 the tale to the Queen, but contrived that a 
 hint of it should reach her. The result, as 
 crafty Mary had anticipated, was the emptying 
 of phials of wrath upon the Favourite. 
 
 It was being officially arranged by Leicester, 
 Bedford, and Walsingham, that Elizabeth should 
 have the marrying of James to a lady of her 
 own choice, in exchange for certain pensions and 
 subsidies to be granted to the Scottish Govern- 
 ment. The envoy who came to England for the 
 purpose of these negotiations was surprised by 
 the point-blank question from the English Queen, 
 if it were true Lord Leicester had proposed the 
 King's marriage with his wife's daughter, the 
 Lady Dorothy Devereux. The envoy denied 
 all knowledge of such proposal, but the Queen 
 became excited, and flung out that she would 
 rather the King took her crown away than see 
 him married to the daughter of such a "she- 
 wolf," and if she could find no other way to 
 repress her ambition and that of the traitor
 
 302 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Leicester, she would proclaim her all over 
 Christendom for the bad woman she was, and 
 prove that she deceived her husband. When 
 the news of this outburst reached Leicester's 
 ears he immediately set about marrying the girl 
 to a private gentleman. But the Queen was 
 not soon mollified. She instinctively distrusted 
 the joined interests of so haughty and pushing 
 a couple as the Lord and Lady Leicester. But 
 the repression of their ambition was in higher 
 hands than hers. A year from the time of this 
 renewal of Elizabeth's disfavour, there fell on 
 Leicester and his wife the blow of the loss of 
 the child for whose future they had reserved 
 the supreme efforts of their contrivances. 
 
 The letter written by Sir Christopher Hatton 
 from the Court to the Earl of Leicester in 
 his hour of grief, and Leicester's reply, 
 need little comment. The one is infinitely 
 curious and more or less informing. The other, 
 together with its curiosities and its informa- 
 tions, is infinitely pathetic. The first one is 
 from Hatton. 
 
 " MY SINGULAR GOOD LORD, Your excellent 
 wisdom, made perfect in the school of an 
 eternal God, will, in the rule of Christian 
 reason, I trust, subdue these kind and natural 
 affections which now oppress your own loving 
 heart. What God hath given you, that hath 
 He chosen and taken to Himself, whereat I 
 hope you will not grudge ; as well for that
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 303 
 
 it is the executor of His divine will, as also 
 for that He hath made him co - heir of His 
 heavenly Kingdom. When in the meditation 
 of your religious conceits it shall please you to 
 weigh the singular blessings and benefits which 
 God hath conferred on you in this world, I 
 nothing doubt you will be joyfully thankful; 
 and accept this cross as the sign of His holy 
 love, whereby you shall become happy and 
 blessed for ever. Unto the Gospel of Christ 
 His poor flock do find you a most faithful and 
 mighty supporter ; in the State and Govern- 
 ment of this Realm, a grave and faithful 
 Counsellor ; a pillar of our long - continued 
 peace ; a happy nourisher of our most happy 
 Commonwealth ; flourishing in the strip of 
 true Nobility abundantly in all virtuous actions 
 towards God and men ; all which are the high 
 gifts of the High God. Leave not yourself, 
 therefore, my dear Lord, for God's sake and 
 ours. Go on in your high and noble labours 
 in the comfort of Christ, which no man can 
 diminish nor take from you ; cherish yourself 
 while it shah 1 please God to let you dwell on 
 earth ; call joy to dwell in your heart, and 
 know for certain, that if the love of a child be 
 dear, which is now taken from you, the love 
 of God is ten thousand times more dear, which 
 you can never lack nor lose. Of men's hearts 
 you enjoy more than millions, which, on my 
 soul, do love you no less than children or 
 brethren. Leave sorrow, therefore, my good 
 Lord, and be glad in us which much rejoice 
 in you. I have told her Majesty of this 
 unfortunate and untimely cause which con- 
 strained your sudden journey to London, 
 whereof I assure your Lordship I find her
 
 304 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 very sorry, and wisheth your comfort, even 
 from the bottom of her heart. It pleased her 
 to tell me that she would write to you, and 
 send to visit you according to her wonted 
 goodness; and therefore she held no longer 
 speech with me of the matter. Thus remain- 
 ing humbly at your Lordship's commandment, 
 I forbear any longer to trouble you ; beseech- 
 ing God to comfort you in your lamentation 
 and grief, with the remembrance of His 
 gracious goodness. From the Court at Non- 
 such, the 21st of July 1584. Your good 
 Lordship's humbly to command. 
 
 " CHR. HATTON." 
 
 The Earl of Leicester to Sir Christopher Hatton 
 
 " MR VICE-CHAMBERLAIN, I do most heartily 
 thank you for your careful and most godly 
 advice at this time. Your good friendship never 
 wanteth. I must confess I have received many 
 afflictions within these few years, but not a 
 greater, next to her Majesty's displeasure : and, 
 if it pleased God, I would the sacrifice of this 
 poor innocent might satisfy ; I mean not towards 
 God (for all are sinful and most wretched in His 
 sight, and therefore He sent a most innocent 
 lamb to help us all that are faithful), but for 
 the world. The afflictions I have suffered may 
 satisfy such as are offended, at least appease 
 their long hard conceits : if not, yet I know 
 there is a blessing for such as suffer ; and so 
 is there for those that be merciful. Princes 
 (who feel not the heavy estate of the poor 
 afflicted that only are to receive relief from 
 themselves) seldom do pity according to the
 
 Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 305 
 
 true rules of charity, and therefore men fly to 
 the mighty God in time of distress for comfort ; 
 for we are sure, though He doth chastise, yet 
 He forsaketh not, neither will He see them un- 
 rewarded with the highest blessing. I beseech 
 the same God to grant me patience in all 
 these worldly things, and to forgive me the 
 negligences of my former time, that have not 
 been more careful to please Him, but have run 
 the race of the world. In the same sort I 
 commend you, and pray for His grace for you 
 as for myself; and, before all this world, to 
 preserve her Majesty for ever, whom on my 
 knees I most humbly thank for her gracious 
 visitation by Killigrew. She shall never comfort 
 a more true and faithful man to her, for I have 
 lived and so will die only hers. 23rd July 1584. 
 Your poor but assured friend, 
 
 " ROBT. LEICESTER." 
 
 In this letter one hears the echo of that 
 pride in humility that characterised the last 
 testament of Leicester's mother. Both had 
 " run the race of the world " ; both thought 
 themselves cured by affliction of all taste for 
 worldly things ; both held the faith of the 
 power to comfort of an earthly Sovereign. 
 Leicester alone seems to have compassed the 
 idea that when princes failed to pity, men might 
 "fly to the mighty God" for consolation. 
 
 And the story of the marriage negotiations 
 for Leicester's son had yet another sequel. 
 Quarrels were now frequent between the Earl 
 
 and Countess of Shrewsbury, and though 
 
 u
 
 306 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Leicester at Court urged Gilbert Talbot to 
 keep all knowledge of the disagreements from 
 the Queen's ears, writing : "I thinke rerely 
 she wolde never slepe quyettly after, as longe 
 as that Q. (of Scots) remayned w th them," 
 the anger of the noble pair did not subside. 
 To put herself in the right and Lord Shrews- 
 bury in the wrong, Bess, the redoubtable, 
 went to Court, and when the Queen enquired 
 how her prisoner did, replied : " Madam, she 
 cannot do ill while she is with my husband." 
 She followed up the implication of this speech 
 by more direct accusations of an improper 
 intimacy between Mary Stuart and her most 
 conscientious and impeccable jailor. A rigid 
 enquiry was instituted. In the end, Lady 
 Shrewsbury acknowledged her imputation false. 
 Nevertheless, Mary was transferred to a 
 sterner guardianship. Terrible was the Scottish 
 Queen's anger at the scandalous reports, and 
 more than passionate was her desire to revenge 
 herself upon the false Countess and, incidentally, 
 to stab the Queen of England with accusations 
 of follies in her as gross as any her "sister" 
 of Scotland had been guilty of. In the first 
 impulse of her not unnatural wrath, Mary 
 wrote to the French Ambassador in London 
 Mauvissiere : 
 
 " I entreat that you will more distinctly show 
 to Queen Elizabeth the treachery of my honour-
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 307 
 
 . able hostess, the Countess of Shrewsbury. I 
 would wish you to mention privately to the 
 Queen that nothing has alienated the Countess 
 from me but the vain hope she has conceived 
 of setting the crown of England on the head 
 of her little girl, Arabella ; and this by means 
 of marrying her to a son of the Earl of Leicester. 
 These children have been also educated in this 
 idea, and their portraits have been sent to each 
 other. But for the notion of raising one of her 
 descendants to the rank of Queen, she would 
 never have so turned away from me ; for she 
 was so entirely bound to me, and, regardless 
 of any other duty or regard, that if God him- 
 self had been her Queen she could not have 
 shown more devotion than to me." 
 
 And this letter was followed by that other 
 missive from Mary to Elizabeth which, found 
 among the papers at Hatfield, is supposed never 
 to have reached its destination oh, sagacious 
 Burghley ! and which, under show of revealing 
 to the Queen of England the duplicity and 
 the treachery of those high-placed ladies, the 
 Countesses of Lennox and Shrewsbury, makes 
 accusations of scandalous conduct against 
 Elizabeth herself. We need not repeat the 
 details of the accusations which refer to the 
 Queen's association with Leicester, with 
 Hatton, with Simier, and with Anjou, but 
 it should be noted that at the highest reach 
 of the imputations of Elizabeth's immorality, 
 Mary checks herself, to assure the Queen that
 
 308 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 the last verdict on her conduct of both Lady 
 Lennox and Lady Shrewsbury was that she 
 was not as other women. The pen of Mary 
 Stuart was dipped in gall. She was herself 
 under persecution. It could not be other- 
 wise. But, certainly, excessive credence need 
 not be given to the mockeries and virulences 
 of the lady of many marriages, who did not 
 hesitate, when spite urged her, to bring 
 against her own husband and the Queen to 
 whom she had been "bound," a disgraceful 
 accusation that she subsequently confessed 
 was wholly false.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 ONE of the several writers who have delivered 
 to themselves briefs for the prosecution of 
 Leicester as a common murderer and low 
 scoundrel, has urged as a satisfactory reason 
 for the acceptation of the preposterously 
 libellous statements contained in the tirade 
 "Leycester's Commonwealth," that, although 
 the book was widely circulated in his lifetime, 
 no friend of his came forward to refute its 
 accusations. This assertion is untrue. 
 
 Yet the circumstances that the book was 
 recognised in the days of its publication for 
 a Jesuit tract, that it was authoritatively 
 suppressed by Elizabeth's Government, and 
 denounced by Elizabeth herself, might have 
 been regarded as sufficient cause for Leicester's 
 friends to leave the libel unanswered. But 
 that was not the case. 
 
 In his "Discourse in Defence of the Earle 
 of Leycester," Sir Philip Sidney defended the 
 family honour of the Dudleys and his uncle's 
 personal fame. Both had been heavily assailed 
 
 309
 
 3io The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 by the author of "A Dialogue between a 
 Scholar, a Gentleman, and a Lawyer," more 
 commonly known as " Leycester's Common- 
 wealth," which Sidney described as "printed 
 1584 in Foreign Parts and transmitted by 
 the English Jesuits into this Nation." 
 
 This publication, which remains anonymous, 
 although attributed, and not without reason, 
 to Father Parsons, who was the Captain of the 
 Jesuit attack on the integrity of England begun 
 about the year 1580, professed to disclose the 
 hideous character and vile machinations of the 
 one who was the " Dominus foe Totum " of the 
 nation ; " whose Excellence is above all others 
 infinite, whose Authority is absolute, whose 
 Commandment is dreadful, whose Dislike is 
 dangerous, and whose Favour is Omnipotent, 
 and for his Will, though it be seldom Law, yet 
 always is his Power above Law." 
 
 The style of the supposed disclosure is well 
 shown in the following passage of the " Defence." 
 
 " If the Author had fained new Names, as 
 he doth new Matters, a Man might well have 
 thought his only Meaning had been to have 
 gyven a lyvely Picture of the uttermost Degree 
 of Railing." And Sidney further characterised 
 the " Dialogue " as " such a bundle of Railings, 
 as if it came from the Mouth of some half- 
 drunk Skold in a Tavern." 
 
 In regard to the charges of low blackguardism
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 311 
 
 and gross profligacy in his uncle, Sir Philip 
 seemed to think particular refutations super- 
 fluous, the accusations in the mass being 
 so horrible and wide of the truth as to 
 provoke only a general discredit : " Dissimula- 
 tion, Hipocrosi, Adultery, Falshood, Trecheri, 
 Poison, Rebellion, Treason, Cowardis, Atheism, 
 and what not ; and all still so upon the 
 Superlative ! " cried Sir Philip. How is one 
 to beat off from an honoured relative such an 
 extravagant array of charges ? And yet their 
 very extravagance, as well as the virulence with 
 which they were pressed, imply a compliment 
 to him against whom they were brought. " But 
 to the Earl himself, in the Eyes of any Men, 
 who with clear judgments can value Things, a 
 true and sound Honour grows out of these dis- 
 honourable Falsehoods." Lord Leicester, Sir 
 Philip conceived, " may justly say, as a worthy 
 Senator of Rome once in like case did, that 
 no man these twenty years hath borne a 
 hateful Hart to this estate, but that at the 
 same Tyme, he hath shewed his Enmity to this 
 Earl ; testefying it hereby that his Faith is 
 so linked to her Majestie's Service, that who 
 goes about to undermine the one, resolves with- 
 all to overthrow the other." And the doughty 
 Sidney, in possession of some of those terrible 
 secrets of conspiracy against the throne and 
 the life of Elizabeth which his father-in-law,
 
 312 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Sir Francis Walsingham, had such ability to 
 bring to light, did not hesitate to attribute 
 the design of the pamphlet to an association 
 of Catholic desperadoes with whom it "is 
 their Plott of late, by Name first to publish 
 something against the Earl of Lester, and 
 after, when Tyme served, against the Queen's 
 Majesty." This plot by " their own intercepted 
 Discourses, is made to manifest." 
 
 The contempt with which the abounding 
 libels on Leicester were regarded by those 
 closest to him in natural kin and political 
 fellowship, was well expressed in the penulti- 
 mate outburst of the " Defence." " But hard 
 it wear if every Goos Quill could any Waj 
 blott the Honour of an Earl of Lester, 
 written in the Hartes of so many Men 
 thorow Europe." And Sir Philip gave the 
 anonymous mud-thrower the lie in his throat, 
 and announced himself ready any time within 
 three months to meet and justify himself to 
 his uncle's traducer, face to face. 
 
 The "Defence" is valuable not only as evi- 
 dence of Leicester's power of inspiring devotion 
 in the chivalrous young England growing up 
 around him, but also as testimony to the 
 source whence the defamation of Leicester 
 sprang. 
 
 One of the exercises of Elizabeth's famous 
 visit to Oxford in 1564 had been a discourse
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 313 
 
 from a young Oxford graduate, who com- 
 plimented the Queen and her Favourite on 
 their mild disposition towards Religion. The 
 same orator had previously preached a funeral 
 sermon for Lady Robert Dudley, in which a 
 glowing eulogy of Oxford's Chancellor revealed 
 the hopes that were entertained of him by 
 "sound Catholics," who utterly condemned the 
 " new religion " of Queen and Council. In his 
 government of Oxford, the Earl of Leicester 
 belied those hopes. The flatteries of this Oxford 
 speechifier, at a moment when the Queen and 
 her Favourite yet believed themselves destined 
 to construct a middle way in religion, had 
 rung in their ears for many and many a day. 
 The sound of those eulogies, and of others 
 like them, entranced them in the idea that 
 liberty of opinion might coexist with servitude 
 to observances. They would have dreamed 
 their dream a good time longer, if it had not 
 been that these very Catholics, whose private 
 observances of their rites and ceremonies were 
 studiously ignored, and whose volunteered 
 services to the Court or State were cordially 
 received, joined themselves in insolent leagues 
 against the peace of England, surreptitiously 
 sought the overthrow of Protestantism, and 
 viciously designed the death of the Favourite 
 and of the Queen. 
 
 But when the infinite industry of Cecil and
 
 314 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 the deft handlings of Walsingham yielded at 
 last the sinister harvest of discovery of plot 
 upon plot against the religion, the government, 
 and the sovereignty of the country, Leicester 
 became convinced that only by the strenuous 
 side-path of a Puritan Protestantism could the 
 high-road of complete freedom from an alien 
 despotism be reached. When he acted on this 
 conviction by reforming the organisation of 
 Oxford University ; by supporting Archbishop 
 Grindal's appeal to the Queen against her 
 objections to the " prophesyings " the proto- 
 types of our Church Congresses though he 
 suggested the compromise, "the malapertness 
 of brainless men considered," of excluding lay- 
 men from the conferences ; and, above all, when 
 he came to side openly with William of Orange 
 and the oppressed Netherlander, the fury of the 
 Jesuits fell upon him. And Leicester, for all 
 the subtlety of his nature, was not the man 
 to be struck at and not to strike back. Yet 
 the freedom of his political antagonisms from 
 personal hatreds is evidenced by his treatment 
 of the eloquent flatterer of Oxford, turned Jesuit 
 and intriguer against the State. 
 
 Edmund Campian, though an ordained 
 deacon of the Church of England, left Oxford 
 in 1567, because he could not undergo an 
 examination by Leicester's commissioners for 
 imposing the oath of allegiance and the sub-
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 315 
 
 scription to the thirty-nine articles of religion, 
 without revealing the Romanism of his secret 
 faith. In 1580, he received in Rome his com- 
 mission to convert England without entering 
 into political matters, but, nevertheless, to tell 
 the Catholics of his native land that the Pope's 
 Bull against Elizabeth, releasing subjects from 
 their obedience to her, was to be enforced when 
 circumstances should permit. Under cover of 
 his spiritual office, he was to prepare the way 
 for the great invasion by Spanish, French, and 
 Scottish troops, designed for the restoration of 
 Roman Catholicism and for the setting up of 
 Mary in Elizabeth's place. 
 
 This traitor to his country and to his Queen, 
 was arrested near Oxford by one of Leicester's 
 agents for the detection of seminary priests 
 and others engaged, in disguise, upon the work 
 of undermining the English Constitution. He 
 was brought to the Tower, with a placard on 
 his head bearing the words, " Campian, the 
 seditious Jesuit." No individual responsibility 
 can be thrown on Leicester for the mental 
 torture of derision or for the material pains 
 of " Little Ease " to which Campian was sub- 
 jected. Such contumelies and pains were after 
 the custom, if not according to the law, of 
 the time in the treatment of political offenders. 
 Leicester's personal concern with the affair wa^ 
 his joining with the Queen in an endeavour
 
 316 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 to extricate Campian from the miserable 
 predicament into which his hotheadedness, to 
 say nothing of his ingratitude and treachery, 
 had led him. The Earl had him brought from 
 the Tower to the Palace, and there, in a private 
 room, Elizabeth and her Favourite questioned 
 the still unracked offender as to his inter- 
 pretation of the Bishop of Rome's Bull of 
 Excommunication. But the utmost loyalty 
 the two could wring from him was that he 
 must render to Her Majesty what was Her 
 Majesty's, and to God the things that were 
 God's. The Jesuit believed unquestioning 
 obedience to the Pope to be the supreme 
 appurtenance of God. Yet Leicester, acting 
 for and with his Queen, gave orders that the 
 misguided man should be kindly treated. It 
 was by Burghley's determination that Campian 
 at last went to the rack and to the gallows, 
 because he would not renounce the Pope. 
 And this Pope of Campian's allegiance was 
 none other than he who had sung a Te Deum 
 for the massacre of St Bartholomew's Day, and 
 who explicitly approved the intention of two 
 young English priests, who went to him for 
 sanction of their enterprise, to murder the 
 Queen of England. "As touching the taking 
 away of that impious Jezebel," said Gregory 
 XIII. of Elizabeth, " I would be loath you 
 should attempt anything unto your own
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 317 
 
 destruction, and we know not how our censure 
 on that point amongst her subjects which 
 profess themselves our children would be 
 taken ; but if you can wisely give such counsel 
 as may be without scandal to the party or to 
 us, know you we do not only approve the act, 
 but think t/ie doer, if he suffer death simply for 
 that, to be worthy of canonisation." 
 
 The hanging and quartering of Campian and 
 his kind as treasonable conspirators could but 
 provoke reprisals from the Jesuits, and from 
 all those persons whose fortunes were linked 
 with any of the numerous plans for the reduc- 
 tion of England from the rank of a sovereign 
 kingdom to that of a fief of the Papacy. 
 Libels of all kinds having the common purpose 
 of destroying the free principles and vilifying 
 the free persons of England's Commonwealth 
 of Protestants were poured into England, and 
 amongst them, more subvertive and more 
 vicious than them all, was " Leycester's 
 Commonwealth." In the majority of its 
 particulars it can be proved to be false. We 
 have no cause to assume that the minority 
 of its accusations were ever more verifiable. 
 Yet upon this outrageous document nearly all 
 extant lives and characters of Leicester have 
 been founded. The most odious of all the 
 delinquencies therein charged upon him is, 
 undoubtedly, that of murdering Amy Robsart.
 
 318 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 And to the commission of this crime facts do 
 not point. Next in hideousness are the accusa- 
 tions of poisoning, with the professional help 
 of Dr Julio, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, Lord 
 Sheffield, the Earl of Essex, the King of 
 Sweden, and many others supposed to have 
 crossed his path or thwarted his wishes. In 
 regard to Throckmorton, who died in Leicester's 
 house, he had become a staunch partisan and a 
 keen assistant of the Favourite, and of Throck- 
 morton's loss Leicester wrote to Walsingham at 
 the time in a strain of genuine regret. 
 
 Enquiry cannot now be made into some of 
 the accusations. Those investigated at the 
 time were proved to be false. Others, even 
 enemies of his, provided they were persons 
 of any judgment, believed, when they were 
 made, that they had been trumped up. Julio 
 probably aided Leicester in some more or less 
 questionable political proceedings ; but he was 
 physician to other members of the Court, con- 
 cerning whom no tradition of dark practices 
 exists, and it was inevitable in sixteenth- 
 century England that an Italian, cunning in 
 the use of drugs, should seem to the popular 
 mind made only for the uses of a Borgia. 
 
 Yet Leicester cannot be exculpated from all 
 guilt in respect of designs on human life. He 
 certainly suggested, if he did not attempt, 
 some political murders, and it was more by
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 319 
 
 good fortune than by good intention that they 
 did not take place. When he rode after 
 Queen Mary, in the hour of her accession, it 
 is doubtful if he personally contemplated any 
 harsher dealing than her capture, and her con- 
 duct to the Tower for detention. In regard 
 to Simier, his application of lynch-law cannot 
 be made to seem altogether abhorrent. As 
 to the Queen of Scots, Leicester originally 
 favoured her release. It was only after the 
 revelation of her conspiracies against his 
 Queen's life and his own that he was per- 
 suaded to the judgment that for the peace 
 of England and the safety of Elizabeth, 
 Mary must die. The reasons were political, 
 not personal, for his suggestion of a secret 
 execution. 
 
 When the libels of Jesuits and seminary 
 priests multiplied against him, he certainly 
 became more emphatic for the removal of 
 her who was the inspiration and the strength 
 of every assault on Elizabeth, or on Eliza- 
 beth's councillors, and in 1584 he was keenest 
 of all the Ministers for the formation of the 
 loyal and patriotic Association of nobility and 
 gentry, who bound themselves by mutual vows 
 to pursue unto death whosoever should plot 
 anything against Elizabeth. Mary was chief 
 of those who designed the Queen of England's 
 death. The Association was a necessity of
 
 320 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 public order. No one knew better than 
 Leicester how averse Elizabeth would be 
 from putting her graceful and decorative 
 signature to a warrant for the execution of 
 her cousin. It was dreadful to her to sentence 
 any one to death. The sin of Leicester was 
 the sin of Elizabeth. Neither of them could 
 be easily persuaded to strike a direct blow. 
 They could not meet great causes greatly. 
 But that the advices of Leicester concern- 
 ing Mary were prompted by a commonly 
 murderous or a personally vindictive intent 
 is not to be believed for a moment. Lust of 
 cruelty and gluttony of blood were not sins 
 for which either the Favourite or his Queen 
 had any predilection. It was rather the calcu- 
 lating faculty in Leicester that was responsible 
 for his remorseless designs upon the Scottish 
 Siren. He reckoned out the forces and 
 counterforces of Mary's passionate persistences, 
 and of Elizabeth's hesitations and tolerances ; 
 of the loyalty of Catholics to Rome, and of 
 the devotion of Protestants to England. It 
 was his genius to forestall events, and to 
 anticipate processes of law. 
 
 The Jesuit censure on him was that his Will 
 was seldom Law. It cannot be denied that 
 he often argued and acted as if his Power 
 were above Law, and this, although his 
 Queen rarely missed an opportunity of proving
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 321 
 
 to him what were the limits of his authority, 
 and what the extent of hers. 
 
 Yet so long as Leicester remained in any sort 
 the Queen's favourite, he possessed an influence 
 impossible to overthrow. In 1581, the Earl 
 of Oxford on whose counter-attractions Lord 
 Sussex had relied for the destruction of much 
 of Leicester's authority got into difficulties 
 through his drunken and horribly dissolute 
 habits, and was proceeded against by his wife, 
 a daughter of Lord Burghley. At the same 
 time a quarrel flared up between Sussex and 
 Leicester. The Queen ordered all three earls 
 under arrest. A letter from Burghley to Sir 
 Christopher Hatton, thanking him for his " good 
 and honourable dealing with her Majesty in 
 the case of my daughter of Oxford," com- 
 mented upon the collision of the two elder 
 peers. " I am sorry to hear of the disaster 
 fallen out yesterday betwixt two great Planets ; 
 but I hear they know their Jupiter, and will 
 obey Her Majesty, rather to content her than 
 to follow their own humours." 
 
 Whatever their motives for making up, the 
 antagonistic peers became, as on a former occa- 
 sion, outwardly reconciled, and were set free. 
 Oxford was detained to be "dealt with for 
 his wife " and " confronted with his accusers." 
 Sussex may have had some hope that the revela- 
 tions of his proteges articles of defence might do
 
 322 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 for the Favourite what his own attacks had never 
 succeeded in accomplishing. But Sussex had 
 never been blessed with real perspicuity, and 
 in his judgments of Leicester and Oxford, he 
 mistook both men. Oxford was a thoroughly 
 vicious person. Elizabeth and Hatton, even as 
 Lord and Lady Burghley and their unfortunate 
 daughter, recognised this fact. It was unavail- 
 ing for the destruction of the "baneful" 
 authority of Leicester, that Oxford accused 
 the Favourite of fortifying Kenilworth under 
 pretence of making fireworks for the Queen, 
 and of boasting of his greatness and influence 
 with Elizabeth, saying he was able to make the 
 proudest subject sweat that would oppose him. 
 If the Queen believed the yarn of Oxford's 
 spinning, she was perhaps not all displeased 
 that the noble of her own creation could make 
 any other of her proudest subjects "sweat." 
 The Earl of Sussex certainly must often have 
 perspired from the heat of his rage against 
 Leicester. But this quarrel of 1581 was the 
 last of many famous conflicts between the 
 " old " peer and the " new." Thomas Ratcliffe, 
 Earl of Sussex, died in 1583. 
 
 In the following year, the light of two other 
 " great planets " was eclipsed by the shadow of 
 mortality. The Due d'Anjou ended a career 
 of failure on the 31st of May. On 10th July 
 William the Silent, Prince of Orange, was
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 323 
 
 murdered. Four previous attempts had been 
 made upon the life of this broad - minded, 
 peace-loving, yet heroic deliverer of Holland. 
 The policy advocated of Pope Gregory XIII. 
 towards Elizabeth had succeeded in the case of 
 William of Orange. Philip of Spain was the 
 instigator of the deed. The Pope had assisted in 
 the crime by his excommunication of the great 
 patriot. The actual assassinator of William 
 was certainly as deserving of canonisation as 
 the possible murderer of Elizabeth. 
 
 And certainly the poisoned pistol-shots that 
 killed the hero set up a rancour in the heart of 
 the Queen. Elizabeth, at last, realised her own 
 and her country's danger. She knew now that 
 the plots against her life and Leicester's, and 
 the designs on the succession of her kingdom, 
 did not belong altogether to the region of ideas. 
 
 In 1585, Elizabeth consented consented after 
 her own procrastinating and hard - bargaining 
 fashion to send to the Low Countries, for the 
 defence of the liberty of the States, 4,000 foot 
 and 400 horse under the command of the most 
 distinguished of her nobles. 
 
 The expedition had perhaps been delayed 
 even longer than it was, had not the terrible 
 catastrophe of the loss of Antwerp befallen 
 the Hollanders. Alexander Farnese, Duke of 
 Parma, and the hosts of Spain, were in posses- 
 sion of this most important port and city,
 
 324 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 when the Earl of Leicester at last set sail 
 with a fleet of fifty ships. Among his retinue 
 were Lords Sheffield, Willoughby, and North, 
 Sir William Russell and Sir Robert Sidney. 
 Secretary Davison and Sir Philip Sidney as 
 special envoy and governor of the cautionary 
 town of Flushing respectively had preceded 
 him. 
 
 Some idea of the high intentions and mixed 
 feelings of the Favourite, and of the contra- 
 dictory policies of the Queen that assisted at 
 his send-off, may be gathered from some passages 
 of letters of Leicester written in the natural 
 style of outpouring of which he was a master. 
 In August 1585, a "shrewd wrench" of his 
 foot, caused by his horse falling, kept Leicester 
 inactive for a time in Warwickshire ; but his 
 mind was busy, and he wrote to Burghley: 
 
 " I perceive by your letters and Mr Secretary's 
 that her Majesty is now in good inclination 
 to help the Low Countries, and you both think 
 her Majesty will employ me. Surely, my lord, 
 for my own part, I am most ready to serve 
 her, specially in any service where I may set 
 my life in hazard for her safety. My only wish 
 is, not only for myself but for the whole, as 
 well those who go to serve as they that remain, 
 that her Majesty will take this matter (if she 
 will deal withal) even to the heart, as a cause 
 that doth concern both her life and the State. 
 For if her Majesty be not persuaded and fully 
 resolved that the cause is of other importance
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 325 
 
 than, as it were, to make a show and become 
 only a scarecrow, it were better never to enter 
 into it. And men abroad begin to doubt her 
 persuasion in this case, albeit every man doth 
 see the necessity thereof, as well as her 
 counsellors." 
 
 And when at last Elizabeth seemed to be 
 persuaded that the great enterprise against 
 Spain had higher uses than those of a " show " 
 and a "scarecrow," and Leicester was on the 
 point of sailing from Harwich, there was 
 despatched to Sir Francis Walsingham, from 
 the embarking general, a succession of letters 
 of which the following phrases are pregnant : 
 
 "I am sorry that her Majesty hath so hard 
 a conceit of me, that I should go about to 
 cozen her, as though I had got a fee simple 
 from her. . . ." [Leicester had mortgaged 
 some of his lands to the Queen for the 
 expenses of the fray he led.] " I thank God 
 I have a clear conscience for deceiving her, 
 and for money matters. I think I may 
 justly say I have been the only cause of 
 more gain to her coffers than all her chequer- 
 men have been. But so is the hap of some, 
 that all they do is nothing, and others that 
 do nothing, do all, and have all the thanks. 
 But I would this were all the grief I carry with 
 me ; but God is my comfort, and on Him I 
 cast all, for there is no surety in this world 
 beside. What hope of help can I have, finding 
 her Majesty so strait with myself as she is ? 
 I did trust that this cause being hers, and
 
 326 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 this Realm's if I could have gotten no money 
 of her merchants, she would not have refused 
 to have lent money on so easy prized land as 
 mine, to have been gainer and no loser by it. 
 Her Majesty, I see, will make trial of me how 
 I love her, and what will discourage me from 
 her service. But resolved am I that no worldly 
 respect shall draw me back from my faithful 
 discharge of my duty towards her, though she 
 shall show to hate me, as it goeth very near ; 
 for I find no love or favour at all. And I pray 
 you to remember that I have not had one penny 
 of her Majesty towards all these charges of 
 mine not one penny and by all truth I have 
 already laid out above five thousand pounds. . . . 
 Well, let all this go ; it is like I shall be the 
 last shall bear this, and some must suffer for 
 the people. Good Mr Secretary, let her 
 Majesty know this, for I deserve God-a-mercy, 
 at the least." 
 
 And further on the same day, the Earl wrote : 
 
 " I pray God open her eyes, that they may 
 behold her present estate indeed, and the 
 wonderful means that God doth offer unto her. 
 If she lose these opportunities, who can look 
 for other but dishonour and destruction? My 
 Lord Treasurer [Burghley] hath also written me 
 a most hearty and comfortable letter touching 
 this voyage, not only in showing the import- 
 ance of it, both for her Majesty's own safety 
 and the Realm's, but that the whole state of 
 religion doth depend thereon, and therefore 
 doth faithfully promise his whole and best 
 assistance for the supply of all wants. I was 
 not a little glad to receive such a letter from 
 him at this time."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE Leicester Correspondence, edited by John 
 Bruce, F.S.A., consists only of transcripts of 
 actual letters, written by and to Leicester 
 during the space of two years, with a few more 
 directly relating to his conduct of the Nether- 
 lands expedition. This correspondence in print 
 covers nearly five hundred octavo pages. The 
 analysis of Leicester's character and the record 
 of Leicester's actions in Motley's " History of 
 the United Netherlands " run also into some 
 five hundred pages, in all of which there is 
 not one superfluous word. It is difficult, there- 
 fore, to condense into the space proper to the 
 story of two years in the history of a lifetime, 
 all informations concerning the intentions, the 
 doings, and the achievements of Leicester in 
 the Low Countries. The exactions and the 
 trials of his command there, were a fierce test 
 of character. The attitude of his Queen did not 
 make it the easier for him to display nobility of 
 soul or to manifest patience and good temper. 
 His welcome to the Netherlands was auspicious. 
 He was hailed as a Messiah. In him an afflicted 
 
 327
 
 328 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 people saw their deliverer from a hated tyrant. 
 He arrived at Flushing, equipped in the arms 
 and accoutrements proper to his condition 
 as Lieutenant- General of the Forces of Her 
 Majesty, but arrayed also in all the vices and 
 the virtues, in all the talents, capacities, and 
 deficiencies, incident to his personality and past 
 career. 
 
 The need of the Low Countries at this climax 
 in the drama of their development, was for an 
 actor to play the Prince, who knew his part. 
 No one could have been better up in his " lines " 
 and " business " than Leicester. Later on, when 
 his absence from the Netherlands was greatly 
 embarrassing the Government, a Holland patriot 
 declared that some head was necessary for the 
 States, if it were only an onion-head. But at 
 the time of Leicester's going to them, the Dutch 
 had high hopes of the sagacity, benevolence, 
 and authority of the " Prince " they welcomed 
 with a joy expressed vociferously and in figure. 
 Never were such pageants, masques, decorations, 
 fireworks and devices poetical, mythological and 
 scriptural 1 A master himself in the arrange- 
 ment of mummeries, the host of Kenilworth 
 found symbolic ingenuities of the kind he 
 himself had often perpetrated, outdone by his 
 hosts of Flushing, Utrecht, the Hague, Leyden, 
 and Amsterdam. 
 
 For a time entertainers and entertained gave
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 329 
 
 themselves up to banquets, processions, and 
 ceremonials, civil, ecclesiastical and regal. But 
 Leicester was no "onion-head," and neither in 
 Holland, nor elsewhere, could he vegetate. 
 
 Things required doing. Leicester set about 
 doing them. The way he did them displayed 
 his powers and betrayed his weaknesses. There 
 was no lack of energy and industry in his 
 methods. The sin of sloth was not among 
 his failings. His application to business was 
 incessant. And, though his generalship was 
 far from equalling that of his opponent in the 
 field, Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, he 
 was keen to fight, and not one of the young 
 "gallants of England," who were his lieu- 
 tenants in the campaign, displayed more dash 
 and courage than he. Yet among these 
 gallants were his stepson, the Earl of Essex, 
 and his nephew Sir Philip Sidney. 
 
 No Prince of blood Royal ever rode statelier 
 at the head of his troops. No genius among 
 military commanders ever strove more assidu- 
 ously to outwit the enemy by tactics, nor 
 concerned himself more devotedly for the 
 victualling, clothing, pay, and general fitness 
 of his soldiers. By day or by night, as need 
 required, he went afoot among his men, 
 climbed in and out of trenches, and super- 
 intended the making of boat-bridges and other 
 means of communication and assault. And no
 
 33 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Minister of State or ruler of a kingdom ever 
 spent more time over negotiations, conferences, 
 despatches, public processions, and receptions 
 of State. It is true that in generalship, as 
 in Government, he made blunders, and chose 
 paths of risk when he might have walked 
 in ways of safety. But that was because a 
 man of many talents, industries, and designs, 
 cannot attain to infallibility in any given 
 direction. 
 
 Yet failure is written large across the history 
 of Leicester's command in the Low Countries, 
 and little credit or honour to England was 
 the outcome of the expedition. The discredit 
 and the dishonour, however, were not wholly 
 brought about by the Earl. An impartial 
 and rigorous examination of the events of 
 the campaign, and of the conditions of the 
 occupation, lead to the view that Elizabeth at 
 Greenwich and at Windsor, was responsible 
 for more of the disaster and failure than 
 Leicester at the Hague or at Grave, Venloo, 
 or Zutphen. 
 
 In the laboratory of Time, no harder or more 
 exhaustive test of the individual characters of 
 Elizabeth and of Leicester, and of the nature 
 of their relations to one another, could have 
 been applied than that of this war in the 
 Netherlands into which Elizabeth, against her 
 will, and Leicester, with eager response, were
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 331 
 
 drawn. Here was the call to Elizabeth to 
 spend men and money in defence of righteous- 
 ness, honour, freedom, and what England's 
 careful housewife valued more safety. She 
 gave the flower of her generals and of her sea- 
 captains, of the youth and of the chivalry of 
 England ; she sent even that " creature of her 
 own," described by her to the States as a 
 "man of such quality as all the world knows, 
 and one whom I love as if he were my own 
 brother," to oppose the power of Spain. But 
 having made this armed demonstration of her 
 right and her might, she took care, by with- 
 holding supplies, and by entering into under- 
 hand negotiations with the enemy, to prevent 
 her army from accomplishing the purpose for 
 which it was sent. And Leicester, who was 
 always urging, and urging justly, that the way 
 to peace was through a "good, sharp war," 
 and who was able, as none other, to represent 
 the majesty of Elizabeth and the virility 
 of England, while possessing an undeniable 
 courage and some capacity for the conduct 
 of a campaign, made at the outset of his 
 enterprise a grave and irremediable mistake. 
 It was a mistake Elizabeth's wrath over his 
 countenancing the assumption by the Due d? 
 Anjou of a sovereignty over the States, should 
 have taught him not to make. But Leicester 
 was Leicester, even as Elizabeth was Elizabeth.
 
 332 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 It was inevitable that Robert Dudley should 
 dream of being a king. 
 
 Leicester's " Instructions " from his Queen 
 on his going to the Low Countries contained 
 the order 
 
 "To let the States understand, that, whereby 
 their commissioners they made offer unto her 
 Majesty, first, of the sovereignty of those 
 countries, which for sundry respects she did 
 not accept, secondly, unto her protection, offer- 
 ing to be absolutely governed by such as her 
 Majesty would appoint and send over to be 
 her lieutenant. That her Majesty, although 
 she would not take so much upon her as to 
 command them in such absolute sort, yet, 
 unless they should show themselves forward to 
 use the advice of her Majesty to be delivered 
 unto them by her lieutenant, to work amongst 
 them a fair unity and concurrence for their 
 one defence in liberal taxations and good 
 husbanding of their contributions, for the same 
 speedy obtaining of a place, her Majesty would 
 think her favours unworthily bestowed upon 
 them." 
 
 This rather indefinite instruction, Elizabeth 
 afterwards construed into an emphatic prohibi- 
 tion of Leicester consenting to be invested with 
 any further authority than that he wielded as 
 the Lieutenant- General of the English troops. 
 Yet she had in it enjoined the Hollanders to 
 "use the advice" of her lieutenant, who was 
 to work "for their one defence in liberal taxa- 
 tions and good husbanding."
 
 ^ELISABETH. D.G. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth as " aiding friend " of the 
 Netherlands.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 333 
 
 Taking into consideration these " Instruc- 
 tions" alone, it is not surprising that Her 
 Majesty's Lieutenant- General, when he entered 
 upon his duties, acceded to the pressing demand 
 of the States to take the name and place of 
 Governor- General of all their forces and soldiers, 
 with the disposition of their whole revenues 
 and taxes, the appointment of all officials, and 
 the power of summoning the States-General 
 of the United Provinces of Gelderland, Zut- 
 phen, Flanders, Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, and 
 Friesland. There was a real need for the 
 centralisation of the executive power of the 
 numerous States, and for the establishment of 
 a single control over all forces, civil, religious, 
 military, and financial, English, Flemish, and 
 Dutch, that were arrayed against Spain. 
 
 The carrying out of Elizabeth's ideal of the 
 place and power of Leicester in the Netherlands 
 was bound to render his position anomalous 
 and inoperative. She nominated him only 
 Commander-in-Chief of her army. Leicester's 
 objection that " for him to be merely commander 
 over five thousand English troops, when an abler 
 soldier than himself, Sir John Norris, was at 
 their head, was hardly worthy Her Majesty's 
 service or himself," was a sensible objection. 
 The dual, even quadruple, office of general and 
 councillor for her, and general and councillor 
 for the Provinces, was impossible to exercise
 
 334 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 without some further authority than the 
 Queen's commission. And the Favourite main- 
 tained that Elizabeth had privately given him to 
 understand that she would approve his accept- 
 ance of the post of Governor-General, provided 
 the proposition of it came from the States, and 
 not from her. 
 
 It was so much the custom of Elizabeth to 
 advise privately what she not only did not urge, 
 but even absolutely forbade officially, that it is 
 quite believable that the Earl may have wrung 
 from her, at an interview, an assent to the idea 
 of his assuming in the Provinces an office more 
 generally authoritative than that of Captain- 
 General of a small body of auxiliary troops. 
 But though persuaded against herself before 
 the event by the honey-tongued Earl, it was 
 impossible, when the news of his installation as 
 " Governor-General of the United States of the 
 Netherlands " reached her, for her to approve 
 his appointment. She had already receded 
 from the position she had been hardly brought 
 to, of denouncing "the cruelty and tyranny 
 of the Spaniards," of proclaiming the ancient 
 friendship of England and the Netherlands, 
 and of declaring her intention to suppress the 
 Spanish plot for the invasion of England. And 
 the Earl's acceptance of a more absolute govern- 
 ment than had been agreed on between herself 
 and the commissioners of the States, was made
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 335 
 
 the more an abomination, because the news of 
 it was communicated to her by other pens than 
 his own. 
 
 "Your honour's forbearing to write to her 
 Majesty all this while, notwithstanding so many 
 messengers as cometh from thence, doth greatly 
 offend her, more and more, and in very truth 
 maketh all your friends here at their wits' end, 
 what to answer or say in your behalf," 
 
 wrote his agent, Thomas Dudley, to him. 
 
 The failure of Leicester at this momentous 
 crisis to fling himself upon the mercy and the 
 tenderness of the woman whose mercy and 
 whose tenderness, hard to be evoked, his arts 
 could rouse to pardon many insolences, con- 
 stitutes a problem of his history difficult to 
 solve. Yet when one considers the effect upon 
 his bearing and conversation of the tremendous 
 demonstrations of joy excited by the institution 
 of his rule in the Provinces, a clue to the 
 enigma of this omission of his is suggested. 
 
 Right up to this stage of his career, and 
 throughout all the season of his influence, 
 power, and grandeur, Leicester had never for 
 one moment been allowed to forget that he 
 was a creature of another a " raised up " and 
 " extraordinarily favoured " creature, certainly, 
 nevertheless, a dependent minion, so completely 
 behoven for position, sustenance, lands, wealth, 
 liberty, and life, to his Queen, that, in sorrow 
 or adversity, he had no thought to look even
 
 336 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 to his God for succour, until he was quite 
 convinced that no help would be forthcoming 
 from Elizabeth. And all the while that he 
 had played the part of Favourite with some 
 relish since Elizabeth Tudor was the Queen 
 he flattered, and with some cunning, for he 
 served also personal ends he had been 
 conscious of powers in himself beyond those 
 of a parasite. In youth, he had selected as 
 his device a sprig of oak. In manhood, the 
 crawling, climbing ivy had been a fitter symbol 
 had he not chosen the emblem of the "eyes" 
 of Elizabeth. Yet he aspired to be an oak. 
 " Until the twig becomes the tree," was the 
 motto of the son of William the Silent 
 young Maurice of Nassau who, during the 
 period of his upgrowth, was serving Leicester 
 in Holland. Leicester's sapling days were far 
 behind him. Not the sprig, but the spreading 
 tree was the device of his present choice. He 
 thought the marshlands of the Provinces his 
 appointed rooting soil. Planted there, not 
 only of Elizabeth's disposition, but by the 
 invitation of a free people for it was always 
 the conceit of Leicester to fancy himself 
 Governor by acclamation of the populace, 
 rather than by appointment of the constituted 
 States Leicester trusted that the very inde- 
 pendence of his authority would commend it 
 to Elizabeth's grace.
 
 Leicester in the Netherlands.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 337 
 
 Removed from her corrective society, and 
 relieved from her disciplinary conversation, 
 Leicester developed an "exaggerated Ego." 
 His pride and self-esteem stopped short only 
 of the point of insanity. But the orations of 
 the crowds, the compliments of the city fathers, 
 and the deferences of the States, sufficiently 
 turned his head for him to declare, in the 
 course of a conversation at Delft, that the 
 harsh punishments meted out to the Lady 
 Jane, to Lord Guilford Dudley, and to his 
 father, had unjustly deprived his family of their 
 lawful inheritance the crown of England! 
 
 The success of his appearance among the 
 Netherlanders brought about a bouleversement 
 of his ordinary estimates and understandings. 
 His exaltation of mind over his attainment 
 of a practical sovereignty, lasted sufficiently 
 long for him to cheat himself with a vision of 
 Elizabeth on her knees before him worshipping 
 that wonderful thing, a Governor - General 
 created by a power extraneous to her own. 
 
 But the Queen of England threw herself 
 into a very different attitude from an adoring 
 one when the portentous news from the Hague 
 reached her. Her oaths and vituperations 
 were frequent, choice, and most embarrassing 
 to listen to. Her fury was increased by the 
 information that the hated Lettice was about 
 to join her husband with a train of servants, 
 
 Y
 
 338 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 carriages, side - saddles, and other impedimenta 
 of a travelling Household of State. "She 
 would have no more courts under her obeis- 
 ance but her own," was the Queen's avowed 
 determination. Lady Leicester had already 
 provoked the Queen's ire by proceeding 
 through the city of London in a coach drawn 
 by four milk-white steeds, and attracting all 
 the attention that belongs to a Royal cortege. 
 The Ministers and favourites about Elizabeth 
 who desired no impediment to the enterprise 
 against Spain, as well as members of Leicester's 
 household anxious to ward off from his 
 Countess the anger of the Queen, tried with 
 many representations and assurances to " pacify 
 her stomach." But their efforts were unavail- 
 ing. The Queen appointed Sir Thomas 
 Heneage her Special Commissioner to inform 
 the States that she " held it strange " that 
 "this creature of her own" should have been 
 pressed by them to " commit so notorious a 
 contempt" as to accept a government more 
 absolute than she had agreed to, "as though 
 her long experience in government had not 
 taught her to discover what was fit to do in 
 matters of state." In consideration of the said 
 contempt, the Earl was to be commanded to 
 make a public and open resignation of the 
 government in the place where he had accepted 
 the same.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 339 
 
 The Royal wrath boiled over on to pages of 
 instructions for Heneage, in every line of which 
 she scouted the "contempt" with which she 
 had been treated, and on to a letter to the 
 States, in which she announced that she had 
 decided to recall the Earl very soon. But the 
 last bubblings of her rage were the fiercest, and 
 these were contained in a missive it were 
 perhaps better called a missile to Leicester 
 himself. 
 
 " To my Lord of Leicester, from the Queen, 
 by Sir Thomas Heneage." 
 
 " How contemptuously we conceive ourselves 
 to have been used by you, you shall by this 
 bearer understand, whom we have expressly 
 sent unto you to charge you withal. We could 
 never have imagined, had we not seen it fall out 
 in experience, that a man raised up by ourself, 
 and extraordinarily favoured by us above any 
 other subject of this land, would have, in so 
 contemptible a sort, broken our commandment 
 in a cause that so greatly toucheth us in honour ; 
 whereof, although you have shewed yourself to 
 make but little account, in most undutiful a 
 sort, you may not therefore think that we have 
 so little care of the reparation thereof as we 
 mind to pass so great a wrong in silence un- 
 redressed. And therefore our express pleasure 
 and commandment is, that all delays and 
 excuses laid apart you do presently, upon the 
 duty of your allegiance, obey and fulfil what- 
 soever the bearer hereof shall direct you to do 
 in our name. Whereof fail not, as you will 
 answer the contrary at your uttermost peril."
 
 340 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Before Heneage could depart with these 
 letters, there arrived a messenger from Leicester 
 to the Queen in the person of Davison, who, 
 with Sir Philip Sidney, had been the chief 
 adviser of the Earl in the matter of his accept- 
 ance of the supreme authority. This con- 
 scientious and painstaking man of state, though 
 greeted with terrifying accounts of the Queen's 
 temper, lost no time in representing to Elizabeth 
 how strong were the causes that had led her 
 Favourite to the step he had taken. Davison 
 pleaded that the " corruption, partiality, and 
 confusion" of the States' Government had 
 made it necessary that "some one person of 
 wisdom and authority should take the helm." 
 Had Leicester refused, there was no one else. 
 Besides, " Her Majesty's found favour," in which 
 the States "reposed hope," would have been 
 "utterly despaired of by his refusal." 
 
 But all Davison's arguments could not alter 
 the burden of her frenzied complaint: "How 
 dared he come to such a decision without at 
 least imparting it to me?" She would not 
 break the seal, in Davison's presence, of a letter 
 from the Earl he had brought with him. If 
 she read the communication in private, its 
 official tone failed to touch her heart. 
 
 Leicester's second ambassador, Sir Thomas 
 Shirley, had little more success. He urged 
 " the necessity of the case was imminent," and
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 341 
 
 he besought Her Majesty to remember that 
 to the King of Spain "the government of his 
 lordship is no greater matter than if he were 
 your Lieutenant- General there ; but the voyage 
 of Sir Francis Drake is of much greater offence 
 than all." 
 
 The trim little fleet, under the command of 
 the famous corsair, was indeed regarded by 
 Spain as a greater menace of her wealth and 
 her dignity than the more unwieldy expedition 
 of Leicester in the Low Countries. The reply 
 of Elizabeth was characteristic. " I can very 
 well answer for Sir Francis. Moreover, if need 
 be, the gentleman careth not if I should dis- 
 avow him." 
 
 The Queen had subscribed a large share of 
 the cost of Drake's enterprise, but her contri- 
 bution was agreed to be private, and Drake 
 and his captains had laid out much money 
 of their own. If the expedition should be 
 a success the might of Spain considerably 
 infringed and much treasure brought from the 
 Indies England (or Elizabeth) might own the 
 success a national one. But if trouble ensued 
 therefrom, and Spain should talk of retaliation, 
 then England (or Elizabeth) would disown 
 Drake for an impudent pirate. The adventurer 
 was aware of the nature of his commission. 
 
 The response of Sir Thomas Shirley to the 
 Queen's significant utterance was apt and
 
 34 2 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 instant : " Even so standeth my Lord, if your 
 disavowing of him may also stand with your 
 Highness 's favour towards him." 
 
 In this reply we have a suggestion of another 
 explanation of Leicester's omission to write 
 with his own hand, or to send a token to his 
 Queen at the moment of his venturing to 
 exceed her written instructions, and to follow 
 a course of which so he maintained he had 
 had her approval by word of mouth. He may 
 have purposely refrained from the direct com- 
 munication in order to leave her free to disavow 
 his action, and to state, without risk of contra- 
 diction, that he had "most contemptuously" 
 neglected to acquaint her with his step. 
 
 However that may be, Elizabeth was now 
 caught in a trap of her own setting. She had 
 for so long been in the habit of waiting the 
 issue of events before taking action, and of 
 coquetting with every side of a question and 
 all possible developments of a case before 
 making cause with any one, that Leicester, 
 who knew all her moods and all the many 
 variabilities of her opinion, may have felt 
 quite assured that odds were even as to her 
 ultimate approval of any step he might take. 
 She had undoubtedly considered the idea of 
 the States conferring on him a greater authority 
 than she equipped him with, and since Leicester 
 took the course he did, we may believe that
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 343 
 
 she at first considered the idea with no special 
 disfavour. It was perhaps no great disloyalty for 
 him to think that some of the glory and greatness 
 he had so lavishly helped to pay for, and which 
 he desired to appropriate to his native land 
 for ever, he might enjoy himself for a time ; 
 especially did he seem to be entitled to an 
 office he meant to use to the best of his ability 
 for the suppression of the Spanish and Papal 
 plots that were now aimed more directly than 
 ever at the invasion of England, at his own 
 and at Elizabeth's assassination, and at the 
 placing of Mary Stuart (married, perhaps, to 
 the Duke of Parma) on the throne of England. 
 But Elizabeth was again blinding her eyes 
 to the dangers that threatened, and working 
 more actively than when Leicester had left 
 her, to effect a peace that would restore the 
 Provinces to Spanish dominion, with or without 
 certain safeguards of their religious liberties, 
 but decidedly with compensation to Elizabeth 
 for the expense she had been at in assisting the 
 States to rebel against their head ! Even in the 
 age so justly called Elizabethan, only Elizabeth 
 could have imagined a peace so monstrous. 
 But the defiance of Leicester's attitude was the 
 click of the lock to the trap her own diplomacies 
 had made. And her rage continued. Yet not 
 all of the fury was for thwarted policies. Sir 
 Thomas Shirley, at the conclusion of a long
 
 344 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 and succinct argument with the Queen, made 
 bold to suggest that other causes than the 
 public one fed her anger. 
 
 "His Lordship's giving up of the govern- 
 ment," Sir Thomas pleaded, "may leave them 
 [the Netherlanders] altogether without govern- 
 ment, and in worse case than they were ever 
 in before. For now the authority of the States 
 is dissolved, and his Lordship's government is 
 the only thing that holdeth them together. I 
 do beseech your Highness, then, to consider 
 well of it, and if there be any private cause 
 for which you take grief against his Lordship, 
 nevertheless to have regard unto the public 
 cause, and to have a care of your own safety, 
 which, in many wise men's opinions, standeth 
 much upon the good maintenance and uphold- 
 ing of this matter." 
 
 " I believe nothing of what you say concern- 
 ing the dissolving of the States," said the Queen 
 curtly. What a woman she was ! "I know 
 well enough that the States do remain states 
 still. I mean not to do harm to the cause, 
 but only to reform that which his Lordship 
 hath done beyond his warrant from me." 
 
 Shirley made one more appeal to the woman 
 in her. On the following day, he told the 
 Queen the Earl was " again attacked by the 
 disease of which Dr Goodrowse did once cure 
 him," and he asked Her Majesty to give the
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 345 
 
 said Goodrowse leave to go to the Netherlands 
 to attend on his Lordship. "Certainly with 
 all my heart, with all my heart he shall have 
 him," said the Queen, "and sorry I am that 
 his Lordship hath that need of him." 
 
 But when Shirley tried to press his advantage 
 with " Your Highness is a very gracious prince, 
 who are pleased not to suffer his Lordship to 
 perish in health, though otherwise you remain 
 deeply offended with him," Elizabeth replied 
 sharply : " You know my mind. I may not 
 endure that my man should alter my com- 
 mission and the authority that I gave him 
 upon his own fancies and without me." 
 
 Sir Thomas Shirley sent to Leicester a full 
 account of his interviews with the Queen, 
 making this comment : " Your Lordship now 
 sees things just as they stand. Your Lordship 
 is exceeding wise. You know the Queen and 
 her nature best of any man." 
 
 Who should have known them better ? Yet, 
 in the opinion of his best friends at Court, 
 Leicester had behaved as if he had never made 
 any study of her character. We know that 
 this was not the case. Yet he miscalculated 
 the effect of his personal silence. The Queen 
 neither disavowed his enterprise while favour- 
 ing him, nor adopted his policy as her own. 
 Before the arrival of Sir Thomas Heneage 
 in the Netherlands, Leicester had noted that
 
 346 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 "the Prince of Parma feels himself in great 
 jollity that her Majesty doth rather mislike 
 than allow of our doings here, which, if it 
 be true, let her be sure her own sweet self 
 shall first smart." And a few days later, Lord 
 Warwick in England wrote to his brother: 
 
 " Well, our mistress's extreme rage doth 
 increase rather than diminish, and she giveth 
 out great threatening words against you. 
 Therefore make the best assurance you can 
 for yourself, and trust not her oath, for that 
 her malice is great and unquenchable is the 
 wisest of their opinions here, and as for other 
 friendships, as far as I can learn, it is as 
 doubtful as the other. Wherefore, my good 
 brother, repose your whole trust in God, and 
 He will defend you in despite of all your 
 enemies. And let this be a great comfort 
 to you, and so it is likewise to myself and 
 all your assured friends, and that is, that you 
 were never so honoured and loved in your life 
 amongst all good people as you are at this 
 day, only for dealing so nobly and wisely in 
 this action, as you have done ; so that what- 
 soever cometh of it, you have done your part. 
 1 praise God from my heart for it. Once again 
 have great care for yourself, (I mean for your 
 safety), and if she will needs revoke you to 
 the overthrowing of the cause, if I were as 
 you, if I could not be assured there, (i.e. in 
 the Provinces), I would go to the farthest part 
 of Christendom, rather than ever come into 
 England again. Take heed whom you trust, 
 for that you have some false boys about you" 
 
 This letter, besides containing a direct incite- 
 ment to Leicester to hold to the control of
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 347 
 
 the Low Countries, no matter what political 
 friendships Elizabeth might enter into, reflects 
 very truly the opinion of "all good people" 
 the Protestants and Patriots of England, to 
 which party the Earl of Warwick was staunch 
 on Leicester's dealings in the Low Countries. 
 And truly the intention of Leicester's enter- 
 prise was admirable. Fearlessly for, besides 
 the risks of battle, the pistol that had slain 
 William of Orange was pointed at the 
 Governor - General of the Low Countries 
 wherever he went Leicester made himself a 
 target to divert attacks on England. Liberally 
 he poured out money, fittingly to represent 
 the majesty of his Queen. Laboriously he 
 worked to make his hold upon the Govern- 
 ment of the Provinces firm for his native 
 country, and secure against Spain. 
 
 The following account of himself to Lord 
 Burghley is confirmative of the sincerity and 
 nobility of his intentions. 
 
 " I know not how her Majesty doth mean 
 to dispose of me. It hath grieved me more 
 than I can express, that for faithful and good 
 service she should so deeply conceive against 
 me. God knows with what mind I have 
 served her Highness, and perhaps some others 
 might have failed. Yet she is neither tied one 
 jot by covenant or promise by me in any way, 
 nor at one groat the more charges, but myself 
 two or three thousand pounds sterling more 
 than now is like to be well spent. I will
 
 348 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 desire no partial speech in my favour. If my 
 doings be ill for her Majesty and the Realm, let 
 me feel the smart of it. The cause is now well 
 forward ; let not her Majesty suffer it to quail." 
 
 But for too long had Leicester crept round 
 about, and clung like ivy to the throne from 
 which upsprang the oak-like form of Elizabeth 
 Tudor, for him to stand aloof now, a sturdy, 
 independent tree. One pities him in that 
 when he had the mind to play the man, the 
 habits, the associations, and the practices of 
 his past life rose up and mastered him. The 
 lightning of Elizabeth's jealous wrath blasted 
 the rearing crest of the spreading oak beside 
 her. She could not be propitiated by reason- 
 ing, and no greatness in States or men could 
 overawe her. 
 
 With dignity Leicester bowed to the will 
 of the Queen : " I speak from my soul for her 
 Majesty's service. I am for myself upon an 
 hour's warning to obey her good pleasure," was 
 the conclusion of his letter to Burghley. It 
 was not in him to do as his brother Warwick 
 had advised, and, since he could not be assured 
 in his governorship of the Netherlands, "go to 
 the farthest part of Christendom rather than 
 ever come into England again." To the feet 
 of Elizabeth, the woman, he crawled at last 
 with a letter too tender and too intimate to 
 survive either in draft or in original among the 
 State-papers of a nation,
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 BUT if there never has been, never will be 
 found the letter that made peace again between 
 Elizabeth and her favourite, we have the record 
 of Lord Burghley of its effect upon her. 
 
 " She read your letter, and, in very truth, I 
 found her princely heart touched with favour- 
 able interpretation of your actions ; affirming 
 them to be only offensive to her in that she 
 was not made privy to them ; not now misliking 
 that you had authority." 
 
 And Elizabeth signalised the return of " Sweet 
 Robin " to her favour by writing to him a letter 
 wherein her flattered womanhood struggled hard 
 for expression with the only half-mollified anger 
 of the Queen. 
 
 " It is always thought," wrote Elizabeth, " in 
 the opinion of the world, a hard bargain when 
 both parties are losers, and so doth fall out in 
 the case between us two. You, as we hear, 
 are greatly grieved in respect of the great dis- 
 pleasure you find we have conceived against 
 you. We are no less grieved that a subject 
 of ours, of that quality that you are, a creature 
 of our own, and one that hath always received 
 
 349
 
 350 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 an extraordinary portion of our favour above 
 all our subjects, even from the beginning of 
 our reign, should deal so carelessly, not to say 
 contemptuously, as to give the world just cause 
 to think that we are had in contempt by him 
 that ought most to respect and reverence us, 
 which, we do assure you, hath wrought as great 
 grief in us as any one thing that ever happened 
 unto us. 
 
 " We are persuaded that you, that have so 
 long known us, cannot think that ever we could 
 have been drawn to have taken so hard a course 
 therein had we not been provoked by an extra- 
 ordinary cause. But for that your grieved and 
 wounded mind hath more need of comfort than 
 reproof, who, we are persuaded, though the act 
 of contempt can no ways be excused, had no 
 other meaning and intent than to advance our 
 service, we think meet to forbear to dwell upon 
 a matter wherein we ourselves do find so little 
 comfort, assuring you that whosoever professeth 
 to love you best taketh not more comfort of 
 your well-doing, or discomfort of your evil- 
 doing, than ourself." 
 
 ^ 
 
 This expression of a qualified affection, formed 
 the preamble to instructions to the Earl to 
 retain the authority of absolute governor while 
 if the arrangement could be made dispens- 
 ing with the title. And the variability of the 
 womanly moods of the great Elizabeth was 
 responsible for the Queen very shortly picking 
 a quarrel with the States, because on the 
 second thoughts excited by the Queen's anger 
 over their first performance they were not
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 351 
 
 disposed to allow Leicester absolutely to play 
 the autocrat. 
 
 The character of the Favourite's letter of 
 rejoinder to Her Majesty's epistle, undoubtedly 
 indicates the nature of the communication that 
 made the peace between them. 
 
 "Most dear and gracious lady," he wrote on 
 the 2nd of June, " my care and service here do 
 breed me nothing but grief and unhappiness. I 
 have never had your Majesty's good favour since 
 I came into this charge a matter that from my 
 first beholding your eyes hath been most dear 
 unto me above all earthly treasures. Never 
 shall I love that place or like that soil which 
 shall cause the lack of it. Most gracious Lady, 
 consider my long, true and faithful heart toward 
 you. Let not this unfortunate place here 
 bereave me of that which, above ah 1 the world, 
 I esteem there, which is your favour and your 
 presence. I see my service is not acceptable, 
 but rather more and more disliketh you. Here 
 I can do your Majesty no service ; there I can 
 do you some, at the least rub your horse's heels 
 a service which shaU be much more welcome 
 to me than this, with all that these men may 
 give me." 
 
 One cannot but applaud the cleverness of the 
 contemptuous "these men," whose commission 
 to defend the liberties of two nations was but a 
 poor thing in comparison to rubbing the heels 
 of a jennet of Elizabeth's riding. And the 
 conclusion of Leicester's letter is still more
 
 352 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 strongly in the vein that was the only offering 
 to Elizabeth's benignity. 
 
 " 1 do, humbly and from my heart, prostrate 
 at your feet, beg this grace at your sacred hands, 
 that you will be pleased to let me return to my 
 home-service, with your favour, let the revoca- 
 tion be used in what sort shall please and like 
 you. But if ever spark of favour was in your 
 Majesty toward your old servant, let me obtain 
 this my humble suit ; protesting before the 
 Majesty of all Majesties, that there was no 
 cause under Heaven but his and yours, even 
 for your own special and particular cause, I 
 say, could have made me take this absent 
 journey from you in hand. If your Majesty 
 shall refuse me this, I shall think all grace 
 clean gone from me, and I know my days will 
 not be long." 
 
 And on June 6th Leicester still burned 
 fires of propitiation before the altar of his 
 divinity. 
 
 "But that my fear is such, most dear and 
 gracious Lady, as my unfortunate destiny will 
 hardly permit, whilst I remain here, any good 
 acceptation of so simple a service as mine, I 
 should greatly rejoice and comfort myself with 
 the hope of your Majesty's most prayed-for 
 favour. But of late, being by your own sacred 
 hand lifted even up into Heaven with joy of 
 your favour, I was bye and bye, without any 
 new desert or offence at all, cast down and 
 down again into the depth of all grief. God 
 doth know, my dear and dread Sovereign, that 
 after I first received your resolute pleasure by
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 353 
 
 Sir Thomas Heneage, I made neither stop nor 
 stay, nor any excuse to be rid of this place and 
 to satisfy your command. ... So much I 
 mislike this place and fortune of mine, as I 
 desire nothing in the world so much as to be 
 delivered, with your favour, from all charge 
 here, fearing still some new cross of your dis- 
 pleasure to fall upon me, trembling continually 
 with the fear thereof, in such sort as till I may 
 be fully confirmed in my new regeneration of 
 your wonted favour, I cannot receive that true 
 comfort which doth appertain to so great a 
 hope. Yet I will not only acknowledge with 
 all humbleness and dutiful thanks the exceeding 
 joy those last blessed lines brought to my long- 
 wearied heart, but will, with all true loyal 
 affection, attend that further joy from your 
 sweet self which may utterly extinguish all 
 consuming fear away." 
 
 Thus was Elizabeth won ! The method of 
 Leicester's conquest was not admirable, yet 
 one is tempted to regret that he did not apply 
 it earlier. The long wait for the signification 
 of the Queen's approval of his acceptance of 
 the governorship gave scope to the industry of 
 the "false boys," of whom Lord Warwick had 
 warned his brother. " Bruits " of the " mislike " 
 into which Leicester had fallen and of the 
 Queen's intention of making peace with Spain, 
 marred any possible success Leicester might have 
 had. Another letter addressed to the Queen by 
 Leicester on the 27th of June, shows the depth 
 
 of the fall of the " terrestrial Lucifer " from his 
 
 z
 
 354 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 ideals. It shows also that for all his abject 
 professions, his manhood and its ambitions 
 died hard within him. 
 
 "As the cause is now followed," he wrote, 
 "it is not worth the cost or the danger. Your 
 Majesty was invited to be Sovereign, protector 
 or aiding friend. You chose the third, and if 
 your aid had been indeed so given that these 
 people could have been assured of its continu- 
 ance, if your Majesty had taken their cause 
 indeed to heart, they would have then yielded 
 large contributions for any number of years, 
 and no practices could have drawn them from 
 you. But they now perceive how weary you 
 are of them, and how willing that any other 
 had them, so that your Majesty were rid of 
 them. They would rather have lived with 
 bread and drink under your Majesty's pro- 
 tection than with all their possessions under 
 the King of Spain. It has almost broken their 
 hearts to think your Majesty should not care 
 any more for them. But if you mean soon to 
 leave them, they will be gone almost before 
 you hear of it. I will do my best, therefore, 
 to get into my hands three or four most 
 principal places in North Holland, so as you 
 shall rule these men, and make war and peace 
 as you list. Part not with Brill for anything. 
 With these places, you can have what peace 
 you will hi an hour, and have your debts and 
 charges readily answered. But your Majesty 
 must deal graciously with them at present, and 
 if you mean to leave them, keep it to yourself. 
 Whatever you mean really to do, you must 
 persuade them now that you mean sincerely 
 and well by them. They have desperate con- 
 ceipts of your Majesty."
 
 ROBERTUS Dt'DLKUi COMES LxiC.ESTRLt 
 tfemint Or&w 3 . ' ' - : -. ;0 V ./
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 355 
 
 The implied reproaches of this letter were not 
 undeserved. Elizabeth, though there had been 
 some sincerity in her intention of being "an 
 aiding friend," had greatly deceived the faith 
 reposed in her. She had not only betrayed 
 the confidence of the Hollanders by entering 
 into secret negotiations for a peace, and by a 
 sudden command, in the midst of earnest war- 
 fare, that only defensive operations must be 
 undertaken, but she had abused the confidences 
 of her own subjects, by leaving her soldiers 
 unpaid, unfed, and unclothed. On several 
 occasions the States had to advance money, 
 quite outside of their bargains, to pay the 
 English troops. And not only Leicester, who 
 was eloquent enough in appeals on their behalf, 
 but all the English captains and emissaries 
 (including Sir Thomas Heneage and Lord 
 Buckhurst) were constantly beseeching Her 
 Majesty to show more pity for her starveling 
 army. It would not appear, however, from 
 the Queen's letter to her Favourite on 19th 
 July (1586) that she had no care for the health 
 and equipment of her defenders. Characteristi- 
 cally, she imputed the blame of their condition 
 to some other than herself. Her affectionate 
 letter to Leicester, now once more playing her 
 game and foregoing any possible part of his 
 own in life, has its interests and revelations in 
 every line.
 
 356 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 " ROB, I am afraid you will suppose, by my 
 wandering writings, that a midsummer's moon 
 hath taken large possession of my brains this 
 month ; but you must needs take things as 
 they come in my head, though order be left 
 behind me. When 1 remember your request 
 to have a discreet and honest man that may 
 carry my mind, and see how all goes there, 
 I have chosen this bearer \_Thomas Wilkes] 
 whom you know and have made good trial of. 
 I have fraught him full of my conceipts of 
 those country matters [the affairs of the Low 
 Countries], and imparted what way I mind 
 to take, and what is fit for you to use. I am 
 sure you can credit him, and so I will be 
 short with these few notes. First, that Count 
 Maurice and Count Hohenlo find themselves 
 trusted of you, esteemed of me, and to be 
 carefully regarded if ever peace should happen, 
 and of that assure them on my word, that 
 never yet deceived any." Oh, rare Elizabeth ! 
 "And for Norris and other captains that 
 voluntarily, without commandment, have many 
 years ventured their lives and won our nation 
 honour, and themselves fame, let them not 
 be discouraged by any means, neither by 
 new-come men nor by old trained soldiers 
 elsewhere. If there be fault in using of 
 soldiers or making profit by them, let them 
 hear of it without open shame, and doubt not 
 I will well chasten them therefore. It frets 
 me not a little that the poor soldiers that 
 hourly venture life should want their due, 
 that well deserve rather reward ; and look, in 
 whom the fault may truly be proved, let them 
 smart therefore. And if the treasurer be found 
 untrue or negligent, according to desert he
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 357 
 
 shall be used. But you know my old wont 
 that love not to discharge from office without 
 desert. God forbid ! I pray you let this 
 bearer know what may be learned herein, and 
 for the treasure I have joined Sir Thomas 
 Shirley to see all this money discharged in due 
 sort, where it needeth and behoveth. 
 
 " Now will I end, that do imagine I talk still 
 with you, and therefore loathly say farewell one 
 hundred thousand times, though ever I pray God 
 bless you from all harm, and save you from all 
 foes. With my million and legion of thanks for 
 all your pains and cares, As you know, ever the 
 same E. R. 
 
 " P.S. Let Wilkes see that he is acceptable 
 to you. If anything there be that W. shall 
 desire answer of be such as you would have 
 but me to know, write it to myself. You 
 know I can keep both others' counsel and 
 mine own. Mistrust not that anything you 
 would have kept shall be disclosed by me, for 
 although this bearer ask many things, yet you 
 may answer him such as you shall think meet, 
 and write to me the rest." 
 
 In the business-like directions, calm authority, 
 and luxuriant sentimentality of this letter, we 
 see the executive Queen and the doting woman 
 in the blend which constituted Elizabeth at her 
 best. Pity it is this blend is not all there was 
 of Elizabeth. And pity also that the dash, 
 the discernment, and the daring which enabled 
 Leicester to start with happy auguries his rule 
 in Holland, are not all there was of Leicester. 
 But among other bad and questionable qualities, 
 the Favourite of Elizabeth had a propensity as
 
 358 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 great as that of his Queen for vituperative 
 language. He could swear oaths and call names 
 as round and as hard as could Elizabeth. And 
 he did not possess in the same degree as she did 
 the virtue of loving not to discharge from office 
 without desert. 
 
 After the collapse of his hopes of vice-regality, 
 he became implacable against many. The bolts 
 of his wrath fell about rather promiscuously, but 
 he certainly believed the accusation he brought 
 against Norris, the Treasurer of the army and 
 uncle of Sir John, of keeping back part of the 
 soldiers' pay. This peculation was peculiarly 
 galling to one who had poured out all his living 
 on the expedition, and who experienced such 
 terrible difficulty in obtaining the most necessary 
 supplies for his troops. 
 
 He was virulent also against England's first 
 fighting -man, Sir John Norris. He disliked 
 all the "bunch of brave brethren" that consti- 
 tuted the Norris family. 
 
 " His brother Edward is as ill as he," wrote 
 the Earl on an occasion, "but John is right 
 the late Earl of Sussex's son ; " [How much 
 Leicester must have disliked the nobleman !] 
 "he will so dissemble and crouch, and so 
 cunningly carry his doings, as no man living 
 would imagine that there were half the malice 
 or vindictive mind that plainly his words prove 
 to be." And Leicester vowed he would hang 
 Sir John Norris, and "his patience and slyness 
 should not serve him."
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 359 
 
 For a man "infamed by the death of his 
 wife," Leicester was curiously reckless in his 
 threats against those who offended him. He 
 called Wilkes "a villain, a devil, without faith 
 or religion." And he referred to the inexpert- 
 ness of Count Maurice and his "base brother," 
 Admiral Justinus de Nassau, in preventing the 
 loss of Sluys, as " the vile, lewd dealing of these 
 men that have so naughtily carried themselves 
 in this matter." 
 
 The number of wordy quarrels Leicester 
 managed to enter into while in Holland, 
 did more than anything else to make him 
 unpopular. As the months went on, he who 
 had been acclaimed as a god, and worshipped 
 as a redeemer, came to be regarded with 
 suspicion and dissatisfaction. But Leicester's 
 recklessness was not all. Elizabeth crowned 
 the sins and follies of her "friendly aid" to 
 the Dutch by withdrawing from the States, at 
 the thickest of their fight with Parma, the 
 only man they acknowledged as a chief. 
 
 It is true that Leicester himself, impulsively, 
 and in eagerness for some relief from the anxieties 
 of his office, was for a sudden return home, 
 without establishing any kind of regency in his 
 absence, and that by the direction of Elizabeth, 
 he remained until the arrival from England of 
 a deputy. The state of his health, and the real
 
 360 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 shock of the death of Sir Philip Sidney, had 
 added to his desire for a short rest. 
 
 But, having got her Favourite back in England, 
 the Queen followed up a reception of him, in 
 which pomp and affection were mingled, by 
 making as if she never intended to part from 
 him again. Leicester, for all the impetuosity 
 of his self-grant of leave, was more conscious 
 than Elizabeth of the mistake of his absence, 
 and more anxious, when in England, to retrace 
 his false step. He found himself on his return, 
 as Sir Walter Raleigh had written to assure 
 him he would, "agayne her sweet Robyn," and 
 she had allowed his leave for a weighty and 
 tremendous cause. 
 
 The uncompromising objects of the famous 
 Babington conspiracy made it imperative that 
 the activities of Mary Stuart should be finally 
 suppressed. 
 
 So long as the captive could see the daylight 
 of a restored and extended regality at any hole 
 no matter how small a one of her prison- 
 chamber, she would continue to act and to 
 plan in view of that regality. And she would 
 never cease to conspire against her chief gaoler 
 Elizabeth. To set Mary free had long been 
 a political impossibility. Scotland did not want 
 her. Her son James did not want her. [ France 
 did not want her. To Philip of Spain, she 
 would have been useful. He might, with a
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 361 
 
 show of right, have conquered England in her 
 name. Her existence was a constant invitation 
 to him to launch against England the Invincible 
 Armada that, boat by boat, and fleet by fleet, 
 had long been building and assembling in 
 Spanish ports. But the grandiosity of Philip 
 made him almost equally satisfied to claim the 
 throne of England for himself. He was a 
 descendant of John of Gaunt, and as heir of 
 his second wife, Mary Tudor, he had a further 
 title that, to himself at least, justified any assault 
 upon the power of Elizabeth. Mary Stuart, free, 
 would have found herself a decided fifth wheel 
 to the European coach which was, to be sure, 
 borne along on the Hapsburg, Bourbon, Tudor, 
 and Stuart dynasties. Only James, and not his 
 mother, now represented the family of Stuart. 
 Yet Mary Stuart, hi prison, was the motive- 
 force of many of the disagreements between 
 the Royal houses of Europe, and of nearly all 
 the disafFections, disputes, and miseries of the 
 Kingdom of England. 
 
 Every Minister on Elizabeth's Council in 
 whom remained any loyalty to England and 
 there were but few who, in their final thoughts, 
 had no devotion to their native land told Queen 
 Elizabeth that the " Daughter of Debate " must 
 die. Leicester, as has been shown, had long 
 been calling for her dispatch. Yet, in this 
 hour of awful decision, Elizabeth required her
 
 362 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Favourite at her side, chiefly to advise of a 
 manner of freeing England from a danger-spot 
 that would leave the English Queen guiltless 
 of a sister's blood. 
 
 To the Queen herself, rather than to her 
 Favourite, belongs the responsibility of en- 
 deavouring, when judgment and verdict had 
 formally been given, to get "justice" executed 
 upon the prisoner secretly. But the craft and 
 the force in Elizabeth that could prevail upon 
 a Sir Francis Drake to lead against a foreign 
 power, expeditions of aggression and spolia- 
 tion, of which she would share the profit 
 while denying the responsibility, could not 
 extort from men of condition and character fit 
 to be entrusted with such a service to their 
 Queen, a consent to take away the life of 
 the Queen of Scots. 
 
 The mind of Leicester was perhaps too full 
 of anxieties about the critical affairs of the 
 States to have left in it any vindictiveness 
 against an enemy whose fate was sure, although 
 it was being deferred because Elizabeth wished 
 " by God " that Mary's execution " could be 
 done in some way that would not throw blame 
 on her." In any case, Leicester's part in the 
 final act of the tragedy of Mary Stuart was 
 that of being one of the ten councillors 
 Lords Burghley, Howard, Hunsden, Cobham, 
 and Derby, with Sir Francis Knollys, Sir
 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, prepared for execution.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 363 
 
 Francis Walsingham, Sir Christopher Hatton, 
 and Secretary Davison, were the others who, 
 when the Queen at last signed the warrant of 
 execution, saw to the fulfilment of its order. 
 He was not present at the final horrifying 
 scene at Fotheringay. 
 
 The only step towards hastening Mary's end 
 Leicester can be said to have taken personally, 
 was his urging his Queen, upon his return from 
 Holland, to proceed fast in the great cause. 
 But it was his anxiety for the Council to get 
 at the discussion of the Netherlands' cause 
 that made him insistent to have the barrier to 
 the advancement of all other political business 
 removed. 
 
 "Touching the Low Country cause," he 
 wrote to Wilkes in Holland in December 
 1586, "very little is done yet, by reason of 
 the continued business we have had about the 
 Queen of Scots' matters." 
 
 That business over, and the rash, beauteous 
 Queen removed finally from all association 
 with England's political desperadoes, the affairs 
 of the Netherlands received the attention of 
 which they were in need. 
 
 Unfortunately for Holland, for England, and 
 for Leicester himself, the Governor- General, sick 
 at heart over the failure of plans which, how- 
 ever grandiose, had been in .a great measure 
 disinterested, betrayed the weakness and the
 
 364 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 villainy that were in him by fiercely turning 
 on a number of colleagues and assistants in 
 the great enterprise of the Netherlands, and 
 attributing to insufficiencies, to spites, and 
 to delinquencies in them, the failures brought 
 about by his own arrogance and entetement, and 
 by his Queen's double-dealing and parsimony. 
 
 Poor Davison was the first upon whom the 
 wrath of the chief fell. This Secretary had 
 certainly counselled the Earl's assumption of 
 the Governorship, but then he had never been 
 told of the Queen's prohibition of his accept- 
 ing such an office. In his audiences with Her 
 Majesty, in which he presented Leicester's 
 formal intimation of the rank awarded him, 
 Davison had been loyal to the Governor- 
 General, to the States, and to the principles 
 of Reform and Independence signified by the 
 Expedition. His manner had not lacked 
 respect ; but he had argued stoutly, and told 
 the Queen to her face that in his own hearing 
 she had expressed, or allowed to be expressed 
 for her, her agreeableness to the acceptance of 
 any authority the States might choose to offer to 
 any Lieutenant- General she should elect to send. 
 
 It was a mistake to remind a woman, whose 
 postures of feeling and intention were so con- 
 stantly changing, of past attitudes of mind. 
 Leicester would never have committed a folly 
 like unto that. Yet Davison most certainly
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 365 
 
 did not deserve the letter in which the 
 Governor - General railed at the " negligent 
 carelessness, whereof I many hundred times 
 told you that you would mar the goodness of 
 the matter, and breed me her Majesty's dis- 
 pleasure." The implications of the letter's 
 valedictory were also unmerited. "Thus fare 
 you well, and except your embassages have 
 better success, I shall have no cause to com- 
 mend them." 
 
 And Leicester's denunciation of the unfor- 
 tunate Davison, in a letter to Walsingham, was 
 even more emphatic and meaner spirited than 
 the incriminations hurled at Davison himself. 
 
 " And I must thank him only for my blame, 
 and so he will confess to you, for I protest 
 before God, no necessity here could have made 
 me leave her Majesty unacquainted with the 
 cause before I would have accepted of it, but 
 only his so earnest pressing me with his faithful 
 assured promise to discharge me, however her 
 Majesty should take it. For you all see there 
 she had no other cause to be offended but this, 
 and by the Lord, he was the only cause. ..." 
 
 Vanity makes simpletons of the wariest, but 
 it is difficult to believe that the crafty Leicester 
 was ever so completely a fool as to hold 
 that any other man than himself could dis- 
 charge him from the consequences of disobey- 
 ing the Royal Elizabeth. Paltry is the spirit 
 of Leicester's vindications of his honour, but
 
 366 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 his chagrin over his project's failure, and over 
 the Queen's commissions to other officers of 
 hers, to oversee and report upon the conduct 
 of himself the greatest of them, was intense. 
 "I am too, too weary of the high dignity," is 
 a real heart- cry. " Whatsoever become of me, 
 give me leave to speak for the poor soldiers," 
 is a nobler utterance. Leicester was ever 
 genuinely concerned for the right treatment 
 of his troops. " If they be not better main- 
 tained, being in this strange country, there will 
 be neither good service done, nor be without 
 great dishonour to her Majesty." There is 
 less of sincerity perhaps in the announcement 
 that the Queen's disregard of the wants of her 
 army "is one cause that will glad me to be 
 rid of this heavy high calling, and wish me 
 at my poor cottage again, if any I shall 
 find." Kenilworth, Kew, and Wanstead, could 
 certainly be considered cottages only in a 
 manner of speech, that, to say the least of it, 
 was self-conscious and self-commiserative. 
 
 Leicester's attacks, after his final visit to the 
 Netherlands, on Lord Buckhurst, Sir John 
 Norris, and Sir Thomas Wilkes, were even 
 more determined and virulent than those on 
 Davison. Against these gentlemen and their 
 activities during his absence in England, he 
 caused the Queen in Council to make accusa- 
 tions of gross mismanagement. The records 
 of the charges brought against the three on the
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 367 
 
 whole successful and altogether loyal servants of 
 England and of Elizabeth, together with the 
 answers of those servants and Leicester's re- 
 joinders, are instructive, if somewhat tedious 
 reading. Whatsoever the specific complaints 
 lodged against each one, their dignified denials 
 of the faults attributed to them, and Leicester's 
 detailed and pictorial affirmations of their 
 misdemeanours, leave the impression that the 
 one certain offence of their committing was 
 that of their taking Leicester to be only a 
 man of like passions with themselves. 
 
 Yet many letters of the Favourite at this time, 
 as earlier, reveal to us other Leicesters than 
 the pettish, vindictive, clamorous one. Passages 
 from only three of these letters may be quoted 
 to exemplify not only his admirable epistolary 
 style, but his courage, enthusiasm, devotion, 
 kindliness, and pity. 
 
 We take first, part of a letter written to 
 Mr Secretary Walsingham, from Holland, on 
 6th October 1586. 
 
 " Sir, I thank God he hath given us this day 
 a very happy success of the two principal forts 
 here. We have taken one by a gallant and a 
 thorough-fought assault, and for a quarter of 
 an hour we did look for a very furious resistance, 
 yet so it pleased God to daunt their hearts, and 
 to animate these worthy soldiers who attempted 
 it, as it was entered, and the enemy, as many 
 as did abide, killed, the rest fled to the other 
 fort. There was one gentleman whom we all
 
 368 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 present did behold, that had the leading of 
 all the rest that went to the assault, which 
 was Mr Edward Stanley, lieutenant to Sir 
 William Stanley. Since I was born, I did 
 never see any man to behave himself as he 
 did. First climb the breech a pike -length 
 before and above any person that followed 
 him, so did he alone maintain the fight, first 
 with his pike, then with the stumps of his 
 pike, and afterwards his sword, against at the 
 least nine or ten, and every man either brake 
 his pike upon his breast or hit him with the 
 shot of their musket, yet would he not back 
 a foot, but kept himself in this sort without 
 any one man to get up to him, the ground 
 was so false, being all sandy, insomuch as we 
 all gave him for lost if he had a hundred lives, 
 for I was within twenty-eight yards and less, 
 myself, and V m [five thousand] saw it beside, being 
 all in yellow saving his cuirass. When he had 
 long thus dealt most valiantly and worthily, 
 and none of his company easily could come 
 to him, at length they all came so fast together 
 as one bare up another even to the top of the 
 breech, where that gentleman got a halberd 
 and leapt among the enemies, and then the 
 rest with him, in so resolute manner as they 
 speedily dispatched the enemy, and in the sight 
 of all the town, both placed their ensigns and 
 made this fight. A place they little looked 
 to be won so soon, and in all troth, it is one 
 of the strongest places for sure fights within, 
 that ever I saw in all my life. But this gentle- 
 man shall I never forget if I live a hundred 
 years, for if he had fainted and tarried for his 
 fellows, as many one would have done, we had 
 been like enough to have made a new battery 
 for the rest; but even so worthily he did by
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 369 
 
 God's goodness, as he was the chief cause of 
 man's work, of all the honour of this day, and 
 he shall have part of my living for it as long 
 as he lives. And I would God her Majesty 
 had seen this enterprize, for it was worthy her 
 sight to see the willingness of her subjects, 
 their valour in performing, and with how 
 little loss of them it was achieved, notwith- 
 standing that we had all the artillery of the 
 town against them on the one side, and the 
 other fort on the other, yet was there not 
 slain five persons in all, nor above six hurt, 
 whereof an honest proper young gentleman of 
 my brother of Warwicks is one, called Cooke, 
 who even at the first attempt was by the shot 
 of a cannon thwart his belly stricken so strangely 
 as I never saw ; his armour broken with a hole 
 as big as a bullet, himself with a piece of the 
 armour cut along his belly, two inches deep, 
 and yet his bowels whole, and I am in hope 
 of his life. 
 
 
 " Lastly, and that will not like you least, your 
 son and mine [Sir Philip Sidney] is well amend- 
 ing as ever any man hath done for so short 
 time. He feeleth no grief now but his long 
 lying. His wife is with him, and I to-morrow 
 am going to him for a start. But for his hurt, 
 that Thursday may run among any of our 
 Thursdays, for there was never a more valiant 
 day's service seen this hundred years by so few 
 men against so many, and the most of them 
 such men as those were, lords, knights, and 
 gentlemen among others. . . . Here will 
 
 be many worthy men as ever England had. 
 Mr Norris is a most valiant soldier surely, and 
 all are now perfect good friends here. ..." 
 
 2A
 
 370 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Another, also to Walsingham, on 23rd 
 December 1586, refers to the sad tale of Sir 
 Philip's death and his widow's serious illness. 
 
 " I cannot be quiet till I know how my 
 daughter doth amend, wishing her even as to 
 my own child, which God willing, I shall always 
 esteem her to be. I would gladly make a start 
 to you, but to - morrow King Antonio " [of 
 Portugal, and an opponent of Spain] " comes 
 hither, but my heart is there with you, and my 
 prayer shall go to God for you and for yours. 
 There is a letter come from the Scottish 
 Queen that has wrought tears, but I trust shall 
 do no further harm, albeit the delay is so 
 dangerous." 
 
 This letter went from the Court at Greenwich 
 during the time Leicester spent in England 
 between his two commands in Holland. The 
 effusion to the Queen that follows, is assigned 
 by the editor of the State Papers Addenda for 
 Elizabeth's reign, to the year 1587, but by 
 8th October the date the letter bears Leicester 
 was away again in the Netherlands and certainly 
 not at Kenilworth, where it was written. It 
 seems to indicate that a portentous storm had 
 burst over London on a day when some act of 
 Royal "justice " was being executed. The " we 
 who lately felt the punishment of your stormy 
 clouds " suggests the year 1585 as a more likely 
 date than 1587. 
 
 " A grievous accord it has showed the heavens 
 had made for so sharp a scourge to light upon
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 371 
 
 poor earthly travellers, my gracious lady, but 
 more bitter was it when it appears they have 
 fulfilled your displeasure, procured from your 
 own sweet self, whose nature has always abhorred 
 so sore revenge ; but if you it were that hath 
 borne that high sway to cause the celestial 
 places to obey your will, we may not wonder to 
 see all earthly creatures so far at your devotion. 
 No doubt, they have prepared a blessed place 
 for you, but cursed should they be if they 
 would seek to bereave you from those that here 
 hold you so dear. Well pleased I am that 
 they strive who love you most, so they let you 
 dwell still with them that I believe will never 
 be weary of your continuance among them, 
 with which we, who lately felt the punishment 
 of your stormy clouds, would gladly suffer a 
 greater smart to have again the fair show of 
 our blessed sun, whose beams giveth both life 
 and light ; and so appealing from the old hag's 
 prophecy, I will pray for this felicity, that we 
 may only enjoy this our shining joy to be our 
 lasting light. Amen. 
 
 " For sending so far, most sweet Lady, to know 
 how your poor eyes doth, I am unworthy to 
 give thanks, only as you have sent to a creature 
 wholly of your own making, so are you to have 
 your full offer of him that is a double bondman ; 
 and no longer will he have life than it shall be 
 found most true ; which having offered already 
 once for all, have no more sacrifice left, but the 
 due obligations which shall never fail, and I 
 trust will be acceptable in the sight of the 
 Highest, to whose most gracious goodness I 
 humbly and most faithfully recommend both 
 life and service."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 LEICESTER'S second administration in the Low 
 Countries, if a government of the limited 
 character the States finally allowed, can be 
 called an administration, was marked by certain 
 acts of severity and by many projects of 
 duplicity he certainly did not mean to descend 
 to, when he first set foot in the Netherlands. 
 He, whom an almost co-temporary historian 
 Osborne designated a "terrestrial Lucifer," 
 never fell from the outward greatness of the 
 rank and favour to which Elizabeth raised 
 him, though, so curiously, some chroniclers of 
 the generation immediately succeeding his seem 
 to consider that he did. But his decline was 
 sharp and considerable from the moral attitude 
 to which, in the periods of England's danger 
 from the Catholic conspiracy, he attained under 
 the influence of his own intelligences and per- 
 ceptions, and of the Puritan ideas and Protestant 
 principles of the associates and followers of his 
 official and family life. The deeds of harshness 
 and practices of meanness he resorted to as 
 
 372
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 373 
 
 counter-stays of his languishing reputation, and 
 in substitution of his lost authority during the 
 months of his last stay in Holland, were the 
 crowning sins of a career that had never been 
 free from designs of guilt and deeds of pettiness. 
 But if his exemplary punishments of cowards 
 and traitors were severe, he had the support of 
 the States in inflicting them, and his orders to 
 avoid bloodshed if possible were frequent and 
 unusual in the age he lived in. It is true his 
 devices for the seizure of over-zealous patriots 
 bore a close resemblance to the plots which 
 the rebels from the rule of English Elizabeth 
 had formed under the guidance of Scottish 
 Mary, but he never went so far in disloyalty 
 to the aims he had professed, as to play 
 directly into the hands of Spain. He com- 
 promised with principle, and betrayed Holland 
 to the extent of seeking advantages for his 
 Queen that would enable her, when the oppor- 
 tunity arose, to dictate terms of peace to 
 the Hollanders. But Leicester was guiltless of 
 designs attributed to him by some disappointed 
 patriots among the Dutch, of gaining possession 
 of Leyden and other of the principal towns of 
 Holland, for the purpose of delivering them 
 treacherously into the hands of Philip. His 
 plan was to hold them for Elizabeth, so that, 
 when the period for a general reconciliation 
 came, she might have an actual and not only
 
 374 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 a sentimental authority in the affairs of the 
 States. 
 
 Leicester never deceived himself, as did 
 Elizabeth, concerning the ultimate intentions 
 of Spain. He was far less . surprised than she, 
 when at last the Invincible Armada set sail 
 for the English coast. 
 
 In the supreme hour of her country's danger, 
 the call of the Queen of England was to the 
 same Lieutenant - General she had sent forth 
 with her first challenge to the enemy. Perhaps 
 the advance of the foe Elizabeth had had the 
 fatuity to think she could repel with blandish- 
 ments and paralyse with coquetries, caused her to 
 repent of the machinations that had contributed 
 to the disasters of Leicester's first command. 
 
 In any case, the Favourite was now made 
 Commander-in- Chief of the army assembled for 
 the protection of London and the mouth of the 
 Thames, and not a man in England disputed 
 the fitness of his appointment. The shock of 
 the common danger made every patriot know 
 his fellow. The opportunity for a legitimate 
 activity and the occasion for valour and for 
 chivalry brought all that was best in Leicester 
 into play. Not only the show of war appealed 
 to him. The practical and mathematical 
 Leicester came to the fore. The literary and 
 imaginative one the name of the Leicesters 
 was legion bided his time.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 375 
 
 On 22nd July 1588, he wrote to Walsingham 
 that he had talked with one, Peter Pett, 
 "about the lighters and chain to stop the 
 river at Tilbury, which are not sufficient unless 
 strengthened with a competent number of masts 
 placed before them." And not content with the 
 inefficiency of talking, Leicester went "down 
 the river with Pett to view the place." The 
 following day, he reported to the Council on 
 the fortifications at Gravesend and Tilbury, 
 and pointed out that Tilbury was much out 
 of order, but could be made impregnable. He 
 requested the immediate dispatch of powder, 
 ordnance, and other fighting implements, and 
 was insistent that each fort should be sufficiently 
 provisioned for a siege. 
 
 On the 26th July, Leicester at Gravesend gave 
 further account to Walsingham of the situation of 
 affairs in his command. The 4,000 men of Essex 
 were assembled at West Tilbury, and "were 
 as forward and willing men as ever he saw." 
 It is delightful to find once more in Leicester 
 the freshness of enthusiasm, and to note that 
 true sympathy with the needs of his men which 
 is such a human feature of his character. He 
 deplored the great want of victuals " Some one 
 had blundered." After a march of twenty 
 miles, the Essex stalwarts had " not a barrel of 
 beer nor a loaf of bread " among them. To 
 avoid an extension of famine, Leicester promptly
 
 376 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 sent orders to the 1,000 Londoners on the 
 march to join forces with their comrades of 
 Essex, to halt where his message met them, 
 " except they had provisions with them." And 
 the literary Leicester, whose existence could 
 never be wholly suppressed, gave forceful ex- 
 pression to the thought of wisdom : " Though 
 it has pleased God to begin graciously, it 
 will not do to be too secure. Great dilatory 
 wants are found upon all sudden hurly-burlies" 
 Falling back into instant practicalities, the 
 difficulty of getting men together from long 
 distances owing to the dearth of vehicles was 
 considered by Leicester, the mathematician. 
 The chivalrous anxiety of the Favourite was 
 exhibited in his urging that a strong force 
 should be about the Queen. His letter closed 
 with the comment : "If the Navy had not 
 been strong at sea, what peril England would 
 now have been in." 
 
 And on 27th July and 5th August there 
 went forth from the busy general in camp 
 two letters to his Sovereign, which showed the 
 " Eyes " of Elizabeth in his proper character of 
 watchman of England and sentinel of his Queen. 
 
 The letter of 27th July opened with the 
 prayer that a most just God that beloveth the 
 innocency of heart and the cause she is assailed 
 for, will assist and bless her with victory. 
 According to her request, Leicester offered
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 377 
 
 Elizabeth his advice. First, at once to gather 
 an army about her in the strongest manner 
 possible, some special nobleman to be placed at 
 the head of it, to be officered with the oldest 
 and best assured captains. Second, for her own 
 person " the most dainty and sacred thing we 
 have in this world to care for" he could not 
 consent that she should proceed to the confines 
 of her realm to meet the enemy, but advised her 
 to go to her home at Havering, with the army 
 round about her there, and to spend two or 
 three days at the camp at Tilbury, "there 
 to rest in her poor lieutenant's cabin." Thus 
 far, but no further, could he consent to the 
 adventure of her person. Lastly, for himself, 
 for her gracious favour to him, he can only 
 yield the like sacrifice he owes to God, which 
 is a thankful heart, and to offer his body, life, 
 and all to do her service. 
 
 On 5th August, Leicester had received in secret 
 the news that pleased him most, next the well- 
 doing of her sacred person, that she intended 
 to behold the poor company now in the field, 
 ready to die for her. " Good sweet Queen ! " 
 he urged, "alter not your purpose if God give 
 you good health." The lodging prepared for 
 her was a proper, sweet, cleanly house, the 
 camp within a little mile of it, and her person 
 as sure as at St James's. 
 
 Elizabeth every inch a Queen went to
 
 378 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Tilbury and rode through all the squadrons of 
 the army gathered there, 23,000 strong 22,000 
 being foot and 1,000 horse. On either side of 
 her, as she reviewed this force, rode the two 
 men whose names for good or for ill are 
 immortally associated with her own. The 
 General on the one hand was Robert Dudley, 
 Earl of Leicester, and on the other, Robert 
 Devereux, Earl of Essex. Was the riding there 
 of these three an omen for England ? If so, the 
 portent was not read. No one who saw the 
 upright and active, yet florid and grizzled 
 Favourite pass by in all the magnificence of his 
 bearing and his office, could have guessed how 
 soon how very soon the mantle of his 
 favourdom must fall from his shoulders on to 
 those of his dashing, splendid stepson. 
 
 Essex is sometimes regarded as a more certain 
 favourite of Elizabeth than was Leicester. But 
 Essex had no part in forming the mind or in 
 influencing the character of his Queen. He 
 was for Elizabeth always a graceless boy, on 
 whom she fondly doted, as mothers and grand- 
 mothers dote on babes they have dandled, 
 grown to years. The grandmother of Essex 
 (the mother of Lettice) was first cousin of 
 Elizabeth. Leicester was the stepfather of 
 Essex. Undoubtedly, the younger favourite 
 copied many of the tricks by which the elder had 
 kept his hold upon the extraordinarily coquettish
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 379 
 
 Queen. But Essex had not served that early 
 apprenticeship to misfortune which made 
 Leicester ever careful of overstepping certain 
 bounds of audacity, and his self-control was 
 inferior to his stepfather's. 
 
 Behind the mounted " Excellencies " and 
 their Sovereign at Tilbury, there came afoot 
 Sir John Norris, the Lord-Marshal. That fine 
 soldier, with whom Leicester had refused to 
 serve any longer in the Netherlands, was 
 welcomed as a coadjutor when their common 
 country was assailed. Then every Englishman 
 was a hero to his neighbour. No petty hates, 
 no paltry jealousies divided any to whom the 
 integrity of their native land was dear. 
 
 And for Leicester, there must have been 
 satisfaction enough in that hour of hours. 
 What could patriot or Queen's favourite desire 
 more than to hear, delivered in his presence, 
 the stirring speech in which Elizabeth displayed 
 her own enthusiasm for Queenship and her just 
 title to England's Sovereignty, and whereby 
 she commended the worthiness of her Favourite 
 to stand before her people in her stead. 
 
 "My loving people," cried the Queen, on 
 the camping ground at Tilbury, "we have 
 been persuaded by some that are careful of our 
 safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves 
 to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery ; 
 but, I assure you, I do not desire to live to
 
 380 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 distrust my faithful and loving people. Let 
 tyrants fear, I have always so behav'd my self, 
 that, under God, I have placed my chiefest 
 strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and 
 good will of my subjects ; and therefore I am 
 come amongst you, as you see, at this time, 
 not for my recreation and disport, but being 
 resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, 
 to live or die amongst you all ; to lay down for 
 my God, and for my kingdom, and for my 
 people, my honour and my blood, even in the 
 dust. I know I have the body but of a weak 
 and feeble woman ; but I have the heart and 
 stomach of a King, and of a King of England 
 too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain 
 or any Prince of Europe, should dare to invade 
 the borders of my Realm ; to which, rather 
 than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself 
 will take up arms, I myself will be your 
 General, Judge, and Rewarder of every one of 
 your virtues in the field. I know already, for 
 your forwardness you have deserv'd rewards 
 and crowns ; and, we do assure you, on the 
 word of a Prince, they shall be duly paid you. 
 In the meantime, my Lieutenant- General shall 
 be in my stead, than whom never Prince com- 
 manded a more noble or worthy subject ; not 
 doubting but by your obedience to my General, 
 by your concord in the camp and your valour 
 in the field, we shall shortly have a famous 
 victory over those enemies of my God, of my 
 Kingdoms, and of my People." 
 
 But the " famous victory " had already taken 
 place, though confidence that danger was over 
 could not yet be felt. The victory was one of 
 tides and tempests rather than of " concord in
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 381 
 
 the camp " and " valour in the field," though 
 the Navy Leicester had pronounced to be 
 " strong at sea " had a proud share in the defeat 
 of the Armada. The military arm, no less 
 ready for the fight than the naval, was only 
 raised to strike. Yet the conceit of Leicester 
 had been inflamed by the Sovereign's praises of 
 her Lieutenant- General, and by the obedience 
 rendered by the massed forces under Him. 
 He had the ear of the Queen. She was in the 
 mood to do him honour. It is impossible to 
 determine the exact end she had in view 
 whether recompense to Leicester for depriva- 
 tions of his authority in the Provinces, or 
 reward to him for his prompt and effective 
 gathering of an army at the Thames mouth 
 but she certainly consented to the drawing of 
 Letters Patent creating him Lord-Lieutenant 
 under her in the government of England and 
 Ireland. This was to constitute him a Viceroy 
 indeed ! But Lord Burghley, Sir Francis Wal- 
 singham and Sir Christopher Hatton, though 
 all friends of Leicester, had the courage to 
 prevent the fatal step Elizabeth, in an excess 
 of that delirious emotion that follows the 
 removal of strains of anxiety, especially that 
 greatest of all strains for heads of governments, 
 the fear of an armed invasion of their country, 
 had assented to. Undoubtedly, she felt at the 
 moment that she could not do enough for any
 
 382 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 one to whom could be attributed the salvation 
 of her Kingdom and the safety of her person. 
 Not that her serenity was ever disturbed by 
 a sense of gratitude. But Leicester had been 
 her deputy in the field ; he was that creature 
 of her own she had always singularly favoured ; 
 and there was no further dignity left for him 
 but this. He was not to receive it. 
 
 About the 20th of August, the last onslaught 
 of Spain's might was known to have been 
 utterly repelled. On 29th August, Leicester 
 was already on his way to " the Bath " to take 
 the cure for the complaint he had long suffered 
 from, and which had been probably made worse 
 by the strains and activities of his military 
 service. The " Bath " he aimed at may have 
 been Leamington. He died at Cornbury in 
 Oxfordshire, on his way to Kenilworth, on the 
 4th of September 1588. Six days before, he had 
 written the letter, now exhibited as a national 
 treasure in the museum of the Record Office, 
 and here reproduced in facsimile. 
 
 Being deciphered, it runs thus : 
 
 "I most humbly beseech your Majesty to 
 pardon your poore old servant" [note the 
 symbol] "to be thus bold in sending to know 
 how my gracious Lady doth and what ease of 
 her late pain she finds, being the chiefest thing 
 in this world I do pray for, for her to have good 
 health and long life. For my own poor case, I 
 continue still your medicine and find it amend
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 383 
 
 much better than with any other thing that hath 
 been given me. Thus hoping to find perfect 
 cure at the bath with the continuance of my 
 wonted prayer for your Majesty's most happy 
 preservation I humbly kiss your foot, from your 
 old lodging at Rycott this Thursday morning, 
 ready to take on my journey, by your Majesty's 
 most faithfull and obedient servant, 
 
 "R. LEYCESTER." 
 
 " Even as I had wrytten thus 
 much I received your Majesty's token by young 
 Tracy." 
 
 One wonders what was the fantastic trinket 
 Elizabeth sent at this time as a "token" to 
 the man who had been as her brother ! 
 Whether or not a mere trifle, we may believe 
 its symbology was terrific and immense. 
 Leicester addressed his missive of tenderness 
 and sentiment " To the Queen's most excellent 
 Majesty." Underneath the superscription, in 
 the elaborate hand of Elizabeth herself, are 
 
 the words, 
 
 " His LAST LETTER." 
 
 In early womanhood, she had kept the 
 miniature of Lord Robert Dudley in a casket, 
 as one of her most precious treasures. She 
 had drawn it thence to show to Sir Robert 
 Melville when she proposed to him her 
 favourite as a husband for Mary, Queen of 
 Scots. In later life, Elizabeth preserved 
 among her "jewels" the last letter of the 
 Earl of Leicester.
 
 384 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 The quiet and quick snuffing out of the 
 most brilliant luminary of Elizabeth's Court, 
 the most bewildering light of her Council, and 
 the chief sun of her grandeur and her state, 
 impressed the most poetic mind of the age 
 with a sense of curious blankness. 
 
 Of the passing of the Favourite, Edmund 
 Spenser sang : 
 
 " I saw him die, I saw him die, as one 
 Of the meane people, and brought foorth on beare ; 
 I saw him die, and no man left to mone 
 His dolefull fate, that late him loved deare : 
 Scarse anie left to close his eylids neare ; 
 Scarse anie left upon his lips to laie 
 The sacred sod, or requiem to saie. 
 
 " He now is dead, and all is with him dead, 
 Save what in Heaven's storehouse he uplaid : 
 His hope is faild, and come to passe his dread, 
 And will men (now dead) his deedes upbraid : 
 Spite bites the dead, that living never baid. 
 He now is gone, the whiles the fox is crept 
 Into the hole, the which the badger swept. 
 
 " He now is dead, and all his glorie gone, 
 And all his greatnesse vapoured to nought, 
 That as a glasse upon the water shone, 
 Which vanisht quite, so soone as it was sought : 
 His name is worne alreadie out of thought, 
 Ne anie poet seeks him to revive ; 
 Yet manie poets honoured him alive. 
 
 " Ne doth his Colin, carelesse Colin Cloute, 
 Care now his idle bagpipe up to raise, 
 Ne tell his sorrow to the listning rout 
 Of shepheard groomes, which wont his songs to praise : 
 Praise who so list, yet I will him dispraise, 
 Untill he quite him of this guiltie blame : 
 Wake, shepheard's boy, at length awake for shame.
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 385 
 
 "And whoso els did goodness by him gaine, 
 And whoso els his bounteous minde did trie, 
 Whether he shepheard be, or shepheard's swaine, 
 (For manie did, which doo it now decrie) 
 Awake, and to his song a part applie : 
 And I, the whilest you mourne for his decease, 
 Will with my mourning plaints your plaint increase." 
 
 Indeed, the flaring torch of Leicester's great- 
 ness was very suddenly put out. 
 
 We may not doubt the Queen of England 
 dropped a tear upon that folded paper, across 
 which she wrote the phrase that carries its note 
 of tenderness, 
 
 "His LAST LETTER." 
 
 But her mood of sentiment quickly passed. 
 It was a speedy concern of the Royal spinster to 
 obtain repayment from the estates of Leicester 
 of all monies he did actually owe and that she 
 conceived he owed her. 
 
 His Countess too left in straits through the 
 Queen's prompt claims on her husband's property 
 was not long in consoling herself for the loss 
 of her " Illustrious Prince." Shortly after his 
 death, she married Sir Christopher Blount, who 
 had been Gentleman of the Horse to Leicester. 
 But she composed the Latin epitaph on the 
 gorgeous tomb of Leicester, in the Lady Chapel 
 of the Church of St Mary, Warwick. For years 
 she sought in vain a reconciliation with the 
 Queen. She died on Christmas Day, in the 
 
 year 1634, in the ninety-fifth year of her age, 
 
 2 B
 
 386 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 and was laid to rest beside her second husband. 
 The stone effigies on the tombs of the Earl 
 and Countess of Leicester have their hands 
 lifted in prayer, and their feet extended. Both 
 figures are crowned and robed as peer and 
 peeress. 
 
 Leicester wrote his will while in Holland. 
 Its dispositions are numerous, and by it he 
 provided liberally for his "most dear, well- 
 beloved wife, the Countess of Leicester," and 
 for his "base son." But because of his "charges" 
 in the Low Countries, and the action taken by 
 the Queen upon his death, there was, for all 
 the possessions in his name, very little estate 
 to divide. His bequest to his Queen memorial- 
 ised his devotion to her. 
 
 "And first of all and above all Persons, it 
 is my duty to remember my most dear and 
 most gracious Sovereign, whose Creature under 
 God I have been, and who hath been a most 
 bountiful and most princely Mistress unto me, 
 as well as in advancing me to many Honours, 
 as in maintaining me many Ways by her 
 Goodness and Liberality. And as my best 
 Recompense to her most excellent Majesty 
 can be from so mean a Man, chiefly in Prayer 
 to God, so whilst there was any Breath in this 
 Body, I never failed it, even as for mine own 
 Soul. And as it was my greatest joy in my 
 Life Time to serve her to her Contentation, so 
 it is not unwelcome to me, being the WiU of 
 God, to die, and end this Life for her Service. 
 And yet, albeit I am not able to make any
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 387 
 
 Price of Recompense of her great Goodness, 
 yet will I presume to present unto her a Token 
 of an humble, faithful Heart, as the least that 
 ever I can send her, and with this Prayer 
 withal, that it may please the Almighty God, 
 not only to make her the oldest Prince, that 
 ever He gave over England, but to make 
 her the Godliest, the Virtuousest, and the 
 Worthiest in His sight, that ever He gave 
 over any Nation. That she may indeed be a 
 blessed Mother and Nurse to this People and 
 Church of England, which the Almighty God 
 grant for His Christ's Sake. The Token I do 
 bequeath unto her Majesty is the Jewel with 
 three great Emeralds, with a fair large Table 
 Diamond in the Midst, without a flaw, and 
 set about with many diamonds, without flaw, 
 and a rope of fair white Pearl, to the Number 
 of Six Hundred, to hang the said Jewel at ; 
 which Pearl and Jewel was once purposed for 
 her Majesty against a coming to Wanstead, 
 but it must now thus be disposed, which I do 
 pray you, my dear Wife, see performed, and 
 delivered to some of those whom I shall here- 
 after nominate and appoint to be my Overseers 
 for her Majesty." 
 
 As overseers, and to "help, assist, and 
 comfort" his "dear and poor disconsolate 
 wife," whom he had named as his executrix, 
 Leicester appointed " Sir Christopher Hatton, 
 Lord - Chancellor of England, my loving 
 brother, the Earl of Warwick, and my very 
 good Lord and Friend, the Lord Howard, 
 High- Admiral of England." 
 
 Among the State Papers of the reign of
 
 388 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 Elizabeth is a note of Instructions bearing 
 date 31st May 1589, from which it appears 
 that after the death of the "Noble Imp," 
 Leicester revived his project of the marriage 
 of his son by Lady Sheffield to the Lady 
 Arabella Stuart. For in this paper an agent 
 in England of the Scottish Government is 
 directed to ascertain "what party Arabella 
 and her favourers adhere to, and how they 
 mean to bestow her in marriage, seeing 
 Leicester's intention to match his bastard with 
 her is by his death made frustrate." 
 
 So perished with him his last scheme for 
 appropriating the crown of England. His 
 name lives ever and only as the Favourite of 
 a Queen. Yet there were in him parts and 
 abilities that made him something more than 
 the mere worm in the dust Elizabeth, in her 
 hateful moods, loved to see wriggling before 
 her throne. 
 
 Motley, in his severe yet sympathetic analysis 
 of the Favourite's character, describes him as 
 " that luxuriant, creeping, flaunting, all - per- 
 vading existence which struck its fibres into 
 the mould, and coiled itself through the whole 
 fabric of Elizabeth's life and reign." No picture 
 of the Great Parasite could be more complete. 
 Yet the creeper was not satisfied to be a 
 vegetable. By sheer force of a natural tenacity 
 he clung to the prop of his honour Elizabeth
 
 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 389 
 
 and choked many higher existences that 
 crossed his trail. But on occasion he reared his 
 head and struck with a fury that was evidence 
 of an autonomy. He had the wisdom of the 
 serpent, but there was in him sufficient of the 
 brute as well as of the reptile, to leave no 
 doubt as to his being a man. 
 
 Besides the Queen herself, three women loved 
 him; made sacrifices for him of favour, fame, 
 or life. And from Leicester himself shot forth 
 at times beams of a magnanimity, of a compunc- 
 tion, and of a zeal for service that revealed a 
 soul in him, and proclaimed him not wholly 
 unregenerate. The pity is that the man who 
 could say to the envoys of the Netherlander, 
 who first came to plead in England their holy 
 cause : " For my own part, I am ready to 
 stake my life, estates, and reputation, upon this 
 issue," and who did indeed make the cast of 
 his whole fortune and his every energy, was 
 also the man who declared openly in his camp 
 that he would hang Sir John Norris, and who 
 railed at the Hollanders when they refused to 
 become his tools, for " tinkers, boors, devils, and 
 atheists," while he threatened some among them 
 with hanging ! 
 
 Yet in Holland, as in England, his courage 
 never faltered, and the character lost in the 
 Netherlands was redeemed at Tilbury. There, 
 his energy, intelligence, and consideration for
 
 390 The Lover of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 others saved him from the curse that else 
 would surely have followed his name and reputa- 
 tion : " Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust 
 shalt thou eat all the days of thy life." 
 
 For all his dependencies and his treacheries, 
 Leicester rose times and again to the erect 
 attitude of a man. And those who con- 
 demn his failings, insufficiencies, and vices 
 of which he had very many should pause to 
 enumerate his accomplishments, capacities, and 
 virtues, of which there were in him not a few. 
 
 Undoubtedly, he had qualities that may be 
 designated religious and moral, as well as many 
 that were intellectual, literary, and artistic. 
 His nature was a mass of contradictions, as 
 was proper to a son of the Renascence, to 
 a disciple of Macchiavelli, to a champion 
 of the Protestants, and to the FAVOURITE OF 
 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
 
 INDEX 
 
 ALENCON, Due d', afterwards 
 Anjou project to marry Eliza- 
 beth, 241 ; comes to England, 
 269 ; leaves England with Simier, 
 270 ; comes again, 282 ; ex- 
 changes rings with Queen, 283 ; 
 goes to Flanders, 286 ; takes 
 oath of sovereignty, 286 ; death 
 of, 322 
 
 Anjou, Due d' description of, 
 231 ; adheres to Romanism, 
 238 
 
 Appleyard, John blackmails Lei- 
 cester, 137 
 
 Arran, Earl of a suitor of Eliza- 
 beth, 46 
 
 Arras, De Quadra, Bishop of, 
 describes competition for Eliza- 
 beth's hand, 48 ; repeats rumours 
 about Lady Robert Dudley, 49 ; 
 letter to Philip II. about Lady 
 R. Dudley's death, 57 ; his 
 opinion of Elizabeth, 80 ; declares 
 his innocence of plot to murder 
 Lord Robert and Queen, 84 ; 
 lectures Queen and Favourite on 
 their subserviency to Protestants, 
 88 
 
 Arundel, Earl of quarrels with 
 Lord Robert, 99 
 
 BACON, Sir Nicholas, Lord-Keeper 
 denounces Leicester, 224 
 
 Bothwell, Earl of murders 
 Darnley, 161 
 
 Burghley, William Cecil, Lord 
 appointed Secretary of State, 
 45 ; plans to marry Arran to 
 Elizabeth, 45 ; visits Lord Robert 
 after death of " Amy Robsart," 
 70 ; his table of comparison 
 between Leicester and Archduke 
 Charles, 135 ; created Baron 
 Burghley, 231 ; part in French 
 marriage scheme, 235 ; advocates 
 friendship with Spain, 281 ; 
 describes effect of Leicester's 
 letter to Queen, 349 
 
 CECIL, Sir William see Burghley 
 
 DABNLEY, Henry Stuart, Lord 
 instigates murder of Rizzio, 143 ; 
 murdered by Bothwell, 161 
 
 Davison, Secretary special envoy 
 to Netherlands, 324 ; pleads for 
 Leicester, 340 
 
 De Silva succeeds De Quadra, 
 103 ; visit to Richmond, 104 ; 
 attends Queen on a progress, 175 
 
 Drake, Sir Francis Queen's share 
 in his enterprise, 341 
 
 Dudley, Ambrose, Earl of Warwick 
 introduced to Court, 8 ; im- 
 prisoned in Tower, 18 ; restored 
 to titles, 36 ; his character, 288 ; 
 writes to Leicester in Holland, 
 346 
 
 , Amy (Robsart), Lady Robert 
 
 marries Lord Robert Dudley, 
 8 ; parentage and education, 9 ; 
 character, 9 ; visits husband in 
 Tower, 19 ; mode of life in 
 Elizabeth's reign, 51 ; letter to 
 Mr Flowerdew, 52 ; story of her 
 last hours, 64 
 
 , Catherine, Countess of 
 
 Huntingdon marriage, 12 
 
 , Edmond his book, ' ' The 
 
 Tree of Commonwealth," 3 
 
 , Lord Guilford marries Jane 
 
 Grey, 12 ; imprisoned in Tower, 
 18 
 
 , Jane, Duchess of North- 
 umberland descent, 2 ; testa- 
 mentary bequests, 4 ; character, 
 5; secures Spanish interest for 
 sons, 22 
 
 , John, Duke of Northumber- 
 land raised to peerage as Vis- 
 count Lisle, 2 ; plots to make 
 Lady Jane Queen, 14 ; leads 
 troops against Queen Mary, 1 5 ; 
 imprisoned in Tower, 18 
 
 , John, Lord Warwick 
 
 pursues Queen Mary, 13 ; im- 
 prisoned in Tower, 18 
 
 391
 
 392 
 
 Index 
 
 Dudley, Mary, Lady Sidney joins 
 in plot to make Lady Jane Queen, 
 14 ; negotiates for marriage of 
 Elizabeth to Archduke Charles, 
 47 ; annoyed with Lord Robert, 
 50 
 
 , Robert, Earl of Leicester 
 
 early influences, 4 ; character 
 and accomplishments, 6, 7 ; 
 introduced to Court life, 8 ; 
 marries Amy Robsart, 8 ; Master 
 of the Buckhounds and Gentle- 
 man of the Privy Chamber, 10 ; 
 pursues Queen Mary, 13, 16 ; 
 arrested at Lynn, 17 ; imprisoned 
 in Tower, 18 ; set at liberty, 22 ; 
 at siege of St Quintin, 24 ; 
 attainder withdrawn, 25 ; Master 
 of Horse, 25 ; receives Garter, 
 25 ; his part in Coronation Pro- 
 cessions of Elizabeth, 27 ; reviews 
 burgesses at Greenwich, 28 ; 
 introduces Dr Dee to Queen, 30 ; 
 presides at Inner Temple Masque, 
 33 ; his appearance, 34 ; lands 
 and licence bestowed on him, 36 ; 
 encourages Austrian marriage for 
 Elizabeth, 47 ; rumours about 
 his designs on his wife, 49 ; 
 wrangles with Duke of Norfolk, 
 49 ; his letters about tragedy at 
 Cumnor, 61 ; in great anxiety at 
 Kew, 67 ; under restraint, 68 ; 
 writes to Cecil, 70 ; his promises 
 in regard to a General Council, 
 78 ; plots against his life, 47, 84 ; 
 trifles with Queen at a Thames 
 Regatta, 89 ; negotiates with 
 Huguenots, 91 ; created Earl, 
 105; discusses proposed marriage 
 to Scottish Queen, with Melville, 
 108 ; variety of his activities, 
 114 ; concern for the Nether- 
 lands, 115 ; entertains the Queen 
 with a Masque, 119 ; entertains 
 the Queen at Kenilworth, 120 ; 
 arranges her visits to Oxford and 
 Cambridge, 122 ; becomes Chan- 
 cellor of Oxford, 123; "Lei- 
 cester's players," 125 ; co- 
 temporary praises of him, 126 ; 
 "your eyes," 130 ; compared as 
 suitor for Queen with Archduke 
 Charles, 134 ; receives French 
 Order of St Michael, 136 ; urges 
 Queen to marry Archduke, 140 ; 
 letter to Cecil, 141 ; in tem- 
 
 porary disfavour, 148 ; effect on 
 him of an absence from Court, 
 
 151 ; with other nobles, asks 
 Queen to name her successor, 
 
 152 ; his bribes and commissions, 
 156 ; quarrel with Sussex, 159 : 
 letters about seizure of Maiy 
 Queen of Scots, 162 ; specifies 
 objections to marriage of Eliza- 
 beth and Archduke, 164 ; appre- 
 hensive of a Catholic League, 
 170 ; character of his Protes- 
 tantism, 174 ; discusses situation 
 in Low Countries, 177 ; letter to 
 Cecil on Scotch affairs, 180 ; his 
 plots and counterplots, 184 ; 
 helps Norfolk to own his designs 
 to Elizabeth, 188 ; part in 
 Northern Rebellion, 194 ; views 
 on state of Scotland, 195 ; at 
 special Council for Scotch affairs , 
 224 ; commended by Chatillon, 
 226 ; New Year's gift to Queen 
 (1571), 226 ; angles for Duke of 
 Anjou, 227 ; letters to Walsing- 
 ham, 232 ; favours punishment 
 of Queen of Scots and Norfolk, 
 239 ; entertains French envoys, 
 242 ; letter about Massacre of 
 St Bartholomew, 245 ; advances 
 money to Netherlander, 249 ; 
 intervenes between Sussex and 
 North, 251 ; receives Queen and 
 Counsellors at Wanstead, 262 ; 
 retires to Wanstead in dis- 
 pleasure, 267 ; denounced because 
 of his marriage, 269 ; " troubled 
 and grieved," 271 ; returns to 
 favour, 278 ; opposes Burghley's 
 proposal of friendship with Spain, 
 281 ; family devotion of, 288 ; 
 holds institution of Order of 
 Garter, 292; " cures " at Buxton, 
 299 ; schemes for his son's 
 marriage to Lady Arabella, 300 ; 
 design of marrying young King 
 James to Lady Dorothy Devereux, 
 300 ; grief for loss of his child, 
 304 ; " Leicester's Common - 
 Avealth," 309 ; attitude towards 
 Campian, 314; "three earls" 
 quarrel, 321 ; appointment to 
 Netherlands command, 324 ; 
 reception in Holland, 328 ; takes 
 "name and place" of Governor- 
 General, 333 ; delays writing 
 to Elizabeth, 335; letter to
 
 Index 
 
 393 
 
 Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester 
 
 c&iitinued. 
 
 Burghley, 347 ; writes to Queen, 
 348 ; more letters to Queen, 351, 
 352, 353 ; his quarrels in Holland, 
 359 ; denounces Davison, 365 ; 
 pleads for his soldiers, 366 ; 
 describes fight, 368 ; anxiety 
 for Sir Philip Sidney's widow, 
 370 ; curious letter to Queen, 
 371 ; gathers army at Tilbury, 
 875; inspects forts, etc., 375; 
 receives Queen in camp, 378 ; 
 reconciled with Sir John N orris, 
 379 ; death of, 382 ; last letter 
 to Queen, 382 ; Spencer's lament, 
 384; his will, 386; his last 
 scheme, 388 
 
 EDWARD VI. records Lord Robert 
 Dudley's marriage, 8 ; appoints 
 his own successor, 12 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen of England 
 imprisoned in Tower, 20 ; state 
 entry into London and Corona- 
 tion, 27 ; reviews burgesses at 
 Greenwich, 28 ; replies to Parlia- 
 ment's request to her to marry, 
 39 ; considers an Austrian suitor, 
 47 ; spends much time with Lord 
 Robert, 56 ; tears up patent of 
 nobility prepared for him, 72 ; 
 discusses with De Quadra her 
 marriage with Lord Robert, 79 ; 
 declines visit of papal nuncio, 
 86 ; proposes Lord Robert for 
 husband of Mary Queen of Scots, 
 100 ; creates Lord Robert Baron 
 Denbigh and Earl of Leicester, 
 105 ; protests her innocence to 
 De Silva, 111 ; wishes Lord 
 Robert to be made Protector, 
 113 ; her attractions for Leicester, 
 118 ; suspects Duke of Norfolk, 
 192 ; letters to Hatton, 212; Bull 
 of Excommunication against, 223; 
 negotiations for marriage with 
 Anjou, 227 ; Bull of Excommuni- 
 cation nailed to door of Bishop 
 of London's palace, 239 ; pro- 
 ject of marriage with Alen9on, 
 241 ; announces betrothal to 
 Alen9on (Anjou), 283 ; speeds 
 him on his journey to Nether- 
 lands, 286 ; sarcastic letter to 
 Shrewsbury, 298 ; raves against 
 Lettice, 302 ; promises expedi- 
 
 tion to Low Countries, 323 ; 
 angry letter to Leicester in 
 Holland, 339 ; kinder letters, 
 349, 356; goes to Tilbury and 
 reviews troops, 378 ; her speech to 
 soldiers, 379 ; intention to make 
 Leicester Lord - Lieutenant of 
 kingdoms, 381 ; endorses " his 
 last letter," 383 ; seizes his 
 estates, 385 
 
 Essex, Lettice, Countess of 
 receives attention from Leicester, 
 144 ; marries Leicester, 217 ; 
 travels in state, 338 ; marries 
 Blount, 385 ; death and burial, 
 386 
 
 , Robert Devereux, Earl of 
 
 in Low Countries, 329 ; reviews 
 troops with Queen, 378 
 
 , Walter Devereux, Earl of 
 
 death of, 288 
 
 FORSTER, Sir Anthony at Cumnor 
 at death of "Amy Robsart," 65 
 
 GREGORY XIII., Pope sanctions 
 assassination of Elizabeth, 316 
 
 Grey, Lady Catherine secret 
 marriage, 97 ; marriage annulled, 
 98 ; imprisonment, 98 ; book 
 about her succession, 101 
 
 , Lady Jane married to Guil- 
 
 ford Dudley, 12 ; proclaimed 
 Queen, 15; imprisoned in Tower, 
 18 
 
 HENEAGE, Sir Thomas first 
 noticed by Elizabeth, 144 ; asks 
 Leicester a Twelfth Night riddle, 
 146; letters to Hatton, 214; 
 sent to rebuke ' ' States " and 
 Leicester, 338 
 
 Hatton, Sir Christopher made 
 Gentleman Pensioner, 203 ; taken 
 into Queen's favour, 203 ; his 
 letters to Elizabeth, 207 ; rela- 
 tions to Queen, 215 ; letter of 
 condolence to Leicester, 302 ; an 
 "overseer" of Leicester's will, 
 387 
 
 KNOLLYS, Lettice, Viscountess 
 Hereford, Countess of Essex 
 and Countess of Leicester (see 
 Essex)
 
 394 
 
 Index 
 
 LEICESTER, Countess of (see 
 
 Essex) 
 
 Leicester, Earl of (see Dudley) 
 Lennox, Lady Margaret Douglas, 
 Countess of her education of 
 Darnley, 93 ; disloyalty to Eliza- 
 beth and designs on the succes- 
 sion, 94 ; marries her second son 
 to Shrewsbury's daughter, 294 
 
 MARY I., Queen of England flight 
 from Hunsdon, 13 ; issues pro- 
 clamation, 14 ; comes to London, 
 16 
 
 Mary, Queen of Scots marries the 
 Dauphin, 43 ; becomes a widow, 
 96 ; claims the English succes- 
 sion, 99 ; marries Darnley, 136 ; 
 marries Both well, 161 ; comes to 
 England, 182 ; anger against 
 Lady Shrewsbury, 306 ; execu- 
 tion of, 363 
 
 NORFOLK, Thomas Howard, Duke of 
 angry with the Favourite, 49 ; 
 favours marriage of Elizabeth 
 and the Archduke, 172 ; enters 
 into scheme for marriage with 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, 183 ; re- 
 bukes Leicester's familiarity with 
 Queen, 186 ; terror of Elizabeth, 
 188; treachery discovered, 192; 
 restored to Council, 222 ; execu- 
 tion of, 240 
 
 ORMONDE, Earl of becomes a 
 
 favourite of Queen, 147 
 Orange, "William of, "The Silent" 
 
 murder of, 322 
 Oxford, Earl of refuses to dance 
 
 before French envoys, 253 
 
 PHILIP II., King of Spain pro- 
 posal to marry Elizabeth, 43 ; 
 opinion of Cecil, 102 ; claims 
 to the English throne, 361 ; 
 launches Armada, 374 
 
 ROBSART, Amy (see Dudley) 
 
 SHAKESPEARE eulogy of Eliza- 
 beth, 210 ; describes Ken il worth 
 pageant, 216 
 
 Sheffield, Douglass, Lady Lei- 
 cester's relations to, 216; Queen's 
 jealousy of, 219; Leicester breaks 
 with, 220 
 
 Shirley, Sir Thomas sent to Queen 
 by Leicester, 340 ; argues in 
 Leicester's favour, 342 
 
 Shrewsbury, Elizabeth, Countess 
 of marries her daughter to Earl 
 of Lennox, 294 ; entertains 
 Leicester at Buxton, 297 ; libels 
 her husband and Queen of Scots, 
 306 
 
 Sidney, Sir Henry proposes to De 
 Quadra a marriage between Lord 
 Robert and the Queen, 76 
 
 , Lady (see Dudley) 
 
 , Sir Philip verses to the 
 
 Queen, 210 ; letter about French 
 marriage, 272 ; defends Leicester 
 against Jesuit libels, 310; in Low 
 Countries, 329 ; wounded, 369 
 
 Simier, Jean de comes to England, 
 254 ; his anger over decision 
 of Council, 264 ; tells Elizabeth 
 of Leicester's marriage, 268 ; 
 quarrels with Anjou's followers, 
 285 
 
 Spencer, Edmund praises " Fair 
 Eliza," 209 ; laments Leicester, 
 384 
 
 Stuart, Lady Arabella birth of, 295 
 
 Sussex, Thomas Ratcliffe, Earl of 
 recommends Lord Robert as 
 husband for Elizabeth, 82; 
 quarrel with Leicester, 159 ; 
 apprehensive of ' ' ruin of the 
 realm," 168 ; negotiations in 
 Vienna, 169 ; despatched to 
 York, 193 ; death of, 322 
 
 WALSINGHAM, Sir Francis de- 
 spatched to Paris, 230 ; letter to 
 Queen about her dalliance, 279 
 
 Warwick, Earl of (see Dudley) 
 
 PRINTED AT THE EDINBURGH PRESS, g AND II YOUNG STREET.
 
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