BOOK II. learn from what she has suffered in character from this taste, to avoid its repetition; however innocent their feelings, and however correct their private conduct may always be. But altho she indulged this taste and humor for its gratifying effect, or from its political utility; yet she distinguished herself from all sovereigns, who have had dishonoring paramours, by carefully maintaining her own rectitude, and the dignity of her station. It is agreed that she made no one her minion, amid the preferences which she was partially interested to exhibit." She was always the sovereign, even to Leicester, who obtained most of her condescending favors, and she repeatedly caused him to feel that she was and would be so.92 We see natural, or merely POETICAL AND PERSONATED, I leave to conjecture.' p. 89. If any person, from every other part of their conduct, on the inost public and scrutinized and surrounded stage of life for 44 years, be entitled to the most liberal construction of such conjecture, few have higher claims for it than Elizabeth. She was always in the public eye, and never secluded herself from it. 91 Sir Robert Naunton justly remarks this important and clarifying trait: Her ministers and instruments of state were many, and those, memorable, but they were only favorites, and not minions. Such as acted more by HER OWN princely rules and judgments, than by their own wills and appetites. We find no Gaveston, Vere, or Spenser, to have swayed alone, during forty-four years.' Frag. Reg. 178. 92 There are many instances of this. Her royal and commanding letter to him in Holland, printed in our page 419, note 66, is one specimen ; we see another in Naunton: He says, I dissent from the common opinion, that my lord of Leicester was absolute, and above all in her grace. He then mentions, that Bowyer, whose duty was to superintend the admissions into the privy chamber, stopping a friend of Leicester's from entrance, because not a sworn servant of the queen, Leicester called him a knave, threatened him with a dismissal, and turned to go in to the queen to procure it. Bowyer stept before him, and fell at her feet, related the story, and craved her pleasure, and whether my lord Leicester was king, or her majesty queen.' Her immediate remark to the proud nobleman was: My lord! I have wished you well, but my favor is NOT so locked up FOR YOU, that others shall not partake thereof. I have many servants, to whom I HAVE, AND WILL at my pleasure bequeath my favor, and likewise resume the same; and IF YOU THINK TO RULE HERË, I will take a course to see you forthcoming. I will have here but one mistress, AND NO MASTER; and look that no ill happen to him, lest it be severely 93 XXXVII. many indications in his letters, that he so considered CHAP. her. She drew herself the line which separated her confidential familiarities to him from all tainting impropriety, by representing to the Scotch ambassador, before whom she had shewn the playful gaieties that have been noticed, that she considered him as her brother and her friend.94 Such a one we required at your hands.' This so quelled him, that his feigned humility was long after one of his best virtues.' Naunt. Frag. p. 180. Was this the conduct or language of a woman to her paramour? 93 In 1560, Leicester, at the time of his wife's death, wrote to Cecil, craving his advice and aid at court, but not in the style of a ruling favorite there: I pray you let me hear from you, what you think it 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 I am bound to be. I pray you help him that sues to be at liberty out of so great bondage. Forget me not, tho you see me not; and I will remember you.' Haynes, 362. As the next letter is that of Lever, urging an inquiry on his wife's death, the above seems to imply, that Elizabeth had put him under arrest upon the charge. Her displeasure against him for his conduct in Holland has been noticed before, p. 419. Burghley said, 'She would not hear any speech in defence of him,' Hardw. p. 298; and when Davison went to apologise for him, she began in most bitter and hard terms against the earl. ib. 302. This seems to be inconsistent with the intimacy of a Bothwell; and Leicester's letter upon it implies, that this was not a single instance of such behaviour to him, for he says to Walsingham, 'It is more than death unto me that her majesty should be thus ready to interpret hardly, ALWAYS, of my service. ib. 311. In his letter to the lords of the council, on this occasion, he claims a favorable hearing from her, from the public object and benefit of his attachment to her: The very abundance of my faithful hearty love, borne ever to the PRESERVATION of her sacred person, and the care of her prosperous reign over our poor endangered country, was the only cause thereof.' ib. p. 315. The conduct of Leicester in urging the parliament, against her knowlege and will, to call upon Elizabeth to name a successor in 1565; her resentment at it, (see before, p. 408;) his joining the combination to marry Mary to Norfolk; the concealment of this from Elizabeth, and her subjecting him to arrest and official interrogations for it,-are also incompatible with the allegations of any amatorial intimacy. I have not seen any document, out of the many letters which have come down to us, which contains any expression, or that gives an evidence, to support the scandalous imputation; so that all the contemporary testimony of authentic facts and writings are in favor of the denial of the accusing imputation. 94 Sir James Melville describes Elizabeth to have told him of Leicester, then lord Robert Dudley, 'She should make him a greater earl; for she II. BOOK perceive that she needed for her most private hours, to be ready, vigilant, and resolute for her safety, since we find that plots for her assassination began even in her twenty-third year."5 This danger, and the natural fears of a female after such an intimation, will sufficiently account for her causing him, or any other nobleman whom she could attach to her personal welfare, or on whom she could securely rely, to sleep near her bedchamber, for her nightly guardianship as her sister Mary, from far less founded alarms, had thought it necessary to do. These designs against her life appear to have been esteemed him AS HER BROTHER AND BEST FRIEND, whom she should have married herself, if she had ever been minded to have taken a husband; but being determined to end her life in virginity, she wished that the queen [Mary] should marry him.' Melv. 119. While Melville stayed, she then made Dudley earl Leicester, with great solemnity,' 'herself helping to put on his ceremonial, he sitting upon his knees before her, keeping great gravity and discreet behaviour; but she put her hand in his neck, to kittle him smilingly, the French ambassador and I standing beside her.' p. 120. If any thing could prove the innocence of this playfulness, it would be the occasion and public manner of doing it. It was an unbecoming indecorum, most certainly; but a woman of Elizabeth's sagacity would not have committed it, if she had been pursuing any improper intimacy with him. It was a foolery of conscious innocence presuming on itself to do it. We may also remark, that this is the only instance of the kind he notices—a single indecorum of a moment. No repetitions or similarities of such freedoms, or any indications of greater ones, are mentioned by this observant courtier, who, being most favorable to his own queen Mary, shews no disposition to screen Elizabeth. 95 In 1559, the very next year after her accession, lord Mountague sent her minutes of a conference he had with the emperor's ambassador, who said to him, I wish the queen be well guarded, both with friends and other sureties, lest perhaps more peril be towards her than she doth know of. I cannot but say unto you, that the queen, and all England, is in no small peril; yea, and the very person of the queen. This I do say unto you as knowing it, and would say more if I might; which by I may not; and therefore require it not of me. For the person of the queen I KNOW it hath been offered, and is, that SHE SHALL BE SLAIN; which offers I know not how they have been taken, but sure I am they have been made.' Haynes, 234. After such a communication, we shall not wonder that Elizabeth sought to have nightly protectors whom she could confide in, to sleep near her, as Mary had; and by every kind behaviour, short of immorality, to attach them to her. XXXVII. continuous, for two years afterwards we find lord CHAP. Burghley suggesting several cautions for her preservation. These machinations were anterior to those which arose from the conspiracy of Pius V. 96 Peculiarly fond of dancing herself, she was pleased with the graceful movements of sir Christopher Hatton, and noticed him much and favorably, for his general accomplishments." But we must allow queens, like other ladies, to have their share of the amusements of their surrounding society, and to be also interested by them, for without that interest these things would not be a gratification, and yet feel, that Elizabeth might be fond of tripping with fantastic toe,' and with such partners as could best do so, without therefore being charged with unseen crime, beyond the visible and unconcealed enjoyment. Some of our present country women, of stronger frames and more bounding spirits, may now be, even unreasonably, attached to their quadrilles or waltzing, without therefore being charged with scandal as to the associates of their social In 1561, Burghley made these minutes: We think it very convenient that your majesty's apparel, and especially all things that shall touch your body, be circumspectly looked unto; that no person be permitted to come near it, but such as have the trust thereof; that no manner of perfume be presented by a stranger; that no foreign meat or dishes, dressed out of your court, be brought to your food; that the back doors to your chamberer's chambers be duly attended upon; that the privy chamber be better ordered, with an attendance of an usher, and the gentlemen and grooms.' Haynes, 368. Camden thus notices his rise: Being of a comely tallness, she took him into her band of fifty gentlemen pensioners; and afterwards, for his modest sweetness of manners, into the number of her privy chamber, made him captain of the guard, vice-chamberlain, and one of her privy council, and, lastly, lord chancellor; a man of a pious nature, great pity toward the poor, and singular bounty to students of learning ; FOR WHICH those of Oxford chose him chancellor of that university." Camd. Eliz. p. 406, 7. Naunton remarks of him, that he had a strong and subtle capacity.' p. 249. BOOK diversion.98 II. It might be more majestic for majesty not to dance; and, for the avoidance of all sinister interpretations, it may be most prudent to use this forbearance. But we know that Elizabeth never laid aside her personal dignity, nor allowed any one, however favored, to forget it. And if any woman could shew that she had given no one the claims of intimacy over her, she did so to sir Christopher Hatton. She visited him with a kind humanity when he was dangerously ill," but she was always the sovereign, and never the lover; and his language that has come down to us, fully shews that he had no favored rights to make him otherwise.100 98 Hatton was so attached to this amusement, even after he had the seals, that upon his nephew and heir's marriage with a judge's daughter, he took off his official gown, and placed it on his chair, saying, Lie there, Mr. Chancellor and then danced the measures at the nuptial festivity. Capt. Allen's Lett. in Birch, v. 1. p. 56. 99 In G. Talbot's lett. to his father, of 11th May 1573, we read,'Hatton is sick still. It is thought that he will very hardly recover his disease. The queen goeth almost every day to see how he doth.' Lodge, v. 2. p. 101. 100 His letter, of 14 Dec. 1578, to lord Burghley, is now before me, and illustrates the sentiment in the text. I humbly thank you for your most honorable letters. My poor case has no defence: demissa vultu dicendum, rogo. I ask, because I want. My reward is made less, but I confess my unworthiness. I do my service with diligence, pain and travail, according to God's gift in me: and therefore, in charitable goodness, I should not in any reasonable cause be so contemptuously rejected. Evil men are made examples; but I, that made no offence, should not be punished for Grey's fault. I seek a debt which grew to me thro her majesty's reward; but your lordship's direction will lead me to further charge, without any comfort of her majesty's care and goodness in the gift she made to relieve me. Touching my present suit, I will justify it to be reasonable, and every way agreeable with my duty and estate. How it is hindered, I hear by her majesty, but by whom I know not; but I know and feel it is an easy thing to do harm; and therefore will pray to God to give us grace to do good, each to the other, while we may. I hope your lordship will not hinder me, because my doings are direct. In this suit, I offered her majesty what I am able, to the advancement of her ordinary revenue. I did acknowlege my gain, thro her goodness for my comfortable relief. I made your lordship privy, and you misliked not; but now this little is thought too much; and |