person, than fortune to make him rich; for the times considered, which were then active, and a long time after lucrative, he died not wealthy, yet the honester man; though it seems the Queen's purpose was to tender the occasion of his advancement, and to make him capable of more honour, which at his return from Cardize accounts;* she conferred it upon him, creating him Earl of Nottingham, to the great discontent of his colleague, my Lord of Essex, who then grew excessive in the appetite of her favour; and, in truth, was so exorbitant in the limitation of the sovereign aspect, that it much alienated the Queen's grace from him, and drew others, together with the admiral, to a combination, and to conspire his ruin. And though I have heard it from that party, I mean of the admiral's faction, that it lay not in his proper power to hurt my Lord of Essex,

* Lord Effingham commanded in chief at sea, and the Earl of Essex at land in that exploit.

yet he had more followers, and such as were well skilled in setting of the gin; but I leave this to those of another age.

It is out of doubt, that the admiral was a good, honest, and a brave man, and a faithful servant to his mistress; and such a one as the Queen, out of her own princely judgment, knew to be a fit instrument for that service; for she was no ill proficient in the reading of men, as well as books, and his sundry expeditions, as that aforementioned, and eighty-eight, doth both express his worth, and manifest the Queen's trust, and the opinion she had of his fidelity and conduct.

Moreover, the Howards were of the Queen's alliance, and consanguinity by her mother, which swayed her affection, and bent it toward this great house; and it was a part of her natural propension, to grace and support ancient nobility, where it did not entrench, neither invade her interest; for on such trespasses she was quick and tender, and would not spare any whatso

ever, as we may observe in the case of the Duke, and my Lord of Hertford, whom she much favoured and countenanced, till they attempted the forbidden fruit: * the fault of the last being, in the severest interpretation, but a trespass of encroachment; but in the first, it was taken for a riot against the crown, and her own sovereign power, and as I have ever thought the cause of her aversion against the rest of the house, and the Duke's great fatherin-law Fitz Allen, Earl of Arundel; a person of the first rank in her affections before these, and some other jealousies, made a separation between them; this noble Lord, and the Lord Thomas Howard, since Earl of Suffolk, standing alone in her grace, the rest in umbrage.

* Namely, by endeavouring to connect themselves with the succession to the crown. Norfolk, by his unhappy scheme of marrying Queen Mary of Scotland; and Hertford, by his scarce less unfortunate connection with the Lady Catherine Grey, already mentioned by Naunton.

SIR JOHN PACKINGTON.

Sir John Packington was a gentleman of no mean family, and of form and feature no way despisable; for he was a brave gentleman, and a very fine courtier; and for the time which he stayed there, which was not lasting, very high in her grace; but he came in, and went out, and through disassiduity, drew the curtain between himself and the light of her grace, and then death overwhelmed the remnant, and utterly deprived him of recovery; and they say of him, that had he brought less to the court than he did, he might have carried away more than he brought, for he had a time on it, but an ill husband of opportunity.

LORD HUNSDON.*

My Lord of Hunsdon was of the Queen's nearest kindred; and on the decease of Sussex, both he and his son took the place of lord chamberlain. He was a fast man to his Prince, and firm in his friends and servants; and though he might speak big, and therein would be borne out, yet was he not the more dreadful, but less harmful, and far from the practice of my Lord of Leicester's instructions, for he was down right; and I have heard those, that both knew him well, and had interest in him, say merrily of him, that his Latin and his dissimulation were both alike; and that

* Cary, Lord Hunsdon, father of Sir Robert Cary, Earl of Monmouth. See the preceding Memoirs. Naunton's character of this nobleman, is well supported by the style of his letter to Burleigh, p. 165.