Varney kneeled down, and replied, with a look of the most profound
contrition, "There had been some love passages betwixt him and Mistress
Amy Robsart."

Leicester's flesh quivered with indignation as he heard his dependant
make this avowal, and for one moment he manned himself to step forward,
and, bidding farewell to the court and the royal favour, confess the
whole mystery of the secret marriage. But he looked at Sussex, and the
idea of the triumphant smile which would clothe his cheek upon hearing
the avowal sealed his lips. "Not now, at least," he thought, "or in this
presence, will I afford him so rich a triumph." And pressing his lips
close together, he stood firm and collected, attentive to each word
which Varney uttered, and determined to hide to the last the secret on
which his court-favour seemed to depend. Meanwhile, the Queen proceeded
in her examination of Varney.

"Love passages!" said she, echoing his last words; "what passages, thou
knave? and why not ask the wench's hand from her father, if thou hadst
any honesty in thy love for her?"

"An it please your Grace," said Varney, still on his knees, "I dared not
do so, for her father had promised her hand to a gentleman of birth and
honour--I will do him justice, though I know he bears me ill-will--one
Master Edmund Tressilian, whom I now see in the presence."

"Soh!" replied the Queen. "And what was your right to make the simple
fool break her worthy father's contract, through your love PASSAGES, as
your conceit and assurance terms them?"

"Madam," replied Varney, "it is in vain to plead the cause of human
frailty before a judge to whom it is unknown, or that of love to one who
never yields to the passion"--he paused an instant, and then added, in a
very low and timid tone--"which she inflicts upon all others."

Elizabeth tried to frown, but smiled in her own despite, as she
answered, "Thou art a marvellously impudent knave. Art thou married to
the girl?"

Leicester's feelings became so complicated and so painfully intense,
that it seemed to him as if his life was to depend on the answer made by
Varney, who, after a moment's real hesitation, answered, "Yes."

"Thou false villain!" said Leicester, bursting forth into rage, yet
unable to add another word to the sentence which he had begun with such
emphatic passion.

"Nay, my lord," said the Queen, "we will, by your leave, stand between
this fellow and your anger. We have not yet done with him.--Knew your
master, my Lord of Leicester, of this fair work of yours? Speak truth, I
command thee, and I will be thy warrant from danger on every quarter."

"Gracious madam," said Varney, "to speak Heaven's truth, my lord was the
cause of the whole matter."

"Thou villain, wouldst thou betray me?" said Leicester.

"Speak on," said the Queen hastily, her cheek colouring, and her eyes
sparkling, as she addressed Varney--"speak on. Here no commands are
heard but mine."

"They are omnipotent, gracious madam," replied Varney; "and to you there
can be no secrets.--Yet I would not," he added, looking around him,
"speak of my master's concerns to other ears."

"Fall back, my lords," said the Queen to those who surrounded her, "and
do you speak on. What hath the Earl to do with this guilty intrigue of
thine? See, fellow, that thou beliest him not!"

"Far be it from me to traduce my noble patron," replied Varney; "yet
I am compelled to own that some deep, overwhelming, yet secret feeling
hath of late dwelt in my lord's mind, hath abstracted him from the
cares of the household which he was wont to govern with such religious
strictness, and hath left us opportunities to do follies, of which the
shame, as in this case, partly falls upon our patron. Without this, I
had not had means or leisure to commit the folly which has drawn on me
his displeasure--the heaviest to endure by me which I could by any means
incur, saving always the yet more dreaded resentment of your Grace."

"And in this sense, and no other, hath he been accessory to thy fault?"
said Elizabeth.

"Surely, madam, in no other," replied Varney; "but since somewhat hath
chanced to him, he can scarce be called his own man. Look at him,
madam, how pale and trembling he stands! how unlike his usual majesty of
manner!--yet what has he to fear from aught I can say to your Highness?
Ah! madam, since he received that fatal packet!"

"What packet, and from whence?" said the Queen eagerly.

"From whence, madam, I cannot guess; but I am so near to his person that
I know he has ever since worn, suspended around his neck and next to his
heart, that lock of hair which sustains a small golden jewel shaped
like a heart. He speaks to it when alone--he parts not from it when he
sleeps--no heathen ever worshipped an idol with such devotion."

"Thou art a prying knave to watch thy master so closely," said
Elizabeth, blushing, but not with anger; "and a tattling knave to tell
over again his fooleries.--What colour might the braid of hair be that
thou pratest of?"

Varney replied, "A poet, madam, might call it a thread from the golden
web wrought by Minerva; but to my thinking it was paler than even the
purest gold--more like the last parting sunbeam of the softest day of
spring."

"Why, you are a poet yourself, Master Varney," said the Queen, smiling.
"But I have not genius quick enough to follow your rare metaphors. Look
round these ladies--is there"--(she hesitated, and endeavoured to assume
an air of great indifference)--"is there here, in this presence, any
lady, the colour of whose hair reminds thee of that braid? Methinks,
without prying into my Lord of Leicester's amorous secrets, I would
fain know what kind of locks are like the thread of Minerva's web, or
the--what was it?--the last rays of the May-day sun."

Varney looked round the presence-chamber, his eye travelling from one
lady to another, until at length it rested upon the Queen herself, but
with an aspect of the deepest veneration. "I see no tresses," he said,
"in this presence, worthy of such similies, unless where I dare not look
on them."

"How, sir knave?" said the Queen; "dare you intimate--"

"Nay, madam," replied Varney, shading his eyes with his hand, "it was
the beams of the May-day sun that dazzled my weak eyes."

"Go to--go to," said the Queen; "thou art a foolish fellow"--and turning
quickly from him she walked up to Leicester.

Intense curiosity, mingled with all the various hopes, fears,
and passions which influence court faction, had occupied the
presence-chamber during the Queen's conference with Varney, as if with
the strength of an Eastern talisman. Men suspended every, even the
slightest external motion, and would have ceased to breathe, had Nature
permitted such an intermission of her functions. The atmosphere was
contagious, and Leicester, who saw all around wishing or fearing his
advancement or his fall forgot all that love had previously dictated,
and saw nothing for the instant but the favour or disgrace which
depended on the nod of Elizabeth and the fidelity of Varney. He summoned
himself hastily, and prepared to play his part in the scene which was
like to ensue, when, as he judged from the glances which the Queen threw
towards him, Varney's communications, be they what they might, were
operating in his favour. Elizabeth did not long leave him in doubt; for
the more than favour with which she accosted him decided his triumph in
the eyes of his rival, and of the assembled court of England. "Thou hast
a prating servant of this same Varney, my lord," she said; "it is lucky
you trust him with nothing that can hurt you in our opinion, for believe
me, he would keep no counsel."

"From your Highness," said Leicester, dropping gracefully on one knee,
"it were treason he should. I would that my heart itself lay before you,
barer than the tongue of any servant could strip it."

"What, my lord," said Elizabeth, looking kindly upon him, "is there no
one little corner over which you would wish to spread a veil? Ah! I see
you are confused at the question, and your Queen knows she should not
look too deeply into her servants' motives for their faithful duty, lest
she see what might, or at least ought to, displease her."

Relieved by these last words, Leicester broke out into a torrent of
expressions of deep and passionate attachment, which perhaps, at that
moment, were not altogether fictitious. The mingled emotions which had
at first overcome him had now given way to the energetic vigour with
which he had determined to support his place in the Queen's favour;
and never did he seem to Elizabeth more eloquent, more handsome, more
interesting, than while, kneeling at her feet, he conjured her to strip
him of all his dower, but to leave him the name of her servant.--"Take
from the poor Dudley," he exclaimed, "all that your bounty has made him,
and bid him be the poor gentleman he was when your Grace first shone on
him; leave him no more than his cloak and his sword, but let him still
boast he has--what in word or deed he never forfeited--the regard of his
adored Queen and mistress!"

"No, Dudley!" said Elizabeth, raising him with one hand, while she
extended the other that he might kiss it. "Elizabeth hath not forgotten
that, whilst you were a poor gentleman, despoiled of your hereditary
rank, she was as poor a princess, and that in her cause you then
ventured all that oppression had left you--your life and honour. Rise,
my lord, and let my hand go--rise, and be what you have ever been, the
grace of our court and the support of our throne! Your mistress may
be forced to chide your misdemeanours, but never without owning your
merits.--And so help me God," she added, turning to the audience, who,
with various feelings, witnessed this interesting scene--"so help me
God, gentlemen, as I think never sovereign had a truer servant than I
have in this noble Earl!"

A murmur of assent rose from the Leicestrian faction, which the friends
of Sussex dared not oppose. They remained with their eyes fixed on the
ground, dismayed as well as mortified by the public and absolute triumph
of their opponents. Leicester's first use of the familiarity to
which the Queen had so publicly restored him was to ask her commands
concerning Varney's offence, "although," he said, "the fellow deserves
nothing from me but displeasure, yet, might I presume to intercede--"

"In truth, we had forgotten his matter," said the Queen; "and it was
ill done of us, who owe justice to our meanest as well as to our highest
subject. We are pleased, my lord, that you were the first to recall the
matter to our memory.--Where is Tressilian, the accuser?--let him come
before us."

Tressilian appeared, and made a low and beseeming reference. His
person, as we have elsewhere observed, had an air of grace and even of
nobleness, which did not escape Queen Elizabeth's critical observation.
She looked at him with, attention as he stood before her unabashed, but
with an air of the deepest dejection.

"I cannot but grieve for this gentleman," she said to Leicester. "I have
inquired concerning him, and his presence confirms what I heard, that he
is a scholar and a soldier, well accomplished both in arts and arms. We
women, my lord, are fanciful in our choice--I had said now, to judge by
the eye, there was no comparison to be held betwixt your follower and
this gentleman. But Varney is a well-spoken fellow, and, to say truth,
that goes far with us of the weaker sex.--look you, Master Tressilian, a
bolt lost is not a bow broken. Your true affection, as I will hold it to
be, hath been, it seems, but ill requited; but you have scholarship, and
you know there have been false Cressidas to be found, from the Trojan
war downwards. Forget, good sir, this Lady Light o' Love--teach your
affection to see with a wiser eye. This we say to you, more from the
writings of learned men than our own knowledge, being, as we are, far
removed by station and will from the enlargement of experience in such
idle toys of humorous passion. For this dame's father, we can make his
grief the less by advancing his son-in-law to such station as may
enable him to give an honourable support to his bride. Thou shalt not be
forgotten thyself, Tressilian--follow our court, and thou shalt see
that a true Troilus hath some claim on our grace. Think of what that
arch-knave Shakespeare says--a plague on him, his toys come into my head
when I should think of other matters. Stay, how goes it?

     'Cressid was yours, tied with the bonds of heaven;
     These bonds of heaven are slipt, dissolved, and loosed,
     And with another knot five fingers tied,
     The fragments of her faith are bound to Diomed.'

You smile, my Lord of Southampton--perchance I make your player's verse
halt through my bad memory. But let it suffice let there be no more of
this mad matter."

And as Tressilian kept the posture of one who would willingly be heard,
though, at the same time, expressive of the deepest reverence, the Queen
added with some impatience, "What would the man have? The wench
cannot wed both of you? She has made her election--not a wise one
perchance--but she is Varney's wedded wife."

"My suit should sleep there, most gracious Sovereign," said Tressilian,
"and with my suit my revenge. But I hold this Varney's word no good
warrant for the truth."

"Had that doubt been elsewhere urged," answered Varney, "my sword--"

"THY sword!" interrupted Tressilian scornfully; "with her Grace's leave,
my sword shall show--"

"Peace, you knaves, both!" said the Queen; "know you where you
are?--This comes of your feuds, my lords," she added, looking towards
Leicester and Sussex; "your followers catch your own humour, and must
bandy and brawl in my court and in my very presence, like so many
Matamoros.--Look you, sirs, he that speaks of drawing swords in any
other quarrel than mine or England's, by mine honour, I'll bracelet
him with iron both on wrist and ankle!" She then paused a minute,
and resumed in a milder tone, "I must do justice betwixt the bold and
mutinous knaves notwithstanding.--My Lord of Leicester, will you warrant
with your honour--that is, to the best of your belief--that your servant
speaks truth in saying he hath married this Amy Robsart?"

This was a home-thrust, and had nearly staggered Leicester. But he had
now gone too far to recede, and answered, after a moment's hesitation,
"To the best of my belief--indeed on my certain knowledge--she is a
wedded wife."

"Gracious madam," said Tressilian, "may I yet request to know, when and
under what circumstances this alleged marriage--"

"Out, sirrah," answered the Queen; "ALLEGED marriage! Have you not the
word of this illustrious Earl to warrant the truth of what his servant
says? But thou art a loser--thinkest thyself such at least--and thou
shalt have indulgence; we will look into the matter ourself more at
leisure.--My Lord of Leicester, I trust you remember we mean to taste
the good cheer of your Castle of Kenilworth on this week ensuing. We
will pray you to bid our good and valued friend, the Earl of Sussex, to
hold company with us there."

"If the noble Earl of Sussex," said Leicester, bowing to his rival with
the easiest and with the most graceful courtesy, "will so far honour my
poor house, I will hold it an additional proof of the amicable regard it
is your Grace's desire we should entertain towards each other."

Sussex was more embarrassed. "I should," said he, "madam, be but a clog
on your gayer hours, since my late severe illness."

"And have you been indeed so very ill?" said Elizabeth, looking on him
with more attention than before; "you are, in faith, strangely altered,
and deeply am I grieved to see it. But be of good cheer--we will
ourselves look after the health of so valued a servant, and to whom we
owe so much. Masters shall order your diet; and that we ourselves
may see that he is obeyed, you must attend us in this progress to
Kenilworth."

This was said so peremptorily, and at the same time with so much
kindness, that Sussex, however unwilling to become the guest of his
rival, had no resource but to bow low to the Queen in obedience to
her commands, and to express to Leicester, with blunt courtesy, though
mingled with embarrassment, his acceptance of his invitation. As the
Earls exchanged compliments on the occasion, the Queen said to her High
Treasurer, "Methinks, my lord, the countenances of these our two noble
peers resemble those of the two famed classic streams, the one so dark
and sad, the other so fair and noble. My old Master Ascham would have
chid me for forgetting the author. It is Caesar, as I think. See what
majestic calmness sits on the brow of the noble Leicester, while Sussex
seems to greet him as if he did our will indeed, but not willingly."

"The doubt of your Majesty's favour," answered the Lord Treasurer, "may
perchance occasion the difference, which does not--as what does?--escape
your Grace's eye."

"Such doubt were injurious to us, my lord," replied the Queen. "We hold
both to be near and dear to us, and will with impartiality employ both
in honourable service for the weal of our kingdom. But we will break
their further conference at present.--My Lords of Sussex and Leicester,
we have a word more with you. 'Tressilian and Varney are near your
persons--you will see that they attend you at Kenilworth. And as we
shall then have both Paris and Menelaus within our call, so we will
have the same fair Helen also, whose fickleness has caused this
broil.--Varney, thy wife must be at Kenilworth, and forthcoming at my
order.--My Lord of Leicester, we expect you will look to this."

The Earl and his follower bowed low and raised their heads, without
daring to look at the Queen, or at each other, for both felt at the
instant as if the nets and toils which their own falsehood had woven
were in the act of closing around them. The Queen, however, observed
not their confusion, but proceeded to say, "My Lords of Sussex and
Leicester, we require your presence at the privy-council to be presently
held, where matters of importance are to be debated. We will then take
the water for our divertisement, and you, my lords, will attend us.--And
that reminds us of a circumstance.--Do you, Sir Squire of the Soiled
Cassock" (distinguishing Raleigh by a smile), "fail not to observe
that you are to attend us on our progress. You shall be supplied with
suitable means to reform your wardrobe."

And so terminated this celebrated audience, in which, as throughout her
life, Elizabeth united the occasional caprice of her sex with that sense
and sound policy in which neither man nor woman ever excelled her.



CHAPTER XVII.

     Well, then--our course is chosen--spread the sail--
     Heave oft the lead, and mark the soundings well--
     Look to the helm, good master--many a shoal
     Marks this stern coast, and rocks, where sits the Siren,
     Who, like ambition, lures men to their ruin.--THE SHIPWRECK.

During the brief interval that took place betwixt the dismissal of the
audience and the sitting of the privy-council, Leicester had time to
reflect that he had that morning sealed his own fate. "It was impossible
for him now," he thought, "after having, in the face of all that was
honourable in England, pledged his truth (though in an ambiguous phrase)
for the statement of Varney, to contradict or disavow it, without
exposing himself, not merely to the loss of court-favour, but to the
highest displeasure of the Queen, his deceived mistress, and to the
scorn and contempt at once of his rival and of all his compeers." This
certainty rushed at once on his mind, together with all the difficulties
which he would necessarily be exposed to in preserving a secret which
seemed now equally essential to his safety, to his power, and to his
honour. He was situated like one who walks upon ice ready to give way
around him, and whose only safety consists in moving onwards, by firm
and unvacillating steps. The Queen's favour, to preserve which he
had made such sacrifices, must now be secured by all means and at all
hazards; it was the only plank which he could cling to in the tempest.
He must settle himself, therefore, to the task of not only preserving,
but augmenting the Queen's partiality--he must be the favourite of
Elizabeth, or a man utterly shipwrecked in fortune and in honour. All
other considerations must be laid aside for the moment, and he repelled
the intrusive thoughts which forced on his mind the image of, Amy, by
saying to himself there would be time to think hereafter how he was to
escape from the labyrinth ultimately, since the pilot who sees a Scylla
under his bows must not for the time think of the more distant dangers
of Charybdis.

In this mood the Earl of Leicester that day assumed his chair at the
council table of Elizabeth; and when the hours of business were over,
in this same mood did he occupy an honoured place near her during her
pleasure excursion on the Thames. And never did he display to more
advantage his powers as a politician of the first rank, or his parts as
an accomplished courtier.

It chanced that in that day's council matters were agitated touching the
affairs of the unfortunate Mary, the seventh year of whose captivity in
England was now in doleful currency. There had been opinions in favour
of this unhappy princess laid before Elizabeth's council, and supported
with much strength of argument by Sussex and others, who dwelt more upon
the law of nations and the breach of hospitality than, however softened
or qualified, was agreeable to the Queen's ear. Leicester adopted the
contrary opinion with great animation and eloquence, and described the
necessity of continuing the severe restraint of the Queen of Scots, as
a measure essential to the safety of the kingdom, and particularly
of Elizabeth's sacred person, the lightest hair of whose head, he
maintained, ought, in their lordships' estimation, to be matter of more
deep and anxious concern than the life and fortunes of a rival, who,
after setting up a vain and unjust pretence to the throne of England,
was now, even while in the bosom of her country, the constant hope and
theme of encouragement to all enemies to Elizabeth, whether at home or
abroad. He ended by craving pardon of their lordships, if in the zeal
of speech he had given any offence, but the Queen's safety was a theme
which hurried him beyond his usual moderation of debate.

Elizabeth chid him, but not severely, for the weight which he attached
unduly to her personal interests; yet she owned that, since it had been
the pleasure of Heaven to combine those interests with the weal of
her subjects, she did only her duty when she adopted such measures of
self-preservation as circumstances forced upon her; and if the council
in their wisdom should be of opinion that it was needful to continue
some restraint on the person of her unhappy sister of Scotland, she
trusted they would not blame her if she requested of the Countess of
Shrewsbury to use her with as much kindness as might be consistent with
her safe keeping. And with this intimation of her pleasure the council
was dismissed.

Never was more anxious and ready way made for "my Lord of Leicester,"
than as he passed through the crowded anterooms to go towards the
river-side, in order to attend her Majesty to her barge--never was
the voice of the ushers louder, to "make room, make room for the
noble Earl"--never were these signals more promptly and reverently
obeyed--never were more anxious eyes turned on him to obtain a glance
of favour, or even of mere recognition, while the heart of many a humble
follower throbbed betwixt the desire to offer his congratulations, and
the fear of intruding himself on the notice of one so infinitely above
him. The whole court considered the issue of this day's audience,
expected with so much doubt and anxiety, as a decisive triumph on the
part of Leicester, and felt assured that the orb of his rival satellite,
if not altogether obscured by his lustre, must revolve hereafter in a
dimmer and more distant sphere. So thought the court and courtiers, from
high to low; and they acted accordingly.

On the other hand, never did Leicester return the general greeting with
such ready and condescending courtesy, or endeavour more successfully
to gather (in the words of one who at that moment stood at no great
distance from him) "golden opinions from all sorts of men."

For all the favourite Earl had a bow a smile at least, and often a kind
word. Most of these were addressed to courtiers, whose names have long
gone down the tide of oblivion; but some, to such as sound strangely in
our ears, when connected with the ordinary matters of human life,
above which the gratitude of posterity has long elevated them. A few of
Leicester's interlocutory sentences ran as follows:--

"Poynings, good morrow; and how does your wife and fair daughter? Why
come they not to court?--Adams, your suit is naught; the Queen will
grant no more monopolies. But I may serve you in another matter.--My
good Alderman Aylford, the suit of the City, affecting Queenhithe,
shall be forwarded as far as my poor interest can serve.--Master Edmund
Spenser, touching your Irish petition, I would willingly aid you, from
my love to the Muses; but thou hast nettled the Lord Treasurer."

"My lord," said the poet, "were I permitted to explain--"

"Come to my lodging, Edmund," answered the Earl "not to-morrow, or next
day, but soon.--Ha, Will Shakespeare--wild Will!--thou hast given my
nephew Philip Sidney, love-powder; he cannot sleep without thy Venus and
Adonis under his pillow! We will have thee hanged for the veriest wizard
in Europe. Hark thee, mad wag, I have not forgotten thy matter of the
patent, and of the bears."

The PLAYER bowed, and the Earl nodded and passed on--so that age would
have told the tale; in ours, perhaps, we might say the immortal had done
homage to the mortal. The next whom the favourite accosted was one of
his own zealous dependants.

"How now, Sir Francis Denning," he whispered, in answer to his exulting
salutation, "that smile hath made thy face shorter by one-third than
when I first saw it this morning.--What, Master Bowyer, stand you back,
and think you I bear malice? You did but your duty this morning; and if
I remember aught of the passage betwixt us, it shall be in thy favour."

Then the Earl was approached, with several fantastic congees, by a
person quaintly dressed in a doublet of black velvet, curiously slashed
and pinked with crimson satin. A long cock's feather in the velvet
bonnet, which he held in his hand, and an enormous ruff; stiffened to
the extremity of the absurd taste of the times, joined with a sharp,
lively, conceited expression of countenance, seemed to body forth a
vain, harebrained coxcomb, and small wit; while the rod he held, and
an assumption of formal authority, appeared to express some sense
of official consequence, which qualified the natural pertness of his
manner. A perpetual blush, which occupied rather the sharp nose than the
thin cheek of this personage, seemed to speak more of "good life," as
it was called, than of modesty; and the manner in which he approached to
the Earl confirmed that suspicion.

"Good even to you, Master Robert Laneham," said Leicester, and seemed
desirous to pass forward, without further speech.

"I have a suit to your noble lordship," said the figure, boldly
following him.

"And what is it, good master keeper of the council-chamber door?"

"CLERK of the council-chamber door," said Master Robert Laneham, with
emphasis, by way of reply, and of correction.

"Well, qualify thine office as thou wilt, man," replied the Earl; "what
wouldst thou have with me?"

"Simply," answered Laneham, "that your lordship would be, as heretofore,
my good lord, and procure me license to attend the Summer Progress
unto your lordship's most beautiful and all-to-be-unmatched Castle of
Kenilworth."

"To what purpose, good Master Laneham?" replied the Earl; "bethink you,
my guests must needs be many."

"Not so many," replied the petitioner, "but that your nobleness will
willingly spare your old servitor his crib and his mess. Bethink you,
my lord, how necessary is this rod of mine to fright away all those
listeners, who else would play at bo-peep with the honourable council,
and be searching for keyholes and crannies in the door of the chamber,
so as to render my staff as needful as a fly-flap in a butcher's shop."

"Methinks you have found out a fly-blown comparison for the honourable
council, Master Laneham," said the Earl; "but seek not about to justify
it. Come to Kenilworth, if you list; there will be store of fools there
besides, and so you will be fitted."

"Nay, an there be fools, my lord," replied Laneham, with much glee, "I
warrant I will make sport among them, for no greyhound loves to cote a
hare as I to turn and course a fool. But I have another singular favour
to beseech of your honour."

"Speak it, and let me go," said the Earl; "I think the Queen comes forth
instantly."

"My very good lord, I would fain bring a bed-fellow with me."

"How, you irreverent rascal!" said Leicester.

"Nay, my lord, my meaning is within the canons," answered his
unblushing, or rather his ever-blushing petitioner. "I have a wife as
curious as her grandmother who ate the apple. Now, take her with me
I may not, her Highness's orders being so strict against the officers
bringing with them their wives in a progress, and so lumbering the court
with womankind. But what I would crave of your lordship is to find room
for her in some mummery, or pretty pageant, in disguise, as it were; so
that, not being known for my wife, there may be no offence."

"The foul fiend seize ye both!" said Leicester, stung into
uncontrollable passion by the recollections which this speech
excited--"why stop you me with such follies?"

The terrified clerk of the chamber-door, astonished at the burst of
resentment he had so unconsciously produced, dropped his staff of office
from his hand, and gazed on the incensed Earl with a foolish face of
wonder and terror, which instantly recalled Leicester to himself.

"I meant but to try if thou hadst the audacity which befits thine
office," said he hastily. "Come to Kenilworth, and bring the devil with
thee, if thou wilt."

"My wife, sir, hath played the devil ere now, in a Mystery, in Queen
Mary's time; but me shall want a trifle for properties."

"Here is a crown for thee," said the Earl,--"make me rid of thee--the
great bell rings."

Master Robert Laneham stared a moment at the agitation which he had
excited, and then said to himself, as he stooped to pick up his staff
of office, "The noble Earl runs wild humours to-day. But they who give
crowns expect us witty fellows to wink at their unsettled starts; and,
by my faith, if they paid not for mercy, we would finger them tightly!"
[See Note 6. Robert Laneham.]

Leicester moved hastily on, neglecting the courtesies he had hitherto
dispensed so liberally, and hurrying through the courtly crowd, until
he paused in a small withdrawing-room, into which he plunged to draw a
moment's breath unobserved, and in seclusion.

"What am I now," he said to himself, "that am thus jaded by the words
of a mean, weather-beaten, goose-brained gull! Conscience, thou art a
bloodhound, whose growl wakes us readily at the paltry stir of a rat
or mouse as at the step of a lion. Can I not quit myself, by one
bold stroke, of a state so irksome, so unhonoured? What if I kneel to
Elizabeth, and, owning the whole, throw myself on her mercy?"

As he pursued this train of thought, the door of the apartment opened,
and Varney rushed in.

"Thank God, my lord, that I have found you!" was his exclamation.

"Thank the devil, whose agent thou art," was the Earl's reply.

"Thank whom you will, my lord," replied Varney; "but hasten to the
water-side. The Queen is on board, and asks for you."

"Go, say I am taken suddenly ill," replied Leicester; "for, by Heaven,
my brain can sustain this no longer!"

"I may well say so," said Varney, with bitterness of expression, "for
your place, ay, and mine, who, as your master of the horse, was to have
attended your lordship, is already filled up in the Queen's barge. The
new minion, Walter Raleigh, and our old acquaintance Tressilian were
called for to fill our places just as I hastened away to seek you."

"Thou art a devil, Varney," said Leicester hastily; "but thou hast the
mastery for the present--I follow thee."

Varney replied not, but led the way out of the palace, and towards the
river, while his master followed him, as if mechanically; until, looking
back, he said in a tone which savoured of familiarity at least, if not
of authority, "How is this, my lord? Your cloak hangs on one side--your
hose are unbraced--permit me--"

"Thou art a fool, Varney, as well as a knave," said Leicester, shaking
him off, and rejecting his officious assistance. "We are best thus, sir;
when we require you to order our person, it is well, but now we want you
not."

So saying, the Earl resumed at once his air of command, and with it his
self-possession--shook his dress into yet wilder disorder--passed before
Varney with the air of a superior and master, and in his turn led the
way to the river-side.

The Queen's barge was on the very point of putting off, the seat
allotted to Leicester in the stern, and that to his master of the horse
on the bow of the boat, being already filled up. But on Leicester's
approach there was a pause, as if the bargemen anticipated some
alteration in their company. The angry spot was, however, on the Queen's
cheek, as, in that cold tone with which superiors endeavour to veil
their internal agitation, while speaking to those before whom it would
be derogation to express it, she pronounced the chilling words, "We have
waited, my Lord of Leicester."

"Madam, and most gracious Princess," said Leicester, "you, who can
pardon so many weaknesses which your own heart never knows, can best
bestow your commiseration on the agitations of the bosom, which, for a
moment, affect both head and limbs. I came to your presence a doubting
and an accused subject; your goodness penetrated the clouds of
defamation, and restored me to my honour, and, what is yet dearer, to
your favour--is it wonderful, though for me it is most unhappy, that
my master of the horse should have found me in a state which scarce
permitted me to make the exertion necessary to follow him to this place,
when one glance of your Highness, although, alas! an angry one, has had
power to do that for me in which Esculapius might have failed?"

"How is this?" said Elizabeth hastily, looking at Varney; "hath your
lord been ill?"

"Something of a fainting fit," answered the ready-witted Varney, "as
your Grace may observe from his present condition. My lord's haste would
not permit me leisure even to bring his dress into order."

"It matters not," said Elizabeth, as she gazed on the noble face and
form of Leicester, to which even the strange mixture of passions by
which he had been so lately agitated gave additional interest; "make
room for my noble lord. Your place, Master Varney, has been filled up;
you must find a seat in another barge."

Varney bowed, and withdrew.

"And you, too, our young Squire of the Cloak," added she, looking at
Raleigh, "must, for the time, go to the barge of our ladies of honour.
As for Tressilian, he hath already suffered too much by the caprice of
women that I should aggrieve him by my change of plan, so far as he is
concerned."

Leicester seated himself in his place in the barge, and close to the
Sovereign. Raleigh rose to retire, and Tressilian would have been so
ill-timed in his courtesy as to offer to relinquish his own place to his
friend, had not the acute glance of Raleigh himself, who seemed no in
his native element, made him sensible that so ready a disclamation of
the royal favour might be misinterpreted. He sat silent, therefore,
whilst Raleigh, with a profound bow, and a look of the deepest
humiliation, was about to quit his place.

A noble courtier, the gallant Lord Willoughby, read, as he thought,
something in the Queen's face which seemed to pity Raleigh's real or
assumed semblance of mortification.

"It is not for us old courtiers," he said, "to hide the sunshine from
the young ones. I will, with her Majesty's leave, relinquish for an
hour that which her subjects hold dearest, the delight of her Highness's
presence, and mortify myself by walking in starlight, while I forsake
for a brief season the glory of Diana's own beams. I will take place
in the boat which the ladies occupy, and permit this young cavalier his
hour of promised felicity."

The Queen replied, with an expression betwixt mirth and earnest, "If you
are so willing to leave us, my lord, we cannot help the mortification.
But, under favour, we do not trust you--old and experienced as you
may deem yourself--with the care of our young ladies of honour. Your
venerable age, my lord," she continued, smiling, "may be better assorted
with that of my Lord Treasurer, who follows in the third boat, and by
whose experience even my Lord Willoughby's may be improved."

Lord Willoughby hid his disappointment under a smile--laughed, was
confused, bowed, and left the Queen's barge to go on board my Lord
Burleigh's. Leicester, who endeavoured to divert his thoughts from all
internal reflection, by fixing them on what was passing around, watched
this circumstance among others. But when the boat put off from the
shore--when the music sounded from a barge which accompanied them--when
the shouts of the populace were heard from the shore, and all reminded
him of the situation in which he was placed, he abstracted his thoughts
and feelings by a strong effort from everything but the necessity of
maintaining himself in the favour of his patroness, and exerted his
talents of pleasing captivation with such success, that the Queen,
alternately delighted with his conversation, and alarmed for his health,
at length imposed a temporary silence on him, with playful yet anxious
care, lest his flow of spirits should exhaust him.

"My lords," she said, "having passed for a time our edict of silence
upon our good Leicester, we will call you to counsel on a gamesome
matter, more fitted to be now treated of, amidst mirth and music, than
in the gravity of our ordinary deliberations. Which of you, my lords,"
said she, smiling, "know aught of a petition from Orson Pinnit,
the keeper, as he qualifies himself, of our royal bears? Who stands
godfather to his request?"

"Marry, with Your Grace's good permission, that do I," said the Earl of
Sussex. "Orson Pinnit was a stout soldier before he was so mangled by
the skenes of the Irish clan MacDonough; and I trust your Grace will
be, as you always have been, good mistress to your good and trusty
servants."

"Surely," said the Queen, "it is our purpose to be so, and in especial
to our poor soldiers and sailors, who hazard their lives for little pay.
We would give," she said, with her eyes sparkling, "yonder royal palace
of ours to be an hospital for their use, rather than they should call
their mistress ungrateful. But this is not the question," she said,
her voice, which had been awakened by her patriotic feelings, once more
subsiding into the tone of gay and easy conversation; "for this Orson
Pinnit's request goes something further. He complains that, amidst the
extreme delight with which men haunt the play-houses, and in especial
their eager desire for seeing the exhibitions of one Will Shakespeare
(whom I think, my lords, we have all heard something of), the manly
amusement of bear-baiting is falling into comparative neglect, since men
will rather throng to see these roguish players kill each other in
jest, than to see our royal dogs and bears worry each other in bloody
earnest.--What say you to this, my Lord of Sussex?"

"Why, truly, gracious madam," said Sussex, "you must expect little from
an old soldier like me in favour of battles in sport, when they are
compared with battles in earnest; and yet, by my faith, I wish Will
Shakespeare no harm. He is a stout man at quarter-staff, and single
falchion, though, as I am told, a halting fellow; and he stood, they
say, a tough fight with the rangers of old Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecot,
when he broke his deer-park and kissed his keeper's daughter."

"I cry you mercy, my Lord of Sussex," said Queen Elizabeth, interrupting
him; "that matter was heard in council, and we will not have this
fellow's offence exaggerated--there was no kissing in the matter, and
the defendant hath put the denial on record. But what say you to his
present practice, my lord, on the stage? for there lies the point, and
not in any ways touching his former errors, in breaking parks, or the
other follies you speak of."

"Why, truly, madam," replied Sussex, "as I said before, I wish the
gamesome mad fellow no injury. Some of his whoreson poetry (I crave your
Grace's pardon for such a phrase) has rung in mine ears as if the lines
sounded to boot and saddle. But then it is all froth and folly--no
substance or seriousness in it, as your Grace has already well touched.
What are half a dozen knaves, with rusty foils and tattered targets,
making but a mere mockery of a stout fight, to compare to the royal game
of bear-baiting, which hath been graced by your Highness's countenance,
and that of your royal predecessors, in this your princely kingdom,
famous for matchless mastiffs and bold bearwards over all Christendom?
Greatly is it to be doubted that the race of both will decay, if
men should throng to hear the lungs of an idle player belch forth
nonsensical bombast, instead of bestowing their pence in encouraging the
bravest image of war that can be shown in peace, and that is the sports
of the Bear-garden. There you may see the bear lying at guard, with his
red, pinky eyes watching the onset of the mastiff, like a wily captain
who maintains his defence that an assailant may be tempted to venture
within his danger. And then comes Sir Mastiff, like a worthy champion,
in full career at the throat of his adversary; and then shall Sir Bruin
teach him the reward for those who, in their over-courage, neglect the
policies of war, and, catching him in his arms, strain him to his breast
like a lusty wrestler, until rib after rib crack like the shot of a
pistolet. And then another mastiff; as bold, but with better aim and
sounder judgment, catches Sir Bruin by the nether lip, and hangs fast,
while he tosses about his blood and slaver, and tries in vain to shake
Sir Talbot from his hold. And then--"

"Nay, by my honour, my lord," said the Queen, laughing, "you have
described the whole so admirably that, had we never seen a bear-baiting,
as we have beheld many, and hope, with Heaven's allowance, to see many
more, your words were sufficient to put the whole Bear-garden before our
eyes.--But come, who speaks next in this case?--My Lord of Leicester,
what say you?"

"Am I then to consider myself as unmuzzled, please your Grace?" replied
Leicester.

"Surely, my lord--that is, if you feel hearty enough to take part in our
game," answered Elizabeth; "and yet, when I think of your cognizance of
the bear and ragged staff, methinks we had better hear some less partial
orator."

"Nay, on my word, gracious Princess," said the Earl, "though my brother
Ambrose of Warwick and I do carry the ancient cognizance your Highness
deigns to remember, I nevertheless desire nothing but fair play on all
sides; or, as they say, 'fight dog, fight bear.' And in behalf of the
players, I must needs say that they are witty knaves, whose rants and
jests keep the minds of the commons from busying themselves with
state affairs, and listening to traitorous speeches, idle rumours,
and disloyal insinuations. When men are agape to see how Marlow,
Shakespeare, and other play artificers work out their fanciful plots, as
they call them, the mind of the spectators is withdrawn from the conduct
of their rulers."

"We would not have the mind of our subjects withdrawn from the
consideration of our own conduct, my lord," answered Elizabeth; "because
the more closely it is examined, the true motives by which we are guided
will appear the more manifest."

"I have heard, however, madam," said the Dean of St. Asaph's, an eminent
Puritan, "that these players are wont, in their plays, not only to
introduce profane and lewd expressions, tending to foster sin and
harlotry; but even to bellow out such reflections on government, its
origin and its object, as tend to render the subject discontented, and
shake the solid foundations of civil society. And it seems to be,
under your Grace's favour, far less than safe to permit these naughty
foul-mouthed knaves to ridicule the godly for their decent gravity,
and, in blaspheming heaven and slandering its earthly rulers, to set at
defiance the laws both of God and man."

"If we could think this were true, my lord," said Elizabeth, "we should
give sharp correction for such offences. But it is ill arguing against
the use of anything from its abuse. And touching this Shakespeare, we
think there is that in his plays that is worth twenty Bear-gardens;
and that this new undertaking of his Chronicles, as he calls them, may
entertain, with honest mirth, mingled with useful instruction, not only
our subjects, but even the generation which may succeed to us."

"Your Majesty's reign will need no such feeble aid to make it remembered
to the latest posterity," said Leicester. "And yet, in his way,
Shakespeare hath so touched some incidents of your Majesty's happy
government as may countervail what has been spoken by his reverence
the Dean of St. Asaph's. There are some lines, for example--I would
my nephew, Philip Sidney, were here; they are scarce ever out of his
mouth--they are spoken in a mad tale of fairies, love-charms, and I wot
not what besides; but beautiful they are, however short they may and
must fall of the subject to which they bear a bold relation--and Philip
murmurs them, I think, even in his dreams."

"You tantalize us, my lord," said the Queen--"Master Philip Sidney is,
we know, a minion of the Muses, and we are pleased it should be so.
Valour never shines to more advantage than when united with the true
taste and love of letters. But surely there are some others among our
young courtiers who can recollect what your lordship has forgotten amid
weightier affairs.--Master Tressilian, you are described to me as a
worshipper of Minerva--remember you aught of these lines?"

Tressilian's heart was too heavy, his prospects in life too fatally
blighted, to profit by the opportunity which the Queen thus offered
to him of attracting her attention; but he determined to transfer the
advantage to his more ambitious young friend, and excusing himself
on the score of want of recollection, he added that he believed the
beautiful verses of which my Lord of Leicester had spoken were in the
remembrance of Master Walter Raleigh.

At the command of the Queen, that cavalier repeated, with accent and
manner which even added to their exquisite delicacy of tact and beauty
of description, the celebrated vision of Oberon:--

     "That very time I saw (but thou couldst not),
     Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
     Cupid, allarm'd:  a certain aim he took
     At a fair vestal, throned by the west;
     And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
     As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:
     But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
     Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon;
     And the imperial vot'ress passed on,
     In maiden meditation, fancy free."

The voice of Raleigh, as he repeated the last lines, became a little
tremulous, as if diffident how the Sovereign to whom the homage was
addressed might receive it, exquisite as it was. If this diffidence was
affected, it was good policy; but if real, there was little occasion
for it. The verses were not probably new to the Queen, for when was ever
such elegant flattery long in reaching the royal ear to which it was
addressed? But they were not the less welcome when repeated by such a
speaker as Raleigh. Alike delighted with the matter, the manner, and
the graceful form and animated countenance of the gallant young reciter,
Elizabeth kept time to every cadence with look and with finger. When
the speaker had ceased, she murmured over the last lines as if scarce
conscious that she was overheard, and as she uttered the words,

"In maiden meditation, fancy free," she dropped into the Thames the
supplication of Orson Pinnit, keeper of the royal bears, to find more
favourable acceptance at Sheerness, or wherever the tide might waft it.

Leicester was spurred to emulation by the success of the young
courtier's exhibition, as the veteran racer is roused when a
high-mettled colt passes him on the way. He turned the discourse on
shows, banquets, pageants, and on the character of those by whom these
gay scenes were then frequented. He mixed acute observation with light
satire, in that just proportion which was free alike from malignant
slander and insipid praise. He mimicked with ready accent the manners of
the affected or the clownish, and made his own graceful tone and manner
seem doubly such when he resumed it. Foreign countries--their customs,
their manners, the rules of their courts---the fashions, and even the
dress of their ladies-were equally his theme; and seldom did he conclude
without conveying some compliment, always couched in delicacy, and
expressed with propriety, to the Virgin Queen, her court, and her
government. Thus passed the conversation during this pleasure voyage,
seconded by the rest of the attendants upon the royal person, in gay
discourse, varied by remarks upon ancient classics and modern authors,
and enriched by maxims of deep policy and sound morality, by the
statesmen and sages who sat around and mixed wisdom with the lighter
talk of a female court.

When they returned to the Palace, Elizabeth accepted, or rather
selected, the arm of Leicester to support her from the stairs where they
landed to the great gate. It even seemed to him (though that might arise
from the flattery of his own imagination) that during this short
passage she leaned on him somewhat more than the slippiness of the
way necessarily demanded. Certainly her actions and words combined to
express a degree of favour which, even in his proudest day he had not
till then attained. His rival, indeed, was repeatedly graced by the
Queen's notice; but it was in manner that seemed to flow less from
spontaneous inclination than as extorted by a sense of his merit. And in
the opinion of many experienced courtiers, all the favour she showed
him was overbalanced by her whispering in the ear of the Lady Derby that
"now she saw sickness was a better alchemist than she before wotted
of, seeing it had changed my Lord of Sussex's copper nose into a golden
one."

The jest transpired, and the Earl of Leicester enjoyed his triumph,
as one to whom court-favour had been both the primary and the ultimate
motive of life, while he forgot, in the intoxication of the moment, the
perplexities and dangers of his own situation. Indeed, strange as it may
appear, he thought less at that moment of the perils arising from his
secret union, than of the marks of grace which Elizabeth from time to
time showed to young Raleigh. They were indeed transient, but they were
conferred on one accomplished in mind and body, with grace, gallantry,
literature, and valour. An accident occurred in the course of the
evening which riveted Leicester's attention to this object.

The nobles and courtiers who had attended the Queen on her pleasure
expedition were invited, with royal hospitality, to a splendid banquet
in the hall of the Palace. The table was not, indeed, graced by the
presence of the Sovereign; for, agreeable to her idea of what was at
once modest and dignified, the Maiden Queen on such occasions was wont
to take in private, or with one or two favourite ladies, her light and
temperate meal. After a moderate interval, the court again met in the
splendid gardens of the Palace; and it was while thus engaged that
the Queen suddenly asked a lady, who was near to her both in place and
favour, what had become of the young Squire Lack-Cloak.

The Lady Paget answered, "She had seen Master Raleigh but two or
three minutes since standing at the window of a small pavilion or
pleasure-house, which looked out on the Thames, and writing on the glass
with a diamond ring."

"That ring," said the Queen, "was a small token I gave him to make
amends for his spoiled mantle. Come, Paget, let us see what use he has
made of it, for I can see through him already. He is a marvellously
sharp-witted spirit." They went to the spot, within sight of which,
but at some distance, the young cavalier still lingered, as the fowler
watches the net which he has set. The Queen approached the window, on
which Raleigh had used her gift to inscribe the following line:--

     "Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall."

The Queen smiled, read it twice over, once with deliberation to Lady
Paget, and once again to herself. "It is a pretty beginning," she said,
after the consideration of a moment or two; "but methinks the muse
hath deserted the young wit at the very outset of his task. It were
good-natured--were it not, Lady Paget?--to complete it for him. Try your
rhyming faculties."

Lady Paget, prosaic from her cradle upwards as ever any lady of the
bedchamber before or after her, disclaimed all possibility of assisting
the young poet.