Elizabeth and her court went in progress to Worcester, August 18th, 1574, and remained till the 20th. While there, she made a grant of free-bench to the widows of the city, by which they were empowered to a life interest in the property of their deceased husbands, in defiance of creditors, or any other claimants. On the day of her arrival, after listening very graciously to the welcome of Mr. Bell, the town orator, she checked her horse opposite St. Nicholas' church, to look at the structure; on which her loyal lieges shouted, "God save your grace!" and she, throwing up her cap, with a heartiness that did her honour, responded, " And I say, God bless you all, my good people!"2

From Worcester she proceeded to Bristol, where she was entertained with pageants of a martial and allegorical character, and inspired a great deal of adulatory poetry. On her way from Bristol, she honoured Katharine Parr's nephew, Henry earl of Pembroke, with a visit, and was magnificently entertained by him and his countess, the learned and amiable sister of sir Philip Sidney, for several days at Wilton house. While there, she hunted the deer in Clarendon park with greyhounds.

The same year, a private marriage was made between lord Charles Lenox and the daughter of the countess of Shrewsbury. As the bridegroom stood next to his mother, after Mary Stuart and her son, in the natural order of the regal succession, Elizabeth was much offended at his presuming to marry, and, as a token of her displeasure, committed both the intriguing mothers, the countess of Lenox and her of Shrewsbury, to prison. They made their peace by laying the blame of what had happened on the captive queen of Scots.

Even Burleigh came in for a share of the irritation of temper, which the jealousy of Elizabeth's disposition induced at this crisis. He had been to Buxton, which had just become a fashionable place of resort for gouty and rheumatic sufferers, the queen of Scots having derived some benefit from her visits to that place. Elizabeth took great offence at her premier choosing to resort to the same place, although his maladies were of the kind for which its waters were esteemed so efficacious. He writes, in a pitiful strain, 2 Nash's Worcester.

1 Green's Worcester.

to the earl of Shrewsbury, of the rating he had received for this offence:-" Her majesty did conceive that my being there was by means of your lordship and lady Shrewsbury, to enter into intelligence with the queen of Scots; and at my return to her majesty's (Elizabeth) presence, I had very sharp reproofs for my going to Buxton, with plain charging me for favouring the queen of Scots, and that in so earnest a sort as I never looked for, knowing my integrity to her majesty." Thus all in turn drank of the poisoned chalice their own injustice had brewed, and the captive was scarcely more wretched than mutual doubts and recriminating suspicions made the powerful sovereign, her prime minister, and the great noble who played the gaoler to the oppressed lady.

In the midst of all these heartburnings, one Corker, a malcontent chaplain belonging to the lord Shrewsbury, ran away to court, and repeated, with many additions of his own, all the on dits he could gather at Sheffield castle regarding queen Elizabeth, to her great indignation. In the correspondence and controversy concerning these grievances, an anecdote presents itself, which is illustrative of Elizabeth's character. It is related by Shrewsbury to Walsingham, in the course of his explanations "touching that viper Corker." "It pleased the queen's majesty (Elizabeth) to send me word that she did not condemn me for anything, saving for certain conversations her highness had vouchsafed unto me, which I had disclosed to him. The truth is, it pleased her majesty once, upon some occasion, to tell me how wonderfully God had preserved her from her enemies. Once on a time, having notice of a man who had undertaken to execute mischief to her sacred person, his stature and some scars of his face being described to her, she happened, as she was in progress, amongst a multitude of others, to discover that man; yet not being alarmed at the view of him, she called my lord of Leicester, and shewed that man to him; he was apprehended, and found to be the same. Now this wicked serpent, Corker, added, that after relating this incident, I should infer and say, 'that her majesty thought herself a goddess, that could not be touched by the hand of man;' whereas I never uttered such a thing, neither a whit more than her majesty's own sacred mouth pronounced to me; the which I uttered to him as a proof of God's merciful providence over her, and

that false addition proceeded only out of his most wicked head and perilous invention; and yet this did so sink into her majesty's conceit against me, as I verily think it hath been the cause of her indignation; but I humbly beseech her majesty to behold me with the sweet eyes of her compassion, that I may either prove myself clear and guiltless, or else be for ever rejected as a castaway."1

The commencement of the year 1575 found Elizabeth in high good humour; she received the congratulations and compliments of monsieur de la Mothe on the new year's day very graciously, attributing the recent misunderstandings with the royal family of France to the mistakes caused by lord North's ignorance of the French language. She was pleased to add, "that the trouble in which his excellency had remained since their last conference, recalled to her mind the distress in which she herself was plunged when the late queen, her sister, in consequence of some misconceived words regarding her, had caused her to be examined in the Tower."" Elizabeth was certainly fond of recurring to that epoch of her life, but her allusions, as in the above instance, rather tend to mystify than elucidate the true cause of her imprisonment.

The ambassador, perceiving that this confidential remark was intended as an extension of the olive branch, adroitly took the opportunity of presenting to Elizabeth, as a new year's gift from the queen of Scots, a very elegant headdress of net-work, wrought by her own hand very delicately, likewise the collar, cuffs, and other little pieces en suite; all which queen Elizabeth received amiably, and admired exceedingly. In the course of the spring, La Mothe brought her another gift of three night-caps, worked by the hand of her prisoner; but a demur took place regarding the nightcaps, and they were for a time left on the hands of the ambassador; for Elizabeth declared, "that great commotions and jealousies had taken place in the privy council, because she had accepted the gifts of the queen of Scots." Finally, she accepted the night-caps,3 with this characteristic speech to La Mothe:

1 Lodge's Illustrations.

Despatches of La Mothe Fenelon, vol. vi. p. 348.

3 The inimitable Cervantes makes Sancho lament the loss of "three night-caps worth three royal cities." Surely these night-caps, worked by one queen-regnant, and presented for the wearing of another, the most re

"Tell the queen of Scots that I am older than she is, and when people arrive at my age, they take all they can get with both hands, and only give with their little finger." On this maxim, though jocosely expressed, Elizabeth seems to have acted all her life.

Her majesty incurred some personal danger, in consequence of a visit she paid to the countess of Pembroke, who was dangerously ill this winter. The queen went by the silent highway of the Thames to the earl of Pembroke's house in the Strand. The last time, it was ten at night ere the royal guest departed, and that in so dense a fog, that divers of the boats and barges in the royal cortêge lost their way, and landed at wrong places.

When queen Elizabeth heard of the marriage of Henry III. with Louise of Lorraine, a revival of her anger regarding the affair of the two dwarfs took place, and the unfortunate French ambassador was forced to go over all the explanations, excuses, and compliments, with which he had been so sorely troubled in the preceding autumn. At last, she forced an autograph letter on this ridiculous subject from Henry III., and then she condescended to observe, "that, as to the two dwarfs, she allowed the affair had been ill interpreted by lord North-indeed, she had since been told, that they were very pretty ones, and very properly dressed, and she should like of all things to see them; and if the queen-mother would send her one of them as a present, she should receive it as a great kindness." How she would have welcomed and treated the pert pigmy, who was suspected of mimicking her dress and manners, is a point that cannot be ascertained, for Catherine sent her no such present, and it is probable she spoke but in mockery, being secretly in a bitter rage at certain intelligence, which had reached her of the royal nuptials in France.

2

Henry III. had fully determined that Elizabeth should have no official intimation of his nuptials till they had taken place, perhaps on account of the indefatigable activity with which she marred all matches, within the reach of her nowned female sovereign in history, made the subject of national jealousies in a privy council, and of an ambassador's negotiation and despatch to his king, could not be worth less than those of Sancho, but as yet they have not been equally celebrated.

2

1 Murdin's State Papers.

Despatches of La Mothe Fenelon, vol. vi. p. 388.

influence. La Mothe Fenelon was troubled in spirit how the tidings were to be broken to her, for she was prepared to resent as a high affront the silence of the royal family of France on the subject. "Sire," wrote La Mothe,' "in order that the queen of England might not guess that you would not communicate the tidings of your marriage, till after the event, I declared it was not your fault, neither that of the queen your mother, but I laid all on the laziness of the couriers. It was all," he added, "done in haste, and at the instigation of the queen your mother, to whose better judgment you had submitted your will, having previously known the princess of Lorraine, and that both you and the queen-mother had carefully contemplated at leisure her person, and the fine and excellent qualities with which God had endowed her,—all which you preferred to any other kind of advantage in marriage; and that you hoped her majesty of England would, according to the devoir of a good and faithful ally, rejoice with you.

Queen Elizabeth interrupted a panegyric on the houses of Guise and Lorraine, to which the new queen belonged, by suddenly observing, "that for many days, and much sooner than the ambassador, she had heard all about the wedding; likewise, many comments that people made on the match. Some of these were very curious, as to what had moved the queen-mother to procure for herself such a daughter-in-law. Others talked very loudly of the favour this new queen meant to ask of her husband, which was to make an enterprise for the liberation of the queen of Scots, her relative; and notwithstanding all the perfections of the newly married queen, she could not help wishing that the king of France had made his election in some other family than that inimical house of Guise, which had always made war on her, and molested her; and, moreover, she knew well that this wedlock formed one of the secret articles of cardinal de Lorraine's will; and as the king of France had not considered her satisfaction, in the alliances he made, neither should she consider his interest in a like case."

The French ambassador replied, "that he was sure nothing had moved his royal master to the marriage, excepting the instances of his mother, and the contemplation of so beautiful and desirable an object as the queen, now his bride;

1 Despatches of La Mothe Fenelon, vol. vi. pp. 390, &c.