OF SIR HENRY LEE.

9

his time. He was now in the fortieth year of his age, had travelled, and had seen some military service; but the tilt-yard was ever the scene of his most conspicuous exploits, and those in which he placed his highest glory. He had declared himself the queen's own knight and champion, and having inscribed upon his shield the constellation of Ariadne's Crown, culminant in her majesty's na-` tivity, bound himself by a solemn vow to appear armed in the tilt-yard on every anniversary of her happy accession till disabled by age. This vow gave origin to the annual exercises of the KnightsTilters, a society consisting of twenty-five of the most gallant and favored of the courtiers of Elizabeth. The modern reader may wonder to find included in this number so grave an officer as Bromley lord chancellor; but under the maiden: reign neither the deepest statesman, the most studious lawyer, nor the rudest soldier, was exempted from the humiliating obligation of accepting, and even soliciting, those household and menial offices usually discharged by mere courtiers; nor from the irksome one of assuming, for the sake of their sovereign lady, the romantic disguise of armed. champions and enamoured knights. Sir Henry Lee, however, appears to have devoted his life to these chivalrous pageantries rather from a quixotical imagination than with any serious views of ambition or interest. He was a gentleman of ancient family and plentiful fortune, little connected, as far as appears, with any court faction or political party, and neither capable nor ambitious of any public station of importance. It is an amiable and gene

10

OF SIR CHRISTOPHER HATTON.

rous trait of his character, that he attended the unfortunate duke of Norfolk even to the scaffold, received his last embrace, and repeated to the assembled multitude his request that they would assist him with their prayers in his final agony. His royal Dulcinea rewarded his fatigues and his adoration by the lieutenancy of Woodstock manor and the office of keeper of the armoury, and especially, by the appropriate meed of admission into the most noble order of the Garter. He resigned the championship at the approach of old age with a solemn ceremony hereafter to be described, died at his mansion of Quarendon in Bucks, in 1611, in his 81st year, and was interred in the parish church under a splendid tomb hung round with military trophies, and inscribed with a very long, very quaint and very tumid epitaph.

Christopher Hatton, the last of this undaunted band of challengers, was a new competitor for the smiles of royalty; and bright was the dawn of fortune and of favor which already broke upon him. He was of a decayed family of Northamptonshire gentry, and had just commenced the study of the law at one of the inns of court, when hope or curiosity stimulated him to gain admittance at some court-festival, where he had an opportunity of dancing before the queen in a mask. His figure and his performance so captivated her fancy, that she immediately bestowed upon him some flattering marks of attention, which encouraged him to quit his profession and turn courtier.

This showy outside and these gay accomplishments were unexpectedly found in union with a

NEGOTIATIONS FOR ELIZABETH'S MARRIAGE. 11

moderate and cautious temper, enlightened views and a solid understanding; and after due deliberation, Elizabeth, that penetrating judge of men, decided, in spite of ridicule, that she could not do better than make this superlatively-excellent dancer of galliards her lord-chancellor.

The enemies of Hatton are said to have promoted this appointment in expectation of his disgracing himself by ignorance and incapacity; but their malice was disappointed; whatever he did not know, he was able to learn and willing to be taught; he discharged the duties of his high office with prudence first and afterwards with ability, and died in 1591 in possession of it and of the public esteem. It is remarkable, considering the general predilection of the queen in favour of celibacy, that Hatton was the only one of her ministers who lived and died a bachelor.

Early in this year, the king of France married a daughter of the emperor Maximilian; and Elizabeth, desirous at this time of being on the best terms both with the French and Imperial courts, sent Lord Buckhurst to Paris on a splendid embassy of congratulation.

Catherine de' Medici took this opportunity of renewing proposals of marriage to the queen of England on the part of her son the duke of Anjou, and they were listened to with an apparent complacency which perplexed the politicians. It is certainly to this negotiation, and to the intrigues of the duke of Norfolk and other nobles with the queen of Scots, that Shakespear

12

RENEWAL OF NORFOLK'S INTRIGUES

alludes in the following ingenious and exquisite

passage.

...

"Once I sat upon a promontory,

And heard a Mermaid on a Dolphin's back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her

song;

And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid's music.

*

*

* * * * * *

That very time I saw,

but thou could'st not,

Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all-arm'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 watry moon,
And the Imperial Votress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free."

Midsummer Night's Dream.

Unfortunately for himself, the duke of Norfolk had not acquired, even from the severe admonition of a long imprisonment, resolution sufficient to turn a deaf ear to the enchantments of this syren. His situation was indeed perplexing: He had entered into the most serious engagements with his sovereign to abstain from all further intercourse with the queen of Scots: at the same time the right of Elizabeth to interdict him an alliance so flattering to his vanity might plausibly be questioned, and the previous interchange between himself and Mary of solemn promises of

WITH MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.

13

marriage, seemed to have brought him under obligations to her too sacred to be dissolved by any subsequent stipulation of his, though one to which Mary herself had been compelled to become a party. Neither had chivalrous ideas by any means lost their force in this age; and as a knight and a gentleman, the duke must have esteemed himself bound in honor to procure the release of the captive princess, and to claim through all perils the fair hand which had been plighted to him. Impressed by such sentiments, he returned to a letter of eloquent complaint which she found means to convey to him, an answer filled with assurances of his inviolable constancy; and the intrigues of the party were soon renewed with as much activity as ever.

But the vigilance of the ministry of Elizabeth could not long be eluded. An important packet of letters written by Ridolfi,-a Florentine who had been sent abroad by the party to confer with the pope and with the duke of Alva,—was intercepted; and in consequence of the plots thus unfolded, the bishop of Ross, who bore the character of Mary's ambassador in England, was given into private custody. Soon after, a servant of the duke's, intrusted by him with the conveyance of a sum of money from the French ambassador to Mary's adherents in Scotland, carried the parcel containing it to the secretary of state. The duke's secretary was then sent for and examined. This man, who was probably in the pay of government, not only confessed with readiness all that he knew, but produced some letters from the queen of Scots which