Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Ꮞ .

CECIL CREATED LORD BURLEIGH.

comic writers, many reputations were lost. The building was destroyed in the fire of London; and the divines of that day, according to their custom, pronounced this catastrophe a judgement on the avarice and unfair dealing of the merchants and shopkeepers; and the pride, prodigality and luxury of the purchasers and idlers by whom it was frequented and maintained.

Elizabeth soon after paid homage to merit in another form, by conferring on her invaluable servant Cecil,-whose wisdom, firmness and vigilance had most contributed to preserve her unhurt amid the machinations of her implacable enemies,-the dignity of baron of Burleigh; an elevation which might provoke the envy or resentment of some of the courtiers his opponents, but which was hailed by the applauses of the people.

Before the close of the year, the death, at a great but not venerable age, of that corrupt and selfish statesman the marquis of Winchester, afforded her an opportunity of apportioning to the new dignity of her secretary a suitable advance in office and emolument, by conferring on him the post of lord-high-treasurer, which he continued to enjoy to the end of his life.

On the first of May and the two following days solemn justs were held before the queen at Westminster; in which the challengers were the earl of Oxford, Charles Howard, sir Henry Lee and sir Christopher Hatton,-all four deserving of biographical commemoration.

Edward earl of Oxford was the seventeenth of the illustrious family of Vere who had borne that

JUSTS AT WESMINSTER.

5

title, and his character presented an extraordinary. union of the haughtiness, violence and impetuosity of the feudal baron, with many of the elegant propensities and mental accomplishments which adorn the nobleman of a happier age. It was probably to his travels in Italy that he owed his more refined tastes both in literature and in luxury, and it was thence that he brought those perfumed and embroidered gloves which he was the first to introduce into England. A superb pair which he presented to her majesty were so much approved by her, that she sat for her portrait with them on her hands. These gloves became of course highly fashionable, but those prepared in Spain were soon found to excel in scent all others; and the importance attached to this discovery may be estimated by the following commission given by sir Nicholas Throgmorton, then in France, to sir Thomas Chaloner ambassador in Spain :-"I pray you, good my lord ambassador, send me two pair of perfumed gloves, perfumed with orange-flowers and jasmin, the one for my wife's hand, the other for mine own; and wherein soever I can pleasure you with any thing in this country, you shall have it in recompense thereof, or else so much money as they shall cost you; provided always that they be of the best choice, wherein your judgement is inferior to none."

The earl of Oxford enjoyed in his own times a high poetical reputation; but his once celebrated comedies have perished, and two or three fugitive

a Burleigh Papers" by Haynes.

6

NOTICE OF THE EARL OF OXFORD.

66

pieces inserted in collections are the only legacy bequeathed to posterity by his muse. Of these, "The complaint of a lover wearing black and tawny" has ceased, in the change of manners and fashions, to interest or affect the reader. Fancy and Desire" may still lay claim to the praise of ingenuity, though the idea is perhaps not original even here, and has since been exhibited with very considerable improvements both in French and English, especially in Ben Jonson's celebrated song, "Tell me where was Fancy bred ?" Two or three stanzas may bear quotation.

"Where wert thou born, Desire ?"
"In pomp and pride of May."
"By whom, sweet boy, wert thou begot?"
By Fond Conceit, men say."

"Tell me who was thy nurse?"

"Fresh Youth in sugred joy."

"What was thy meat and daily food?"

"Sad sighs with great annoy."

"What hadst thou then to drink?"

"Unsavoury lovers' tears."

"What cradle wert thou rocked in ?"
"In hope devoid of fears." &c.

In the chivalrous exercises of the tilt and tournament the earl of Oxford had few superiors: he was victor in the justs both of this year and of the year 1580, and on the latter occasion he was led by two ladies into the presence-chamber, all armed as he was, to receive a prize from her majesty's own hand. Afterwards, by gross misconduct, he incurred from his sovereign a disgrace equally marked and public; being committed to the Tower

NOTICE OF THE EARL OF OXFORD.

7

for an attempt on one of her maids of honor. On other occasions his lawless propensities broke out with a violence which Elizabeth herself was scarcely able to restrain.

He had openly begun to muster his friends, retainers and servants, to take vengeance on sir Thomas Knevet, by whom he had been wounded in a duel; and the queen, who interfered to prevent the execution of this savage design, was obliged for some time to appoint Knevet a guard in order to secure his life. He also publicly insulted sir Philip Sidney in the tennis-court of the palace; and her majesty could discover no other means of preventing fatal consequences than compelling sir Philip Sidney, as the inferior in rank, to compromise the quarrel on terms which he regarded as so inequitable and degrading, that after transmitting to her majesty a spirited remonstrance against encouraging the insolence of the great nobles, he retired to Penshurst in disgust. The duke of Norfolk was the nephew of this earl of Oxford; who was very strongly attached to him, and used the utmost urgency of entreaty with Burleigh, whose daughter he had married, to prevail on him to procure his pardon: "but not succeeding," says lord Orford, "he was so incensed against that minister, that in most absurd and unjust revenge (though the cause was amiable) he swore he would do all he could to ruin his daughter; and accordingly not only forsook her bed, but sold and consumed great part of the vast inheritance descended to him from his ancestors a "

"Royal and Noble Authors."

8'

OF SIR CHARLES HOWARD.

This remarkable person died very aged early in the reign of James I.

pro

Sir Charles Howard, eldest son of lord Howard of Effingham, was at this period of his life chiefly remarkable for the uncommon beauty of his person, a species of merit never overlooked by her majesty,-for grace and agility in his exercises, and for the manners of an accomplished courtier. At no time was he regarded as a person of found judgement; and of vanity and self-consequence he is said to have possessed an abundant share. He was however brave, courteous, liberal, and diligent in affairs; and the favor of the queen admitted him in 1585 to succeed his father in the office of lord-high-admiral. His intrepid bearing, in the year 1588, encouraged his sailors to meet the terrible Armada with stout hearts and cheerful countenances; and the glory of its defeat was as much his own as the participation of winds and waves would allow. In consideration of this distinguished piece of service he was created earl of Nottingham; and the queen's partiality towards her relations increasing with her years, he became towards the end of the reign one of the most considerable persons at her court, where his hostility tó Essex grew equally notorious with the better grounded antipathy entertained by Sussex, also a royal kinsman, against Leicester, the earlier favorite of her majesty.

The earl of Nottingham survived to the year 1624, the 88th of his age.

Sir Henry Lee was one of the finest courtiers and certainly the most complete knight-errant of

« AnteriorContinuar »