Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/123

Dudley figured as their chief patron at court, and ostentatiously took Thomas Cartwright under his protection. Jewel was now directed by him to stir up the puritans in London against the marriage. Sussex vainly remonstrated and threatened to denounce him publicly as the betrayer of the queen and country. Early in 1668 Leicester's victory was assured and the archduke's offer rejected.

Outside the court. Leicester's position was reckoned all-powerful. Elizabeth had made him rich in spite of his extravagant habits. Four licenses to export woollen cloth 'unwoved' were issued in 1561 and 1562. In 1563 he received from the crown the manor and lordship and castle of Kenilworth, the lordship and castle of Denbigh, and lands in Lancashire, Surrey, Rutland, Denbigh, Carmarthen, York, Cardigan, and Brecknock (Pat. 5 Eliz. 4th part ; Orig. 6 Eliz. 3rd part, rot. 132). The manors of Caldecote and Pelynge, Bedfordshire, with many other parcels of land, followed in the next year, and in 1566 sixteen other estates in drSerent parts of England and Wales were assigned him (Orig. 8 Eliz. 1st part., rot. 66; Pat. 8 Eliz. 7th part). In 1666 he was granted a license to 'retain' one hundred persons, and became chancellor of the county palatine of Chester. In 1562 he was appointed high steward of Cambridge University, and stayed with the queen at Trinity College in August 1564, when she paid her well-known official visit. Soon afterwards (31 Dec. 1564) he became chancellor of Oxford University, and directed the elaborate reception of Elizabeth there in August 1666. A public dialogue, in Latin elegiacs, between Elizabeth and her favourite was printed (Elizabethan Oxford (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), pp. 157-68). In January 1565-6 Leicester and Norfolk were created by the French king, Charles IX, knights of St. Michael (, Garter, p. 369), and in 1571 Leicester kept with great state at Warwick the feast of St. Michael, when his gorgeous attire excited general admiration (cf. Topogr. Bibl. Brit. vol. iv. pt. ii.)

In 1568 Mary Queen of Scots fled to England for protection; the catholic lords of the north of England were meditating open rebellion, and attempts were being made at court under the guidance of Norfolk to get rid of Cecil. Leicester fostered the agitation against Cecil, and told the queen that she would never be safe while Cecil had a head on his shoulders. He also sought to make the presence of Queen Mary serve his own ends. He received with enthusiasm her envoy, the Bishop of Ross; deprecated the bishop's suggestion that he should himself marry the Sottish queen; sent her presents, and finally agreed to forward the Catholic plot for marrying her to the Duke of Norfolk. Elizabeth was bitterly opposed to this dangerous scheme, but Leicester freely argued with her on the point. Meanwhile Leicester, with characteristic baseness, allowed it to be assumed by the conspirators that he was looking with a favourable eye on the treasonable conspiracy hatching in the north. He obviously believed Elizabeth's fall to be at hand and was arranging for the worst. But Cecil was more powerful than Leicester calculated. Elizabeth's government weathered the storm with comparative ease. Norfolk was sent to the Tower in October 1669, and the rebellion of the northern earls was crushed in November. Leicester recognised that his influence with the queen in matters of politics would not compare with Cecil's. 'Burghley,' he wrote 4 Nov. 1572, 'could do more with her in an hour than others in seven years.' But, so far as his personal relations with the queen were concerned, his position was unchanged, although his hopes of marriage were nearly ended.

In 1570 and 1571, with much show of disinterestedness, Leicester strongly supported the proposal that Elizabeth should marry the Duke of Anjou. Private affairs doubtless encouraged this policy. In 1571 he contracted himself to Douglas Sheffield, widow of John, second baron Sheffield, and daughter of William, first lord Howard of Effingham. In May 1573 he secretly married the lady at Esher. Two days later a son, Robert [see, 1573-1649], was born, of whose legitimacy there can be little doubt. Apparently fearing the queen's wrath, Leicester never acknowledged this marriage. His infatuation for Lady Douglas was falsely said by his enemies to have led him to poison her former husband. But his sentiments soon changed, and he offered Lady Sheffield 700l. a year to ignore their relationship. The offer was indignantly rejected. Leicester was afterwards reported to have attempted to poison her, and to have so far succeeded as to deprive her of her hair and nails. Gilbert Talbot wrote to his father, 11 May 1573, that two ladies had long been in love with Leicester, Lady Sheffield and Lady Frances Howard, that the queen suspected their passion, and spies were watching Leicester (, Illustrations, ii. 100). But his influence at court was not seriously imperilled. Evidence of the power which he was credited in the country with exerting indirectly on ministers of state is given by the records of the town of Tewkesbury for 1673. The citizens had petitioned for a charter of incorporation, and when the proceedings dragged, they 'levied