Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/127

Dudley he died of 'a continual fever, as 'twas said,' on 4 Sept. 1588, aged about fifty-six. Ben Jonson tells the story that he had given his wife 'a bottle of liquor which he willed her to use in any faintness, which she, not knowing it was poison, gave him, and so he died' (Conversations with Drummond, p.24), Bliss in his notes to the 'Athenæ Oxon.,' ii. 74–5, first printed a contemporary narrative to the effect that the countess had fallen in love with Christopher Blount [q. v.], gentleman of the horse to Leicester; that Leicester had taken Blount to Holland with the intention of killing him, in which he failed; that the countess, suspecting her husband's plot, gave him a poisonous cordial after a heavy meal while she was alone with him at Cornbury. Blount married the countess after Leicester's death, and the narrator of the story gives as his authority William Haynes, Leicester's page and gentleman of the bedchamber, who saw the fatal cup handed to his master. But the story seems improbable in face of the post-mortem examination, which was stated to show no trace of poison. Leicester was buried in the lady chapel of the collegiate tomb at Warwick. The gorgeous funeral cost 4,000l. An elaborate altar-tomb with a long Latin inscription was erected there to his memory by his wife, Lettice. By her he had a son, Robert, who died at Wanstead 19 July 1584, and was buried in the Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick. Leicester's will, dated at Middleburg, 1 Aug. 1587, was proved by the countess, the sole executrix, two days after his death. He left to the queen, with strong expressions of fidelity, a magnificent jewel set with emeralds and diamonds, together with a rope of six hundred 'fair white pearls.' Wanstead was appointed for the countess's dowager-house. Sir Christopher Hatton, the Earl of Warwick, and Lord Howard of Effingham were overseers of the will. His personalty was valued at 29,820l. (cf. Harl. Rolls, D. 35). Inventories of his pictures at Kenilworth, Leicester House, and Wanstead have been printed (Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. ii. 201–2, 224–5). There are 183 entries, among them portraits of himself, his relatives, the queen, and the chief foreign generals and statesmen of the time. Leicester's widow, after marrying Sir Christopher Blount, sought in vain a reconciliation with Elizabeth in 1597; remained on friendly terms with Robert, earl of Essex, her son by her first husband, till his execution in 1601; took some part in the education of Robert, third earl of Essex, her grandson; resisted the efforts of Leicester's son. Sir Robert Dudley [q. v.], to prove his legitimacy; and died, vigorous to the last, on 25 Dec. 1634, aged 94. She was buried by Leicester in Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick, and some verses on her death by Gervase Clifton were painted on a tablet hung near the Leicester monument.

'Laws and Ordinances,' drawn up for the English army in Holland, and published in London in 1587, is the only printed work of which Leicester was author, but numerous letters appear in Digges's 'Compleat Ambassador,' 1655, in 'Cabala,' 1671, and in the 'Leycester Correspondence,' 1844. They all show much literary power. His style is colloquial, but always energetic. In 1571 Leicester founded by act of parliament a hospital at Warwick for twelve poor men. The first warden was Ralph Griffin, D.D., and the second Thomas Cartwright, the puritan [q. v.] Leicester drew up statutes for the institution, 26 Nov. 1585 (, Sydney Papers, i. 46–7).

Leicester was a patron of literature and the drama. Roger Ascham, whose son Dudley (b. 1664) was his godson, often wrote of his literary taste. Gabriel Harvey devoted the second book of his 'Congratulationes Valdinenses,' London, 1578, to his praises, and printed eulogies by Pietro Bizari, Carlus Utenhovius, Walter Haddon, Abraham Hartwell, and Edward Grant. Geoffrey Whitney, when dedicating to him his 'Choice of Emblemes' (1586), states that many famous men had been enabled to pursue their studies through his beneficence. Horne dedicated to him his translation of two of Calvin's sermons in 1585, and Cartwright was always friendly with him. While patronising the puritan controversialists he exhibited with characteristic inconsistency an active interest in the drama. As early as 1571 'Lord Leicester's Men' performed a play before the queen when visiting Saffron Walden. In succeeding years the same company of actors is often mentioned in the accounts of the office of revels. On 7 May 1574 the first royal patent granted to actors in this country was conceded to the Earl of Leicester in behalf of his actor-servants, at whose head stood James Burbage [q. v.] Plays or masques formed the chief attractions of the Kenilworth festivities of 1575 (, Hist. English Dramatic Poetry, i. 192, 202, 224–6, iii. 259).

Love of display and self-indulgence are Leicester's most striking personal characteristics. By his extravagant dress, his gluttony, and his cruel treatment of women he was best known to his contemporaries. That he was also an accomplished poisoner has been repeatedly urged against him, but the evidence is inconclusive in all the charges of murder brought against him. In politics his aim was to