Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/338

 3'* REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 60. Leicester, no doubt, she would have liked well to marry. Leicester had been an object at one time of grave suspicion, and even CeciPs mind once misgave him, on the ambiguous position in which this nobleman stood towards his sovereign. But the Spanish ambas- sador de Silva inquired curiously into the scandals which were flying, and satisfied himself that they were without foundation. And the absolute silence after- wards of Mendoza, on a subject on which hatred would have made him eloquent, is a further and conclusive answer to the charges of Allen and Sanders. 1 Leicester continued till his death an object of exceptional regard. Hatton, a handsome, innocent, rather absurd person, was attached to her on the footing of a human lapdog, and he repaid her caresses with a genuine devotion, ridiculous only in the language in which it was ex- pressed. 2 Elizabeth had nicknames for every one who 1 In the enormous mass of Men- doza' s correspondence at Simancas, there is not a single imputation upon the personal character of Elizabeth. A youth calling himself Arthur Dudley, and professing to be the son of Elizabeth and Leicester, was pre- sented to Philip in 1585, by Sir Francis Englefield. His story was inquired into, and he was treated as an impostor. 2 Sir Harris Nicolas, very strange- ly as it appears to me, construes Hat- ton's letters to Elizabeth as an evi- dence of a discreditable connection between them. And yet one of the strongest love passages is followed by an urgent entreaty to her to marry, and it is not to be supposed he ever thought she could marry him. ' This is the twelfth day since I saw the brightness of that sun that giveth light unto my sense and soul. I wax an amazed creature. Give me leave, madam, to remove myself out of this irksome shadow, so far as my imagination with these good means may lead me towards you : and let me thus salute you : Live for ever, most excellent creature, and love some man to show yourself thankful for God's high labour in you. I am too far off to hear your answer to this salutation. I know it would be