Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/420

 400 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 60. Countess's only remaining son and Elizabeth Caven- dish, Lady Shrewsbury's daughter by her first husband. Lady Elizabeth was passionately devoted to the Queen of Scots, and Lord Charles, who was a possible competi- tor against her for the English crown, would thus be made sure of. Lady Lennox took her son to Chats- worth, and all was done before suspicion had got abroad. The secret marriage of a prince of the blood both was and is an offence against the State ; had there been nothing about the match in itself objectionable, Eliza- beth would have been justly offended. Lady Lennox was returned to her old quarters in the Tower ; Shrews- bury was rebuked and hardly saved himself by laying the blame upon his wife ; and the storm blew over only when a year subsequently Lord Charles and his bride both died, leaving as the sole result of the affair a daugh ter, known to history as the Lady Arabella Stuart. In. itself, the matter proved of no immediate consequence ; but incidentally, it occasioned a painful revelation of the hollow hearts with which the Queen was surrounded. The investigation which Walsingham had to institute, brought him on the track of half the ladies of the palace, and of more than half the courtiers, as implicated more or less in seeking favour with the lady at Sheffield. Lady Cobham, the Queen's immediate attendant ; South- ampton, who had forfeited his life in the Norfolk con- spiracy and had been pardoned and taken into favour again;, Norfolk's brother, Lord Henry Howard; the Earl of Oxford, Burghley's son-in-law ; these and many more were found to be paying assiduous court to the