Page:The Queens of England.djvu/464

 418 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. We shall now extract from the pages of Bayle, the account of her death, and the occasion of it : "After the execution of the Earl of Essex, the queen was a pretty long time as merry as before, particularly during the embassie of Mareschal de Biron. Therefore 'tis very likely that if she died for grief upon account of the Earl of Essex, 'twas not so much because she had put him to death, as be- cause she came to know that he had recurr'd to her clemency in such a way as she had promised would never fail. M. du Maurier will explain us this little mystery : — It will neither be needless, says he, nor disagreeable, to add here what the same Prince Maurice had from Mr. Carleton, the English Ambassador in Holland, who died secretary of state, so much known under the name of Lord Dorchester, a man of very great merit — viz., that Queen Elizabeth gave a ring to the Earl of Essex, in the height of her passion, bidding him to keep it well ; and that whatever he might do, she would for- give him, if he sent her back the same ring. The earl's ene- mies having since prevailed with the queen (who, besides, was provoked by the earl's contempt of her beauty, which decayed through age), she caused him to be tried for his life; and in the time of his condemnation, still expected that he would return her ring, when she might pardon him according to her promise. The earl, in the last extremity, had recourse to the wife of Admiral Howard, his kinswoman, and entreated her, by means of a person he trusted, to deliver that ring into the queen's own hands ; but her husband, one of the earl's mortal enemies, to whom she imprudently revealed it, having hindered her from performing the message, the queen consented to his death, full of indignation against so haughty and fierce a man, who chose rather to die than fly to her clemency. Some time after, the admiral's lady being fallen sick and given over by her physicians, sent the queen word that she had a secret of great importance to disclose to her before she died. The queen being come to her bedside, and having caused everybody to withdraw, the admiral's lady delivered to her preposterously that ring from the Earl of Essex, excusing her not delivering it sooner, because her husband would not let her. The queen withdrew instantly, struck with a mortal grief, passing fifteen days sighing, without taking any sustenance, laying herself down on her bed with her clothes on, and getting up a hun- dred times in the night. At last she famished and grieved her-