edit by at least making peace with his Queen.

To his delight he was received with as much cordiality as if he had done
naught at all to earn his Lady's displeasure. Elizabeth had undoubtedly
missed her favourite, her right-hand man. She had in fact become so
accustomed to him that she could not be long happy unless he was at her
side; and it was by her side that he rode and shared the acclamations
with which her soldiers greeted her when she paid that historic visit to
the camp at Tilbury on the eve of the Armada.

But Leicester's adventurous life was now drifting to its close. His
health had for some time given him cause for alarm, and in August 1588,
he left his Kenilworth home to seek relief by taking baths and drinking
healing waters; and from Rycott he wrote the last of his many letters to
the Queen.

"I most humbly beseech your Majesty," he wrote, "to
pardon your poor old servant to be thus bold in sending
to know how my gracious Lady doth and what ease of her
late pain she finds, being the chiefest thing in this
world I do pray for is for her to have good health and
long life. For my own poor case I continue still your
medicine, and find it amend much better than with any
other thing that hath been given me. Thus hoping to find
perfect cure at the bath, with the continuance of my
wonted prayer for your Majesty's most happy preservation,
I humbly kiss your foot. From your old lodging at Rycott
this Thursday morning ready to take on my journey. By
your Majesty's most faithful and obedient servant,--
R. LEYCESTER."

But the Earl was not destined to reach the baths. His course was run. He
got as far on his journey as Coventry; and there, on the 4th of
September, he drew his last breath. Some said that his end was hastened
by a dose of poison administered by his Countess, eager to pursue
unchecked her intrigue with Christopher Blount; others that she
accidentally gave him a draught from a bottle of poison which he had
designed for her. But neither suspicion seems to have any evidence to
support it.

Thus perished, little past the prime of life, a man who more than any
other of his day drained the cup of pride and pleasure, to find its
dregs exceeding bitter to the taste.

CHAPTER XXII

TWO IRISH BEAUTIES

In the winter of 1745 the city of Dublin was thrown into a state of high
excitement by the appearance of a couple of girls fr