l 29, 1587,
by a preposterous exercise of royal patronage, he became Lord
Chancellor. He had already ceased to command the Guard, though the
actual date of his retirement is not specified. His immediate successor,
appointed perhaps as a stop-gap, was Sir Henry Goodier. Sir Anthony
Paulett also is sometimes mentioned in connexion with the post. But the
office was permanently filled by the nomination of Ralegh in the early
summer of 1586. The Captain's pay consisted of a yearly uniform. Six
yards of tawney medley at 13_s._ 4_d._ a yard, with a fur of black budge
rated at L10, is the warrant for 1592. The cost in the next reign was
estimated at L14. Ralegh had to fill vacancies in his band of fifty. He
was known to have a sharp eye for suitable recruits, young, tall,
strong, and handsome. The regular duty was to guard the Queen from
weapons and from poison; to watch over her safety by day and night
wherever she went, by land or water. At the Palace the Captain's place
was in the antechamber, where he could almost hear the conversations
between her and her counsellors. To share them he had but to be beckoned
within. Naturally the command seemed to be a stepping-stone to a
Vice-Chamberlainship at least, if not to the Keepership of the Queen's
conscience.

[Sidenote: _Royal Parsimony._]

None of these offices were in themselves lucrative. A maintenance for
the new favourite and the new public servant had otherwise to be found.
His endowment came from the usual sources. Naunton says that, 'though he
gained much at the Court, he took it not out of the Exchequer, or merely
out of the Queen's purse, but by his wit and the help of the
prerogative; for the Queen was never profuse in delivering over her
treasures, but paid most of her servants, part in money, and the rest
with grace.' He adds, it may be hoped, before October 29, 1618: 'Leaving
the arrears of recompense due for their merit to her great successor,
who paid them all with advantage.' Ralegh himself, after a similar
compliment to James, laments in his History the Queen's parsimony to her
'martial men, both by sea and land,' none of whom, he remembers, 'the
Lord Admiral excepted, her eldest and most prosperous commander,' did
she 'either enrich, or otherwise honour, for any service by them
performed.' Notices in official documents of pecuniary grants to himself
are rare. An order in September, 1587, for a payment of L2000 to be
spent according to her Majesty's direction