ed unto. In Elizabeth's view
love-making, except to herself, was so criminal that at Court it had to
be done by stealth. Any show of affection was deemed an act of guilt.
From a consciousness of guilt to the reality is not always a wide step.
In Ralegh's references and language to his wife may be detected a tone
in the tenderness as though he owed reparation as well as attachment.
The redeeming feature of their passion is that they loved with true love
also, and with a love which grew. His published opinions, as in his
_Instructions to his Son_, on wives and marriage, like those of other
writers of aphorisms in his age, ring harshly and coldly. But he did not
act on frigid fragments of sententious suspiciousness. He was careful
for his widow's worldly welfare. With death, as it seemed, imminent, he
trusted with all, and in everything, his 'sweet Besse,' his 'faithful
wife,' as scoffing Harington with enthusiasm called her. His constant
desire was to have her by his side, but to spare her grieving.

[Sidenote: _A Rhapsody._]

[Sidenote: _A Comedy in the Tower._]

When and where they were married is unknown. So careful were they to
avoid publicity that Lady Ralegh's brother, Arthur Throckmorton, for
some time questioned the fact, though his suspicions were dissipated,
and he became an attached friend of the husband's. Probably the ceremony
was performed after the imprisonment and not before. If the threat of
detention in the Tower, mentioned by Stafford, were carried into effect
against the lady, Ralegh at all events betrayed no consciousness that
she was his neighbour. In his correspondence at the time he never speaks
of her. His business was to obtain his release. He understood that
allusions to the partner in his misdeed would not move the Queen to
kindness. Like Leicester, and like Essex, he continued, though married,
to use loverlike phrases of the Queen, whenever they were in the least
likely to reach her ear. The Cecils were his allies against Essex. In
July, 1592, under cover of an account for the Yeomen's coats for an
approaching royal progress, he burst into a wonderful effusion to, not
for, Robert Cecil: 'My heart was never broken till this day, that I hear
the Queen goes away so far off--whom I have followed so many years with
so great love and desire, in so many journeys, and am now left behind
her, in a dark prison all alone. While she was yet nigher at hand, that
I might hear of her once in two or three d