ship to his luckless protege,
Essex, in dudgeon, absented himself from the Court, and within a few
weeks chose a yet more effectual means of exasperating the Queen by
privately espousing Sir Francis Walsingham's daughter, Lady Sidney,
widow of the renowned Sir Philip. When knowledge of this latest action
reached the Queen her anger was kindled to a degree that (to the Court
gossips) seemed to preclude Essex's forgiveness, or the possibility of
his reinstatement in favour. With the intention of increasing Essex's
ill-humour and still further estranging him from the Queen, Burghley now
proposed that all his letters and papers be seized. _He also chose this
period of estrangement to introduce his prospective grandson-in-law,
Southampton, to the Court._ The very eagerness of Essex's enemies,
however, appears to have cooled the Queen's anger, as we find that
within a month of Southampton's arrival at the Court--that is, on 26th
November--Essex is reported as "once more in good favour with the
Queen."

In the light of the foregoing facts and deductions, it does not seem
likely that Burghley would encourage a friendship between Essex and
Southampton. The assumption that he would (at least tacitly) seek rather
to provoke a rivalry is under the circumstances more reasonable. Though
I find no record in the State Papers of this immediate date that
hostility was aroused between these young courtiers, in a paper of a
later date, which refers to this time, I find fair proof that such a
condition of affairs did at this period actually exist. In the
declaration of the treason of the Earl of Essex, 1600-1, in the State
Papers we have the following passage: "There was present this day at the
Council, the Earl of Southampton, with whom in former times he (Essex)
_had been at some emulations and differences at Court_, but after,
Southampton, having married his kinswoman (Elizabeth Vernon), plunged
himself wholly into his fortunes," etc.

Though the matrimonial engagement between Burghley's granddaughter and
Southampton never reached its consummation, and we have evidence in
Roger Manners' letter of 6th March 1592 that some doubt in regard to its
fulfilment had even then arisen in Court circles, we have good grounds
for assuming that all hope for the union was not abandoned by Burghley
till a later date. Lady Elizabeth Vere eventually married the Earl of
Derby in January 1595. This marriage was arranged for in the summer of
the preceding