and a man named Parker were playing the game of
primero in the Presence Chamber, after her Majesty had retired. They
laughed and talked rather loudly, upon which Ambrose Willoughby, the
Esquire of the Body, came out and desired them not to make so much
noise. Raleigh pocketed his money, and went off, but Southampton
resented the interference, and in the scuffle that ensued Willoughby
pulled out a handful of those marjoram-coloured curls that Shakespeare
praised.

It is not easy to see why it was, that in the obscure year 1598, while
the star of Essex was setting, that of his natural rival did not burn
more brightly. But although now, and for the brief remainder of
Elizabeth's life, Raleigh was nominally in favour, the saturnine old
woman had no longer any tenderness for her Captain of the Guard. Her old
love, her old friendship, had quite passed away. There was no longer any
excuse for excluding from her presence so valuable a soldier and so
wise a courtier, but her pulses had ceased to thrill at his coming. If
Essex had been half so courteous, half so assiduous as Raleigh, she
would have opened her arms to him, but she had offended Essex past
forgiveness, and his tongue held no parley with her. It must have been
in Raleigh's presence--for he it is who has recorded it in the grave
pages of his _Prerogative of Parliament_--that Essex told the Queen
'that her conditions were as crooked as her carcass,' a terrible speech
which, as Raleigh says, 'cost him his head.' This was perhaps a little
later, in 1600. In 1598 these cruel squabbles were already making life
at Court a misery. The Queen kept Raleigh by her, but would give him
nothing. In January he applied for the post of Vice-chamberlain, but
without success. The new earl, Lord Nottingham, could theatrically wipe
the dust from Raleigh's shoes with his cloak, but when Raleigh himself
desired to be made a peer, in the spring of 1598, he was met with a
direct refusal. He would fain have been Lord Deputy in Ireland, but the
Queen declined to spare him. On the last day of August he was in the
very act of being sworn on the Privy Council, but at the final moment
Cecil frustrated this by saying that if he were made a councillor, he
must resign his Captainship of the Guard to Sir George Carew. This was,
as Cecil was aware, too great a sacrifice to be thought of, and the hero
of Cadiz and Fayal, foiled on every hand, had to submit to remain plain
Sir Walter Raleigh, Knight.