when it was acting before the queen, he pointed at Raleigh, and said,
'See the knave commands the queen!' for which he was corrected by a
frown from the queen: yet he had the confidence to add, that he was of
too much and too intolerable a power; and going on with the same
liberty, he reflected on the too great power of the earl of Leicester;
which was so universally applauded by all present, that she thought fit
to bear these reflections with a seeming unconcernedness. But yet she
was so offended that she forbad Tarleton and all jesters from coming
near her table[112]."

[Note 112: See Bohun's Character of Queen Elizabeth. Among the
various sources whence the preceding dramatic notices have been derived,
it is proper to point out Dr. Drake's Memoirs of Shakspeare and his Age,
and Warton's History of English Poetry.]

CHAPTER XXIV.

FROM 1593 TO 1597.

A parliament.--Haughty language of the queen.--Committal of Wentworth
and other members--of Morice.--His letter to lord Burleigh.--Act to
retain subjects in their due obedience.--Debates on the subsidy.--Free
speeches of Francis Bacon and sir E. Hobby.--Queen's speech.--Notice of
Francis Bacon--of Anthony Bacon.--Connexion of the two Bacons with
Essex.--Francis disappointed of preferment.--Conduct of Burleigh towards
him.--Of Fulk Greville.--Reflections.--Conversion of Henry
IV.--Behaviour of Elizabeth.--War in Bretagne.--Anecdote of the queen
and sir C. Blount.--Affair of Dr. Lopez.--Squire's attempt on the life
of the queen.--Notice of Ferdinando earl of Derby.--Letter of the queen
to lord Willoughby.--Particulars of sir Walter Raleigh.--His expedition
to Guiana.--Unfortunate enterprise of Drake and Hawkins.--Death of
Hawkins.--Death and character of Drake.--Letters of Rowland Whyte.--Case
of the earl of Hertford.--Anecdote of Essex.--Queen at the lord
keeper's.--Anecdote of the queen and bishop Rudd.--Case of sir T.
Arundel.

Notwithstanding all the frugal arts of Elizabeth, the state of her
finances compelled her in the spring of 1593 to summon a parliament. It
was four entire years since this assembly had last met: but her majesty
took care to let the commons know, that the causes of offence which had
then occurred were still fresh in her memory, and that her resolution to
preserve her own prerogative in its rigor, and the ecclesiastical
commission in all its terrors, was still inflexible.

It even appeared, that an apprehension lest her present nece