n rank, to compromise the quarrel on terms
which he regarded as so inequitable and degrading, that after
transmitting to her majesty a spirited remonstrance against encouraging
the insolence of the great nobles, he retired to Penshurst in disgust.
The duke of Norfolk was the nephew of this earl of Oxford, who was very
strongly attached to him, and used the utmost urgency of entreaty with
Burleigh, whose daughter he had married, to prevail on him to procure
his pardon: "but not succeeding," says lord Orford, "he was so incensed
against that minister, that in most absurd and unjust revenge (though
the cause was amiable) he swore he would do all he could to ruin his
daughter; and accordingly not only forsook her bed, but sold and
consumed great part of the vast inheritance descended to him from his
ancestors[73]."

[Note 73: "Royal and Noble Authors."]

This remarkable person died very aged early in the reign of James I.

Sir Charles Howard, eldest son of lord Howard of Effingham, was at this
period of his life chiefly remarkable for the uncommon beauty of his
person,--a species of merit never overlooked by her majesty,--for grace
and agility in his exercises, and for the manners of an accomplished
courtier. At no time was he regarded as a person of profound judgement,
and of vanity and self-consequence he is said to have possessed an
abundant share. He was however brave, courteous, liberal, and diligent
in affairs; and the favor of the queen admitted him in 1585 to succeed
his father in the office of lord-high-admiral. His intrepid bearing, in
the year 1588, encouraged his sailors to meet the terrible Armada with
stout hearts and cheerful countenances, and the glory of its defeat was
as much his own as the participation of winds and waves would allow. In
consideration of this distinguished piece of service he was created earl
of Nottingham; and the queen's partiality towards her relations
increasing with her years, he became towards the end of the reign one of
the most considerable persons at her court, where his hostility to Essex
grew equally notorious with the better grounded antipathy entertained by
Sussex, also a royal kinsman, against Leicester, the earlier favorite of
her majesty.

The earl of Nottingham survived to the year 1624, the 88th of his age.

Sir Henry Lee was one of the finest courtiers and certainly the most
complete knight-errant of his time. He was now in the fortieth year of
his age, had travell