te their access to her, the greater was her resentment at
detecting in them any aspirations after this state; because a kind of
jealousy was in these cases superadded to her malignity, and it offended
her pride that those who were honored with her favor should find
themselves at leisure to covet another kind of happiness of which she
was not the dispenser. But that Leicester, the dearest of her friends,
the first of her favorites, after all the devotedness to her charms
which he had so long professed, and which she had requited by a
preference so marked and benefits so signal,--that he,--her opinion
unconsulted, her sanction unimplored, should have formed,--and with her
own near relation,--this indissoluble tie, and having formed it should
have attempted to conceal the fact from her when known to so many
others,--appeared to her the acme of ingratitude, perfidy, and insult.
She felt the injury like a weak disappointed woman, she resented it like
a queen and a Tudor.

She instantly ordered Leicester into confinement in a small fort then
standing in Greenwich park, and she threw out the menace, nay actually
entertained the design, of sending him to the Tower. But the lofty and
honorable mind of the earl of Sussex revolted against proceedings so
violent, so lawless, and so disgraceful in every point of view to his
royal kinswoman. He plainly represented to her, that it was contrary to
all right and all decorum that any man should be punished for lawful
matrimony, which was held in honor by all; and his known hostility to
the favorite giving weight to his remonstrance, the queen curbed her
anger, gave up all thoughts of the Tower, and soon restored the earl to
liberty. In no long time afterwards, he was readmitted to her presence;
and so necessary had he made himself to her majesty, or so powerful in
the state, that she found it expedient insensibly to restore him to the
same place of trust and intimacy as before; though it is probable that
he never entirely regained her affections; and his countess, for whom
indeed she had never entertained any affection, remained the avowed
object of her utter antipathy even after the death of Leicester, and in
spite of all the intercessions in her behalf with which her son Essex,
in the meridian of his favor, never ceased to importune his sovereign.

The quarrel of Leicester against Simier proceeded to such extremity
after this affair, that the latter believed his life in danger from his