ng such heinous and monstrous crimes,
as by the said books and libels be infamously imputed, to pass
unpunished; or finally, at the least, to want either good will, ability
or courage, if she knew these enormities were true, to call any subject
of hers whatsoever to render sharp account of them, according to the
force of her laws." The councillors in their own persons afterwards went
on to declare, that they, "to do his lordship but right, of their
sincere consciences must needs affirm these strange and abominable
crimes to be raised of a wicked and venomous malice against the said
earl, of whose good service, sincerity of religion, and all other
faithful dealings towards her majesty and the realm, they had had long
and true experience."

These letters said too much; it was not credible that either her majesty
or her privy-councillors should each individually know to be false all
the imputations thrown upon Leicester in the libels written against him;
there was even good reason to believe that many of them were firmly
believed to be well founded by several, and perhaps most, of the
privy-councillors; at all events nothing like exculpatory evidence was
brought, or attempted to be brought, on the subject, consequently no
effect was produced on public opinion; the whole was regarded as an
_ex-parte_ proceeding. Philip Sidney, who probably set out with a
sincere disbelief of these shocking accusations brought against any
uncle who had shown for him an affection next to parental, eagerly took
up the pen in his defence. But the only point on which his refutation
appears to have been triumphant, was unfortunately one of no moral
moment,--the antiquity and nobility of the Dudley family, falsely, as it
seems, impugned by the libeller. Some inconsistencies and contradictions
he indeed pointed out in other matters; but, on the whole, the answer
was miserably deficient in every thing but invective, of which there was
far too much; and either from a gradual perception of the badness of his
cause or the weakness of his performance, or perhaps for other reasons
with which we are unacquainted, he abandoned his design; and the
fragment never saw the light till the publication of the Sidney Papers
about sixty years ago. But whatever might be the private judgements of
men concerning the character and conduct of the earl of Leicester; the
support of the queen, and the strength of the party which the long
possession of power, and a remarkab