ter of his daughter Anne and of the Earl of Oxford. The Countess of
Southampton approved the match, and told Burghley that her son was not
averse from it. Her wish was father to the thought. Southampton
declined to marry to order, and, to the confusion of his friends, was
still a bachelor when he came of age in 1594. Nor even then did there
seem much prospect of his changing his condition. He was in some ways as
young for his years in inward disposition as in outward appearance.
Although gentle and amiable in most relations of life, he could be
childishly self-willed and impulsive, and outbursts of anger involved
him, at Court and elsewhere, in many petty quarrels which were with
difficulty settled without bloodshed. Despite his rank and wealth, he
was consequently accounted by many ladies of far too uncertain a temper
to sustain marital responsibilities with credit. Lady Bridget Manners,
sister of his friend the Earl of Rutland, was in 1594 looking to
matrimony for means of release from the servitude of a lady-in-waiting to
the Queen. Her guardian suggested that Southampton or the Earl of
Bedford, who was intimate with Southampton and exactly of his age, would
be an eligible suitor. Lady Bridget dissented. Southampton and his
friend were, she objected, 'so young,' 'fantastical,' and volatile ('so
easily carried away'), that should ill fortune befall her mother, who was
'her only stay,' she 'doubted their carriage of themselves.' She spoke,
she said, from observation. {379}

Intrigue with Elizabeth Vernon.

In 1595, at two-and-twenty, Southampton justified Lady Bridget's censure
by a public proof of his fallibility. The fair Mistress Vernon (first
cousin of the Earl of Essex), a passionate beauty of the Court, cast her
spell on him. Her virtue was none too stable, and in September the
scandal spread that Southampton was courting her 'with too much
familiarity.'

Marriage in 1598.

The entanglement with 'his fair mistress' opened a new chapter in
Southampton's career, and life's tempests began in earnest. Either to
free himself from his mistress's toils, or to divert attention from his
intrigue, he in 1596 withdrew from Court and sought sterner occupation.
Despite his mistress's lamentations, which the Court gossips duly
chronicled, he played a part with his friend Essex in the military and
naval expedition to Cadiz in 1596, and in that to the Azores in 1597. He
developed a martial ardour which