DEATH OF FLETCHER BISHOP OF LONDON. 389

to" find out some men that had great minds and small means or merits, that would be glad to leave a small deanery to make a poor bishopric, by new leasing lands that were almost out of lease;" and on these terms, which the more conscientiouschurchmen disdained, Fletcher had taken the bishopric of Oxford; and had in due time been rewarded for his compliance by translation first to Worcester and afterwards to London. His talents and deportment pleased the queen; and, it is mentioned, as an indication of her special favor, that she once quarrelled with him for wearing too short a beard. But he afterwards gave her more serious displeasure by taking a wife; a gay and fair court lady of good quality; and he had scarcely pacified her majesty by the propitiatory offering of a great entertainment at his house in Chelsea, when he was carried off by a sudden death; ascribed by his contemporaries to his-immoderate use of the new luxury of smoking tobacco. This prelate was the father of Fletcher the dramatic poet.

Bishop Vaughan succeeded him; of whom Harrington gives the following trait: "He was an enemy to all supposed miracles, insomuch as one arguing with him in the closet at Greenwich in defence of them; and alleging the queen's healing of the evil for an instance, asking him what he could say against it, he answered; that he was loth to answer arguments taken from the topic

390 THE QUEEN'S TOUCHING FOR THE EVIL.

place of the cloth of estate; but if they would urge him to answer, he said his opinion was, she did it by virtue of some precious stone in possession of the crown of England that had such a natural quality. But had queen Elizabeth been told that he ascribed more virtue to her jewels (though she loved them well) than to her person, she would never have made him bishop of Chester."

Of the justice of the last remark there can be little question. In this reign, the royal pretension referred to was asserted with unusual earnestness; and for good reasons, as we learn from a different authority. In 1597 a quarto book appeared, written in Latin and dedicated to her majesty by one of her chaplains, which contained a relation of the cures thus performed by her; in which it is related, that a catholic having been so healed went away persuaded that the pope's excommunication of her majesty was of no effect: "For if she had not by right obtained the sceptre of the kingdom, and her throne established by the authority and appointment of God, what she attempted could not have succeeded. Because the rule is, that God is not any where witness to a lie." Such were the reasonings of that age.

It is probably to bishop Vaughan also that sir John Harrington refers in the following article of his Brief Notes.

"One Sunday (April last) my lord of London preached to the queen's majesty; and seemed to

touch on the vanity of decking the body too finely. Her majesty told the ladies, that if the bishop held more discourse on such matters, she would fit him for heaven; but he should walk thither without a staff, and leave his mantle behind him. Perchance the bishop hath never sought her highness' wardrobe, or he would have chosen another text:""

Nuga Antiquæ.

CHAPTER XXVI.

1597 AND 1598.

Fresh expedition against Spain proposed.-Extracts from Whyte's letters.-Raleigh reconciles Essex and R. Cecil. -Essex master of the ordnance.-Anecdote of the queen and Mrs. Bridges.-Preparations for the expedition.— Notice of lord Southampton.-Ill success of the voyage. -Quarrel of Essex and Raleigh. Displeasure of the queen.-Lord admiral made earl of Nottingham.-Anger of Essex. He is declared hereditary earl marshal.-Reply of the queen to a Polish ambassador-to a proposition of the king of Denmark.-State of Ireland.-Treaty of Vervins.-Agreement between Cecil and Essex.-Anecdotes of Essex and the queen.-Their quarrel.-Letter of Essex to the lord keeper.-Dispute between Burleigh and Essex.. -Agreement with the Dutch.-Death and character of Burleigh.-Transactions between the queen and the king of Scots, and an extract from their correspondence.-Anecdote of sir Roger Aston and the queen.-Anecdote of archbishop Hutton.-Death of Spenser.—Hall's satires.—Notice of sir John Harrington.-Extracts from his note-book.

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A FRESH expedition against the Spaniards was in

which oc

agitation from the beginning of this year, casioned many movements at court; and, as usual, disturbed the mind of the queen with various perplexities. Her captious favor towards Essex and the arts employed by him to gain his will on every contested point, are well illustrated in the letters of Rowland Whyte; to which we must again

recur.

RECONCILIATION BETWEEN ESSEX AND CECIL. 393.

On February twenty-second he writes: " My lord of Essex kept his bed the most part of all yesterday; yet did one of his chamber tell me, he could not weep for it, for he knew his lord was not sick. There is not a day passes that the queen sends not often to see him; and himself every day: goeth privately to her." Two days after he reports, that " my lord of Essex comes out of his chamber in his gown and night-cap..... Full fourteen days his lordship kept in; her majesty, as I heard, resolved to break him of his will and to pull down his great heart; who found it a thing impossible and says he holds it from the mother's side; but all is well again, and no doubt he will grow a mighty man in our state."

The earl of Cumberland made "some doubt of his going to sea;" because lord Thomas Howard and Raleigh were to be joined with him in equal authority; the queen mentioned the subject to him; and on his repeating to herself his refusal, he was well chidden."

In March, Raleigh was busied in mediating a reconciliation between Essex and Robert Cecil; in which he was so far successful that a kind of compromise took place; and henceforth court favors were shared without any open quarrels between their respective adherents. The motives urged by Raleigh for this agreement were, that it would benefit the country; that the queen's " continual unquietness"? would turn to contentment; and that public business would go on to the hurt of the common enemy. Essex however was malcontent at heart; he began to frequent certain meetings held in Blackfriars at

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