a baron, that, in his proper sphere, and in her estimation, he was above it already; therefore, all could be expected from such an addition, would be the intombing of the spirit of a brave souldier, in the corps of a lesse sightly courtier; and by tempting him from his charge, hazard that repute upon a carpet, his valour had dearly purchased him in the field. Nor could she indure to see her subjects weare the titles of a forraigne prince; the cause she committed Sir Matthew Arrondell of Warder' in the west, for accepting from the German Cæsar the dig

Osborne is here inaccurate; it was Thomas Arundel, son of Sir Matthew Arundel, and afterwards Lord Arundel, of Wardour, who was created Count of the Empire by Rodolph II., on account of various exploits against the Turks, and particularly, because, at storming the Water-Tower, near Strigonium, he had taken the enemies' banner with his own hand. For accepting this foreign honour, he was imprisoned by Elizabeth on his return to England. The letters which passed between the emperor and the queen upon this subject, may be found in Rymer's Fædera, tom. xvi, p. 284. Arundel's "Apologie for accepting the Honour of Comes Imperij" is published in the Desiderata Curiosa, and shews, that the young hero knew the style in which the maiden queen loved to be ad

nity of a count, and denied Sir Philip Sidney the crowne of Poland.

18. The example of modesty her souldiers exprest in the Nether-lands, rarely found amongst auxiliaries, with her refusall to owne or impose the name of her vassals upon the Dutch, gained her a huge confidence amongst her neighbours, that her complexion was pure from the contagion of any more destructive ambition, than the preservation of her honour, and those nations her birth no lesse than desert had presented her with; which made them unapter to offend her; none but catholicks, and

dressed. "As for myself, I do sufficiently know, that imprisonment and her majesty are not accidentia inseparabilia. Wherefore, I hope, after this purgatory, to enjoy the smiling light of those double sun-beams, in whose gracious acceptance stands the sum total of my earthly happiness. My enlargement would be dear to me, but nought in respect of the blissful favour of the dearest."-Vol. ii. p. 280.

'Naunton alleges, that when," through the fame of his desert, he was in election for the kingdom of Pole, she refused to further his preferment, not out of emulation of his advancement, but out of fear to lose the jewel of her time."

they for the most part priests, wishing her remoove, as not knowing where to find a prince lesse offensive and more debonaire; the cause many treasons concluded in the losse of their heads that projected them, or sought to put them in execution. Yet, in this, her temperament of desire in relation to augmentation of empire, her prudence so minded her of the nations future safety, as that friends under persecution doe not seldome face about upon the approach of security and power: wherefore, she made sure of Flushing and Brill; which, in regard of situation, were so full a content of their whole strength, as the application of it could not, upon their miscarriage in relation to the catholicke king, or their own future ingratitude, obliterate the advantage England might make of that revolt: though the mony lent cover'd it in reason and justice from much of the envy it might have contracted, had she imployed force or fraud in their purchase. Nor did the receiving from the hands of the French hugonots,

Havre de Grace (upon a like exigency) signify more ambition than the reduction of Calis; which might have undoubtedly succeeded, had she not, according to her usuall custom, starved the designe for want of mony and men; a fault the more excusable, because it relates to the tender care and respect had of her subjects lives and éstates. And here, by the way, it was worth noting, that the Holanders could not so easily have attayned freedom, but through the help of the ministers of Spaine, who, by eradicating the antient nobility and gentry, reduced them into a parity; and so by consequence made them capable of unity, the nource of all combinations.

19. Amongst all her minions, none (according to report) bad fairer for the queens brid-bed than Lecester, who, finding, by the continuall high beating of her heart, that she would never allow of so great an abatement of soveraignty as a match with a forraine prince, could not but in honour have the sayles of his expectation somewhat

sweld therewith. He would, in her gayeties, (which, 'till the death of Essex, were very frequent,) aske her, "If she did not think she had some subjects of her owne, able (though it must be confessed none worthy) to make an heire for the kingdom of England, since her father was known to doe it, yet a man, and so uncapable of any eclipse of honour by the highest princesse? Neither did his often repeated condescentions in making subjects his afterwives breed him that danger that he sustained by the first glorious match, (according to expectation,) that he made with the sister of Charles the Emperor, which all the prudence he owned could not unravel without strayning the cordes of government, if not conscience, by that desperate leape he made out of the church of Rome, and separating himselfe from the union of other princes. Nor did Philip the Second prove more happy to your sister for the present, nor to the future expectation of the nation, that lacked nothing to intaile servitude up