[467] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[468] Ibid.
[469] Ralegh was certainly known to Leicester before this. He was attached to his suite when he accompanied Alençon to Antwerp in February; and always professed to be specially attached to him personally, even when he was lending his aid to his political opponents.
[470] B. M. Add. MSS., 15,891: Walsingham to Hatton.
[471] B. M. Lansdowne MSS., 36: Hatton to Burghley.
[472] The probable cause of the Queen’s displeasure with Oxford on this occasion was an affray between him and Sir Thomas Knyvett, one of the Queen’s Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, in March 1582. Nicholas Faunt writes to Anthony Bacon (Bacon Papers, vol. i.): “There has been a fray between my Lord of Oxford and Knyvett, who are both hurt, but Lord Oxford more dangerously. You know,” he adds, “Master Knyvett is not meanly beloved at court, and therefore is not likely to speed ill, whatsoever the quarrel be.” There is also a most interesting letter from Burghley to Hatton (12th March 1582, B. M. MSS., Add. 91), in which he begs him to intercede with the Queen for Oxford, and recites the whole of the accusations against him.
[473] State Papers, Domestic.
[474] Mary to Beton, 18th November 1582 (Spanish State Papers).
[475] Harl. MSS., 5397.
[476] Full particulars of De Maineville’s and La Mothe Fénélon’s missions in M. Chéruel’s Marie Stuart et Catherine de Medicis, drawn from the correspondence of La Mothe Fénélon and the archives of the D’Esneval family.