[557] State Papers, Domestic, ccix.
[558] Howard, writing on the 13th June to Walsingham, says: “I forbear to write unto my Lord Treasurer because I am sure he is a very heavy man for my lady his daughter, for which I am most heartily sorry.”
[559] Writing to Walsingham, “from my house near the Savoy,” 17th July, he says: “I am at present by last night’s torment weakened in spirits, as I am not able to rise out of my bed; which is my grief the more, because I cannot come thither where both my mind and duty do require;” and yet on the same day he (Burghley) sent a long minute corrected with his own hand to Darrell, giving directions for the victualling of the navy.
[560] In September, when the news came of the flight of the Armada, grand reviews of these forces were held previous to their being disbanded. Lord Chancellor Hatton entertained the Queen at dinner in Holborn, and his hundred men-at-arms in red and yellow paraded before her Majesty. The next day (20th August) a similar ceremony took place at Cecil House, and shortly afterwards Leicester’s troop was reviewed. But they were all thrown into the shade by Essex’s splendid force of sixty musketeers and sixty mounted harquebussiers, in orange-tawny, with white silk facings, and two hundred light horsemen, in orange velvet and silver.
[561] See his letter, 30th July (O.S.), to his father, giving him an account from hearsay of what had happened off Calais (State Papers, Domestic, ccxiii.).
[562] The ordinary Arabic numbers were never used by Burghley, even in calculations.
[563] One of the last letters that Leicester wrote was to Burghley, from Maidenhead, two days only before his death, asking for some favour for a friend, Sir Robert Jermyn, and apologising for leaving court without taking leave of the Lord Treasurer; and in November the widowed Countess of Leicester—the mother of Essex—wrote begging Burghley to use his influence with the Queen to buy a vessel belonging to her late husband.
[564] Lord Burghley’s memoranda (State Papers, Domestic). For particulars of the expedition see “The Year after the Armada,” by the present writer.
[565] Don Antonio had been deceived so often in England, that although preparations for the expedition were being made for some months previously, he was not convinced that it was really intended for him until the end of the year 1588.
[566] On the eve of his flight Essex thus explained his action in a letter to Heneage (Hatfield Papers, part iii. 966): “What my courses have been I need not repeat, for no man knoweth them better than yourself. What my state now is I will tell you. My revenue is no greater than when I sued my livery, my debts at least two or three and twenty thousand pounds. Her Majesty’s goodness has been so great I could not ask her for more; no way left to repair myself but mine own adventure, which I had much rather undertake than offend her Majesty with suits, as I have done. If I speed well, I will adventure to be rich; if not, I will not live to see the end of my poverty.”