[567] His entry in his diary recording the fact runs thus: “1589. April 4 Die Veneris inter hor 3 et 4 mane obdormit in Domino, Mildreda Domina Burgley.” She is interred at Westminster Abbey, with her daughter the Countess of Oxford; a very long Latin inscription is on the tomb, written by Burghley, recording their many virtues and the writer’s grief at their loss. There is at Hatfield (part iii. 973) a note of the mourners and arrangements for the funeral in Lord Burghley’s handwriting.
[568] MSS. Lansdowne, ciii. 51.
[569] This is a not unnatural mistake under the circumstances for 9th April 1589. The year then began on the 1st April, and in his sorrow Lord Burghley had overlooked the change of year. More than a month after this he wrote a letter, full of grief still, to his old friend the Earl of Shrewsbury, by which we see that he was still living in retirement in one of the lodges of his park at Theobalds, as it is signed “From my poore lodge neare my howss at Theobalds, 27 Maii 1589. P.S. The Queene is at Barn Elms, but this night I will attend on her at Westminster, for I am no man mete for feastings.”
[570] For the particulars of the Catholic plots of Huntly, Crawford, Errol, Claud Hamilton, and Bothwell (Stuart), see Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.
[571] State Papers, Domestic.
[572] The Vidame de Chartres was the Huguenot agent in Elizabeth’s court for some years, and was constantly craving aid for the cause. His promises of repayment were very rarely kept, as the Huguenots had most of the wealth of France against them. Hence the saying quoted.
[573] Egerton MSS., 359.
[574] “November 30. I have heard a rumour that you have arrived at Calais, and that if the enemy comes to attack that place you will be there with troops to defend it. If this news be true I pray you let me hear it from yourself, and advertise me by the ordinary courier what the enemy is doing and what you think of these designs. For I shall be very happy to see some opportunity by which we could together win honour and serve the common weal. I am idle here, and have nothing to do but to hearken for such opportunities.” (Essex to La Noue; Hatfield Papers, part iii.)
[575] Hatfield Papers, part iv.
[576] A letter from Sir John Smith to Burghley, 28th January 1590, expresses sorrow “to hear that you were very dangerously sick, being next unto her Majesty, in my opinion, the pillar and upholder of the Commonwealth. Howbeit, I am now very glad to hear you have recovered your health;” to which the Lord Treasurer appends the note “relatio falsæ” (Hatfield Papers, part iv.). Later in the year, however (October), the Clerk of the Privy Seal, writing to Lord Talbot, says, “I never knew my Lord Treasurer more lusty or fresh in hue than at this hour.” How heavily business still pressed upon the Lord Treasurer is seen by a remark of his in a letter to Mr. Grimstone (January 1591): “The cause” (of his not having written) “is partly for that I have not leisure, being, as it were, roundly besieged with affairs to be answered from north, south, east, and west; whereof I hope shortly to be delivered by supply of some to take charge as her Majesty’s principal secretary” (Bacon Papers, Birch).