“Sheffield, this ninth of November, 1585.
“Your Lordship’s most faithful ever assured friend,
“G. Shrewsbury.”
The word “imp” in Elizabethan times really only implied “offshoot” and “offspring” and was used also in an agricultural sense. But the application of it here is maliciously grotesque to the modern sense. The word strikes one oddly also in the epitaph of the son of Leicester, the baby Lord Denbigh, described on his tomb as “this noble imp.”
On November 9th from Sheffield Castle Shrewsbury reopens his formal campaign, and the real tussle in London begins. Lord Leicester, his good friend, is no longer on the spot, owing to his absence in the Netherlands. In the long letter to this Lord, quoted hereafter, though belonging to a date slightly previous, it will be seen that mention is made of the Queen’s preliminary arbitration in the quarrel. The main points showing the fluctuations of this strife are set forth in the State documents, and the whole of Vol. CCVII is devoted to them, showing that the years 1586–7 are given up to a regular formal ballyragging on both sides. On the 31st of January, 1586, the Earl is found appealing to Walsingham, requiring that his wife should be ordered to make public retractation of her slanderous speeches about him. (This evidently refers to fresh backbiting, for as regards the great scandal already named matters had been thrashed out long since.) He adds that he must bend his mind to trouble though his years do otherwise move him; meanwhile he has brought a suit against Charles Cavendish and Henry Beresford, accusing them of the same slander. The Queen intervenes and requests him to stay the suits. Shrewsbury, however, persists on the score of the statute “De scandalis magnatum.”[[80]] The Cavendishes on their side pleaded for the abandonment of the two suits just named and for the impartial examination of witnesses. Evidence is next included by Shrewsbury’s servants of the prejudicial statements of Beresford, while the Cavendishes employed a servant of the Countess to attest the great partiality with which the examination of Beresford was conducted, to the disadvantage of the Countess’ case. Upon this the Queen sent to Sir Charles Cavendish for details of the exact state of affairs between his mother and stepfather. These he submitted to Walsingham in March. On May the 12th the Queen wrote to the Earl expressing her earnest desire that all controversies between him and his lady and her younger sons should cease, and by her mediation be brought to some good end and accord. She reminded him that his years required repose, especially of the mind, and stated that she enclosed an order for the settlement of the dispute, the result of her conference with the Lord Chancellor, the Earl of Leicester, and the Treasurer and Chief Secretary of State.
Lady Shrewsbury meanwhile objected strongly to all the Earl’s proceedings, accused him of displacing certain of her tenants, and assured the Queen that he refused to restrain the slander suits. This is a fragment of her many complaints, and is endorsed:—
“Objections used by the Countess to the Earl of Shrewsbury’s answers, who has not obeyed the Queen’s last letter.
“To all these answers drawn by my Lord’s learned counsel, as may appear, who never want words to answer whatsoever:—
“I allege that for her Majesty’s order I must appeal to her own gracious remembrance, which particularly was expressed by her last letter to my Lord, though not obeyed. And (I) do avow on my whole credit with her Majesty for ever that the things he hath entered to is worth nine hundred pounds a year, and that he hath repaid but eight and fifty pound of near two thousand pounds, which in that (case?) would have been to my sons and me. That he displaceth sundry tenants, and as myself allegeth meaneth to continue the suits.
“In all these things I most humbly beseech speedy redress if they be true, and discredit and her Majesty’s disfavour if they be found untrue.