“From Hampton Court, 24th December, 1575.
“Your Lordship’s most assured commandment,
“W. Burghley.”
The boy in question was Edward Talbot, the Earl’s fourth son. His matrimonial chances did not suffer by this just refusal, for in after years he married one of the twin heiresses of Lord Ogle of Northumberland, and eventually, after the death of his two elder brothers, succeeded to his father’s earldom.
A single bill of items of the Earl’s expenditure in the year 1575 amounting to £300 is of a nature which shows how many and extensive were the purchases justifying his constant appeals to the Treasury. All these items he had to import from France by special messenger. Hogshead after hogshead of French wine was required for Mary’s use. Her household drank it in preference to the heavier English brew of ale. Moreover, she was accustomed to use it for her bath, especially when indisposed. Buckram and canvas, damask and sheeting, vinegar and live quails (“with cages for the said quails”), paper and hempseed, “comfitures and other sugar-works,” and even “fourteen pounds of sleyed silk for my Lady, being of all colours,” go to this long bill of goods from Rouen.
My Lady meanwhile was properly reinstated in the English Queen’s confidence. It would please Bess Shrewsbury well to know that this letter from the Earl of Leicester, written early in 1576 to her husband, has come down to posterity:—
“My Lord,—For that this bearer is so well known and trusted of you I will leave to trouble you with any long letters, and do commit the more to his report, for that he is well able to satisfy your Lordship fully of all things here. And, touching one part of your letter sent lately to me, about the access of my Lady, your wife, to the Queen there, I find the Queen’s Majesty well pleased that she may repair at all times, and not forbear the company of that Queen, having not only very good opinion of my Lady’s wisdom and discretion, but thinks how convenient it is for that Queen to be accompanied and pass the time rather with my Lady than meaner persons. I doubt not but your Lordship shall hear in like sort also from her Majesty touching the same, and yet I may well signify thus much, as from herself, to your Lordship. The rest I commend to this bearer, and your Lordship, with my good Lady, to the Almighty. In haste, this first of May.
“Your Lordship’s assured kinsman,
“R. Leicester.”
Soon after, in June, Lord Shrewsbury, at Buxton with his “charge,” asks that he may remove her, not to Tutbury as suggested, but back to Sheffield Lodge. There was a “bruit” that Lord Leicester was going to Buxton for the waters, and it was necessary, seeing that his going would probably attract others in the world of fashion, not to allow Mary to linger at the baths. A letter from Gilbert Talbot, in July, 1576, full of the usual delightful chit-chat about Queen and Court, mentions the Buxton expedition in connection with the magnificent Leicester:—