but when she still dabbled her cheeks with rouge and
powder and set her skeleton face amid a forest of ruffs.

There were many whom she cared for after a fashion. She would not let
Sir Walter Raleigh visit her American colonies, because she could not
bear to have him so long away from her. She had great moments of passion
for the Earl of Essex, though in the end she signed his death-warrant
because he was as dominant in spirit as the queen herself.

Readers of Sir Walter Scott's wonderfully picturesque novel, Kenilworth,
will note how he throws the strongest light upon Elizabeth's affection
for Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Scott's historical instinct is
united here with a vein of psychology which goes deeper than is usual
with him. We see Elizabeth trying hard to share her favor equally
between two nobles; but the Earl of Essex fails to please her because he
lacked those exquisite manners which made Leicester so great a favorite
with the fastidious queen.

Then, too, the story of Leicester's marriage with Amy Robsart is
something more than a myth, based upon an obscure legend and an ancient
ballad. The earl had had such a wife, and there were sinister stories
about the manner of her death. But it is Scott who invents the
villainous Varney and the bulldog Anthony Foster; just as he brought
the whole episode into the foreground and made it occur at a period much
later than was historically true. Still, Scott felt--and he was imbued
with the spirit and knowledge of that time--a strong conviction that
Elizabeth loved Leicester as she really loved no one else.

There is one interesting fact which goes far to convince us. Just as
her father was, in a way, polygamous, so Elizabeth was even more truly
polyandrous. It was inevitable that she should surround herself with
attractive men, whose love-locks she would caress and whose flatteries
she would greedily accept. To the outward eye there was very little
difference in her treatment of the handsome and daring nobles of her
court; yet a historian of her time makes one very shrewd remark when
he says: "To every one she gave some power at times--to all save
Leicester."

Cecil and Walsingham in counsel and Essex and Raleigh in the field might
have their own way at times, and even share the sovereign's power, but
to Leicester she intrusted no high commands and no important mission.
Why so? Simply because she loved him more than any of the rest; and,
knowing this, she knew