ed. Her mental qualities will be in evidence during the rest
of Ralegh's life. Never were written more charming letters than hers, in
more unembarrassed phonetic spelling.

[Sidenote: _Scantiness of Testimony._]

[Sidenote: _Hard to believe._]

The Captain of the Guard and she attended on the Queen together. He made
her an exception to his rule as to maids of honour, that, 'like witches,
they can do hurt, but no good.' He found her only too amiable. Camden,
in his _Annals_, published in 1615, explains Ralegh's crime and
punishment: 'honoraria Reginae virgine vitiata, quam postea in uxorem
duxit.' Wood says the same in his Latinized English, merely translating
Camden. A letter from Sir Edward Stafford to Sir Anthony Bacon, with the
impossible date, July 30, couples Ralegh's and Miss Throckmorton's names
in a burst of exultation, natural to Essex's friends: 'If you have
anything to do with Sir Walter Ralegh, or any love to make to Mrs.
Throckmorton, at the Tower to-morrow you may speak with them; if the
countermand come not to-night, as some think will not be, and
particularly he that hath charge to send them thither.' Stafford does
not specify the offence. The sole independent testimony is the single
sentence of Camden's. Yet posterity has had no option but to accept the
account. The error, if other courtiers had been the culprits, would have
excited little surprise. Elizabeth's maids of honour were not more
beyond suspicion than Swift asserts Anne's to have been. Essex's
gallantries at Court, after as before his marriage, were notorious and
many. Lord Southampton and his bride were the subjects of a similar tale
a few years later. Palace gossip treated it as a very ordinary
peccadillo. Cecil in February, 1601, tells Carew of the 'misfortune' of
one of the maids, Mistress Fitton, with Lord Pembroke, as if it were a
jest. Both the culprits, he remarks, 'will dwell in the Tower a while.'
His phrases show none of the horror they breathed when he spoke of
Ralegh, and the Queen was likely to read them. The English Court was
pure in the time of Elizabeth for its time. It degenerated greatly under
her successor. Harington contrasts manners then with the previous 'good
order, discretion, and sobriety.' But no little licence was permitted,
and the tales of it commonly excite small surprise. As told of Ralegh,
and yet more of Elizabeth Throckmorton, the story startles still. No
evidence exists upon which he can justly be pronoun