we hardly hear otherwise of Raleigh, marked the height of his success as
a geographical writer. So absolutely is the veil drawn over his personal
history at this time that the only facts we possess are, that on
November 4 Raleigh was lying sick of an ague, and that on December 13 he
was still ill.

In the middle of March 1600 Sir Walter and Lady Raleigh left Durham
House for Sherborne, taking with them, as a playmate for their son
Walter, Sir Robert Cecil's eldest son, William, afterwards the second
Earl of Salisbury. On the way down to Dorsetshire, they stopped at Sion
House as the guests of the 'Wizard' Earl of Northumberland, a life-long
friend of Raleigh's, and presently to be his most intelligent
fellow-prisoner in the Tower. From Sherborne, Raleigh wrote on the 6th
of April saying frankly that if her Majesty persisted in excluding him
from every sort of preferment, 'I must begin to keep sheep betime.' He
hinted in the same letter that he would accept the Governorship of
Jersey, which was expected to fall vacant. The friendship with Lord
Cobham has now become quite ardent, and Lady Raleigh vies with her
husband in urging him to pay Sherborne a visit. Later on in April the
Raleighs went to Bath apparently for no other reason than to meet Cobham
there. Here is a curious note from Raleigh to the most dangerous of his
associates, written from Bath on April 29, 1600:

Here we attend you and have done this sevennight, and we still
mourn your absence, the rather because we fear that your mind is
changed. I pray let us hear from you at least, for if you come
not we will go hereby home, and make but short tarrying here. My
wife will despair ever to see you in these parts, if your
Lordship come not now. We can but long for you and wish you as
our own lives whatsoever.

Your Lordship's everest faithful, to honour you most,

W. RALEGH.

Raleigh's absence from Court was so lengthy, that it was whispered in
the early summer that he was in disgrace, that the Queen had called him
'something worse than cat or dog,' namely, 'fox.' The absurdity of this
was proved early in July by his being hurriedly called to town to
accompany Cobham and Northumberland on their brief and fruitless visit
to Ostend. The friends started from Sandwich on July 11, and were
received in the Low Countries by Lord Grey; they were entertained at
Ostend with extraordinary respect