e on
his falling ill from anxiety, and cried about him.

He was a man who could find comfort and occupation in his books, and he
did so for a time; not the least happy time, I dare say, of his life. But
it happened unfortunately for him, that he held a monopoly in sweet
wines: which means that nobody could sell them without purchasing his
permission. This right, which was only for a term, expiring, he applied
to have it renewed. The Queen refused, with the rather strong
observation--but she _did_ make strong observations--that an unruly beast
must be stinted in his food. Upon this, the angry Earl, who had been
already deprived of many offices, thought himself in danger of complete
ruin, and turned against the Queen, whom he called a vain old woman who
had grown as crooked in her mind as she had in her figure. These
uncomplimentary expressions the ladies of the Court immediately snapped
up and carried to the Queen, whom they did not put in a better tempter,
you may believe. The same Court ladies, when they had beautiful dark
hair of their own, used to wear false red hair, to be like the Queen. So
they were not very high-spirited ladies, however high in rank.

The worst object of the Earl of Essex, and some friends of his who used
to meet at LORD SOUTHAMPTON'S house, was to obtain possession of the
Queen, and oblige her by force to dismiss her ministers and change her
favourites. On Saturday the seventh of February, one thousand six
hundred and one, the council suspecting this, summoned the Earl to come
before them. He, pretending to be ill, declined; it was then settled
among his friends, that as the next day would be Sunday, when many of the
citizens usually assembled at the Cross by St. Paul's Cathedral, he
should make one bold effort to induce them to rise and follow him to the
Palace.

So, on the Sunday morning, he and a small body of adherents started out
of his house--Essex House by the Strand, with steps to the river--having
first shut up in it, as prisoners, some members of the council who came
to examine him--and hurried into the City with the Earl at their head
crying out 'For the Queen! For the Queen! A plot is laid for my life!'
No one heeded them, however, and when they came to St. Paul's there were
no citizens there. In the meantime the prisoners at Essex House had been
released by one of the Earl's own friends; he had been promptly
proclaimed a traitor in the City itself; and the streets were