he office, and held it, as it were in
trust, till her majesty, six years afterwards, was pleased to sanction
his resignation in favor of his son, now fully established in her
confidence and good opinion. Of Davison nothing further is known;
probably he did not long survive.

Some time in the year 1590, the earl of Essex married in a private
manner the widow of sir Philip Sidney, and daughter of Walsingham; a
step with which her majesty did not scruple to show herself highly
offended. The inferiority of the connexion in the two articles of birth
and fortune to the just pretensions of the earl, and the circumstance
that the union had been formed without that previous consultation of her
gracious pleasure,--which from her high nobility and favorite courtiers,
and especially from those who, like Essex and his lady, shared the honor
of her relationship, she expected as a homage and almost claimed as a
right,--were the ostensible grounds of her displeasure. But that
peculiar compound of ungenerous feelings which rendered her the
universal foe of matrimony, exalted on this occasion by a jealousy too
humiliating to be owned, but too powerful to be repressed, formed
without doubt the more genuine sources of her deep chagrin. The
courtiers quickly penetrated the secret of her heart;--for what vice,
what weakness, can long lurk unsuspected in a royal bosom? and it is
thus that John Stanhope, one of her attendants, ventures to write on the
subject to lord Talbot.

"This night, God willing, she will to Richmond, and on Saturday next to
Somerset-house, and if she could overcome her passion against my lord of
Essex for his marriage, no doubt she would be much quieter; yet doth she
use it more temperately than was thought for, and, God be thanked, doth
not strike all that she threats[103]. The earl doth use it with good
temper, concealing his marriage as much as so open a matter may be: not
that he denies it to any, but for her majesty's better satisfaction, is
pleased that my lady shall live very retired in her mother's
house.[104]"

[Note 103: It may be regarded as dubious whether this expression is
to be understood literally or metaphorically.]

[Note 104: "Illustrations" by Lodge.]

On the whole, the indignation of the queen against Essex stopped very
short of the rage with which she had been transported against Leicester
on a similar occasion; she never even talked of sending him to prison
for his marriage. Her good sense ca