s nobleman had the misfortune to be grandson of Eleanor countess of
Cumberland, the younger daughter of Mary queen dowager of France and
sister of Henry VIII. by her second husband Charles Brandon duke of
Suffolk; and although the children of lady Catherine Grey countess of
Hertford obviously stood before him in this line of succession, occasion
was taken by the Romish party from this descent to urge him to assume
the title of king of England. One Hesket, a zealous agent of the Jesuits
and popish fugitives, was employed to tamper with the earl, who on one
hand undertook that his claim should be supported by powerful succours
from abroad, and on the other menaced him with certain and speedy death
in case of his rejecting the proposal or betraying its authors. But the
earl was too loyal to hesitate a moment. He revealed the whole plot to
government, and Hesket on his information was convicted of treason and
suffered death. Not long after, the earl was suddenly seized with a
violent disorder of the bowels, which in a few days carried him off; and
on the first day of his illness, his gentleman of the horse took his
lord's best saddle-horse and fled. These circumstances might be thought
pretty clearly to indicate poison as the means of his untimely end: but
although a suspicion of its employment was entertained by some, the
melancholy event appears to have been more generally ascribed to
witchcraft. An examination being instituted, a waxen image was
discovered in his chamber with a hair of the color of the earl's drawn
through the body; also, an old woman in the neighbourhood, a reputed
witch, being required to recite after a prompter the Lord's Prayer in
Latin, was observed to blunder repeatedly in the same words. But these
circumstances, however strong, not being deemed absolutely conclusive,
the poor old woman was apparently suffered to escape:--after the
gentleman of the horse, or his instigators, we do not find that any
search was made.

The mother of this earl of Derby died two years after. At one period of
her life we find her much in favor with the queen, whom she was
accustomed to attend in quality of first lady of the blood-royal; but
she had subsequently excited her majesty's suspicions by her imprudent
consultations of fortune-tellers and diviners, on the delicate subject,
doubtless, of succession to the crown.

The animosity between Elizabeth and her savage adversary the king of
Spain was continually becoming m