lace. His sincere friend the lord
keeper immediately addressed to him a prudential letter, urging him to
lose no time in seeking with humble submissions the forgiveness of his
offended mistress: but Essex replied to these well intended admonitions
by a letter which, amid all the choler that it betrays, must still be
applauded both for its eloquence and for a manliness of sentiment of
which few other public characters of the age appear to have been
capable. The lord keeper in his letter had strongly urged the religious
duty of absolute submission on the part of a subject to every thing that
his sovereign, justly or unjustly, should be pleased to lay upon him; to
which the earl thus replies: "But, say you, I must yield and submit. I
can neither yield myself to be guilty, or this imputation laid upon me
to be just. I owe so much to the author of all truth, as I can never
yield falsehood to be truth, or truth to be falsehood. Have I given
cause, ask you, and take scandal when I have done? No; I gave no cause
to take so much as Fimbria's complaint against me, for I did _totum
telum corpore recipere_. I patiently bear all, and sensibly feel all,
that I then received, when this scandal was given me. Nay more, when the
vilest of all indignities are done unto me, doth religion enforce me to
sue? or doth God require it? Is it impiety not to do it? What, cannot
princes err? cannot subjects receive wrong? Is an earthly power or
authority infinite? Pardon me, pardon me, my good lord, I can never
subscribe to these principles. Let Solomon's fool laugh when he is
stricken; let those that mean to make their profit of princes, show to
have no sense of princes' injuries; let them acknowledge an infinite
absoluteness on earth, that do not believe in an absolute infiniteness
in heaven. As for me, I have received wrong, and feel it. My cause is
good; I know it; and whatsoever come, all the powers on earth can never
show more strength and constancy in oppressing, than I can show in
suffering whatsoever can or shall be imposed upon me." &c.

Several other friends of Essex, his mother, his sister and the earl of
Northumberland her husband, urged him in like manner to return to his
attendance at court and seek her majesty's forgiveness; while she, on
her part, secretly uneasy at his absence, permitted certain persons to
go to him, as from themselves, and suggest terms of accommodation. Sir
George Carew was made lord president of Munster; and sir