rk, May 1597.)]

In his office of lord treasurer, this minister is allowed to have
behaved with perfect integrity and to have permitted no oppression on
the subject; wisely and honorably maintaining that nothing could be for
the advantage of a sovereign which in any way injured his reputation.
His conduct in this high post, added to a general opinion of his
prudence and virtue, caused his death to be sincerely deplored and his
memory to be constantly held in higher esteem by the people than that of
any former minister of any English prince.

Elizabeth was deeply sensible that to her the loss of such a servant,
counsellor, and friend was indeed irreparable. Contrary to her custom,
she wept much; and retired for a time from all company; and it is said
that to the end of her life she could never hear or pronounce his name
without tears. Although she was not sufficiently mistress of herself in
those fits of rage to which she was occasionally liable, to refrain from
treating him with a harshness and contempt which sometimes moved the
old man even to weeping, her behaviour towards him satisfactorily
evinced on the whole her deep sense of his fidelity and various merits
as a minister, and her affection for him as a man. He was perhaps the
only person of humble birth whom she condescended to honor with the
garter: she constantly made him sit in her presence, on account of his
being troubled with the gout, and would pleasantly tell him, "My lord,
we make much of you, not for your bad legs but your good head[124]." In
his occasional fits of melancholy and retirement, she would woo him back
to her presence by kind and playful letters, and she absolutely refused
to accept of the resignation which his bodily infirmities led him to
tender two or three years before his death. She constantly visited him
when confined by sickness:--on one of these occasions, being admonished
by his attendant to stoop as she entered at his chamber-door, she
replied, "For your master's sake I will, though not for the king of
Spain." His lady was much in her majesty's favor and frequently in
attendance on her; and it has been surmised that her husband found her
an important auxiliary in maintaining his influence.

[Note 124: Fuller.]

Elizabeth had the weakness, frequent among princes and not unusual with
private individuals, of hating her heir; a sentiment which gained ground
upon her daily in proportion as the infirmities of age admonished her of
her