Raleigh to a seat at
her council-board[136].

[Note 136: Bohun's Memoirs.]

In the midst of her extreme anxiety for the fate of Ireland,--where
Tyrone for the present carried all things at his will, boasting himself
the champion of the Romish cause, and proclaiming his expectation of
Spanish aid; and of her more intimate and home-felt uneasiness
respecting the effect of her measures of chastisement on the haughty
mind of Essex,--we find Elizabeth promoting with some affectation the
amusements of her court. "This day," says Whyte, "she appoints to see a
Frenchman do feats upon a cord in the conduit court. Tomorrow she hath
commanded the bears, the bull and the ape to be baited in the
tilt-yard; upon Wednesday she will have solemn dancing."

A letter from sir Robert Sidney to sir John Harrington, written some
time in this year, affords some not uninteresting traits of her
behaviour, mixed with other matters:

* * * * *

"Worthy knight;

"Your present to the queen was well accepted of; she did much commend
your verse, nor did she less praise your prose.... The queen hath tasted
your dainties, and saith you have marvellous skill in cooking of good
fruits. If I can serve you in your northern suit, you may command me....
Our lawyers say, your title is well grounded in conscience, but that
strict law doth not countenance your recovering those lands of your
ancestors.... Visit your friends often, and please the queen by all you
can, _for all the great lawyers do much fear her displeasure_.... I do
see the queen often, she doth wax weak since the late troubles, and
Burleigh's death doth often draw tears from her goodly cheeks; she
walketh out but little, meditates much alone, and sometimes writes in
private to her best friends. The Scottish matters do cause much
discourse, but we know not the true grounds of state business, nor
venture further on such ticklish points[137]. Her highness hath done
honor to my poor house by visiting me, and seemed much pleased at what
we did to please her. My son made her a fair speech, to which she did
give most gracious reply. The women did dance before her, whilst the
cornets did salute from the gallery; and she did vouchsafe to eat two
morsels of rich comfit cake, and drank a small cordial out of a golden
cup. She had a marvellous suit of velvet, borne by four of her first
women-attendants in rich apparel; two ushers did go before; and at going
up stairs