t of the kind
in Europe. It was entirely composed of the flower of the nobility and
gentry, and to be admitted to serve in its ranks was during the whole of
the reign regarded as a distinction worthy the ambition of young men of
the highest families and most brilliant prospects. Sir John Holles,
afterwards earl of Clare, was accustomed to say, that while he was a
pensioner to queen Elizabeth, he did not know _a worse man_ in the whole
band than himself; yet he was then in possession of an inheritance of
four thousand a year. "It was the constant custom of that queen,"
pursues the earl's biographer, "to call out of all counties of the
kingdom, the gentlemen of the greatest hopes and the best fortunes and
families, and with them to fill the more honorable rooms of her
household servants, by which she honored them, obliged their kindred and
alliance, and fortified herself[44]."

[Note 44: Collins's "Historical Collections."]

On this point of policy it deserves to be remarked, that however it
might strengthen the personal influence of the sovereign to enroll
amongst the menial servants of the crown gentlemen of influence and
property, it is chiefly perhaps to this practice that we ought to impute
that baseness of servility which infected, with scarcely one honorable
exception, the public characters of the reign of Elizabeth.

On July 17th the queen set out on the first of those royal _progresses_
which form so striking a feature in the domestic history of her reign.
In them, as in most of the recreations in which she at any time indulged
herself, Elizabeth sought to unite political utilities with the
gratification of her taste for magnificence, and especially for
admiration. It has also been surmised, that she was not inattentive to
the savings occasioned to her privy purse by maintaining her household
for several weeks in every year at the expense of her nobles, or of the
towns through which she passed; and it must be admitted that more than
one disgraceful instance might be pointed out, of a great man obliged to
purchase the continuance or restoration of her favor by soliciting the
almost ruinous honor of a royal visit. On the whole, however, her
deportment on these occasions warrants the conclusion, that an earnest
and constant desire of popularity was her principal motive for
persevering to the latest period of her life to encounter the fatigue of
these frequent journeys, and of the acts of public representation whic