nvestigation of this matter was evaded by the
artifices of Dudley, or whether his enemies, finding it impracticable to
bring the crime home to him, found it more advisable voluntarily to drop
the inquiry, certain it is, that the queen was never brought in any
manner to take cognisance of the affair, and that the credit of Dudley
continued as high with her as ever. But in the opinion of the country
the favorite passed ever after for a dark designer, capable of
perpetrating any secret villainy in furtherance of his designs, and
skilful enough to conceal his atrocity under a cloak of artifice and
hypocrisy impervious to the partial eyes of his royal mistress, though
penetrated by all the world besides. This idea of his character caused
him afterwards to be accused of practising against the lives of several
other persons who were observed to perish opportunely for his purposes.
Each of these charges will be particularly examined in its proper place;
but it ought here to be observed, that not one of them appears to be
supported by so many circumstances of probability as the first; and even
in support of this, no direct evidence has ever been adduced.

Under all the circumstances of his situation, Dudley could not venture
as yet openly to declare himself the suitor of his sovereign; but she
doubtless knew how to interpret both the vehemence of his opposition to
the pretensions of the archduke, and the equal vehemence with which
those pretensions were supported by an opposite party in her council, of
which the earl of Sussex was the head.

Few could yet be persuaded that the avowed determination of the queen in
favor of the single state would prove unalterable: most therefore who
observed her averseness to a foreign connexion believed that she was
secretly meditating to honor with her hand some subject of her own, who
could never have a separate interest from that of his country, and whose
gratitude for the splendid distinction would secure to her the
possession of his lasting attachment.

This idea long served to animate the assiduities of her nobles and
courtiers, and two or three besides Dudley were bold enough to publish
their pretensions. Secret hopes or wishes were cherished in the bosoms
of others; and it thus became a fashion to accost her in language where
the passionate homage of the lover mingled with the base adulation of
the menial. Her personal vanity, triumphant over her good sense and her
perceptions of regal