Rapin speaks of him as one who was encouraged to hope by some
distinguished mark of the queen's favor, which he does not however
particularize. Lloyd in his "Worthies" adds nothing to Camden's
information but the epithet "comely" applied to his person, the vague
statement that "his embassies in France and Germany were so well
managed, that in king Edward's days he was by the council pitched upon
as the oracle whereby our agents were to be guided abroad," and a hint
that he soon retired from the court of Elizabeth to devote himself to
his studies.

The earl of Arundel might be the bearer of another of these devices. We
have already seen with what magnificence of homage this nobleman had
endeavoured to bespeak the favorable sentiments of his youthful
sovereign; and if illustrious ancestry, vast possessions, established
consequence in the state, and long experience in public affairs, might
have sufficed to recommend a subject to her choice, none could have
advanced fairer pretensions than the representative of the ancient house
of Fitzalan. The advanced age of the earl was indeed an objection of
considerable and daily increasing weight; he persevered however in his
suit, notwithstanding the queen's visible preference of Dudley and every
other circumstance of discouragement, till the year 1566. Losing then
all hopes of success, and becoming sensible at length of pecuniary
difficulties from the vast expense which he had lavished on this
splendid courtship, he solicited the permission of his royal mistress to
retire for a time into Italy.

While it lasted, however, the rivalry of Arundel and Dudley, or rather,
in the heraldic phraseology of the day, that of the White Horse and the
Bear, divided the court, inflamed the passions of the numerous retainers
of the respective candidates, and but for the impartial vigilance of
Cecil might have ended in deeds of blood.

In the Burleigh Papers is a confession of one Guntor, a servant or
retainer of the earl of Arundel, who was punished for certain rash
speeches relative to this competition, from which we learn some curious
particulars. He says, that he once fell in talk with a gentleman named
Cotton, who told him, that the queen, having supped one evening at lord
Robert Dudley's, it was dark before she could get away; and some
servants of the house were sent with torches to light her home. That by
the way her highness was pleased to enter into conversation with the
torch-bearer