treachery alone could render him finally triumphant, he cautiously
avoided with him any open collision of interests, any offensive rivalry
in matters of place and dignity. He even went further; he compelled
himself, by a feigned deference, to administer food to that exaggerated
self-consequence,--the cherished foible of the house of Howard in
general and of this duke in particular,--out of which he perhaps already
hoped that matter would arise to work his ruin. The chronicles of the
year 1565 give a striking instance of this part of his behaviour, in the
information, that the duke of Norfolk, going to keep his Christmas in
his own county, was attended out of London by the earls of Leicester and
Warwick, the lord-chamberlain and other lords and gentlemen, who brought
him on his journey, "doing him all the honor in their power."

The duke was not gifted with any great degree of penetration, and the
generosity of his disposition combined with his vanity to render him
generally the dupe of outward homage and fair professions. He repaid the
insidious complaisance of Leicester with good will and even with
confidence; and it was not till all was lost that he appears to have
recognised this fatal and irreparable error.

Thomas earl of Sussex was an antagonist of a different nature,--an enemy
rather than a rival,--and one who sought the overthrow of Leicester
with as much zeal and industry as Leicester himself sought his, or that
of the duke; but by means as open and courageous as those of his
opponent were ever secret, base, and cowardly. This nobleman, the third
earl of the surname of Radcliffe, and son of him who had interfered with
effect to procure more humane and respectful treatment of Elizabeth
during the period of her adversity, had been first known by the title of
lord Fitzwalter, which he derived from a powerful line of barons well
known in English history from the days of Henry I. By his mother, a
daughter of Thomas second duke of Norfolk, he was first-cousin to queen
Anne Boleyn; and friendship, still more than the ties of blood, closely
connected him with the head of the Howards. Several circumstances render
it probable that he was not a zealous protestant, though it is no where
hinted that he was even secretly attached to the catholic party. During
the reign of Mary, his high character and approved loyalty had caused
him to be employed, first in an embassy to the emperor Charles V. to
settle the queen's marriage-