robable that, after all,
the chief difficulty lay in Elizabeth's settled aversion to the married
state; and notwithstanding all her professions to her ambassador, the
known dissimulation of her character permits us to believe, not only
that small obstacles were found sufficient to divert her from
accomplishing the union which she pretended to have at heart; but that
from the very beginning she was insincere, and that not even the total
sacrifice of his religion would have exempted her suitor from final
disappointment.

The decease of sir Richard Sackville in 1566 called his son, the
accomplished poet, to the inheritance of a noble fortune, and opened to
him the career of public life. At the time of his father's death he was
pursuing his travels through France and Italy, and had been subjected to
a short imprisonment in Rome, "which trouble," says his eulogist, "was
brought upon him by some who hated him for his love to religion and his
duty to his sovereign."

Immediately on his return to his native country the duke of Norfolk, by
the queen's command, conferred upon him the honor of knighthood, and on
the same day he was advanced by her to the degree of a baron by the
style of lord Buckhurst. The new peer immediately shone forth one of the
brightest ornaments of the court: but carried away by the ardor of his
imagination, he plunged so deeply into the expensive pleasures of the
age as seriously to injure his fortune, and in part his credit: timely
reflection however, added, it is said, to the counsels of his royal
kinswoman, cured him of the foible of profusion, and he lived not only
to retrieve, but to augment his patrimony to a vast amount.

Amid the factions of the court, lord Buckhurst, almost alone, preserved
a dignified neutrality, resting his claims to consideration and
influence not on the arts of intrigue, but on his talents, his merit,
his extensive possessions, and his interest in his royal kinswoman.
Leicester was jealous of his approach, as of that of every man of honor
who affected an independence on his support; but it was not till many
years afterwards, and on an occasion in which his own reputation and
safety were at stake, that the wily favorite ventured a direct attack
upon the credit of lord Buckhurst. At present they preserved towards
each other those exteriors of consideration and respect which in the
world, and especially at courts, are found so perfectly compatible with
fear, hatred, or contem