nality
and all the rashness, was grieved to the soul that the artifices of his
followers should have set him at variance with Cecil. He was doubtless
aware of the advantage which their disagreement would minister against
them both to the malignant Leicester, his and their common enemy; and
trembling for the safety of the duke and the welfare of both, he
addressed to the secretary, from the north, where he was then occupied
in the queen's service, a letter on the subject, eloquent by its
uncommon earnestness.

He tells him that he knows not the occasion of the coldness between him
and the duke, of which he had acknowledged the existence; but that he
cannot believe other, esteeming both parties as he does, than that it
must have had its origin in misrepresentation and the ill offices of
their enemies; and he implores him, as the general remedy of all such
differences, to resort to a full and fair explanation with the duke
himself, in whom he will find "honor, truth, wisdom and plainness."

These excellent exhortations were not without effect: it is probable
that the incautious duke had either been led inadvertently or dragged
unwillingly, by his faction, into the plot against the secretary, whose
ruin he was not likely to have sought from any personal motive of
enmity; and accordingly a few weeks after (June 1569) we find Sussex
congratulating Cecil, in a second letter, on a reconciliation between
them which he trusts will prove entire and permanent[68].

[Note 68: "Illustrations" &c. by Lodge, vol. ii.]

Hitherto the queen had preserved so profound a silence respecting the
intrigues of the duke, that he flattered himself she was without a
suspicion of their existence; but this illusion was soon to vanish. In
August 1569, the queen being at Farnham in her progress and the duke in
attendance on her, she took him to dine with her, and in the course of
conversation found occasion, "without any show of displeasure," but with
sufficient significance of manner, to give him the advice, "to be very
careful on what pillow he rested his head." Afterwards she cautioned him
in plain terms against entering into any marriage treaty with the queen
of Scots. The duke, in his first surprise, made no scruple to promise on
his allegiance that he would entertain no thoughts of her; he even
affected to speak of such a connexion with disdain, declaring that he
esteemed his lands in England worth nearly as much as the whole kingdom
of Scotl