202 Mms of tbe ir3untino*3fielC) 



Another notable Master of the Buckhounds was 

 Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, whose handsome 

 person and engaging manners won the heart, and very 

 nearly the hand, of bluff Harry's 



* Man -minded offset, who rose 

 To chase the deer at five.' 



He had great opportunities, and he made good use of 

 them. For, on the death of Queen Mary, he rode over to 

 Hatfield to break the news to Elizabeth, mounted on a 

 snow-white steed, " being well-skilled in riding a 

 managed horse," and what with his horsemanship and his 

 good looks he made a deep impression on the young 

 Queen, always susceptible to manly beauty, and the more 

 so because her sister's jealousy and hatred had long 

 kept her in strict seclusion. Queen Bess's idea of 

 hunting was not a very sportsmanlike one from all 

 accounts. She would have a number of deer driven up 

 and down inside a netted space in front of a well-screened 

 butt ; when comfortably seated. Her Majesty took pot 

 shots at the game with her arblast or cross-bow. This 

 was occasionally varied by coursing the deer with hounds, 

 something in the fashion of the trapped-hare coursing 

 meetings in suburban enclosures, which some five-and- 

 twenty years ago excited public indignation. 



The story of Leicester's career is too well known to need 

 recapitulation here. The latest historians incline to the 

 belief that he was innocent of the murder of his wife. 

 Amy Robsart, but, even admitting that she died by her 

 own act, there can be no doubt that it was her husband's 

 cruelty and neglect that drove her to suicide. In the 

 interests of poetic justice one could wish that the story 

 were true which assigns his own death to accidental 

 poisoning at the hands of his third wife. 



