KOBEET DUDLEY, EAEL OF LEICESTEK, SIXTH MASTEE. 73 



command. Although he sought to keep her in the rear, and 

 thus gratify his inordinate ambition, she proceeded in martial 

 pomp to Tilbury, and there reviewed the royal forces, by 

 whom she was received with sincere manifestations of loyalty 

 and reverence. This event has been considered the most inter- 

 esting in her life. Never, certainly, did she perform her part, 

 as the leader of a heroic nation, with such imposing effect as 

 on that occasion. She was then fifty -five years old, and had 

 borne the sceptre and the sword of the Empire for thirty 

 years. The destruction of the Armada delivered England from 

 all immediate apprehension; the camp at Tilbury became a 

 sylvan court ; the Royal Buckhounds were brought upon the 

 scene to contribute to the pleasures of the gallant defenders, 

 but, sad to say, the grand old style of hunting at force had 

 then given place to the indolent method of driving the deer 

 to " stands," from which the Queen and her courtiers fired as 

 the quarry fled by. The records of the Court of attachment, 

 which was held at Chigwell in those days (when Waltham 

 Forest extended over immense tracts of Essex now disaf- 

 forested), circumstantially record what bucks were shot by 

 the Queen and the ladies and gentlemen of her suite on these 

 occasions ; and, alas ! the fee bucks that were given to the 

 Sergeant of the Buckhounds '•' in consideration that he hunted 

 not," is an indelible satire of the venatic predilections of the 

 Court. 



About the end of August the Earl of Leicester set out from 

 London to Kenilworth, but on his way stopped at his house at 

 Cornbury, in Oxfordshire, where he was taken ill, and there 

 breathed his last on September 4, 1588. Up to the day of 

 his death he carried the official horn of the Royal Buckhounds ; 

 and although all the high offices of State which he had held 

 during his career devolved on his demise upon other nobles 

 and magnates of the Court, the Queen declined to appoint any 

 one to succeed him in the Mastership of this branch of the 

 pack, which remained vacant until Sir Thomas Tyringham 

 obtained it from James I., soon after that monarch ascended 

 the throne of England. 



