STATE OF THE PACK TO END OF ELIZABETHS EEIGN. /O 



his monopolies, we have ab-eady given ample evidence. In 

 short, there was no opportunity for the acquisition of wealth 

 or influence that fell to his dispensation as minister of the 

 Crown which he did not embrace for his personal use and 

 benefit. Yet he was looked upon as a finished courtier in 

 every respect. Elegant in his dress ; liberal in his way of 

 living ; bountiful to soldiers and men of letters ; very adroit in 

 choosing his time and carrying his point ; complaisant in his 

 temper, but insidious towards rivals ; amorous in the former 

 part of his life, but in the latter uxorious to a strange degree. 

 As for the rest, as he preferred an envied height of power to 

 solid virtue, he furnished matter for a multitude of malicious 

 detractors to descant upon, who, even in the zenith of his glory, 

 failed not to prosecute him with their libels, which were mixed 

 with abundance of untruths. To sum up all, the Earl was a 

 statesman for his own ends, and what was said of him in public 

 had the air of praise and panegyric ; " but in piivate, and 

 where people durst be free," he was represented in quite a 

 different light. Thanks to the author of " Kenilworth," the 

 Earl of Leicester has become one of the most familiar per- 

 sonages of the sixteenth century ; nevertheless, there is 

 hardly a circumstance in his career which the distinguished 

 novelist has not misrepresented, either in chronological or 

 historical accuracy. 



Although no one was appointed to fill the ofiice of Master of 

 the Royal Buckhounds, appertaining to the Lord Chamberlain's 

 department of the Household — which became vacant on the 

 death of the Earl of Leicester on September 4, 1588 — until 

 (Sir) Thomas Tyringham obtained it from James I. on June 21, 

 1603, there is no doubt that this branch of the pack, and the 

 subordinate officers attached to it, continued to be sustained as 

 usual during the remainder of Queen Elizabeth's reign. The 

 annual accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber from 1589 

 to 1602 contain every detail relating to the officials, their 

 several salaries, allowances for uniform, etc., as heretobefore 

 recorded ; the total cost of the pack amounting, on an average, 

 to about 140/. a year. During those fourteen years the 



