PREDECESSORS 231 



to ' his singular good Lord ' of Canterbury this considerate 

 letter : ' The queen's majesty being abroad hunting yesterday 

 in the forest, and having had very good hap, beside good sport, 

 she had thought good to remember your grace with part of 

 her prey, and so commanded me to send you a great fat stag, 

 killed with her oivn hand ; which, because the weather was 

 wet, and the deer somewhat chafed and dangerous to be 

 carried so far without some help, I caused him to heparboiled 

 for the better preservation of hivi, which I doubt not will cause 

 him to come unto you as I would he should. So, having 

 no other matter at this present to trouble your grace withal, 

 I will commit you to the Almighty, and with my most 

 hearty commendation take my leave in haste.' 



From the day when he rode down to Hatfield on a milk- 

 white ' managed ' horse to announce the death of Mary, 

 the queen's partiality for her Master of the Horse — for Lord 

 Leicester was a Pluralist and held both offices — seems to 

 have been a ' secret de Polichinelle ' at Court. When 

 the Duchess of Suffolk engaged herself to her equerry, 

 Adrian Stokes, the queen was surprised and indignant. 

 ' What ! ' she said to Cecil, ' marry a horse-keeper ? ' ' Yea, 

 madam,' he replied, * and she says you would like to do 

 the same with yours.' And Sir James Melvill and other 

 contemporaries relate many public and private indiscre- 

 tions ; • great liberties,' as he says, ' to be taken by a lady of 

 thirty.' 



With the people the Leicester alliance seems to have 

 been popular enough : it was probably preferred to a foreign 

 match. A contemporary writer,' after describing the Master 

 of the Horse's good looks and fine manners, says : ' The 

 queene had much of her father, for excepting some of her 



' ' The Court of Queen Elizabeth, originally written by Sir Robert Nauntou 

 under the title of " Fragmenta Regalia." With considerable biographical addi- 

 tions by James Caulfield. London, 1814. 



