do presently, upon the duty of your allegiance, obey and fulfil whatsoever the bearer hereof shall direct you to do in our name.  Whereof fail you not, as you will answer the contrary at your uttermost peril.”

One can imagine Leicester’s feelings on reading such words of Royal anger and reproach from the woman who had always shown such indulgence to him.  His impulse was to resign his governorship forthwith, and to hasten back to London to beg forgiveness on his knees; but before he could give effect to this decision he had learned that Burghley had interceded for him with the Queen to such effect that, supported by a petition from the States-General, he was to be allowed to retain his office with Elizabeth’s reluctant consent.

A few months of rule, however, were sufficient to disillusionise the Dutchmen.  Leicester proved as incapable to govern a country, as to lead an army.  His arrogance, his outspoken contempt for his subjects, his incompetence and his capricious temper, so thoroughly disgusted the nation that had welcomed him with open arms, that he was asked to resign his office as unanimously as he had been invited to accept it; and in November of 1587, the Earl returned ignominiously to England, eager to repair his damaged credit by at least making peace with his Queen.

To his delight he was received with as much cordiality as if he had done naught at all to earn his Lady’s displeasure.  Elizabeth had undoubtedly missed her favourite, her right-hand man.  She had in fact become so accustomed to him that she could not be long happy unless he was at her side; and it was by her side that he rode and shared the acclamations with which her soldiers greeted her when she paid that historic visit to the camp at Tilbury on the eve of the Armada.

But Leicester’s adventurous life was now drifting to its close.  His health had for some time given him cause for alarm, and in August 1588, he left his Kenilworth home to seek relief by taking baths and drinking healing waters; and from Rycott he wrote the last of his many letters to the Queen.

“I most humbly beseech your Majesty,” he wrote, “to pardon your poor old servant to be thus bold in sending to know how my gracious Lady doth and what ease of her late pain she finds, being the chiefest thing in this world I do pray for is for her to have good health and long life.  For my own poor case I continue still your medicine, and find it amend much better than with any other thing that hath been given me.  Thus hoping to find perfect cure at the bath, with the continuance of my wonted prayer for your Majesty’s most happy preservation, I humbly kiss your foot.  From your old lodging at Rycott this Thursday morning ready to take on my journey.  By your Majesty’s most faithful and obedient servant,—­ R. LEYCESTER.”

But the Earl was not destined to reach the baths.  His course was run.  He got as far on his journey as Coventry; and there, on the 4th of September, he drew his last breath.  Some said that his end was hastened by a dose of poison administered by his Countess, eager to pursue unchecked her intrigue with Christopher Blount; others that she accidentally gave him a draught from a bottle of poison which he had designed for her.  But neither suspicion seems to have any evidence to support it.