Chapter 18 Summary

Elizabeth visits Dr. Dee and asks to see his speculum of magic glass. The summer after that, Leicester, in the last phase of his superb handsomeness (before he turns red-faced, bald and fat), provides much entertainment for Elizabeth at Kenilworth to show his continuing devotion to the queen. The furniture is grandly decorated. He has rows of glass dishes for cream. The great rooms are lit by glass candlesticks.

The queen and her entourage ride to hunt the hart one evening. When they return, Sylvanus, a wild man of the woods, meets them and spouts poetry as he runs besides the queen's horse. Another man, Deep Desire, steps out of a holly bush to express Leicester's words. Sylvanus breaks a sapling and hits the queen's horse on the head. The queen reins in the horse but walks the rest of the summer. There...