Dr. Birch, in his Memoirs, says: the Queen observed, “God may forgive you, but I never can.”
We are inclined to believe that Elizabeth swore pretty roundly on this occasion, as it is known she could; and that there was a violence on the occasion is even shown by Dr. Birch: he says--“The Countess of Nottingham, affected by the near approach of death, obtained a visit from the Queen, to whom she revealed the secret; that the Queen shook the dying lady in her bed, and thenceforth resigned herself to the deepest melancholy.”
The melancholy continued; and this haughty woman was soon smitten; refusing to rest on a bed, from a superstition that it would be her death couch, she became almost a silent lunatic, and crouched upon the floor. There sat she, as did another queen, who cried--
“Here I and sorrow sit, Here is my throne;”
neither rising nor lying down, her finger almost always in her mouth, her eyes open and fixed on the ground.[270] But her indomitable will did not leave her in her death hour. She had declared she would have no rascal to succeed her; and when she was too far gone to speak, Secretary Cecil besought her, if she would have the King of Scots to reign after her, to show some sign unto them. Whereat, suddenly heaving herself up, she held both her hands joined together, over her head, in manner of a crown. Then, she sank down, and dozed into another world.
The Chevalier Louis Aubery de Maurier, who was many years the French Minister in Holland, and said to have been a man of great parts and unsuspected veracity, gives the following story of the Essex ring:[271]
“It will not, I believe, be thought either impertinent or disagreeable to add here what Prince Maurice had from the mouth of Mr. Carleton, Ambassador from England in Holland, who died Secretary of State, so well known under the name of my Lord Dorchester and who was a man of great merit. He said that Queen Elizabeth gave the Earl of Essex a ring in the height of her passion for him, ordering him to keep it, and that whatever he should commit she would pardon him when he should return that pledge. Since that time, the Earl’s enemies having prevailed with the Queen, who besides was exasperated against him for the contempt he showed for her beauty, which, through age, began to decay, she caused him to be impeached. When he was condemned, she expected that he should send her the ring; and would have granted him his pardon according to her promise. The Earl finding himself in the last extremity, applied to Admiral Howard’s lady, who was his relation, and desired her, by a person whom she could trust, to return the ring into the Queen’s own hands. But her husband, who was one of the Earl’s greatest enemies and to whom she told this imprudently, would not suffer her to acquit herself of the commission; so that the Queen consented to the Earl’s death, being full of indignation against such a proud and haughty spirit who chose rather to die than to implore her mercy. Some time after, the Admiral’s lady fell sick and being given over by her physicians, she sent word to the Queen that she had something of great consequence to tell her before she died. The Queen came to her bedside, and having ordered all the attendants to withdraw, the Admiral’s lady returned her, but too late, that ring from the Earl of Essex, desiring to be excused that she did not return it sooner, having been prevented doing it by her husband. The Queen retired immediately, being overwhelmed with the utmost grief; she sighed continually for a fortnight following, without taking any nourishment; lying abed entirely dressed and getting up an hundred times a night. At last she died with hunger and with grief, because she had consented to the death of a lover who had applied to her for mercy. This melancholy adventure shows that there are frequent transitions from one passion to another and that as love often changes to hate, so hate, giving place sometimes to pity, brings the mind back again into its first state.” Sir Dudley Carleton, who is made the author of this story, was a man who deserved the character that is given of him and could not but be well informed of what had passed at court. The Countess of Nottingham was the daughter of the Lord Viscount Hunsdon, related to the Queen and also, by his mother, to the Earl of Essex.