[100] Secretary WALSINGHAM, in a letter to the queen, Sept. 2, 1581, amongst other things to the same purpose, has the following words—“_Remember_, I humbly beseech your majesty, _the respect of charges hath lost Scotland_: and I would to God I had no cause to think, that _it might put your highness in peril of the loss of England_.”—“And even the Lord Treasurer himself (we are told) in a letter still extant in the paper-office, written in the critical year 1588, while the _Spanish_ armada was expected against _England_, excuses himself to sir EDWARD STAFFORD, then embassador in _France_, for not writing to him oftener, _on account of her majesty’s unwillingness to be at the expence of messengers_.” Sir T. EDMONDES’ State-papers, by Dr. BIRCH, p. 21.
[101] One of these complaisant observers was the writer of _the Description of England_, who, speaking of the variety of the queen’s houses, checks himself with saying, “But what shall I need to take upon me to repeat all, and tell what houses the queen’s majesty hath? Sith ALL IS HIRS; and when it pleaseth hir in the summer season to recreate hirself abroad, and view the state of the countrie, and hear the complaints of hir unjust officers or substitutes, _every nobleman’s house is hir palace_, where she continueth during pleasure, and till she returne again to some of hir owne; in which she remaineth as long as pleaseth hir.” p. 196.
[102] Perhaps they had no need of such favours: It seems as if they had provided for themselves another way. One of her ladies, the Lady EDMONDES, had been applied to for her interest with the queen in a certain affair of no great moment, then depending in the Court of Chancery. The person, commissioned to transact this matter with her ladyship, had offered her 100_l._ which she treated _as too small a sum_. The relater of this fact adds—“This ruffianry of causes I am daily more and more acquainted with, and see the manner of dealing, which cometh of the _queen’s straitness_ to give these women, whereby they presume thus to grange and truck causes.” See a letter in MEM. of Q. ELIZABETH, by Dr. BIRCH, vol. i. p. 354. But this 100_l._ as the virtuous Lady EDMONDES says, was _a small sum_. It appears, that bishop FLETCHER, on his translation to _London_, “bestowed in allowances and gratifications to divers attendants [indeed we are not expressly told, they were _female_] about her majesty, the sum of 3100_l._ which money was given by him, for the most part of it, _by her majesty’s direction and special appointment_.” Mem. vol. ii. p. 113. And the curiosity is, to find this minute of episcopal _gratifications_ in a petition presented to the queen herself, “To move her majesty in commiseration towards the orphans of this bishop.”—However, to do the ladies justice, the contagion of bribery was so general in that reign, that the greatest men in the court were infected by it. The lord-keeper PUCKERING, it seems, had a finger in the affair of the 100_l._; nay, himself speaks to the lady to get him commanded by the queen to favour the suit. And we are told, that Sir W. RALEIGH had no less than 10,000_l._ for his interest with the queen on a certain occasion, after having been invited to this service by the finest letter that ever was written.—Indeed it is not said how much of this secret service money went _in allowances and gratifications to the attendants about the queen’s majesty_, vol. ii. p. 497.