She did not hesitate to break in upon any speaker, and the next day, when the minister was preaching, she sent a noble lord to tell him to put his cap on. Another high official was despatched to him before he left the pulpit to inform him that the queen liked his sermon. This was on Sunday morning. That evening the chapel was made into a theatre, and an old Latin play was acted for her amusement.
Elizabeth went from college to college, and at each she listened to an oration in her praise and received the usual gift of gloves, sugarloaves, and confectionery. Cambridge had long expected the honor of this visit, and the members of the various learned societies had made preparations for it by composing poems of welcome and praise in Greek, Hebrew, and several other languages. Copies of these verses had been richly bound, and the volume was presented to her as a memorial of her welcome.
All the sermons and speeches and plays were in Latin, and near the close of the queen's stay, a humble petition was made to her that she would speak to her hosts in that language.
"I am but a poor scholar," said she, "but if I might speak my mind in English, I would not stick at the matter."
Then answered the chancellor of the university:--
"Your Highness, in the university nothing English may be said in public."
"Then speak you for me," bade the queen. "The chancellor is the queen's mouth."
"True, your Majesty," he responded, "but I am merely the chancellor of the university; I have not the honor to be the chancellor of your Grace."
After a little more urging, the queen delivered an excellent Latin speech, which she had evidently composed beforehand, and gave the authorities to understand that she should make the university a generous gift either during her life or at her death. This manner of arousing the expectations of her subjects was one of her ways of securing their faithfulness. She used to keep long lists of men of ability and worth, and a man, knowing that his name was on that list, would not fail to be true to her, expecting every day a pension or some other reward of his devotion.
Robert Dudley was high steward of Cambridge, and Elizabeth seems to have exhausted her generous intentions toward the university by presenting him with Kenilworth Castle and manor and other lands. Then it was that she made him Lord Leicester, and when in the ceremony he was kneeling gravely before her with bowed head, this queen of magnificence and barbarism, of subtlety of intellect and coarseness of manner, thought it a brilliant jest to stretch out the royal forefinger to tickle the back of his neck and arouse him from his unwonted seriousness.