The favourite Earl was now apparelled all in white, his shoes being of white velvet; his under-stocks (or stockings) of knit silk; his upper stocks of white velvet, lined with cloth of silver, which was shown at the slashed part of the middle thigh; his doublet of cloth of silver, the close jerkin of white velvet, embroidered with silver and seed-pearl, his girdle and the scabbard of his sword of white velvet with golden buckles; his poniard and sword hilted and mounted with gold; and over all a rich, loose robe of white satin, with a border of golden embroidery a foot in breadth.  The collar of the Garter, and the azure garter itself around his knee, completed the appointments of the Earl of Leicester; which were so well matched by his fair stature, graceful gesture, fine proportion of body, and handsome countenance, that at that moment he was admitted by all who saw him as the goodliest person whom they had ever looked upon.  Sussex and the other nobles were also richly attired, but in point of splendour and gracefulness of mien Leicester far exceeded them all.

Elizabeth received him with great complacency.  “We have one piece of royal justice,” she said, “to attend to.  It is a piece of justice, too, which interests us as a woman, as well as in the character of mother and guardian of the English people.”

An involuntary shudder came over Leicester as he bowed low, expressive of his readiness to receive her royal commands; and a similar cold fit came over Varney, whose eyes (seldom during that evening removed from his patron) instantly perceived from the change in his looks, slight as that was, of what the Queen was speaking.  But Leicester had wrought his resolution up to the point which, in his crooked policy, he judged necessary; and when Elizabeth added, “it is of the matter of Varney and Tressilian we speak—­is the lady here, my lord?” his answer was ready—­“Gracious madam, she is not.”

Elizabeth bent her brews and compressed her lips.  “Our orders were strict and positive, my lord,” was her answer—­

“And should have been obeyed, good my liege,” replied Leicester, “had they been expressed in the form of the lightest wish.  But—­Varney, step forward—­this gentleman will inform your Grace of the cause why the lady” (he could not force his rebellious tongue to utter the words—­his wife) “cannot attend on your royal presence.”

Varney advanced, and pleaded with readiness, what indeed he firmly believed, the absolute incapacity of the party (for neither did he dare, in Leicester’s presence, term her his wife) to wait on her Grace.

“Here,” said he, “are attestations from a most learned physician, whose skill and honour are well known to my good Lord of Leicester, and from an honest and devout Protestant, a man of credit and substance, one Anthony Foster, the gentleman in whose house she is at present bestowed, that she now labours under an illness which altogether unfits her for such a journey as betwixt this Castle and the neighbourhood of Oxford.”