Returning to the proper course of Leicester's career, we may observe that Leicester's favour continued, and the queen was prevailed upon to visit his castle at Kenilworth, In Warwickshire, where he entertained her for many days with pageants and feasting, prepared in a style of magnificence unequalled even in those days. It is not surprising that Leicester, on account of the undue emluenee to which ho had risen, should have been odious to Cecil, Essex, and many of the principal English nobility; neither can it be wondered at that the foreign ambas sadors who came to treat for the hand of the queen should have felt hostility towards a courtier who, aspiring to be her suitor himself, was known to be adverse to her making a foreign alliance. To under mine his power was the interest of many persons; and it was with this view that Skijor, the ambassador of the Duke of Anjou, acquainted Elizabeth with a fact which had been hitherto concealed from her, namely. Leicester's marriage with Lady Essex. The queen was violently angry when first the disclosure was made, and threatened to commit him to the Tower ; she relented however, and again received him at court with undiminished esteem. There were other persons to whom, for other reasons, Leicester's marriage was likewise a source of anger. There were suspicions that foul means had been resorted to for its accomplishment. These suspicions, as In the previous cages, could not be proved; for such inquiries as were not suppressed through fear were foiled by artifice; but considering Leicester e character, they were not unwarranted by the facts. He had become enamoured of Lady Essex during her husband's lifetime. Lord Essex died suddenly of a peculiar sickness which could not be accounted for, and two days after his death Leicester was married to his widow. Accusations for this and other offences were not only made in private, but attacks against him were published in a book entitled Leicester's Common wealth.' which the queen ceased her council to contradict upon her own peraonal knowledge and authority.
In 1535 Leicester took charge of some forces sent to the Low Conn tries, and was invested with great powers for the settlement of some differences that had arisen there : he sailed in December, and was received at Flushing with great pomp. lie was unfit however for a
military commander, and so fully manifested his incapacity while opposing the troops of his experienced adversary the Prince of Parma, that on his return to the Hague the States expressed their dissatisfac tion at his tactics, and suspicions of his fidelity. He returned to England in November 1536. (Bartezveinr.] It was at the time of his arrival that Elizabeth was anxious to determine what course to pursue with her prisoner Mary, Queen of Scots. When Leicester was consulted, his advice appears to have been that ahe should be privately put to death. In /587 he returned to the Low Countries with a considerable force, both horse and foot, and was received with honours; but before long fresh quarrel-1 arose between him and the States ; he was again accused of mismanagement, snd the queen recalled him after an abs:uce of five months.
In 158S he was appointed lieutenant-general of the infantry mustered at Tilbury Fort for defence against the Spaniards. This was the last trust conferred upon him. He was seized with illness at his house at Cornbury, in Oxfordshire, which he had visited on his road to Kenil worth, and died on the 4th of September 1533; and as he had before been suspected of poisoning, so now, perhaps from the suddenness of his death, he was suspected to have been poisoned, and the vulgar suspicion pointed at his wife, though the Privy Council appears to have thought it necessary to prosecute an inquiry into a report of his having beau poisoned by a son of Sir James Crofts, iu revenge for the imprisonment of his father. Leicester's body was removed to Warwick for inter ment. After the fashion of the age, he gave lands for charitable endowments, and the hospital of Robert, earl of Leicester, at Warwick, still remains as a monument of his liberality, or of his conformity to the practice of his times.