vember 1587, he named North as one of the four best fitted to succeed him as captain-general of the forces.
In April 1588 North was summoned in haste from the wars to look to the military condition of Cambridgeshire in preparation for the Spanish invasion. In May 1588 he reported to the lords of the council that Cambridgeshire ‘is very badly furnished with armour and munition, and many of the trained bands dead or removed,’ but that he would see all defects supplied. North had much ado with the justices of the county, whose patriotism was not all that might have been desired. He set them a good example, supplying at his own charges, ‘of his voluntary offer,’ sixty shot, fifty horses, sixty horsemen, thirty furnished with demi-lances and thirty with petronels, and sixty foot-soldiers, forty with muskets and twenty with calivers, ‘to attend her majesty's person.’
On 4 Sept. 1588 Leicester died, and left a basin and ewer of silver, of the value of 40l., to North, who on 9 Sept. addressed a letter to Burghley, in which he highly praised Leicester, and referred feelingly to his death. He explained to Burghley that his own health was not good, and that the doctors of Cambridge were sending him for a month to Bath, ‘in hope the drinking the waters and bathing may do me good.’ On 18 April 1589 North was among the peers who sat on the trial for high treason of Philip, earl of Arundell. On 28 July 1589 he expressed a desire to Lord Burghley to attend ‘the marriage of Mr. Robert Cecill and Mistress Brooke,’ daughter of Lord Cobham, ‘if you will have so ill a guest;’ but indisposition prevented his going.
When, in 1596, an alarm was raised of a second Spanish invasion, the lord high admiral (Essex) propounded to North many questions respecting the probable method of the enemy's attack, and the measures proper to be taken for the defence of the coast. North urged that ‘such port towns as are unwalled must be reinforced with men … the forces of the sea-coast must upon every sudden be ready to impeach [the enemy's] landing. … The places of most danger to the realm and to do him good are the Isle of Wight and Southampton.’ In the same year the queen gave him the office of treasurer of her household; thus falsifying the prediction of Rowland White, who said of him and Sir Henry Lee that ‘they play at cards with the Queen, and it is like to be all the honor that will fall to them this year.’ In October 1596 he was sworn a member of the privy council. In 1597 the queen appointed him keeper of the royal parks of Eltham and Horne, purveyor of the manor, and surveyor of the woods of the latter estate. He neglected none of the duties of a courtier, year by year punctually presenting the queen with a new year's gift of 10l. in gold in a silken purse, and receiving, as the custom was, a piece of plate in return, usually from twenty to twenty-one ounces in weight.
Early in 1599 North's health again began to fail. The queen learnt that he ‘was taken stone deaf,’ and sent him the following receipt: ‘Bake a little loafe of Beane flowr, and being whot, rive it into halves, and to ech half pour in 3 or 4 sponefulls of bitter almonds; then clapp both ye halves to both your eares at going to bed, kepe them close, and kepe your head warme.’ We are told that he was completely healed by this remedy, and soon recovered from more serious illness. In the autumn he was one of the four lords of the council summoned in haste on Michaelmas-eve to hear Essex's explanation of his unauthorised return from Ireland; and on 29 Nov. he was present at a meeting of the council in the Star-chamber. But when a discussion took place concerning the affairs of Ireland, he spoke either ‘too softly to be heard,’ or briefly concurred with those that went before. At Christmas he joined in the court festivities, and played at primero with the queen. In March 1599–1600 Carleton wrote to Chamberlain: ‘The Lord North droops every day more and more, and is going down to the bath.’ North returned to Bath in August, and Sir William Knollys (afterwards his successor in office) was sent for to fulfil temporarily his duties as treasurer of the household. On 15 Oct. Chamberlain wrote: ‘They say the Lord North is once more shaking hands with the world.’ But he retired to his home in Charterhouse-yard, and there, on 3 Dec. 1600, ‘passed quietly to his heavenly country.’ Camden adds that he was ‘a man of a lively spirit, fit for action and counsaile.’ Lloyd wrote: ‘There was none better to represent our state than my Lord North, who had been two years in Walsingham's house, four in Leicester's service, had seen six courts, twenty battles, nine treaties, and four solemn jousts—whereof he was no mean part—a reserved man, a valiant souldier, and a courtly person.’
A funeral service at St. Paul's on 22 Dec. preceded the removal of North's body from London. In February following he was buried by the heralds at Kirtling. ‘Durum pati,’ words which appear in his epitaph, was a maxim or motto he had adopted for himself, and it seems to have been his custom to write it in his books. It is found on the title-page of a copy of Dean Nowell's
