Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/341

I573-] THE SPANISH TREATY. 321 covered his expenses in attending upon her : that he had sold lands of his own to maintain his state at Court, and that the fees of his Treasurership did not equal the cost of his stable. 1 But the largesses withheld from statesmen were given lavishly to the favourites and flat- terers. Their office perhaps, being ignominious, required a higher salary. Leicester, who inherited nothing, his father's estates having been confiscated, became the wealthiest nobleman in England. Sinecures, grants of land, and high places about the Court, rewarded the af- fection of Hatton. Monopolies which made their fortune 'to the utter undoing of thousands of her Majesty's subjects,' 2 were heaped on them and others of their kind cheap presents which cost the Queen nothing. To Hatton was given also the Naboth's vineyard of his neighbour, the Bishop of Ely ; the present Hatton Gar- den, so named in memory of the transaction. 3 1 ' In my whole time I have not for these 26 years heen benefited from her Majesty so much as I was within four years of King Edward. I have sold as much land of value as ever I had of gifts from her Majesty. I am at charge by attendance upon Court, and by keeping of my house- hold specially in term time by resort of suitors, more than any councillor in England. My fee for the Treasurer- ship is more than hath been for these 300 years. It doth not answer to my charge of my stall, I mean not my table.' Burghley to Win. Heiie, August 14, 1585: Autograph, MSS. Domestic, Molls House. VOL. X. 2 D'Ewes' Journals, p. 242. 3 The reluctance of the Bishop to part with his property called out the celebrated letter in which 'the Proud Prelate ' was told that if he did not instantly comply with the Queen's wishes, ' by God she would unfrock him.' The Bishop still in- clining to resist, was brought to rea- son by means so instructive on Eli- zabeth's mode of conducting business, when she had not Burghley or "Wai- singham to keep her in order, that Lord North, the person whom she employed, may tell the story in his own words. 'This last denial,' Lord North wrote to the Bishop, 21