Note 44.23 — INDEX

The charm of Elizabeth’s beauty, and the stimulus of her high spirit, also inspired with a warm personal concern in her affairs, those of her father’s numerous diplomatists who were or became known to her. Sir Henry Wotton seems never to have seen her again after their ‘merry hour’ of meeting at Heidelberg; but he remained stedfast in his admiration for his ‘Royal Mistress,’ and among the 44intimate letters of the days of his retirement at Eton are those which he addressed to her, then a half-forgotten exile at the Hague. In his will he left to the Prince of Wales her picture, with an inscription[23] which reappears, with slight modifications, in two of his published pieces. Wotton’s successor at Venice, Sir Dudley Carleton (afterwards Viscount Dorchester), who had likewise been received by the Electoral pair at Heidelberg, and who was English ambassador at the Hague when the fugitives arrived there, cheerfully gave up his house for their use; besides judiciously exerting himself in their interest both in this and in his second embassy to the United Provinces. Lord Herbert of Cherbury was warmly thanked by Elizabeth for his exertions at Paris; and Lord Conway did his best for her cause with the Emperor at Prague. Lord Doncaster (afterwards Earl of Carlisle) had, during his futile mission before the Bohemian crisis, gained her goodwill in such a degree as to be honoured by her with the intimate nickname of ‘camel-face’; and it was through him that his eloquent chaplain Donne was privileged to ‘deliver mesages’ to the Queen when in sore straits. More to the purpose were the active services of Sir Thomas Roe, the ‘honest fatt Thom’ of her correspondence; but, although these had begun before this diplomatist’s return from Eastern Europe, he does not seem to have come 45into much personal contact with her before 1628.