Note 539 — Chapter XIV · 1584-1587
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The Queen kept up a pretence of anger against the Councillors for some time, and especially against Burghley, who on the 13th February wrote her a submissive letter praying for her favour. He was excluded from her presence, and complains that she “doth utter more heavy, hard, bitter, and minatory speeches against me than against any other,” which he ascribes to the calumnies of his many enemies, and to the fact that he alone was not allowed to justify his action personally to her. “I have,” he says, “confusedly uttered my griefs, being glad that the night of my age is so near by service and sickness as I shall not long wake to see the miseries that I fear others shall see that are like to overwatch me.” When at length he obtained audience of the Queen, she treated him so harshly that he again retired, and was only induced to return again by the intercession of Hatton. Elizabeth’s special anger with Burghley may have been an elaborate pretence agreed upon between them, or, what is more probable, the result of some calumnies of Leicester.