Shirley had even had recourse to stratagem: affecting ignorance on many points concerning which the Queen desired information, and suggesting that doubtless she would find those matters fully explained in his Lordship's letter.

The artifice was in vain, and the discussion was, on the whole, unsatisfactory.

Yet there is no doubt that the Queen had had the worst of the argument, and she was far too sagacious a politician not to feel the weight of that which had been urged so often in defence of the course pursued.

But it was with her partly a matter of temper and offended pride, perhaps even of wounded affection.
On the following morning Shirley saw the Queen walking in the garden of the palace, and made bold to accost her.

Thinking, as he said, "to test her affection to Lord Leicester by another means," the artful Sir Thomas stepped up to her, and observed that his Lordship was seriously ill.