630.
But the greatest imprudence of this nobleman proceeded from the openness of his temper, by which he was ill qualified to succeed in such difficult, and dangerous enterprises.

He indulged himself in great liberties of speech, and was even heard to say of the queen, that she was now grown an old woman and was become as crooked in her mind as in her body.[*] Some court ladies, whose favors Essex had formerly neglected, carried her these stories, and incensed her to a high degree against him.

Elizabeth was ever remarkably jealous on this head; and though she was now approaching to her seventieth year, she allowed her courtiers,[**] and even foreign ambassadors,[***] to compliment her upon her beauty; nor had all her good sense been able to cure her of this preposterous vanity.[****] [37] * Camden, p.629.Osborne, p.397.Sir Walter Raleigh's Prerogative of Parliament, p.

43.
** Birch's Memoirs, vol.ii.p.

442, 443.
*** Sidney's Letters, vol.ii.p.