The end approached very gradually — with the delay which, so it seemed, had become de rigueur in that ambiguous Court. The ordinary routine continued, and in her seventieth year the Queen transacted business, went on progress, and danced while ambassadors peeped through the hangings, as of old. Vitality ebbed slowly; but at times there was a sudden turn; health and spirits flowed in upon the capricious organism; wit sparkled; the loud familiar laughter re-echoed through Whitehall. Then the sombre hours returned again — the distaste for all that life offered — the savage outbursts — the lamentations. So it had come to this! It was all too clear — her inordinate triumph had only brought her to solitude and ruin. She sat alone, amid emptiness and ashes, bereft of the one thing in the whole world that was worth having. And she herself, with her own hand, had cast it from her, had destroyed it . . . but it was not true; she had been helpless — a puppet in the grasp of some malignant power, some hideous influence inherent in the very structure of reality. In such moods, with royal indifference, she unburdened her soul to all who approached her — to show her his books. With deep sighs and mourning gestures she constantly repeated the name of Essex. Then she dismissed them — the futile listeners — with a wave of her hand. It was better that the inward truth should be expressed by the outward seeming; it was better to be alone.

In the winter of 1602 Harington came again to Court, and this time he obtained an audience of his godmother. “I found her,” he told his wife, “in most pitiable state.” Negotiations with Tyrone were then in progress, and she, forgetful of a former conversation, asked Sir John if he had ever seen the rebel. “I replied with reverence that I had seen him with the Lord Deputy; she looked up with much choler and grief in her countenance, and said, ‘Oh, now it mindeth me that you was one who saw this man elsewhere,’ and hereat she dropped a tear, and smote her bosom.” He thought to amuse her with some literary trifles, and read her one or two of his rhyming epigrams. She smiled faintly. “When thou dost feel creeping time at thy gate,” she said, “these fooleries will please thee less; I am past my relish for such matters.”

With the new year her spirits revived, and she attended some state dinners. Then she moved to Richmond, for change of air; and at Richmond, in March, 1603, her strength finally left her. There were no very definite symptoms, besides the growing physical weakness and the profound depression of mind. She would allow no doctors to come near her; she ate and drank very little, lying for hours in a low chair. At last it was seen that some strange crisis was approaching. She struggled to rise, and failing, summoned her attendants to pull her to her feet. She stood. Refusing further help, she remained immovable, while those around her watched in awe-stricken silence. Too weak to walk, she still had the strength to stand; if she returned to her chair, she knew that she would never rise from it; she would continue to stand then; had it not always been her favourite posture? She was fighting Death, and fighting with terrific tenacity. The appalling combat lasted for fifteen hours. Then she yielded &mdas............