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“To my wife the Countess of Shrewsbury at Tutbury give this.”

The daughter “Maule” here named is evidently Mary. Besides Gilbert and Grace Talbot, married as stated to the Cavendish daughter and son of Lady Shrewsbury, the Earl’s children were Francis, the eldest (who married Anne Herbert, daughter of William Earl of Pembroke, and did not inherit, since he died in 1582); Mary, who married Sir George Saville, Kt.; Catherine, who married Henry Earl of Pembroke; Edward, who married Jane (elder daughter of Cuthbert Lord Ogle, co-heiress with the wife of Charles Cavendish), and succeeded to his father’s title, after Gilbert, as eighth earl; and Henry Talbot, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Rayner, and left two daughters.

The next letter from the Earl gives the Queen’s important decision:—

“My dear none, I have received your letter of the 8th of December, wherein appeareth your desire for my soon coming. What my desire is thereunto, I refer the same to your construsion.^[13] If I so judge of time, methinks time longer since my coming hither without you, my only joy, than I did since I married you: such is faithful affection, which I never tasted so deeply of before. This day or to-morrow we shall know great likelihood of our despatch. I think it will be Christmas Even before I shall arrive at Tutbury. Things fall out very evil against the Scots’ Queen. What she shall do yet is not resolved of.