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“It may please your Ladyship,

“Where of late Bryan and Hersey Lascelles having been before my Lords of her Majesty’s Council, it appeareth directly by the letters both of the Queen of Scots and of the Duke of Norfolk also, that Hersey, as he confessess also himself has been a dealer sometimes with the Queen there by the means of his brother’s being in service there; and yet that his dealing was not without knowledge of your Ladyship, to the end, as he says, that the same might always be known. I have thought good to advertise your Ladyship thereof, and withal to pray you to let me understand the truth of such matter as your Ladyship doth know of the said Hersey Lascelles’ dealings from time to time as particularly as your Ladyship can remember. And so I take my leave of your Ladyship.

“From London, the 13th of October, 1571.

“Your Ladyship’s at commandment,

“W. Burghley.

“To the right honourable and my very good Lady, the Countess of Shrewsbury. Haste, haste, haste.”

A nice letter to receive on a serene autumn day! Carefully worded and dignified though it is, it opens up vistas of suspicion and treachery. The Countess was away, and her lord had to bear the first brunt of it alone. Perhaps this was just as well, as it gave him a chance of clearing their honour independently. For, of course, he recognised in it an urgent official document. The reading must have cost him a bad quarter of an hour. There was no time to be lost in again asserting his wife’s integrity. A few seconds of miserable suspense would possibly ensue ere his trust and loyalty conquered all fears, and he sat down to write first to his wife, enclosing the letter from Court, and then to tell Burleigh that some serious misconstruction must have been placed on the fact that he always empowered his lady to interest herself in such persons as Lascelles and his doings, the better to keep her spouse apprised of Mary’s plots: “I willed my wife to deal with him and others to whom the Queen bears familiar countenance, so as the better to learn her intentions.” To this he adds a diplomatic postscript, assuring Burleigh that this letter is penned independently of any collusion with his wife.