It is dated 'Ffrom Arras, the xvth of Novembre, 1558,' and relates to a proposed meeting at that town. Other letters and despatches will be found in Cal. State Papers. For. 1558).
By Elizabeth, Arundel was retained in all the employments which he had held in the preceding reign, although he was trusted by no one (Froude, ch. xxxvi.), chiefly because she could not afford to alienate so powerful a subject. A commission, dated 21 Nov. 1558, empowers Arundel, William, lord Howard of Effingham, Thirlby, and Wotton to treat with Scotland ; it was made out on 27 Sept. in the last year of Mary, and the alterations are in the handwriting of Sir William Cecil (Cal. State Papers, Scottish Ser. i. 107). Disgusted by the 'sinister workinge of some meane persons of her counsaile,' Arundel had surrendered the staff of lord steward shortly before the death of Mary (MS. Life, ff. 49-51). Elizabeth on her accession replaced it in his hands ; she called him to a seat in the council, and added to his other honours the appointments of high constable for the day before, and high steward for the day of her coronation, on which occasion he received a commission to create thirty knights (Hardy, Syllabus of Rymer's Fœdera, ii. 798, 799). In January 1559 he was elected chancellor of the university of Oxford, but resigned the office, probably from religious motives, in little more than four months (Wood, Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 86, 87). In August 1559 Elizabeth visited him at Nonsuch in Cheam, Surrey, where for five days she was sumptuously entertained with banquets, masques, and music (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547-80, p. 136). At her departure she accepted 'a cupboard of plate' (Nichols, Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, i. 74), as she had before received the perquisites obtained by the earl at her coronation. The queen paid several subsequent visits to Nonsuch (Lysons, Environs, i. 154-5). In August 1560 he was one of the commissioners appointed to arrange a commercial treaty with the Hanse Towns. During the same year Arundel, in the queen's presence, sharply rebuked Edward, lord Clinton, who advocated the prosecution of the war with Scotland for the arrest of English subjects found attending mass at the Spanish or French chapels, and Elizabeth herself could scarcely prevent them from coming to blows. 'Those,' Arundel exclaimed, 'who had advised the war with Scotland were traitors to their country' (Froude, ch. xxxviii.) Being a widower Arundel was named among those who might aspire to the queen's hand, a fact which led to a violent quarrel with Leicester in 1561 (ib. ch. xl.) Upon the queen's dangerous illness in October 1562 a meeting was held at the house of Arundel in November to reconsider the succession. The Duke of Norfolk, Arundel's son-in-law, was present. The object was to further the claims of Lady Catherine Grey, to whose son Norfolk's infant daughter was to be betrothed. The discussion ended at two in the morning without result. When the queen heard of it she sent for Arundel to reproach him, and Arundel, it is said, replied that if she intended to govern England with her caprices and fancies the nobility would be forced to interfere (ib. ch. xl.) In 1564 he resigned the staff of lord steward 'with sundry speeches of offence' (Strype, Annals, i. 413), and Elizabeth, to resent the affront, restrained him to his house.
Though released within a month from his confinement, Arundel felt deeply the humiliation of his suit. Early in 1566 a smart attack of gout afforded him a pretext for visiting the baths at Padua. He returned in March 1567. On his arrival at Canterbury he was met by a body of more than six hundred gentlemen from Kent, Sussex, and Surrey ; at Blackheath the cavalcade was joined by the recorder, the aldermen, and many of the chief merchants of London, and as it drew near to the metropolis the lord chancellor, the earls of Pembroke, Huntingdon, Sussex, Warwick, and Leicester, with others, to the number of two thousand horsemen, came out to meet him. He passed in procession through the city, and having paid his respects to the queen at Westminster went by water to his house in the Strand.
It has often been asserted, but quite erroneously, that on this occasion Arundel appeared in the first coach, and presented to Elizabeth the first pair of silk stockings ever seen in England. The subject has been fully discussed by J. G. Nichols in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for 1833 (vol. ciii. pt. ii. p. 212, n. 12). That he sent the queen some valuable presents appears from her letter to him, dated at Westminster, 16 March 1567 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547-80, p. 289).
Arundel was now partially restored to favour, so that when the conferences relative to the accusations brought by the Earl of Murray against the Queen of Scots were removed in November 1568 from York to Westminster, he was joined in the commission (ib. Scottish Ser. ii. 864). His hopes of gaining Elizabeth in marriage had long been buried. As the leader of the old nobility and the catholic party he now resolved that the Queen of Scots should marry Norfolk ; Cecil and
