in 1561, no successor was appointed to Ely for eighteen years; the sees of Chichester, Bristol, Worcester, Bath and Wells, and Salisbury were severally kept vacant for terms varying from three to ten years; but the most flagrant case of all was that of Oxford, which for forty-one years of this reign was without any bishop, the income during all this time presumably being paid to the queen's account! Elizabeth's last years were sad years, and as they passed life ceased more and more to have any charm for her. She acted her part with indomitable courage, played at being young when there was hardly any one about her who had not been a child when she was a grown woman, and fought death to the last as if she would by sheer force of will keep him at bay.
After Essex's return in defiance of orders it was evident that he could hope for no further advancement. He could not endure the humiliation, could not acquiesce in a blighted career, though he had only himself to blame, and by his ridiculously abortive attempt at insurrection left the queen no other alternative than to send him to the scaffold. The story of the ring which Essex is said to have sent to the queen after his condemnation, and which was detained by the Countess of Nottingham, is another of those idle and mischievous inventions which have been very widely circulated among the credulous and been repeated by historians [see Devereux, Robert, second Earl of Essex]. Essex was beheaded on 25 Feb. 1601. As it had been with the Duke of Norfolk thirty-two years before, so it was now; Elizabeth was reluctant to give Essex to the executioner, but she had scarcely any option; and precisely as it had been at the time of the northern rebellion so was it again ordered that the lives of the nobility and gentry implicated were spared, but immense fines were levied upon them. Unless Chamberlain exaggerated the amounts, the aggregate can have fallen little short of 100,000l. (Chamberlain, Letters, pp. 107-10). It has been said that the queen exhibited signs of grief and remorse at the death of Essex. There is little or no evidence of her taking his death much to heart till long after the execution; and it may be doubted whether she dwelt much upon it at the time. In May she held a splendid chapter of the order of the Garter at Windsor, and the Earl of Derby and Lord Burghley (Sir Robert Cecil's elder brother) were installed knights. During the whole of that summer and autumn she was amusing herself after the old fashion. There are few more graphic pictures of her while giving an audience when she was in good humour than is to be found in Sir William Brown's report of this reception by the queen at Sir William Clarke's house in August (Sydney Papers, ii. 229-30). She certainly was lively enough then. Next month she snatched away the miniature of Cecil from his niece and danced about with it like a skittish schoolgirl [see Cecil, Robert]. During all that year she seems to have been in exuberant spirits, and on 12 Dec. Cecil, in a private letter, rejoices in 'the happy continuance of her majesty's health and prosperity' (Cal., Dom. 1601-3, p. 128). It is not till February 1602 that we first hear of her health beginning to fail; when a correspondent of Sir Dudley Carleton expresses his regret at the queen's 'craziness' (ib.p. 156). The account which De Beaumont gives of his interview with her in June is quite incredible (Birch, ii. 505). Indeed, De Beaumont's despatches are very untrustworthy, and no dependence can be placed upon his idle gossip when unsupported by corroborative evidence. On 28 April we find her actually dancing with the Duke of Nevers at Richmond; but in August we hear of her again being unwell, though 'the next day she walked abroad in the park [at Burnham] lest any should take notice of it.' It was out a passing indisposition, for the week before she had ridden ten miles on horseback, and hunted too (ib. p. 233). More than once during this autumn she was reported as being in good health (Nichols, Progresses, iii. 597, 600), but when Sir John Harrington was admitted to her presence at the end of December he was shocked to see the change in her. During the second week of the new year she caught a bad cold but shook it off and was well enough to remove to Richmond on 21 Jan. (1603). On 28 Feb. she sickened again, and on 15 March she was alarmingly ill. She rapidly grew worse, refused all medicine, and took little nourishment, but declined to go to bed. The lords of the council were sent for and continued in attendance till the end. Archbishop Whitgift performed the last oflices of religion. She became speechless and died very quietly on 24 March, her council standing round her and interpreting a sign she made to mean that she wished James VI of Scotland to succeed her on the throne.
Elizabeth was in her seventieth year when she died. She was the first English sovereign who had attained to such an age, though Henry III and Edward III had reigned for a longer time. She was buried with great magnifcence in Westminster Abbet on 28 April. James VI erected a noble monument over the grave where her remains lie side by side with those of her sister Mary.
