_Scandal against Queen Elizabeth_ (Vol. ii., p. 393.).--Although many of
your correspondents must be well able to reply to P.T.'s Query, I have seen
no notice of it as yet. The note to Burton's _Diary_, in citing Osborn,
ought to have begun with the word which precedes the words quoted. The note
would then have run thus:--
"That Queen Elizabeth had a son, &c., I neglect to insert, as fitter
for a romance than to mingle with so much truth and integrity as I
profess."
In the Add. MSS. 5524. is an apparently modern note, stated to be in the
handwriting of Mr. Ives, to the following effect:--
"I have heard it confidently asserted, that Queen Elizabeth was with
child by the Earl of Essex, and that she was delivered of a child at
Kenilworth Castle, which died soon after its birth, was interred at
Kenilworth, and had a stone put over it, inscribed '_Silentium_.'"
This is doubtless one of the many tales, which, as Osborn says, "may be
found in the black relations of the Jesuits, and some French and Spanish
Pasquilers." These slanderers were chiefly, I believe, Parsons or Persons,
and Sanders, who scrupled at nothing that would tend to blacken the
character and reputation of Elizabeth. Thus besides the above, and other
stories of Elizabeth {12} herself, it was stated by Sanders that her
mother, Anne Boleyn, was Henry VIII.'s own daughter; and that he intrigued,
not only with Anne's mother, but with her sister. P.T. will find these
points, and others which are hardly suited for public discussion, noticed
in the article on ELIZABETH in Bayle's _Dictionary_.