Sir Francis Knowles was somewhat near in the Queen’s affinity, and had
likewise no incompetent issue; for he had also William, his eldest son,
and since Earl of Banbury, Sir Thomas, Sir Robert, and Sir Francis, if I
be not a little mistaken in their names and marshalling; and there was
also the Lady Lettice, a sister of those, who was first Countess of
Essex, and after of Leicester; and those were also brave men in their
times and places, but they were of the Court and carpet, and not by the
genius of the camp.
Between these two families there was, as it falleth out amongst great
ones and competitors of favour, no great correspondency; and there were
some seeds, either of emulation or distrust, cast between them; which,
had they not been disjoined in the residence of their persons, as that
was the fortune of their employments, the one side attending the Court,
and the other the Pavilion, surely they would have broken out into some
kind of hostility, or, at least, they would entwine and wrestle one in
the other, like trees circled with ivy; for there was a time when, both
these fraternities being met at Court, there passed a challenge between
them at certain exercises, the Queen and the old men being spectators,
which ended in a flat quarrel amongst them all. For I am persuaded,
though I ought not to judge, that there were some relics of this feigned
that were long after the causes of the one family’s almost utter
extirpation, and the other’s improsperity; for it was a known truth that
so long as my Lord of Leicester lived, who was the main pillar on the one
side, for having married the sister, the other side took no deep root in
the Court, though otherwise they made their ways to honour by their
swords. And that which is of more note, considering my Lord of
Leicester’s use of men of war, being shortly after sent Governor to the
revolted States, and no soldier himself, is that he made no more account
of Sir John Norris, a soldier, then deservedly famous, and trained from a
page under the discipline of the greatest captain in Christendom, the
Admiral Castilliau, and of command in the French and Dutch Wars almost
twenty years. And it is of further observation that my Lord of Essex,
after Leicester’s decease, though addicted to arms and honoured by the
general in the Portugal expedition, whether out of instigation, as it
hath been thought, or out of ambition and jealousy, eclipsed by the fame
and splendour of this great commander, never loved him in sincerity.
Moreover, and certain it is, he not only crushed, and upon all occasions
quelled the youth of this great man and his famous brethren, but
therewith drew on his own fatal end, by undertaking the Irish action in a
time when he left the Court empty of friends, and full-fraught with his
professed enemies. But I forbear to extend myself in any further
relation upon this subject, as having lost some notes of truth in these
two nobles, which I would present; and therewith touched somewhat, which
I would not, if the equity of the narration would have permitted any
omission.