The Countess of Essex was not yet sixteen when she was introduced to the court of James; and, possessed of youth, extraordinary beauty, and some talent, she soon attracted universal admiration, to which she showed herself not at all indifferent. According to the libertine manners of the day, the object of admiration became immediately an object of pursuit, whatever obstacles morality might interpose; and Prince Henry himself, the eldest son of the King, appeared as one the suitors of the fair Countess. She, on her part, showed herself cold and indifferent to the solicitations of the prince; not, indeed, that her bosom was the abode of any pure feelings or high principles, but because she had already conceived a passion for another, to which she was ready not only to sacrifice every moral obligation, but to violate common decency, which is sometimes powerful over minds that do not scruple to cast off every other restraint. Rochester, however, the object of her criminal love, courted and flattered for his power, either did not see the views of the Countess in endeavouring to attract his attention, or was really indifferent towards her, and for some time escaped her wiles; but ere long she found a disgraceful means of making him acquainted with the passion he had inspired, and it soon not only became reciprocal, but rose to a height in the bosoms of both, which led them to the commission of some of the most terrible crimes with which the soul of man can be stained. It was about the time at which the preference of the Countess of Essex for the King's favourite first began to master every consideration of virtue and propriety in her bosom, that those events occurred in the history of Arabella Stuart which recall us to the narration of adventures more immediately connected with this tale; and, merely begging the reader to remember that several years had passed since William Seymour sailed from England, without his obtaining permission to return from the honourable banishment to which he had been condemned, we shall here end this brief sketch of the intervening period. CHAPTER XVII. It was the afternoon of a bright summer day, and a grand tilting match had been held on a piece of ground adjoining the park at St. James's. All the world of the Capital had been admitted to the sight, and as two or three foreign princes, amongst whom was the King of Denmark, were present on the occasion, numbers of the grave citizens had left their shops and counting-houses in London, and travelled to Westminster to look on during the royal sports.