But John Udall was a scholar and an honest man; and Ralegh reverenced scholarship and honesty, knowing the value of letters and the courage that honesty required. Moreover he always favoured tolerance in dealing with those whose consciences gave them peculiar views, as is seen by his speech in Parliament a few years later, when he opposed the banishment of the sect called Brownists. Meanwhile Essex had not grown in any way less arrogant. About this time a younger brother of Lord Mountjoy attracted the Queen's notice; his name was Charles Blount, and Naunton described him as "brown-haired, of a sweet face, and of a most neat composure tall in his person." The Queen seeing him at dinner at Whitehall gave him her hand to kiss, and afterwards a chessman as favour. Blount wore the piece on his sleeve, and Essex remarking it and being told whose favour it was, said, "Ah! I see every fool must have a favour now-aday." Blount challenged Essex. They fought in what is now called Regent's Park, and Essex was wounded in the thigh. "God's death," cried out Elizabeth when she heard of it, "it was time that some one or other should take him down and teach him better manners; otherwise there would be no rule with him." And now an event of some importance occurred in the life of Sir Walter Ralegh--his marriage. His behaviour has called down much censure upon him. Macaulay invented a phrase which has had potent results, "the disease of biographers." Every man seems fearful lest he should be branded with the ignominy of the complaint; yet he must be a strange fellow who can live again with a man like Ralegh in times like Ralegh's times and not catch the fire of enthusiasm. But enough. At this point in his career, writers are wont to show their breadth of judgment: "There could have been no true nobility in the man ..." writes one of his letter to the Queen. Fortunately ideas differ as to the nature of true nobility. Now this is the basis of the censures levelled against him. Of the facts of his courtship very little is known, and what is known is strangely mingled with the business of reprisals against Spain, in which Ralegh was actively engaged. This is the letter which he wrote to Sir Robert Cecil:-- "SIR,