The end of the century drew near, and it brought sorrow to the queen in the death of her old adviser, Lord Burleigh. Leicester had died soon after the defeat of the Armada, and Elizabeth never parted with a paper upon which she had written sadly, "His last letter." In Burleigh's old age he became quite infirm, and while Elizabeth's other ministers addressed her kneeling, Burleigh was always made to seat himself comfortably before she would discuss any question with him. "I am too old and too feeble to serve you well," he would say, but she refused to let him resign his office. In the days of his strength, she would storm at him in a tornado of rage when his judgment differed from hers, but as he became weak and ill, she was the tenderest of friends. "The door is low, your Majesty," said the servant as she entered the sickroom of the councilor. "Then I will stoop," said she, "for your master's sake, though never for the king of Spain." She often went to sit by his bedside, and the haughty sovereign whose wrath burst forth so furiously at a word of opposition became the most gentle of nurses. As she sat beside him, she would allow no hand but her own to give him nourishment. "She never speaks of him without tears," said one who was with her after his death. The loss of another of her friends brought her even greater grief than that of Burleigh, for this time the life of her favorite lay in her own power, but as the faithful sovereign she felt herself obliged to sacrifice it. From the time that Leicester had presented to her his brilliant, fascinating stepson, the Earl of Essex, the young man had been a prime favorite with the queen. At their first meeting he was seventeen and the queen fifty-six, and she treated him like a petted child who can do no wrong. She forbade him to take any part in the fighting in Portugal, but he slipped away from court without her knowledge, and was the first to leave the boats on the Portuguese coast. He returned with some fear of being punished for his disobedience, but the queen forgot the wrongdoing, and was only anxious to make up for his disappointment because a position that he had wished for had been given to some one else. When Essex married, Elizabeth was as indignant as usual at each new proof that with all the adoration that her courtiers continually declared of herself, she was not the whole world to them. When Essex was fighting in Holland, a request was sent to the queen for more troops. The ambassador said:-- "Your Majesty, my master has consulted the Earl of Essex, and he favors the request." Elizabeth had not yet granted Essex her forgiveness, and she blazed forth:-- "The Earl of Essex, indeed! He would have it thought that he rules my realm."