Among those upon whom Elizabeth bestowed her smiles, was the handsome Earl of Essex. He was very popular, and was led by his vanity to engage in some treasonable schemes. He was tried, and condemned to be executed. He had a ring which the queen had given him in some moment of good humor, saying that if he was ever in trouble, he might send that ring to her, and she would protect him. Essex, when in prison, the day of execution drawing nigh, remembered his ring, and giving it to lady Nottingham, requested her to bear it to the queen. This lady Nottingham promised to do, but she deceived Essex, and kept the ring. He was therefore executed, and Elizabeth, who expected her favorite to appeal to her mercy, imagined, till after his death, that he was too proud to solicit it. At last the countess of Nottingham was seized with a violent distemper. She believed that it would prove fatal, and sending for the queen, unburdened her oppressed conscience by confessing the artifice of which she had been guilty. “I have not many hours to live,” continued she, “and I pray your majesty to smooth my pillow, by giving me your pardon!” The queen gazed at her for a few moments in silent horror. She then seized her by the shoulder, shook her violently, and cried, “God may pardon you, but I never can!” Elizabeth then burst from the chamber; but the shock proved too much for a declining constitution. She refused all food, lay on the floor day and night, and spoke only in groans and sighs and inarticulate words. She was then advised by the archbishop of Canterbury to fix her thoughts wholly upon God, and made answer that she did so. It was the last sentence which she uttered; for falling soon afterwards into a lethargic slumber, she expired without a groan, on the 24th of March, 1603, in the seventieth year of her age, and forty-fifth of her reign. If Elizabeth governed her people well, she still exerted a bad influence in many respects. Great extravagance in dress was the prevailing foible of the day,--a foible in which the queen herself set the example; for she is stated to have left, at her decease, upwards of three thousand different robes, all of them fit for use, and all occasionally worn. This is the more remarkable, as during the preceding reign frugality seems to have been a characteristic of the age. In those days, the yearly rent of a mansion in London, fit for the occupation of a great officer of state, amounted to thirty shillings sterling money: the halls of the nobility, as well as the floors of the peasantry, were strewed with rushes; and even in considerable towns there were few houses to which a chimney was attached, the fires being kindled by the side of the wall, and the smoke permitted to escape as it best could, through the windows. In general, the people slept on straw pallets, and they used round logs of timber for pillows, and had almost all their utensils and furniture made of wood.