He may have accompanied her[10] "hunting and disporting" "every other day," and seen her "set upon jollity"; he may have enjoyed the[11] "frolyke" in "courte, much dauncing in the privi chamber of countrey daunces befor the Q. M."; very likely he may have been in attendance upon the Queen when she walked on[12] "Richmond Greene," "with greater shewes of ability, than" could "well stand with her years." During the six years that he was at Court, he probably came in for a period of brilliancy and a period of depression, although there is nothing to show for certain whether he had retired before the time thus described in an old letter[13]:--"Thother of the counsayle or nobilitye estrainge themselves from court by all occasions, so as, besides the master of the horse, vice-chamberlain, and comptroller, few of account appeare there." If Lingard is right, however,[14] he gave up his appointment at Court the year before Elizabeth's death, and thus luckily escaped the time when, as he describes her, she was[15] "reduced to a skeleton. Her food was nothing but manchet bread and succory pottage. Her taste for dress was gone. She had not changed her clothes for many days. Nothing could please her; she was the torment of the ladies who waited on her person. She stamped with her feet, and swore violently at the objects of her anger." [10] Lord Henry Howard to Worcester. [11] Letter of Lord Worcester, Lodge III. p. 148. [12] MS. Letter. See Lingard, Vol. vi. chap. ix. [13] MS. Letter. See Lingard, Vol. vi. chap. ix. [14] History, Vol. vii. chap. i. [15] _Ib._, Vol. vi. chap. ix. One thing that may have had a subsequent influence upon Digby, while he was at the Court of Elizabeth, was the violence shown towards Catholics. In the course of the fourteen years that followed the defeat of the Spanish Armada before the death of the Queen,[16] "the Catholics groaned under the presence of incessant persecution. Sixty-one clergymen, forty-seven laymen, and two gentlemen, suffered capital punishment for some or other of the spiritual felonies and treasons which had been lately created." Although he had been brought up a Protestant, "this gentleman," says Gerard,[17] "was always Catholicly affected," and the severe measures dealt out to Catholics whilst he was at Court may have disgusted him and induced him to leave it. [16] Lingard, Vol. vi. chap. iii. [17] _Narrative of the G. P._, p. 88. I have shown how Father Gerard states[18] that Sir Everard Digby was educated "at the University by his guardians, as other young gentlemen used to be." It is to be wished that he had informed us at what University and at what College; when he went there and when he left; as his attendance at Court, together with a very important event, to be noticed presently, which took place, or is said to have taken place, when he was fifteen, make it difficult to allot a vacant time for his University career. [18] _Ib._