In 1568 Mary Stuart, flying into England, was placed in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and remained under his care for sixteen years, a long period of restless misery to the unhappy earl not less than to his wretched captive. In this dangerous and odious charge was involved the sacrifice of his domestic happiness, his peace of mind, his health, and great part of his fortune, His castle was converted into a prison, his servants into guards, his porter into a turnkey, his wife into a spy, and himself into a jailor, to gratify the ever-waking jealousy of Queen Elizabeth.[46] But the earl's greatest misfortune was the estrangement, and at length enmity, of his violent, high-spirited wife. She beheld the unhappy Mary with a hatred for which there was little excuse, but many intelligible reasons: she saw her, not as a captive committed to her womanly mercy, but as an intruder on her rights. Her haughty spirit was continually irritated by the presence of one in whom she was forced to acknowledge a superior, even in that very house and domain where she herself had been used to reign as absolute queen and mistress. The enormous expenses which this charge entailed on her household were distracting to her avarice; and, worse than all, jealousy of the youthful charms and winning manners of the Queen of Scots, and of the constant intercourse between her and her husband, seem at length to have driven her half frantic, and degraded her, with all her wit, and sense, and spirit, into the despicable treacherous tool of the more artful and despotic Elizabeth, who knew how to turn the angry and jealous passions of the countess to her own purposes.