Fragmenta Regalia

The principal note of her reign will be, that she ruled much by faction and parties, which she herself both made, upheld, and weakened, as her own great judgment advised; for I do dissent from the common and received opinion, that my Lord of Leicester was ABSOLUTE and ALONE in her GRACE; and, though I come somewhat short of the knowledge of these times, yet, that I may not err or shoot at random, I know it from assured intelligence that it was not so; for proof whereof, amongst many (that could present), I will both relate a story, and therein a known truth, and it was thus.