Leicester

Sir Leicester Dedlock is only a baronet, but there is no mightier baronet than he.

Sir Leicester is twenty years, full measure, older than my Lady.

A whisper still goes about that she had not even family; howbeit, Sir Leicester had so much family that perhaps he had enough and could dispense with any more.

It started, directly, in the London palace of Henry III, and was the result of a quarrel between the King and his powerful brother-in-law, Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester.

Come, Leybourn!" and the King left the apartment followed by his gentlemen, all of whom had drawn away from the Earl of Leicester when it became apparent that the royal displeasure was strong against him.

The episode meant more to him than being bested in play by the best swordsman in England--for that surely was no disgrace--to Henry it seemed prophetic of the outcome of a future struggle when he should stand face to face with the real De Montfort; and then, seeing in De Vac only the creature of his imagination with which he had vested the likeness of his powerful brother-in-law, Henry did what he should like to have done to the real Leicester. Drawing off his gauntlet he advanced close to De Vac.

Politian is expected Hourly in Rome -- Politian, Earl of Leicester! We'll have him at the wedding.

Now Earl of Leicester! Thou lovest me, and in my heart of hearts I feel thou lovest me truly.

Thou art my friend, Baldazzar, And I have not forgotten it- thou'lt do me A piece of service; wilt thou go back and say Unto this man, that I, the Earl of Leicester, Hold him a villain?- thus much, I prythee, say Unto the Count- it is exceeding just He should have cause for quarrel.

They retained a trace of their origin (above, page 90) in that each was under the protection of some influential noble and was called, for example, 'Lord Leicester's Servants,' or 'The Lord Admiral's Servants.' But this connection was for the most part nominal--the companies were virtually very much like the stock-companies of the nineteenth century.

It is also likely enough that Shakspere had been fascinated by the performances of traveling dramatic companies at Stratford and by the Earl of Leicester's costly entertainment of Queen Elizabeth in

At any rate, in London he evidently soon secured mechanical employment in a theatrical company, presumably the one then known as Lord Leicester's company, with which, in that case, he was always thereafter connected.