While he was yet but five and twenty, the Queen created him Earl of Yardley, decorated him with the Most Noble Order of the Garter, and bestowed on him the monastery and lands of Tillingham, where soon he built the house of Stanier. She often told him that it was time for her Colin to take a wife to himself, but in this, with a sure wisdom, he positively refused to obey her, saying that Venus herself had no charms for him while Gloriana’s light was shed on him; and thus, though he disobeyed the letter of Her Grace’s command, she did not disapprove of the spirit which prompted his obstinacy. But he sought and copiously found consolations for his celibacy, and he devoted a long section of his memoirs to the account of them and of the diversions of his bachelorhood. He gave a list of the women whose favours he sought and obtained, “but indeed,” he commented, “it was they rather who sought me, though I was nothing loathe, for youth is the time for pleasure,” and enumerated their charms or their defects. As in his dealings with my lord of Leicester his favours must be paid for, “though I accomplished some pretty seductions for my own pleasure of which I was speedily weary.” Never a hint of love, of devotion, or of affection seemed to have dawned on him; he sought his own pleasure and profit, and what above all made to him the spice of these adventures was their wickedness.... He described at length how the spectacle of the love and devotion between a certain Sir James Bland and his young wife irritated him, and how, with a view to wrecking it, he first made friends with the husband, thereby to gain an intimate footing in their house, and cover his ulterior purpose, while he made himself cold to his friend’s wife. “She was accustomed to draw the eyes of men after her, though she had no eyes for any but her lord, and it piqued her to see I was indifferent to her. Presently, for all wenches are alike in heart, she must needs lay herself out to attract me and I softened towards her, so that there were not three gayer folk in all London than this devoted pair and their attached friend. This way and that I drew her into my net, so that she cooled to her husband, and became weary and restless and discontent. And then my Lord and Benefactor whispered to me that the time was ripe, and before long nought would restrain her but she cast herself at my feet, and so I gave her her way once or twice, but very soon she was tedious to me. But I was very merry all that month.”