Part 5 (1/2)

The fleet proceeded to St Miguel, when Raleigh was left to watch the roadstead, while Essex pushed inland While Raleigh lay here, a great Indian carrack of sixteen hundred tons, laden with spices, knowing nothing of the English invasion, blundered into the middle of what she took to be a friendly Spanish fleet She perceived her mistake just in tih at the head of a party of boats attempted to seize her, but her colisherous splendour of flah wasanother carrack laden with cochineal froe was uneventful and ill-land, and Lady Raleigh 'skrebbled,' as she spelt it, hasty notes to Cecil begging for news of her husband Early in October he caland, seriously enfeebled in health The only one of the coe was the one who had undertaken least, Lord Howard of Effinghaham

CHAPTER VI

LAST DAYS OF ELIZABETH

A slight anecdote, which is connected with the ives us an ie of his career It was the custo the Earl of Southaame of primero in the Presence Chahed and talked rather loudly, upon which Ahby, the Esquire of the Body, cah pocketed his money, and went off, but Southampton resented the interference, and in the scuffle that ensued Willoughby pulled out a handful of those marjoram-coloured curls that Shakespeare praised

It is not easy to see why it was, that in the obscure year 1598, while the star of Essex was setting, that of his natural rival did not burn h now, and for the brief reh was noer any tenderness for her Captain of the Guard Her old love, her old friendshi+p, had quite passed away There was no longer any excuse for excluding from her presence so valuable a soldier and so wise a courtier, but her pulses had ceased to thrill at his co If Essex had been half so courteous, half so assiduous as Raleigh, she would have opened her ariveness, and his tongue held no parley with her It h's presence--for he it is who has recorded it in the grave pages of his _Prerogative of Parliament_--that Essex told the Queen 'that her conditions were as crooked as her carcass,' a terrible speech which, as Raleigh says, 'cost him his head' This was perhaps a little later, in 1600 In 1598 these cruel squabbles were already h by her, but would give hi In January he applied for the post of Vice-chahah's shoes with his cloak, but when Raleigh hi of 1598, he was met with a direct refusal He would fain have been Lord Deputy in Ireland, but the Queen declined to spare hi sworn on the Privy Council, but at the finalthat if he were n his Captainshi+p of the Guard to Sir George Carew This was, as Cecil are, too great a sacrifice to be thought of, and the hero of Cadiz and Fayal, foiled on every hand, had to subht

As the breach greeen Essex and the Queen, the terew h In his _Apotheg anecdote of November 17, 1598 On this day, which was the Queen's sixty-fifth birthday, the leading courtiers, as usual, tilted in the ring in honour of their Liege; the custoht should be disguised It was, however, known that Sir Walter Raleigh would ride in his own unifore of lamb's wool Essex, to vex hiuard of two thousand retainers all dressed in orange tawny, so that Raleigh and hisThe story goes on to show that Essex digged a pit and fell into it hinant intention We have little else but anecdotes hich to fill up the gap in Raleigh's career between Decely quiet period in his life, during which we have to fancy hi more and more at enmity with Essex, and more and more intimate with Cobham

In Septeed Raleigh to undertake once more his attempt to colonise Guiana, and offered twelve shi+ps as his own contingent Two months later we find that the hint has been taken, and that Sir John Gilbert is 'preparing with all speed to e to Guiana' It is said, lish people' He never started, however, and Raleigh, referring long afterwards to the events of these years, said that though Cecil seee him in his West Indian projects, yet that when it cah quaintly put it, retired into his back-shop Meanwhile, the interest felt in Raleigh's narrative was increasing, and in 1599 the well-known geographer Levinus Hulsius brought out in Nure a Latin translation of the _Discovery_, with five curious plates, including one of the city of Manoa, and another of the Ewaipanoma, or lish reprint in Hakluyt's _Navigations_ belong to the same year Also in 1599, the _Discovery_ was reproduced in Latin, Gerhth part of his celebrated _Collectiones Peregrinationum_ This year, then, in which we hardly hear otherwise of Raleigh, raphical writer So absolutely is the veil drawn over his personal history at this time that the only facts we possess are, that on Noveue, and that on December 13 he was still ill

In the h left Durha with them, as a playmate for their son Walter, Sir Robert Cecil's eldest son, William, afterwards the second Earl of Salisbury On the way down to Dorsetshi+re, they stopped at Sion House as the guests of the 'Wizard' Earl of Northuh's, and presently to be his ent fellow-prisoner in the Tower Fro frankly that if her Majesty persisted in excluding hiin to keep sheep betime' He hinted in the same letter that he would accept the Governorshi+p of Jersey, which was expected to fall vacant The friendshi+p with Lord Cobhah vies with her husband in urging hihs went to Bath apparently for no other reason than to h to the erous of his associates, written from Bath on April 29, 1600:

Here we attend you and have done this sevennight, and we still mourn your absence, the rather because we fear that your ed I pray let us hear froo hereby ho here My ill despair ever to see you in these parts, if your Lordshi+p co for you and wish you as our own lives whatsoever

Your Lordshi+p's everest faithful, to honour you h's absence frothy, that it hispered in the early surace, that the Queen had called hi,' namely, 'fox' The absurdity of this was proved early in July by his being hurriedly called to town to accompany Cobham and Northumberland on their brief and fruitless visit to Ostend The friends started from Sandwich on July 11, and were received in the Low Countries by Lord Grey; they were entertained at Ostend with extraordinary respect, but they gained nothing of political or diplomatic value Affairs in Ireland, connected with the Spanish invasion, occupied Raleigh'sthis autumn, but he paid no visit to his Munster estates There were plots and counterplots developing in various parts of these islands in the autumn of 1600, but with none of these subterranean activities is Raleigh for the present to be identified

When Sir Anthony Paulet died, on August 26, 1600, Raleigh had the satisfaction of succeeding him in the Governorshi+p of Jersey He had asked for the reversion of this post, and none could be found ave hiy, to fly hither and thither by sea and land, and to harry the English Channel for Spaniards as a terrier watches a haystack for rats Weylish postal port for Jersey, was also the natural harbour of Sherborne, and Raleigh had been accustomed, as it was, to keep more than one vessel there The appointift of the ht it right, in consideration of this present, to strike off three hundred pounds frouest at Sherborne when the appointh waited until he left before starting for his new charge; all this ti William Cecil continued at Sherborne for his health At last, late in Septeh went down to Weymouth, and took with them their little son Walter, now about six years old The day was very fine, and the mother and son saw the new Governor on board his shi+p He was kept at sea forty-eight hours by contrary winds, but reached Jersey at last on an October h wrote home to his wife that he never saw a pleasanter island than Jersey, but protested that it was not in value the very third part of what had been reported One of his first visits was to the castle of Mont Orgueil, which had been rebuilt seven years before His intention had been to destroy it, but he was soposition that he determined to spare it, and in fact he told off a detachh's work in Jersey was considerable While he reovernor, he established a trade between the island and Newfoundland, undertook to register real property according to a definite system, abolished the unpopular cohtened in overnors had laid on the population Raleigh's beneficent rule in Jersey lasted just three years

While he was absent on this his first visit to the island, Lady Raleigh at Sherborne received news from Cecil of the partial destruction of Durham House by a fire, which had broken out in the old stables None of the Raleigh valuables were injured, but Lady Raleigh suggests that it is high ti were definitely settled about property in this 'rotten house,' which Sir Walter was constantly repairing and i any proper lease of it As a matter of fact, when the crash came, Durham House was the first of his losses Early in Nove the condition of the tin-workers, and going through his duties in the Stannaries Court of Lostwithiel We find hiainst the borough of Plymouth, which desired to stop the tin-works, and the year closes with his activities on behalf of the 'establish tinners'

The first two edy of Essex's trial and execution It seeh was at last provoked into open enmity by the taunts and threats of the Lord Marshal

Ae than his extraordinary way of coht displease him In his letter to the Queen on June 25, 1599, he openly naland; not reflecting that both of these personages were in the Queen's confidence, and that he was out of it We h could bear to be shown a letter addressed to the Queen in which Essex deliberately accused hi the ill success of your Majesty's th, and the destruction of your faithfullest servants' There were soive, and the accusation that he favoured Spain was one of these Shut up a his creatures in his house in the Strand, and refused all coht no accusation too libellous to spread against the trio who held the royal ear, against Raleigh, Cecil, and Cobha for his blood

It was probably in the suh wrote the curious letter of advice to Cecil which forms the only evidence we possess that he had definitely coe admits of no doubt of his intention He says:

If you take it for a good counsel to relent towards this tyrant, you will repent it when it shall be too late His malice is fixed, and will not evaporate by any of your mild courses For he will ascribe the alteration to her Majesty's pusillani that you work but upon her humour, and not out of any love towards him The less you make him, the less he shall be able to harm you and yours; and if her Majesty's favour fail hies, fear them not, for your own father was esteemed to be the contriver of Norfolk's ruin, yet his son followeth your father's son and loveth hienerous It was, at all events, extreh and Cecil the tienerosity to Essex was past

They took no overt steps, however, but it is plain that they kept thes that went on in Essex House On thebefore the insurrection was to break out, February 18, 1601, Raleigh sent a note to his kinses, as one of Essex's es, startled at the e, consulted Essex, who advised hih, not at Durhah assented to this, and caentleh told his cousin that a warrant was out to seize hies said it was too late, and a long conversation ensued, in the course of which a boat was seen to glide away froes pushed Raleigh's boat away, and bid him hasten home As he rowed off towards Durham House, four shots from the second boat missed him; it had been manned by Sir Christopher Blount, ith three or four servants of Essex, had coh

For this treason Blount asked and obtained Raleigh's pardon a few days later, on the scaffold At the last moment of his life, Essex also had desired to speak with Raleigh, having already soleainst hie of peace was not conveyed to Raleigh until it was too late According to Raleigh's own account, he had been standing near the scaffold, on purpose to see whether Essex would address him, and had retired because he was not spoken to His words in 1618 were these:

It is said I was a persecutor of my Lord of Essex; that I puffed out tobacco in disdain when he was on the scaffold But I take God to witness I shed tears for him when he died I confess I was of a contrary faction, but I kneas a noble gentleainst hiainst me

Raleigh was accused of barbarity by the adherents of Essex, but there is nothing to rebut the testireatest enemies, Blount, who confessed, a few minutes before he died, that he did not believe Sir Walter Raleigh intended to assassinate the Earl, nor that Essex himself feared it, 'only it was a word cast out to colour other h suffered from a profound melancholy as he was rowed back from the Tower to Durham House after the execution of Essex, and that it was afterwards believed that he was visited at that ti the suh became involved in a vexatious quarrel between certain of his own Dorsetshi+re servants The man Meeres, whom he had appointed as bailiff of the Sherborne estates nine years before, after doing trusty service to his ressive and h's brother, who had been made Constable of Sherborne Castle, and who overlooked Meeres on all occasions There began to be constant petty quarrels between the bailiff of the h at last dismissed the former bailiff and appointed another, Meeres put hih's, Lord Thomas Howard, now Lord Howard of Bindon, and refused to quit In the ust, Meeres audaciously arrested the rival bailiff, whereupon Raleigh had Meeres himself put in the stocks in the h's side, and when Meeres was released, the people riotously accoh was afterward attainted, Meeres took all the revenge he could, and succeeded in h Sir Walter Raleigh's letters testify to the great annoyance this ave hiood for such a knave,' was a kinswoh thought that Meeres was trained to forge his handwriting He tells Cecil:

The Earl did not make show to like Meeres, nor adht that secretly he ainst me; and, if Essex had prevailed, he had been used as the counterfeiter, for he writes my hand so perfectly that I cannot any way discern the difference[7]