Part 5 (2/2)

Meeres was ready in the law, and during the month of September sent twenty-six subpoenas down to Sherborne But on October 3 he was subdued for the ti, and wrote to Cecil from his prison in the Gatehouse that he was very sorry for what he had said so 'furiously and foolishly' about Sir Walter Raleigh, and begged for a merciful consideration of it He was pardoned, but he proved a troublesome scoundrel then and afterwards

Early in Septeh ca to return at once, but found hiraceful duty Henry IV of France, being at Calais, had sent the Duc de Biron, with a retinue of three hundred persons, to pay a visit of compliment to Elizabeth It was important that the French favourite should be well received in England, but no one expected hie and Sir Arthur Gorges were the Duke's very insufficient escort, until Raleigh fortunately made his appearance and did the honours of London in better style He took the French envoys to Westreater satisfaction, to the Bear Garden The Queen was now staying, as the guest of the Marquis of Winchester, at Basing, and so, on Septeh took the Duke and his suite down to the Vine, a house in Hampshi+re, where he was royally entertained The Queen visited them here, and on the 12th they all ca Park By the Queen's desire, Raleigh wrote to Cobha and help to entertain the Frenchmen; he added, that in three or four days the visit would be over, and he and Cobhah display an intimate friendshi+p between Lord Cobhaht of co events The French were all dressed in black, a colour Raleigh did not possess in his copious wardrobe, so that he had to order theof a black taffeta suit in a hurry, to fetch which froing the Duke safe down to Basing It was on the next day, if the French a conversation with Elizabeth about Essex, at the end of which, after railing against her dead favourite, she opened a casket and produced the very skull of Essex The subject of the fall of favourites was one in which Biron should have taken the keenest interest Ten , came to that frantic death in front of the Bastille which Chaplish readers in the edies The visit to Elizabeth occupies the third act of _Byron's Conspiracy_, which, published in 1608, contains of course no reference to Raleigh's part on that occasion

It may be that in the autunisant of Raleigh's existence Spain was oncean invasion which actually took place on September 21, at Kinsale By h saw the Spanish fleet advancing, and warned the Governs were a little too positive in pointing out Cork and Limerick as the points of attack Meanwhile, he wrote out for the Queen's perusal a State paper on _The Dangers of a Spanish Faction in Scotland_ This paper has not been preserved, but the ruhtened Jae it prudent to offer Elizabeth three thousand Scotch troops against the invader Raleigh's casual reard to Irish affairs at this critical time, as we find them in his letters to Cecil, are not sye which looks veryof assassination; yet it is certain that Raleigh, surveying from his remote Sherborne that Munster which he kneell, took in the salient features of the position with extraordinary success In almost every particular he showed hi of 1601

In November the Duke of Lennox came somewhat hastily to London from Paris, entrusted with a very delicate diplomatic commission from Jah and Cobham, and that he discussed with thelish throne It moreover appears that he found their intentions 'traitorous to the King,' that is to say unfavourable to the candidature of Jaly dark, and the particulars of it rest mainly on a tainted authority, that of Lord Henry Howard It may be conjectured that what really happened was that the Duke of Lennox, learning that Raleigh was in town, desired Sir Arthur Savage to introduce hiested a private conference, which was first refused, then granted, in Cobha James's offers, and went and told Cecil that he had done so Cecil, however, chose to believe that Raleigh was keeping sorows sensibly colder to Raleigh, and he speaks of Raleigh's 'ingratitude,'

though it is not plain what he should have been grateful for to Cecil

It was now thirteen years since Raleigh had abandoned the hope of colonising Virginia, though his thoughts had often reverted to that savage country, of which he was the noe lord In 1602 he made a final effort to assert his authority there He sent out a certain Samuel Mace, of whose expedition we know little; and about the same time his nephew, Bartholomew Gilbert, with an experienced mariner, Captain Gosnoll, went to look for the lost colony and city of Raleigh These latter started in a sh they enjoyed an interesting voyage, they never touched Virginia at all They discovered and named Martha's Vineyard, and soroup; then, after a pleasant sojourn, they caland, and landed at Exh, while he was impoverished and a prisoner in the Tower, to carry out the drea that could have happened to Raleigh would have been for him to have personally conducted to the West this expedition of 1602 To have been out of England when the Queen died ht have saved him from the caluh was a coe in a letter of August 21, 1602, shows us that this was not the fact He says: 'Neither of theinian colonists, 'but I do send both the barques away again, having saved the charge in sassafras wood' From the same letter we find that Gilbert and Gosnoll went off without Raleigh's leave, though in his shi+p and at his expense, and the latter therefore prays that his nephew may be stripped of his rich store of sassafras and cedar wood, partly in chastise the London rily of him not as a kinsman, but as 'my Lord Cobham's man;' then relents in a postscript--'_all_ is confiscate, but he shall have his part again'

Raleigh was feeble in health and irritable in teh, with a woman's instinct, tried to curb his ambition, and tie him down to Sherborne 'My wife says that every day this place aroorse and worse' Meanwhile, there is really not an atoed in any political intrigue He spent the suoing through the round of his duties All thein the wilderness,' as he says, hearing froue rurace of the Duc de Biron He is also 'entleust 9, he left Jersey, in his shi+p the 'Antelope,'

fearing if he stayed any longer to exhaust her English stores, and get noat Wey Cecil and Northumberland to meet hi his absence Lord Howard of Bindon had once more taken up the wicked steward, Meeres, and persuaded Sir Williaain

Raleigh complains to Cecil:

I never busied myself with the Lord Viscount's [Lord Bindon's]

wealth, nor of his extortions, nor poisoning of his wife, as is here avowed, have I spoken I have forebornebut I will not endure wrong at so peevish a fool's hands any longer I will rather lose my life, and I think that my Lord Puritan Peryaues and villains than of men, or else he would not, at Bindon's instances, have yielded to try actions againstout of the land

The vexation was a real one, but this is the language of a petulant invalid, of a rasshopper has become a burden We are therefore not surprised to find him at Bath on September 15, so ill that he can barely write a note to Cecil warning him of the approach of a Spanish fleet, the news of which has just reached hirew little better at Bath, and in October we find hi by Cobhaht froh took to be a diamond Immediately after this, he set out on what he calls his 'miserable journey into Cornwall,' no other than his custoh the Stannary Courts Once he had enjoyed these bracing rides over the moors, but his animal spirits were subdued, and the coldOctober woods, and the chilly granite judg joints In November, however, he is back at Sherborne, restored to health, and intending to linger in Dorsetshi+re as long as he can, 'except there be cause to hasten me up'

Meanwhile he had paid a brief visit to London, and had spoken with the Queen, as it would appear, for the last time Cecil, as also present, has recorded in a letter of November 4 this interviehich took place the previous day On this last occasion Elizabeth sought Raleigh's advice on her Irish policy The President of Munster had reported that he had seen fit to 'kill and hang divers poor ' to Cormac MacDermod McCarthy, Lord of Muskerry, and to burn all his castles and villages froh Cecil was inclined to think that severity had been pushed too far, and that the wretched Cor been accustoave, as usual, his unflinching constant counsel for drastic severity He 'very earnestly moved her Majesty of all others to reject Cormac MacDer, secondly, because he lived so under the eye of the State that, whensoever she would, it was in her power to suppress hiue Carew, that whatever pardon was extended to others, none ht be shown to Corh had for two years past advised the retention of the gentle and learned Florence MacCarthy in the Tower, as 'a erous to the present State, beloved of such as seek the ruin of the real in his twenty years' acquaintance with Raleigh, was praying Cecil to let hiht that the doors which detained Florence MacCarthy would soon open for acells through long years of captivity the _History of the World_ would grow beside the growing _History of the Early Ages of Ireland_

In this year, 1602, Raleigh parted with his vast Irish estates to Richard Boyle, afterwards Earl of Cork, and placed the purchase- enterprises It is known that Cecil had an interest in this fleet of merchantmen, and as late as January 1603 he writes about a cruiser in which Raleigh and he were partners, begging Raleigh, from prudential reasons, to conceal the fact that Cecil was in the adventure

There was no abateh, although in his own crafty mind he had decided that the death of the Queen should set the terh's prosperity On March 30, 1603, Elizabeth died, and with her last breath the fortune and even the personal safety of Raleigh expired

We h's condition and fame at this critical point in his life He was over fifty years of age, but in health and spirits y had shown signs of abate that had drawn public attention strongly to his gifts If he had died in 1603, unattainted, in peace at Sherborne, it is a question whether he would have attracted the notice of posterity in any very general degree To close students of the reign of Elizabeth he would still be, as Mr Gardiner says, 'the ether' But he would not be to us all the ee of Elizabeth, the foreure which takes the same place in the field of action which Shakespeare takes in that of itorture of imprisonedy closing on Tower Hill is the necessary coreatness

All this it is easy to see, but it is ht about a condition of things in which such a tragedy becah was a man of severe speech and reservedthe sluggish by his rapidity, and galling the dull by his wit All through his career we find hiet on with, proud to his inferiors, still more crabbed to those above him If policy required that he should use the arts of a diplo his rivals to the quick by an obsequiousness in speech to which his eyes and shoulders gave the lie With all his wealth and influence, hepoints of his ambition; he never sat in the House of Peers, he never pushed his way to the council board, he never held quite the highest rank in any naval expedition, he never ruled with only the Queen above him even in Ireland He who of all , was forced to play the subordinate all through the ated life of adventure It was only for a ative he struggled to the surface, to sink again directly the achievement was accomplished This soured and would probably have paralysed him, but for the noble stimulant of misfortune; and to the temper which this continued disappointment produced, we must look for the cause of his unpopularity

It is difficult, as we have said, to understand hoas that he had the opportunity to become unpopular Froather that the tavern-keepers throughout the country considered Raleigh at fault for a tax which was really insisted on by the Queen's rapacity He prays Cecil to induce Elizabeth to remit it, for, he says, 'I cannot live, nor show h the tohere these taverners dwell' This is the only passage which I can find in his published correspondence which accounts in any degree for the fact that we presently find Raleigh beyond question the best-hated land[8]

CHAPTER VII

THE TRIAL AT WINCHESTER