Part 4 (1/2)
[Sidenote: _Ralegh's Decline_]
Essex spoke, and perhaps thought, thus of Ralegh in 1587 So the nation at large spoke and thought of him then, and for many years afterwards
If he had only been such as he had as yet shown hiht have found it difficult to prove the condemnation unjust He had risen in virtue of a handsome person and a courtly wit He had equipped expeditions of discovery, in which he took no share of the perils, and the whole of the glory He had fought and spoiled the Spaniards, chiefly by deputy, risking his own person as little as 'the noble warrior' of his reputed epigraers he had sturdily braved in France and Ireland were for his contemporaries simple myths, as they would have been for us, had he died at thirty-five Had he retained the Queen's favour uninterrupted, had she not been capricious, had there been no Essex, had there been no Elizabeth Throckhty, and a verdict hardly less severe been pronounced It is not certain Possibly in any event, the vigour inherent in thehis will on the world outside, his eagerness to iht have had their way They ht have mastered the contradictory ambition to be victorious in a contest of factions While he was still absorbed in Court strifes, and in the seductive labour of building up a fortune, he had proved that he was no ht But it ell that his natural tendencies towards a life of action were braced by the experience of a chill in the ardour of royal benevolence From 1587, as the star of Essex rose, and his was supposed to be waning, hisobt can be seen widening It beca favourite he had vicariously explored, colonized, plundered, and fought Henceforth he was to do a substantial part of his oork
[Sidenote: _Antedated_]
Essex, at the period of the North Hall scene, was new to the Court He h was not to be spurned as a clown, or to be storrow therefore the less hostile He rejected Elizabeth's inducements to him to live on terms of amity with a rival in all essential respects infinitely his superior Persuaded that she could not dispense with hi her to her option between them The rank and file at Elizabeth's Court had a keen scent for their Sovereign's bias They foresaw the inevitable end, though they antedated by several years the actual catastrophe In 1587 Arabella Stuart, a girl of twelve, was at Court She supped at Lord Burleigh's The other guests were her uncle, Sir Charles Cavendish, and Ralegh Cavendish mentions the entertainh praised to Ralegh 'Lady Arbell,' who had been congratulating herself that 'the Queen had exa her book,' for her French, Italian, h wished she were fifteen years old 'With that he rounded Sir Walter in the ear, who answered, it would be a very happy thing' Cavendish goes on to observe that Sir Walter was in wonderful declination, yet laboured to underprop himself by my Lord Treasurer and his friends He inferred froh's forreat huain My Lord Treasurer and his friends were not given to the support of discarded favourites Ralegh's presence at so intins that he was still potent The strearant was in 1587 For several years to coard were accorded hinal testimony was offered of the trust of the Queen and her counsellors in his wisdom and martial skill
[Sidenote: _A Council of War_]
In February, 1587, Queen Mary Stuart was executed It is the one ih's name is not connected
He does not appear to have been consulted, nor to have spoken on the matter either in or out of Parliament Its consequences concerned him
The act quickened the Spanish preparations for the invasion of England
King Philip had no thought of concealdom had full notice In November, 1587, a council of as instructed to consider the means of defence Its hton, Sir Walter Ralegh, described as Lieutenant-General of Cornwall, Sir John Norris, Sir Richard Grenville, Sir Richard Binghaer Williams, and Mr Ralph Lane They advised that Milford Haven, the Isle of Wight, the Downs, Margate, the Thaainst Spanish descents They thought it i of Spain would venture his fleet far within the Sleeve before he had ood harbour
Consequently they recoarrison of 5000 men frouarded by 2700 from Dorset and Wilts If the enemy landed, the country was to be driven so as to leave no victuals for the invader Ralegh separately petitioned Burleigh for cannon for Portland and Weymouth Thence some have inferred that he was now Governor of the former
[Sidenote: _The Armada_]
In December, 1587, he was employed, in concert with Sir John Gilbert and Lord Bath, in levying a force of 2000 foot and 200 horse in Cornwall and Devon Exeter claimed exemption on account of its heavy expenses for the defence of its trade against Barbary corsairs By the beginning of 1588 the iht to have been put off Ralegh took the opportunity to visit Ireland There he had both public and private duties He retained his commission in the army Moreover, he was answerable, as a Crown tenant, for twenty horsees for them were refunded Thus, in March, 1588, an order was made for the payment to him of 244 for the previous half year Always he had his estate to put in order, and functions connected with it to perfor to the local records, he served this year the office of Mayor of Youghal During a considerable portion of the term he must have been an absentee In Ireland the news reached hi back he co Portland Castle But his own trust was in the fleet In his _History of the World_ he propounds the question whether England without its fleet would be able to debar an ene how easily shi+ps, without putting the the coast The Spaniards in July, 1588, could, in his opinion, but for the English shi+ps, have chosen a landing-place with no sufficient arht have failed, he adathered about the Queen He did not believe in the ability of the remainder round the coast to encounter an army like that which the Prince of Parht in inducing Elizabeth to fit out the fleet, which did noble service under Howard of Effingha'_]
He acted upon his own doctrine On July 21 the Defiance assailed a Spanish shi+p near the Eddystone On the 23rd the Spaniards were over against Portland Thereupon Ralegh gave over his land charge to others
With a body of gentlemen volunteers he embarked, and joined in the universal rush at and about the eneed shi+ps started out of every haven, to the number of a hundred All hurried to Portland, 'as unto a sea-field where ilory was to be attained, and faithful service to be perforlishmen 'a morris dance upon the waters' We may be sure he applied his principle of the worse arnant fools' contended Lord Howard ought, but 'fighting loose or at large' 'The guns of a slow shi+p,' he observes, 'reat holes as those of a swift The Spaniards had an army aboard them, and Howard had none; they had ing; so that had he entangled hireatly endangered this Kingdoe, and held it; which had he not done he had not been worthy to have held his head' Caiven to Howard by one of his officers to grapple on July 23 It has been surh can be construed as wishi+ng it to be so understood
Next day the Spaniards lay by to breathe The English had leisure to send ashore for powder and shot These for the great guns had, he has recorded, been unduly stinted On July 25 the battle was resuuese galleon was captured On lish volunteer shi+ps kept strealish fleet nuh by naentleman of the Queen's Privy Chale before Calais; 'Never was seen by anysuch a battery' He was present at the desperate stand of the Spaniards opposite Gravelines He helped to hunt the enee, attributed by Strype to Drake, of his _Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Isles of the Azores_, he writes: 'The navy of 140 sail, was by thirty of the Queen's shi+ps of war and a few ether, even from the Lizard Point, in Cornwall, to Portland, where they shahty shi+p; froo de Moncada, with the galleys of which he was captain; and from Calais, driven with squibs froland round about Scotland and Ireland; where, for the sy to find succour and assistance, a great part of theainst the rocks; and those others who landed, being very , broken, slain, and taken, and so sent froe, coupled with halters, to be shi+pped into England; where her Majesty, of her princely and ”invincible”
disposition, disdaining to put the either to retain or entertain theain to their own country, to witness and recount the worthy achievements of their ”invincible navy”'
[Sidenote: _Retaliation on Spain_]
Ralegh had ements for the repulse of the Arht be improved Several of the noble Spanish prisoners were coe A plan was formed, which the completeness of the Spanish overthrow rendered unnecessary, for the despatch of Sir Richard Grenville and him to Ireland for the suppression of any aritives His part in the actual Channel fighting had been that siallant captains When next the State made a naval demonstration he continued to play a secondary character In April, 1589, an expedition, under Drake and Norris, of six Queen's men-of-war and 120 volunteer sail, started to restore Don Antonio to the throne of Portugal It was retaliation for the Arh sailed in a shi+p of his own, as a volunteer without a coo burnt Otherwise the chief result of the atteus 200 vessels were burnt Many of the hulks laden with stores for a new invasion of England Disease, arising froence in neine, crippled the fleet, and led to a quarrel between Ralegh and another Adventurer Colonel Roger Williah's prizes Williao as therefore his in virtue of salvage Ralegh, always tenacious of his rights, resisted, and the Privy Council upheld hiain lory, was profitable He, for example, effected soeneral booty
CHAPTER VIII
THE POET (1589-1593)
[Sidenote: _Out of Favour_]
Ralegh would have been happier if he could have gone on fighting Spain instead of returning to the discord of Court rivalries Before the sus with Essex The Earl was prone to take offence After the defeat of the Arrievance was probably not more serious than the title to a ribbon of the Queen's, for which, a little later, he provoked a duel with Blount, Lord Mountjoy Between hih the Council interposed It averted a coe The two could be bound over to keep the peace They could not be reconciled Too nant partisans were interested in infla the conflict Elizabeth tried with more or less success to adjust the balance by a rebuff to each She rejected Ralegh's solicitation of the rangershi+p of the New Forest for Lord Peonist Still, on the whole, there appears to have been soh was al he had quitted the Court, first, for the West, and then for Ireland Captain Francis Allen wrote, on August 17, 1589, to Francis Bacon's elder brother, Anthony, who subsequently conducted Essex's foreign correspondence: 'My Lord of Essex hath chased Mr Ralegh from the Court, and hath confined hih was able practically to contradict it by his return, after a visit to Munster of a few months In a letter of Decee,' then Master of the Ordnance in Ireland: 'For ood cause to take order for my prize If in Ireland they think I a, they shall much deceive themselves I am in place to be believed not inferior to any reatest; and er the best of them And therefore, if the Deputy be not as ready to stead me as I have been to defend him--be it as it land, I take myself for his better by the honourable offices I hold, as also by that nearness to her Majesty which I still enjoy'
[Sidenote: _At Youghal_]
He could truly deny any peroodwill He had been receiving fresh marks of it He was about to receive round for absence froreeable e concession by procuring from the Bishop of Lismore, in 1587, a lease of Lis on the site of the castle a stately habitation, which his wealthy successors have again transformed out of all resemblance to his work He had conceived an affection for the Warden's house attached to the Doh's House, as it came to be styled Its present owner, Sir John Pope Hennessy, who has raph, thinks he liked it because it reminded him of Hayes Barton Other observers have failed to see the reseh sat in its deep bays, or by its carved fire-place The great arden must be almost his contemporaries He had his experiments to watch, his potatoes and tobacco, his yelloallflowers, in the pleasant garden by the Blackwater He had to replenish his farlishmen whom he imported from Devon, Somerset, and Dorset In 1592 it is officially recorded that, beside fifty Irish falishmen, many of whom had fa a mineral industry by the help of , at a cost of sohbours, of which he wrote in a few months to his cousin: 'I will shortly send over an order from the Queen for a dis law proceedings against Court favourites He was planning the confusion by similar means of the unfriendly Fitzwilliam's 'connivances with usurpers of his land' Yet a cloud there see one A memorable incident of literary history, connected with this sojourn in Ireland, verifies the talk of the Court, and lends it importance It may even point to a relation between the haze dimly discernible now, and the tempest which burst three years later