Part 24 (1/2)

Ralegh's various persecutors were in the right to enjoy their victory beti The country awoke at a bound to the injury which had been done it On thebefore the final catastrophe its anger had been gathering against Stukely On August 20 Chaenerally decried After the execution no measure in execrations was observed He was christened Sir Judas Stories, probably fictitious, of the contereedily devoured 'Every man in Court,' it was reported, 'declines Stukely's coh Adh, was ruel the betrayer froham House on some duty connected with his office of Vice-Ad, who befriended him, of the affronts he received The ansas said to have been: 'Were I disposed to hang every one that speaks ill of thee, there would not be trees enough in allto another tale, reported by J Pory to Carleton, the King replied to his protestation of the truth of his accusations: 'I have done amiss; Sir Walter's blood be upon thy head' In vain he endeavoured to defend hiust 10 he had printed a short _Apology_ for his conduct as Ralegh's keeper In it he took up the only practicable ground, that he had sih's execution he was stung by the obloquy he had incurred into the publication of a formal indictment of the memory of the dead

On November 26 appeared a rhetorical document, which he had retained the Rev Dr Sharpe to help hi up It was entitled the 'Hu his own behaviour in the charge coh, and the scandalous aspersions cast upon hiled in the narrative As a specih in the Gate-house asked its keeper, Weekes, if any Roe The insinuation was that the Protestant hero would have liked an opportunity of reconciliation to the Church of Rome before his death

[Sidenote: _A Convicted Criminal_]

Such calumnies increased the popular wrath The whole nation exulted in the tidings within a few months that their author was about to be indicted for the capital offence of clipping coin Manourie was arrested at Plye He accused his friend, whose old confederate in clipping and sweating coin he had been By way, it is to be feared, of ehteous retaliation, it was reported that Sir Lewis had been caught on Twelfth Night within the precincts of the Palace of Whitehall in the act of clipping the very gold pieces, the wages of his perfidy, paid to him on the previous New Year's eve He was confined first in the Gate-house, and then in the Tower, in Ralegh's old cell, and in due course was tried Fruitlessly he endeavoured to shi+ft the crime on his son, who had absconded A servant confessed his master had followed the practice for the past seven years

The evidence was overwhelh's blood' Ja to his tool, and flung hiift for a tangible consideration He had to beggar himself to buy it His office of Vice-Admiral of Devon was forfeited, and it was filled by Eliot He slunk away first to his hoentle and poor, banned him, and thence to Lundy Isle There, aust 29, 1620 His treason has conferred on his obscure name an infamous i Ja perfidy tempted to perpetrate the final injustice But it ered for a few years n soil, and dropped into an unhonoured grave To hih for a glorious close to his splendid but checkered career The ht of the bathos into which a little reed his victieance was not satisfied with the self-wrought retribution on Stukely It ranged lower, and it ranged higher It condescended to spurn the tool of a tool Manourie, too, had to publish his apology He called God to witness that Stukely had bribed hih, and to put into his mouth malcontent speeches All the evil he told of his ally was believed His professions that his own adh's spontaneous abuse of the King were received with incredulity or unconcern On the fact, Captain King's word in his _Narrative_ in answer to Manourie was accepted in preference to the Frenchman's The _Narrative_ was not printed, but circulated extensively in er discoverable, Oldys seees in his life of Ralegh

'Never,' in it asseverated King, 'in all the years I followed Sir Walter, heard I him name his Majesty but with reverence I aainst the dead' He need not have feared that it had prevailed, or would prevail, with the nation That scarcely spared a thought to Manourie, unless to curse hih's death it was soon evident that the people had grown indifferent to the degree of its hero's personal loyalty, or the reverse The flood of enthusiasuilt or innocence in respect of particular charges Public opinion hallowed him as saint and martyr, and put the Court and Government on their defence

[Sidenote: _The Royal Declaration_]

[Sidenote: _Bacon's part in it_]

The vehemence and voluh to the spite of a faction were a surprise to the King and his advisers They seemed unable to comprehend its character and direction

They believed, or pretended to believe, that a de raised for a new trial of his offences They could not, or would not, see that the only question was of the distribution of punish, however, manifestly had to be done, and at once

One purpose of Stukely's _Petition_ had been to pave the way for a 'declaration from the State,' for which the Petitioner formally asked

The Committee of the Council had reco had approved, the issue of such a h to the scaffold Its preparation had been immediately taken in hand The reason for the delay in publication is unknown Probably the royal editor was extremely fastidious Whatever the cause of the procrastination, at last, on Novey appeared with the authority of the Crown James himself supplied part of the contents, 'additions,' wrote Bacon to Villiers, 'which were very material, and fit to proceed from his Majesty' Naunton and Yelverton also assisted in the coh marred by royal and other interpolations, the diction have been traced to the serviceable hand of the Lord Chancellor Ralegh and Bacon had long been intimate with one another They had never been eneh had cited with applause Bacon's _Advance_, and other works He had testified that no reater brevity, than that excellent learned gentleman Bacon fully reciprocated the ad on record his delight in Sir Walter's pretty wit, and adventurous spirit If it be an excuse for his share in the persecution of the man and his memory, he was animated by no personal antipathy But his skill had been retained for those ere hounding Ralegh to death, as it had been retained for the destruction of his old patron Essex He did not now let his conscience afflict itself at the thought that he was about to gloss an act, which a historian, not very friendly to the sufferer, has said 'can hardly be dignified with the title of a judicial murder' Neither passion, pique, nor fear, inspired his pen His function in official life, as he interpreted it, was to be the advocate of authority; his feeling for any but scientific truth was never acute; and he had positive pleasure in the employment of his intellectual dexterity, whatever the object Acting on that system he did the best he could with the case put before him on the present occasion His and its misfortune was that it was irretrievably bad His instructions were that Ralegh had gained his pardon by a lie; that there was no Mine, and that he never supposed there was any; that he went to harry and plunder Spaniards, and for nothing else; when he found spoil was not to be had as easily as he had anticipated, he had determined to desert his men, and fly to the East Indies, or stay behind in Newfoundland The King was supposed to have, with his wonted and infallible sagacity,since That royal hypothesis of stark imposture, and no enthusiasm, was the clue which the Lords Commissioners, with Bacon at their head, had obsequiously borrowed to hale Ralegh to the scaffold It was the strange sophisain was set to compose a sedative for the popular emotion

[Sidenote: _His Majesty's Honour and Justice_]

[Sidenote: _His Princely Judg, both to the indignant nation and to the King's own injured sense of consistency He had to try to extricate hisbeen an accomplice in a scheme now denounced by hi betrayed, out of cowardice and cupidity, a faithful servant to foreign vengeance That is theof the exordiu's Printers, Bonhaive account of their actions to any but God alone; yet such are his Majesty's proceedings, as he hath always been willing to bring theood people with his intentions and courses, giving as well to future tiuised declarations of the, that for actions not well founded it is advantage to let them pass in uncertain reports, but for actions that are built upon sure and solid grounds, such as his Majesty's are, it belongeth to them to be published by opento declare and s in a case of such a nature as this which followeth is; since it not only concerns his own people, but also a foreign prince and state abroad Accordingly, therefore, for that which concerneth Sir Walter, late executed for treason--leaving the thoughts of his heart, and the protestations that he made at his death, to God that is the Searcher of all hearts, and the Judge of all truth--his Majesty hath thought fit to s appeared unto himself, and upon what proofs and evident matter, and the examination of the coe--and nah himself, by his own letter to Secretary Winwood, had coreater erounded; whereby it will evidently appear how agreeable they have been in all points to honour and justice Sir Walter Ralegh having been condedom; and for the space of fourteen years, by his Majesty's princely clemency and mercy, not only spared from his execution, but permitted to live as in _libera custodia_ in the Tower, and to enjoy his lands and living, till all was by law evicted froround, and not by forfeiture--which notwithstanding his Majesty out of his abundant grace gave hith he fell upon an enterprise of a golden mine in Guiana This proposition of his was presented and recommended to his Majesty by Sir Ralph Winwood, then Secretary of State, as a matter not in the air or speculative, but real and of certainty; for that Sir Walter Ralegh had seen of the ore of the mine with his eyes, and tried the richness of it

It is true that his Majesty, in his own princely judgave no belief unto it; as well for that his Majesty was verily persuaded that in nature there are no such old entire, as they described this to be; and if any such had been, it was not probable that the Spaniards, ere so industrious in the chase of treasure, would have neglected it so long; as also for that it proceeded froh, invested with such circumstances both of his disposition and fortune But nevertheless Sir Walter Ralegh had so enchanted the world with his confident asseveration of that which everyto believe, as his Majesty's honour was in a ed not to deny unto his people the adventure and hope of so great riches, to be sought and achieved at the charge of volunteers; especially, for that it stood with his Majesty's politic andtienerous enterprises for plantations, discoveries, and opening of new trades'

[Sidenote: _An Apology for an Apology_]

Theprinciple in the minds of the authors could not but dislocate and discolour facts Those were carefully culled which iven conclusion Incoether The 'Declaration of the Deh, as well in his Voyage as in and since his Return, and of the true motives and induce justice upon hi excuse for a baseness The mass of it is an accumulation of hearsay evidence Its chief object was to depict Ralegh as a ret; to sneer away his lustre and dignity With this sordid view the trivial episode of theminuteness Feriters of authority have ventured to applaud the treatise An exception is Mr Spedding, who could not well let judgainst his idol without a word of defence for one of the worst blemishes in a pitiful official career He shows here as elsewhere his adence in the collection of evidence; but he cannot be said to have shed any new light either on Ralegh's character, or on the part Bacon played in his slaughter, and in the endeavour to blacken his 's conscience had no option but to put Ralegh to death According to hi's sanction of warlike preparations iht be necessary to use the to him the commission to conduct an armed squadron and soldiery to a ht to break a hostile Spanish blockade of the river