Part 10 (1/2)
Ess.e.x was a popular idol. Ralegh, till his fall, never was. A contemporary said that Ess.e.x's reverses endeared him, and Ralegh's successes seemed to deepen the public dislike. The populace deluded itself with the fancy, absolutely groundless, that Ess.e.x's ruin was due to Ralegh, and that Ralegh must have exulted at it. Malignant anecdotes were current of his demeanour at his rival's last moments. He was said to have s.n.a.t.c.hed at the pleasure of conveying to the Lieutenant of the Tower the instructions for the execution. He was described as, on February 25, standing in a window over against the scaffold, and puffing out tobacco smoke in defiance. After his own death, Sir Lewis Stukely alleged him to have said that the great boy died like a calf, and like a craven; to have vaunted to one who asked if in the Islands Voyage the Earl had not brought him to his mercy, that he trusted they were now quits. Against such gross tales Ralegh needs no defence. He could not have behaved like a boorish ruffian to an adversary in the death agony.
He could not have spoken unmannerly words of his dead Cadiz comrade. He had been present at the Earl's trial as Captain of the Guard. In spite of taunts, he had given his evidence with dignity and moderation. As Captain of the Guard he had escorted several of the insurgents, though not Ess.e.x himself, to prison. In his official capacity he carried the order for the execution. In the same character he was present in the Tower. At first he had stood near the scaffold, supposing that Ess.e.x might wish to speak to him. To avoid misconstruction by lookers-on he soon withdrew. He stationed himself in the distant Armoury, where he could see without being seen. Afterwards he was sorry, he said, for it; since he heard that the Earl had inquired for him, desiring to have been reconciled.
[Sidenote: _His Part in the Catastrophe._]
His aspect is reported to have been sad and gloomy, as he was rowed back to Durham House. With his nature, and his gifts of imagination, he could not but have been awed by the consummation he had witnessed of a tragic doom. Later he believed he had always lamented the fate of Ess.e.x as the beginning of a new peril to himself from those who before had needed his support against a powerful rival. He may already have had a presentiment. He could rightly declare that the death was not his work.
Ess.e.x was his own undoer. A time had been at which Ralegh would gladly have become his firm friend. His emphatic concurrence, recorded by Rowland Whyte, with Lady Ralegh's wish that there were 'love and concord amongst all' was not hypocritical. In all sincerity he had written twice in that spirit in the spring of 1600 to Lady Ess.e.x. He had found it of no use; and a period came when he rejoiced in an inveterate enemy's discomfiture. It is fanciful to affirm that he would have been pleased to a.s.sist in turning aside the final shock of ruin. His sentiments towards Ess.e.x at the end, unhappily, are too certain for the precise meaning of his enigmatical undated letter to Cecil, discovered among the Hatfield papers, to be of much consequence. Of its authenticity there is no real doubt, though Mr. Charles Kingsley, whose enthusiasm for Ralegh is delightful and unmixed, chooses to question it on the slender ground that it is signed by initials, and that the style is, to his taste, unlike Ralegh's. Its exact meaning is much more open to dispute. Here it is:--
[Sidenote: _Advice to Cecil._]
'I am not wise enough to give you advice; but 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 your mild courses. For he will ascribe the alteration to her Majesty's pusillanimity, and not to your good nature: knowing 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 him, he will again decline to a common person. For after revenges fear them not; for your own father, that was esteemed to be the contriver of Norfolk's ruin, yet his son followeth your father's son and loveth him. Humours of men succeed not, but grow by occasions and accidents of time and power. Somerset made no revenge on the Duke of Northumberland's heirs. Northumberland, that now is, thinks not of Hatton's issue. Kelloway lives that murdered the brother of Horsey; and Horsey let him go by all his lifetime. I could name you a thousand of those; and therefore after-fears are but prophecies, or rather conjectures, from causes remote. Look to the present, and you do wisely.
His son shall be the youngest Earl of England but one, and if his father be now kept down, Will Cecil shall be able to keep as many men at his heels as he, and more too. He may also match in a better house than his; and so that fear is not worth the fearing. But if the father continue, he will be able to break the branches, and pull up the tree, root and all. Lose not your advantage; if you do, I rede your destiny. Yours to the end, W.R. Let the Queen hold Bothwell while she hath him. He will ever be the canker of her estate and safety. Princes are lost by security; and preserved by prevention. I have seen the last of her good days, and all ours, after his liberty.' By Bothwell is meant Ess.e.x. The real Bothwell was a natural son of James V. of Scotland, who had plotted against the reigning king, and been pardoned, and had plotted again.
[Sidenote: _Difficulties of Construction._]
On the date of the letter depends whether it signify doing to death, or grinding into obscurity. It is endorsed in Cecil's hand, 'Sir Walter Ralegh,' and in a later hand, '1601.' That is hardly a possible date.
The civil, ecclesiastical, and legal year in England, by which a secretary at Hatfield is likely to have reckoned, closed on March 24.
Consequently '1601' had not begun when Ess.e.x was already dead. The only question is, when in the legal year 1600 the letter was written. If at the end, when judgment had been p.r.o.nounced, its object would be the accomplishment of the capital sentence. If it were written early in 1600 its more probable purpose would be to induce Cecil to urge the Queen to strip Ess.e.x of all his dignities and offices. Ralegh's apologists can adduce for the less bloodthirsty interpretation the pa.s.sage: 'If her Majesty's favour fail him, he will again decline to a common person.'
The words naturally refer to disgrace, not to death. It has been imagined that the plan was to incapacitate him by law for employment, and to hold him a State prisoner. The remark, 'His son shall be the youngest Earl of England but one,' remains equally puzzling on either construction. Advocates of that which treats the letter as a plea for imprisonment and disqualification for office have to show how he could have been kept a State prisoner for life for offences he had committed before the rising of February, and, moreover, how the imprisoned living father was to make way in his peerage for the son. On the other theory which presumes it to have been an argument for sending Ess.e.x to the scaffold, it is as unintelligible how the father's fate, with its necessary attainder of blood, could legally transmit his dignity.
The inherent inconsistencies of the doc.u.ment are scarcely more perplexing than the circ.u.mstances of its origin. It has been suggested that the idea of the letter was Cecil's, and that he plotted to deceive posterity by inducing Ralegh to hold the pen. In the crude shape, that is an incredible hypothesis. But Cecil was of a nature to discuss questions of policy with his confidants, and extract their views, while he revealed only half his own. Very possibly the letter may have arisen out of a conversation in which the Minister had canva.s.sed the question of acting with prudent magnanimity towards the fallen favourite. He may have requested Ralegh to repeat in writing objections urged orally by him to such a course for the exposition of the case on both its sides.
At all events, it would be convenient for Cecil to have the doc.u.ment if in future it should be doubted which of the confederates had been the more vindictive. Ralegh could easily be drawn to try his hand, between fancy and earnest, at an academic theme on the lines of fas.h.i.+onable Italian state-craft. If the paper be indeed nothing but an exercise in pleading, the author deserves to be applauded for the artistic a.s.sumption of an air of sincerity which chills the reader's blood.
CHAPTER XV.
THE ZENITH (1601-1603).
[Sidenote: _Lord Oxford._]
From Ess.e.x's execution to the death of Elizabeth, on March 24, 1603, is a period of two years wanting a month. It const.i.tutes another stage in Ralegh's career. No more fascinating Court favourite, no Leicester, Ess.e.x, or mere Hatton, stood now in his way. If even Elizabeth's vivacious temperament may have ceased to require attentions as from a lover, she never grew insensible to wit, grace, versatility, and valour like his. The jealousy he continued to arouse was a tribute to his power. To this time belongs the story, contained in Bacon's _Apophthegms_, of Lord Oxford's insolence. The malicious Earl had returned, the Mirror of Tuscanismo, from his seven years' self-inflicted exile at Florence. He had gone thither to spite his father-in-law, Burleigh, by deserting his wife, and squandering his estate. The Queen was playing on the virginals before him and another n.o.bleman, while Ralegh was on duty near at hand. The ledge in front happened to have been taken away, so that the jacks were seen. Oxford and his companion smiled and whispered. Elizabeth inquired the reason. They were amused, answered Oxford, to see that when jacks went up heads went down. The point of the sarcasm is presumed to have been the connexion of Ralegh's influence with the decapitation of Ess.e.x. That the reference was to Ralegh might have seemed rather dubious had not Bacon taken it for granted. The fact of the favour of the Queen is certain.
[Sidenote: _Sully and Biron._]
Courtiers wrote to one another how 'good his credit with the Queen had lately grown.' He had a multiplicity of Court duties thrown upon him.
His acquaintance with other lands and their languages brought him forward whenever intercourse had to be held with foreigners. As Sir John Harington said of him, he was 'especially versed in foreign matters, his skill therein being always estimable and praiseworthy.' When Prince Maurice was endeavouring to relieve Ostend, which the Archduke and Infanta were besieging, Ralegh and Cobham paid his camp a visit. They were stated by Cecil to have no charge, and to have 'stolen over, having obtained leave with importunity to see this one action.' The English envoy wrote to Cecil that the two gallants had been entertained with much honour and extraordinary respect, but had seen little. Sir Henry Neville, however, told Winwood their journey was not for curiosity only.
They 'carried some message, which did no harm.' In March, 1601, Ralegh, by the Queen's order, had been escorting a Spanish envoy, sent to negotiate a truce, round London. Later, during the Queen's summer progress to Dover, he, with Cobham and Sidney, received Sully. As Captain of the Guard he playfully took Sully into custody, and conducted him to the Queen. The great Minister had been privately sent over by King Henry, who was at Calais. On September 5, the Duc de Biron arrived, to announce to Elizabeth the marriage of Mary de Medici to Henry.
Several n.o.blemen had been directed by the Council to provide for the Marshal's solemn reception in London. By some accident they were absent.
Ralegh, who had not been especially commissioned, happened to be in town. Apparently Sir Arthur Savage and Sir Arthur Gorges, who spoke French fluently, came to his help. Among them they amused the Frenchmen till horses were ready to convey them to Hamps.h.i.+re. The Queen was at Basing House. Ralegh wrote to Cecil: 'We have carried them to Westminster to see the monuments; and this Monday we entertained them at the Bear Garden, which they had great pleasure to see. I sent to and fro, and have laboured like a mule.' On the Wednesday he rode with the Marshal and his numerous company to the Vyne. The fair and large house of Lord Sandys has formed the subject of an interesting volume by its present owner, Mr. Chaloner Chute. It had been furnished from the royal apartments at the Tower, Hampton Court, and neighbouring country houses, for the accommodation of the foreign visitors. The Hamps.h.i.+re gentry lent seven score beds. Not when Ralegh had seen all housed were his cares over. He told Cobham, 'The French wear all black, and no kind of bravery at all.' His wardrobe, plentiful as a.s.suredly it was, had not been equipped in unison with such demureness. So, 'this Sat.u.r.day night, late,' he wrote on September 12 to Cobham from Basing, 'I am now going to London to provide me a plain taffeta suit, and a plain black saddle.'
Elizabeth rewarded his exertions in rendering the stay of the Frenchmen agreeable by knighting his brother, Carew Ralegh, on her departure from Basing House. Mr. Benjamin Tichborne received the same honour.
[Sidenote: _The Mermaid._]
Ralegh was a patron of literature, and had to devote evenings to the wits. To him has been ascribed the inst.i.tution, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, of the Mermaid Tavern meetings in Bread Street, Shakespeare's, Jonson's, Beaumont's, Fletcher's, Selden's, Cotton's, Camden's, and Donne's club. It is very likely; so likely that the intrinsic probability of the fact might be a motive for a fiction.
Whether as founder or guest it is more than likely he would take occasional part in the wit combats of which Beaumont has sung. We may lament that there was no Boswell, or even a Drummond, to report an encounter between Ralegh and Shakespeare. Ralegh abhorred drunkenness.
'It were better,' he has said, 'for a man to be subject to any vice than to drunkenness.' But teetotalism had not been invented in the days of Elizabeth. Not wholly unconnected with the social evenings at the Mermaid may have been the frequent trouble he experienced from bodily ailments. On September 19, 1601, he p.r.o.nounced himself too grievously ill to be able to travel to Bath for his annual cure. His ailments did not prevent him from warning Cecil of a powerful Spanish fleet held ready, with 6000 or 7000 soldiers, to descend either upon Ireland or the Low Countries. Fresh intelligence, which on September 26 he despatched to Cecil for transmission to the Lord Admiral, led him to believe the expedition was designed for Cork or Limerick. He inferred from the presence of many women on board that a 'Plantation' was meant. It was no false alarm. He announced to Cecil, on October 13, 1601, the landing of a strong body of Spaniards, and their intrenchment, as he had prognosticated, outside the town of Kinsale. His readiness to accept responsibility was met in the same spirit, particularly when Ireland was concerned. Later, Cecil admitted that Ralegh, though no Privy Councillor, was often invited to confer with the Council. Only three months before Elizabeth was seized with her mortal sickness, in 1602, he, with Cecil, was consulted by her on the treatment of Cormac McCarthy, Lord of Muskerry. Cecil was for leniency. Ralegh advised that no mercy should be shown, Cormac McCarthy's country being worth the Queen's keeping. Elizabeth accepted his frankly selfish advice.