1573 TO 1577.
Letters of lord Talbot to his father.--Connexion of Leicester with lady
Sheffield.--Anecdote of the queen and Mr. Dyer.--Queen suspicions of
Burleigh.--Countesses of Lenox and Shrewsbury imprisoned.--Queen refuses
the sovereignty of Holland.--Her remarkable speech to the
deputies.--Alchemy.--Notice of Dr. Dee--of Frobisher.--Family of
Love.--Burning of two Anabaptists.--Entertainment of the queen at
Kennelworth.--Notice of Walter earl of Essex.--General favor towards his
son Robert.--Letter of the queen to the earl of Shrewsbury respecting
Leicester.
Great as had been the injustice committed by Elizabeth in the detention
of the queen of Scots, it must be confessed that the offence brought
with it its own sufficient punishment in the fears, jealousies and
disquiets which it entailed upon her.
Where Mary was concerned, the most approved loyalty, the longest course
of faithful service, and the truest attachment to the protestant cause,
were insufficient pledges to her oppressor of the fidelity of her nobles
or ministers. The earl of Shrewsbury, whom she had deliberately selected
from all others to be the keeper of the captive queen, and whose
vigilance had now for so long a period baffled all attempts for her
deliverance, was, to the last, unable so to establish himself in the
confidence of his sovereign as to be exempt from such starts of
suspicion and fits of displeasure as kept him in a state of continual
apprehension. Feeling with acuteness all the difficulties of his
situation, this nobleman judged it expedient to cause Gilbert lord
Talbot, his eldest son, to remain in close attendance on the motions of
the queen; charging him to study with unremitting attention all the
intrigues of the court, on which in that day so much depended, and to
acquaint him with them frequently and minutely. To this precaution of
the earl's we owe several extant letters of lord Talbot, which throw
considerable light on the minor incidents of the time.
In May 1573, this diligent news-gatherer acquaints his father, that the
earl of Leicester was much with her majesty, that he was more than
formerly solicitous to please her, and that he was as high in favor as
ever: but that two sisters, lady Sheffield and lady Frances Howard, were
deeply in love with him and at great variance with each other; that the
queen was on this account very angry with them, and not well pleased
with him, and that spies were set upon him. To such open demonstrations
of feminine jealousy did this great queen condescend to have recourse!
Yet she remained all her life in ignorance of the true state of this
affair, which, in fact, is not perfectly cleared up at the present day.
It appears that a criminal intimacy was known to subsist between
Leicester and lady Sheffield even before the death of her lord, in
consequence of which, this event, which was sudden, and preceded it is
said by violent symptoms, was popularly attributed to the Italian arts
of Leicester. During this year, lady Sheffield bore him a son, whose
birth was carefully concealed for fear of giving offence to the queen,
though many believed that a private marriage had taken place. Afterwards
he forsook the mother of his child to marry the countess of Essex, and
the deserted lady became the wife of another. In the reign of James I.,
many years after the death of Leicester, sir Robert Dudley his son, to
whom he had left a great part of his fortune, laid claim to the family
honors, bringing several witnesses to prove his mother's marriage, and
among others his mother herself. This lady declared on oath that
Leicester, in order to compel her to form that subsequent marriage in
his lifetime which must deprive her of the power of claiming him as her
husband, had employed the most violent menaces, and had even attempted
her life by a poisonous potion which had thrown her into an illness by
which she lost her hair and nails. After the production of all this
evidence, the heirs of Leicester exerted all their interest to stop
proceedings;--no great argument of the goodness of their cause;--and sir
Robert Dudley died without having been able to bring the matter to a
legal decision. In the next reign the evidence formerly given was
reviewed, and the title of duchess Dudley conferred on the widow of sir
Robert, the patent setting forth that the marriage of the earl of
Leicester with lady Sheffield had been satisfactorily proved.
So close were the contrivances, so deep, as it appears, the villanies of
this celebrated favorite! But his consummate art was successful in
throwing over these and other transactions of his life, a veil of doubt
and mystery which time itself has proved unable entirely to remove.
Hatton was at this time ill, and lord Talbot mentions that the queen
went daily to visit him, but that a party with which Leicester was
thought to co-operate, was endeavouring to bring forwards Mr. Edward
Dyer to supplant him in her majesty's favor. This gentleman, it seems,
had been for two years in disgrace; and as he had suffered during the
same period from a bad state of health, the queen was made to believe
that the continuance of her displeasure was the cause of his malady, and
that his recovery was without her pardon hopeless. This was taking her
by her weak side; she loved to imagine herself the dispenser of life and
death to her devoted servants, and she immediately dispatched to the
sick gentleman a comfortable message, on receipt of which he was made
whole. The letter-writer observes, to the honor of lord Burleigh, that
he concerned himself as usual only in state affairs, and suffered all
these love-matters and petty intrigues to pass without notice before his
eyes.
All the caution, however, and all the devotedness of this great minister
were insufficient to preserve him, on the following occasion, from the
unworthy suspicions of his mistress. The queen of Scots had this year
with difficulty obtained permission to resort to the baths of Buxton for
the recovery of her health; and a similar motive led thither at the same
time the lord-treasurer. Elizabeth marked the coincidence; and when, a
year or two afterwards, it occurred for the second time, her displeasure
broke forth: she openly accused her minister of seeking occasions of
entering into intelligence with Mary by means of the earl of Shrewsbury
and his lady, and it was not without difficulty that he was able to
appease her. This striking fact is thus related by Burleigh himself in a
remarkable letter to the earl of Shrewsbury.
* * * * *
_Lord Burleigh to the earl of Shrewsbury._
"My very good lord,
"My most hearty and due commendations done, I cannot sufficiently
express in words the inward hearty affection that I conceive by your
lordship's friendly offer of the marriage of your younger son; and that
in such a friendly sort, by your own letter, and, as your lordship
writeth, the same proceeding of yourself. Now, my lord, as I think
myself much beholding to you for this your lordship's kindness, and
manifest argument of a faithful good will, so must I pray your lordship
to accept mine answer, with assured opinion of my continuance in the
same towards your lordship. There are specially two causes why I do not
in plain terms consent by way of conclusion hereto; the one for that my
daughter is but young in years; and upon some reasonable respects I have
determined, notwithstanding I have been very honorably offered matches,
not to treat of marrying of her, if I may live so long, until she shall
be above fifteen or sixteen; and if I were of more likelihood myself to
live longer than I look to do, she should not, with my liking, be
married before she were near eighteen or twenty.
"The second cause why I defer to yield to conclusion with your
lordship, is grounded upon such a consideration as, if it were not truly
to satisfy your lordship, and to avoid a just offence which your
lordship might conceive of my forbearing, I would not by writing or
message utter, but only by speech to your lordship's self. My lord, it
is over true and over much against reason, that upon my being at
Buckstones last, advantage was sought by some that loved me not, to
confirm in her majesty a former conceit which had been labored to be put
into her head, that I was of late time become friendly to the queen of
Scots, and that I had no disposition to encounter her practises; and
now, at my being at Buckstones, her majesty did directly conceive that
my being there was, by means of your lordship and my lady, to enter into
intelligence with the queen of Scots; and hereof at my return to her
majesty's presence I had very sharp reproofs for my going to Buckstones,
with plain charging of me for favoring the queen of Scots, and that in
so earnest a sort as I never looked for, knowing my integrity to her
majesty; but, specially, knowing how contrariously the queen of Scots
conceived of me for many things past to the offence of the said queen of
Scots. And yet, true it is, I never indeed gave just cause by any
private affection of my own, or for myself, to offend the queen of
Scots; but whatsoever I did was for the service of mine own lady and
queen, which if it were yet again to be done I would do. And though I
know myself subject to contrary workings of displeasure, yet I will not,
for remedy of any of them both, decline from the duty I owe to God and
my sovereign queen; for I know, and do understand, that I am in this
contrary sort maliciously depraved, and yet in secret sort; on the one
part, and that of long time, that I am the most dangerous enemy and evil
willer to the queen of Scots; on the other side, that I am also a secret
well willer to her and her title; and that I have made my party good
with her. Now, my lord, no man can make both these true together; but it
sufficeth for such as like not me in doing my duty to deprave me, and
yet in such sort is done in darkness as I cannot get opportunity to
convince them in the light. In all these crossings, my good lord, I
appeal to God, who knoweth, yea, I thank him infinitely, who directeth
my thoughts to intend principally the service and honor of God, and,
jointly with that, the surety and greatness of my sovereign lady the
queen's majesty; and for any other respect but that may tend to those
two, I appeal to God to punish me if I have any. As for the queen of
Scots, truly I have no spot of evil meaning to her; neither do I mean to
deal with any titles to the crown. If she shall intend any evil to the
queen's majesty my sovereign, for her sake I must and will mean to
impeach her; and therein I may be her unfriend or worse.
"Well now, my good lord, your lordship seeth I have made a long
digression from my answer, but I trust your lordship can consider what
moveth me thus to digress: Surely it behoveth me not only to live
uprightly, but to avoid all probable arguments that may be gathered to
render me suspected to her majesty, whom I serve with all dutifulness
and sincerity; and therefore I gather this, that if it were understood
that there were a communication, or a purpose of a marriage between your
lordship's son and my daughter, I am sure there would be an advantage
sought to increase these former suspicions [word missing] purpose.
Considering the young years of our two children [word missing] as if the
matter were fully agreed betwixt us, the parents, the marriage could not
take effect, I think it best to refer the motion in silence, and yet so
to order it with ourselves, that, when time shall hereafter be more
convenient, we may, and then also with less cause of vain suspicion,
renew it. And, in the meantime, I must confess myself much bounden to
your lordship for your goodness; wishing your lordship's son all the
good education that may be mete to teach him to fear God, love your
lordship his natural father, and to know his friends; without any
curiosity of human learning, which, without the fear of God, I see doth
much hurt to all youth in this time and age. My lord, I pray you bear
with my scribbling, which I think your lordship shall hardly read, and
yet I would not use my man's hand in such a matter as this is. [From
Hampton Court, 25th Dec. 1575.]
"Your lordship's most assured at command
"W. BURLEIGH[76]."
[Note 76: "Illustrations" by Lodge.]
* * * * *
A similar caution to that of lord Burleigh was not observed in the
disposal of her daughters by the countess of Shrewsbury; a woman
remarkable above all her contemporaries for a violent, restless and
intriguing spirit, and an inordinate thirst of money and of sway. She
brought to effect in 1574 a marriage between Elizabeth Cavendish, her
daughter by a former husband, and Charles Stuart, brother of Darnley and
next to the king of Scots in the order of succession to the crowns both
of England and Scotland. Notwithstanding the rooted enmity between Mary
and the house of Lenox, this union was supposed to be the result of some
private intrigue between lady Shrewsbury and the captive queen; and in
consequence of it Elizabeth committed to custody for some time, both the
mother of the bride and the unfortunate countess of Lenox, doomed to
expiate by such a variety of sufferings the unpardonable offence, in the
eyes of Elizabeth, of having given heirs to the British sceptres.
A signal occasion presented itself to the queen in 1575 of demonstrating
to all neighbouring powers, that whatever suspicions her close and
somewhat crooked system of policy might now and then have excited,
self-defence was in reality its genuine principle and single object; and
that the clear and comprehensive view which she had taken of her own
true interests, joined to the habitual caution of her character, would
ever restrain her from availing herself of the most tempting
opportunities of aggrandizement at their expense.
The provinces of Holland and Zealand, goaded into revolt by the bigotry
and barbarity of Philip of Spain, had from the first experienced in the
English nation, and even in Elizabeth herself, a disposition to
encourage and shelter them; and despairing of being able longer to
maintain alone the unequal contest which they had provoked, yet resolute
to return no more under the tyranny of a detested master, they now
embraced the resolution of throwing themselves entirely upon her
protection. It was urged that Elizabeth,--as descended from Philippa
wife of Edward III., a daughter of that count of Hainalt and Holland
from one of whose co-heiresses the king of Spain derived the Flemish
part of his dominions,--might claim somewhat of a hereditary title to
their allegiance, and a solemn deputation was appointed to offer to her
the sovereignty of the provinces on condition of defending them from the
Spaniards.
There was much in the proposal to flatter the pride and tempt the
ambition of a prince; much also to gratify that desire of retaliation
which the encouragement given by Philip to the Northern rebellion and to
certain movements in Ireland, as well as to all the machinations of the
queen of Scots, may reasonably be supposed to have excited in the bosom
of Elizabeth. Zeal for the protestant cause, had she ever entertained it
separately from considerations of personal interest and safety, might
have proved a further inducement with her to accept the patronage of
these afflicted provinces:--but not all the motives which could be urged
were of force to divert her from her settled plan of policy; and after a
short interval of anxious hesitation, she resolved to dismiss the envoys
with an absolute refusal. The speech which she addressed to them on this
occasion was highly characteristic, and in one point extremely
remarkable.
She reprobated, doubtless with great sincerity, the principle, that
there were cases in which subjects might be justified in throwing off
allegiance to their lawful prince; and protested that, for herself,
nothing could ever tempt her to usurp upon the dominions either of her
good brother of Spain or any other prince. Finally, she took upon her to
advert to the religious scruples which had produced the revolt of the
Hollanders, in a tone of levity which it is difficult to understand her
motive for assuming: since it could not fail, from her lips especially,
to give extreme scandal to the deputies and to all other serious men.
She said, that it was unreasonable in the Dutch to have stirred up so
great a commotion merely on account of the celebration of mass; and that
so contumacious a resistance to their king could never redound to their
honor, since they were not compelled to believe in the divinity of the
mass, but only to be spectators of its performance,--as at a public
spectacle. "What!" said she, "if I were to begin to act some scene in a
dress like this," (for she was clad in white like a priest,) "should you
regard it as a crime to behold it?[77]" Was the queen here making the
apology of her own compliances under the reign of her sister, or was she
generously furnishing a salvo for others? In any case, the sentiment, as
coming from the heroine of protestantism, is extraordinary.
[Note 77: Reidani "Annal." Vide Bayle's "Dictionary," art.
_Elizabeth_.]
An ineffectual remonstrance, addressed by Elizabeth to the king of
Spain, was the only immediate result of this attempt of the Provinces
to engage her in their concerns. She kept a watchful eye, however, upon
their great and glorious struggle; and the time at length came, when she
found it expedient to unite more closely her interest with theirs.
England now enjoyed profound tranquillity, internal and external, and
our annalists find leisure to advert to various circumstances of
domestic history. They mention a corporation formed for the
transmutation of iron into copper by the method of one Medley an
alchemist, of which the learned but credulous sir Thomas Smith,
secretary of state, was a principal promoter, and in which both
Leicester and Burleigh embarked some capital. The master of the Mint
ventured to express a doubt of the success of the experiment, because
the adept had engaged that the weight of copper procured should exceed
that of all the substances employed in its production; but nobody seems
to have felt the force of this simple objection, and great was the
disappointment of all concerned when at length the bubble burst.
About the same time the famous Dr. Dee, mathematician, astrologer, and
professor of the occult sciences, being pressed by poverty, supplicated
Burleigh to procure her majesty's patronage for his infallible method of
discovering hidden treasures. This person, who stood at the head of his
class, had been early protected by Leicester, who employed him to fix a
lucky day for the queen's coronation. He had since been patronized by
her majesty, who once visited him at his house at Mortlake, took lessons
of him in astronomy, and occasionally supplied him with money to defray
the expenses of his experiment. She likewise presented him to some
ecclesiastical benefices; but he often complained of the delay or
non-performance of her promises of pensions and preferment. On one
occasion he was sent to the continent, ostensibly for the purpose of
consulting physicians and philosophers on the state of her majesty's
health; but probably not without some secret political commission. After
a variety of wild adventures in different countries of Europe, in which
he and his associate Kelly discovered still more knavery than credulity
in the exercise of their various false sciences and fallacious arts, Dee
was invited home by her majesty in 1589, and was afterwards presented by
her with the wardenship of Manchester-college. But he was hated and
sometimes insulted by the people as a conjurer; quarrelled with the
fellows of his college, quitted Manchester in disgust, and failing to
obtain the countenance of king James died at length in poverty and
neglect;--the ordinary fate of his class of projectors. Elizabeth
performed a more laudable part in lending her support to the enterprise
of that able and spirited navigator Martin Frobisher, who had long been
soliciting in vain among the merchants the means of attempting a
northwest passage to the Indies, and was finally supplied by the queen
with two small vessels. With these he set sail in June 1576, and though
unsuccessful in the prime object of his voyage, extended considerably
the previous acquaintance of navigators with the coasts of Greenland,
and became the discoverer of the straits which still bear his name.
A sect called "The family of Love" had lately sprung up in England. Its
doctrines, notwithstanding the frightful reports raised of them, were
probably dangerous neither to the established church, with the rites of
which the brethren willingly complied, nor yet to the state; and it may
be doubted whether they were in any respect incompatible with private
morals; but no innovations in religion were regarded as tolerable or
venial under the rigid administration of Elizabeth; and the leaders of
the new heresy were taken into custody, and compelled to recant. Some
anabaptists were apprehended about the same time, who acknowledged their
error at Paul's Cross, bearing faggots,--the tremendous symbol of the
fate from which their recantation had rescued them. Two of these unhappy
men, however, repented of the disingenuous act into which human frailty
had betrayed them; and returning to the open profession of their
opinions were burned in Smithfield, to the eternal opprobrium of
protestant principles and the deep disgrace of the governess and
institutress of the Anglican Church.
The observation of lord Talbot, that the earl of Leicester showed
himself more than ever solicitous to improve the favor of his sovereign,
received confirmation from the unparalleled magnificence of the
reception which he provided for her when, during her progress in the
summer of 1575, she honored him with a visit in Warwickshire.
The "princely pleasures of Kennelworth," were famed in their day as the
quintessence of all courtly delight, and very long and very pompous
descriptions of these festive devices have come down to our times. They
were conducted on a scale of grandeur and expense which may still
surprise; but taste as yet was in its infancy, and the whole was
characterized by the unmerciful tediousness, the ludicrous
incongruities, and the operose pedantry of a semi-barbarous age.
A temporary bridge 70 feet in length was thrown across a valley to the
great gate of the castle, and its posts were hung with the offerings of
seven of the Grecian deities to her majesty; displaying in grotesque
assemblage, cages of various large birds, fruits, corn, fishes, grapes,
and wine in silver vessels, musical instruments of many kinds and
weapons and armour hung trophy-wise on two ragged staves. A poet
standing at the end of the bridge explained in Latin verse the meaning
of all. The Lady of the Lake, invisible since the disappearance of the
renowned prince Arthur, approached on a floating island along the moat
to recite adulatory verses. Arion, being summoned for the like purpose,
appeared on a dolphin four-and-twenty feet long, which carried in its
belly a whole orchestra. A Sibyl, a "Salvage man" and an Echo posted in
the park, all harangued in the same strain. Music and dancing enlivened
the Sunday evening. Splendid fireworks were displayed both on land and
water;--a play was performed;--an Italian tumbler exhibited his
feats;--thirteen bears were baited;--there were three stag-hunts, and a
representation of a country bridal, followed by running at the quintin:
finally, the men of Coventry exhibited, by express permission, their
annual mock fight in commemoration of a signal defeat of the Danes.
Nineteen days did the earl of Leicester sustain the overwhelming honor
of this royal visit;--a demonstration of her majesty's satisfaction in
her entertainment quite unexampled, but which probably awakened less
envy than any other token of her peculiar grace by which she might have
been pleased to distinguish her favorite.
No domestic incident had for a long time excited so strong a sensation
as the death of Walter Devereux earl of Essex, which took place at
Dublin in the autumn of the year 1576. This nobleman is celebrated for
his talents, his virtues, his unfortunate and untimely death, and also
as the father of a son still more distinguished and destined to a fate
yet more disastrous. He was of illustrious descent, deriving a part of
his hereditary honors from the lords Ferrers of Chartley, and the rest
from the noble family of Bourchier, through a daughter of Thomas of
Woodstock youngest son of Edward III. In his nineteenth year he
succeeded his grandfather as viscount Hereford, and coming to court
attracted the merited commendations of her majesty by his learning, his
abilities, and his ingenuous modesty.
During a short period the viscount was joined in commission with the
earls of Huntingdon and Shrewsbury for the safe keeping of the queen of
Scots. On the breaking out of the northern rebellion, he joined the
royal army with all the forces he could raise; and in reward of this
forwardness in her service her majesty conferred on him the garter, and
subsequently invested him, after the most solemn and honorable form of
creation, with the dignity of earl of Essex, long hereditary in the
house of Bourchier.
By these marks of favor the jealousy of Leicester and of other courtiers
was strongly excited; but with little cause. The spirit of the earl had
too much of boldness, of enterprise, of a high-souled generosity, to
permit him to take root and flourish in that scene of treachery and
intrigue--a court; it quickly prompted him to seek occupation at a
distance, in the attempt to subdue and civilize a turbulent Irish
province.
He solicited and obtained from the queen, by a kind of agreement then
not unusual, a grant to himself and the adventurers under him of half of
the district of Clandeboy in Ulster, on condition of his rescuing and
defending the whole of it from the rebels and defraying half the
expenses of the service. Great things were expected from his expedition,
on which he embarked in August 1573: but sir William Fitzwilliams,
deputy of Ireland, viewed the arrival of the earl with sentiments which
led him to oppose every possible obstacle to his success. Probably, too,
Essex himself found, on trial, the task of subduing the _Irishry_ (as
the natives of the island were then called) a more difficult one than he
had anticipated. Some brilliant service, however, amid many delays and
disappointments, he performed in various parts of the country; and
having returned to England in 1575 to lay all his grievances before the
queen, and face the court faction which injured him in his absence, he
was sent back with the title of Marshal of Ireland, an appointment
which Leicester, for his own purposes, is said to have been active in
procuring him.
Sir Henry Sidney had now succeeded Fitzwilliams as lord-deputy; and from
him it does not appear that Essex had the same systematic opposition to
encounter: on the contrary, having been applied to by the queen for his
opinion of the expediency of granting several requests of the earl
relative to this service, sir Henry advised her majesty to comply with
most of them, prefacing his counsel with the following sentence: "Of the
earl I must say, that he is so noble and worthy a personage, and so
forward in all his actions, and so complete a gentleman wherein he may
either advance your honor or service, as you may take comfort to have in
store so rare a subject, who hath nothing in greater regard than to show
himself such an one indeed as the common fame reporteth him; which hath
been no more, in troth, than his due deserts and painful travels in the
worst parts of this miserable country have deserved[78]."
[Note 78: "Sidney Papers," vol. i.]
Such in fact was the apparent cordiality between the deputy and the
marshal, that a proposal passed for the marriage of Philip Sidney to the
lady Penelope Devereux daughter of the earl: but if this friendship were
ever sincere on the part of sir Henry, it was at least short-lived; for,
writing a few months after Essex's death to Leicester respecting the
earl of Ormond, whom the favorite regarded as his enemy, he says.... "In
fine, my lord, I am ready to accord with him; but, my most dear lord
and brother, be you upon your keeping for him; for, if Essex had lived,
you should have found him as violent an enemy as his heart, power and
cunning would have served him to have been; and for that their malice, I
take God to record, I could brook neither of them both[79]."
[Note 79: "Sidney Papers," vol. i.]
Ireland was, during the whole of Elizabeth's reign, that part of her
dominions which it cost her most trouble to govern, and with which her
system of policy prospered the least. Without a considerable military
force it was impossible to bring into subjection those parts of the
country which still remained in a state of barbarism under the sway of
native chieftains, or even to preserve in safety and civility such
districts as were already reclaimed and brought within the English pale.
But the queen's parsimony, or, more truly, the narrowness of her income,
caused her perpetually to repine at the great expenses to which she was
put for this service, and frequently to run the risk of losing all that
had been slowly gained, by a sudden withdrawment, or long delay, of the
necessary supplies. Her suspicious temper caused her likewise to lend
ready ear to the complaints, whether founded or not, brought by the
disaffected Irish against her officers. Sir Henry Sidney himself, the
deputy whom she most favored and trusted, and continued longer in office
than any other, supported as he was at court by the potent influence of
Leicester and the steady friendship of Burleigh, had many causes offered
him of vexation and discontent; and those who held inferior commands,
and were less ably protected from the attacks of their enemies,
experienced almost insupportable anxieties from counteractions,
difficulties and hardships of every kind. Of these the unfortunate earl
of Essex had his full share.
The hopes of improving his fortune, with which he had entered upon the
service, were so far from being realized that he found himself sinking
continually deeper in debt. His efforts against the rebels were by no
means uniformly successful. His court enemies contrived to divert most
of the succours designed him by his sovereign, and the perplexities of
his situation went on accumulating instead of diminishing. The bodily
fatigue which he endured in the prosecution of his designs, joined to
the anguish of a wounded spirit, undermined at length the powers of his
constitution, and after repeated attacks he was carried off by a
dysentery in September 1576.
Essex was liberal, affable, brave and eloquent, and generally beloved
both in England and Ireland. The symptoms of his disease, though such as
exposure alone to the pestilential damps of the climate might well have
produced, were also susceptible of being ascribed to poison; and one of
his attendants, a divine who likewise professed medicine, seeing him in
great pain, suddenly exclaimed, "By the mass, my lord, you are
poisoned!" The report spread like wild-fire. To common minds it is a
relief under irremediable misfortune to find an object for blame; and
accordingly, though no direct evidence of the fact was produced, it was
universally believed that some villain had administered to him "an ill
drink."
As Leicester was known to be his enemy, strongly suspected of an
intrigue with his wife, and believed capable of any enormity, the
friends and partisans of Essex seem immediately to have pointed at him
as the contriver of his death; yet I find no contemporary evidence of
the imputation, except in the conduct of sir Henry Sidney on this
occasion, which indicates great anxiety for the reputation of his patron
and brother-in-law.
The lord-deputy was unfortunately absent from Dublin at the time of the
earl of Essex's death, and before he could institute a regular
examination into the manner of it, a thousand false tales had been
circulated which were greedily received by the public. On his return,
however, he entered into the investigation with great zeal and
diligence:--the decisive test of an examination of the body was not
indeed applied, for it was one with which that age seems to have been
unacquainted; but many witnesses were called, reports were traced to
their source and in some instances disproved, and the result of the
whole was transmitted by the deputy to the privy-council in a letter
which appears satisfactorily to prove that there was no solid ground to
ascribe the event to any but natural causes. That the deputy himself was
convinced of the correctness of this representation is seen from one of
his private letters to Leicester, published long after in the "Sidney
Papers."
In all probability, posterity would scarcely have heard of this
imputation on the character of Leicester, had not his marriage with the
widow of Essex served as corroboration of the charge, and given occasion
to the malicious comments of the author of "Leicester's Commonwealth."
This union, however, was not publicly celebrated till two years
afterwards; and we have no certain authority for the fact of the
criminal connexion of the parties during the life of the earl of Essex,
nor for the private marriage said to have been huddled up with indecent
precipitation on his decease.
Walter earl of Essex left Robert his son and successor, then in the
tenth year of his age, to the care and protection of the earl of Sussex
and lord Burleigh; but Mr. Edward Waterhouse, a person of great merit
and abilities, then employed in Ireland and distinguished by the favor
both of lord Burleigh and sir Henry Sidney, had the immediate management
of the fortune and affairs of the minor. Of this friend Essex is related
to have taken leave in his last moments with many kisses, exclaiming, "O
my Ned, my Ned, farewell! thou art the faithfulest and friendliest
gentleman that ever I knew." He proved the fidelity of his attachment by
attending the body of the earl to Wales, whither it was conveyed for
interment, and it was thence that he immediately afterwards addressed to
sir Henry Sidney a letter, of which the following is an extract.
"The state of the earl of Essex, being best known to myself, doth
require my travel for a time in his causes; but my burden cannot be
great when every man putteth to his helping hand. Her majesty hath
bestowed upon the young earl his marriage, and all his father's rules in
Wales, and promiseth the remission of his debt. The lords do generally
favor and further him; some for the trust reposed, some for love to the
father, other for affinity with the child, and some for other causes.
All these lords that wish well to the children, and, I suppose, all the
best sort of the English lords besides, do expect what will become of
the treaty between Mr. Philip and my lady Penelope.
"Truly, my lord, I must say to your lordship, as I have said to my lord
of Leicester and Mr. Philip, the breaking off of this match, if the
default be on your parts, will turn to more dishonor than can be
repaired with any other marriage in England. And I protest unto your
lordship, I do not think that there is at this day so strong a man in
England of friends as the little earl of Essex; nor any man more
lamented than his father since the death of king Edward[80]."
[Note 80: "Sidney Papers."]
Under such high auspices, and with such a general consent of men's minds
in his favor, did the celebrated, the rash, the lamented Essex commence
his brief and ill-starred course! The match between Philip Sidney and
lady Penelope Devereux was finally broken off, as Waterhouse seems to
have apprehended. She married lord Rich, and afterwards Charles Blount
earl of Devonshire, on whose account she had been divorced from her
first husband.
How little all the dark suspicions and sinister reports to which the
death of the earl of Essex had given occasion, were able to influence
the mind of Elizabeth against the man of her heart, may appear by the
tenor of an extraordinary letter written by her in June 1577 to the earl
and countess of Shrewsbury.
* * * * *
"Our very good cousins;
"Being given to understand from our cousin of Leicester how honorably he
was not only lately received by you our cousin the countess at
Chatsworth, and his diet by you both discharged at Buxtons, but also
presented with a very rare present, we should do him great wrong
(holding him in that place of favor we do) in case we should not let you
understand in how thankful sort we accept the same at both your hands,
not as done unto him but to our own self; reputing him as another self;
and therefore ye may assure yourselves that we, taking upon us the debt,
not as his but our own, will take care accordingly to discharge the same
in such honorable sort as so well deserving creditors as ye shall never
have cause to think ye have met with an ungrateful debtor." &c.
* * * * *
Lord Talbot, on another occasion, urged upon his father the policy of
ingratiating himself with Leicester by a pressing invitation to
Chatsworth, adding moreover, that he did not believe it would greatly
either further or hinder his going into that part of the country.