rivers were bordered with high trees, which met overhead and shut out the
air, so that they panted for breath; the currents were against them; the
water was very unwholesome to drink, and their bread was all gone. They
lived on fish, and the fruits they plucked along the banks of the rivers.
The beautiful flowers of the tropics twined around the great trees in the
shade, and there were birds flitting about, as Sir Walter writes, "crimson,
carnation, orange, tawny, and purple!" Still, they were in great want of
bread, and an old native pilot whom they had taken, promised them that if
they would enter a branch of the river on their right hand, with only their
barge and wherries, and leave the galley they had come in to anchor in the
great river, he would take them to a town, where they would find bread and
poultry. So they set off in their wherries, and, because they thought the
place was so near, they took no food with them at all. The day wore on, and
still the pilot said "a little farther," until the sun was low in the sky,
and they had glided down the stream forty miles. Then all at once it became
dark, because there is no twilight in the tropics; dark as pitch, they
said; the river narrowed and the trees bent over it so closely, that they
had to cut their passage through the branches with their swords. They
distrusted the pilot, although the poor old man, who must have been
somewhat out of his reckoning, still kept assuring them that they had only
a little further to go; and an hour after midnight, to their great joy they
saw a light, and heard the barking of dogs, and came to a village or town
which was almost empty, because nearly all its inhabitants had gone to the
head of the Orinoco to trade for gold. Here they found plenty of fish, and
fowls, and Indian wine, and bread, for which they gave the people things in
exchange. Raleigh says that the Spaniards used to get a hundred pounds of
cassava bread for a knife.
There is frequent mention in his narrative of an old king named Topiawari,
whose son he brought with him to England. He was a hundred and ten years
old, and had been taken prisoner by the Spaniards under Berreo, and led
about by them in a chain for seventeen days, that he might guide them from
place to place, for he was "a man of great understanding and policy." He
purchased his freedom with a hundred plates of gold. This old king came
fourteen miles on foot to see the English commander, and returned to his
home the same day; which must have been a long journey for one who, as he
touchingly observed himself, was "old, weak, and every day called for by
death." A number of people came with him from the villages laden with
provisions, and amongst these were delicious pine-apples in plenty. One of
the people gave Raleigh an armadillo, which he calls "a very wonderful
creature, barred all over with small scales, with a horn growing out of
it," the powder of which he was told cured deafness.
Raleigh found out, as he thought, where the mines were, and brought some
spar with him to England, which was considered to afford satisfactory
promise of gold. The old king told him of a mountain of pure gold which Sir
Walter believed himself to have seen in the distance; it seemed to him like
a white tower, and had a great stream of water flowing over the top of it.
But since the rivers had begun to rise, and he had no tools to work the
supposed mines with, he resolved to return to England, well pleased that he
had found "El Dorado;" and prepared to give a glowing account of the
fertility of its soil, its valuable woods and rich gums, its different
berries, which dyed the most vivid crimson and carnation hues, its cotton
and silk, its pepper, sugar, and ginger, which flourished there as
luxuriantly as in the West Indian islands.
Just as the adventurers were about to return to Trinidad, they encountered
a terrific storm in the broad mouth of the river Capuri, and were obliged
to lie in the dark, close to the shore. At midnight, when the wind began to
abate, Raleigh says, "We put ourselves to God's keeping and thrust out into
the sea, and left the galley to anchor until daylight. And so, being all
very sober and melancholy, one faintly cheering another to show courage, it
pleased God that the next day we descried the island of Trinidad."
When Sir Walter arrived in England he published an account of the discovery
of the large and beautiful country of Guiana. Either he must have been
carried away by the excitement of the adventure, or he must have wilfully
exaggerated when he described the gold mines so confidently, since no one
who followed him ever found so great a treasure of the precious metal as he
declared was in existence. Queen Elizabeth could not be prevailed upon to
give orders for the planting of a colony in the new land, much as she
desired to increase her dominions, and so it was that the English did not
really make a settlement in Guiana until the year 1634.
Raleigh went after his return on a great expedition, which ended in the
conquest of Cadiz. In this Essex had the chief command, but it was
Raleigh's courage and daring that assured the taking of the city.
The favour he was held in at court now began to decline, and the great
fame he had earned as a soldier and a navigator had made him many enemies.
It is said that he connived with Cecil for the downfall of Essex, and he
was charged by those who bore him ill-will with having taken pleasure in
witnessing the execution of that nobleman. His own words, spoken just
before his death on the scaffold many years later, will best vindicate him
from such an accusation. He said that he was all the time in the armory of
the Tower, at the end where he could only just see Essex. He shed tears at
his death, and grieved that he was not with him, for he had heard that he
had desired to be reconciled with him before he died. And it is natural to
suppose that these two men, each one indeed at fault, would have been
happier, one in dying and the other while he lived, if they had exchanged a
few kind words, at which the old bitterness and hatred would have melted
away.
The remaining part of the life of Sir Walter Raleigh was a succession of
misfortunes and sorrows: at the death of the queen his good fortune may be
said to have deserted him. The same year that James the Sixth of Scotland
succeeded his cousin Elizabeth, a plot was formed to place on the throne of
England in his stead the Lady Arabella Stuart, who was equally descended
from Henry the Seventh with himself. The Lords Grey and Cobham, Sir Walter
Raleigh, two Catholic priests, and several others were accused of conniving
at it, and arrested for high treason. How far Raleigh was implicated it is
difficult now to decide: it is probable that he knew of the plot, because
he was the intimate friend of Lord Cobham. He was carried to Winchester,
where sentence of death was passed upon him, and he remained there a whole
month, daily expecting to be led to the scaffold. At the urgent entreaty of
Lady Raleigh the king commuted the sentence of death to imprisonment in the
Tower; and there, on the 15th of December, 1603, Raleigh took up his abode,
followed by his affectionate wife and his son Walter, who had obtained
permission to share his captivity. Most English boys have looked on the
rooms in the Tower where this brave man passed more than twelve years, a
large portion out of the life on earth, especially on the narrow
sleeping-room, to enter which, he had to creep under a low stone archway.
Those years must have contrasted strangely with his past life, full of
brave deeds and adventures in a land where all things seemed new. His
friends and his enemies alike pitied him now that he was shut up within his
gloomy walls. The young Prince Henry had a great regard for him, and
admired his brilliant qualities. "Surely," he used to say, "no man but my
father would keep such a bird in a cage!"
After his first despair was over he employed himself in making chemical
experiments, in educating his children--for his second son Carew was born
in the Tower,--and in writing several works, one of which, entitled "The
History of the World," has been much admired.
And when, after so many years had passed, and the doors of his prison were
opened, he came out into the free air, "a worn, weak, and aged man," almost
without fortune, haughty, and prone to take offence no more, but still
brave and hopeful. He obtained his liberty chiefly through the interest of
the Duke of Buckingham, whose services he paid with the sum of fifteen
hundred pounds. He was released on condition of finding the gold mines of
Guiana, and having embarked in the enterprise all that remained of his own
and his wife's fortunes he set sail for South America, taking with him his
son Walter, all the while the sentence of death once passed upon him was
still hanging over his head.
But failure and sorrow were in store for him: two of his ships abandoned
him; sickness broke out amongst the crews of those that remained, Sir
Walter Raleigh was attacked by it himself, and was not able to land when
they drew near the shore of Guiana. He deputed Captain Keymis to land with
the adventurers, and to repel any Spaniards he might find near the mine. An
affray took place in which young Raleigh was killed; and Keymis, attempting
to keep a footing on shore, a second time was surprised by some Spaniards
who had been lying in wait for him. The failure of the enterprise and the
disappointment of Raleigh weighed so heavily upon him, that he killed
himself in despair.
Raleigh thus went back to England in sorrow for the loss of his son, and
with little hope left that his own life would be spared. When he landed in
England he found that the king was very angry with him for having attacked
the Spaniards, because he was at peace with their sovereign; and that he
intended to renew all his former accusations against him. This King James
was led to do by Gondemar, the Spanish ambassador, who bore an extreme
hatred to Raleigh; it is even supposed that the Spaniards in Guiana had
been secretly told to prepare to resist. James made a proclamation to the
effect that he had forbidden all acts of hostility on land belonging to the
Spaniards. Directly Raleigh heard this he wrote a letter to the king in
defence of his conduct. He was repairing to London, and was met on the road
by Sir Lewis Stukely, one of his relations, who told him that he was to
arrest him. Then it was that Raleigh yielded to weakness which he repented
of in after hours. He pretended that he was ill, that he had lost his
reason, anything to delay the moment of his arrest.
Once he planned an escape to France, but when he had got in disguise from
the Tower Docks as far as Woolwich he was overtaken by some people in the
pay of the Government; and at Greenwich was formally arrested by his
kinsman, who had accompanied him in his flight. The next morning, August
7th, he was conducted to the Tower, where he took a kind farewell of the
king, and remained imprisoned there until the 28th of October. And on that
day, as he was lying ill, the king's officers came at eight o'clock in the
morning to convey him to Westminster. Thence he was taken to Gate House,
and the next morning to the Old Palace Yard, where the scaffold was erected
on which he was to die, that the king might preserve peace with Spain! The
people of England thought James was very unkind to condemn a man whose
guilt had never been proved, and who was the most valiant and spirited in
the whole land. And indeed the execution of Raleigh has ever been
considered unjust.
He appeared upon the scaffold with a smiling countenance, and saluted all
of his friends and acquaintances who were present. Then he spoke in his
own defence, but notwithstanding the deep silence around, his words were
not heard by the Lords Arundel and Doncaster, and some other lords and
knights who sat at a window looking into the yard, and he begged them to
come upon the scaffold. When he had saluted them all he thanked God for
having brought him into the light to die, instead of suffering him to die
in the dark prison of the Tower. Then he defended himself eloquently
against the numerous charges that had been made against him, and ended by
entreating all his friends to pray for him, because he said that since he
had been a soldier, a captain, a sea-captain, and a courtier, he must needs
have fallen into many sins.
The lords and knights departed sorrowfully from the scaffold, and Raleigh
prepared for death; he gave away his hat, his wrought night-cap, and some
money to some of those who remained near him. "I have a long journey to
go," he said, "and therefore I will take my leave." And when he had taken
off his black velvet gown and his satin doublet, he called to the headsman,
and examined the axe, saying, as he felt along its edge, "This is a sharp
medicine, but it is a physician for all disorders." Being asked which way
he would lay his head on the block, he said, "So the heart be right, it is
no matter which way the head lieth." A minute later his head was severed
with two blows from his body; the story of his life was ended, and the
unjust king could keep the peace he had purchased with the sacrifice of a
man who, although faulty, had many of the attributes of true greatness.
The body of Sir Walter Raleigh was buried in St. Margaret's Church. His
sorrowing widow kept his head in a case during her lifetime; it was
afterwards buried with her son Carew at West Horsley, in Surrey. Raleigh
was tenderly attached to his wife, and wrote her an affectionate and solemn
letter during the early part of his imprisonment, in which he gave her some
good advice. "If you can live free from want," he said, "care for no more,
for the rest is but vanity. Love God, and begin betimes; in Him you shall
have everlasting felicity. When you have travelled and wearied yourself
with all sorts of worldly cogitations, you shall sit down in sorrow at the
end.... Teach your son also to serve and fear God whilst he is young, that
the fear of God may grow up in him."
FOOTNOTES:
[23] This story is mentioned in the "British Biography."
[24] Guiana was originally discovered to the Europeans by Vincent Pinzon
before the end of the fifteenth century. It was Juan Martinez, a Spaniard,
who first gave the name of El Dorado to the city of Manoa, in Guiana.
[25] A species of palm.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.
Sir Philip Sidney was born at Penshurst in Kent, in the year 1554. His
father, Sir Henry Sidney, was one of the best men that ever lived, and
governed Ireland for some time with extreme justice and prudence. His
mother was Mary, daughter of the Duke of Northumberland, who was beheaded
for maintaining the cause of Lady Jane Grey. She had the sorrow of seeing
her brother Lord Guildford Dudley also led to the scaffold; and after these
terrible events lived much in retirement, devoting herself to the care and
education of her sons Philip and Robert, and her daughter Mary, afterwards
Countess of Pembroke.
Under the guidance of such parents, the children at Penshurst grew up in
the closest bonds of family love. The grand old house they lived in was an
abode worthy of a noble race. It had been given by Edward the Sixth to Sir
William Sidney, the grandfather of Sir Philip. The park was famed for its
beeches, chestnut trees, and oaks of stately growth; one of the latter,
known by the name of "Sidney's Oak," remains standing to this day. Rich
pasture lands lay around, the streams abounded with fish, the gardens and
orchards with flowers and fruit. Here wandered Sir Philip with his beloved
sister, his young brother Robert, who succeeded to his uncle's earldom of
Leicester,[26] with the chivalrous Raleigh, the poet Spenser, the
play-writer Ben Jonson, and all the good, brave, and clever men of that
age.
From his earliest childhood he was so sweet-tempered and intelligent that
his father lovingly called him "the light of this family." He was very fond
of study, and went first to school at Shrewsbury, where we find he
delighted his father greatly, when he was twelve years old, by writing him
a letter in Latin, and another in French. At the age of fifteen he went to
Christchurch, Oxford, where he appears to have studied with much diligence
during the short period of his college life.
In the year 1571 an embassy was sent to the Court of Charles the Ninth of
France, in order to treat for a marriage between the king's youngest
brother, Henry Duke of Alencon, and Queen Elizabeth. The queen had already
shown signs of regard for young Sidney, whom in after years she called "the
brightest jewel in her crown," and she allowed him to go abroad with the
mission, for the purpose of acquiring a perfect knowledge of foreign
languages.
Sir Philip was in Paris on the fatal day of Saint Bartholomew, but was safe
in the house of his friend Walsingham, then English minister at the French
Court, whilst the unhappy Protestants were being cruelly massacred
everywhere around him.
He afterwards travelled through Germany to Vienna, where he made himself
perfect in every martial exercise, going thence to study science at Venice,
to visit the poet Tasso at Padua, and lastly to Rome.
And whilst he was storing his mind with knowledge, and learning all
accomplishments worthy of a true knight, he tried to lead a holy life, and,
as far as it was in his power, to keep himself blameless in the sight of
God and man; so that when he returned to England at the age of twenty,
other men far older than himself looked up to him with respect, and he was
considered the brightest ornament of the English Court.
During his travels in Flanders, which at that time belonged to Spain, he
had grieved to see how unhappy the people were made by the Duke of Alva,
the State minister of Philip the Second of Spain. Philip did not love his
Flemish subjects at all; they were mostly Protestants, and he wanted to
take their liberty from them and force them to become Roman Catholics. And
when they began to rebel against his unjust treatment, he sent the cruel
Duke of Alva to them, having first told him that he might do whatever he
liked with them.
Alva arrived in Brussels, and began by arresting and imprisoning the Counts
Egmont and Horn, two noble-minded men, who, after trying in vain to make
peace between the king and the Belgians, had taken the part of the
Protestants from a love of justice and mercy. Count Egmont had helped
Philip to win the great battle of St. Quentin over the French, but he was
compassionate as well as brave, and Philip was so afraid that he would be
too kind to the people of Belgium that he advised Alva secretly to get rid
of him.
Alva kept the Counts in prison in Ghent for nine months, and then had them
carried to Brussels and beheaded, on the 4th of June, 1568, on a scaffold
raised on one of the principal squares in the city. They died with courage,
martyrs for the liberty of Flanders, but their execution was a cruel
injustice, and the people were nearly frantic with grief when the bloody
deed was done. Alva remained in Flanders more than four years, and is said
to have caused eighteen thousand Protestants to be beheaded during that
time. Then Holland rose in revolt; the Prince of Orange was made
stadtholder, and Alva, seeing that his day was over, went back to Spain,
where he must have been very unhappy when he thought over all his
wickedness. The Protestants in Germany fared very little better than those
in Flanders, for when the Emperor Rudolf the Second began to reign, he
forbade them to worship according to their faith. Sidney was sent on an
embassy to Rudolf, and did all he could whilst he was in Germany to humble
Spain.
The Flemings asked Elizabeth to be their queen; this she would not agree
to, but she sent them some troops and some money, and Sidney implored her
to let him take the command in the enterprise, he wanted so much to be of
service to his fellow-men, and to deliver those who were unjustly treated
from their oppressors. The queen declared, however, that she could not
spare him from her Court, and he was obliged to wait patiently a little
longer. Meanwhile he took part in the amusements of the Court, the jousts
and the royal progresses from place to place, which were always attended
with great show. To these must be added the masques, and the first time
Sir Philip distinguished himself as an author was by writing a masque,
entitled "The Lady of May," which was performed before the queen at
Wanstead in Essex. Sidney was the patron of artists, musicians, and
authors; he was a kind and sincere friend of the poet Spenser, who had
originally been brought from his home in Ireland to the English Court by
Sir Walter Raleigh.
Weary at last of remaining inactive, Sidney planned, without the queen's
knowledge, an expedition to America, in which he was to be joined by the
bold navigator, Sir Francis Drake. He had arrived at Plymouth, whence the
ships were to start, when Elizabeth, having gained information of the
projected voyage, sent messengers with letters to Sidney, in which she
desired him not to sail, and threatened to stay the whole fleet if he did
not obey her.
Sir Philip, already on the alert, contrived to intercept the messengers;
their letters were taken from them by two soldiers disguised as sailors.
The queen, finding threats useless, then sent a positive royal command to
her favourite, which he was bound out of duty to his sovereign to obey, and
thus he was fated never to see the beautiful new land in the west, with its
growth of gorgeous flowers and rich fruits, its giant trees, and its
bright-coloured birds, its wonderful landscapes, the beauty of which far
exceeded the ideal formed of them.
Elizabeth's displeasure did not last long. It was the high esteem she held
him in that made her so loth to let him quit England, and she was not
offended with him when he had the courage to write her a letter in which he
entreated her not to marry the Duke of Alencon, now Duke of Anjou, and
pointed out the trouble such a union might bring upon England. The queen
wisely followed his advice, and gave up all idea of a marriage which her
subjects had very much disliked.
Sir Philip, one day in the tilt-yard, had a dispute with Lord Oxford, in
which both were to blame, but Lord Oxford the more so of the two. This
caused Sidney to withdraw for a time from Court, and retire to a house he
had at Wilton, where he wrote "The Arcadia," a pastoral romance, and some
other works, which gained him the fame of a poet. He did not mean "The
Arcadia" to be published, nor did it appear in print until after his death.
He wrote it to afford pleasure to his sister Mary, and sent to her each
part of it as he completed it.
A time came when the Flemings were again reduced to a state of extreme
wretchedness. The great and good stadtholder was basely murdered, and the
Spanish troops were making rapid progress through the country. So they
asked Elizabeth again to be their queen and to send them succour. She
refused the crown a second time, but agreed to help the Flemings with
troops on condition that the towns of Flushing and Brille should be placed
in her hands. And Sidney, to his great joy, was appointed governor of
Flushing, whither he went in November, 1585. The good Count Maurice of
Nassau received him as a brother, and he was made general of all the
forces, English and Dutch, in the town. Soon he had to welcome there his
uncle, the Earl of Leicester, who, by the favour of Elizabeth, was
entrusted with the command of the army.
For some time Sidney was obliged to remain inactive, but in the year 1586
he and Count Maurice surprised Axel, a town on the way to Antwerp, and the
strongest place held by the Spaniards in the Netherlands. Here he kept his
soldiers in the strictest order. When they were marching they were enjoined
to be silent, and a band of the choicest among them was stationed in the
market-place for the security of the town.
So many brave gentlemen were covetous of the honour of surprising
Gravelines, that Sir Philip Sidney, not liking to risk the lives of all,
persuaded his inferior officers to try their fortune by dice on the top of
a drum. The lot fell upon Sir William Browne, and by this game of
hazard[27] the lives of many Englishmen were saved.