EVIL TIMES
Ralegh and the Puritans--John Udall--Blount--Ralegh's
marriage--Queen's anger--In the Tower--His sincerity--The
Episode in the "Faerie Queene"--_Madre de Dios_--Robert
Cecil--Sherborne.
Ralegh returned to Court in 1591, bringing the greatest poet who had yet
come to English literature with him. He was able after his respite to
manage circumstances once more, even that most trying circumstance of
all, young Essex, and joined with him in helping the Puritans who were
at that time being treated more hardly even than they deserved.
It is unlikely that their views influenced Ralegh in any way. He was
beyond the constraint of any fixed creed. But he saw sincere men and
honest men receiving injuries; and he exerted himself on their behalf.
He was called an atheist, naturally enough; that has always been the cry
against men who dared to think beyond the scope of sects' understanding.
Not even Shelley was less of an atheist, however.
One, John Udall, who was an eminent Hebrew scholar, had come under
ecclesiastical disgrace (dissenters are apt to be malignant to other
forms of dissent--witness the hues and cries raised lately against a new
Theology) by writing a book in which he pointed out the need of reform
in the reformed church. The book had the portentous name of "The
Demonstration of Discipline which Christ hath prescribed in His Word for
the government of the Church, in all times and places, until the World's
end." The English Church was in too shocking a state to allow such a
book to go quietly on its way. They laid hands on John Udall, put him in
a prison at Southwark, and sentenced him to death. Something about the
man's straightforwardness and sincerity seems to have appealed to
Ralegh. He advised Udall to draw up a schedule of his opinions, which he
promised to show to the Queen. These opinions had been twisted and
exaggerated into treasonable utterances by enemies, who had thus turned
the Queen against Udall; but Ralegh was convinced that he would be able
to change the Queen's mind by his own influence. Essex, too, was in
favour of Udall's release. Their efforts were so far successful that the
sentence was mitigated to one of banishment, but while the exact nature
of the sentence was under discussion, John Udall died in the prison at
Southwark. The bishops could not be hurried in their deliberations.
Rigorous repression begun thus early, strengthened the cause of the
Puritans beyond all reasonable necessity. There is nothing to show that
Ralegh was in any sympathy with their cause or with their hatred of
playhouses and dancing and games. He probably did not take them more
seriously than Spenser when he wrote of the Crab on which jolly June was
riding.
"And backward yode, as bargemen wont to fare
Bending their force contrary to their face
Like that ungracious crew which faines demurest grace."
But John Udall was a scholar and an honest man; and Ralegh reverenced
scholarship and honesty, knowing the value of letters and the courage
that honesty required. Moreover he always favoured tolerance in dealing
with those whose consciences gave them peculiar views, as is seen by his
speech in Parliament a few years later, when he opposed the banishment
of the sect called Brownists.
Meanwhile Essex had not grown in any way less arrogant. About this time
a younger brother of Lord Mountjoy attracted the Queen's notice; his
name was Charles Blount, and Naunton described him as "brown-haired, of
a sweet face, and of a most neat composure tall in his person." The
Queen seeing him at dinner at Whitehall gave him her hand to kiss, and
afterwards a chessman as favour. Blount wore the piece on his sleeve,
and Essex remarking it and being told whose favour it was, said, "Ah! I
see every fool must have a favour now-aday." Blount challenged Essex.
They fought in what is now called Regent's Park, and Essex was wounded
in the thigh. "God's death," cried out Elizabeth when she heard of it,
"it was time that some one or other should take him down and teach him
better manners; otherwise there would be no rule with him."
And now an event of some importance occurred in the life of Sir Walter
Ralegh--his marriage. His behaviour has called down much censure upon
him. Macaulay invented a phrase which has had potent results, "the
disease of biographers." Every man seems fearful lest he should be
branded with the ignominy of the complaint; yet he must be a strange
fellow who can live again with a man like Ralegh in times like Ralegh's
times and not catch the fire of enthusiasm. But enough. At this point in
his career, writers are wont to show their breadth of judgment: "There
could have been no true nobility in the man ..." writes one of his
letter to the Queen. Fortunately ideas differ as to the nature of true
nobility. Now this is the basis of the censures levelled against him. Of
the facts of his courtship very little is known, and what is known is
strangely mingled with the business of reprisals against Spain, in which
Ralegh was actively engaged. This is the letter which he wrote to Sir
Robert Cecil:--
"SIR,
"I received your letters this present day at Chattame
concerninge the wages of the mariners and others. For myne own
part, I am very willing to enter bonde, as you persuaded me, so
as the Privey Seale be first sente for my injoyinge the third:
but I pray consider that I have layd all that I am worth, and
must do, ere I depart on this voyage. If it fall not out well,
I can but loose all, and if nothinge be remayning, wherewith
shall I pay the wages.... And farther I have promised Her
Majestie that, if I can perswade the Cumpanies to follow Sir
Martin Furbresher, I will without fail returne.... But, Sir,
for mee then to be bounde for so great a sume, uppon the hope
of another man's fortune, I will be loth: and besides, if I
weare able, I see no privy seale for my thirds. I mean not to
cume away, as they say I will, for feare of a marriage and I
know not what. If any such thinge were, I would have imparted
it unto yoursealf before any man livinge: and therefore I pray
believe it not, and I beseich you to suppress, what you can,
any such mallicious report. For I protest before God, ther is
none on the face of the yearth that I would be fastned unto.
And so in haste I take my leave of your Honor. From Chattame,
the 10th of Marche.
"Your's ever to be commanded,
"W. RALEGH"
Ralegh was anxious to stop this gossip about the relations between
himself and Elizabeth Throgmorton. What they were, was entirely his own
affair. At any rate he wanted Secretary Cecil to be quite clear that
they would in no way affect his willingness to work as he had always
worked for his country. And so little was he "fastned" to any on the
face of the earth that he relaxed no effort to forward his enterprise of
Guiana, and in three years' time he set sail for Guiana, though his
marriage was then an established fact.
It was for many reasons advisable to crush, if possible, the spread of
gossip, and especially because the Queen Elizabeth hated her favourites
to marry. As she grew old and began to lose her power as a woman, this
feeling increased in violence. Whether that feeling be good or bad, is
of no importance. It existed, and Ralegh knew well that it existed. Many
consider that his devotion (and that of most of her courtiers) was
merely based upon the advantages which he could get from the old woman:
that he really flattered and despised her; that his conduct was base and
unscrupulous. This view would seem to be at fundamental variance with
the facts of his nature, of the Queen's extraordinary power, and of the
whole tendency of the time. Not for nothing were love-sonnets the
fashion: though there are men who think that fashion sufficient to prove
once for all the coldheartedness and insincerity of the time.
When Ralegh returned, he was sent to the Tower, avowedly because he had
disobeyed orders in setting sail at all, really because the Queen looked
upon his marriage as a kind of personal treason. She detested marriage,
thinking it did not improve the efficiency of a man. And Ralegh, without
any treachery to his wife, whom he continued to love until the end of
his life, was thrown into misery by the Queen's anger. There are men
whose nature will not admit of more than one call upon their affection,
and that of a limited kind. You will find that they are apt to preen
themselves upon their loyalty, wisely enough. Ralegh was not made on
those lines. His feeling for the Queen was a real and vital feeling,
and was not swayed by every circumstance of his life. She was a woman
whom he had loved, and a great woman for all her caprices: she was his
Queen and an illustrious Queen: she was Queen of England, which under
her rule had crushed Spain's power. It would have been strange if her
fierce resentment of his action had not affected him. As it was he wrote
from the Tower--men, English men, were not then ashamed of their
feelings: they liked to try and express them--
"My heart was never broken till this day, that I hear the Queen
goes away so far off--whom I have followed so many years with
so great love and desire, in so many journeys and am now left
behind her, in a dark prison all alone. While she was yet nire
at hand, that I might hear of her once in two or three dayes,
my sorrows were the less: but even now my heart is cast into
the depth of all misery. I that was wont to behold her riding
like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking like Venus, the
gentle wind blowing her fair hair about her pure cheeks, like a
nymph: sometime siting in the shade like a Goddess; sometime
singing like an angell; sometime playing like Orpheus. Behold
the sorrow of this world! Once amiss, hath bereaved me of all.
O Glory that only shineth in misfortune, what is becum of thy
assurance? Al wounds have skares, but that of fantasie, all
affections their relenting, but that of womankind. Who is the
judge of friendship but adversity? or when is grace witnessed
but in offences? There were no divinety, but by reason of
compassion; for revenges are brutish and mortall. All those
times past,--the loves, the sythes, the sorrows, the desires,
can they not way down one frail misfortune? Cannot one dropp of
gall be hidden in so great heapes of sweetness? I may then
conclude _Spes et fortuna valete_. She is gone in whom I
trusted, and of me hath not one thought of mercy, nor any
respect of that that was. Do with me now, therefore, what you
list. I am more weary of life than they are desirous I should
perish; which if it had been for her, as it is by her, I had
been too happily born.
"Your's not worthy any name or like,
"W. R."
There are some who see in this letter merely an artifice to play upon
the senile affections of a doting woman. They write nimbly of true
nobility: they describe the deterioration of an old woman's body; they
ask, could a man care for such a person? and assert that all Ralegh
desired was money and appointments. Their point of view is wearisome and
false: it leaves the bad taste that the report of divorce-court
proceedings leaves--with that pettiness and familiarity, which is
disgusting.
Meanwhile Ralegh remained in prison: and his enemies triumphed at his
downfall.
It is refreshing to read Spenser's account of the story, written a
little after the event, as an episode of the "Faerie Queene." It clears
the air with its gentleness and that sweet mingling of humour and
sadness.
Belphoebe has left the squire with Amoret, and comes back.
"There she him found by that new lovely Mate
Who lay the whiles in swoune, full sadly set,
From her faire eyes wiping the deawy wet
Which softly stild and kissing them atweene,
And handling soft the hurts which she did get:...
"Which when she saw with sodaine glauncing eye,
Her noble heart, with sight thereof was fild
With deep disdaine and great indignity,
That in her wrath she thought them both have thrild
With that selfe arrow which the Carle had kild:
Yet held her wrathfull hand from vengeance sore:
But drawing nigh, ere he her well beheld,
'Is this the paith?' she said--and said no more
But turned her face and fled away for evermore."
He smiles a little at the intensity of the squire's grief, but makes no
hint at his insincerity, and he could have done so quite easily without
injuring his friend, Ralegh. All through the character of Timias the
Squire, he dwells on the impetuosity of his feeling with kindly humour.
For Spenser must have often teased Ralegh on that terrible restless
energy which drove him from experience to experience, and from the
height of enthusiasm to the depth of despair. "Do it with thy Might" was
a singularly characteristic device.
"And his faire lockes, that wont with ointment sweet
To be embalm'd, and sweat out dainty dew,
He let to grow and griesly to concrew,
Uncomb'd, uncurl'd, and carelesly unshed."
His wife was a lady named Elizabeth Throgmorton, daughter of Sir
Nicholas Throgmorton. Much is not known of her: enough, however, is
known to prove that she was a woman of character and attainments. The
marriage, in spite of its inaugural storm, was a success.
Ralegh's imprisonment occurred when he was busily engaged in fitting out
expeditions against the Spaniards to command the trade-route through the
Azores. In 1591 a rough squadron had been despatched under Lord Howard;
but the enemy had got wind of it, and had sent a powerful fleet to
protect their vessels. Of this Lord Howard heard in time to avoid
disaster; he weighed anchor from Flores where he was anchoring, and
escaped. Sir Richard Grenville, however, refused to fly: with his small
ship the _Revenge_ he awaited the attack, and the full fury of the
Spanish Fleet fell upon him. His resistance was as gallant as his
disobedience had been audacious. Ralegh wrote a superb account of his
friend's undaunted valour, and his friend's death spurred him on to
renewed enterprise against the Spaniards.
In the following year, 1592, he took the chief part in an expedition
which, under his management, was far more successful. "Sir Walter
Ralegh," writes Hakluyt, "upon commission received from her Majesty for
an expedition to be made to the West Indies, slacked not his uttermost
diligence to make full provision of all things necessary, as both in his
choice of good ships, and sufficient men to performe the action
evidently appeared. For his shippes, which were in number 14 or 15,
those two of her Majesties, the _Garland_ and the _Foresight_ were the
chiefest; the rest either his owne or his good friends or adventurers in
London." Sir John Burrough was in command, and under him was the stern
Sir Martin Frobisher, whose rigour even the hardiest sailors disliked.
Contrary winds prevented the fleet from sailing for some weeks from the
western ports where they were anchored; and the Queen, disliking the
delay, recalled Ralegh. But Ralegh, being deeply involved in the
enterprise, did not obey her first summons. The wind at length became
favourable; and he set sail. But when they were, on May 11th, off Cape
Finisterre, "a tempest of strange and uncouth violence" arose, and Sir
Walter himself in the _Garland_ was in danger of being swallowed up by
the sea. The storm did much damage to the vessels. Moreover, they had
learned from two ships homeward bound for London, that no Spanish vessel
would move that year, and that the hope of plunder in the West Indies
was small. Accordingly, Ralegh determined to divide his fleet into two
squadrons, one under the command of Sir John Burrough, and one under the
command of Sir Martin Frobisher, and to lie in wait, the first at the
Azores, the second by the Spanish coast "to amuse the home fleet." He
himself then returned home, and forthwith on his arrival was imprisoned
in the Tower of London.
On August 3rd, an immense Spanish galleon, the _Madre de Dios_, was
sighted by Captain Thomson, in _The Dainty_. He immediately attacked,
and was beaten off with some loss, until Sir John Burrough came up with
the _Roebuck_, and the attack was resumed at close range. Still,
however, the galleon held her own: Sir R. Cross then sailed up in the
_Foresight_, and Sir John Burrough conferred with him as to the best
course to pursue. At all costs they must prevent the Portuguese from
taking her to shore and firing her, as they had fired the _Santa Cruz_,
a few months earlier. They decided to board the _Madre de Dios_. Their
first attack was repulsed: the galleon slowly kept on her way to the
island. Then Sir R. Cross encouraged his men to make a final attempt.
For three hours they fought on alone, when two ships of the Earl of
Cumberland arrived, and the galleon was at length taken.
Naturally there was considerable anger among the men of Ralegh's fleet,
when the Earl of Cumberland's captains demanded their share of the
spoils. Feeling ran high between both parties, and many valuables were
stolen, for the galleon was beyond all belief, rich in treasure. And
when, on the eighth of September, they arrived with the capture at
Dartmouth, and learned that Ralegh was in the Tower, the disorder grew
perilously near to mutiny. Ralegh's presence became a necessity, and he
was released. He went to the West as a State prisoner. Sir Robert Cecil
preceded him.
News of the treasure on the captured ship had spread far and wide: and a
proclamation was issued throughout the towns in Devon and Cornwall "that
all passengers should be stopped, and that all trunks, carriers, packs,
hampers, cloak-bags, portmanteaus, and fardells, that are likely to have
in them any part of the goods lately arrived in the ports of Dartmouth
or Plymouth in a Spanish carrock ... should be stayed and searched." For
the galleon, besides jewels and bullion, contained spices, drugs, silks,
calicoes, carpets and quilts, to the value of about L150,000.
So, Cecil writes in a letter to his father, that "Whomsoever I met by
the way within seven miles, that either had anything in cloak-bag, or in
mail, which did but smell of the prizes (for I assure your Lordship I
could smell them almost, such hath been the spoils of amber and musk
amongst them) I did, though he had little about him, return him with me
to the town of Exeter.... I have taken order to search every bag or mail
coming from the West.... My Lord, there never was such spoil! I will
suppress the confluence of these buyers, of which there are above two
thousand. And except they be removed there will be no good.... Fouler
ways, desperater ways, nor more obstinate people did I never meet
with.... Her Majesty's captive comes after, but I have outrid him."
And in a second letter, written a few days later, he describes Ralegh's
arrival, and the enthusiastic welcome which his men of Devon gave him:
"I assure you, Sir, poor servants to the number of a hundred and forty
goodly men, and all the mariners came to him with such shouts and joy,
as I never saw a man more troubled to quiet them in my life. But his
heart is broken, for he is very extreme pensive longer than he is
busied, in which he can toil terribly."
[Illustration: ROBERT CECIL]
Ralegh himself came very badly out of the division (probably through
the cleverness of Robert Cecil), and he did not scruple to write very
frankly to Lord Burghley his opinion of the business. "The Erle of
Cumberland is allowed L36,000, and his accompt came but to L19,000: so
as he hath L17,000 profytt, who adventured for himselfe; and we that
served the Queen and assisted her service, have not our own again.
Besides I gave my ship's sayles and cables to furnish the Caraque and
bring her home, or else she had perished: my ship first bourded her, and
onely staid with her; and brought her into harborough or else she had
perished uppon Silley. I was not present, and therefore had no
extraordinary profytt: I was the cause that all this came to the
Queene.... I that adventured all my estate, lose of my principall and
they have double...."
Robert Cecil was one of the few Elizabethan men with any pretence to
greatness who was before all else designing and crafty. He had a genius
for cold scheming. About this time he began to realize that Ralegh was
too impetuous, and too great to be a convenient friend. And so he
quietly set about to sap Ralegh's influence, though on the surface he
remained as friendly as he had ever been, and let his son stay with the
Raleghs at Sherborne. Robert Cecil was a politician and nothing else.
And now Ralegh made Sherborne, in the county of Dorset, his centre, from
which he transacted all the manifold business of his life. Here, as in
Youghal, he planted trees and flowers. He thought with Lord Bacon that
"God Almighty first planted a garden, and indeed, it is the purest of
human pleasures: it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of a man;
without which buildings and handiworks are but gross handiworks:" even
as he would think with Bacon, "It is a poor centre of a man's actions,
himself. It is right earth; for that only stands fast upon his own
centre, whereas all things that have affinity with the heavens, move
upon the centre of another, which they benefit." For he was working
towards the realization of his great dream, which would bring prosperity
and wealth once for all to England and England's greatest Queen,
Elizabeth. He now had all the things which are wont to make for comfort
and contentment: but he was not a man for whom ease had any attraction.
He strained every effort, even amidst the peace and beauty of the
country which he loved, to the arduous enterprise which he had set
himself--to explore the little-known country of Guiana--an enterprise in
which many brave men were known to have lost their lives.