IN THE TOWER. THE GREAT CARACK. (1592).
[Sidenote: _Elizabeth Throckmorton._]
Immediately on his return, if not before, he understood the reason of
his recall. He had written to Cecil on March 10: 'I mean not to come
away, as they say I will, for fear of a marriage, and I know not what.
If any such thing were, I should have imparted it unto yourself before
any man living; and therefore, I pray, believe it not, and I beseech you
to suppress, what you can, any such malicious report. For, I protest,
there is none on the face of the earth that I would be fastened unto.'
As soon as he reached London in June, he was thrown into the Tower. He
had seemed before to be enjoying the plenitude of royal favour. So
lately as in January it had been shown by the grant of a fine estate in
Dorset. No official record is discoverable of the cause of his
imprisonment. Disobedience to the order to quit the fleet would have
been a sufficient pretext. It was not mentioned. The imprisonment was a
domestic punishment within her own fortress-palace, inflicted by the
Queen as head of her household. The true reason was his courtship of
Elizabeth, daughter to the Queen's devoted but turbulent servant and
confidant, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton. He had died in 1571, at the age of
fifty-seven, in Leicester's house. His eldest son, Nicholas, was adopted
by a maternal uncle, the last Carew of Beddington, and became Sir
Nicholas Carew. Elizabeth Throckmorton, who had as many cousins in high
positions as Ralegh, was appointed a maid of honour. Her portrait
proves her to have been handsome. She was tall, slender, blue-eyed and
golden-haired. Her mental qualities will be in evidence during the rest
of Ralegh's life. Never were written more charming letters than hers, in
more unembarrassed phonetic spelling.
[Sidenote: _Scantiness of Testimony._]
[Sidenote: _Hard to believe._]
The Captain of the Guard and she attended on the Queen together. He made
her an exception to his rule as to maids of honour, that, 'like witches,
they can do hurt, but no good.' He found her only too amiable. Camden,
in his _Annals_, published in 1615, explains Ralegh's crime and
punishment: 'honoraria Reginae virgine vitiata, quam postea in uxorem
duxit.' Wood says the same in his Latinized English, merely translating
Camden. A letter from Sir Edward Stafford to Sir Anthony Bacon, with the
impossible date, July 30, couples Ralegh's and Miss Throckmorton's names
in a burst of exultation, natural to Essex's friends: 'If you have
anything to do with Sir Walter Ralegh, or any love to make to Mrs.
Throckmorton, at the Tower to-morrow you may speak with them; if the
countermand come not to-night, as some think will not be, and
particularly he that hath charge to send them thither.' Stafford does
not specify the offence. The sole independent testimony is the single
sentence of Camden's. Yet posterity has had no option but to accept the
account. The error, if other courtiers had been the culprits, would have
excited little surprise. Elizabeth's maids of honour were not more
beyond suspicion than Swift asserts Anne's to have been. Essex's
gallantries at Court, after as before his marriage, were notorious and
many. Lord Southampton and his bride were the subjects of a similar tale
a few years later. Palace gossip treated it as a very ordinary
peccadillo. Cecil in February, 1601, tells Carew of the 'misfortune' of
one of the maids, Mistress Fitton, with Lord Pembroke, as if it were a
jest. Both the culprits, he remarks, 'will dwell in the Tower a while.'
His phrases show none of the horror they breathed when he spoke of
Ralegh, and the Queen was likely to read them. The English Court was
pure in the time of Elizabeth for its time. It degenerated greatly under
her successor. Harington contrasts manners then with the previous 'good
order, discretion, and sobriety.' But no little licence was permitted,
and the tales of it commonly excite small surprise. As told of Ralegh,
and yet more of Elizabeth Throckmorton, the story startles still. No
evidence exists upon which he can justly be pronounced a libertine. How
she, refined, faithful, heroic, should have been led astray, is hardly
intelligible. She must have now been several years over twenty, probably
twenty-eight or twenty-nine, and in her long after-life she bore herself
as entitled to all social respect. She was allowed it by every one,
except her Mistress, who never restored her to favour. By the Cecils she
was treated with unfailing regard. In the whole of her struggle, by her
husband's side, and over his grave, for his and her son's rights, not a
whisper was heard of the blot on her fair fame. If Camden had not
spoken, and if Ralegh and she had not stood mute, it would have been
easy to believe that the imagined liaison was simply a secret marriage
resented as such by the Queen, as, two years before, she had resented
Essex's secret marriage to Sidney's widow. That seems to have been
asserted by their friends, at the first explosion of the scandal. A
letter, written on the eve of Ralegh's committal to the Tower, by one
who manifestly did not hold the benevolent opinion, says, after a
spitefully prophetic comparison of Ralegh with his own
Hermit poor in pensive place obscure:
'It is affirmed that they are married; but the Queen is most fiercely
incensed.'
[Sidenote: _Harder to disbelieve._]
That the royal anger had a better foundation than the mere jealousy of
affection or of domination, it is to be feared, is the inevitable inference
from the evidence, however concise and circumstantial. Had contradiction
been possible, Camden would have been contradicted in 1615 by Ralegh and
his wife. Cecil alluded to Ralegh's offence in 1592 as 'brutish.' With all
his zeal to indulge the Queen's indignation, he could not have used the
term of a secret marriage. The prevailing absence of Court talk on the
occurrence is not traceable to any doubt of its true character.
Courtiers simply believed it dangerous to be outspoken on a matter
affecting the purity of the Virgin Queen's household circle. Her prudery
may indeed go some way towards accounting for, if not excusing, the
fault. It was dangerous for one of her counsellors to be suspected of an
attachment. So late as March, 1602, Cecil was writing earnestly to Carew
in repudiation of a rumour that he was like to be enchanted for love or
marriage. Almost borrowing Ralegh's words to himself of ten years
earlier, he declares upon his soul he knows none on earth that he was,
or, if he might, would be, married unto. In Elizabeth's view
love-making, except to herself, was so criminal that at Court it had to
be done by stealth. Any show of affection was deemed an act of guilt.
From a consciousness of guilt to the reality is not always a wide step.
In Ralegh's references and language to his wife may be detected a tone
in the tenderness as though he owed reparation as well as attachment.
The redeeming feature of their passion is that they loved with true love
also, and with a love which grew. His published opinions, as in his
_Instructions to his Son_, on wives and marriage, like those of other
writers of aphorisms in his age, ring harshly and coldly. But he did not
act on frigid fragments of sententious suspiciousness. He was careful
for his widow's worldly welfare. With death, as it seemed, imminent, he
trusted with all, and in everything, his 'sweet Besse,' his 'faithful
wife,' as scoffing Harington with enthusiasm called her. His constant
desire was to have her by his side, but to spare her grieving.
[Sidenote: _A Rhapsody._]
[Sidenote: _A Comedy in the Tower._]
When and where they were married is unknown. So careful were they to
avoid publicity that Lady Ralegh's brother, Arthur Throckmorton, for
some time questioned the fact, though his suspicions were dissipated,
and he became an attached friend of the husband's. Probably the ceremony
was performed after the imprisonment and not before. If the threat of
detention in the Tower, mentioned by Stafford, were carried into effect
against the lady, Ralegh at all events betrayed no consciousness that
she was his neighbour. In his correspondence at the time he never speaks
of her. His business was to obtain his release. He understood that
allusions to the partner in his misdeed would not move the Queen to
kindness. Like Leicester, and like Essex, he continued, though married,
to use loverlike phrases of the Queen, whenever they were in the least
likely to reach her ear. The Cecils were his allies against Essex. In
July, 1592, under cover of an account for the Yeomen's coats for an
approaching royal progress, he burst into a wonderful effusion to, not
for, Robert Cecil: '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 nigher at hand, that
I might hear of her once in two or three days, 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; sometimes sitting in the shade like a Goddess; sometimes
singing like an angel; sometimes 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 become of thy assurance? All wounds have
scars, but that of fantasy; 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 divinity but by reason
of compassion; for revenges are brutish and mortal. All those times
past--the loves, the sighs, the sorrows, the desires--can they not weigh
down one frail misfortune? Cannot one drop of gall be hidden in so great
heaps 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.' Did
ever tailor's bill, though for the most resplendent scarlet liveries
bespangled with golden roses, inspire a like rhapsody! By one writer on
Ralegh it has been characterized, so various are tastes, as 'tawdry and
fulsome.' To most it will seem a delightful extravagance. To
contemporaries the extravagance itself would appear not very glaring.
Elizabeth aroused both fascination and awe in her own period which
justified high flights. After her goodness and wrath were become alike
unavailing this is how a cynic like Harington spoke of her: 'When she
smiled it was a pure sunshine that every one did choose to bask in if
they could; but anon came a storm, and the thunder fell in wondrous
manner on all alike.' Ralegh doubtless was sincere in repining for the
radiance as in deprecating the scowls, though he overrated his ability
to conjure that back, and these away. In the same July, apparently, on
July 26, he played a little comedy of Orlando Furioso,--not the approach
to a tragedy of eleven years after. His chamber in the Tower was the
scene. The spectators were his Keeper and cousin, Sir George Carew, and
Arthur Gorges. Gorges was still, like Carew, his friend in 1614, and was
sung by him then as one
Who never sought nor ever cared to climb
By flattery, or seeking worthless men.
He now wrote to Cecil that Ralegh, hearing the Queen was on the Thames,
prayed Carew to let him row himself in disguise near enough to look upon
her. On Carew's necessary refusal he went mad, and tore Carew's new
periwig off. At last they drew out their daggers, whereupon Gorges
interposed, and had his knuckles rapped. 'They continue,' he proceeds,
'in malice and snarling. But, good Sir, let nobody know thereof.' He
adds in a more veracious postscript: 'If you let the Queen's Majesty
know hereof, as you think good, be it.'
[Sidenote: _The Brick Tower._]
Ralegh thought he understood his royal Mistress, of whom he had written
not very respectfully to Carew himself two or three years before: 'The
Queen thinks that George Carew longs to see her; and, therefore, see
her.' Like others he perceived her weaknesses; he did not appreciate her
strength. To his surprise she remained offended; and none can blame her.
His conduct had been treason to her sovereign charms. Her indignation on
that ground may be ridiculed. But she had a sincerer love for purity of
manners than posterity has commonly believed. Ralegh had set an ill
example. He had broken his trust; the seduction of a maid of honour was
a personal affront to his sovereign; he properly suffered for it, and
not in excess of the offence. His confinement was not rigorous. George
Carew since February, 1588, had been Master of the Ordnance in Ireland.
He was acting as Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance for England in
August, 1592; being confirmed in the post in 1603, and made
Master-General in 1609. In virtue of his office he had now as well as
later apartments in the Brick tower, which was considered to be under
the charge of the Master of the Ordnance. To the Brick tower Ralegh had
been sent, and he was committed to Carew's easy custody. He had his own
servants, whom he was allowed to lodge on the upper floor of the tower.
His friends were granted liberal access to him. From his window he could
see the river and the country beyond. The old Tower story that he was
shut up in a cell in the crypt, is a fiction. Not even his offices or
their emoluments were taken away. He could perform the duties by deputy.
But from June to December he was in confinement; and for long afterwards
he was forbidden to come into the royal presence.
[Sidenote: _Anger against the Irish Lord Deputy._]
[Sidenote: _New Combinations._]
He chafed at the light restraint. He affected indignation at the
severity of the penalty with which his 'great treasons,' as he called
them in mockery, were visited. He did not attempt to dispute its
legality, more than questionable as that was. Almost from the first he
evinced the extraordinary elasticity of nature, which was to be tried a
hundredfold hereafter. While he protested against the inevitable he
carved his life to suit it. From his gaol issued messages of despair and
of business in the strangest medley. He was much exercised about his
Irish estate; and he cast his burden upon Cecil: 'Your cousin, the
doting Deputy,' Fitzwilliam, he wrote, had been distraining on his
tenants for a supposed debt from himself as Undertaker. A sum of L400
for arrears of rent was demanded, though all Munster had scarce so much
money in it. The same Fitzwilliam, he alleges, had been mulcting the
Queen L1200 a year for a band of worthless soldiers in Youghal, under 'a
base fellow, O'Dodall.' Perhaps his estimate of the Captain may not be
unbiassed. A Sir John Dowdall seems to have disputed his title to, and,
two years later, to have ejected him from possession of, the manor of
Ardmore and other lands demised to him in 1592 by Bishop Witherhead of
Lismore. He was aggrieved by Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam's slowness to aid
him in his litigations. He thought it, as it was, 'a sign how my
disgraces have passed the seas.' At least his warnings of a rising of
the Burkes, O'Donells, and O'Neales need not have been neglected. 'I
wrote,' he complained, 'in a letter of Mr. Killigrew's ten days past a
prophecy of this rebellion, which when the Queen read she made a scorn
of my conceit.' Not that it was anything in reality to him. He cared not
either for life or lands. He was become, he declared with some
zoological confusion, 'like a fish cast on dry land, gasping for breath,
with lame legs and lamer lungs.' Still, he felt bound to point out the
pity of it. Then too, he reminded the High Admiral, there was the Great
Susan, 'which nobody but myself would undertake to set out.' It could
hardly be more profitable to punish him than that he 'should either
strengthen the fleet, or do many other things that lie in the ditches.'
Among them, for instance, was the business of keeping in order, as he
alone could, the soldiers and mariners 'that came in the prize.' They
ran up and down, he says, exclaiming for pay. So, again, in vain he knew
of the warships of the French League lying in wait for English
merchantmen, and threatening to make us a laughing-stock for all
nations. His information and his zeal were fruitless, through 'this
unfortunate accident,' of which neither he nor his correspondents ever
state the nature. 'I see,' he cries to the High Admiral, who appears to
have been mediating, 'there is a determination to disgrace me and ruin
me. Therefore I beseech your Lordship not to offend her Majesty any
farther by suing for me. I am now resolved of the matter. I only desire
that I may be stayed not one hour from all the extremity that either law
or precedent can avow. And if that be too little, would God it were
withall concluded that I might feed the lions, as I go by, to save
labour. For the torment of the mind cannot be greater; and, for the
body, would others did respect themselves as much as I value it at
little.' He was always impatient, inordinately despairing in
misfortunes, till the last extremity. He was always astonished that the
world pretended to go on without him, and certain it could not. As
constantly he was framing new combinations and keeping straight the old.
He let not a clue slip from his crippled hands. Throughout the long
interval of disgrace he was as active as in his sunniest prosperity,
perhaps more so.
[Sidenote: _The Prize._]
An accident freed him in September from actual duress. His disposition
of the fleet of which he continued titular 'General,' though Frobisher
and Burgh had royal commissions, proved successful. Already a Biscayan
of 600 tons burden, the Santa Clara, had been captured and sent to
England. This was the prize of which, and its prize crew, Ralegh wrote
to the High Admiral. The squadron under Frobisher deceived and perplexed
the Spaniards. Sir John Burgh slipped by and made for the Azores. His
ships spread themselves six or seven leagues west of Flores. They were
disappointed of the Santa Cruz, of 900 tons, which on July 29 her
officers burnt. On August 3 the great Crown of Portugal carack, the
Madre de Dios, came in sight. Three engaged her, and she was prevented
from running ashore. She was of 1600 tons burden, had seven decks, and
carried 800 men. The struggle lasted from 10 a.m. to 1 or 2 a.m. next
morning. The captors hotly debated their rival merits. Lord Cumberland
argued that the Roebuck and Foresight were both disabled, and that his
soldiers boarded and took the ship. Burgh accused Cumberland's people of
plundering. All agreed on the magnificence of the prize. Burgh wrote: 'I
hope, for all the spoil that has been made, her Majesty shall receive
more profit by her than by any ship that ever came into England.' The
purser of the Santa Cruz deposed that the Madre de Dios contained
precious stones, pearls, amber, and musk worth 400,000 crusados. She
brought two great crosses and a jewel of diamonds, presents from the
Viceroy to the King. She had 537 tons of spices. The pepper alone was
represented by Burleigh as worth L102,000. It fell to the Crown's share.
She carried fifteen tons of ebony, beside tapestries, silks, and satins.
After a stormy voyage she reached Dartmouth on September 8. At once the
eagles rushed upon the carcase. The ports of arrival looked like
Bartholomew Fair, said an eye-witness. The Council ordered the search of
all trunks and bundles conveyed from Plymouth or Dartmouth. It sent
Robert Cecil post-haste to hinder more plundering. Sir John Hawkins,
next chief adventurer after Ralegh, had written already to Burleigh to
say that for the partition of the spoil 'Sir Walter Ralegh is the
especial man. I see none of so ready a disposition to lay the ground how
her Majesty's portion may be increased as he is, and can best bring it
about.' Ralegh was permitted to quit the Tower. After a stay of two days
in London, he was despatched westwards. He travelled as a State prisoner
in charge of a keeper, Blount. As he went, he wrote, on September 17, of
London jewellers who had been buying secretly the fine goods: 'If I meet
any of them coming up, if it be upon the wildest heath in all the way, I
mean to strip them as naked as ever they were born. For it is infinite
that her Majesty hath been robbed, and that of the most rare things.'
Cecil was in front, and on September 19 reached Exeter. He had turned
back all he met on the road from Dartmouth or Plymouth. He could smell
them almost; such had been the spoils of amber and musk among them. 'I
fear that the birds be flown, for jewels, pearls, and amber; yet I will
not doubt but to save her Majesty that which shall be worth the journey.
My Lord, there never was such spoil! I will suppress the confluence of
the buyers, of which there are above 2000.' He adds: 'I found an armlet
of gold, and a fork and spoon of crystal with rubies, which I reserve
for the Queen. Her Majesty's captive comes after me, but I have outrid
him, and will be at Dartmouth before him.'
[Sidenote: _At Dartmouth._]
Ralegh never grudged praise. He testified freely to Cecil's zeal. He
wrote on September 21 from Dartmouth: 'I dare give the Queen L10,000 for
that which is gained by Sir Robert Cecil coming down, which I speak
without all affection, or partiality, for he hath more rifled my ship
than all the rest.' Cecil in turn, though in a more qualified tone,
commended Ralegh's exertions, in a very interesting letter to Sir Thomas
Heneage: 'Within one half hour Sir Walter Ralegh arrived with his
keeper, Mr. Blount. I assure you, Sir, his poor servants, to the number
of 140 goodly men, and all the mariners, came to him with shouts of joy;
I never saw a man more troubled to quiet them. But his heart is broken,
as he is extremely pensive, unless he is busied, in which he can toil
terribly. The meeting between him and Sir John Gilbert was with tears on
Sir John's part. But he, finding it is known that he has a keeper,
whenever he is saluted with congratulations for liberty, doth answer,
"No, I am still the Queen of England's poor captive." I wished him to
conceal it, because here it doth diminish his credit, which I do vow to
you before God is greater among the mariners than I thought for. I do
grace him as much as I may, for I find him marvellous greedy to do
anything to recover the conceit of his brutish offence.'
[Sidenote: _Division of the Spoil._]
Cecil, Raleigh, and William Killigrew were appointed joint
commissioners. They examined even Burgh's chests. They paid the mariners
their wages. They gave 20_s._ in addition to each from whom they had
taken pillage. On August 27, Ralegh and Hawkins had jointly written to
the High Admiral, asking for convoy for the carack. They computed it
worth L500,000. About the middle of September Ralegh wrote to Burleigh
from the Tower, that its value he estimated at L200,000. It turned out
to be L141,000. Whatever it was, the general rule for distributing the
value of privateer prizes was a third to the owner, a third to the
victuallers, a third to the officers and crew. Elizabeth contributed
1100 tons of shipping out of 5000, and L1800 out of L18,000. So she was
entitled to a tenth, that is, from L20,000 to L14,000. Ralegh was ready,
after negotiation with Sir George Carew, to add L80,000 for the Queen.
'Four score thousand pounds is more than ever a man presented her
Majesty as yet. If God have sent it for my ransom, I hope her Majesty of
her abundant goodness will accept it. If her Majesty cannot beat me from
her affection, I hope her sweet nature will think it no conquest to
afflict me.' Finally L36,000 was allowed to Ralegh and Hawkins, who
between them had, they said, spent L34,000. To Lord Cumberland, who had
spent only L19,000, was awarded L36,000, and L12,000 to the City of
London, which had spent L6000. Ralegh, who was, he boasted, 'the
greatest adventurer,' grievously complained to Burleigh. He asserted
also that, while he had deprived Spain in 1591 of L300,000, he had lost
in Lord Thomas Howard's voyage L1600. He reckoned up, besides, the
interest he had been paying on L11,000 since the voyage began. The Queen
was grasping in such matters. So, too, was her Lord Treasurer. Sir John
Fortescue, Chancellor of the Exchequer, had to remonstrate: 'It were
utterly to overthrow all service if due regard were not had of my Lord
of Cumberland and Sir Walter Ralegh, with the rest of the Adventurers,
who would never be induced to further adventure if they were not
princely considered of.' He added in a courtly strain: 'And herein I
found her Majesty very princely disposed.'