FINAL FEUD WITH ESSEX (1597-1601).
[Sidenote: _A Busy Life._]
The Islands Voyage was the last for many years of Ralegh's personal
adventures at sea. After it he found enough, and too much, to occupy him
at home. He speaks of himself as 'mad with intricate affairs and want of
means.' As soon as he returned he had to take precautions against an
expected attack on Falmouth by a Spanish fleet of 110 or 160 sail. Only
the tempest which had troubled Essex and him prevented its arrival while
he was away. He was arranging for the journey into Spain of a spy, who
had a pass from Philip, whereby he might safely look into the ports. He
was urging on the Council the despatch of light warships against the
Spanish treasure fleet. He represented it as a complement to the
preceding expedition, less hazardous and likely to be much more
lucrative. The squadron would be absent only in the dead of winter, and
could be back by spring, 'sufficient timely to answer any attempt from
Spain.' He was provisioning Western ports, paying their garrisons, and
reckoning the cost of maintenance of captive Spaniards. He was scolding
a presumptuous nephew, John Gilbert. He was upholding the ancient
tenures of the Duchy of Cornwall, and resisting the exaction of obsolete
licences for drying and packing fish. He was relieving miners from
extortions by merchants. He was advocating an Irish policy of terrorism,
in the course perhaps of a visit to Munster, as Mr. Payne Collier has
inferred from the language of his letter itself, rather more confidently
than it warrants, though a current rumour that he was out of heart at
the moment with his Court prospects favours the hypothesis of
self-banishment. At any rate, in October, 1598, he was writing to
shame-faced Cecil in defence, it is sad to say, of official connivance
at the assassination of Irish rebels: 'It can be no disgrace if it were
known that the killing of a rebel were practised. But, for yourself, you
are not to be touched in the matter.' In his History he condemns lying
in wait privily for blood as wilful murder. In return for his activity
and his fierceness he was recognised as both hostile and important
enough to be singled out as a mark for the Ultramontane fury which
kindled and fed Irish revolts. That at times assumed strange forms. His
name is joined in 1597 with those of Cecil and the Lord Admiral as among
the Englishmen whom Tempest the Jesuit destined to destruction. The
instrument was a poison, for which the sole antidote was the utterance
of the word Eguldarphe three times before drinking. Then the glass would
break, or the wine, if in a silver cup, would froth and fume.
[Sidenote: _Counsellor and Debater._]
Public affairs and private affairs, small things and great, filled
Ralegh's life to overflowing. They were all transacted at high pressure.
Everything he did he did with his whole might. He always 'toiled
terribly.' He sat in the House of Commons in the winter of 1597-8, and
his name often occurs in reports of debates and committees. He spoke on
the infesting of the country by pretended soldiers and sailors, on the
cognate subject of sturdy vagabonds and beggars, on the fruitful topic
of the Queen's debts. He took part in the burning controversy whether
the Lords were entitled to receive, seated, Members sent by the Lower
House to confer on a Bill, instead of coming down to the bar. He was
being consulted by the Privy Council on the right way of dealing with
Tyrone's Ulster rising. He was praying a licence for a translation from
the Italian of a history of King Sebastian's and Thomas Stukely's
invasion of Morocco, on the ground that he had perused and corrected
something therein. He was soliciting and obtaining a Governorship. He
was seeking the enlargement out of prison of his cousin Henry Carew's
'distressed son.' He was nursing at Bath his ailments, of which their
Lordships of the Council were very sorry to hear, and wished him speedy
recovery. He was, through Cecil, and with the Queen's leave, applying
pressure to Bishop Cotton of Salisbury, at the end of 1598, for the
change of his lease of Sherborne into the fee. He was building there a
new mansion. He was playing primero at the Palace with Lord Southampton,
and doubtless as eagerly, though he did not, like the Peer, threaten to
cudgel the Royal Usher who told them they must go to bed. He was
exclaiming at the supineness which suffered Spain to prepare expeditions
against Flanders or Ireland, capture 'our small men-of-war,' and send
safe into Amsterdam 'the ship of the South Sea of Holland, with a
lantern of clear gold in her stern, infinite rich--and none of yours
stayed her!'
[Sidenote: _The Rivalry with Essex._]
[Sidenote: _Attempts at Friendship._]
Never was there a busier existence, or one apparently more evenly
occupied. But at this period it had really a single engrossing care, and
that was the rivalry with Essex. Once it had looked as if the two might
become friends. Before the Islands Voyage, Essex had been closely allied
both with him and with Cecil. Afterwards, on an alarm of a Spanish
invasion in 1596, Essex and he seem to have been jointly directed to
advise on a system of coast defence. Essex drew up a series of
questions, to which Ralegh categorically replied. He expressed an
opinion that it was not worth while to attempt to fortify aught but 'the
river of Thames.' He thought it unwise either to hazard a battle, or to
store much ammunition anywhere but in London. His reason was that 'we
have few places guardable, Portsmouth excepted.' Essex and he hoped
apparently to be given another foreign command. In October, 1597, Ralegh
was prompt to report to Cecil the testimony of a Plymouth captain just
come from abroad, that 'the Earl our General hath as much fame and
reputation in Spain and Italy as ever, and more than, any of our nation
had; and that for an enemy he is the most honoured man in Europe.' He
appeared to nurse no anger for the reproaches and menaces used at Flores
and Fayal. Those were reported by Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney to have
been greatly misliked at Court, where Ralegh was 'happy to have good and
constant friends able by their wisdom and authority to protect and
comfort him.' He did not take advantage of his influence there to direct
attention to his commander's blunders at St. Michael's. On the contrary,
he seized every opportunity, with seeming sincerity, of dwelling upon
his courage and capacity. He exhibited friendliness in various ways. In
December, 1597, he had accepted a mission from the Queen to compromise a
question of precedence between Essex and the Lord High Admiral. Towards
the beginning of 1598 he, Essex, and Cecil again met often at Essex
House and Cecil House in secret conclave. Cecil in February, 1598, was
sent to France on a mission to dissuade Henry IV from concluding a
separate peace with Spain. His journey was made an occasion for special
demonstrations of goodwill among the rival courtiers. Entertainments
were given him in which Ralegh with Lady Ralegh, and members of the
Essex party, like Lord Southampton and Lady Walsingham, equally
participated. Essex accepted favours from Ralegh and Cecil. Ralegh
offered him a third of the prizes he had captured. Cecil procured him a
grant of L7000 from the sale of the cochineal belonging to the Crown. He
was believed to have reciprocated the kindness of each by promising
Cecil that in his absence nothing disagreeable to him should be done,
and Ralegh, that he would join Cecil in having him appointed a Privy
Councillor, if not Vice-Chamberlain. But the show of cordiality was
deceptive, and Essex chose to imagine himself continually aggrieved. The
Islands Voyage had been a failure. The Queen told him it had been. She
blamed him for having accomplished nothing at Ferrol. She reproached him
with the escape of the plate fleet. He was discontented with himself.
His flatterers consoled him by assurances that others were in fault
rather than he. They pointed at Ralegh; and the old jealousy revived
with redoubled violence.
[Sidenote: _Tolerance of Disappointments._]
Ralegh was no longer an object for generosity. He was become again a
power at Court. He was perpetually consulted on maritime and Irish
affairs. Conferences were held between him and the Council in 1599
concerning Ireland, and his advice for the victualling of the garrisons
was adopted in the January of the same year. His Western command, at a
time when Spanish incursions were from moment to moment possible,
brought him into peculiar prominence. When his hopes in 1598 either of
the Vice-Chamberlainship, or of a seat at the Privy Council, were
frustrated, he was disappointed; unlike his adversary, he could bear
disappointment. He was at once the most patient and the most impatient
of men. His was the healthy form of disappointment, which, if an outlet
in one quarter be closed, incites to the discovery of another. The
gossip of the town reported in October, 1598, that he was meditating a
voyage to Guiana in company with Sir John Gilbert: 'He is discontented
he thrives no better.' It was one of a Court life's passing clouds, and
he treated it so that it should pass. To the diseased mind of Essex he
appeared prosperous and triumphant at all points, and beyond all
deserving. Even the few laurels of the late expedition had been gathered
by him. When they had been at variance, Ralegh had put him in the wrong.
Ralegh could not tolerate an insolent superior. Essex could endure no
equal. He was ever sulking at Wanstead, or raging. Ralegh's name was the
established text for his outbursts of wrath. An anecdote told by the
anonymous author, said to be Lord Clarendon, of _The Difference between
George Duke of Buckingham and Robert Earl of Essex_, is supposed to
illustrate the humiliations to which his temper exposed him. On the
Queen's birthday, November 17, 1598, the accustomed tournament was being
held in the Tilt-yard before her Majesty. Ralegh, not brooding on late
rebuffs, led a gallant retinue in orange-tawny plumes. Essex had heard
of Ralegh's preparations. He entered with his visor down, at the head of
a larger and more magnificent troop flaunting 2000 feathers of the same
colour. It must be admitted that, as Horace Walpole remarks, 'the
affront is not very intelligible at present.' Apparently, he wished to
produce an impression by his 'glorious feather triumph' that Ralegh and
his followers were a company of esquires or pages. But the two bodies
tilted, and Essex 'ran very ill.'
[Sidenote: _Essex in Ireland._]
In chagrin, and almost despair, Essex at the end of March, 1599, went
over to Ireland as Lord Deputy. The vacancy had been a theme of much
dispute at Court. In 1598, Ralegh, Sir Robert Sidney, and Sir
Christopher Blount, Essex's step-father, had been mentioned by rumour
for the appointment. In March, Rowland Whyte had written positively to
Sir Robert Sidney that it had been decided to nominate either Sir
William Russell or Ralegh, but Russell had absolutely declined, and 'the
other doth little like it.' Perilous as the post was, 'a fair way to
destruction,' as Whyte described it, a refusal of it by Ralegh, had the
choice been given him, is incredible. Essex in any case preserved enough
influence to have hindered his nomination. At last, to exclude others,
and to keep himself before the world, Essex consented to be appointed.
As soon as he had landed in Ireland he began to bemoan his 'banishment
and proscription into the cursedest of all islands.' So loud was his
discontent as to give rise to extraordinary popular fancies. London was
in the August of 1599 barricaded for a fortnight. A fleet was put in
commission under Lord Thomas Howard as Admiral. Ralegh was Vice-Admiral,
and 'took leave at Court of all the ladies' about August 18. He stayed
in the Downs for three weeks or a month. The ostensible, and doubtless
the true, reason was the threat of a Spanish descent upon the Isle of
Wight. But not a few believed that it was a precaution, less against the
Spaniard than against an apprehended invasion by Essex from Ireland.
Wild as was the rumour, it was favoured by the reckless talk of Essex
and his companions. Sir Christopher Blount on the scaffold confessed to
Ralegh that some had designed the transport of a choice part of the army
of Ireland to Milford, and a march upon London.
[Sidenote: _Attacks on Ralegh._]
Essex before this, on June 25, 1599, had been writing to Elizabeth: 'Is
it not lamented by your Majesty's faithfullest subjects, both there and
here, that a Cobham and Ralegh--I will forbear others for their places'
sakes--should have such credit and favour with your Majesty, when they
wish the ill success of your Majesty's most important action, the decay
of your greatest strength, and the destruction of your faithfullest
servants?' His fury against Ralegh seems too excessive to have been
genuine. In part it may be explained by his knowledge, on which Sir John
Pope Hennessy has laid inordinate stress, that Ralegh was the most
strenuous opponent of his Irish policy. He would detect the voice and
hand of Ralegh in all the hindrances to, and in every criticism upon,
his measures. He would imagine he heard him arguing adversely at
sittings of the Council, to which he was informally admitted, and in the
Queen's chamber. Sympathy may reasonably be felt now both with his
special difficulties, and with his general tendencies in Irish
administration, rather than with his rival's doctrines. His, however,
were only tendencies. His conduct both in Ireland and in England proves
that he thought of Irish administration as a weapon of combat for Court
ascendency, not as a means of correcting the wrongs of ages. The tone of
his tirades upon his condemnation to residence in Ireland is wholly
inconsistent with the romantic theory that he had undertaken the
government as a humanitarian mission of peace and benevolence to the
Celt.
[Sidenote: _Despair and Cabals._]
His abrupt return was but the climax in a series of extravagances which
had terrified the Queen. He was indignant at any delay in a restoration
of the old royal kindness. At first he condescended to a few overtures
for forgiveness. His friends could not believe that he would not be
welcomed back. They were persuaded that, if Elizabeth saw him, all would
be as it had been. Leave was importuned for him to run again in the ring
at Whitehall on the Queen's birthday. He was induced to affect
penitence. It was noted hopefully that the royal favour to Ralegh was
not without breaks. He had wished to be a Commissioner for the peace
negotiations with Spain at Boulogne. The Queen refused, as his
appointment would have confirmed his title to a Privy Councillorship. In
June he was said to have been scolded worse than cat and dog, and
dismissed into the country bag and baggage. Obediently he went over to
his Cork estate, where he aided Carew in his Munster Presidency with his
'strong counsel' in July. As before, he kept his temper, and the Queen
relented. She sent comforting messages when he fell ill from vexation,
as was said, and recalled him to Court. Essex was not content to work
upon her compassion. He grew contemptuously impatient. He was much more
resentful than grateful when his pardon came without a renewal of his
farm of sweet wines. Everybody has heard of his rude taunt thereupon at
Elizabeth, that 'her conditions were as crooked as her carcase.' Ralegh
in his _Prerogative of Parliaments_ applies it as an illustration how
'undutiful words of a subject do often take deeper root than the memory
of ill deeds.' He asserts that the saying 'cost the Earl his head, which
his insurrection had not cost him, but for that speech.' Essex did not
stop at sneers. He caballed with persecuted Papists and Puritans alike,
and with various desperados. He alarmed King James with fantastic
accounts of conspiracies for the Infanta's succession. In the plot were,
he intimated, Ralegh potent in the West and Channel Islands; Cobham,
Warden of the Cinque Ports; the Lord Treasurer; the Lord Admiral;
Burleigh, Cecil's brother, President of the North; and Carew, President
of Munster. All were persons, he alleged, well affected to the King of
Spain. He urged James to require a public recognition of his title. He
'pretended,' wrote Cecil to Carew, 'an intention to remove me from the
Queen, as one who would sell the kingdom of England to the Infanta of
Spain, with such other hyperbolical inventions.' He desired to replace
Ralegh in the Captaincy of the Guard by Sir William Russell.
[Sidenote: _Gorges and Blount._]
On Sunday, Feb. 8, 1601, came the explosion. Very little secrecy had
been preserved, and the guard at Court was doubled. In the morning
Ralegh invited Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Governor of Plymouth Fort, to come
by water to him at Durham House. Essex was willing Gorges should meet
Ralegh on conditions: he must take a couple of companions for his
protection, and the meeting must be on the river, not at Ralegh's
lodgings. Ralegh consented. Gorges, some time later, during his
confinement at the Gate-house, on June 14, 1601, wrote an account of the
interview. At his examination by several Privy Councillors he had stated
that Sir Christopher Blount tried to persuade him to seize or kill
Ralegh. He refused, 'unless Sir Walter had given me the first occasion
by violent deeds or unkind words, for either of which I was both
resolved and prepared.' He admitted the 'intent was particular against
Sir Walter Ralegh and others.' He thought this a proof that 'it was no
matter of treason against her Majesty, but rather a manifestation of the
contrary.' Essex gave out that his rising was prompted by a discovery
that there was an ambuscade of musketeers placed upon the water by the
device of Lord Cobham and Ralegh, to murder him in the way as he passed.
Blount, at his trial, confessed there was no foundation for the
allegation. In reply to Cecil, who asked if he thought Cobham and Ralegh
had projected the murder of the Earl, he said he did not believe they
ever meant any such thing, nor that the Earl himself feared it; only it
was a word cast out to colour other matters. Essex himself subsequently
made a similar admission with respect to his charges against Ralegh and
Cobham of treason to the Queen and State. Blount, it is said, being
unable to induce Gorges to commit the crime, himself from a boat fired
four shot at Ralegh. Ralegh was present officially at his execution, and
interposed on his behalf when the Sheriff would have forbidden him to go
on speaking. Blount reciprocated the courtesy by asking Ralegh's
forgiveness, 'both for the wrong done you, and for my particular ill
intent towards you.' Ralegh was a witness at the trial of Essex, on
February 19. When he was called, Essex rudely cried: 'What booteth it
to swear this fox!' He insisted upon the oath being administered upon a
folio, not upon a small, Testament. Ralegh was not to be irritated into
retorting angrily. He calmly explained that on the river Gorges said
this would be the bloodiest day's work that ever was, and wished Ralegh
would speed to Court for the prevention of it. Gorges admitted the
accuracy of the account. Essex denied its agreement with the report made
by Gorges to him at Essex House.
[Sidenote: _Ralegh's Demeanour towards Essex._]
Essex was a popular idol. Ralegh, till his fall, never was. A
contemporary said that Essex's reverses endeared him, and Ralegh's
successes seemed to deepen the public dislike. The populace deluded
itself with the fancy, absolutely groundless, that Essex's ruin was due
to Ralegh, and that Ralegh must have exulted at it. Malignant anecdotes
were current of his demeanour at his rival's last moments. He was said
to have snatched at the pleasure of conveying to the Lieutenant of the
Tower the instructions for the execution. He was described as, on
February 25, standing in a window over against the scaffold, and puffing
out tobacco smoke in defiance. After his own death, Sir Lewis Stukely
alleged him to have said that the great boy died like a calf, and like a
craven; to have vaunted to one who asked if in the Islands Voyage the
Earl had not brought him to his mercy, that he trusted they were now
quits. Against such gross tales Ralegh needs no defence. He could not
have behaved like a boorish ruffian to an adversary in the death agony.
He could not have spoken unmannerly words of his dead Cadiz comrade. He
had been present at the Earl's trial as Captain of the Guard. In spite
of taunts, he had given his evidence with dignity and moderation. As
Captain of the Guard he had escorted several of the insurgents, though
not Essex himself, to prison. In his official capacity he carried the
order for the execution. In the same character he was present in the
Tower. At first he had stood near the scaffold, supposing that Essex
might wish to speak to him. To avoid misconstruction by lookers-on he
soon withdrew. He stationed himself in the distant Armoury, where he
could see without being seen. Afterwards he was sorry, he said, for it;
since he heard that the Earl had inquired for him, desiring to have been
reconciled.
[Sidenote: _His Part in the Catastrophe._]
His aspect is reported to have been sad and gloomy, as he was rowed back
to Durham House. With his nature, and his gifts of imagination, he could
not but have been awed by the consummation he had witnessed of a tragic
doom. Later he believed he had always lamented the fate of Essex as the
beginning of a new peril to himself from those who before had needed his
support against a powerful rival. He may already have had a
presentiment. He could rightly declare that the death was not his work.
Essex was his own undoer. A time had been at which Ralegh would gladly
have become his firm friend. His emphatic concurrence, recorded by
Rowland Whyte, with Lady Ralegh's wish that there were 'love and concord
amongst all' was not hypocritical. In all sincerity he had written twice
in that spirit in the spring of 1600 to Lady Essex. He had found it of
no use; and a period came when he rejoiced in an inveterate enemy's
discomfiture. It is fanciful to affirm that he would have been pleased
to assist in turning aside the final shock of ruin. His sentiments
towards Essex at the end, unhappily, are too certain for the precise
meaning of his enigmatical undated letter to Cecil, discovered among the
Hatfield papers, to be of much consequence. Of its authenticity there is
no real doubt, though Mr. Charles Kingsley, whose enthusiasm for Ralegh
is delightful and unmixed, chooses to question it on the slender ground
that it is signed by initials, and that the style is, to his taste,
unlike Ralegh's. Its exact meaning is much more open to dispute. Here it
is:--
[Sidenote: _Advice to Cecil._]
'I am not wise enough to give you advice; but if you take it for a good
counsel to relent towards this tyrant, you will repent it when it shall
be too late. His malice is fixed, and will not evaporate by any your
mild courses. For he will ascribe the alteration to her Majesty's
pusillanimity, and not to your good nature: knowing that you work but
upon her humour, and not out of any love towards him. The less you make
him, the less he shall be able to harm you and yours. And if her
Majesty's favour fail him, he will again decline to a common person. For
after revenges fear them not; for your own father, that was esteemed to
be the contriver of Norfolk's ruin, yet his son followeth your father's
son and loveth him. Humours of men succeed not, but grow by occasions
and accidents of time and power. Somerset made no revenge on the Duke of
Northumberland's heirs. Northumberland, that now is, thinks not of
Hatton's issue. Kelloway lives that murdered the brother of Horsey; and
Horsey let him go by all his lifetime. I could name you a thousand of
those; and therefore after-fears are but prophecies, or rather
conjectures, from causes remote. Look to the present, and you do wisely.
His son shall be the youngest Earl of England but one, and if his father
be now kept down, Will Cecil shall be able to keep as many men at his
heels as he, and more too. He may also match in a better house than his;
and so that fear is not worth the fearing. But if the father continue,
he will be able to break the branches, and pull up the tree, root and
all. Lose not your advantage; if you do, I rede your destiny. Yours to
the end, W.R. Let the Queen hold Bothwell while she hath him. He will
ever be the canker of her estate and safety. Princes are lost by
security; and preserved by prevention. I have seen the last of her good
days, and all ours, after his liberty.' By Bothwell is meant Essex. The
real Bothwell was a natural son of James V. of Scotland, who had plotted
against the reigning king, and been pardoned, and had plotted again.
[Sidenote: _Difficulties of Construction._]
On the date of the letter depends whether it signify doing to death, or
grinding into obscurity. It is endorsed in Cecil's hand, 'Sir Walter
Ralegh,' and in a later hand, '1601.' That is hardly a possible date.
The civil, ecclesiastical, and legal year in England, by which a
secretary at Hatfield is likely to have reckoned, closed on March 24.
Consequently '1601' had not begun when Essex was already dead. The only
question is, when in the legal year 1600 the letter was written. If at
the end, when judgment had been pronounced, its object would be the
accomplishment of the capital sentence. If it were written early in 1600
its more probable purpose would be to induce Cecil to urge the Queen to
strip Essex of all his dignities and offices. Ralegh's apologists can
adduce for the less bloodthirsty interpretation the passage: 'If her
Majesty's favour fail him, he will again decline to a common person.'
The words naturally refer to disgrace, not to death. It has been
imagined that the plan was to incapacitate him by law for employment,
and to hold him a State prisoner. The remark, 'His son shall be the
youngest Earl of England but one,' remains equally puzzling on either
construction. Advocates of that which treats the letter as a plea for
imprisonment and disqualification for office have to show how he could
have been kept a State prisoner for life for offences he had committed
before the rising of February, and, moreover, how the imprisoned living
father was to make way in his peerage for the son. On the other theory
which presumes it to have been an argument for sending Essex to the
scaffold, it is as unintelligible how the father's fate, with its
necessary attainder of blood, could legally transmit his dignity.
The inherent inconsistencies of the document are scarcely more
perplexing than the circumstances of its origin. It has been suggested
that the idea of the letter was Cecil's, and that he plotted to deceive
posterity by inducing Ralegh to hold the pen. In the crude shape, that
is an incredible hypothesis. But Cecil was of a nature to discuss
questions of policy with his confidants, and extract their views, while
he revealed only half his own. Very possibly the letter may have arisen
out of a conversation in which the Minister had canvassed the question
of acting with prudent magnanimity towards the fallen favourite. He may
have requested Ralegh to repeat in writing objections urged orally by
him to such a course for the exposition of the case on both its sides.
At all events, it would be convenient for Cecil to have the document if
in future it should be doubted which of the confederates had been the
more vindictive. Ralegh could easily be drawn to try his hand, between
fancy and earnest, at an academic theme on the lines of fashionable
Italian state-craft. If the paper be indeed nothing but an exercise in
pleading, the author deserves to be applauded for the artistic
assumption of an air of sincerity which chills the reader's blood.