COBHAM AND CECIL (1601-1603).
[Sidenote: _Impatience of Subordination._]
[Sidenote: _The Privy Council._]
He did not know it, but he was now at the culmination of his prosperity.
His kinsman, the learned Richard Carew, dedicated to him at the
beginning of 1602 the _Survey of Cornwall_, in terms, which, however
exalted, were not exaggerated. He had a noble estate, his sovereign's
renewed confidence, and many important offices. In politics he was still
among those who followed rather than led, who executed, and did not
direct. Of constant subordination he was become impatient. He was not
content to be nothing more than 'a swordsman,' an instrument, though
highly distinguished and favoured. His aim was to force his entrance
within the citadel of administrative power. As a counsellor he exerted
commanding weight on two main branches of national policy, Ireland and
armaments. His Irish policy has been refuted by events. It is open to
all the accusations which have been brought against it of cruelty and
remorselessness. But its temper was that of a large body of English
statesmen; and he understood much better than the rest the true method
of putting it in practice. Had he been a Minister, and not only a royal
confidant, he might have succeeded for a time in establishing in Ireland
a peace of silence. He held as fixed and more generous views on the
subject of national defences, and on the proper strategy in dealing with
Spain. He fretted at being condemned to urge them from the outside
instead of within. His exclusion from partnership in responsible
authority was, he felt, perpetual, unless he could break in. Probably at
no period did he aspire after supremacy, or expect to dispossess Cecil.
His ambition, though restricted to the hope of admittance to
association, would not the less bring him into collision with the
jealous Secretary. He was reported in 1598 to be ambitious of a peerage.
He cared more for power than titles, and his ancient friends, like his
ancient rivals, thwarted his plans. We know that Cecil could not bear
even so moderate an approximation for him to official trust as his
regular introduction into the Privy Council. For that he had so long
been craving and looking, that, according to Henry Howard's taunt, he by
this time 'found no view for Paradise out of a Council board.' In June,
1601, there had been, as in 1598, a prospect of his nomination. Lords
Shrewsbury and Worcester instead were sworn in. Cecil intimated his
satisfaction. He told Sir George Carew that Ralegh should never have his
consent to be a Councillor, unless he surrendered to Carew the Captaincy
of the Guard.
Ralegh's efforts for a line of his own in statesmanship, and Cecil's
consequent antagonism, are the special features of the coming chapter in
his biography. His relations to the Cecils had always been intimate.
Lord Burleigh, notwithstanding differences concerning Ireland,
encouraged him as a counterpoise to Leicester. He repaid the kindness,
it will be recollected, by interceding for the Lord Treasurer's
son-in-law. He was a guest at the entertainment Burleigh gave to
Arabella Stuart. With Robert Cecil Ralegh's connexion was much closer.
Cecil valued his help at Court, and his society. In February, 1598,
during his mission to France, he mentions him to Burleigh as one 'with
whose kindness he has been long and truly fastened.' 'If some idle
errand,' he writes word, 'can send over Sir Walter, let us have him.'
With seeming sincerity he wrote in 1600 of him as one 'whose judgment I
hold great, as his person dear.' He was a companion of Ralegh in several
of his privateering speculations. Lady Ralegh wrote of Lady Cecil as of
a sympathetic friend. Perpetually she was appealing to her 'cousin'
Cecil as a support against Sir Walter's tribulations and hers. He is 'a
comfort to the grieved.' She 'presumes of his honourable favour ever.'
She confided to him her view of her Mistress the Queen as, like herself,
'a great believer.' In January, 1597, Ralegh condoled as a most loving
comrade with Cecil on gracious Lady Cecil's death. His letter exhorting
to implacability testifies to the closeness of their league against
Essex. The Earl's fiery anger had burnt against both alike. Had his mad
freak of treason succeeded, both would have been sacrificed in company.
[Sidenote: _Intimacy with Robert Cecil._]
After Essex succumbed the alliance appeared as strict as before. The two
households, as well as the masters, were affectionately familiar.
Cecil's son, William, was a most welcome guest at Sherborne. No stronger
proof of trust, it might have been thought, could be given by the
father. There is talk how 'the beloved creature's stomach is altogether
amended, and he doth now eat well and digest rightly;' how 'he is also
better kept to his book.' As one intimately conversant with Cecil's
affairs, Ralegh undertook in August, 1601, the supervision of his
recently purchased estate at Rushmore. Pleasant postscripts are
interposed on Lady Ralegh's behalf: 'Bess returns you her best wishes,
notwithstanding all quarrels.' 'Bess says that she must envy any fingers
whosoever that shall wear her gloves but your own.' There are threats
from her that for the breach of a recent engagement he shall on his next
visit have plain fare. Ralegh relied on Cecil to protect his monopoly of
Virginian trade under his patent against unlicensed Adventurers. They
cheapen, he complained, by their imports sassafras from its proper price
of 20s. to 12s. a pound; they 'cloy the market;' 'they go far towards
overthrowing the enterprise' of the plantation of Virginia, 'which I
shall yet live to see an English nation.' In addition they introduced
contraband cedar-trees. These, if the Lord Admiral would order their
seizure, Ralegh intended to divide 'into three parts--to ciel cabinets,
and make bords, and many other delicate things.' He asked for Cecil's
aid; 'but what you think unfit to be done for me shall never be a
quarrel either internal or external. If we cannot have what we would,
methinks it is a great bond to find a friend that will strain himself in
his friend's cause in whatsoever--as this world fareth.'
[Sidenote: _Cecil's Sentiments._]
Throughout Elizabeth's reign, and beyond it, Ralegh's language to Cecil
keeps the same tone of implicit faith. In words Cecil was not behind his
more fluent and continuous correspondent. At heart he would appear, from
his communications to others, to have come to regard Ralegh as a
dangerous rival before the Queen's death. Shrewd observers detected the
growth of the sentiment, in spite of the alliance against the common
foe, and even, for reasons which are not obvious, in consequence of it.
'Cecil,' wrote Harington, who had been a trusted comrade of Essex, in
his _Nugae_, 'doth bear no love to Ralegh in the matter of Essex.' An
important letter found among the Burleigh papers, without date or
signature, but for good cause attributed to Lord Henry Howard, and
probably written towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, shows how eagerly
Cecil and Ralegh were regarded by their respective partisans as hostile
competitors. Probably its genesis resembled that of Ralegh's argument
for the thorough overthrow of Essex. It seems to have been an elaborate
written embodiment of a policy which the Minister may have heard before
from its author's mouth. It differs from Ralegh's letter in being
absolutely in harmony with Howard's conduct at the time and after. In it
the writer, with the 'Asiatic endless' prolixity which James himself
ridiculed, propounded a plan for arranging that 'Cobham, the block all
mighty that gives oracles, and Ralegh, the cogging spirit that prompteth
it,' should be set in responsible positions in which they would be sure
to fail. There is no reason to suppose that Cecil accepted the
particular advice. He would be inclined to doubt the certainty of
Ralegh's failure, should an opportunity of distinction be afforded him.
But the document could not have been written unless its author had been
positive of Cecil's sympathy with its object, the reduction of Ralegh,
by whatever means, to a condition of confirmed obscurity and dependence.
[Sidenote: _Rival Camps._]
As the termination of the Queen's reign more manifestly approached, the
interests of Cecil and Ralegh seemed to grow more and more widely
separated. Researches into the secret history of the final year or two
reveal Ralegh and Cobham on one side, and Cecil and Lord Henry Howard on
the other, as chiefs of opposite camps, with a converging outlook upon
King James. Cecil, like his father, had been regarded by James as
hostile to his proclamation as Elizabeth's heir. The death of 'my martyr
Essex' increased his dislike. He was not assured of the baselessness of
Essex's cry as he rode through the city: 'The crown of England is sold
to the Spaniard!' He may have suspected the existence of schemes for the
elevation of Arabella Stuart. Henry Howard brought him and Cecil to a
mutual understanding. Howard, now remembered chiefly as the builder of
Northumberland House, took a leading part in the machinations of
Elizabeth's and James's reigns. As a Catholic, though at times
conforming, and as brother of the hapless Duke of Norfolk, he had hated
the Cecils. His dislike of Robert Cecil had been inflamed by
partizanship for his kinsman Essex; notwithstanding, with his insatiable
love of intrigue, he is said to have played off the two against one
another. Now, convinced that Cecil was too strong, or too necessary, to
be discarded, and possessing James's full confidence, he set himself to
the cure of the King's distrust. Finally Cecil became for James 'my
dearest Cecil.' James accepted him so entirely as to promise that
Cecil's friends and foes should be his. Thenceforward a league was
formed, and a correspondence was opened, between the King on one side
and Cecil and Howard on the other, which are equally discreditable to
all three.
[Sidenote: _The Succession._]
The compact was not the work of a moment, and Cecil's rivals do not
appear to the end to have understood how absolute it was. Neither was it
of very old standing. For long Elizabeth's councillors hesitated to
throw in their lot with the Scottish claim to the succession. They
could not read clearly the national inclination. The country had been
undecided. As Cecil confessed he had once said, there were several
competitors for whose right it was possible to argue. The Suffolk family
possessed some sort of Parliamentary title. Arabella Stuart was not,
like James, an alien, or a foreign sovereign. Discussion, or even
advocacy, of either title, whether by Cecil, Ralegh, or Cobham, was,
till the actual proclamation of James, not treasonable. But after the
death of Mary Stuart, and, more plainly still, after that of Essex, it
became manifest that the English people meant to crown the King of
Scots. Cecil and Ralegh equally discerned the certainty. Both acted
accordingly, and each suspected the other's procedure. Both started
evenly with the same stain, in James's eyes, of enmity to Essex. Cecil,
however, had the advantage of partnership with Henry Howard, and Ralegh
the disadvantage of partnership with Cobham. He had to overcome the more
invincible obstacle of his possession of a character, demeanour, and
policy, in good features as well as bad, essentially distasteful to the
Prince he had to conciliate.
[Sidenote: _Prejudices of King James._]
Without Elizabeth's knowledge, Cecil kept up an active correspondence
with the Scottish Court. Ralegh had his concealed relations with it too.
Neither is to be severely blamed for feeling an attraction to the
nearest heir to the throne. Something even of personal enthusiasm at the
prospect was not so absurd a sentiment as it seems to posterity. The
nature of James was not well understood, and hope was placed in his
youth. Contrasts were drawn, as Ralegh expressed it at his trial,
between a lady whom time had surprised, and an active king. Ralegh had
recognised that no other successor was possible. Lord Northumberland,
writing to persuade James to be courteous to him, declared that he 'must
allow Ralegh's ever allowance of the King's right.' Ralegh indeed had
never favoured any rival candidate, Arabella Stuart as little as the
Infanta. About Arabella there is no cause to doubt the veracity of his
assertion, reported by Dudley Carleton, that 'of all women he ever saw
he never liked her.' Simply he had opposed, as Elizabeth herself
opposed, and in his character of her faithful servant, the termination
of the abeyance of the dignity of heir presumptive. In the interest of
her tranquillity he had addressed to Elizabeth a written argument
against the announcement of a successor. Eventually, some time before
Elizabeth's death, he had perceived that it was useless to act as if any
successor but James were possible. With his sanguine temperament he
acquiesced in the inevitable as if it were positively advantageous. He
saw his way to render as excellent service to the State under King James
as he was rendering now. He was conscious of the obstacles in his path;
he was unconscious that they were insuperable. He knew he had been
always ranked as of the anti-Scottish party. He knew the specific
meaning James would put upon his resistance to the formal declaration of
a successor. His antagonism to Essex, he was aware, had created a strong
repulsion against him in the King's mind. But he overrated the amount of
the resources at his disposal for his protection from the weight of
aversion he had excited. He equally underrated the inveteracy of the
dislike, and the degree of additional suspicion which his measures of
self-defence would awaken. James had long looked forward to a day when
he should 'have account of the presumption of the base instruments about
the Queen who abused her ear.' That was his way of thinking of the
Queen's favourite councillors. Cecil knew how to purchase his pardon.
Ralegh, gathering strength about him to render his friendship worth
buying, only deepened the king's conviction that he could be
mischievous; he did not implant a conviction that he was a desirable
auxiliary. The 'consultations of Durham House' became notorious. They
alarmed both Howard and James just sufficiently to induce them to
temporise. They fixed the resolution sooner or later to ruin the
promoter. The Duke of Lennox came to London in November, 1601. He
cultivated Ralegh's acquaintance through Sir Arthur Savage. James
characterized Savage in a letter of 1602 to Howard as 'trucheman,' or
interpreter, 'to Raulie, though of a nature far different, and a very
honest plain gentleman.' Terms were offered by the Duke which Ralegh
boasted he had rejected. To Cecil he protested that he had been
over-deeply engaged and obliged to his own mistress to seek favour
anywhere else. According to Howard, Ralegh asked Cecil to divulge this
to the Queen; but Cecil, with good sense, represented to him that the
Queen 'would rather mark a weakness than praise his resolution.'
[Sidenote: _Lord Henry Howard._]
Whatever he had done or left undone, whatever promises had been made,
and however they had been entertained, the end would have been the same.
Henry Howard inflamed the instinctive aversion which James had long felt
for Ralegh. Howard hated Ralegh with a virulence not easily explicable,
which appeared to be doubled by its abatement towards Cecil. He had
resolved to destroy both Ralegh and Cobham. On the testimony of his own
letters it is clear he did not mind how tortuously and perfidiously he
worked. He calculated upon Cobham's weakness, and upon the inflammation
of Ralegh with 'some so violent desire upon the sudden as to bring him
into that snare which he would shun otherwise.' He poisoned James's mind
incurably against 'those wicked villains,' 'that crew,' and its
'hypocrisy,' the 'accursed duality,' or 'the triplicity that denies the
Trinity.' By the triplicity he signified Ralegh, Cobham, and
Northumberland. Ralegh had other enemies besides. Among them was
Cobham's new wife, Frances Howard, Countess dowager of Kildare, daughter
of the Lord Admiral. Henry Howard, who did not like her, admitted that
she had helped in persuading Cecil to side with King James. She and Lady
Ralegh had 'an ancient acquaintance,' which had resulted in mutual
detestation.
[Sidenote: _Spite against Lady Ralegh._]
[Sidenote: _Ralegh's 'Humours.'_]
Lady Ralegh in March, 1602, reminded Cecil how 'unfavourable my Lady
Kildare hath dealt with me to the Queen. I wish she would be as
ambitious to do good as she is apt to the contrary.' Lady Kildare had
infused her own animosity into her father, whose official 'weakness and
oversights' it is very likely Ralegh was, as Henry Howard had said,
given to 'studying.' 'My Lord Admiral,' wrote Howard to Mar, James's
ambassador, 'the other day wished from his soul he had but the same
commission to carry the cannon to Durham House, that he had this time
twelve months to carry it to Essex House, to prove what sport he could
make in that fellowship.' In its larger sense the alleged fellowship
comprised the Earl of Northumberland, who played fast and loose with it,
Lady Shrewsbury, known as Lady Arabella's custodian, and Lady Ralegh, in
addition to her husband and Cobham. Howard honoured Lady Ralegh with his
particular hostility. 'She is a most dangerous woman,' he exclaims, 'and
full of her father's inventions.' He was much alarmed at the possible
success of some project for bringing her to her old place in the Privy
Chamber. To its failure he ascribed her determination to 'bend her whole
wit and industry to the disturbance of the possibility of others' hopes
since her own cannot be settled.' He urged Cecil to arrange that it
should be brought to Elizabeth's knowledge 'what canons are concluded in
the chapter of Durham, where Ralegh's wife is president.' Ralegh himself
and Cobham were, however, the universal objects of his copious
invectives: 'You may well believe,' he wrote, 'that hell did never vomit
up such a couple.' Cecil's own language to James was almost as
vituperative. He was furious at the bare notion that any should vie with
him for the heir's confidence. He represented Cobham and Ralegh, who
were trying to obtain a share of James's favour, as mere hypocrites who
hated the King at heart. If they held themselves out as his friends, or
he held himself out as theirs, James was not to believe it. He excused
himself for 'casting sometimes a stone into the mouth of these gaping
crabs' to prevent them from 'confessing their repugnance to be under his
Majesty's sovereignty.' He hoped to be pardoned if from ancient 'private
affection' he had the semblance of supporting Ralegh in particular, 'a
person whom most religious men do hold anathema,' who had, moreover,
shown 'ingratitude to me.' He could not imagine that he owed as much to
Ralegh as Ralegh to him. But that was natural. If James should hear that
he had not checked demonstrations by Ralegh, in his 'light and sudden
humours,' against the King, he prayed James to ascribe it to a desire to
retain sufficient influence over him 'to dissuade him, under pretext of
extraordinary care of his well doing, from engaging himself too far.' He
warned James especially against being beguiled into thinking Ralegh a
man of a good and affectionate disposition. If 'upon any new humour of
kindness, whereof sometimes he will be replete,' he should write in
Cecil's favour, 'be it never so much in my commendation,' James was not
to believe it. The correspondence of Howard and Cecil with James
breathes throughout a jealous terror that Cobham and Ralegh, and chiefly
Ralegh, might either supersede them in James's kindness, or steal into
his confidence under the pretext of fellowship with them, and claim a
share in the advantages. Ralegh's correspondence with the King, as
theirs implies, has no such malignant, envious features. The King,
however, was already incurably prejudiced. Howard's and Cecil's
imputations only confirmed an impression of long standing.
[Sidenote: _Character of Cobham._]
Against two enemies of this force and animosity Ralegh had no actual
ally except Lord Cobham. Henry Howard had mentioned Northumberland as a
confederate. How far the Earl, who had married Essex's sister, Dorothy,
widow of Sir Thomas Perrot, could be reckoned upon may be judged from
his description of Ralegh to James as 'a man whose love is
disadvantageous to me in some sort, which I cherish rather out of
constancy than policy.' Cobham was Cecil's brother-in-law, and their
interests had long been inseparable. Ralegh would originally have
desired his friendship as a means of cementing the intimacy with his
potent connexion. He had been of the league against Essex. In opposition
to Essex's solicitations for Sir Robert Sidney he had obtained the Lord
Wardenship of the Cinque Ports. Essex had joined him with Cecil and
Ralegh in the charges of perfidy. His personal favour with Elizabeth had
been useful to the family compact. He was wealthy, and Cecil valued
wealth in his domestic circle. Houses and lands brought him in L7000 a
year; and he had woods and goods worth a capital sum of L30,000 besides.
His furniture was as rich as any man's of his rank. One piece of plate
was priced at L3500, and a ring at L500. He spent L150 at a time upon
books. He was not devoid of good instincts; for he could repent of a
misdeed or unkindness, and, after repeating it, repent again. But he was
garrulous, puffed up with a sense of his own importance, full of levity
and passion, and morally, if not physically, a coward. Ralegh, whom some
social brilliancy in the man, as well as his rank and fortune, may have
dazzled, can at no time have been wholly unconscious of the defects
which later he resentfully characterized: of the 'dispositions of such
violence, which his best friends cannot temper'; 'his known fashion to
do any friend he hath wrong, and then repent it'; and 'his fashion to
utter things easily.' Cecil regarded a nature like this scornfully.
Infirmities might be tolerated in a brother-in-law who was a trusty
ally. They could not be endured in a competitor.
[Sidenote: _Cecil's Jealousy._]
Neither Ralegh nor Cobham appears to have detected the growth of rancour
in Cecil. Ralegh maintained confidential intercourse with him on affairs
of state. Together they were, as has been seen, conferring privately
with Elizabeth on the policy to be adopted towards Munster rebels a few
months before her death. Ralegh's correspondence with him betrays no
suspicion of estrangement. It keeps throughout the old amiable style.
There is talk of the price of timber at Rushmore. Salutations were sent
so late as July 20, 1602, to 'my Lord Cobham and you, both in one
letter,' with vows to 'do you both service with all I have, and my life
to boot.' Ten weeks before Elizabeth's death Cecil was writing to Ralegh
about partnership in a privateer. Ralegh in a memorable letter to his
wife in July, 1603, spoke of the business association as still
subsisting. It is difficult to believe that Cecil reciprocated, unless
from complaisance and policy, the ferocity against Ralegh and Cobham, or
either, which inspired Henry Howard's venomous canting mystifications,
and was echoed by James. His correspondence with Ralegh's cousin, George
Carew, countenances the view that his hostility had something in it of
hurt affection. He was capable of tenderness for men who were willing to
be his auxiliaries, who at all events would not be, and could not be,
his rivals. But he was mistrustful. He readily confused any increased
intimacy between friends of his with enmity to himself. He wrote to
Carew in Ireland in June, 1601, to excuse himself, in his enigmatical
manner, for an appearance of unkindness: 'If I did not know that you do
measure me by your own heart towards me, it might be a doubtfulness in
me that the mutinies of those I do love and will--howsoever they do
me--might incite in you some belief that I was ungrateful towards them.
But, sir, for the better man, the second always sways him, and to what
passion he is subject who is subject to his lady, I leave to your
judgment and experience.' Later, in 1602, he complained to Carew: 'Our
two old friends do use me unkindly. But I have covenanted with my heart
not to know it. In show we are great. All my revenge shall be to heap
coals of fire on their heads.' He carried out his promise, and his coals
scorched. Yet it may be questioned if he were conscious of a virulent
humour towards his friend and his brother-in-law. Merely they were in
his way, and threatened to embarrass the career which was his life. They
were presuming to act independently. They pursued schemes which, if
successful, would disturb his monopoly of power. If unsuccessful, they
might, through his connexion with them, compromise him. He would not be
sorry if circumstances combined against them, and brushed them as
politicians from his path.