THE FALL (April-June, 1603).
[Sidenote: _Death of the Queen._]
[Sidenote: _Introduction to the Successor._]
Elizabeth died on March 24, 1603. In the previous September Howard had
reported her 'never so gallant many years, nor so set upon jollity.'
James set out from Scotland on April 5. Ralegh at the Queen's death was
in the West. He returned hastily to London. There is a legend,
countenanced by Sir John Hawles, that, with Sir John Fortescue and
Cobham, he tried a movement for 'articling' with James before
proclaiming him. Unsuspicious Aubrey narrates that at a consultation at
Whitehall he went to the length of recommending the establishment of a
'commonwealth.' His object, he is said to have explained, was to save
Englishmen from being subject to a needy, beggarly nation like the
Scotch. Neither story rests on any foundation, except some possible
light taunt of his. His name was not appended to the Proclamation, as he
was not a Privy Councillor; but he was present at a meeting in the
evening, when a loyal letter of welcome to the King was drawn up, and he
signed it. Immediately afterwards he started, like many others,
northwards, and met the King at Burleigh House. Cecil had taken credit
for having stayed, he said, the journey of the Captain of the Guard, who
was conducting many suitors to James. Ralegh did not suffer himself to
be stopped either by Cecil's advice or by a Proclamation against the
resort to the King of persons holding public offices, to the injury of
public business. He assigned as the cause of his arrival the need of a
royal letter to authorize the continuance of legal process in the Duchy
of Cornwall, and to check the waste of royal woods and parks within it.
Unmannerly James is said by Aubrey to have received him with a poor rude
pun on his name: 'Rawly! Rawly! true enough, for I think of thee very
rawly, mon.' Isaac D'Israeli credits the story. He superfluously thinks
it settles, as without better authority than the King's broad Scotch it
certainly could not, the proper pronunciation of the name. In itself it
may be rather more plausible than Aubrey's tale of Ralegh's reply to the
King's boast that he could have won the succession by force: 'Would
God,' cried Ralegh, 'that had been put to the trial!' 'Why?' asked
James. 'Because,' was the oracular answer--'never,' says Aubrey,
'forgotten or forgiven'--'your Majesty would then have known your
friends from your foes.' It is much easier to agree with the apparent
meaning of Aubrey's interrupted general reflection on the first meeting
of King and subject: 'Sir Walter Ralegh had that awfulness and
ascendency in his aspect over other mortals that the K---- '. At all
events, the King ordered the speedy delivery of the authorization, that
Ralegh might have no excuse for delay. The unwelcome guest took the
hint. Acting-Secretary Sir Thomas Lake reported to Cecil that he was
gone, having 'to my seeming taken no great root here.'
[Sidenote: _Odium._]
At a council held by James at Cecil's seat of Theobald's, monopolies
granted by Elizabeth were called in. The measure was based by its
authors upon the need of popularity for the new reign. They were not
sorry to hit Ralegh with the same stone. A question was raised at the
Board whether the office of wine licenser were not a monopoly. Until the
Council should have decided, the levy of all dues was suspended. A large
part of Ralegh's income was at once cut off. He was summoned a few days
later to the Council Chamber at Whitehall, to be informed that the King
had appointed Sir Thomas Erskine, afterwards Earl of Kellie, Captain of
the Guard. To this he is related to have in very humble manner submitted
himself. His enemies knew they could in this as in other ways wound him
with a certainty of applause for the gratification of their spite.
Within a month of the Queen's decease a prayer of 'poor men' had been
addressed to James against monopolies. The manifesto contained an
especial allusion to Ralegh, of whom it wildly spoke as about to be
created Earl of Pembroke. So, on the occasion of the dismissal from the
command of the Guard, Beaumont, the French Ambassador, informed his
Court that Cecil had induced the King to make the change on the ground
of Ralegh's unpopularity, which would render his removal highly
acceptable to the country. Henry Howard, before the demise of the Crown,
when the effect of Ralegh's blandishments upon James was feared, had
preached to the King on the same text. He reported a refusal by
Elizabeth of the command of a regiment to Northumberland, for the reason
that 'Ralegh had made the Earl as odious as himself, because he would
not be singular, and such were not to be employed by princes of sound
policy.'
For the present a semblance of consideration was preserved. The loss of
the Captaincy was apparently sweetened by the elimination from his
patent for the Governorship of Jersey of the reservation of L300 a year
to the Crown or Seymour, and by the condonation of some arrears due from
him. His fall elicited from him no symptom of anger against the King. If
a letter purporting to be addressed by him to James be genuine, though
the evidence for it is not strong, he was not as placid with respect to
others. There the loss of his captaincy is angrily imputed to Cecil, who
is accused of having brought about the deaths both of Essex and Queen
Mary. Chronology must have forbidden James to attach weight to the
latter allegation, if he had cared for it. On the former he would be
better inclined to credit Howard, who asserted that Cecil had worked for
Essex's deliverance. Cecil himself could produce the letter of 1600-1,
signed 'W.R.' Soon Ralegh experienced a fresh proof of his helplessness,
in a notice of ejectment from Durham House. Bishop Tobias Matthew of
Durham met James at Berwick, and gained his ear. He used his influence
and Ralegh's odium to procure an order for the restoration of the
London episcopal residence. It was retaliation for his loss of the See
of Sarum through Ralegh. On May 31 a royal warrant was issued for the
removal of the present occupants, Ralegh and Sir Edward Darcy. Ralegh
wrote on June 8 or 9, asking permission to stay till Michaelmas. He
pleaded the L2000 he had spent on the structure during the twenty years
of his tenancy. He recounted his outlay on autumn and winter provisions
for a household of forty persons and twenty horses. He complained to no
purpose. He was ordered to quit by Midsummer.
[Sidenote: _Inopportune Advice._]
[Sidenote: _The Fourth Party._]
Notwithstanding rebuffs, he continued to frequent the Court. He was at
Beddington Park when the King on his Progress visited Sir Francis Carew,
Lady Ralegh's uncle. Ralegh previously had laid before James a
_Discourse touching a War with Spain, and of the Protecting of the
Netherlands_. It is a most forcible, and, from its own point of view,
sagacious disquisition in favour of persistency in the war with Spain,
and the alliance with Holland, as well for offensive purposes against
the Spaniards, as for defence, whether against Spain or France. As a
controversial pamphlet it evinces none of the want of judgment with
which Hallam charges Ralegh, though the defect appears plainly in his
obtrusion of such views upon James. At Beddington he had an opportunity
of clenching his argument, and the King's suspicions, by an offer, of
which he subsequently boasted, to invade the Spanish dominions, at no
cost to the King, with 2000 men. In the treatise he opposed the
conclusion of any hasty peace with Spain. He referred to another essay,
now lost, and never published, in which he had indicated _How War may be
made against Spain and the Indies_. Spain was anxious for peace, and
desired to consolidate it by separating England from France and Holland.
The negotiations had begun in the lifetime of Elizabeth. They had
excited much party spirit at Court, where Cobham already was conspicuous
as their advocate, and Ralegh as their opponent. James's accession
infused additional keenness into the contest. France was apprehensive of
the King's proclivity towards an alliance, not merely peace, with Spain.
Henry IV was not disinclined to the restoration of tranquillity in
Europe. He was afraid of an Anglo-Spanish pacification of a character so
cordial as to affect the league between the French and English
Governments as it had existed in the late reign. He sent Sully over to
cement the good understanding of the two States by arguments and gifts
to the leading courtiers. Sully found the new Court honeycombed with
intrigues. His fixed idea was that Spain was meditating much beyond the
simple alienation of England from her ancient allies; 'qu'il se tramait
quelque chose de bien plus important.' By means of the competing
factions he tried to discover this great secret design. His researches
were not confined to statesmen in authority, like Cecil, whom he
characterizes in his candid _Memoirs_ as 'tout mystere,' caring for no
combination except so far as it might serve his individual political
interests. He pursued his inquiries also among politicians out of power.
They composed, he says, a 'Fourth Party,' with no basis of agreement,
unless that its members could agree with no other party. He names as its
leaders Northumberland, Southampton, Cumberland, Cobham, Ralegh, and
Griffin Markham. They are described by him as 'gens seditieux, de
caractere purement Anglais, et prets a tout entreprendre en faveur des
nouveautes, fut-ce contre le Roi.' Northumberland he induced by a large
pension to collect for him secret intelligence, though he did not
believe it. All he obtained from 'Milords Cobham et Raleich' was that,
when he broached to them his notion of the dark schemes of Spain, they
replied 'conformement a cet avis.'
[Sidenote: _Ralegh's Egotism._]
His communications with Ralegh were limited to the extraction of this
expression of assent. Nowhere does he assert or imply that Ralegh
accepted any present from him, or entered into any compact. Yet Hume
founds on the bald statement of sympathy a formal allegation that Ralegh
offered his services to France, and that the offer was repulsed. It is a
sample of the way in which he has been traduced. Sully's evidence
exhibits him in his invariable attitude of an adversary of Spain and
Spanish pretensions. It does not indicate the smallest tendency in him
to further his own policy by means of illegitimate foreign influences.
His mistake was the belief that he could by perseverance impose his
doctrines and himself upon the sovereign. In theory he understood, as he
lays down in his History, that it is not sufficient to be wise with a
wise prince, valiant with a valiant, and just with a just; a courtier,
who would have an estate in his prosperity, must, he teaches, live
altogether out of himself, study other men's humours, and change with
the successor to the throne. In practice none ever disobeyed this law of
advancement more signally than Ralegh in relation to James. His egotism
often before had blinded him to the idiosyncrasies of others. He seems
to have been more than ordinarily incapable of comprehending those of
his present ruler. He presumed eagerness in a young King to signalize
his accession by feats of arms. The high spirit of James was the source
from which he hoped to draw the motive force necessary for the
accomplishment of his vast designs against the colonial empire of Spain.
An accidental conjunction of circumstances enabled him to see speedily
the effect of his attempt to storm the royal confidence by displaying
his own martial propensities.