Volume 2 — CHAPTER XXVII.

1599 TO 1603.

Irish affairs.—Essex appointed lord deputy.—His letter to the queen.—Letter of Markham to Harrington.—Departure of Essex and proceedings in Ireland.—His letter to the privy council,—conferences with Tyrone,—unexpected arrival at court.—Behaviour of the queen.—State of parties.—Letters of sir J. Harrington.—Further particulars respecting Essex.—His letter of submission.—Relentlessness of the queen.—Sir John Hayward's history.—Second letter of Essex.—Censure passed upon him in council.—Anecdote of the queen.—Essex liberated.—Reception of a Flemish ambassador.—Discontent of Raleigh.—Traits of the queen.—Letter of sir Robert Sidney to sir John Harrington.—Crisis of the fortune of Essex.—Conduct of lord Montjoy.—Proceedings at Essex house.—Revolt of Essex.—He defends his house.—Is taken and committed to the Tower.—His trial and that of lord Southampton.—Conduct of Bacon.—Confessions of Essex.—Behavior of the queen.—Death of Essex.—Fate of his adherents.—Reception of the Scotch ambassadors.—Interview of the queen and Sully.—Irish affairs.—Letter of sir John Harrington.—A parliament summoned.—Affair of monopolies.—Quarrel between the Jesuits and secular priests.—Conversation of the queen respecting Essex.—Letter of sir J. Harrington.—Submission of Tyrone.—Melancholy of Elizabeth.—Story of the ring.—Her death.—Additional traits of her character.—Her eulogy by bishop Hall.

The death in September 1598 of Philip II., and the succession of the feeble Philip III., under whom the Spanish monarchy advanced with accelerated steps towards its decline, had finally released the queen from all apprehensions of foreign invasion and left her at liberty to turn her whole attention to the pacification of Ireland. The state of that island was in every respect deplorable:—the whole province of Ulster in open rebellion under Tyrone;—the rest of the country only waiting for the succours from the pope and the king of Spain, which the credulous natives were still taught to expect, to join openly in the revolt; and in the meantime reduced to such a state of despair by innumerable oppressions and by the rumor of further severities meditated by the queen of England, that it seemed prepared to oppose the most obstinate resistance to every measure of government. In what manner and by whom, this wretched province should be brought back to its allegiance, had been the subject of frequent and earnest debates in the privy-council; in which Essex had vehemently reprobated the conduct of former governors in wasting time on inferior objects, instead of first undertaking the reduction of Tyrone, and appears to have spared no pains to impress the queen with an opinion of the superior justness of his own views of the subject. Elizabeth believed, and with reason, that she discovered in lord Montjoy talents not unequal to the arduous office of lord deputy at so critical a juncture; but when the greater part of her council appeared to concur in the choice, Essex insinuated a variety of objections;—that the experience of Montjoy in military matters was small;—that neither in the Low Countries nor in Bretagne, where he had served, had he attained to any principal or independent command;—that his retainers were few or none; his purse inadequately furnished for the first expenses of so high an appointment; and that he was too much addicted to a sedentary and studious life. By this artful enumeration of the deficiencies of Montjoy, he was clearly understood to intimate his own superior fitness for the office. The queen, notwithstanding certain suspicions which had been infused into her of danger in committing to Essex the command of an army, and notwithstanding the unwillingness which she still felt to deprive herself of his presence, appears to have adopted with eagerness this suggestion of her favorite;—for she held in high estimation both his talents and his good fortune. Montjoy promptly retired from a competition in which he must be unsuccessful; the adherents of the earl, except a few of the more sagacious, eagerly forwarded his appointment with imprudent eulogiums of his valor and his genius and still more imprudent anticipations of his certain and complete success. His enemies, desirous of his absence and hopeful of his failure, concurred with no less zeal in the promotion of his wishes; and he soon found himself importuned on every side to accept the command. But it now became his part to make objections;—perhaps he began to open his eyes to the difficulties to be confronted in Ireland;—perhaps he penetrated too late the designs and expectations of his adversaries at home;—perhaps, for his character was not free from artifice, he chose by a display of reluctance to enhance in the eyes of his sovereign the merit of his final acquiescence. However this might be, the difficulties which he raised kept the business for some time in suspense. Secretary Cecil observed in a letter of December 4th, 1598, that "the opinion of the earl's going to Ireland had some stop, by reason of his lordship's indisposition to it, except with some such conditions as were disagreeable to her majesty's mind;" "although," he added, "the cup will hardly pass from him in regard of his worth and fortune: but if it do, my lord Montjoy is named[130]."

It was in the midst of the debates and contentions on this matter that Essex endeavoured to work upon the feelings of Elizabeth by the following romantic but eloquent address.

"To the Queen.

"From a mind delighting in sorrow, from spirits wasted with passion, from a heart torn in pieces with care grief and travel, from a man that hateth himself and all things else that keep him alive, what service can your majesty expect; since any service past deserves no more than banishment and proscription to the cursedest of all islands? It is your rebels' pride and succession must give me leave to ransom myself out of this hateful prison, out of my loathed body; which, if it happeneth so, your majesty shall have no cause to mislike the fashion of my death, since the course of my life could never please you.

Happy could he finish forth his fate In some unhaunted desert most obscure From all society, from love and hate Of worldly folk; then should he sleep secure. Then wake again, and yield God ever praise, Content with hips and haws and brambleberry; In contemplation passing out his days, And change of holy thoughts to make him merry. Who when he dies, his tomb may be a bush, Where harmless robin dwells with gentle thrush."

"Your majesty's exiled servant

"Robert Essex."

It seems also to have been at this juncture that on some public occasion he bore a plain mourning shield, with the words, "Par nulla figura dolori."

A very sensible and friendly letter addressed to Harrington by his relation Robert Markham may serve to throw additional light on the situation and sentiments of Essex, and on the state of court parties.

Mr. Robert Markham to John Harrington Esquire.

"Notwithstanding the perilous state of our times, I shall not fail to give you such intelligence and advices of our matters here as may tend to your use and benefit. We have gotten good account of some matters, and as I shall find some safe conduct for bearing them to you, it may from time to time happen that I send tidings of our courtly concerns.

"Since your departure from hence, you have been spoken of, and with no ill will, both by the nobles and the queen herself. Your book is almost forgiven, and I may say forgotten; but not for its lack of wit or satire. Those whom you feared most are now bosoming themselves in the queen's grace; and though her highness signified displeasure in outward sort, yet did she like the marrow of your book. Your great enemy, sir James, did once mention the star-chamber, but your good esteem in better minds outdid his endeavours, and all is silent again. The queen is minded to take you to her favor, but she sweareth that she believes you will make epigrams and write misacmos again on her and all the court. She hath been heard to say, 'that merry poet her godson, must not come to Greenwich till he hath grown sober and leaveth the ladies' sports and frolics.' She did conceive much disquiet on being told you had aimed a shaft at Leicester; I wish you knew the author of that ill deed; I would not be in his best jerkin for a thousand marks. You yet stand well in her highness' love, and I hear you are to go to Ireland with the lieutenant Essex; if so, mark my counsel in this matter. I doubt not your valor nor your labor, but that d——e uncovered honesty will mar your fortunes. Observe the man who commandeth, and yet is commanded himself; he goeth not forth to serve the queen's realm, but to humor his own revenge. Be heedful of your bearings, speak not your mind to all you meet. I tell you I have ground for my caution: Essex hath enemies; he hath friends too. Now there are two or three of Montjoy's kindred sent out in your army; they are to report all your conduct to us at home. As you love yourself, the queen and me, discover not these matters; if I did not love you, they had never been told. High concerns deserve high attention; you are to take account of all that passes in your expedition, and keep journal thereof, unknown to any in the company; this will be expected of you; I have reasons to give for this order.

"If the lord deputy performs in the field what he hath promised in the council, all will be well; but though the queen hath granted forgiveness for his late demeanour in her presence; we know not what to think hereof. She hath, in all outward semblance, placed confidence in the man who so lately sought other treatment at her hands; we do sometime think one way, and sometime another; what betideth the lord deputy is known to him only who knoweth all; but when a man hath so many showing friends, and so many unshowing enemies, who learneth his end here below? I say, do not you meddle in any sort, nor give your jesting too freely among those you know not; obey the lord deputy in all things, but give not your opinion; it may be heard in England. Though you obey, yet seem not to advise in any one point; your obeysance may be, and must be, construed well; but your counsel may be ill thought of if any bad business follow.

"You have now a secret from one that wishes you all welfare and honor; I know there are overlookers set on you all, so God direct your discretion. Sir William Knolles is not well pleased, the queen is not well pleased, the lord deputy may be pleased now, but I sore fear what may happen hereafter. The heart of man lieth close hid oft time, men do not carry it in their hand, nor should they do so that wish to thrive in these times and in these places; I say this that your own honesty may not show itself too much, and turn to your own ill favor. Stifle your understanding as much as may be; mind your books and make your jests, but take heed who they light on. My love hath overcome almost my confidence and trust, which my truth and place demandeth. I have said too much for one in my dependent occupation, and yet too little for a friend and kinsman, who putteth himself to this hard trial for your advantage. You have difficult matters to encounter beside Tyrone and the rebels; there is little heed to be had to show of affection in state business; I find this by those I discourse with daily, and those too of the wiser sort. If my lord treasurer had lived longer, matters would go on surer. He was our great pilot, on whom all cast their eyes, and sought their safety. The queen's highness doth often speak of him in tears, and turn aside when he is discoursed of; nay, even forbiddeth any mention to be made of his name in the council. This I learn by some friends who are in good liking with my lord Buckhurst[131].

"My sister beareth this to you, but doth not know what it containeth, nor would I disclose my dealings to any woman in this sort; for danger goeth abroad, and silence is the safest armour." &c.[132]

Such were the bodings of distant evil with which the more discerning contemplated the new and arduous enterprise in which the ambition of Essex had engaged him! In the meantime, all things conspired to delude him into a false security and to augment that presumption which formed the most dangerous defect of his character. All the obstacles which had delayed his appointment were gradually smoothed away; the queen consented to invest him with powers far more ample than had ever been conferred on a lord deputy before; all his requisitions of men and other supplies were complied with; and an army of 20,000 foot and 1,300 horse, afterwards increased to 2,000,—a far larger force than Ireland had yet beheld,—was placed at his disposal.

At parting, the tenderness of the queen revived in full force; and she dismissed him with expressions of regret and affection which, as he afterwards professed to her, had "pierced his very soul." The people followed him with acclamations and blessings; and the flower of the nobility now, as in the Cadiz expedition, attended him with alacrity as volunteers.

It was in the end of March 1599 that he embarked; and landing after a dangerous passage at Dublin, his first act was the appointment of his dear friend the earl of Southampton to the office of general of the horse;—a step which he afterwards found abundant cause to repent.

An error of which the consequences were much more pernicious to himself, and fatal to the success of his undertaking, was his abandoning his original resolution of marching immediately against Tyrone, and spending his first efforts in the suppression of a minor revolt in Munster:—an attempt in which he encountered a resistance so much more formidable than he had anticipated, and found himself so ill supported by his troops, whom the nature of the service speedily disheartened, that its results were by no means so brilliant as to strike terror into Tyrone or the other insurgents. What was still worse, almost four months were occupied in this service, and the forces returned sick, wearied, and incredibly reduced in number by various accidents.

Learning that the queen was much displeased at this expedition into Munster, Essex addressed a letter to the privy-council, in which, after affirming that he had performed his part to the best of his abilities and judgement, he thus proceeded: "But as I said, and ever must say, I provided for this service a breastplate, and not a cuirass; that is, I am armed on the breast, but not on the back. I armed myself with confidence that rebels in so unjust a quarrel could not fight so well as we could in a good. Howbeit if the rebels shall but once come to know that I am wounded on the back, not slightly, but to the heart, as I fear me they have too true and too apparent advertisement of this kind; then what will be their pride and the state's hazard, your lordships in your wisdoms may easily discern."

In a subsequent letter, the warmth of his friendship for Southampton breaks out in the following eloquent and forcible appeal.—"But to leave this, and come to that which I never looked I should have come to, I mean your lordships' letter touching the displacing of the earl of Southampton; your lordships say, that her majesty thinketh it strange, and taketh it offensively, that I should appoint him general of the horse, seeing not only her majesty denied it when I moved it, but gave an express prohibition to any such choice. Surely, my lord, it shall be far from me to contest with your lordships, much less with her majesty. Howbeit, God and my own soul are my witnesses, that I had not in this nomination any disobedient or irreverent thought; that I never moved her majesty for the placing of any officer, my commission fully enabling me to make free choice of all officers and commanders of the army. I remember, that her majesty in her privy-chamber at Richmond, I only being with her, showed a dislike of his having any office; but my answer was, that if her majesty would revoke my commission, I would cast both it and myself at her majesty's feet. But if it pleased her majesty that I should execute it, I must work with my own instruments. And from this profession and protestation I never varied; whereas if I had held myself barred from giving my lord of Southampton place and reputation some way answerable to his degree and expense, there is no one, I think, doth imagine, that I loved him so ill as to have brought him over. Therefore if her majesty punish me with her displeasure for this choice, pœna dolenda venit. And now, my lords, were now, as then it was, that I were to choose, or were there nothing in a new choice but my lord of Southampton's disgrace and my discomfort, I should easily be induced to displace him, and to part with him. But when, in obeying this command, I must discourage all my friends, who now, seeing the days of my suffering draw near, follow me afar off, and are some of them tempted to renounce me; when I must dismay the army, which already looks sadly, as pitying both me and itself in this comfortless action; when I must encourage the rebels, who doubtless will think it time to hew upon a withering tree, whose leaves they see beaten down, and the branches in part cut off; when I must disable myself for ever in the course of this service, the world now perceiving that I want either reason to judge of merit, or freedom to right it, disgraces being there heaped where, in my opinion, rewards are due; give just grief leave once to complain. O! miserable employment, and more miserable destiny of mine, that makes it impossible for me to please and serve her majesty at once! Was it treason in my lord of Southampton to marry my poor kinswoman, that neither long imprisonment, nor any punishment besides that hath been usual in like cases, can satisfy and appease? Or will no kind of punishment be fit for him, but that which punisheth, not him, but me, this army, and this poor country of Ireland? Shall I keep the country when the army breaks? Or shall the army stand when all the volunteers leave it? Or will any voluntaries stay when those that have will and cause to follow are thus handled? No, my lords, they already ask passports, and that daily." &c.

In spite of all this earnestness, in spite of the remaining affection of the queen for her favorite, she still persisted in requiring that he should displace his friend, and even chid him severely for having waited the result of his further representations and entreaties, after once learning her pleasure on the point. Success in the main object of his expedition might still have procured him a triumph over his court-enemies and a sweet reconciliation with his offended sovereign, but fortune had no such favor in store for Essex. The necessity of quelling some rebels in Leinster again impeded his march into Ulster; for which expedition he was obliged to solicit a further supply from England of two thousand foot, which was immediately forwarded to him, as if with the design of leaving him without excuse should he fail to reduce Tyrone. But by this time the season was so far advanced, and the army so sickly, that both the earl and the Irish council were of opinion that nothing effectual could be done; and at the first notice of his intended march great part of his forces deserted. He nevertheless proceeded, and in a few days during which a little skirmishing took place, came in sight of the rebel's main army, considerably more numerous than his own; Tyrone however would not venture to give him battle, but sent to request a parley. This, after some delay, the lord deputy granted; and a conference was held between them, Essex standing on the bank of a stream which separated the two hosts, while the rebel sat on his horse in the middle of the water. A truce was concluded, to be renewed from six weeks to six weeks, till terms of peace should be agreed on; those proposed by Tyrone containing several arrogant and unreasonable articles. At a second meeting with the Irish chief, Essex was attended by some of his principal officers; but it was afterwards proved that previously to the first conference, he had opened a very unwarrantable correspondence with this enemy of his queen and country, who took upon himself to promise that if Essex would come into his measures he would make him the greatest man in England. During the whole of this time, sharp letters were passing between Elizabeth and her privy-council and the earl; and it is hard to say on which side the heaviest list of grievances was produced. The queen remonstrated against his contemptuous disobedience of her orders, and the waste in frivolous enterprises of the vast supplies of men and money which she had intrusted to her deputy for a specific and momentous object;—the earl, in addition to his usual murmurings against the sinister suggestions of his enemies, amongst whom he singled out by name Raleigh and lord Cobham; found further grounds of complaint and alarm in the circumstance of her majesty's having caused some troops to be called out under the lord admiral, on pretext of fears from the Spaniard, but really with a view of protecting her against certain designs imputed to himself: and in her having granted to secretary Cecil during his absence the office of master of the wards, for which he was himself a suitor.

Apprehensive lest by his longer delay her affections should be irrecoverably alienated from him by the discovery of his traitorous correspondence with Tyrone, he rashly resolved to risk yet another act of disobedience;—that of deserting without license, and under its present accumulated circumstances of danger, his important charge, and hastening to throw himself at the feet of an exasperated, but he flattered himself, not inexorable mistress. At one time he had even entertained the desperate and criminal design of carrying over with him a large part of his army, for the purpose of intimidating his adversaries; but being diverted from this scheme by the earl of Southampton and sir Christopher Blount his step-father, he embarked with the attendance only of most of his household and a number of his favorite officers, and arrived at the court, which was then at Nonsuch, on Michaelmas eve in the morning.

On alighting at the gate, covered with mire and stained with travel as he was, he hastened up stairs, passed through the presence and the privy-chambers, and never stopped till he reached the queen's bed-chamber, where he found her newly risen with her hair about her face. He kneeled and kissed her hands, and she, in the agreeable surprise of beholding at her feet one whom she still loved, received him with so kind an aspect, and listened with such favor to his excuses, that on leaving her, after a private conference of some duration, he appeared in high spirits, and thanked God, that though he had suffered many storms abroad, he found a sweet calm at home. He waited on her again as soon as he had changed his dress; and after a second long and gracious conference, was freely visited by all the lords, ladies, and gentlemen at court, excepting the secretary and his party, who appeared somewhat shy of him. But all these fair appearances quickly vanished. On revisiting the queen in the evening, he found her much changed towards him; she began to call him to account for his unauthorised return and the hazard to which he had committed all things in Ireland; and four privy-councillors were appointed by her to examine him that night and hear his answers: but by them nothing was concluded, and the matter was referred to a full council summoned for the following day, the earl being in the meantime commanded to keep his chamber. Notwithstanding the natural impetuosity of his temper, Essex now armed himself with patience and moderation, and answered with great gravity and discretion to the charges brought against him, which resolved themselves into the following articles. "His contemptuous disobedience of her majesty's letters and will in returning: his presumptuous letters written from time to time: his proceedings in Ireland contrary to the points resolved upon in England, ere he went: his rash manner of coming away from Ireland: his overbold going the day before to her majesty's presence to her bed-chamber: and his making of so many idle knights[133]." The council, after hearing his defence, remained awhile in consultation and then made their report to her majesty, who said she should take time to consider of his answers: meanwhile the proceedings were kept very private, and the earl continued a prisoner in his own apartment. An open division now took place between the two great factions which had long divided the court in secret. The earls of Shrewsbury and Nottingham, lords Thomas Howard, Cobham, and Grey, sir Walter Raleigh, and sir George Carew, attended on the secretary; while Essex was followed by the earls of Worcester and Rutland, lords Montjoy, Rich, Lumley, and Henry Howard; the last of whom however was already suspected to be the traitor which he afterwards proved to the patron whom he professed to love, to honor, and almost to worship. Sir William Knolles also joined the party of his nephew, with many other knights and gentlemen, and lord Effingham, though son to the earl of Nottingham, was often with him, and "protested all service" to him. "It is a world to be here," adds Whyte, "and see the humors of the place." On October the second, Essex was "commanded from court," and committed to the lord keeper, with whom he remained at York house. At his departure from court few or none of his friends accompanied him.

"His lordship's sudden return out of Ireland," says Whyte, "brings all sorts of knights, captains, officers, and soldiers, away from thence, that this town is full of them, to the great discontentment of her majesty, that they are suffered to leave their charge. But the most part of the gallants have quitted their commands, places, and companies, not willing to stay there after him; so that the disorder seems to be greater there than stands with the safety of that service." Harrington the wit and poet had the misfortune to be one of the threescore "idle knights," dubbed by the lord deputy during his short and inglorious reign, and likewise one of the officers whom he selected to accompany him in his return; and we may learn from two of his own letters, written several years subsequently, after what manner he was welcomed on his arrival by his royal godmother.

"Sir John Harrington to Dr. Still, the bishop of Bath and Wells. 1603.

"My worthy lord,

"I have lived to see that d——e rebel Tyrone brought to England, courteously favored, honored, and well-liked. O! my lord, what is there which doth not prove the inconstancy of worldly matters! How did I labor after that knave's destruction! I was called from my home by her majesty's command, adventured perils by sea and land; endured toil, was near starving, ate horse-flesh at Munster; and all to quell that man, who now smileth in peace at those that did hazard their lives to destroy him. Essex took me to Ireland, I had scant time to put on my boots; I followed with good will, and did return with the lord-lieutenant to meet ill-will; I did bear the frowns of her that sent me; and were it not for her good liking, rather than my good deservings, I had been sore discountenanced indeed. I obeyed in going with the earl to Ireland, and I obeyed in coming with him to England. But what did I encounter thereon? Not his wrath, but my gracious sovereign's ill humor. What did I advantage? Why truly a knighthood; which had been better bestowed by her that sent me, and better spared by him that gave it. I shall never put out of memory her majesty's displeasure; I entered her chamber, but she frowned and said. 'What, did the fool bring you too? Go back to your business.' In sooth these words did sore hurt him that never heard such before; but Heaven gave me more comfort in a day or two after. Her majesty did please to ask me concerning our northern journeys, and I did so well quit me of the account, that she favoured me with such discourse that the earl himself had been well glad of. And now doth Tyrone dare us old commanders with his presence and protection." &c.[134]

"Sir John Harrington to Mr. Robert Markham, 1606.

"My good cousin,

"Herewith you will have my journal, with our history during our march against the Irish rebels. I did not intend any eyes should have seen this discourse but my own children's; yet alas! it happened otherwise; for the queen did so ask, and I may say, demand my account, that I could not withhold showing it; and I, even now, almost tremble to rehearse her highness' displeasure hereat. She swore by God's son, we were all idle knaves, and the lord deputy worse, for wasting our time and her commands in such-wise as my journal doth write of.

"I could have told her highness of such difficulties, straits, and annoyance, as did not appear therein to her eyes, nor, I found, could be brought to her ear; for her choler did outrun all reason, though I did meet it at a second hand. For what show she gave at first to my lord deputy at his return, was far more grievous, as will appear in good time.

"I marvel to think what strange humors do conspire to patch up the natures of some minds. The elements do seem to strive which shall conquer and rise above the other. In good sooth our late queen did infold them all together. I bless her memory for all her goodness to me and my family; and now will I show you what strange temperament she did sometimes put forth. Her mind was oftimes like the gentle air that cometh from the westerly point in a summer's morn; 'twas sweet and refreshing to all around her. Her speech did win all affections, and her subjects did try to show all love to her commands; for she would say, her state did require her to command what she knew her people would willingly do from their own love to her. Herein did she show her wisdom fully; for who did choose to lose her confidence; or who would withhold a show of love and obedience, when their sovereign said it was their own choice, and not her compulsion? Surely she did play well her tables to gain obedience thus without constraint; again could she put forth such alterations, when obedience was lacking, as left no doubtings whose daughter she was. I say this was plain on the lord deputy's coming home, when I did come into her presence. She chafed much, walked fastly to and fro, looked with discomposure in her visage; and I remember, she catched my girdle when I kneeled to her, and swore, 'By God's son I am no queen, that man is above me;—who gave him command to come here so soon? I did send him on other business.' It was long before more gracious discourse did fall to my hearing; but I was then put out of my trouble, and bid go home. I did not stay to be bidden twice; if all the Irish rebels had been at my heels, I should not have made better speed, for I did now flee from one whom I both loved and feared too[135]."

The fate of Essex remained long in suspense; while several little circumstances seemed to indicate the strength of her majesty's resentment against him; especially her denying, to the personal request of lady Walsingham, permission for the earl to write to his countess, her daughter, who was in childbed and exceedingly troubled that she neither saw nor heard from her husband; and afterwards her refusing to allow his family physician access to him, though he was now so ill as to be attended by several other physicians, with whom however Dr. Brown was permitted to consult. At the same time it was given out, that if he would beg his liberty for the purpose of going back to Ireland, it would be granted him;—but he appeared resolute never to return thither, and professed a determination of leading henceforth a retired life in the country, free from all participation in public affairs.

Pamphlets were written on his case, but immediately suppressed by authority, and perhaps at the request of the earl himself, whose behaviour at this time exhibited nothing but duty and submission. His sister lady Rich, and lady Southampton, quitted Essex house and went into the country, because the resort of company to them had given offence. He himself neither saw nor desired to see any one. His very servants were afraid to meet in any place to make merry lest it might be ill taken. "At the court," says Whyte, "lady Scrope is only noted to stand firm to him, for she endures much at her majesty's hands because she daily does all kind offices of love to the queen in his behalf. She wears all black; she mourns and is pensive, and joys in nothing but in a solitary being alone. And 'tis thought she says much that few would venture to say but herself." This generous woman was daughter to the first lord Hunsdon, and nearly related both to the queen and to Essex. She was sister to the countess of Nottingham who is believed to have acted so opposite a part.

About the middle of October strong hopes were entertained of the earls enlargement; but it was said that "he stood to have his liberty by the like warrant he was committed." The secretary was pleased to express to him the satisfaction that he felt in seeing her majesty so well appeased by his demeanor, and his own wish to promote his good and contentment. The reasons which he had assigned for his conduct in Ireland appeared to have satisfied the privy-council and mollified the queen. But her majesty characteristically declared, that she would not bear the blame of his imprisonment; and before she and her council could settle amongst them on whom it should be made to rest, a new cause of exasperation arose. Tyrone, in a letter to Essex which was intercepted, declared that he found it impossible to prevail on his confederates to observe the conditions of truce agreed upon between them; and the queen, relapsing into anger, triumphantly asked if there did not now appear good cause for the earl's committal? She immediately made known to lord Montjoy her wish that he should undertake the government of Ireland; but the friendship of this nobleman to Essex, joined with a hope that the queen might be induced to liberate him by a necessity of again employing his talents in that country, induced Montjoy to excuse himself. The council unanimously recommended to her majesty the enlargement of the prisoner; but she angrily replied, that such contempts as he had been guilty of ought to be openly punished. They answered, that by her sovereign power and the rigor of law, such punishment might indeed be inflicted, but that it would be inconsistent with her clemency and her honor; she however caused heads of accusation to be drawn up against him. All this time Essex continued very sick; and his high spirit condescended to supplications like the following.

"When the creature entereth into account with the Creator, it can never number in how many things it needs mercy, or in how many it receives it. But he that is best stored, must still say da nobis hodie; and he that hath showed most thankfulness, must ask again, Quid retribuamus? And I can no sooner finish this my first audit, most dear and most admired sovereign, but I come to consider how large a measure of his grace, and how great a resemblance of his power, God hath given you upon earth; and how many ways he giveth occasion to you to exercise these divine offices upon us, that are your vassals. This confession best fitteth me of all men; and this confession is most joyfully and most humbly now made by me of all times. I acknowledge upon the knees of my heart your majesty's infinite goodness in granting my humble petition. God, who seeth all, is witness, how faithfully I do vow to dedicate the rest of my life, next after my highest duty, in obedience faith and zeal to your majesty, without admitting any other worldly care; and whatsoever your majesty resolveth to do with me, I shall live and die

"Your majesty's humblest vassal,

"Essex."

The earl abased himself in vain; those courtiers who had formerly witnessed her majesty's tenderness and indulgence towards him, now wondered at the violence of her resentment; and somewhat of mystery still involves the motives of her conduct. At one time she deferred his liberation "because she heard that some of his friends and followers should say he was wrongfully imprisoned:" and the French ambassador who spoke for him, found her very short and bitter on that point. Soon after, however, on hearing that he continued very sick and was making his will, she was surprised into some signs of pity, and gave orders that a few of his friends should be admitted to visit him, and that he should be allowed the liberty of the garden. Alarmed at these relentings, Raleigh, to whose nature the basest court arts were not repugnant, thought proper to fall sick in his turn, and was healed in like manner by a gracious message from the queen. The countess of Essex was indefatigable in her applications to persons in power, but with little avail; all that was gained for the dejected prisoner was effected by the intercession of some of the queen's favorite ladies, who obtained leave for his two sisters to come to court and solicit for him. Soon after, the storm seemed to gather strength again;—a warrant was made out for the earl's committal to the Tower, and though it was not carried into force, "the hopes of liberty grew cold." About the middle of November lord Montjoy received orders to prepare for Ireland.

The appearance of the first part of a history in Latin of the life and reign of Henry IV. by sir John Hayward, dedicated to the earl of Essex, was the unfortunate occasion of fresh offence to the queen; the subject, as containing the deposition of a lawful prince, was in itself unpalatable; but what gave the work in her jealous eyes a peculiar and sinister meaning was an expression addressed to the earl which may be thus rendered: "You are great both in present judgement and future expectation."

Hayward was detained a considerable time in prison; and the queen, from an idle suspicion that the piece was in fact the production of some more dangerous character, declared that she would have him racked to discover the secret. "Nay, Madam," answered Francis Bacon, "he is a Doctor; never rack his person, but rack his style. Let him have pen, ink and paper, and help of books, and be enjoined to continue the story where it breaketh off; and I will undertake, by collating the styles, to judge whether he were the author or no." And thus her mind was diverted from this atrocious purpose!

Measures had now been carried too far against the earl to admit of his speedy restoration to favor, whatever might be the secret sentiments of her majesty in his behalf; and her conduct respecting him preserved a vacillating and undecided character which marks the miserable perplexity of her mind, no longer enlightened by the clear and dispassionate judgement of Burleigh.

On one occasion she spoke of the earl with such favor as greatly troubled the opposite party. Soon after, on his sending to her his patents of master of the horse and master of the ordnance, she immediately returned them to him; and at the same time his lady had leave to visit him. Two days after, the queen ordered a consultation of eight physicians upon his case, who gave little hope of his life, but earnestly recommended that his mind should be quieted; on which, unable longer to conceal her feelings, she sent Dr. James to him with some broth and the message, that he should comfort himself, and that if she might consistently with her honor she would visit him; and it was noted that she had tears in her eyes as she spoke. But it was soon after hinted to her, that though divines watched by the bed of the earl and publicly prayed for him in their pulpits, some of them "with speeches tending to sedition," his life was in no real danger. On this, she refused his sisters, his son, and his mother-in-law permission to visit him, and ceased to make inquiries after his health, which was in no long time restored. A rich new year's gift, which was sent "as it were in a cloud no man knew how," but thought to come from the earl, was left for some time in the hands of sir William Knolles, as neither accepted nor refused, but finally rejected with disdain on some new accession of anger. Yet the letters of lady Rich in his behalf were read, and her many presents received, as well as one from the countess of Leicester.

Lady Essex was now restrained for a time from making her daily visits to her husband, and the queen declared her intention of bringing him before the Star-chamber; but on his writing a very submissive letter, which was delivered by the secretary, the design was dropped; and the secretary, who had been earnest in his intercession with her majesty to spare this infliction, gained in consequence much credit with the public. About the middle of March the earl was suffered to remove, under the superintendance of a keeper, to his own house; for which he returned thanks to her majesty in very grateful terms, saying that "this further degree of her goodness sounded in his ears as if she had said, 'Die not, Essex; for though I punish thine offence, and humble thee for thy good, yet will I one day be served again by thee.' And my prostrate soul," he adds, "makes this answer, 'I hope for that blessed day.'" Two months afterwards, however, perceiving no immediate prospect of his return to favor or to liberty, he addressed her in a more expostulating style, thus:

"Before all letters written with this hand be banished, or he that sends this enjoin himself eternal silence, be pleased, I humbly beseech your majesty, to read over these few lines. At sundry times and by several messengers, I received these words as your majesty's own; that you meant to correct, but not to ruin. Since which time, when I languished in four months sickness; forfeited almost all that I was able to engage; felt the very pangs of death upon me; and saw that poor reputation, whatsoever it was, that I had hitherto enjoyed, not suffered to die with me, but buried and I alive; I yet kissed your majesty's fair correcting hand, and was confident in your royal words. For I said unto myself, Between my ruin and my sovereign's favor there is no mean: and if she bestow favor again, she gives with it all things that in this world I either need or desire. But now, the length of troubles, and the continuance, or rather the increase, of your majesty's indignation, hath made all men so afraid of me, as mine own state is not only ruined, but my kind friends and faithful servants are like to die in prison because I cannot help myself with mine own. Now I do not only feel the intolerable weight of your majesty's indignation, and am subject to their wicked information that first envied me for my happiness in your favor and now hate me out of custom; but, as if I were thrown into a corner like a dead carcase, I am gnawed on and torn by the vilest and basest creatures upon earth. The tavern-haunter speaks of me what he lists. Already they print me and make me speak to the world, and shortly they will play me in what forms they list upon the stage. The least of these is a thousand times worse than death. But this is not the worst of my destiny; for your majesty, that hath mercy for all the world but me, that hath protected from scorn and infamy all to whom you once vowed favor but Essex, and never repented you of any gracious assurance you had given till now; your majesty, I say, hath now, in this eighth month of my close imprisonment (as if you thought my infirmities, beggary and infamy, too little punishment for me), rejected my letters, refused to hear of me, which to traitors you never did. What therefore remaineth for me? Only this, to beseech your majesty on the knees of my heart, to conclude my punishment, my misery and my life together; that I may go to my Saviour, who hath paid himself a ransom for me, and whom, methinks, I still hear calling me out of this unkind world, in which I have lived too long, and once thought myself too happy.

"From your majesty's humblest servant,

"Essex."

At length, the queen prepared to make an end of this lingering business; the earl's entreaties that it might not be made a Star-chamber matter were listened to, and eighteen commissioners were selected out of the privy-council, to discuss his conduct, hear his accusation and defence, and finally pronounce upon him such a censure, for it was not to be called a sentence, as they should see fit. The crown lawyers,—amongst whom Francis Bacon chose to take his place, though the queen had offered to excuse his attendance on account of the ties of gratitude which ought to have attached him to Essex,—spoke one after another in aggravation of his offence; and some of them, as the attorney-general (Coke), with great virulence of language. Next came the prisoner's defence, which he pronounced kneeling;—an attitude in which he was suffered to remain during a great part of the proceedings. He began with a humble avowal of his errors, and many expressions of penitence and humility towards her majesty; a temperate apology for particular parts of his conduct, followed; but as he was proceeding to reflect in some points on the conduct of the Irish council, and to refute the exaggerated charges of his enemies, he was interrupted by the lord keeper, who reminded him that this was not a course likely to do him good. The earl explained that he had no wish but to clear himself of disloyalty; it was answered, that with this he never had been charged. The pathetic eloquence of the noble prisoner moved many of the council to tears, and was not without its effect on his enemies themselves. The secretary, who was the first to rise in reply, even in refuting a part of his excuses, did him justice in other points, and treated him on the whole with great courtesy. Finally, it was the unanimous censure of the council, that the earl should abstain from exercising the functions of privy-councillor, earl marshal, or master of the ordnance; that he should return to his own house, and there remain a prisoner as before, till it should please her majesty to remit both this and all the other parts of the sentence.

By this solemn hearing the mind of the queen was much tranquillized; because her grave councillors and learned judges in their speeches, "amplifying her majesty's clemency and the earl's offences, according to the manner in the Star-chamber," had held him worthy of much more punishment than he had yet received. A few days after her majesty repaired to lady Russel's house in Blackfriars to grace the nuptials of her daughter, a maid of honor, with lord Herbert, son of the earl of Worcester;—on which occasion it may be mentioned, that she was conveyed from the water-side in a lectica, or half-litter, borne by six knights. After dining with the wedding company, she passed to the neighbouring house of lord Cobham to sup. Here she was entertained with a mask of eight ladies, who, after performing their appointed part, chose out eight ladies more to dance the measure, when Mrs. Fitton the principal masker came and "wooed" the queen also to dance. Her majesty inquired who she was? "Affection," she replied. "Affection," said the queen, "is false;" yet she rose and danced.

Elizabeth was now possessed with a strange fancy of unmaking the knights made by Essex; being flattered in this folly by Bacon, who assured her, certainly in contradiction to all the laws of chivalry, that her general had no right to confer that degree after a prohibition laid upon him by her majesty. She was resolved to command at least that no ancient gentleman should give place to these new knights; and she had actually signed the warrant for a proclamation to this effect, when the timely interference of the secretary saved her from thus exposing herself.

Late in August 1600, the earl was acquainted in form by the privy-council that his liberty was restored, but that he was still prohibited from appearing at court. He answered, that it was his design to lead a retired life at his uncle's in Oxfordshire, yet he begged their intercession that he might be admitted to kiss the queen's hand before his departure. But this was still too great a favor to be accorded, and he was informed, that though free from restraint, he was still to regard himself as under indignation; a distinction which served to deter all but his nearest relations from resorting to him.

In the spring of this year, Vereiken, an ambassador from Flanders, was very honorably received by the queen, whose counsels had assumed a more pacific aspect since the disgrace of Essex.

Whyte informs us, with his usual minuteness, that the ambassador was lodged with alderman Baning in Dowgate; and that he was fetched to court in great state, the whole household being drawn up in the hall; the great ladies and fair maids appearing "excellently brave" in the rooms through which he passed; and the queen, very richly dressed and surrounded by her council, extending to him a most gracious reception. He solemnly congratulated himself on the happiness of beholding her majesty, "who for beauty and wisdom did excel all other princes of the earth;" and she, in requital, promised to consider of his proposals. The negotiation proved in the end abortive; but great offence was taken at the publication in this juncture of a letter by the earl of Essex against a peace with Spain.

Raleigh was at this time leaving London in discontent because nothing was done for him;—it does not appear what was now the particular object of his solicitation; but a writer has recorded it as an instance of the prudent reserve of Elizabeth in the advancement of her courtiers, that she would never admit the eloquent and ambitious Raleigh to a seat at her council-board[136].

In the midst of her extreme anxiety for the fate of Ireland,—where Tyrone for the present carried all things at his will, boasting himself the champion of the Romish cause, and proclaiming his expectation of Spanish aid; and of her more intimate and home-felt uneasiness respecting the effect of her measures of chastisement on the haughty mind of Essex,—we find Elizabeth promoting with some affectation the amusements of her court. "This day," says Whyte, "she appoints to see a Frenchman do feats upon a cord in the conduit court. Tomorrow she hath commanded the bears, the bull and the ape to be baited in the tilt-yard; upon Wednesday she will have solemn dancing."

A letter from sir Robert Sidney to sir John Harrington, written some time in this year, affords some not uninteresting traits of her behaviour, mixed with other matters:

"Worthy knight;

"Your present to the queen was well accepted of; she did much commend your verse, nor did she less praise your prose.... The queen hath tasted your dainties, and saith you have marvellous skill in cooking of good fruits. If I can serve you in your northern suit, you may command me.... Our lawyers say, your title is well grounded in conscience, but that strict law doth not countenance your recovering those lands of your ancestors.... Visit your friends often, and please the queen by all you can, for all the great lawyers do much fear her displeasure.... I do see the queen often, she doth wax weak since the late troubles, and Burleigh's death doth often draw tears from her goodly cheeks; she walketh out but little, meditates much alone, and sometimes writes in private to her best friends. The Scottish matters do cause much discourse, but we know not the true grounds of state business, nor venture further on such ticklish points[137]. Her highness hath done honor to my poor house by visiting me, and seemed much pleased at what we did to please her. My son made her a fair speech, to which she did give most gracious reply. The women did dance before her, whilst the cornets did salute from the gallery; and she did vouchsafe to eat two morsels of rich comfit cake, and drank a small cordial out of a golden cup. She had a marvellous suit of velvet, borne by four of her first women-attendants in rich apparel; two ushers did go before; and at going up stairs she called for a staff, and was much wearied in walking about the house, and said she wished to come another day. Six drums and six trumpets waited in the court, and sounded at her approach and departure. My wife did bear herself in wonderous good liking, and was attired in a purple kirtle fringed with gold; and myself in a rich band and collar of needlework, and did wear a goodly stuff of the bravest cut and fashion, with an under body of silver and loops. The queen was much in commendation of our appearances, and smiled at the ladies who in their dances often came up to the step on which the seat was fixed to make their obeisance, and so fell back into their order again. The younger Markham did several gallant feats on a horse before the gate, leaping down and kissing his sword, then mounting swiftly on the saddle, and passing a lance with much skill. The day well nigh spent, the queen went and tasted a small beverage that was set out in divers rooms where she might pass, and then in much order was attended to her palace; the cornets and trumpets sounding through the streets." &c.

The fate of Essex was now drawing to a crisis. The mixture of severity and indulgence with which he had been treated;—her majesty's perseverance in refusing to readmit him to her presence, though all other liberty was restored to him;—her repeated assurances that she meant only to chastise, not to ruin him, contrasted with the tedious duration of her anger and the utter uncertainty when, or by what means, it was to be brought to an end;—had long detained him in the mazes of a tormenting uncertainty: but he at length saw the moment when her disposition towards him must be brought to a test which he secretly assured his adherents that he should regard as decisive.

The term for which the earl had held the lucrative farm of sweet wines would expire at Michaelmas; he was soliciting its renewal; and on the doubtful balance of success or failure his already wavering loyalty was suspended. He spared on this occasion no expressions of humility and contrition which might soften the heart of the queen:—He professed to kiss the hand and the rod with which he had been corrected; to look forward to the beholding again those blessed eyes, so long his Cynosure, as the only real happiness which he could ever enjoy; and he declared his intention with Nebuchodonosor, to make his habitation with the beasts of the field, to eat hay like an ox, and to be wet with the dews of heaven, until it should please the queen to restore him. To lord Henry Howard, who was the bearer of these dutiful phrases, Elizabeth expressed her unfeigned satisfaction to find him in so proper a frame of mind; she only wished, she said, that his deeds might answer to his words; and as he had long tried her patience, it was fit that she should make some experiment of his humility. Her father would never have endured such perversity:—but she would not now look back:—All that glittered was not gold, but if such results came forth from her furnace, she should ever after think the better of her chemistry. Soon after, having detected the motive of immediate interest which had inspired such moving expressions of penitence and devotion, her disgust against Essex was renewed; and in the end, she not only rejected his suit, but added the insulting words, that an ungovernable beast must be stinted of his provender, in order to bring him under management.

The spirit of Essex could endure no more;—rage took possession of his soul; and equally desperate in fortune and in mind, he prepared to throw himself into any enterprise which the rashness of the worst advisers could suggest. It was at this time that he is reported, in speaking of the queen, to have used the expression, maliciously repeated to her by certain court ladies,—that through old age her mind was become as crooked as her carcase:—words which might have sufficed to plunge him at once from the height of favor into irretrievable ruin.

The doors of Essex-house, hitherto closed night and day since the disgrace of the earl, were now thrown popularly open. Sir Gilly Merrick, his steward, kept an open table for all military adventurers, men of broken fortunes and malcontents of every party. Sermons were delivered there daily by the most zealous and popular of the puritan divines, to which the citizens ran in crowds; and lady Rich, who had lately been placed under restraint by the queen and was still in deep disgrace, on account of her intermeddling in the affairs of her brother, and on the further ground of her scandalous intrigue with lord Montjoy, became a daily visitant. The earl himself, listening again to the suggestions of his secretary Cuff, whom he had once dismissed on account of his violent and dangerous character, began to meditate new counsels.

An eye-witness has thus impressively described the struggles of his mind at this juncture. "It resteth with me in opinion, that ambition thwarted in its career doth speedily lead on to madness: herein I am strengthened by what I learn in my lord of Essex, who shifteth from sorrow and repentance to rage and rebellion so suddenly as well proveth him devoid of good reason or right mind; in my last discourse he littered such strange words, bordering on such strange designs, that made me hasten forth, and leave his presence. Thank heaven I am safe at home, and if I go in such troubles again, I deserve the gallows for a meddling fool. His speeches of the queen becometh no man who hath mens sana in corpore sano. He hath ill advisers, and much evil hath sprung from this source.

"The queen well knoweth how to humble the haughty spirit, the haughty spirit knoweth not how to yield, and the man's soul seemeth tossed to and fro like the waves of a troubled sea[138]."

The affinity of Essex to the crown by his descent from Thomas of Woodstock has been already adverted to;—it seems never to have awakened the slightest jealousy in the mind of Elizabeth; but the absurd vaunts of some of his followers, commented upon by the malicious ingenuity of his enemies, had sufficed to excite sinister suspicions in the bosom of the king of Scots. For the purpose of counteracting these, lord Montjoy, near the beginning of the earl's captivity, had sent Henry Leigh into Scotland, to give the king assurance that Essex entertained none of the ambitious views which had been imputed to him, but was, on the contrary, firmly resolved to endure no succession but that of his majesty; further hinting at some steps for causing his right to be recognised in the lifetime of the queen. From this time a friendly correspondence had been maintained between James and the Essex party; and Montjoy, on being appointed lord deputy of Ireland, had gone so far as to offer to the king to bring over to England such part of his army as, acting in concert with the force that the earl would be able to raise, might compass by force the object which they had in view. By some delay in the return of the messenger, added to the dilatoriness or reluctance of James, this plan was frustrated; but some time after Essex, impatient alike of the disgrace and the inactivity of his present restraint, urged Montjoy to bring over his forces without waiting for the tardy co-operation of the king of Scots. The lord deputy replied, "that he thought it more lawful to enter into such a course with one that had interest in the succession than otherwise; and though he had been led before out of the opinion he had to do his country good by the establishment of the succession, and to deliver my lord of Essex out of the danger he was in; yet now his life appeared to be safe, to restore his fortune only, and to save himself from the danger which hangs over him by discovery, and to satisfy my lord of Essex's private ambition, he would not enter into any enterprise of that" kind[139].

After this repulse, Essex as a last resource applied himself once more to the court of Scotland, and, with the disingenuousness inseparable from the conduct of political intrigue, exerted all his efforts to deceive James into a belief that the party now in power were pensioners of Spain, hired to the support of the pretended title of the Infanta. He further alarmed the king by representing that the places most proper for the reception of Spanish forces were all in the hands of the creatures of Cecil;—Raleigh being governor of Jersey, lord Cobham warden of the Cinque Ports, lord Burleigh president of the North, and sir George Carew president of Munster. In consequence, he urged James to lose no time in claiming by his ambassadors a solemn acknowledgement of his title. These suggestions were listened to; and Essex was animated to proceed in his perilous career by hopes of the speedy arrival of the Scottish embassy. In the meantime he formed a council of five of the friends most devoted to his cause:—the earl of Southampton, sir Charles Davers, sir Ferdinando Gorges, sir John Davis surveyor of the ordnance, and John Littleton esquire of Frankley. By this junto, which met privately at Drury-house, the plot was matured. The earl delivered in a list of one hundred and twenty nobles, knights and gentlemen, on whose attachment he thought he could rely: it was agreed that an attempt should be made to seize the palace, and to persuade or compel the queen to remove from her councils the enemies of the earl, and to summon a new parliament; and their respective parts were allotted to the intended actors in this scene of violence.

Meantime the extraordinary concourse to Essex-house had fixed the attention of government, and measures were taken for obtaining intelligence of all that passed within its walls. Lord Henry Howard, who had made a timely secession from the leader to whom, in terms of the grossest adulation, he had professed everlasting and unlimited attachment, is believed to have discovered some of his secrets; and a domestic educated with the earl from childhood, and entirely trusted by him, had also the baseness to reveal his counsels. On the 7th of February 1601, the privy-council, being fully informed of his proceedings, dispatched secretary Herbert to summon the earl to appear before them. But apprehensive that he was betrayed, and conscious that the steps which he had already taken were incapable of being justified, the earl excused himself from attending the council, and summoning around him the most confidential of his friends, he represented to them that they were on the point of being committed to prison, and bade them decide whether they would quietly submit themselves to the disposal of their enemies, or attempt thus prematurely to carry into effect the designs which they had meditated.

During the debate which ensued, a person entered who pretended to be deputed by the people of London to assure the earl of their cordial co-operation in his cause. This decided the question; Essex, with a more cheerful countenance, began to expatiate on the affection borne him by the city, and his expectation of being joined by sheriff Smith with a thousand of the trained bands whom he commanded. The following morning was fixed for the insurrection; and in the meantime emissaries were dispatched, who ran about the town in all directions, to spread among the friends of the earl the alarm of a design upon his life by Cobham and Raleigh.

Early on the morrow the lord keeper, the lord chief justice, and sir W. Knolles comptroller of the household, arrived at Essex-house and demanded entrance on the part of the queen. They themselves were with difficulty admitted through the wicket of the gate, which was now kept shut and guarded; but all their servants, except the purse-bearer, were excluded. They beheld the court-yard filled with a confused multitude, in the midst of which stood Essex accompanied by the earls of Southampton and Rutland and many others. The lord keeper demanded in the name of her majesty the cause of this unusual concourse; adding an assurance that if any had injured his lordship, he should find redress. Essex in a vehement manner complained of letters counterfeited in his name,—of designs against his life,—of perfidious dealings towards him: but the conference was interrupted by the clamors of the crowd, some of whom threatened violence against the court-emissaries. Without further parley the earl conducted them into the house, where he ordered them to be safely kept as hostages till his return from the city, whither he was hastening to take measures with the lord-mayor and sheriffs.

About ten o'clock he entered the city attended by the "chief gallants" of the time; as the earls of Southampton and Rutland, lords Sandys and Monteagle, sir Charles Davers, sir Christopher Blount, and many others. As they passed Fleet-street, they cried, "For the queen, for the queen!" in other places they gave out that Cobham and Raleigh would have murdered the earl in his bed; and the multitude, universally well affected to Essex, eagerly reported that he and the queen were reconciled, and that she had appointed him to ride in that triumphant manner through the city to his house in Seething-lane. The lord-mayor however received warning from the privy-council to look well to his charge, and by eleven the gates were closed and strongly guarded. The earl, though a good deal disconcerted at observing no preparations for joining him, made his way to the house of sheriff Smith; but this officer slipped out at his back door and hastened to the lord-mayor for instructions. He next proceeded to an armourer's and demanded ammunition, which was refused; and while he was hastening to and fro, without aim or object as appears, lord Burleigh courageously entered the city with a king-at-arms and half a score horse-men, and in two places proclaimed the earl and all his adherents traitors. A pistol was fired at him by one of the followers of Essex; but the multitude showed no disposition to molest him, and he hastened back to assure the queen that a popular commotion was not at all to be apprehended.

The palace was now fortified and double-guarded; the streets were blocked up with carts and coaches; and the earl, after wandering in vain about the town till two o'clock, finding himself joined by none of the citizens and deserted by a great portion of his original followers, determined to make his way back to Essex-house. At Ludgate he was opposed by some troops posted there by order of the bishop; and drawing his sword, he directed sir Christopher Blount to attack them; "which he did with great bravery, and killed Waite, a stout officer, who had been formerly hired by the earl of Leicester to assassinate sir Christopher, and was now abandoned by his company[140]." In the end, however, the earl was repulsed with the loss of one young gentleman killed and sir Christopher Blount wounded and taken prisoner; and retreating with his diminished band to the river side, he returned by water to his own house.

He was much disappointed to find that his three prisoners had been liberated in his absence by sir Ferdinando Gorges: but sanguine to the last in his hopes of an insurrection of the citizens in his favor, he proceeded to fortify his house in the best manner that circumstances would admit.

It was soon invested by a considerable force under the lord admiral, the earls of Cumberland and Lincoln, and other commanders. Sir Robert Sidney was ordered to summon the little garrison to surrender, when the earl of Southampton demanded terms and hostages; but being answered that none would be granted to rebels, except that the ladies within the house and their women would be permitted to depart if they desired it, the defenders declared their resolution to hold out, and the assault continued.

Lord Sandys, the oldest man in the party, encouraged the earl in the resolution which he once appeared to have adopted, of cutting a way through the assailants; observing, that the boldest courses were the safest, and that at all events it was more honorable for men of quality to die sword in hand than by the axe of the executioner:—but Essex, who had not yet resigned the flattering hopes of life, was easily moved by the tears and cries of the surrounding females to yield to less courageous, not more prudent, counsels. Captain Owen Salisbury, a brave veteran, seeing that all was lost, planted himself at a window bare-headed, for the purpose of being slain: on receiving from one of the assailants a bullet on the side of his head, "O!" cried he, "that thou hadst been so much my friend to have shot but a little lower!" Of this wound however he expired the next morning.

About six in the evening the earl made known his willingness to surrender, on receiving assurance, for himself and his friends, of civil treatment and a legal trial; and permission for a clergyman named Aston to attend him in prison:—the lord admiral answered that of the two first articles there could be no doubt, and for the last he would intercede. The house was then yielded with all that were in it. During that night the principal offenders were lodged in Lambeth-palace, the next day they were conveyed to the Tower; while the common prisons received the accomplices of meaner rank.

On February 19th Essex and Southampton were brought to their trial before the house of peers; lord Buckhurst sitting as lord high steward. Essex inquired whether peers might not be challenged like common jurymen, but was answered in the negative. He pleaded Not guilty; professed his unspotted loyalty to his queen and country, and earnestly labored to give to his attempt to raise the city the color of a necessary act of self-defence against the machinations of enemies from whom his life was in danger. Had this interpretation of his conduct been admitted, possibly his offence might not have come within the limits of treason: but it was held, that his refusal to attend the council; the imprisonment of the three great officers sent to him by the queen; and above all the consultations held at Drury-house for bringing soldiers from Ireland, for surprising the Tower, for seizing the palace, and for compelling the queen to remove certain persons from her counsels and to call a parliament, assigned to his overt acts the character of designs against the state itself. For the confessions of his accomplices, by which the secrets of the Drury-house meetings were brought to light, he was evidently unprepared; and the native violence of his temper broke out in invectives against those associates by whom, as he falsely pretended, all these criminal designs had been originally suggested to his mind. This evidence, he said, had been elicited by the hope of pardon and reward;—let those who had given it enjoy their lives with impunity;—to him death was far more welcome than life. Whatever interpretation lawyers might put upon it, the necessity of self-defence against Cobham, Raleigh and Cecil, had impelled him to raise the city; and he was consoled by the testimony of a spotless conscience. Lord Cobham here rose, and protested that he had never acted with malice against the earl, although he had disapproved of his ambition. "On my faith," replied the earl, "I would have given this right hand to have removed from the queen such an informer and calumniator."

He afterwards proceeded to accuse sir Robert Cecil of having affirmed that the title of the Infanta was equally well founded with that of any other claimant. But the secretary here stepped forward to entreat that, the prisoner might be obliged to bring proof of his assertions; and it thus became manifest, and in the end was confessed with contrition by the earl himself, that he had advanced this charge on false grounds.

It was with better reason that he reproached Francis Bacon, who then stood against him as queen's counsel, with the glaring inconsistency between his past professions and his present conduct. This cowardly desertion of his generous and affectionate friend and patron,—or rather this open revolt from him, this shameless attack upon him in the hour of his extreme distress and total ruin,—forms indeed the foulest of the many blots which stain the memory of this illustrious person: it may even be pronounced, on a deliberate survey of all its circumstances, the basest and most profligate act of that reign, which yet affords examples, in the conduct of its public men, of almost every species of profligacy and baseness. That it continued to be matter of general reproach against him, clearly appears from the long and labored apology which Bacon thought it necessary, several years afterwards, to address to lord Montjoy, then earl of Devon;—an apology which extenuates in no degree the turpitude of the fact; but which may be consulted for a number of highly curious, if authentic, particulars.

The earl of Southampton likewise pleaded Not guilty, and professed his inviolate fidelity towards her majesty: he excused whatever criminality he might have fallen into by the warmth of his attachment for Essex, and behaved throughout with a mildness and an ingenuous modesty which moved all hearts in his favor. After a trial of eleven hours, sentence of Guilty was unanimously pronounced on both the prisoners. Southampton in an affecting manner implored all present to intercede for him with her majesty, and Essex, with great earnestness, joined in this petition of his unfortunate friend: as to himself, he said, he was not anxious for life; wishing for nothing more than to lay it down with entire fidelity towards God and his prince.—Yet he would have no one insinuate to the queen that he despised her mercy, though he believed he should not too submissively implore it; and he hoped all men would in their consciences acquit him, though the law had pronounced him guilty. Such was the lofty tone of self-justification assumed by Essex on this memorable occasion, when his pride was roused and his temper exasperated, by the open war of recrimination and reproaches into which he had so unadvisedly plunged with his personal enemies; and by the cruel and insolent invectives of the crown lawyers. But he was soon to undergo on this point a most remarkable and total change.

The mind of the earl of Essex was deeply imbued with sentiments of religion: from early youth he had conversed much with divines of the stricter class, whom he held in habitual reverence; and conscious in the conduct of his past life of many deviations from the Gospel rule of right, he now, in the immediate prospect of its violent termination, surrendered himself into the hands of these spiritual guides with extraordinary humility and implicit submission. To the criminality of his late attempt, his conscience was not however awakened; he seems to have believed, that in contriving the fall of his enemies, he was at the same time deserving the thanks of his country, oppressed by their maladministration; and he repelled all the efforts of Dr. Dove, by whom he was first visited, to inspire him with a different sense of this part of his conduct. Cut his favorite divine, Mr. Aston,—who is described by a contemporary as "a man base, fearful and mercenary," in whom the earl was much deceived,—practised with more success upon his mind. By an artful pretext of believing him to have aimed at the crown, he first drew him into a warm defence of his conduct on this point; then by degrees into a confession of all that he had really plotted, and the concurrence which he had found from others. This was the end aimed at by Aston, or by the government which employed him: he professed that he could not reconcile it to his conscience to conceal treasons so foul and dangerous; alarmed the earl with all the terrors of religion; and finally persuaded him, that a full discovery of his accomplices was the only atonement which he could make to heaven and earth. The humbled Essex was brought to entreat that several privy-councillors, of whom Cecil by name was one, should be sent to hear his confessions; and so strangely scrupulous did he show himself to leave nothing untold, that he gave up even the letters of the king of Scots, and betrayed every private friend whom attachment to himself had ever seduced into an acquiescence in his designs, or a nice sense of honor withheld from betraying them.

Sir Henry Nevil, for having only concealed projects in which he had absolutely refused to concur, was thus exposed to the loss of his appointment of ambassador to France; to imprisonment, and to a long persecution;—and lord Montjoy might have suffered even capitally, had not his good and acceptable service in Ireland induced the queen to wink at former offences. Cuff, the secretary of the earl, whom he sent for to exhort him to imitate his sincerity, sternly upbraided his master with his altered mind, and his treachery towards those who had evinced the strongest attachment to his service: but the earl remained unmoved by his reproaches, and calmly prepared for death in the full persuasion that he had now worked out his own salvation.

Elizabeth had behaved on occasion of the late insurrection with all her wonted fortitude; even at the time when Essex was actually in the city and a false report was brought her of its revolt to him, "she was never more amazed," says Cecil in a letter to sir George Carew, "than she would have been to have heard of a fray in Fleet-street." But when, in the further progress of the affair, she beheld her once loved Essex brought to the bar for high-treason and condemned by the unanimous verdict of his peers; when it rested solely with herself to take the forfeit of his life or interfere by an act of special grace for his preservation,—her grief, her agitation and her perplexity became extreme. A sense of the many fine qualities and rare endowments of her kinsman,—his courage, his eloquence, his generosity, and the affectionate zeal with which he had served her:—indulgence for the youthful impetuosity which had carried him out of the path of duty, not unmixed with compunction for that severe and contemptuous treatment by which she had exasperated to rebellion the spirit which mildness might have softened into penitence and submission;—above all, the remaining affection which still lurked at the bottom of her heart, pleaded for mercy with a force scarcely to be withstood. On the other hand, the ingratitude, the neglect, the insolence with which he had occasionally treated her, and the magnitude of his offences, which daily grew upon her by his own confessions and those of his accomplices, fatally united to confirm the natural bias of her mind towards severity.

At this juncture Thomas Leigh, one of the dark and desperate characters whose service Essex had used in his criminal negotiations with Tyrone, by an atrocious plot for entering the palace, seizing the person of the queen and compelling her to sign a warrant for the release of the two earls, renewed her fears and gave fresh force to her anger. Irresolute for some days, she once countermanded by a special messenger the order for the death of Essex; then, as repenting of her weakness, she signed a second warrant, in obedience to which he was finally, on February 25th, brought to the scaffold.

The last scene was performed in a manner correspondent in all respects to the contrite and humiliated frame of mind to which the noble culprit had been wrought. It was no longer the brave, the gallant, the haughty earl of Essex, the favorite of the queen, the admiration of the ladies, the darling of the soldiery, the idol of the people;—no longer even the undaunted prisoner, pouring forth invectives against his enemies in answer to the charges against himself; loudly persisting in the innocence of his intentions, instead of imploring mercy for his actions, and defending his honor while he asserted a lofty indifference to life;—it was a meek and penitent offender, profoundly sensible of all his past transgressions, but taught to expect their remission in the world to which he was hastening, through the fervency of his prayers and the plenitude of his confessions; and prepared, as his latest act, to perform in public a solemn religious service, composed for his use by the assistant clergy, whose directions he obeyed with the most scrupulous minuteness. Under a change so entire, even his native eloquence had forsaken him. Sir Robert Cecil, who seems to have been a cool and critical spectator of the fatal scene, remarks to his correspondent that "the conflict between the flesh and the soul did thus far appear, that in his prayers he was fain to be helped; otherwise no man living could pray more christianly than he did."

Essex had requested of the queen that he might be put to death in a private manner within the walls of the Tower, fearing, as he told the divines who attended him, that "the acclamations of the citizens should have hoven him up." His desire in this point was willingly complied with; but about a hundred nobles, knights and gentlemen witnessed the transaction from seats placed near the scaffold. Sir Walter Raleigh chose to station himself at a window of the armory whence he could see all without being observed by the earl. This action, universally imputed to a barbarous desire of glutting his eyes with the blood of the man whom he hated and had pursued with a hostility more unrelenting than that of Cecil himself, was never forgiven by the people, who detested him no less than they loved and admired his unfortunate rival. Several years after, when Raleigh in his turn was brought to the same end in the same place, he professed however, and perhaps truly, that the sorrowful spectacle had melted him to tears: meantime, he at least extracted from the late events large gratification for another ruling passion of his breast, by setting to sale his interest in procuring pardons to gentlemen concerned in the insurrection. Mr. Lyttleton in particular is recorded to have paid him ten thousand pounds for his good offices, and Mr. Bainham a sum not specified. The life of the earl of Southampton was spared, at the intercession chiefly of Cecil, but he was confined in the Tower till the death of the queen: others escaped with short imprisonments and the imposition of fines, few of which were exacted; sir Fulk Greville having humanely made it his business to represent to the queen that no danger was to be apprehended from a faction which had lost its leader. Four only of the principal conspirators suffered capitally; sir Christopher Blount and sir Charles Davers, both catholics, sir Gilly Merrick and Henry Cuff.

Those ambassadors from the king of Scots on whose co-operation Essex had placed his chief reliance, now arrived; and finding themselves too late for other purposes, they obeyed their master's instructions in such a case by offering to the queen his warmest congratulations on her escape from so foul and dangerous a conspiracy. They were further charged to make secret inquiry whether James's correspondence with Essex and concurrence in the late conspiracy had come to her knowledge; and whether any measures were likely to be taken in consequence for his exclusion from the succession. The confessions of Essex to the privy-councillors had indeed rendered Elizabeth perfectly acquainted with the machinations of James; but resolute to refrain during the remnant of her days from all angry discussions with the prince whom she saw destined to succeed her, she had caused the earl to be not only requested, but commanded, to forbear the repetition of this part of his acknowledgements on the scaffold. She was thus left free to receive with all those demonstrations of amity which cost her nothing the compliments of James; and she remained deliberately ignorant of all that he desired her not to know. The Scottish emissaries had the further satisfaction of carrying back to their master assurances of the general consent of Englishmen in his favor, and in particular a pledge of the adherence of secretary Cecil, who immediately opened a private correspondence with the king, of which lord Henry Howard, who had formerly conducted that of Essex, became the willing medium.

There is good evidence that the peace of Elizabeth received an incurable wound by the loss of her unhappy favorite, which she daily found additional cause to regret on perceiving how completely it had delivered her over to the domination of his adversaries; but she still retained the resolution to pursue with unabated vigor the great objects on which she was sensible that the mind of a sovereign ought to be with little remission employed. The memorable siege of Ostend, begun during this summer by the archduke Albert, fixed her attention and that of Europe. The defence was conducted by that able officer sir Francis Vere at the head of a body of English auxiliaries, whom the States had enlisted with the queen's permission, at their own expense. Henry IV., as if for the purpose of observing more nearly the event, had repaired to Calais. The queen of England, earnestly desirous of a personal interview, wrote him two letters on the subject; and Henry sent in return marshal Biron and two other ambassadors of rank, with a train of three or four hundred persons, whom the queen received with high honors, and caused to accompany her in her progress. During her visit of thirteen days to the marquis of Winchester at Basing, the French embassy was lodged at the house of lord Sandys, which was furnished for the occasion with plate and hangings from Hampton-court; the queen defraying all the charges, which were more than those of her own court at Basing. She made it her boast that she had in this progress entertained royally a royal ambassador at her subjects' houses; which she said no other prince could do. The meeting of the two sovereigns, in hopes of which Elizabeth had actually gone to Dover, could not for some unknown reason be at last arranged; but Henry, at the particular instance of his friend and ally, sent Sully over in disguise to confer confidentially with her respecting an important political project which she had announced. This was no less than a plan for humbling the house of Austria, and establishing a more perfect balance of power in Europe by uniting into one state the seventeen Flemish provinces. It was an idea, as Sully declared to her, which had previously occurred to Henry himself; and the coincidence was flattering to both; but various obstacles were found likely to retard its execution till a period to which Elizabeth could scarcely look forward. One advantage, however, was gained to the queen of England by the interview;—the testimony of this celebrated statesman, recorded in his own memoirs, to the solidity of her judgement and the enlargement of her views; and his distinct avowal that she was in all respects worthy of the high estimation which she had for more than forty years enjoyed by common consent of all the politicians of Europe.

Ireland was still a source to Elizabeth of anxiety and embarrassment. In order to sustain the expenses of the war, she suffered herself to be prevailed on to issue base money for the pay of the troops;—a mortifying circumstance, after the high credit which she had gained by that restoration of the coin to its original standard which was one of the first acts of her reign. Montjoy in the meantime was struggling with vigor and progressive success against the disorders of the country. With the assistance of sir George Carew president of Munster, and other able commanders, he was gradually reducing the inferior rebels and cutting off the supplies of Tyrone himself: but the courage of this insurgent was still supported by the hope of aids from Spain; and during this summer two bodies of Spanish troops, one of four thousand, the other of two thousand men, made good their landing. The larger number, under Aquila, took possession of Kinsale; the smaller, under Ocampo, was joined by Tyrone and other rebels with all their forces. The appearance of affairs was alarming, since the catholic Irish every where welcomed the Spaniards as deliverers and brethren: but Montjoy, after blockading Aquila in Kinsale, marched boldly to attack Ocampo and his Irish allies; gave them a complete defeat, in which the Spanish general was made prisoner and Tyrone compelled to fly into Ulster; and afterwards returning to the siege of Kinsale, compelled Aquila to capitulate on condition of a safe conveyance to their own country for himself and all the Spanish troops in the island.

The state of the queen's mind while the fate of Ireland seemed to hang in the balance, and while the impression made by the attempt of Essex was still recent, is depicted in the following letter by sir John Harrington with his usual minuteness and vivacity.

To sir Hugh Portman knight. (Dated October 9th 1601.)

"...For six weeks I left my oxen and sheep and ventured to court.... Much was my comfort in being well received, notwithstanding it is an ill hour for seeing the queen. The madcaps are all in riot, and much evil threatened. In good sooth I feared her majesty more than the rebel Tyrone, and wished I had never received my lord of Essex's honor of knighthood. She is quite disfavored[141] and unattired, and these troubles waste her much. She disregarded every costly cover that cometh to the table, and taketh little but manchet and succory pottage. Every new message from the city doth disturb her, and she frowns on all the ladies. I had a sharp message from her, brought by my lord Buckhurst, namely thus. 'Go tell that witty fellow my godson to get home; it is no season now to fool it here,' I liked this as little as she doth my knighthood, so took to my boots, and returned to the plough in bad weather. I must not say much even by this trusty and sure messenger, but the many evil plots and designs hath overcome all her highness' sweet temper. She walks much in her privy chamber, and stamps with her feet at ill news, and thrusts her rusty sword at times into the arras in great rage. My lord Buckhurst is much with her, and few else since the city business; but the dangers are over, and yet she always keeps a sword by her table. I obtained a short audience at my first coming to court, when her highness told me, if ill counsel had brought me so far from home, she wished heaven might mar that fortune which she had mended. I made my peace in this point, and will not leave my poor castle of Kelston, for fear of finding a worse elsewhere, as others have done. I will eat Aldborne rabbits, and get fish as you recommend from the man at Curry-Rival; and get partridge and hares when I can; and my venison where I can; and leave all great matters to those like them better than myself.... I could not move in any suit to serve your neighbour B. such was the face of things: and so disordered is all order that her highness hath worn but one change of raiment for many days, and swears much at those that cause her griefs in such wise, to the no small discomfiture of all about her, more especially our sweet lady Arundel, that Venus plus quam venusta."

In the month of October 1601, the wants of her treasury compelled the queen to call a parliament. Her procession to the house had something gloomy and ominous; the people, still resenting the death of their favorite, whom they never could be taught to regard as a traitor to his sovereign, refused to gratify her ears as formerly with those affectionate acclamations on which this wise and gracious princess had ever placed so high a value. The house of commons however, in consideration of her extraordinary expenses in the Irish wars, granted a supply large beyond example. Having thus deserved well of her majesty, they ventured to revive the topic of monopolies, the crying grievance of the age, against which the former parliament had petitioned her, but without effect. It was universally allowed, that the granting of exclusive privileges to trade in certain articles was a prerogative inherent in the crown; and though the practice so lavishly adopted by Elizabeth of providing in this manner for her courtiers without expense to herself, had rendered the evil almost intolerable, the ministerial members insisted strongly that no right existed in the house to frame a bill for its redress. It was maintained by them, that the dispensing power possessed by the queen would enable her to set at nought any statute which could be made in this matter;—in short, that she was an absolute prince; and consequently that the mode of petition, of which the last parliament had proved the inefficacy, was the only course of proceeding open to them. Other members, in whose bosoms some sparks of liberty had now been kindled, supported the bill which had been offered to the house: the event was, that in the midst of the debate the queen sent for the speaker, to inform him that she would voluntarily cancel some of the patents which had excited most discontent.