than all, his refusing to avail himself of the opportunity of escape to France, which Captain King had provided; shew not only that his return was voluntary, but that some high motive had induced it. But why should he not return to England? True, he had failed in his enterprise. That was attributable more to the conduct of the King and the insubordinate character of his crews, than to any act of his own. His wife and family were in England. Where else should he go? The Edinburgh intimates, upon the authority of Demarest, that his intention was to have gone over to France and offered his service to that monarch. Ralegh absolutely denies ever having entertained such an idea. We believe Ralegh. We cannot think that he who by the toil of a long life had builded up a great reputation, and who was connected with all that was illustrious in the reign of such a monarch as Elizabeth, could by an act either of treachery or cowardice, prove recreant to himself, and consent to sully the name he had won. But the statement which is made by Carew in his letter to James Howell, and which Mr. Jardine adopts, throws light upon the matter. It appears, "that when Ralegh sailed from England, the Earls Pembroke and Arundel, made themselves responsible to the King for his return; and his re-appearance is to be attributed to his determination to release them from their obligation."* This is a theory entirely consistent with the view we have endeavored to present of the character of Ralegh, and with it we take our leave of the vexed question. * See Howell's Familiar Letters. 1 gamporada, обраши In his progress from Plymouth to London, Ralegh was in custody, and closely watched by Sir Lewis Stuckley, and a French quack, named Manourie, whom the King attached to his person in the character of spies. While James had fully determined to sacrifice his great subject to the enmity of Spain,* he was very much perplexed as to the manner in which his favorite object could be accomplished, without an act of bold tyranny, from which his timid nature shrank in alarm. He does not appear to have doubted that Ralegh would repair to London, and submit himself to the royal will; but he sent down these agents to accompany him, in order to secure through their instrumentality, a decent pretext for the course which he had determined to pursue. The spies who surrounded Ralegh, noted every look, word and action, of their illustrious prisoner. They persuaded him to attempt an escape; aided him up to the last moment, and then betrayed him. They stood at his bedside in the Tower. The unguarded exclamations of an injured man; the honest indignation of a betrayed subject; the sorrowful reflections of a maligned spirit; the breathings of hope, the accents of despair, and the words of supplication, were repeated to the ears of the eager King. But it was all vain. Ralegh spoke no * This determination on the part of the King, is made fully apparent from a letter addressed soon after the execution of Ralegh, by one of the officers of state, to an Agent in Spain; in which the Agent is directed to urge upon that Court: "in how many ways of late, the King hath strained upon the affections of his people, and especially in this last concerning Sir Walter Ralegh; and further to let them know, how able a man Sir Walter Ralegh was to have done his Majesty service, yet to give them content, he hath not spared him, when by doing so he might have given great satisfaction to his people, and had at command upon all occasions as useful a man as served any Prince in Christendom." Letter to Mr. Cottington. See Rusworth's Coll. 2 Cayley, 178. treason. He revealed no secret of his heart, no action of his life, which justified the warrant of his death. It became necessary to resort to other means to entrap him. James was full of expedients. He was just the King for such an emergency. He directed that Lady Ralegh should be confined in her house, and encouraged to communicate freely with her imprisoned husband, and the dastardly monarch gloated over the intercepted letters, striving to extract treason from the language of love, and make the confiding wife the instrument of her husband's ruin !* But even this scheme failed, and he was at last forced to throw off the mask, and resort to an act of high handed outrage, which even Hume, could not justify. This was the revival of the old sentence! A writ of Privy Seal was despatched to the Judges, commanding them to order its execution. They shrank from the flagrant injustice. They declared that neither the writ of Privy Seal, nor even a warrant under the Great Seal, could authorise them, after so long an interval of time, to execute the sentence, without first affording the prisoner an opportunity of pleading in person against it; and they resolved to bring him to the bar by a writ of habeas corpus, to answer why execution should not be awarded against him. The King approved of this course, and without a pause, Ralegh was borne from a sick bed, with a burning fever raging in his veins, to the bar at Westminster. "What have you to say why execution should not * Tytler, p. 350. † 2 Cayley, 147 to 156. Tytler, 352 to 354, Oldys, 225. be awarded against you," demanded the clerk of the crown. "My voice hath grown weak, from my late sickness," said Ralegh; "and an ague that I have on me at this instant; I pray you to give me the relief of a pen and ink. " "You speak audibly enough," quoth the Chief Justice; and in tones trembling from his sickness, Ralegh proceeded with his defence. "He hoped that the Judgment he received to die so long since, would not now be strained to take away his life; since by his majesty's commission for his late voyage, it was implied to be restored, in giving him power as marshal over the lives of others; and since he undertook that voyage to honor his sovereign, and to enrich his country with gold, of the ore whereof, this hand hath found and taken, in Guiana." A most excellent defence; for before he went upon that expedition, he was offered a full pardon for a further bribe of £700, but Sir Francis Bacon, the Lord Chancellor of the realm, said: "Sir! the knee timber of your voyage, is money. Spare your purse in this particular, for upon my life, you have a sufficient pardon for all that is past, already; the king having under his broad seal, made you Admiral of your fleet, and given you power of martial law over your officers and men!" Vain reasoning! Sir Francis Bacon was a Lawyer; but James I. was a King! From the Judgment Hall to the scaffold, was but a stride. The warrant of death was already signed; the ink had dried upon it, before the execution was awarded, and the very next day, without even a decent interval for the settlement of his affairs, the sad farewells of human love, or the supplication for divine mercy; the fearful tragedy was hurried on to its bloody catastrophe. Ralegh met his fate with the spirit of a soldier, the calm courage of a man, and the lofty faith of a Christian. After addressing those whom the occasion had assembled, in a speech which breathes a truthful, as well as a noble spirit, he prepared himself for death. The morning being cold, the sheriff offered to bring him from the scaffold to the fire, that he might warm himself before he said his prayers, but he answered; "no, good Mr. Sheriff, let us despatch; for within this quarter of an hour, my ague will come upon me, and if I be not dead before that, mine enemies will say, 1 quake with fear! He then knelt, and was for a long time absorbed in prayer, when rising from his knees, he drew himself up to his full height, and raising his clasped hands toward heaven, exclaimed; "now I am going to God!” After embracing the executioner, and giving him his forgiveness, he entreated him not to strike until he gave him a token, and then, "to strike home." When he laid down, the headsman directed him to turn his face toward the east; he answered, "no matter how the head lie, so the heart be right." For some time he seemed rapt in prayer, and then he gave the sign; which the headsman not observing, he cried out, "strike, man ;" and with these brave words yet trembling on his lips, the head of the noble victim, rolled from the block!"* Our sketch of the career of Sir Walter Ralegh is finished. While we confess our high admiration for * Tytler, 364. 2 Cayley, 171. Oldys, 230. |