trouble and storms abroad, he had found a sweet calm at home.

Yet these happy expectations were blasted in a few hours. When he went up again after dinner to see the queen, her manner was entirely changed. Indeed, from the moment of his arrival, the secretary and his party, one of the chief of whom was Raleigh, looked coldly on him; and it may be suspected Cecil and Sir Walter had in the interval inflamed her mind against him. Raleigh, indeed, who avowed himself his enemy, on finding that Elizabeth showed some disposition to relent, either felt or affected so much chagrin that he took to his bed, which occasioned her majesty to send for him; but Cecil, more cautious and refined, pretended pity, whilst he really studied to exasperate the royal resentment.

All things now hurried on the fate of Essex: He was examined and arraigned before the council; confined to his chamber; cut off from intercourse with his family and friends; and treated with a rigour for which it is difficult to account. One of the letters he at this time addressed to Elizabeth is striking; and it says little certainly for the heart that could resist it :

"My dear, my gracious, and my admired Sovereign is semper eadem. It cannot be, but that she will hear the sighs and groans, and read the lamentations and humble petitions of the afflicted. Therefore, O paper, whensoever her eyes vouchsafe to behold thee, say, that death is the end of all worldly misery, but continual indignation makes misery perpetual; that present misery is never intolerable to them that are stayed by future hope, but affliction that is unseen is commanded to despair; that nature, youth, and physic, have had many strong encounters; but if my sovereign will forget me, I have nourished these contentions too long; for in this exile of mine eyes, if mine humble letters find not access, no death can be so speedy as it shall be welcome to me, your majesty's humblest vassal, "ESSEX."*

* Birch's Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth, vol. ii. p. 436..

Another of his letters ends with this affecting sentence: "What therefore remaineth for me? Only this, to beseech your majesty, on the knees of my heart, to conclude my punishment with 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."

That the queen retained an affection for Essex cannot be doubted. She wept when informed that his anxiety had thrown him into a fever, from which he was hardly expected to recover; ordered eight physicians of the greatest experience to consult upon his case; and sent Dr James with some broth, and a message "that she would visit him if she might with her honour." But some unknown malignant influence counteracted every disposition to relent; and this I suspect may be traced to Cecil, though his habitual caution and love of working in the dark withheld him from coming forward as an open foe. He even professed neutrality; yet, when the earl and his friends requested a personal reconciliation, he steadily refused it, "because there was no constancy in his lordship's love,' *—an accusation disproved by the whole tenor of Essex's life. Yet though he declined a reconciliation, we find, by a remarkable letter written by Raleigh to Cecil, that the Secretary was disposed to relent towards Essex. It is painful to read this epistle, which presents its author in an attitude of the deepest unforgivingness and revenge; but by omitting it we should lose, in the insipid generalities of indiscriminate eulogy, those minute touches which impart its value to biography. The letter is as follows:

if

66 SIR,-I am not wise enough to give you advice; but you take it for a good counsel to relent towards this tyrant, you will repent when it shall be too late. His malice is fixed, and will not evaporate by any of your

* Birch's Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth, vol. ii. p. 437.

mild courses; for he will ascribe the alteration to her majesty's pusillanimity and not to your good nature, knowing that you work but upon her humour, and not out of any love toward him. The less you make him, the less he shall be able to harm you and yours; and if her majesty's favour fail him, he will again decline to a common person. For after-revenges, fear them not; for your own father was esteemed to be the contriver of Norfolk's ruin, yet his son followeth your father's son, and loveth him. Humours of men succeed not, but grow by occasions and accidents of time and power. Somerset made no revenge on the Duke of Northumberland's heirs; Northumberland that now is, thinks not of Hatton's issue; Kelloway lives that murdered the brother of Horsey; and Horsey let him go-by all his lifetime. I could name you a thousand of those; and therefore after-fears are but prophecies or rather conjectures from causes remote: look to the present, and you do wisely. His son shall be the youngest earl of England but one; and if his father be now kept down, Will Cecil shall be able to keep as many men at his heels as he, and more too. He may also match in a better house than his; and so that fear is not worth the fearing. But if the father continue, he will be able to break the branches, and pull up the tree root and all. Lose not your advantage; if you do, I read your destiny. Let the queen hold Bothwell; while she hath him he will ever be the canker of her estate and safety. Princes are lost by security, and preserved by prevention. I have seen the last of her good days, and all ours, after his liberty.-Yours, "W. R."*

That this letter was written by Raleigh, though only marked with his initials, cannot be doubted. It was evidently composed under the conviction that the struggle between Essex and his opponents was one for life or death. His argument to Cecil is, keep uppermost when

* Murdin's State-papers, p. 811.

you have the advantage: If you relent and the favourite regain the ascendancy, you, and your house, and your friends, tree, root, and all, will be pulled up. If you let him rise, he knows it is not because you love him, but only to humour the queen. Fear no after-revenges; keep him down, and your son will rise upon his ruins. If the father continue, I read your destiny. We see then that Essex's most bitter enemy at this moment was Raleigh. No defence can be offered for the letter, full, as it is, of revenge, selfishness, and craft; but we have no reason to believe that it had much effect on Cecil. He had already chosen his course, and resisted any reconciliation with the fallen earl; whilst Elizabeth, whose temper was imbittered by age, allowed herself to be worked upon by his enemies till she could be satisfied with nothing short of the earl's ruin. At this time the queen often consulted Mr Francis Bacon, afterwards the great chancellor, and then in esteem at court on account of his talents as well as of his relationship to Burleigh. To his honour, he invariably spoke in favour of mild measures towards Essex; and he was in consequence treated coldly by the Cecils. There were faults and contempts in the case, he admitted; but might not his lordship defend himself by the greatness of his place, the amplitude of his commission, the nature of the business, being action of war, not tied to strictness of instructions? For all which reasons he earnestly advised that the matter should not be brought before the public. None could answer, he maintained, what effect might be produced by the eloquence and popularity of the accused, and to his judgment the best method would be for her highness to come to an agreement with her noble subject in private; after which he should be allowed to resume his attendance "with some addition of honour to take away discontent." On one of these occasions Elizabeth made a violent attack upon the dedication of Hayward's Life of Henry IV. to the earl, and imprisoned the author for the praise bestowed on him; imagining that, as the book related to the deposition of Richard II., the object was to excite her subjects