CHAP. IV. Touching appeal. Affection of Malignant influence. 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 the Queen. 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: Letter of "SIR,-I am not wise enough to give you advice; but if 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. ces of in mild courses; for he will ascribe the alteration to her CHAP IV. 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, Advice to the less he shall be able to harm you and yours; and if Cecil. 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 Courtier's grow by occasions and accidents of time and power. remembranSomerset made no revenge on the Duke of Northumber- juries. land'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."* the letter. That this letter was written by Raleigh, though only Evidence of 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. Argument advanced. Enemy of Essex. Advice of CHAP. IV. 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 fault 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 commended. 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 Hayward's 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 Privacy re Dedication of book. to faction and sedition. 66 Bacon. "There is treason in the work," CHAP. IV. said she, "Mr Bacon, do you not see it?" Nay, may Defence by it please your majesty," was the answer; "I see no treason, but very much felony; every second sentence is an impudent theft from Tacitus." "But Hayward is not the author,” replied Elizabeth; "he hath had other assistance. I'll have him wrack'd to produce his writer," —insinuating by this that it might be brought nearer to Essex. "Wrack him not, your highness," said Bacon, Ingenious —“ torture not the man but the matter; shut him up humanity of with no witnesses but pen, ink, and paper, and let him continue the story; and I will undertake, by collating the styles, to judge if he be the author or no." Another time Bacon alluded to the possibility of Essex being again sent to Ireland, when Elizabeth passionately interrupted him. "Essex! whensoever I send Essex back again into Ireland, I will marry you. Claim it of me.” Bacon replied, “ Well, madam, I will release that contract, if his going be for the good of the state." 66 Bacon. Meanwhile the fever, into which her harsh treatment Illness of had thrown the unfortunate earl, continued so violent Essex. that it brought him to the brink of the grave, and the queen appeared to have relented. But her resentment returned with his reviving health; and when he was able for it, it was determined to have him tried before the privy-council. The remainder of the story is well known. Essex. Weakened with disease and misfortune, the Trial of once potent favourite was received with studied indignity, and arraigned by Coke, the willing tool of his mistress's tyranny, with unusual bitterness. "At his coming in none of the commissioners stirred his cap, or gave any other sign of courtesy. He kneeled at the upper end of the table, and for a good while without a cushion. At length the archbishop moved the treasurer, and they Humiliation. jointly the lord-keeper and lord-admiral, who sat over against them; and then he was allowed a cushion, yet still was suffered to kneel, till the end of the queen's sergeant's speech, when, by the consent of the lords, he was permitted to stand up, and afterwards, upon the CHAP. IV. archbishop's motion, to have a stool."* Noble defence. Cecil. Under every disadvantage he made a noble defence; and nothing can be more affecting than the patience and gentleness with which he bore the envenomed accusations preferred against him. It is mortifying to find Bacon's name amongst those whom the queen commanded to conduct the prosecution; but however sincere in his wish to avert it, this great man was not of a temper, when the resolution was taken, to sacrifice his hopes of preferment Courtesy of to his affection for his friend. Cecil when called upon to deliver his opinion absolved the earl from all thoughts of disloyalty, and treated him with more courtesy than the rest of his judges; but he declared that the queen had presented to him the only way to save Ireland, and that his quitting that kingdom and refusal to adopt the queen's advice had been the only cause of the ruin of the royal army. There is every reason to believe that the fate of the prisoner had been determined before he Sentence of entered the council-room. His sentence, as pronounced degradation. by the lord-keeper, was degradation from his station as a councillor of state, deprivation of his offices of earlmarshal of England and master of the ordnance, and imprisonment in his own house till her majesty's pleasure should be known."+ Vindictiveness of the Queen. All trusted this sentence would satisfy the queen, and believed that they would soon see him restored, if not to his former power, at least to a share of her favour. But there is something in the conduct of Elizabeth throughout this whole affair, which proves that age had rendered her more tyrannical and revengeful, or that she was exposed to the constant influence of the secret enemies of the condemned lord. The earl had hitherto restrained the haughtiness of his temper; he had borne studied indignities not only with patience, but so humbly and sorrowfully, that it drew tears from many of the council. As he had been severely reduced by sickness he retired to the country, and calmly awaited the return * Birch's Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 439, 440-447. + Ibid. p. 454. |