/"" 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 ^..^a^lYVOF
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH
 
 LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES 
 
 DANTE . . . .By PAOKT TOYNBKE 
 
 SAVONAROLA . . . E. L. S. HORSBUROH 
 
 JOHN HOWARD . . . E. C. S. GIBSON, D.D. 
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH . I. A. TAYLOR 
 
 ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON . A. C. BKNSON 
 
 ERASMUS . . . . E. F. H. CAPKY 
 
 GOETHE . . . . H. G. ATKINS 
 
 WELLINGTON The Hon. G. DBNMAN 
 
 CANNING . n w. ALISON PHILLIPS 
 
 LORD CHATHAM . A. S. MoDoWALL
 
 S1K WALTER RALEIGH
 
 BY 
 
 I. A. TAYLOR 
 
 WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 METHUEN & CO. 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 1902
 
 What makes a hero ? An heroic mind 
 Express'd in action, in endurance proved : 
 And if there be pre-eminence of right, 
 Derived through pain well suffer'd, to the height 
 Of rank heroic, 'tis to bear unmoved, 
 Not toil, not risk, not rage of sea or wind, 
 Not the brute fury of barbarians blind, 
 But worse ingratitude and poisonous darts 
 Launch'd by the country he had served and loved. 
 
 Sir HENRY TAYLOR, Heroism in the Shade.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IN this short life of Sir Walter Raleigh the attempt 
 is made to offer to those lacking leisure or inclina- 
 tion for the study of the long and exhaustive 
 biographies which exist, a sketch of a brilliant 
 historical figure. 
 
 Within so small a compass it is obvious that 
 much has necessarily been omitted which might 
 fitly claim a place in a more elaborate and am- 
 bitious work, the selection of facts or episodes 
 being determined rather by the amount of light 
 thrown by them on the personality of the central 
 figure than by their national or general importance. 
 It is however hoped that nothing has been left 
 out which is essential to the comprehension of the 
 character of England's great sea-captain, or of the 
 spirit in which his work was performed. 
 
 Amongst later writers I have been principally 
 indebted to Mr. Edwards' Life, with its volume of 
 collected letters, and to Mr. Stebbing's biography ; 
 while Major Martin Hume's more recent researches 
 amongst Spanish archives furnish additional im- 
 portant information with regard to the intrigues 
 to which Raleigh's ultimate ruin was largely due. 
 
 I. A. T.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. (1552-1576). 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Birth and Parentage Boyhood Oxford A Soldier in 
 
 France .....I 
 
 CHAPTER II. (1576-1581). 
 
 Home in England First Expedition by Sea Life in Lon- 
 don Ireland Massacre of Del Oro - 
 
 CHAPTER III. (1582-1588). 
 
 Life at Court The Queen's Favourite Rapid Advance- 
 ment Captain of the Guard Exploring and Colon- 
 ising Expeditions The Earl of Essex's Rise and 
 Raleigh's Decline 24 
 
 CHAPTER IV. (1588-1500). 
 
 The Invincible Armada The Catholic Persecution 
 Raleigh's Part in the Preparations for Defence Defeat 
 of the Armada Portuguese Expedition Reprisals 
 Ireland Raleigh as a Poet Return to Court - - 44 
 
 CHAPTER V. (1590-1592). 
 
 At Court Again Changes There Essex's Marriage 
 Raleigh Interferes in Favour of Religious Toleration 
 Panama Expedition Planned Elizabeth Throgmorton 
 Disgrace and Imprisonment Provisional Release 
 Madre de Dios -------- tj
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VI. (IS92-IS9S). 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Absence from Court Sherborne Parliament ' ' Sir Walter 
 
 Raleigh's School of Atheisme" Guiana - - - 74 
 
 CHAPTER VII. (1596-1597). 
 
 Preparations for War Cadiz The Queen's continued Dis- 
 pleasure Final Reinstatement at Court - - - 87 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. (1597-1601). 
 
 Raleigh and Cecil Friendly Relations with Essex Island 
 Voyage Essex's Displeasure Return to England 
 Raleigh as Peacemaker Fall of Essex 97 
 
 CHAPTER IX. (1601-1603). 
 
 Elizabeth's End Approaching Visit to Basing Biron 
 Envoy to her Court Raleigh's Multiplied Employments 
 His Views on Irish Matters Intrigues with James 
 Cecil and Raleigh Elizabeth's Death - - - 120 
 
 CHAPTER X. (1603). 
 
 James's Accession Raleigh Out of Favour Deprived of 
 Office Arrested In the Tower Trial at Winchester 
 Conviction - 134 
 
 CHAPTER XI. (1603-1616). 
 
 Reprieve The Tower Prison Life and Occupations- 
 Literature Prince Henry His Death Companions 
 in the Tower - - 152 
 
 CHAPTER XII. (1616-1618). 
 
 Release Terms of It Preparations for Expedition to 
 Guiana Spanish Ambassador, Gondomar Project 
 for Sack of Genoa Negotiations with France The 
 Guiana Expedition Walter Raleigh's Death Failure 
 Return to England - - - - 170
 
 CONTENTS ix 
 
 x 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. (1618). 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Arrest Journey to London Attempted Escape The 
 Tower Again Commission of Examination Course 
 Pursued Execution Granted The Last Night The 
 Scaffold Summary 191
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigh Frontispiece 
 
 Sir Philip Sidney to face p. 13 
 
 Raleigh's House at Islington . . . .to face p. 28 
 Sir Walter Raleigh, Captain of the Queen's Guard to face p. 42 
 Queen Elizabeth. (From a Painting at West- 
 minster School) to face p. 65 
 
 A Sailing Ship in the time of Raleigh . . to face p. 81 
 The Seal of the Lord High Admiral . . .to face p. 89 
 Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex . . .to face p. 118 
 Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton . . to face p. 128 
 Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury . . .to face p. 149 
 
 The Traitor's Gate . . . ... to face p. 158 
 
 Old Palace Yard to face p. 203
 
 WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 1552-1576 
 
 Birth and parentage Boyhood Oxford A soldier in 
 France. 
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH was born at Hayes 
 Farm, near Budleigh Salterton, on the 
 Devonshire coast, about the year 1552. Of his 
 childhood and boyhood singularly little is known, 
 save what it is possible to infer from the position 
 of his family and the nature of his surroundings. 
 
 With regard to the first, antiquarians and 
 genealogists have vied with each other in pro- 
 viding him with pedigrees, dating sometimes back 
 to Norman, sometimes to still earlier days ; whilst 
 by one authority it is asserted that Plantagenet 
 blood ran in his veins. Leaving these more doubt- 
 ful matters on one side, it is at least certain that 
 the Raleighs had been settled in Devonshire for 
 several generations, and that, intermarrying with 
 their neighbours in their own county and in Corn- 
 wall, they were related to many of the great West- 
 l
 
 2 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 country families, counting Grenvilles, St. Legers, 
 Russells, Drakes and Courtenays amongst their 
 kin ; so that the sneers levelled at Elizabeth's 
 favourite, as an upstart and a " Jack," by his rivals 
 in court favour gibes to which he showed himself 
 not indifferent by the steps he took to prove himself 
 a gentleman by birth and lineage were without 
 justification in fact. 
 
 Raleigh's own father, another Walter, had done 
 his best to multiply family connections by marrying 
 three wives. By his first, Joan Drake probably 
 cousin to the admiral he had two sons, John and 
 George; to his second the daughter of one Darrell, 
 of London a daughter, Mary, was born ; while 
 his third wife, Katherine, daughter of Sir Philip 
 Champernoun and widow of Otho Gilbert of 
 Compton, brought him four sons, of whom Walter 
 was the second, the birth of his brother Carew 
 having preceded his own by some two years. 
 
 Passing from his family to his surroundings, 
 Hayes Farm, the house in which the large family 
 were brought up, was a solitary building, with 
 gabled wings, mullioned windows and thatched 
 roof, standing within easy reach of the beach at 
 Budleigh Salterton, no doubt the favourite play- 
 ground of the lads. When it is further borne in 
 mind that the Devonshire fishing villages were 
 largely inhabited by a sea-faring population, and 
 that the sailors with whom the boys must have
 
 EARLY ASSOCIATIONS 3 
 
 been in daily intercourse will have had abundance 
 of tales to recount of adventures by sea, of en- 
 counters with the Spanish enemy, of booty brought 
 home, and of voyages of exploration to the newly 
 discovered western lands of which men's imagina- 
 tion was then full, it is not difficult to trace the 
 influence of his boyhood's associations upon Raleigh's 
 after life. The whole band of brothers seem indeed 
 to have adopted the water as their natural sphere 
 of action, since the names of all four were included 
 in a list of sea-captains drawn up in 1585. 
 
 It was a healthy and pleasant life ; and it is clear 
 that Raleigh, in after days, looked back with affec- 
 tion to his early home ; since, when casting about 
 for a spot in which to settle, he made an attempt 
 to purchase Hayes Farm from its owner, explaining 
 that " for the natural disposition he had for that 
 place, being born in that house, he would rather 
 seat himself there than anywhere else." 
 
 Of what other influences, besides such as would 
 naturally have given an adventurous and seaward 
 direction to his imagination, were brought to bear 
 upon his early years the material for hazarding any 
 conjecture is scanty. If, as would appear from 
 what is known of his father and mother, 1 a 
 somewhat belligerent form of Protestantism pre- 
 
 1 Mr. Gosse has concluded it would seem on insufficient 
 evidence that Raleigh's mother remained for a time a Catholic 
 (see Raleigh, Edmund Gosse, p. 2).
 
 4, LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 vailed at Hayes Farm, it seems to have had less 
 effect upon the boy than the influences of the 
 beach. Though no doubt a staunch supporter of 
 the Reformation, Raleigh's own views were specu- 
 lative rather than dogmatic, and his weight in 
 after years was thrown into the scale of religious 
 toleration ; while that he felt a certain distaste for 
 controversial theology may be inferred from the 
 terms of his allusion to "that religion among 
 Christians, the discourse whereof hath so occu- 
 pied the world, as it hath well-nigh driven the 
 practice thereof out of the world. . . . We are 
 all (in effect)," he adds, "become comedians in 
 religion." l 
 
 Whether or not the opinions of the elder Raleigh 
 on spiritual questions were of a more aggressive 
 type, it was a time when it was not easy even for 
 peace-loving men to keep clear of the struggles 
 constantly taking place between the different 
 religious parties. In the year 154-9 he is accord- 
 ingly found suffering a brief imprisonment at the 
 hands of the insurgents who, in the Rising of the 
 West, had taken up arms in the Catholic cause ; 
 while some years later he must have incurred a 
 certain amount of risk by aiding in the escape of 
 his kinsman, Sir Peter Carew involved in the 
 conspiracy of Sir Thomas Wyatt by sending him 
 round the coast in a vessel of his own. 
 1 Preface to Hittory of the World.
 
 OXFORD 5 
 
 Of Raleigh's schooling nothing certain is known. 
 It is likely enough that he received it at Budleigh, 
 in the intervals of the studies possibly more im- 
 portant to his future career prosecuted on the 
 beach. That he was no unwilling scholar may be 
 taken for granted from his notorious love of 
 learning in later life. But it is only with his 
 becoming, at fourteen or fifteen, a commoner at 
 Oriel that the realm of conjecture is exchanged 
 for some degree of certainty. Even with regard 
 to his Oxford course, and to the length of its 
 duration, authorities are at variance ; while of any 
 details with regard to this period there is again a 
 singular lack. At Oxford, however, his friendship 
 with Sir Philip Sidney is said to have been in- 
 augurated ; and Anthony Wood further reports 
 that during his residence there, "his natural parts 
 being strangely advanced by academical learning, 
 under the care of an excellent tutor, he became 
 the ornament of the juniors, and was worthily 
 esteemed a proficient in oratory and philosophy." l 
 The only personal anecdote that remains of his 
 college days is contained in Bacon's Apophthegms, 
 where it is related that " whilst Ralegh was a 
 scholar at Oxford there was a cowardly fellow who 
 happened to be a very good archer; but having 
 been grossly abused by another, he bemoaned 
 himself to Ralegh, and asked his advice what he 
 1 Wood, Athence Oxonienses.
 
 6 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 should do to repair the wrong that had been offered 
 him. Why, challenge him, answered Ralegh, to a 
 match of shooting," a story which testifies to a 
 certain sharpness of tongue on the part of the 
 counsellor, if to nothing else. 
 
 The only remaining fact ascertainable about his 
 university course is that he quitted Oxford without 
 taking his degree ; and when it next becomes 
 possible to trace his movements with any confi- 
 dence he is found, at seventeen, serving his 
 apprenticeship to the art of war with the Huguenot 
 forces in France. 
 
 At most periods of his life one or more of his 
 numerous cousins are distinguishable amongst 
 Raleigh's surroundings. A Champernoun doubt- 
 less of his mother's kin had been his companion 
 at Oxford; and it was as one of a corps of volunteers 
 raised by a member of the same family all zealous 
 in the Huguenot cause that he is believed to 
 have crossed the Channel in the year 1569. 
 
 For months Henry Champernoun, leader of the 
 English contingent, had been soliciting the Queen's 
 permission to take the field ; while Elizabeth, 
 for her part, had been engaged, after her usual 
 fashion, in keeping both the French parties in play : 
 now raising the hopes of the Huguenots as to 
 assistance to be afforded them in their desperate 
 struggle ; now assuring Salignac, ambassador of 
 Charles IX., in characteristic language, that " those
 
 SERVICE IN FRANCE 7 
 
 of La Rochelle could not boast to have obtained of 
 her any help whatsoever, either in money, ammuni- 
 tion, or provisions, unless they had taken them, on 
 the word of Elijah, from the bottle of the widow 
 of Sarepta ; for assuredly her purse was none the 
 less full for what they obtained from it." l 
 
 The final result, so far at least as Champernoun's 
 tedious suit was concerned, is probably correctly 
 enough described by the French envoy when he told 
 his master in July, 1569, that the English leader had 
 been "suffered to join those of La Rochelle without 
 express licence, but nevertheless under semblance 
 of acting for himself to be the Queen's agent in 
 their camp." 2 In other words Champernoun and 
 his followers were to be permitted to take the 
 risk, Elizabeth reaping the advantage of any success 
 by which the expedition should be attended ; while 
 in case of disaster she held herself free from re- 
 sponsibility. It was not a course marked by over- 
 much generosity, but it was one eminently in 
 harmony with the Queen's usual policy. 
 
 Over the precise date of Raleigh's arrival in 
 Frapce uncertainty once more hangs. He has 
 been stated to have taken part in the battle of 
 Jarnac, fought in the spring of 1569, the assump- 
 tion being based upon an ambiguous passage in his 
 History of the World. But if Camden is right when 
 he expressly asserts that he formed one of the body 
 1 Correspondance Diplomatique. *Ibid.
 
 8 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 raised and commanded by his cousin, his presence 
 at Jarnac is disproved, since the English contingent 
 only joined the Huguenot forces on the 5th of 
 October of that year ; while a further element of 
 obscurity is introduced by Raleigh's own mention 
 of the fact that he had been an eye-witness of the 
 retreat of Moncontour, the battle of th^t name 
 having taken place two days before the arrival of 
 Champernoun and his little band. 
 
 Whatever was the exact date of the beginning 
 of Raleigh's French campaign, it is believed to have 
 lasted some five or six years. During that time, 
 however, no mention of him is to be found in 
 any contemporary record ; whether because the 
 proceedings of an unknown boy, younger son 
 of a Devonshire squire, were not of sufficient im- 
 portance to attract attention, or because, as one 
 authority suggests, 1 the position of an English- 
 man, whose presence in France might be connived 
 at by Elizabeth, but who holding no commission 
 from her was liable, in case of capture, to be 
 hanged as a common felon, was not such as to make 
 it desirable to court notice. In after years Raleigh 
 was always too much occupied with matters of 
 present interest to permit him to indulge largely 
 in reminiscences of the past ; and with the excep- 
 tion of two or three references to his French 
 experiences contained in his History of the World 
 1 E. Edwards, Life of Ralegh, vol. i., p. 32.
 
 SERVICE IN FRANCE 9 
 
 nothing is practically known of them. The 
 hypothesis which includes him in the group of 
 Englishmen who, from the shelter of Walsing- 
 ham's Paris abode, witnessed the horrors of St. 
 Bartholomew is virtually disproved by his own 
 silence ; and his biographers must be content to 
 leave the term of his service in France in ob- 
 scurity.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 1576-1581 
 
 Home in England First expedition by sea Life in London 
 Ireland Massacre of Del Oro. 
 
 WHEN Raleigh once more found himself in 
 England it was under changed circum- 
 stances. He had left it a boy of seventeen; he 
 returned as a man of twenty-three or twenty-four, 
 who had already had his share of adventure and 
 experience. Connected by ties of blood with many 
 of those belonging to the court of Queen Elizabeth, 
 he doubtless had no difficulty in gaining admission 
 to the society by which it was surrounded ; nor was 
 it long before some of the acquaintanceships des- 
 tined to be of importance to him later on were 
 formed. It is thought not unlikely that his con- 
 nection with Leicester had begun still earlier ; 
 that it had become a close one during this period 
 is proved by a letter written in 1580 from Ireland, 
 in which he assures the Queen's favourite that " if 
 your lordship shall please to think me yours, as I 
 am, I will be found as ready, and dare do as much 
 (10)
 
 EARLY FRIENDSHIPS 11 
 
 t 
 
 in your service, as any man you may command " 
 an offer prefaced by a reminder of the affection 
 which Raleigh had openly professed for his cor- 
 respondent. With Sidney, too, his friendship 
 was cemented ; while an unfortunate intimacy was 
 inaugurated with the notorious De Vere, Earl 
 of Oxford, of brilliant gifts and evil reputation. 
 George Gascoigne, the poet, must likewise at this 
 time have been a friend, since it is to the year 
 1576 that the verses belong which, affixed to Gas- 
 coigne's " Steele Glas," are signed " Walter Rawely 
 of the Middle Temple," where recent evidence 
 proves him to have been resident in February, 
 1575, though never giving himself seriously to the 
 study of law. 
 
 Wherever fighting was going forward Raleigh 
 was likely enough to be found ; and though the 
 tradition according to which his life in England 
 was varied by a term of service under Sir John 
 Norreys in the Low Countries is not supported by 
 any positive evidence, it is of no antecedent im- 
 probability. The event, however, at once certain 
 and of most importance belonging to this period 
 was the abortive expedition by sea undertaken in 
 conjunction with his half-brother, Sir Humphrey 
 Gilbert, thirteen years older than himself. 
 
 It was an enterprise strictly in accordance with 
 the spirit of the times, the objects of which are 
 plainly set forth in the explanatory " Discourse "
 
 12 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 addressed by Gilbert to the Queen, and apparently 
 published without permission from the writer. In 
 this paper, in which the scheme of an attack to be 
 directed, under cover of an exploring expedition, 
 against the possessions of Spain in the West Indies 
 and elsewhere was submitted to Elizabeth, the 
 hand of the younger brother has been detected by 
 some judges. Whether or not the conjecture is 
 correct, the plan would doubtless have had his full 
 approbation ; and the project itself is an interesting 
 example, both of the bold spirit of enterprise and 
 of the absolute absence of morality in international 
 affairs characteristic at that day of even men of 
 unblemished honour and spotless reputation. 
 
 It was proposed that, England being then on 
 terms of nominal peace with Spain, the suggested 
 expedition should wear the semblance of a private 
 adventure, should be publicly denounced by the 
 Queen, the action of those who engaged in it dis- 
 avowed, and the admirals who should lend their 
 aid to bring the affair to a successful conclusion 
 made to suffer a sham imprisonment. Once again, 
 in fact, the risk was to be undertaken by the men 
 who made the venture, while the advantages ac- 
 cruing from it, if any, should be shared by the 
 Government. The whole mode of procedure re- 
 commended, frankly and specifically, was one of 
 deliberate fraud, openly avowed. " For," says the 
 author easily, " I hold it as ^lawful in Christian
 
 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
 
 IN LONDON IS 
 
 policy to prevent a mischief betimes as to revenge 
 it too late, especially seeing that God Himself is a 
 party in the quarrels now afoot." 
 
 Whatever may be thought of the system of 
 morals thus expounded, the expedition which was 
 to be conducted on the rules laid down, now for- 
 bidden, now partly authorised, proved a failure, 
 and is only worthy of notice as the earliest of 
 Raleigh's adventures at sea of which any certain 
 record remains, and as having been probably the 
 first occasion leaving out of the reckoning his 
 problematical service in Holland upon which he 
 was brought into direct collision with his life-long 
 enemy, Spain. 
 
 By 1579 he was back in London and playing 
 his part in a quarrel forced upon Sidney by the 
 Earl of Oxford. Being, as he was at the time, the 
 rival of Leicester in court favour, it was De Vere's 
 object to detach from the Dudley faction all those 
 over whom he could gain influence ; and it has been 
 suggested that it was with this aim that he had 
 selected for his friend and confidant one so un- 
 fitted for the post as Raleigh. However that 
 may be, it was the latter who, with Charles Arun- 
 del, among whose papers the incident has been 
 preserved, was sent by Oxford with a challenge to 
 Sir Philip. The affair, however, came to nothing ; 
 for though Sidney "accepted gladly thereof and 
 desired much that it might not be deferred," De
 
 14 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 Vere, "never meaning anything less, as after it 
 appeared, told us plainly he was not to hazard 
 himself, having received such an injury, and there- 
 fore he had another course, and that was to have 
 him murdered in his lodging." 
 
 It will readily be believed that this method 
 of disposing of an enemy and that enemy Sir 
 Philip Sidney was not likely to commend itself 
 to Raleigh, and the suggestion was probably the 
 beginning of the coolness between him and Oxford 
 which ended in their enmity. It has been said 
 that for each party to a friendship to be in pos- 
 session of secrets which would hang the other 
 is a useful incentive to fidelity ; but in cases 
 where such knowledge is one-sided, it may well be 
 questioned whether it has a similar effect. So far 
 was it from being the case in this instance that 
 Oxford has not been exempt from the suspicion of 
 having attempted to send his confidant to a place 
 where his silence would be ensured. 
 
 Current reports concerning De Vere must how- 
 ever be received with caution. While undoubtedly 
 one of the worst specimens of Elizabeth's courtiers, 
 he was likewise an unpopular man, being the enemy 
 of Leicester then high in public favour ; and was 
 liable, besides, as a convert of the Jesuits, to have 
 every conceivable crime fathered upon him. It 
 is nevertheless a significant fact to find Raleigh 
 himself than whom no man would have been
 
 THE EARL OF OXFORD 15 
 
 less likely to entertain fanciful suspicions using 
 language which points, in no equivocal fashion, 
 to the risks run by those to whom his former 
 associate owed a grudge. It was when, in re- 
 sponse to Burghley's solicitations some years later, 
 he was using his influence with the Queen on 
 behalf of her minister's disreputable son-in-law, 
 then fallen into disgrace, that in a letter to 
 Burghley himself he made allusion to the probable 
 peril he incurred should his suit prove successful : 
 "I am content, for your sake," he wrote in 1583, 
 " to lay the serpent before the fire, as much as in 
 me lieth, that, having received strength, myself 
 may be most in danger of his poison and sting." 
 
 For the present, however, Oxford seems to have 
 been powerless against him ; and the only mis- 
 chance which is recorded as belonging to this 
 period consisted of a brief imprisonment in the 
 Fleet, in consequence of a " fray " which had taken 
 place between himself and Sir Thomas Perrot, 
 afterwards brother-in-law to Essex. 
 
 Whether or not Raleigh had yet come under the 
 Queen's personal notice there are no means of as- 
 certaining. It is, however, clear that his position 
 at court did not offer sufficient attraction to keep 
 him in London when an opportunity occurred of 
 seeking his fortune elsewhere. It was in January, 
 1580, that, as captain of a hundred soldiers, he 
 started for Cork, the voyage, owing to unfavour-
 
 16 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 able weather, lasting nearly a month. His service 
 in Ireland covered nearly two years, and is marked 
 by the first serious blot upon his reputation, left by 
 the part taken by him in the infamous massacre of 
 Del Oro. 
 
 In extenuation of his conduct upon that melan- 
 choly occasion it is fair to take into account, not 
 only the temper of the times, but also the nature 
 of his own apprenticeship to war. During the 
 years passed in France, as one of a body of soldiers 
 holding no definite commission from the Queen, 
 he had himself been liable at any moment to be 
 put to death as an outlaw. In Ireland the position 
 was reversed, the Irish being, in the estimation of 
 Elizabeth and her representatives, mere rebels, in 
 no wise entitled to the treatment accorded to 
 honourable foes. Raleigh's own chief, Lord Grey, 
 too, while bearing a high character in other re- 
 spects, was notorious for his severity. A man, 
 according to the description of him given by his 
 secretary, Edmund Spenser, " most gentle, affable, 
 loving and temperate," as well as right noble, just, 
 godly and sincere, such qualities found singular 
 expression in his Irish administration, during which, 
 to quote his own statement, "1485 chief men 
 and gentlemen were slain, not accounting those 
 of meaner sort, nor yet executions by law, and 
 killing of churles, which were innumerable." l 
 1 Abstract by R W. Church of Lord Grey's paper.
 
 SPIRIT OF IRISH WARFARE 17 
 
 Upright and honourable, with a stern sense of 
 public duty, he was a devoted adherent of the 
 Puritan religion, and so fierce an enemy to Rome 
 that he considered himself to have failed in what 
 he owed to God and to the truth in the exact pro- 
 portion in which he had showed mercy to a Papist, 
 or permitted even the Queen's commands to come 
 before the " one article of looking to God's dear 
 service." 
 
 The spirit by which the Lord Deputy was ani- 
 mated found brutal expression in his subordinates. 
 "If hell were open, and all the evil spirits were 
 abroad," was the verdict of Andrew Trollope, 
 " they could never be worse than these Irish rogues 
 rather dogs, and worse than dogs." "There is 
 no way," says some one else, "to daunt these 
 people but by the edge of the sword and to plant 
 better in their place, or rather, let them cut one 
 another's throats." " At Kilkenny," wrote Sir W. 
 Drury, "... thirty-six persons were executed, 
 among which some good ones ; two for treason, a 
 blackamoor, and two witches by natural law, for 
 that we found no law to try them by in this realm ; " 
 while Ormond has to complain that he has been 
 charged with "slackness in but killing three men," 
 the true number being more than 3,000. 
 
 It is useless to multiply quotations. The war in 
 Munster was practically one of extermination. But 
 when all possible allowance is made, both for
 
 18 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 Raleigh's own antecedents and for the effect of 
 the atmosphere by which he was surrounded, it 
 cannot be denied that it would be well for his re- 
 putation could his career in Ireland be blotted out 
 of history. 
 
 The date of his arrival was a time of much 
 anxiety on the part of the English garrison and of 
 hope on that of the Irish people, in their habitual 
 condition of chronic resistance to their foreign 
 masters. The Pope and Philip II. of Spain, 
 following Elizabeth's example in her dealings with 
 French Huguenots, had sent over a body of some 
 hundreds of Italians and Spaniards, who, establish- 
 ing themselves in a fort in Kerry, named Del Oro, 
 served as a rallying point for Irish discontent. It 
 was against these combined native and foreign 
 forces that the contingent under Raleigh was to 
 be employed. 
 
 The first transaction of any importance in which 
 he took part on his arrival was the trial of James 
 Desmond, brother of the earl of that name, in 
 which he was associated with Sir Warham St. 
 Leger, who, having fallen under suspicion in Lon- 
 don on account of intrigues carried on with the 
 adherents of Mary Stuart, seems to have been 
 anxious, by his conduct as Provost-marshal of 
 Munster, to vindicate to the full his character for 
 loyalty. In the case of James Desmond little 
 disposition to mercy was shown by either of his
 
 RALEIGH'S IRISH CAMPAIGN 19 
 
 judges, and he was promptly sentenced to be 
 hanged, drawn and quartered. 
 
 His Irish career having been thus inaugurated, 
 Raleigh is found a little later earning distinction 
 in the field by means of a successful manoeuvre in 
 which a whole detachment of the enemy were 
 either taken captive or slain, the spirit in which 
 the struggle was carried on being graphically 
 demonstrated by an incident which, in slightly 
 varying form, has often been narrated. 
 
 Among the prisoners on this occasion was one 
 laden with withies, who, in answer to a question of 
 Raleigh's as to the use to which he had intended 
 to put them, replied hardily that they had been 
 meant to hang up the English churls. 
 
 "Is it so ? " returned Raleigh ; " they shall now 
 serve for an Irish kern," and suited at once the 
 action to the word. 1 
 
 To the terrible massacre of Del Oro such scenes 
 as these are the prelude. It was under the personal 
 generalship of Lord Grey that that slaughter took 
 place, nor did he attempt to disavow responsibility 
 in the matter. One, at least, of his subordinates, 
 Admiral Bingham, indeed, endeavoured to shift 
 the blame on to other shoulders, but the Lord 
 Deputy's own account of the affair, contained in his 
 despatch to the Queen, 2 is too explicit to leave 
 room for doubt. After narrating the negotiations 
 
 1 John Hooker. a Calendar of State Papers, Ireland.
 
 20 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 which had taken place between himself and the 
 garrison of the beleaguered fort, with his own 
 demands for unconditional surrender, he relates 
 how the colonel came forth, and with his principal 
 gentlemen gave himself up. And upon this, 
 pursues Lord Grey, " I sent certain gentlemen in, 
 to see their weapons and armour laid down, and to 
 guard the munitions and victual there left for spoil. 
 Then put I in certain bands, who straight fell to 
 execution. There were six hundred slain. . . . 
 Of the six hundred slain, four hundred were as 
 gallant and goodly personages as of any I ever 
 beheld. So hath it pleased the Lord of Hosts to 
 deliver your enemies into your Highness' hand, 
 and so too, one only excepted, not one of yours is 
 either lost or hurt." 
 
 In this butchery of defenceless men thus de- 
 scribed not by a critic but by the responsible agent 
 Raleigh was a participator. "Captain Ralegh," 
 says Hooker, 1 " together with Captain Mackworth, 
 entered into the Castle and made a great slaughter." 
 
 It is strange to find in Spenser an apologist for 
 the massacre, characterised by him as an act of 
 unavoidable severity. 2 
 
 In November, 1580, the sack of Del Oro took 
 place. For thirteen months longer Raleigh re- 
 mained in Ireland, where his adventures, not im- 
 
 1 John Hooker's Supplement to the Chronicle of Holinshed. 
 1 View of Prctent State of Ireland.
 
 A BAD SUBORDINATE 21 
 
 probably embellished by the chronicler, 1 resemble 
 the feats of a knight-errant of romance. We read 
 of ambushes escaped ; of fights at fords ; of Lord 
 Roche bearded in his own castle, and carried away 
 a prisoner. Certain of the enemy are challenged 
 to personal combat Ormond, though no friend to 
 Raleigh, being associated with him in this last 
 performance and hair-breadth escapes of every 
 description take place. A guerilla warfare was, 
 in fact, maintained ; the English garrison, owing 
 to the economy practised by Elizabeth and her 
 ministers, being of insufficient force to reduce the 
 country and its starving and desperate inhabitants 
 to submission. 
 
 To Raleigh's own discontent, alike with his posi- 
 tion and the means at his disposal for carrying 
 on his work, his letters bear witness. They bear 
 witness likewise to another fact the fact that, 
 while an admirable leader, he was a bad subordin- 
 ate. With neither Lord Grey, nor with Ormond, 
 who, as Governor of Munster and general, was his 
 more immediate superior, was he on good terms. 
 He always believed frequently, no doubt, rightly 
 that he knew better than they what was good 
 for the country and the service of the Queen ; 
 they resented the belief and not improbably the 
 fact. While, if loyalty to his commanding officer is 
 included in a soldier's duty, it must be confessed 
 1 Hooker's Supplement.
 
 32 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 that it was not a virtue he exhibited. "Would 
 God your Honour and Her Majesty," he wrote to 
 Walsinghara almost on his first arrival in Ireland, 
 " as well as my poor self, understood how pitifully 
 the service here goeth forward ! Considering that 
 this man [Ormond] having now been Lord General 
 of Munster now about two years, there are at this 
 instant a thousand traitors more than there were 
 the first day." l A further complaint, this time ad- 
 dressed to the Lord Deputy, resulted in Ormond's 
 recall ; but, while he was so far successful, the tone 
 he took with Lord Grey himself was not such as 
 commended itself or the writer to his superior. 
 
 Grey was no doubt for his own part weary 
 enough of the whole business, and eager, as others 
 in the same position have been before and since, 
 to be relieved from his charge a wish made 
 plain, as well as the sentiments with which he re- 
 garded the young critic, in a letter to Walsingham 
 in which, enclosing one from Raleigh, he remarks 
 sardonically that he is willing to relinquish to 
 persons so sanguine the honour of carrying out 
 their own designs, and begs that he himself may 
 be freed from the burden of office. 
 
 During the summer of 1591, upon Ormond's 
 recall, the government of Munster was provision- 
 ally entrusted to Sir William Morgan, Raleigh him- 
 self, and Captain Piers. It is possible that, raised to 
 1 Irish Correspondence.
 
 RETURN TO ENGLAND 23 
 
 a position of greater responsibility, Raleigh may 
 have found the duties involved more arduous 
 than they had appeared, viewed from below. At 
 any rate he was no better pleased than before. 
 " I have spent some time here under the Deputy," 
 he wrote to Leicester, transferring his attentions 
 from Ormond to Grey, "in such poor place and 
 charge as, were it not for that I know him to be 
 as of yours, I would disdain it as much as to keep 
 sheep." l 
 
 The letter was written in the month of August. 
 In December of the same year Raleigh's Irish cam- 
 paign came to an end ; and he left the country in 
 charge of despatches addressed by the new governor 
 of Munster, Colonel Zouch, to Lord Burghley. 2 
 
 1 MS. Harl., British Museum. 
 
 2 4th December, 1581, State Papers Office.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 1582-1588 
 
 Life at court The Queen's favourite Rapid advance- 
 ment Captain of the Guard Exploring and colonising 
 expeditions The Earl of Essex's rise and Raleigh's 
 decline. 
 
 IT may be that when Raleigh quitted Ireland he 
 expected his absence from the scene of action 
 to be of short duration. If so he was mistaken. 
 It was in a very different environment that the 
 next years of his life were to be spent. He had 
 been a soldier in France, a soldier in Ireland ; he 
 was now to fill the post of reigning favourite at 
 Elizabeth's court. When or how he first entered 
 into personal relations with the Queen it would be 
 difficult to determine. Of any actual intercourse 
 between the two there is no trace previous to his 
 return from the Irish campaign. As to the manner 
 in which Elizabeth's attention was first directed 
 towards the man who was to play so important a 
 part in her surroundings we are also left in doubt ; 
 but though there is no positive evidence to support 
 (24)
 
 AT COURT 25 
 
 the familiar stories, first told by Fuller, of the 
 magnificent cloak laid on the ground in order that 
 the Queen might walk dry-shod across the mire, 
 or of the lines scratched upon the window-pane, 
 neither is there any intrinsic reason why they 
 should be dismissed as false. Raleigh's wit was 
 bold and shrewd, and he may well have fashioned 
 or turned to account such opportunities of bringing 
 himself into notice. 
 
 But in any case he would have been likely 
 enough, on his return from Ireland, to be admitted 
 to her presence. 
 
 Fresh from the seat of war, an eye-witness of 
 the events of the past two years, and eager and 
 ready to offer advice as to the methods by which 
 the struggle might best be brought to a successful 
 conclusion, it is not probable that Elizabeth kept 
 him long waiting for an audience, and once brought 
 into personal relations with her, the charm of his 
 personality, his good looks, ready tongue and 
 brilliant gifts, were amply sufficient to establish 
 him in the favour of a woman not only peculiarly 
 susceptible to such attractions, but with insight and 
 penetration enough to divine the depth and scope 
 of the intellectual capacities which lay below. 
 
 That his advancement proceeded rapidly, a letter 
 written in the Queen's name bears witness. In 
 this document, dated April, 1582, when he had not 
 been more than four months at court, he is appointed
 
 26 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 to a command in Ireland left vacant by the death 
 of a certain Captain Appesley ; while at the same 
 time the said " Rawley is, for some considerations, 
 by us excused to stay here." 
 
 At the nature of these considerations it is not 
 difficult to guess. Raleigh's career as favourite was 
 begun, nor was the Queen found willing for several 
 years to spare him on distant service. 
 
 What the post he was to fill implied, to him as to 
 others by whom it was occupied in turn, is well 
 known ; nor is it altogether easy to forgive him for 
 the part for which he allowed himself to be cast in 
 the drama in which he was to take his share. The 
 office which was fitting enough for a Leicester, a 
 Hatton, or even an Essex, was too low a one for a 
 Raleigh. 
 
 Yet in passing sentence upon this portion of his 
 life it is fair to take into account, not alone the 
 glamour which surrounds a throne, but likewise 
 the position personally filled by the woman who 
 singled him out for favour. Few men are proof 
 against the infection of a general enthusiasm, and 
 the place the Queen held in the hearts of the 
 people was unique. "We have had grander and 
 nobler rulers," says J. R. Green, "but none so 
 popular as Elizabeth. The passion of love, of 
 loyalty, of admiration, which finds its most per- 
 fect expression in the " Faery Queen," pulsed as 
 intensely through the veins of her meanest sub-
 
 THE QUEEN'S FAVOURITE 27 
 
 jects. To England, during her reign of half a 
 century, she was a virgin and a Protestant Queen, 
 and her immorality, her absolute want of religious 
 enthusiasm, failed utterly to blur the brightness of 
 the national ideal." 1 
 
 And while a man may be pardoned if the affec- 
 tion lavished upon him by a woman thus regarded 
 throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom 
 was found in some degree intoxicating, it must also 
 be remembered that Elizabeth, with all her faults 
 and follies, swayed not seldom by sordid passions, 
 and the dupe not less of her own vanity than of 
 those whose interest it was to pander to it, was 
 nevertheless possessed of gifts well calculated to 
 dazzle one whose versatility, whose ready wit and 
 keen intellect corresponded in many ways to her 
 own. It was not upon the ground of sentiment 
 alone that they met. If Elizabeth had all the 
 littlenesses which are commonly regarded as speci- 
 ally feminine, she also possessed the qualities out 
 of which a great sovereign is shaped ; and in this 
 latter capacity with her mind, like his, bent upon 
 the aggrandisement of England she must have 
 made a powerful appeal to Raleigh's imagination, as 
 well as to a brain which often took precedence of 
 his heart. 
 
 Furthermore, while genuine admiration for the 
 Queen, combined probably with a certain degree 
 1 Short History of the English People, p. 366.
 
 28 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 of attachment to the woman, went to make the 
 position he occupied with regard to her a different 
 one from that filled by a favourite who, like Essex, 
 seems to have felt little of either, it must also be 
 remembered that Raleigh was very human ; and 
 that to a man of small fortune and moderate posi- 
 tion, yet of far-reaching and eager ambition, alike 
 patriotic and personal, the temptation to subordin- 
 ate means to ends by making use of the Queen's 
 favour to realise his projects and materialise his 
 dreams might well be irresistible. Raleigh at 
 any rate did not find it possible to resist it. His 
 history for the years following his Irish campaign 
 was the history of the Queen's favourite. 
 
 Those years, preceding as they did the great 
 national triumph of the defeat of the Spanish 
 Armada, were, so far as Raleigh was concerned, 
 phenomenally uneventful. With occasional ab- 
 sences, such as that during which he formed one 
 of the escort which accompanied Elizabeth's re- 
 jected suitor, the Duke of Anjou, to the Low 
 Countries, he spent them in attendance on the 
 Queen, residing, when not actually at court, first 
 at Islington, then a rural suburb, and later on, as 
 his means increased, at Durham House, near the 
 river, the sequestrated palace of the Bishops of 
 Durham, leased to him by Elizabeth. 
 
 Although his predecessors in the Queen's affec- 
 tions, Leicester and Hatton, still enjoyed a certain
 
 RISING FORTUNES 29 
 
 amount of her favour, there can be no doubt that 
 it was by Raleigh's influence that she was during 
 these years chiefly swayed. The greatest person- 
 ages at court sought his good offices. Burghley 
 begged his intercession on behalf of his graceless 
 son-in-law ; and when Leicester absent in the 
 Netherlands had temporarily incurred the Queen's 
 displeasure, and Raleigh had been suspected of foul 
 play towards his early patron, Elizabeth herself 
 was at the pains to vindicate his loyalty by hasten- 
 ing to inform the earl, through Walsingham, " that, 
 upon her honour, the gentleman hath done good 
 offices for you." 
 
 Raleigh's own fortunes, meanwhile, were rapidly 
 rising, and the Queen's favour had already found 
 substantial expression. Licences to export woollen 
 goods, a grant of the Farming of Wines, the War- 
 denship of the Stannaries, the Lieutenancy of Corn- 
 wall, the Vice- Admiralty of Cornwall and Devon, 
 and lastly, in 1587, the Captaincy of the Queen's 
 Guard, with Knighthood all these honours and 
 gifts were conferred upon him in succession ; while 
 when Babington's execution on the charge of high 
 treason left his large estates forfeited to the Crown 
 they most of them passed into the favourite's pos- 
 session. 
 
 In Ireland, too, he had become a large landed 
 proprietor in the counties of Cork, Waterford and 
 Tipperary, by means of a grant from the Queen, to
 
 30 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 the amount of some twelve thousand acres, of a 
 portion of the confiscated Desmond estates. What- 
 ever may be thought of the species of wholesale 
 robbery of which this was an instance, Raleigh at 
 least was not indifferent to the responsibilities 
 involved in the ownership of property in a country 
 sunk into a condition which he himself described as 
 "the common woe," and he took measures at once 
 to ensure the cultivation of the land by transplant- 
 ing a certain number of tenants from his own native 
 West country. It is said, too, that it was upon his 
 estates that the potato was first grown, so that 
 Ireland is not without a debt of gratitude towards 
 the man to whom in other respects she owes a debt 
 of another nature. 
 
 While, however, the Queen was thus lavish in 
 the bestowal of her favours, it is probable that an 
 even greater source of wealth was supplied by the 
 huge gambling enterprises on which, during these 
 and later years, he staked sums so large. "In 
 accordance with the manners of the age " thus 
 it is described by a biographer "he declared a 
 private war against Spain." In other words, he 
 engaged in a series of freebooting enterprises on 
 an enormous scale ; fitting out, either singly or in 
 partnership with others, now one or two vessels, 
 now whole fleets, which, commanded by his captains 
 since he himself was tied to the court laid wail 
 for the ships of Spain laden with rich cargoes from
 
 RALEIGH'S CHIEF AIMS 31 
 
 the West, brought home, when successful, the 
 freight to England and put the prisoners up to 
 ransom. Such expeditions were recognised means 
 of acquiring wealth, Elizabeth herself being not 
 above sharing in them ; while Cecil will be found 
 later on though on that special occasion under 
 the rose a partner in an enterprise of the kind. 
 
 If, however, Raleigh loved and sought money, 
 he spent it with a spendthrift's hand. His dress, 
 even at a day when extravagance in that direction 
 was common, was notorious for its magnificence, 
 and a contemporary Jesuit, describing not prob- 
 ably without exaggeration the "darling of the 
 English Cleopatra," mentions in especial that his 
 shoes alone were valued at over six thousand gold 
 pieces. 
 
 Nor was it in ostentation and display alone that 
 his riches were spent. He had not, in the life of 
 a courtier, lost sight of the great schemes upon 
 which his heart was set ; and during these years 
 of prosperity he was constantly endeavouring to 
 realise the dream which haunted him to the very, 
 foot of the scaffold the establishment of a larger 
 England across the seas. As early as 1583 he laid 
 out .2,000, at least, in equipping the Ark Ralegh, 
 to form one of a fleet to be commanded by Sir 
 Humphrey Gilbert on an exploring expedition ; 
 although in the end his own vessel was debarred 
 from taking part in the voyage by a fever which,
 
 32 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 breaking out among the crew, necessitated its 
 return to Plymouth : " the reason I could never 
 understand," says a puzzled historian. 1 "Sure I 
 am, no cost was spared by their owner, Master 
 Ralegh, in setting them forth. Therefore I leave 
 it unto God." 
 
 It was in this expedition that Newfoundland was 
 taken possession of in the name of the Queen. 
 Calamity, however, pursued those who took part 
 in it, culminating in the death of Gilbert himself 
 and the loss of his ship ; the last glimpse obtained 
 of the ill-fated explorer showing him " seated abaft 
 with a book in his hand," cheering the doomed 
 crew with the reminder that "we are as near to 
 Heaven by sea as by land." 
 
 The loss of his brother must have been a heavy 
 blow to Raleigh. He was not, however, to be 
 disheartened. Obtaining from the Queen a re- 
 newal of the charter which had been held by Sir 
 Humphrey, he was thereby formally empowered to 
 discover any lands not actually in the possession 
 of a Christian prince, and to hold the same for his 
 own benefit and that of his heirs, on condition that 
 a fifth part of all gold and silver so obtained should 
 be reserved to the Crown ; and expedition after 
 expedition was despatched by him with the object 
 of annexing and colonising such lands. For it must 
 always be remembered that, in spite of failure and 
 1 Hayes in Hayhtyt, vol. iii., p. 190.
 
 INTRODUCES SMOKING AT COURT 33 
 
 disappointment, it was colonisation, and only second- 
 arily gold and riches, which was the chief end of 
 Raleigh's exploring projects. " I shall yet live to 
 see it an English nation," he wrote later on of that 
 Virginia of which, named thus in honour of the 
 Queen, the discovery belongs to these years ; retaining 
 a confidence in ultimate success evenafternine several 
 expeditions had practically resulted in failure, and 
 though, " when he wrote these words to Sir Robert 
 Cecil, England, it is to be remembered, nowhere visibly 
 possessed even the beginnings of a colony." l It was 
 in such matters as these that the imagination of the 
 poet directed and upheld the zeal of the adventurer. 
 To this period belongs also the importation of 
 altogether incalculable importance into England 
 of both potatoes and tobacco. On his estate in 
 Ireland Raleigh introduced the first, brought home 
 by some of his own captains from Carolina ; while, 
 though the practice of smoking was not initiated 
 by him, it was he who made it the fashion at court. 
 In these halcyon days it is said that Elizabeth 
 would sit beside him while he smoked his silver 
 pipe ; and to his fidelity to the habit witness is 
 borne by Aubrey when he mentions doubtless at 
 least repeating a common report that on his day 
 of execution Raleigh "tooke a pipe of tobacco a 
 little before he went to the scaffold, which some 
 formall persons were scandalized at." 
 
 J E. Edwards, Life of Ralegh, vol. i., p. 92.
 
 34 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 Doubtless these years of favour and success 
 must have been pleasant. Yet, notwithstanding 
 the varied interests and occupations with which 
 they were filled, it is impossible not to entertain 
 a suspicion that the adventurer par excellence of his 
 day must have chafed against the fetters which 
 compelled him to act by deputy alone at sea. 
 Forced, however, to remain for the most part at 
 home, he did not content himself with the life of 
 an idle man. As member of Parliament, to which 
 he was returned as knight of the shire for Devon 
 in 1585, he took an active part in the business of 
 the House ; while as Warden of the Stannaries 
 his duties were performed with so much zeal and 
 assiduity that long after he was in his grave the 
 Cornish mines were worked under the regulations 
 which he had put in force, and which, while safe- 
 guarding the interests of the Crown, were designed 
 to better the condition of the labourers. The rough 
 West-country people, like his followers by land and 
 sea, loved him, and he deserved his popularity. 
 
 But at court he was not popular. The position 
 of a favourite invites hostility, nor was Raleigh the 
 man to disarm his enemies by a policy of concilia- 
 tion. He was always in too much haste to reach 
 his goal to take any but the direct path. His 
 pride was a proverb. "His naeve (blemish) was," 
 says Aubrey, "that he was damnably proud. Old 
 Sir Robert Harley, of Brampton Brian Castle (who
 
 PRIDE AND UNPOPULARITY 35 
 
 knew him), would say, 'twas a great question who 
 was the proudest, Sr. W. or Sr. Thomas Overbury, 
 but the difference that was, was judged on Sr. 
 Thomas' side." l His self-confidence came near to 
 arrogance. The Earl of Northumberland com- 
 plained that he desired to seem to be able to sway 
 all men's courses. He had never mastered the art 
 of compromise or the equally important one of 
 seeming to follow where in truth he led. It is 
 probable that the man who had so ill filled the 
 post of a subordinate in Ireland was no better fitted 
 for co-operation in a higher sphere, and it is a 
 significant fact that Elizabeth, sagacious alike in 
 her choice of instruments and in the uses to which 
 she put them, never gave him a seat at the Council 
 Board. 
 
 Whatever might be the cause of it, he has been 
 described as, in 1587, filling the place of the 
 "best hated man of the world in court, city and 
 country." 
 
 What Raleigh himself felt about his unpopularity 
 remains unknown. By no word, written or spoken, 
 is it upon record that he made allusion to it. But 
 it would be rash from his silence to infer indif- 
 ference, since to speak least of what comes nearest 
 home is so common a practice that it may almost 
 stand as an axiom of human intercourse. When a 
 man pours a hundred grievances into your ear it is 
 1 Aubrey, Lives of Eminent Men.
 
 36 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 not unsafe to assume that he is silent about the 
 very one that aches worst at his heart, and his 
 confidences are often only so many outworks sur- 
 rendered in order to concentrate the strength of 
 the garrison within. 
 
 Whether he regarded the fact with disquiet, 
 or with contemptuous indifference, or whether, 
 engrossed in the great plans and projects of which 
 his imagination was full, and strong in the 
 favour of the Queen, he forgot to take it into ac- 
 count at all, his unpopularity was a factor that no 
 man in his position could wisely afford to despise. 
 Among the courtiers there were probably few who 
 were not looking eagerly forward to the day when 
 he in his turn should find a supplanter. The 
 Cecil faction regarded him with distrust as an ad- 
 herent of Leicester ; while Leicester, for his part, 
 could not be expected to look kindly upon his 
 own successor in the Queen's good graces. Both 
 parties would have rejoiced in his decline. And 
 presently a cloud, though at first scarcely bigger 
 than a man's hand, rose upon the horizon. It was 
 due to the presence at court of a handsome, petu- 
 lant, wayward boy of twenty. 
 
 The first indications of a competitor for the 
 capricious affections of Elizabeth must, one would 
 think, have caused serious anxiety to the favourite 
 who for some five years had reigned supreme. It 
 is strange, however, how often in their forecasts
 
 THE RIVALRY OF ESSEX 37 
 
 the most sagacious of men contrive to exempt 
 themselves from the common doom, and it may 
 be that Raleigh, clear-sighted as he was, had 
 failed to lay his reckoning with the inevitable end 
 of such a connection as was his with the Queen. 
 Perhaps, too, he may have made the mistake not 
 an uncommon one of underrating his rival, con- 
 ceiving it impossible that the chasm separating a 
 woman of fifty-five from a lad under twenty-one 
 could be so bridged as to make the influence to 
 be exercised by the latter a serious factor to be 
 taken into account. 
 
 If so, he was to learn his mistake. Essex was 
 a rival whom no man could afford to despise. It 
 is true that to those who look back upon his short 
 and ill-starred career, the memory of his wild and 
 treasonable schemes, his headstrong passions, his 
 unreasonable jealousies, his abuse of the affection 
 lavished on him by Elizabeth, has often obscured 
 or blotted out the recollection of the noble 
 qualities and the brilliant gifts which dazzled 
 eyes as penetrating as those of Bacon, and went 
 far to explain, if not to excuse, the Queen's in- 
 fatuation. But others have taken a truer view. 
 " He was a man," says a writer whose authority on 
 the history of those times carries as much weight 
 as any, " of so many gifts and so many virtues, that 
 even now when his defects and the issues to which 
 they carried him are fully known, it still seems
 
 38 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 possible that under more favourable accidents he 
 might have realised all the promise of his morning. 
 . . . He must have seemed in the eyes of Bacon 
 like the hope of the world." l 
 
 Whether or no, as it has been stated, the boy 
 had been brought forward by his step-father, 
 Leicester, with the deliberate intention of using 
 him to supply a counter-influence to that of 
 Raleigh, it was to the credit of the future favourite 
 that he did not at once take kindly to the office. 
 As a child of ten he had refused the kiss which 
 Elizabeth would have bestowed upon him, and 
 there seemed at first a possibility of a repetition 
 of the scene. 
 
 The dislike, however, with which from the first 
 he regarded Raleigh was no doubt a powerful 
 incentive to do his best in the matter of sup- 
 planting him, and he must soon have thrown 
 himself with ardour into the enterprise ; since, as 
 early as May, 1587, Anthony Bagot, a friend of 
 the young earl's, was writing to his father of the 
 Queen that " when she is abroad nobody near her 
 but my Lord of Essex, and at night my Lord is at 
 cards, or one game or another, till the birds sing 
 in the morning." 
 
 It is not impossible that, at this stage at least, 
 the humours of the wayward boy had a charm for 
 
 'James Spedding, Lord Bacon's Letters tvnd Life, vol. i.. 
 p. 106.
 
 ESSEX AND THE QUEEN 3P 
 
 the woman to whom everybody else deferred ; 
 and that his fits of ill-temper, and the caprices 
 which matched her own, had a novelty which re- 
 commended to her the lad who dared to indulge 
 them. An account given by Essex himself of one 
 of the quarrels which were afterwards so frequent 
 between the ill-assorted couple furnishes a graphic 
 picture of the terms upon which at this early 
 date they stood, while it also betrays plainly 
 enough the sentiments with which he regarded 
 Raleigh. It was while the Queen was on a visit 
 at North Hall that the scene had taken place de- 
 scribed by Essex himself in a letter to his friend, 
 Edward Dyer. Taking offence at some slight he 
 conceived Elizabeth to have put upon his sister, 
 he had first reproached her bitterly ; and then, 
 declining to accept her excuses, had proceeded to 
 charge her with the "true cause" of her conduct, 
 "which was only to please that knave Ralegh, for 
 whose sake I saw she would both grieve me and 
 my love, and disgrace me in the eye of the world. 
 From thence she came to speak of Ralegh ; and 
 it seemed she could not well endure anything to 
 be spoken against him ; and, taking hold of one 
 word 'disdain/ she said there was 'no such 
 cause why I should disdain him.' This speech 
 did move me so much that, as near as I could, I 
 did describe to her what he had been and what he 
 was." So the altercation had gone on, Raleigh
 
 40 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 the chief bone of contention, the boy's jealousy 
 finding vent in saying, "of grief and choler, as 
 much against him as he could " ; the letter in 
 which the report is contained ending in a dark 
 threat that the Queen shall see if she is able to 
 drive the writer to be friends with Raleigh or 
 whether "other extremities" will not be rather 
 the result of her conduct. 
 
 The "extremities" to which he had in fact 
 resorted had been to leave the house at mid- 
 night, taking with him the sister who had been 
 the original cause of dispute ; and to set off the 
 following day for the coast, intending to cross to 
 the Low Countries, a plan promptly frustrated by 
 Elizabeth, who sent off a messenger in hot haste 
 to capture and bring back the truant. 
 
 If, however, Essex's fortunes were rising, and 
 Raleigh's in a measure on the decline, Elizabeth 
 was not yet disposed to forego the attendance of 
 the latter. 
 
 The predominance of one favourite was not 
 always equivalent to the dismissal of his pre- 
 decessor. In 1585, when Raleigh's own influence 
 was at its height, she had experienced so sudden 
 and violent a return of her waning passion for 
 Leicester just then appointed to the command 
 of the troops to be sent to the Netherlands as 
 to cause her to cancel his leave of absence and* 
 countermand the preparations for war. The letter
 
 ELIZABETH AND HER FAVOURITES 41 
 
 in which Leicester, naturally indignant at her 
 change of purpose and ignorant of its motive, 
 describes the explanation he had received from 
 Elizabeth on repairing to court is both curious 
 and touching. 
 
 " I find her Majesty," he wrote, " very desirous 
 to stay me. She makes the cause only the doubt- 
 fulness of her own self, by reason of her often 
 disease taking her of late, and this last night 
 worst of all. She used very pitiful words to me : 
 she shall not live and would not have me from 
 her. You can consider what manner of persua- 
 sions these must be to me from her, and therefore 
 I would not say much for any matter, but did 
 comfort her as much as I could." l 
 
 In that very same year, too, accused by Heneage, 
 on Christopher Hatton's behalf, of the greater 
 grace shown to her new favourite, she had made a 
 pretence of resenting the charge, and, in Heneage's 
 words, reporting the affair to his principal, had 
 " used great bitterness of speech towards Raleigh," 
 saying that "she had rather see him hanged than 
 equal him with you, or that the world should think 
 she did so." 2 
 
 Both these occurrences had taken place when 
 Raleigh's influence was supreme, and no doubt, 
 now that he too was superseded by a newer 
 
 1 29th September, 1585. 
 
 2 Nicolas, Life of Hatton, p. 415.
 
 42 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 caprice, she would have wished in turn to retain 
 him at her side, though in a secondary place. 
 But it must have been a painful position it is to 
 be wished that he had met it with more dignity 
 by a voluntary withdrawal from the unworthy 
 rivalship, especially to a man so "damnably 
 proud" as Elizabeth's Captain of the Guard to 
 stand by and be a witness of the Queen's growing 
 infatuation, while conscious all the time of the 
 malevolent satisfaction of his many enemies, and 
 of the eagerness with which they were watching 
 for every fresh sign of Elizabeth's declining favour. 
 
 Straws indicate the direction of the current ; 
 and the insolence of Tarleton, the fool, as from 
 behind the Queen's chair he watched the cards at 
 which she and Raleigh played, is an example of 
 how each and all waited their opportunity to pre- 
 cipitate his fall. 
 
 " See how the Knave commands the Queen ! " 
 said the licensed jester, as he looked on at the 
 game ; whereat it is said that Elizabeth, jealous of 
 her reputation for independence, frowned. 
 
 It was true that her patience, never inexhaus- 
 tible, was even at this early stage often sorely 
 tried by Essex ; and on one occasion, when in a fit 
 of passion and jealousy caused by some token 
 of her favour accorded to Charles Blount he had 
 fought the latter in a duel, she is recorded as 
 exclaiming that " By God's death, it were fitting
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH, CAl'TAIN OF THF QUEEVS GUARD
 
 PREPARATIONS OF SPAIN 43 
 
 some one should take him down and teach him 
 better manners, or there were no rule with him " ; 
 but her affection always got the better of her 
 reason, and by December, 1587, he had been raised 
 to the post of Master of the Horse. 
 
 So matters stood when the news of the pre- 
 parations being made on an immense scale by 
 Spain for the invasion of England forced the 
 Queen to turn her attention, for a time at least, 
 to more important matters than what, for fault of 
 a better name, must be called her love affairs.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 1588-1590 
 
 The Invincible Armada The Catholic persecution 
 Raleigh's part in the preparations for defence 
 Defeat of the Armada Portuguese expedition 
 Reprisals Ireland Raleigh as a poet Return to 
 court. 
 
 THE year 1588 the year of the Armada 
 was come. To all it had been apparent that 
 Philip of Spain was gathering up his strength for 
 some great blow, and it was natural enough that 
 little doubt should be entertained as to the power 
 at which it was to be directed. 
 
 The persecution of the Catholics, and in particular 
 of the priests belonging to the Jesuit mission, is 
 considered by Green to have been the immediate 
 cause of the invasion. The thoroughness and 
 success with which the missionaries had accom- 
 plished their work was their crime, and it was heavily 
 visited. Hundreds perished in prison or on the 
 scaffold. Reconciliation with Rome was thereby 
 arrested, "but the work which the priests had 
 effected could not be undone . . . and the English 
 (44)
 
 THE ENGLISH CATHOLICS 45 
 
 Catholics were severed more hopelessly than ever 
 from the national Church. But the effect of this 
 bloodshed on the world withoutwas far more violent 
 and productive of wider and greater results. The 
 torture and death of the Jesuit martyrs sent a 
 thrill of horror through the whole Catholic Church, 
 and roused at last into action the sluggish hostility 
 of Spain." l 
 
 In England the Catholics were reasonably enough 
 suspected of looking forward with hopeful anticipa- 
 tion to the expected invasion, and preparations for 
 keeping in check malcontents at home, as well as 
 for defending the country by land and sea, were 
 being actively carried forward. In the previous 
 year Drake had delivered his warning to Burghley. 
 " Assuredly/' he wrote, " there never was heard of 
 or known so great preparations as the King of 
 Spain hath and daily maketh ready for the invasion 
 of England. ... It is very necessary that all pos- 
 sible preparations for defence be speedily made ; " 
 while the writer himself had forthwith started for 
 Cadiz, with thirty small vessels under his command, 
 burnt the store-ships and galleys in the harbour, 
 and stormed the ports of the Faro. 
 
 It was an exploit which would have been after 
 
 Raleigh's own heart, and of which the hero must 
 
 have won his envy. But his own work had lain in 
 
 England, and it is only in July, 1588, that he seems 
 
 1 Green's Short History of the English People, p. 402.
 
 46 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 to have been afloat and in actual collision with the 
 Spanish forces. It is curious that it is precisely 
 during this year, when his activity is certain to 
 have been great, that information with regard to 
 his movements is scanty, the part which he took 
 in the struggle itself being mainly left to conjec- 
 ture. So little indeed is known of his personal 
 share in it that it will be well, in this place, to 
 pass over as briefly as possible, and in spite of its 
 national importance, the great Spanish disaster. 
 
 As early as September, 1587, Raleigh was en- 
 gaged in superintending the repair of the fortifi- 
 cations at Portsmouth ; l while in the following 
 March he was at work in the Council Chamber, 
 settling, in conjunction with the Queen's other 
 advisers, upon a general plan of defence. 2 About 
 this time he was likewise joining with Drake in 
 pressing upon those in authority the bold policy of 
 taking the initiative in the struggle which was 
 plainly at hand, by proceeding with the English 
 fleet to Spain, there to attempt the destruction of 
 the armaments of the enemy, with their arsenals 
 and stores, before they could put out to sea. 
 Whether or no the project was as wise as it was 
 daring, it did not find favour in the necessary 
 quarters, and the arrival of the Spanish fleet was 
 awaited at home. 
 
 In the West country, Raleigh's own special pro- 
 1 State Papers Office. Ibid.
 
 THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA 47 
 
 vince, he had been busy organising levies, and one 
 of his only letters of this date extant gives an 
 account of the difficulties there experienced in 
 raising a body of 2,000 foot and 200 horse, many 
 local authorities considering that the cost, if not 
 at least in part defrayed by the Treasury, would 
 prove too grievous a burden to the country. The 
 Earl of Bath, Sir John Gilbert and Sir Richard 
 Grenville the last two kinsmen of Raleigh's own 
 took, he observes, a different view, " being more 
 zealous in religion and her majesty's service," and 
 thought the thing very feasible. 
 
 The fate of the Armada is too well known for 
 the story to need repetition here. During the early 
 part of the eventful year Raleigh was paying a visit 
 to his Irish estates ; but it has been seen that by 
 March he was present in London at the delibera- 
 tions of the Council, and in July he was receiving 
 a report from his deputies in the West of the pre- 
 parations for defence which were being carried 
 on in Cornwall and Devonshire the signatories 
 to the document being all three his " loving kins- 
 men." His presence at the engagement which 
 took place on July 23rd has been very commonly 
 asserted ; but though it is difficult to believe that 
 he would have consented to be absent from the 
 fleet at such a juncture, there is no positive evidence 
 to the contrary, unless the rewards bestowed upon 
 him when the war was concluded be accepted as
 
 48 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 proof. It is a significant fact, however, that in 
 the distribution amongst the English admirals of 
 prisoners of rank Raleigh's share was equal to that 
 awarded to Drake. 
 
 With these meagre materials for forming a con- 
 jecture as to the part taken personally by Raleigh 
 in one of the principal events of Elizabeth's reign 
 it is necessary to be content ; nor does he again 
 emerge from the mist until the war was practically 
 at an end. 
 
 The months which followed were, however, active 
 ones with him. All England was eager for retalia- 
 tion, and in so congenial a duty Raleigh was not 
 likely to be backward. During the year 158.Q and 
 those which succeeded it he was constantly en- 
 gaged in fitting out privateer vessels which, under 
 the command of his chosen captains, were sent 
 to wage " private warfare " against the national 
 enemy. 
 
 It is said and the charge was likely enough 
 true that such freebooting officers were not over- 
 scrupulous in examining into the ownership of 
 the vessels of which they found themselves in a 
 position to make prizes; and in 1589 the Queen 
 was issuing commands that " two barks of Cher- 
 bourg," belonging to "two of the French King's 
 subjects," which had been taken possession of on 
 Raleigh's behalf should be restored to their lawful 
 proprietors, while Sir Walter and his men are further
 
 PRIVATEERING ENTERPRISES 4-9 
 
 cautioned to be more careful for the future in their 
 choice of victims. 1 In the same way complaints 
 were again preferred against him some three years 
 later, the sufferers on this occasion being the 
 owners of a ship sailing under Dutch colours. 
 Raleigh in this case, at least, took the part of 
 his captain with zeal and ardour; maintaining, 
 with what truth it is difficult to determine, that 
 the aggrieved parties were merely " Spaniards 
 in disguise, seeking the good and profit of the 
 common enemy, with the loss and hindrance of 
 such of Her Majesty's subjects as, to their great 
 charge, do venture upon reprisals." 2 
 
 During this same year, of 1589, Raleigh was at 
 sea himself in a more regular capacity than that 
 of the leader of a company of freebooters. The 
 solicitations of Don Antonio, King of Portugal, for 
 eight years an exile in England, had furnished 
 Elizabeth with an opportunity of retaliating on 
 Philip by sending an expedition with the ostensible 
 object of replacing Antonio upon the throne. The 
 attempt, under the command of Drake by sea, 
 and Norreys on land, resulted in little substantial 
 success. The Portuguese testified no desire to re- 
 instate their late sovereign, and the enterprise, so 
 far as its avowed object was concerned, resulted 
 
 1 Register of Privy Council. 
 
 '"The answer of Sir Walter Ralegh to the complaint of 
 Albert Reynardson and others," Lwnsdmvnc MS.
 
 .50 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 in failure. A large quantity of plunder, however, 
 fell into English hands both on land and sea ; by 
 which Raleigh, who had joined the expedition 
 like Essex and many other gentlemen in the 
 capacity of a volunteer, profited to no small extent. 
 
 A gold chain, presented by the Queen in recog- 
 nition of his services on this occasion, must have 
 been given to the sea-captain rather than to the 
 friend ; for about this time a cloud had arisen be- 
 tween himself and Elizabeth, as to the origin and 
 duration of which we are once more left in doubt. 
 That to Essex, and to his persistent hostility, it was 
 directly or indirectly [due, there can scarcely be a 
 doubt. Shortly after the dispersion of the Armada 
 the young earl had sent Raleigh a challenge, on 
 what pretext is not known ; and though the Council 
 intervened to hush the matters up, lest, coming to 
 the Queen's ears, " it might injure the earl," it was 
 one more token of the nature of the relations exist- 
 ing between them ; which, the Queen's infatuation 
 being what it was, must have made the older man's 
 position at court a precarious one. By August, 
 1589, the newer favourite had so far triumphed 
 that Sir Francis Allen was writing to Anthony 
 Bacon that "my Lord of Essex hath chased Mr. 
 Ralegh from the court and hath confined him in 
 Ireland." 
 
 No doubt, whether right or wrong, Allen gave 
 expression to the interpretation generally put upon
 
 REASONS OF ABSENCE FROM COURT 51 
 
 Raleigh's absence. The latter himself, however, 
 with the evident heat of a proud man, gave a 
 different explanation of it. " Cousin George," he 
 says, writing in December to Sir George Carew, 
 " For my retreat from the Court it was upon good 
 cause to take order for my prize. If in Ireland 
 they think that I am not worth the respecting 
 they shall much deceive themselves. I am in 
 place to be believed not inferior to any man, to 
 pleasure or displeasure the greatest ; and my 
 opinion is so received and believed as I can anger 
 the best of them. And, therefore, if the deputy 
 be not as ready to stead me as I have been to 
 defend him, be it as it may." 1 
 
 The letter, probably written from London after 
 his visit to Ireland had terminated, speaks also 
 of "that nearness to her Majesty which still I 
 enjoy, and never more." It is indeed likely 
 enough that any coolness there had been 
 was followed by a restoration to favour. In 
 the meantime his residence in Ireland, to what- 
 ever cause it had been due, must have had its 
 compensations. The account of it reads like a 
 sort of idyllic interlude in the middle of the life 
 of action and business and money making and 
 court intrigue in which he was so deeply engaged. 
 
 There can be little doubt that in the course of 
 the Irish campaign, eight years earlier, Raleigh and 
 1 Carew Papers, Lambeth Palace.
 
 32 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 Edmund Spenser, Lord Grey's secretary, must have 
 met, although there is no positive evidence to that 
 effect. On Raleigh's present visit to Ireland, he 
 found the poet, as a sharer to the amount of some 
 three thousand acres in the partition of confis- 
 cated estates, settled at Kilcolman Castle, between 
 Mallow and Limerick ; and in the old half-ruined 
 house of the Desmonds the two inaugurated a friend- 
 ship. 
 
 It is no wonder, if community of tastes be a short 
 cut to intimacy, that it should have been so. Dur- 
 ing the years which had passed since Raleigh had 
 served in Munster many fresh occupations and a 
 multiplicity of interests had crowded his life. But 
 of the fact that he had found time to establish a 
 literary reputation proof is afforded by the number 
 of writers who, by dedication or otherwise, sought 
 to associate his name with their works. 
 
 His extant poems, it is true, are few. When the 
 world went well with him he had little time to give 
 to the making of verses. He never collected his 
 poems ; many of them he did not even care to 
 claim ; so that much uncertainty has prevailed con- 
 cerning the authorship of some of those ascribed to 
 him ; while of a lengthy composition, written, as it 
 is supposed, about this date and named Cynthia in 
 honour of the Queen, only one book has been pre- 
 served. And though Puttenham, in his Art of 
 English Poesy, published at this time, includes
 
 RALEIGH AS POET 58 
 
 him amongst the poets ot the day, observing that 
 "for ditty and amorous ode, I find Sir Walter 
 Raleigh's vein most lofty, insolent [original ?] and 
 passionate," it has been pointed out that to his 
 misfortunes is due the best ol his work. Thus 
 " The Soul's Errand," whatever may have been the 
 precise date of its composition, was manifestly 
 written in a spirit of bitterness and revolt against 
 that world with which he had at other times so 
 much reason to be content ; while " The Pilgrim- 
 age " belongs to a period of actual disgrace. " His 
 imprisonments," says a critic, "were in fact his 
 salvation. Through the Traitor's Gate he passed to 
 a tranquillity and thoughtfulness for which there 
 seemed no opportunity outside. In his cell in the 
 White Tower his soul found and enjoyed a real 
 freedom." l It is the judgment of a man of letters ; 
 nor can the debt owed by literature to James I. 
 and his advisers be denied. But it must not be 
 forgotten that Raleigh's own estimate of the com- 
 pensations afforded by captivity may have been a 
 different one, and that, in point of fact, he never 
 ceased to beat against his bars. 
 
 The passing cloud which, obscuring Elizabeth's 
 favour, left him leisure to turn his attention for the 
 moment to poetry was a different matter, and it, at 
 least, must have had a silver lining. 
 
 Lismore Castle, Raleigh's Irish home, was not far 
 1 Professor Hales, in The English Poets, vol i., p. 487.
 
 54 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 from Kilcolman, and it was at the last that the 
 meeting took place recorded by Spenser himself. 
 On a certain day, he says, 
 
 I sat, as was my trade, 
 
 Under the foot of Mole, that mountain hoare, 
 Keeping my sheep among the coolly shade 
 
 Of the green alders, by the Mulla's shore ; 
 There a strange shepherd chanced to find me out, 
 
 Whether allured with my pipe's delight, 
 Whose pleasing sound yshrilled far about, 
 
 Or whether led by chance, I know not right, 
 Whom, when I asked from what place he came 
 
 And how he hight, himself he did ycleepe 
 The shepherd of the Ocean by name, 
 
 And said he came from the main-sea deep, 
 He sitting me beside in that same shade 
 
 Provoked me to play some pleasant fit, 
 And, when he heard the music which I made, 
 
 He found himself full greatly pleased at it : 
 Yet u mul ing my pipe, he took in hond 
 
 My pipe, before that emuled of many, 
 And played thereon (for well that skill he conned) : 
 
 Himself as skilful in that art as any. 
 He piped, I sung ; and, when he sung, I piped ; 
 
 By change of turns each making other merry : 
 Neither envying other, nor envied ; 
 
 So piped we, until we both were weary. 1 
 
 The scene must have come near to taking on 
 the complexion of a dream to the man who had 
 come straight from his life of turmoil and adven- 
 ture, of dangers run and risks encountered, of 
 strenuous endeavour, now crowned with success, 
 now ending in failure, from combating open foes 
 1 " Oolin Clout's Come Home Again.'
 
 WITH SPENSER IN IRELAND 55 
 
 abroad and secret ones at home. The time too 
 was propitious for snatching such a breathing space 
 in the race of life. " Men felt as they feel after 
 a great peril, a great effort, a great relief; as the 
 Greeks did after Salamis and Plataea, as our fathers 
 did after Waterloo. . . . One of those solemn 
 moments had just passed when men see before 
 them the course of the world turned one way, 
 when it might have been turned another." l 
 
 At the moment too there was little, one would 
 think, to make Raleigh, notwithstanding his un- 
 quiet and restless temperament, eager to return 
 to the scene of active life. In the rhymes which 
 had alternated with Spenser's in their friendly 
 rivalry, 
 
 His song was all a lamentable lay 
 
 Of great unkindnesse and of usage hard, 
 
 Of Cynthia the Ladie of the Sea, 
 
 Which from her presence faultlesse him debard. 
 
 It was inevitable, however, that before long 
 his eyes should turn to the future, and thinking 
 of the court and of the honour there paid to 
 genius it was natural enough that he should have 
 wished, perceiving the beauty of Spenser's work, 
 to take him where he would receive due apprecia- 
 tion. That a man possessed of such gifts should 
 remain buried in the wilds of Ireland was not 
 to be permitted ; while it has likewise been sug- 
 
 1 R. W. Church, Spenser, pp. 94, 95.
 
 56 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 gested that the idea of presenting the poet as a 
 peace-offering to Elizabeth may have had some 
 share in his desire to introduce his friend at court. 
 
 Whether his anticipations were justified and 
 the gift he brought in his hand had anything to 
 do with his restoration to favour, we are ignor- 
 ant, but it is certain that that restoration took 
 place ; and it has been seen that in December he 
 was writing to his cousin of that nearness to her 
 Majesty which he enjoyed, and never more. 
 
 That nearness had suffered interruption, and to 
 eyes as clear-sighted as Raleigh's the interrup- 
 tion must have contained alike a prophecy and 
 a warning. At present, however, all was once 
 more sunshine, and it was through Raleigh's 
 patronage that Spenser first gained Elizabeth's 
 favour 
 
 "The Shepherd of the Ocean," quoth he, 
 "Unto that goddess' grace me first entranced. 
 And to mine oaten pipe inclined her ear," 
 
 while it was also mainly due to his influence that 
 the " Faery Queen " first saw the light. It seems, 
 in fact, that from Raleigh's return to court, some- 
 where before the end of 1 589, until his disgrace 
 more than two years later, the favour shown him 
 by Elizabeth showed no serious diminution.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 1590-1592 
 
 At court again Changes there Essex's marriage Raleigh 
 interferes in favour of religious toleration Panama ex- 
 pedition planned Elizabeth Throgmorton Disgrace 
 and imprisonment Provisional release Madre de Dios. 
 
 BY the time Raleigh was once again established 
 at court, certain changes had taken place 
 among the influences there at work. Leicester, to 
 whose party rather, at least, than to that of the 
 Cecils he had belonged, was dead ; but, to set 
 against any loss he might thus have sustained, 
 Walsingham and Hatton, both his enemies, had like- 
 wise gone their way behind the scenes. Essex, tired 
 already, by his own account, of the post of favourite, 
 was playing a dangerous game by entering into 
 secret relations with James of Scotland, Elizabeth's 
 probable successor ; while his marriage in 1 590 
 to Frances Walsingham, Sidney's widow, had roused 
 Elizabeth's indignation, regarding it, as she did, not 
 only in the light of an offence to herself, but as 
 a disgrace to the young earl, Lady Sidney being 
 (57)
 
 58 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 " beneath his degree." The quarrel, like others, 
 had been patched up, the bride "living very re- 
 tired in her mother's house," and being ignored at 
 court ; but the temporary alienation of the Queen 
 from his most formidable rival had no doubt 
 operated in Raleigh's favour. 
 
 He seems at any rate to have been reinstated 
 in his old position, and to have been once more 
 regarded as a powerful intercessor by those who 
 desired to gain the Queen's ear. 
 
 It is curious to find that he and Essex were 
 about this time linked together in the same 
 cause; since in a letter of 1591 it is stated that 
 " the Puritans hope well of the Earl of Essex, who 
 makes Raleigh join him as an instrument from 
 them to the Queen upon any partial occasion of 
 relieving them." 1 
 
 Whether the young earl was likely to " make " 
 Raleigh join him in any undertaking may be 
 doubted. Whatever action of the kind indicated 
 was taken by his rival was probably due rather 
 to principles of religious toleration than to any 
 personal sympathy with a sect the members of 
 which would have been perfectly ready to give 
 their own approval to persecution so long as it was 
 not directed against themselves. Of toleration, 
 however, he was always an advocate ; and he is 
 found exerting himself at this time on behalf of a 
 Thomas Phelipps, Dom. Corresp., Eliz., Rolls House.
 
 ADVOCATE OF TOLERATION 59 
 
 Puritan divine named Udal, condemned to death 
 on account of an attack on episcopal authority ; and 
 who, though the sentence was afterwards com- 
 muted to banishment, ultimately breathed his last 
 in one of those hospitable prisons of Elizabeth's 
 which threw their doors open to men of such 
 opposite faiths, and in which the heroic young 
 Southwell, Jesuit and poet, was at this very time 
 suffering the tortures which were only to be- ended 
 by his execution three years later. 
 
 Another client of Raleigh's one fancies of a 
 more congenial type was a Captain Spring ; who, 
 unable to make good his claim to sums due from 
 the Treasury, applied for assistance to the Captain 
 of the Guard. To plead for money is a thankless 
 office ; nor was Elizabeth in especial likely to 
 welcome such an application. 
 
 "When will you cease to be a beggar?" she is 
 said to have asked Raleigh on this or some other 
 occasion. 
 
 " When your majesty," was his ready rejoinder, 
 " ceases to be a benefactor." 
 
 While putting forward the claims of others, 
 Raleigh was not the man to neglect his own. It 
 was during this period that he received from the 
 Queen the grant of Sherborne Castle in Dorset- 
 shire, which became his country home and upon 
 which he lavished so much care and money. 
 Possibly even at the time that he was soliciting
 
 60 LIFE OF SIR-WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 the gift he had in view the mistress who should 
 be set over his house, for there can be no doubt 
 that by this date, if not earlier, he had become 
 attached to the woman who was to be his wife 
 and to whom much of his future happiness was 
 due Elizabeth Throgmorton. 
 
 Elizabeth Throgmorton was an orphan, of per- 
 haps twenty-two, and according to the scanty 
 details which have come down to us, tall, fair- 
 haired and blue-eyed, with an oval face. She was 
 the daughter of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, and 
 maid of honour to the Queen. So much is certain. 
 It is also certain that Raleigh loved her. But the 
 facts attending his marriage, as well as the events 
 preceding it, are involved in mystery. It has been 
 asserted, partly on the evidence of a letter of very 
 doubtful authenticity, 1 that Sir Walter Raleigh had 
 been " two inward " with the woman he loved ; and 
 the calumny, if calumny it was, finds a place in 
 Camden's history. With regard to this charge it is 
 impossible to speak with certainty ; but it should 
 be remembered that, granting that the accusation 
 gained currency at the time, the court, for the 
 most part hostile to Raleigh, would have been 
 ready to put the worst construction upon his 
 actions, and eager to circulate any report injurious 
 to his reputation. That the statement printed by 
 
 1 Described in the Dictionary of National Biography as a 
 "forged news-letter."
 
 ELIZABETH THROGMORTON 6l 
 
 Camden during their lifetime should have been 
 allowed by Raleigh and his wife to remain uncon- 
 tradicted has been accepted as negative evidence 
 of the truth of the accusation, but it may be that 
 they elected to treat the slander with contempt, 
 nor can their silence be treated as conclusive. 
 Whatever were the facts, it is, however, unfor- 
 tunately beyond doubt that Raleigh met the crisis 
 occasioned by his relations with Elizabeth Throg- 
 morton, of whatever nature they had been, neither 
 with chivalry nor generosity. 
 
 It was a singularly unpropitious moment, so far 
 as he was concerned, at which to incur the Queen's 
 displeasure ; and if the strength of a temptation 
 be held to mitigate the guilt of yielding to it, the 
 inducement to throw dust in Elizabeth's eyes may 
 be allowed its weight. 
 
 The passion for undertaking enterprises partly 
 piratical or buccaneering, but carried out under 
 the patronage of the Crown, and in which the 
 Queen herself was a sharer venturing as little as 
 might be while claiming the largest possible returns 
 was at its height. It was upon the high seas 
 that Englishmen, frequently of rank and position, 
 sought at once fortune, fame and excitement. The 
 ships of Spain, laden with fabulous wealth, were 
 everywhere to be met with and everywhere were 
 fair prey. 
 
 As lately as during the preceding year an im-
 
 6 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 portant expedition had been despatched to the 
 Azores, in which Raleigh was to have held the 
 post of vice-admiral ; but in which, probably 
 owing to the reluctance of the Queen to part 
 with him, he had after all taken no personal 
 share. The venture had met with but indifferent 
 success, and in the course of it took place the 
 celebrated sea-fight in which Sir Richard Gren- 
 ville, Raleigh's cousin, commanding the Revenge, 
 met his end. " Here die I," were his last words 
 as he lay wounded to death on board the enemy's 
 ship, "here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful 
 and quiet mind, for that I have ended my life, as a 
 soldier ought to do, fighting for his country, Queen, 
 religion and honour." The speech men died 
 dramatically as well as gallantly in those days 
 was made in the language of the conquerors who 
 stood around him. 
 
 In his " Report of the Truth of the Fight about the 
 Isles of the Azores," published at first anonymously, 
 Raleigh gave a description of the affair ; and it may 
 well be that a desire to avenge Grenville's death 
 combined with other motives to increase his eager- 
 ness to lead in person an expedition against Gren- 
 ville's foes. At any rate in the planning of such an 
 expedition on a scale of unusual magnitude, during 
 the winter of 1591-92, he had taken an important 
 part, the double object in view consisting of an 
 attack upon the Spanish settlement at Panama,
 
 PRECARIOUS POSITION 63 
 
 and the capture of a fleet of richly laden caracks 
 known to be returning from the East Indies to 
 Seville. Of this expedition the chief command 
 had been bestowed upon Raleigh, while he had 
 ventured in it, like the recklest gambler he was, 
 not only all his own available money, but further 
 sums borrowed for the purpose. Success being 
 under these circumstances of vital importance to 
 him, it was natural that, with the self-confidence 
 which was so marked a feature in his character, he 
 should have been anxious to keep the conduct of 
 the enterprise in his own hands. 
 
 Preparations had been actively pushed forward, 
 and by February, 1592, the fleet consisting of 
 two war-ships furnished by the Queen and thirteen 
 other vessels equipped by the adventurers, of whom 
 Raleigh was chief was ready to set sail. 
 
 Obstacles, however, including a prolonged spell 
 of contrary winds, delayed the start ; while Eliza- 
 beth, ignorant of her favourite's offence, was making 
 strenuous endeavours to induce him to relinquish 
 into other hands the charge of the expedition and 
 to remain at her side. 
 
 To Raleigh it must have been a time of supreme 
 anxiety, conscious as he was of the danger of dis- 
 covery ; and a letter to Sir Robert Cecil, with whom 
 he was at the moment on friendly terms, shows 
 both that he was aware that rumour was busy with 
 his name, and also that he was prepared at all
 
 64 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 costs to give the lie to a charge likely to prove so 
 damning to his fortunes. 
 
 Dating from Chatham and dealing first with 
 business, he goes on to say that the Queen had his 
 promise that, should he succeed in inducing the 
 companies to follow Frobisher, he would relinquish 
 to him the command, only accompanying the fleet 
 some fifty leagues ; though loath to venture what 
 he had spent on another man's fortune. Then 
 follows the mention of the matter which must 
 have been prominent in his mind. " I mean not 
 to come away," he says, "as they say I will, for 
 fear of a marriage, and I know not what. If any 
 such thing were, I would have imparted it to your- 
 self before any man living, and therefore I pray 
 believe it not, and I beseech you to suppress, what 
 you can, any such malicious report. For I protest 
 before God, there is none on the face of the earth 
 that I would be fastened unto." l 
 
 The denial was explicit. It is possible in ex- 
 tenuation of what must otherwise be accounted a 
 deliberate falsehood that, notwithstanding what 
 had passed between the writer and Elizabeth 
 Throgmorton, he had not yet definitely determined 
 on the sacrifice of his prospects and present position 
 involved in a marriage. The wedding, whenever 
 it took place, was strictly private, and it is impos- 
 sible to assign a date to it. At the best, however, 
 1 To Robert Cecil, from Chatham, 10th March, 150%
 
 QUEEN ELIZABETH
 
 ELIZABETH'S ANGER 6'5 
 
 it cannot be denied that, whatever was the stage 
 now reached by the affair, it must have gone too 
 far to render justifiable the attempt on Raleigh's 
 part to elude the consequences by an escape to 
 sea which would leave his fellow culprit to bear 
 alone the brunt of the storm following upon dis- 
 covery. 
 
 Wind and weather conspired to prevent the 
 execution of his design. Before he was out of 
 reach it is probable that the truth had become 
 known to the Queen, and his chances of command- 
 ing the expedition were at an end. 
 
 It is not surprising that when Elizabeth learnt 
 the terms upon which the man she had so singled 
 out for favour stood with her maid of honour her 
 indignation should have been hot against him. In 
 any case unlikely to have tolerated the existence 
 of a rival, the deception which had been practised, 
 together with the secrecy with which the affair had 
 been conducted, gave, had it been necessary, the 
 point to the whole transaction. Elizabeth had 
 not only been wounded, but which is a thing 
 harder to forgive she had been made a fool of. 
 Raleigh had been no exception to the rest of the 
 courtiers in the matter of fulsome adulation, or of 
 the extravagant homage it was the custom to pay 
 at her shrine. To him, as to lesser men bred in 
 the atmosphere of her court, such language was 
 probably as unmeaning as the affectionate heading
 
 66 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 of a letter. But unfortunately Elizabeth attached 
 to it a different significance. To the woman who, 
 at close upon sixty, not only cherished the strange 
 craving to be loved d' amour, but was also a victim 
 to the still more astonishing delusion that a passion 
 could be commanded as easily as an attendance at 
 court, each fresh disenchantment caused a bitter- 
 ness of disappointment which, grotesque from one 
 point of view, is from another not without pathos. 
 Fighting her losing battle with age and decay, her 
 impotent anger at each fresh defeat had something 
 akin to the helpless indignation of a child. Re- 
 fusing to profit by experience, she had taken 
 Raleigh's protestations, like others of the kind, 
 literally ; and it was precisely at the moment 
 when she had been giving inconvenient proof of 
 her own affection by her attempts to keep him 
 at home that she became aware that his heart 
 belonged to another woman, to whom he had been 
 in secret paying his addresses. It was no wonder 
 that Elizabeth should have given free course to 
 her resentment the resentment alike of a jealous 
 woman and of an injured Queen. Nor did she 
 delay to strike. 
 
 The wind had at length taken a favourable 
 direction ; and Raleigh, in command of the fleet, 
 had lost no time in putting out to sea. It must 
 have been with relief that he set sail, but if he had 
 begun to congratulate himself upon his escape his
 
 DISGRACE AND IMPRISONMENT 67 
 
 hopes were doomed to disappointment. He had 
 not been two days at sea when Frobisher overtook 
 him, bearer of the Queen's orders that the com- 
 mand should be surrendered jointly to himself and 
 Sir John Borough, and that Raleigh should return 
 forthwith to England. 
 
 The summons has been diversely interpreted, 
 some believing it to have been sent in love, while 
 the Queen was still in ignorance of any ground 
 of offence. There was no alternative but sub- 
 mission. Raleigh's obedience, however, was not 
 promptly rendered, nor was it till Cape Finisterre 
 had been reached that he made up his mind to 
 relinquish his post. Information had come in 
 which led him to alter the destination of the fleet ; 
 and abandoning the designs upon Panama, he 
 despatched one squadron to the Azores, to way- 
 lay the vessels returning from the Indies, while 
 another was sent to the coast of Spain, "thereby 
 to amuse the Spanish fleet," and keep it at home. 
 After which, yielding reluctant obedience to the 
 Queen's behest, he returned to England, to find 
 himself a disgraced man and to be shortly relegated 
 to the Tower. The most sanguine anticipations of 
 his many enemies had been fulfilled ; the downfall 
 of the favourite was complete ; and Sir Edward 
 Stafford was able presently to write, with malicious 
 satisfaction, to Anthony Bacon : " If you have any- 
 thing to do with Sir Walter Ralegh, or any love
 
 68 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 to make to Mistress Throgmorton, at the Tower 
 to-morrow you may speak with them." 
 
 It has been suggested that, even at this date, 
 the marriage may have already taken place, but 
 of evidence, either for or against the conjecture, 
 there is none ; and if it be true that Raleigh's 
 confinement was shared by his companion in dis- 
 grace which, one may observe in passing, does 
 not appear at the first blush a likely form of 
 punishment to have been inflicted by the jealous 
 Queen her company does not seem to have 
 availed to reconcile him to his captivity. 
 
 No doubt the prospect of a residence of uncertain 
 duration in the Tower, at a time when an expedi- 
 tion planned by himself and on the success of 
 which his whole fortune was staked was on the 
 high seas, was a trial which would have put a 
 strain upon any man's powers of endurance. But 
 Raleigh cannot be said to have borne the test well, 
 nor were the measures taken by him to put an end 
 to the situation such as command respect. Making 
 every allowance for the fashions of the day, and 
 accepting the prisoner's language as in part a 
 pardonable compliance with the exigencies of 
 the moment, and in part the exaggerated ex- 
 pression of a certain amount of genuine attachment 
 to the person of the Queen, it must still be ad- 
 mitted that Raleigh overacted his part to a degree 
 consistent neither with dignity, nor certainly with
 
 IN THE TOWER 69 
 
 that pride with which he was so largely credited. 
 A man to reverse the common saying should 
 have the qualities of his defects ; pride should 
 include self-respect. But both one and the other 
 are conspicuously wanting in the methods by 
 which Raleigh strove to reinstate himself in the 
 royal favour. 
 
 " My heart was never broken," he wrote lament- 
 ably to Cecil, upon hearing that her Majesty was 
 about to start on her summer progress unattended 
 by the Captain of the Guard " my heart was never 
 broken till this day, that I hear the Queen goes so 
 far off, whom I have followed so many years with 
 so great love and desire, in so many journeys, and 
 am now left behind her, in a dark prison all alone. 
 While she was yet near at hand, that I might hear 
 of her once in two or three days, my sorrows were 
 the less : but even now my heart is cast into the 
 depth of all misery. I that was wont to behold her 
 riding like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking 
 like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair 
 about her pure cheeks, like a nymph ; sometime 
 sitting in the shade like a goddess ; sometime sing- 
 ing like an -angel ; sometime playing like Orpheus. 
 Behold the sorrow of the world ! Once amiss, 
 hath bereaved me of all. . . . She is gone, whom 
 I trusted, and of me hath not one thought of 
 mercy, nor any respect of that which was. Do 
 with me now therefore what you list. I am more
 
 70 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 weary of life than they are desirous I should 
 perish." J 
 
 While, coming from words to deeds, it is related 
 by Sir Arthur Gorges, an eye-witness of the scene, 
 that, when once a royal procession was passing 
 down the river, the prisoner not only swore that 
 the Queen had been brought thither " to break his 
 gall in sunder with Tantalus' torment," but carried 
 the farce so far as to enter upon a hand-to-hand 
 struggle with his jailer in order, by obtaining a 
 sight of his mistress, to prevent his heart from 
 breaking. 2 
 
 Raleigh might have spared himself and his repu- 
 tation these desperate endeavours to regain his 
 liberty. Elizabeth proved obdurate, and he was 
 left chafing over his enforced inactivity, it being 
 considered, as he wrote to Lord Admiral Howard, 
 " more profitable to punish my great treasons than 
 that I should either strengthen the fleet or do many 
 other things that lie in the ditches." 3 
 
 It was only in September, after some eight weeks 
 of captivity, that, for strictly practical reasons, he 
 was permitted to leave the Tower and to enjoy a 
 partial and provisional liberty. 
 
 The orders issued by him when compelled to 
 
 1 To Sir R. Cecil, Cecil Papers, Hatfleld. 
 a Sir Arthur Gorges to Sir R. Cecil, Dom. Oorrttp., Rolls 
 House. 
 
 Dom. Correip., Eliz., Rolls House.
 
 THE MADRE DE DIGS 71 
 
 relinquish personal supervision of the expedition 
 planned chiefly by himself had borne good fruit ; 
 chief amongst the results of the venture being the 
 capture of an immense carack, the Madre de Dion, 
 laden with a cargo of fabulous value. 
 
 In dividing the booty, however, trouble had 
 arisen ; and it was in order to settle disputes as to 
 the spoil, and also to bring his authority to bear 
 upon the half-mutinous crews who had been met 
 on their return with the news of the imprisonment 
 of their captain, that Raleigh was permitted to 
 leave his place of captivity. A letter from Haw- 
 kins to Burghley remains, adroitly calculated to 
 bring about his enfranchisement. With respect to 
 the arrangement of the partition of the plunder, 
 the former told the Lord Treasurer, Sir Walter 
 Raleigh was the man wanted, nor was the Tower a 
 convenient place in which to assemble together the 
 necessary parties to the transaction. " I do not 
 perceive," added the writer diplomatically, " that 
 he hath done anything in his accounts, nor that he 
 hath any disposition to do anything, while he is 
 there." And it would be much to the Queen's ad- 
 vantage that he should be enabled to attend to 
 these affairs. 
 
 Burghley 's response was prompt. Though still 
 in custody, Raleigh was permitted to leave his 
 prison, and two days later was on his way to Dart- 
 mouth. The object of this short delay has been
 
 72 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 conjectured to have had to do with the accomplish- 
 ment of the marriage which, in prospective, had 
 already proved so costly ; but no evidence remains 
 to support the surmise. 
 
 Other commissioners had preceded him to the 
 scene of action, of whom the chief was Robert 
 Cecil. " Her Majesty's captive comes after me," 
 wrote the latter to his father, " but I have outrid 
 him and will be at Dartmouth before him." l 
 
 Raleigh's enfranchisement had not taken place 
 too soon. The fame of the immense carack, laden 
 with unprecedented wealth, had drawn crowds to 
 Dartmouth, and " pillage " was going merrily for- 
 ward, the riches which should have fallen to the 
 share of Queen and adventurers alike suffering 
 thereby sensible diminution, and the presence of 
 the admiral and chief adventurer being much 
 needed to restore order to the rebellious crews. 
 The " best hated " man in the world was loved by 
 his sailors and dependants. " I assure you, Sir," 
 says Cecil, describing to Sir Thomas Heneage the 
 arrival of the prisoner at Dartmouth, " his poor 
 servants, to the number of a hundred and forty 
 goodly men, and all the mariners, came to him 
 with such shouts and joy, as I never saw a man 
 more troubled to quiet them in my life. But his 
 heart is broken ; for he is very extreme pensive 
 longer than he is busied, in which he can toil 
 1 Doin. Corresp., Eliz., Rolls House.
 
 PARTITION OF THE SPOIL 73 
 
 terribly. . . . Whensoever he is saluted with con- 
 gratulations for liberty, he doth answer, No ; I am 
 still the Queen of England's poor captive. I 
 wished him to conceal it, because here it doth 
 diminish his credit, which, I do vow to you before 
 God, is greater among the mariners than I thought 
 for." 
 
 The disputes concerning the apportionment of 
 the spoil occupied much time, and bear witness to 
 that parsimony in venturing money and eagerness 
 in claiming it which was one of Elizabeth's unat- 
 tractive features. It does not appear that Raleigh 
 was generously dealt with in the results of an en- 
 terprise which had been mainly due to his spirit 
 and energy. Neither is it clear when his release 
 from custody took place, though there is no trace 
 of his return at this time to the Tower. The 
 Queen's indignation had had time to cool, and 
 though she persisted in refusing him admission to 
 her presence, she had probably reflected that to 
 keep a man for an unlimited term in captivity 
 would require a pretext stronger than any which 
 had been furnished by her present captive. It is 
 a curious and significant comment upon the arbi- 
 trary exercise of authority by which he had been 
 committed to the Tower that no mention of this 
 imprisonment is to be found in the registers of 
 the Privy Council.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 1592-1 595 
 
 Absence from court Sherborne Parliament " Sir Walter 
 Raleigh's School of Atheisme" Guiana. 
 
 RALEIGH was a free man once more ; but a 
 longer time was necessary before he should 
 be restored to the enjoyment of any measure of 
 royal favour ; and for a matter of four years he 
 was refused admittance to the royal presence. 
 
 They were years, notwithstanding his constant 
 efforts to regain his position at court, when he was 
 probably as happy as at any period of his life. 
 Though the success of his domestic arrangements 
 was a topic upon which he may well have forborne 
 to enlarge, so far as any communications likely to 
 reach the Queen's ear were concerned, his marriage 
 seems to have proved more than worth what it had 
 cost. An heir had also been born to him a little 
 Walter and at Sherbome he spent much of his 
 time, planting his garden and beautifying his home. 
 
 No doubt at times the life, to his restless spirit, 
 seemed dull " Sir," he writes once to Cecil, " these 
 (74)
 
 SHERBORNE AND PARLIAMENT 75 
 
 poor countries yield no news " but upon the whole 
 it must have been pleasant enough to compensate, 
 at least for a time, for the lack of that constant 
 excitement and activity which constituted in his 
 opinion the things best worth having. 
 
 Nor were gardening and building his sole occupa- 
 tions. Banished as he remained from court, he did 
 not absent himself wholly from London. He was 
 an active member of Parliament, coming forward in 
 especial to plead the cause of religious toleration 
 with regard to the treatment to be accorded to the 
 Brownist sect ; and supporting principle by common 
 sense when he demanded upon whom the mainte- 
 nance of the women and children was to fall in the 
 event of the bread-winners, as a body, being visited 
 with death or banishment a plea which experience 
 may have taught him was more likely to appeal 
 to the royal understanding than one based upon 
 grounds of justice or mercy alone. 
 
 His own views on theological and doctrinal 
 matters seem to have been regarded at this time 
 with some distrust. It was a day when careful 
 watch was kept over men's private convictions ; 
 and Raleigh was not apt to make open confession 
 of his own. His anti-Catholicism, it is true, was 
 above suspicion, and he doubtless conformed to the 
 worship established by law. But his spirit was 
 too bold to be limited by the narrow lines laid 
 down by the sectarian dogmatism of the day. He
 
 76 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 was addicted to speculation and counted amongst 
 his associates men such as Marlowe, the dramatist, 
 and the navigator Hariot, an avowed Deist ; while 
 he was also a member of a kind of debating society 
 stigmatised by an angry Catholic as " Sir Walter 
 Raleigh's School of Atheisme " in which religious 
 and metaphysical subjects were freely discussed. 
 
 In May, 15.Q3, so much unfavourable attention 
 had been attracted by this coterie, that a warrant 
 was issued for Marlowe's arrest, though .the culprit 
 died before it could take effect ; while a commis- 
 sion of inquiry was sent to Dorsetshire to pursue 
 investigations in the neighbourhood of Sherborne, 
 with what result is not apparent. 
 
 The whole business, so far as Raleigh was 
 concerned, may likely enough have been set on 
 foot by enemies apprehensive of his restoration to 
 favour, and eager to use any means to injure his 
 reputation. But that he had a curiosity as to the 
 opinions of all schools of thought was doubtless 
 true. It is related that he once spent a whole 
 June night in argument with an arrested Jesuit ; 
 and such discussions, carried on with men with 
 whom he was not as in this case publicly known 
 to be in disagreement, might easily be turned by 
 skilful manipulation to his prejudice. 
 
 If, however, Raleigh was employing part of his 
 unusual leisure in metaphysical investigation, his 
 mind was too restlessly alert to allow him to
 
 ATTEMPTS TO REGAIN FAVOUR 77 
 
 confine himself to regions of spiritual adventure 
 alone ; and his imagination was increasingly 
 occupied with the thought of discoveries to be 
 effected on a lower plane. To carry out his pro- 
 jects satisfactorily it was plainly necessary that he 
 should regain his credit at court, and this con- 
 sideration must have occupied an important place 
 among the motives which led him to lose no 
 opportunity of recalling himself to the favourable 
 recollection of the Queen. Accordingly, he is now 
 found submitting to her through Cecil a statement 
 of his views concerning the policy fittest to be 
 pursued with regard to Ireland and Scotland ; or 
 again offering, by means of his pen or otherwise, 
 to settle, in conformity with her views, the vexed 
 question of the succession ; or sending to the 
 Lord Admiral (June, 1594) news of the Spanish 
 fleet and begging him to remember that " it is the 
 Queen's honour and safety to assail and not 
 defend," adding a proffer of his own services in 
 a private capacity " in the place of a poor mariner 
 or soldier." 
 
 It was clear that Elizabeth's pardon was not to 
 be lightly won ; and all his endeavours to elicit 
 a response were met with the same discouraging 
 silence. It was not, however, Raleigh's habit to 
 give way to despondency ; and, cast down as he 
 might have been, it was about this very time that 
 vexed by contrary winds as well as by other
 
 78 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 matters he was writing to Cecil that "the body 
 is wasted with toil ; the purse with charge ; and 
 all things worn. Only the mind is indifferent to 
 good fortune or to adversity." l 
 
 Whether or not the boast was altogether justified, 
 the failure of the methods he had hitherto employed 
 to regain his place in the Queen's good graces seems 
 only to have stimulated him to fresh endeavour, 
 and to have led to his recognition of the fact that 
 a more powerful recommendation to favour was 
 necessary to compel her to relax her attitude, and 
 that his schemes of exploration and discovery 
 would for the present have to be carried out in- 
 dependently of her assistance. It was, at any 
 rate, now that his Guiana projects took definite 
 shape. 
 
 His first step was the despatch of a vessel 
 designed to make a preliminary recognisance of 
 the regions he had in view ; his next a character- 
 istic one to keep himself before the eyes of the 
 public by living in London in such state and 
 magnificence as to prove, when inviting co-opera- 
 tion in his plans, that he was, in spite of his 
 disgrace, no ruined man. 
 
 Nor was he without a friend at court, Sir Robert 
 
 Cecil being at this time profuse in his professions 
 
 of goodwill. Whether or not they were sincere, 
 
 his readiness to facilitate the accomplishment of 
 
 1 Cecil Papers, Hatfleld.
 
 LETTER FROM LADY RALEIGH 79 
 
 Raleigh's schemes might have been due to more 
 than one motive. While few desired the return 
 of the discarded favourite to court, apprehensions 
 were always entertained that Elizabeth might so 
 far relent as to recall him. " It is now feared by 
 all honest men," wrote Nicholas Faunt to Anthony 
 Bacon, in January, 1594, "that he shall presently 
 come to the court ; yet it is well withstood. God 
 grant him some further resistance." So long as he 
 was in another hemisphere all was safe ; and men 
 had been known to remain there. Whether such 
 considerations had any weight with the Queen's 
 secretary or not, he seems to have displayed much 
 zeal in the furtherance of Raleigh's wishes, and 
 this notwithstanding the appeals made to him by 
 the wife of the latter to use his influence in an 
 opposite direction. 
 
 " I hope for my sake," she wrote, " that you will 
 rather draw Sir Walter towards the east than help 
 him forward towards the sunset, if any respect to 
 me or love to him be not forgotten. But every 
 month hath his flower and every season his content- 
 ment, and you great councillors are so full of new 
 counsels as you are steady in nothing. But we 
 poor souls that hath bought sorrow at a high price 
 desire and can be pleased with the same mis- 
 fortune we hold, fearing alteration will but multiply 
 misery, of which we have already felt sufficient. 
 ... I humbly beseech you rather stay him than
 
 80 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 further him, by the which you shall bind me for 
 ever." l 
 
 If, however, Elizabeth Throgmorton had desired 
 a husband who should remain contentedly at home, 
 it was not to Walter Raleigh that she should have 
 given herself. Love, as Oldys has pointed out, 
 which in some other great courtiers of those times 
 was the grand business of their life, seemed only 
 an interlude in his ; and though his affection had 
 been sufficient to cause him to brave the Queen's dis- 
 pleasure by making Elizabeth his wife, he was not 
 the man to find domestic happiness, however great, 
 all-sufficing. By the winter of 1 594-95, if not before, 
 Lady Raleigh must have become convinced of the 
 futility of any attempts to keep him at home. His 
 imagination had been fired, in connection with 
 what was then called the "Empire of Guiana," 
 with dreams of successes greater than any achieved, 
 so far, either by himself or by any of the legion of 
 lesser explorers infected with the fever of conquest 
 then prevalent ; of personal advancement, and of 
 empire for England and for England's Queen to 
 be won in those " sunset " lands which Lady Raleigh 
 was so unwilling he should visit ; and it would have 
 taken stronger inducements than even love of wife 
 and child to keep him back from the adventure. 
 From this period dates his belief in that fabulous 
 land of gold the El Dorado of the Spaniard 
 1 Cecil Papers, Hatfleld.
 
 A SAILING SHU 1 IN THE TIME OF RALEIGH
 
 THE "EMPIRE OF GUIANA" 81 
 
 which, to him as to so many, proved so powerful 
 an incentive to enterprise. For though, in Raleigh's 
 case, empire and not gold or at least empire first 
 and gold only secondarily was the object of his 
 quest, the lower motive was necessary to bring him 
 recruits and to open the way to the nobler objects 
 upon which his heart was set. The higher aim, 
 however, always came first. " I could have re- 
 turned a good quantity of gold ready cast," he 
 wrote in describing his present enterprise, " if I 
 had not shot at another mark than present profit." 
 Of his success in enlisting public interest in the 
 scheme, the strength of the expedition which set 
 sail in February, 1595 under the command, be it 
 remembered, of a man labouring under the Queen's 
 displeasure is a proof. The High Admiral lent 
 a ship, Cecil money, and many officers and gentle- 
 men offered their services as volunteers. Raleigh, 
 for his own part, had once more embarked almost 
 his entire fortune on the venture, several vessels 
 being equipped at his private, cost. The royal 
 commission he held was a comprehensive one, 
 authorising him to offend and enfeeble the King 
 of Spain and his subjects ; to discover and subdue 
 heathen lands ; to resist and expel intruders within 
 200 leagues of his settlements ; and to capture 
 vessels trading within such limits. On the 6th of 
 February, after some delay from contrary winds, 
 the fleet set sail. 
 6
 
 82 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 Of the fortunes of the expedition, lasting some 
 six months, Raleigh, in his Discovery of Guiana, 
 has given an account. The term was not strictly 
 accurate, since Guiana had already been visited by 
 seven or eight Spanish expeditions, another being 
 even now in preparation. But so far as England 
 was concerned it seems to have been unbroken 
 ground ; even Captain Whiddon, despatched by 
 Raleigh as pioneer during the previous year, 
 having encountered but indifferent success by 
 reason of the obstacles interposed by the plausible 
 Governor of Trinidad. It is characteristic of the 
 generous dealings of Raleigh with his subordinates 
 that no trace is apparent of any displeasure on his 
 part at the failure of this "most valiant and 
 honest " man ; although on his own arrival in the 
 West Indies he made it his first object to inflict 
 punishment on those who had hindered the per- 
 formance ot his errand, attacking and capturing 
 the town of San Jose and taking the governor 
 himself prisoner. It was on this occasion that, 
 by liberating five Indian chiefs, undergoing there 
 barbarous treatment at the hands of the Spanish 
 authorities, Raleigh inaugurated those amicable 
 relations with the native tribes which he kept up 
 to the end. 
 
 Meantime, from Spaniards and Indians alike, 
 fabulous tales were reaching the ears of the ex- 
 plorers of the lands for which they were bound
 
 EL DORADO 88 
 
 tales which, dealing with the mythical city of 
 El Dorado, painted it in colours well calculated 
 to fire their imagination. " So much gold as all 
 yonder plain will not contain it " men who, 
 dancing, were covered with gold these were de- 
 tails of the picture painted of Manoa, the golden 
 city, by those who described its glories. 
 
 Of these descriptions, so dazzling to the 
 strangers and by which they might easily have 
 been lured to destruction, some may have been 
 deliberate attempts to mislead, while others were 
 probably traditions handed down from generation 
 to generation, gaining in splendour from natural 
 exaggeration, and of which the metaphorical 
 language was interpreted by the strangers literally. 
 
 To what degree Raleigh himself gave credit to 
 such stories remains doubtful. America was an 
 unknown land, whose possibilities were untested. 
 Already it had afforded proof of wealth which at 
 an earlier day might well have been regarded as 
 fabulous, nor was there any necessary limit to be 
 placed to its riches. Deceived he undoubtedly 
 was ; but no proof exists of the calculated false- 
 hood with which he has been charged. His saga- 
 cious intelligence may indeed have detected the 
 legendary nature of the current reports, but in an 
 El Dorado of some kind he certainly believed, and 
 to the discovery of a land of gold he looked con- 
 fidently forward.
 
 84 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 According to his present plans the ships were to 
 be left at anchor at Los Gallos while the course 
 of the Orinoco should be explored, a party of a 
 hundred men being embarked for this purpose in 
 a barge, supplemented by a couple of wherries 
 and one ship's boat. 
 
 With the details of the adventurous journey 
 thus performed it is impossible to deal here. In 
 spite of hardship, continual toil and labour in 
 rowing, and of the difficulty of navigating that 
 unknown " labyrinth of rivers," a distance of some 
 four hundred miles inland was traversed, a fair 
 country was discovered, and the explorers suc- 
 ceeded in satisfying themselves of the existence in 
 it of gold and silver, though there was no time, 
 even had appliances been at hand, to open any 
 mines. 
 
 So far success, though hardly won, had attended 
 the venture ; and notwithstanding that of the El 
 Dorado of their waking dreams no glimpse had 
 been obtained, the sharers in it were justified in be- 
 lieving that the way had been smoothed for future 
 exploration ; while it had also been demonstrated 
 that the newly discovered country contained 
 wealth awaiting those who should come prepared 
 to remove it. 
 
 To the Indians Raleigh had dilated upon the 
 justice, greatness and charity of the mistress 
 he served ; while the practical proofs given by
 
 RESULTS OF THE EXPEDITION 85 
 
 him of honesty, fair dealing and consideration for 
 women had so impressed the natives, accustomed 
 as they were to Spanish manners and customs, 
 that tradition long honoured his memory and 
 looked forward to his promised return. 
 
 By July or August Raleigh was back in England 
 and able to reckon up the losses and gains of the 
 adventure. It had not proved lucrative ; much 
 labour and many hardships had been involved ; 
 yet he had his reward. To Spain he was more 
 than ever an object of hostility always some- 
 thing gained ; and if Englishmen loved him no 
 better than before, his name was on all men's 
 lips. References were made to his exploits on 
 the stage ; and his appearance in the London 
 streets, accompanied by a young Indian chief, was 
 the signal for general interest. To a man of 
 Raleigh's disposition such results were worth the 
 winning ; while the extent to which jealousy was 
 aroused no unfair measure of success may be 
 inferred from the calumny industriously circulated 
 to the effect that, whilst his ships were in the 
 Indies and his men exploring Guiana, he had re- 
 mained in comfort at home, all his information 
 being acquired at second hand and himself the 
 author of a gigantic fraud. It was further asserted 
 that the specimens of Guiana ore had been pur- 
 chased in Barbary, in order to impose on simple 
 men.
 
 86 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 Before six months were passed Raleigh had sent 
 out another expedition to Guiana under Captain 
 Keymis, who had commanded a ship in the first. 
 Being, however, but indifferently provided with 
 means either to effect fresh discoveries or to work 
 any mines, Keymis did little save confirm Raleigh's 
 own conclusions as to the existence of gold, 
 strengthen the confidence of the Indians, and 
 gain the knowledge that a Spanish settlement was 
 once more being attempted in the country. 
 
 By the time that his deputy returned to Eng- 
 land Raleigh was already engaged in the enterprise 
 in which he reached the height of his fame, and 
 Guiana for the moment was relegated to the 
 second place.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 1596-1597 
 
 Preparations for war Cadiz the Queen's continued 
 displeasure Final reinstatement at court. 
 
 WHATEVER had been the results achieved 
 by the Guiana expedition, in one respect 
 it had failed to accomplish that which might reason- 
 ably have been anticipated. No alteration had 
 taken place in the attitude maintained by Eliza- 
 beth towards her former favourite. England might 
 be ringing with his fame, London watching him 
 with an interest which was distinct from affection ; 
 but one door was closed against him. He was not 
 to be admitted to court ; and Elizabeth was to hear 
 the story of his adventures only at second hand. 
 
 Under these circumstances he must have been 
 even more ready than would otherwise have been 
 the case though he was never backward when 
 fighting was in question to welcome a further 
 opportunity, and a greater one than any that had 
 hitherto offered, of winning distinction, and com- 
 pelling recognition. 
 
 (87)
 
 88 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 His custom when out of favour " tennis ball of 
 fortune " as he was called was to be found " not 
 but by fame." And a great opportunity to be 
 found by fame was at hand. He might be trusted 
 to make the most of it. 
 
 The idea of an expedition to Spain, and an 
 attack to be directed against her at home, after 
 the example she herself had set, had been for 
 some time, though intermittently, in contemplation. 
 To seek the enemy in her own ports had, it will be 
 remembered, been the course advocated by Raleigh 
 and Drake when the Armada was on the point of 
 starting, and Hawkins had since urged the same 
 bold policy. In the spring of 1596 it was deter- 
 mined to carry it out. The plan was received, by 
 the upper classes at least, with enthusiasm, a 
 thousand volunteers offering themselves for service, 
 and what Raleigh's satisfaction must have been 
 can easily be imagined. For more than one cause 
 he had always been anxious for open war with 
 Spain. To weaken her strength and humble her 
 pride was one of the chief objects of his life ; while 
 from the point of view of a privateering adventurer 
 he had complained that, so long as a nominal 
 peace prevailed, many persons entertained incon- 
 venient scruples as to the lawfulness of seizing 
 Spanish prizes. Moreover, looking at the matter 
 from the standpoint of his present position, it must 
 have been clear that in a scheme in which he was
 
 THK SEAL OF THE LOKU HIGH ADMIRAL
 
 PREPARATIONS FOR CADIZ 89 
 
 so eminently fitted to be a leader not even the 
 Queen's persistent displeasure could refuse him a 
 prominent post. 
 
 That he should be placed at the head of the 
 expedition was not to be expected. The Lord 
 High Admiral, Lord Howard of Effingham, and 
 the Earl of Essex were in joint command, the one 
 supreme over the naval, the other over the land 
 forces. But with these two were associated in 
 authority a council of war, consisting of five mem- 
 bers, of whom Raleigh, as Rear- Admiral, was one. 
 
 Up till almost the last it did not seem certain 
 that the plan would be carried out, Elizabeth's 
 changes of purpose contributing a formidable ele- 
 ment of insecurity to the project ; till Essex never 
 conspicuous for patience was driven to express 
 himself with uncourtierlike candour. Whatever 
 might be his faults no undue love of money was 
 included in them, and the offers made by the Queen 
 to indemnify the disappointed leaders, should the 
 scheme be abandoned, for all financial losses they 
 might have incurred in preparing for the expedi- 
 tion had the reverse of a soothing effect upon him. 
 
 " I pray your Lordships to consider," he wrote to 
 the Council, " how many things at once I should 
 have sold for money. I will leave mine own repu- 
 tation, as too small a matter to be mentioned. 
 But I should have sold the honour of her Majesty ; 
 the safety of Her State ; the contentment of Her
 
 90 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 Confederate ; the fortune of many of my poor 
 friends and countrymen ; and the possibility of 
 giving a blow to that enemy that ought ever to be 
 hateful to all true English hearts. I should have 
 sold all this for private profit. Therefore, though 
 I ask pardon of her Majesty, and pray your Lord- 
 ships to mediate it for me, that I was carried by 
 this zeal so fast as that I forgot those reverent 
 forms that I should have used ; yet I would rather 
 have my heart out of my body, than this zeal out 
 of my heart." l 
 
 The letter shows Essex at his best. To his 
 secretary, Reynolds, he wrote, with even more 
 passion, that he would either go through with the 
 expedition, or " of a general, become a monk, at 
 an hour's warning." 2 
 
 Essex's pleadings, with other inducements to back 
 them, prevailed. When all was at length settled 
 and the fleet assembled off Plymouth, it was, 
 strangely enough, Raleigh who was latest in re- 
 porting himself a tardiness eagerly seized upon 
 by his enemies in the hope of turning it to his 
 disadvantage. What the cause of his delay had 
 been he himself makes plain. He had in fact 
 been busily engaged in pressing men for the service 
 no popular one at the time and was, in his 
 own words, " hunting after runaway mariners and 
 dragging in the mire from alehouse to alehouse." 
 
 1 Dom. Corresp., Eliz, a Bacon Papers, Lambeth Palace.
 
 CADIZ REACHED 91 
 
 Whether or not \ his satisfaction at finding himself 
 once more in a way to deal a blow at the Spaniards 
 was lessened by the fact of his subordination to his 
 less experienced rival, he was not a man to hang 
 back for any such reason ; while the fact that 
 Essex held the key to the Queen's favour may have 
 been a further inducement to pursue the policy of 
 conciliation towards the young earl by which his 
 conduct was marked. 
 
 The fleet, divided into four squadrons, made up 
 in all seventeen Queen's ships, with seventy hired 
 vessels ; while the Dutch, whom the event proved 
 could well have been spared, contributed twenty- 
 four sail. The start was made on June 2nd, and 
 the weather being favourable Cadiz was reached 
 by the 20th. It was at the very beginning of 
 operations that Raleigh's influence made itself felt 
 and in all probability decided the fortunes of the 
 fight. 
 
 Having been set to keep watch upon the harbour, 
 in order to prevent the escape of any vessels, he 
 found, on rejoining the fleet, that it had been de- 
 termined to disembark the troops at a distance of 
 half a league from Cadiz ; and to make an attack 
 upon the town before dealing with the Spanish 
 fleet within the harbour a perilous, and, as it 
 seemed to Raleigh, a wholly indefensible plan of 
 action. To Essex, already engaged in disembarking 
 his men, his remonstrances were first directed ;
 
 9* LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 but, finding that the responsibility for the decision 
 rested with the Lord High Admiral, he proceeded 
 to address himself to the latter, with such good 
 effect as to obtain a countermand of the orders 
 already issued, and to determine Effingham upon 
 attacking the fleet before making any assault upon 
 the town. 
 
 Essex, for once, was in genuine agreement with 
 his rival ; and as Raleigh, passing his vessel on his 
 way to his own, shouted out in Spanish the good 
 news " Entramos, entramos " he threw his hat 
 into the sea in a transport of boyish and excited 
 gratification. 
 
 On the following day, a Sunday, the great fight 
 took place in which Raleigh touched the summit 
 of his fame. All alike were eager to lead the 
 attack, but it was he who won the day, " holding," 
 notwithstanding the honour he was ready to yield 
 to others, "his own reputation the dearest." And 
 lest any should after all get the start of him, by 
 break of day he was moving forward, well in ad- 
 vance of the body of the fleet, to face the seventeen 
 warships which, moored under the batteries of the 
 fort, awaited his coming. " It was," it has been 
 said, "the Balaklava charge of the ocean." 
 
 As the Warspite, Raleigh's ship, entered the bay 
 battleships and forts opened fire ; but only answer- 
 ing with gay bravado by a blare of his trumpets 
 he made his way onwards.
 
 THE FIGHT 93 
 
 He was not allowed to keep his place in the 
 front uncontested. Lord Thomas Howard com- 
 pelled Dudley, Leicester's son, whose ship was in 
 the van, to exchange it with his own ; Essex, leav- 
 ing his post with the body of the fleet, thrust 
 himself forward into the thick of the fight ; at one 
 moment both Sir Francis Vere and Howard had 
 slipped in front of Raleigh himself; while, when 
 he had quickly vindicated his claim to be foremost, 
 Vere surreptitiously attached his ship to the War- 
 spite. It was in vain. The rope was discovered 
 and cut ; and Raleigh, adroitly throwing his vessel 
 across the channel, made it impossible for others to 
 pass him again. 
 
 In the course of the day Raleigh and Essex met, 
 all old rivalries for the moment forgotten. Essex, 
 for once the more prudent of the two, had tried to 
 dissuade Raleigh from attempting, in the absence 
 of the fly-boats which should have been at hand, 
 to board the great war-ships he had engaged ; but, 
 failing, " I will second you, upon my honour," he 
 cried ; and the two parted. 
 
 Till two or four in the afternoon authorities 
 differ the fight was kept up. By singular good 
 fortune, as Raleigh must have deemed it, two of 
 the ships opposed to him were the same to which 
 his kinsman, Grenville, had been forced to yield ; 
 and he was now to be "revenged for the Revenge, 
 or to second her with mine own life." He did
 
 94 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 the first. The St. Philip was blown up by her 
 own desperate crew ; the St. Andrew, captured by 
 Raleigh himself, together with the St. Matthew 
 the only two ships carried away by the victors 
 was brought by him safely to England. 
 
 The victory was complete, and Raleigh the hero 
 of it. 
 
 At the attack on Cadiz itself he was unable to 
 assist save in the unusual character of a spectator, 
 being temporarily crippled by a wound in his leg. 
 Borne on a litter, however, he watched the sack 
 of the town long enough to enable him to bear 
 generous witness to Essex's management of the 
 affair. " The Earl hath behaved himself, I protest 
 to you by the living God," he wrote to Cecil, 
 "both valiantly and advisedly in the highest 
 degree, without pride, without cruelty ; and hath 
 gotten great honour and much love of all." For 
 himself, he added a little wistfully, he hoped her 
 Majesty would take his labours in good part. 
 Had his life been rendered up he would only have 
 paid some part of the debts he owed her. As it 
 was, it was but borrowed, to be paid hereafter 
 should occasion offer. 1 
 
 He could afford to be generous, taking into ac- 
 count his own share in the glory of the day ; and 
 his tenacity of the honour he had won is as char- 
 acteristic as his readiness to give credit to others. 
 1 MS. Cotton, British Museum.
 
 RETURN TO ENGLAND 95 
 
 " A moy seul," was his comment on the margin 
 of a book, Les Lauriers de Nassau, which, in an 
 account of the fight, had associated Lord Thomas 
 Howard with him in the order to begin the assault. 
 And again, " Tay pris tons deux," when his part in 
 the capture of the St. Matthew and the St. Andrew 
 had been omitted. His distinction had been won 
 in fair field, and not a jot of it should be wrested 
 from him. 
 
 Much difference of opinion prevailed amongst 
 the leaders as to the manner in which the victory 
 should best be utilised. Some were for holding 
 Cadiz ; others Raleigh amongst them for an im- 
 mediate return to England. The more prudent 
 counsels prevailed, and by the 1st of August Raleigh 
 was on his way home. 
 
 The return of the expedition must have been 
 attended with disappointment. The most brilliant 
 victory of Elizabeth's reign had been won, and 
 one of the most striking exploits recorded in history 
 performed. But if it had been expected that the 
 Queen would have been anxious to do honour to 
 those who had fought and conquered in her name, 
 such anticipations were doomed to disappointment. 
 Complete as had been the success from a military 
 or naval point of view, it was undeniable that 
 blunders had been committed by which the 
 material harvest which might have been reaped 
 had been seriously diminished. A number of
 
 96 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 richly laden caracks had been allowed to slip 
 through the fingers of the victorious fleet, possibly 
 too much occupied with other matters to give due 
 consideration to financial affairs ; and though at 
 Cadiz itself much plunder had fallen into English 
 hands it was not available for the most part to fill 
 the coffers of the Government or Queen. For an 
 expedition expected not only to pay its own costs 
 but to leave a handsome profit besides, Essex 
 was not a well-chosen commander ; while " for 
 my own part," says Raleigh, who on other occasions 
 was not without an eye to business, " I have gotten 
 a lame leg and a deformed. For the rest either I 
 spoke too late or it was otherwise resolved " 
 "en laquelle ils n'ont trompt," is the more open 
 comment made once more in the margin of Les 
 Lauriers. 
 
 One would have thought that Elizabeth might 
 have been satisfied. The affront offered by the 
 Armada had been abundantly avenged ; English 
 prestige had received an unprecedentedly large 
 increase, thirteen Spanish men of war, with seven- 
 teen galleys, moored under batteries, having been 
 in little more than three hours destroyed, crippled 
 or captured by eight English ships ; while, on 
 land, the forts, together with a large part of the 
 town itself, had been razed to the ground. 
 
 To Raleigh personally the results of the expedi- 
 tion must have been eminently satisfactory. If,
 
 QUEEN AND RALEIGH RECONCILED 97 
 
 besides a lame leg, he had carried away few 
 trophies ; if too, in spite of the glory with which 
 he had covered himself, he was still excluded 
 from the royal presence, he had gained what was 
 better worth having than gold or court favour. 
 With the exception of Essex a melancholy ex- 
 ception, testifying to the increasing predominance 
 over his nobler qualities of that jealousy which 
 was his ruling passion enemies and friends com- 
 bined to bear witness to his achievements. " Sir 
 Walter Ralegh did, in my judgment, no man 
 better," said Sir Anthony Standen, Essex's own 
 dependant. 1 "That which he did in the sea 
 service could not be bettered," wrote George 
 Carew. 2 
 
 The Queen, however, was not yet to be softened. 
 Her humour indeed was such that she was turn- 
 ing upon Burghley himself and calling him a 
 miscreant and a coward for pleading the right of 
 Essex to the profit to be made out of his own 
 prisoners ; and she had, in fact, decided to 
 borrow Mr. Edwards' terse statement "that the 
 service at Cadiz was to be no matter for reward 
 or distinction to anybody." It was clear that 
 Raleigh's exclusion from court could not be final, 
 but it was not till May, 1597 nine months after 
 his return from Spain that he was to be once 
 
 1 Cadiz, 5th July, MS. HarL, British Museum. 
 
 2 Sir G. Carew to Sir R. Cecil, Hatfield House. 
 
 7
 
 J>8 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 more admitted to Elizabeth's presence ; while only 
 on June 2nd was he allowed to resume the per- 
 sonal discharge of his duties as Captain of the 
 Guard, for the last four years performed by deputy. 
 
 That evening, however, he " rid abroad with 
 the Queen " Essex having betaken himself to 
 Chatham, in order not to be a witness of his rival's 
 reinstatement "and had private conference with 
 her." i 
 
 What did they talk of, one wonders, as they rode 
 together that June evening ? Was their conver- 
 sation made up of explanations and apologies and 
 forgiveness ? Or did they, more wisely, ignore those 
 four years of bitterness and estrangement ; making 
 believe, after that vain and melancholy fashion 
 which is nevertheless the better alternative of 
 the two, that there had never in truth been any 
 estrangement at all ? 
 
 1 Rowland Whyte to Sir R. Sydney, Collin's Letters and 
 Afemorials of State.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 1597-1601 
 
 Raleigh and Cecil Friendly relations with Essex Island 
 voyage Essex's displeasure Return to England- 
 Raleigh as peacemaker Fall of Essex. 
 
 ALEIGH was restored to favour so much 
 was .certain. What was likely to be the 
 result must have been a question which many 
 of those connected with the court mostly his 
 enemies were asking themselves, not without 
 anxiety. 
 
 With Cecil he had been for some years on 
 terms of friendship. Not many months later the 
 Secretary's little son was sent to Sherborne to 
 share the education of Raleigh's boy, and in the 
 letters of this period the note of affectionate in- 
 timacy is recurrent. " So, with my most humble 
 duty to my mistress I care not much for your 
 idle Honour " ends one of Raleigh's, in which 
 he had been pressing for an answer from the Sec- 
 retary on Guiana matters. And a little later 
 on, in a letter to Essex, doubtless intended for 
 (99)
 
 100 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 Raleigh's eye, Cecil in his turn jests at the restless 
 energy of " good Mr. Raleigh, who wonders at his 
 own diligence (because diligence and he are not 
 familiars) " ; adding that " your Rear- Admiral, who 
 makes haste but once in the year to write a letter 
 by post, gave date from Weymouth, which by the 
 circumstances I know was written from Plymouth." 
 
 In January, 1597, a letter from Raleigh displays 
 another aspect of the friendship by which the two 
 were united. Written on the occasion of the death 
 of Cecil's wife, it is a conspicuous proof of the 
 intimacy between them at the time. 
 
 " Because I know not how you dispose of your- 
 self," he writes, " I forbear to visit you, preferring 
 your pleasing before mine own desire. I had 
 rather be with you now than at any other time, if 
 I could thereby either take off from you the burden 
 of your sorrows, or lay the greater part thereof on 
 mine own heart ; " going on to admonish him, as 
 only a close friend could have a right to do, how 
 grief should be borne and misfortune met, and 
 subscribing himself, " yours ever beyond the power 
 of words to utter, W. Ralegh." l 
 
 What was more inexplicable than the alliance 
 between Raleigh and Cecil was the cordiality exist- 
 ing between the two and Essex. To whatever 
 cause the phenomenon was due, Raleigh and the 
 latter were now reported to be intimates, 
 1 Cecil Papert, Hatfield.
 
 RALEIGH, ESSEX AND CECIL 101 
 
 "and often goes the Earl to Sir Robert Cecil's 
 house, very private, where they all meet," l while 
 later on it was again asserted that " none but Cecil 
 and Ralegh enjoy the Earl of Essex ; they carry 
 him away as they list." 
 
 The singular combination was not likely to be 
 of long duration. Only the preceding year, in 
 Essex's absence at Cadiz, the Queen had asserted 
 her independence by bestowing the secretaryship 
 upon Cecil, to the exclusion of the earl's nominee, 
 and Cecil was not the man to forget the strenuous 
 efforts of the favourite to keep him out of office. 
 Nor was it possible that Raleigh's reinstatement at 
 court should have been viewed with favour by one 
 so notoriously swayed by jealousy as the latter. 
 
 For the moment, however, Raleigh and Essex at 
 least were drawn together by the bond of a com- 
 mon interest. In the desire to strike a fresh blow 
 at Spain they were agreed, and such a blow seemed 
 in prospect. . Tidings had reached England that, 
 eager to avenge Cadiz and to repeat the attempt 
 in which the Armada had failed, Philip was as- 
 sembling a fleet at Ferrol ; and once more it was 
 decided to take the initiative by seeking the 
 enemy at home. The expedition due to this 
 determination has received the name of the Island 
 Voyage, owing to the fact that, its original object 
 having been abandoned, the scene of action was 
 1 Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sydney.
 
 102 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 transferred to the Azores. The results of the 
 enterprise were of little national importance ; but 
 Raleigh's figure is brought by it into such clear 
 relief that it is worth dealing with in more detail 
 than, measured by its effects, it would merit. 
 
 It is impossible, studying the various episodes by 
 which Raleigh's career is crowded, not to be struck 
 by the resemblance borne alike by his exploits and 
 by the spirit in which they were performed to the 
 feats of some knight-errant of romance. It is true 
 that, looking closer into the texture of the story, 
 incongruous features become apparent, such as a 
 keen eye to his own interests, and a proportionate 
 regard for the solid advantages to be gained. But 
 in his gay and careless courage, approaching 
 to fool hardiness, in his chivalrous and generous 
 temper, and his total indifference to personal 
 danger, he well represents the legendary hero 
 riding forth in quest of adventure. And nowhere 
 are these particular traits more brilliantly exhibited 
 than in this Island Voyage, of which the narrative, 
 given by Sir Arthur Gorges, captain of Raleigh's 
 ship, is that of an eye-witness. 
 
 Once more the victor of Cadiz occupied a sub- 
 ordinate post. It was reported that Essex, offered 
 in the first place a joint command, had refused it. 
 At any rate he obtained supreme authority, Lord 
 Thomas Howard being vice-admiral, and Raleigh, 
 as before, rear-admiral under him.
 
 THE ISLAND VOYAGE 103 
 
 The venture began ill, the tempestuous weather 
 experienced in the Channel forcing the ships to 
 put back into harbour, to Essex's immense chagrin. 
 "That which most grieveth me," wrote Raleigh 
 with characteristic kindliness, contrasting sharply 
 with the treatment he himself received later on, 
 "and which, I profess before the Majesty of God, 
 I do constantly believe, is that either my Lord 
 General himself will wrestle with the seas to his 
 peril, or (constrained to come back) will be found 
 utterly heart-broken ; although it be not in the 
 power of man to fight against elements." l "I 
 beseech you," he writes again, addressing Cecil, 
 "to work from her Majesty some comfort to my 
 Lord General, who, I know, is dismayed by these 
 mischances, even to death ; although there could 
 not be more done by any man upon the earth." 2 
 
 By the time the start could be effected, it was 
 clear that the original design must be abandoned 
 for the year ; and it was determined to proceed 
 at once to the Azores, to seize, if possible, those 
 islands, and also to intercept the fleet expected 
 there from the Indies. Fresh misadventures, how- 
 ever, occurred. In the Bay of Biscay the weather 
 was again so stormy that Raleigh's ship, besides 
 suffering much damage, was separated from the 
 
 1 To the Lords of the Council, Dom. Gorresp., Eliz., Rolls 
 House. 
 
 2 To Sir R. Cecil, Dom. Oorresp., Eliz., Rolls House.
 
 104 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 main body of the fleet ; only rejoining it, together 
 with some thirty other sail, when the islands had 
 been reached. 
 
 His enemies had lost no time in making capital 
 out of his mishaps ; and although the commander- 
 in-chief " seemed to be the joyfullest man living 
 for our arrival," l some remorse must have mingled 
 with his welcome, since it presently transpired that 
 he had already sent home a complaint of Raleigh's 
 conduct in separating himself from the fleet. His 
 apologies, however, were frank enough ; the blame 
 being thrown by him upon those who, he said, 
 " had taxed him secretly with strange reports," 
 while he treated Raleigh with cordiality and 
 sought his society. 
 
 His good humour, however, was of short dura- 
 tion, a fresh exploit of the rear-admiral's being 
 sufficient to dispel it. It had been decided that an 
 attack was to be made by the two conjointly upon 
 the Island of Fayall, and Raleigh, finding himself, 
 with his squadron, first at the rendez vous, was 
 naturally eager to set to work. For four days, 
 however, he curbed his own impatience and that 
 of his men, in full view of Fayall preparing for 
 defence, manning the shore, and, worst of all, 
 setting up "a great red standard" in defiance. 
 Patience, however, has limits. The men, short 
 
 'Sir A. Gorges. The subsequent quotations are from his 
 narrative, cite bj Old VM in hi* Life of Raleigh.
 
 ATTACK ON FAYALL 105 
 
 of food and water, were inclined to mutiny ; the 
 enemy were daring them to the attack ; and in 
 the end " seeing these Spaniards and Portuguese 
 are so gallant to seek or follow/' said Raleigh, 
 addressing his men, "we will try our fortune with 
 them, and either win a landing or gain a beating." 
 Declining, in the first instance, the assistance of the 
 Dutch companies under his command, he pushed 
 forward accordingly to the shore, followed by 2(50 
 men alone, Sir Arthur Gorges being of the number. 
 
 As the little band neared the beach the fire of 
 the enemy was so hot that not only some among 
 the soldiers, but certain of the leaders them- 
 selves, showed dismay ; whereupon Raleigh, rebuk- 
 ing them openly "with many reproachful words," 
 ordered his own boatmen to row him upon the 
 rocks, bidding such of his men as were not afraid 
 to follow ; and thus, clambering over the rocks and 
 wading through the surf, the rear-admiral of the 
 fleet effected his landing, driving the Spaniards 
 before him as he went. 
 
 Permitting now some of the Dutchmen to join 
 him, he led the party himself full in the face of 
 the fort, carrying no weapon save his leading staff 
 and with no armour but his collar ; and when, on 
 finding it necessary to send a reconnoitring body 
 to inspect the defences, the Dutch troops many 
 of them raw recruits flinched from the perilous 
 service, their leader once more braved the danger
 
 106 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 in person, telling them that " he would not offer 
 that to any man which he would himself refuse 
 . . . and they shall well perceive that I myself will 
 do that which they dare not attempt." Then, 
 calling for his cuirass and casque, he said " that 
 he would go view the way for them, which they 
 made so nice of." 
 
 Notwithstanding all remonstrances he carried 
 out his determination, taking with him only Gorges 
 and some eight or ten followers. Of the small 
 party two lost their lives, others Gorges among 
 the number were wounded, and the clothes of 
 Raleigh himself were riddled with shot. " And 
 still they plied us so fast with small shot," adds 
 Gorges, "that, as I well remember, he wished me 
 to put off a large red scarf which I then wore, 
 being, as he said, a very fair mark for them. But 
 I, not being willing to do the Spaniards so much 
 honour at that time, though I could have wished 
 it had not been on, answered the rear-admiral again 
 that his white scarf was as eminent as my red, and 
 therefore I would now follow his example." 
 
 Enough has been quoted to illustrate the spirit 
 in which the adventure was undertaken. The 
 result was a complete success ; and Essex, arriving 
 the following day with his fleet, found the work 
 done and done by Raleigh alone. 
 
 To any man the march which had been, if not 
 stolen, gained upon him would have been matter
 
 ESSEX'S ANGER 107 
 
 for vexation ; and there were not wanting those 
 about the general eager to fan the flame of his 
 displeasure, some even going so far as to declare 
 the rear-admiral worthy of death. 
 
 The first brunt of Essex's wrath was borne by 
 the officers commanding the land forces which had 
 given Raleigh their support ; and on the latter 
 himself repairing to the flag-ship he was coldly 
 received and charged with "breach of order and 
 discipline " in effecting a landing in the absence 
 of his superior in command. 
 
 Raleigh's vindication was made with dignity and 
 moderation. He assumed full responsibility for 
 what had been done, exonerating from all blame 
 those who had acted with him ; and Essex was so 
 far soothed that he consented to go ashore to the 
 lodging in which Raleigh had established himself. 
 What occurred there is graphically described. 
 When Raleigh invited his guest to supper, he took 
 care, in doing so, to explain that, in the event 
 of his invitation being accepted, he claimed no 
 consequent privilege or favour, should the earl 
 desire to call him to further account. 
 
 Upon this, Sir Christopher Blount, who had ac- 
 companied Essex, took upon himself somewhat 
 officiously to reply, observing that "he thought 
 my Lord would not sup at all." 
 
 Raleigh turned upon him. It was one thing to 
 treat the Commander-in-Chief with the courtesy
 
 108 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 due to his position, but quite another to submit to 
 insolence from a subordinate. For Sir Christopher's 
 own appetite, he answered, he might when he 
 was invited disable it at his own pleasure. But 
 if the earl would stay, he would be glad of his 
 company. 
 
 How the question of supper was settled does 
 not appear. But it would seem that Raleigh was 
 even at this stage so doubtful of Essex's intentions, 
 surrounded as he was by men urging a trial by 
 court-martial, that he was inclined the next morning 
 to stand upon the defensive with the squadron 
 under his command, rather than trust to the justice 
 of his rival. Lord Thomas Howard, however, 
 pledging his honour that Raleigh should come to 
 no harm, the affair was patched up, and the culprit 
 guilty of the crime of having achieved the solitary 
 real success of the expedition was permitted to go 
 unpunished. But that the incident should not have 
 left its mark is impossible, and the death-blow 
 must have been given to any chance of lasting 
 cordiality between Raleigh and the man by whom 
 he had been wronged. 
 
 The fleet returned home without further adven- 
 ture, save the capture of three prizes the most 
 important of them, if not all three, falling once 
 more to Raleigh's share to find that, barren as the 
 voyage had proved, its consequences might have 
 been serious ; since a second Armada had after
 
 ESSEX AND THE QUEEN 109 
 
 all been despatched from Spain ; and it had been 
 due rather to weather than to any precautionary 
 measures that it had been attended, in the absence 
 of the English fleet, with no more success than the 
 first. 
 
 On the reappearance of the Commander-in-Chief 
 the Queen's anger it was not her way to treat 
 failure with leniency blazed forth ; and though 
 her indignation gave way as usual to the charm of 
 his presence, changes had taken place at court 
 which Essex, for his part, viewed with moody dis- 
 pleasure. Cecil had been made Master of the 
 Wards ; and, worse still, Lord Howard of Effingham 
 was now Earl of Nottingham, and by virtue of his 
 new patent, coupled with the office of Lord High 
 Admiral, took precedence of Essex himself. 
 
 The latter, declining to submit to the indignity, 
 withdrew in dudgeon from court ; and it was only 
 due to the tact and ingenuity exercised by Raleigh, 
 apparently oblivious of his own late causes of offence, 
 that a reconciliation between the Queen and her 
 favourite was effected, Essex by his advice being 
 made Lord Marshal of England and thereby entitled 
 to take precedence of the High Admiral. Under 
 these circumstances the sulky favourite consented 
 to resume his place at court and peace was once 
 more restored. 
 
 The year 1598, therefore, opened well, and 
 Raleigh, as author of the reconciliation of Essex
 
 110 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 and the Queen, must have been in favour with both. 
 The mediator, it is true, would have liked to have 
 obtained a peerage for himself, as well as the 
 Marshalship for his rival ; and probably better still 
 a seat at the Council Board. But neither was 
 forthcoming, and there is no sign that Raleigh 
 took his disappointment ill. London was gay that 
 winter, and Lord Cobham's name, as well as those 
 of Essex and Cecil, had come of late to be constantly 
 linked with his own. It was an ill-starred friend- 
 ship, but its warmth was matter of public notoriety. 
 Cobham, said Coke at Raleigh's trial, had loved 
 the prisoner "as his life." "From henceforth," 
 Raleigh for his part once wrote to Cobham, " I can 
 present you with nothing but my fast love and true 
 affection, which shall never part from studying to 
 honour you, till I be in the grave." 1 Scarcely a 
 year, alas, after the words were written, all question 
 of any honour in which it was possible to hold 
 Cobham, as well as of any love between the friends, 
 was at an end. But for the present they were close 
 companions. 
 
 Raleigh, during this and the following years, was 
 as usual immersed in business. Always active in 
 Parliament, he was now earning besides the grati- 
 tude of Cornish men by his attention to their 
 interests in matters of trade ; while, when ap- 
 pointed later on to the Governorship of Jersey, 
 1 Dom. Corretp. , Eliz. , Rolls House.
 
 IRISH TROUBLES 111 
 
 he set to work industriously at local business there. 
 And in addition to these peaceful labours, there 
 were not wanting recurrent alarms as to Spanish 
 invasions, when he was in much request for making 
 arrangements for defence by land and sea. His 
 life was in fact as full as a life could be, and all 
 went well with him. 
 
 It is Essex, however, who, during this period 
 from 1598 to the fatal February of l6'01 fills 
 the foreground of the scene ; his doom darkening 
 above him, and lending, to those who look back, a 
 tragic significance to incidents otherwise of small 
 account. 
 
 By the spring of 1598 Irish matters had become 
 even more urgent than usual ; and in March Sir 
 Thomas Cecil, Sir William Russell, Raleigh himself 
 and others were in consultation over them, the 
 question being mooted of sending as deputy either 
 Russell who refused to go or Raleigh, who " did 
 little like it." l 
 
 A fresh quarrel between the Queen and Essex 
 had taken place in the course of the summer, 
 consequent upon the well-known scene, when 
 Elizabeth, indignant at an act of overt discourtesy, 
 went so far as to strike the delinquent, who there- 
 upon, swearing, his hand on his sword, that not 
 from her father would he have borne the 
 affront, had withdrawn from the court. By 
 1 Sydney Papers.
 
 J12 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 October another reconciliation had taken place, 
 but there had been that between the two which 
 neither would forget, and it was from this time 
 that Essex's downward course began. With Eliza- 
 beth personal matters took precedence of public, 
 and Raleigh was probably right when he attributed 
 the final catastrophe rather to words of insolent 
 contempt to the effect that the Queen's con- 
 ditions of restoration to favour were as crooked 
 as her carcase said to have been spoken by the 
 earl and reported to Elizabeth, than to his actual 
 treason. 
 
 Affairs in Ireland had meanwhile been going 
 from bad to worse ; and in October, when the 
 Queen and Essex were once more, ostensibly at 
 least, at one, it was determined that the latter 
 should himself be the new deputy. If he did not 
 like the office, he liked still less that it should be 
 bestowed upon another man ; and it possibly 
 appeared to offer favourable opportunities for the 
 forwarding of those schemes in which shortly 
 afterwards he became so deeply involved. 
 
 It was April, 1599, before he proceeded to take 
 up his new duties. With the details of the fashion 
 in which they were performed we are not here 
 concerned. The most credible interpretation of 
 his conduct suggests that he was playing a double 
 game, and that the crushing of the rebellion then 
 taking place in Ireland was an object subordinated
 
 DISGRACE OF ESSEX us 
 
 in his plan of action to others of a treasonable or 
 semi-treasonable nature. At all events, having 
 carried on for six months a wholly inefficient 
 campaign, he arranged a truce with the rebel 
 leader Tyrone, and leaving Ireland suddenly, in 
 direct defiance of the Queen's orders, presented 
 himself, travel-stained and dusty, at ten o'clock 
 in the morning, in her bedroom at Nonsuch. 
 
 The act of disobedience was the beginning of 
 the end. That interview with the Queen took 
 place in September, 1599- The same night he 
 was virtually under arrest ; and seventeen months 
 later he paid with his life the penalty of his 
 treason. 
 
 It is with the part played by Raleigh in the dark 
 drama that it is alone question here. The main 
 facts are beyond dispute. That he approved the 
 execution of Essex can scarcely be denied. That 
 he was justified in approving, and possibly in ad- 
 vocating it, likewise admits of little doubt. Yet, 
 as the enemy of the accused, the more generous 
 course would have been to stand aside and at least 
 to abstain from throwing ithe weight of his influ- 
 ence into the balances against him. A story was 
 current that when Essex's evil counsellors sought 
 to decide him at Fayall upon trying Raleigh by 
 court-martial he replied that "had he not been 
 his friend" he would have done so. In later 
 versions of the story a word was omitted and 
 8
 
 114 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 Essex was made to reply that had Raleigh been 
 his friend he would have acted as his advisers 
 would have had him. It is in the spirit of this 
 amended answer that those to whom Raleigh's 
 reputation is dear would have had him act now. 
 There is a law of honour in the treatment of an 
 enemy which takes precedence of the claims of 
 friendship itself. And, tried by that law, Raleigh 
 must be found wanting. 
 
 Yet, in passing judgment upon him, his great 
 provocations should be remembered, as well as 
 those risks and contingencies which must have 
 been constantly before his mind. In opposing any 
 recovery by Essex of position or influence he must 
 have felt that he was not improbably fighting for 
 his life and the lives of his friends. Not only did 
 past experience, but also his knowledge, so far as 
 it went, of Essex's present attitude, warn him that 
 his hostility was implacable towards all those by 
 whom his supremacy at court was disputed. In 
 letters to the Queen from Ireland letters of which 
 the contents must have been known to Cecil and 
 through him to Raleigh he had traduced them 
 both, as well as Raleigh's friend, Cobham ; to 
 James of Scotland he had charged them with 
 favouring the pretensions of the Infanta to the 
 succession. By every means in his power he had 
 striven to impair their credit. Part of this was 
 known to Raleigh, and knowing it and, still
 
 RALEIGH'S PART IN ESSEX'S FALL 115 
 
 more, being acquainted with Essex's vindictive 
 and passionate temper and his ascendency over 
 the Queen he may well have considered that it 
 was a question whether it should be his enemy, 
 or himself, with Cobham, his friend, and Cecil, 
 who should end their days upon the scaffold. 
 
 It must also be remembered in Raleigh's defence, 
 that in striking at Essex the blow was not directed 
 at a defenceless man. Disgraced as he was, he 
 was no contemptible foe. Of the London popu- 
 lace the worthlessness of whose affection had yet 
 to be proved he had ever been the favourite, 
 and continued to be so still, whether or not he 
 had ceased to be the Queen's. Already they 
 were murmuring at his captivity and, unwilling to 
 blame Elizabeth, were laying the responsibility 
 for it upon her advisers, amongst whom Raleigh, 
 whom they had never loved, held a foremost place ; 
 whilst an inner circle of associates men like 
 Mountjoy, Southampton and Blount, as well as a 
 multitude of his other dmes damntes were ready 
 to go all lengths in his support. 
 
 Aware of all this, there can be no doubt that 
 Raleigh earnestly desired that Essex's downfall 
 should be final and did what in him lay to secure 
 that end. His most careful and painstaking bio- 
 grapher 1 has decided that the well-known letter 
 to Cecil bearing conclusive witness to these efforts 
 1 E. Edwards, Life of Ralegh, vol. i., pp. 258-60.
 
 116 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 was written, not in February, 1601, when, after 
 his actual treasonable outbreak, Essex was under- 
 going his trial on a capital charge, but during the 
 term of imprisonment which followed upon his 
 return from Ireland, when the question at issue 
 was the minor one : whether he was merely to be 
 censured and left to receive the Queen's pardon 
 so soon as she might be disposed to grant it ; or 
 whether he should be made a state prisoner, in- 
 capable of holding office. To whatever period, 
 however, the letter too long to be given here 
 is attributed, it is difficult, reading it, to believe 
 that no other penalty than imprisonment and 
 deprivation of office was in the writer's mind. 
 
 Essex for his part conspired with his enemies 
 to bring about his own destruction, rushing blindly 
 on his ruin. By February, 1601, the end was come. 
 
 As he gathered his followers together for his 
 final effort, he told them that the insurrection he 
 had planned was in self-defence that Cobham 
 and Raleigh were plotting his murder. Of the 
 value attached to the story by those in a position 
 to judge of it Blount's account of the matter at 
 his trial bears witness. He did not believe, he 
 then acknowledged, that Raleigh and Cobham 
 "had meant any such thing, nor that the Earl 
 himself feared it, only it was a word cast out to 
 colour other matters" to furnish Essex, that is, 
 with a pretext and a popular cry.
 
 ESSEX'S INSURRECTION 117 
 
 On Saturday, 7th February, Essex's friends had 
 gathered together at his house. On Sunday 
 morning the day when Essex was to prove, in 
 bitterness of spirit, how much the idolatry of the 
 London mob was worth Raleigh's figure stands 
 out in a scene which possesses the clearness of 
 a steel engraving. On that day Sir Ferdinando 
 Gorges, one of those implicated in the conspiracy, 
 received at Essex House a summons from the 
 Captain of the Guard to attend him at his own. 
 Gorges, a straightforward man, referred the invita- 
 tion to the earl, who bade him accept it, stipulating, 
 however, that the meeting should take place, not 
 at Durham House, but on the river. 
 
 Gorges' account of the interview remains, cor- 
 roborated by Raleigh himself. Blount, also in 
 council at Essex House, had desired, with others, 
 that Gorges should avail himself of the opportunity 
 to murder or seize Raleigh. Gorges, however, 
 declining the suggestion, repaired with two com- 
 panions to the meeting ; while with characteristic 
 absence of precaution Raleigh rowed out into the 
 river alone, admonishing Gorges to make all haste 
 to leave London, a warrant being out to commit 
 him to the Fleet. His advice came too late, so 
 Gorges told him, proceeding to brag somewhat 
 indiscreetly of the extent of the preparations for 
 the coming rising ; and after some further alterca- 
 tion the two parted, Raleigh to repair to the court,
 
 118 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 Gorges to return to Essex House, while Blount, 
 who had no doubt watched the scene from a point 
 of vantage, took the work he had pressed upon 
 Gorges upon himself, and sent four ineffectual shots 
 after Raleigh as he rowed away. 
 
 A little later, Essex was riding through the City, 
 some two hundred gentlemen in his train, shouting 
 that his life was in danger and his enemies were 
 seeking to murder him ; while the citizens were 
 looking stolidly on, not one of them rallying to 
 the cause of the popular idol. The game was up. 
 
 On Ash Wednesday, February 22nd, Essex was 
 executed in the Tower, Raleigh, as Captain of the 
 Guard, being present on duty. In expectation 
 that the dying man might wish to speak to him 
 he took up his station in the first place near the 
 scaffold. But the position being misinterpreted 
 by the spectators as one of triumph over a fallen 
 foe, 1 he presently withdrew to the armoury glad 
 enough, one may well believe, to do so and there 
 awaited, as he himself afterwards said, in tears, 
 the end of the tragedy. 
 
 When all was over and he was being rowed back 
 to Durham House, tradition recounts that a great 
 sadness was visible on his countenance. Again, we 
 may well believe it. 
 
 Raleigh's most formidable antagonist was re- 
 moved ; the accomplices of his treason were dead 
 1 Oamden.
 
 WALTER DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX
 
 ESSEX'S EXECUTION 119 
 
 or scattered. But he had other enemies, more 
 dangerous because less open, with whom to reckon, 
 and if his sadness was partly due, as some have 
 surmised, to personal foreboding, it was not unjus- 
 tified.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 1601-1603 
 
 Elizabeth's end approaching Visit to Basing Biron envoy 
 to her court Raleigh's multiplied employments His 
 views on Irish matters Intrigues with James Cecil 
 and Raleigh Elizabeth's death. 
 
 ELIZABETH'S long reign was nearing its 
 close. Much had changed in the course of 
 it. In a sense, she stood in a new world, partly 
 her own creation, solitary. "The temper of the 
 age was changing, and isolating her as it changed. 
 Her own England, the England which had grown 
 up around her, serious, moral, prosaic, shrank 
 coldly from this child of earth and the Renaissance, 
 brilliant, fanciful, unscrupulous and irreligious. " J 
 And Essex was gone Essex, upon whom she had 
 lavished the strange, passionate affection which he 
 had repaid so ill, lay in the grave to which her 
 own warrant had consigned him. Nor was his 
 place filled by any other. Raleigh, indeed, was 
 true and faithful ; but though he had her con- 
 
 1 Green's Short History of the English People, p. 445. 
 (120)
 
 ENTERTAINMENT OF BIRON 121 
 
 fidence he no longer occupied his old place in 
 her heart ; and most of the rest of those around 
 her were busied with speculations concerning the 
 future, and with their attempts to arrange it to 
 their own advantage. 
 
 It was a dreary, lonely old age. But for the 
 present she kept up a brave front. In September, 
 1601, she paid her last visit to Lord Winchester 
 at Basing ; while it fell to Raleigh's share finding 
 himself by chance in London to receive Marshal 
 Biron, who, having arrived on a mission from Henry 
 IV., had found the Queen absent. Raleigh did 
 his best to replace her, doing the honours of Lon- 
 don to the foreigners, carrying them, as he tells 
 Cecil, to Westminster Abbey to see the monuments ; 
 entertaining them at the Bear Garden, "which 
 they had great pleasure to see " ; l and adapting 
 himself with such care to the tastes of the guests 
 that, finding it was French fashion "to wear all 
 black and no bravery at all," he wrote to Lord 
 Cobham from Basing, to which he had now con- 
 ducted them, that " I am even now going at night 
 to London to provide me a plain taffeta suit and a 
 plain black saddle," though, as everybody knew, 
 such simplicity in dress was in no way to his liking. 
 
 In this same letter he did his best to persuade 
 Cobham, evidently reluctant to quit the amuse- 
 ments of Bath, that it would be well to obey a 
 1 Cecil Papers, Hatfield.
 
 122 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 summons sent him by the Queen, who, he says, 
 "will take it exceeding kindly, and take herself 
 more beholden unto you than you think " ; and 
 Raleigh will himself accompany his friend to Bath, 
 as soon as they can both be spared. " I durst not 
 say," he adds, "that I knew you were resolved 
 not to come, but left it to the state of your 
 body." l 
 
 Elizabeth, one cannot but think, must have 
 been tired of hearing of the state of her courtiers' 
 bodies ; since most of them had a fashion of falling 
 conveniently ill when matters at court were out 
 of gear ; so that at times they might almost be 
 imagined to have been the victims of an epidemic. 
 Raleigh himself had suffered from attacks of this 
 ambiguous nature. At this period, however, indi- 
 cations are apparent that his health and vigour 
 were in truth no longer what they had been in 
 earlier days ; and on the present occasion he was 
 forced to remain sick at Sherborne instead of ac- 
 companying Lord Cobham to Bath. It may there- 
 fore have been partly for reasons of health, as well 
 as owing to his wife's preferences, that much of his 
 time seems to have been spent during these two 
 years in the country, either at Sherborne or Bath, 
 or attending to the affairs of his governorship in 
 Jersey. 
 
 His attention was also being given as usual to 
 1 Dom. Oorretp., Rolls House.
 
 FRESH EXPEDITIONS BY SEA 123 
 
 expeditions by sea. In 1602 one of these, of 
 which little is known, was despatched as a final 
 attempt to vindicate his Virginian rights ; while 
 a certain Gilbert possibly a nephew seems to 
 have started on a voyage of discovery in a vessel 
 of Raleigh's, unauthorised by the owner. In some 
 of the privateering enterprises in which he was 
 concerned Cecil was his partner, but secretly, 
 "for though," as he once characteristically wrote 
 when enjoining discretion, "I thank God I 
 have no other meaning than becometh an honest 
 man in any of my actions, yet that which were 
 another man's Pater noster, would be accounted in 
 me as a charm." l 
 
 Ireland also claimed a share of Raleigh's atten- 
 tion, especially when, in the autumn of 1601, it 
 was made the scene of another Spanish invasion, 
 which once more proved a failure. On the 
 methods to be employed in dealing with " rebels " 
 his views were consistent to the last, being in 
 unfortunate harmony with his services in Munster ; 
 and he has left his opinion on record that " it can 
 be no disgrace if it were known that the killing 
 of a rebel were practised." It may, however, be 
 pleaded in his defence that he was in such matters 
 in full agreement with most of the men of his 
 day, Cecil, for instance, having no objection to 
 conniving at assassination in such a case, though 
 1 Cecil Papers, Hatfield.
 
 124 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 cherishing a certain prejudice against the use of 
 poison. 
 
 At home, Raleigh had been engaged for some 
 time in wearisome litigation with a former steward 
 at Sherborne ; which, dating from the year of the 
 Cadiz expedition, was still a subject of correspond- 
 ence and of serious vexation in 1602. 
 
 And while occupied with all these cares, great 
 and small, he must have known that, swiftly and 
 surely, the day was approaching when all other 
 questions would be merged in that, of paramount 
 importance, of the effect upon the fortunes of 
 England, and upon his own in particular, of the 
 change which was at hand. 
 
 For, in spite of the gallant fight she had main- 
 tained with them, the invincible enemies, age and 
 decay, were, step by step, gaining upon Elizabeth ; 
 and to the eyes of all it must have been evident 
 that the crisis could not be far distant. To those 
 about her person the fact was matter of daily 
 observation, acted on by each according to his 
 kind. Thus Cecil, after the manner of the Unjust 
 Steward, set himself diligently to the task of 
 ensuring that, when his present office should know 
 him no more, other habitations should open to 
 receive him ; while Raleigh, conscious as he must 
 have been that except for his mistress he stood 
 almost alone, unloved alike by court and country, 
 hated by many, seems altogether to have failed to
 
 ELIZABETH'S LAST YEARS 125 
 
 make provision for the future. It is true that by 
 selling his Munster estate to the Earl of Cork he 
 had rid himself of an unprofitable property, and 
 had thus striven to benefit his wife and child, but 
 so far as any propitiation of the powers that were 
 to be was concerned such measures as he may 
 have taken were absolutely ineffective. 
 
 In November, 1601, the Duke of Lennox, sent 
 on a mission to London by King James, had 
 sounded both Raleigh and Cobham with regard to 
 his master's claims to the succession ; but though 
 authorities are divided as to the impression pro- 
 duced upon the envoy, it is clear that, even if 
 favourable, it did not avail to counterbalance the 
 effect of other agencies at work, and that Raleigh, 
 compared with others, must have been at least 
 backward in paying court to the rising sun. 
 
 That it should have been so is the more re- 
 markable since the Queen's favour seems, to the 
 last, to have been subject to fluctuations which 
 might have served as an excuse to a less loyal 
 servant to transfer his allegiance elsewhere. Even 
 as it was he could not fail to be sensible of dis- 
 content which he expressed openly enough. 
 
 "It grieves me," he wrote to Cecil in a letter 
 attributed to the year 1602, "to find with what 
 difficulty and torment to myself I obtain the 
 smallest favour. Her Majesty knows that I am 
 ready to spend all I have, and my life, for her in
 
 126 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 a day. . . . Let the Queen, then, break their 
 hearts that are none of hers. There is little gain 
 in losing her own. These things should not tor- 
 ment me if I were as others are. But it is true, 
 Ubi dolor, ibi amor ; exue amor em." l And again, 
 addressing this time Elizabeth herself, he writes : 
 " Your Majesty having left me I am left all alone 
 in the world, and am sorry that ever I was at all. 
 What I have done is out of zeal and love, and not 
 by any encouragement ; for I am forgotten in all 
 rights and in all affairs, and mine enemies have 
 their will and desire over me." 2 
 
 The complaint was probably due to a passing 
 cloud and to no real estrangement it was Raleigh's 
 way to use the language of exaggeration. Yet he 
 was no doubt in possession of genuine grievances. 
 High as was his place in Elizabeth's favour, he 
 was never, to the last, admitted to the Council 
 Board, while his simple knighthood was the 
 highest rank to which he ever attained. In such 
 matters it was undeniable that his enemies had 
 their wills and desires over him. 
 
 There is, however, no evidence that he enter- 
 tained any suspicion of the principal influence 
 that was industriously at work against him the 
 influence of the man who, at this time, occupied 
 the position of his familiar friend. 
 
 For while matters stood thus with Raleigh, Cecil 
 1 Cecil Paperi, Hatfield. 2 /Wd.
 
 CECIL'S INTRIGUES . 127 
 
 had been gaining power every day. When the fall 
 of Essex had left his place vacant, there had re- 
 mained, chief amongst those enjoying the Queen's 
 confidence, Cecil, Cobham, Nottingham, Raleigh 
 himself and some few others, from whom it might 
 have seemed that Raleigh had little to fear, Cecil 
 the most powerful of all being regarded as he 
 was in the light of an ally. But this would have 
 been to overlook the fact that, Essex their com- 
 mon foe being removed, it was likely enough that 
 the Secretary would transfer his jealousy to the 
 man who had been Essex's rival ; and, astute and 
 unscrupulous as he was, would set himself to un- 
 dermine any influence likely to compete in the 
 present or future with his own. 
 
 He had, in fact, settled upon an ingenious method 
 of strengthening his own hands. By attaching to 
 himself those who, having belonged to Essex's 
 faction, now found themselves without a leader 
 and were eager to sell themselves to the highest 
 bidder, he secured the adhesion of supporters 
 specially adapted to prove valuable instruments 
 in preparing for the approaching crisis. 
 
 Essex " my martyr Essex," as James sometimes 
 termed him had long been engaged in intrigues 
 with the Scotch court ; and the tools employed by 
 him were naturally in a position to obtain credit 
 for their new master. It was characteristic of the 
 acute yet mean intelligence of the Secretary that
 
 128 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 he should have turned these instruments to the 
 account he did. 
 
 For the entire correspondence with James called 
 by his name it is said that Cecil himself was not 
 responsible ; and the contention is borne out by 
 passages in the letters of the chief agent in it 
 which point to his communications being at times 
 unauthorised. But, making every possible allow- 
 ance, Cecil's share in paving the way for Raleigh's 
 ruin is heavy enough. Nor does the argument of 
 the absence of any accusation upon Raleigh's part 
 carry much weight ; since, even had he, later on, 
 suspected the part played by Cecil, a hundred 
 reasons may have kept him silent ; and the very 
 ignorance he displays only serves, in the light of 
 documentary evidence of the intrigues of which he 
 he was the victim, to darken Cecil's treachery. 
 
 Into the details of those intrigues there is no 
 space to enter here. Essex's sisters ; Cobham's 
 wife, Lady Kildare ; Nottingham, and Lord 
 Thomas Howard, all played their part in them. 
 But it was Cecil who, with Lord Henry Howard, 
 was the chief instrument in poisoning the mind of 
 his future sovereign against Raleigh. 
 
 Lord Henry, enjoying James's entire confidence 
 and now become Cecil's agent, took the largest part 
 in the correspondence. And Lord Henry's prin- 
 cipal object, besides his own advancement, was 
 the ruin of his enemies, amongst whom Raleigh,
 
 HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF NORTHAMPTON
 
 HENRY HOWARD AND CECIL 129 
 
 Cobham and Northumberland stood first. Towards 
 these three he nourished a loathing which came 
 near to madness. " Hell cannot afford a like 
 triplicity that denies the Trinity " " those wicked 
 villains, Cobham and Raleigh " " that accursed 
 duality " these are some of the flowers of speech 
 adorning the letter of Cecil's new confederate. 
 While to add to the confusion in which friend 
 was opposed to friend, kinsman to kinsman, hus- 
 band to wife the wife of Northumberland, one 
 of Howard's "triplicity," was Essex's sister; 
 Cobham' s wife while bearing, as Howard ex- 
 plains, "a strange affection to Cobham, whom 
 never woman loved or will love, besides herself" 
 was deeply implicated in the intrigues so disas- 
 trous to Cobham' s friend ; and Cobham himself 
 was the brother of Cecil's dead wife. 
 
 Cecil, whatever might be the case with others, 
 was troubled by no sentimental considerations. 
 
 " I do profess," he wrote to James, with the 
 sickly admixture of piety which was characteristic 
 of the time and the man, " in the presence of Him 
 that knoweth and searcheth all men's hearts, that 
 if I did not sometimes cast a stone into the mouth 
 of these gaping crabs" Raleigh and Cobham 
 " when they are in their prodigal humour of dis- 
 courses, they would not stick to confess daily how 
 contrary it is to their nature to resolve to be under 
 your sovereignty, though they confess Raleigh 
 9
 
 ISO LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 especially that (rebus sic stantibus) natural policy 
 forces them to keep on foot such a trade against 
 the great day of mart. In all which light and 
 sudden humours of his, though I do no way check 
 him, because he shall not think I reject his freedom 
 or his affection, but always (sub sigillo confessionis) 
 use contestation with him that I neither had, nor 
 ever would, in individuo, contemplate future idea, 
 nor even hoped for more than justice, in time of 
 chance ; yet under pretext of extraordinary care 
 of his well-doing, I have seemed to dissuade him 
 from engaging himself too far, even for himself. 
 . . . Would God I were as free from offence 
 towards God in seeking, for private affection, to 
 support a person whom most religious men do hold 
 anathema." l 
 
 And with this letter of Cecil's a specimen of 
 the services he was doing his friend with the man 
 with whom it would soon lie to make or mar his 
 future it may be well to compare a postscript 
 addressed by Raleigh to himself in a letter of 
 August, 1602, of which the earlier part refers to 
 matters of business. " I hope," he adds, " you will 
 excuse my cumbersome letters and suits. It is 
 your destiny to be troubled with your friends, and 
 so must all men be. But what you think unfit to 
 be done for me shall never be a quarrel, either 
 internal or external. I thank you evermore for 
 
 1 Sir Robert Cecil to King James VI., Uecil Paperi, Hatfield.
 
 THE QUEEN'S END APPROACHING 131 
 
 the good, and what cannot be effected, farewell 
 it ! If we cannot have what we would, methinks 
 it is a great bond to find a friend who will strain 
 himself in his friend's cause in whatsoever, as this 
 world fareth." 
 
 One wonders whether even Cecil was proof 
 against a touch of remorse as he read the expres- 
 sion of Raleigh's generous confidence ; or whether 
 he merely congratulated himself upon the adroit- 
 ness with which he had succeeded in avoiding 
 awakening suspicions on the part of his friend, 
 or perhaps had lulled them when awakened to 
 rest; for at one time during this year of 1602 he 
 had written to Carew complaining that Raleigh 
 and Cobham "do use me unkindly," adding 
 generously, " but I have covenanted with my heart 
 not to know it. ... All my revenge shall be to 
 heap coals on their heads." 
 
 The end was creeping nearer and nearer. At 
 times the Queen's popularity appears to have been 
 as great as ever. At others the old attachment 
 to her person seemed failing. There is something 
 very pathetic in the picture given by Townshend 
 of one of the last occasions on which she met her 
 Parliament ; when, in leaving, the great Queen 
 great in spite of her littlenesses " after room made, 
 came through the Commons to go to the Painted 
 Chamber, who graciously offering her hand to the 
 Speaker, he kissed it, but not one word she spoke
 
 1S2 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 unto him, neither as she went through, few said, 
 ' God bless your Majesty ! ' as they were wont in 
 all great assemblies. And the throng being great 
 and little room to pass, she moved her hand to 
 have more room, whereupon one of the gentlemen 
 ushers said openly, ' Back, Masters, make more 
 room,' and one answered stoutly behind, ' If you 
 will hang us, we can make no more room ' ; which 
 the Queen seemed not to hear, though she heaved 
 up her head and looked that way towards him 
 that spake. After she went to Whitehall by 
 water." J 
 
 In March, 1603, the end came. Whether it 
 was the result of a chill, or whether the deep 
 melancholy which had settled over her the out- 
 come of memories which lay behind and the anti- 
 cipation of swift-coming death grew too strong 
 to be resisted, she had at length given up the 
 struggle. Refusing either food or medicine, she 
 sat propped up on a stool refusing to go to bed, 
 her eyes fixed on the ground, silent, motionless. 
 Once when Cecil would have constrained her to 
 take rest she turned upon him : " Thou art so pre- 
 sumptuous," she said, "because thou knowest I 
 shall die." Cecil did know it well. He, at least, 
 was ready for the event. And presently having 
 been lifted, when almost unconscious, into her bed, 
 with the clergy around attempting to direct her 
 
 1 Townshend, Four Last Parliaments of Elizabeth, p. 179.
 
 ELIZABETH'S DEATH 133 
 
 thoughts to a Kingdom not of this world, the last 
 of the Tudors passed away. 
 
 Among those who were gathered round the 
 death-bed of the Queen Raleigh was not included. 
 In the same way that silence is sometimes more 
 significant than speech, so may absence be than 
 presence. Loyalty is no doubt a reality, but the 
 ties created by it belong rather to the imagination 
 than to the heart ; nor, in the stress of a great 
 crisis, do they always hold together. Raleigh had 
 been the Queen's true servant for more than a 
 generation ; he was one of the last survivors of the 
 men who had surrounded her in her happiest years ; 
 yet when death was at hand she can have had no 
 craving for his presence, else would he have been 
 at her side ; he for his part can have had no long- 
 ing to see her once more, else during that last 
 fortnight he would not have been waiting at a 
 distance to hear of the end. As it was, it is Cecil 
 who occupies the principal place at that melan- 
 choly death-bed Cecil, selfish and calculating, and 
 to whom his dying mistress probably represented 
 merely, or chiefly, a factor in the rising or falling 
 of his own fortunes. 
 
 However that might be, Elizabeth was dead and 
 Raleigh's ruin begun.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 1603 
 
 James's accession Raleigh out of favour Deprived of offices 
 Arrested In the Tower Trial at Winchester Con- 
 viction. 
 
 THE practical unanimity with which James 
 was permitted to ascend the throne must 
 have falsified many forecasts. Up to the very 
 day of Elizabeth's death it would have been rash 
 to hazard a decided opinion as to the future, and 
 her determined refusal to name a successor, though 
 justified by the result, must have lent another 
 element of dangerous uncertainty, in the eyes of 
 those who were looking on, to the approaching crisis. 
 That James should have become King with as 
 little difficulty as if he had occupied the position 
 of uncontested heir seemed little short of a 
 miracle, at which England was itself astonished ; 
 men like Bacon to use his own words feeling as 
 if they were " waking from a fearful dream," from 
 the anticipation of tumult and disturbance, accom- 
 panied possibly with danger to the new religion, 
 to a sense of security and peace. 
 (134)
 
 JAMES'S ACCESSION 135 
 
 Raleigh, summoned to London by the Queen's 
 death, was present at a meeting held at White- 
 hall, adding his signature to the welcome ad- 
 dressed by it to the new King. If it is true that 
 he gave it at the same time as his opinion that a 
 limit should be set to the power of James with 
 regard to the appointment of Scots to English 
 offices, the fact will not have helped to lessen the 
 prejudice entertained against him at head-quarters ; 
 nor added to the cordiality with which he was 
 greeted when, in spite of a prohibition issued by 
 Cecil in the name of his new master, he met the 
 latter on his journey south, alleging as his excuse 
 the necessity of obtaining royal authorisation for 
 his administration of the Duchy of Cornwall. His 
 reception can have left little doubt in his mind as 
 to the King's disposition, and the account given 
 by Aubrey of the meeting though of no very re- 
 liable nature may, likely enough, be true. The 
 pun on Raleigh's name, ill-mannered as it was, 
 might have seemed to James a good joke ; but it is 
 said that he never forgave his new subject's am- 
 biguous reply to the boast that, had he met with 
 opposition, he would have been able to vindicate 
 his rights by force. "Would God," answered 
 Raleigh, " that had been put to the trial ! Your 
 Majesty would then have known your friends from 
 your enemies." 
 
 The two men can have had nothing in common,
 
 1^6 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 and poisoned as the King's mind had already been, 
 it is clear that personal acquaintance did not serve 
 to dissipate his prejudice. James was only anxious 
 to give the suitor what he had come for, at least 
 for the moment, and to get quickly rid of him ; 
 which was accordingly done. 
 
 In April James reached London ; nor did he 
 lose time in supplying Raleigh with an earnest of 
 his future treatment. In May he was deprived of 
 the Captaincy of the Guard, the dismissal being 
 provisionally softened by an equivalent in money ; 
 the legality of his office as licencer of wines was 
 called in question, all dues being suspended ; and 
 he was required at unreasonably short notice, 
 and with no compensation for the sums he had 
 expended on it, to surrender Durham House to 
 its former episcopal possessors. By July he was 
 under arrest. 
 
 The circumstances made use of to furnish a 
 pretext for the charges brought against him are 
 so complicated, and involved in such a tissue of 
 falsehood, that it is difficult so to tell the story as 
 to give a distinct summary of the events which 
 terminated in the Winchester trial. But the 
 attempt must be made. 
 
 It had been inevitable that, notwithstanding 
 the general satisfaction at the peaceful solution of 
 the question of succession, certain individuals and 
 parties should have been left discontented ; and
 
 CATHOLIC DISCONTENT 137 
 
 that in especial the Catholics should have experi- 
 enced bitter disappointment at the absence of 
 the religious reaction for which they had hoped. 
 Though far from united in aims or methods, they 
 were therefore at one in their desire to make 
 trouble for James, either in the interest of Ara- 
 bella Stuart or in any fashion which would 
 secure toleration to the Catholic religion. With 
 these malcontents, priests and laymen, were as- 
 sociated in greater or less degree all who, for 
 whatever reason, felt dissatisfaction at the present 
 state of things. Amongst this heterogeneous and 
 ill-assorted company were such men as the Puritan, 
 Lord Grey of Wilton, George Brooke, Cobham's 
 brother, Sir Griffin Markham, Cobham himself, 
 and according to his accusers Cobham's friend, 
 Raleigh. 
 
 With the " Bye " Plot, or priests' treason, having 
 for its chief object to "surprise" and coerce or 
 even murder the King, Raleigh had clearly nothing 
 to do, being at his trial exonerated from any 
 direct participation in it. It was upon his connec- 
 tion with Cobham, and Cobham's connection with 
 a second conspiracy, known as the "Main" and 
 having to do with the pretensions of Arabella 
 Stuart and the establishment of secret relations 
 with Spain, that Raleigh's accusation was based, 
 and through which, by an almost unparalleled mis-* 
 carriage of justice, his condemnation was obtained.
 
 138 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 That Cobham had been engaged in dealings of a 
 more or less illicit character with Aremberg, envoy 
 of the Archduke Albert and the Infanta, was 
 certain ; and it was argued that Raleigh, of whom 
 Cobham was the single intimate friend, must neces- 
 sarily have been aware of his proceedings, assertions 
 of the vaguest possible kind being accepted as evi- 
 dence of his complicity. Thus George Brooke was 
 reported to have said that he " confidently thought 
 what his brother knew was known to the other ; " 
 and was likewise quoted as declaring that Raleigh 
 had been thought by the conspirators a fit man to 
 be of the action an opinion which, true or false, 
 did not constitute evidence of his guilt. But such 
 speculations and surmises were reckoned of so much 
 importance that at the trial itself Brooke was cited 
 by Coke as "thinking" that "the project for the 
 murder of the King was infused by Raleigh into 
 his brother's head " ; a charge not even included in 
 the indictment. 
 
 The fact was that Raleigh's fall had been decided 
 upon beforehand ; so that whatever items of evi- 
 dence, however weak in character, could be made 
 to tell against him were allowed to carry weight, 
 while to any of an opposite nature little value was 
 attached. " I doubt the dice not fairly thrown," 
 wrote Harington, " if Raleigh's life be the losing 
 stake." 
 
 Into the masses of evidence, for and against him,
 
 CHARGES AGAINST RALEIGH 139 
 
 there is here no space to enter. What may be 
 accepted as proved is that Cobham had spoken to 
 him of money to be obtained from Spanish sources, 
 and of a probable pension to be granted to Raleigh 
 himself in consideration of certain services to be 
 performed by him for Spain ; an idea to which, as 
 Raleigh afterwards told the King, he had attached 
 so little importance as to have forgotten it until 
 the matter was brought up at his trial. He him- 
 self also admitted that he had known Cobham to 
 have been in secret communication with Aremberg. 
 For the rest, it is likely enough that during Eliza- 
 beth's lifetime the claims of Arabella may have 
 been discussed between the friends ; and that later 
 on Raleigh may have expressed his discontent 
 alike with the general situation and with his per- 
 sonal treatment. Apart from Cobham's charges, 
 no more serious offences have been proved against 
 him, then or since. And the value to be attached to 
 Cobham's charges will be shown by an examination 
 of the circumstances under which they were made. 
 Raleigh, though no longer Captain of the Guard, 
 had continued at court, displaying a certain mala- 
 droitness in suiting himself to the King's temper 
 by urging upon James, who was eager for peace 
 with Spain, a policy of war ; and going so far as 
 to offer to invade Spanish territory at the head of 
 2,000 men, at no cost to the Government a sug- 
 gestion likely enough to inspire his new master
 
 140 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 with fresh distrust of a subject possessed of re- 
 sources so formidable. So late, however, as July, 
 Raleigh, unsuspecting of the impending blow, was 
 in attendance at Windsor ; when, waiting one 
 morning on the terrace in readiness to ride out in 
 the royal train, he received a summons to appear 
 before the Council in order to reply to questions 
 it was desirous of putting to him. 
 
 Over his examination some obscurity hangs. 
 Raleigh himself asserted that he had been inter- 
 rogated with regard to the conspiracy to surprise the 
 King a plot in favour of Arabella Stuart and con- 
 cerning Lord Cobham. What is of more importance 
 is that, the examination over, he made known to 
 Cecil in a letter certain circumstances touching 
 Cobham's communications with Spanish agents 
 amounting to little more than the bare fact that 
 communications of some kind had taken place ; 
 and that, on the letter, or part of it, being shown 
 by Cecil to Cobham, the latter, crying out " Oh 
 traitor, oh villain," straightway retorted by charg- 
 ing Raleigh with having been throughout his 
 instigator in his dealings with Spain. Thus began 
 the series of accusations and retractations, one 
 following fast on the other, which so seriously 
 affected the question of Raleigh's guilt or innocence, 
 and in fact secured his condemnation. 
 
 Cobham had doubtless cause for complaint. It 
 may be that Raleigh could have pleaded extenua-
 
 IN THE TOWER 141 
 
 ting circumstances with regard to his disclosures. 
 He may have imagined Cecil to be already cogni- 
 sant of the facts with which they were concerned. 
 He may have attached to them little importance. 
 But, be that as it might, he was in honour bound 
 to keep silence ; and, being so bound, he spoke. 
 
 He himself was at once put under arrest ; and 
 some few days later both he and Cobham were 
 lodged in the Tower. His case had been prejudged, 
 and even at this stage he was treated as if his trea- 
 son had been proved. He was forced to resign the 
 Wardenship of the Stannaries and the Governor- 
 ship of Jersey ; and was in a fair way to become a 
 penniless man, the property that remained to him 
 being, in the event of his conviction, forfeited 
 to the Crown. It is this consideration which has 
 been believed to have prompted the ineffectual 
 attempt at suicide which occurred soon after he 
 was placed in the Tower, and was so little in 
 harmony with his general character and conduct. 
 Confiscation would have left his wife and child 
 unprovided for ; while by dying before his convic- 
 tion he would assure to them his Sherborne estate. 
 Had such been his plan he failed to carry it out. 
 The wound he inflicted was slight and his recovery 
 rapid. Attempts have even been made by his 
 partisans to prove that the whole incident was an 
 invention of his enemies, intended to discredit him 
 in the eyes of the world a theory, however, diffi-
 
 142 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 cult to maintain in the face of the explicit state- 
 ment of Cecil himself. 
 
 It is to this date that the apocryphal letter of 
 farewell to his wife belongs a letter of which no 
 original has been discovered, which only came to 
 light more than two hundred years later and which 
 it is difficult to believe to be genuine. The most 
 noticeable thing about it, besides some beauty of 
 style, is an allusion to a daughter nowhere else 
 mentioned and presumably illegitimate. 
 
 Cobham meanwhile had lost no time in repenting 
 of the charges he had made against his friend. 
 Not ten days after his first indignant outburst he 
 retracted most of his accusations, and was said by 
 Cecil to have "cleared Sir Walter in most things." 
 While confined in the Tower he went still further 
 in the way of atonement. Passionately eager to 
 escape from the toils of his enemies, Raleigh had 
 contrived that a letter should reach Cobham, in 
 which he entreated him to do him justice in writing. 
 Weak, wretched and remorseful, Cobham was not 
 insensible to the appeal. Already, indeed, he had 
 craved permission of Sir George Harvey, Lieutenant 
 of the Tower, to approach the Council in such a 
 manner as to undo more thoroughly his evil work. 
 " God is my witness," he wrote, " it doth touch my 
 conscience." Harvey having, however, declined 
 to facilitate the expression of his penitence, Cob- 
 ham now readily took advantage of the opportunity
 
 COBHAM'S RETRACTATIONS 14,3 
 
 which offered, addressing to Raleigh a letter which 
 was pushed under his door. 
 
 Though intended as a response to Raleigh's 
 request, it was not worded to the satisfaction of 
 the latter being "not to his contenting," as he 
 afterwards declared ; and he wrote again, urging 
 Cobham to vindicate him more thoroughly at his 
 approaching trial. Cobham, however, preferring 
 not to await that event, answered by a second 
 letter, pronounced by Raleigh "very good," and 
 upon which he relied to refute any charges based 
 upon Cobham's former accusations. Versions of 
 this letter differ, but their tenor is the same ; and 
 all contain Raleigh's absolute vindication " for 
 anything I know you are as innocent and clear 
 from any treasons against the King as is subject 
 living." 
 
 In possession of this document Raleigh started 
 in better hope than he might otherwise have done 
 for Winchester ; at which place, on account of the 
 plague which was raging in London, his trial was 
 to take place. 
 
 It is a strange fact that the protection of his 
 escort was necessary to protect from mob-violence 
 the hero of Cadiz, the great sailor and coloniser, 
 the gallant adventurer, and the friend and favour- 
 ite of the late great Queen a man whose exploits 
 had been of the very kind to appeal to popular 
 sentiment. Yet so it was. If one harebrained
 
 144 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 fellow amongst so great a multitude had begun to 
 set upon him, as they were near to do it, no en- 
 treaty or means could have prevailed, the fury 
 and tumult of the people was so great." l 
 
 Still stranger, perhaps, is it that when he came 
 out from the trial, condemned and convicted of 
 treason, "he came out an object of general pity 
 and admiration, and has held his place ever since 
 as one of England's favourite and representative 
 heroes." 2 And this, as another writer has pointed 
 out, not because the struggle had been for any 
 sublime cause or impersonal ideal. "Yet so high 
 was his spirit, and his bearing so undaunted, that 
 he has appeared to subsequent generations a mar- 
 tyr on the altar of English liberties." 3 
 
 In the indictment Raleigh, with Cobham and 
 George Brooke, was charged with compassing "to 
 deprive the King of his crown and dignity ; to 
 subvert the Government and alter the true religion 
 as established in England ; to levy war against the 
 King, with other accusations of a like nature." 
 
 Upon the bench sat Sir John Popham, Lord 
 Chief Justice of England ; Chief Justice Anderson, 
 Justices Gawdy and Warburton ; and, as Com- 
 missioners, Lord Thomas Howard, newly created 
 
 1 Waad to Cecil, Dom. Corresp. , James I. , Rolls House. 
 a James Spedding, Lord Bacon's Letters and Life, vol. iii., p. 
 134. 
 
 3 W. Stebbing, Life of RaUflh, p. 206.
 
 THE TRIAL 145 
 
 Earl of Suffolk, Raleigh's old comrade at Cadiz ; 
 Lord Mountjoy, now Earl of Devonshire ; Lord Henry 
 Howard , the prisoner's unscrupulous foe ; Lord Cecil, 
 and others. Coke, as Attorney-General, with Ser- 
 jeants Hele and Phillips, prosecuted. Theiprisoner, 
 allowed no counsel, conducted his own defence. 
 
 The proceedings were opened by Hele with a 
 joke. Arabella Stuart, he said, had no more 
 title to the Crown than he himself, "which before 
 God, I utterly renounce." Whereat Raleigh, re- 
 flecting, it may be, upon the bearing of the remark 
 upon James's own claims, smiled. It was, however, 
 of course, Coke who played the principal part in 
 the prosecution. When he began his speech it 
 was to deal with the treason called the "Bye," 
 with which Raleigh, addressing the jury, requested 
 them to bear in mind that he was not so much as 
 charged. " What is the treason of Markham and 
 the priests to me ? " he asked Coke himself. 
 
 " I will, then, come close to you," replied the 
 Attorney-General. " I will prove you to be the 
 most notorious traitor that ever came to the bar. 
 . . . Thou art a monster ; thou hast an English 
 face, but a Spanish heart. . . ." So he went on : 
 Raleigh had incited Cobham to treason ; had 
 plotted in favour of Arabella ; talking of it with 
 none but Cobham because quoting a message 
 alleged to have been sent by him to the latter 
 by a single witness he could never be condemned. 
 10
 
 146 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 Now and then Raleigh put in a contemptuous 
 question. 
 
 " If my Lord Cobham be a traitor," he inquired 
 after a lengthy digression of Coke's upon Cobham's 
 affairs, " what is that to me ? " 
 
 " All that he did," replied the Attorney-General, 
 " was by thy instigation, thou viper ; for I thou thee, 
 thou traitor ! I will prove thee the rankest traitor 
 in all England." 
 
 Cobham's charge was then repeated. Spanish 
 money had been promised ; he had spoken to 
 Raleigh concerning its distribution. Raleigh had 
 instigated all ; for all he was responsible. 
 
 Permitted at length to reply, the accused gave 
 a categorical denial to every charge, save that he 
 had suspected Cobham of having kept intelligence 
 with Aremberg. Would he, he asked, have been 
 so mad knowing the present strength of England, 
 united with Scotland and ruled by an active King 
 in the place of a lady " whom time had surprised "- 
 as to choose that moment for becoming a Robin 
 Hood, a Wat Tyler, or a Jack Cade ? Would he, 
 acquainted with the poverty of Spain, believe in 
 the gold of which Cobham had spoken ? Or was 
 the man who had recently employed his pen in 
 arguing against peace with that country likely to 
 be intriguing in her interest ? Proceeding to 
 explain his frequent meetings with Cobham as 
 connected with private matters, he solemnly pro-
 
 THE TRIAL 147 
 
 tested, before God, that of his conspiracies he was 
 "as clear as whosoever here is freest." As to 
 Cobham, "this is a known fashion of his," he said 
 contemptuously, " to do any friend he hath wrong, 
 and then to repent it." 
 
 It was when the foreman of the jury desired to 
 be told the date of the letter to Cecil which had so 
 inflamed Cobham's wrath as presumably to prompt 
 his accusations that the Secretary came upon the 
 scene, smooth and plausible, so wrapping up his 
 reply that little that is intelligible can be ex- 
 tracted from it, and digressing pathetically into his 
 own feelings towards "this gentleman at the bar." 
 "A former dearness," he said, "... tied upon the 
 knot of his virtues, though slacked since by his 
 actions, I cannot but acknowledge." One almost 
 hears the tears in the Secretary's voice, and won- 
 ders with what sentiments the prisoner listened 
 to it! 
 
 Fragmentary reports of his defence are all that 
 remain ; but of its force and brilliance it is possible 
 to judge from the effect produced upon impartial 
 witnesses. To one so unlikely as the King to 
 receive with satisfaction testimony in favour of 
 the accused, two independent reports are said to 
 have been made, the one affirming "that never 
 man spake so well in times past, nor would do in 
 the time to come " ; while the other spectator it 
 would seem a Scotchman "said that whereas,
 
 148 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 when he saw Sir Walter Ralegh first, he was so 
 led with the common hatred that he would have 
 gone a hundred miles to have seen him hanged, 
 he would, ere they parted, have gone a thousand 
 to save his life." l 
 
 Upon the general audience, assembled to hear 
 the arraignment of the man they hated, the like 
 effect was produced, disapproval of some of Coke's 
 coarse abuse being expressed by hisses. 
 
 Again and again Raleigh demanded to be con- 
 fronted with his accusers, and again and again his 
 demand was refused ; his further claim to the 
 benefit of the statute by which no man was to be 
 convicted of treason save on the evidence of two 
 witnesses being also disallowed. The appeal, he 
 was told, was made to obsolete acts. A single 
 witness was now legally sufficient ; while, besides, 
 the accusation of one who had first accused himself 
 had the force of a verdict of twelve men. 
 
 A single admission he made. At dinner one day 
 Cobham, he owned, had spoken of Spanish money. 
 Funds were to be forthcoming to promote peace 
 with Spain no more treasonable object and part 
 might be bestowed upon Raleigh, as upon Cecil 
 himself, or Mar. For the rest, "could I stop my 
 Lord Cobham's mouth ? " he asked, demanding once 
 again to see Cobham face to face. 
 
 "Let me speak for my life," he pleaded. "It 
 
 1 Dudley Oarleton to Chamberlain, Wharton MS. , Bodleian.
 
 ROBERT CECIL, EARL OK SALISBURY
 
 THE TRIAL 149 
 
 can be no hurt to him to be brought. He dareth 
 not excuse [accuse ?] me. If you grant me not 
 this favour, I am strangely used," putting scorn- 
 fully aside the argument urged against his demand, 
 namely, that Cobham might be moved to swerve 
 from the truth in order to acquit him. If all that 
 was alleged was true and Cobham owed his own 
 ruin to Raleigh, then "whom hath he cause to 
 accuse or to be revenged on, but on me ? . . . And 
 I know him to be as revengeful as any man on 
 earth. ... It is a toy to tell me of law. I defy 
 law. I stand on the facts." 
 
 Here again Cecil interposed, smooth and oily, 
 with an apology for speaking so often, " which 
 will make the world think I delight to hear myself 
 talk." His affection, he assured Raleigh, had not 
 been extinguished, but slacked, in regard to his 
 defects. Dared the prisoner, he asked, challenge 
 Cobham's personal testimony ? 
 
 Raleigh's answer was decisive. " Now," he 
 said. If, face to face with him, Cobham would 
 repeat his charges, then God's will and the King's 
 be done ! 
 
 " Then call to God, Sir Walter," said Cecil, "and 
 prepare yourself;" adding his conviction that it 
 would be proved by Cobham that Raleigh had 
 been his instigator and reverting again to his 
 own sickly professions of goodwill, " excepting 
 your fault, I am your friend. . . ."
 
 150 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 After all this Cobham was not produced. Pos- 
 sibly had Raleigh been aware of the whole truth 
 he might have been less urgent in his demand. 
 All this time he must have been relying upon the 
 card he had in reserve Cobham's written acquittal. 
 He was ignorant of the fact that the Government 
 was ready to trump it ; that what had passed in 
 the Tower was already known ; that pressure had 
 once more been brought upon the poor weak 
 traitor ; and that he had retracted his retrac- 
 tation. 
 
 For the moment, when that revelation was made, 
 Raleigh was overwhelmed " much amazed " . But, 
 "gathering his spirits again," he produced Cob- 
 ham's letter to himself, Cecil consenting to read it 
 aloud. That Cobham was a perjured liar was clear. 
 The question remained when he had lied and when 
 he had spoken truth a question decided, by judges 
 and jury, beforehand. A verdict of guilty was 
 returned ; judgment was pronounced by Popham 
 in terms of coarse brutality vying with the lan- 
 guage employed by Coke, and sentence of death 
 was passed. 
 
 That the conviction was legally unjustifiable has 
 never been disputed. On the question of Raleigh's 
 moral innocence historians are divided ; nor is it 
 likely that the matter will ever be settled beyond 
 doubt. Had all that was alleged been proved, his 
 offence would have been limited to having listened
 
 RALEIGH CONDEMNED 151 
 
 to Cobham's schemes for obtaining money from 
 Spain, and to having demanded a pension in ex- 
 change for the disclosure of State secrets. Had 
 the services required been such as could be dis- 
 charged without detriment to English interests he 
 would not have done more than others. Cecil 
 was for years a Spanish pensioner ; Northumber- 
 land accepted pay from France. Whether or not 
 Raleigh was likely to consent to use his influence 
 in favour of his life-long enemy we are justified in 
 doubting, the more so when the future implacable 
 hostility of Spain is remembered. It is more prob- 
 able, should the hypothesis of his guilt be accepted, 
 that he was ready to receive money for services he 
 would never have performed ; but even of this there 
 is no proof. On Cobham's word alone he was con- 
 demned ; and Cobham, to use Raleigh's own words, 
 was "a base, dishonourable, poor soul."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 1603-1616 
 
 Reprieve The Tower Prison life and occupations 
 Literature Prince Henry His death Companions in 
 the Tower. 
 
 WHETHER Raleigh's execution was ever in- 
 tended by the King may be doubted. 
 He may well have desired his death, yet have 
 feared to allow what was virtually a legal murder. 
 He gave, however, no sign of any hesitation, and 
 the clergy attending the prisoners impressed upon 
 them the vanity of any hope of a commutation of 
 the capital sentence. 
 
 For Raleigh's conduct under that sentence only 
 regret and something akin to shame can be felt. 
 It had ever been his habit to make straight for his 
 goal, without too strict an examination into the 
 road he took to arrive at it ; and life being the 
 boon he now craved, he lowered himself into the 
 dust to obtain it. It was not so much, as some one 
 has pointed out, that he feared death he could 
 meet that gallantly enough as that he loved life. 
 (152)
 
 CONDUCT UNDER CONDEMNATION 153 
 
 A poet has his weaknesses as well as his strength, 
 and imagination takes effect in different ways. 
 Death and life are simple terms, but the meanings 
 attached to them are infinitely varied. To Raleigh 
 life still meant limitless possibilities, which he 
 could not bring himself to relinquish without a 
 struggle ; nor did any sacrifice seem too great 
 for the attainment of his object. This is the 
 explanation of the fashion in which he pleaded his 
 cause, if not the excuse for it. That he himself 
 repented his self-abasement is evident from the 
 instructions he gave his wife to obtain, if possible, 
 possession of the letters in which he had sued for 
 his life. " God knows," he wrote, " that it was 
 for you and yours that I desired it. But it is true 
 I disdain myself for begging it." 
 
 Those letters to Cecil, to the Commissioners, 
 to the King display one aspect of that many- 
 sided, contradictory nature. To another witness 
 is borne, not only by the " Pilgrimage/' be- 
 lieved to have been written when death seemed 
 imminent, but by his farewell letter to his 
 wife one which may well be permitted to 
 blot out the memory of those he desired to 
 recall. 
 
 "My love I send you," he wrote, "that you 
 may keep it when I am dead ; and my counsel, 
 that you may remember it when I am no more. 
 I would not, with my last will, present you with
 
 154 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 sorrows, dear Bess. Let them go to the grave 
 with me, and be buried in the dust And seeing 
 it is not the will of God that ever I shall see you 
 in this life, bear my destruction gently, and with 
 a heart like yourself." Nor is she to mourn too 
 long. He is sorry he leaves her and his boy no 
 richer ; it may be well for her to marry again . 
 "Remember," he goes on, "your poor child for 
 his father's sake, that comforted you and loved 
 you in his happiest times. ... I cannot write 
 much. God knows how hardly I stole this time, 
 when all sleep ; and it is time to separate my 
 thoughts from the world. Beg my dead body, 
 which living was denied you. ... I can write no 
 more. Time and death call me away. . . . My 
 true wife, farewell. Bless my poor boy ; pray for 
 me. My true God hold you both in his arms. 
 Written with the dying hand of sometime thy 
 husband, but now (alas !) overthrown. Yours that 
 was ; but now not my own, W. RALEIGH." l 
 In the verses written at this same time, 
 
 Whilst my soul, like quiet palmer, 
 Travelletb towards the land of heaven, 
 
 his thoughts reverted to the iniquitous travesty 
 of a trial which he had just undergone, and he 
 drew a picture of another and a different court of 
 justice, 
 
 1 Transcript, Dom. Correxp. , James, Rolls House.
 
 THE "PILGRIMAGE" 155 
 
 Where no corrupted voices brawl ; 
 
 No conscience molten into gold. 
 
 No cause deferr'd, no vain-spent journey, 
 
 For there Christ is the King's Attorney, 
 
 Who pleads for all without degrees, 
 
 And He hath angels, but no fees. 
 
 And when the grand twelve million jury, 
 
 Of our sins, with direful fury, 
 
 Against our souk black verdicts give 
 
 Christ pleads His death and then we live. 
 
 The bitterness of death had been tasted to the 
 full before the royal clemency was exercised, 
 James's course being marked by the wanton 
 cruelty of a man who tortures his victims for 
 his own amusement. Those who were to have 
 suffered first Markham, Grey and Cobham 
 were one by one led out to the scaffold, Raleigh 
 watching the scene from his prison window ; 
 and, one by one, were removed, Markham being 
 promised a respite of two hours ; Grey informed 
 that the order of execution was changed and 
 Cobham was to die first ; while after the latter 
 had been likewise confronted with the block all 
 three lives were granted. To make the farce 
 complete, only the presence of the royal comedian 
 was wanting. 
 
 The death sentence having been commuted in 
 the case of those whose treason had been proved, 
 it was clearly impossible that Raleigh should be 
 executed, and in December he was sent back to 
 the Tower.
 
 156 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 The actual crisis over, it became necessary, 
 whether or not he was ever again to enjoy his 
 freedom, that he should take thought for a means 
 of living and of providing for his wife and child. 
 Reprieved but not pardoned, he therefore now 
 turned his attention to these matters. As con- 
 victed of treason, he was civilly dead and stripped 
 of all offices and emoluments. His patent for the 
 licensing of wines had passed to Nottingham, 
 who was so little content with his acquisition, 
 lucrative as it was, that he sought to recover for 
 his own use arrears due to the Raleighs. The 
 Lieutenancy of Cornwall, the Wardenship of the 
 Stannaries, the Government of Jersey, with all 
 remaining posts, had gone into other hands. But 
 Sherborne was still left; having, as it was hoped, 
 escaped confiscation owing to a conveyance by 
 which it had been previously settled by Raleigh 
 on his son. 
 
 The vicissitudes of this estate would be sufficient 
 to fill a chapter in themselves ; but it is enough to 
 say that, owing to a technical flaw, the deed was 
 pronounced worthless in law ; and the property 
 upon which Raleigh had expended so much care 
 and money was eventually given by the King 
 to his rapacious favourite. " I must have the 
 land I must have it for Carr," he is said to have 
 told Lady Raleigh when she made her entreaty 
 to him to spare her child's inheritance. One
 
 CAPTIVITY 157 
 
 could have wished that Raleigh had not stooped 
 to make a like petition to the favourite himself. 
 " I beseech you," he wrote, " not to begin your 
 first buildings upon the ruins of the innocent." 
 It is scarcely necessary to say that his pleading 
 was vain ; but the property, lost to Raleigh as it 
 was, did not remain long in the hands of its new 
 master, since before the former owner quitted the 
 Tower, the Earl of Somerset had likewise found a 
 lodging there. 
 
 In the event, a certain inadequate sum allowed 
 to Lady Raleigh in consideration of her interest in 
 the estate prevented the family from falling into 
 absolute destitution ; and that Raleigh was not, 
 like some of the men whose condemnation he had 
 shared, left actually penniless must be attributed 
 to Cecil, by that time Earl of Salisbury. The re- 
 lations of the two men are throughout perplexing ; 
 but although overmuch weight cannot be attached 
 to the language of confidence and gratitude ad- 
 dressed by the Raleighs to one whose goodwill it 
 was so important to propitiate, the expressions to 
 be found in their letters are too strong not to be 
 accepted as implying a certain amount of service 
 rendered, as well as of benefits hoped for ; while 
 it would also appear that, on Raleigh's side at 
 least, some remnant of the old affection lingered 
 as is shown when, after an angry interview with 
 Cecil, he told Sir Walter Cope that he would have
 
 bought the Secretary's presence "at a far dearer 
 rate than those sharp words." J In his treatment 
 of men by whom lie had been wronged as, 
 notably, in the case of Essex there was often 
 apparent a species of careless generosity, distinct 
 from magnanimity, and arising, it may be, from 
 a comparatively low estimate of human nature, 
 and a consequent indulgence for the frailties to 
 which it is prone. To this, as well as to the 
 practical importance of keeping on good terms 
 with Cecil, his condonation of the conduct of the 
 latter may have been partly due. 
 
 Had it been based upon motives of interest 
 alone one would believe that he must have wearied 
 of keeping up the vain show of friendship ; for in 
 the Tower, with one short interval, when he was 
 removed to the Fleet, on the occasion of a royal 
 visit to the Tower for the purpose of witnessing 
 the worrying of a lion by a couple of mastiffs, the 
 next twelve years of Raleigh's life were passed 
 years which turned him into an old man, broken 
 in health though never in spirit, nor ever resigned 
 to his fate or abandoning the hope of retrieving 
 his fallen fortunes. 
 
 It was no wonder if during that long captivity 
 
 his health gave way. The conditions of the place 
 
 were not such as conduce to health of body or 
 
 mind. During his first year of imprisonment 
 
 1 Sir Walter Cope, Archceologia.
 
 ;; 
 
 THE TRAITORS GATE
 
 OCCUPATIONS IN THE TOWER 159 
 
 Raleigh was writing to complain that his boy 
 Lady Raleigh, with her child, had come to share 
 her husband's lot had " lain these fourteen days " 
 next door to a woman sick of the plague and whose 
 child had died of it. And even when the plague 
 was gone, the damp and cold of his prison so told 
 upon his health that in 1606 his physician, advising 
 that his patient should be moved to some warmer 
 room, reported that his left side was numbed, and 
 his fingers and, to some degree, his tongue were 
 contracted. 
 
 All these drawbacks notwithstanding, the pri- 
 soner's lot was not without alleviations. Those 
 brought into constant communication with him 
 could not remain insensible to the attraction of 
 his personality. Even previous to his trial the 
 young sons both of Sir John Peyton and Sir 
 George Harvey, successively Lieutenants of the 
 Tower, had been won over to play into his hands ; 
 and Sir George himself was now anxious to do 
 what he could to lighten his captivity, surrender- 
 ing in particular for his use his own private garden ; 
 where Raleigh, turning it into a laboratory, erected 
 a furnace and carried on the experiments in 
 chemistry which at this time afforded his principal 
 means of distraction. There he discovered the art 
 of condensing fresh water from salt, and prepared 
 the balsams and invented the drugs which gained 
 a wide reputation. One or two patients, it is true,
 
 160 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 are said to have died after taking his medicines ; 
 but no one thought the less of his skill for that. 
 
 There were, however, results of his leisure of 
 more moment to posterity than the preparation of 
 that " balsam of Guiana " which the Comtesse de 
 Beaumont, coming to visit the lions, begged from 
 the prisoner as she passed him in the garden, or 
 the contents of that multitude of jars and phials 
 which were said to contain " all the spirits in the 
 world except the Spirit of God." For it is to this 
 period that not only most of his shorter prose writ- 
 ings, many and various, belong, but also his greatest 
 literary achievement of all, The History of the World. 
 
 In one sense of less value, at least to the or- 
 dinary reader, than the verses, few in number, to 
 which he himself attached so little importance, this 
 work bears marvellous witness alike to the genius, 
 the indomitable energy and the infinite industry 
 of a man who, already past his prime and worn with 
 sickness and sorrow, could set his hand to the task. 
 
 In the preface the writer himself recognises and 
 apologises for the magnitude of an undertaking 
 attempted by one "in whom had there been no 
 other defect (who am all defect) than the time of 
 day, it were enough ; the day of a tempestuous life 
 drawn on to the evening before I began." But it 
 was as natural to Raleigh to set no work beyond 
 his powers as it was to " labour terribly " at what- 
 soever he undertook.
 
 HISTORY OF THE WORLD 161 
 
 Of the scope and extent of the task to which he 
 had addressed himself the preliminary survey of 
 his subject contained in the preface gives a measure. 
 There he deals, with his wonted beauty of language 
 and style, full of dignity and grace, with history as 
 a whole, from the creation onwards ; with God's 
 righteous judgments executed upon kingdoms and 
 princes and dynasties ; and with the retribution 
 which follows upon the shedding of blood ; adding 
 illustrations drawn from the times of Pharaoh and 
 of Jezebel down to those of the Tudor kings, 
 interspersed with fulsome flattery of the reigning 
 sovereign, James, " who, as well in divine as human 
 understanding, hath exceeded all that fore-went 
 him by many degrees " a tribute which might 
 surely have opened to the author of it the doors of 
 his prison ! Passing on, he proceeds to describe 
 and refute the Aristotelian theory of the universe, 
 and concludes with the promise of other volumes 
 to follow that now presented to the public. From 
 the customary flattery of the reader he declares 
 himself to forbear, since "all the hope I have lies 
 in this, that I have already found more ungentle 
 and uncourteous readers of my love towards them, 
 and well deserving of them, than ever I shall do 
 again. For had it been otherwise," he adds with 
 pardonable bitterness, " I should hardly have had 
 this leisure to have made myself a fool in print." l 
 
 i Preface to History of the World. 
 11
 
 162 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 Of the body of the great work thus ushered in, 
 it must suffice to quote the summary given by Mr. 
 Stebbing, where he says that " its true grandeur is 
 in the scope of the conception, which exhibits a 
 masque of the Lords of the Earth . . . rioting in 
 their wantonness and savagery, as if Heaven cared 
 not or dared not interpose, yet made to pay in the 
 end to the uttermost farthing of righteous justice." l 
 
 For one quotation, however, from the closing 
 sentences of the book, space must be found. To 
 those to whom life means most, who are most, in 
 the fullest sense of the word, alive, death, the 
 end of all mortal activities, is sometimes an even 
 more haunting presence than to others. And this 
 would seem to have been the case with Raleigh. 
 As Dr. Hannah has pointed out in his preface to 
 Raleigh's collected poems, not a few of them might 
 have been written in immediate anticipation of the 
 end. Again and again the reiterated note of the 
 vanity of human existence is struck. 
 
 What is our life ? The play of passion. 
 Our mirth ? The music of division : 
 Our mothers' wombs the tiring houses be, 
 Where we are dressed for life's short comedy. 
 The earth the stage ; Heaven the spectator is, 
 Who sits and views whosoe'er doth act amiss. 
 The graves which hide us from the scorching sun 
 Are like drawn curtains when the play is done. 
 Thus playing post we to our latest rest, 
 And then we die in earnest, not in jest. 
 
 1 Life of Ralegh, p. 878.
 
 HISTORY OF THE WORLD \6S 
 
 And the eloquent panegyric of that same King 
 of Terrors of whose sovereignty he had so abiding a 
 consciousness, with which he concludes his History 
 of the World, may well serve as an example of the 
 gifts of language and force for which his prose is 
 distinguished. There he apostrophises great Death 
 Death "that puts into man all the wisdom of 
 the world, without speaking a word ; which God 
 with all the words of his Law, promises or threats, 
 doth infuse. Death, which hateth and destroyeth 
 man, is believed ; God, which hath made him and 
 loves him, is always deferred. / have considered 
 (saith Solomon) all the works that are under the sun, 
 and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit ; but 
 who believes it till Death tells it us ? ... It is 
 therefore Death alone that can suddenly make 
 man to know himself. . . . O eloquent, just and 
 mighty Death ! whom none could advise, thou 
 hast persuaded ; what none hath dared, thou hast 
 done ; and whom all the world hath flattered, 
 thou hast cast out of the world and despised : 
 thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched great- 
 ness, all the pride, cruelty and ambition of man, 
 and covered it all over with these two narrow 
 words, Hie jacet." 
 
 Published in 1614, the book at once achieved 
 the popularity to which the eleven editions printed 
 during the succeeding hundred years bear witness ; 
 but the portions of the work which were to have
 
 164 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 followed were never written ; or, if written, were 
 as tradition has sometimes asserted destroyed ; 
 and the great achievement, monumental as it is, 
 remains incomplete. 
 
 Of other shorter writings, some unquestionably 
 his own, others of more uncertain authorship, 
 many are attributed to this period of captivity. 
 Among them are disquisitions moral, political, 
 practical and metaphysical ; but of all Raleigh's 
 less important prose works two only The Truth of 
 the Fight about the Isles of the Azores, and The Dis- 
 covery of Guiana were printed during his lifetime, 
 the first having had for its object the commemoration 
 of his kinsman's heroic death, the second designed 
 to further his own schemes with regard to Guiana. 
 
 It was well that Raleigh should have possessed 
 the outlet afforded by literature for the super- 
 abundant energy which was no longer permitted 
 to find it in other directions. But while it is 
 difficult to deny the assertion that to his mis- 
 fortune his reputation owes its greatest lustre, it 
 must be admitted that he paid heavily for the 
 position he was to occupy in the eyes of posterity ; 
 and that, in spite of the resources afforded by his 
 strenuous intellectual activity, life must have been 
 a wearisome business to a man so little fitted to 
 be caged up within stone walls. 
 
 Presently, too, the suspicion got abroad that 
 Harvey was making things too pleasant for his
 
 TREATMENT IN THE TOWER 165 
 
 involuntary guest. With Lady Raleigh lodging in 
 the Tower, with little Walter and the new baby 
 who had come to share the family disasters, for 
 companions, and with the kindly lieutenant doing 
 what he could to soften their captivity, it was per- 
 haps apprehended that a fair chance was not being 
 afforded to the prisoner of acquiring that humility 
 which it was so desirable that he should learn ; 
 and his inveterate enemy, Henry Howard now 
 Earl of Northampton when writing later on to Carr 
 that the " lawless liberty of the Tower " was having 
 a bad effect on its inmates, added that, in particular, 
 Raleigh's boldness, pride and passion were in no 
 way lessened by confinement. 
 
 Whatever might be the reason, the treatment 
 he received was curiously varied, his fetters being 
 at times suddenly tightened, as if new evidence of 
 guilt was shortly expected to justify fresh severity 
 in the eyes of the world. It was when the attempt 
 was further made to prove his implication in the 
 Gunpowder Plot that the prisoner's endurance 
 seems to have been in most danger of giving way. 
 Sick in body and distressed in mind, he even lost 
 patience with his wife, telling Cecil, in a letter 
 dealing with the old subject of the Sherborne 
 property, that he would be made more than weary 
 of his life by Lady Raleigh should nothing be done 
 in that matter. " She hath already," he adds, 
 "brought her eldest son in one hand, and her
 
 166 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 sucking child in another, crying out of her and 
 their destruction, charging me with unnatural 
 negligence, and that having provided for mine own 
 life I am without sense and compassion of theirs." 1 
 
 The outburst of irritation may be forgiven to a 
 man harassed beyond bearing. For eight out of 
 the twelve years spent in the Tower he was to 
 be subjected to the petty tyranny of Sir William 
 Waad, one of those who had occupied a place on 
 the bench at his trial, and by whom the kindly 
 Harvey had been replaced. Finding affairs in the 
 Tower arranged little to his liking, his own garden 
 appropriated to the prisoner's use, and the prisoner 
 showing himself to the people who collected out- 
 side in such a fashion and with such a bearing 
 that he might be supposed rather to have been 
 cleared of guilt than to remain charged with it, 
 Waad promptly set himself to introduce improve- 
 ments by imposing fresh restrictions of various 
 kinds ; while at one time a more serious step was 
 taken and Lady Raleigh was forbidden to lodge in 
 the Tower. On this occasion, however, Raleigh 
 made a protest which seems for once to have been 
 effective, his wife being readmitted to "this un- 
 savoury place " " a miserable fate for her, and yet 
 great for me, who in this wretched estate can hope 
 for no other thing than peaceable sorrow." 
 
 Yet all this time through these interminable 
 1 Cecil Papers, Hatfleld.
 
 HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES 167 
 
 years Raleigh's hopes survived. Nor were they 
 wholly unfounded, for he had achieved a certain 
 foothold in the very citadel of the enemy. Henry, 
 Prince of Wales, had, under his mother's influence, 
 become a participator in Queen Anne's admiration 
 for her husband's great victim ; and upon his at- 
 tachment Raleigh may well have founded anti- 
 cipations of ultimate rehabilitation. The boy sat 
 metaphorically at the feet of the captive, claimed 
 his assistance in the matter of shipbuilding, was 
 his constant advocate with James, and sought 
 his counsel upon the scheme for marrying him to 
 the daughter of the Duke of Savoy ; upon which 
 last occasion Raleigh's advice, unhesitatingly hostile 
 to any such alliance, must have served as an 
 unwelcome reminder to Spain that her old enemy 
 was still alive and to be reckoned with. 
 
 That the wife and the heir of the King were 
 bent upon his release may well have justified 
 Raleigh's hopes. In 1612, too, Lord Salisbury's 
 death notwithstanding the language in which 
 both had striven to disguise their estrangement 
 had seemed to remove an obstacle from the way 
 of their realisation ; since Raleigh can scarcely 
 have failed to accuse Cecil in his heart of con- 
 nivance at least in his prolonged captivity. In 
 November of that same year, however, his sanguine 
 anticipations were dashed to the ground. 
 
 It was reported that Prince Henry had at last
 
 168 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 wrung from his father the promise that Raleigh's 
 liberty should be granted at the approaching 
 Christmas ; but before that date he was attacked 
 by a malignant fever which it was soon clear was 
 likely to prove fatal. On the morning before his 
 death the Queen, in her despair, demanded from 
 Raleigh the elixir to which she believed herself 
 to have once owed her own life ; and the prisoner, 
 sending it, added a boast that unless the Prince's 
 disease was the result of poison, a cure would 
 certainly be effected. After an animated discus- 
 sion between the physicians and the Lords of the 
 Council, the drug was administered, the Prince, 
 after receiving it, rallying so far as to regain power 
 of speech. But the improvement was only tem- 
 porary, and the life of such supreme importance 
 to Raleigh quickly passed away. 
 
 With the Prince vanished all present hope of 
 release, and Raleigh remained as close a prisoner 
 as before, in no way benefited by the past advocacy 
 of the King's unloved son ; while James's hostility 
 may have been still further embittered by the 
 suspicion of poison suggested by his message. The 
 gates of the Tower were at any rate shut as firmly 
 as ever upon himself and the rest of the hetero- 
 geneous company assembled there upon Grey, 
 the Puritan ; McCarthy, the Irish patriot and poet ; 
 poor weak Arabella Stuart, whose only crime was 
 her royal blood ; Northumberland, " the Wizard
 
 INMATES OF THE TOWER 169 
 
 Earl," cultivated and courtly, making love to 
 whomsoever was thrown in his way by fate, and 
 at the same time investing "his prison with the 
 atmosphere of a university " ; Cobham, miserable 
 and false, of whom even the wife who had loved 
 him had grown weary ; Sir Thomas Overbury, soon 
 to die of poison, in spite of the plasters supplied by 
 Raleigh ; to all of whom was shortly to be added 
 James's infamous favourite, Carr, Earl of Somerset, 
 and his wife.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 1616-1618 
 
 Release Terms of it Preparations for Expedition to Guiana 
 Spanish ambassador, Gondomar Project for sack of 
 Genoa Negotiations with France The Guiana ex- 
 pedition Walter Raleigh's death Failure Return to 
 England. 
 
 ON the 19th of March, 1616, the Tower gates 
 were opened and Raleigh, if not a free 
 man, was at least at liberty to leave his prison 
 and to live, under the eye of a keeper, in his own 
 house. 
 
 His release was the result neither of a tardy 
 justice, nor of generosity, nor of compunction, 
 but, in one form or another, of gold of hard cash 
 judiciously applied on the one hand, and on the 
 other of the hope of more. 
 
 All through the years of his captivity Raleigh 
 had cherished his dreams of exploration and dis- 
 covery of an England, after his many failures, 
 still to be founded beyond the seas ; and of the 
 wealth awaiting those who should have boldness 
 and enterprise enough to make it their own in 
 (170)
 
 PROJECTS OF EXPLORATION 171 
 
 Guiana and Virginia, of both of which he had been, 
 in the technical sense of the word, the discoverer. 
 
 Continually he had sued for permission to pursue 
 his schemes in person, and continually had been 
 refused it. In vain he had offered hostages for 
 his good faith in his wife and two sons ; and had 
 demanded that his crew should be given orders to 
 throw him into the sea should he seek to divert 
 the expedition to any other goal than the legiti- 
 mate one. Any pledge that might be required 
 from him he was ready to give. More, he was 
 willing, if necessary, to abandon the hope of lead- 
 ing the enterprise in person, sending Keymis as 
 his deputy and at his own cost ; his freedom to be 
 the prize in case of success. Expeditions on a 
 small scale he had continued to despatch, thus 
 keeping himself in the memory of the nation, 
 and Guiana before the eyes of the public. 
 
 So far, however, his entreaties had been fruitless. 
 Salisbury had listened, had seemed to approve ; 
 had then retired into his " arriere-boutique" and had 
 done no more ; and Raleigh had been forced to 
 see the years slip by with nothing accomplished. 
 
 At last, however, a change came. Some of his 
 enemies were dead, others out of favour. Salisbury 
 was gone, Somerset in prison, Northampton and 
 his venomous hate were buried together ; while 
 those who filled their places Sir Ralph Winwood, 
 now Secretary, in particular were inclined to listen
 
 172 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 more favourably to his proposals. Other men, too, 
 less honest and more interested than Winwood, their 
 imaginations catching fire from his own, were led to 
 indulge visions of fabulous riches to be obtained, 
 should the great sea-captain be permitted to lead the 
 quest ; whilst bribes, skilfully applied, set the con- 
 nections of the King's new favourite, Villiers, at 
 work to open the prison doors. 
 
 So, presently, all these various influences com- 
 bining for the same end, the word went forth 
 that Raleigh not even now pardoned was to be 
 set free to seek his fortune and the fortune of 
 King and courtiers in those regions in which he 
 was so confident of finding it. 
 
 All England it is scarcely too much to say, all 
 Europe watched the great adventurer as his prison 
 doors swung back to let him pass out. Friendly 
 and unfriendly eyes were alike fixed upon him. 
 Spain in particular was intent upon her scrutiny, 
 knowing, as she had good reason to know, that it 
 was her arch-enemy who was thus set loose ; France 
 would willingly have secured him as a friend ; 
 and lesser states Denmark, Savoy, Venice had 
 all their own interest in the matter. Raleigh's 
 name, whether to friend or foe, was a force in it- 
 self. Of that force James had determined to make 
 use, retaining over its possessor the power of life 
 and death, to be used as the result should prove 
 most advantageous to himself.
 
 RELEASE 173 
 
 Raleigh's first act on recovering partial liberty 
 was to survey the changes which had taken place 
 in London during his incarceration. His next 
 scarcely more than a week after he had left the 
 Tower was, by arranging for the building of the 
 ship Destiny, to initiate his preparations for the 
 coming enterprise. 
 
 He had ever been a gambler, and he was as 
 ready as before to risk all, and more than all, that 
 he possessed upon the venture ; stripping himself 
 and his wife of such remnants of property as they 
 retained, and borrowing additional sums besides. 
 
 When all was done it is said that not more than 
 a hundred pounds remained ; but desperate as was 
 the game, it was one after Raleigh's own heart ; 
 and even had not liberty, if not life itself, been at 
 stake, no sacrifice would have seemed to him too 
 great to ensure success. 
 
 Nor can it be doubted that he expected to succeed. 
 To those indeed who, looking back, know the end, 
 it may be true that, as Mr. Stebbing has said, the 
 spectacle of his confidence is among the most 
 pathetic tragedies in history. But there is another 
 aspect of the matter. Though hope deferred may 
 make the heart sick, the malady is but a trifle com- 
 pared with that of having nothing to hope for ; 
 and disappointment, viewed aright, is only the pay- 
 ment, already overdue, for anticipation. So that, 
 in spite of the sequel, Raleigh may not after all
 
 174 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 have come off the loser ; and we may at all events 
 be justified in believing that this year of liberty 
 after long confinement, of renewed activity after 
 enforced idleness, of excitement after the deadly 
 quiet of a prison, was not devoid of its special 
 happiness. 
 
 Expressly forbidden to resort either to court or, 
 without special permission, to any public assembly, 
 Raleigh must nevertheless have been much before 
 the public in the narrow limits of the London of 
 his day, as he passed to and fro attending to his 
 business a man aged and broken in health, but 
 with his interest in life as keen as ever and his re- 
 putation greater, so that men pressed eagerly into 
 his service, anxious to take part in the expedition 
 he was to lead. 
 
 Among the volunteers were many of rank and 
 position mostly, one would believe, young men 
 to whom he must have represented rather a tradi- 
 tion than an actuality ; though some old comrades 
 still remained, ready to serve under him once more. 
 But the mass of his followers were unhappily of a 
 different stamp and little fitted, by his own account, 
 to bring the enterprise to a prosperous conclusion, 
 being " drunkards, blasphemers and others, as their 
 fathers, brothers and friends thought it an exceed- 
 ing good gain to be discharged of." l 
 
 One person, looking vigilantly on at Raleigh's 
 1 Apology for the Voyage to Guiana.
 
 THE COUNT OF GONDOMAR 175 
 
 preparations, was destined to play too important a 
 part in the tragedy that followed to be passed over 
 without special mention. This was the Spanish 
 ambassador, Sarmiento, afterwards Count of Gon- 
 domar. Through the examination of Spanish 
 archives it has been proved by Raleigh's latest 
 biographer "that it was with no desire to inflict 
 punishment for the injury actually done on the 
 last Guiana voyage, that led Gondomar to hound 
 Raleigh to death, for he was practically condemned 
 before he sailed, but to serve as an object lesson to 
 England that all South America, at least, belonged 
 to Spain." : 
 
 Times were changed since the days of Elizabeth. 
 To be at peace with Spain and to enjoy her friend- 
 ship was James's cherished ambition, to ensure the 
 fulfilment of which he would have sacrificed far 
 more than the life of his greatest subject. And 
 both as ambassador and personally, Gondomar was 
 of the last importance at the English court, the 
 place he filled there being indicated by a letter of 
 the year 1622, written from Madrid, in which he 
 tenders his thanks to James for having admitted 
 him a Spaniard not only to his Privy Council, but 
 to his private closet itself. 
 
 Such being the place he enjoyed in the royal 
 confidence, it is no longer startling to find that 
 
 1 Martin Hume, Life of Raleigh, preface, pp. 18, 18.
 
 176 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 though, according to Raleigh's son, James had 
 promised, " on the word of a King," to keep secret 
 the programme of the scheme, with details and 
 chart, with which Raleigh had been required to 
 furnish him, a full account of what was intended, 
 together with a copy of the official report on the 
 strength of the fleet which was to take part in the 
 expedition, was forthwith transmitted to Madrid. 
 Nor must it be forgotten how heavily Raleigh was 
 handicapped by the existence of an informer in the 
 person of his own sovereign. 
 
 That Gondomar was justified in feeling distrust 
 may freely be admitted. The ambition of Eliza- 
 beth's old sea-captain was not likely to be limited 
 to a search for gold. Steeped in the traditions of 
 a past age, the rights of England over Guiana and 
 Virginia were articles of his life's creed ; and in 
 the case at least of the first were in direct opposi- 
 tion to the Spanish claim to exclusive political 
 possession. In spite, therefore, of the King's pledge 
 that all those taking part in the expedition should 
 be bound over, on pain of death, to peaceable 
 behaviour, conflict must have been clearly possible, 
 if not inevitable. 
 
 At one time, indeed, it had seemed likely that 
 a blow might be struck at Spanish interests nearer 
 home ; information being sent by the Venetian 
 envoy to his Government of a scheme by which it 
 was proposed to utilise Raleigh's preparations for
 
 PROJECTED ATTACK ON GENOA 177 
 
 the purpose of seizing on Genoa always subservi- 
 ent to Spain and appropriating its wealth. Even 
 James, it seems, aware of the project, for a time 
 " liked it well." But the plan came to nothing. 
 The sack of Genoa would certainly not have con- 
 duced to the furtherance of James's principal ob- 
 ject, an alliance with Spain, and the idea, if ever 
 seriously entertained, was abandoned. 
 
 Raleigh would no doubt have been as ready 
 for such a venture as for any other, and it may 
 well be that, in his anticipations, memories of the 
 old privateering successes which had so often been 
 combined with more legitimate exploits played a 
 part. " Before he went, having conference with 
 some great Lords, his friends, who told him that 
 they doubted he would be prizing if he could do 
 it handsomely 'Yea/ saith he, 'if I can light 
 right on the Plate fleet you will think I were mad 
 if I should refuse it.' To whom they answering, 
 ' Why then you will be a pirate.' ' Tush,' quoth 
 he, ' my Lord, did you ever hear of any that was 
 counted a pirate for taking millions ? ' " 1 Which, 
 whether or not, as has been suggested, made 
 in jest, was an apt enough retort. 
 
 Whatever side issues or possibilities he may have 
 contemplated, however, there can be no doubt 
 that his main object was that which he avowed ; 
 
 1 State Papers, Domestic, James J. The "great Lords" are 
 elsewhere said to represent Bacon. 
 12
 
 178 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 and by August the commission was signed which 
 empowered him to voyage to those parts of America 
 possessed by savage tribes, and to bring thence 
 commodities profitable for home use. By these 
 generalities was of course understood the gold 
 mine on the banks of the Orinoco visited by him 
 in former days. 
 
 Gondomar had from the first opposed the scheme ; 
 but, assuming gold to be the object, he now went 
 so far as to promise protection to a mining expedi- 
 tion should it go unescorted by an English military 
 force. It was not surprising that Raleigh declined 
 the offer. To have confided his fortunes to Spanish 
 honour would have been suggestive of too childlike 
 an innocence. 
 
 Over the negotiations between Raleigh and 
 another Power some obscurity hangs ; but it seems 
 certain that communications took place between 
 himself and the Comte des Marets, French am- 
 bassador to St. James'. According to the latter, 
 Raleigh, discontented as he might well be with 
 the treatment he had received, professed himself 
 in the course of conversation ready, should his 
 present venture prove successful, to transfer his 
 services to France. Whether or not the envoy's 
 account of what had passed had any foundation in 
 fact, it is not likely that such a step was ever 
 seriously contemplated by Raleigh ; and, as Mr. 
 Stebbing suggests, the exchange of empty compli-
 
 RALEIGH STILL UNPARDONED 179 
 
 ments more probably constituted the groundwork 
 on which the report was based. The object of 
 some further negotiations appears to have been per- 
 mission to use French ports as shelter for Spanish 
 prizes ; while it also seems to have been intended 
 that French ships should meet and co-operate with 
 Raleigh's own. Whatever arrangements were 
 made, Winwood, and probably the King, were 
 aware of them, though it was convenient to the 
 latter to keep himself in the background. 
 
 Meantime all was ready for the departure of the 
 expedition. It was doubtless a singular anomaly 
 that its commander-in-chief, holding the King's 
 commission and entrusted by it with power of life 
 and death over the King's subjects, by the exercise 
 of martial law, should leave England himself an 
 unpardoned man and with the halter still round 
 his neck ; but so it was. Had he had more cash 
 to spare for bribes a full pardon might probably 
 have been added to the liberty he had already 
 purchased. It is reported, on the authority of his 
 son, that Bacon was responsible for the advice to 
 save money he could ill spare, together with the 
 assurance that his commission constituted a pardon 
 in itself. Whether or not so high a legal authority 
 committed himself to this opinion, Raleigh neg- 
 lected the precaution of obtaining a formal pardon, 
 and left England still holding his life merely at 
 the King's pleasure.
 
 180 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 Another Walter Raleigh was also going to his 
 doom. His son and namesake was the captain of 
 the Destiny. 
 
 Early in April, 1617, Raleigh, with a fleet of 
 seven ships, afterwards doubled, left the mouth of 
 the Thames. By an unfortunate series of accidents, 
 however, the start was delayed for some months, 
 and it was not until after the middle of August 
 that Cork was finally left behind. To a delay so 
 prejudicial to his chances of success we owe an 
 incident too characteristic to be omitted. While 
 detained by contrary winds at Cork he was in- 
 terrogated by Lord Boyle, then in possession of 
 Raleigh's former Munster estates, concerning a lease 
 granted by him in earlier days to a certain Pine, 
 whose conduct had formerly caused considerable 
 annoyance to Raleigh himself. The opinion he 
 gave was unfavourable to Pine's present claim. But 
 not long afterwards, when death was near, he was 
 troubled by a fear that his judgment had been 
 overhasty, and one of his last acts was to beg that 
 the evidence should be revised. 
 
 On August 19th the final start was made. 
 Orders for the fleet had been drawn up, de- 
 scribed by a contemporary as unprecedented in 
 their "godly, severe, and martial government," 
 while, looking at them from another point of view, 
 they prove as conclusively as the " ordnance, 
 121 pieces," mentioned in the official report by
 
 THE EXPEDITION STARTS 181 
 
 their constant reference to "the enemy" that con- 
 flict was openly acknowledged to be likely. 
 
 By September 6th, Lancerota, one of the Great 
 Canaries, had been reached ; and it was here that 
 Raleigh's first difficulty in connection with Spain 
 occurred. The natives, in expectation of the ar- 
 rival of a fleet of Barbary corsairs, and mistaking 
 the English for Turks an error in which the better 
 informed governor was careful to leave them set 
 upon a party which had been disembarked in search 
 of provisions, and killed or wounded several of the 
 men. Raleigh found himself in a difficulty. The 
 Englishmen were eager to avenge their comrades ; 
 but, aware of the King's predilections and also 
 knowing that his enemies were on the watch to 
 make out a case against him, he dared not permit 
 a return of hostilities and left the vicinity as 
 speedily as might be. His course was doubtless 
 wise, but notwithstanding the forbearance he had 
 shown, a captain under his command one Bailey 
 seized upon the pretext afforded by the unpro- 
 voked struggle to desert, sailing home with a 
 report of piratical proceedings on the part of his 
 admiral a story so flagrantly at variance with the 
 truth that, eager as were his enemies to accept 
 any evidence to Raleigh's discredit, it failed to 
 obtain credence until the ill-success of the expedi- 
 tion made its leader fair prey for any slander, 
 however ill-founded. Even now the incident was
 
 182 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 utilised by Gondomar for the purpose of obtaining 
 fresh pledges from James, Sir Thomas Lake ex- 
 pressing, on the King's behalf, his great sorrow 
 for "the atrocious wickedness" perpetrated in the 
 Canaries, and likewise conveying to Gondomar in 
 writing Viscount Fenton's explicit assurance that 
 his Majesty was very disposed and determined 
 against Raleigh, and would join the King of Spain 
 in ruining him, though the resolution was to be 
 kept for the time secret. 
 
 Meanwhile at Gomera, one of the smaller Canaries, 
 the single piece of good fortune of the voyage had 
 befallen the fleet, the governor's wife proving to 
 be partly of English blood and anxious to testify 
 her goodwill by presents ; while the governor 
 himself volunteered to send home his appreciation 
 of the blameless conduct of the English sailors. It 
 was well to make the most of this last gleam of 
 good luck. From thenceforth all went ill. Sick- 
 ness broke out on board the ships, carrying off 
 officers as well as men, among them Raleigh's own 
 valued servant, Talbot "as faithful and true a 
 man," said his master, "as ever lived. I lost him 
 to mine inestimable grief." l John Pigott, Lieu- 
 tenant-General of the land service, was also a 
 victim, Raleigh himself being presently struck 
 down with fever. Calms had succeeded the tem- 
 pestuous weather encountered at first, and the 
 1 Journal, Oott. MS.
 
 ARRIVAL AT CAYENNE 183 
 
 voyage took more than double the usual time ; so 
 that it was not till the middle of November that 
 Cayenne harbour was reached, and that Raleigh 
 was able to send his wife an account of all that 
 had been endured during the voyage. 
 
 " Sweet Heart/' he said, " I can yet write unto 
 you but with a weak hand, for I have suffered the 
 most violent calenture, for fifteen days, that ever 
 man did, and lived : but God that gave me a 
 strong heart in all my adversities, hath also now 
 strengthened it in the hell-fire of heat." Notwith- 
 standing all misfortunes he still hoped to perform 
 that which he had undertaken if, as he adds 
 bitterly, "the diligent care at London to make 
 our strength known to the Spanish King by his 
 ambassador" have not barred the way. One com- 
 fort he could at least afford to the unfortunate wife 
 and mother the last that was to reach her in 
 the assurance that " your son had never such good 
 health." The Indians too had been found faithful 
 to the tradition of loyalty to Raleigh. "To tell 
 you that I might be here King of the Indians were 
 a vanity ; but my name hath still lived among them. 
 . . . All offer to obey me." 
 
 It was clear that Raleigh, exhausted by sick- 
 ness, was not in a condition to take personal 
 command of the exploring party; nor would it 
 have been desirable that he should, in any case, 
 relinquish to another the charge of the fleet the
 
 184 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 safety of which was so essential to a retreat. It 
 was therefore resolved that, with the five larger 
 ships, he should remain at Trinidad ; an equal 
 number of the lesser vessels, with Keymis as 
 guide, proceeding up the Orinoco to seek the 
 mine which was the object of the expedition. 
 
 Sir Wareham St. Leger, Raleigh's lieutenant, 
 being likewise disabled by sickness, his place was 
 filled by George Raleigh, nephew to Raleigh ; his 
 son Walter commanding the land forces. On 
 Keymis rested the responsibility of finding the 
 mine. 
 
 The hazardous nature of the enterprise, more 
 especially taking into account the character of the 
 men engaged in it, must have been patent to 
 all. That a Spanish settlement existed in Guiana 
 was known, its precise locality remaining uncer- 
 tain ; and wherever Spaniards were encountered 
 it would be as enemies. So much might be as- 
 sumed. Whether or not a struggle was inevitable, 
 Raleigh could not fail to regard one as probable, 
 and 400 soldiers and sailors accompanied the party, 
 prepared to repel force by force. If possible, how- 
 ever, the mine was to be reached without a fight. 
 Keymis, for his part, had orders, should it not prove 
 rich enough to be worth the holding, to confine 
 himself to carrying off some samples of ore, as evi- 
 dence that the design had been genuine. In 
 effecting a landing caution was to be used, " for I
 
 FIGHT AT SAN THOME 185 
 
 know," wrote the admiral, " a few gentlemen ex- 
 cepted, what a scum of men you have. And I 
 would not, for all the world, receive a blow from 
 the Spaniards to the dishonour of our nation." 
 For his own part, dead or alive, Raleigh would be 
 found awaiting the return of the party, either with 
 his ships or their ashes ; " for I will fire, with the 
 galleons, if it come to extremity; never will I run," 
 he added, referring to a possible attack on his little 
 fleet, which, considering the detailed information 
 forwarded to Spain, might well seem not im- 
 probable. 
 
 On December 10th the expedition set out. By 
 the 31st it had reached the Spanish town, San 
 Thome, built on the banks of the river, from 
 which they were fired upon as they passed. The 
 following day they landed, with the intention of 
 resting for the night before starting in search of 
 the mine. Such, at least, was Raleigh's account 
 of the matter, differing in some respects from that 
 of a contemporary Spaniard, who asserted that 
 the landing was made below the town, against 
 which the English forces had deliberately marched. 
 It seems at any rate clear that the fight was ini- 
 tiated by the Spaniards, who fell upon the English 
 soon after dark ; the latter, though surprised, re- 
 pulsing the enemy and pursuing them as far as 
 the town itself, where the battle was renewed. 
 It was here that young Raleigh fell. " Fonder of
 
 186 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 glory than safety," the boy had slain one of the 
 enemy's captains, when he was himself shot ; and 
 still pressing forward, in spite of his wound, was 
 struck down by the butt-end of a musket, and, 
 crying out, " Go on ! Lord have mercy upon me 
 and prosper your enterprise," died. 
 
 The fight ended in the success of the English, the 
 governor himself losing his life in the engagement, 
 and the town remaining in the hands of the victors. 
 
 The way might now have seemed clear to the 
 mine, according to Keymis's calculations not more 
 than eight miles distant ; but a week elapsed 
 before any attempt to reach it was made ; and 
 when at length a couple of launches set out, an 
 ambuscade awaited them, nine men were killed 
 or wounded, and Keymis, losing heart altogether, 
 declined to prosecute the search. Honest and 
 faithful as he was, the disasters which had befallen 
 the enterprise had broken his spirit. Walter was 
 dead ; Walter's father, left sick at Trinidad, might 
 well be also dead or dying ; and under the cir- 
 cumstances he refused the responsibility of pro- 
 ceeding farther. After another futile attempt 
 on the part of George Raleigh to reach the 
 goal, the party therefore retraced their steps, 
 having lost some 250 men, fired the town, and 
 acquired a certain amount of spoil. The venture 
 upon which Raleigh had staked his all had resulted 
 in absolute failure.
 
 YOUNG RALEIGH'S DEATH 187 
 
 Before the return of the explorers to the fleet, 
 Keymis's letter, telling of his son's death, had been 
 received by Raleigh. How that news affected 
 him is to be learnt, not only in the mention of it 
 in his letter to Winwood also dead before it 
 reached him to whom he said that with the 
 tidings of his loss " all respect of this world hath 
 taken end in me," but in that other letter surely 
 one of the saddest ever written in which, though 
 not till five weeks later, he communicated the 
 tidings to the boy's mother. 
 
 " I was loath to write," he says, " because I 
 knew not how to comfort you ; and, God knows, 
 I never knew what sorrow meant till now. . . . 
 Comfort your heart (dearest Besse), I shall sorrow 
 for us both. I shall sorrow the less, because I 
 have not long to sorrow, because not long to live." 
 She is to refer to Winwood's letter for details. 
 " I have written but that letter, for my brains are 
 broken, and it is a torment to me to write, and 
 especially of misery." He would willingly die, 
 heartbroken with failure, had it not been for her 
 sake. " If I live to return, resolve yourself that 
 it is the care of you that hath strengthened my 
 heart." 
 
 When that letter was written, another tragedy 
 had taken place ; which, though dwarfed by the 
 overwhelming sorrow which had preceded it, must 
 have been hard enough in itself to bear. It was
 
 188 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 the death, under peculiarly painful circumstances, 
 of Lawrence Keymis. 
 
 Keymis, befriended by Raleigh almost from 
 boyhood, had remained loyal to him ever since. 
 His allegiance had never faltered, and Raleigh 
 had repaid his service with absolute trust. Nor 
 had his confidence been misplaced. But when, 
 on March 2nd, the exploring party brought back 
 its confession of failure and disaster, Raleigh, 
 heartbroken and wasted with sickness and anxiety, 
 every hope shattered, received the man to whom 
 the mission had been entrusted with bitter re- 
 proaches, telling him he had "undone him and 
 wounded his credit with the King past recovery." 
 How the upbraiding of his master must have 
 struck home to the heart of the faithful servant 
 it is not difficult to imagine. A day or two later 
 the end came. Bringing the letter of excuse he 
 had addressed to the Earl of Arundel one of 
 Raleigh's sureties he begged the latter to read 
 it and to forgive him ; and on Raleigh's sternly 
 refusing to endorse his explanations, repeating 
 that "he had undone him by his obstinacy, and 
 that he would not favour or colour in any sort 
 his former folly," he asked whether that was his 
 resolution ? On Raleigh's replying in the affirma- 
 tive he answered, " I know l then, sir, what course 
 to take." What that course was, was presently 
 1 According to the Apology, " I know not," etc.
 
 RETURN TO ENGLAND 189 
 
 shown. Half an hour later Keymis was found 
 stabbed to the heart by his own hand, having 
 first made an ineffectual effort to shoot him- 
 self. 
 
 Whatever Raleigh felt he gave no expression to 
 his grief. "My brains are broken/' he repeated 
 to his wife, " and I cannot write much. I live 
 yet, and I have told you why." 1 
 
 On Raleigh's movements between leaving the 
 Indies and arriving in England much light has 
 been thrown by the discovery among the Spanish 
 papers by Major Martin Hume of two letters 
 addressed by him from Plymouth to his old friend, 
 Lord Carew. According to this account, his in- 
 tention of returning to make a second attempt in 
 Guiana being frustrated by the desertion of two 
 of his captains, and discovering further a plot on 
 the part of his crews to possess themselves of a 
 ship and to turn pirates on their own account, 
 he decided to set sail at once for England a plan 
 which, in spite of the opposition offered by the 
 mutineers, was carried out. He was aware, he 
 added, he had himself been charged with piratical 
 intentions accusations refuted by his present ac- 
 tion, since " at the manifest peril of my life " 
 from the mutineers " I have brought myself and 
 my ship to England ... for even death itself 
 shall not make me turn thief and vagabond, nor 
 1 Copy in Harl. MS. , British Museum.
 
 190 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 will I ever betray the noble courtesy of the several 
 gentlemen who gave sureties for me." 
 
 By June 21st Plymouth was reached. Raleigh 
 had received warnings which indeed cannot have 
 been needed that danger awaited him at home. 
 But ill and heart-broken, he can scarcely have had 
 spirit to keep up the fight with fate. His wife and 
 remaining child were in England and his word was 
 pledged. To have broken it would have been to 
 break faith with Arundel and Pembroke, his sure- 
 ties. A King might play the traitor, but not a 
 Raleigh. So he went back to meet his enemies. 
 They were ready for him.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 1618 
 
 Arrest Journey to London Attempted escape The 
 Tower again Commission of examination Course 
 pursued Execution granted The last night The 
 scaffold Summary. 
 
 JAMES would join the King of Spain in ruining 
 Raleigh. The explicit assurance offered to 
 Gondomar epitomises the situation as regards 
 the man who, wrecked in fortune and in health, 
 had returned to face his enemies, to become their 
 prey, and at the same time to win over them 
 his singular victory for all time. 
 
 Gondomar, soon after the arrival of the Destiny, 
 had left England, carrying with him Buckingham's 
 written pledge that as much severity should be 
 exercised towards the adventurers " as if they had 
 done the like spoil in any of the cities of Eng- 
 land," with the additional promise that, should 
 it seem best to his sovereign, they should be sent 
 to receive their punishment in Madrid. He might 
 well be satisfied ! Raleigh's doom was practically 
 sealed. 
 
 (191)
 
 192 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 Already, indeed, he had been judged and con- 
 demned. In June, while, yet upon the high seas, 
 he was incapable of making any defence, James 
 had, in a proclamation, denounced the events at 
 San Thome as scandalous and enormous outrages, 
 declaring his " detestation of the said insolencies " 
 and charging all his subjects to give evidence in 
 the matter, in order that the guilty might be 
 brought to punishment. The rest of Raleigh's 
 history is contained in the fashion after which 
 that punishment was contrived and inflicted. 
 
 The first step was clearly to gain possession of 
 the person of the chief culprit no difficult task, 
 since he had by his return invited capture. The 
 Vice-Admiral of Devon, a kinsman of Raleigh's 
 own, Sir Lewis Stukeley rechristened, by rough 
 public justice, Sir Judas was charged with the 
 arrest ; and meeting Raleigh, with his wife and 
 Captain King a companion of the voyage on 
 their way to London, brought the party back to 
 Plymouth in order that the Destiny, with what- 
 ever was on board her, might be seized. 
 
 Stukeley proved at first so careless a jailer that 
 it has been surmised that, with or without the con- 
 nivance of the authorities, he would not have been 
 unwilling that his prisoner should escape. The 
 idea did, in fact, suggest itself to Raleigh, who 
 since the King's proclamation can have entertained 
 little doubt as to the issue of a trial ; and with
 
 PROJECTS OF EVASION 193 
 
 King's assistance it was arranged that a French 
 vessel lying off the town should take him across 
 the Channel. 
 
 In accordance with this plan the two rowed out 
 one night to sea ; but when the ship was almost 
 reached Raleigh turned back. Whether it was 
 that hope had revived, making a free and honour- 
 able future at home seem possible, or that even 
 his brave spirit shrank from the prospect of an old 
 age passed as a refugee and a stranger in a foreign 
 land, the project was abandoned, to be resumed 
 too late to be carried into effect. 
 
 To the journey to London a disagreeable incident 
 belongs. A Frenchman named Manourie, at once 
 a quack and a Government spy, had been added to 
 the party ; of this man's services Raleigh made 
 use when at Salisbury to produce symptoms of 
 serious disease ; while the patient, by counter- 
 feiting madness, gained time by the delay to 
 draw up the statement of his case afterwards 
 called the Apology for the Voyage to Guiana, Al- 
 luding later on to the incident, Raleigh ascribed 
 the deception to his desire to obtain an interview 
 with James, then expected at Salisbury ; but what- 
 ever may have been his motive the whole affair 
 was a discreditable one. 
 
 Flight having been once more determined upon, 
 Lady Raleigh had meantime proceeded with Captain 
 King to London, there to make arrangements for 
 13
 
 194 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 it; and on Raleigh's arrival he was permitted to 
 reside at his own house, the Government, duly ap- 
 prised by Manourie of his intention of evasion, 
 being not unwilling that he should put himself in 
 the wrong by the attempt French agents had 
 met him with offers of assistance, which, however, 
 he had courteously declined, preferring to dispense 
 with foreign aid. By means of bribery he believed 
 himself to have gained over Stukeley ; and with 
 his help, that of King and one or two former de- 
 pendants, he hoped, unsuspecting of the atmo- 
 sphere of treachery by which he was surrounded, 
 to make his escape. King was, in fact, the single 
 honest man engaged in the undertaking, Stukeley 
 appearing to take quite singular satisfaction in the 
 work of betrayal, and adding little gratuitous 
 touches to increase the dramatic completeness of 
 the performance. 
 
 On Friday, August 7th, Raleigh had reached 
 London. On the following day the cautious 
 Stukeley, still in charge of the prisoner, obtained 
 a warrant authorising connivance on his part at 
 the attempt to escape. Sunday night, therefore, 
 he, with his son, a page, and Raleigh himself, 
 met King, accompanied by the men he had en- 
 gaged and two wherries, at the Tower Dock ; 
 when Stukeley, warming to his work, asked King 
 " whether thus far he had not distinguished him- 
 self an honest man," receiving in return King's
 
 RECAPTURE 195 
 
 ambiguous reply to the effect " that he hoped he 
 would continue so." 
 
 The sight of a boat apparently following his 
 own raised some apprehensions in Raleigh's mind ; 
 but Stukeley, "cursing and damning himself" 
 for venturing his fortunes with a man so full 
 of doubts, succeeded for the time in persuading 
 the fugitive that all was well ; and it was not 
 till Woolwich had been passed that suspicions 
 of treachery, though limited to the watermen, 
 suggested themselves to Raleigh. A mile farther 
 on those suspicions were verified. Ordering his own 
 boat to be turned about, the pursuing wherry was 
 met, and Raleigh, even then confiding in Stukeley's 
 good faith, declared himself his prisoner, the traitor 
 embracing him " with the greatest tenderness " 
 and with many protestations of fidelity. 
 
 Only when the whole party, captors and 
 fugitives alike, had landed at Greenwich did the 
 true state of the case at last become apparent to 
 Raleigh ; when King heard him address to the 
 man who had betrayed him the single reproach 
 which is on record. " Sir Lewis," he said, " these 
 actions will not turn out to your credit." 
 
 To King, who had remained obstinately faithful, 
 in spite of Raleigh's own advice to declare himself 
 a sharer in Stukeley's plot, he observed as the two 
 parted at the Tower, each in custody, that his 
 subordinate need fear no danger ; " but as for me,
 
 196 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 I am the mark that is shot at." After which 
 King, forced to quit his master, left him " to His 
 tuition," as he afterwards said, "with Whom I do 
 not doubt that his soul resteth." 
 
 So far all had gone as Raleigh's enemies desired. 
 Not only had he been made prisoner, but had been 
 detected in the act of attempting to escape. His 
 death was a foregone conclusion ; but the process 
 by which it should be brought about had yet to be 
 determined. During the weeks that followed his 
 committal to the Tower no effort was spared to 
 collect such evidence concerning recent events as 
 would justify their being visited with the extreme 
 penalty. But unexpected difficulties occurred. 
 Intentions of piracy never carried into effect were 
 hard to prove, and even if proved were scarcely 
 sufficient; the negotiations with France, out of 
 which capital was sought to be made, had likewise 
 had no result, while of some of them at least the 
 King and Council had been cognisant. Nor could 
 Raleigh be held criminally responsible for the offer 
 which he had declined of the French agents to 
 assist him in his escape. There remained the 
 central question of the expedition, and of the 
 collisions with Spanish subjects which had taken 
 place in the course of it But here again facts 
 were hard to deal with satisfactorily. 
 
 Subservient as the court had become to Spain, 
 the sentiments of the English nation could not be
 
 GROUNDS FOR CONDEMNATION 197 
 
 wholly overlooked ; and unless the Spanish claims 
 to rights over Guiana, as well as over the rest of 
 South America, were admitted, it would be difficult 
 to convict Raleigh of a capital offence in resisting 
 force by force. Should, on the other hand, those 
 Spanish claims be allowed, the action of James 
 himself, in permitting the attempt to discover and 
 work a mine in foreign territory was obviously 
 open to question. That the Government had been 
 aware of the existence of a Spanish settlement 
 could scarcely be denied ; any more than the 
 proof afforded by the force that Raleigh had been 
 permitted to take out, of a recognition on the part 
 of the authorities of the possibility, at least, of a 
 struggle. It was therefore no easy matter to 
 discover, in recent events, the necessary pretext 
 for Raleigh's execution, and at one time there 
 were those to whom his fate still seemed un- 
 certain ; while the Queen, now by direct appeals 
 to her husband, now through the influence of 
 Buckingham, was exerting herself to the utmost 
 to save him. But James's word had been pledged 
 to Spain and for once he meant to keep it. 
 
 The simple method of examination of the 
 prisoner producing little result, Sir Thomas Wilson, 
 Keeper of the State Papers, was placed in charge 
 of him, that he might gain his confidence and 
 entangle him in his talk ; while letters passing 
 between Raleigh and his wife were intercepted
 
 198 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 in the hope that they might supply additional 
 evidence. All was, however, in vain and it was 
 clear that other means must be taken. What was 
 the mode of procedure finally decided upon has 
 been summarised by Oldys : " As he must be put 
 to death they found a way ... by making this 
 last action at St. Thome the efficient cause, but 
 the obsolete condemnation at Winchester, fifteen 
 years ago, the nominal cause of his destruction ; as 
 a course whereby both the law would be judicially 
 satisfied, and the title be left, for fear of displeasure, 
 undecided." 
 
 Seeing that the prisoner was already, by virtue 
 of the Winchester sentence, " civilly dead," trial by 
 jury was declared to be in law impossible. Two 
 alternatives were therefore offered by the Com- 
 missioners who had been appointed to examine 
 him for the King's adoption either the issue, 
 simultaneously with a warrant for his execution 
 on the old conviction, of a printed exposition of 
 his recent offences which should afford a moral 
 justification for the punishment awarded ; or else 
 and to this course the Commissioners inclined to 
 summon him before the whole Council, judges 
 being also present, together with a fit audience of 
 gentlemen of rank and position, and to charge him 
 with his late offences ; in order that, the case against 
 him being thus heard, the Lords of the Council and 
 the judges should decide whether warrant for his
 
 LEGAL PROCEEDINGS 199 
 
 execution might " with justice and honour " be 
 granted. 1 
 
 Mr. Spedding, quoting this document, draws 
 attention to the fact that the Commissioners, by 
 the partial publicity thus recommended, proved 
 their own confidence in the strength of the case. 
 Against this evidence of fair play must be set 
 James's reply. With a certain brutal candour he 
 confessed plainly that, to call the prisoner publicly 
 before the Council, "We think it not fit, because 
 it would make him too popular, as was found by 
 experience at Winchester, where by his wit he 
 turned the hatred of men into compassion of him." 2 
 
 He was therefore to be called only before his 
 previous examiners ; the result of former examina- 
 tions was to be read and he himself to be heard in 
 his own defence ; after which the long suspended 
 sentence would be pronounced, the warrant receive 
 the royal signature, and Raleigh would die by 
 virtue of the sentence passed fifteen years ago. 
 It was this plan, with some modifications, which 
 was ultimately carried out. 
 
 No complete account of the proceedings by 
 which Raleigh's fate was finally decided remains. 
 Awakened at eight in the morning on October 28th, 
 while suffering from an attack of ague, he was 
 summoned to appear before the King's Bench at 
 Westminster. There the old Winchester conviction 
 1 Gibson Papers. 2 Fortescue Papers.
 
 200 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 was read, and Yelverton, the Attorney-General, 
 called for execution ; observing, somewhat rhetor- 
 ically, that the prisoner " hath been a star at which 
 the world hath gazed, but stars may fall, nay, they 
 must fall when they trouble the sphere wherein 
 they abide." Chief Justice Montagu, too, prefaced 
 the granting of execution with a lengthy exhorta- 
 tion. Raleigh, he said, had given proof of courage 
 and wisdom, and now was the time for the exercise 
 of these virtues. His faith had been called in 
 question ; but having read his book the Chief Jus- 
 tice was convinced of his Christianity which must 
 have been a comfort to the prisoner at the bar. 
 Sorrow, he proceeded, also dealing in rhetoric, 
 would not, in some kind, avail him, " for were you 
 pained, sorrow would not ease you ; were you af- 
 flicted, sorrow would not relieve you ; were you 
 tormented, sorrow would not content you ; and 
 yet the sorrow for your sins would be an everlasting 
 comfort to you." Raleigh, he added, was to fear 
 death neither too much nor too little, so might 
 God have mercy on his soul. 
 
 Raleigh listened, one might almost believe, with 
 a smile, to the lay preacher who was to conclude 
 the sermon by the order of his judicial murder. 
 He was little in need of an exhortation to courage. 
 If he had loved life he had never feared death, 
 nor was he likely to play the coward now. Per- 
 haps certainty had even brought with it a reaction,
 
 CONDEMNED AND SENTENCED 201 
 
 after the long strain of suspense. At any rate, 
 meeting on his way from Westminster to the Gate 
 House an old acquaintance, Sir Hugh Beeston, he 
 gave him cheerful greeting. 
 
 " You will come to-morrow morning ? " he asked, 
 inviting him to the last pageant in which he himself 
 would take a part ; adding, " I do not know what 
 you may do for a place. For my own part I am 
 sure of one. You must make what shift you can." 
 
 To his cousin, Francis Thynne, come to the prison 
 to take farewell, he spoke in such jesting fashion 
 that the visitor was moved to remonstrance. 
 
 " Do not carry it with too much bravery," he ad- 
 vised . " Your enemies will take exception if you do. 
 
 " It is my last mirth in this world," Raleigh pleaded. 
 " Do not grudge it to me. When I am come to 
 the sad parting you will see me grave enough." 
 
 Tounson, Dean of Westminster, sent to prepare 
 him for the end, marvelled at the gay and gallant 
 bearing of the man he had come to strengthen 
 against the last enemy. " When I began to en- 
 courage him against the fear of death," he said, 
 " he seemed to make so light of it that I wondered 
 at him. When I told him that the dear servants 
 of God, in better causes than his, had shrunk back 
 and trembled a little, he denied it not. But yet 
 he gave God thanks he had never feared death." 1 
 
 There was, nevertheless, one parting, before 
 1 Tounson to Esham.
 
 202 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 that final one of which he had spoken to Thynne, 
 which must have been difficult to face. That 
 evening his wife came to bid him a last farewell, 
 the hope to which she had so long clung wrenched 
 from her grasp. During that hour of converse he 
 spoke of the vindication of his fame, which, should 
 he be denied the privilege of speech upon the scaffold, 
 would remain her charge. Of Carew, his boy, it is 
 said he would not speak. Silence was best. At the last 
 Lady Raleigh told him, with tears, of the poor con- 
 cession which was all she had been able to wring from 
 the Lords of the Council the possession of his body. 
 
 " It is well, dear Bess," he said gently, " that 
 thou mayest dispose of that dead which thou hadst 
 not always the disposing of when alive." And so 
 they parted. 
 
 When she was gone he set to work at his Testa- 
 mentary Note, to be left behind in case his mouth 
 should be shut upon the scaffold ; after which, it 
 is believed, he wrote the lines found in the Bible 
 given by him to Dr. Tounson. Well known as 
 they are, they must find a place here. 
 
 Even such ia time, that takes in trust 
 Our youth, our joys, our all we have, 
 And pays us but with earth and dust ; 
 Who, in the dark and silent grave, 
 When we have wandered all our ways, 
 Shuts up the story of our days. 
 But from this earth, this grave, this dust, 
 My God shall raise me up, I trust.
 
 EXECUTION 203 
 
 The next morning, very early, he received the 
 Holy Communion ; and was then taken to Palace 
 Yard, where the scaffold had been erected. Mount- 
 ing it cheerfully, he saluted those of his acquaint- 
 ance who were present, prefacing his speech with 
 the request that, should the intermittent fever to 
 which he was subject lay hold of him before the 
 end, the signs of it might be attributed to the true 
 cause and not to any dismay. 
 
 The misgivings he had felt lest the right of open 
 speech should be denied him were not realised. 
 For five and twenty minutes he spoke, while around 
 stood men enough of all classes to enable him to 
 feel that it was England itself that he was address- 
 ing. His mind was clear ; and so noble was his 
 bearing and the delivery of his vindication such, 
 that to the manner rather than to the matter of it 
 is its singular effect upon public opinion attributed 
 by Bacon's apologist. 1 Nor is it unlikely that it 
 was the man himself, tested in that supreme hour, 
 rather than the facts he reasserted, by whom the 
 victory was won. " He had formerly boasted that 
 he despised death. But his meditations in the 
 Tower had raised his mind to a still higher eleva- 
 tion, for his entertainment of it on the scaffold was 
 not with contempt, but rather with polite and 
 courtly welcome. Never was death by the public 
 
 1 J. Spedding, Lord Bacon s Letters and Life, vol. vi., pp. 
 372-73.
 
 204 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 executioner so completely cheated of its vic- 
 tory." l 
 
 The Earls of Arundel, Oxford and Northampton 
 stood in Sir Randolph Carew's gallery ; but on 
 Raleigh expressing a fear that his voice might not 
 reach them, they answered that they would come 
 down to him, and so did. And then Raleigh's 
 triumph began. He was no longer the brow- 
 beaten prisoner, sueing for pardon, anxious for 
 wife and child, the great schemes which still 
 seemed possible urging him on to mistaken ap- 
 peals. Certainty of death had already brought 
 with it death's great emancipation. But yesterday 
 James's victim, to-day his chains were already slip- 
 ping off. He was, to use his own words, "the 
 subject of Death, and the great God of Heaven was 
 his Sovereign." 
 
 Thanking God that He had brought him into the 
 light to die, he recapitulated the charges brought 
 against him, replying to them one by one, and 
 vindicating his loyalty to country and King. Once 
 more he asserted the good faith with which he had 
 set sail for Guiana, and with which he had of his 
 own free will come back to England ; he gave the 
 lie to the calumny which had charged him with an 
 ungenerous triumph over the dying Essex ; he ex- 
 posed the falsehood of Stukeley now, however, 
 
 1 J. Spedding, Lord Bacon's Letterg and Life, vol. vi. , pp. 
 372-73.
 
 EXECUTION 205 
 
 forgiven ; and he craved God's pardon for his many 
 sins committed as a sea-faring man, a soldier and 
 a courtier, all " courses of wickedness and vice " ; 
 and so took leave of those present, for " I have," 
 he said, "a long journey to take, and must bid the 
 company farewell." 
 
 As the executioner knelt for forgiveness he laid 
 his hands on the man's shoulders, freely granting 
 it. Then testing with his finger the edge of the 
 axe, he lifted and kissed the blade. 
 
 " It is a sharp and fair medicine," he said, smil- 
 ing, " to cure me of all my diseases." 
 
 When the fatal stroke should have been dealt 
 the executioner faltered. Twice Raleigh had given 
 the signal, and still the work was undone. Then, 
 for the last time, his voice was heard. 
 
 "What dost thou fear?" he asked. "Strike, 
 man, strike." 
 
 Thus admonished, the headsman did his duty. 
 The axe fell and all was over. 
 
 To some men it chances to live before their 
 time ; some come too late. The fate of each is a 
 hard one. Raleigh, on the contrary, unfortunate 
 in much, was supremely fortunate in belonging to 
 an eminent degree to his age. Many-sided as the 
 century in which the best part of his life was 
 passed, and gifted with a versatility which scarcely 
 finds a parallel in history, his brilliant intellectual
 
 206 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 endowments, his poetical gifts, his insatiable am- 
 bition alike personal and national his patriotism, 
 and above all his restless spirit of adventure, made 
 him the epitome of the England of his day. The 
 history of Walter Raleigh, during the reign of Eliza- 
 beth, is the history of England in brief. 
 
 In his nature elements not commonly found in 
 conjunction were welded together. He was alike 
 speculative and practical, credulous and shrewd. 
 With an honourable uprightness which compelled 
 recognition from his opponents, it has been seen 
 that he was nevertheless capable upon occasion of 
 subordinating principle to interest, and that the 
 pride for which he was so noted did not prevent 
 him from stooping to acts which would have been 
 scorned by lesser men. It is difficult, passing his 
 life in review, to bring him into harmony with 
 himself to reconcile the man of high honour 
 with the circumstances attending his marriage 
 or with his dealings with Irish foes ; the 
 gallant leader of forlorn hopes by land and sea, 
 who again and again looked death in the face 
 without flinching, with the prisoner abasing himself 
 to the dust to obtain from his enemies the boon 
 of life ; the sagacious thinker and statesman with 
 the gambler by whom his entire fortune would be 
 staked upon the issue of a venture ; the advocate 
 of religious toleration with the eager sharer in a 
 priest-hunt ; the poet and the philosopher with
 
 SUMMARY 207 
 
 the seeker after gold. But hardest of all is it to 
 reconcile with the author of the magnificent and 
 scathing denunciations of evil in high places con- 
 tained in the "Soul's Errand," and its fearless 
 challenge to dignitaries temporal and spiritual, the 
 man who could bring himself, apparently without 
 effort, to pander as grossly as any of her other 
 courtiers to Elizabeth's diseased vanity, who could 
 fawn on a James or a Cecil, and could make his 
 appeal to a Carr. 
 
 Say to the court it glows 
 
 And shines like rotten wood, 
 Say to the church it shows 
 
 What's good and doth not good. 
 If court and church reply 
 Then give them both the lie. 
 
 If potentates reply 
 Give potentates the lie. 
 
 Alas, Raleigh rarely gave it, either to court, 
 church, or potentate ! And yet there can be no 
 doubt that he expressed his genuine scorn for 
 the network of falsehood and unreality which, 
 with a philosopher's insight as well as a poet's 
 indignation, he discerned all around him a scorn, 
 it may well be, only the more bitter because of his 
 consciousness that he himself sinning against 
 light was involved in its meshes. "He was a 
 man," it has been said, "with a higher ideal than 
 he attempted to follow ; " l and the words give 
 1 R. W. Church's Spenser, p. 162.
 
 208 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 the key to many of the contradictions he presents. 
 He knew the right and disdained the wrong ; yet 
 often, and with apparent absence of scruple, he 
 chose the lower path, as if subscribing to two 
 different moral codes the one the result of con- 
 science and imaginative faculties combined ; the 
 other representing a rough and ready compromise 
 which, accepting the world as it was, permitted 
 the game of life to be played according to the 
 rules in common use. Only at the great crises of 
 life, and above all on the scaffold as if some such 
 supreme test was necessary to eliminate the alloy 
 did the higher nature completely vindicate its 
 superiority to the baser elements with which it 
 was united. " If the law destroy me," he wrote 
 on one occasion to James, " your Majesty shall put 
 me out of your power ; and I shall have then none 
 to fear, none to reverence, but the King of Kings." 1 
 It was as if, an involuntary prophet, he was fore- 
 telling the conditions upon which alone he would 
 win that ultimate emancipation. 
 
 In the conciliation of public opinion he was 
 never over careful. It is perhaps to this fact that 
 his lack of popularity was partly due. For while 
 few names have been held in so much honour by 
 posterity, it has been shown that among his con- 
 temporaries he won but scant affection. His wife 
 passionately loved him ; some few comrades and 
 1 Cecil Papers, Hatfield.
 
 SUMMARY S09 
 
 dependants would have given their lives for him ; 
 and, amongst women, Anne of Denmark, queen of 
 his arch-enemy James, and Lady Pembroke re- 
 mained faithful to him to the end. But Elizabeth, 
 whom he had loyally served and whose favourite 
 he was, seems never, judged by her actions, to 
 have completely trusted him ; amongst the men 
 with whom he mixed there is scarcely one, outside 
 his own kinsfolk, with whom he can be said to 
 have stood on terms of enduring affection ; by his 
 single intimate friend, Cobham, as well as by his 
 familiar associate, Cecil, he was betrayed ; while 
 stranger still is the evidence afforded by the con- 
 duct of the infuriated rabble on the occasion of his 
 trial at Winchester as to the sentiments with which 
 he was regarded by the lower classes of his country- 
 men. 
 
 He has had his revenge. If he was not loved by 
 the men of his own day, posterity has made the 
 balance even. His faults and failings have been 
 forgotten, and only his brilliant gifts and the 
 services he rendered his country remembered. And 
 they have been well remembered. So strong and 
 commanding was his individuality, that looking 
 back across the centuries his figure stands out as 
 distinctly as when his contemporaries feared, hated 
 and plotted against him, Elizabeth by turns loved 
 and mistrusted him, his comrades played him false, 
 and Spain clamoured, not in vain, for his blood. 
 14
 
 210 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 His name is scarcely less familiar to Englishmen 
 now than then. "God has made nobler heroes," 
 said Robert Louis Stevenson, " but he never made 
 a finer gentleman than Walter Raleigh." Whether 
 the estimate is right or wrong there can be no 
 doubt that it expresses the general verdict.
 
 IN DEX 
 
 Albert, Archduke, 138. 
 Anderson, Chief Justice, 144. 
 Anjou, Duke of, 28. 
 Anne of Denmark, Queen, 167, 
 
 !68. 
 Antonio, Don, King of Portugal, 
 
 49- 
 
 Arabella Stuart, 137, 140, 145, 168. 
 Aremberg, Comte d', 138, 139. 
 Ark Ralegh, The, 31. 
 Armada, the Invincible, 44-47. 
 Arundel, Lord, 190, 204. 
 " Atheisme, Sir Walter Ralegh's 
 
 School of," 76. 
 Aubrey's Lives, 35, 135. 
 Azores, fight about the Isles of 
 
 the, 62. 
 
 Babington, Anthony, his estates 
 granted to Raleigh, 29. 
 
 Bacon, Lord, anecdote in Apo- 
 phthegms, 5; 37, 134, 177 note, 
 179. 
 
 Bagot, Anthony, Essex's friend, 
 
 Beaumont, Comtesse de, 160. 
 
 Beeston, Sir Hugh, 201. 
 
 Blount, Sir Christopher, 107, 116, 
 117, 118. 
 
 Blount, Charles, 42. 
 
 Borough, Sir John, 67. 
 
 Boyle, Lord, purchaser of Ra- 
 leigh's Irish estates, 180. 
 
 Brooke, George, charges Raleigh 
 with treason, 137, 138. 
 
 Brownist Sect, Raleigh advo- 
 cates toleration towards, 75. 
 
 Buccaneering enterprises, 31, 48, 
 49i 123- 
 
 Budleigh Salterton, Raleigh's 
 birthplace, i. 
 
 Burghley, Lord, 15, 29. 
 
 " Bye" Plot, 137. 
 
 Cadiz, fight and victory at, 91 sqq, 
 
 Carew, Sir Peter, 4. 
 
 Carew, Sir George, Raleigh's 
 letter to, 51 ; 97. 
 
 Carr, Robert, Earl of Somerset, 
 156, 157, 169. 
 
 Catholic disaffection, 45. 
 
 Cayenne, Raleigh at, 183. 
 
 Cecil, Sir Robert, Raleigh's letter 
 to, 63; 69, 72, 77; friendship 
 with Raleigh, 99 sq. ; sharer in 
 privateering enterprises, 123 ; 
 intrigues with James, 127 ; Ra- 
 leigh's secret enemy, 129, 130; 
 at Winchester at Raleigh's 
 trial, 145 sqq. ; remains of old 
 affection, 159. 
 
 Champernoun, Henry, 6. 
 
 Cobham, Lord, friendship with 
 Raleigh, no; Raleigh's letter 
 to him, 122; accuses Raleigh, 
 140; retracts his charges, 141; 
 in the Tower, 141, 142, 143 ; 
 quoted at Winchester, 146 ; re- 
 prieved, 155. 
 
 Coke, Attorney-General, at Win- 
 chester, 145 sqq. 
 
 Del Oro, massacre of, 20. 
 
 Desmond, James, 18. 
 
 Destiny, the, 173. 
 
 Devonshire, Earl of. (See Lord 
 Mountjoy.) 
 
 Drake, Joan, 2. 
 
 Drake, Admiral, 45, 48. 
 
 Durham House, leased to Ra- 
 leigh, 28 ; deprived of it, 136. 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, dealings with 
 the Huguenots, 6, 7 ; her popu- 
 larity and character, 26, 27, 28 ; 
 anger at Raleigh's marriage, 65,
 
 212 
 
 INDEX 
 
 66 ; scene with Essex, in ; 
 failing health and last years, 
 120, 13i, 122, 123, 124 ; her death, 
 131, 132, 133. 
 
 Essex, Robert Devereux, Earl of, 
 36 ; his character and gifts, 37 ; 
 dislike for Raleigh, 38, 39; his 
 jealousy, 42, 43 ; challenges 
 Raleigh, 50 ; his marriage, 57 ; 
 Cadiz expedition, 89, 92, 93 ; 
 Island Voyage, 102 sqq. : made 
 Lord Marshal, 109 ; quarrel with 
 the Queen, in ; in Ireland, 112; 
 fall and execution, 113-19. 
 
 Faunt, Nicholas, 79. 
 Fayall, attack on, 104 sqq. 
 France, Raleigh's service in, 8. 
 Frobisher, 67. 
 
 Gawdy, Justice, 144. 
 
 Genoa, project for sack of, 177. 
 
 Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, Raleigh's 
 half-brother, n, 12; his death, 
 32- 
 
 Gomera, Raleigh at, 182. 
 
 Gondomar, Diego Sarmiento de 
 Acufia, Count of, Spanish am- 
 bassador, 175, 176, 191. 
 
 Gorges, Sir Arthur, 70 ; his ac- 
 count of Island Voyage, 102. 
 
 Gorges, Sir Ferdinandp, 117, 118. 
 
 Grenville, Sir R., 47 ; his death, 62. 
 
 Grey, Lord, of Wilton, 20, 21, 22, 
 137- 
 
 Guiana, first expedition to, 78, 
 80-86 ; second expedition to, 171 
 Mf. 
 
 Guiana, Apology for Voyage to, 
 193. 
 
 Hannah, Dr., on Raleigh's poems, 
 162. 
 
 Harvey, Sir George, Lieutenant 
 of the Tower, 159, 164. 
 
 Hatton, Sir Christopher, 28, 41. 
 
 Hayes Farm, Raleigh's birth- 
 place, i, 3. 
 
 Hele, Serjeant, atWinchester, 145. 
 
 Henry, Prince of Wales, 167, 168. 
 
 History of tht World, 160, 161, 
 162, 163, 164. 
 
 Howard of Effingham, Lord 
 (afterwards Earl of Notting- 
 ham), 81, 89, 109, IJ6. 
 
 Howard, Lord Henry (afterwards 
 Earl of Northampton), his en- 
 mity to Raleigh, 128, 129 ; at 
 Winchester, 145. 
 
 Howard, Lord Thomas (after- 
 wards Earl of Suffolk), 93, 102 ; 
 at Winchester, 144. 
 
 Indian affection for Raleigh, 183. 
 Island Voyage, 102 seq. 
 
 James, King, accession, 134 ; first 
 meeting with Raleigh, 135 ; 
 desire for peace with Spain, 175 ; 
 betrays Raleigh's schemes, 176 ; 
 his enmity, 191 ; denounces 
 attack on San Thome, 192 ; con- 
 duct with regard to Raleigh's 
 trial, 199. 
 
 Keymis, Captain, 86 ; with Ra- 
 leigh on last expedition, 184 ; 
 suicide, 188, 189. 
 
 Kildare, Lady, 128, 129. 
 
 King, Captain, 192, 194, 195, 196. 
 
 Lancerota, Raleigh at, 181. 
 
 Lauriers de Nassau, Les, Ra- 
 leigh's notes in, 95. 
 
 Leicester, Robert Dudley, Earl of, 
 10, 29, 41. 
 
 Lennox, Duke of, sent by James 
 to London, 125. 
 
 Lismore Castle, 53. 
 
 Madre de Dios, capture of the, 71 . 
 
 Manourie, Guillaume, French 
 quack, 193. 
 
 Mardts, Comte de, French am- 
 bassador, 178. 
 
 Markham, Sir Griffin, 137, 155. 
 
 McCarthy, in the Tower, 168. 
 
 Montagu, Chief Justice, 200. 
 
 Mountjoy, Lord, commissioner at 
 Winchester, 145. 
 
 North Hall, the Queen's visit to, 
 
 39- 
 Northampton, Earl of. (See Lord 
 
 Henry Howard.) 
 Northampton, William Compton, 
 
 Earl of, 904.
 
 INDEX 
 
 213 
 
 Northumberland, Earl of, 168. 
 Nottingham, Earl of. (See Lord 
 Howard of Effingham.) 
 
 Ormond, Earl of, 17. 
 
 Overbury, Sir Thomas, in the 
 
 Tower, 169. 
 Oxford, Earl of, n, 13. 
 Oxford, Raleigh at, 5. 
 
 Palace Yard, 203. 
 Pembroke, Earl of, 190. 
 Perrot, Sir Thomas, 15. 
 Peyton, Sir John, Lieutenant of 
 
 the Tower, 159. 
 Phillips, Serjeant, at Winchester, 
 
 145. 
 Pigott, John, Lieutenant-General 
 
 of Raleigh's forces in Guiana 
 
 expedition, 182. 
 Pilgrimage, The, Raleigh's poem, 
 
 153, 154- 
 Popham, Lord Chief Justice, 144. 
 
 Raleigh, George, 184, 186. 
 
 Raleigh, Lady, Elizabeth Throg- 
 morton. relations with Raleigh, 
 60 ; date of marriage, 64 ; letter 
 to Cecil, 81 ; Raleigh's farewell 
 letter to, 153; pleads to James, 
 156; in the Tower, 159, 165; 
 Raleigh's letter on the death of 
 their son, 183 ; last parting, 202. 
 
 Raleigh, Walter, the younger, 
 birth, 74 ; captain of the Desttny, 
 180; death, 185, 186. 
 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, birth, i ; 
 childhood and boyhood, 1-4 ; at 
 Oxford, 5 ; service in France, 
 6; back in England, 10; early 
 friendships, 11 ; first expedition 
 by sea, 13 ; Irish campaign, 15 ; 
 takes part in the Massacre of 
 Del Oro, 20 ; first brought into 
 personal relations with Eliza- 
 beth, 24 ; her favourite, 28; rising 
 fortunes, 29 ; projects of coloni- 
 sation, 31, 32, 33; introduces 
 smoking at court, 33; member 
 of Parliament, 34 ; his unpopu- 
 larity, 35, 36 ; rivalry with Essex, 
 36, 37, 38, 39 ; shares in prepar- 
 ations for war, 46 ; absence of 
 information as to his part in 
 
 connection with Armada, 47 ; 
 privateering enterprises, 48, 
 123 ; Portuguese expedition, 
 49; challenged by Essex, 50; 
 letter to G. Carew, 51 ; in Ire- 
 land with Spenser, 52, 54, 55 ; 
 his poems, 52, 53 ; return to 
 court, 56, 57 ; advocates re- 
 ligious toleration, 58 ; grant of 
 Sherborne, 59; relations with 
 Elizabeth Throgmorton and 
 marriage, 60, 64, 65, 66 ; plans 
 for expedition against Panama, 
 62, 63 ; recalled, 67 ; in prison, 
 68 ; in the Tower, 69, 70 ; Madre 
 de Dios, 71 ; release, 72 ; at 
 Sherborne, 74 ; religious opin- 
 ion, 75 ; attempts to regain 
 the Queen's favour, 77, 78 ; ex- 
 pedition to Guiana, 80, Si, 82, 
 83, 84 ; to Cadiz, 90-94 ; re- 
 admitted to court, 98 ; friendly 
 terms with Cecil, 99, 100 ; and 
 with Essex, 101 ; the Island 
 Voyage, 104 ; exploit at Fayall, 
 104, 105, 106 ; Essex's anger, 
 107 ; peacemaker in England, 
 109 ; part played in connection 
 with Essex's fall, 113-16; at 
 Essex's execution, 118; enter- 
 tains Biron, 121 ; letter to Cecil, 
 125 ; Cecil's intrigues against 
 him, 128-31 ; Henry Howard's 
 enmity, 129 ; meeting with 
 James, 135 ; deprived of Cap- 
 taincy of the Guard, 136 ; Cob- 
 ham's charges, 140 ; arrested 
 and sent to the Tower, 143 ; 
 Winchester trial, 144 SM. ; sen- 
 tence, 150; letter to his wife, 
 153; The Pilgrimage, 155; re- 
 prieve and Tower, 155 ; prison 
 occupations, 159 ; literary work, 
 160, 161, 162, 163, 164 ; Prince 
 Henry his advocate, 167 ; 
 release, 170; Guiana projects, 
 171 ; preparations for expedi- 
 tion, 173-76 ; proposed sack of 
 Genoa, 177 ; negotiates with 
 France, 178 ; starts for Guiana, 
 180 ; voyage, 181, 182 ; letter to 
 his wife, 183 ; failure, 186 ; 
 return to England, 189; arrest, 
 192 ; feigns sickness, 193 ; 
 Apology for the Voyage to 
 Guiana, 193 ; attempted escape, 
 X 94> I 95> T 9 i legal difficulties of
 
 214 
 
 INDEX 
 
 the Government, 196-99; sen- 
 tence passed, 200 ; the last 
 night, 201, 202 ; Palace Yard, 
 203 ; scene at the execution, 
 203, 204, 205 ; summary of life 
 and character, 205 sqq. 
 Revenge, the, 62, 93. 
 
 Salignac, French ambassador, 6. 
 Salisbury, Earl of. (See Sir 
 
 Robert Cecil.) 
 San Thome, fight at, 185. 
 Sherborne Castle and estate, 59, 
 
 74, 156, 157. 
 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, 5, n, 13. 
 Southwell, Robert, 59. 
 Spanish marriage proposed, 167. 
 Spenser, Edmund, 16, 52, 54, 55, 
 
 56. 
 
 Spring, Captain, 59. 
 St. Leger, Sir Wareham, 184. 
 Standen, Sir A., 97. 
 Suffolk, Earl of. (See Lord 
 
 Thomas Howard.) 
 Stukeley, Sir Lewis, 192, 194 sq. 
 
 Talbot, Raleigh's servant, 182. 
 
 Tarleton, Elizabeth's jester, 42. 
 Throgmorton, Elizabeth. (See 
 
 Lady Raleigh.) 
 Thynne, Francis, 201. 
 Tobacco, introduction of, 23. 
 Tounson, Dean, 201 ; verses 
 
 given to him by Raleigh, 202. 
 Trinidad, 82, 184. 
 
 Vere, Sir Francis, 93. 
 Villiers, George, Duke of Buck- 
 ingham, 172. 
 Virginia, discovery of, 33. 
 
 Waad, Sir William, lieutenant of 
 the Tower, 166. 
 
 Warburton, Justice, at Win- 
 chester, 144. 
 
 Wilson, Sir Thomas, in charge of 
 Raleigh, 197. 
 
 Winchester trial, 143 sqq. 
 
 Winwood, Sir Ralph, 171, 179, 
 187. 
 
 Yelverton, Attorney-General, 200.
 
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