Sir Walter Ralegh Part 23

Ralegh was confined in the Gate-house of the old monastery of St. Peter.

It was a small two-storied building of the age of Edward III, standing at the western entrance to Tothill-street. The structure embraced two adjoining gates, with rooms which had been turned into prison cells. By the side of the gate leading northwards from the College-court, was the Bishop of London's prison for convicted clerks and Romish recusants.

With the other gate westwards was connected the gaol of the Liberty of Westminster, to which Ralegh had been committed. The Abbey was visible through its barred windows. Ben Jonson had been confined in it. Eliot, Hampden, and Selden were to be. Lovelace sang there to stone walls.

Esmond's name may be added to the list of its glories. Ralegh had been afraid the King might prevent him from speaking, or from being heard. He feared that the s.p.a.ce for his friends would be narrow. As he crossed Palace Yard to the Gate-house he had asked Sir Hugh Beeston, of Cheshire, to be there. 'But,' he said, 'I do not know what you may do for a place. For my part, I am sure of one.' Many came to the prison to bid farewell. Among them, according to Sir William Sanderson, was his father, the ex-deputy Licenser. Ralegh was lively and cheerful. To those who grieved he said: 'The world itself is but a larger prison, out of which some are daily selected for execution.' There is no reason for doubting the sincerity of his content. He had striven manfully for a life which for him meant the exercise of fruitful energy. He rejoiced in death, when, from no remissness of his, it closed his labours. His kinsman, Francis Thynne, advised him: 'Do not carry it with too much bravery. Your enemies will take exception, if you do.' His friends were afraid of the 'pride' which had provoked Henry Howard. 'It is my last mirth in this world,' replied he; 'do not grudge it to me. When I come to the sad parting, you will see me grave enough.'

[Sidenote: _Fearless of Death._]

By desire of the Lords of the Council, Dr. Robert Tounson, Dean of Westminster, and afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, attended him. Tounson wrote on November 9 to Sir John Isham: 'He was the most fearless of death that ever was known; and the most resolute and confident, yet with reverence and conscience. When I began to encourage him against the fear of death, he seemed to make so light of it that I wondered at him. He gave G.o.d thanks, he never feared death; and the manner of death, though to others it might seem grievous, yet he had rather die so than of a burning fever. I wished him not to flatter himself, for this extraordinary boldness, I was afraid, came from some false ground. If it were out of a humour of vain glory, or carelessness of death, or senselessness of his own state, he were much to be lamented. He answered that he was persuaded that no man that knew G.o.d and feared Him could die with cheerfulness and courage, except he were a.s.sured of the love and favour of G.o.d unto him; that other men might make shows outwardly, but they felt no joy within; with much more to that effect, very Christianly; so that he satisfied me then, as I think he did all his spectators at his death.' A reputation for free thinking once established is tenacious. Though Ralegh satisfied a Chief Justice, a Dean of Westminster, and men like Pym, Eliot, Hampden, of his orthodoxy, he did not satisfy all. Archbishop Abbot three or four months later wrote to Sir Thomas Roe that his execution was a judgment on him for his scepticism.

He did not allude, wrote Tounson, to 'his former treason.' As to more recent imputations, he could not conceive how it was possible to break peace with Spain, which 'within these four years took divers of his men, and bound them back to back and drowned them.'

[Sidenote: _A last Farewell to his Wife._]

Later arrived his wife. She had spent the earlier hours in trying to induce the Council to mediate with the King. Before she came she had learnt from a friend that it refused to beg the life, but authorized her to dispose of the corpse. At the Gate-house first she heard he was to be beheaded on Friday morning, October 29. That was Lord Mayor's Day, the morrow of St. Simon and St. Jude. It appears to have been selected, that the City pageant might draw away the crowd from hearing him, and seeing him die. As he and she were consulting how she was to vindicate his fame, if he should be hindered from speech on the scaffold, the Abbey clock struck twelve. She rose to go, that he might rest. Then, with a burst of anguish, she told him she had leave to bury his body. 'It is well, dear Bess,' said he with a smile, 'that thou mayst dispose of that dead, which thou hadst not always the disposing of when alive.' On her return home, between night and morning, she wrote to 'my best brother,'

Sir Nicholas Carew, of Beddington: 'I desire, good brother, that you will be pleased to let me bury the worthy body of my n.o.ble husband, Sir Walter Ralegh, in your church at Beddington, where I desire to be buried. The Lords have given me his dead body, though they denied me his life. This night he shall be brought you with two or three of my men.

Let me hear presently. G.o.d hold me and my wits.'

Ralegh, when his wife left him, wrote his last testamentary note. It was a rehearsal of the topics on which he meant to speak on the scaffold. If his mouth were closed it was intended to be a subst.i.tute. He repeated in it his constant affirmation of his loyalty: 'If,' he said, 'I had not loved and honoured the King truly, and trusted in his goodness somewhat too much, I had not suffered death.' Then the poet awoke in him. He wrote in the Bible which he gave to Dean Tounson the famous lines:

Even such is 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 G.o.d shall raise me up, I trust.

[Sidenote: _'Innocent in the Fact.'_]

Early in the morning came Tounson again, and administered the Sacrament.

Tounson wrote in the letter to Sir John Isham, from which I have already quoted, that Ralegh hoped to persuade the world he died an innocent man.

The Dean objected that his a.s.sertions of innocence obliquely denied the justice of the Realm upon him. In reply he confessed justice had been done; that was to say, that by course of law he must die; but he claimed leave, he said, to stand upon his innocency in the fact; and he thought both the King, and all who heard his answers, believed verily he was innocent for that matter. Tounson then pressed him to call to mind what he had done formerly. Though perhaps in that particular for which he was condemned he was clear, yet for some other matter, it might be, he was guilty, and therefore he should acknowledge the justice of G.o.d in it, though at the hands of men he had but hard measure. Here Tounson says he put him in mind of the death of my Lord of Ess.e.x; how it was generally reported that he was a great instrument of Ess.e.x's death. If his heart charged him with that, he should heartily repent, and ask G.o.d forgiveness. To this he made answer; and he said moreover that my Lord of Ess.e.x was fetched off by a trick, of which he privately told Tounson.

He was, testifies Tounson, very cheerful, ate his breakfast heartily, and took tobacco, and made no more of his death than if it had been to take a journey.

[Sidenote: _His Good-humour._]

Before he quitted the Gate-house a cup of sack was brought. After he had drunk it the bearer asked if it were to his liking. 'I will answer you,' said Ralegh, 'as did the fellow who drank of St. Giles's bowl as he went to Tyburn: "It is good drink if a man might but tarry by it".'

Now arrived the Sheriffs. They conducted him to Old Palace Yard, where a large scaffold had been erected in front of the Parliament-house. Though the s.p.a.ce had been narrowed by barriers, a great mult.i.tude had collected. It included, according to John Eliot, who was present, enemies as well as friends. Ralegh was dressed in a black-wrought velvet nightgown over a hair-coloured satin doublet, a ruff band, and a black-wrought waistcoat, black cut taffeta breeches, and ash-coloured silk stockings. On account of his ague he wore under his hat a wrought nightcap. Seeing in the crowd an old man with a very bald head, he inquired why he had ventured forth on such a morning; whether he would have aught of him. 'Nothing,' was the answer, 'but to see him, and pray G.o.d for him.' Ralegh thanked him, and grieved that he had no better return to make for his good will than 'this,' said he, as he threw him his lace cap, 'which you need, my friend, now more than I.' Being pressed on by the crowd, he was breathless and faint when he mounted the scaffold; but he saluted with a cheerful countenance those of his acquaintance whom he saw. Lords Arundel, Doncaster, Northampton, formerly Compton, and Oxford--son of Sir Walter's enemy--stood in Sir Randolph Carew's, or Crues's, balcony. Other Lords, Sheffield and Percy, sat on horseback near. Sir Edward Sackville, Colonel Cecil, Sir Henry Rich, were among the spectators. The a.s.semblage is said to have included ladies of rank. The morning was raw, and a fire had been lighted beside the scaffold for the Sheriffs, while they waited before going to the Gate-house. They invited him to descend and warm himself. He declined; his ague would soon be upon him; it might be deemed, he said, if he delayed, and the fit began before he had played his part, that he quaked with fear.

[Sidenote: _Rejoices to 'die in the Light.'_]

Proclamation having been made by the Sheriffs, he addressed his audience. Tounson's, and another account prepared, it would appear from a statement of the Dean's, for the Government by one Crawford, do not materially differ. They seem both to be honest, if not fluent. He commenced by explaining, not complaining, that he had the day before been taken from his bed in a strong fit of fever, which might recur that morning. Therefore, he hoped they would ascribe any disability of voice or dejection of look to that, and not to dismay of mind. Hereupon he paused and sat down. Beginning again to speak he fancied they in the balcony did not hear. So he said he would raise his voice. Arundel replied that the company would rather come down to the scaffold.

Northampton, Doncaster, and himself descended, mounted the scaffold, and shook hands with Ralegh. Then he resumed: 'I thank G.o.d that He has sent me to die in the light, and not in darkness, before such an a.s.sembly of honourable witnesses, and not obscurely in the Tower, where, for the s.p.a.ce of thirteen years together, I have been oppressed with many miseries. I thank Him, too, that my fever hath not taken me at this time.' He proceeded to excuse his counterfeit sickness at Salisbury: 'It was only to prolong the time till his Majesty came, in hopes of some commiseration from him.' He dwelt more seriously on two or three main points of suspicion conceived by the King against him. They, he believed, had specially hastened his doom. One was connected with his supposed intrigues with France. He gave an indignant denial to this charge of practices with foreigners, at any rate without the qualification expressed in the testamentary note he had composed during the night, 'unknowing to the King.' The mistrust had, he was aware, been strengthened by his projects of flight from Plymouth and London. Those luckless schemes had, he a.s.serted, no affinity to thoughts of permanent expatriation and foreign service. Simply he had reckoned that he could more easily make his peace at home while he was safe at a distance.

Another cause of odium had been Manourie's tale of his habit of reviling the King. That he declared mere lying: 'It is,' he said, 'no time for me to flatter, or to fear, princes, I who am subject only unto death; yet, if ever I spake disloyally or dishonestly of the King, the Lord blot me out of the book of life.'

[Sidenote: _Denial of Stukely's Calumnies._]

Even at this supreme moment he respected the Throne, as much from real reverence for Royalty, as from fear of harm after him to wife and child.

He did not repeat his protest against the mock conviction of 1603. He uttered no scorn of the King's betrayal to the Court of Spain of the plan of his expedition. In general he was content to defend himself; he was sparing of attacks. Only his 'keeper and kinsman,' Stukely, he could not pa.s.s over in silence. Having received the Sacrament he forgave the man; but he held himself bound to caution the world against him, out of charity to others. He repudiated warmly a calumny against Carew and Doncaster, that they had advised him to fly. He ridiculed the transparent mendacity of Stukely's story of a promise of 10,000; for 'if I had 1000, I could have made my peace better with it than by giving it to Stukely.' He disclaimed indignantly the statement Stukely had attributed to him, that he had been poisoned at Parham's house. Sir Edward Parham, he said, had been a follower of his; Parham's wife was his cousin-german; and Parham's cook once was his. As untrue was the story that he had been conveyed into England against his will. On the contrary, 150 soldiers held him a close prisoner in his cabin. They extorted an oath that he would not go to England without their consent; 'otherwise, they would have cast me into the sea.' Unless he had won over the master-gunner, and ten or twelve others, to return home, and had drawn the ship to the south of Ireland, he had never got from them.

It had even been alleged that he never meant to go to Guiana, and that he knew of no gold mine; that his intention only was to recover his liberty, which he had not the wit to keep. But his friends had believed in his honesty when he started. He reminded Arundel of the Earl's request in the gallery of the Destiny that, whether the voyage were good or bad, he would return to England. Thereupon he had given his word that he would. 'So you did,' cried Arundel; 'it is true, and they were the last words I said to you.' Next, he alluded to the slander, circulated 'through the jealousy of the people,' that at the execution of Ess.e.x he had stood in a window over against him and puffed out tobacco in defiance of him. He contradicted it utterly. Ess.e.x could not have seen him, since he had retired to the Armoury. He had bewailed him with tears. 'True I was of a contrary faction, but I bare him no ill-affection, and always believed it had been better for me that his life had been preserved; for after his fall I got the hatred of those who wished me well before; and those who set me against him set themselves afterwards against me, and were my greatest enemies.'

'And now,' he concluded an address of which the eloquence is not to be judged from the halting reports, 'I entreat that you will all join with me in prayer to that great G.o.d of Heaven whom I have grievously offended, being a man full of all vanity, who has lived a sinful life in such callings as have been most inducing to it; for I have been a soldier, a sailor, and a courtier, which are courses of wickedness and vice. So, I take my leave of you all, making my peace with G.o.d.' 'I have,' he said, 'a long journey to take, and must bid the company farewell.'

[Sidenote: _Preparing for the Block._]

With that the Sheriffs ordered that all should depart from the scaffold, where he was left with them, the Dean, and the executioner. Having given his hat and money to some attendants, he prepared himself for the block, permitting no help. Throughout, wrote on November 3 Mr. Thomas Lorkin to Sir Thomas Puckering, 'he seemed as free from all manner of apprehension as if he had been come thither rather to be a spectator than a sufferer; nay, the beholders seemed much more sensible than he.' Having put off gown and doublet, he called for the axe. There being a delay, he chid the headsman, 'I prithee, let me see it!' Fingering the edge, he remarked to the Sheriffs with a smile: 'This is a sharp medicine; but it is a sure cure for all diseases.' Then, going to and fro upon the scaffold upon every side, he entreated the spectators to pray to G.o.d to bestow on him strength. Arundel he asked, as if he expected the wish to be granted by James, to 'desire the King that no scandalous writings to defame him might be published after his death.' To a question from Tounson he replied that he died in the faith professed by the Church of England, and hoped to have his sins washed away by the precious blood of our Saviour Christ.

Finally, the executioner spread his own cloak for him to kneel on, and, falling down, besought his forgiveness. Ralegh laid his hand on the man's shoulder, and granted it. To the inquiry whether he would not lay himself eastwards on the block, he replied: 'So the heart be right, it is no matter which way the head lies.' But he placed himself towards the east, as his friends wished it. He refused the executioner's offer to blindfold him: 'Think you I fear the shadow of the axe, when I fear not itself?' He told the man to strike when he should stretch forth his hands. With a parting salutation to the whole goodly company, he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed: 'give me heartily your prayers.' After a brief pause he signed that he was ready. The executioner stirred not. 'What dost thou fear? Strike man, strike!' commanded Ralegh. The executioner plucked up courage, struck, and at two blows, the first mortal, the head was severed. As it tumbled the lips moved, still in prayer; the trunk never shrank. An effusion of blood followed, so copious as to indicate that the kingdom had been robbed of many vigorous years of a great life.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

SPOILS AND PENALTIES.

[Sidenote: _The Remains._]

A shudder is said to have run through the crowd of spectators as the axe fell. The trunk was carried from the scaffold to St. Margaret's Church, and buried in front of the Communion table. A single line in the burial register, 'Sir Walter Rawleigh Kt.,' records the interment. James Harrington, author of _Oceana_, occupies the next grave. Why Ralegh's body was not taken to Beddington is unknown. Long afterwards a wooden tablet was fixed by a churchwarden on the wall of the south aisle of the chancel. A metal plate framed, and painted blue with gilt letters, was subst.i.tuted. In 1845 that was replaced by one of bra.s.s, at the expense of several admirers of Ralegh's genius. It bears the uninspired words: 'Within the chancel of this church was interred the body of the great Sir Walter Ralegh, on the day he was beheaded in Old Palace Yard, Westminster, October 29, 1618. Reader, should you reflect on his errors, remember his many virtues, and that he was a Mortal.' Four verses from the pen of Mr. Lowell, inscribed on a painted window, erected a few years since in the church, more worthily commemorate the piety of American citizens to the planter of Virginia.

The head was shown by the executioner on each side of the scaffold, as the head of a traitor. Afterwards it was inclosed in a red velvet bag.

With the velvet gown enveloping the whole, it was conveyed to Lady Ralegh's house in a mourning coach which she had sent. It was embalmed; and she kept it ever by her for the twenty-nine years of her widowhood.

Bishop Goodman of Gloucester, who, though King James's poor-spirited apologist, admired Ralegh, relates that he had seen and kissed it. On Lady Ralegh's death the charge of it descended to Carew Ralegh. It has been stated, and has been denied, that it was buried with him at West Horsley, and was seen when the grave happened to be opened. For another story, that finally it was deposited with the body at Westminster, there is no authority.

[Sidenote: _Carew Ralegh._]

Lady Ralegh lived to educate her son. For his sake she strove for Ralegh's books. They were, she said, 'all the land and living which he left his poor child, hoping that he would inherit him in those only, and that he would apply himself by learning to be fit for them, which request I hope I shall fulfil as far as in me lieth.' Carew was thirteen at his father's death. In the spring of 1621, at the age of sixteen, he entered Wadham College as a gentleman commoner. When he quitted Oxford his relative, Lord Pembroke, who more than twenty years before had interceded at Wilton for his father's life, introduced him at Court.

James frowned; he said he was like his father's ghost. He travelled, and, returning next year on the accession of Charles, pet.i.tioned for restoration in blood. His prayer was granted only on the obligatory terms of his surrender of any t.i.tle to Sherborne. In compensation he received a reversion of the 400 a year, Lady Ralegh's Treasury allowance in place of jointure or dower from Sherborne. By the same statute which relieved him from the legal disabilities of the attainder Sherborne was confirmed to the Digby family. He married the wealthy young widow of Sir Anthony Ashley, his father's comrade at Cadiz, and had by her two sons, Walter and Philip, and three daughters. He wrote poems, one of which was set to music by Henry Lawes, and was a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber. In that capacity he attended Charles I when a prisoner at Hampton Court. He may have thought of Charles rather as the brother of Prince Henry than as the son of King James.

He seems to have dreamt of recovering both his father's Irish and English estates. Strafford, on behalf of the Church, had questioned the soundness of Boyle's t.i.tle to Lismore. The doubt of the validity of Boyle's tenure, though it equally affected Sir Walter's right, may have suggested to Carew somewhat later an attack on him in his own interest, probably on the score of the inadequacy of the price paid to Ralegh.

Lady Ralegh had already, in 1619, set up a claim to dower, on the ground that her consent to the sale in 1602 had not been obtained. Boyle intimated that he should meet Lady Ralegh's demand by the legal objection that the wife of an attainted man is not dowerable. But, on the merits, he insisted in answer, as well to her as, afterwards, to Carew Ralegh, that he had in fact, between 1602 and 1617, given ample pecuniary consideration. Neither she nor her son went beyond a protest.

[Sidenote: _Claim to Sherborne._]

Carew was more pertinacious in his efforts to recover Sherborne. That was supposed to have been forfeited by the flight of Digby, now Lord Bristol, to France on the establishment of the Commonwealth. Carew pet.i.tioned the House of Commons for its rest.i.tution to himself. His pet.i.tion, which in details was not everywhere as accurate, expressed righteous indignation at an attainder obtained on charges 'without any proofs, and in themselves as ridiculous as impossible.' He declared in the doc.u.ment his intention to 'range himself under the banner of the Commons of England.' The memorial was referred to the committee for the sale of the estates of delinquents. That reported him 'a fit object of the mercy of the House.' But he advanced no further, in consequence, as is believed, of the influence Lord Bristol was still able to exert. Monk conferred on him the Government of Jersey, and Charles II offered him knighthood, which he waived. Sir Henry Wotton, as quoted by Anthony Wood, commended him as of 'dexterous abilities.' Wood, while he does not dissent, adds that he was 'far, G.o.d wot, from his father's parts, either as to the sword or pen.' At least he understood his father's greatness, and clung proudly to his memory.

[Sidenote: _Blood Money._]

From Walter Ralegh, at all events, if not from his family, his enemies and persecutors, with their parasites, might think they at last were freed. Their perseverance had been unwearied. For fifteen years they were pursuing him, and they had hunted him down. They had shown versatility as well as virulence. As his son Carew has said, they had obtained his condemnation as a friend to Spain, and his execution, under the same sentence, for being its enemy. Now all, old bloodhounds and young, proceeded to enjoy their hard-won victory. To commence at the bottom, Manourie, 'a French physician, lately sent for from Plymouth,'

as early as November received his wages, 20. Sir Lewis Stukely's expectations and deserts were larger. While he lingered at Plymouth he had disposed of part of the stores from Ralegh's ship. Sir Ferdinando Gorges and others completed the work for the Crown as soon as Ralegh had been executed. Some of the tobacco had been brought to London, and sold by Stukely. Ralegh accused him of appropriation of the proceeds. He had accepted gifts of jewels from his prisoner on the journey. To his custody were entrusted the trinkets carried by Ralegh about him on the flight to Gravesend. On December 29 the Exchequer was ordered to pay to him 'for performance of his service and expenses in bringing up hither out of Devonshire the person of Sir Walter Ralegh, 965 6_s._ 3_d._'

One more of the hirelings expected to be paid, the Keeper of State Papers. Wilson had failed to spy out treason in Ralegh's talk in the seclusion of the Tower, or in the correspondence with Lady Ralegh. He did not the less crave a fee for his good intentions of treachery. James recognized his claims, to the inexpensive extent of an order to the Fellows of Caius College, Cambridge, in January, 1619, to elect him to their vacant Mastership. The King's letter described him as a man of learning and sufficiency, who had performed faithful service. The letter, as an indors.e.m.e.nt by Wilson notes, was never sent. Perhaps the Fellows were found to be prepared to put to the test the King's a.s.sertion that he would 'take no denial.' Balked of academical alms, Sir Thomas was driven to importunities three quarters of a year later for payment of his wages for the six weeks' attendance upon Ralegh.

[Sidenote: _Ralegh's Library, and Instruments._]

He was more promptly successful in rapacity for the public, it must be admitted, than for himself. Ralegh had stripped himself, or been stripped, before his death, of any possessions ordinarily recognized as available for spoil. His cargo and stores had been seized and converted into money by Stukely, or by other Devonshire officials. His ship had been brought into the Thames as Crown property. The Government accounted itself generous for granting to the widow, in lieu of it and its contents, 2250, the bare equivalent of the purchase money of her Mitcham estate which she had expended upon its equipment. Nothing remained of his but his papers, his instruments, and his books. Covetous eyes were fixed upon them. Wilson wanted them, though, it is fair to say, not for himself. As Keeper of the Records he had a sincere taste for curious books. He urged the King to appropriate Ralegh's library of three hundred volumes on history, divinity, and mathematics, together with Cobham's collection of a thousand. By royal warrant in November he was authorised to seize the whole. The globes and mathematical instruments were to be delivered to the King or the Lord Admiral. The books were to be 'left where they were'; that is, it is to be presumed, they were to remain in the Tower. As if in shame the warrant a.s.signed a reason for the confiscation of Ralegh's library. It could, it alleged, be of 'small use to Sir Walter's surviving wife.' Lady Ralegh judged differently. She implored Lady Carew, who was acquainted with Wilson, to mediate with him that she might be 'no more troubled, having had so many unspeakable losses, as none of worth will seek to molest me.' Before the end of 1618 Wilson had fetched away all the mathematical instruments, one of which had cost 100. Lady Ralegh had, she affirmed, been promised their return, but had not recovered one. He was now requiring the books. She would not grudge them, she a.s.severated, for his Majesty, if they were rare, and not to be had elsewhere; but Boyle, the bookbinder or stationer, had, she was informed, the very same. The ultimate result of the aggression and her resistance is not known. It might be of public interest if it could be ascertained. In addition to printed volumes Wilson had asked for the sequestration of Ralegh's ma.n.u.script treatise on the Art of War, and of a full account by him of all the world's seaports, and for their deposit in the State Paper Office. He could value thoughtful work, though he persecuted its author.

Diligently as the State Papers have of recent years been explored, it is not impossible that the two compositions may yet be discovered, carefully buried in a ma.s.s of worthless muniments by their spy-keeper.

[Sidenote: _Spanish Debt of Grat.i.tude to James._]

James had his share too of the immediate profits from the tragedy of Palace Yard, over and above a few more or less scarce books. Apart from his incurable private aversion for one of the three greatest Englishmen of his reign, he had, in butchering Ralegh, been the direct agent of the Spanish Court. From Spain he sought his real reward. He enhanced his demand by the immensity of the loss he had inflicted upon England.

Cottington, the instant the news of the execution reached the Legation, told the Spanish King. Philip III showed, he reported, much contentment with the hearing. Rushworth, in his _Historical Collections_, has preserved a letter described as from a great Minister of State to Cottington. In it the English Agent in Spain was urgently instructed to enforce upon the Spaniards their debt of grat.i.tude to James, who had 'caused Sir Walter Ralegh to be put to death, chiefly for the giving them satisfaction.' He was to let them see 'how in many actions of late his Majesty had strained upon the affections of his people, and especially in this last concerning Sir Walter Ralegh, who died with a great deal of courage and constancy. To give them content, he had not spared a man able to have done his Majesty much service, when, by preserving him, he might have given great satisfaction to his subjects, and have had at command upon all occasions as useful a man as served any prince in Christendom.' A fitting response was made. Cottington was able to report 'so much satisfaction and contentment as I am not able to express it.' The Spanish Council of State admitted the obligation to James for the sacrifice of the brightest jewel of his Crown. It advised Philip to thank the King of England by an autograph letter. That was James's payment.

[Sidenote: _Odium of Stukely._]