Sir Walter Ralegh Part 3

[Sidenote: _Colonization._]

Elizabeth herself devised for the virgin land discovered in the reign of a virgin queen the appellation of Virginia. Possibly the name was favoured by some resemblance to a native phrase Wynganda coia. This means, writes Ralegh, in the _History of the World_, 'You wear good clothes,' which the settlers supposed to be the reply to their question of the name of the country. The similarity of the king's name may have a.s.sisted the choice. Spenser ent.i.tles Elizabeth, in the dedication of his great poem, 'Queen of England, France, and Ireland, and of Virginia.' Ralegh had a seal of his arms cut, with the legend, 'Walteri Ralegh, militis, Domini et Gubernatoris Virginiae propria insignia, 1584, amore et virtute.' He hastened to realize his lordship, which was still somewhat in the air. He obtained a fair amount of support, though his brother, Carew Ralegh, could not prevail upon the Exeter merchants to become partners. They were not moved by his catalogue of the merchantable commodities which had been found. They stigmatized the undertaking as 'a pretended voyage,' which certainly it was not. On April 9, 1585, 'at the pleasant prime,' says Holinshed, a fleet of seven sail set forth from Plymouth, under Ralegh's cousin, Sir Richard Grenville, as general of the expedition. Mr. Ralph Lane was Governor of the colony, and Captain Philip Amadas was his Deputy. Lane had an Irish commission. Elizabeth ordered that a subst.i.tute should be found for him, that he might go to Virginia for Ralegh. Ralegh drew up rules, which have been lost, for the political government. Thomas Cavendish, a future circ.u.mnavigator of the globe, and Thomas Hariot, or Harriot, were among the colonists. Hariot, who describes himself as 'servant to Sir Walter Ralegh,' was commissioned to survey and report. He published a remarkable description of the territory in 1588. Manteo and Wanchese returned to America with the expedition. On the way out, by Hispaniola and Florida, Grenville took two Spanish frigates. He reached Wokoken in June, and visited the mainland. He was not happy in the conduct of the expedition, being reported by Lane, writing to Walsingham on September 8, 1585, to have exhibited intolerable pride and ambition towards the entire company. Already, on August 25, not a day too soon, he had sailed for England. He had, he reported at his return to Walsingham, peopled the new country, and stored it with cattle, fruits, and plants. He left Governor Lane and 107 colonists. On the homeward voyage a third Spanish ship was captured. Stukely, a kinsman both of Grenville and of Ralegh, was with Grenville on board the Tiger. For some unintelligible reason he thought himself ent.i.tled to 10,000 of the booty. According to his estimate, as reported by his mendacious son, Sir Lewis, the whole was worth 50,000. Much of the treasure consisted of a cabinet of pearls.

Sir Lewis Stukely alleged that Ralegh charged Elizabeth with taking all to herself 'without so much as even giving him one pearl.' The Queen was as fond of large pearls as he.

[Sidenote: _Failure._]

Grenville had promised he would bring supplies by the next Easter at latest. Lane and his companions occupied themselves meanwhile with surveys of the goodliest soil under the cope of heaven, as they described it. They had planted corn, and perceived signs of pearl fisheries and mines. Hariot, observing the native use of tobacco, had tried and liked it. The nutritious qualities of the tubers of the potato had been discovered. Unfortunately the planters quarrelled with the natives, whom they found, though gentle in manner, cunning and murderous. Their friend, Granganimeo, died, and they slew King Wingina and his chiefs without warning, for alleged plots. At this crisis Sir Francis Drake arrived with a fleet of twenty-five sail, fresh from the sack of St. Domingo and Cartagena. He gave Lane a bark of seventy tons, pinnaces, and provisions, and lent him two of his captains. But a storm sank the bark. The colonists, losing courage, insisted on being taken home. On June 19, 1586, they set sail, on the eve of the arrival of a ship laden with provisions, which Ralegh had sent. A fortnight later came Grenville with three ships, also well stored. He could do nothing but leave fifteen men with supplies on Roanoke and return. Not even now was Ralegh disheartened. In the spring of 1587 he fitted out a fourth expedition. He had meant to conduct it himself. The Queen would not let him go. It comprised 150 householders. Some were married, and brought their wives with them. Agricultural implements were taken. Captain John White was in command. He and eleven others of the company were incorporated as the Governor and a.s.sistants of the City of Ralegh in Virginia. Ralegh had fixed upon Chesapeake Bay as the site of the settlement. Roanoke was preferred. White could detect no trace of Grenville's fifteen men, and Lane's fort had been razed to the ground.

Vainly the new colonists endeavoured to conciliate or awe the natives by baptizing and investing Manteo with the Barony of Roanoke. Jealousies arose between them and the tribes. They aggravated their difficulties by murdering in error a number of friendly Indians. Misfortunes of various kinds beset them. Supplies failed, and Governor White came home for more. At his departure the colony included eighty-nine men, seventeen women, and two children. Among them were White's daughter, Eleanor Dare, and her child. The time was inopportune. An embargo had been laid on all shipping, in expectation of the Spanish invasion. By Ralegh's influence it was raised in favour of a couple of merchantmen, equipped for a West Indian voyage, on condition that they transported men and necessaries to Virginia. They broke the compact. Though they embarked White, they took no colonists. They chased Spanish ships, fought with men-of-war from Roch.e.l.le, and came back to England shattered.

[Sidenote: _Ralegh's persistency._]

Ralegh had other calls upon his resources. For the present he could do no more for Virginia. He reckoned he had spent 40,000 on the plantation. As Hakluyt wrote, 'it demanded a prince's purse to have the action thoroughly fulfilled without lingering.' Elizabeth was not willing to play the part of G.o.dmother in the fairy-tale sense. For a subst.i.tute, the founder, being in difficulties, had recourse to the very modern expedient of a company. In March, 1589, as Chief Governor, he a.s.signed a right to trade in Virginia, not his patent, to Thomas Smith, John White, Richard Hakluyt, and others. He reserved a fifth of all the gold and silver extracted. The Adventurers were not very active. Ralegh still felt himself responsible for the colony, if it could be described as one. Such expeditions as sailed he mainly promoted. Southey's accusation that he 'abandoned the poor colonists' is ludicrously unjust.

If, as has without due cause been imputed to Bacon, the charge in the essay on Plantations of the sinfulness of 'forsaking or dest.i.tuting a plantation once in forwardness' refer to Ralegh, Bacon would be as calumnious. In 1590 White prosecuted the search for his daughter and grandchild, and the rest of the vanished planters. Ralegh despatched other expeditions for the same object, and with as little success. One, under Samuel Mace, with that purpose sailed in 1602 or 1603. By the time Mace returned, the Chief Governor was attainted, and his proprietorship of Virginia had escheated to the Crown.

[Sidenote: _Reward of an idea._]

Ralegh never relinquished hope in his nursling. 'I shall yet live,' he wrote just before his fall, 'to see it an English nation.' In 1606 a new and strong colony was sent out, and his confidence was justified. From an old account of the career of his nephew, Captain Ralph Gilbert, a son of Sir Humphrey, it would seem he still considered in 1607 that his connexion with the country continued. In that year Ralph Gilbert is said to have voyaged to Virginia on his behalf. Though his direct exertions were confined to the region of the James and Potomac, his jurisdiction in the north was recognized. The term Virginia covered a very wide area.

It included, not only the present Virginias, but the Carolinas and more besides. New England itself originally was supposed to be comprised.

Captain Gosnold, Captain Bartholomew Gilbert, and others, when they planned the occupation of Martha's Vineyard in 1602, described it as 'the north part of Virginia,' and sought and obtained Ralegh's permission and encouragement. Posterity has rewarded his faith and perseverance. He never set foot anywhere in the country called generally Virginia. His expeditions by deputy were themselves confined to the part which is now North Carolina. All his experiments at the colonization of that were failures. His 40,000, his colonists, and the polity he framed for them, had disappeared before any white settlement took root. But he will always be esteemed the true parent of North American colonization.

An idea like his has life in it, though the plant may not spring up at once. When it rises above the surface the sower can claim it. Had the particular region of the New World not eventually become a permanent English settlement, he would still have earned the merit of authorship of the English colonizing movement. As Humboldt has said, without him, and without Cabot, North America might never have grown into a home of the English tongue.

[Sidenote: _Potatoes and Tobacco._]

Ralegh's Virginian scheme cost much money, and brought in little. It gave him fame, which he craved still more, and kept the town talking.

His distant seigniory excited the English imagination. He was believed to have endowed his Sovereign with a new realm. He had the glory of having enriched his country with new fruits, plants, and flowers. The nature of the man was that he could touch nothing but immediately it appropriated itself to him. He is fabled to have been the first to import mahogany into England from Guiana. He set orange trees in the garden of his wife's uncle, Sir Francis Carew, at Beddington; and he has been credited with their first introduction. The Spaniards first brought potatoes into Europe. Hariot and Lane first discovered them in North Carolina. He grew them at Youghal, and they became his. Hariot discoursed learnedly on the virtues of tobacco, and Drake conveyed the leaf to England. Ralegh smoked, and none but he has the repute of the fashion. He gave the taste vogue, teaching the courtiers to smoke their pipes with silver bowls, and supplying them with the leaf. Sir John Stanhope excuses himself in 1601 from sending George Carew in Ireland any 'tabacca, because Mr. Secretary and Sir Walter have stored you of late.' Till he mounted the scaffold, having first 'taken tobacco,' the kingdom resounded with legends, doubtful enough, of his devotion to this his familiar genius. It was told how his old manservant deluged him at Sherborne with spiced ale to put out the combustion inside him; how he won wagers of the Queen that he could weigh vapours; how he smoked as Ess.e.x died. Society stared to see him take a pipe at Sir Robert Poyntz's. His gilt leather tobacco case was a prize for a Yorkshire museum. For words, ways, and doings, he was the observed of all observers. He was active in twenty different directions at once. He was always before the eyes of the world. His name was on every lip.

[Sidenote: _Pioneer and Privateer._]

Among his constant motives of action was a fiery indignation at the spectacle of the Spanish monopoly of the New World. No sentiment could stir more of English sympathy. The people heartily shared his determination to rival Spain, and to pillage Spain. He had the Viking spirit, and he burnt with a freebooter's pa.s.sion for the sea. But he had an intuition also of the national capacity for colonization, in which the purest patriot must have concurred. He was resolved to direct the maritime enthusiasm of his countrymen and their age to that definite end. He succeeded, though destined to the lot rather of Moses than of Joshua. His outlay on Virginia did not bound his expenditure in these ways. Adrian his half-brother, and his habitual a.s.sociate, had resumed Sir Humphrey Gilbert's old project for the discovery of a North-West Pa.s.sage to India and China. A patent was granted him in 1583. He established a 'Fellowship' to work it. Ralegh joined. Captain John Davys was appointed commander, and two barks were equipped. Davys discovered Davis's Straits. Mount Ralegh, shining like gold, he christened after one of his most celebrated patrons. Hakluyt in 1587 stated that Ralegh had thrice contributed with the forwardest to Davys's North-West voyages. From a mixture of patriotism, maritime adventurousness, and the love of gain, he employed his various opportunities to engage in privateering as a regular business. Privy Council minutes for 1585 mention captures by him, through his officers, of Spanish ships, with 600 Spaniards, at the Newfoundland fisheries. He sent forth in June, 1586, his ships Serpent and Mary Spark, under Captains Jacob Whiddon and John Evesham, to fight the Spaniards at the Azores. In a battle of thirty-two hours, against twenty-four Spanish ships, they failed to capture two great caracks which they coveted. They brought home three less valuable, but remunerative, prizes. Don Pedro Sarmiento de Genaboa, Governor of the Straits of Magellan, and other captives were worth heavy ransoms. Ralegh repeats in the History, 'a pretty jest' told him 'merrily' by the worthy Don Pedro, on whom he clearly did not allow thraldom to weigh heavily, how the draftsman of the chart of the Straits invented an island in them at his wife's instance, that she might have something specially her own in the chart. In the same year, 1586, he contributed a pinnace to a plundering expedition of the Earl of c.u.mberland's to the South Sea. Though he was not allowed to be often at sea in person, he vindicated by his eager promotion of maritime adventures a full right to be entered, as we find him in January, 1586, in an official list of 'sea captains.'

[Sidenote: _Charges of Piracy._]

[Sidenote: _His Defence._]

As Vice-Admiral of the South-West, he possessed advantages beyond most for private raids upon Spanish commerce. When he was not on the spot, his faithful and affectionate deputy in Devonshire, Sir John Gilbert, was at hand to look after his ships' stores. Doubtless outrages were committed under shelter of his Court favour. He joined the evil experiences of the sailor with those of the soldier and courtier in his dying regrets. Occasionally the Privy Council had to expostulate energetically. In 1589 a ship of his took two barks of Cherbourg. He and his officers were charged to minister no cause of grief to any of the French king's subjects. In the same year, Albert Reynerson was lodging complaints against Ralegh's captain of the Roebuck. Another of his captains, John Floyer, in 1592, was accused of having captured a ship of Bayonne with a load of cod, beside a waistcoat of carnation colour, curiously embroidered. Filippo Corsini sued him in that year for a ship his people had seized. In 1600 the Republic of Venice was aggrieved at the capture of a Venetian merchantman by Sir John Gilbert, junior, eldest son of Sir Humphrey, in command of one of Ralegh's vessels. At other times Venice claimed the surrender of Venetian goods in Spanish bottoms, though Ralegh stoutly argued against the claim. Sometimes the Government could not but interfere when neutrals had been pillaged. It was always reluctant to discourage the buccaneering trade, which it knew to be very lucrative. For instance, Ralegh and eleven other adventurers in 1591 equipped, at a cost of 8000, privateers which brought home prizes worth 31,150. The profit to the partnership was 14,952, which must be multiplied five times to express the present value. In high places no repugnance to the pursuit was felt. The Queen not rarely adventured, and looked for the lion's share of the spoil. Robert Cecil, after he had succeeded to his father's ascendency, was willing to speculate, if his a.s.sociation might be kept secret: 'For though, I thank G.o.d, 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 a charm.' Ralegh's views and character obliged him to no bashful dissimulation of the practice. To him privateering seemed strictly legal, and unequivocally laudable. He boasted in 1586 that he had consumed the best part of his fortune in abating the tyrannous prosperity of Spain. He acted as much in defence and retaliation as for offence. He stated in the House of Commons in 1592 that the West Country had, since the Parliament began, been plundered of the worth of 440,000. In 1603 he wrote that a few Dunkirk privateers under Spanish protection had 'taken from the West Country merchants within two years above three thousand vessels, beside all they had gotten from the rest of the ports of England.' He himself, as the State Papers testify, had often to lament losses of ships through Spanish and French privateers.

Public opinion entirely justified the vigour with which he conducted his retaliation. If he were unpopular among his countrymen, or any section of them, the fact is not to be explained by the employment of his riches and influence in onslaughts upon foreign commerce. As he has written in his History, Englishmen never objected to the most fearful odds, when 'royals of plate and pistolets' were in view. They might have been expected to be grateful to a leading promoter of lucratively perilous enterprises; and in the West they were.

CHAPTER VI.

PATRON AND COURTIER (1583-1590).

[Sidenote: _Hakluyt._]

In social and private as well as public life Ralegh was open-handed and liberal in kind offices. Those are not unpopular characteristics. He was a patron of letters. His name may be read in many dedications. Few of them can have been gratuitous. Martin Ba.s.saniere of Paris inscribed to him very appropriately his publication of Laudonniere's narrative of the French expedition to Florida. Richard Hakluyt, junior, during his residence in France, had lighted upon Laudonniere's ma.n.u.script. From him Ba.s.saniere received it. He translated the volume in 1587, and dedicated his version to Ralegh. Hakluyt had to thank Ralegh also for material a.s.sistance both with money and with advice in the compilation of his celebrated collection of voyages. The ma.n.u.script, for example, of the Portuguese narrative of de Gama's voyage in 1541 to the Red Sea had been bought for 60 by Ralegh, who presented it to him. Ralegh again was 'at no small charges' towards the production by the French painter, Jacques Morgues, of a series of coloured ill.u.s.trations of Florida, whither he had accompanied Laudonniere. In 1586 the publisher of John Case's _Praise of Music_ dedicated it to Ralegh, as a virtuoso. In 1588 Churchyard dedicated to him the _Spark of Friendship_. Hooker, the antiquary, introduced the continuation of the Irish history of Giraldus Cambrensis with a fervent encomium on the ill.u.s.trious Warden of the Stannaries, who was 'rather a servant than a commander to his own fortune.' A medical treatise was inscribed to him as an expert. A list which has been preserved of his signs for chemical substances and drugs, shows that as early as 1592 he had paid attention to medicine. He appears to have kept amanuenses to copy interesting ma.n.u.scripts. Thus, John Peirson who, in 1585, was in trouble in connexion with a tract ent.i.tled _Reasons why the King of Scots is unacceptable to the People of England_, deposed that he delivered one of the five copies he made to 'Sir Walter Ralegh, my master.'

[Sidenote: _Hariot._]

[Sidenote: _Udal._]

Throughout life he befriended Hariot, the universal philosopher, as he has been called. Hariot has been credited with the invention of the system of notation in Algebra. He discovered the solar spots before, and the satellites of Jupiter almost simultaneously with, Galileo. Hariot, who numbered Bishops among his admirers, was accused by zealots of atheism, because his cosmogony was not orthodox. They discerned a judgment in his death in 1621 from cancer in the lip or nose. His ill repute for free-thinking was reflected on Ralegh who hired him to teach him mathematics, and engaged him in his colonizing projects. Ralegh introduced him to the Earl of Northumberland, who allowed him a liberal pension. But new ties did not weaken the old. Hariot and he remained constantly attached. Hariot was the friend whose society he chiefly craved when he was recovering from his wound in the Tower. During his long imprisonment Hariot was the faithful companion of his studies.

Hariot brought to his notice another Oxford man, Lawrence Keymis. Keymis is described by Wood as well read in geography and mathematics. I am indebted to Professor Jowett for a confirmation from the Register of Balliol, which Keymis entered in 1579, graduating Master of Arts in 1586, of Wood's statement that he was elected a probationer Fellow in November, 1582. He was then nineteen years old, and an undergraduate.

Five Bachelors of Arts were elected with him. To him also, of whom there will be much, too much, hereafter to say, Ralegh was a generous patron.

Ralegh was equally ready to spend his court interest in the service of a pious theologian like John Udal the Hebraist. Udal in 1590 published of the Bishops, that they 'cared for nothing but the maintenance of their dignities, be it the d.a.m.nation of their own souls, and infinite millions more.' He was tried for treason, since the Bishops, it was averred, governed the Church for the Queen. A jury convicted him of authorship of the book. The Judges iniquitously held that to amount to a conviction of felony. They therefore sentenced him to death. He prayed Ralegh to intercede with the Queen to commute his punishment to banishment, 'that the land might not be charged with his blood.' Ralegh accepted the office, and Ess.e.x combined with him. Retailers of court gossip conjectured that his kindness was policy. They imagined that he and Ess.e.x were secretly allied, and that Ess.e.x was employing him as 'an instrument from the Puritans to the Queen upon any particular question of relieving them.' A simpler and more generous motive is the more probable. He fought for Udal against the same lying spirit of legal casuistry which was to destroy himself. King James to his honour joined subsequently in mediating. Among them they saved the enthusiast's neck; but he died in the Marshalsea, pending a dispute whether he could safely be permitted to carry his anti-prelatic zeal and immense learning into a chaplaincy in Guinea.

[Sidenote: _Good Offices._]

Other instances could be mentioned of Ralegh's disposition to pa.s.s his favour on. 'When, Sir Walter,' asked Elizabeth of him, as he came with a pet.i.tion from a friend, 'will you cease to be a beggar?' 'When your gracious Majesty,' was the answer, 'ceases to be a benefactor.' He has had attributed to him, though obscurely, the project of an inst.i.tution, described as an 'office of address,' a species of entrepot at which either information and useful services, or both, might be exchanged.

Southey interprets it in the former sense, and regards it as an antic.i.p.ation of the Royal Society. That was the view of Evelyn, who says that Ralegh put this 'fountain of communication in practice.' How is not remembered. At any rate, in the second sense he energetically applied the principle in his own conduct. Not less from kindness than from the wish to secure personal adherents, he was generally helpful. Now, his client was a poor wounded officer, whose arrears of pay he was praying the Treasury to discharge; partly, for love of him; partly, for honest consideration. Now, it was some prosperous placeman, his equal, or his superior in rank. As he boasts, in claiming a return from an Irish law officer, 'I a.s.sure you, on mine honour, I have deserved it at his hands in places where it may most stead him.' He used like language of the Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam. Before he rose he had ranked himself among Leicester's followers. Leicester speedily grew jealous of his prosperity. Sir Henry Wotton, who imputed the beginning of Ralegh's rise to Leicester, has stated in his Parallel between Ess.e.x and George Villiers, that the Earl soon found him such an apprentice as knew well enough how to set up for himself. Ralegh never withheld due marks of deference from his elder. Churchyard the poet described, or undertook to describe, a grand Shrovetide show prepared by Ralegh, in which the gentlemen of the Guard represented the Earl's exploits in Flanders.

Ralegh was ever at pains to remove any specific grievance. On March 29, 1586, he writes to a.s.sure Leicester that he had urged the Queen to grant the request for pioneers in the Netherlands. He seems to have been accused, as he was to be accused seventeen years later, of intrigues on behalf of Spain, which he had constantly been attacking. He could not have had much difficulty in defending himself from the charge, about which he remarks he had been 'of late very pestilent reported.' It was not so clear that he recognized the Earl's paramount t.i.tle as Queen's favourite. To disarm suspicion on that score he adds a postscript: 'The Queen is in very good terms with you, and, thank be to G.o.d, well pacified; and you are again her Sweet Robyn.' He cannot have esteemed Leicester. A stinging epitaph, attributed to him with the usual scarcity of evidence, may express his real view of the poor-spirited soldier, the deceitful courtier, the statesman and n.o.ble 'that all the world did hate.' But he was no backbiter. Elizabeth vouched for his claim to Leicester's friendliness. She bade Walsingham declare to Leicester, upon her honour, that the gentleman had done good offices for him in the time of her displeasure.

[Sidenote: _The Earl of Oxford._]

He could be useful to the greatest; whether only great, or great and deserving too. He had been always solicitous of Burleigh's goodwill. As a rival at Court of Leicester, he had it. Burleigh loved no Court favourites. 'Seek not to be Ess.e.x; shun to be Ralegh,' was his warning to his son. Robert Cecil, awkward and deformed, was in no danger.

Favourites represented a side of the Queen's nature which continually troubled the wise Minister. Their accomplishments were not his. They were costly. While he cannot have failed to perceive something admirable in Ralegh, he would not value the majority of his merits. The poetry and imaginativeness he despised. Still he always preserved amicable relations. He condescended to use Ralegh's personal influence as well as Hatton's. In the spring of 1583 he solicited the mediation of both those favourites with the Queen for his son-in-law, Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford. Oxford was in disgrace on the charge, not very heavy in those days as against an Earl, of having slain Long Tom, a retainer of Mr.

Knyvett's. The Queen had rejected Burleigh's own intercession. She appears to have granted forgiveness at Ralegh's suit. Oxford's arrogance had provoked Sir Philip Sidney. It had not spared Ralegh, who, Aubrey says, had been 'a second with him in a duel.' Ralegh pretended no kindliness for the Earl; he avowed to Burleigh that as a mediator he acted for the Minister's sake alone: 'I am content to lay the serpent before the fire, as much as in me lieth, that, having recovered strength, myself may be more in danger of his poison and sting.'

Eighteen years after, not that he cared, he found the venom was not exhausted.

[Sidenote: _His Unpopularity._]

[Sidenote: _An Excess of Capability._]

Ralegh did not h.o.a.rd or keep to himself the wealth and power conferred upon him. His was an age of patronage. Other successful courtiers had, like him, their trains of dependants. He was at least as bountiful as any and as sympathetic. His followers believed in and worshipped him.

Posterity he has captivated. Yet throughout his active career he aroused bitter hatred, unless in the West, and in his own home circle. The fact requires to be noted for the purpose of appraising contemporary comments upon his acts. Apologists and impartial chroniclers are as distinct as enemies in intimating that he was a constant mark for 'detraction' and 'envyings.' He was unpopular on account alike of his demeanour, of the Queen's favour, and of the monopolizing energy in the public service by which to posterity he has justified it. All students recollect Aubrey's description of him as one whose blemish or 'naeve it was that he was d.a.m.nably proud.' In serious ill.u.s.tration of the charge, Aubrey repeats a tale related by an old attendant, who had seen the Lord High Admiral in the Privy Garden wipe with his cloak the dust from Ralegh's shoes 'in compliment.' Aubrey's description of Ralegh is all hearsay; since he was not born till 1627. He may have been told anecdotes by members of the family; for his grandfather was a Wiltshire neighbour of Sir Carew Ralegh, and he was himself a schoolfellow of Sir Carew's grandchildren.

But he was utterly uncritical, and his bare a.s.sertion would carry little weight. The testimony of a sworn foe, like Lord Henry Howard, to Ralegh's extraordinary haughtiness, may be regarded even with more suspicion. An old acquaintance, however, and a political ally, the Earl of Northumberland, similarly describes Ralegh as 'insolent, extremely heated, a man that desired to seem to be able to sway all men's courses.' That this was the current opinion, due, as it was, more or less to misconception, is borne out by a ma.s.s of authority. Ralegh must have profoundly impressed all about him with a sense that he felt himself better fitted than themselves to regulate their lives. His air of conscious superiority silenced opposition, but was resented. Neither a mob, nor Howards and Percies pardoned his a.s.sumption of an infinite superiority of capacity. His gaiety and splendour were treated as proofs of arrogance. His evident contempt of 'the rascal mult.i.tude' added to the odium which dogged his course. He never condescended to allude to the subject in writing or in authenticated speech. Though he courted occasions for renown, he did not seek applause. His position as a Queen's favourite in any case must have brought aversion upon him.

Tarleton, as he half acted, half improvised, is said to have shuffled a pack of cards, and pointed at him, standing behind the Queen's chair, an insolent innuendo: 'See, the knave commands the Queen.' The comedian, if the story be true, could reckon upon the support of a vast body of popular malevolence. Still, as a favourite, Ralegh only shared the lot of his cla.s.s. The same privileged player is alleged to have proceeded to satirize Leicester as well. Hatton was a frequent b.u.t.t for fierce sarcasms upon royal favouritism. The phenomenon in Ralegh's unpopularity is that proof absolutely irrefutable of the grandeur of his powers, and all the evidence of his exploits, should never have won him an amnesty for the original sin of his sovereign's kindness. Pride itself, it might have been thought, would have been pardoned at last in the doer of such deeds. His inexpiable offences really were his restless activity, and his pa.s.sion for personal management. He was a born manager of men.

Whatever was in hand, he saw what ought to be done, and was conscious of ability to arrange for the doing. He could never be connected with an enterprise which he was not determined to direct. He could endure to be a subordinate only if his masters would be in leading-strings.

CHAPTER VII.

ESs.e.x. THE ARMADA (1587-1589).

[Sidenote: _Popularity of Ess.e.x._]

As a favourite Ralegh was certain to have originally been hated by the people. His favour might have been tolerated by courtiers, or by a sufficient section of them, if he had been content to parade and enjoy his pomps, and had let them govern. His strenuous vigour exasperated them as much as his evident conviction of a right to rule. They never ceased to regard him on that account as a soldier of fortune, and an upstart. So poor a creature as Hatton had his party at Court. When he retired to the country in dudgeon at a display of royal grace to Ralegh, his friends, as Sir Thomas Heneage, were busy for him so late as April, 1585. Elizabeth was persuaded by them to let them give him a.s.surances on her behalf, that she would rather see Ralegh hanged than equal him with Hatton, or allow the world to think she did. When Hatton was out of date the courtiers combined to set up Ess.e.x against him, and had the a.s.sistance of the mult.i.tude in their tactics. The popular att.i.tude towards Ess.e.x is the solitary exception to the rule of the national abhorrence of favourites. It is explained as much by the dislike of Ralegh as by Ess.e.x's ingratiating characteristics. Animosity against Ralegh stimulated courtiers and the populace to sing in chorus the praises of the stepson of the detested Leicester. No anger was exhibited at the elevation of a lad of twenty to the Mastership of the Horse.

Stories of the Queen's supposed infatuation, how she 'kept him at cards, or one game or another, the whole night, and he cometh not to his own lodgings till birds sing in the morning,' amused, and did not incense.

Meanwhile the approved soldier, the planter of Virginia, was in the same May, 1587, truthfully described as 'the best hated man of the world in Court, city, and country.'

[Sidenote: _His Antipathy to Ralegh._]

For the crowd Ess.e.x may have had the merit of being of an ancient n.o.bility, which needed no intricate demonstration by antiquaries and genealogists. He had enough patrimonial wealth to justify the Sovereign in showering largess upon him. He was not one of the irrepressible west countrymen who brought their nimble wits, comeliness, and courage to the market of the Court. He was more bright than stately. His petulance did not produce an impression of haughtiness. For the courtier cla.s.s he possessed the yet higher virtue of willingness to be at once a centre and watchword and an instrument. From the first he was manipulated as an engine against Ralegh. In a letter to one of his many confidants he shows the readiness with which he accepted the office. In 1587 Elizabeth was on a progress, and was staying at North Hall in Hertfordshire.

Ralegh, as Captain of the Guard, and Ess.e.x both attended her. Ess.e.x writes to his friend, Edward Dyer, that he reproached the Queen for having slighted his sister, Lady Dorothy Perrot, the wife of Ralegh's old antagonist, Sir Thomas. He declared to her 'the true cause of this disgrace to me and to my sister, 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 eyes 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 the word "disdain," she said there was "no such cause why I should disdain him." This speech did touch me so much that, as near as I could, I did describe unto her what he had been, and what he was. I did let her know whether I had cause to disdain his compet.i.tion of love, or whether I could have comfort to give myself over to the service of a mistress which was in awe of such a man. I spake, what of grief and choler, as much against him as I could, and I think he, standing at the door, might very well hear the very worst that I spoke of himself. In the end I saw she was resolved to defend him, and to cross me. For myself, I told her I had no joy to be in any place, but was loth to be near about her, when I knew my affection so much thrown down, and such a wretch as Ralegh highly esteemed of her.' When he called Ralegh a wretch the Queen expressed her disgust at the impertinence by turning away to Lady Warwick, and closed the interview.