Chapter XV: REIGN OF ELIZABETH (concluded) (2)

In the spring of 1589 Parliament and Convocation assembled, and Elizabeth laid before them a statement of the heavy expenses incurred in beating off the Spaniards. She had already levied a forced loan, to which the recusants had been made to contribute heavily, and she now received most liberal grants from both Parliament and Convocation. Having given this freely, the House of Commons prayed the queen to send out a strong force and take vengeance on the Spaniards for their attack on this country. Elizabeth was perfectly agreeable that they should punish Philip to their hearts' content, but not out of the supplies they had granted. She said there were great demands on her exchequer; that she could only furnish ships and soldiers, and they must pay the cost. The proposal of retaliation was so much to the taste of the public that an association was formed under the auspices of Drake and Norris, and very soon they had a fleet of 100 sail at Plymouth, carrying 21,000 men. Elizabeth had long been patronising Don Antonio, prior of Crato, an illegitimate branch of the Royal family of Portugal. This pretender was now sent out in this fleet in royal state, and the expedition was directed to land in Portugal, and call on the people to throw off the Spanish yoke, and restore their government under a native, and, as Elizabeth boldly asserted, legitimate prince. If the Portuguese would not receive Don Antonio, the fleet was then to scour the roads of Spain, and inflict on the territory of Philip all the damage possible.

The fascination of this expedition under so renowned a commander as Drake, seized on the fancy of a young noble, who had now become Elizabeth's prime favourite--the Earl of Essex. This was the son of the Countess of Essex whom Leicester had secretly married, much to Elizabeth's indignation, in 1578. Leicester introduced the young earl to Elizabeth, who, for a time, hated him on account of his mother, for the queen, in spite of her numerous quarrels with Leicester, was never able to free herself wholly from her early attachment to him. However, some time before Leicester's death, the graces and lively disposition of the young earl had made a strong impression on her heart or head, and she lavished blandishments on the handsome boy in public, even in the face of the camp at Tilbury, which must have been eminently ludicrous. After Leicester's death he was installed as the chief favourite, and she could scarcely bear him out of her sight. Her consternation was great when she found that he had slyly eloped, and had set off after the fleet bound for Spain.

Drake made first for Corunna, where he seized a number of merchantmen and ships of war, made himself master of the suburbs or marine part of the town, with large stores of oil and wine, but failed to take the town itself, though he succeeded in making a breach in the wall, at the cost of many lives. Norris, meantime, attacked the forces of the Condé d'Andrada, posted at the Puente de Burgos, and drove them before him for some miles; but sickness and shortness of powder compelled them to embark again. Drake and Norris, as famous for their bulletins as Napoleon in our day, wrote home that they had killed 1,000 of the enemy, with the loss of only three men! but Lord Talbot, writing at the same time to his father, said that they had lost a great number of men, quite as many as the Spaniards. From Corunna they coasted to Peniche, about thirty miles north of Lisbon. At Peniche the young Earl of Essex, who kept out at sea till the commanders could say in their dispatches that they had heard nothing of him, was the first to spring on shore, and showed great gallantry. They quickly took the castle, and the fleet then proceeded along the shore to the Tagus, while the army marched by land to Lisbon through Torres Vedras and St. Sebastian.

The garrison in Lisbon was but weak, and Essex knocked at the gates, and summoned the commander to surrender; but the Spaniards had taken the precaution to lay waste the neighbourhood and destroy all the provisions, or carry them into the city, so that famine, fever, and want of powder soon compelled the English to retire. They found that their pretender, Don Antonio, was everywhere treated as a pretender--not a man would own him; and they marched to Cascaes, which they found already plundered by Drake and his squadron. They there embarked for England, but were soon dispersed by a storm, and reached Plymouth in straggling disorder, one of the sections of the fleet having, before leaving Spain, plundered the town of Vigo. It was found that out of their 21,000 men, they had lost one-half. Out of the 1,100 gentlemen who accompanied the expedition one-third had perished. Elizabeth secretly grumbled at the expense and loss, but publicly boasted of the chastisement she had given to Philip.

On the death of Henry III. of France by assassination, as we have previously related, Henry of Navarre, a lineal descendant of St. Louis, by his youngest son Robert, Count of Clermont, assumed the crown as Henry IV. But Henry's known Protestantism placed him in extreme difficulty, even with those who had hitherto supported himself or the late king. The Papist followers of that monarch insisted that he should sign an engagement to maintain their worship, and that to the exclusion of every other, except in the places in which the Protestant form was already established. They bound Henry to hunt out and punish the murderers of the late king; to give no offices in the State, in cities or corporations, except to Papists, and to permit the nobles of the Roman Catholic league to defend to the Pope their proceedings. But by conceding these conditions, he mortally offended the Protestants, who had hitherto faithfully adhered to him, and who refused any longer to fight under the banners of a prince who had thus, as they deemed it, abandoned their cause. Nine regiments deserted his standard, whilst a regiment of Papists on the other side, not sufficiently satisfied with the concessions thus dearly purchased, also marched out of his camp.

Such was the extent of the disaffection, that instead of being able to take Paris, he was compelled to raise the siege and retreat into Normandy. Thither the Duke of Mayenne, the leader of the Guise party, and his fanatic rabble pursued him, but Henry, advantageously encamping his little army, which did not amount to a fourth of the enemy, on a slope opposite to the castle and village of Arques, a few miles from Dieppe, defeated his assailants with great slaughter. The battle was fought on the 21st of September, 1589, and the spot is now marked by a lofty column.

On the heels of this victory came a most timely aid from Elizabeth of England, of £20,000 in gold and 4,000 troops under Lord Willoughby. Henry now retraced his steps to Paris, where he made himself master of the suburbs on the left bank of the Seine, and continued to act on the offensive during the remainder of the year. At the commencement of 1591 the English army was dismissed, having suffered heavy losses, and displayed marked bravery.

But they only returned home for Henry to solicit fresh assistance; the Spaniards and the Duke of Mercoeur put in claims for the province of Brittany, and united their forces to obtain it. Elizabeth, who professed to desire the Protestant ascendency in France, sorely rued the expense of supporting that interest, and her old and cunning minister Burleigh, threw his weight into the scale of parsimony, because he delighted to see France depressed. But now that the hated Spaniards had actually landed in that country over against her very coasts, she was roused to do something. She advanced a fresh loan and sent over a small reinforcement of 3,000 men. Essex was impatient to have the command of this force, but the queen, listening to Burleigh, gave it to Sir John Norris, and Essex quitted the Court in a pet. Fresh forces were, however, solicited, and Essex, to his great delight, received the appointment. In August he landed at Dieppe, and finding Henry engaged in the distant Champagne, he pitched his tent at Arques, near the scene of Henry's triumph, and remained there for two months doing nothing but knighting his officers to keep them contented. His whole force consisted only of 300 horse, 300 gentlemen volunteers, and 3,000 infantry. On the king's arrival the siege of Rouen was begun, where the English army suffered terrible hardships, and in the spring of 1592, the siege having been raised on the approach of the Prince of Parma, Essex left his troops with Sir Roger Williams, having lost his brother, Walter Devereux, in the campaign.

This unsatisfactory state of things in France continued till the midsummer of 1593. Henry was continually demanding fresh aid, fresh advances of money, fresh troops, which he did not employ, as was stipulated with Elizabeth, solely against the Spaniards, but against his rebellious subjects. Elizabeth was greatly enraged at his breach of faith, but still found it impossible to refuse him, lest the Spaniards should get the upper hand, and Henry, calculating on this, went on doing with her troops just what he pleased. Elizabeth was further incensed, and went into the worst of tempers on this account, and for this cause not only dealt sharp words, but heavy blows about her on her attendants. But worst of all came the news that Henry IV. was about to embrace the Roman Catholic faith. The fact was he saw that it was impossible otherwise to maintain himself on the throne. She sent off a strong remonstrance composed by Burleigh, but before its arrival the deed was done, nor is it to be supposed that its arrival would have prevented it. Elizabeth's limited aid could not enable him to overcome the tremendous opposition arrayed against him. On the 15th of July, 1593, Henry publicly abjured the Protestant and embraced, if not the Roman Catholic faith, the profession of it. On hearing that this was done, Elizabeth burst into one of her violent passions, and heaped on him her choicest terms of abuse. She wrote to him after four months had somewhat abated her fury, but still in a strain of high remonstrance.

Elizabeth, after getting over her resentment against Henry IV. on account of his lapse of faith, found it convenient to make a league offensive and defensive with him against Philip. The consequence was that the Spaniards speedily poured into France from the Netherlands. Velasco, the constable of Castile, penetrated into Champagne, and directed his attack against Franche-Comté. Fuentes marched into Picardy, defeated Henry's army, took Dourlens and Cambray, and threw the King of France into the greatest alarm. In vain he sent to demand aid of Elizabeth: she had heard of preparations in the Spanish ports for a second invasion of her kingdom; and so far from aiding Henry, she withdrew her troops from Brittany, complaining dreadfully of all the money and men which she had foolishly wasted on the apostate monarch of France. In March, 1596, the Archduke Albert, who had become Governor of the Netherlands, suddenly marched on Calais, pretending that his object was to raise the siege of La Fere. By this ruse he was already under the walls of Calais with 15,000 men. The outstanding forts were soon won, and as Elizabeth was one Sunday at church at Greenwich, the distant report of the Archduke's cannonade on the walls of Calais was plainly heard. Elizabeth sprang up in the midst of the service, and vowed that she would rescue that ancient town. She sent off post-haste to order the Lord Mayor of London to immediately impress 1,000 men, and send them on to Calais; but the fit of enthusiasm was soon over, and the next morning she countermanded the order. When Henry's ambassadors urged her for assistance, she coolly proffered it on condition that she should garrison Calais with an English army. When the proposal was made to Henry, he was so incensed that he actually turned his back on her ambassador, Sir Robert Sidney, saying he would rather receive a box on the ear from a man than a fillip from a woman. In a few days--namely, on the 14th of April--the town was carried by storm, and Elizabeth had the mortification of seeing the Spaniards in possession of a port so calculated to enable them to invade England. Henry, on his part, was excessively enraged at her duplicity and selfishness, and spoke in no sparing terms of her. Nevertheless, his necessities soon compelled him to lower his tone, and even to condescend to flatter her in the most extravagant manner of the age, with the result that 2,000 troops were sent to garrison Boulogne.

The hostile preparations in the ports of Spain at this time occupied all the attention of Elizabeth and her Government, and the more so as during the past years she had lost her two famous commanders, Drake and Hawkins. They had been sent out on one of their predatory expeditions against the Spanish settlements in South America and the West Indies. But circumstances in these quarters had become greatly changed. The colonies had acquired population and strength: the former ravages of these commanders had put the people and the Government on their guard. Wherever the English fleet appeared, it found the ports and coasts well guarded and defended. Their attacks were repulsed, and such was the deplorable failure of the expedition, and the contrast of their former profitable and splendid exploits, that both commanders sank under their mortification. Hawkins died in 1595, and Drake in the following year. The survivors only returned to experience the anger of the queen, who felt with equal sensibility the loss of reputation and of the accustomed booty.

The Lord Howard of Effingham, the brave High Admiral who had so successfully commanded the fleet against the Armada, recommended at this crisis that the English Government should adopt the advice which he had given on the former occasion, to anticipate the intentions of Spain, and attack and destroy the menacing fleet ere it left the port. In this counsel he was ardently seconded by Essex, who loved above all things an expedition of a bold and romantic character, and the more so, because it was directly opposed to the cold and cautious policy of his enemies, the Cecils. He prevailed, and a fleet of 130 sail was fitted out to carry over an army of 14,000 land forces. The fleet was confided to the command of Lord Howard, the army to Essex; but to put some check on his fiery enthusiasm he was required to take, on all great occasions, the advice of a council of war consisting of the Lord Admiral, Lord Thomas Howard, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Vere, Sir George Carew, and Sir Coniers Clifford.

On the 1st of June, 1596, the fleet issued from Plymouth, and being joined by twenty-two ships from Holland, it amounted to 150 sail, carrying 14,000 men. On the 20th the fleet cast anchor at the mouth of the harbour of Cadiz, and there discovered fifteen men-of-war, and about forty merchantmen. The next morning a fierce battle took place, which lasted from seven in the morning till one o'clock at noon. The English sailed right into the harbour, despite the fire from the ships and forts, and the Spaniards, finding the contest going against them, attempted to run their vessels ashore and burn them. The galleons got out to sea, while the merchantmen having reached Puerto Real, discharged their cargo and were burnt by order of the Duke of Medina. Two large ships with an argosy were taken, and much booty fell to the captors. The Earl of Essex displayed the utmost gallantry. Instead of remaining with the army, he went on board and fought in the thick of the danger. The sea-fight over, he landed 3,000 men and marched into Cadiz. A body of horse and foot was posted to oppose his progress, but fled at his approach; and, finding that the inhabitants in their terror had closed the gates, they made their way over a ruinous wall, and the English without delay followed them. In spite of the fire kept up from the tops of the houses, Essex led his men to the market-place, where they were speedily joined by the Lord Admiral, who had found his way through a portal. The city capitulated, paying 120,000 crowns for the lives of the people, the town and all its wealth being abandoned to the plunder of the troops.

Essex proposed to strike a great blow while the panic of their victory paralysed the country. He recommended that they should march into the heart of Andalusia; and such was the destitution of disciplined troops from the drain which the wars of France and the Netherlands had occasioned, such were the discontent of the nobles and the disaffection of the Moriscoes, that much mischief might have been done before they could have been successfully opposed. The plan, however, was resisted by the other commanders, and Essex then offered to remain in the Isla de Leon with 4,000 men, and defend it against the whole force of the enemy. But the other leaders would hear of nothing but hastening home. They had laid the town in ruins, with the exception of two or three churches; they had nearly annihilated the fleet, had collected a vast booty, and inflicted on the Spaniards a loss of 20,000,000 ducats.

The conquerors returned home, having dealt the severest blow at Spain that it had received for generations. They had raised the prestige of the English arms, amply avenged the attempt at the invasion of their country, and sunk the reputation of Spain in no ordinary degree. Foreigners regarded the exploit with wonder, and the people raised thunders of acclamations as the victorious vessels sailed into port. But the gallant and magnanimous deeds of Essex had been gall and wormwood to the Cecils, and they had neglected no means of injuring him in his absence. Essex had succeeded ever since the death of Walsingham--that is, for six years--in preventing the dearest wish of Burleigh's heart, to see his son, Sir Robert, established in his post. While Essex was away he carried this point with the queen; and the courtiers, now auguring the ascendency of the Cecils, united in defaming Essex to win favour with them. They talked freely of his vainglory, rashness, extravagance, and dissipation.

Day after day the queen subjected Essex to the scrutiny and cross-questioning of his enemies in the Council, till, luckily for him, there came the news that the Spanish treasures from the New World had just arrived safely in port with 20,000,000 of dollars. This put the climax to Elizabeth's exasperation; and Essex, who, since his return from the expedition, as if to take away every ground for the censure of the courtiers, had assumed a totally new character, and was no longer the gay and pleasure-seeking young nobleman, but the grave and religious man; who lived at home with his countess, attended her to church, and exhibited the most pious demeanour; who, instead of his haughty and irritable temper, had displayed the utmost patience and forbearance under the galling examination of the Council, now broke out at once with the declaration that he had done everything in his power to persuade his colleagues to permit him to sail to Terceira to intercept this very fleet; that the creatures of the Cecils had opposed him resolutely, defeated the enterprise, and robbed the queen of this princely treasure.

Instantly the whole current of Elizabeth's feelings underwent a change. It was deemed necessary to send out an expedition to Spain to hunt up the hostile fleet and destroy it as before. Essex stood undoubted in the queen's confidence, and she gave him the command of the fleet for this purpose, with Lord Thomas Howard and Sir Walter Raleigh under him. This time there was no subjection to a council of war. On the 11th of July, 1597, the fleet set sail; but had not sailed more than forty leagues when it was driven back by a tempest, which raged for four days. Essex himself disdained to turn back, but, with his utter contempt of danger and dogged obstinacy, he, to use his own words, beat up his ship in the teeth of the storm, till it was actually falling asunder, having a leak which obliged them to pump eight tons of water per day out of her; her main and foremast being cracked, and most of her beams broken and reft. The gentlemen volunteers were so completely satisfied with sailing with such a man, that on reaching land at Falmouth they all stole away home. But Essex himself was as resolved as ever to prosecute the voyage, though the queen would advance nothing more for refitting the fleet. He got as many of his ships into order as he could, and on the 17th of August was enabled to sail again, though the men by this time had consumed most of their provisions. He made now, not for the coast of Spain, but the Azores, where they took Fayal, Graciosa, and Flores--useless conquests, as they could not keep them, and which led to immediate quarrels, for Raleigh, with his indomitable ambition, took Fayal himself without orders, which Essex deeming an honour stolen from him, resented greatly. He ordered several of the officers concerned to be arrested; but when he was advised to try Raleigh by a court-martial, he replied, "So I would had he been one of my friends." What was worse than this dispute, however, was that the Spanish treasure vessels returning from America, which Elizabeth had expressly ordered them to lay wait for, had escaped into Terceira, and they were obliged to return with the capture of three Spanish ships and other plunder, valued at £100,000.

Essex, on landing, hastened to Court, but the queen was in the worst of humours at the missing of the treasure ships, and complained that he had done nothing to discharge the expenses of the expedition. She laid all the blame of failure on him, and gave all the credit to Sir Walter Raleigh, whom she accused him of oppressing and insulting. With his usual choleric petulance, he hastily left the Court and retired to his own house at Wanstead. He was so far from admitting that he was in the wrong, that he demanded satisfaction for the injuries which he considered had been done him in his absence. The Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster, which he had asked for a dependent, had been conferred on Cecil, and the Lord Admiral Howard had been created Earl of Nottingham, and thus had obtained an official precedency over him. Worse still, and more unjust, the honour of the capture of Cadiz was allowed to be usurped by Lord Howard in his new patent, though it really belonged to Essex. The passionate favourite was so enraged that he offered to fight Nottingham in vindication of his claim, or one of his sons, or any gentleman of the name of Howard. However, he bridled his resentment, and on the 18th of December all was made smooth, and Essex again appeared at Court, being created Earl Marshal, by which he regained precedency over the new Earl of Nottingham.

The King of France, in the commencement of the year 1598, announced to the Queen of England his intention to seek peace with Spain. This was news by no means agreeable to Elizabeth, as such a peace would leave Philip at liberty to pursue his designs against her; and she endeavoured by her ambassador to dissuade Henry from such a measure. But Henry had now for thirteen years been harassed by the cares of a kingdom involved on two sides in war with Philip, and rent in every quarter by religious dissension. The death of the Guises had broken up, in a great measure, the Roman Catholic League, but the spirit of opposition was still as much alive as ever, and was fanned into flame by a Protestant League, formed on the same principles. He longed intensely for peace, that he might more fully exert himself to abate this religious discord. His anxiety for it had been doubled by the capture of Amiens by the Spaniards in February, 1597; and his recovery of it in the following September only rendered him the more willing to treat, because he could do it on better terms. It was necessary to send over Sir Robert Cecil as ambassador extraordinary, to attend the negotiations: and fearing the influence of Essex in his absence, the cunning minister had been induced to favour his advancement to the post of Earl Marshal, and he sought to win the Earl over more completely by moving the queen to present Essex with a cargo of cochineal worth £7,000, and a contract for the sale of a much larger amount out of the royal stores. Greatly pleased by these instances of Cecil's friendship, as he deemed it, Essex transacted the business of the Secretaryship for Sir Robert in his absence, and that politic gentleman took his departure for France on the 10th of February, 1598.

At the conference both Cecil and the Dutch deputies did everything in their power to prevent the peace, but in vain. Henry was resolved on giving tranquillity to his kingdom; and when reproached by Cecil for deserting Elizabeth, he replied that in aiding him she had served her own interests. On the 20th of April he published the edict of Nantes, giving security and toleration to the Protestants; and on May the 2nd he signed, at Vervins, the treaty with Spain, which was so advantageous that he recovered Calais and all places which had been taken during the war. Elizabeth was in reality a gainer, for she thus became free from a charge of £126,000 per annum in holding the cautionary towns; and the States gave an acknowledgment of a debt of £800,000, which they engaged to pay by instalments.

On the return of Cecil he submitted to the queen the proposals which Philip had made for the extension of the peace to England, and Burleigh and Sir Robert contended that Spain having made peace with France, it was wise for this kingdom to do the same. Essex, on the contrary, contended for war, and for still punishing the Spaniards for their attempt at invasion. In the midst of one of the debates in the Council, Burleigh put his pocket Bible gently before him, open at these words in the Psalms:--"Blood-thirsty men shall not live out half their days." Essex took no apparent notice of it, but after his death the circumstance came to be looked on as prophetic. The Council was in favour of peace. The nation sympathised with Essex, and especially the army and navy, who hated the Spaniards, and thought Essex stood up for the honour of the country. But if Essex's favour rose with the people, it was in utmost peril at Court.

A scene soon occurred in the Council chamber which hastened the rupture. There was a warm debate on the appointment of a new Lord Deputy for Ireland. That country was in such a cruelly distracted state, and the population, both English and Irish, so hostile to the English Government, that no one would willingly accept the office. At this moment the Cecils were warmly recommending Sir William Knollys to that unenviable post, Essex still more vehemently urging the appointment on Sir George Carew. But each party was not striving to confer the post as a favour, but as an annoyance. Sir William Knollys was the uncle of Essex, and, therefore, when the queen named him, the Cecils supported the nomination; and Essex, on the contrary, named Sir George Carew as a partisan of the Cecils. The debate grew vehement, and Essex, without regard to the wishes of the queen, spoke violently against the appointment of Sir William. The queen made a sarcastic observation on Essex's advocacy, and the petted favourite turned his back upon her with an expression neither respectful nor prudent. The soul of the great queen rose in all its Tudor fury, and she fetched the rash and forgetful youth a sound buffet on the ear. Instead of being called to his senses by this action, the fiery Earl started to his feet and clapped his hand on his sword; but the Lord Admiral threw himself between the ungallant Earl and the queen; and Essex exclaiming that "it was an insult which he would not have taken from her father, much less from a king in petticoats," rushed out of the room.

The rupture took place in June, and not till the 6th of November did the haughty favourite and the offended queen become reconciled; and it is not probable that the reconciliation was ever sincere on the part of Elizabeth. Meanwhile, death had removed two persons of great consequence in the history of Elizabeth--her aged minister Burleigh, and Philip of Spain (1598). Sir Robert Cecil, Burleigh's son, succeeded him in the councils of the queen, much to the disgust of Essex, and perpetuated his father's cautious principles.

Ireland was now at such a pitch of confusion that the English Government was at its wit's end about it, and no one liked to undertake its vice-royalty. It was come to such a pass that it was even worse than when Walsingham wished it four-and-twenty hours under water. The Lord Grey, though eulogised by Spenser, had left it with the character of a cruel and rapacious tyrant. Sir John Perrot, reputed to be an illegitimate brother of Elizabeth, succeeded him, and dispensed justice with a stern hand. He was as ready to punish the English for their excesses as to do justice to the Irish under their wrongs; and the enmity of his own domineering and avaricious countrymen became much more effective than the respect of the natives. In 1592 the clamours and intrigues of his enemies occasioned his recall. At home, however, he suffered himself to speak incautiously of the queen and of Chancellor Hatton, and a secret inquiry was instituted into his late administration of Ireland. All sorts of charges of a treasonable nature were advanced against him by those whose rapacity he had punished during his deputyship--such as favouring the Roman Catholic clergy, plotting with Parma and the Spaniards, and encouraging the insurrections of the O'Rourkes and the Burkes. They could establish none of these, but they managed to touch him in a still more dangerous quarter. They proved that in his irritation at the obstructions thrown in his way by the Court, he had spoken sometimes freely of the queen and her ministers. Essex, whose sister Perrot's son had married, exerted all his influence in his favour; but where Elizabeth's vanity was wounded she was unforgiving. Sir John was condemned to death, and soon after died in the Tower from chagrin at his unjust treatment, or, as was suspected, from poison.

(_From the Portrait by Isaac Oliver._)]

The most formidable Irish chieftain with whom the English had to contend was Hugh, the son of the late Baron of Dungannon. This active and ambitious chief, who had been rewarded for his services in the war against the Earl of Desmond with the earldom of Tyrone, soon proclaimed himself not merely the successor to the earldom of O'Neil, but the genuine O'Neil himself. The natives of Ulster, in need of such a champion, admitted his claims, and were ready to support him in all his pretensions. As these were not admitted by the English, he became their enemy, and by his military talents proved a terrible thorn in their side. He demanded for the natives liberty of conscience and all their old lands, rights, and privileges; and the successive deputies found themselves engaged in a most harassing and destructive war with this subtle chief and his followers, in which he wore them out by constant skirmishes and surprises amongst the woods, bogs, and mountains of his wild territories. Sir John Norris, who had served with so much honour in the Netherlands and France, sank under it; and in August of 1598 Sir Henry Bagenal was defeated and slain in a pitched battle at Blackwater, in Tyrone, his baggage and artillery being lost, and 1,500 men killed. The consequence of this victory was that nearly all Ireland rushed into a state of open rebellion, and the great question in the English cabinet was, who was the man capable of reducing the insurgents. It required no common man; for the Irish everywhere proclaimed the Earl of Tyrone the saviour of his country, and looked to him to drive the English wholly out of Ireland. The Earl of Essex dwelt so much in the Council on the necessary bravery and address of the man who should be appointed, that the Cecils, anxious to remove him to a distance from the Court, declared that he himself was by far the most fitting for the office. His friends warned him of the dangers and difficulties of a Government which had been the ruin of so many; but the queen, seconding the recommendations of the Cecils, to induce him to accept the post, remitted him a debt of £8,000, and made him a present of nearly three times that sum. He was furnished with an army of 18,000 men, many of them veteran troops who had fought in the Netherlands, and with the fullest powers that had ever been conferred on any Irish Deputy. He had full authority to continue the war or to make peace; to pardon all crimes and treasons at his pleasure, and to determine all his own appointments.

Such were the terms of his commission; but in one particular the queen had laid a strict injunction upon him, in conversation, which was, that he should not give the command of the cavalry, as he wished, to his friend and the friend of Shakespeare, the Earl of Southampton, with whom Elizabeth had the old cause of quarrel, that of presuming to marry without her consent. In March, 1599, Essex marched out of London, surrounded by the flower of the young nobility, and followed by the acclamations and good wishes of the populace, of whom he was the idol for his military reputation and his frank and generous disposition.

No sooner did he arrive in Ireland than he set at defiance the orders of the queen, and placed Southampton at the head of the horse. Elizabeth sent an angry command for his removal, and Essex reminded her of the terms of his commission, and wished to know whether she meant to revoke it. Worse was to follow. Sickness, from the wretched and unwholesome supplies of provisions--the worst enemy of the British soldier in all ages being frequently the commissariat officers--soon decimated them; and by the month of August his 18,000 men showed no more than 3,500 foot, and 300 horse. He was compelled to demand a reinforcement of 2,000 men before he could march into Ulster, the chief seat of the rebellion. The queen sent the soldiers, but accompanied the order by very bitter letters, complaining of his waste of her troops, her money, and of her time, which was so precious. Essex defended himself by representing the difficulties of the task which he had to encounter, and which had mastered so many before him. He assured her that he acted entirely by the advice of the Lords of the Irish Council; but "these rebels," he said, "are far more numerous than your Majesty's army, and have--though I do unwillingly confess it--better bodies, and more perfect use of their arms, than those men your Majesty sends over." He added, that for his part he received nothing from home but "discomfort and soul-wounds."

When he came up with Tyrone on the 5th of September, encamped with his whole army in the county of Louth, that chief demanded a parley, and instead of a battle, as was expected, an armistice was agreed upon for six weeks, which was to be renewed from six weeks to six weeks till the following May, to give time for full inquiry. His enemies thereupon insinuated that Essex was at heart a traitor, and was in collusion with the Irish to betray his trust and make himself independent. Still worse, they declared that he was waiting for a descent of the Spaniards on the island to assist in the design. Certain that his destruction was determined upon by his foes, and that no justice was to be expected whilst he was at such a distance, he formed the sudden resolve to hasten to London and defend his policy in person. His first idea was to take with him such a body of troops as should overawe the adverse party, and secure his own person; but Sir Christopher Blount, who had now married the mother of Essex, convinced him of the fatality of such a proceeding. He departed, therefore, with a small attendance; and arriving in London on the 28th of September, 1599, and finding the queen was at Nonsuch, he lost no time in hastening thither, to prevent any one from prejudicing her against him. But he found that, quick as he had been, his enemies had been quicker, and that one of the most hostile of them, Lord Grey of Wilton, was on the way at full speed. Essex knew what the effect would be if Cecil got the news before his arrival, that he had left his government contrary to the positive order of the queen; and if time were allowed to excite the queen's resentment, he would undoubtedly be arrested the moment of his arrival. For this reason he rode like a madman, through mud and mire, but hate travelled faster, and Grey had been closeted a good quarter of a hour with Cecil when he reached the palace.

Without pausing to alter his dress, Essex rushed into the queen's privy chamber, and not finding her there, did not hesitate to rush into her bed-chamber, though it was only ten o'clock in the morning. The queen was just up, and sat with her hair all about her face in the hands of her tire-woman. She was naturally excessively astonished at this unexpected apparition; but Essex threw himself on his knees before her, covered her hands with kisses, and did not rise till she had given him evidence of her good-will. He retired to make his toilet in such good humour at his reception that he thanked God that after so many troublous storms abroad, "he found a sweet calm at home." Within an hour he returned, and had a long interview with her Majesty, who was so kind and gracious, that the courtiers, who had carefully watched how this rude entrance would be taken, persuaded themselves that love would carry the day against duty with the queen; and they all, except the Cecil party, were very courteous towards him. But by the evening the poison of the venomous minister had been instilled and done its work. Essex was received by the queen with a stern and distant air, and she began to demand of him why he had thus left Ireland without her permission, affairs being in so disordered and dangerous a state. He received an order at night to consider himself a prisoner in his room; and the next day, at two o'clock in the afternoon, he was summoned to give an account of himself to the Council. On entering the Council the lords arose and saluted him, but reseated themselves, leaving him standing at the end of the board. It was demanded why he had left his charge in Ireland without leave; why he had made so many knights there, contrary to the express desire of the queen; why he had written such presumptuous letters to her Majesty; and how he had dared to enter her Majesty's bedroom. After awhile he was allowed a certain amount of freedom, but the queen never saw him again.

In June of 1600 she put Essex on his trial before a court of eighteen commissioners, whom she empowered to pass "censure," but not judgment. The result of this trial was that Essex was condemned to forfeit every office which he held by patent from the Crown, and to remain a prisoner at the royal pleasure. Elizabeth trusted that now she had broken the proud spirit of the Lord Deputy, and that the sentence of the court would bring him humbly to sue for forgiveness. But the great failing of Essex was his high spirit, his indignant sense of wrong, and his obstinate refusal to surrender his own will when he felt himself right, though there was no other way of appeasing his equally self-willed sovereign. He only begged to be dismissed, and that she "would let her servant depart in peace." He declared that all the pleasures and ambitions of this world had palled upon his mind; that he saw their vanity, and desired only to live in retirement with his wife, his friends, and his books in the country. Had that wish been real, few men were better qualified, by their refined and elevated taste and their love of literature, to have adorned such a life; but Essex, if he truly longed for private and domestic life, did not know himself, for he was one of those restless and quick spirits of whom the poet said "quiet is a hell." However, on the 26th of August he was released from custody, but informed that he must not appear at Court.

Essex, once at large, cast off his pretences of retirement and contempt of the world, and petitioned the queen for a continuation of his patent for a monopoly of sweet wines. Elizabeth replied that she would first inquire into the value of this privilege, which she understood was worth £50,000 per annum. She accompanied this message with an ominous remark that when horses became unmanageable it was necessary to stint them in their corn. Accordingly, she refused his request, and appointed commissioners to manage the tax for herself.

Essex now became beside himself. Hitherto he had lived in privacy, but now he came to Essex House, in the Strand, where he gave free entertainment to all sorts of people. His secretary Cuffe and other dangerous persons encouraged him in the belief that by his popularity with the people it would be no difficult matter to force Cecil, Raleigh, and his other enemies from office; and that once removed from the queen, all would be right. He therefore kept open house, and was soon surrounded by crowds of military men and adventurers, by Roman Catholics and Puritans. His military friends formed themselves into a sort of guard; and it was remarked that many of the nobility also visited him, as the Earls of Worcester, Southampton, Sussex, Rutland, and Bedford. There were daily preachings in his house, and he proposed to some of the theologians the question whether it were not lawful, in case of mal-administration, to compel a sovereign to govern according to law. He moreover sent to the king of Scotland, assuring him that there was a design at Court to exclude him in favour of the Infanta of Spain, and urged James to send an ambassador to demand a distinct declaration of his right to the succession. James, who was in great anxiety on this head already, appears to have listened to the advice of Essex, and to have taken measures to act upon it.

Essex was now stimulated by his passions into a most perilous position. He was actively engaged in dangerous courses; and though some pains were taken to conceal his real designs, by the chief coadjutors in the conspiracy meeting at the Earl of Southampton's, and communicating privately by letter with Essex, the proceedings could not escape the ever-open ears of Cecil and his party. The conspirators had concluded that the safest thing to do in the first instance was for Sir Christopher Blount, Sir John Davis, and Sir Charles Davers to head three parties, and to take possession of the gate of Westminster palace, the guard, and the presence chamber, whilst Essex threw himself on his knees before the queen, and refused to rise till she had complied with his petition, and dismissed the obnoxious ministers. But while they were planning, Cecil and his friends acted. The secretary Herbert arrived with a summons for Essex to appear before the Council. He replied that he was too unwell to attend; and while he was thus evading the summons, he received an anonymous note warning him to escape as he valued his life; and this was immediately followed by the intelligence that the guard had been doubled at the palace. It was high time now to act, as his arrest was certain. In the night he despatched messages to collect his friends; and it was resolved that the next morning, which was Sunday, the 8th of February, 1601, the Earls of Southampton and Rutland, the Lords Sandys and Mounteagle, and about 600 gentlemen, should enter the City with Essex during sermon time, and assembling at St. Paul's Cross, where the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Companies were wont to attend, to call upon them to accompany them to the palace to assist in obtaining the removal of the pernicious advisers of the Crown.

When they were on the point of executing this plan they were interrupted by a visit from the Lord Keeper Egerton, the Earl of Worcester, Knollys, the comptroller of the household, and the Lord Chief Justice. Essex ordered them to be admitted through the wicket, but without any of their attendants, except the purse-bearer. When the officers of the Crown found themselves in the midst of an armed company, Egerton demanded what was the meaning of it; on which Essex replied in a loud and excited tone, "There is a plot laid for my life. Letters have been counterfeited in my name; men have been hired to murder me in my bed. We are met to defend our lives, since my enemies cannot be satisfied without sucking my blood."

"If such be the case," said the Lord Chief Justice Popham, "let it be proved. We will relate it fairly, and the queen will do impartial justice." "Impartial justice!" said the Earl of Southampton; "then why is it not done on Lord Grey?" Grey had attacked Southampton in the Strand with a number of followers on account of an old grudge, Southampton having only a foot-boy with him, whose hand was struck off, and Southampton himself was in great danger, till a number of people with clubs came to his help. Popham replied that Grey was imprisoned for the offence; and Egerton desired Essex to explain his grievances in private, when there was a cry of "They abuse you, my lord; they are undoing you; you lose your time!" Egerton put on his cap, and commanded every man, in the queen's name, to lay down his arms and depart. The crowd outside continued to shout, "Kill them, kill them! Keep them for hostages! Throw the great seal out of the window!" The queen's officers, being shown into a back room guarded by musketeers, Essex begged them to have patience for half an hour and locking the door upon them, left them. Sir John Davis, Sir Gilly Merrick, Francis Tresham, and Owen Salisbury were left in charge of them.

Then Essex, rushing into the street, drew his sword, and followed by Southampton, Rutland, Sandys, Mounteagle, and most of the knights and gentlemen, he made for the City. They were joined on the way by the Earl of Bedford and Lord Cromwell, with 200 others. At Ludgate the guard suffered them to pass, Essex declaring that he was endeavouring to save his life from Raleigh, Cobham, and their accomplices. To their great disappointment they found nobody at St. Paul's Cross, the queen having warned the Corporation to keep away, and to see that the people remained within their houses. Essex rode along shouting, "For the queen, my mistress! a plot is laid for my life!" and called upon the citizens to come and follow him. He had relied on his popularity with the masses; but he now found himself miserably deceived. The common people shouted "God bless your honour!" but no man joined him. He returned crestfallen to his house; but it was presently surrounded by a military force with a battering train, and not a soul rose in his defence. The case was hopeless, and about ten o'clock at night Essex and Southampton held a parley from the top of the house with Sir Robert Sidney, and surrendered on promise of a fair trial. They were conveyed for the night to Lambeth Palace. The next day Essex and Southampton were committed to the Tower, and the other prisoners to different gaols in London and Westminster. Essex was tried, and on the whole fairly, for his technical guilt was obvious; and, after the usual hesitation on the part of Elizabeth, suffered the penalty of the law on the 25th of February, 1601. Southampton was imprisoned for life.

Lord Mountjoy, the friend of Essex, though advanced to the deputyship of Ireland in his room, knew that Elizabeth had become aware of his offer to attempt a release of Essex from his confinement before his last rash outbreak, and he was prepared to escape to the Continent on the first symptom of an attempt to arrest him; but to his agreeable surprise he received a very gracious letter from Elizabeth, in which she stated that the defection and death of Essex had caused her deep grief, but his, Mountjoy's, loyalty and success in Ireland had been a comfort to her. This had been done at the suggestion of Cecil, who represented to her that Mountjoy's loyalty might be secured by not seeming to doubt it, and it was a great consequence to have so able a general in Ireland, as the Spaniards were now meditating a descent on the coast of that island. Indeed, in September, 4,000 Spaniards landed at Kinsale, under Don Juan D'Aguilar, fortified the town, and called on the people to join them against the heretic and excommunicated Queen of England, their oppressor. Whilst Mountjoy marched his forces to Kinsale and shut up the Spaniards in their own lines, Elizabeth summoned her last Parliament. She opened it in person on the 27th of October, 1601, but she was now so enfeebled that she was actually sinking under the weight of the robes of State, when the nobleman who stood nearest to her caught her in his arms and supported her. Notwithstanding this exhibition of her weakness, her determined will enabled her to rally and to go through the ceremony. The Session was a very stormy one. The great object of calling it together was to obtain money. Money the House of Commons expressed its willingness to grant, but at the same time called for the abolition of a number of monopolies which were sapping the very vitals of the nation. These monopolies were patents granted to her courtiers, for the exclusive sale of some article of commerce. It was a custom which had commenced in the seventeenth year of her reign, and by the greediness of her favourites had grown into a monstrous abuse. Scarcely a man about her but had one or more of these monopolies in his hand, by which the price of all sorts of the necessities of life was doubled, or more than doubled. Sometimes the patentee exercised the monopoly himself, sometimes he farmed it out to others, whose only object was to screw as much as possible out of it. The members for counties and boroughs had been repeatedly called on by their constituents to demand the abolition of these detestable abuses; but they had always been silenced by Ministers, on the ground that the queen would highly resent any interference with her prerogatives.