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diff --git a/3143-h/3143-h.htm b/3143-h/3143-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9c64d10 --- /dev/null +++ b/3143-h/3143-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3984 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time, by Charles Kingsley</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time, by Charles +Kingsley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time + + +Author: Charles Kingsley + + + +Release Date: December 26, 2014 [eBook #3143] +[This file was first posted on January 2, 2001] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS TIME*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from “Plays and Puritans and Other +Historical Essays” 1890 Macmillan and Co. edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS TIME <a name="citation87"></a><a +href="#footnote87" class="citation">[87]</a></h1> +<p>‘<span class="smcap">Truth</span> is stranger than +fiction.’ A trite remark. We all say it again +and again: but how few of us believe it! How few of us, +when we read the history of heroical times and heroical men, take +the story simply as it stands! On the contrary, we try to +explain it away; to prove it all not to have been so very +wonderful; to impute accident, circumstance, mean and commonplace +motives; to lower every story down to the level of our own +littleness, or what we (unjustly to ourselves and to the God who +is near us all) choose to consider our level; to rationalise away +all the wonders, till we make them at last impossible, and give +up caring to believe them; and prove to our own melancholy +satisfaction that Alexander conquered the world with a pin, in +his sleep, by accident.</p> +<p>And yet in this mood, as in most, there is a sort of +left-handed truth involved. These heroes are not so far +removed from us after all. They were men of like passions +with ourselves, with the same flesh about them, the same spirit +within them, the same world outside, the same devil beneath, the +same God above. They and their deeds were not so very +wonderful. Every child who is born into the world is just +as wonderful, and, for aught we know, might, <i>mutatis +mutandis</i>, do just as wonderful deeds. If accident and +circumstance helped them, the same may help us: have helped us, +if we will look back down our years, far more than we have made +use of.</p> +<p>They were men, certainly, very much of our own level: but may +we not put that level somewhat too low? They were certainly +not what we are; for if they had been, they would have done no +more than we: but is not a man’s real level not what he is, +but what he can be, and therefore ought to be? No doubt +they were compact of good and evil, just as we: but so was David, +no man more; though a more heroical personage (save One) appears +not in all human records but may not the secret of their success +have been that, on the whole (though they found it a sore +battle), they refused the evil and chose the good? It is +true, again, that their great deeds may be more or less +explained, attributed to laws, rationalised: but is explaining +always explaining away? Is it to degrade a thing to +attribute it to a law? And do you do anything more by +‘rationalising’ men’s deeds than prove that +they were rational men; men who saw certain fixed laws, and +obeyed them, and succeeded thereby, according to the Baconian +apophthegm, that nature is conquered by obeying her?</p> +<p>But what laws?</p> +<p>To that question, perhaps, the eleventh chapter of the Epistle +to the Hebrews will give the best answer, where it says, that by +faith were done all the truly great deeds, and by faith lived all +the truly great men who have ever appeared on earth.</p> +<p>There are, of course, higher and lower degrees of this faith; +its object is one more or less worthy: but it is in all cases the +belief in certain unseen eternal facts, by keeping true to which +a man must in the long run succeed. Must; because he is +more or less in harmony with heaven, and earth, and the Maker +thereof, and has therefore fighting on his side a great portion +of the universe; perhaps the whole; for as he who breaks one +commandment of the law is guilty of the whole, because he denies +the fount of all law, so he who with his whole soul keeps one +commandment of it is likely to be in harmony with the whole, +because he testifies of the fount of all law.</p> +<p>I shall devote a few pages to the story of an old hero, of a +man of like passions with ourselves; of one who had the most +intense and awful sense of the unseen laws, and succeeded +mightily thereby; of one who had hard struggles with a flesh and +blood which made him at times forget those laws, and failed +mightily thereby; of one whom God so loved that He caused each +slightest sin, as with David, to bring its own punishment with +it, that while the flesh was delivered over to Satan, the man +himself might be saved in the Day of the Lord; of one, finally, +of whom nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand may +say, ‘I have done worse deeds than he: but I have never +done as good ones.’</p> +<p>In a poor farm-house among the pleasant valleys of South +Devon, among the white apple-orchards and the rich water-meadows, +and the red fallows and red kine, in the year of grace 1552, a +boy was born, as beautiful as day, and christened Walter +Raleigh. His father was a gentleman of ancient blood: few +older in the land: but, impoverished, he had settled down upon +the wreck of his estate, in that poor farm-house. No record +of him now remains; but he must have been a man worth knowing and +worth loving, or he would not have won the wife he did. She +was a Champernoun, proudest of Norman squires, and could probably +boast of having in her veins the blood of Courtneys, Emperors of +Byzant. She had been the wife of the famous knight Sir Otho +Gilbert, and lady of Compton Castle, and had borne him three +brave sons, John, Humphrey, and Adrian; all three destined to win +knighthood also in due time, and the two latter already giving +promises, which they well fulfilled, of becoming most remarkable +men of their time. And yet the fair Champernoun, at her +husband’s death, had chosen to wed Mr. Raleigh, and share +life with him in the little farm-house at Hayes. She must +have been a grand woman, if the law holds true that great men +always have great mothers; an especially grand woman, indeed; for +few can boast of having borne to two different husbands such sons +as she bore. No record, as far as we know, remains of her; +nor of her boy’s early years. One can imagine them, +nevertheless.</p> +<p>Just as he awakes to consciousness, the Smithfield fires are +extinguished. He can recollect, perhaps, hearing of the +burning of the Exeter martyrs: and he does not forget it; no one +forgot or dared forget it in those days. He is brought up +in the simple and manly, yet high-bred ways of English gentlemen +in the times of ‘an old courtier of the +Queen’s.’ His two elder half-brothers also, +living some thirty miles away, in the quaint and gloomy towers of +Compton Castle, amid the apple-orchards of Torbay, are men as +noble as ever formed a young lad’s taste. Humphrey +and Adrian Gilbert, who afterwards, both of them, rise to +knighthood, are—what are they not?—soldiers, +scholars, Christians, discoverers and ‘planters’ of +foreign lands, geographers, alchemists, miners, Platonical +philosophers; many-sided, high-minded men, not without fantastic +enthusiasm; living heroic lives, and destined, one of them, to +die a heroic death. From them Raleigh’s fancy has +been fired, and his appetite for learning quickened, while he is +yet a daring boy, fishing in the gray trout-brooks, or going up +with his father to the Dartmoor hills to hunt the deer with hound +and horn, amid the wooded gorges of Holne, or over the dreary +downs of Hartland Warren, and the cloud-capt thickets of +Cator’s Beam, and looking down from thence upon the far +blue southern sea, wondering when he shall sail thereon, to fight +the Spaniard, and discover, like Columbus, some fairy-land of +gold and gems.</p> +<p>For before this boy’s mind, as before all intense +English minds of that day, rise, from the first, three fixed +ideas, which yet are but one—the Pope, the Spaniard, and +America.</p> +<p>The two first are the sworn and internecine enemies (whether +they pretend a formal peace or not) of Law and Freedom, Bible and +Queen, and all that makes an Englishman’s life dear to +him. Are they not the incarnations of Antichrist? +Their Moloch sacrifices flame through all lands. The earth +groans because of them, and refuses to cover the blood of her +slain. And America is the new world of boundless wonder and +beauty, wealth and fertility, to which these two evil powers +arrogate an exclusive and divine right; and God has delivered it +into their hands; and they have done evil therein with all their +might, till the story of their greed and cruelty rings through +all earth and heaven. Is this the will of God? Will +he not avenge for these things, as surely as he is the Lord who +executeth justice and judgment in the earth?</p> +<p>These are the young boy’s thoughts. These were his +thoughts for sixty-six eventful years. In whatsoever else +he wavered, he never wavered in that creed. He learnt it in +his boyhood, while he read ‘Fox’s Martyrs’ +beside his mother’s knee. He learnt it as a lad, when +he saw his neighbours Hawkins and Drake changed by Spanish +tyranny and treachery from peaceful merchantmen into fierce +scourges of God. He learnt it scholastically, from fathers +and divines, as an Oxford scholar, in days when Oxford was a +Protestant indeed, in whom there was no guile. He learnt it +when he went over, at seventeen years old, with his gallant +kinsman Henry Champernoun, and his band of a hundred gentlemen +volunteers, to flesh his maiden sword in behalf of the persecuted +French Protestants. He learnt it as he listened to the +shrieks of the San Bartholomew; he learnt it as he watched the +dragonnades, the tortures, the massacres of the Netherlands, and +fought manfully under Norris in behalf of those victims of +‘the Pope and Spain.’ He preached it in far +stronger and wiser words than I can express it for him, in that +noble tract of 1591, on Sir Richard Grenville’s death at +the Azores—a Tyrtæan trumpet-blast such as has seldom +rung in human ears; he discussed it like a cool statesman in his +pamphlet of 1596, on ‘A War with Spain.’ He +sacrificed for it the last hopes of his old age, the wreck of his +fortunes, his just recovered liberty; and he died with the old +God’s battle-cry upon his lips, when it awoke no response +from the hearts of a coward, profligate, and unbelieving +generation. This is the background, the keynote of the +man’s whole life. If we lose the recollection of it, +and content ourselves by slurring it over in the last pages of +his biography with some half-sneer about his putting, like the +rest of Elizabeth’s old admirals, ‘the Spaniard, the +Pope, and the Devil’ in the same category, then we shall +understand very little about Raleigh; though, of course, we shall +save ourselves the trouble of pronouncing as to whether the +Spaniard and the Pope were really in the same category as the +devil; or, indeed, which might be equally puzzling to a good many +historians of the last century and a half, whether there be any +devil at all.</p> +<p>The books which I have chosen to head this review are all of +them more or less good, with one exception, and that is Bishop +Goodman’s Memoirs, on which much stress has been lately +laid, as throwing light on various passages of Raleigh, Essex, +Cecil, and James’s lives. Having read it carefully, I +must say plainly, that I think the book an altogether foolish, +pedantic, and untrustworthy book, without any power of insight or +gleam of reason; without even the care to be self-consistent; +having but one object, the whitewashing of James, and of every +noble lord whom the bishop has ever known: but in whitewashing +each, the poor old flunkey so bespatters all the rest of his +pets, that when the work is done, the whole party look, if +possible, rather dirtier than before. And so I leave Bishop +Goodman.</p> +<p>Mr. Fraser Tytler’s book is well known; and it is on the +whole a good one; because he really loves and admires the man of +whom he writes: but he is sometimes careless as to authorities, +and too often makes the wish father to the thought. +Moreover, he has the usual sentiment about Mary Queen of Scots, +and the usual scandal about Elizabeth, which is simply anathema; +and which prevents his really seeing the time in which Raleigh +lived, and the element in which he moved. This sort of talk +is happily dying out just now; but no one can approach the +history of the Elizabethan age (perhaps of any age) without +finding that truth is all but buried under mountains of dirt and +chaff—an Augæan stable, which, perhaps, will never be +swept clean. Yet I have seen, with great delight, several +attempts toward removal of the said superstratum of dirt and +chaff from the Elizabethan histories, in several articles, all +evidently from the same pen (and that one, more perfectly master +of English prose than any man living), in the ‘Westminster +Review’ and ‘Fraser’s Magazine.’ <a +name="citation95"></a><a href="#footnote95" +class="citation">[95]</a></p> +<p>Sir Robert Schomburgk’s edition of the Guiana Voyage +contains an excellent Life of Raleigh, perhaps the best yet +written; of which I only complain, when it gives in to the +stock-charges against Raleigh, as it were at second-hand, and +just because they are stock-charges, and when, too, the +illustrious editor (unable to conceal his admiration of a +discoverer in many points so like himself) takes all through an +apologetic tone of ‘Please don’t laugh at me. I +daresay it is very foolish; but I can’t help loving the +man.’</p> +<p>Mr. Napier’s little book is a reprint of two +‘Edinburgh Review’ articles on Bacon and +Raleigh. The first, a learned statement of facts in answer +to some unwisdom of a ‘Quarterly’ reviewer (possibly +an Oxford Aristotelian; for ‘we think we do know that sweet +Roman hand’). It is clear, accurate, convincing, +complete. There is no more to be said about the matter, +save that facts are stubborn things.</p> +<p>The article on Raleigh is very valuable; first, because Mr. +Napier has had access to many documents unknown to former +biographers; and next, because he clears Raleigh completely from +the old imputation of deceit about the Guiana mine, as well as of +other minor charges. With his general opinion of +Raleigh’s last and fatal Guiana voyage, I have the +misfortune to differ from him <i>toto coelo</i>, on the strength +of the very documents which he quotes. But Mr. Napier is +always careful, always temperate, and always just, except where +he, as I think, does not enter into the feelings of the man whom +he is analysing. Let readers buy the book (it will tell +them a hundred things they do not know) and be judge between Mr. +Napier and me.</p> +<p>In the meanwhile, one cannot help watching with a smile how +good old Time’s scrubbing-brush, which clears away paint +and whitewash from church pillars, does the same by such +characters as Raleigh’s. After each fresh +examination, some fresh count in the hundred-headed indictment +breaks down. The truth is, that as people begin to believe +more in nobleness, and to gird up their loins to the doing of +noble deeds, they discover more nobleness in others. +Raleigh’s character was in its lowest nadir in the days of +Voltaire and Hume. What shame to him? For so were +more sacred characters than his. Shall the disciple be +above his master? especially when that disciple was but too +inconsistent, and gave occasion to the uncircumcised to +blaspheme? But Cayley, after a few years, refutes +triumphantly Hume’s silly slanders. He is a stupid +writer: but he has sense enough, being patient, honest, and +loving, to do that.</p> +<p>Mr. Fraser Tytler shovels away a little more of the dirt-heap; +Mr. Napier clears him (for which we owe him many thanks), by +simple statement of facts, from the charge of having deserted and +neglected his Virginia colonists; Humboldt and Schomburgk clear +him from the charge of having lied about Guiana; and so on; each +successive writer giving in generally on merest hearsay to the +general complaint against him, either from fear of running +counter to big names, or from mere laziness, and yet absolving +him from that particular charge of which his own knowledge +enables him to judge. In the trust that I may be able to +clear him from a few more charges, I write these pages, premising +that I do not profess to have access to any new and recondite +documents. I merely take the broad facts of the story from +documents open to all; and comment on them as every man should +wish his own life to be commented on.</p> +<p>But I do so on a method which I cannot give up; and that is +the Bible method. I say boldly that historians have +hitherto failed in understanding not only Raleigh and Elizabeth, +but nine-tenths of the persons and facts in his day, because they +will not judge them by the canons which the Bible lays +down—by which I mean not only the New Testament but the +Old, which, as English Churchmen say, and Scotch Presbyterians +have ere now testified with sacred blood, is ‘not contrary +to the New.’</p> +<p>Mr. Napier has a passage about Raleigh for which I am sorry, +coming as it does from a countryman of John Knox. +‘Society, it would seem, was yet in a state in which such a +man could seriously plead, that the madness he feigned was +justified’ (his last word is unfair, for Raleigh only hopes +that it is no sin) ‘by the example of David, King of +Israel.’ What a shocking state of society when men +actually believed their Bibles, not too little, but too +much. For my part, I think that if poor dear Raleigh had +considered the example of David a little more closely, he need +never have feigned madness at all; and that his error lay quite +in an opposite direction from looking on the Bible heroes, David +especially, as too sure models. At all events, let us try +Raleigh by the very scriptural standard which he himself lays +down, not merely in this case unwisely, but in his ‘History +of the World’ more wisely than any historian whom I have +ever read; and say, ‘Judged as the Bible taught our Puritan +forefathers to judge every man, the character is intelligible +enough; tragic, but noble and triumphant: judged as men have been +judged in history for the last hundred years, by hardly any canon +save those of the private judgment, which philosophic cant, +maudlin sentimentality, or fear of public opinion, may happen to +have forged, the man is a phenomenon, only less confused, +abnormal, suspicious than his biographers’ notions about +him.’ Again I say, I have not solved the problem: but +it will be enough if I make some think it both soluble and worth +solving. Let us look round, then, and see into what sort of +a country, into what sort of a world, the young adventurer is +going forth, at seventeen years of age, to seek his fortune.</p> +<p>Born in 1552, his young life has sprung up and grown with the +young life of England. The earliest fact, perhaps, which he +can recollect is the flash of joy on every face which proclaims +that Mary Tudor is dead, and Elizabeth reigns at last. As +he grows, the young man sees all the hope and adoration of the +English people centre in that wondrous maid, and his own centre +in her likewise. He had been base had he been +otherwise. She comes to the throne with such a prestige as +never sovereign came since the days when Isaiah sang his +pæan over young Hezekiah’s accession. Young, +learned, witty, beautiful (as with such a father and mother she +could not help being), with an expression of countenance +remarkable (I speak of those early days) rather for its +tenderness and intellectual depth than its strength, she comes +forward as the champion of the Reformed Faith, the interpretress +of the will and conscience of the people of England—herself +persecuted all but to the death, and purified by affliction, like +gold tried in the fire. She gathers round her, one by one, +young men of promise, and trains them herself to their +work. And they fulfil it, and serve her, and grow +gray-headed in her service, working as faithfully, as +righteously, as patriotically, as men ever worked on earth. +They are her ‘favourites’; because they are men who +deserve favour; men who count not their own lives dear to +themselves for the sake of the queen and of that commonweal which +their hearts and reasons tell them is one with her. They +are still men, though; and some of them have their grudgings and +envyings against each other: she keeps the balance even between +them, on the whole, skilfully, gently, justly, in spite of +weaknesses and prejudices, without which she had been more than +human. Some have their conceited hopes of marrying her, +becoming her masters. She rebukes and pardons. +‘Out of the dust I took you, sir! go and do your duty, +humbly and rationally, henceforth, or into the dust I trample you +again!’ And they reconsider themselves, and +obey. But many, or most of them, are new men, country +gentlemen, and younger sons. She will follow her +father’s plan, of keeping down the overgrown feudal +princes, who, though brought low by the wars of the Roses, are +still strong enough to throw everything into confusion by +resisting at once the Crown and Commons. Proud nobles reply +by rebellion, come down southwards with ignorant Popish henchmen +at their backs; will restore Popery, marry the Queen of Scots, +make the middle class and the majority submit to the feudal lords +and the minority. Elizabeth, with her ‘aristocracy of +genius,’ is too strong for them: the people’s heart +is with her, and not with dukes. Each mine only blows up +its diggers; and there are many dry eyes at their ruin. Her +people ask her to marry. She answers gently, proudly, +eloquently: ‘She is married—the people of England is +her husband. She has vowed it.’ And yet there +is a tone of sadness in that great speech. Her +woman’s heart yearns after love, after children; after a +strong bosom on which to repose that weary head. More than +once she is ready to give way. But she knows that it must +not be. She has her reward. ‘Whosoever gives up +husband or child for my sake and the gospel’s, shall +receive them back a hundredfold in this present life,’ as +Elizabeth does. Her reward is an adoration from high and +low, which is to us now inexplicable, impossible, overstrained, +which was not so then.</p> +<p>For the whole nation is in a mood of exaltation; England is +fairyland; the times are the last days—strange, terrible, +and glorious. At home are Jesuits plotting; dark, +crooked-pathed, going up and down in all manner of disguises, +doing the devil’s work if men ever did it; trying to sow +discord between man and man, class and class; putting out books +full of filthy calumnies, declaring the queen illegitimate, +excommunicate, a usurper; English law null, and all state +appointments void, by virtue of a certain ‘Bull’; and +calling on the subjects to rebellion and assassination, even on +the bedchamber—woman to do to her ‘as Judith did to +Holofernes.’ She answers by calm contempt. Now +and then Burleigh and Walsingham catch some of the rogues, and +they meet their deserts; but she for the most part lets them have +their way. God is on her side, and she will not fear what +man can do to her.</p> +<p>Abroad, the sky is dark and wild, and yet full of fantastic +splendour. Spain stands strong and awful, a rising +world-tyranny, with its dark-souled Cortezes and Pizarros, Alvas, +Don Johns, and Parmas, men whose path is like the lava stream; +who go forth slaying and to slay, in the name of their gods, like +those old Assyrian conquerors on the walls of Nineveh, with +tutelary genii flying above their heads, mingled with the eagles +who trail the entrails of the slain. By conquest, +intermarriage, or intrigue, she has made all the southern nations +her vassals or her tools; close to our own shores, the +Netherlands are struggling vainly for their liberties; abroad, +the Western Islands, and the whole trade of Africa and India, +will in a few years be hers. And already the Pope, whose +‘most Catholic’ and faithful servant she is, has +repaid her services in the cause of darkness by the gift of the +whole New World—a gift which she has claimed by cruelties +and massacres unexampled since the days of Timour and Zinghis +Khan. There she spreads and spreads, as Drake found her +picture in the Government House at St. Domingo, the horse leaping +through the globe, and underneath, <i>Non sufficit +orbis</i>. Who shall withstand her, armed as she is with +the three-edged sword of Antichrist—superstition, strength, +and gold?</p> +<p>English merchantmen, longing for some share in the riches of +the New World, go out to trade in Guinea, in the Azores, in New +Spain: and are answered by shot and steel. ‘Both +policy and religion,’ as Fray Simon says, fifty years +afterwards, ‘forbid Christians to trade with +heretics!’ ‘Lutheran devils, and enemies of +God,’ are the answer they get in words: in deeds, whenever +they have a superior force they may be allowed to land, and to +water their ships, even to trade, under exorbitant restrictions: +but generally this is merely a trap for them. Forces are +hurried up; and the English are attacked treacherously, in spite +of solemn compacts; for ‘No faith need be kept with +heretics.’ And woe to them if any be taken prisoners, +even wrecked. The galleys, and the rack, and the stake are +their certain doom; for the Inquisition claims the bodies and +souls of heretics all over the world, and thinks it sin to lose +its own. A few years of such wrong raise questions in the +sturdy English heart. What right have these Spaniards to +the New World? The Pope’s gift? Why, he gave it +by the same authority by which he claims the whole world. +The formula used when an Indian village is sacked is, that God +gave the whole world to St. Peter, and that he has given it to +his successors, and they the Indies to the King of Spain. +To acknowledge that lie would be to acknowledge the very power by +which the Pope claims a right to depose Queen Elizabeth, and give +her dominions to whomsoever he will. A fico for bulls!</p> +<p>By possession, then? That may hold for Mexico, Peru, New +Grenada, Paraguay, which have been colonised; though they were +gained by means which make every one concerned in conquering them +worthy of the gallows; and the right is only that of the thief to +the purse, whose owner he has murdered. But as for the +rest—Why the Spaniard has not colonised, even explored, +one-fifth of the New World, not even one-fifth of the +coast. Is the existence of a few petty factories, often +hundreds of miles apart, at a few river-mouths to give them a +claim to the whole intermediate coast, much less to the vast +unknown tracts inside? We will try that. If they +appeal to the sword, so be it. The men are treacherous +robbers; we will indemnify ourselves for our losses, and God +defend the right.</p> +<p>So argued the English; and so sprung up that strange war of +reprisals, in which, for eighteen years, it was held that there +was no peace between England and Spain beyond the line, +<i>i.e.</i>, beyond the parallel of longitude where the +Pope’s gift of the western world was said to begin; and, as +the quarrel thickened and neared, extended to the Azores, +Canaries, and coasts of Africa, where English and Spaniards flew +at each other as soon as seen, mutually and by common consent, as +natural enemies, each invoking God in the battle with +Antichrist.</p> +<p>Into such a world as this goes forth young Raleigh, his heart +full of chivalrous worship for England’s tutelary genius, +his brain aflame with the true miracles of the new-found +Hesperides, full of vague hopes, vast imaginations, and +consciousness of enormous power. And yet he is no wayward +dreamer, unfit for this work-day world. With a vein of song +‘most lofty, insolent, and passionate,’ indeed unable +to see aught without a poetic glow over the whole, he is +eminently practical, contented to begin at the beginning that he +may end at the end; one who could ‘toil terribly,’ +‘who always laboured at the matter in hand as if he were +born only for that.’ Accordingly, he sets to work +faithfully and stoutly, to learn his trade of soldiering, and +learns it in silence and obscurity. He shares (it seems) in +the retreat at Moncontour, and is by at the death of +Condé, and toils on for five years, marching and +skirmishing, smoking the enemy out of mountain-caves in +Languedoc, and all the wild work of war. During the San +Bartholomew massacre we hear nothing of him; perhaps he took +refuge with Sidney and others in Walsingham’s house. +No records of these years remain, save a few scattered +reminiscences in his works, which mark the shrewd, observant eye +of the future statesman.</p> +<p>When he returned we know not. We trace him, in 1576, by +some verses prefixed to Gascoigne’s satire, the +‘Steele Glass,’ solid, stately, epigrammatic, +‘by Walter Rawley of the Middle Temple.’ The +style is his; spelling of names matters nought in days in which a +man would spell his own name three different ways in one +document.</p> +<p>Gascoigne, like Raleigh, knew Lord Grey of Wilton, and most +men about town too; and had been a soldier abroad, like Raleigh, +probably with him. It seems to have been the fashion for +young idlers to lodge among the Templars; indeed, toward the end +of the century, they had to be cleared out, as crowding the wigs +and gowns too much; and perhaps proving noisy neighbours, as +Raleigh may have done. To this period may be referred, +probably, his Justice done on Mr. Charles Chester (Ben +Jonson’s Carlo Buffone), ‘a perpetual talker, and +made a noise like a drum in a room; so one time, at a tavern, +Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth, his upper and nether +beard, with hard wax.’ For there is a great laugh in +Raleigh’s heart, a genial contempt of asses; and one that +will make him enemies hereafter: perhaps shorten his days.</p> +<p>One hears of him next, but only by report, in the Netherlands +under Norris, where the nucleus of the English line (especially +of its musquetry) was training. For Don John of Austria +intends not only to crush the liberties and creeds of the +Flemings, but afterwards to marry the Queen of Scots, and conquer +England: and Elizabeth, unwillingly and slowly, for she cannot +stomach rebels, has sent men and money to the States to stop Don +John in time; which the valiant English and Scotch do on Lammas +day, 1578, and that in a fashion till then unseen in war. +For coming up late and panting, and ‘being more sensible of +a little heat of the sun than of any cold fear of death,’ +they throw off their armour and clothes, and, in their shirts +(not over-clean, one fears), give Don John’s rashness such +a rebuff, that two months more see that wild meteor, with lost +hopes and tarnished fame, lie down and vanish below the stormy +horizon. In these days, probably, it is that he knew +Colonel Bingham, a soldier of fortune, of a ‘fancy high and +wild, too desultory and over-voluble,’ who had, among his +hundred and one schemes, one for the plantation of America as +poor Sir Thomas Stukely (whom Raleigh must have known well), +uncle of the traitor Lewis, had for the peopling of Florida.</p> +<p>Raleigh returns. Ten years has he been learning his +soldier’s trade in silence. He will take a lesson in +seamanship next. The court may come in time: for by now the +poor squire’s younger son must have +discovered—perhaps even too fully—that he is not as +other men are; that he can speak, and watch, and dare, and +endure, as none around him can do. However, there are +‘good adventures toward,’ as the ‘Morte +d’Arthur’ would say; and he will off with his +half-brother Humphrey Gilbert to carry out his patent for +planting <i>Meta Incognita</i>—‘The Unknown +Goal,’ as Queen Elizabeth has named it—which will +prove to be too truly and fatally unknown. In a latitude +south of England, and with an Italian summer, who can guess that +the winter will outfreeze Russia itself? The +merchant-seaman, like the statesman, had yet many a thing to +learn. Instead of smiling at our forefathers’ +ignorance, let us honour the men who bought knowledge for us +their children at the price of lives nobler than our own.</p> +<p>So Raleigh goes on his voyage with Humphrey Gilbert, to carry +out the patent for discovering and planting in <i>Meta +Incognita</i>; but the voyage prospers not. A ‘smart +brush with the Spaniards’ sends them home again, with the +loss of Morgan, their best captain, and ‘a tall +ship’; and <i>Meta Incognita</i> is forgotten for a while; +but not the Spaniards. Who are these who forbid all +English, by virtue of the Pope’s bull, to cross the +Atlantic? That must be settled hereafter; and Raleigh, ever +busy, is off to Ireland to command a company in that +‘common weal, or rather common woe’, as he calls it +in a letter to Leicester. Two years and more pass here; and +all the records of him which remain are of a man valiant, daring, +and yet prudent beyond his fellows. He hates his work, and +is not on too good terms with stern and sour, but brave and +faithful Lord Grey; but Lord Grey is Leicester’s friend, +and Raleigh works patiently under him, like a sensible man, just +because he is Leicester’s friend. Some modern +gentleman of note—I forget who, and do not care to +recollect—says that Raleigh’s ‘prudence never +bore any proportion to his genius.’ The next +biographer we open accuses him of being too calculating, cunning, +timeserving; and so forth. Perhaps both are true. The +man’s was a character very likely to fall alternately into +either sin—doubtless did so a hundred times. Perhaps +both are false. The man’s character was, on occasion, +certain to rise above both faults. We have evidence that he +did so his whole life long.</p> +<p>He is tired of Ireland at last: nothing goes right +there:—When has it? Nothing is to be done +there. That which is crooked cannot be made straight, and +that which is wanting cannot be numbered. He comes to +London and to court. But how? By spreading his cloak +over a muddy place for Queen Elizabeth to step on? It is +very likely to be a true story; but biographers have slurred over +a few facts in their hurry to carry out their theory of +‘favourites,’ and to prove that Elizabeth took up +Raleigh on the same grounds that a boarding-school miss might +have done. Not that I deny the cloak story to be a very +pretty story; perhaps it justifies, taken alone, +Elizabeth’s fondness for him. There may have been +self-interest in it; we are bound, as ‘men of the +world,’ to impute the dirtiest motive that we can find; but +how many self-interested men do we know who would have had +quickness and daring to do such a thing? Men who are +thinking about themselves are not generally either so +quick-witted, or so inclined to throw away a good cloak, when by +much scraping and saving they have got one. I never met a +cunning, selfish, ambitious man who would have done such a +thing. The reader may; but even if he has, we must ask him, +for Queen Elizabeth’s sake, to consider that this young +Quixote is the close relation of three of the finest public men +then living, Champernoun, Gilbert, and Carew. That he is a +friend of Sidney, a pet of Leicester; that he has left behind him +at Oxford, and brought with him from Ireland, the reputation of +being a <i>rara avis</i>, a new star in the firmament; that he +had been a soldier in her Majesty’s service (and in one in +which she has a peculiar private interest) for twelve years; that +he has held her commission as one of the triumvirate for +governing Munster, and has been the commander of the garrison at +Cork; and that it is possible that she may have heard something +of him before he threw his cloak under her feet, especially as +there has been some controversy (which we have in vain tried to +fathom) between him and Lord Grey about that terrible Smerwick +slaughter; of the results of which we know little, but that +Raleigh, being called in question about it in London, made such +good play with his tongue, that his reputation as an orator and a +man of talent was fixed once and for ever.</p> +<p>Within the twelve months he is sent on some secret diplomatic +mission about the Anjou marriage; he is in fact now installed in +his place as ‘a favourite.’ And why not? +If a man is found to be wise and witty, ready and useful, able to +do whatsoever he is put to, why is a sovereign, who has eyes to +see the man’s worth and courage to use it, to be accused of +I know not what, because the said man happens to be +good-looking?</p> +<p>Now comes the turning-point of Raleigh’s life. +What does he intend to be? Soldier, statesman, scholar, or +sea-adventurer? He takes the most natural, yet not the +wisest course. He will try and be all four at once. +He has intellect for it; by worldly wisdom he may have money for +it also. Even now he has contrived (no one can tell whence) +to build a good bark of two hundred tons, and send her out with +Humphrey Gilbert on his second and fatal voyage. Luckily +for Raleigh she deserts and comes home, while not yet out of the +Channel, or she surely had gone the way of the rest of +Gilbert’s squadron. Raleigh, of course, loses money +by the failure, as well as the hopes which he had grounded on his +brother’s Transatlantic viceroyalty. And a bitter +pang it must have been to him to find himself bereft of that pure +and heroic counsellor just at his entering into life. But +with the same elasticity which sent him to the grave, he is busy +within six months in a fresh expedition. If <i>Meta +Incognita</i> be not worth planting, there must be, so Raleigh +thinks, a vast extent of coast between it and Florida, which is +more genial in climate, perhaps more rich in produce; and he +sends Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlow to look for the same, and +not in vain.</p> +<p>On these Virginian discoveries I shall say but little. +Those who wish to enjoy them should read them in all their naive +freshness in the originals; and they will subscribe to S. T. +Coleridge’s dictum, that no one nowadays can write travels +as well as the old worthies who figure in Hakluyt and +Purchas.</p> +<p>But to return to the question—What does this man intend +to be? A discoverer and colonist; a vindicator of some part +at least of America from Spanish claims? Perhaps not +altogether: else he would have gone himself to Virginia, at least +the second voyage, instead of sending others. But here, it +seems, is the fatal, and yet pardonable mistake, which haunts the +man throughout. He tries to be too many men at once. +Fatal: because, though he leaves his trace on more things than +one man is wont to do, he, strictly speaking, conquers nothing, +brings nothing to a consummation. Virginia, Guiana, the +‘History of the World,’ his own career as a +statesman—as dictator (for he might have been dictator had +he chosen)—all are left unfinished. And yet most +pardonable; for if a man feels that he can do many different +things, how hard to teach himself that he must not do them +all! How hard to say to himself, ‘I must cut off the +right hand, and pluck out the right eye. I must be less +than myself, in order really to be anything. I must +concentrate my powers on one subject, and that perhaps by no +means the most seemingly noble or useful, still less the most +pleasant, and forego so many branches of activity in which I +might be so distinguished, so useful.’ This is a hard +lesson. Raleigh took just sixty-six years learning it; and +had to carry the result of his experience to the other side of +the dark river, for there was no time left to use it on this +side. Some readers may have learnt the lesson +already. If so, happy and blessed are they. But let +them not therefore exalt themselves above Walter Raleigh; for +that lesson is, of course, soonest learnt by the man who can +excel in few things, later by him who can excel in many, and +latest of all by him who, like Raleigh, can excel in all.</p> +<p>Few details remain concerning the earlier court days of +Raleigh. He rises rapidly, as we have seen. He has an +estate given him in Ireland, near his friend Spenser, where he +tries to do well and wisely, colonising, tilling, and planting +it: but like his Virginia expeditions, principally at second +hand. For he has swallowed (there is no denying it) the +painted bait. He will discover, he will colonise, he will +do all manner of beautiful things, at second hand: but he himself +will be a courtier. It is very tempting. Who would +not, at the age of thirty, have wished to have been one of that +chosen band of geniuses and heroes whom Elizabeth had gathered +round her? Who would not, at the age of thirty, have given +his pound of flesh to be captain of her guard, and to go with her +whithersoever she went? It is not merely the intense +gratification to carnal vanity—which if any man denies or +scoffs at, always mark him down as especially guilty—which +is to be considered; but the real, actual honour, in the mind of +one who looked on Elizabeth as the most precious and glorious +being which the earth had seen for centuries. To be +appreciated by her; to be loved by her; to serve her; to guard +her; what could man desire more on earth?</p> +<p>Beside, he becomes a member of Parliament now; Lord Warden of +the Stannaries; business which of course keeps him in England, +business which he performs, as he does all things, wisely and +well. Such a generation as this ought really to respect +Raleigh a little more, if it be only for his excellence in their +own especial sphere—that of business. Raleigh is a +thorough man of business. He can ‘toil +terribly,’ and what is more, toil to the purpose. In +all the everyday affairs of life, he remains without a blot; a +diligent, methodical, prudent man, who, though he plays for great +stakes, ventures and loses his whole fortune again and again, yet +never seems to omit the ‘doing the duty which lies nearest +him’; never gets into mean money scrapes; never neglects +tenants or duty; never gives way for one instant to ‘the +eccentricities of genius.’</p> +<p>If he had done so, be sure that we should have heard of +it. For no man can become what he has become without making +many an enemy; and he has his enemies already. On which +statement naturally occurs the question—why? An +important question too; because several of his later biographers +seem to have running in their minds some such train of thought as +this—Raleigh must have been a bad fellow, or he would not +have had so many enemies; and because he was a bad fellow, there +is an <i>à priori</i> reason that charges against him are +true. Whether this be arguing in a circle or not, it is +worth searching out the beginning of this enmity, and the reputed +causes of it. In after years it will be because he is +‘damnable proud,’ because he hated Essex, and so +forth: of which in their places. But what is the earliest +count against him? Naunton, who hated Raleigh, and was +moreover a rogue, has no reason to give, but that ‘the +Queen took him for a kind of oracle, which much nettled them all; +yea, those he relied on began to take this his sudden favour for +an alarm; to be sensible of their own supplantation, and to +project his; which shortly made him to sing, “Fortune my +foe.”’</p> +<p>Now, be this true or not, and we do not put much faith in it, +it gives no reason for the early dislike of Raleigh, save the +somewhat unsatisfactory one which Cain would have given for his +dislike of Abel. Moreover, there exists a letter of +Essex’s, written as thoroughly in the Cain spirit as any we +ever read; and we wonder that, after reading that letter, men can +find courage to repeat the old sentimentalism about the +‘noble and unfortunate’ Earl. His hatred of +Raleigh—which, as we shall see hereafter, Raleigh not only +bears patiently, but requites with good deeds as long as he +can—springs, by his own confession, simply from envy and +disappointed vanity. The spoilt boy insults Queen Elizabeth +about her liking for the ‘knave Raleigh.’ She, +‘taking hold of one word disdain,’ tells Essex that +‘there was no such cause why I should thus disdain +him.’ On which, says Essex, ‘as near as I could +I did describe unto her what he had been, and what he was; and +then I did let her see, whether I had come to disdain his +competition of love, or whether I could have comfort to give +myself over to the service of a mistress that was in awe of such +a man. I spake for grief and choler as much against him as +I could: and I think he standing at the door might very well hear +the worst that I spoke of him. In the end, I saw she was +resolved to defend him, and to cross me.’ Whereupon +follows a ‘scene,’ the naughty boy raging and +stamping, till he insults the Queen, and calls Raleigh ‘a +wretch’; whereon poor Elizabeth, who loved the coxcomb for +his father’s sake, ‘turned her away to my Lady +Warwick,’ and Essex goes grumbling forth.</p> +<p>Raleigh’s next few years are brilliant and busy ones; +and gladly, did space permit, would I give details of those +brilliant adventures which make this part of his life that of a +true knight-errant. But they are mere episodes in the +history; and we must pass them quickly by, only saying that they +corroborate in all things our original notion of the +man—just, humane, wise, greatly daring and enduring +greatly; and filled with the one fixed idea, which has grown with +his growth and strengthened with his strength, the destruction of +the Spanish power, and colonisation of America by English. +His brother Humphrey makes a second attempt to colonise +Newfoundland, and perishes as heroically as he had lived. +Raleigh, undaunted by his own loss in the adventure and his +brother’s failure, sends out a fleet of his own to discover +to the southward, and finds Virginia. One might spend pages +on this beautiful episode; on the simple descriptions of the fair +new land which the sea-kings bring home; on the profound (for +those times at least) knowledge which prompted Raleigh to make +the attempt in that particular direction which had as yet escaped +the notice of the Spaniards; on the quiet patience with which, +undaunted by the ill-success of the first colonists, he sends out +fleet after fleet, to keep the hold which he had once gained; +till, unable any longer to support the huge expense, he makes +over his patent for discovery to a company of merchants, who fare +for many years as ill as Raleigh himself did: but one thing one +has a right to say, that to this one man, under the providence of +Almighty God, do the whole of the United States of America owe +their existence. The work was double. The colony, +however small, had to be kept in possession at all hazards; and +he did it. But that was not enough. Spain must be +prevented from extending her operations northward from Florida; +she must be crippled along the whole east coast of America. +And Raleigh did that too. We find him for years to come a +part-adventurer in almost every attack on the Spaniards: we find +him preaching war against them on these very grounds, and setting +others to preach it also. Good old Hariot (Raleigh’s +mathematical tutor, whom he sent to Virginia) re-echoes his +pupil’s trumpet-blast. Hooker, in his epistle +dedicatory of his Irish History, strikes the same note, and a +right noble one it is. ‘These Spaniards are trying to +build up a world-tyranny by rapine and cruelty. You, sir, +call on us to deliver the earth from them, by doing justly and +loving mercy; and we will obey you!’ is the answer which +Raleigh receives, as far as I can find, from every nobler-natured +Englishman.</p> +<p>It was an immense conception: a glorious one: it stood out so +clear: there was no mistake about its being the absolutely right, +wise, patriotic thing; and so feasible, too, if Raleigh could but +find ‘<i>six cents hommes qui savaient +mourir</i>.’ But that was just what he could not +find. He could draw round him, and did, by the spiritual +magnetism of his genius, many a noble soul; but he could not +organise them, as he seems to have tried to do, into a coherent +body. The English spirit of independent action, never +stronger than in that age, and most wisely encouraged, for other +reasons, by good Queen Bess, was too strong for him. His +pupils will ‘fight on their own hook’ like so many +Yankee rangers: quarrel with each other: grumble at him. +For the truth is, he demands of them too high a standard of +thought and purpose. He is often a whole heaven above them +in the hugeness of his imagination, the nobleness of his motive; +and Don Quixote can often find no better squire than Sancho +Panza. Even glorious Sir Richard Grenvile makes a mistake: +burns an Indian village because they steal a silver cup; throws +back the colonisation of Virginia ten years with his over-strict +notions of discipline and retributive justice; and Raleigh +requites him for his offence by embalming him, his valour and his +death, not in immortal verse, but in immortal prose. The +‘True Relation of the Fight at the Azores’ gives the +keynote of Raleigh’s heart. If readers will not take +that as the text on which his whole life is a commentary they may +know a great deal about him, but him they will never know.</p> +<p>The game becomes fiercer and fiercer. Blow and +counterblow between the Spanish king, for the whole West-Indian +commerce was a government job, and the merchant nobles of +England. At last the Great Armada comes, and the Great +Armada goes again. <i>Venit</i>, <i>vidit</i>, +<i>fugit</i>, as the medals said of it. And to Walter +Raleigh’s counsel, by the testimony of all contemporaries, +the mighty victory is to be principally attributed. Where +all men did heroically, it were invidious to bestow on him alone +a crown, <i>ob patriam servatam</i>. But henceforth, +Elizabeth knows well that she has not been mistaken in her +choice; and Raleigh is better loved than ever, heaped with fresh +wealth and honours. And who deserves them better?</p> +<p>The immense value of his services in the defence of England +should excuse him from the complaint which one has been often +inclined to bring against him,—Why, instead of sending +others Westward Ho, did be not go himself? Surely he could +have reconciled the jarring instruments with which he was +working. He could have organised such a body of men as +perhaps never went out before or since on the same errand. +He could have done all that Cortez did, and more; and done it +more justly and mercifully.</p> +<p>True. And here seems (as far as little folk dare judge +great folk) to have been Raleigh’s mistake. He is too +wide for real success. He has too many plans; he is fond of +too many pursuits. The man who succeeds is generally the +narrow mall; the man of one idea, who works at nothing but that; +sees everything only through the light of that; sacrifices +everything to that: the fanatic, in short. By fanatics, +whether military, commercial, or religious, and not by +‘liberal-minded men’ at all, has the world’s +work been done in all ages. Amid the modern cants, one of +the most mistaken is the cant about the ‘mission of +genius,’ the ‘mission of the poet.’ +Poets, we hear in some quarters, are the anointed kings of +mankind—at least, so the little poets sing, each to his +little fiddle. There is no greater mistake. It is the +practical, prosaical fanatic who does the work; and the poet, if +he tries to do it, is certain to put down his spade every five +minutes, to look at the prospect, and pick flowers, and moralise +on dead asses, till he ends a <i>Néron malgré +lui-même</i>, fiddling melodiously while Rome is +burning. And perhaps this is the secret of Raleigh’s +failure. He is a fanatic, no doubt, a true knight-errant: +but he is too much of a poet withal. The sense of beauty +enthrals him at every step. Gloriana’s fairy court, +with its chivalries and its euphuisms, its masques and its +tourneys, and he the most charming personage in it, are too +charming for him—as they would have been for us, reader: +and he cannot give them up and go about the one work. He +justifies his double-mindedness to himself, no doubt, as he does +to the world, by working wisely, indefatigably, and bravely: but +still he has put his trust in princes, and in the children of +men. His sin, as far as we can see, is not against man, but +against God; one which we do not nowadays call a sin, but a +weakness. Be it so. God punished him for it, swiftly +and sharply; which I hold to be a sure sign that God also forgave +him for it.</p> +<p>So he stays at home, spends, sooner or later, £40,000 on +Virginia, writes charming court-poetry with Oxford, Buckhurst, +and Paget, brings over Spenser from Ireland and introduces Colin +Clout to Gloriana, who loves—as who would not have +loved?—that most beautiful of faces and of souls; helps +poor puritan Udall out of his scrape as far as he can; begs for +Captain Spring, begs for many more, whose names are only known by +being connected with some good deed of his. ‘When, +Sir Walter,’ asks Queen Bess, ‘will you cease to be a +beggar?’ ‘When your Majesty ceases to be a +benefactor.’ Perhaps it is in these days that he set +up his ‘office of address’—some sort of agency +for discovering and relieving the wants of worthy men. So +all seems to go well. If he has lost in Virginia, he has +gained by Spanish prizes; his wine-patent is bringing him in a +large revenue, and the heavens smile on him. Thou sayest, +‘I am rich and increased in goods, and have need of +nothing; and knowest not that thou art poor and miserable and +blind and naked.’ Thou shalt learn it, then, and pay +dearly for thy lesson.</p> +<p>For, in the meanwhile, Raleigh falls into a very great sin, +for which, as usual with his elect, God inflicts swift and +instant punishment; on which, as usual, biographers talk much +unwisdom. He seduces Miss Throgmorton, one of the maids of +honour. Elizabeth is very wroth; and had she not good +reason to be wroth? Is it either fair or reasonable to talk +of her ‘demanding a monopoly of love,’ and +‘being incensed at the temerity of her favourite, in +presuming to fall in love and marry without her +consent?’ Away with such cant. The plain facts +are: that a man nearly forty years old abuses his wonderful gifts +of body and mind, to ruin a girl nearly twenty years younger than +himself. What wonder if a virtuous woman—and Queen +Elizabeth was virtuous—thought it a base deed, and punished +it accordingly? There is no more to be discovered in the +matter, save by the vulturine nose which smells carrion in every +rose-bed. Raleigh has a great attempt on the Plate-fleets +in hand; he hurries off from Chatham, and writes to young Cecil +on the 10th of March, ‘I mean not to come away, as some say +I will, for fear of a marriage, and I know not what . . . For I +protest before God, there is none on the face of the earth that I +would be fastened unto.’</p> +<p>This famous passage is one of those over which the virtuosity +of modern times, rejoicing in evil, has hung so fondly, as giving +melancholy proof of the ‘duplicity of Raleigh’s +character’; as if a man who once in his life had told an +untruth was proved by that fact to be a rogue from birth to +death: while others have kindly given him the benefit of a doubt +whether the letter were not written after a private marriage, and +therefore Raleigh, being ‘joined unto’ some one +already, had a right to say that he did not wish to be joined to +any one. But I do not concur in this doubt. Four +months after, Sir Edward Stafford writes to Anthony Bacon, +‘If you have anything to do with Sir W. R., or any love to +make to Mistress Throgmorton, at the Tower to-morrow you may +speak with them.’ This implies that no marriage had +yet taken place. And surely, if there had been private +marriage, two people who were about to be sent to the Tower for +their folly would have made the marriage public at once, as the +only possible self-justification. But it is a pity, in my +opinion, that biographers, before pronouncing upon that supposed +lie of Raleigh’s, had not taken the trouble to find out +what the words mean. In their virtuous haste to prove him a +liar, they have overlooked the fact that the words, as they +stand, are unintelligible, and the argument +self-contradictory. He wants to prove, we suppose, that he +does not go to sea for fear of being forced to marry Miss +Throgmorton. It is, at least, an unexpected method of so +doing in a shrewd man like Raleigh, to say that he wishes to +marry no one at all. ‘Don’t think that I run +away for fear of a marriage, for I do not wish to marry any one +on the face of the earth,’ is a speech which may prove +Raleigh to have been a fool, and we must understand it before we +can say that it proves him a rogue. If we had received such +a letter from a friend, we should have said at once, ‘Why +the man, in his hurry and confusion, has omitted <i>the</i> word; +he must have meant to write, not “There is none on the face +of the earth that I would be fastened to,” but “There +is none on the face of the earth that I would <i>rather</i> be +fastened to,”‘ which would at once make sense and +suit fact. For Raleigh not only married Miss Throgmorton +forthwith, but made her the best of husbands. My +conjectural emendation may go for what it is worth: but that the +passage, as it stands in Murdin’s State Papers (the MSS. I +have not seen) is either misquoted, or mis-written by Raleigh +himself, I cannot doubt. He was not one to think nonsense, +even if he scribbled it.</p> +<p>The Spanish raid turns out well. Raleigh overlooks +Elizabeth’s letters of recall till he finds out that the +King of Spain has stopped the Plate-fleet for fear of his coming; +and then returns, sending on Sir John Burrough to the Azores, +where he takes the ‘Great Carack,’ the largest prize +(1600 tons) which had ever been brought into England. The +details of that gallant fight stand in the pages of +Hakluyt. It raised Raleigh once more to wealth, though not +to favour. Shortly after he returns from the sea, he finds +himself, where he deserves to be, in the Tower, where he does +more than one thing which brought him no credit. How far we +are justified in calling his quarrel with Sir George Carew, his +keeper, for not letting him ‘disguise himself, and get into +a pair of oars to ease his mind but with a sight of the Queen, or +his heart would break,’ hypocrisy, is a very different +matter. Honest Arthur Gorges, a staunch friend of +Raleigh’s, tells the story laughingly and lovingly, as if +he thought Raleigh sincere, but somewhat mad: and yet honest +Gorges has a good right to say a bitter thing; for after having +been ‘ready to break with laughing at seeing them two brawl +and scramble like madmen, and Sir George’s new periwig torn +off his crown,’ he sees ‘the iron walking’ and +daggers out, and playing the part of him who taketh a dog by the +ears, ‘purchased such a rap on the knuckles, that I wished +both their pates broken, and so with much ado they staid their +brawl to see my bloody fingers,’ and then set to work to +abuse the hapless peacemaker. After which things Raleigh +writes a letter to Cecil, which is still more offensive in the +eyes of virtuous biographers—how ‘his heart was never +broken till this day, when he hears the Queen goes so far off, +whom he followed with love and desire on so many journeys, and am +now left behind in a dark prison all alone.’ . . . ‘I +that was wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting like +Diana, walking like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair +about her pure cheeks,’ and so forth, in a style in which +the vulturine nose must needs scent carrion, just because the +roses are more fragrant than they should be in a world where all +ought to be either vultures or carrion for their dinners. +As for his despair, had he not good reason to be in +despair? By his own sin he has hurled himself down the hill +which he has so painfully climbed. He is in the +Tower—surely no pleasant or hopeful place for any +man. Elizabeth is exceedingly wroth with him; and what is +worse, he deserves what he has got. His whole fortune is +ventured in an expedition over which he has no control, which has +been unsuccessful in its first object, and which may be +altogether unsuccessful in that which it has undertaken as a +<i>pis-aller</i>, and so leave him penniless. There want +not, too, those who will trample on the fallen. The deputy +has been cruelly distraining on his Irish tenants for a +‘supposed debt of his to the Queen of £400 for +rent,’ which was indeed but fifty marks, and which was +paid, and has carried off 500 milch kine from the poor settlers +whom he has planted there, and forcibly thrust him out of +possession of a castle. Moreover, the whole Irish estates +are likely to come to ruin; for nothing prevails but rascality +among the English soldiers, impotence among the governors, and +rebellion among the natives. Three thousand Burkes are up +in arms; his ‘prophecy of this rebellion’ ten days +ago was laughed at, and now has come true; and altogether, Walter +Raleigh and all belonging to him is in as evil case as he ever +was on earth. No wonder, poor fellow, if he behowls himself +lustily, and not always wisely, to Cecil, and every one else who +will listen to him.</p> +<p>As for his fine speeches about Elizabeth, why forget the +standing-point from which such speeches were made? Over and +above his present ruin, it was (and ought to have been) an +utterly horrible and unbearable thing to Raleigh, or any man, to +have fallen into disgrace with Elizabeth by his own fault. +He feels (and perhaps rightly) that he is as it were +excommunicated from England, and the mission and the glory of +England. Instead of being, as he was till now, one of a +body of brave men working together in one great common cause, he +has cut himself off from the congregation by his own selfish +lust, and there he is left alone with his shame. We must +try to realise to ourselves the way in which such men as Raleigh +looked not only at Elizabeth, but at all the world. There +was, in plain palpable fact, something about the Queen, her +history, her policy, the times, the glorious part which England, +and she as the incarnation of the then English spirit, were +playing upon earth, which raised imaginative and heroical souls +into a permanent exaltation—a ‘fairyland,’ as +they called it themselves, which seems to us fantastic, and would +be fantastic in us, because we are not at their work, or in their +days. There can be no doubt that a number of as noble men +as ever stood together on the earth did worship that woman, fight +for her, toil for her, risk all for her, with a pure chivalrous +affection which has furnished one of the most beautiful pages in +all the book of history. Blots there must needs have been, +and inconsistencies, selfishnesses, follies; for they too were +men of like passions with ourselves; but let us look at the fair +vision as a whole, and thank God that such a thing has for once +existed even imperfectly on this sinful earth, instead of playing +the part of Ham and falling under his curse,—the penalty of +slavishness, cowardice, loss of noble daring, which surely falls +on any generation which is ‘banausos,’ to use +Aristotle’s word; which rejoices in its forefathers’ +shame, and, unable to believe in the nobleness of others, is +unable to become noble itself.</p> +<p>As for the ‘Alexander and Diana’ affectations, +they were the language of the time: and certainly this generation +has no reason to find fault with them, or with a good deal more +of the ‘affectations’ and ‘flattery’ of +Elizabethan times, while it listens complacently night after +night ‘to honourable members’ complimenting not Queen +Elizabeth, but Sir Jabesh Windbag, Fiddle, Faddle, Red-tape, and +party with protestations of deepest respect and fullest +confidence in the very speeches in which they bring accusations +of every offence short of high treason—to be understood, of +course, in a ‘parliamentary sense,’ as Mr. +Pickwick’s were in a ‘Pickwickian’ one. +If a generation of Knoxes and Mortons, Burleighs and Raleighs, +shall ever arise again, one wonders by what name they will call +the parliamentary morality and parliamentary courtesy of a +generation which has meted out such measure to their +ancestors’ failings?</p> +<p>‘But Queen Elizabeth was an old woman then.’ +I thank the objector even for that ‘then’; for it is +much nowadays to find any one who believes that Queen Elizabeth +was ever young, or who does not talk of her as if she was born +about seventy years of age covered with rouge and wrinkles. +I will undertake to say that as to the beauty of this woman there +is a greater mass of testimony, and from the very best judges +too, than there is of the beauty of any personage in history; and +yet it has become the fashion now to deny even that. The +plain facts seem that she was very graceful, active, accomplished +in all outward manners, of a perfect figure, and of that style of +intellectual beauty, depending on expression, which attracted +(and we trust always will attract) Britons far more than that +merely sensuous loveliness in which no doubt Mary Stuart far +surpassed her. And there seems little doubt that, like many +Englishwomen, she retained her beauty to a very late period in +life, not to mention that she was, in 1592, just at that age of +rejuvenescence which makes many a woman more lovely at sixty than +she has been since she was thirty-five. No doubt, too, she +used every artificial means to preserve her famous complexion; +and quite right she was. This beauty of hers had been a +talent, as all beauty is, committed to her by God; it had been an +important element in her great success; men had accepted it as +what beauty of form and expression generally is, an outward and +visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace; and while the +inward was unchanged, what wonder if she tried to preserve the +outward? If she was the same, why should she not try to +look the same? And what blame to those who worshipped her, +if, knowing that she was the same, they too should fancy that she +looked the same, the Elizabeth of their youth, and should talk as +if the fair flesh, as well as the fair spirit, was +immortal? Does not every loving husband do so when he +forgets the gray hair and the sunken cheek, and all the wastes of +time, and sees the partner of many joys and sorrows not as she +has become, but as she was, ay, and is to him, and will be to +him, he trusts, through all eternity? There is no feeling +in these Elizabethan worshippers which we have not seen, +potential and crude, again and again in the best and noblest of +young men whom we have met, till it was crushed in them by the +luxury, effeminacy, and unbelief in chivalry, which are the sure +accompaniment of a long peace, which war may burn up with +beneficent fire.</p> +<p>But we must hasten on now; for Raleigh is out of prison in +September, and by the next spring in parliament speaking wisely +and well, especially on his fixed idea, war with Spain, which he +is rewarded for forthwith in Father Parson’s +‘Andreæ Philopatris Responsio’ by a charge of +founding a school of Atheism for the corruption of young +gentlemen; a charge which Lord Chief-Justice Popham, Protestant +as he is, will find it useful one day to recollect.</p> +<p>Elizabeth, however, now that Raleigh has married the fair +Throgmorton and done wisely in other matters, restores him to +favour. If he has sinned, he has suffered: but he is as +useful as ever, now that his senses have returned to him; and he +is making good speeches in parliament, instead of bad ones to +weak maidens; so we find him once more in favour, and possessor +of Sherborne Manor, where he builds and beautifies, with +‘groves and gardens of much variety and great +delight.’ And God, too, seems to have forgiven him; +perhaps has forgiven; for there the fair Throgmorton brings him a +noble boy. <i>Ut sis vitalis metuo puer</i>!</p> +<p>Raleigh will quote David’s example one day, not wisely +or well. Does David’s example ever cross him now, and +those sad words,—‘The Lord hath put away thy sin, . . +. nevertheless the child that is born unto thee shall +die?’</p> +<p>Let that be as it may, all is sunshine once more. +Sherborne Manor, a rich share in the great carack, a beautiful +wife, a child; what more does this man want to make him +happy? Why should he not settle down upon his lees, like +ninety-nine out of the hundred, or at least try a peaceful and +easy path toward more ‘praise and pudding?’ The +world answers, or his biographers answer for him, that he needs +to reinstate himself in his mistress’s affection; which is +true or not, according as we take it. If they mean thereby, +as most seem to mean, that it was a mere selfish and ambitious +scheme by which to wriggle into court favour once more—why, +let them mean it: I shall only observe that the method which +Raleigh took was a rather more dangerous and self-sacrificing one +than courtiers are wont to take. But if it be meant that +Walter Raleigh spoke somewhat thus with himself,—‘I +have done a base and dirty deed, and have been punished for +it. I have hurt the good name of a sweet woman who loves +me, and whom I find to be a treasure; and God, instead of +punishing me by taking her from me, has rendered me good for evil +by giving her to me. I have justly offended a mistress whom +I worship, and who, after having shown her just indignation, has +returned me good for evil by giving me these fair lands of +Sherborne, and only forbid me her presence till the scandal has +passed away. She sees and rewards my good in spite of my +evil; and I, too, know that I am better than I have seemed; that +I am fit for nobler deeds than seducing maids of honour. +How can I prove that? How can I redeem my lost name for +patriotism and public daring? How can I win glory for my +wife, seek that men shall forget her past shame in the thought, +“She is Walter Raleigh’s wife?” How can I +show my mistress that I loved her all along, that I acknowledge +her bounty, her mingled justice and mercy? How can I render +to God for all the benefits which He has done unto me? How +can I do a deed the like of which was never done in +England?’</p> +<p>If all this had passed through Walter Raleigh’s mind, +what could we say of it, but that it was the natural and rational +feeling of an honourable and right-hearted man, burning to rise +to the level which he knew ought to be his, because he knew that +he had fallen below it? And what right better way of +testifying these feelings than to do what, as we shall see, +Raleigh did? What right have we to impute to him lower +motives than these, while we confess that these righteous and +noble motives would have been natural and rational;—indeed, +just what we flatter ourselves that we should have felt in his +place? Of course, in his grand scheme, the thought came in, +‘And I shall win to myself honour, and glory, and +wealth,’—of course. And pray, sir, does it not +come in in your grand schemes; and yours; and yours? If you +made a fortune to-morrow by some wisely and benevolently managed +factory, would you forbid all speech of the said wisdom and +benevolence, because you had intended that wisdom and benevolence +should pay you a good percentage? Away with cant, and let +him that is without sin among you cast the first stone.</p> +<p>So Raleigh hits upon a noble project; a desperate one, true: +but he will do it or die. He will leave pleasant Sherborne, +and the bosom of the beautiful bride, and the first-born son, and +all which to most makes life worth having, and which Raleigh +enjoys more intensely than most men; for he is a poet, and a man +of strong nervous passions withal. But,—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘I could not love thee, dear, so much,<br /> +Loved I not honour more.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And he will go forth to endure heat, hunger, fever, danger of +death in battle, danger of the Inquisition, rack, and stake, in +search of El Dorado. What so strange in that? I have +known half a dozen men who, in his case, and conscious of his +powers, would have done the same from the same noble motive.</p> +<p>He begins prudently; and sends a Devonshire man, Captain +Whiddon—probably one of The Whiddons of beautiful +Chagford—to spy out the Orinoco. He finds that the +Spaniards are there already; that Berreo, who has attempted El +Dorado from the westward, starting from New Granada and going +down the rivers, is trying to settle on the Orinoco mouth; that +he is hanging the poor natives, encouraging the Caribs to hunt +them and sell them for slaves, imprisoning the caciques to extort +their gold, torturing, ravishing, kidnapping, and conducting +himself as was usual among Spaniards of those days.</p> +<p>Raleigh’s spirit is stirred within him. If +‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ fiction as it is, once +excited us, how must a far worse reality have excited Raleigh, as +he remembered that these Spaniards are as yet triumphant in +iniquity, and as he remembered, too, that these same men are the +sworn foes of England, her liberty, her Bible, and her +Queen? What a deed, to be beforehand with them for +once! To dispossess them of one corner of that western +world, where they have left no trace but blood and flame! +He will go himself: he will find El Dorado and its golden +Emperor; and instead of conquering, plundering, and murdering +him, as Cortez did Montezuma, and Pizarro Atahuallpa, he will +show him English strength; espouse his quarrel against the +Spaniards; make him glad to become Queen Elizabeth’s vassal +tributary, perhaps leave him a bodyguard of English veterans, +perhaps colonise his country, and so at once avenge and protect +the oppressed Indians, and fill the Queen’s treasury with +the riches of a land equal, if not superior, to Peru and +Mexico.</p> +<p>Such is his dream; vague perhaps: but far less vague than +those with which Cortez and Pizarro started, and succeeded. +After a careful survey of the whole matter, I must give it as my +deliberate opinion, that Raleigh was more reasonable in his +attempt, and had more fair evidence of its feasibility, than +either Cortez or Pizarro had for theirs. It is a bold +assertion. If any reader doubts its truth, he cannot do +better than to read the whole of the documents connected with the +two successful, and the one unsuccessful, attempts at finding a +golden kingdom. Let them read first Prescott’s +‘Conquests of Mexico and Peru,’ and then +Schomburgk’s edition of Raleigh’s +‘Guiana.’ They will at least confess, when they +have finished, that truth is stranger than fiction.</p> +<p>Of Raleigh’s credulity in believing in El Dorado, much +has been said. I am sorry to find even so wise a man as Sir +Robert Schomburgk, after bearing good testimony to +Raleigh’s wonderful accuracy about all matters which he had +an opportunity of observing, using this term of credulity. +I must dare to differ on that point even with Sir Robert, and ask +by what right the word is used? First, Raleigh says nothing +about El Dorado (as every one is forced to confess) but what +Spaniard on Spaniard had been saying for fifty years. +Therefore the blame of credulity ought to rest with the +Spaniards, from Philip von Huten, Orellano, and George of Spires, +upward to Berreo. But it rests really with no one. +For nothing, if we will examine the documents, is told of the +riches of El Dorado which had not been found to be true, and seen +by the eyes of men still living, in Peru and Mexico. Not +one-fifth of America had been explored, and already two El +Dorados had been found and conquered. What more rational +than to suppose that there was a third, a fourth, a fifth, in the +remaining four-fifths? The reports of El Dorado among the +savages were just of the same kind as those by which Cortez and +Pizarro hunted out Mexico and Peru, saving that they were far +more widely spread, and confirmed by a succession of +adventurers. I entreat readers to examine this matter in +Raleigh, Schomburgk, Humboldt, and Condamine, and judge for +themselves. As for Hume’s accusations, I pass them by +as equally silly and shameless, only saying, for the benefit of +readers, that they have been refuted completely by every one who +has written since Hume’s days; and to those who are +inclined to laugh at Raleigh for believing in Amazons and +‘men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders’ I +can only answer thus—</p> +<p>About the Amazons, Raleigh told what he was told; what the +Spaniards who went before him, and Condamine who came after him, +were told. Humboldt thinks the story possibly founded on +fact; and I must say that, after reviewing all that has been said +thereon, it does seem to me the simplest solution of the matter +just to believe it true; to believe that there was, about his +time, or a little before, somewhere about the Upper Orinoco, a +warlike community of women. Humboldt shows how likely such +would be to spring up where women flee from their male tyrants +into the forests. As for the fable which connected them +with the Lake Manoa and the city of El Dorado, we can only +answer, ‘If not true there and then, it is true elsewhere +now’; for the Amazonian guards of the King of Dahomey at +this moment, as all know, surpass in strangeness and in ferocity +all that has been reported of the Orinocquan viragos, and thus +prove once more that truth is stranger than fiction. <a +name="citation138"></a><a href="#footnote138" +class="citation">[138]</a></p> +<p>Beside—and here I stand stubborn, regardless of gibes +and sneers—it is not yet proven that there was not, in the +sixteenth century, some rich and civilised kingdom like Peru or +Mexico in the interior of South America. Sir Robert +Schomburgk has disproved the existence of Lake Parima; but it +will take a long time, and more explorers than one, to prove that +there are no ruins of ancient cities, such as Stephens stumbled +on in Yucatan, still buried in the depths of the forest. +Fifty years of ruin would suffice to wrap them in a leafy veil +which would hide them from every one who did not literally run +against them. Tribes would die out, or change place, as the +Atures and other great nations have done in those parts, and +every traditional record of them perish gradually; for it is only +gradually and lately that it has perished: while if it be asked, +What has become of the people themselves? the answer is, that +when any race (like most of the American races in the sixteenth +century) is in a dying state, it hardly needs war to thin it +down, and reduce the remnant to savagery. Greater nations +than El Dorado was even supposed to be have vanished ere now, and +left not a trace behind: and so may they. But enough of +this. I leave the quarrel to that honest and patient warder +of tourneys, Old Time, who will surely do right at last, and go +on to the dogheaded worthies, without necks, and long hair +hanging down behind, who, as a cacique told Raleigh, that +‘they had of late years slain many hundreds of his +father’s people,’ and in whom even Humboldt was not +always allowed, he says, to disbelieve (so much for Hume’s +scoff at Raleigh as a liar), one old cacique boasting to him that +he had seen them with his own eyes. Humboldt’s +explanation is, that the Caribs, being the cleverest and +strongest Indians, are also the most imaginative; and therefore, +being fallen children of Adam, the greatest liars; and that they +invented both El Dorado and the dog-heads out of pure +wickedness. Be it so. But all lies crystallise round +some nucleus of truth; and it really seems to me nothing very +wonderful if the story should be on the whole true, and these +worthies were in the habit of dressing themselves up, like +foolish savages as they were, in the skins of the Aguara dog, +with what not of stuffing, and tails, and so forth, in order to +astonish the weak minds of the Caribs, just as the Red Indians +dress up in their feasts as bears, wolves, and deer, with +foxtails, false bustles of bison skin, and so forth. There +are plenty of traces of such foolish attempts at playing +‘bogy’ in the history of savages, even of our own +Teutonic forefathers; and this I suspect to be the simple +explanation of the whole mare’s nest. As for Raleigh +being a fool for believing it; the reasons he gives for believing +it are very rational; the reasons Hume gives for calling him a +fool rest merely on the story’s being strange: on which +grounds one might disbelieve most matters in heaven and earth, +from one’s own existence to what one sees in every drop of +water under the microscope, yea, to the growth of every +seed. The only sound proof that dog-headed men are +impossible is to be found in comparative anatomy, a science of +which Hume knew no more than Raleigh, and which for one marvel it +has destroyed has revealed a hundred. I do not doubt that +if Raleigh had seen and described a kangaroo, especially its all +but miraculous process of gestation, Hume would have called that +a lie also; but I will waste no more time in proving that no man +is so credulous as the unbeliever—the man who has such +mighty and world-embracing faith in himself that he makes his own +little brain the measure of the universe. Let the dead bury +their dead.</p> +<p>Raleigh sails for Guiana. The details of his voyage +should be read at length. Everywhere they show the eye of a +poet as well as of a man of science. He sees enough to +excite his hopes more wildly than ever; he goes hundreds of miles +up the Orinoco in an open boat, suffering every misery, but +keeping up the hearts of his men, who cry out, ‘Let us go +on, we care not how far.’ He makes friendship with +the caciques, and enters into alliance with them on behalf of +Queen Elizabeth against the Spaniards. Unable to pass the +falls of the Caroli, and the rainy season drawing on, he returns, +beloved and honoured by all the Indians, boasting that, during +the whole time he was there, no woman was the worse for any man +of his crew. Altogether, we know few episodes of history so +noble, righteous, and merciful as this Guiana voyage. But +he has not forgotten the Spaniards. At Trinidad he payed +his ships with the asphalt of the famous Pitch-lake, and +stood—and with what awe such a man must have +stood—beneath the noble forest of Moriche fan-palms on its +brink. He then attacked, not, by his own confession, +without something too like treachery, the new town of San +José, takes Berreo prisoner, and delivers from captivity +five caciques, whom Berreo kept bound in one chain, +‘basting their bodies with burning bacon’—an +old trick of the Conquistadores—to make them discover their +gold. He tells them that he was ‘the servant of a +Queen who was the greatest cacique of the north, and a virgin; +who had more caciqui under her than there were trees on that +island; that she was an enemy of the Castellani (Spaniards) in +behalf of their tyranny and oppression, and that she delivered +all such nations about her as were by them oppressed, and having +freed all the coast of the northern world from their servitude, +had sent me to free them also, and withal to defend the country +of Guiana from their invasion and conquest.’ After +which perfectly true and rational speech, he subjoins (as we +think equally honestly and rationally), ‘I showed them her +Majesty’s picture, which they so admired and honoured, as +it had been easy to have brought them idolaters +thereof.’</p> +<p>This is one of the stock charges against Raleigh, at which all +biographers (except quiet, sensible Oldys, who, dull as he is, is +far more fair and rational than most of his successors) break +into virtuous shrieks of ‘flattery,’ +‘meanness,’ ‘adulation,’ +‘courtiership,’ and so forth. One biographer is +of opinion that the Indians would have admired far more the +picture of a ‘red monkey.’ Sir Robert +Schomburgk, unfortunately for the red monkey theory, though he +quite agrees that Raleigh’s flattery was very shocking, +says that from what he knows—and no man knows more—of +Indian taste, they would have far preferred to the portrait which +Raleigh showed them—not a red monkey, but—such a +picture as that at Hampton Court, in which Elizabeth is +represented in a fantastic court dress. Raleigh, it seems, +must be made out a rogue at all risks, though by the most +opposite charges. The monkey theory is answered, however, +by Sir Robert; and Sir Robert is answered, I think, by the plain +fact that, of course, Raleigh’s portrait was exactly such a +one as Sir Robert says they would have admired; a picture +probably in a tawdry frame, representing Queen Bess, just as +queens were always painted then, bedizened with ‘browches, +pearls, and owches,’ satin and ruff, and probably with +crown on head and sceptre in hand, made up, as likely as not, +expressly for the purpose for which it was used. In the +name of all simplicity and honesty, I ask, why is Raleigh to be +accused of saying that the Indians admired Queen +Elizabeth’s beauty when he never even hints at it? +And why do all commentators deliberately forget the preceding +paragraph—Raleigh’s proclamation to the Indians, and +the circumstances under which it was spoken? The Indians +are being murdered, ravished, sold for slaves, basted with +burning fat; and grand white men come like avenging angels, and +in one day sweep their tyrants out of the land, restore them to +liberty and life, and say to them, ‘A great Queen far +across the seas has sent us to do this. Thousands of miles +away she has heard of your misery and taken pity on you; and if +you will be faithful to her she will love you, and deal justly +with you, and protect you against these Spaniards who are +devouring you as they have devoured all the Indians round you; +and for a token of it—a sign that we tell you truth, and +that there is really such a great Queen, who is the +Indian’s friend—here is the picture of +her.’ What wonder if the poor idolatrous creatures +had fallen down and worshipped the picture—just as millions +do that of the Virgin Mary without a thousandth part as sound and +practical reason—as that of a divine, all-knowing, +all-merciful deliverer? As for its being the picture of a +beautiful woman or not, they would never think of that. The +fair complexion and golden hair would be a sign to them that she +belonged to the mighty white people, even if there were no +bedizenment of jewels and crowns over and above; and that would +be enough for them. When will biographers learn to do +common justice to their fellow-men by exerting now and then some +small amount of dramatic imagination, just sufficient to put +themselves for a moment in the place of those of whom they +write?</p> +<p>So ends his voyage, in which, he says, ‘from myself I +have deserved no thanks, for I am returned a beggar and +withered.’ The only thing which, as far as I can +find, he brought home was some of the delicious scaly peaches of +the Moriche palm—the <i>Arbol de Vida</i>, or tree of life, +which gives sustenance and all else needful to whole tribes of +Indians. ‘But I might have bettered my poor estate if +I had not only respected her Majesty’s future honour and +riches. It became not the former fortune in which I once +lived to go journeys of piccory’ (pillage); ‘and it +had sorted ill with the offices of honour which, by her +Majesty’s grace, I hold this day in England, to run from +cape to cape and place to place for the pillage of ordinary +prizes.’</p> +<p>So speaks one whom it has been the fashion to consider as +little better than a pirate, and that, too, in days when the +noblest blood in England thought no shame (as indeed it was no +shame) to enrich themselves with Spanish gold. But so it is +throughout this man’s life. If there be a nobler word +than usual to be spoken, or a more wise word either, if there be +a more chivalrous deed to be done, or a more prudent deed either, +that word and that deed are pretty sure to be Walter +Raleigh’s.</p> +<p>But the blatant beast has been busy at home; and, in spite of +Chapman’s heroical verses, he meets with little but cold +looks. Never mind. If the world will not help to do +the deed, he will do it by himself; and no time must be lost, for +the Spaniards on their part will lose none. So, after six +months, the faithful Keymis sails again, again helped by the Lord +High Admiral and Sir Robert Cecil. It is a hard race for +one private man against the whole power and wealth of Spain; and +the Spaniard has been beforehand with them, and re-occupied the +country. They have fortified themselves at the mouth of the +Caroli, so it is impossible to get to the gold mines; they are +enslaving the wretched Indians, carrying off their women, +intending to transplant some tribes and to expel others, and +arming cannibal tribes against the inhabitants. All is +misery and rapine; the scattered remnant comes asking piteously +why Raleigh does not come over to deliver them? Have the +Spaniards slain him, too? Keymis comforts them as he best +can; hears of more gold mines; and gets back safe, a little to +his own astonishment; for eight-and-twenty ships of war have been +sent to Trinidad to guard the entrance to El Dorado, not surely, +as Keymis well says, ‘to keep us only from +tobacco.’ A colony of 500 persons is expected from +Spain. The Spaniard is well aware of the richness of the +prize, says Keymis, who all through shows himself a worthy pupil +of his master. A careful, observant man he seems to have +been, trained by that great example to overlook no fact, even the +smallest. He brings home lists of rivers, towns, caciques, +poison-herbs, words, what not; he has fresh news of gold, +spleen-stones, kidney-stones, and some fresh specimens; but be +that as it may, he, ‘without going as far as his eyes can +warrant, can promise Brazil-wood, honey, cotton, balsamum, and +drugs, to defray charges.’ He would fain copy +Raleigh’s style, too, and ‘whence his lamp had oil, +borrow light also,’ ‘seasoning his unsavoury +speech’ with some of the ‘leaven of Raleigh’s +discourse.’ Which, indeed, he does even to little +pedantries and attempts at classicality; and after professing +that himself and the remnant of his few years he hath bequeathed +wholly to Raleana, and his thoughts live only in that action, he +rises into something like grandeur when he begins to speak of +that ever-fertile subject, the Spanish cruelties to the Indians; +‘Doth not the cry of the poor succourless ascend unto the +heavens? Hath God forgotten to be gracious to the work of +his own hands. Or shall not his judgments in a day of +visitation by the ministry of his chosen servant come upon these +bloodthirsty butchers, like rain into a fleece of +wool?’ Poor Keymis! To us he is by no means the +least beautiful figure in this romance; a faithful, diligent, +loving man, unable, as the event proved, to do great deeds by +himself, but inspired with a great idea by contact with a +mightier spirit, to whom he clings through evil report, and +poverty, and prison, careless of self to the last, and ends +tragically, ‘faithful unto death’ in the most awful +sense.</p> +<p>But here remark two things: first, that Cecil believes in +Raleigh’s Guiana scheme; next, that the occupation of +Orinoco by the Spaniards, which Raleigh is accused of having +concealed from James in 1617, has been ever since 1595 matter of +the most public notoriety.</p> +<p>Raleigh has not been idle in the meanwhile. It has been +found necessary after all to take the counsel which he gave in +vain in 1588, to burn the Spanish fleet in harbour; and the +heroes are gone down to Cadiz fight, and in one day of thunder +storm the Sevastopol of Spain. Here, as usual, we find +Raleigh, though in an inferior command, leading the whole by +virtue of superior wisdom. When the good Lord Admiral will +needs be cautious, and land the soldiers first, it is Raleigh who +persuades him to force his way into the harbour, to the joy of +all captains. When hotheaded Essex, casting his hat into +the sea for joy, shouts ‘<i>Intramos</i>,’ and will +in at once, Raleigh’s time for caution comes, and he +persuades them to wait till the next morning, and arrange the +order of attack. That, too, Raleigh has to do, and moreover +to lead it; and lead it he does. Under the forts are +seventeen galleys; the channel is ‘scoured’ with +cannon: but on holds Raleigh’s ‘Warspite,’ far +ahead of the rest, through the thickest of the fire, answering +forts and galleys ‘with a blur of the trumpet to each +piece, disdaining to shoot at those esteemed dreadful +monsters.’ For there is a nobler enemy ahead. +Right in front lie the galleons; and among them the +‘Philip’ and the ‘Andrew,’ two of those +who boarded the ‘Revenge.’ This day there shall +be a reckoning for the blood of his old friend; he is +‘resolved to be revenged for the +“Revenge,”’ Sir Richard Grenvile’s fatal +ship, or second her with his own life’; and well he keeps +his vow. Three hours pass of desperate valour, during +which, so narrow is the passage, only seven English ships, +thrusting past each other, all but quarrelling in their noble +rivalry, engage the whole Spanish fleet of fifty-seven sail, and +destroy it utterly. The ‘Philip’ and +‘Thomas’ burn themselves despairing. The +English boats save the ‘Andrew’ and +‘Matthew.’ One passes over the hideous +record. ‘If any man,’ says Raleigh, ‘had +a desire to see hell itself, it was there most lively +figured.’ Keymis’s prayer is answered in part, +even while he writes it; and the cry of the Indians has not +ascended in vain before the throne of God!</p> +<p>The soldiers are landed; the city stormed and sacked, not +without mercies and courtesies, though, to women and unarmed +folk, which win the hearts of the vanquished, and live till this +day in well-known ballads. The Flemings begin a +‘merciless slaughter.’ Raleigh and the Lord +Admiral beat them off. Raleigh is carried on shore with a +splinter wound in the leg, which lames him for life: but returns +on board in an hour in agony; for there is no admiral left to +order the fleet, and all are run headlong to the sack. In +vain he attempts to get together sailors the following morning, +and attack the Indian fleet in Porto Real Roads; within +twenty-four hours it is burnt by the Spaniards themselves; and +all Raleigh wins is no booty, a lame leg, and the honour of +having been the real author of a victory even more glorious than +that of 1588.</p> +<p>So he returns; having written to Cecil the highest praises of +Essex, whom he treats with all courtesy and fairness; which those +who will may call cunning: we have as good a right to say that he +was returning good for evil. There were noble qualities in +Essex. All the world gave him credit for them, and far more +than he deserved; why should not Raleigh have been just to him; +even have conceived, like the rest of the world, high hopes of +him, till he himself destroyed these hopes? For now storms +are rising fast. On their return Cecil is in power. +He has been made Secretary of State instead of Bodley, +Essex’s pet, and the spoilt child begins to sulk. On +which matter, I am sorry to say, historians talk much unwisdom, +about Essex’s being too ‘open and generous, etc., for +a courtier,’ and ‘presuming on his mistress’s +passion for him’; and representing Elizabeth as desiring to +be thought beautiful, and ‘affecting at sixty the sighs, +loves, tears, and tastes of a girl of sixteen,’ and so +forth. It is really time to get rid of some of this fulsome +talk, culled from such triflers as Osborne, if not from the +darker and fouler sources of Parsons and the Jesuit slanderers, +which I meet with a flat denial. There is simply no +proof. She in love with Essex or Cecil? Yes, as a +mother with a son. Were they not the children of her +dearest and most faithful servants, men who had lived heroic +lives for her sake? What wonder if she fancied that she saw +the fathers in the sons? They had been trained under her +eye. What wonder if she fancied that they could work as +their fathers worked before them? And what shame if her +childless heart yearned over them with unspeakable affection, and +longed in her old age to lay her hands upon the shoulders of +those two young men, and say to England, ‘Behold the +children which God, and not the flesh, has given me!’ +Most strange it is, too, that women, who ought at least to know a +woman’s heart, have been especially forward in publishing +these scandals, and sullying their pages by retailing pruriences +against such a one as Queen Elizabeth.</p> +<p>But to return. Raleigh attaches himself to Cecil; and he +has good reason. Cecil is the cleverest man in England, +saving himself. He has trusted and helped him, too, in two +Guiana voyages; so the connection is one of gratitude as well as +prudence. We know not whether he helped him in the third +Guiana voyage in the same year, under Captain Berry, a north +Devon man, from Grenvile’s country; who found a +‘mighty folk,’ who were ‘something pleasant, +having drunk much that day,’ and carried bows with golden +handles: but failed in finding the Lake Parima, and so came +home.</p> +<p>Raleigh’s first use of his friendship with Cecil is to +reconcile him, to the astonishment of the world, with Essex, +alleging how much good may grow by it; for now ‘the +Queen’s continual unquietness will grow to +contentment.’ That, too, those who will may call +policy. We have as good a right to call it the act of a +wise and faithful subject, and to say, ‘Blessed are the +peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of +God.’ He has his reward for it in full restoration to +the Queen’s favour; he deserves it. He proves himself +once more worthy of power, and it is given to him. Then +there is to be a second great expedition: but this time its aim +is the Azores. Philip, only maddened by the loss at Cadiz, +is preparing a third armament for the invasion of England and +Ireland, and it is said to lie at the islands to protect the +Indian fleet. Raleigh has the victualling of the +land-forces, and, like everything else he takes in hand, +‘it is very well done.’ Lord Howard declines +the chief command, and it is given to Essex. Raleigh is to +be rear-admiral.</p> +<p>By the time they reach the Azores, Essex has got up a foolish +quarrel against Raleigh for disrespect in having stayed behind to +bring up some stragglers. But when no Armada is to be found +at the Azores, Essex has after all to ask Raleigh what he shall +do next. Conquer the Azores, says Raleigh, and the thing is +agreed on. Raleigh and Essex are to attack Fayal. +Essex sails away before Raleigh has watered. Raleigh +follows as fast as he can, and at Fayal finds no Essex. He +must water there, then and at once. His own veterans want +him to attack forthwith, for the Spaniards are fortifying fast: +but he will wait for Essex. Still no Essex comes. +Raleigh attempts to water, is defied, finds himself ‘in for +it,’ and takes the island out of hand in the most masterly +fashion, to the infuriation of Essex. Good Lord Howard +patches up the matter, and the hot-headed coxcomb is once more +pacified. They go on to Graciosa, where Essex’s +weakness of will again comes out, and he does not take the +island. Three rich Caracks, however, are picked up. +‘Though we shall be little the better for them,’ says +Raleigh privately to Sir Arthur Gorges, his faithful captain, +‘yet I am heartily glad for our General’s sake; +because they will in great measure give content to her Majesty, +so that there may be no repining against this poor Lord for the +expense of the voyage.’</p> +<p>Raleigh begins to see that Essex is only to be pitied; that +the voyage is not over likely to end well: but he takes it, in +spite of ill-usage, as a kind-hearted man should. Again +Essex makes a fool of himself. They are to steer one way in +order to intercept the Plate-fleet. Essex having agreed to +the course pointed out, alters his course on a fancy; then alters +it a second time, though the hapless Monson, with the whole +Plate-fleet in sight, is hanging out lights, firing guns, and +shrieking vainly for the General, who is gone on a new course, in +which he might have caught the fleet after all, in spite of his +two mistakes, but that he chooses to go a roundabout way instead +of a short one; and away goes the whole fleet, save one Carack, +which runs itself on shore and burns, and the game is played out +and lost.</p> +<p>All want Essex to go home, as the season is getting late: but +the wilful and weak man will linger still, and while he is +hovering to the south, Philip’s armament has sailed from +the Groyne, on the undefended shores of England, and only +God’s hand saves us from the effects of Essex’s +folly. A third time the Armadas of Spain are overwhelmed by +the avenging tempests, and Essex returns to disgrace, having +proved himself at once intemperate and incapable. Even in +coming home there is confusion, and Essex is all but lost on the +Bishop and Clerks, by Scilly, in spite of the warnings of +Raleigh’s sailing-master, ‘Old Broadbent,’ who +is so exasperated at the general stupidity that he wants Raleigh +to leave Essex and his squadron to get out of their own scrape as +they can.</p> +<p>Essex goes off to sulk at Wanstead; but Vere excuses him, and +in a few days he comes back, and will needs fight good Lord +Howard for being made Earl of Nottingham for his services against +the Armada and at Cadiz. Baulked of this, he begins laying +the blame of the failure at the Azores on Raleigh. Let the +spoilt naughty boy take care; even that ‘admirable +temper’ for which Raleigh is famed may be worn out at +last.</p> +<p>These years are Raleigh’s noon—stormy enough at +best, yet brilliant. There is a pomp about him, outward and +inward, which is terrible to others, dangerous to himself. +One has gorgeous glimpses of that grand Durham House of his, with +its carvings and its antique marbles, armorial escutcheons, +‘beds with green silk hangings and legs like dolphins, +overlaid with gold’: and the man himself, tall, beautiful, +and graceful, perfect alike in body and in mind, walking to and +fro, his beautiful wife upon his arm, his noble boy beside his +knee, in his ‘white satin doublet, embroidered with pearls, +and a great chain of pearls about his neck,’ lording it +among the lords with an ‘awfulness and ascendency above +other mortals,’ for which men say that ‘his +næve is, that he is damnable proud’; and no +wonder. The reduced squire’s younger son has gone +forth to conquer the world; and he fancies, poor fool, that he +has conquered it, just as it really has conquered him; and he +will stand now on his blood and his pedigree (no bad one either), +and all the more stiffly because puppies like Lord Oxford, who +instead of making their fortunes have squandered them, call him +‘jack and upstart,’ and make impertinent faces while +the Queen is playing the virginals, about ‘how when jacks +go up, heads go down.’ Proud? No wonder if the +man be proud! ‘Is not this great Babylon, which I +have built?’ And yet all the while he has the most +affecting consciousness that all this is not God’s will, +but the will of the flesh; that the house of fame is not the +house of God; that its floor is not the rock of ages, but the sea +of glass mingled with fire, which may crack beneath him any +moment, and let the nether flame burst up. He knows that he +is living in a splendid lie; that he is not what God meant him to +be. He longs to flee away and be at peace. It is to +this period, not to his death-hour, that ‘The Lie’ +belongs; <a name="citation155"></a><a href="#footnote155" +class="citation">[155]</a> saddest of poems, with its melodious +contempt and life-weariness. All is a lie—court, +church, statesmen, courtiers, wit and science, town and country, +all are shams; the days are evil; the canker is at the root of +all things; the old heroes are dying one by one; the Elizabethan +age is rotting down, as all human things do, and nothing is left +but to bewail with Spenser ‘The Ruins of Time’; the +glory and virtue which have been—the greater glory and +virtue which might be even now, if men would but arise and +repent, and work righteousness, as their fathers did before +them. But no. Even to such a world as this he will +cling, and flaunt it about as captain of the guard in the +Queen’s progresses and masques and pageants, with +sword-belt studded with diamonds and rubies, or at tournaments, +in armour of solid silver, and a gallant train with orange-tawny +feathers, provoking Essex to bring in a far larger train in the +same colours, and swallow up Raleigh’s pomp in his own, so +achieving that famous ‘feather triumph’ by which he +gains little but bad blood and a good jest. For Essex is no +better tilter than he is general; and having ‘run very +ill’ in his orange-tawny, comes next day in green, and runs +still worse, and yet is seen to be the same cavalier; whereon a +spectator shrewdly observes that he changed his colours +‘that it may be reported that there was one in green who +ran worse than he in orange-tawny.’ But enough of +these toys, while God’s handwriting is upon the wall above +all heads.</p> +<p>Raleigh knows that the handwriting is there. The spirit +which drove him forth to Virginia and Guiana is fallen asleep: +but he longs for Sherborne and quiet country life, and escapes +thither during Essex’s imprisonment, taking Cecil’s +son with him, and writes as only he can write about the +shepherd’s peaceful joys, contrasted with +‘courts’ and ‘masques’ and ‘proud +towers’—</p> +<blockquote><p> ‘Here are no false +entrapping baits<br /> + Too hasty for too hasty fates,<br /> + Unless it be<br /> + The fond credulity<br /> +Of silly fish, that worlding who still look<br /> +Upon the bait, but never on the hook;<br /> + Nor envy, unless among<br /> + The birds, for prize of their sweet song.</p> +<p> ‘Go! let the diving negro seek<br /> + For pearls hid in some forlorn creek,<br /> + We all pearls scorn,<br /> + Save what the dewy morn<br /> +Congeals upon some little spire of grass,<br /> +Which careless shepherds beat down as they pass<br /> + And gold ne’er here +appears<br /> + Save what the yellow Ceres bears.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Tragic enough are the after scenes of Raleigh’s life: +but most tragic of all are these scenes of vain-glory, in which +he sees the better part, and yet chooses the worse, and pours out +his self-discontent in song which proves the fount of delicacy +and beauty which lies pure and bright beneath the gaudy +artificial crust. What might not this man have been! +And he knows that too. The stately rooms of Durham House +pall on him, and he delights to hide up in his little study among +his books and his chemical experiments, and smoke his silver +pipe, and look out on the clear Thames and the green Surrey +hills, and dream about Guiana and the Tropics; or to sit in the +society of antiquaries with Selden and Cotton, Camden and Stow; +or in his own Mermaid Club, with Ben Jonson, Fletcher, Beaumont, +and at last with Shakspeare’s self to hear and utter</p> +<blockquote><p> ‘Words that have been<br +/> +So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,<br /> +As if that every one from whom they came<br /> +Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Anything to forget the handwriting on the wall, which will not +be forgotten. But he will do all the good which he can +meanwhile, nevertheless. He will serve God and +Mammon. So complete a man will surely be able to do +both. Unfortunately the thing is impossible, as he +discovers too late: but he certainly goes as near success in the +attempt as ever man did. Everywhere we find him doing +justly and loving mercy. Wherever this man steps he leaves +his footprint ineffaceably in deeds of benevolence. For one +year only, it seems, he is governor of Jersey; yet to this day, +it is said, the islanders honour his name, only second to that of +Duke Rollo, as their great benefactor, the founder of their +Newfoundland trade. In the west country he is ‘as a +king,’ ‘with ears and mouth always open to hear and +deliver their grievances, feet and hands ready to go and work +their redress.’ The tin-merchants have become usurers +‘of fifty in the hundred.’ Raleigh works till +he has put down their ‘abominable and cut-throat +dealing.’ There is a burdensome west-country tax on +curing fish; Raleigh works till it is revoked. In +Parliament he is busy with liberal measures, always before his +generation. He puts down a foolish act for compulsory +sowing of hemp in a speech on the freedom of labour worthy of the +nineteenth century. He argues against raising the subsidy +from the three-pound men—‘Call you this, Mr. Francis +Bacon, <i>par jugum</i>, when a poor man pays as much as a +rich?’ He is equally rational and spirited against +the exportation of ordnance to the enemy; and when the question +of abolishing monopolies is mooted he has his wise word. He +too is a monopolist of tin, as Lord Warden of the +Stannaries. But he has so wrought as to bring good out of +evil; for ‘before the granting of his patent, let the price +of tin be never so high, the poor workman never had but two +shillings a week’; yet now, so has he extended and +organised the tin-works, ‘that any man who will can find +work, be tin at what price soever, and have four shillings a week +truly paid . . . Yet if all others may be repealed, I will give +my consent as freely to the cancelling of this as any member of +this house.’ Most of the monopolies were repealed: +but we do not find that Raleigh’s was among them. Why +should it be if its issue was more tin, full work, and double +wages? In all things this man approves himself faithful in +his generation. His sins are not against man, but against +God; such as the world thinks no sins, and hates them, not from +morality, but from envy.</p> +<p>In the meanwhile, the evil which, so Spenser had prophesied, +only waited Raleigh’s death breaks out in his absence, and +Ireland is all aflame with Tyrone’s rebellion. +Raleigh is sent for. He will not accept the post of Lord +Deputy and go to put it down. Perhaps he does not expect +fair play as long as Essex is at home. Perhaps he knows too +much of the ‘common weal, or rather common woe,’ and +thinks that what is crooked cannot be made straight. +Perhaps he is afraid to lose by absence his ground at +court. Would that he had gone, for Ireland’s sake and +his own. However, it must not be. Ormond is recalled, +and Knollys shall be sent: but Essex will have none but Sir +George Carew; whom, Naunton says, he hates, and wishes to oust +from court. He and Elizabeth argue it out. He turns +his back on her, and she gives him—or does not give him, +for one has found so many of these racy anecdotes vanish on +inspection into simple wind, that one believes none of +them—a box on the ear; which if she did, she did the most +wise, just, and practical thing which she could do with such a +puppy. He claps his hand—or does not—to his +sword, ‘He would not have taken it from Henry VIII.,’ +and is turned out forthwith. In vain Egerton, the Lord +Keeper, tries to bring him to reason. He storms +insanely. Every one on earth is wrong but he: every one is +conspiring against him; he talks of ‘Solomon’s +fool’ too. Had he read the Proverbs a little more +closely, he might have left the said fool alone, as being a too +painfully exact likeness of himself. It ends by his being +worsted, and Raleigh rising higher than ever. I cannot see +why Raleigh should be represented as henceforth becoming +Essex’s ‘avowed enemy,’ save on the ground that +all good men are and ought to be the enemies of bad men, when +they see them about to do harm, and to ruin the country. +Essex is one of the many persons upon whom this age has lavished +a quantity of sentimentality, which suits oddly enough with its +professions of impartiality. But there is an impartiality +which ends in utter injustice; which by saying carelessly to +every quarrel, ‘Both are right, and both are wrong,’ +leaves only the impression that all men are wrong, and ends by +being unjust to every one. So has Elizabeth and +Essex’s quarrel been treated. There was some evil in +Essex; therefore Elizabeth was a fool for liking him. There +was some good in Essex; therefore Elizabeth was cruel in +punishing him. This is the sort of slipshod dilemma by +which Elizabeth is proved to be wrong, even while Essex is +confessed to be wrong too; while the patent facts of the case +are, that Elizabeth bore with him as long as she could, and a +great deal longer than any one else could. Why Raleigh +should be accused of helping to send Essex into Ireland, I do not +know. Camden confesses (at the same time that he gives a +hint of the kind) that Essex would let no one go but +himself. And if this was his humour, one can hardly wonder +at Cecil and Raleigh, as well as Elizabeth, bidding the man +begone and try his hand at government, and be filled with the +fruit of his own devices. He goes; does nothing; or rather +worse than nothing; for in addition to the notorious +ill-management of the whole matter, we may fairly say that he +killed Elizabeth. She never held up her head again after +Tyrone’s rebellion. Elizabeth still clings to him, +changing her mind about him every hour, and at last writes him +such a letter as he deserves. He has had power, money, men, +such as no one ever had before. Why has he done nothing but +bring England to shame? He comes home frantically—the +story of his bursting into the dressing-room rests on no good +authority—with a party of friends at his heels, leaving +Ireland to take care of itself. Whatever entertainment he +met with from the fond old woman, he met with the coldness which +he deserved from Raleigh and Cecil. Who can wonder? +What had he done to deserve aught else? But he all but +conquers; and Raleigh takes to his bed in consequence, sick of +the whole matter; as one would have been inclined to do +oneself. He is examined and arraigned; writes a maudlin +letter to Elizabeth. Elizabeth has been called a fool for +listening to such pathetical ‘love letters’: and then +hardhearted for not listening to them. Poor Lady! do what +she would, she found it hard enough to please all parties while +alive; must she be condemned over and above <i>in +æternum</i> to be wrong whatsoever she did? Why is +she not to have the benefit of the plain straightforward +interpretation which would be allowed to any other human being; +namely, that she approved of such fine talk as long as it was +proved to be sincere by fine deeds: but that when these were +wanting, the fine talk became hollow, fulsome, a fresh cause of +anger and disgust? Yet still she weeps over Essex when he +falls sick, as any mother would; and would visit him if she could +with honour. But a ‘malignant influence counteracts +every disposition to relent.’ No doubt, a man’s +own folly, passion, and insolence has generally a very malignant +influence on his fortunes; and he may consider himself a very +happy man if all that befalls to him thereby is what befell +Essex, namely, deprivation of his offices and imprisonment in his +own house. He is forgiven after all; but the spoilt child +refuses his bread and butter without sugar. What is the +pardon to him without a renewal of his licence of sweet +wines? Because he is not to have that, the Queen’s +‘conditions are as crooked as her carcase.’ +Flesh and blood can stand no more, and ought to stand no +more. After all that Elizabeth has been to him, that speech +is the speech of a brutal and ungrateful nature. And such +he shows himself to be in the hour of trial. What if the +patent for sweet wines is refused him? Such gifts were +meant as the reward of merit; and what merit has he to +show? He never thinks of that. Blind with fury, he +begins to intrigue with James, and slanders to him, under colour +of helping his succession, all whom he fancies opposed to +him. What is worse, he intrigues with Tyrone about bringing +over an army of Irish Papists to help him against the Queen, and +this at the very time that his sole claim to popularity rests on +his being the leader of the Puritans. A man must have been +very far gone, either in baseness or in hatred, who represents +Raleigh to James as dangerous to the commonweal on account of his +great power in the west of England and Jersey, ‘places fit +for the Spaniard to land in.’ Cobham, as Warden of +the Cinque Ports, is included in his slander; and both he and +Raleigh will hear of it again.</p> +<p>Some make much of a letter, supposed to be written about this +time by Raleigh to Cecil, bidding Cecil keep down Essex, even +crush him, now that he is once down. I do not happen to +think the letter to be Raleigh’s. His initials are +subscribed to it; but not his name and the style is not like +his. But as for seeing ‘unforgiveness and revenge in +it,’ whose soever it may be, I hold and say there is not a +word which can bear such a construction. It is a dark +letter: but about a dark matter and a dark man. It is a +worldly and expediential letter, appealing to low motives in +Cecil, though for a right end; such a letter, in short, as +statesmen are wont to write nowadays. If Raleigh wrote it, +God punished him for doing so speedily enough. He does not +usually punish statesmen nowadays for such letters; perhaps +because He does not love them as well as Raleigh. But as +for the letter itself. Essex is called a +‘tyrant,’ because he had shown himself one. The +Queen is to ‘hold Bothwell,’ because ‘while she +hath him, he will even be the canker of her estate and +safety,’ and the writer has ‘seen the last of her +good days and of ours after his liberty.’ On which +accounts, Cecil is not to be deterred from doing what is right +and necessary ‘by any fear of after-revenges’ and +‘conjectures from causes remote,’ as many a stronger +instance—given—will prove, but ‘look to the +present,’ and so ‘do wisely.’ There is no +real cause for Cecil’s fear. If the man who has now +lost a power which he ought never to have had be now kept down, +then neither he nor his son will ever be able to harm the man who +has kept him at his just level. What ‘revenge, +selfishness, and craft’ there can be in all this it is +difficult to see; as difficult as to see why Essex is to be +talked of as ‘unfortunate,’ and the blame of his +frightful end thrown on every one but himself: the fact being +that Essex’s end was brought on by his having chosen one +Sunday morning for breaking out into open rebellion, for the +purpose of seizing the city of London and the Queen’s +person, and compelling her to make him lord and master of the +British Isles; in which attempt he and his fought with the civil +and military authorities, till artillery had to be brought up and +many lives were lost. Such little escapades may be +pardonable enough in ‘noble and unfortunate’ earls: +but readers will perhaps agree that if they chose to try a +similar experiment, they could not complain if they found +themselves shortly after in company with Mr. Mitchell at Spike +Island or Mr. Oxford in Bedlam. However, those were days in +which such Sabbath amusements on the part of one of the most +important and powerful personages of the realm could not be +passed over so lightly, especially when accompanied by severe +loss of life; and as there existed in England certain statutes +concerning rebellion and high treason, which must needs have been +framed for some purpose or other, the authorities of England may +be excused for fancying that they bore some reference to such +acts as that which the noble and unfortunate earl had just +committed, as wantonly, selfishly, and needlessly, it seems to +me, as ever did man on earth.</p> +<p>I may seem to jest too much upon so solemn a matter as the +life of a human being: but if I am not to touch the popular talk +about Essex in this tone, I can only touch it in a far sterner +one; and if ridicule is forbidden, express disgust instead.</p> +<p>I have entered into this matter of Essex somewhat at length, +because on it is founded one of the mean slanders from which +Raleigh never completely recovered. The very mob who, after +Raleigh’s death, made him a Protestant martyr—as, +indeed, he was—looked upon Essex in the same light, hated +Raleigh as the cause of his death, and accused him of glutting +his eyes with Essex’s misery, puffing tobacco out of a +window, and what not—all mere inventions, so Raleigh +declared upon the scaffold. He was there in his office as +captain of the guard, and could do no less than be there. +Essex, it is said, asked for Raleigh just before he died: but +Raleigh had withdrawn, the mob having murmured. What had +Essex to say to him? Was it, asks Oldys, shrewdly enough, +to ask him pardon for the wicked slanders which he had been +pouring into James’s credulous and cowardly ears? We +will hope so; and leave poor Essex to God and the mercy of God, +asserting once more that no man ever brought ruin and death more +thoroughly on himself by his own act, needing no imaginary help +downwards from Raleigh, Cecil, or other human being.</p> +<p>And now begins the fourth act of this strange tragedy. +Queen Elizabeth dies; and dies of grief. It has been the +fashion to attribute to her, I know not why, remorse for +Essex’s death; and the foolish and false tale about Lady +Nottingham and the ring has been accepted as history. The +fact seems to be that she never really held up her head after +Burleigh’s death. She could not speak of him without +tears; forbade his name to be mentioned in the Council. No +wonder; never had mistress a better servant. For nearly +half a century have these two noble souls loved each other, +trusted each other, worked with each other; and God’s +blessing has been on their deeds; and now the faithful +God-fearing man is gone to his reward; and she is growing old, +and knows that the ancient fire is dying out in her; and who will +be to her what he was? Buckhurst is a good man, and one of +her old pupils; and she makes him Lord Treasurer in +Burleigh’s place: but beyond that all is dark. +‘I am a miserable forlorn woman; there is none about me +that I can trust.’ She sees through Cecil; through +Henry Howard. Essex has proved himself worthless, and pays +the penalty of his sins. Men are growing worse than their +fathers. Spanish gold is bringing in luxury and sin. +The last ten years of her reign are years of decadence, +profligacy, falsehood; and she cannot but see it. +Tyrone’s rebellion is the last drop which fills the +cup. After fifty years of war, after a drain of money all +but fabulous expended on keeping Ireland quiet, the volcano +bursts forth again just as it seemed extinguished, more fiercely +than ever, and the whole work has to be done over again, when +there is neither time nor a man to do it. And ahead, what +hope is there for England? Who will be her successor? +She knows in her heart that it will be James: but she cannot +bring herself to name him. To bequeath the fruit of all her +labours to a tyrant, a liar, and a coward: for she knows the man +but too well. It is too hideous to be faced. This is +the end then? ‘Oh that I were a milke maide, with a +paile upon mine arm!’ But it cannot be. It +never could have been; and she must endure to the end.</p> +<p>‘Therefore I hated life; yea, I hated all my labour +which I had taken under the sun; because I should leave it to the +man that shall be after me. And who knows whether he shall +be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my +labour wherein I have showed myself wise, in wisdom, and +knowledge, and equity . . . Vanity of vanities, and vexation of +spirit!’ And so, with a whole book of Ecclesiastes +written on that mighty heart, the old lioness coils herself up in +her lair, refuses food, and dies. I know few passages in +the world’s history more tragic than that death.</p> +<p>Why did she not trust Raleigh? First, because Raleigh, +as we have seen, was not the sort of man whom she needed. +He was not the steadfast single-eyed statesman; but the +many-sided genius. Besides, he was the ringleader of the +war-party. And she, like Burleigh before his death, was +tired of the war; saw that it was demoralising England; was +anxious for peace. Raleigh would not see that. It was +to him a divine mission which must be fulfilled at all +risks. As long as the Spaniards were opposing the Indians, +conquering America, there must be no peace. Both were right +from their own point of view. God ordered the matter from a +third point of view.</p> +<p>Besides, we know that Essex, and after him Cecil and Henry +Howard, had been slandering Raleigh basely to James. Can we +doubt that the same poison had been poured into Elizabeth’s +ears? She might distrust Cecil too much to act upon what he +said of Raleigh; and yet distrust Raleigh too much to put the +kingdom into his hands. However, she is gone now, and a new +king has arisen, who knoweth not Joseph.</p> +<p>James comes down to take possession. Insolence, luxury, +and lawlessness mark his first steps on his going amid the +adulations of a fallen people; he hangs a poor wretch without +trial; wastes his time in hunting by the way;—a bad and +base man, whose only redeeming point—if in his case it be +one—is his fondness for little children. But that +will not make a king. The wiser elders take counsel +together. Raleigh and good Judge Fortescue are for +requiring conditions from the newcomer; and constitutional +liberty makes its last stand among the men of Devon, the old +county of warriors, discoverers, and statesmen, of which Queen +Bess had said that the men of Devon were her right hand. +But in vain; James has his way; Cecil and Henry Howard are +willing enough to give it him.</p> +<p>So down comes Rehoboam, taking counsel with the young men, and +makes answer to England, ‘My father chastised you with +whips; but I will chastise you with scorpions.’ He +takes a base pleasure, shocking to the French ambassador, in +sneering at the memory of Queen Elizabeth; a perverse delight in +honouring every rascal whom she had punished. Tyrone must +come to England to be received into favour, maddening the soul of +honest Sir John Harrington. Essex is christened ‘my +martyr,’ apparently for having plotted treason against +Elizabeth with Tyrone. Raleigh is received with a +pun—‘By my soul, I have heard rawly of thee, +mon’; and when the great nobles and gentlemen come to court +with their retinues, James tries to hide his dread of them in an +insult; pooh-poohs their splendour, and says, ‘he doubts +not that he should have been able to win England for himself, had +they kept him out.’ Raleigh answers boldly, +‘Would God that had been put to the trial.’ +‘Why?’ ‘Because then you would have known +your friends from your foes.’ ‘A reason,’ +says old Aubrey, ‘never forgotten or forgiven.’ +Aubrey is no great authority; but the speech smacks so of +Raleigh’s offhand daring that one cannot but believe it; as +one does also the other story of his having advised the lords to +keep out James and erect a republic. Not that he could have +been silly enough to propose such a thing seriously at that +moment; but that he most likely, in his bold way, may have said, +‘Well, if we are to have this man in without conditions, +better a republic at once.’ Which, if he did say, he +said what the next forty years proved to be strictly true. +However, he will go on his own way as best he can. If James +will give him a loan, he and the rest of the old heroes will +join, fit out a fleet against Spain, and crush her, now that she +is tottering and impoverished, once and for ever. But James +has no stomach for fighting; cannot abide the sight of a drawn +sword; would not provoke Spain for the world—why, they +might send Jesuits and assassinate him; and as for the money, he +wants that for very different purposes. So the answer which +he makes to Raleigh’s proposal of war against Spain is to +send him to the Tower, and sentence him to be hanged, drawn, and +quartered, on a charge of plotting with Spain.</p> +<p>Having read, I believe, nearly all that has been written on +the subject of this dark ‘Cobham plot,’ I find but +one thing come brightly out of the infinite confusion and +mystery, which will never be cleared up till the day of judgment, +and that is Raleigh’s innocence. He, and all England, +and the very men who condemned him, knew that he was +innocent. Every biographer is forced to confess this, more +or less, in spite of all efforts to be what is called +‘impartial.’ So I shall waste no words upon the +matter, only observing that whereas Raleigh is said to have +slandered Cecil to James, in the same way that Cecil had +slandered him, one passage of this Cobham plot disproves utterly +such a story, which, after all, rests (as far as I know) only on +hearsay, being ‘spoken of in a manuscript written by one +Buck, secretary to Chancellor Egerton.’ For in +writing to his own wife, in the expectation of immediate death, +Raleigh speaks of Cecil in a very different tone, as one in whom +he trusted most, and who has left him in the hour of need. +I ask the reader to peruse that letter, and say whether any man +would write thus, with death and judgment before his face, of one +whom he knew that he had betrayed; or, indeed, of one who he knew +had betrayed him. I see no reason to doubt that Raleigh +kept good faith with Cecil, and that he was ignorant till after +his trial that Cecil was in the plot against him.</p> +<p>I do not care to enter into the tracasseries of this Cobham +plot. Every one knows them; no one can unravel them. +The moral and spiritual significance of the fact is more +interesting than all questions as to Cobham’s lies, +Brooke’s lies, Aremberg’s lies, Coke’s lies, +James’s lies:—Let the dead bury their dead. It +is the broad aspect of the thing which is so wonderful; to see +how</p> +<blockquote><p>‘The eagle, towering in his pride of +place,<br /> +Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This is the man who six months ago, perhaps, thought that he +and Cecil were to rule England together, while all else were the +puppets whose wires they pulled. ‘The Lord hath taken +him up and dashed him down;’ and by such means, too, and on +such a charge! Betraying his country to Spain! +Absurd—incredible—he would laugh it to scorn: but it +is bitter earnest. There is no escape. True or false, +he sees that his enemies will have his head. It is +maddening: a horrible nightmare. He cannot bear it; he +cannot face—so he writes to that beloved +wife—‘the scorn, the taunts, the loss of honour, the +cruel words of lawyers.’ He stabs himself. Read +that letter of his, written after the mad blow had been struck; +it is sublime from intensity of agony. The way in which the +chastisement was taken proves how utterly it was needed, ere that +proud, success-swollen, world-entangled heart could be brought +right with God.</p> +<p>And it is brought right. The wound is not mortal. +He comes slowly to a better mind, and takes his doom like a +man. That first farewell to his wife was written out of +hell. The second rather out of heaven. Read it, too, +and compare; and then see how the Lord has been working upon this +great soul: infinite sadness, infinite tenderness and patience, +and trust in God for himself and his poor wife: ‘God is my +witness, it was for you and yours that I desired life; but it is +true that I disdain myself for begging it. For know, dear +wife, that your son is the son of a true man, and one who, in his +own respect, despiseth death and all his ugly and misshapen forms +. . . The everlasting, powerful, infinite, and omnipotent God, +who is goodness itself, the true life and light, keep thee and +thine, have mercy upon me, and teach me to forgive my persecutors +and accusers, and send us to meet in His glorious +kingdom.’</p> +<p>Is it come to this then? Is he fit to die at last? +Then he is fit to live; and live he shall. The tyrants have +not the heart to carry out their own crime, and Raleigh shall be +respited.</p> +<p>But not pardoned. No more return for him into that +sinful world, where he flaunted on the edge of the precipice, and +dropped heedless over it. God will hide him in the secret +place of His presence, and keep him in His tabernacle from the +strife of tongues; and a new life shall begin for him; a wiser, +perhaps a happier, than he has known since he was a little lad in +the farmhouse in pleasant Devon far away. On the 15th of +December he enters the Tower. Little dreams he that for +more than twelve years those doleful walls would be his +home. Lady Raleigh obtains leave to share his prison with +him, and, after having passed ten years without a child, brings +him a boy to comfort the weary heart. The child of sorrow +is christened Carew. Little think those around him what +strange things that child will see before his hairs be +gray. She has her maid, and he his three servants; some +five or six friends are allowed ‘to repair to him at +convenient times.’ He has a chamber-door always open +into the lieutenant’s garden, where he ‘has converted +a little hen-house into a still-room, and spends his time all the +day in distillation.’ The next spring a grant is made +of his goods and chattels, forfeited by attainder, to trustees +named by himself, for the benefit of his family. So far, so +well; or, at least, not as ill as it might be: but there are +those who cannot leave the caged lion in peace.</p> +<p>Sanderson, who had married his niece, instead of paying up the +arrears which he owes on the wine and other offices, brings in a +claim of £2000. But the rogue meets his match, and +finds himself, at the end of a lawsuit, in prison for debt. +Greater rogues, however, will have better fortune, and break +through the law-cobwebs which have stopped a poor little fly like +Sanderson. For Carr, afterwards Lord Somerset, casts his +eyes on the Sherborne land. It has been included in the +conveyance, and should be safe; but there are others who, by +instigation surely of the devil himself, have had eyes to see a +flaw in the deed. Sir John Popham is appealed to. Who +could doubt the result? He answers that there is no doubt +that the words were omitted by the inattention of the +engrosser—Carew Raleigh says that but one single word was +wanting, which word was found notwithstanding in the paper-book, +<i>i.e.</i> the draft—but that the word not being there, +the deed is worthless, and the devil may have his way. To +Carr, who has nothing of his own, it seems reasonable enough to +help himself to what belongs to others, and James gives him the +land. Raleigh writes to him, gently, gracefully, +loftily. Here is an extract: ‘And for yourself, sir, +seeing your fair day is now in the dawn, and mine drawn to the +evening, your own virtues and the king’s grace assuring you +of many favours and much honour, I beseech you not to begin your +first building upon the ruins of the innocent; and that their +sorrows, with mine, may not attend your first +plantation.’ He speaks strongly of the fairness, +sympathy, and pity by which the Scots in general had laid him +under obligation: argues from it his own evident innocence; and +ends with a quiet warning to the young favourite not to +‘undergo the curse of them that enter into the fields of +the fatherless.’ In vain. Lady Raleigh, with +her children, entreats James on her knees: in vain again. +‘I mun ha’ the land,’ is the answer; ‘I +mun ha’ it for Carr.’ And he has it; patching +up the matter after a while by a gift of £8000 to her and +her elder son, in requital for an estate of £5000 a +year.</p> +<p>So there sits Raleigh, growing poorer day by day, and clinging +more and more to that fair wife, and her noble boy, and the babe +whose laughter makes music within that dreary cage. And all +day long, as we have seen, he sits over his still, compounding +and discovering, and sometimes showing himself on the wall to the +people, who gather to gaze at him, till Wade forbids it, fearing +popular feeling. In fact, the world outside has a sort of +mysterious awe of him, as if he were a chained magician, who, if +he were let loose, might do with them all what he would. +Certain great nobles are of the same mind. Woe to them if +that silver tongue should once again be unlocked!</p> +<p>The Queen, with a woman’s faith in greatness, sends to +him for ‘cordials.’ Here is one of them, famous +in Charles the Second’s days as ‘Sir Walter’s +Cordial’:—</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p>B. Zedoary and Saffron, each</p> +</td> +<td><p>½ lb.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Distilled water</p> +</td> +<td><p>3 pints.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Macerate, etc., and reduce to</p> +</td> +<td><p>1½ pint.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Compound powder of crabs’ claws</p> +</td> +<td><p>16 oz.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Cinnamon and Nutmegs</p> +</td> +<td><p>2 oz.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Cloves</p> +</td> +<td><p>1 oz.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Cardamom seeds</p> +</td> +<td><p>½ oz.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Double refined sugar</p> +</td> +<td><p>2 lb.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">Make a +confection.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p>Which, so the world believes, will cure all ills which flesh +is heir to. It does not seem that Raleigh so boasted +himself; but the people, after the fashion of the time, seem to +have called all his medicines ‘cordials,’ and +probably took for granted that it was by this particular one that +the enchanter cured Queen Anne of a desperate sickness, +‘whereof the physicians were at the farthest end of their +studies’ (no great way to go in those days) ‘to find +the cause, and at a nonplus for the cure.’</p> +<p>Raleigh—this is Sir Anthony Welden’s account, +which may go for what it is worth—asks for his reward, only +justice. Will the Queen ask that certain lords may be sent +to examine Cobham, ‘whether he had at any time accused Sir +Walter of any treason under his hand?’ Six are +sent. Cobham answers, ‘Never; nor could I: that +villain Wade often solicited me, and not so prevailing, got me by +a trick to write my name on a piece of white paper. So that +if a charge come under my hand it was forged by that villain +Wade, by writing something above my hand, without my consent or +knowledge.’ They return. An equivocation was +ready. ‘Sir, my Lord Cobham has made good all that +ever he wrote or said’; having, by his own account, written +nothing but his name. This is Sir Anthony Welden’s +story. One hopes, for the six lords’ sake, it may not +be true; but there is no reason, in the morality of James’s +court, why it should not have been.</p> +<p>So Raleigh must remain where he is, and work on. And he +does work. As his captivity becomes more and more hopeless, +so comes out more and more the stateliness, self-help, and energy +of the man. Till now he has played with his pen: now he +will use it in earnest; and use it as few prisoners have +done. Many a good book has been written in a +dungeon—‘Don Quixote,’ the +‘Pilgrim’s Progress’: beautiful each in its +way, and destined to immortality: Raleigh begins the +‘History of the World,’ the most God-fearing and +God-seeing history which I know of among English writings; though +blotted by flattery of James in the preface: wrong: but +pardonable in a man trying in the Tower to get out of that +doleful prison. But all his writings are thirty years too +late; they express the creed of a buried generation, of the men +who defied Spain in the name of a God of righteousness,—not +of men who cringe before her in the name of a God of power and +cunning. The captive eagle has written with a quill from +his own wing—a quill which has been wont ere now to soar to +heaven. Every line smacks of the memories of Nombre and of +Zutphen, of Tilbury Fort and of Calais Roads; and many a +gray-headed veteran, as he read them, must have turned away his +face to hide the noble tears, as Ulysses from Demodocus when he +sang the song of Troy. So there sits Raleigh, like the +prophet of old, in his lonely tower above the Thames, watching +the darkness gather upon the land year by year, ‘like the +morning spread over the mountains,’ the darkness which +comes before the dawn of the Day of The Lord; which he shall +never see on earth, though it be very near at hand; and asks of +each newcomer, ‘Watchman, what of the night?’</p> +<p>But there is one bright point at least in the darkness; one on +whom Raleigh’s eyes, and those of all England, are fixed in +boundless hope; one who, by the sympathy which attracts all noble +natures to each other, clings to the hero utterly; Henry, the +Crown Prince. ‘No king but my father would keep such +a bird in a cage.’ The noble lad tries to open the +door for the captive eagle; but in vain. At least he will +make what use he can of his wisdom. He asks him for advice +about the new ship he is building, and has a simple practical +letter in return, and over and above probably the two valuable +pamphlets, ‘Of the Invention of Ships,’ and +‘Observations on the Navy and Sea Service’; which the +Prince will never see. In 1611 he asks Raleigh’s +advice about the foolish double marriage with the Prince and +Princess of Savoy, and receives for answer two plain-spoken +discourses as full of historical learning as of practical sound +sense.</p> +<p>These are benefits which must be repaid. The father will +repay them hereafter in his own way. In the meanwhile the +son does so in his way, by soliciting the Sherborne estate as for +himself, intending to restore it to Raleigh. He +succeeds. Carr is bought off for £25,000, where Lady +Raleigh has been bought off with £8000; but neither Raleigh +nor his widow will ever be the better for that bargain, and Carr +will get Sherborne back again, and probably, in the King’s +silly dotage, keep the £25,000 also.</p> +<p>In November 1612 Prince Henry falls sick.</p> +<p>When he is at the last gasp, the poor Queen sends to Raleigh +for some of the same cordial which had cured her. Medicine +is sent, with a tender letter, as it well might be; for Raleigh +knew how much hung, not only for himself, but for England, on the +cracking threads of that fair young life. It is questioned +at first whether it shall be administered. ‘The +cordial,’ Raleigh says, ‘will cure him or any other +of a fever, except in case of poison.’</p> +<p>The cordial is administered; but it comes too late. The +prince dies, and with him the hopes of all good men.</p> +<p>* * *</p> +<p>At last, after twelve years of prison, Raleigh is free. +He is sixty-six years old now, gray-headed and worn down by +confinement, study, and want of exercise: but he will not +remember that.</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Still in his ashes live their wonted +fire.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Now for Guiana, at last! which he has never forgotten; to +which he has been sending, with his slender means, ship after +ship to keep the Indians in hope.</p> +<p>He is freed in March. At once he is busy in his +project. In August he has obtained the King’s +commission, by the help of Sir Ralph Winwood, Secretary of State, +who seems to have believed in Raleigh. At least Raleigh +believed in him. In March next year he has sailed, and with +him thirteen ships, and more than a hundred knights and +gentlemen, and among them, strange to say, Sir Warham St. +Leger. This is certainly not the quondam Marshal of Munster +under whom Raleigh served at Smerwick six-and-thirty years +ago. He would be nearly eighty years old; and as Lord +Doneraile’s pedigree gives three Sir Warhams, we cannot +identify the man. But it is a strong argument in +Raleigh’s favour that a St. Leger, of a Devon family which +had served with him in Ireland, and intimately connected with him +his whole life, should keep his faith in Raleigh after all his +reverses. Nevertheless, the mere fact of an unpardoned +criminal, said to be <i>non ens</i> in law, being able in a few +months to gather round him such a party, is proof patent of what +slender grounds there are for calling Raleigh +‘suspected’ and ‘unpopular.’</p> +<p>But he does not sail without a struggle or two. James is +too proud to allow his heir to match with any but a mighty king, +is infatuated about the Spanish marriage; and Gondomar is with +him, playing with his hopes and with his fears also.</p> +<p>The people are furious, and have to be silenced again and +again: there is even fear of rioting. The charming and +smooth-tongued Gondomar can hate, and can revenge, too. +Five ’prentices who have insulted him for striking a little +child, are imprisoned and fined several hundred pounds +each. And as for hating Raleigh, Gondomar had been no +Spaniard (to let alone the private reasons which some have +supposed) had he not hated Spain’s ancient scourge and +unswerving enemy. He comes to James, complaining that +Raleigh is about to break the peace with Spain. Nothing is +to be refused him which can further the one darling fancy of +James; and Raleigh has to give in writing the number of his +ships, men, and ordnance, and, moreover, the name of the country +and the very river whither he is going. This paper was +given, Carew Raleigh asserts positively, under James’s +solemn promise not to reveal it; and Raleigh himself seems to +have believed that it was to be kept private; for he writes +afterwards to Secretary Winwood in a tone of astonishment and +indignation, that the information contained in his paper had been +sent on to the King of Spain before he sailed from the +Thames. Winwood could have told him as much already; for +Buckingham had written to Winwood, on March 28, to ask him why he +had not been to the Spanish Ambassador ‘to acquaint him +with the order taken by his Majesty about Sir W. R.’s +voyage.’ But however unwilling the Secretary (as one +of the furtherers of the voyage) may have been to meddle in the +matter, Gondomar had had news enough from another source; perhaps +from James’s own mouth. For the first letter to the +West Indies about Raleigh was dated from Madrid, March 19; and +most remarkable it is that in James’s +‘Declaration,’ or rather apology for his own conduct, +no mention whatsoever is made of his having given information to +Gondomar.</p> +<p>Gondomar offered, says James, to let Raleigh go with one or +two ships only. He might work a mine, and the King of Spain +would give him a safe convoy home with all his gold. How +kind. And how likely would Raleigh and his +fellow-adventurers have been to accept such an offer; how likely, +too, to find men who would sail with them on such an errand, to +be ‘flayed alive,’ as many who travelled to the +Indies of late years had been, or to have their throats cut, tied +back to back, after trading unarmed and peaceably for a month, as +thirty-six of Raleigh’s men had been but two or three years +before in that very Orinoco. So James is forced to let the +large fleet go; and to let it go well armed also; for the plain +reason, that otherwise it dare not go at all; and in the +meanwhile letters are sent from Spain, in which the Spaniards +call the fleet ‘English enemies,’ and ships and +troops are moved up as fast as possible from the Spanish +main.</p> +<p>But, say some, James was justified in telling Gondomar, and +the Spaniards in defending themselves. On the latter point +there is no doubt.</p> +<blockquote><p>‘They may get who have the will,<br /> +And they may keep who can.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But it does seem hard on Raleigh, after having laboured in +this Guiana business for years, and after having spent his money +in vain attempts to deliver these Guianians from their +oppressors. It is hard, and he feels it so. He sees +that he is not trusted; that, as James himself confesses, his +pardon is refused simply to keep a hold on him; that, if he +fails, he is ruined.</p> +<p>As he well asks afterwards, ‘If the King did not think +that Guiana was his, why let me go thither at all? He knows +that it was his by the law of nations, for he made Mr. Harcourt a +grant of part of it. If it be, as Gondomar says, the King +of Spain’s, then I had no more right to work a mine in it +than to burn a town.’ An argument which seems to me +unanswerable. But, says James, and others with him, he was +forbid to meddle with any country occupate or possessed by +Spaniards. Southey, too, blames him severely for not having +told James that the country was already settled by +Spaniards. I can excuse Southey, but not James, for +overlooking the broad fact that all England knew it, as I have +shown, since 1594; that if they did not, Gondomar would have +taken care to tell them; and that he could not go to Guiana +without meddling with Spaniards. His former voyages and +publications made no secret of it. On the contrary, one +chief argument for the plan had been all through the delivery of +the Indians from these very Spaniards, who, though they could not +conquer them, ill-used them in every way: and in his agreement +with the Lords about the Guiana voyage in 1611, he makes especial +mention of the very place which will soon fill such a part in our +story, ‘San Thomé, where the Spaniards +inhabit,’ and tells the Lords whom to ask as to the number +of men who will be wanted ‘to secure Keymish’s +passage to the mine’ against these very Spaniards. +What can be more clear, save to those who will not see?</p> +<p>The plain fact is that Raleigh went, with his eyes open, to +take possession of a country to which he believed that he and +King James had a right, and that James and his favourites, when +they, as he pleads, might have stopped him by a word, let him go, +knowing as well as the Spaniards what he intended; for what +purpose, but to have an excuse for the tragedy which ended all, +it is difficult to conceive. ‘It is evident,’ +wisely says Sir Robert Schomburgk, ‘that they winked at +consequences which they must have foreseen.’</p> +<p>And here Mr. Napier, on the authority of Count Desmarets, +brings a grave charge against Raleigh. Raleigh in his +‘Apology’ protests that he only saw Desmarets once on +board of his vessel. Desmarets says in his despatches that +he was on board of her several times—whether he saw Raleigh +more than once does not appear—and that Raleigh complained +to him of having been unjustly imprisoned, stripped of his +estate, and so forth; and that he was on that account resolved to +abandon his country, and, if the expedition succeeded, offer +himself and the fruit of his labour to the King of France.</p> +<p>If this be true, Raleigh was very wrong. But Sir Robert +Schomburgk points out that this passage, which Mr. Napier says +occurs in the last despatch, was written a month after Raleigh +had sailed; and that the previous despatch, written only four +days after Raleigh sailed, says nothing about the matter. +So that it could not have been a very important or fixed +resolution on Raleigh’s part, if it was only to be +recollected a month after. I do not say—as Sir Robert +Schomburgk is very much inclined to do—that it was +altogether a bubble of French fancy. It is possible that +Raleigh, in his just rage at finding that James was betraying him +and sending him out with a halter round his neck, to all but +certain ruin, did say wild words—That it was better for him +to serve the Frenchman than such a master—that perhaps he +might go over to the Frenchman after all—or some folly of +the kind, in that same rash tone which, as we have seen, has got +him into trouble so often already: and so I leave the matter, +saying, Beware of making any man an offender for a word, much +less one who is being hunted to death in his old age, and knows +it.</p> +<p>However this may be, the fleet sails; but with no bright +auguries. The mass of the sailors are ‘a scum of +men’; they are mutinous and troublesome; and what is worse, +have got among them (as, perhaps, they were intended to have) the +notion that Raleigh’s being still <i>non ens</i> in law +absolves them from obeying him when they do not choose, and +permits them to say of him behind his back what they list. +They have long delays at Plymouth. Sir Warham’s ship +cannot get out of the Thames. Pennington, at the Isle of +Wight, ‘cannot redeem his bread from the bakers,’ and +has to ride back to London to get money from Lady Raleigh. +The poor lady has it not, and gives a note of hand to Mr. Wood of +Portsmouth. Alas for her! She has sunk her +£8000, and, beside that, sold her Wickham estate for +£2500; and all is on board the fleet. ‘A +hundred pieces’ are all the ready money the hapless pair +had left on earth, and they have parted them together. +Raleigh has fifty-five and she forty-five till God send it +back—if, indeed, He ever send it. The star is sinking +low in the west. Trouble on trouble. Sir John Fane +has neither men nor money; Captain Witney has not provisions +enough, and Raleigh has to sell his plate in Plymouth to help +him. Courage! one last struggle to redeem his good +name.</p> +<p>Then storms off Sicily—a pinnace is sunk; faithful +Captain King drives back into Bristol; the rest have to lie by a +while in some Irish port for a fair wind. Then Bailey +deserts with the ‘Southampton’ at the Canaries; then +‘unnatural weather,’ so that a fourteen days’ +voyage takes forty days. Then ‘the distemper’ +breaks out under the line. The simple diary of that sad +voyage still remains, full of curious and valuable nautical +hints; but recording the loss of friend on friend; four or five +officers, and, ‘to our great grief, our principal refiner, +Mr. Fowler.’ ‘Crab, my old +servant.’ Next a lamentable twenty-four hours, in +which they lose Pigott, the lieutenant-general, ‘mine +honest frinde, Mr. John Talbot, one that had lived with me a +leven yeeres in the Tower, an excellent general skoller, and a +faithful and true man as ever lived,’ with two ‘very +fair conditioned gentleman,’ and ‘mine own cook +Francis.’ Then more officers and men, and my +‘cusen Payton.’ Then the water is near spent, +and they are forced to come to half allowance, till they save and +drink greedily whole canfuls of the bitter rain water. At +last Raleigh’s own turn comes; running on deck in a squall, +he gets wet through, and has twenty days of burning fever; +‘never man suffered a more furious heat,’ during +which he eats nothing but now and then a stewed prune.</p> +<p>At last they make the land at the mouth of the Urapoho, far +south of their intended goal. They ask for Leonard the +Indian, ‘who lived with me in England three or four years, +the same man that took Mr. Harcourt’s brother and fifty men +when they were in extreme distress, and had no means to live +there but by the help of this Indian, whom they made believe that +they were my men’; but the faithful Indian is gone up the +country, and they stand away for Cayenne, ‘where the +cacique (Harry) was also my servant, and had lived with me in the +Tower two years.’</p> +<p>Courage once more, brave old heart! Here at least thou +art among friends, who know thee for what thou art, and look out +longingly for thee as their deliverer. Courage; for thou +art in fairyland once more; the land of boundless hope and +possibility. Though England and England’s heart be +changed, yet God’s earth endures, and the harvest is still +here, waiting to be reaped by those who dare. Twenty stormy +years may have changed thee, but they have not changed the +fairyland of thy prison dreams. Still the mighty Ceiba +trees with their wealth of parasites and creepers tower above the +palm-fringed islets; still the dark mangrove thickets guard the +mouths of unknown streams, whose granite sands are rich with +gold. Friendly Indians come, and Harry with them, bringing +maize, peccari pork, and armadillos, plantains and pine-apples, +and all eat and gather strength; and Raleigh writes home to his +wife, ‘to say that I may yet be King of the Indians here +were a vanity. But my name hath lived among +them’—as well it might. For many a year those +simple hearts shall look for him in vain, and more than two +centuries and a half afterwards, dim traditions of the great +white chief who bade them stand out to the last against the +Spaniards, and he would come and dwell among them, shall linger +among the Carib tribes; even, say some, the tattered relics of an +English flag, which he left among them that they might +distinguish his countrymen.</p> +<p>Happy for him had he stayed there indeed, and been their +king. How easy for him to have grown old in peace at +Cayenne. But no; he must on for honour’s sake, and +bring home if it were but a basketful of that ore to show the +king, that he may save his credit. He has promised Arundel +that he will return. And return he will. So onward he +goes to the ‘Triangle Islands.’ There he sends +off five small vessels for the Orinoco, with four hundred +men. The faithful Keymis has to command and guide the +expedition. Sir Warham is lying ill of the fever, all but +dead; so George Raleigh is sent in his place as sergeant-major, +and with him five land companies, one of which is commanded by +young Walter, Raleigh’s son; another by a Captain Parker, +of whom we shall have a word to say presently.</p> +<p>Keymis’s orders are explicit. He is to go up; find +the mine, and open it; and if the Spaniards attack him, repel +force by force: but he is to avoid, if possible, an encounter +with them: not for fear of breaking the peace, but because he has +‘a scum of men, a few gentlemen excepted, and I would not +for all the world receive a blow from the Spaniards to the +dishonour of our nation.’ There we have no +concealment of hostile instructions, any more than in +Raleigh’s admirable instructions to his fleet, which, after +laying down excellent laws for morality, religion, and +discipline, go on with clause after clause as to what is to be +done if they meet ‘the enemy.’ What +enemy? Why, all Spanish ships which sail the seas; and who, +if they happen to be sufficiently numerous, will assuredly +attack, sink, burn, and destroy Raleigh’s whole squadron, +for daring to sail for that continent which Spain claims as its +own.</p> +<p>Raleigh runs up the coast to Trinidad once more, in through +the Serpent’s Mouth, and round Punto Gallo to the lake of +pitch, where all recruit themselves with fish and armadillos, +‘pheasant’ (Penelope), ‘palmitos’ +(Moriche palm fruit?), and guavas, and await the return of the +expedition from the last day of December to the middle of +February. They see something of the Spaniards +meanwhile. Sir John Ferns is sent up to Port of Spain to +try if they will trade for tobacco. The Spaniards parley; +in the midst of the parley pour a volley of musketry into them at +forty paces, yet hurt never a man; and send them off calling them +thieves and traitors. Fray Simon’s Spanish account of +the matter is that Raleigh intended to disembark his men, that +they might march inland on San Joseph. He may be excused +for the guess; seeing that Raleigh had done the very same thing +some seventeen years before. If Raleigh was treacherous +then, his treason punished itself now. However, I must +believe that Raleigh is not likely to have told a lie for his own +private amusement in his own private diary.</p> +<p>On the 29th the Spaniards attack three men and a boy who are +ashore boiling the fossil pitch; kill one man, and carry off the +boy. Raleigh, instead of going up to Port of Spain and +demanding satisfaction, as he would have been justified in doing +after this second attack, remains quietly where he is, expecting +daily to be attacked by Spanish armadas, and resolved to +‘burn by their sides.’ Happily, or unhappily, +he escapes them. Probably he thinks they waited for him at +Margarita, expecting him to range the Spanish main.</p> +<p>At last the weary days of sickness and anxiety succeeded to +days of terror. On the 1st of February a strange report +comes by an Indian. An inland savage has brought confused +and contradictory news down the river that San Thomé is +sacked, the governor and two Spanish captains slain (names given) +and two English captains, nameless. After this entry follow +a few confused ones, set down as happening in January, concerning +attempts to extract the truth from the Indians, and the +negligence of the mariners, who are diligent in nothing but +pillaging and stealing. And so ends abruptly this sad +document.</p> +<p>The truth comes at last—but when, does not +appear—in a letter from Keymis, dated January 8. San +Thomé has been stormed, sacked, and burnt. Four +refiners’ houses were found in it; the best in the town; so +that the Spaniards have been mining there; but no coin or bullion +except a little plate. One English captain is killed, and +that captain is Walter Raleigh, his firstborn. He died +leading them on, when some, ‘more careful of valour and +safety, began to recoil shamefully.’ His last words +were, ‘Lord have mercy upon me and prosper our +enterprise.’ A Spanish captain, Erinetta, struck him +down with the butt of a musket after he had received a +bullet. John Plessington, his sergeant, avenged him by +running Erinetta through with his halbert.</p> +<p>Keymis has not yet been to the mine; he could not, ‘by +reason of the murmurings, discords, and vexations’; but he +will go at once, make trial of the mine, and come down to +Trinidad by the Macareo mouth. He sends a parcel of +scattered papers, a roll of tobacco, a tortoise, some oranges and +lemons. ‘Praying God to give you health and strength +of body, and a mind armed against all extremities, I rest ever to +be commanded, your lordship’s, Keymish.’</p> +<p>‘Oh Absalom, my son, my son, would God I had died for +thee!’ But weeping is in vain. The noble lad +sleeps there under the palm-trees, beside the mighty tropic +stream, while the fair Basset, ‘his bride in the sight of +God,’ recks not of him as she wanders in the woods of +Umberleigh, wife to the son of Raleigh’s deadliest +foe. Raleigh, Raleigh, surely God’s blessing is not +on this voyage of thine. Surely He hath set thy misdeeds +before Him, and thy secret sins in the light of His +countenance.</p> +<p>Another blank of misery: but his honour is still safe. +Keymis will return with that gold ore, that pledge of his good +faith for which he has ventured all. Surely God will let +that come after all, now that he has paid as its price his +first-born’s blood?</p> +<p>At last Keymis returns with thinned numbers. All are +weary, spirit-broken, discontented, mutinous. Where is the +gold ore?</p> +<p>There is none. Keymis has never been to the mine after +all. His companions curse him as a traitor who has helped +Raleigh to deceive them into ruin; the mine is imaginary—a +lie. The crews are ready to break into open mutiny; after a +while they will do so.</p> +<p>Yes, God is setting this man’s secret sins in the light +of His countenance. If he has been ambitious, his ambition +has punished itself now. If he has cared more for his own +honour than for his wife and children, that sin too has punished +itself. If he has (which I affirm not) tampered with truth +for the sake of what seemed to him noble and just ends, that too +has punished itself; for his men do not trust him. If he +has (which I affirm not) done any wrong in that matter of Cobham, +that too has punished itself: for his men, counting him as <i>non +ens</i> in law, will not respect or obey him. If he has +spoken, after his old fashion, rash and exaggerated words, and +goes on speaking them, even though it be through the pressure of +despair, that too shall punish itself; and for every idle word +that he shall say, God will bring him into judgment. And +why, but because he is noble? Why, but because he is nearer +to God by a whole heaven than others whom God lets fatten on +their own sins, having no understanding, because they are in +honour, and having children at their hearts’ desire, and +leaving the rest of their substance to their babes? Not so +does God deal with His elect when they will try to worship at +once self and Him; He requires truth in the inward parts, and +will purge them till they are true, and single-eyed, and full of +light.</p> +<p>Keymis returns with the wreck of his party. The scene +between him and Raleigh may be guessed. Keymis has excuse +on excuse. He could not get obeyed after young +Raleigh’s death: he expected to find that Sir Walter was +either dead of his sickness or of grief for his son, and had no +wish ‘to enrich a company of rascals who made no account of +him.’ He dare not go up to the mine because (and here +Raleigh thinks his excuse fair) the fugitive Spaniards lay in the +craggy woods through which he would have to pass, and that he had +not men enough even to hold the town securely. If he +reached the mine and left a company there, he had no provisions +for them; and he dared not send backward and forward to the town +while the Spaniards were in the woods. The warnings sent by +Gondomar had undone all, and James’s treachery had done its +work. So Keymis, ‘thinking it a greater error, so he +said, to discover the mine to the Spaniards than to excuse +himself to the Company, said that he could not find +it.’ From all which one thing at least is evident, +that Keymis believed in the existence of the mine.</p> +<p>Raleigh ‘rejects these fancies’; tells him before +divers gentlemen that ‘a blind man might find it by the +marks which Keymis himself had set down under his hand’: +that ‘his case of losing so many men in the woods’ +was a mere pretence: after Walter was slain, he knew that Keymis +had no care of any man’s surviving. ‘You have +undone me, wounded my credit with the King past recovery. +As you have followed your own advice, and not mine, you must +satisfy his Majesty. It shall be glad if you can do it: but +I cannot.’ There is no use dwelling on such vain +regrets and reproaches. Raleigh perhaps is bitter, +unjust. As he himself writes twice, to his wife and Sir +Ralph Winwood, his ‘brains are broken.’ He +writes to them both, and re-opens the letters to add long +postscripts, at his wits’ end. Keymis goes off; +spends a few miserable days; and then enters Raleigh’s +cabin. He has written his apology to Lord Arundel, and begs +Raleigh to allow of it. ‘No. You have undone me +by your obstinacy. I will not favour or colour your former +folly.’ ‘Is that your resolution, +sir?’ ‘It is.’ ‘I know not +then, sir, what course to take.’ And so he goes out, +and into his own cabin overhead. A minute after a +pistol-shot is heard. Raleigh sends up a boy to know the +reason. Keymis answers from within that he has fired it off +because it had been long charged; and all is quiet.</p> +<p>Half an hour after the boy goes into the cabin. Keymis +is lying on his bed, the pistol by him. The boy moves +him. The pistol-shot has broken a rib, and gone no further; +but as the corpse is turned over, a long knife is buried in that +desperate heart. Another of the old heroes is gone to his +wild account.</p> +<p>Gradually drops of explanation ooze out. The +‘Sergeant-major, Raleigh’s nephew, and others, +confess that Keymis told them that he could have brought them in +two hours to the mine: but as the young heir was slain, and his +father was unpardoned and not like to live, he had no reason to +open the mine, either for the Spaniard or the King.’ +Those latter words are significant. What cared the old +Elizabethan seaman for the weal of such a king? And, +indeed, what good to such a king would all the mines in Guiana +be? They answered that the King, nevertheless, had +‘granted Raleigh his heart’s desire under the great +seal.’ He replied that ‘the grant to Raleigh +was to a man <i>non ens</i> in law, and therefore of no +force.’ Here, too, James’s policy has worked +well. How could men dare or persevere under such a +cloud?</p> +<p>How, indeed, could they have found heart to sail at all? +The only answer is that they knew Raleigh well enough to have +utter faith in him, and that Keymis himself knew of the mine.</p> +<p>Puppies at home in England gave out that he had killed himself +from remorse at having deceived so many gentlemen with an +imaginary phantom. Every one, of course, according to his +measure of charity, has power and liberty to assume any motive +which he will. Mine is simply the one which shows upon the +face of the documents; that the old follower, devoted alike to +the dead son and to the doomed father, feeling that he had, he +scarce knew how, failed in the hour of need, frittered away the +last chance of a mighty enterprise which had been his fixed idea +for years, and ruined the man whom he adored, avenged upon +himself the fault of having disobeyed orders, given peremptorily, +and to be peremptorily executed.</p> +<p>Here, perhaps, my tale should end; for all beyond is but the +waking of the corpse. The last death-struggle of the +Elizabethan heroism is over, and all its remains vanish slowly in +an undignified, sickening way. All epics end so. +After the war of Troy, Achilles must die by coward Paris’s +arrow, in some mysterious, confused, pitiful fashion; and stately +Hecuba must rail herself into a very dog, and bark for ever +shamefully around lonely Cynossema. Young David ends as a +dotard—Solomon as worse. Glorious Alexander must die, +half of fever, half of drunkenness, as the fool dieth. +Charles the Fifth, having thrown all away but his follies, ends +in a convent, a superstitious imbecile; Napoleon squabbles to the +last with Sir Hudson Lowe about champagne. It must be so; +and the glory must be God’s alone. For in great men, +and great times, there is nothing good or vital but what is of +God, and not of man’s self; and when He taketh away that +divine breath they die, and return again to their dust. But +the earth does not lose; for when He sendeth forth His Spirit +they live, and renew the face of the earth. A new +generation arises, with clearer sight, with fuller experience, +sometimes with nobler aims; and</p> +<blockquote><p>‘The old order changeth, giveth place to the +new,<br /> +And God fulfils himself in many ways.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The Elizabethan epic did not end a day too soon. There +was no more life left in it; and God had something better in +store for England. Raleigh’s ideal was a noble one: +but God’s was nobler far. Raleigh would have made her +a gold kingdom, like Spain, and destroyed her very vitals by that +gold, as Spain was destroyed. And all the while the great +and good God was looking steadfastly upon that little struggling +Virginian village, Raleigh’s first-born, forgotten in his +new mighty dreams, and saying, ‘Here will I dwell, for I +have a delight therein.’ There, and not in Guiana; +upon the simple tillers of the soil, not among wild reckless +gold-hunters, would His blessing rest. The very coming +darkness would bring brighter light. The evil age itself +would be the parent of new good, and drive across the seas +steadfast Pilgrim Fathers and generous Royalist Cavaliers, to be +the parents of a mightier nation than has ever yet possessed the +earth. Verily, God’s ways are wonderful, and His +counsels in the great deep.</p> +<p>So ends the Elizabethan epic. Must we follow the corpse +to the grave? It is necessary.</p> +<p>And now, ‘you gentlemen of England, who sit at home at +ease,’ what would you have done in like case?—Your +last die thrown; your last stake lost; your honour, as you fancy, +stained for ever; your eldest son dead in battle—What would +you have done? What Walter Raleigh did was this. He +kept his promise. He had promised Lord Arundel to return to +England; and return he did.</p> +<p>But it is said his real intention, as he himself confessed, +was to turn pirate and take the Mexico fleet.</p> +<p>That wild thoughts of such a deed may have crossed his mind, +may have been a terrible temptation to him, may even have broken +out in hasty words, one does not deny. He himself says that +he spoke of such a thing ‘to keep his men +together.’ All depends on how the words were +spoken. The form of the sentence, the tone of voice, is +everything. Who could blame him, if seeing some of the +captains whom he had most trusted deserting him, his men heaping +him with every slander, and, as he solemnly swore on the +scaffold, calling witnesses thereto by name, forcing him to take +an oath that he would not return to England before they would +have him, and locking him into his own cabin—who could +blame him, I ask, for saying in that daring off-hand way of his, +which has so often before got him into trouble, ‘Come, my +lads, do not despair. If the worst comes to the worst, +there is the Plate-fleet to fall back upon’? When I +remember, too, that the taking of the said Plate-fleet was in +Raleigh’s eyes an altogether just thing; and that he knew +perfectly that if he succeeded therein he would be backed by the +public opinion of all England, and probably buy his pardon of +James, who, if he loved Spain well, loved money better; my +surprise rather is, that he did not go and do it. As for +any meeting of captains in his cabin and serious proposal of such +a plan, I believe it to be simply one of the innumerable lies +which James inserted in his ‘Declaration,’ gathered +from the tales of men who, fearing (and reasonably) lest their +heads should follow Raleigh’s, tried to curry favour by +slandering him. This ‘Declaration’ has been so +often exposed that I may safely pass it by; and pass by almost as +safely the argument which some have drawn from a chance +expression of his in his pathetic letter to Lady Raleigh, in +which he ‘hopes that God would send him somewhat before his +return.’ To prove an intention of piracy in the +despairing words of a ruined man writing to comfort a ruined wife +for the loss of her first-born is surely to deal out hard +measure. Heaven have mercy upon us, if all the hasty words +which woe has wrung from our hearts are to be so judged either by +man or God!</p> +<p>Sir Julius Cæsar, again, one of the commission appointed +to examine him, informs us that, on being confronted with +Captains St. Leger and Pennington, he confessed that he proposed +the taking of the Mexico fleet if the mine failed. To which +I can only answer, that all depends on how the thing was said, +and that this is the last fact which we should find in Sir +Julius’s notes, which are, it is confessed, so confused, +obscure, and full of gaps, as to be often hardly +intelligible. The same remark applies to Wilson’s +story, which I agree with Mr. Tytler in thinking worthless. +Wilson, it must be understood, is employed after Raleigh’s +return as a spy upon him, which office he executes, all confess +(and Wilson himself as much as any), as falsely, treacherously, +and hypocritically as did ever sinful man; and, <i>inter +alia</i>, he has this, ‘This day he told me what discourse +he and the Lord Chancellor had about taking the Plate-fleet, +which he confessed he would have taken had he lighted on +it.’ To which my Lord Chancellor said, ‘Why, +you would have been a pirate.’ ‘Oh,’ +quoth he, ‘did you ever know of any that were pirates for +millions? They only that wish for small things are +pirates.’ Now, setting aside the improbability that +Raleigh should go out of his way to impeach himself to the man +whom he must have known was set there to find matter for his +death, all, we say, depends on how it was said. If the Lord +Chancellor ever said to Raleigh, ‘To take the Mexico fleet +would be piracy,’ it would have been just like Raleigh to +give such an answer. The speech is a perfectly true one: +Raleigh knew the world, no man better; and saw through its +hollowness, and the cant and hypocrisy of his generation; and he +sardonically states an undeniable fact. He is not +expressing his own morality, but that of the world; just as he is +doing in that passage of his ‘Apology,’ about which I +must complain of Mr. Napier. ‘It was a maxim of +his,’ says Mr. Napier, ‘that good success admits of +no examination.’ This is not fair. The sentence +in the original goes on, ‘so the contrary allows of no +excuse, however reasonable and just whatsoever.’ His +argument all through the beginning of the ‘Apology,’ +supported by instance on instance from history, is—I cannot +get a just hearing, because I have failed in opening this +mine. So it is always. Glory covers the multitude of +sins. But a man who has failed is a fair mark for every +slanderer, puppy, ignoramus, discontented mutineer; as I am +now. What else, in the name of common sense, could have +been his argument? Does Mr. Napier really think that +Raleigh, even if, in the face of all the noble and pious words +which he had written, he held so immoral a doctrine, would have +been shameless and senseless enough to assert his own rascality +in an apology addressed to the most ‘religious’ of +kings in the most canting of generations?</p> +<p>But still more astonished am I at the use which has been made +of Captain Parker’s letter. The letter is written by +a man in a state of frantic rage and disappointment. There +never was any mine, he believes now. Keymis’s +‘delays we found mere delusions; for he was false to all +men and hateful to himself, loathing to live since he could do no +more villany. I will speak no more of this hateful fellow +to God and man.’ And it is on the testimony of a man +in this temper that we are asked to believe that ‘the +admiral and vice-admiral,’ Raleigh and St. Leger, are going +to the Western Islands ‘to look for homeward-bound +men’: if, indeed, the looking for homeward-bound men means +really looking for the Spanish fleet, and not merely for recruits +for their crews. I never recollect—and I have read +pretty fully the sea-records of those days—such a synonym +used either for the Mexican or Indian fleet. But let this +be as it may, the letter proves too much. For, first, it +proves that whosoever is not going to turn ‘pirate,’ +our calm and charitable friend Captain Parker is; ‘for my +part, by the permission of God, I will either <i>make a +voyage</i> or bury myself in the sea.’ Now, what +making a voyage meant there is no doubt; and the sum total of the +letter is, that a man intending to turn rover himself accuses, +under the influence of violent passion, his comrades of doing the +like. We may believe him about himself: about others, we +shall wait for testimony a little less interested.</p> +<p>But the letter proves too much again. For Parker says +that ‘Witney and Woolaston are gone off a-head to look for +homeward-bound men,’ thus agreeing with Raleigh’s +message to his wife, that ‘Witney, for whom I sold all my +plate at Plymouth, and to whom I gave more credit and countenance +than to all the captains of my fleet, ran from me at the +Grenadas, and Woolaston with him.’</p> +<p>And now, reader, how does this of Witney, and Woolaston, and +Parker’s intentions to ‘pirate’ separately, if +it be true, agree with King James’s story of +Raleigh’s calling a council of war and proposing an attack +on the Plate-fleet? One or the other must needs be a lie; +probably both. Witney’s ship was of only 160 tons; +Woolaston’s probably smaller. Five such ships would +be required, as any reader of Hakluyt must know, to take a single +Carack; and it would be no use running the risk of hanging for +any less prize. The Spanish main was warned and armed, and +the Western Isles also. Is it possible that these two men +would have been insane enough in such circumstances to go without +Raleigh, if they could have gone with him? And is it +possible that he, if he had any set purpose of attacking the +Plate-fleet, would not have kept them, in order to attempt that +with him which neither they nor he could do without each +other. Moreover, no ‘piratical’ act ever took +place; if any had, we should have heard enough about it; and why +is Parker to be believed against Raleigh alone, when there is +little doubt that he slandered all the rest of the +captains? Lastly, it was to this very Parker, with Mr. +Tresham and another gentleman, that Raleigh appealed by name on +the scaffold, as witnesses that it was his crew who tried to keep +him from going home, and not he them.</p> +<p>My own belief is, and it is surely simple and rational enough, +that Raleigh’s ‘brains,’ as he said, +‘were broken’; that he had no distinct plan: but +that, loth to leave the New World without a second attempt on +Guiana, he went up to Newfoundland to re-victual, ‘and with +good hope,’ as he wrote to Winwood himself, ‘of +keeping the sea till August with some four reasonable good +ships,’ probably, as Oldys remarks, to try a trading +voyage; but found his gentlemen too dispirited and incredulous, +his men too mutinous to do anything; and seeing his ships go home +one by one, at last followed them himself, because he had +promised Arundel and Pembroke so to do; having, after all, as he +declared on the scaffold, extreme difficulty in persuading his +men to land at all in England. The other lies about him, as +of his having intended to desert his soldiers in Guiana, his +having taken no tools to work the mine, and so forth, one only +notices to say that the ‘Declaration’ takes care to +make the most of them, without deigning, after its fashion, to +adduce any proof but anonymous hearsays. If it be true that +Bacon drew up that famous document, it reflects no credit either +on his honesty or his ‘inductive science.’</p> +<p>So Raleigh returns, anchors in Plymouth. He finds that +Captain North has brought home the news of his mishaps, and that +there is a proclamation against him, which, by the bye, lies, for +it talks of limitations and cautions given to Raleigh which do +not appear in his commission; and, moreover, that a warrant is +out for his apprehension. He sends his men on shore, and +starts for London to surrender himself, in company with faithful +Captain King, who alone clings to him to the last, and from whom +we have details of the next few days. Near Ashburton he is +met by Sir Lewis Stukely, his near kinsman, Vice-Admiral of +Devon, who has orders to arrest him. Raleigh tells him that +he has saved him the trouble; and the two return to Plymouth, +where Stukely, strangely enough, leaves him at liberty and rides +about the country. We should be slow in imputing baseness: +but one cannot help suspecting from Stukely’s subsequent +conduct that he had from the first private orders to give Raleigh +a chance of trying to escape, in order to have a handle against +him, such as his own deeds had not yet given.</p> +<p>The ruse, if it existed then, as it did afterwards, +succeeds. Raleigh hears bad news. Gondomar +has—or has not—told his story to the king by crying, +‘<i>Piratas</i>! <i>piratas</i>! <i>piratas</i>!’ and +then rushing out without explanation. James is in terror +lest what had happened should break off the darling Spanish +match.</p> +<p>Raleigh foresees ruin, perhaps death. Life is sweet, and +Guiana is yet where it was. He may win a basketful of the +ore still, and prove himself no liar. He will escape to +France. Faithful King finds him a Rochelle ship; he takes +boat to her, goes half way, and returns. Honour is sweeter +than life, and James may yet be just. The next day he +bribes the master to wait for him one more day, starts for the +ship once more, and again returns to Plymouth—so King will +make oath—of his own free will. The temptation must +have been terrible and the sin none. What kept him from +yielding but innocence and honour? He will clear himself; +and if not, abide the worst. Stukely and James found out +these facts, and made good use of them afterwards. For now +comes ‘a severe letter from my Lords’ to bring +Raleigh up as speedily as his health will permit; and with it +comes one Mannourie, a French quack, of whom honest King takes +little note at the time, but who will make himself +remembered.</p> +<p>And now begins a series of scenes most pitiable; +Raleigh’s brains are indeed broken. He is old, +worn-out with the effects of his fever, lamed, ruined, +broken-hearted, and, for the first time in his life, weak and +silly. He takes into his head the paltriest notion that he +can gain time to pacify the King by feigning himself sick. +He puts implicit faith in the rogue Mannourie, whom he has never +seen before. He sends forward Lady Raleigh to +London—perhaps ashamed—as who would not have +been?—to play the fool in that sweet presence; and with her +good Captain King, who is to engage one Cotterell, an old servant +of Raleigh’s, to find a ship wherein to escape, if the +worst comes to the worst. Cotterell sends King to an old +boatswain of his, who owns a ketch. She is to lie off +Tilbury; and so King waits Raleigh’s arrival. What +passed in the next four or five days will never be truly known, +for our only account comes from two self-convicted villains, +Stukely and Mannourie. On these details I shall not +enter. First, because one cannot trust a word of them; +secondly, because no one will wish to hear them who feels, as I +do, how pitiable and painful is the sight of a great heart and +mind utterly broken. Neither shall I spend time on +Stukely’s villanous treatment of Raleigh, for which he had +a commission from James in writing; his pretending to help him to +escape, his going down the Thames in a boat with him, his trying +in vain to make honest King as great a rogue as himself. +Like most rascalities, Stukely’s conduct, even as he +himself states it, is very obscure. All that we can see is, +that Cotterell told Stukely everything: that Stukely bade +Cotterell carry on the deceit; that Stukely had orders from +headquarters to incite Raleigh to say or do something which might +form a fresh ground of accusal; that, being a clumsy rogue, he +failed, and fell back on abetting Raleigh’s escape, as a +last resource. Be it as it may, he throws off the mask as +soon as Raleigh has done enough to prove an intent to escape; +arrests him, and conducts him to the Tower.</p> +<p>There two shameful months are spent in trying to find out some +excuse for Raleigh’s murder. Wilson is set over him +as a spy; his letters to his wife are intercepted. Every +art is used to extort a confession of a great plot with France, +and every art fails utterly—simply, it seems to me, because +there was no plot. Raleigh writes an apology, letters of +entreaty, self-justification, what not; all, in my opinion, just +and true enough; but like his speech on the scaffold, weak, +confused—the product of a ‘broken brain.’ +However, his head must come off; and as a last resource, it must +be taken off upon the sentence of fifteen years ago, and he who +was condemned for plotting with Spain must die for plotting +against her. It is a pitiable business: but as Osborne +says, in a passage (p.108 of his Memoirs of James) for which one +freely forgives him all his sins and lies, and they are +many—‘As the foolish idolaters were wont to sacrifice +the choicest of their children to the devil, so our king gave up +his incomparable jewel to the will of this monster of ambition +(the Spaniard), under the pretence of a superannuated +transgression, contrary to the opinion of the more honest sort of +gownsmen, who maintained that his Majesty’s pardon lay +inclusively in the commission he gave him on his setting out to +sea; it being incongruous that he, who remained under the notion +of one dead in the law, should as a general dispose of the lives +of others, not being himself master of his own.’</p> +<p>But no matter. He must die. The Queen intercedes +for him, as do all honest men: but in vain. He has +twenty-four hours’ notice to prepare for death; eats a good +breakfast; takes a cup of sack and a pipe; makes a rambling +speech, in which one notes only the intense belief that he is an +honest man, and the intense desire to make others believe so, in +the very smallest matters; and then dies smilingly, as one weary +of life. One makes no comment. Raleigh’s life +really ended on that day that poor Keymis returned from San +Thomé.’</p> +<p>And then?</p> +<p>As we said, Truth is stranger than fiction. No dramatist +dare invent a ‘poetic justice’ more perfect than fell +upon the traitor. It is not always so, no doubt. God +reserves many a greater sinner for that most awful of all +punishments—impunity. But there are crises in a +nation’s life in which God makes terrible examples, to put +before the most stupid and sensual the choice of Hercules, the +upward road of life, the downward one which leads to the +pit. Since the time of Pharaoh and the Red Sea host, +history is full of such palpable, unmistakable revelations of the +Divine Nemesis; and in England, too, at that moment, the crisis +was there; and the judgment of God was revealed +accordingly. Sir Lewis Stukely remained, it seems, at +court; high in favour with James: but he found, nevertheless, +that people looked darkly on him. Like many self-convicted +rogues, he must needs thrust his head into his own shame; and one +day he goes to good old Lord Charles Howard’s house; for +being Vice-Admiral of Devon, he has affairs with the old Armada +hero.</p> +<p>The old lion explodes in an unexpected roar. +‘Darest thou come into my presence, thou base fellow, who +art reputed the common scorn and contempt of all men? Were +it not in mine own house I would cudgel thee with my staff for +presuming to speak to me!’ Stukely, his tail between +his legs, goes off and complains to James. ‘What +should I do with him? Hang him? On my sawle, mon, if +I hung all that spoke ill of thee, all the trees in the island +were too few.’ Such is the gratitude of kings, thinks +Stukely; and retires to write foolish pamphlets in +self-justification, which, unfortunately for his memory, still +remain to make bad worse.</p> +<p>Within twelve months he, the rich and proud Vice-Admiral of +Devon, with a shield of sixteen quarterings and the blood-royal +in his veins, was detected debasing the King’s coin within +the precincts of the royal palace, together with his old +accomplice Mannourie, who, being taken, confessed that his +charges against Raleigh were false. He fled, a ruined man, +back to his native county and his noble old seat of Affton; but +Até is on the heels of such—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Slowly she tracks him and sure, as a +lyme-hound, sudden she grips him,<br /> +Crushing him, blind in his pride, for a sign and a terror to +mortals.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>A terrible plebiscitum had been passed in the West country +against the betrayer of its last Worthy. The gentlemen +closed their doors against him; the poor refused him—so +goes the legend—fire and water. Driven by the Furies, +he fled from Affton, and wandered westward down the vale of Taw, +away to Appledore, and there took boat, and out into the +boundless Atlantic, over the bar, now crowded with shipping, for +which Raleigh’s genius had discovered a new trade and a new +world.</p> +<p>Sixteen miles to the westward, like a blue cloud on the +horizon, rises the ultima Thule of Devon, the little isle of +Lundy. There one outlying peak of granite, carrying up a +shelf of slate upon its southern flank, has defied the waves, and +formed an island some three miles long, desolate, flat-headed, +fretted by every frost and storm, walled all round with four +hundred feet of granite cliff, sacred only, then at least, to +puffins and pirates. Over the single landing-place frowns +from the cliff the keep of an old ruin, ‘Moresco +Castle,’ as they call it still, where some bold rover, Sir +John de Moresco, in the times of the old Edwards, worked his +works of darkness: a gray, weird, uncanny pile of moorstone, +through which all the winds of heaven howl day and night.</p> +<p>In a chamber of that ruin died Sir Lewis Stukely, Lord of +Affton, cursing God and man.</p> +<p>These things are true. Said I not well that reality is +stranger than romance?</p> +<p>But no Nemesis followed James.</p> +<p>The answer will depend much upon what readers consider to be a +Nemesis. If to have found England one of the greatest +countries in Europe, and to have left it one of the most +inconsiderable and despicable; if to be fooled by flatterers to +the top of his bent, until he fancied himself all but a god, +while he was not even a man, and could neither speak the truth, +keep himself sober, nor look on a drawn sword without shrinking; +if, lastly, to have left behind him a son who, in spite of many +chivalrous instincts unknown to his father, had been so +indoctrinated in that father’s vices as to find it +impossible to speak the truth even when it served his purpose; if +all these things be no Nemesis, then none fell on James +Stuart.</p> +<p>But of that son, at least, the innocent blood was +required. He, too, had his share in the sin. In Carew +Raleigh’s simple and manful petition to the Commons of +England for the restoration of his inheritance we find a +significant fact stated without one word of comment, bitter or +otherwise. At Prince Henry’s death the Sherborne +lands had been given again to Carr, Lord Somerset. To him, +too, ‘the whirligig of time brought round its +revenges,’ and he lost them when arraigned and condemned +for poisoning Sir Thomas Overbury. Then Sir John Digby, +afterwards Earl of Bristol, begged Sherborne of the King, and had +it. Pembroke (Shakspeare’s Pembroke) brought young +Carew to court, hoping to move the tyrant’s heart. +James saw him and shuddered; perhaps conscience stricken, perhaps +of mere cowardice. ‘He looked like the ghost of his +father,’ as he well might, to that guilty soul. Good +Pembroke advised his young kinsman to travel, which he did till +James’s death in the next year. Then coming +over—this is his own story—he asked of Parliament to +be restored in blood, that he might inherit aught that might fall +to him in England. His petition was read twice in the +Lords. Whereon ‘King Charles sent Sir James +Fullarton, then of the bed-chamber, to Mr. Raleigh to command him +to come to him; and being brought in, the King, after using him +with great civility, notwithstanding told him plainly that when +he was prince he had promised the Earl of Bristol to secure his +title to Sherborne against the heirs of Sir Walter Raleigh; +whereon the earl had given him, then prince, ten thousand pounds; +that now he was bound to make good his promise, being king; that, +therefore, unless he would quit his right and title to Sherborne, +he neither could nor would pass his bill of +restoration.’</p> +<p>Young Raleigh, like a good Englishman, ‘urged,’ he +says, ‘the justness of his cause; that he desired only the +liberty of the subject, and to be left to the law, which was +never denied any freeman.’ The King remained +obstinate. His noble brother’s love for the mighty +dead weighed nothing with him, much less justice. Poor +young Raleigh was forced to submit. The act for his +restoration was passed, reserving Sherborne for Lord Bristol, and +Charles patched up the affair by allowing to Lady Raleigh and her +son after her a life pension of four hundred a year.</p> +<p>Young Carew tells his story simply, and without a note of +bitterness; though he professes his intent to range himself and +his two sons for the future ‘under the banner of the +Commons of England,’ he may be a royalist for any word +beside. Even where he mentions the awful curse of his +mother, he only alludes to its fulfilment by—‘that +which hath happened since to that royal family is too sad and +disastrous for me to repeat, and yet too visible not to be +discerned.’ We can have no doubt that he tells the +exact truth. Indeed the whole story fits Charles’s +character to the smallest details. The want of any real +sense of justice, combined with the false notion of honour; the +implacable obstinacy; the contempt for that law by which alone he +held his crown; the combination of unkingliness in commanding a +private interview and shamelessness in confessing his own +meanness—all these are true notes of the man whose +deliberate suicide stands written, a warning to all bad rulers +till the end of time. But he must have been a rogue early +in life, and a needy rogue too. That ten thousand pounds of +Lord Bristol’s money should make many a sentimentalist +reconsider—if, indeed, sentimentalists can be made to +reconsider, or even to consider, anything—their notion of +him as the incarnation of pious chivalry.</p> +<p>At least the ten thousand pounds cost Charles dear.</p> +<p>The widow’s curse followed him home. Naseby fight +and the Whitehall scaffold were surely God’s judgment of +such deeds, whatever man’s may be.</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> +<p><a name="footnote87"></a><a href="#citation87" +class="footnote">[87]</a> <i>North British Review</i>, No. +XLV.—1. ‘Life of Sir Walter +Raleigh.’ By P. Fraser Tytler, F.R.S. London, +1853.—2. ‘Raleigh’s Discovery of +Guiana.’ Edited by Sir Robert Schomburgk (Hakluyt +Society), 1848.—3. ‘Lord Bacon and Sir Walter +Raleigh.’ By M. Napier. Cambridge, +1853.—4. ‘Raleigh’s Works, with Lives by +Oldys and Birch.’ Oxford, 1829—5. +‘Bishop Goodman’s History of his own +Times.’ London, 1839.</p> +<p><a name="footnote95"></a><a href="#citation95" +class="footnote">[95]</a> I especially entreat +readers’ attention to two articles in vindication of the +morals of Queen Elizabeth, in ‘Fraser’s +Magazine’ of 1854; to one in the ‘Westminster’ +of 1854, on Mary Stuart; and one in the same of 1852, on +England’s Forgotten Worthies, by a pen now happily well +known in English literature, Mr. Anthony Froude’s.</p> +<p><a name="footnote138"></a><a href="#citation138" +class="footnote">[138]</a> Since this was written, a +similar Amazonian bodyguard has been discovered, I hear, in +Pegu.</p> +<p><a name="footnote155"></a><a href="#citation155" +class="footnote">[155]</a> It is to be found in a MS. of +1596.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS TIME***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 3143-h.htm or 3143-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/4/3143 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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