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diff --git a/3143-0.txt b/3143-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e2537de --- /dev/null +++ b/3143-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3433 @@ +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: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS TIME*** + + +Transcribed from “Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays” 1890 +Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS TIME {87} + + +‘TRUTH 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. + +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, _mutatis mutandis_, 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. + +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? + +But what laws? + +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. + +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. + +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.’ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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.’ {95} + +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.’ + +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. + +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 _toto coelo_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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.’ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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, _Non +sufficit orbis_. Who shall withstand her, armed as she is with the +three-edged sword of Antichrist—superstition, strength, and gold? + +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! + +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. + +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.e._, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _Meta Incognita_—‘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. + +So Raleigh goes on his voyage with Humphrey Gilbert, to carry out the +patent for discovering and planting in _Meta Incognita_; 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 _Meta +Incognita_ 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. + +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 _rara avis_, 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. + +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? + +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 _Meta Incognita_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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.’ + +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 _à +priori_ 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.”’ + +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. + +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. + +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 ‘_six +cents hommes qui savaient mourir_.’ 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. + +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. _Venit_, _vidit_, _fugit_, 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, _ob patriam servatam_. 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? + +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. + +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 _Néron malgré +lui-même_, 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. + +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. + +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.’ + +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 _the_ 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 +_rather_ 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. + +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 +_pis-aller_, 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. + +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. + +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? + +‘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. + +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. + +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. _Ut sis vitalis metuo puer_! + +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?’ + +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?’ + +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. + +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,— + + ‘I could not love thee, dear, so much, + Loved I not honour more.’ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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— + +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. {138} + +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. + +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.’ + +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? + +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 _Arbol de Vida_, 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.’ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +‘_Intramos_,’ 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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.’ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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; {155} +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. + +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’— + + ‘Here are no false entrapping baits + Too hasty for too hasty fates, + Unless it be + The fond credulity + Of silly fish, that worlding who still look + Upon the bait, but never on the hook; + Nor envy, unless among + The birds, for prize of their sweet song. + + ‘Go! let the diving negro seek + For pearls hid in some forlorn creek, + We all pearls scorn, + Save what the dewy morn + Congeals upon some little spire of grass, + Which careless shepherds beat down as they pass + And gold ne’er here appears + Save what the yellow Ceres bears.’ + +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 + + ‘Words that have been + So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, + As if that every one from whom they came + Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest.’ + +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, _par jugum_, 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. + +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 _in æternum_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +‘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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 + + ‘The eagle, towering in his pride of place, + Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed.’ + +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. + +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.’ + +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. + +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. + +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.e._ 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. + +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! + +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’:— + +B. Zedoary and Saffron, each ½ lb. +Distilled water 3 pints. +Macerate, etc., and reduce to 1½ pint. +Compound powder of crabs’ claws 16 oz. +Cinnamon and Nutmegs 2 oz. +Cloves 1 oz. +Cardamom seeds ½ oz. +Double refined sugar 2 lb. + Make a confection. + +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.’ + +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. + +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?’ + +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. + +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. + +In November 1612 Prince Henry falls sick. + +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.’ + +The cordial is administered; but it comes too late. The prince dies, and +with him the hopes of all good men. + +* * * + +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. + + ‘Still in his ashes live their wonted fire.’ + +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. + +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 _non ens_ 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.’ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +But, say some, James was justified in telling Gondomar, and the Spaniards +in defending themselves. On the latter point there is no doubt. + + ‘They may get who have the will, + And they may keep who can.’ + +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. + +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? + +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.’ + +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. + +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. + +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 _non ens_ 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. + +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. + +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.’ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.’ + +‘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. + +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? + +At last Keymis returns with thinned numbers. All are weary, +spirit-broken, discontented, mutinous. Where is the gold ore? + +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. + +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 _non ens_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _non ens_ 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? + +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. + +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. + +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 + + ‘The old order changeth, giveth place to the new, + And God fulfils himself in many ways. + +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. + +So ends the Elizabethan epic. Must we follow the corpse to the grave? +It is necessary. + +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. + +But it is said his real intention, as he himself confessed, was to turn +pirate and take the Mexico fleet. + +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! + +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, _inter alia_, 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? + +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 +_make a voyage_ 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. + +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.’ + +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. + +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.’ + +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. + +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, ‘_Piratas_! _piratas_! _piratas_!’ and then rushing out without +explanation. James is in terror lest what had happened should break off +the darling Spanish match. + +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. + +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. + +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.’ + +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.’ + +And then? + +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. + +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. + +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— + + ‘Slowly she tracks him and sure, as a lyme-hound, sudden she grips + him, + Crushing him, blind in his pride, for a sign and a terror to + mortals.’ + +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. + +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. + +In a chamber of that ruin died Sir Lewis Stukely, Lord of Affton, cursing +God and man. + +These things are true. Said I not well that reality is stranger than +romance? + +But no Nemesis followed James. + +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. + +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.’ + +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. + +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. + +At least the ten thousand pounds cost Charles dear. + +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. + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{87} _North British Review_, 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. + +{95} 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. + +{138} Since this was written, a similar Amazonian bodyguard has been +discovered, I hear, in Pegu. + +{155} It is to be found in a MS. of 1596. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS TIME*** + + +******* This file should be named 3143-0.txt or 3143-0.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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