ELIZABETH AND ESSEX: a tragic history (15 page)

Thus it happened that when the inevitable reconciliation came it was not a complete one. The details are hidden from us; we do not know the terms of the peace; we only know that the pretext for it was yet another misfortune in Ireland. Sir Richard Bingham had been sent out to take command of the military operations, and early in October, immediately upon his arrival at Dublin, he died. All was in confusion once more; Essex again offered his services; and this time they were accepted. Soon the Queen and the favourite were as much together as they had ever been. It appeared that the past had been obliterated, and that the Earl - as was his wont - had triumphantly regained his old position, as if there had never been a quarrel. In reality it was not so; the situation was a new one; mutual confidence had departed. For the first time, each side was holding something back. Essex, whatever his words, his looks, and even his passing moods may have been, had not uprooted from his mind the feelings of injury and defiance that had dictated his letter to Egerton. He had returned to Court as unchastened and undecided as ever, blindly impelled by the enticement of power. And Elizabeth on her side had by no means forgotten what had happened; the scene in the Council Chamber still rankled; she perceived that there was something wrong with those protestations; and, while she conversed and flirted as of old, she kept open a weather eye.

But these were subtleties it was very difficult to make sure of, as the days whirled along at Whitehall and Greenwich and Nonesuch; and even Francis Bacon could not quite decide what had occurred. Possibly Essex was really again in the ascendant; possibly, after the death of Burghley, the star of Cecil was declining; it was most unwise to be too sure. For more than a year, gradually moving towards the Cecils, he had kept out of the Earl's way. In repeated letters he had paid his court to the Secretary, and his efforts had at last been rewarded in a highly gratifying manner. A new assassination plot had come to light - a new Catholic conspiracy; the suspects had been seized; and Bacon was instructed to assist the Government in the unravelling of the mystery. The work suited him very well, for, while it provided an excellent opportunity for the display of intelligence, it also brought him into a closer contact with great persons than he had hitherto enjoyed. And it turned out that he was particularly in need of such support. He had been unable to set his finances in order. The Mastership of the Rolls and Lady Hatton had both eluded him; and he had been obliged to content himself with the reversion to the Clerkship of the Star Chamber - with the prospect, instead of the reality, of emolument. Yet it had seemed for a moment as if the prospect were unexpectedly close at hand. The actual Clerk was accused of peculation, and the Lord Keeper Egerton was appointed, with others, to examine into the case. If the Clerk were removed, Bacon would succeed to the office; he wrote a secret letter to Egerton; he promised, in that eventuality, to resign the office to Egerton's son, on the understanding that the Lord Keeper on his side would do his best to obtain for him some compensating position. The project failed, for the Clerk was not removed, and Bacon did not come into his reversion for ten years. In the meantime, an alarming poverty stared him in the face. He continued to borrow - from his brother, from his mother, from Mr. Trott; the situation grew more and more serious; at last, one day, as he was returning from the Tower after an examination of the prisoners concerned in the assassination plot, he was positively arrested for debt. Robert Cecil and Egerton, however, to whom he immediately applied for assistance, were able between them to get him out of this difficulty, and his public duties were not interrupted again.

But, if the Secretary was useful, the Earl might be useful too. Now that he was back at Court, it would be well to write to him. "That your Lordship," Bacon said, "is
in statu quo primo
no man taketh greater gladness than I do; the rather because I assure myself that of your eclipses, as this hath been the longest, it shall be the last." He hoped that "upon this, experience may found more perfect knowledge, and upon knowledge more true consent.... And therefore, as bearing unto your Lordship, after her Majesty, of all public persons the second duty, I could not but signify unto you my affectionate gratulation."

So far so good; but now the clouds of a new tempest were seen to be gathering on the horizon, filling the hearts of the watchers at Whitehall with perplexity and perturbation. It was absolutely necessary that some one should be made Lord Deputy of Ireland. After the shattering scene in the summer, nothing had been done; the question was urgent; upon its solution so much, so very much, depended! The Queen believed that she had found the right man - Lord Mountjoy. Besides admiring his looks intensely, she had a high opinion of his competence. He was approached on the subject, and it was found that he was willing to go. For a short time it appeared that the matter was happily settled - that Mountjoy was the
deus ex machina
who would bring peace not only to Ireland but to Whitehall. But again the wind shifted. Essex once more protested against the appointment of one of his own supporters; Mountjoy, he declared, was unfit for the post - he was a scholar rather than a general. It looked as if the fatal round of refusal and recrimination was about to begin all over again. Who then, Essex was asked, did he propose? Some year before, Bacon had written him a letter of advice precisely on this affair of Ireland. "I think," said the man of policy, "if your Lordship lent your reputation in this case - that is, to
pretend
that you would accept the charge - I think it would help you to settle Tyrone in his seeking accord, and win you a great deal of honour
gratis
." There was only one objection, Bacon thought, to this line of conduct: "Your Lordship is too quick to pass in such cases from dissimulation to verity." We cannot trace all the moves - complicated, concealed, and fevered - that passed at the Council table; but it seems probable that Essex, when pressed to name a substitute for Mountjoy, remembered Bacon's advice. He gave it as his opinion, Camden tells us, that "into Ireland must be sent some prime man of the nobility which was strong in power, honour, and wealth, in favour with military men, and which had before been general of an army; so as he seemed with the finger to point to himself." The Secretary, with his face of gentle conscientiousness, sat silent at the Board. What were his thoughts? If the Earl were indeed to go to Ireland - it would be a hazardous decision; but if he himself wished it - perhaps it would be better so. He scrutinised the future, weighing the possibilities with deliberate care. It was conceivable that the Earl, after all, was dissembling, that he understood how dangerous it would be for him to leave England, and was only making a show. But Cecil knew, as well as his cousin, the weak places in that brave character - knew the magnetism of arms and action - knew the tendency "to pass from dissimulation to verity." He thought he saw what would happen. "My Lord Mountjoy," he told a confidential correspondent, "is named; but to you, in secret I speak of it, not as a secretary but as a friend, that I think the Earl of Essex shall go Lieutenant of the Kingdom." He sat writing; we do not know of his other faint imperceptible movements. We only know that, in the Council, there were some who still pressed for the appointment of Mountjoy, that the Earl's indication of himself was opposed or neglected, and that then the candidature of Sir William Knollys was suddenly revived.

Opposition always tended to make Essex lose his head. He grew angry; the Mountjoy proposal seriously vexed him, and the renewal of Knollys' name was the last straw. He fulminated against such notions, and, as he did so, slipped - after what he had himself said, it was an easy, an almost inevitable transition - into an assertion of his own claims. Some councillors supported him, declaring that all would be well if the Earl went; the Queen was impressed; Essex had embarked on a heated struggle - he had pitted himself against Knollys and Mountjoy, and he would win. Francis Bacon had prophesied all too truly - the reckless man had indeed "passed from dissimulation to verity." Win he did. The Queen, bringing the discussion to a close, announced her decision: since Essex was convinced that he could pacify Ireland, and since he was so anxious for the office, he should have it; she would make him her Lord Deputy. With long elated strides and flashing glances he left the room in triumph; and so - with shuffling gait and looks of mild urbanity - did Robert Cecil.

It was long before Essex began to realise fully what had happened. The sense of victory, both at the moment and in anticipation - both at home and in Ireland - buoyed him up and carried him forward. "I have beaten Knollys and Mountjoy in the Council," he wrote to his friend and follower, John Harington, "and by God I will beat Tyrone in the field; for nothing worthy Her Majesty's honour hath yet been achieved."

Naturally enough the old story was repeated, and the long, accustomed train of difficulties, disappointments, and delays dragged itself out. Elizabeth chaffered over every detail, changed from day to day the size and nature of the armament that she was fitting out, and disputed fiercely upon the scope of the authority with which the new Lord Deputy was to be invested. As the weeks passed in angry bickering Essex sank slowly downwards from elation to gloom. Perhaps he had acted unwisely; regrets attacked him; the future was dark and difficult; what was he heading for? He was overwhelmed by miserable sensations; but it was too late now to draw back, and he must face the inevitable with courage. "Into Ireland I go," he told the young Earl of Southampton, who had become his devoted disciple; "the Queen hath irrevocably decreed it, the Council do passionately urge it, and I am tied in my own reputation to use no tergiversation; and, as it were indecorum to slip collar now, so would it also be
minime tutum
; for Ireland would be lost, and though it perished by destiny I should only be accused of it, because I saw the fire burn and was called to quench it, but gave no help." He was well aware, he said, of the disadvantages of absence - "the opportunities of practising enemies" and "the construction of Princes, under whom
magna fama
is more dangerous than
mala
." He realised and enumerated the difficulties of an Irish campaign. "All these things," he declared, "which I am like to see, I do now foresee." Yet to every objection he did his best to summon up an answer. "'Too ill success will be dangerous' - let them fear that who allow excuses, or can be content to overlive their honour. 'Too great will be envious' - I will never foreswear virtue for fear of ostracism. 'The Court is the centre.' - But methinks it is the fairer choice to command armies than humours." ... "These are the very private problems," he concluded, "and nightly disputations, which from your Lordship, whom I account another myself, I cannot hide."

At moments the gloom lifted, and hope returned. The Queen smiled; disagreements vanished; something like the old happy confidence was in the air once more. On Twelfth Night, 1599, there was a grand party for the Danish ambassador, and the Queen and the Earl danced hand in hand before the assembled Court. Visions of that other Twelfth Night, five short years before - that apogee of happiness - must have flitted through many memories. Five short years - what a crowded gulf between then and now! And yet, now as then, those two figures were together in their passion and their mystery, while the viols played their beautiful tunes and the jewels glittered in the torch-light. What was passing? Perhaps, in that strange companionship, there was delight, as of old ... and for the last time.

Elizabeth had much to trouble her - Ireland, Essex, the eternal question of War and Peace - but she brushed it all aside, and sat for hours translating the Ars Poetica into English prose. As for Ireland, she had grown accustomed to that; and Essex, though fretful, seemed only anxious to cut a figure as Lord Deputy - she could ignore those uncomfortable suspicions of a few months ago. There remained the Spanish War; but that too seemed to have solved itself very satisfactorily. It drifted on, in complete ambiguity, while peace was indefinitely talked of, with no fighting and no expense; a war that was no war, in fact - precisely what was most to her liking.

One day, however, she had a shock. A book fell into her hands - a History of Henry the Fourth - she looked at it - there was a Latin dedication to Essex. "To the most illustrious and honoured Robert Earl of Essex and Ewe, Earl Marshal of England, Viscount of Hereford and Bourchier, Baron Ferrars of Chartley, Lord Bourchier and Louen" - what was all this? She glanced through the volume, and found that it contained an elaborate account of the defeat and deposition of Richard the Second - a subject, implying as it did the possibility of the removal of a sovereign from the throne of England, to which she particularly objected. It was true, no doubt, that the Bishop of Carlisle was made to deliver an elaborate speech against the King's deposition; but why bring the matter before the public at all? What could be the purpose of this wretched book? She looked again at the dedication, and as she looked the blood rushed to her head. The tone was one of gross adulation, but that was by no means all; there was a phrase, upon which a most disgraceful construction might be put. "Most illustrious Earl, with your name adorning the front of our Henry, he may go forth to the public happier and safer."* The man would, no doubt, pretend that "our Henry" referred to the book; but was there not another very possible interpretation? - that if Henry IV had possessed the name and titles of Essex his right to the throne would have been better and more generally recognised. It was treason! She sent for Francis Bacon. "Cannot this man - this John Hayward - be prosecuted for treason?" she asked. "Not, I think, for treason, Madam," was the reply, "but for felony."