ELIZABETH AND ESSEX: a tragic history (9 page)

Everything was ready at last; it was time to say farewell. The Queen, shut up in her chamber, was busy with literary composition. The results of her labour were entrusted to Fulke Greville, who rode down with the final despatches to Plymouth and handed them to Essex. There was a stately private letter from the Queen to the General: - "I make this humble bill of requests to Him that all makes and does, that with His benign hand He will shadow you so, as all harm may light beside you, and all that may be best hap to your share; that your return may make you better and me gladder." There was a friendly note from Robert Cecil, with a last gay message from Elizabeth. "The Queen says, because you are poor she sends you five shillings." And, in addition, there was a royal prayer, to be read aloud to the assembled forces, for the success of the expedition. "Most omnipotent and guider of all our world's mass! that only searchest and fathomest the bottoms of all hearts and conceits, and in them seest the true original of all actions intended.... Thou, that diddest inspire the mind, we humbly beseech, with bended knees, prosper the work and with best forewinds guide the journey, speed the victory, and make the return the advancement of thy fame and surety to the realm, with least loss of English blood. To these devout petitions, Lord, give thou thy blessed grant! Amen."

The words, addressed by one potentate to another, with such a diplomatic mixture of flattering devotion and ornate self-confidence, were, apparently, exactly what were required. At any rate, the expedition was crowned with success. The secret of its purpose was well kept, and one day towards the end of June, 1596, the English armament suddenly appeared in the bay of Cadiz. At the first moment, an injudicious decision might have led to a disaster; the commanders had ordered a hazardous assault to be made by land; and it was only with difficulty that Raleigh persuaded them to change their plan and attack on the water. After that, all went swimmingly. "Entramos! Entramos!" shouted Essex, flinging his hat into the sea, as his ship sailed into the harbour. Within fourteen hours all was over. The Spanish fleet was destroyed and the town, with all its strength and riches, in the hands of the English. Among the Spaniards the disorganisation was complete; panic and folly had seized upon them. By a curious chance the Duke of Medina Sidonia was Governor of Andalusia. As if it were not enough to have led the Armada to its doom, it was now reserved for him to preside over the destruction of the most flourishing city of Spain. He hurried to the scene of action, wringing his hands in querulous despair. "This is shameful," he wrote to King Philip. "I told your Majesty how necessary it was to send me men and money, and I have never even received an answer. So now I am at my wit's end." He was indeed. The West Indian fleet of fifty merchantmen, laden with treasure worth eight million crowns, had fled into an inner harbour where it lay, in helpless confusion, awaiting its fate. Essex had ordered it to be seized, but there were delays among subordinates, and the unhappy Duke saw what must be done. He instantly gave commands; the whole fleet was set on fire; a faint smile, the first in seven years, was seen to flit across the face of Medina Sidonia; at last, in that intolerable mass of blazing ruin, he had got the better of his enemies.

While the honours of the sea-fight went to Raleigh, Essex was the hero on shore. He had led the assault on the city; his dash and bravery had carried all before them; and, when the victory was won, his humanity had put a speedy end to the excesses that were usual on such occasions. Priests and churches were spared; and three thousand nuns were transported to the mainland with the utmost politeness. The Spaniards themselves were in ecstasies over the chivalry of the heretic General. "Tan hidalgo," said Philip, "non ha vista entre herejas." The Lord Admiral himself was carried away with admiration. "I assure you," he wrote to Burghley, "there is not a braver man in the world than the Earl is; and I protest, in my poor judgment, a great soldier, for what he doth is in great order and discipline performed."

The English occupied Cadiz for a fortnight. Essex proposed that they should fortify the town and remain there until the Queen's pleasure was known. When this was disallowed by the Council of War, he suggested a march into the interior of Spain; and, on this also being negatived, he urged that the fleet should put out to sea, lie in wait for the returning West Indian treasure-ships, and seize the vast booty they were bringing home. Once more he met with no support. It was decided to return to England immediately. A great ransom was raised from the inhabitants of Cadiz, the town was dismantled and destroyed, and the English sailed away. As they coasted back along the shores of Portugal, they could not resist a raid upon the unlucky town of Faro. The plunder was considerable, and it included one unexpected item - the priceless library of Bishop Jerome Osorius. The spectacle of so many marvellous volumes rejoiced the heart of the literary General; and he reserved them for himself, as his share of the loot. Yet, perhaps, he hardly glanced at them. Perhaps, as he sailed victoriously towards England, his wayward mind sank unexpectedly into an utterly incongruous mood. To be away from all this - and for ever! Away from the glory and the struggle - to be back at home, a boy again at Chartley - to escape irrevocably into the prolonged innocence of solitude and insignificance and dreams! With a play upon his own name - half smiling, half melancholy - he wrote some lines in which memory and premonition came together to give a strange pathos to the simple words. -

Happy were he could finish forth his fate
In some unhaunted desert, where, obscure
From all society, from love and hate
Of worldly folk, there should he sleep secure;

Then wake again, and yield God ever praise;
Content with hip, with haws, and brambleberry;
In contemplation passing still his days,
And change of holy thoughts to keep him merry:

Who, when he dies, his tomb might be the bush
Where harmless Robin resteth with the thrush:
   - Happy were he!

On the same day on which Essex sailed from Cadiz, something of the highest moment was done in England: Elizabeth made Robert Cecil her Secretary, in name as well as in fact. That he had exercised the functions of the office for several years had not necessarily implied his continuance in that position. The Queen had been uncertain; the arrangement, she said, was temporary; there were other candidates for the post. Among these was Thomas Bodley, whose claims Essex had pushed forward with his customary vehemence - a vehemence which, once again, had failed in its effect. For Cecil was now definitely installed in that great office; all the outward prestige and all the inward influence that belonged to it were to be permanently his.

He sat at his table writing; and his presence was sweet and grave. There was an urbanity upon his features, some kind of explanatory gentleness, which, when he spoke, was given life and meaning by his exquisite elocution. He was all mild reasonableness - or so it appeared, until he left his chair, stood up, and unexpectedly revealed the stunted discomfort of deformity. Then another impression came upon one - the uneasiness produced by an enigma: what could the combination of that beautifully explicit countenance with that shameful, crooked posture really betoken? He returned to the table, and once more took up his quill; all, once more, was perspicuous serenity. And duty too - that was everywhere - in the unhurried assiduity of the writing, the consummate orderliness of the papers and arrangements, the long still hours of expeditious toil. A great worker, a born administrator, a man of thought and pen, he sat there silent amid the loud violence about him - the brio of an Essex and a Raleigh, the rush and flutter of minor courtiers, and the loquacious paroxysms of Elizabeth. While he laboured, his inner spirit waited and watched. A discerning eye might have detected melancholy and resignation in that patient face. The spectacle of the world's ineptitude and brutality made him, not cynical - he was not aloof enough for that - but sad - was he not a creature of the world himself? He could do so little, so very little, to mend matters; with all his power and all his wisdom he could but labour, and watch, and wait. What else was possible? What else was feasible, what else was, in fact, anything but lunacy? He inspected the career of Essex with serious concern. Yet, perhaps, in some quite different manner, something, sometimes - very rarely - almost never - might be done. At a moment of crisis, a faint, a hardly perceptible impulsion might be given. It would be nothing but a touch, unbetrayed by the flutter of an eyelid, as one sat at table, not from one's hand, which would continue writing, but from one's foot. One might hardly be aware of its existence oneself, and yet was it not, after all, by such minute, invisible movements that the world was governed for its good, and great men came into their own?

That might be, in outline, the clue to the enigma; but the detailed working-out of the solution must remain, from its very nature, almost entirely unknown to us. We can only see what we are shown with such urbane lucidity - the devoted career of public service, crowned at last, so fortunately, by the final achievement - a great work accomplished, and the Earl of Salisbury supreme in England. So much is plain; but we are shown no more - no man ever was. The quiet minimum of action which led to such vast consequences is withdrawn from us. We can, with luck, catch a few glimpses now and then; but, in the main, we can only obscurely conjecture at what happened under the table.

Essex returned, triumphant and glorious. He was the hero of the hour. A shattering blow had been dealt to the hated enemy, and in the popular opinion it was to the young Earl, so daring, so chivalrous, so obviously romantic, that the victory was due. The old Lord Admiral had played no great part in the affair, and the fact that the whole expedition would have been a failure if the advice of Raleigh had not been followed at the critical moment was unknown. There seemed, in fact, to be only one person in England who viewed the return of the conqueror without enthusiasm; that person was the Queen. Never was the impossibility of foretelling what Elizabeth would do next more completely exemplified. Instead of welcoming her victorious favourite in rapturous delight, she received him with intense irritation. Something had happened to infuriate her; she had indeed been touched at a most sensitive point; it was a question of money. She had put down £50,000 for the expenses of the expedition, and what was she to get in return? Only, apparently, demands for more money, to pay the seamen's wages. It was, she declared, just as she had expected; she had foreseen it all; she had known from the very first that every one would make a fortune out of the business except herself. With infinite reluctance she disgorged another £2000 to keep the wretched seamen from starvation. But she would have it all back; and Essex should find that he was responsible. There certainly had been enormous leakages. The Spaniards themselves confessed to a loss of several millions, and the official estimate of the booty brought back to England was less than £13,000. Wild rumours were flying of the strings of pearls, the chains of gold, the golden rings and buttons, the chests of sugar, the casks of quicksilver, the damasks and the Portuguese wines, that had suddenly appeared in London. There were terrific wranglings at the council table. Several wealthy hostages had been brought back from Cadiz, and the Queen announced that all their ransoms should go into her pocket. When Essex protested that the soldiers would thereby lose their prize-money, she would not listen; it was only, she said, owing to their own incompetence that the loot had not been far greater; why had they not captured the returning West Indian fleet? The Cecils supported her with unpleasant questions. The new Secretary was particularly acid. Essex, who had good reason to expect a very different reception, was alternately depressed and exacerbated. "I see," he wrote to Anthony Bacon, "the fruits of these kinds of employments, and I assure you I am as much distasted with the glorious greatness of a favourite as I was before with the supposed happiness of a courtier, and call to mind the words of the wisest man that ever lived, who speaking of man's works crieth out, Vanity of vanities, all is but vanity." The Queen's displeasure was increased by another consideration. The blaze of popularity that surrounded the Earl was not to her liking. She did not approve of any one being popular except herself. When it was proposed that thanksgiving services for the Cadiz victory should be held all over the country, her Majesty ordered that the celebrations should be limited to London. She was vexed to hear that a sermon had been preached in St. Paul's, in which Essex had been compared to the greatest generals of antiquity and his "justice, wisdom, valour and noble carriage" highly extolled; and she took care to make some biting remarks about his strategy at the next council. "I have a crabbed fortune that gives me no quiet," Essex wrote, "and the sour food I am fain still to digest may breed sour humours." It was an odd premonition; but he brushed such thoughts aside. In spite of everything he would struggle to keep his temper, and "as warily watch myself from corrupting myself as I do seek to guard myself from others."

His patience and forbearance were soon rewarded. News came that the West Indian fleet, laden with twenty million ducats, had entered the Tagus only two days after the English had departed. It seemed clear that if the plan urged by Essex had been adopted, that if the armament had waited off the coast of Portugal as he had advised, the whole huge treasure would have been captured. Elizabeth had a sudden revulsion. Was it possible that she had been unjust? Ungenerous? Certainly she had been misinformed. Essex swam up into high favour, and the Queen's anger, veering round full circle, was vented upon his enemies. Sir William Knollys, the Earl's uncle, was made a member of the Privy Council and Comptroller of the Household. The Cecils were seriously alarmed, and Burghley, trimming his sails to the changing wind, thought it advisable, at the next council, to take the side of Essex in the matter of the Spanish ransoms. But the move was not successful. Elizabeth turned upon him in absolute fury. "My Lord Treasurer," she roared, "either for fear or favour, you regard my Lord of Essex more than myself. You are a miscreant! You are a coward!" The poor old man tottered away in a shaken condition to write a humble expostulation to the Earl. "My hand is weak, my mind troubled," he began. His case, he continued, was worse than to be between Scylla and Charybdis, "for my misfortune is to fall into both.... Her Majesty chargeth and condemneth me for favouring of you against her; your Lordship contrariwise misliketh me for pleasing of Her Majesty to offend you." He really thought that it was time for him to retire. "I see no possibility worthily to shun both these dangers, but by obtaining of licence to live an anchorite, or some such private life, whereunto I am meetest for my age, my infirmity, and daily decaying estate; but yet I shall not be stopped by the displeasure of either of you both to keep my way to heaven." Essex replied, as was fit, with a letter of dignified sympathy. But Anthony Bacon's comments were different; he did not conceal his delighted animosity. "Our Earl, God be thanked!" he told a correspondent in Italy, "hath with the bright beams of his valour and virtue scattered the clouds and cleared the mists that malicious envy had stirred up against his matchless merit; which hath made the Old Fox to crouch and whine."

Burghley was indeed very much upset. He considered the whole situation carefully, and he came to the conclusion that perhaps, after all, he had made a mistake in his treatment of the Bacons. Would that young nobleman have ever reached so dangerous an eminence without the support of his nephews? Did not they supply him with just that intellectual stiffening, that background of sense and character, which his unstable temperament required? Was it possibly still not too late to detach them? He could but try. Anthony was obviously the more active and menacing of the two, and if he could be won over... He sent Lady Russell, the sister of his wife and Lady Bacon, on an embassy to her nephew, with conciliatory messages and bearing offers of employment and reward. The conversation was long, but it was fruitless. Anthony would not budge an inch. He was irrevocably committed to the Earl, whom he worshipped with the sombre passion of an invalid, his uncle's early neglect of him could never be forgiven or forgotten, and as for his cousin Robert, his hatred of him was only equalled by his scorn. He explained his feelings in detail to his aunt, who hardly knew what to answer. The Secretary, he declared, had actually "denounced a deadly feud" against him. "Ah, vile urchin!" said Lady Russell, "is it possible?" Anthony replied with a laugh and a Gascon proverb - "Brane d'âne ne monte pas al ciel." "By God," said Lady Russell, "but he is no ass."

"Let him go for a mule then, Madam," rejoined Anthony, "the most mischievous beast that is."
When his aunt had gone, Anthony wrote out a minute account of the conversation and sent it to his patron, concluding with a protestation to his "Good Lord" of "the entire devotion of my heart, together with the unchangeable vow of perfect obedience, which it hath long since no less resolutely than freely sworn unto your lordship, and the confidence I have in your lordship's most noble and true love." Why indeed should he change? How futile to suggest it! And now, when so many years of service had grown into adoration - now, when so many years of labour were blossoming into success!

For, in truth, the dreams of Anthony seemed to be on the brink of fulfilment; it was difficult to conceive what could prevent Essex from becoming before long the real ruler of England. His ascendancy over Elizabeth appeared to be complete. Her personal devotion had not lessened with time; on the contrary it seemed now to be reinforced by a growing recognition of his qualities as a soldier and a statesman. The Cecils bowed before him; Raleigh was not admitted to the royal presence; no other rivals were visible. Dominating the council-table, he shouldered the duties and responsibilities of high office with vigour and assurance. Work poured in upon him; he had, he said, "to provide for the saving of Ireland, the contenting of France, the winning of the Low Countries to such conditions as they are yet far from; and the discovering and preventing of practices and designs, which are more and greater than ever." In the midst of so much business and so much success, he did not forget his friends. His conscience pricked him on the score of Thomas Bodley. What reparation could he make for the loss of the Secretaryship, which he had promised his faithful follower in vain? He bethought him of the library of Bishop Jerome Osorius, seized up so unexpectedly on that summer day at Faro. Bodley should have it - it was the very thing. And Bodley did have it; and such was the curious beginning of the great Library that bears his name.

Success, power, youth, royal favour, popular glory - what was lacking in the good fortune of the marvellous Earl? Only one thing, perhaps - and that too now was given him: the deathless consecration of Art. A supreme poet, blending together with the enchantment of words the loveliness of an hour and the vastness of human destiny, bestowed a splendid immortality upon the

"noble Peer,
Great England's glory and the world's wide wonder,
Whose dreadful name late through all Spain did thunder,
And Hercules two pillars standing near
Did make to quake and fear.

Fair branch of Honour, flower of Chivalry,
That fillest England with thy triumph's fame,
Joy have thou of thy noble victory!"

The prowess and the person of Essex stand forth, lustrous and dazzling, before all eyes.

Yet there was one pair of eyes
- and one only - that viewed the gorgeous spectacle without blinking. The cold viper-gaze of Francis Bacon, heedless of the magnificence of the exterior, pierced through to the inner quiddity of his patron's situation and saw there nothing but doubt and danger. With extraordinary courage and profound wisdom he chose this very moment - the apex, so it seemed, of Essex's career - to lift his voice in warning and exhortation. In a long letter, composed with elaborate solicitude and displaying at once an exquisite appreciation of circumstances, a consummate acquaintance with the conditions of practical life, and a prescience that was almost superhuman, he explained to the Earl the difficulties of his position, the perils that the future held in store for him, and the course of conduct by which those perils might be avoided. Everything, it was obvious, hinged upon the Queen; but Bacon perceived that in this very fact lay, not the strength, but the weakness of Essex's situation. He had no doubt what Elizabeth's half-conscious thoughts must be. - "A man of a nature not to be ruled; that hath the advantage of my affection, and knoweth it; of an estate not grounded to his greatness; of a popular reputation; of a militar dependence." What might not come of such considerations? "I demand," he wrote, "whether there can be a more dangerous image than this represented to any monarch living, much more to a lady, and of Her Majesty's apprehension?" It was essential that the whole of Essex's behaviour should be dominated by an effort to remove those suspicions from Elizabeth's mind. He was to take the utmost pains to show her that he was not "
opiniastre
and unrulable"; he was "to take all occasions, to the Queen, to speak against popularity and popular courses vehemently and to tax it in all others"; above all, he was utterly to eschew any appearance of "militar dependence." "Herein," wrote Bacon, "I cannot sufficiently wonder at your Lordship's course ... for Her Majesty loveth peace. Next she loveth not charge. Thirdly, that kind of dependence maketh a suspected greatness." But there was more than that. Bacon clearly realised that Essex was not cut out to be a General; Cadiz, no doubt, had gone off well; but he distrusted these military excursions, and he urged the Earl to indulge in no more of them. There were rumours that he wished to be made the Master of the Ordnance; such thoughts were most unwise. Let him concentrate upon the Council; there he could control military matters without taking a hand in them; and, if he wished for a new office, let him choose one that was now vacant and was purely civilian in its character: let him ask the Queen to make him the Lord Privy Seal.