(a bare Gentleman). Not that he was lesse, for he was well descended, and of good alliance, but poor in his beginnings. He had in the outward man a good presence, in a handsome and well compacted person, a strong naturall wit, and a better judgement, with a bold and plausible tongue, whereby he could set out his parts to the best advantage; and to these he had the adjuncts of some generall Learning, which by diligence he enforced to a great augmentation, and perfection; for he was an indefatigable Reader, whether by Sea or Land, and none of the least observers both of men and the times; and I am confident, that among the second causes of his growth, that variance between him and my Lord Grey, in his descent into Ireland, was a principall; for it drew them both over the Councell Table, there to plead their cause, where (what advantage he had in the cause, I know not) but he had much better in the telling of his tale ; and so much that the Queen and the Lords took no slight mark of the man, and his parts; for from thence he came to be known, and to have access to the Queen and the Lords. . . . But true it is, he had gotten the Queens ear in a trice, and she began to be taken with his elocution, and loved to hear his reasons to her demands: and the truth is, she took him for a kind of Oracle which netled them all. . . ... ... Evidence of Ralegh's power with the Queen in Irish business, of his reputation for arrogance and selfish ambition, and of the intrigues and jealousies of the Court, appears in a letter from Mountjoy to the Queen written from Ireland in 1600, after he had been sent there against Tyrone on the failure of Essex.1 Lord Mountjoy to Queen Elizabeth And lastly for the interpretation of my proceedings, which may turn both good and ill success to my ruin; what shall I look for when I know this employment of me is by a private man that never knew what it was to divide public and honorable ends from his own, propounded and labored to you (without any respect to your public service), the more eagerly, by my ruins to rise to his long expected fortune? Wherein by reason of the experience I have heard your Majesty holds him to have in that country, he is like to become my judge, and is already so proud of this plot 1 Printed in Goodman's Court of King James (ed. Brewer), ii. 27. that he cannot keep himself from bragging of it. But since I dare not presume to trouble you with all my reasons, these being only but lights of them, I humbly desire your Majesty, before you resolve herein, that as it only belongs unto you to be the supreme, you will make yourself only my judge herein. . . The following is the Queen's reply: The Queen to Lord Mountjoy O what malincholy humour hath exhaled up to your brayne, from a full-fraughted hart, that should breede such doubt bred upon no cause geven by us at all, never having pronounced any syllable whereon such a work should be framed. There is no louder tromp that may sound out your praise, your hazard, your care, your luck, then we haue blasted in all our court and elsewhere in deed. Well, I will attribute it to God's good Providence for you, that (leste all these glories might elevate you to much) he hath suffred (though not made) such a scruple, to keepe you under his rod, who best knowes that wee all have more neede of bittes than spurres. Thus, Valeant ista amara ! ad Tartaros eat melancholia !—your Souveraine, E. R. Endorsed "A copy of her Majestys lettre, lest you can not reade it." 1 Then, in Lord Mountjoy's own hand, "Receaved at Acbrahen [Ardbraken] the-off Jaunary, in a packet from Mr. Secretary" [Cecil]. On Ralegh's relations with the Queen, or indeed with her other most intimate favourites, Seymour, Leicester, Hatton and Essex, it is impossible to pronounce. Men in great position, especially those who have risen to it, are usually subject, more or less, to scandal, and some writers are naturally malicious. In the case of Ralegh it is difficult to account for the lavish grants which were made to him on a favourable interpretation of the Queen's affection, and there are not wanting statements incriminating Elizabeth from the time of Seymour onwards. On the other hand, Sir John Harington (the younger), her godson and evidently one of her most privileged courtiers, declares emphatically that there was no ground for these rumours.2 Bacon's evidence appears to be to 1 "The words in italics are cautious Mr. Secretary's."--Ed. the same effect, but being couched, as always with him when speaking of Queen Elizabeth, in the language of romance, it is unsafe to draw inferences of fact from his testimony. What he says on the subject is in Latin, of which the following is a translation : Some of the graver sort may perhaps exaggerate Queen Elizabeth's lighter qualities because she suffered herself to be honoured and caressed and celebrated and extolled with the name of Love; and wished it and continued it beyond the suitability of her age. If, however, you take these things in a more indulgent spirit, they may not even be without some admiration, because such things are commonly found in our fabulous narratives, of a Queen in the Islands of Bliss, with her hall and her institutes, who receives the administrations of Love, but prohibits its licentiousness. If you judge them more severely, still they have this admirable circumstance, that gratifications of this sort did not much hurt her reputation, and not at all her majesty; nor ever relaxed her government; nor were any notable impediment in her State affairs. . . . In short this Princess was certainly good and moral, and she also wished to appear so; she hated vice, and it was her ambition to shine by good arts. The coarse familiarities of speech and behaviour in which Elizabeth at times indulged might be sufficient to account for these rumours, and, in the case of the young Earl of Essex, the age and loneliness of the Queen may have found solace in his company. Her feelings towards him seem to have been of more than usual tenderness, which ended, if contemporary accounts may be believed, in regrets which accompanied her to her grave. "After the blow given," writes Osborne, "the Queen fell into a deep melancholy whereof she died not long after."1 The strange poem, The Phoenix and Turtle, published as Shakespeare's, but more resembling Roydon's elegy, seems to refer to this affection. The Queen's love, however, for Ralegh was of a less tragic order. As we have seen, he came over from Ireland at the close of 1581, where he was serving as a captain in the operations against the 1 Traditional Memories. This account is discredited by some modern writers, but, though it evidently contains some exaggeration, there is other contemporary evidence in a similar sense. Earl of Desmond, and was taken into the Queen's confidence, to some extent supplanting his former patron, the Earl of Leicester. Thereafter he seems to have become her most trusted adviser on Irish affairs. The writer, however, of the article on Ralegh in the Dictionary of National Biography observes that "such service does not account for the numerous appointments and grants which, within a few years, raised him from the position of a poor gentleman-adventurer to one of the most wealthy of the courtiers." In 1583 he was granted the monopoly of wine licences; in 1584 he was knighted; in 1585 he was made Warden of the Stanneries; in 1586 an enormous tract of country in Cork, Waterford and Tipperary was made over to him, and he was made captain of the Queen's Guard; in 1587 he was granted estates in Lincolnshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, forfeited by Babington and his fellow-conspirators. Elizabeth Throgmorton was the daughter of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, some time the Queen's ambassador in France. When Ralegh's courtship began (which Edwards puts as either late in 1591 or early in 1592the same period, it will be observed, as that inferred from the poems for the supposed courtship of his wife by Spenser) he was engaged, with Lord Thomas Howard on the preparations for the expedition against Spain which resulted in the capture of the great carrack, the Madre de Dios, in the summer of 1592. Ralegh appears to have adventured a very large sum of money in this enterprise, and the Queen (who provided two ships out of thirteen), the Earl of Cumberland, and others were joint-adventurers. Ralegh was to have had the principal command, but so great was the Queen's attachment and her dislike of allowing her favourites to absent themselves from her Court and expose themselves to risk, that she made him promise that he would only take the fleet out to sea "some fifty or three score leagues," and then "persuade the companies to follow Sir Martin Frobisher" and himself return home. The following letter from Ralegh to Robert Cecil, dated 10th March 1592, contains the account of this, and the first allusion to reports about his marriage : To Sir Robert Cecil, 10th March 1592 [As printed by Murdin, from the original.] Sir-I receved your letters this present day at Chattame, concerninge the wages of the mariners and others. For myne own part, I am very willing to enter bonde, as yow perswaded me, so as the Privey Seale be first sent for my injoyinge the third; but I pray consider that I have layd all that I am worth, and must do, ere I depart on this voyage. If it fall not out well, I can but loose all; and if nothinge be remayning, wherewith shall I pay the wages? Besides, her Majestie told mee hersealf that shee was contented to paye her part, and my Lord Admirall his, and I should but discharge for myne own shipps. And farther, I have promised her Majestie, that if I can perswade the Cumpanies to follow sir MARten Furbresher, I will without fail returne; and bringe them but into the sea but sume fifty or thriscore leagues, for which purpose my Lord Admirall hath lent me the DISDAYNE; which to do her Majestie many tymes, with great grace, bedd mee remember, and sent mee the same message by WILL. KILLEGREWE, which, God willinge, if I can perswade the Cumpanies, I meane to performe; though I dare not be acknown thereof to any creature. But, Sir, for mee then to be bounde for so great a sume, uppon the hope of another man's fortune, I will be loth; and besids, if I weare able, I see no privy seale for my thirds. I mean not to cume away, as they say I will, for feare of a marriage, and I know not what. If any such thing weare, I would have imparted it unto yourself before any man livinge; and, therefore, I pray believe it not, and I beseich yow to suppress, what you can, any such mallicious report. For I protest before God, ther is none on the face of the yearth, that I would be fastned unto. And so in hast I take my leve of your Honor. From Chattame, the 10th of March.-Your's ever to be cummanded, W. RALEGH.1 Edwards relates that the departure of the fleet was delayed for three months at least, during which Ralegh was continually running to and fro between his ships and the Court, and that when a change of wind at length 1 Edwards, Life, ii. 44. |