words; "may the Lord have mercy on me, and prosper your enterprise." His comrades buried him and the others in the church, and then started with two boats to go up the river in search of the mine; but the Spaniards were on the watch, attacked him, and killed nine men. He went back to San Tomas, and George Raleigh made another expedition up the river, but saw no gold, and finally the baffled and discontented party returned. Sir Walter, sore-hearted and in great grief, showed himself very angry at Keymis's mismanagement, which, as he truly said, had undone him. He would not even look at a letter of excuse that Keymis had written, and the unhappy man, in despair, committed suicide. Affairs were desperate with Sir Walter now. He tried to persuade his men to go with him again in search of the mine, or even to wait for the Mexican fleet, but he failed to get any one to follow him, and his letters were piteous. He wrote to Winwood that this had been the greatest and sharpest misfortune that had ever befallen any man, and to his wife that he "never knew what sorrow meant till now. He reached Plymouth in the Destiny, no other ship with him, on the 21st of June, 1618, and there his wife met him. They had just set out on their journey to London, when Sir Lewis Stukeley met them with orders to arrest Sir Walter and take him back to Plymouth. He had nearly escaped there, but at the last moment decided otherwise, because he had promised the friends who had interceded for him that he would come back. Of these, the most effective, Sir Ralph Winwood, was recently dead, and there was no one to counteract the complaints of the Spanish ambassador, Surimento, who hotly denounced the sack of San Tomas, and called for punishment on the perpetrators. James, who was flattered by Spanish attention and had never loved Raleigh, had little sense of shame or justice to make him save Elizabeth's grand old courtier. Raleigh was sent for to London. He was very anxious for delay, and tried to obtain it by getting a French physician, who was in their company, to assist him in feigning a sharp attack of illness at Salisbury, during which he wrote his defence. The King, who was on progress, spent a day at Salisbury, but would not see him, and he had to proceed on his sad journey. Another plan of escape was set on foot, but was baffled by Stukeley, who pretended to be in his interest, fathomed all his secrets, and then betrayed them. The name of Sir Judas, which stuck to Stukeley ever after, was his reward, as well as all Raleigh's jewels, including a diamond ring given him by Queen Elizabeth, also a payment of 9652. Six commissioners, including Archbishop Abbot, with Bacon and Coke, were charged to inquire into his conduct on the expedition. The result was that they represented that Raleigh, having been sentenced to death once and never pardoned, was actually dead in the sight of the law, and therefore could not be put on his trial. They therefore! CAMEO X. Return of 1618. CAMEO X. Trial of Raleigh. 1618. advised that he should be summoned before the whole Council of State, and numbers of the nobility, gentry, and judges, and his crimes of piracy and plunder on his expedition declared, after which the King might take the advice of the Council. James would not do this, remembering, as he said, how the prisoner's wit and skill at Winchester had turned men's minds in his favour. He had made up his mind to propitiate Spain with the destruction of her most gallant enemy, and he even offered to give up Sir Walter alive into her hands to be dealt with after the pleasure of Phillip III.; but this offer was declined, provided the English would themselves put the terrible "Gaulteral" to death. So James resolved that he should die by the old sentence pronounced on him for his supposed share in the Cobham conspiracy, fourteen years ago; and that afterwards an explanation of his misdemeanours should be put forth. Perhaps he thought that Englishmen would hardly be much impressed by the damage done to Spaniards in America, especially in Guiana, which had in 1595 been claimed as an English possession. He So pleaded Raleigh himself in a letter to his cousin, Lord Carew. "Save him who would have died in your defence; Anne of Denmark was then languishing at Hampton Court, in what proved to be her last illness, but she did her best to respond to the piteous appeal. She only saw the King occasionally, for he was laid up with gout in his knees, and was in a very bad temper; but a letter, in her own remarkably beautiful handwriting, was sent from her to Buckingham, entreating him to take up the cause. She calls him by a playful name that had been bestowed one day when the Court was diverted by the sight of an old sow, which an intelligent dog was steering along by tugging at her ear whenever she attempted to deviate from her proper path. The Queen declared that it put her in mind of the continual hints and admonitions that her husband received from Buckingham, and a family proverb arose, by which all reminders to the King were called "lugging the sow by the ear,” and he contentedly submitted to the swinish appellation in sport from his wife, son, and favourite, while Buckingham alternated between Steenie and the good dog On this occasion Anne wrote "MY KIND DOG,-If I have any power or credit with you, I pray you let me have a trial of it at this time, in dealing sincerely and earnestly with the King that Sir Walter Raleigh's life may not be called in question. If you do it so that your success may answer my expectation, assure yourself that I will take it extraordinary kind at your hands, and rest one that wisheth you well and desires you to continue still (as you have been) a true servant to your master. 'ANNA R.' It was all in vain. The new courtier had no heart for the old courtier, who, if he had been a brillant flutterer in Elizabeth's favour, was also a great soldier, sailor, scholar, and colonist, a poet and historian, far outweighing the frivolous and empty Villiers, who only saw in him the battered, unsuccessful adventurer, for whom, in the pride of life and vainglory, there was no place for pity. On the 28th of October, Raleigh was summoned to Westminster. He knew it would be to hear his doom, and when his old servant reminded him that his hair was in disorder, he answered, "Let them comb it that are to have it." How changed from his days of splendid foppery! But he added, with a smile, "Dost thou know, Peter, of any plaster that will set a man's head on again when it is off?" Still he defended himself ably before the members of the Council, arguing that the commission he had received from the Crown was equivalent to a pardon, so that he could not justly be executed on the previous sentence, and explaining his whole conduct on the unfortunate expedition; but he was only told that the sentence must be carried out, and that he was to die the next morning. He was not taken back to the Tower, but to the gatehouse of the Palace Yard. On the way he met an old friend, to whom he said "You will come to-morrow morning. I do not know what you may do for a place. For my own part I am sure of one. You must make what shift you can." Now that the uncertainty was over, he was thoroughly brave and cheerful, making jests with the many friends who came to take leave of him, so that he was told by one that his levity might be blamed by his enemies. "It is my last mirth in this world," he answered. "Do not grudge When I come to the last sad parting, you shall find me grave it me. enough." He probably meant the parting with his wife, who came to him in the evening and stayed till midnight. He told her she must vindicate his name, if he were hindered from making a speech on the scaffold; and when she said that his remains were to be given to her, he answered, "It is well, dear Bess, that thou mayest dispose of that dead which thou hadst not always the disposing of alive." He durst not talk of his only remaining son, Carew, who was then a mere lad; but after he had taken leave of his wife, he wrote a short will, and also some lines in the blank leaf of his Bible "When such is Time, that takes on trust Who in the dark and silent grave, But from this earth, this grave, this dust In the early morning he received the Holy Communion, then break CAMEO X. Condemnation of Raleigh. 1618. CAMEO X. 1618. fasted, and was very cheerful. It was Lord Mayor's day, that having been chosen for the sake of the counter-attraction; but the crowd in the of Raleigh. yard was so great that Sir Walter, the two sheriffs, and the chaplain could hardly struggle through it, and he was quite breathless when he reached the scaffold. Perceiving an old, bald-headed man, who had made great efforts to get to him, he asked if it were to say anything to him. Only to pray for him,' was the answer. Sir Walter thanked him, and taking off his own laced nightcap put it on the bare head. 66 Seeing the Earls of Arundel and Oxford at a window, he called to them that he feared he could not speak loud enough for them to hear, on which they came down and mounted the scaffold. He made a vindication again of his conduct, and finally begged that no one would believe a charge that had made his heart bleed, namely that he had persecuted Essex, and had watched his execution with disdain, puffing out tobacco. Lastly, he called on all to pray for him as a sinner, "a seafaring man, a soldier, and a courtier. The least of these were able to overthrow a good mind and a good man." The executioner knelt to ask his pardon, which he granted, putting his hands on the man's shoulders, and feeling the edge of the axe, said, "This gives me no fear, it is the sharp pencil to cure me of all my distempers." 66 He took leave of the bystanders, asked the crowd for their prayers, and then placed himself with his neck on the block, holding out his hands as a signal for the biow. It was delayed, and he called, Strike, man, strike!" His lips moved in prayer, and after more than one blow, the wise and thoughtful head was severed. "We have not such another to be cut off!" cried a voice in the crowd, as it was held up. The head was treasured by the devoted wife till her death, the body buried in the Church of S. Margaret at Westminster, while public opinion veered round, and Raleigh, who had been hated as a new man, full of haughtiness and satire, was now mourned as one of the heroes of Elizabeth's reign, the victim of the policy which veiled England's once proud crest to Spanish domination. That winter came in sadly. The Queen was sinking fast, and James had a sharp illness at Royston, from which he was in great danger. He was in bed there, unable to move when she died at Hampton Court, in February, 1619, with her hand on the head of her son Charles, and Archbishop Abbot praying beside her. At the time of Elizabeth's death, peace had been made in Ireland, and the Earl of Tyrone, the great Hugh O'Neill, had submitted and made peace. The Irish Romanists were full of hope. They considered the Scottish kings as descendants of the race of Finn, which had migrated to Caledonia and overcome the Picts, and they were thus more disposed to regard the Stewarts as their rightful kings than any English sovereign before them. Moreover they, like their English brethren, thought of Queen Mary, and hoped for favour; but they did not take the means to obtain it. They had despatched a deputation to the universities of Salamanca and Valladolid, to ask whether an Irish Catholic was bound to obey and assist his Protestant sovereign. Of course, the Spaniards were only too glad to reply that it was as meritorious to aid the Earl of Tyrone as to fight against the Turks, and that it was a mortal sin to aid the English against him, meriting the denial of absolution. Thus incited, though Tyrone was no longer in arms, when Elizabeth's death was known and the Lord Deputy Mountjoy issued orders for the proclamation of James, the mayor and citizens of Cork shut their gates, and refused to admit the messengers. They then made solemn processions round the city, bearing emblems of their faith; they turned out the clergy from the churches, erased the texts of Scripture on the walls, painting figures of saints over them, reconsecrated the buildings, reinstated the monks and nuns in the convents, and at a mass celebrated for the purpose they communicated, swearing to spend their lives for their Church. They disarmed the few Protestants, and fired off guns at the palace, where the Bishop was in a state of siege, and one of his clergy was killed. CAMEO XI. Ireland under James. |