should believe that Essex was ignorant of her own hostility to him. But now compare the implication contained in these two letters, and the statement in the last-quoted letter, with the following attack made by Bacon on Essex when the latter was on his trial for treason. "For God hath imprinted such a majesty in the face of a prince that no private man dare approach the person of his sovereign with a traitorous intent. And therefore they run another side course, obliquè et a latere : some to reform corruptions of the State and religion; some to reduce the ancient liberties and customs pretended to be lost and worn out; some to remove those persons that being in high places make themselves subject to envy ; but all of them aim at the overthrow of the State and destruction of the present rulers. And this likewise is the use of those that work mischief of another quality, as Cain, that first murderer, took up an excuse for his fact, shaming to outface it with impudency. Thus the Earl made his colour the severing some great men and councillors from her Majesty's favour, and the fear he stood in of his pretended enemies lest they should murder him in his house. Therefore he saith he was compelled to fly into the city for succour and assistance; not much unlike Pisistratus, of whom it was so anciently written how he gashed and wounded himself and in that sort ran crying into Athens that his life was sought and like to have been taken away; thinking to have moved the people to have pitied him and taken his part by such counterfeited harm and danger; whereas his aim and drift was to take the government of the city into his hands, and alter the form thereof. With like pretences of dangers and assaults the Earl of Essex entered the City of London and passed through the bowels thereof, blanching rumours that he should have been murdered, and that the State was sold-whereas he had no such enemies, no such dangers." CHAPTER XV. ESSEX ENTERS UPON TREASON. BACON's attempts failed, as Essex's had failed, in bringing about a reconciliation between Essex and the Queen. "For the space of six weeks or two months," says Bacon in the Apology, “it (i.e. his management of the simulated correspondence and other attempts at reconciliation) prospered so well as I expected continually his restoring to his attendance. . . . But," he continues, "the issue of all his dealing grew to this that the Queen, by some slackness of my Lord's, as I imagine, liked him worse and worse, and grew more incensed towards him." Finding that he himself, on account of his advocacy of the Earl's cause, was coming to be included with Essex in the Queen's growing displeasure, he remonstrated with her, assuring her of his loyalty and sincerity. Upon this "her Majesty was exceedingly moved, and accumulated a number of kind and gracious words upon me, and willed me to rest upon this, 'Gratia mea sufficit,' and a number of other sensible and tender words and demonstrations, such as more could not be; but as touching my Lord of Essex, ne verbum quidem. Whereupon I departed, resting then determined to meddle no more in the matter; as that that I saw would overthrow me, and not be able to do him any good." 1 It was no mere "slackness" of the Earl's that caused Bacon's efforts to fail. During the six or eight weeks from the end of August to the beginning of October, the Earl was waiting to see what were the Queen's intentions concerning him. Soon 1 Apology, p. 18. after the 26th of August,' Essex told Sir Charles Davers that, "at Michaelmas the lease of his wines ended, which was the greatest part of his state, that by the renewing it, or taking it from him, he should judge what was meant him; that about that time he expected there would be a Parliament; that if then he were not restored to his place and offices, of which he seemed much to doubt, he would for his own part give over the hope thereof." On her side the Queen was possibly waiting to see what would be the effect on Essex of the deprivation of his lease of sweet-wines. All his prayers to be forgiven seemed to her (not unnaturally) merely hypocritical disguises of the prayer for the renewal of the monopoly. "I remember," says Bacon in the Apology, "she told me for news that my Lord had written her some very dutiful letters, and that she had been moved by them, and when she took it to be the abundance of the heart, she found it to be but a preparative to a suit for the renewing of his farm of sweet-wines." It was vain for Bacon to reply that all creatures have a natural instinct towards " preservation as well as "perfection," " My Lord's desire to do you service is as to his perfection, that which he thinks himself to be born for; whereas his desire to obtain this thing of you is but for a sustentation." "2 The Queen was not content that Essex should allow "sustentation" to occupy a place in his thoughts when the perfection" of doing her service ought to have engrossed him. It was most unfortunate for Essex that the lease of sweet-wines expired at this time; for it would have made any one, and much more a woman so suspicious and jealous as the Queen, disbelieve in the sincerity of his prayers for reconciliation. 66 Up to the 18th of October, Essex had not given up the hopes or language of a suppliant: "Till I may appear in your gracious presence, time itself is a perpetual night, and the whole world a sepulchre unto your Majesty's humblest vassal." But at the end of October he was deprived of his sweet-wine patent, which was assigned to Commissioners for the benefit of the Crown. One last hope remained. If Essex could but for a moment obtain access to the Queen, he felt confident he 1 Sir Charles Davers says, "not long after," ii. 338; Essex (ii. 319) says, "within one month after." 2 Apology, p. 16. could remove her suspicions and obtain a reconciliation. Now the anniversary of the Queen's coronation-day, the 17th of November, was at hand, a day on which Essex had been wont in old times to outshine all competitors in running for the ring. A letter of Essex indicates that he had hopes of presenting himself before her on that day even without her permission: "I sometimes think of running, and then remember what it will be to come in armour triumphing into that presence out of which both by your own voice I was commanded, and by your hands thrust out." On October 10th Chamberlain writes "his friends make great means that he may run on the Queen's day." But Neville (who had written to Winwood on the 9th of September that the Queen began to "relent towards him") writes on the 2nd of November that there is now ment of any such relenting disposition as was supposed." no argu By this time Essex was fast drifting into treason—treasonable projects as well as mere treasonable words. His state of mind at this crisis is probably well described by Sir Henry Neville's description of his secretary, Cuffe: " Cuffe would come sometimes unto me. And when I asked him how his Lord's matters stood in Court, he would sometimes give show of hope and sometimes of despair. And at those times when he seemed to despair, he would break out with words of heat and impatience as, namely,1 once I remember he repeated this verse: 'Arma tenenti omnia dat qui justa negat." ""2 Returning from an interview with Essex, Harrington describes him as oscillating and at times as furious even to insanity: "The man's soul seemeth tossed to and fro like the waves of a troubled sea. . . His speech of the Queen became no man who hath mens sana in corpore sano.' "3 What language of his may have been reported to the Queen at this time we do not know on very good evidence, but Ralegh said "that the expression of Essex that the Queen was cankered, and that her mind had become as crooked as her carcase cost him his head, which his insurrection had not cost him, but for that speech." The Queen on her part set no bounds to her indignation against Essex. "What perils have 3 Harrington, quoted ii. 203. 1 i.e. for example. I escaped," writes Harrington. "I was entrusted by Essex, whom I did adventure to visit, with a message to the Queen's majesty setting forth his condition. But ere I could bear these tidings (which I was well advised to do) the Earl's petition reached her hand." "She catched my girdle when I kneeled to her and swore By God's Son I am no queen! That man is above me.' """ 1 Every week now increased the danger of Essex's position. The failure of his flatteries, and probably the report of his reproaches of the Queen, had made her suspect him more than ever. While there was a chance that he might be restored to honour, Essex was in favour of conciliation; but if he was to remain in disgrace, ruin seemed to await both him and his friends. He had worked himself into the belief that not only his life but the prosperity of his country was endangered by his enemies. He believed them to be plotting for the transmission of the crown to the Spanish Infanta. He believed that they had suborned false testimony against him and counterfeited his hand; and that if he could not in some way neutralise their influence, he himself would be sooner or later brought to the block, his friends disgraced and ruined, and England, immediately on the Queen's death, would be subjected to Spanish government, and to the Roman Catholic faith. That he had no substantial grounds for this alarm is tolerably certain, and the charge which he afterwards brought against Cecil, of supporting the claims of the Spanish Infanta, could not be proved. But he may have suspected-what is now certainthat Cecil and others about the Court were in receipt of pensions from the Spanish Court: and this alone might have supplied excuse, though it could not supply basis, for suspicions of intended treachery. But, in any case, we are not now so much concerned with what Essex ought to have feared as with what he did fear and there can be no question at all that, rightly or wrongly, he believed that his enemies around the Queen's person were plotting the betrayal of his country as well as the ruin of himself, and also that, in his moods of depression and melancholy, he thought his life to be in immediate danger. The following letter, written soon after the birth of Essex's 1 Nuga, i. 356. |