CHAPTER III. ESSEX IN FAVOUR. WHEN Essex was nine years old (in the year 1576) his father died; his mother married the Earl of Leicester; and he himself at ten years old became a member of Lord Burghley's household. His close connection with the Lord Treasurer does not seem to have resulted in the formation of any binding ties between the two. Perhaps Essex was a little wild and unsteady. We find him in 1582 apologizing to his guardian for extravagance: "I hope your Lordship will pardon my youth if I have in some sort passed the bounds of economy." Against this however, we ought in fairness to set the complaint of his tutor at Trinity College, when the poor boy was but ten years of age, that it was absolutely necessary to buy him some new clothes because of "his extreme necessity of apparel." 1 Perhaps therefore Burghley's notions of "economy" were as much too strict as the little Earl's were too loose. But the difference between Burghley and Essex went deeper down than mere differences as to the worth and uses of money. In their virtues and in their faults the Cecils not only differed from Essex, they were incompatible with him, and he with them. Let us hear Cecil's account of the matter. Writing to King James after the death of Essex Cecil says: "If I could have contracted such a friendship with Essex as could have given me security that his thoughts and mine should have been no further distant than the disproportion of our fortunes, I should condemn ny judgment to have willingly intruded myself into such an opposition. For who know not, that have lived in Israel, that such were the mutual affections 1 Lives of the Earls of Essex, by Devereux, vol. i. p. 163. in our tender years, and so many reciprocal benefits interchanged in our growing fortunes as-besides the rules of my own discretion which taught me how perilous it was for Secretary Cecil to have a bitter feud with an Earl Marshal of England, a favourite, a nobleman of eminent parts and a counsellor all things else in the composition of my mind did still concur on my part to make me desirous of his favour." 1 Cecil was at least consistent in the view that Essex was too impulsive and too inconstant to be relied on as a permanent friend. When the Earl was imprisoned, and the Secretary's good services were sought in his behalf, he replied that, although he would not actively oppose Essex, yet he would not affect to renew a friendship with a man who was not only ruined, but so inconstant that his promises of friendship could not be trusted.2 There is much to be said for Cecil's view of the matter, and -due regard being had to the strife of faction and to the absence of any arbitrator-there is probably little ground for finding fault with Cecil's conduct towards Essex. Essex was ex-tremely overbearing and violent towards his equals and towards all whom he regarded as his rivals for the Queen's favour. From the first he treated the Queen rather as an accepted lover than as a subject. Soon after he had been recognized as her favourite, he told her that he disdained Ralegh's competition of love, and could have no comfort to give himself to the service of a mistress that was in awe of such a man.3 Sir Thomas Bodley confesses that Essex "sought all devices to direct the liking and love of the Queen both from the father and the son (Burghley and Sir Robert), but from the son in special, and (to draw my affection from the one to the other and to win me altogether to depend upon himself) did so often take occasion to entertain the Queen with some prodigal speeches of my sufficiency for a secretary, which were ever accompanied with words of disgrace against the present Lord Treasurer, that both my Lord Burghley and his son would jealous."4 Essex's quarrel with Blount is an instance in point. Meeting his antagonist decorated with a favour recently bestowed on him by 1 Hatfield MS., cxxxv. p. 55, quoted in an article in the Quarterly Review, January, 1876. 2 Sydney Papers, 25 October, 1599. 4 lbid. p. 24. 3 Quarterly Review, January, 1876, p. 23. the Queen, he exclaimed, "Now I see that every fool must wear a favour," and provoked Blount to a duel.1 It is true that the quarrel thus begun ended in a reconciliation and a firm friendship; but the origin of it undoubtedly convicts Essex of being exclusive, domineering, and impatiently jealous of all rivals for the Queen's favour or affection. But much of the blame must be laid not on Essex but the Queen. The Queen encouraged Essex to address her rather as a lover than as a minister or courtier. She acted as though she enjoyed Essex's indignation at Ralegh's "competition of love." Writing to the Queen in 1597, Essex says, " Since I was first so happy as to know what love meant, I was never one day nor one hour free from love and jealousy, and, as long as you do me right, they are the inseparable companions of my life"; and again in 1598, "I do confess that, as a man, I have been more subject to your natural beauty than as a subject to the power of a king." 2 It is more than probable that Essex is flattering here; but it is certain that he was using language that the Queen liked to hear. She had not promoted him—a mere boy of nineteen-because of his military or political abilities, but because he combined "with a most goodly person, a kind of urbanity and innate courtesy which hath won the Queen.' He seemed to have come just in time to supply the place of his stepfather Leicester, her former favourite; and she accepted him not as a guide or counsellor, but as one on whom she could bestow her affection, without fear of dictation or political collisions. It was by no desire of Essex that he stepped into the position of favourite. By nature he was a student or soldier rather than a courtier. In his Apology, which he addresses to Anthony Bacon, he appeals to the "rarely qualified" Francis whether this is not so. "For my affection in nature, it was indifferent to books and to arms, and was more inflamed with the love of knowledge than with the love of fame. Witness your rarely qualified brother, and that most learned and truly honest Mr. Saville, and my bookishness from my very childhood." 1 Birch, ii. 62, quoted in the Quarterly Review, January, 1876. 4 Essex's Apology, p. 2. Wotton's testimony is to the same effect: "Certain it is that he (Leicester) drew him (Essex) first into the fatal circle from a kind of resolved privateness at his house at Lampsie in South Wales, when, after the academical life, he had taken such a taste for the rural as I have heard him say (and not upon any flashes or fumes of melancholy, or traverses of discontent, but in a serene and quiet mood) that he could well have bent his mind to a retired course.' "" 1 More than once he withdraws from the Court in his fits of resentment at the insults to which he conceives himself to have been subjected, and his private secretary, Reynolds, on one occasion, expresses his fears that his "Lordship is wearied, and scorneth the practices and dissembling courses of this place, and therefore desireth to solace himself, and by degrees to discontinue, and so to retire from among them." 2 Anthony Bacon expostulates with him on his "sudden departures" and frequent absences from Court. "Though your Lordship's mark be never so honourable, and you draw never so fair and shoot never so near, yet if the judge be blind, and those that give aim partial, your worth and merit shall be by most malicious envy disguised and perverted, and receive no other reward than censure and disgrace." 3 Besides his other defects, Essex's violent temper unfitted him for Court life. Cuffe, his most intimate secretary, said of him that he always carried on his brow either love or hatred, and did not understand concealment." 4 Wotton describes him as a "great resenter," and as "no good pupil to my Lord of Leicester, who was wont to put all his passion in his pocket." In the Island voyage he is said to have thrown a soldier out of a ship with his own hand; 5 and one of the charges against his Irish campaign is that he decimated some troops who had behaved disgracefully in action. Standen gives a very graphic description how, while he was waiting in the Earl's ante-room, the Earl being out, the door is suddenly thrown open and Essex strides past him, and through the ante-chamber, not noticing his presence, and slamming the door violently behind him, fresh from an audience with Elizabeth, at which he had been called 1 Wotton's Reliquiæ, p. 162. 2 Lives of the Earls of Essex, March, 1597. 3 Add. MSS., 4116, 1597, 6th January. 4 Wotton's Reliquiæ, p. 187. 5 Wotton, Reliquiæ, pp. 175-9. by the Queen, in the presence of Burghley, a "rash and temerarious youth." Even the affectionate Anthony Bacon has occasion sometimes to remonstrate with his patron upon the prolongation of some of these fits of sullenness and aversion to business. On the other hand he has a generosity, a truthfulness, and a warmheartedness that, in the judgment of his friends, atoned for a thousand faults. The impression produced by a short interview with him, when suddenly he calls in on Anthony Bacon and a little group of friends, and brightens them up with the sunshine of his hopeful nature,1 reminds one of Shakespeare's description of Henry V.: "A largess universal as the sun, His liberal eye doth give to every one; That every wretch, pining and pale before, Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks." He is always ready to acknowledge himself in the wrong if he has been hasty to a friend. If, for example, he has a little hurt Anthony Bacon by an appearance of neglect one evening, on the following day he apologizes thus:-"Sir, if I gave you not satisfaction in my answer yesternight, the unseasonableness of the hour, my indisposition, and the dulness of both my wits and senses will plead my excuse; but this most of all, that what was wanted may be amended, and yourself may have of me what satisfaction you will yourself. As for S., do you direct, and I will perform it." 2 Or again, if he fails to obtain a suit for a friend (Sir Francis Allen), see how he consoles him. "Frank, if I had delayed the effecting of your suit, through forgetfulness or sloth, I had committed a great fault. But I have been kept at a bay, I know not how, not only in causes, but also in mine own. Wherein, if I should shew unto you the particulars, I should deliver a strange story. But, howsoever I fare, I doubt not within a very few days to despatch you. And if I be so unfortunate that the Queen will break her word with me for you, I will divide one house with you if you my friends' 1 Add. MSS., 3rd February, 1594. "The Earl left us all merry and comforted with his sweet words and countenance : so writes Mr. Standen. 2 Add. MSS., 4115, p. 39. |