CHAPTER XV.

THE ZENITH (1601-1603).

Oxford.

FROM Essex's execution to the death of Elizabeth, on March CHAP. XV. 24, 1603, is a period of two years wanting a month. It constitutes another stage in Ralegh's career. No more fascinating Court favourite, no Leicester, Essex, or mere Hatton, stood now in his way. If even Elizabeth's vivacious temperament may have ceased to require attentions as from a lover, she never grew insensible to wit, grace, versatility, and valour like his. The jealousy he continued to arouse was a tribute to his power. To this time belongs the story, contained in Bacon's Apophthegms, of Lord Oxford's insolence. The malicious Earl Lord had returned, the Mirror of Tuscanismo, from his seven years' self-inflicted exile at Florence. He had gone thither to spite his father-in-law, Burleigh, by deserting his wife, and squandering his estate. The Queen was playing on the virginals before him and another nobleman, while Ralegh was on duty near at hand. The ledge in front happened to have been taken away, so that the jacks were seen. Oxford and his companion smiled and whispered. Elizabeth inquired the reason. They were amused, answered Oxford, to see that when jacks went up heads went down. The point of the sarcasm is presumed to have been the connexion of Ralegh's influence with the decapitation of Essex. That the reference was to Ralegh might have seemed rather dubious had not Bacon taken it for granted. The fact of the favour of the Queen is certain.

Courtiers wrote to one another how 'good his credit with

CHAP. XV. the Queen had lately grown.'

14

Sully and
Biron.

He had a multiplicity of Court duties thrown upon him. His acquaintance with other lands and their languages brought him forward whenever intercourse had to be held with foreigners. As Sir John Harington said of him, he was especially versed in foreign matters, his skill therein being always estimable and praiseworthy.' When Prince Maurice was endeavouring to relieve Ostend, which the Archduke and Infanta were besieging, Ralegh and Cobham paid his camp a visit. They were stated by Cecil to have no charge, and to have 'stolen over, having obtained leave with importunity to see this one action.' The English envoy wrote to Cecil that the two gallants had been entertained with much honour and extraordinary respect, but had seen little. Sir Henry Neville, however, told Winwood their journey was not for curiosity only. They carried some message, which did no harm.' In March, 1601, Ralegh, by the Queen's order, had been escorting a Spanish envoy, sent to negotiate a truce, round London. Later, during the Queen's summer progress to Dover, he, with Cobham and Sidney, received Sully. As Captain of the Guard he playfully took Sully into custody, and conducted him to the Queen. The great Minister had been privately sent over by King Henry, who was at Calais. On September 5, the Duc de Biron arrived, to announce to Elizabeth the marriage of Mary de Medici to Henry. Several noblemen had been directed by the Council to provide for the Marshal's solemn reception in London. By some accident they were absent. Ralegh, who had not been especially commissioned, happened to be in town. Apparently Sir Arthur Savage and Sir Arthur Gorges, who spoke French fluently, came to his help. Among them they amused the Frenchmen till horses were ready to convey them to Hampshire. The Queen was at Basing House. Ralegh wrote to Cecil: 'We have carried them to Westminster to see the monuments; and this Monday we entertained them at the Bear Garden, which they had great pleasure to see. I sent to and fro, and have laboured like a mule.' On the Wednesday he rode with the

Marshal and his numerous company to the Vyne. The fair CHAP. XV. and large house of Lord Sandys has formed the subject of an interesting volume by its present owner, Mr. Chaloner Chute. It had been furnished from the royal apartments at the Tower, Hampton Court, and neighbouring country houses, for the accommodation of the foreign visitors. The Hampshire gentry lent seven score beds. Not when Ralegh had seen all housed were his cares over. He told Cobham, 'The French wear all black, and no kind of bravery at all.' His wardrobe, plentiful as assuredly it was, had not been equipped in unison with such demureness. So, this Saturday night, late,' he wrote on September 12 to Cobham from Basing, 'I am now going to London to provide me a plain taffeta suit, and a plain black saddle.' Elizabeth rewarded his exertions in rendering the stay of the Frenchmen agreeable by knighting his brother, Carew Ralegh, on her departure from Basing House. Mr. Benjamin Tichborne received the same honour.

We may

maid.

Ralegh was a patron of literature, and had to devote evenings. to the wits. To him has been ascribed the institution, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, of the Mermaid Tavern The Mermeetings in Bread Street, Shakespeare's, Jonson's, Beaumont's, Fletcher's, Selden's, Cotton's, Camden's, and Donne's club. It is very likely; so likely that the intrinsic probability of the fact might be a motive for a fiction. Whether as founder or guest it is more than likely he would take occasional part in the wit combats of which Beaumont has sung. lament that there was no Boswell, or even a Drummond, to report an encounter between Ralegh and Shakespeare. Ralegh abhorred drunkenness. 'It were better,' he has said, 'for a man to be subject to any vice than to drunkenness.' But teetotalism had not been invented in the days of Elizabeth. Not wholly unconnected with the social evenings at the Mermaid may have been the frequent trouble he experienced from bodily ailments. On September 19, 1601, he pronounced himself too grievously ill to be able to travel to Bath for his annual cure. His ailments did not prevent him from warning Cecil of a

CHAP. XV. powerful Spanish fleet held ready, with 6000 or 7000 soldiers, to descend either upon Ireland or the Low Countries. Fresh intelligence, which on September 26 he despatched to Cecil for transmission to the Lord Admiral, led him to believe the expedition was designed for Cork or Limerick. He inferred from the presence of many women on board that a 'Plantation' was meant. It was no false alarm. He announced to Cecil, on October 13, 1601, the landing of a strong body of Spaniards, and their intrenchment, as he had prognosticated, outside the town of Kinsale. His readiness to accept responsibility was met in the same spirit, particularly when Ireland was concerned. Later, Cecil admitted that Ralegh, though no Privy Councillor, was often invited to confer with the Council. Only three months before Elizabeth was seized with her mortal sickness, in 1602, he, with Cecil, was consulted by her on the treatment of Cormac McCarthy, Lord of Muskerry. Cecil was for leniency. Ralegh advised that no mercy should be shown, Cormac McCarthy's country being worth the Queen's keeping. Elizabeth accepted his frankly selfish advice.

In Parliament.

He sat as senior member for the County of Cornwall in the Parliament which met on October 27, 1601. He had been previously a Cornish representative, as member for Michell, in the House which was elected in 1593. In November, 1601, he obtained the rejection of a Bill to compel the sowing of hemp for cables and cordage. 'I do not like,' he said, in a spirit much in advance of his age, 'this constraining of men to manure or use their ground at our wills; but rather let every man use his ground to that which it is most fit for, and therein use his own discretion.' The Tillage Act he held up for a warning. It ordered every man to plough a third of his land, often to great loss. The land, if unploughed, would have been good pasture for beasts.' Later in the Session he supported a motion for the repeal of that Statute. He pleaded for a subsidy. The Queen wanted it urgently, having in vain raised money by the sale of her own jewels, by loans, and by savings out of her purse and apparel. He argued for its equal

payment by every class. The burden he acknowledged was CHAP. XV. not the same to all, as Bacon had contended, dulcis tractus pari jugo. Call you this par jugum,' cried Ralegh, 'when a poor man pays as much as a rich, and peradventure his estate is no better than it is set at, while our estates are £3 or £4 in the Queen's books, and it is not the hundredth part of our wealth?' But he knew all must be taxed, in order that the necessary sums might be levied. In his Prerogative of Parliaments he mentions that he once moved an exemption by commandment of Queen Elizabeth, who desired much to spare the common people.' On calculation, it was found that the exemption reduced the subsidy to a trifle. He delivered a 'sharp speech' in his own defence, in a debate against Monopolies. monopolies. The Crown in May, 1599, had arrogated a right of preemption of tin in the Duchy of Cornwall, and had committed the management of the business to the Warden of the Stannaries. Deliverance of the miners from the oppression of the merchants was alleged as the motive. The real object was popularly believed to be the increase of Ralegh's emoluments. In Parliament he took the other ground. Previously, whether tin were 175. or 50s. a hundred, the workman, he argued, had only 'two shillings a week, finding himself.' Since the grant of his patent, every miner, be tin at what price soever, had 4s. a week truly paid. Yet, if other patents were cancelled, he would, he said, freely consent to the abrogation of his. A great and uncommon silence is reported to have followed this speech. Other patentees in the House were probably not inclined to be as self-denying. He supported a proposal to prohibit the exportation of ordnance, notwithstanding the rise, under the existing law, of the duty to £3000 a year. He said: 'I am sure heretofore one ship of her Majesty's was able to beat ten Spaniards; but now, by reason of our own ordnance, we are hardly matched one to one.' He supported the continuance of the tax for the improvement of Dover harbour. The amount was 1000 marks a year. Mr. Swale objected that the port was never the better.