Meere.

prerogatives of Constable and Bailiff to license the killing CHAP. XV. of animals for meat in Lent. Ralegh nominated another Bailiff, but Meere refused to retire. The family had interest with one of the Howards, Viscount Bindon, of whose 'extortions' and 'poisoning of his wife' Ralegh takes merit to himself for not having spoken. Mrs. Meere, too, was a kinswoman of Lady Essex. Long strife had prejudiced Ralegh so bitterly against both Meere and Essex that he believed either capable of any monstrosity. He did the Earl's memory the injustice of fancy- Strife with ing that he secretly had meant to use the Bailiff for a malicious forgery; 'for,' said Ralegh, 'he writes my hand so perfectly as I cannot any way discern the difference.' Colour is given to the charge against him of the forgery of an Irish lease, by the fact that Digby afterwards prosecuted him for the forgery of Ralegh's signature to a conveyance of English lands to Captain Caufeilde. Meere in August, 1601, arrested the opposition Bailiff. For this Ralegh put him in the stocks in Sherborne marketplace, and had him bound over to good behaviour by the county justices. Thereupon Meere served upon Ralegh and others twenty-six subpoenas. Next year the conflict went on raging. Meere succeeded at the assizes in sustaining his right. to the bailiwick. As Ralegh kept him out nevertheless, he petitioned the Star Chamber. Ralegh on his part complained loudly that, through Lord Bindon's influence, Meere, at once 'a notorious cowardly brute, and of a strong villainous spirit,' had been allowed to sue him, though out of the land in Jersey.

Yet these vexations only made him cling the more fondly to his Sherborne home. He hoped to dwell happily and splendidly there himself, to be buried in its minster, and to leave it to a long line of descendants. While he had only a ninety-nine years' lease, he had conveyed his term to trustees for his son Walter. He had done this by two conveyances. These he revoked in 1598. His motives, he explained later, were several I found my fortune at Court towards the end of her Majesty's reign to be at a stand, and that I daily expected

:

Sir Amias
Preston's
Challenge.

CHAP XV. dangerous employments against her Majesty's enemies, and had not in the former grants made any provision for my wife.' He re-settled the property on his son, reserving £200 a year to Lady Ralegh for her life. After he had acquired the fee, he conveyed it by deed at Midsummer, 1602, to himself for life, with successive remainders to his son Walter, to any future sons, and to his brother Carew Ralegh. The deed had been drawn by Doddridge, afterwards a judge, many months before it was sealed. The reason of the date chosen for its formal execution was stated by himself at his trial to have been a challenge from Sir Amias Preston in the summer of 1602. Preston was the captain who, being too late to join the Guiana expedition, went off with Sommers on an independent quest. He had signalized himself at Cadiz, where Essex knighted him. The challenge may have arisen out of the Essex feud, for Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Essex's vehement partisan, is known to have been concerned in it. No duel was fought. Fuller, who errs in describing Ralegh as a Privy Councillor, says in his Worthies: 'Sir Walter Ralegh declined the challenge without any abatement to his valour; for having a fair and fixed estate, with wife and children, being a Privy Councillor, and Lord Warden of the Stannaries, he looked upon it as an uneven lay to stake himself against Sir Amias, a private and single person, though of good birth and courage, yet of no considerable estate.' Fuller's account is not to be rejected because the ground assigned may not seem very heroic. Duelling was governed by prosaic laws. Nobody was expected to risk his life on unequal terms. There had to be a parity of ranks; and the same principle might well apply to fortunes. Ralegh himself had no such fondness for the fashionable mode of adjusting quarrels as to waive any orthodox right of refusal. In his History he denounces 'the audacious, common, and brave, yet outrageous vanity of duellists.' Men who die in single combat he styles martyrs of the Devil.' He derides the victor's honours, 'where the hangman gives the garland,' and the folly of the duellist's principle, that rudeness' ought to be

civilized with death.' In the essay entitled Instructions to his CHAP. XV. Son, he declares a challenge justifiable only if the offence proceed from another; it is not, he says, 'if the offence proceed from thyself, for if thou overcome, thou art under the cruelty of the law; if thou art overcome, thou art dead or dishonoured.'

quences.

At any rate, whatever the origin or issue of the dispute, he Its consethought he was going to fight. In consequence, as he stated subsequently, he resolved to leave his estate settled. An incident of his preparations, which seemed trivial at the time, assumed preposterous gravity later on. He had spread out his loose papers, and among them a book by one Snagge, which he had borrowed from the dead Lord Burleigh's library. In it the title of the King of Scots to the succession was contested. Cobham, who may well have been Ralegh's intended second, happened to see and carry off the volume. It was found at a critical moment in his possession, and was traced to Ralegh. That was an affair of the future. For the present Ralegh probably associated Sir Amias Preston's challenge chiefly with the definite disposition of his property in a manner consonant with the creation of an affluent and permanent county family.

CH. XVI.

Subordin

ation.

CHAPTER XVI.

COBHAM AND CECIL (1601-1603).

His aim was

He did not know it, but he was now at the culmination of his prosperity. His kinsman, the learned Richard Carew, dedicated to him at the beginning of 1602 the Survey of Cornwall, in terms, which, however exalted, were not exaggerated. He had a noble estate, his sovereign's renewed confidence, and many important offices. In politics he was still among those who followed rather than led, who executed, and did not direct. Impatience of Of constant subordination he was become impatient. He was not content to be nothing more than 'a swordsman,' an instrument, though highly distinguished and favoured. to force his entrance within the citadel of administrative power. As a counsellor he exerted commanding weight on two main branches of national policy, Ireland and armaments. His Irish policy has been refuted by events. It is open to all the accusations which have been brought against it of cruelty and remorselessness. But its temper was that of a large body of English statesmen; and he understood much better than the rest the true method of putting it in practice. Had he been a Minister, and not only a royal confidant, he might have succeeded for a time in establishing in Ireland a peace of silence. He held as fixed and more generous views on the subject of national defences, and on the proper strategy in dealing with Spain. He fretted at being condemned to urge them from the outside instead of within. His exclusion from partnership in responsible authority was, he felt, perpetual, unless

he could break in. Probably at no period did he aspire after CH. XVI. supremacy, or expect to dispossess Cecil. His ambition, though restricted to the hope of admittance to association, would not the less bring him into collision with the jealous Secretary. He was reported in 1598 to be ambitious of a peerage. He cared more for power than titles, and his ancient friends, like his ancient rivals, thwarted his plans. We know that Cecil could not bear even so moderate an approximation for him to official trust as his regular introduction into the Privy The Privy Council. For that he had so long been craving and looking, that, according to Henry Howard's taunt, he by this time 'found no view for Paradise out of a Council board.' In June, 1601, there had been, as in 1598, a prospect of his nomination. Lords Shrewsbury and Worcester instead were sworn in. Cecil intimated his satisfaction. He told Sir George Carew that Ralegh should never have his consent to be a Councillor, unless he surrendered to Carew the Captaincy of the Guard.

Ralegh's efforts for a line of his own in statesmanship, and Cecil's consequent antagonism, are the special features of the coming chapter in his biography. His relations to the Cecils had always been intimate. Lord Burleigh, notwithstanding differences concerning Ireland, encouraged him as a counterpoise to Leicester. He repaid the kindness, it will be recollected, by interceding for the Lord Treasurer's son-in-law. He was a guest at the entertainment Burleigh gave to Arabella Stuart. With Robert Cecil Ralegh's connexion was much closer. Cecil valued his help at Court, and his society. In February, 1598, during his mission to France, he mentions him to Burleigh as one with whose kindness he has been long and truly fastened.' 'If some idle errand,' he writes word, 'can send over Sir Walter, let us have him.' With seeming sincerity he wrote in 1600 of him as one 'whose judgment I hold great, as his person dear.' He was a companion of Ralegh in several of his privateering speculations. Lady Ralegh wrote of Lady Cecil as of a sympathetic friend.

Council.