CHAPTER XVII.

THE FALL (April-June, 1603).

ELIZABETH died on March 24, 1603. In the previous September Howard had reported her 'never so gallant many years, nor so set upon jollity.' James set out from Scotland on April 5. Ralegh at the Queen's death was in the West. He returned hastily to London. There is a legend, countenanced by Sir John Hawles, that, with Sir John Fortescue and Cobham, he tried a movement for 'articling' with James before proclaiming him. Unsuspicious Aubrey narrates that at a consultation at Whitehall he went to the length of recommending the establishment of a 'commonwealth.' His object, he is said to have explained, was to save Englishmen from being subject to a needy, beggarly nation like the Scotch. Neither story rests on any foundation, except some possible light taunt of his. His name was not appended to the Proclamation, as he was not a Privy Councillor; but he was present at a meeting in the evening, when a loyal letter of welcome to the King was drawn up, and he signed it. Immediately afterwards he started, like many others, northwards, and met the King at Burleigh House. Cecil had taken credit for having stayed, he said, the journey of the Captain of the Guard, who was conducting many suitors to James. Ralegh did not suffer himself to be stopped either by Cecil's advice or by a Proclamation against the resort to the King of persons holding public offices, to the injury of public business. He assigned as the cause of his arrival the need of a royal letter to authorize the continuance of legal

Successor.

process in the Duchy of Cornwall, and to check the waste of CH. XVII. royal woods and parks within it. Unmannerly James is said Introduction by Aubrey to have received him with a poor rude pun on his to the name: 'Rawly! Rawly! true enough, for I think of thee very rawly, mon.' Isaac D'Israeli credits the story. He superfluously thinks it settles, as without better authority than the King's broad Scotch it certainly could not, the proper pronunciation of the name. In itself it may be rather more plausible than Aubrey's tale of Ralegh's reply to the King's boast that he could have won the succession by force: 'Would God,' cried Ralegh, 'that had been put to the trial!' 'Why?' asked James. 'Because,' was the oracular answer- never,' says Aubrey, 'forgotten or forgiven '-'your Majesty would then have known your friends from your foes.' It is much easier to agree with the apparent meaning of Aubrey's interrupted general reflection on the first meeting of King and subject: 'Sir Walter Ralegh had that awfulness and ascendency in his aspect over other mortals that the K- At all events, the King ordered the speedy delivery of the authorization, that Ralegh might have no excuse for delay. The unwelcome guest took the hint. Acting-Secretary Sir Thomas Lake reported to Cecil that he was gone, having 'to my seeming taken no great root here.'

At a council held by James at Cecil's seat of Theobald's, monopolies granted by Elizabeth were called in. The measure was based by its authors upon the need of popularity for the new reign. They were not sorry to hit Ralegh with the same stone. A question was raised at the Board whether the office of wine licenser were not a monopoly. Until the Council should have decided, the levy of all dues was suspended. A large part of Ralegh's income was at once cut off. He was summoned a few days later to the Council Chamber at Whitehall, to be informed that the King had appointed Sir Thomas Erskine, afterwards Earl of Kellie, Captain of the Guard. To this he is related to have in very humble manner submitted himself. His enemies knew they could in this as in other ways wound him with a certainty of applause for the gratification of their

CH. XVII. spite. Within a month of the Queen's decease a prayer of 'poor men' had been addressed to James against monopolies. The manifesto contained an especial allusion to Ralegh, of whom it wildly spoke as about to be created Earl of Pembroke. So, on the occasion of the dismissal from the command of the Guard, Beaumont, the French Ambassador, informed his Court that Cecil had induced the King to make the change on the ground of Ralegh's unpopularity, which would render his removal highly acceptable to the country. Henry Howard, before the demise of the Crown, when the effect of Ralegh's blandishments upon James was feared, had preached to the King on the same text. He reported a refusal by Elizabeth of the command of a regiment to Northumberland, for the reason that 'Ralegh had made the Earl as odious as himself, because he would not be singular, and such were not to be employed by princes of sound policy.'

Odium.

For the present a semblance of consideration was preserved. The loss of the Captaincy was apparently sweetened by the elimination from his patent for the Governorship of Jersey of the reservation of £300 a year to the Crown or Seymour, and by the condonation of some arrears due from him. His fall elicited from him no symptom of anger against the King. If a letter purporting to be addressed by him to James be genuine, though the evidence for it is not strong, he was not as placid with respect to others. There the loss of his captaincy is angrily imputed to Cecil, who is accused of having brought about the deaths both of Essex and Queen Mary. Chronology must have forbidden James to attach weight to the latter allegation, if he had cared for it. On the former he would be better inclined to credit Howard, who asserted that Cecil had worked for Essex's deliverance. Cecil himself could produce the letter of 1600-1, signed 'W. R.' Soon Ralegh experienced a fresh proof of his helplessness, in a notice of ejectment from Durham House. Bishop Tobias Matthew of Durham met James at Berwick, and gained his ear. He used his influence and Ralegh's odium to procure an order for the restoration of the

London episcopal residence. It was retaliation for his loss of CH. XVII. the See of Sarum through Ralegh. On May 31 a royal warrant was issued for the removal of the present occupants, Ralegh and Sir Edward Darcy. Ralegh wrote on June 8 or 9, asking permission to stay till Michaelmas. He pleaded the £2000 he had spent on the structure during the twenty years of his tenancy. He recounted his outlay on autumn and winter provisions for a household of forty persons and twenty horses. He complained to no purpose. He was ordered to quit by Midsummer.

Advice.

Notwithstanding rebuffs, he continued to frequent the Court. Inopportune He was at Beddington Park when the King on his Progress visited Sir Francis Carew, Lady Ralegh's uncle. Ralegh previously had laid before James a Discourse touching a War with Spain, and of the Protecting of the Netherlands. It is a most forcible, and, from its own point of view, sagacious disquisition in favour of persistency in the war with Spain, and the alliance with Holland, as well for offensive purposes against the Spaniards, as for defence, whether against Spain or France. As a controversial pamphlet it evinces none of the want of judgment with which Hallam charges Ralegh, though the defect appears plainly in his obtrusion of such views upon James. At Beddington he had an opportunity of clenching his argument, and the King's suspicions, by an offer, of which he subsequently boasted, to invade the Spanish dominions, at no cost to the King, with 2000 men. In the treatise he opposed the conclusion of any hasty peace with Spain. He referred to another essay, now lost, and never published, in which he had indicated How War may be made against Spain and the Indies. Spain was anxious for peace, and desired to consolidate it by separating England from France and Holland. The negotiations had begun in the lifetime of Elizabeth. They had excited much party spirit at Court, where Cobham already was conspicuous as their advocate, and Ralegh as their opponent. James's accession infused additional keenness into the contest. France was apprehensive of the King's proclivity towards an alliance,

CH. XVII. not merely peace, with Spain. Henry IV was not disinclined to the restoration of tranquillity in Europe. He was afraid of an Anglo-Spanish pacification of a character so cordial as to affect the league between the French and English Governments as it had existed in the late reign. He sent Sully over to cement the good understanding of the two States by arguments and gifts to the leading courtiers. Sully found the new Court honeycombed with intrigues. His fixed idea was that Spain was meditating much beyond the simple alienation of England from her ancient allies; qu'il se tramait quelque chose de bien plus important.' By means of the competing factions he tried to discover this great secret design. His researches were not confined to statesmen in authority, like Cecil, whom he characterizes in his candid Memoirs as 'tout mystère,' caring for no combination except so far as it might serve his individual political interests. He pursued his inquiries also among politicians out of power. The Fourth They composed, he says, a 'Fourth Party,' with no basis of agreement, unless that its members could agree with no other party. He names as its leaders Northumberland, Southampton, Cumberland, Cobham, Ralegh, and Griffin Markham. They are described by him as gens seditieux, de caractère purement Anglais, et prêts a tout entreprendre en faveur des nouveautés, fut-ce contre le Roi.' Northumberland he induced by a large pension to collect for him secret intelligence, though he did not believe it. All he obtained from Milords Cobham et Raleich' was that, when he broached to them his notion of the dark schemes of Spain, they replied 'conformement à cet avis.'

Party.

His communications with Ralegh were limited to the extraction of this expression of assent. Nowhere does he assert or imply that Ralegh accepted any present from him, or entered into any compact. Yet Hume founds on the bald statement of sympathy a formal allegation that Ralegh offered his services to France, and that the offer was repulsed. It is a sample of the way in which he has been traduced. Sully's evidence exhibits him in his invariable attitude of an adversary of Spain and Spanish pretensions. It does not indicate the smallest tendency