<84>On March 24, within a few hours[52] after the death of the Queen, a meeting was held at Whitehall. The Privy Councillors had 1603.March 24.Council at Whitehall.hastened in from Richmond, and summonses had been issued requesting the attendance of the Peers who were in London at the time, with that of the Lord Mayor, and of a few other persons of note.
As soon as those who had been invited had assembled, a proclamation was produced, which had been composed by Cecil Proclamation of James I.in anticipation of the death of Elizabeth. A copy of it had already been sent to Scotland, and had received the approval of James.[53] After some discussion it was agreed to, and at ten o’clock the whole of the councillors and nobility present went out before the palace-gate, where the proclamation which announced the peaceable accession of James I. was read by Cecil himself in the presence of a large concourse of people.[54] The ceremony was repeated in the City. The countenances of all who witnessed it testified their satisfaction with the step which had been taken. During the time of the Queen’s illness watch and ward had been kept in the City. Wealthy men had brought in their plate and <85>treasure from the country, and had put them in places of security. Ships of war had been stationed in the Straits of Dover to guard against a foreign invasion; and some of the principal recusants had, as a matter of precaution, been committed to safe custody. All the apprehensions with which men’s minds had been filled were now at an end. The citizens showed their confidence in the Government by putting up their weapons, and returning to their several occupations. All over England the proclamation met with a similar reception. If ever there was an act in which the nation was unanimous, it was the welcome with which the accession of the new Sovereign was greeted.
On the day after the proclamation had been issued, Thomas Somerset and Sir Charles Percy were despatched to Edinburgh March 25.Proceedings of the Council after the Queen’s death.by the Council to inform the King of all that had passed. It was probably on the following day that a scene took place which, a century earlier, would have been of some importance. The Earl of Northumberland was a man of considerable learning and ability, but hot-headed and impatient of control. A few days before the Queen’s death he had been requested, together with Lord Cobham and Lord Thomas Howard, to take part in the deliberations of the Council. He had appeared at the head of more than a hundred men, had talked loudly of the necessity of acknowledging James, and had declared that he was ready to put to death anyone who was proposed in opposition to him.[55] He now stepped forward in defence of the privileges of the old nobility. He had heard that the Privy Councillors had met at the Earl of Nottingham’s, in order to take measures for removing the Queen’s body to London. He thought this a good opportunity to remind them that, in consequence of the death of the Queen, they had ceased to occupy any official position, until they were confirmed in their places by the new King. He told them that the peerage had too long been <86>treated with contempt, and that they were determined to submit to it no longer. Sir Thomas Egerton, the Lord Keeper, with admirable self-control, at once admitted that his authority ceased with the death of the Queen, and proposed that he, and all the Councillors who were not members of the Upper House, should resign to the Lords their seats at the head of the table. The peers who were present would not hear of this proposal, and everything went on as usual.[56]
As may be imagined, the Councillors were not anxious to prolong this uncertain position of affairs, and messengers were again March 28.Order prevails.despatched to the King begging him to establish some settled government. Practically no harm was done. The French ambassador was struck, as his countrymen have often been on similar occasions, with the ready obedience which was paid to authorities who held power by so uncertain a tenure. Even in those days the long exercise of the duties and privileges of self-government enabled Englishmen to pass through a political crisis with a calmness which appeared almost miraculous in the eyes of a foreigner. On April 5, however, the crisis was at an end. The Government was able to inform the people that letters had been received from the King, confirming all officers in their places till his arrival in England.
The two gentlemen who had been selected by the Council were not the first to carry the great news to Edinburgh. A certain Sir R. Carey takes the first news of the Queen’s death.George Marshall was probably the first to bear the information to James.[57] Sir Robert Carey too had slipped away as soon as he was certain of the Queen’s death, having previously taken the precaution of placing post-horses along the road. He hoped to reap a rich reward by being the bearer of the news that his benefactress was no longer able to do him offices of kindness. He was probably, however, anticipated by Marshall, <87>and it is satisfactory to know that, although he was taken into favour by James, the rewards which he received were, in his own estimation, an inadequate remuneration of the service which he rendered on this important occasion.[58]
On April 5, the new Sovereign set out from Edinburgh. The impression which he created was on the whole favourable. April 5.James sets out from Edinburgh.Of his deeper characteristics, nothing could as yet be known. His personal appearance was in his favour. He was somewhat above the middle height, fair-complexioned, fond of active exercises, especially in the hunting-field, and well pleased to throw ceremony aside with those whom he admitted to his intimacy.[59] His moral habits were praiseworthy. He was faithful and affectionate to his wife, Anne of Denmark, though her levity must often have annoyed him, and though he was certainly not abstemious, he was never intoxicated.[60]
James did not arrive in the neighbourhood of London till May 3. He must have thought that he had entered upon the government of El Dorado. Every nobleman and gentleman kept open house as he passed. He spent his time in festivities and amusements of various kinds. The gentry of the counties through which his journey lay thronged in to see him. Most of them returned home decorated with the honours of knighthood, a title which he dispensed with a profusion which astonished those who remembered the sober days of Elizabeth. One act of his gave rise to no friendly comments. At Newark he ordained that a cutpurse, who was taken in the crowd, should at once be hanged without form of trial. As he never repeated <88>this mistake, it may be supposed that he was warned by his councillors that he could not violate with impunity the first principles of English law.
The number of those who were flocking northwards gave some uneasiness to the Councillors. To the proclamation in which they announced that the King had confirmed them in their offices they added a paragraph forbidding general resort to the new Sovereign. It may reasonably be supposed that they had other motives than a desire to save the northern counties from the crowds which threatened to devour all their resources.[61] It is not strange that the men who had possessed the confidence of the late Queen, and who had skilfully held the reins of government during the critical times which were now happily at an end, should have been anxious to be the first to give an account of their stewardship to their new master. A day or two after the issue of the proclamation they put a stop to the journey of the man whom above all others they were desirous of keeping at a distance from the King. Sir Walter Raleigh.Sir Walter Raleigh was setting out at the head of a large body of suitors when he received an order to relinquish his intention.
It is difficult for us at this distance of time to realise the feelings with which Raleigh was regarded by the great mass of his contemporaries. To us he is the man who had more genius than all the Privy Council put together. At the first mention of his name, there rises up before us the remembrance of the active mind, the meditative head, and the bold heart, which have stamped themselves indelibly upon the pages of the history of two continents. Above all, we think of him as the victim of oppression, sobered down by the patient endurance of an undeserved imprisonment, and as finally passing into his bloody grave, struck down by an unjust sentence. To the greater number of the men amongst whom he moved, he was simply the most unpopular man in England. Here and there were to be found a few who knew his worth. Those who had served under him, like his faithful Captain Keymis, and those who, like Sir John Harington, merely met him occasionally in social <89>intercourse, knew well what the loyal heart of the man really was. But by the multitude, whom he despised, and by the grave statesmen and showy courtiers with whom he jostled for Elizabeth’s favour, he was regarded as an insolent and unprincipled wretch, who feared neither God nor man, and who would shrink from no crime if he could thereby satisfy his ambitious desires. There can be no doubt that these charges, frivolous as they must seem to those who know what Raleigh’s true nature was, had some basis in his character. Looking down as he did from the eminence of genius upon the actions of lesser men, he was too apt to treat them with the arrogance and scorn which they seldom deserved, and which it was certain that they would resent.[62]
In the latter years of Elizabeth’s reign his heart had been set upon becoming a Privy Councillor. Elizabeth was determined that he should not have the object of his wishes. She was glad to have him at hand, knowing as she did the value of his counsel in times of danger, and that there were many services for which it was impossible to find a fitter man; but, at a time when she was herself anxious for peace, she would not trust in the council chamber a man whose voice was still for war.
<90>He, too, turned with hope to the rising sun. Like all true-hearted Englishmen, he saw that the accession of James was indispensable to the safety of the country, and he trusted to find his account in the change. As it was, he must have been miserable enough; he had not a single friend with whom he could co-operate upon equal terms. Northumberland shared his counsels, but refrained from giving him his confidence. The poor mean-spirited Lord Cobham seemed to be the only human being, with the exception of those who were dependent upon him, who attached himself to him at all. He tried to take Cecil into his confidence, and to share his schemes for the furtherance of James’s prospects, but Cecil preferred to keep his secrets to himself, and warned him off with a few polite sentences, telling him that he, for one, had no intention of looking forward to such an event as his mistress’s death.[63]
With all his good qualities, and they were many, Cecil was not the man to comprehend Raleigh. Himself without a spark of true genius, Sir Robert Cecil.he was not likely to be able to detect it in others. To his orderly and systematic mind, Raleigh was a self-seeking adventurer, and Bacon an imaginative dreamer. He could no more understand the thoughts which filled their minds, than he could understand why the Catholics ought to be tolerated, or why the Puritan clergy ought to be allowed to break through the established rules of the Church. His ideas on all important subjects were the ideas which had been prevalent at the Court of Elizabeth at the time when he first grew up to manhood under his father’s care. In all the numerous speeches which he delivered, and in all letters which have come down to us written by his hand, it is impossible to detect a single original idea. Nor was he mere successful in action. Other men of less ability have left their mark upon the history of the constitution. No important measure, no constitutional improvement, connects itself with the name <91>of Robert Cecil. As Bacon said of him, he was magis in operatione quam in opere.
It was not altogether his own fault. His education had been against him. Like the Emperors who were born in the purple, he was unfortunately looked upon from his childhood as an hereditary statesman. He had never known what it was to be in opposition. He had never had the inestimable advantage of mixing with his countrymen as one who was unconnected with official position and official men. He was the first and greatest of that unhappy race of statesmen who were trained for their work as for a profession. If he had, like his father, known a time when the government had been conducted on principles which he detested, he might have risen into a clearer knowledge of the wants of the nation which he was called to guide. Even as it was, he never sank to the level of the Nauntons and the Windebanks, who were to follow.
James did not hesitate for a moment where to place his confidence. In after years he was in the habit of congratulating himself that he had not imitated Rehoboam in displacing the counsellors of his predecessor, and of those counsellors there was none to whom he owed so deep a debt of gratitude as he did to Cecil. His first thought on receiving intelligence of the Queen’s death, was to express his thanks to Cecil for his careful attention to his interests. “How happy I think myself,” he wrote, “by the conquest of so faithful and so wise a counsellor, I reserve it to be expressed out of my own mouth unto you.”[64] The confidence which James thus bestowed was never withdrawn as long as Cecil lived.
Although the sphere of his vision was limited, within that sphere he was unrivalled by the statesmen of his day. As an administrator, he was unequalled for patient industry, and for the calm good sense with which he came to his conclusions. If he clung to office with tenacity, and if he regarded with undue suspicion those who were likely to be his rivals, he was no mere ambitious aspirant for place, to clutch at all posts the duties of which he was unwilling or unable to perform. The <92>labours which he underwent were enormous. As Secretary, he had to conduct the whole of the civil administration of the kingdom, to keep his eye upon the plots and conspiracies which were bursting out in every direction, to correspond with the Irish Government and to control its policy, and to carry on through the various ambassadors complicated negotiations with every State of importance in Europe. Besides all this, when Parliament was sitting, it was on him that the duty chiefly devolved of making the policy of the Government palatable to the House of Commons, of replying to all objections, and of obtaining the King’s consent to the necessary alterations. As if all this were not enough, during the last few years of his life he undertook the office of Treasurer in addition to that of Secretary. Upon him fell all the burden of the attempt which he made to restore to a sound condition the disordered finances, and of mastering the numerous details from which alone he could obtain the knowledge necessary in order to remedy the evil.
To this unflagging industry he added the no less valuable quality of unfailing courtesy. Nothing ever seemed to ruffle his temper. When the great financial scheme for which he had laboured so long, and over which he had spent so many weary hours, was definitely wrecked, he said no more than that he thought the Lord had not blessed it. He was one of those who never willingly wounded the feelings of any man, and who never treated great or small with insolence.[65]
Although there are circumstances in his life which tell against him, it is difficult to read the whole of the letters and documents which have come down to us from his pen, without becoming gradually convinced of his honesty of intention. It cannot be denied that he was satisfied with the ordinary morality of his time, and that he thought it no shame to keep a state secret or to discover a plot by means of a falsehood. If he grasped at power as one who took pleasure in the exercise of it, he used it for what he regarded as the true interests of his king and country.
<93>Nor are we left to his own acts and words as the only means by which we are enabled to form a judgment of his character. Of all the statesmen of the day, not one has left a more blameless character than the Earl of Dorset. Dorset took the opportunity of leaving upon record in his will, which would not be read till he had no longer injury or favour to expect in this world, the very high admiration in which his colleague was held by him. Of all the statesmen who fell from power during the same period, it has been considered that none was more unjustly treated than Northumberland, and of this injustice the full weight has been laid upon Cecil’s shoulders. Yet, a few months after Northumberland was committed to the Tower, his brother, Sir Alan Percy, declared his opinion in a private letter that the removal of Cecil from the Council would be a blow by which the position of the Earl would only be changed for the worse.[66]
When the order was issued for stopping Raleigh’s journey, Cecil probably thought that he had only done a justifiable act in keeping an unprincipled rival Lord Henry Howard.away from the King. But more than this was necessary. It was important that the Council should have someone by the King’s side who might act for them as occasion might arise. For this purpose they selected Lord Henry Howard.
Of all who gathered round the new King, this man was, beyond all comparison, the most undeserving of the favours which he received. He was a younger son of that Earl of Surrey whose death had been the last of the series of executions which marked the reign of Henry VIII.; and his brother, the Duke of Norfolk, had expiated upon the scaffold the treason which he had meditated for the sake of the fair face of the Queen of Scots. His nephew was that Earl of Arundel who had died in the prison in which he was confined by order of Elizabeth, and who was reverenced as a martyr by the English Catholics. His religion was that which openly or secretly had been the religion of his family. But with this he joined a reverence for the royal prerogative, which had certainly never been felt by his kinsmen. There were, indeed, men among the <94>Catholic lords, such as the Earl of Worcester, whose loyalty was unimpeached. But Howard would not be content with the unobtrusive performance of duties with which these men had been satisfied. In an age when what we should call the grossest flattery was used as frequently as phrases of common civility are by us, he easily bore away the palm for suppleness and flattery. Long ago he had attached himself to James, and he had been by him recommended to Cecil. It would be curious to know how far the feeling with which Cecil regarded Raleigh was owing to the influence of so worthless a companion. Certain it is that Howard hated Raleigh with a perfect hatred, and that Cecil’s estrangement from that great man began about the time when he was first brought into close communion with Howard. Yet with all his faults, the man was no mere empty-headed favourite. He was possessed of considerable abilities, and of no small extent of learning. He took his share in the duties of government with credit, but, as long as Cecil lived, he was obliged to be content to play a secondary part.
A few days later Cecil himself went down to meet the King. He had not been with him long before Raleigh learned that April 15.Raleigh dismissed from the Captaincy of the Guard.he was not to retain his position as Captain of the Guard. There can be little doubt that James was guided in this step by Cecil and Howard. On the other hand, it was natural enough that he should wish to see a post of such importance about his own person in the hands of one of his countrymen. Raleigh himself was allowed to see the King at Burghley, where he probably did his utmost to throw blame on his rivals. James, however, paid little attention to his pleadings, and it was not long before Raleigh received a formal announcement that the command of the Guard was given to Sir Thomas Erskine, who had already filled the same office in Scotland. Raleigh was compensated for his loss by the remission[67] of a payment of 300l. a year, which had been charged upon his government of Jersey, and of large arrears of debt which he owed to the Crown.[68]
<95>The removal of Raleigh from the Captaincy of the Guard was only one of the changes in favour of Scotchmen by which in the early days of the new reign May.Quarrels between Scotch and English.the court was agitated. As yet, however, it was a mere courtiers’ question, in which the nation took little part. All the great offices of state were still in the hands of Englishmen. One Scotchman, indeed, Lord Kinloss, became Master of the Rolls; another, Sir George Hume, became Chancellor of the Exchequer and Master of the Wardrobe. But there, so far as public offices were concerned, the promotions which fell to the share of James’s countrymen ceased. The seats which some of them received in the Privy Council were, for the most part, little more than honorary, and do not seem to have given them any great influence over the conduct of affairs. It was as Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, as Masters of the Harriers, and as holders of similar posts about the King’s person, that they provoked the wrath of Englishmen <96>who aspired to these positions. It was not till the sums which should have been applied to national purposes were squandered upon favourites of both nations that the discontent became general. Cecil did his best to put an end to these quarrels, but he did not meet with much success.
The evils under which the English Catholics laboured were of no ordinary description. In the first place, not only was Grievances of the English Catholics.all public celebration of their worship interdicted, but the mere fact of saying mass was sufficient to bring the priest under the penalties of treason, and those penalties were extended to all who should assist or ‘comfort him,’ as the law expressed it. As there were no Catholics who had not at some time or another been present at a mass, the power of the Government to send the whole number of them to execution was only limited by the difficulties of obtaining evidence. If they failed in this, the Ecclesiastical Courts could always issue an excommunication for simple recusancy, or abstaining from attendance upon the Church by law established, and upon this the Civil Courts were empowered to commit the recusant to prison until he submitted. Of course, these harsh measures were only very sparingly employed. But if the penalty did not fall upon all who were threatened, it was kept constantly hanging over their heads, and the Catholics were always liable to arbitrary imprisonments and fines, of which they did not dare to complain, as they were allowed to escape without suffering the full penalty of the law.
But, besides all this, there was a regular system of fines for recusancy authorised by statute. In the first place, all recusants who had sufficient property The recusancy fines.were liable to a fine of 20l. a month. Of those who were so liable at the death of Elizabeth the number was only sixteen. Those who could not pay such large sums forfeited, if the Government chose to exact the penalty, two-thirds of their lands until they conformed. This land was leased out by Commissioners appointed by the Crown for the purpose, and the lessee paid a certain rent into the Exchequer. There still remained another mode of reaching those who had no lands to lose, as the goods and chattels of any person convicted of recusancy might be <97>taken possession of by the Crown. Hard as this treatment was, it was made worse by the misconduct of the constables and pursuivants, whose business it was to search for the priests who took refuge in the secret chambers which were always to be found in the mansions of the Catholic gentry. These wretches, under pretence of discovering the concealed fugitives, were in the habit of wantonly destroying the furniture or of carrying off valuable property. It was useless to complain, as there were few, if any, Catholics who had not given the law a hold upon them by the support given to their priests.
Under such an abominable system, it is no wonder that the Catholics were anxious for any change which might improve their condition, and Hopes of better treatment by James.that they were hardly likely to acquiesce in the doctrine that they were only punished for treason, and not for religion. It was natural, therefore, that both the Pope and the English Catholics should look with hopefulness to the new reign. Both the declarations which James had made, and the manner in which he had acted in Scotland, made many of them expect to find a protector in him.
As Elizabeth’s reign drew to a close, Pope Clement VIII., in response to the letter which had been brought to him by Drummond, and Lindsay’s mission to Scotland.which he believed to have emanated from James himself[69], thought of despatching the Bishop of Vaison to Scotland.[70] In order, however, to be thoroughly sure of his ground, he took advantage of a visit which Sir James Lindsay, a Scottish Catholic, was preparing to make to his native country, to sound James on his intentions towards the Catholics. Lindsay brought with him a complimentary letter from Clement to the King. He was also directed to assure James that the Pope was ready to thwart any designs which might be entertained by the English Catholics in opposition to his claim to the throne, and to invite him, if he would not himself forsake the Protestant faith, at least to allow his eldest son to be educated in the Catholic religion. If this <98>were done, Clement was ready to place a large sum of money at James’s disposal.[71] To this message James returned a verbal answer, giving to Lindsay at the same time a paper of instructions for his guidance. In these he was directed to tell the Pope that ‘the King could not satisfy his desire in those particular points contained in his letter.’ He was much obliged to him for his offers to befriend him, and hoped to be able to return his courtesy. He would never dissemble his own opinions, and would never reject reason whenever he heard it.[72] Lindsay was prevented by illness from returning, and the Pope received no answer to his proposal till after the crisis had passed.[73]
The Pope, indeed, before he was aware of James’s favourable intentions, had sent two breves to Garnet, the Provincial of the English Jesuits, The breves to the English Catholics.in which directions were given that, as soon as Elizabeth died, the Catholics should take care that, if possible, no one should be allowed to succeed except one who would not only grant toleration, but would directly favour the Catholic religion.[74] When Garnet <99>received these breves, early in 1602, he was at White Webbs, a house frequented by the Jesuits, in Enfield Chase. He was there consulted by Catesby, Tresham, and Winter, men whose names afterwards became notorious for their connection with the Gunpowder Plot, as to the propriety of sending one of their number to the King of Spain, in order to induce him to attempt an invasion of England. Winter was selected, and though Garnet, according to his own account, disapproved of these proceedings, he gave him a letter of introduction to Father Cresswell, at Madrid. Winter found a good reception in Spain; but Elizabeth died before any preparations were made. Garnet either saw that there was no chance of resisting James, or was satisfied that the lot of the Catholics would be improved under his sceptre, and burnt the breves.[75] Another mission was sent to Spain, but the King was now anxious for peace with England, and would give no assistance.
Towards the end of 1602, or in the beginning of the following year, an attempt was made in another quarter to obtain a direct promiser of toleration from James. Letters of Northumberland.Northumberland did not care much about religion himself, but he was closely connected with several Catholics, who urged him to obtain a promise from the King that he would do something to improve their condition. He accordingly sent one of his relations, Thomas Percy, to James, with a letter, in which, after professing his own loyalty and giving him much good advice, he added that ‘it were pity to lose so good a kingdom for not tolerating a mass in a corner.’[76] Percy, on his return, gave out that toleration had been promised by James. In the King’s written answer to Northumberland, <100>however, not a word is to be found referring to his proposal on this subject.[77] Northumberland, who continued the correspondence, again pressed the matter upon the King. This time he received an answer. “As for Catholics,” wrote James, “I will neither persecute any that will be quiet and give but an outward obedience to the law, neither will I spare to advance any of them that will by good service worthily deserve it.”[78] It is plain that, though to a sanguine mind these words might seem to convey a promise of toleration, there was nothing in them really inconsistent with the deportation of every priest in England.
The ease with which James’s title was acclaimed in England did something to raise doubts in his mind as to the value of the services which the Catholics had offered him. James’s expressions after his accession.“Na, na,” he was heard to say, “we’ll not need the Papists now.”[79] But on the whole the information which reached London was such as to reassure the Catholics. James had openly declared that he would not exact the fines. He would not make merchandise of conscience, nor set a price upon faith.[80]
James continued to hold this language during his journey southwards. On May 3 he arrived at Theobalds, May 3.James arrives at Theobalds.a house belonging to Cecil, not far from London. His first acts were such as to increase his popularity. He ordered that Southampton, and the remainder of those who had been imprisoned for their share in the rebellion of Essex, should be set at liberty. Four days after his arrival May 7.Monopolies called in.he issued a proclamation concerning those monopolies which still remained in force, commanding all persons to abstain from making use of them till they could satisfy the Council that they were not prejudicial to the King’s subjects. The patentees were accordingly allowed to state their case before the Council, and the greater part of the existing <101>monopolies were called in. No doubt this was done by the advice of the Council. The recusancy fines to be collected.That advice was also given in support of the continued exaction of the Recusancy fines, and James accordingly gave way and ordered the fines to be collected. May 13.Cecil raised to the peerage.If the Catholics, he said openly, were of a religion different from his own, they could not be good subjects.[81] Cecil was now in high favour.
On May 13 he was raised to the peerage by the title of Lord Cecil of Essendon. Three other barons were created at the same time. These were the first of a series of creations which raised the numbers of the House of Lords with a rapidity that would have astonished Elizabeth.
Having, at all events for the present, refused toleration to the Catholics, James turned his attention to his foreign relations. Peace or war with Spain.As far as England was concerned, with the exception of the disputed right to trade in the East and West Indies, there was absolutely no reason whatever for continuing the war. The failure of the Spaniards in their attempt to gain a footing in Ireland before Elizabeth died had been complete, and they could no longer cherish any hopes of success in a similar undertaking. Their new king, Philip III., sluggish and incapable as he was, was not likely to attempt to renew his father’s aggressive policy, and it was known that his all-powerful minister, Lerma, was anxious to recruit by peace the exhausted strength of the kingdom. Under these circumstances there wanted little more to constitute a treaty between the two Powers than the few lines in which the simple announcement might be made that hostilities were at an end.
The difficulty which stood in the way was caused by the interminable war in the Netherlands. Since the murder of the French king Henry III. The war in the Netherlands.the Dutch had taken advantage of the diversion which had called away the best generals and the finest soldiers of Spain to spend their strength in a vain struggle against the rising fortunes of Henry IV., and had pushed on, under the able leadership of <102>Maurice, and the no less able statesmanship of Barneveld, till they had swept the Spaniards from the soil of the Seven United Provinces. At last the whole war gathered round Ostend. All the skill and vigour of the Dutch, and of their English allies under the command of Sir Francis Vere, were put forth in defence of that bulwark of the Republic. The siege had now lasted for no less than three long years. With all his military skill, Spinola was still unable to force an entrance. But the Dutch were calling loudly for assistance, and declared that, unless succour were promptly afforded, Ostend must fall, in spite of the valour of its defenders, and that after the fall of Ostend their own territory would become untenable.
There was a large party in England which was desirous to fight the quarrel out with Spain. To many Englishmen Spain was The war party in England.the accursed power which had filled two continents with bloodshed. It was the supporter of the Pope, and of all the tyranny and wickedness under which the world was suffering. This evil power was now weakened by repeated failures. Why not strike one more blow for the cause of God, and hew the monster down? Such feelings found a spokesman in Raleigh. In a paper, which, in the course of the spring, he drew up for presentation to James, he argued with his usual ability for the good old cause. Especially, he pleaded strongly for the Dutch. They had been allies of England in the weary hours of doubt and difficulty. Together the two countries had borne the burden of the day. It was disgraceful — it was infamous — for Englishmen to desert their brothers now that hope was beginning to appear. Not long afterwards Raleigh offered to lead 2,000 men against the King of Spain at his own expense.[82]
Of the spirit of righteous indignation which had animated the Elizabethan heroes in their conflict with Spain, James knew nothing. Opinions of James.He declared for peace immediately upon his arrival in England. He issued a proclamation forbidding the capture of Spanish prizes, and waited for the <103>overtures which he expected from the Court of Spain. Besides this eagerness for peace, he was possessed with the idea that the Dutch were engaged in an unlawful resistance to their lawful king, an idea in which the bishops did their best to confirm him.[83] He was never weary of repeating publicly, to the disgust of the statesmen who had taken part in the counsels of Elizabeth, that the Dutch were mere rebels, and that they deserved no assistance from him.
It is difficult to ascertain with precision what Cecil’s views really were. His father had been the advocate of a Cecil’s views.policy of peace. When Essex, at the Court of Elizabeth, was crying out for war, the aged Burghley opened a Bible, and pointed to the text: “Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days.” Of the memorial on the state of foreign affairs[84] which Burghley’s son now presented to the King, and in which he expressed his thoughts on foreign affairs, a fragment only has been preserved. From that fragment, however, it is plain that he fully shared all Raleigh’s dislike of Spain, and that he was anxious, by all possible means, to check the progress of the Spanish arms in the Netherlands. But he looked upon the whole subject with the eye of a statesman. The lost pages of the memorial probably contained the reasons why it was impossible for England to continue hostilities. He knew, as Elizabeth had known, that Financial difficulties.England could not bear many more years of war. Parliament had voted supplies with no ordinary alacrity, but even these supplies had not relieved the Queen from the necessity of raising money by extensive sales of Crown property, and by contracting loans which were waiting for a speedy repayment. The revenue of the Crown was decreasing, and with the very strictest economy it was impossible for the new King to bring even a peace expenditure within the limits of that revenue which he had received from his predecessor. If Spain was to be driven out of the Netherlands, Parliament must be prepared to vote supplies far larger than they had ever granted to Elizabeth, in times when England itself was in danger.
<104>As far as we can judge by the reports of his language which have reached us through the unfriendly medium of the despatches of French ambassadors, The Netherlands difficulty.Cecil was anxious to see a peace concluded which would relieve England from the burden of an objectless war, and at the same time, to put a check on the encroachments of Spain. The scheme which he would perhaps have preferred, had it been practicable, was the union of the whole of the seventeen provinces under an independent government, which would be strong enough to bid defiance to France as well as to Spain.[85] Such a scheme has always found favour in the eyes of English statesmen. But in 1603, the project would certainly have met with even less success than in 1814. Philip II. indeed had, shortly before his death, taken a step which was intended to facilitate such a settlement. He had made over the sovereignty of the Netherlands to his eldest daughter Isabella and her husband the Archduke Albert, a younger brother of the Emperor Rudolph II. He hoped that the rebels, as he still styled them, would be ready to come to terms with his daughter, though they were unwilling to treat with himself. But even if the Dutch had felt any inclination to submit to a Catholic Sovereign, there were especial reasons which warned them from accepting the dominion of the Archdukes, as the husband and wife were called. Their sovereignty was hampered with so many conditions, and the presence of Spanish troops at the seat of war reduced them to such practical impotence, that it was almost a mockery to speak of them as independent rulers. Besides, no children had been born to the marriage, and the reversion of their rights was vested in the Crown of Spain.
The Dutch had another plan for uniting the seventeen <105>provinces under one government. Let but France and England join in one great effort, and in the course of a year not a single Spanish soldier would be left in the Netherlands.
Was this a policy which an English Government would be justified in carrying out, certain as it was to try the energies of the nation to the utmost? The dull, demoralising tyranny of the sixteenth century had done its work too well. To form a republic which should include the Spanish Provinces would be to realise the fable of the old Italian tyrant, and to bind the living to the dead. This was no work for which England was bound to exhaust her strength.
The true policy of England undoubtedly lay in another direction. If it were once understood that no peace would be made unless the independence of the existing republic were recognised, Spain would certainly submit to the proposed terms. The free North would retain its liberty, the paralysed South would slumber on under the despotism which it had been unable or unwilling to shake off.
It was not the fault of the English Government that this inevitable settlement was postponed through so many years of war. The Dutch embassy.The first embassy which arrived in England to congratulate the new King upon his accession was one from Holland. Barneveld himself had come to see if any help could be obtained from James. Cecil told him plainly that the King desired peace, but that he was ready to consider the case of the States in the negotiation. The Dutch ambassadors answered that peace with Spain was impossible for them. It was no wonder that after all the trickery which they had experienced, they should feel a dislike to enter upon a treaty with their enemy, but they can hardly have expected James to engage himself in an interminable war. Their immediate purpose was, however, to obtain succour for Ostend. Barneveld seems to have made an impression upon the susceptible mind of James, and was, perhaps, the first who induced him to doubt the truth of the sweeping condemnations which he had been accustomed to pass on the cause of the Dutch. He was told, however, that nothing could be finally settled till the arrival of the special embassy which was expected shortly from France. <106>The ambassador who had been chosen by Henry IV. was Rosny’s mission from the King of France.the celebrated Rosny, better known to us by his later title as the Duke of Sully. His main object in coming was to induce James to afford some succour to Ostend.
About the time of his arrival in England, a circumstance occurred which was more favourable to his design than any arguments which it was in his power to use. A priest named Gwynn[86] was taken at sea, and confessed to his captor that his intention in coming to England was to murder the King. The readiness with which he gave this information gives cause for a suspicion that he was not in the full possession of his senses. However this may have been, it was, at least, certain that he came from Spain, and the fright which this affair caused the King, predisposed him to listen to Rosny’s stories of Spanish treachery.[87]
On the occasion of Rosny’s first presentation to James, a curious incident took place. He had come prepared to put himself and his suite Rosny requested not to appear in mourning.into mourning for the late Queen. Just as he was about to leave his apartments, he was informed that the King would be better pleased if he did not come in mourning.[88] There was nothing for it but to submit. The Frenchmen drew their own inferences as to the repute in which the great Queen was held at the court of her successor. Many months were not to pass <107>away before James would speak more reverently of Elizabeth than he was, at this time, accustomed to do. Unfortunately, when that time came, it was chiefly the errors in her policy which attracted his respect.[89]
Rosny’s instructions authorised him to use all means in his power to induce James to unite with France and the Dutch Republic Rosny’s instructions.in opposing the designs of Spain. Henry IV. was not indeed prepared at once to embark on a war with his powerful neighbour; but he was desirous of giving a secret support to the Dutch, and he hoped that James might be induced to pursue a similar course. If, however, it should happen that James preferred to continue the war, Rosny was to discuss the best means of carrying it on, without coming to any final resolution. He was also to propose that the alliance between the two Crowns should be strengthened by a double marriage — of the Dauphin with James’s only daughter, the Lady Elizabeth; and of Prince Henry with Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of the King of France.[90]
After some little time had been spent in negotiations, Rosny obtained from James, by a treaty signed at Hampton Court, June.Treaty with France.some part of that which he had been commissioned to demand. James promised to allow the levy of soldiers in England and Scotland for the defence of Ostend, but it was agreed that Henry should defray the expenses of this force, though a third part of the cost was to be deducted from a debt which he owed to the English Government.[91] With respect to the double marriage nothing was settled. James, on one occasion, drank to the success of the future union; but all the four children were still very young, and there was no necessity of coming to any immediate decision.
On July 21 two members of the Privy Council were raised to the peerage. The Lord Keeper Egerton, who was now dignified with the higher title of Chancellor, became Lord <108>Ellesmere; and Lord Howard of Walden, who, as well as his uncle Lord Henry, had been admitted to the Council, was Creation of peers.created Earl of Suffolk. He had served with distinction at sea in many of the naval expeditions which had been sent forth during the latter years of the late reign. He was known as a well-meaning, easy-tempered man, of moderate talents. It is possible that Lord Henry’s known attachment to the religion of his father[92] may have influenced James in selecting the nephew rather than the uncle as the first recipient of such honours amongst the family of the Howards. It was not till some months later that Lord Henry was raised to the peerage. The young head of the family, too, received back his father’s lost honours, and the name of the Earl of Arundel was once more heard amongst those of the English nobility.
During the month of July the Council was busy in tracking out a Catholic conspiracy which had come to light. Watson’s visit to James.Among the Catholics who had visited James in Scotland before his accession to the English throne, was William Watson, one of the secular priests who had been very busy in his opposition to the Jesuits, and had taken a considerable part in the strife which had divided the English Catholics during the last years of Elizabeth’s reign. A vain, unwise man, his predominant feeling was a thorough hatred of the Jesuits. “He received,” as he tells us, “a gracious and comfortable answer on behalf of all Catholics known to be loyal subjects.”[93] Armed with this promise, and probably exaggerating its meaning, he had busied himself in persuading the Catholic gentry to whom he had access to support James’s title, and to turn a deaf ear to the machinations of the Jesuits; and he flattered himself that it was owing to his influence that <109>all over England the Catholics were among the foremost who supported the proclamation which announced the accession of the new King.
After James had been proclaimed, Watson set himself to counteract the intrigues which he believed the Jesuits to be carrying on in favour of Spanish interests. Watson’s anger at the exaction of the fines.The resolution of James to exact the fines was regarded by him almost in the light of a personal insult. He would become the laughing-stock of the Jesuits, for having believed in the lying promises of a Protestant King. His first thought was to gain favour with the Government by betraying his rivals. But he knew nothing of importance; and, at all costs, he must do something, it mattered not what, by which he might outshine the hated Jesuits. Shortly after he had formed this determination he fell in with another priest named Clarke. They discussed their grievances together with Sir Griffin Markham, a Catholic gentleman, who was, for private reasons, discontented with the Government, and with George Brooke, a brother of Lord Cobham, who, although he was a Protestant, had been disappointed by not obtaining the Mastership of the hospital of St. Cross, near Winchester.
While they were talking these matters over, Markham made the unlucky suggestion that the best way to obtain redress would be Markham advises the seizure of the King.to follow the example which had so often been set by the Scottish nation. The Scots, as was well known, were accustomed, whenever they were unable to obtain what they wished for, to take possession of their King, and to keep him in custody till he consented to give way. It was immediately resolved to adopt this preposterous scheme. But before such a plan could be carried into execution it was necessary to devise some means of rendering it palatable to those whom they sought to enlist in their cause. They knew that all Catholics who would be willing to take arms against the King were already under the influence of the Jesuits. Plans of the conspirators.To obviate this difficulty it was gravely proposed that a number of persons should be collected together under pretence of presenting a petition for toleration to the King: and it was hoped that, when the time <110>came for action, the petitioners would be ready to do as they were bidden by the leaders of the movement. All who signed the petition were to swear that they would endeavour by all ‘lawful means to restore the Catholic faith again in’ the ‘country, to conserve the life of’ their ‘Sovereign in safety, and to preserve the laws of’ the ‘land from all enemies.’ They were to be bound to divulge nothing without the consent of twelve of the principal promoters of the petition. Watson afterwards acknowledged that this clause was a mere trick to bind them to complete secrecy. As the number of the chief promoters was less than twelve, such a consent could never be obtained.
With these views, Watson and his confederates dispersed themselves over the country. They expected to be able to collect a large body of men in London on June 24. These men would, as they hoped, be ready to follow their lead in everything. In order to bring together the requisite numbers, Watson was by no means sparing of falsehoods. The timid were encouraged by hearing of the thousands who were engaged in the affair, or of the noblemen who had already given in their adhesion. All, or almost all, were left under the impression that they were required to join only in the peaceful presentation of a petition.
In the early part of June, Watson, who had now returned to London, proceeded to mature his plans with the help of Markham and of a young man named Copley who had lately been admitted to his confidence. Strange to say, Lord Grey of Wilton listens to them.Brooke introduced to the plotters Lord Grey of Wilton, a hot-headed young man of high character and decided Puritanism. Grey was at that time sadly discontented at the extension of James’s favour to Southampton and to others of the followers of Essex, who were his bitter enemies; and he was induced without difficulty to join in the plan for presenting a petition to James for a general toleration. Though no absolute certainty is attainable, it is probable that he was drawn on to assent, at least for a time, to the scheme for forcing the petition on James. The relation between him and the other conspirators was, however, not one to endure much <111>straining. Before long Watson was considering how he might get credit for himself and the Catholics, by employing Grey to seize the King, and then rescuing James from his grasp when the struggle came. Grey, on the other hand, shrank from the co-operation of his new allies, and under pretext of postponing the scheme to a more convenient opportunity, drew back from all further connection with it.
As the time for executing the scheme approached, Brooke seems to have drawn off. The plan of the confederates, indeed, was wild enough to deter any sober man from joining it. They determine to surprise the King.They intended to seize the King at Greenwich, on June 24. As soon as this had been effected, they were to put on the coats of the King’s guards and to carry him to the Tower, as though he were going there voluntarily. When they arrived at the gate they were to tell the Lieutenant that the King was flying for refuge from traitors. They took it for granted that James would be too terrified to say what the real state of the case was, and they do not seem to have imagined that the mistake could be detected in any other way. Once within the Tower, the whole kingdom would be at their feet. They would compel the King to put into their hands the forts of Berwick, Plymouth, and Portsmouth, the castles of Dover and Arundel, and any other places which they might think fit to ask for. He was to give hostages for the free use of their religion, and to consent that Catholics should have equal place, office, and estimation with Protestants in council, at court, and in the country, and that the penal laws should at once be abrogated.[94]
Watson, intoxicated with the success which his fancy pictured to him, began to talk wildly about ‘displacing Privy Councillors, cutting off of heads, and getting the broad seal into his hands.’[95] He had already distributed the chief offices of state:[96] Copley was to be Secretary; Markham to be Earl Marshal; he himself was to be Lord Keeper. Even Copley <112>was unable to swallow this, and suggested that, at least under present circumstances, it would cause discontent if a priest were again seen presiding in Chancery, though he hoped that the times would soon return when such things might again be possible. Watson refused to listen to such an objection.
If, however, contrary to expectation, the King declined to follow their directions, he was to be treated with consideration, but to be kept a close prisoner till he granted their demands.[97] Many noblemen would be confined with him, and from time to time ‘some buzzes of fear’ might ‘be put into their heads,’ in order that they might, in their turn, terrify the King. Watson proposed that, if James still held out, he should be deposed. Copley refused to assent to such a measure, and this point seems never to have been settled amongst them. Whilst this question was under discussion, Copley hopes to convert the King.it occurred to Copley that it would be well to make use of the time during which the King would be in the Tower, to attempt his conversion. No doubt he would readily catch at an opportunity of displaying his theological knowledge in a public disputation. If, as was more than probable, he still declared himself unconvinced, his mind might be influenced by a trial of the respective powers of exorcism possessed by a Catholic priest and a Protestant minister, which was sure to end in the triumph of the former. Watson objected that James would certainly say that the person exorcised had only been labouring under a fictitious malady; he might also charge the successful exorcist with witchcraft, or even refuse to be present at all at such a trial. Copley answered that in that case they might fall back upon the old method of deciding quarrels, by trial by battle. Watson doubted whether it would be possible to find a champion. Upon this, Copley offered himself to undertake the combat, ‘provided that it might be without scandal to the Catholic Church, upon the canon of the Council of Trent to the contrary of all duellums; and I choose the weapons, not doubting but my wife, who by the sacrament of matrimony is individually interested in my person, would (for being a <113>Catholic, and the cause so much God’s) quit at my request such her interest for a time, and also much less doubting but to find amongst the host of heaven that blessed Queen, his Majesty’s mother, at my elbow in that hour!’
One evening, Markham came in with the news that the King intended to leave Greenwich on the 24th. They would therefore be Change of plans.compelled to alter their plans. He was to sleep at Hanworth on his way to Windsor. Markham said that a body of men might easily seize him there, if they took ‘every man his pistol, or case of pistols.’ Copley asked where either the men or the pistols were to be found. Markham was struck dumb by the inquiry, muttered something about another plan, and left the room.
On the 24th, Watson’s lodgings were crowded with Catholics who had come up from the country to join in presenting the petition. June 24.The plot fails.But their numbers were far too small to carry out the design which the heads of the conspiracy really had in view, and the day passed over without a finger being stirred against the King. The next day Markham brought them the unwelcome news that Grey had refused to have any further communication with them. Many hours had not passed before they heard rumours that the Government was aware of their plot. The whole party fled for their lives, to be taken one by one in the course of the following weeks. So utterly futile did the whole matter appear even to those who were engaged in it, that Copley and Markham decided upon putting themselves at the disposal of the Jesuits, thinking that they alone had heads clear enough to conceive any effectual scheme for the liberation of the oppressed Catholics.
The Jesuits knew more about the plot than the conspirators were aware of. Some time before the appointed day arrived, Information conveyed to the Jesuits.Copley, uncertain whether the scheme were justifiable or not, had written to Blackwell, the Archpriest, who had been entrusted by the Pope with the charge of the secular clergy in England, to ask his advice, and he had also acquainted his sister, Mrs. Gage, with the fact that he had <114>written such a letter.[98] Both Blackwell and Mrs. Gage were on the best terms with the Jesuits, and the information was by one or other of them conveyed to Father Gerard.
Gerard passed the knowledge on to Garnet as his superior. Between Gerard and Garnet a closer tie existed than Garnet and Gerard.that which ordinarily bound a Jesuit to his superior. When Gerard, who was one of the most persuasive of the Catholic missionaries, was thrown into the Tower, 1597.he had borne sore tortures rather than reveal the hiding-place of Garnet. When Gerard succeeded in making his perilous escape by swinging himself along a rope suspended over the Tower ditch, it was with Garnet that he first sought refuge.[99] The two friends were of one mind in wishing to discountenance the plot. Something, no doubt, of their resolution is due to the hostility of their order to the priests by whom it was conducted; but it must be remembered that at present the whole weight of the Society and of Pope Clement himself was thrown into the scale of submission to the King. They still hoped much from his readiness to listen to reason, and they were by no means ready to abandon their expectation of toleration because he had exacted the fines on one occasion.[100] Gerard, at first, June, 1603.Gerard ready to betray the plot.contented himself with warning the conspirators to desist; but when he found his advice disregarded, he sent a message to the Government informing them of the whole conspiracy. The message, it was true, was never delivered, but this was merely because a similar communication had already been made[101] by a priest named Barneby, who was a prisoner in the Clink, and who, by Blackwell’s directions, had given information to the Bishop of London, in order that he might pass it on to Cecil.[102]
The discovery of the plot by the Catholics themselves had all the consequences which the Jesuits had anticipated. On <115>June 17 James confidentially acquainted Rosny with his purpose of remitting the Recusancy fines.[103] Yet it was not without hesitation that James carried out his intention. Sometimes his mind dwelt more on the Catholics who had formed the plot than on those who had betrayed it. June 17.James proposes to remit the Recusancy fines,He would be very glad, he informed Rosny, to be on friendly terms with the Pope, if only he would consent to his remaining the head of his own Church. (July)but hesitates.He told Beaumont, the resident French Ambassador, that, in spite of his kindness to the Catholics, they had sought his life. Beaumont replied that the conspirators were exceptions amongst a generally loyal body, and that if liberty of conscience were not allowed, he would hardly be able to put a stop to similar plots.[104] James was convinced by the Frenchman’s reasoning.
On July 17 a deputation of the leading Catholics was heard by the Council in the presence of the King. Their spokesman was July 17.A Catholic deputation.Sir Thomas Tresham, a man familiar with imprisonment and fine. “I have now,” he had written a short time previously to Lord Henry Howard, “completed my triple apprenticeship of one and twenty years in direct adversity, and I shall be content to serve a like long apprenticeship to prevent the foregoing of my beloved, beautiful, and graceful Rachel; for it seems to me but a few days for the love I have to her.”[105] James listened to the pleading of the noble-hearted man, and yielded. He assured the deputation that James remits the fines.the fines should be remitted as long as they behaved as loyal subjects. If, he added, the Catholics would also obey the law, the highest places in the State should be open to them. In other words, if they would be as base as Howard, they should sit at the Council-table, and take part in the government of England.[106] Howard, in James’s language, was the tame duck by whose help he <116>hoped to catch many wild ones. It was evident that he had not faced the problem fairly. There were thousands of Catholics in England who resembled Tresham more than Howard, and no remission of fines was likely to be lasting if it was based on the misapprehension that toleration was only a step to a hypocritical conversion.
For the present, however, the Catholics enjoyed unaccustomed peace. The 20l. fines ceased at once. With the lands of which two thirds had been taken there was more difficulty, as there were lessees who had a claim on the property. Probably, however, the lessees were often friends of the owners, and in such cases there would be little difficulty in coming to an arrangement. At all events the income accruing to the Crown from this source was enormously diminished.[107]
The Catholic problem pursued James even in his own family circle. When, on July 25, the ceremony of July 25.The Coronation.the coronation took place at Westminster, Anne of Denmark consented to receive the crown at the hands of a Protestant Archbishop; but when the time arrived for the reception of the Communion The Queen refuses to receive the Communion.she remained immoveable on her seat, leaving the King to partake alone. Anne, however, was not of the stuff of which martyrs are made. Enthusiastic Catholics complained that she had no heart for anything but festivities and amusements, and during the rest of her life she attended the services of the church sufficiently to enable the Government to allege that she was merely an enemy of Puritanical strictness.[108]
For the present James was the more inclined to treat the Catholics well, because he had learnt that Cobham’s plot.another plot was in existence in which Protestants were concerned. Brooke’s participation in Watson’s conspiracy had been discovered by means of the examination of the prisoners, and as soon as Cecil had learned that, he naturally suspected that Brooke’s brother, Cobham, had had a hand in the mischief. In order to obtain information against Cobham, Raleigh was summoned before the Council at Windsor. There is no reason <117>to suppose that Cobham had more than a general knowledge of Watson’s doings, and of these Raleigh was unable to speak. Shortly after this examination, however, Raleigh wrote to Cecil, informing him that he believed that Cobham had dealings with Aremberg, the ambassador who had lately come over from the Archduke, and that he carried on his communications by means of an Antwerp merchant, named Renzi, who was residing in London. Cobham and Raleigh arrested.In consequence either of this letter or of Brooke’s confession, Cobham was arrested. On July 17,[109] the very day on which the Catholic deputation was before the Council, Raleigh himself became suspected and was committed to the Tower.
The truth of the story, which came out by degrees, will, in all probability, never be completely known. It would be labour in vain to build upon Cobham’s evidence. He had no sooner stated a fact than he denied it. The only point which he succeeded in establishing was the undoubted fact that he was himself a most impudent liar. On the other hand, it is impossible to place implicit confidence in Raleigh’s story, for though his veracity is unimpeachable by the evidence of such a man as Cobham, it cannot be denied that he made statements which he must have known at the time to be false. Whatever may be the truth on this difficult subject, there is no reason to doubt that Cecil at least acted in perfect good faith.[110] There was enough evidence to make Raleigh’s innocence doubtful, and under such circumstances, according to the ideas of those times, the right course to take was to send the accused before a jury. Cecil’s whole conduct during this affair was that of a man who looked upon Raleigh, indeed, with no friendly eye, and who believed that he was probably guilty, but who was desirous that he should have every chance of proving his innocence.[111]
<118>The evidence upon which the Privy Council acted was obtained from various sources. It appeared that there was Evidence against them.a general impression among the participators in Watson’s plot, which they had derived from Brooke’s information, that both Cobham and Raleigh were engaged in intrigues for the purpose of dethroning the King, apparently with the object of placing Arabella Stuart upon the throne. It was also said that Cobham had talked of killing ‘the King and his cubs.’ This latter statement was afterwards denied by Brooke on the scaffold. He had, however, undoubtedly mentioned it to Watson. The discrepancy may either be explained by supposing that he did so with the view of driving Watson more deeply into the plot, or, as is more <119>likely, that he denied the story on the scaffold, in hopes of benefiting his brother. Whatever this conspiracy may have been, the priests knew nothing of its particulars. Brooke, however, distinctly, stated that Cobham obtains the promise of money from Aremberg.his brother had, before Aremberg’s arrival, entered into communication with him, and had offered to help in procuring the peace which his master had so much at heart, if he would place at his disposal a sum of five or six hundred thousand crowns, which he would employ in gaining the services of different discontented persons.[112] A portion of this money was certainly offered to Raleigh, though, according to his own account, which there is no reason to doubt, he immediately refused it.[113] Aremberg promised to send the money to Cobham, and requested to know how it was to be transmitted, and in what manner it was to be distributed.
On Aremberg’s arrival, Cobham sought him out. Whether his designs had been already formed, or whether they He declares for Arabella Stuart’s right to the throne.grew in his mind after conversation with the ambassador, is uncertain. At all events, he seems at this time to have entertained the idea of assisting Arabella to the crown, and of course also of seeing Cecil and the Howards beneath his feet. He commissioned his brother to engage her to write to the Infanta, the Duke of Savoy, and the King of Spain, in hopes of inducing them to support her title.[114]
In spite of Brooke’s refusal, Cobham continued to negotiate with Aremberg, either with a view of inducing him to countenance this scheme, or in hopes of obtaining money which might be employed to distribute amongst persons who would use their influence in procuring the peace of which the King of Spain was so desirous. He even offered to undertake a mission to Spain in order to induce the King to listen to his proposals.
As these projects were gradually disclosed, the suspicions against Raleigh became stronger in the minds of the members of the Government. It was known that he had too good reasons to be discontented. He had been persuaded or <120>compelled to resign his Wardenship of the Stannaries, and when the monopolies were suspended for examination, his lucrative patent of wine licences[115] was amongst those which were called in question. Raleigh suspected.Durham House, which he had held for twenty years, had been claimed by the Bishop of Durham, and the lawyers who were consulted having given an opinion in the Bishop’s favour, Raleigh had been ordered with unseemly haste to leave the house.[116] Altogether, he had lost a considerable part of his income, and such a loss was certainly not likely to put a man in good humour with the Government which had treated him so harshly. At the same time, it was well known that he was Cobham’s greatest if not his only friend, and that they had for some years been engaged together in political schemes. Was it probable, it might be argued, that a man like Cobham, who had informed his brother of part, at least, of his design, should have kept his constant companion in ignorance? This reasoning had induced Cecil to send for Raleigh at Windsor. It must have received additional weight as soon as the Government heard that, after Raleigh had left them, he wrote a letter to Cobham, assuring him that he had ‘cleared him of all,’ and accompanied it with a message that one witness (by which he probably meant Brooke) could not condemn him.[117] It was undoubtedly suspicious. It was just such a message as would have been sent by one accomplice to another, in order to procure his silence. Cobham too, when the letter was shown him which Raleigh had written denouncing his intercourse with Aremberg, broke out into a passion, and declared that all that he had done had been done at Raleigh’s instigation. His evidence, however, was invalidated by the fact that he afterwards retracted it on <121>his way from his examination, it was said, as soon as he reached the stair-foot.
Raleigh’s health suffered extremely during his imprisonment; in all probability from mental rather than from physical causes. July.His attempted suicide.In less than a fortnight after his arrest, his spirits had become so depressed that he allowed himself to make an ineffectual attempt at self-destruction.
The letter in which he took, as he supposed, a farewell of his wife, is one of the most touching compositions in the English language. He could not bear, he said, to leave a dishonoured name to her and to his son, and he had determined not to live, in order to spare them the shame. He begged her not to remain a widow; let her marry, not to please herself, but in order to obtain protection for her child. For himself he was ‘left of all men,’ though he had ‘done good to many.’ All his good actions were forgotten, all his errors were brought up against him with the very worst interpretation. All his ‘services, hazards, and expenses for his country,’ his ‘plantings, discoveries, fights, counsels, and whatsoever else’ he had done, were covered over by the malice of his enemies. He was now called ‘traitor by the word of an unworthy man,’ who had ‘proclaimed him to be a partaker of his vain imaginations, notwithstanding the whole course of his life had approved the contrary.’ “Woe, woe, woe,” he cries, “be unto him by whose falsehood we are lost! He hath separated us asunder; he hath slain my honour, my fortune; he hath robbed thee of thy husband, thy child of his father, and me of you both. O God! thou dost know my wrongs; know then thou, my wife and child; know then thou, my Lord and King, that I ever thought them too honest to betray, and too good to conspire against. But, my wife, forgive thou all, as I do; live humble, for thou hast but a time also. God forgive my Lord Harry,[118] for he was my heavy enemy. And for my Lord Cecil, I thought he would never forsake me in extremity; I would not have done it him, God knows.” He then went on to assure his wife that he did not die in despair of God’s mercies. God had not left him, <122>nor Satan tempted him. He knew it was forbidden to men to destroy themselves, but he trusted that that had reference only to those who made away with themselves in despair.
“The mercy of God,” he continues, “is immeasurable, the cogitations of men comprehend it not. In the Lord I have ever trusted, and I know that my Redeemer liveth; far is it from me to be tempted with Satan; I am only tempted with sorrow, whose sharp teeth devour my heart. O God, thou art goodness itself! thou canst not be but good to me. O God, thou art mercy itself! thou canst not be but merciful to me.” He then speaks of the property he has to leave and of his debts. But his mind cannot dwell on such matters. “Oh intolerable infamy!” he again cries out, “O God, I cannot resist these thoughts; I cannot live to think how I am derided, to think of the expectation of my enemies, the scorns I shall receive, the cruel words of the lawyers, the infamous taunts and despites, to be made a wonder and a spectacle! O death! hasten thee unto me, that thou mayest destroy the memory of these and lay me up in dark forgetfulness. The Lord knows my sorrow to part from thee and my poor child; but part I must, by enemies and injuries, part with shame and triumph of my detractors; and therefore be contented with this work of God, and forget me in all things but thine own honour, and the love of mine. I bless my poor child, and let him know his father was no traitor. Be bold of my innocence, for God, to whom I offer life and soul, knows it. And whosoever thou choose again after me, let him be but thy politic husband; but let my son be thy beloved, for he is part of me, and I live in him, and the difference is but in the number, and not in the kind. And the Lord for ever keep thee and them, and give thee comfort in both worlds!”[119]
<123>Fortunately for himself, Raleigh’s attempt to fly from the evils before him failed. Of his answers to subsequent questions we have only one or two fragments, in one of which he acknowledged that Cobham had offered him 10,000 crowns with a view to engage his services in furthering the peace, but added that he had passed the proposal by with a joke, thinking that it had not been seriously made.
On November 12 he was brought out of the Tower to be conducted Nov. 12.Taken to Winchester.to Winchester, where the trial was to take place, in order that the persons who attended the courts might not be exposed to the plague, which was raging in London.
He passed through the streets amidst the execrations of the London mob. So great was their fury that Waad, the Lieutenant of the Tower, who had charge of him, hardly expected that he would escape out of the city alive. Nov. 17.On the 17th he was placed at the bar, upon a charge of high treason, before Commissioners specially appointed, amongst whom Cecil and Chief Justice Popham took the most prominent parts.[120]
The prosecution was conducted by the Attorney-General, Sir Edward Coke, with a harsh rudeness which was The Trial.remarkable even in that age, and which in the course of the proceedings called down upon him, much to his own astonishment, the remonstrances of Cecil.
A century later Raleigh might well have smiled at the evidence which was brought against him. As it was, The cruelty of the law of England.he could have had but little hope under what, in a letter which he had written to some of the Lords of the Council[121], he had well termed ‘the cruelty of the law of England.’ <124>In our own days everyone who takes part in a criminal trial is thoroughly impressed with the truth of the maxim, that a prisoner is to be considered innocent until he is proved to be guilty. Even the counsel for the prosecution frequently seeks to gain a reputation for fairness by reminding the jury of the existence of such a maxim. The judge repeats it, if necessary, when he sums up the evidence. The able counsel whom the prisoner is at liberty to select at his own discretion, takes good care that it is not forgotten, while every man in the jury-box has been brought up in a political atmosphere where it is counted as an axiom.
How different was the course of a criminal trial in the first years of the seventeenth century! It was not that either the judges or the juries of that age were inclined to barter their consciences for bribes, or servilely to commit injustice with their eyes open, from a fear of consequences to themselves. But they had been trained under a system which completely ignored the principle with which we are so familiar. Tacitly, at least, the prisoner at the bar was held to be guilty until he could prove his innocence. No counsel was allowed to speak on his behalf, and unless his unpractised mind could, at a moment’s notice, refute charges which had been skilfully prepared at leisure, the unavoidable verdict was sure to be given against him. Such a course of proceeding was bad enough in ordinary trials; but when political questions were involved the case was far worse. In our own times the difficulty is to procure a verdict of guilty as long as there is the slightest flaw in the evidence against a prisoner. When Raleigh appeared at the bar, the difficulty was to procure an acquittal unless the defence amounted to positive proof of innocence. The causes which led to this state of things are not difficult to comprehend. Change in the view taken of treason.We live in days when, happily, it has become almost impossible to conceive of a treason which should really shake the country. Consequently, a prisoner accused of this crime is in our eyes, at the most, a misguided person who has been guilty of exciting a riot of unusual proportions. We cannot work our minds up to be afraid of him, and fear, far more than ignorance, is the parent of <125>cruelty. The experience of the sixteenth century had told the other way. For more than a hundred years the Crown had been the sheet-anchor of the constitution. Treason, consequently, was not regarded simply as an act directed against the Government. It was rather an act of consummate wickedness which aimed at the ruin of the nation. A man who was even suspected of a crime the object of which was to bring the armies of Spain upon the free soil of England could never meet with sympathy, and could hardly hope for the barest justice. The feelings of men were the more irresistible when the most learned judge upon the bench knew little more of the laws of evidence and the principles of jurisprudence than the meanest peasant in the land.
As might be expected, the forms of procedure to which the prevalent feelings gave rise only served to aggravate the evil. System of criminal procedure.The examination of the prisoners was conducted in private. Such a system was admirably adapted for procuring the conviction of a guilty person, because he was not likely to persist in denying his crime whilst his confederates might be telling their own story against him, each in his own way. But it by no means afforded equal chances of escape to the innocent, who had no opportunity of meeting his accuser face to face, or of subjecting him to a cross-examination, and who, if he were accused of a State crime, would find in the examiners men who were by their very position incapable of taking an impartial view of the affair. In point of fact, these preliminary investigations formed the real trial. If the accused could satisfy the Privy Council of his innocence, he would at once be set at liberty. If he failed in this, he would be brought before a court from which there was scarcely a hope of escape. Extracts from his own depositions and from those of others would be read before him, supported by the arguments of the first lawyers of the day, who did not disdain to bring against him the basest insinuations, which he had at the moment no means of rebutting. The evil was still more increased by the want of any real responsibility in any of the parties concerned. When the previous depositions formed almost, if not entirely, the whole of the evidence, a jury would be likely to attach <126>considerable weight to the mere fact that the prisoner had been committed for trial. They would naturally feel a diffidence in setting their untried judgments against the conclusions which had been formed by men who were accustomed to conduct investigations of this kind, and who might be supposed, even if the evidence appeared to be weak, to have kept back proofs which for the good of the public service it was unadvisable to publish. On the other hand, the Privy Councillors would view the matter in a very different light. They would see in their inquiries nothing more than a preliminary investigation, and would throw upon the jury the responsibility which, in theory, they were bound to feel.[122] Under these circumstances, trial by jury ceased to be a safeguard against injustice. In a conjuncture when the nation and its rulers are equally hurried away by passion, or have become equally regardless of the rights of individuals, the system loses its efficacy for good.
With such prospects before him, Raleigh took his place at the bar.[123] If the feeling of the time with respect to persons charged with political offences was likely to lead to injustice, The law of treason.the law of high treason, as it had been handed down from older times, was such as to give full scope for that injustice. In the case of ordinary crimes, it was necessary to prove that the prisoner had actually taken part in the criminal action of which he was accused. In cases of treason it was sufficient if any one person had committed an overt act; all others to whom the treason had been confided, and who had consented to the perpetration of the crime, although they might have taken no part whatever in any treasonable action, were held to be as much guilty as the man would have been who actually led an army against the King.
From this state of the law arose the great difficulty which must have been felt by every prisoner who had to defend <127>himself when charged with a treason in which he had not himself taken an active share. If he had ever listened to the words of a traitor, it would not be enough for him to prove that he had not done anything which was treasonable. He could only hope for an acquittal if he could show that the state of his mind at the time when he heard the treasonable proposal was the opposite of that which would certainly be ascribed to him by everyone who took part in the trial. And even if by some extraordinary chance he was able to show that he had only concealed the treason without consenting to it, he was still liable to the harsh penalties which the law inflicted upon misprision of treason.
After some preliminary proceedings, the charges against the prisoner were brought forward by Coke, with his usual violence, and Coke opens the trial.with his no less usual carelessness as to the value of the evidence upon which he based his assertions. He charged Raleigh with entering upon a treason which was closely connected with that of the priests, although he was unable to point out what that connection was. He had not gone far before he lost his temper. Raleigh having calmly asserted his innocence, and having offered to confess the whole of the indictment if a single charge could be proved out of the many that had been brought against him, he dared, in the presence of the man whose lifelong antagonism to Spain was notorious to every Englishman, to accuse him with being a monster with an English face but a Spanish heart; and with having plotted with Cobham to bring about the substitution of Arabella for the King by the help of a Spanish invasion. One night, he said, shortly after Aremberg’s arrival, Raleigh was supping with Cobham, and after supper Cobham went with Renzi to visit the Ambassador. It was then arranged that Cobham should go into Spain, and that he was to return by way of Jersey, where he was to consult with Raleigh as to the best means of making use of the money which he hoped to procure from the King of Spain. The Attorney-General proceeded to argue in favour of the probability of this story, from Raleigh’s known intimacy with Cobham, from the letter which he had written to say that he had cleared him in all of which <128>he had been accused, as well as from the message which he had sent to remind him that one witness could not condemn him. This message would be sufficient to account for Cobham’s retractation of his accusation. Coke then proceeded to speak of an attempt which Cobham had made to antedate a letter in order to disprove the charge which had been brought against him of purposing to go abroad with treasonable intentions, and asserted, without a shadow of proof, that ‘this contrivance came out of Raleigh’s devilish and machiavellian policy.’ Upon Raleigh’s quietly denying the inferences, Coke broke out again: “All that he did,” he said, “was by thy instigation, thou viper; for I thou thee, thou traitor! I will prove thee the rankest traitor in all England.” Raleigh again protested his innocence, and after the Chief Justice had interposed to restore the order which had been broken by the Attorney-General, Coke proceeded to adduce his evidence. The first document read was Cobham’s declaration of July 20, in which, after having been shown Raleigh’s letter to Cecil in which he had suggested that Cobham’s dealings with Aremberg should be looked into, he had declared that he ‘had never entered into these courses but by Raleigh’s instigation;’ and had added that Raleigh had spoken to him of plots and invasions, though this charge was somewhat invalidated by Cobham’s refusal to give any particular account of the plots of which he had spoken.
To this evidence, such as it was, Raleigh immediately replied. This, he said, addressing the jury, was absolutely all the evidence that could be brought against him. He protested that he knew nothing either of the priests’ plot, or of any design to set Arabella upon the throne. If he suspected that there was anything passing between Aremberg and Cobham, it was because he knew that they had had confidential communication with one another in former times, and because one day he saw him go towards Renzi’s lodging. He then appealed to the jury to consider how unlikely it was that he should plot with such a man as Cobham. “I was not so bare of sense,” he said, “but I saw that if ever the State was strong and able to defend itself, it was now. The kingdom of Scotland united, whence we were wont to fear all our troubles; <129>Ireland quieted, where our forces were wont to be divided; Denmark assured, whom before we were wont to have in jealousy; the Low Countries, our nearest neighbours, at peace with us; and instead of a Lady whom time had surprised we had now an active King, a lawful successor to the crown, who was able to attend to his own business. I was not such a madman as to make myself in this time a Robin Hood, a Wat Tyler, or a Jack Cade. I knew also the state of Spain well; his weakness and poorness and humbleness at this time. I knew that he was discouraged and dishonoured. I knew that six times we had repulsed his forces, thrice in Ireland, thrice at sea — once upon our coast and twice upon his own. Thrice had I served against him myself at sea, wherein for my country’s sake I had expended of my own property 4,000l. I knew that where before-time he was wont to have forty great sails at the least in his ports, now he hath not past six or seven; and for sending to his Indies he was driven to hire strange vessels — a thing contrary to the institutions of his proud ancestors, who straitly forbad, in case of any necessity, that the Kings of Spain should make their case known to strangers. I knew that of five and twenty millions he had from his Indies, he had scarce any left; nay, I knew his poorness at this time to be such that the Jesuits, his imps, were fain to beg at the church doors; his pride so abated, as notwithstanding his former high terms, he was glad to congratulate the King, my master, on his accession, and now cometh creeping unto him for peace.” Raleigh concluded by asserting that it was improbable either that the King of Spain should be ready to trust large sums of money on Cobham’s bare word, or that a man of Cobham’s wealth should risk it by entering into treason. But, however that might be, he protested that he was clear of all knowledge of any conspiracy against the King.
After some further argument on the value of Cobham’s evidence, the prisoner appealed to the Court against the course which was adopted by the prosecution, and Question of the necessity of producing two witnesses.demanded that at least two witnesses should be produced in open court. It was all in vain. The Chief Justice laid down the law as it was then universally <130>understood in Westminster Hall.[124] Two statutes[125] of Edward VI. had, indeed, expressly declared that no man could be convicted of treason except by the evidence of two witnesses, who, if living at the time of the arraignment, were to be produced in court. Raleigh urged that a later statute of Philip and Mary[126] held the same doctrine. Popham answered that he had omitted the important words which limited its operation to certain treasons specially mentioned in the Act. By another section of the same statute it was enacted that ‘all trials hereafter to be … awarded … for any treason shall be had and used only according to the due order of the Common Laws of this realm, and not otherwise.’ It is highly improbable that the legislature intended that this section should be interpreted so as to interfere with the wholesome practice of requiring two witnesses in cases of treason. At a later period a different interpretation was affixed to it by the common consent of all lawyers, who have now, for nearly two centuries, unanimously held that the statute of Edward VI. was not repealed by the subsequent Act. But in the early part of the seventeenth century all lawyers, with equal unanimity, held the contrary opinion. In 1556 the Judges had met to consult on the meaning of the Act of Philip and Mary which had then been recently passed, and had decided that it bound them to fall back upon the old custom, by which they were to be content with one accuser, who need not be produced in court. This doctrine had been repeatedly put in practice, and no remonstrance had proceeded from any quarter, excepting from the unfortunate men who had suffered from its injustice.
This objection having been thus overruled, Coke proceeded to bring forward what further evidence he had it Coke produces his proofs.in his power to produce. A letter of Cobham’s was read, in which he acknowledged that before Aremberg’s arrival he had written to him for money, and had received a promise of four or five hundred thousand crowns. As, however, <131>this appeared to be intended only to assist the progress of the negotiations for peace, Coke was obliged to go farther in order to prove that there had ever been any overt act of treason at all. For Cobham, remembering that the evidence which he gave against Raleigh might possibly be turned against himself, had, with the single exception of the general statement, which was made in the heat of passion, that Raleigh had spoken to him of ‘plots and invasions,’ always asserted that his dealings with Aremberg had reference solely to the negotiations. The Attorney-General was therefore forced to content himself with bringing forward Watson’s evidence, such as it was, to the effect that he had heard from Brooke that his brother and Raleigh were wholly of the Spanish faction.
The confession which Raleigh had made as to Cobham’s offer of 10,000 crowns[127] to himself was also read, and Keymis’s Raleigh’s account of his connection with Cobham’s proceedings.examination was produced, in which he spoke of a private interview which had taken place between Cobham and Raleigh at the time when the former was receiving letters from Aremberg. To this Raleigh made no reply, but he stated that Cobham’s offer had been made previously to Aremberg’s arrival in England. He added that he had refused to have anything to do with it. This had taken place, he said, as he and Cobham were at dinner. Cobham had also proposed to offer money to Cecil and to Mar, to which he had replied that he had better ‘make no such offer to them, for, by God, they would hate him if he did offer it.’ Raleigh concluded by again pressing to be allowed to be brought face to face with his accuser.
He found an unexpected support in Cecil, who, with an evident desire that Raleigh’s wish might be granted, Asks again to be confronted with Cobham.pressed the judges to declare how the law stood. They all answered that it could not be allowed. “There must not,” said Popham, “be such a gap opened for the destruction of the King as would be if we should grant you this … You plead hard for yourself, but the laws plead as hard for the King. … The accuser having first confessed against himself voluntarily, and so charged another person, he <132>may from favour or fear retract what formerly he hath said, and the jury may by that means be inveigled.”
After some further evidence of no great value had been produced, Keymis’s deposition was read, in which he confessed that he had carried Keymis’s message denied by Raleigh.a letter and a message from Raleigh to Cobham when he was in the Tower, and that he had told him that one witness could not condemn a man. Upon hearing this deposition read, Raleigh took the unfortunate step of boldly denying that he had ever sent the message, or written the letter. Keymis was not the man to have invented the story, and this unlucky falsehood of Raleigh’s must have induced those who were present to give less weight to his protestations than they would otherwise have done.
Once more Raleigh besought the court to allow the production of Cobham, and, in spite of Howard’s declaration that his request could not be granted, Cecil once more supported him by asking whether the proceedings might not be adjourned till his Majesty’s pleasure could be known. The judges coldly answered that it could not be done.
The evidence which still remained was most irrelevant. A pilot, named Dyer, was brought into court, who swore that when he was at Lisbon he had been told by a Portuguese that the King would never be crowned, as Don Cobham and Don Raleigh would cut his throat first.
According to our ideas the case had thoroughly broken down. Not only had there been no evidence that Raleigh had ever heard of Cobham’s purpose of employing the Spanish money in support of Arabella’s claim, but there had been none to show that Cobham himself had ever formed such a design. It must not, however, be supposed that on the latter point the Government were not in possession of more satisfactory evidence than they were able to produce in court. They had in their hands a letter of Cobham to Arabella, in which he explained that he had requested the ambassador’s good offices with the King of Spain in support of her title; and two letters of Aremberg to Cobham, in which he promised him 600,000 crowns, and had engaged to lay before the King of Spain his proposal <133>that the peace negotiations should be retarded and the Spanish fleet strengthened.[128] Such evidence could not be produced in court without compromising the ambassador, but it would have its weight with those who were aware of its existence, even though Raleigh was not shown to have been concerned in the matter.
Raleigh then proceeded to address the jury, begging them not to condemn him on such evidence as that which they had just heard. Serjeant Phelips said that the question lay between the veracity of Raleigh and Cobham. It was Raleigh’s business to disprove the accusation, which he had failed to do. Raleigh replied, truly enough, that Cobham had disproved his own assertions by disavowing them.
Coke was proceeding to sum up the evidence when Raleigh interrupted him, and asked that, as he was pleading for his life, Raleigh demands the last word.he might be allowed to have the last word. The Attorney-General was treating this as mere insolence, when he was checked by Cecil. Coke, unused to be compelled to respect the feelings of a prisoner, ‘sat down in a <134>chafe,’ and was only induced to proceed by the entreaties of the Commissioners.
After going over the depositions which had been read, he produced a letter which had been written only the day before by Cobham’s letter to the Commissioners.Cobham to the Commissioners. “I have thought it fit,” the wretched man had written, “in duty to my Sovereign, and in discharge of my conscience, to set this down to your Lordships, wherein I protest, upon my soul to write nothing but what is true, for I am not ignorant of my present condition, and now to dissemble with God is no time. Sir Walter Raleigh, four nights before my coming from the Tower, caused a letter inclosed in an apple to be thrown in at my chamber window, desiring me to set down under my hand and send him an acknowledgment that I had wronged him, and renouncing what I had formerly accused him of. His first letter I made no answer to. The next day he wrote me another, praying me for God’s sake, if I pitied him, his wife and children, that I would answer him in the points he set down, informing me that the judges had met at Mr. Attorney’s house, and putting me in hope that the proceedings against me would be stayed. Upon this I wrote him a letter as he desired. I since have thought he went about only to clear himself by betraying me. Whereupon I have resolved to set down the truth, and under my hand to retract what he cunningly got from me, craving humble pardon of His Majesty and your Lordships for my double-dealing.
“At the first coming of Count Aremberg, Raleigh persuaded me to deal with him, to get him a pension of 1,500l. from Spain for intelligence, and he would always tell and advertise what was intended by England against Spain, the Low Countries, or the Indies. And coming from Greenwich one night he told me what was agreed between the King and the Low Countrymen, that I should impart it to Count Aremberg. But for this motion of 1,500l. for intelligence I never dealt with Count Aremberg. Now, as by this may appear to your Lordships, he hath been the original cause of my ruin, for but by his instigation I had never dealt with Count Aremberg. So also hath he been the only cause of my discontentment, I never <135>coming from the court, but still he filled me with new causes of discontentment. To conclude: in his last letter he advised me that I should not be overtaken by confessing to any preacher, as the Earl of Essex did, for the King would better allow my constant denial than my accusing any other person, which would but add matter to my former offence.”
Never did any man appear more bewildered than Raleigh when he heard this letter read. As soon as he could recover himself, Raleigh produces another letter.he drew another letter from his pocket. This was the one which had been written in the Tower by Cobham in reply to the urgent requests which had been conveyed to his cell by means of the apple thrown in at the window. In spite of Coke’s objections it was read, at Cecil’s request, to the following effect:—
“Now that the arraignment draws near, not knowing which should be first, I or you, to clear my conscience, satisfy the world with truth, and free myself from the cry of blood, I protest upon my soul, and before God and His Angels, I never had conference with you in any treason, nor was ever moved by you to the things I heretofore accused you of, and, for anything I know, you are as innocent and as clear from any treasons against the King as is any subject living. Therefore I wash my hands, and pronounce with Daniel,[129] ‘Purus sum a sanguine hujus,’ and God so deal with me, and have mercy upon my soul as this is true.”
Raleigh was, however, brought to confess, that although it was untrue that he had moved Cobham to procure him a pension, yet The pension.he could not deny that Cobham had mentioned it to him. This confession, coming after his denial made at Windsor, of having known anything of any plot between Cobham and Aremberg, and his subsequent letter in which he based his suspicions of Cobham simply upon his knowledge of the interview with Renzi, was calculated to do considerable damage to his cause. It was now evident that Raleigh had, to say the least of it, not been telling the whole truth. The verdict.The jury therefore, after a short consultation of fifteen minutes, brought in a verdict of Guilty. <136>Sentence of death was pronounced by Popham, who probably thought he was standing on a ground of moral superiority in inveighing against the atheistical and profane opinions which he, in common with the rest of the world, believed Raleigh to have entertained.
If we once admit the principle, upon which the jury tacitly acted, that it was the prisoner’s business to prove himself to be innocent, the whole trial resolves itself into a question of character. Difficult as it is for us to acknowledge it, it is not improbable that, with the jury, Raleigh’s character for veracity stood as low as Cobham’s. That this was unjust to Raleigh we know full well. We have opportunities of knowing what he really was which very few of his contemporaries enjoyed. The courtiers and statesmen with whom he mingled knew only his worst side, and their evil report was exaggerated by rumour as it spread over the land.
With unerring judgment posterity has reversed the verdict of the Winchester jury. That Raleigh was innocent of planning a Spanish invasion of England, needs no proof to those who know how deeply hatred to Spain had sunk into his soul. Probable explanation of the facts.Still, however, there is something that needs explanation. Raleigh was evidently not anxious to tell the whole truth. It is almost impossible to avoid the conclusion that he knew more of Cobham’s plans than he chose to avow. That he even heard of the scheme of placing Arabella upon the throne, or of the Spanish invasion, may be doubted. Brooke’s testimony of what his brother said is worthless; and Cobham, at least till after his own conviction,[130] never directly charged him with it. The most that he said was that Raleigh had spoken to him of plots and invasions. On the other hand, it was acknowledged by all that he had offered Raleigh bribes to engage in forwarding the peace. The story which was told by Raleigh of the manner in which he rejected the offer has the appearance of truth. But is it certain that he was not acquainted with more than he liked to say of Cobham’s further intercourse with Aremberg? Was it only on the two occasions on which <137>money was offered that Raleigh heard anything of the secret with which the whole mind of his companion was filled? It was from Raleigh’s presence that Cobham went with Renzi to Aremberg’s lodgings. On another occasion Raleigh was ‘below in the hall with Lord Cobham when Renzi delivered a letter from Aremberg,’ and afterwards ‘the Lord Cobham took Sir Walter Raleigh up into his chamber with him in private.’ Is it to be believed that they went there in order to converse on indifferent subjects? Even the two apparently antagonistic letters from Cobham which caused so much astonishment at the trial are not so discrepant as they at first sight appear. In one Cobham asserts that Raleigh had not instigated him to commit treason. In the other he asserts that Raleigh had professed his readiness to accept a pension from Aremberg, to be the price of a betrayal of court secrets, and that this suggestion had first brought him into communication with the ambassador, and so had indirectly caused his ruin. Both these statements may very well have been true. Raleigh cannot have been in a gentle humour on that night when he came home from Greenwich, after seeing his rivals in the enjoyment of the sweets of power. “If it is to come to this,” we can fancy his saying to Cobham on his return, “one might as well be a pensioner of Spain at once.”[131] He may even have thought that, as it was certain that there was to be a peace with Spain, he might at least make money by forwarding that which he could not prevent. Of course this is mere guesswork, but it is a guess which would sufficiently account for all that followed. He suddenly is called before the Council, and on the spur of the moment denies all knowledge of Cobham’s proceedings. Then, after he has gone away, he reflects that sooner or later what had happened must come to light, and he knows that he has had no real part in the treason. He writes the letter to Cecil, and Cobham is arrested and lodged in the Tower. Upon this he remembers what the English law is, making a man an offender for a thought, far more for a word, and instinctively <138>turning to the one object of stopping Cobham’s mouth, he sends Keymis to him to do what he can. Alas! he had forgotten that Cobham might see the letter which had been written to Cecil. Cobham does see it, bursts into a rage, and accuses Raleigh of things of which he had never dreamed. There is nothing for it now but to deny all, to state boldly that Keymis had lied as well as Cobham, to hide as long as possible the second offer of a pension, to declare that he had never committed a venial error, lest those accursed lawyers should torture it into the foulest crime.
If Raleigh’s trial is remarkable for the distinct enunciation by the judges of the harsh principles which were then in repute amongst lawyers, Impression upon the spectators.it is equally worthy of memory, as giving the first signal of the reaction which from that moment steadily set in in favour of the rights of individuals against the State. Many a man, who came to gloat over the conviction of a traitor, went away prepared to sympathise with the prisoner who had defended himself so well against the brutal invectives of Coke.
Two days before this trial, Brooke, Markham, Copley, and another confederate named Brooksby, with the two priests Watson and Clarke, Nov. 15.Trial of the other prisoners.were convicted of high treason. Before the end of the week Cobham and Grey Nov. 18.were also convicted before a court composed of thirty-one peers, in which the Chancellor presided as Lord Steward. In Cobham’s defence there was no dignity or self-respect. Grey displayed conspicuous ability. When, after the verdict had been given, he was asked whether he could say anything in arrest of judgment, he candidly acknowledged that he had nothing to allege. “Yet,” he added after a pause, “a word of Tacitus comes into my mind, ‘Non eadem omnibus decora.’ The House of Wilton hath spent many lives in their prince’s service, and Grey cannot beg his. God send the King a long and prosperous reign, and to your lordships all honour.”[132]
<139>Ten days later Nov. 29.Execution of Watson and Clarke,the two priests were executed, and in a week’s time Dec. 6.and of Brooke.they were followed by Brooke, who died declaring that all that he had said was true, with the exception of the charge which he had brought against his brother of wishing that the fox and his cubs were taken away.[133]
With respect to the other prisoners, the King refused to listen to any requests made to him, either by those who were desirous to save them, or by others who were anxious that they should be executed. Reprieve of the other prisoners.At last, after some consideration, he determined to take a course by which he might have the benefit of hearing what their last confessions were, without putting any of them to death. Warrants were accordingly issued for the execution of Cobham, Grey, and Markham on Dec. 10.December 10. The Bishop of Chichester was appointed to attend upon Cobham, and the Bishop of Winchester upon Raleigh, in hopes of extracting a confession at least from one of them. Both adhered to their former statements. On the appointed day the three were brought out for execution one after the other, but after each had made his declaration, he was sent down from the scaffold, in pursuance of an order which arrived from the King. Even when in instant expectation of death Cobham persisted in his assertion of Raleigh’s guilt.[134] At last they were all told that the King had countermanded the execution, and had granted them their lives. Raleigh, whose execution had been fixed for a later day, was also informed that he was reprieved. With Grey and Cobham he was committed to the Tower. Markham, Copley, and Brooksby were ordered to quit the kingdom.[135] Raleigh’s personal property, which had been <140>forfeited by his attainder, was restored to him.[136] Of the manor of Sherborne, all that fell into the King’s hands was the interest which Raleigh retained in it during his life, as he had executed a conveyance shortly before the death of Elizabeth, by which he assigned the estate to trustees for the benefit of his wife and child, though reserving the profits to himself during his own life. This life-interest was granted by James to two persons nominated by himself, to be held in trust for the benefit of Lady Raleigh and her son.[137]
From the disclosures made by the prisoners concerned in Watson’s plot, James had learned that the conspiracy which had been detected Fear of Jesuit plots.formed but a small part of the dangers to which he had been exposed. Watson had declared that the Jesuits were engaged in a plot which he believed to be connected with their hopes of a Spanish invasion. Nor was this an unfounded assertion. The movements which Watson perceived were caused by the preparations made by Catesby and his friends to receive the army of the King of Spain, if he should send a favourable answer to their request.
Just at the time when James might well have felt anxious, Dr. Gifford arrived from Flanders, as the bearer of assurances from the Nuncio at Brussels of the strong desire of the Pope to keep the English Catholics from insurrection.[138] The satisfaction felt by James at this announcement was increased by the reception of a letter from Sir Thomas Parry, the English ambassador in France,[139] in which he announced that he had received a message from Del Bufalo, the Nuncio in Paris, to the effect that he had received authority from the Pope to recall from England all turbulent priests. Del Bufalo further offered to James that if there remained any in his dominions, priest or <141>Jesuit, or other Catholic, whom he had intelligence of for a Aug. 20.practice in his State which could not be found out, upon advertisement of the names the Pope would find means to deliver them to his justice by ecclesiastical censures.
To this communication Cecil replied by asking that the Nuncio should put his offer into writing. Del Bufalo, however, being unwilling to commit himself, Progress of the negotiation.preferred to ask for the appointment of a person to treat with him in Paris. After some delay he was informed by Parry that James wished the Pope to send to England a layman with whom he might informally communicate, and to give authority to persons named by himself, to recall turbulent Catholics from England on pain of excommunication.[140] Parry was also to place in the Nuncio’s hands a copy of Sir James Lindsay’s instructions, in order that the bearer, who was at last about to start for Rome, might not be able to enlarge upon them. James renews his assurances to the Catholics.About the same time another deputation of Catholics waited upon the Council, having, in all probability, been alarmed lest their cause should be injured by the detection of the late conspiracies. They were assured that the King would keep his word, and that the fines would not be exacted.[141] James, it appeared, had made up his mind, and had resolved to accord toleration to the Catholic laity. How far this toleration was to be extended to the clergy was another matter, on which, as yet, he had entered into no engagement.
In deciding this question James was no doubt much at the mercy of accidental occurrences. Anything which gave him personal annoyance would have considerable influence on his policy; and, unfortunately for the Catholics, before many weeks passed, James was seriously annoyed.
In the course of the summer Sir Anthony Standen had been <142>sent by James on a mission to some of the Italian States. He was himself a Catholic, and July.Standen’s mission.was eager to take part in the grand scheme for reconciling England to the See of Rome. He urged upon the Pope the importance of sending an agent to England, to discuss with the King the points in dispute between the Churches, and he suggested that the mediation of Sept.The Queen secretly a Catholic.the Queen might produce good effects. Anne of Denmark, in fact, though she attended the Protestant services, was secretly a Catholic, so far at least as her pleasure-loving nature allowed her to be of any religion at all, and she took great delight in the possession of consecrated objects.[142]
While Standen was in Italy he entered into communication with Father Persons, who induced the Pope to employ the messenger Consecrated objects sent to her.to carry to the Queen some objects of devotion, and who himself wrote through the same medium to some priests in England. Standen was not the man to keep a secret, and he had scarcely arrived in England when Jan. 1604.Standen imprisoned.he was arrested and lodged in the Tower. The presents from the Pope were subsequently returned, through the Nuncio in Paris.[143]
James was particularly annoyed at the discovery of this clandestine correspondence with his wife. With some difficulty Religious position of the Queen.he had induced her to receive the communion with him at Salisbury, but she had been much vexed with herself since, and had refused to do it again. On Christmas day she had accompanied him to Church, but since then he had found it impossible to induce her to be present at a Protestant service. Standen, it now seemed, had arrived to thwart him. He dismissed several of the Queen’s attendants <143>who were suspected of having come to an understanding with Standen, and he ordered her chamberlain, Lord Sidney, the brother of Sir Philip, and himself a decided Protestant, to be assiduous in his attendance on the duties of his office.[144]
Before the impression made upon James by this untoward affair had worn away, the Nuncio received from Rome The Pope refuses to excommunicate turbulent Catholics.an answer to the proposal made by James, that a person should be invested with the power of excommunicating turbulent Catholics. This scheme had been warmly supported by the Nuncio at Paris. But it was not one to which the Pope could give his assent. To excommunicate Catholics at the bidding of a heretic prince was contrary to all the traditions of the Church, and Del Bufalo was therefore informed that James could not be gratified in this particular. Nor could anyone be sent to England as a representative of the Pope, for fear lest he might be drawn into political contests in which France or Spain would be interested on one side or the other.[145]
That James should take umbrage at this refusal of the Pope to comply with his wishes, was only to be expected. He had, however, Increase of the Catholics in England.other reasons for reconsidering his position towards the English Catholics. As might have been expected, since the weight of the penal laws had been removed, there had been a great increase in the activity of the Catholic missionaries. Some months before James had given orders that a list of the recusants in each county should be <144>drawn up.[146] When the returns came in, the increase of the numbers of the Catholics was placed beyond doubt.[147] It is probable, however, that the greater part of this increase was more ostensible than real, as many persons who stayed away from church now that they could do so with impunity would doubtless have frequented the services if penalties for absence had been still exacted.
It was inevitable that such a position of affairs should suggest to the Government the propriety of reverting to the old measures of repression. Feb. 22.The proclamation for the banishment of the priests.Urged by the Privy Council,[148] and hesitating in his own mind, James, on February 22, issued a proclamation ordering the banishment of the priests by March 19. The day fixed was that of the meeting of Parliament, and it is not unlikely that the desire to anticipate awkward questions in the House of Commons had something to do with the King’s resolution. There was at least nothing in the proclamation inconsistent with the policy which he had announced before leaving Scotland. Toleration to the laity combined with a treatment of the clergy which would place a bar in the way of extensive conversion was the programme which James had then announced, and which he was now attempting to carry out.
It was not a tenable position. The flow of the tide of religious belief could not be regulated to suit the wishes of any Government, and James would find that he must either do more or less than he was now doing. We need not speak harshly of him for his vacillation. The question of the toleration of the Catholics was not one to be solved by a few elegant phrases <145>about religious liberty. In wishing to grant toleration to those from whom he differed, James was in advance of his age, and it is no matter of astonishment if he did not see his way more clearly. It was no slight merit in a theological controversialist, such as James, to be unwilling to use compulsion if it could possibly be avoided.
[52] Add. MSS., 1786, fol. 5 b.
[53] Bruce, Correspondence of King James VI. of Scotland with Sir R. Cecil and others, 47.
[54] Beaumont to the King of France, March 26⁄April 5, 1603. King’s MSS., 123, fol. 18 b.
[55] Boderie to Villeroi, June 26⁄July 6, 1606, Ambassades, i. 181. In an account which he gave of his appearance at the Council to the King (Correspondence of James VI. with Sir R. Cecil, p. 73) Northumberland says nothing of this.
[56] I suppose this to be as accurate an account as can be obtained from the conflicting statements contained in Add. MSS. 1786, fol. 5b; 718, fol. 34 b, and Beaumont to the King of France, March 29⁄April 8, 1603 (King’s MSS. 123, fol. 29 b). The scene certainly took place before the 26th, when the Queen’s body was actually removed.
[57] Marshall to Salisbury, Jan. 4, 1610. Hatfield MSS. 195, fol. 95.
[58] Memoirs of Sir R. Carey, p. 180.
[59] The descriptions of James as weak in body, and unable to sit a horse without falling off, no doubt apply to him only later in life. “Il Rè,” writes one who saw him at this time, “è di faccia bella, nobile, e giovale; di color bianco, pelo assai biondo, barba quadra e lunghetta, bocca piccola, occhi azzurri, naso asciutto e profilato, uomo allegro, nè grasso nè magro, di vita ben fatta, più tosto grande che piccolo.” — Degli Effetti to Del Bufalo, June 13⁄23, Roman Transcripts, R. O.
[60] The evidence of his physician, Sir T. Mayerne (in Ellis, ser. 2, iii. 197), is decisive on this point. He drank great quantities of not very strong wine, and his head was never affected by it.
[61] Cecil and Kinloss to Lord H. Howard, April 9 (S. P. Dom. i. 16).
[62] Northumberland’s testimony is worth quoting, as he was by no means likely to invent stories against Raleigh: “I must needs affirm Raleigh’s ever allowance of your right, and although I know him insolent, extremely heated, a man that desires to seem to be able to sway all men’s courses, and a man that out of himself, when your time shall come, shall never be able to do you much good nor harm, yet must I needs confess what I know, that there is excellent good parts of nature in him, a man whose love is disadvantageous to me in some sort, which I cherish rather out of constancy than policy, and one whom I wish your Majesty not to lose, because I would not that one hair of a man’s head should be against you that might be for you.” — Northumberland to James, Correspondence of James VI. with Sir R. Cecil, p. 67.
A much harsher account of him is given in Sloane MSS. 718. But the most striking evidence is contained in a despatch of Beaumont’s to the French King, April 22⁄May 2, 1603 (King’s MSS. 123, fol. 94 b): “It was said at Court,” he writes, “that Cecil had procured Raleigh’s disgrace, because he was unable to support the weight of his unpopularity.” The story is absurd, but that it should have been invented is significant.
[63] Cecil to James, Correspondence of James VI. with Sir R. Cecil, p. 18. This is the only passage in which he mentions Raleigh. It is not complimentary; but it is very different from the constant abuse of him by Lord H. Howard.
[64] The King to Cecil, March 27. Hatfield MSS., cxxxiv. 28.
[65] The Exam. of Sir F. Hastings, Feb. 1605, S. P. Dom. xii. 74, is admirably fitted for giving an idea of the characters of Cecil, Howard, and Egerton.
[66] Sir A. Percy to Carleton, Sept. 4, 1606, S. P. Dom. xxiii.
[67] Cecil to Windebank, May 21, S. P. Dom. i. 93.
[68] The existence of a memoir by Raleigh against Cecil rests upon a note of Welwood’s to Wilson’s James I., in Kennet, ii. 663. He says he had <95>seen a MS. of Buck, who was secretary to Egerton, in which he mentions this memorial. This evidence has not been thought by Raleigh’s admirers to be very good, but it seems to be put beyond doubt by a passage in a despatch of Beaumont to Villeroi, April 22⁄May 2, 1603 (King’s MSS. 123, fol. 94 b). He says that Raleigh had been dismissed, ‘dont le dite Sieur Rallé est en une telle furie, que partant pour aller trouver le Roy, il a protesté de luy declarer et faire voir par escrit tout la caballe, et les intelligences qu’il dit que le Sieur Cecil a dressées et conduittes à son préjudice.’ Another story of Raleigh I have less belief in. Osborne speaks of him, in common with Cobham and Fortescue, as wishing, apparently before the proclamation of the morning of March 24, ‘to bind the King to articles’ which were in some way to be directed against the advancement of Scotchmen. This has been magnified into a constitutional opposition, which it certainly was not, as the Council had no constitutional power to bind the King, and anything they might do would have been treated by James as a dead letter. Raleigh, too, does not seem to have been present, as his name does not appear among those who signed the proclamation, though he was admitted at a consultation in the evening, and signed the letter to the King, then written (Spottiswoode, Spottiswoode Society’s edition, iii. 133). Perhaps the story is founded on some language used by Raleigh after he was superseded by Erskine. Fortescue also had to make room for Sir George Hume as Chancellor of the Exchequer, which would account for the introduction of his name.
[70] James to Elizabeth, Correspondence of Elizabeth and James VI., 153.
[71] The King to Parry, Nov. 1603. The Latin letter sent to be communicated to the Nuncio is printed in Tierney’s Dodd. iv. App. p. lxvi. The draft in English is amongst the Hatfield MSS. 112, fol. 150. Compare Cranborne to Lennox, Jan. 1605, S. P. France. The proposal about Prince Henry’s education had first been broached in the pretended commission of Pury Ogilvy. — S. P. Scotland, lviii. 81.
[72] Instructions, Oct. 24, 1602, S. P. Scotl. lxix. 20. There can be no reasonable doubt that these instructions were actually given in Scotland.
[73] In the spring of 1603 the Bishop of Vaison was in Paris. There is a curious account in a letter of the Laird of Indernyty to James (Jan. 30⁄Feb. 9, 1603, S. P. Scotl. lxix. 56, i.), of a conversation between himself, the Bishop, and the Nuncio at Paris. The Nuncio was doubtful as to James’s intentions, and said ‘he would suspend his judgment till Sir J. Lindsay returned.’ This shows that no message had been sent by another hand upon Lindsay’s illness, as would have been the case had James been anxious to win the Pope by hypocritical promises.
[74] Garnet’s examinations in Jardine’s Gunpowder Plot, App. p. iii., throw back the date of the breves. Their language does not suit with an intention to allow James’s claim, but the Pope may have desired to alter his language as soon as he knew what James’s intentions were. There is a note written by the Pope in the margin of Degli Effetti’s letter of June 30⁄July 10, 1603, in which it is suggested that Clement may have written letters before <99>Elizabeth’s death to authorise assistance being given to a Catholic insurrection. In this note the Pope says: ‘Non le habbiamo scritte nè a quel tempo nè a questo, anzi tutto il contrario.’ Roman Transcripts, R. O.
[75] Tierney’s Dodd. iv. App. p. ii.
[76] Correspondence of James VI. with Sir R. Cecil, 56. The identification of this letter with the one sent by Percy rests partly upon James’s description of the bearer in his answer (p. 61), and partly on a reference to that answer in Coke’s speech at Northumberland’s trial.
[77] Unless, indeed, as Coke said, James meant to refuse it when he said that he did not intend to make ‘any alteration in the state, government, or laws.’ From the place which this sentence occupies in the letter, I do not think that it was intended to bear any such meaning.
[78] Correspondence of James VI. with Sir R. Cecil, 75.
[79] Tierney’s Dodd. iv. App. p. 1.
[80] Degli Effetti to Del Bufalo, June 16⁄26, Roman Transcripts, R. O.
[81] Degli Effetti to Del Bufalo, June 13⁄23, Roman Transcripts, R. O.
[82] ‘A Discourse touching a War with Spain.’ — Works, viii. 299. Raleigh to Nottingham and others, Aug. Edwards’ Life of Ralegh, ii. 271.
[83] The King to Abbot. Wilkins’s Conc. iv. 405.
[84] S. P. Dom. i. 17.
[85] This is undoubtedly the meaning of Rosny, when he says that Cecil, with Egerton and Buckhurst, were ‘tous d’humeurs anciennes Angloises, c’est à dire ennemies de la France, peu amies de l’Espagne, et absolument portées pour faire resusciter la maison de Bourgogne.’ — Econ. Roy, iv. 431, Col. Petitot. Mr. Motley unfortunately founded his whole account of this embassy on Sully’s Mémoires, not having been aware that no dependence can be placed on that form of the work. His narrative is therefore thoroughly untrustworthy.
[86] Cecil to Parry, May 25, Cott. MSS. Cal. E. x. 59. Rosny to the King of France, June 24, Econ. Roy, iv. 329.
[87] Cecil to Parry, June 10, S. P. Fr. St. Aubyn to the Council, June 6. Godolphin and Harris to the Council, June 23, 1603, with enclosures, S. P. Dom. ii. 3, 15.
[88] James seems to have had a general dislike to anything which reminded him of death. When his son Henry was dying he left London rather than be present at the death-bed. He did not allow many weeks to pass after the death of his queen, in 1619, before he threw off his mourning, to the astonishment of the ambassadors, who had come prepared to offer their condolences. Taken separately, each of these circumstances has been interpreted as a sign of the King’s feelings in the particular case. But it is more probable that his conduct was the result of a weakness which occasionally shows itself in feeble minds.
[89] Barlow tells us that at the Hampton Court Conference James never mentioned Elizabeth’s name without adding some respectful title. He does not appear to have relapsed into his previous misplaced contempt.
[90] Sully, Econ. Roy, Col. Petitot, iv. 261.
[91] Dumont, Corps Diplom. v. part 2, p. 30.
[92] Strictly, not the religion of his father, which was the Anglo-Catholicism of the reign of Henry VIII., with perhaps a feeling that the Catholicism of Rome was the only complete form in which it was possible to embrace the system. Lord Henry accepted the papal authority, though he attended Protestant service.
[93] The most important part of the confessions upon which this narrative rests is published in Tierney’s Dodd. iv. App. 1. Some further particulars will be found in Beaumont’s despatches.
[94] Articles for Grey’s defence, Nov. (15?), S. P. Dom. iv. 81; Edwards’ Life of Ralegh, i. 345, 350; Tierney’s Dodd. iv. App. p. i.
[95] Copley’s Confession, July 14, Tierney’s Dodd. iv. App. p. x.
[96] Watson’s Confession, Aug. 10, Tierney’s Dodd. App. p. iv.
[97] Copley’s Answer, Aug. 1, Tierney’s Dodd. App. p. vii. note 2.
[98] Copley’s Declaration, Tierney’s Dodd. iv., App. p. iv.
[99] Morris, Life of Gerard, 298.
[100] This may be positively asserted to have been the case, on the evidence of the letters amongst the Roman Transcripts, R. O.
[101] Gerard’s Narrative in Morris’s Condition of Catholics, 74.
[102] Degli Effetti to Del Bufalo, June 30⁄July 10, July 13⁄23.
[103] Econ. Roy, iv. 370.
[104] Beaumont to Henry IV. July 13⁄23, King’s MSS. 123, fol. 327 b
[105] Jardine’s Gunpowder Plot, 10.
[106] Degli Effetti to Del Bufalo, July 21⁄31, Roman Transcripts, R. O.
[107] Receipt-Books of the Exchequer.
[108] Degli Effetti to Del Bufalo, Aug. 1⁄11, Roman Transcripts, R. O.
[109] Extract from the journal of Cecil’s secretary, Add. MSS. 6177.
[110] Beaumont’s opinion that he acted through passion is often quoted against him, but the French ambassador had had too many diplomatic conflicts with Cecil to judge him fairly.
[111] Mr. Tytler, in his Life of Raleigh (Appendix F), endeavoured to prove that the whole conspiracy was a trick got up by Cecil. He first quoted <118>the long letter of Lord Henry Howard, printed in Raleigh’s Works (viii. 756), as evidence that about 1602 Howard wrote to Cecil a letter containing ‘an outline of the plan afterwards put in execution, for the destruction of Cobham and Raleigh, by entrapping them in a charge of treason.’ Mr. Tytler acknowledged that it was not certain that it was written to Cecil at all. But even supposing that it was, which is perhaps the most probable explanation, it is unfair to infer that Cecil partook in Howard’s methods of attacking their common rivals. It is still more to the purpose to show that the letter in question contains no scheme such as was discovered in it by Mr. Tytler. It is plain, upon reading the complete passages from which he has made extracts, that Howard did not propose to entrap Raleigh and Cobham in a charge of treason, but to lead them to take part in difficult business, where they would be sure to make mistakes which might afford an opportunity of pointing out their defects to the Queen. This is miserable enough, but it is not so bad as the other recommendation would have been, nor is there any warrant for supposing that even this met with Cecil’s approbation.
Mr. Tytler’s second proof was founded on a letter of Brooke’s, written on November 18, 1603, in which he says the following words: “But above all give me leave to conjure your Lordship to deal directly with me, what I am to expect after so many promises received, and so much conformity and accepted service performed on my part to you.” From this he inferred that Cecil had used Brooke to act as a spy, and had abandoned him. Is it likely that if this had been the case Brooke would not have used stronger expressions, or that Cecil would have dared to send him to the block, knowing that he had it in his power to expose the infamy of such conduct? Brooke may very well have rendered services in past days to Cecil and received promises of favour in return.
[112] Brooke’s Confession, July 19, S. P. Dom., ii. 64.
[113] Raleigh’s Examination, Aug. 13, Jardine’s Crim. Trials, i. 425.
[114] Brooke’s Confession, July 19, S. P. Dom. ii. 64.
[115] The wine licences were finally declared to be no monopoly; but, Raleigh having lost them by his attainder, they were granted to the Lord Admiral, the Earl of Nottingham.
[116] Egerton Papers, Camd. Soc. 376.
[117] Raleigh on his trial denied sending this message. But Keymis, who was the messenger, declared that he had carried it, thus corroborating Cobham’s evidence. A man who ‘endeavoured still to transfer all from his master to himself’ was not likely to have invented this. — Waad to Cecil, Sept. 2, 1603, S. P. Dom. iii. 52.
[118] Certainly, I think, Howard. Mr. Brewer thinks Cobham.
[119] Raleigh to his wife. Printed by Mr. Brewer in his appendix to Goodman’s Court of King James I. ii. 93. For doubts on the authenticity of this letter see Mr. Stebbing’s Sir Walter Ralegh, 197. It may, however, be allowed to stand, with a caution. The allusion to Cecil’s Mastership of the Court of Wards, ‘And for my Lord Cecil, I thought he would never forsake me in extremity. … But do not thou know it, for he must be master of my child,’ for instance, shows too light a touch for the concocter of a ‘literary exercise.’
[120] A story occurs in the Observations on Sanderson’s History, which had been frequently quoted, to the effect that the jury, not being sufficiently subservient, were changed overnight. To this Sanderson replied in an Answer to a Scurrilous Pamphlet, p. 8, that ‘it is a scandal upon the proceedings to say that the intended jury was changed overnight, for these were of Middlesex, and ordered long before to attend at Winchester.’
[121] Letter to Nottingham and other Lords in Cayley’s Life of Raleigh, ii. 11.
[122] “Always,” wrote Cecil of Raleigh, “he shall be left to the law, which is the right all men are born to.” — Cecil to Winwood, Oct. 3, 1603, Winw. ii. 8.
[123] The account here given is based upon the report as given in Jardine’s Crim. Trials, compared with Mr. Edwards’s collation in his Life of Ralegh, i. 388.
[124] See Mr. Jardine’s remarks, Crim. Trials, i. 513, and Reeve’s Hist. of Eng. Law, iv. 495–506.
[125] 1 Ed. VI. cap. 12, and 6 Ed. VI. cap. 11.
[126] 1 & 2 Philip and Mary, cap. 10.
[128] The following extract from the despatch of the French ambassador seems to prove the reality of Cobham’s intrigue for setting up Arabella: “Or est-il qu’en icelle,” i.e. his deposition, “ledit Cobham a reconnu d’avoir ouvert son dessein au Comte d’Aremberg qui estoit de persuader Madame Arbelle ainsy qu’il se publie et appert par la lettre qu’il lui escrivit laquelle ladite dame mit deslors entre les mains du Roi, qu’il a demandé audit Comte la somme de 600,000 escus pour en donner une partie aux malcontens de ce Royaume a fin de les esmouvoir a se rebeller et en envoyer un autre en Ecosse et Irlande, qu’il s’est offert d’escrire luimême au Roi d’Espagne a fin qu’il retardast la negotiation de la paix et renforcast son armée de mer attendant que selon le conseil qu’il avoit pris il pût feignant d’aller a Spa conferer avec l’archiduc, et delà passer en Espagne pour donner plus de seureté ce sa foi et de son credit, que sur toutes ces choses ledit Comte l’avoit non seulement escouté mais conforté, discourant, et s’enquèrant avec lui des moyens de les faire reussir; qu’il lui avoit comme donné parole de 600,000 escus, et ce par deux lettres lesquelles je scai être [dans?] les mains du Roi, et que pour le retardement de la negotiation de la paix, et de l’armée de mer, il en donneroit avis au plustot en Espagne.” — Beaumont to the King of France, Nov. 26⁄Dec. 6, 1603. King’s MSS. 124, fol. 577 b.
[129] The ‘wise young judge’ of the History of Susanna, 46.
[130] He did then. Cobham’s Confession, Nov. 22, S. P. Dom. iv. 91.
[131] At his subsequent trial Cobham said that Raleigh ‘once propounded to him a means for the Spaniards to invade England’ by sending an army to Milford Haven. — Carleton to Chamberlain, Nov. 27, Court and Times of James I. i. 19. This may have been true as speculative talk.
[132] Carleton to Chamberlain, Nov. 27; Cecil to Parry, Dec. 1, Court and Times of James I., i. 14, 17.
[133] Carleton to Chamberlain, Dec. 11, Court and Times of James I., i. 27. Cecil to Winwood, Dec. 12, Winw. ii. 10.
[134] As he showed no cowardice on the scaffold, it has often been supposed that he knew he was not to die; on the other hand, the explanation I have adopted seems more characteristic of James.
[135] Markham took service in the Archduke’s army, and at the same time acted as a spy for the English Government.
[136] Grant to Shelbury and Smith, Feb. 14, 1604. Rymer’s Fœdera, xvi. 569.
[137] Grant to Brett and Hall, July 30, 1604. S. P. Docquet.
[138] Degli Effetti to Del Bufalo, Aug. 24⁄Sept. 3, Roman Transcripts, R. O.
[139] Parry to Cecil, Aug. 20. S. P. France.
[140] Del Bufalo to the King, Sept. 19⁄29; Del Bufalo to Aldobrandino, Sept. 21⁄Oct. 1; Roman Transcripts, R. O.; James to Parry, in Tierney’s Dodd. iv. App. p. lxvi and Hatfield MSS. 120, fol. 150; Parry to Cecil, Aug. 20; Cecil to Parry, Nov. 6, S. P. France.
[141] Petition Apologetical, p. 27.
[142] Degli Effetti to Del Bufalo, June 13⁄23, 16⁄26; Persons to Aldobrandino, Sept. 18⁄28, Roman Transcripts, R. O.
[143] Villeroi to Beaumont, Nov. 27⁄Dec. 7; Cecil to Parry, Jan. 24 and Feb. 4; S. P. France, Del Bufalo to Aldobrandino, Nov. 20⁄30, Roman Transcripts, R. O.
[144] Information given to Del Bufalo by a person leaving England on Jan. 11⁄21, Roman Transcripts, R. O.
[145] So I interpret the Pope’s note on Del Bufalo’s despatch of Dec. 4⁄14 (Roman Transcripts, R. O.): ‘Quanto alla facoltà di chiamare sotto pena di scomunica i turbolenti, non ci par da darla per adesso, perchè trattiamo con Heretici, e corriamo pericolo di perdere i sicuri, sì come non ci par che il Nuntio debba premere nella cosa di mandar noi personaggio, perche dubitiamo che essendo tanta gelosia tra Francia e Spagna non intrassimo in grandissima difficoltà. E meglio aspettare la conclusione della Pace secondo noi, perche non sapiamo che chi mandassimo fosse per usar la prudentia necessaria.’
[146] This is referred to as if it had been news from England, Nov. 14⁄24, Roman Transcripts, R. O.; but I suppose it is only the order given on June 30, which is printed in Wilkins’s Conc. iv. 368.
[147] Only the return from Yorkshire has been preserved, and has been printed by Mr. Peacock. A List of the Roman Catholics in the County of York in 1604.
[148] James said to the Spanish ambassador: ‘Che quelli del Consiglio gli havevano fatto tanta forza che no haveva potuto far altro, ma che no si sarebbe esseguito con rigore alcuno.’ — Del Bufalo to Aldobrandino, March 27⁄April 6, Roman Transcripts, R. O.