Sir Walter Raleigh and his Times ......................................................................................................................1

Charles Kingsley ......................................................................................................................................1

'Truth is stranger than fiction.' A trite remark. We all say it again and again: but how few of us believe it!

How few of us, when we read the history of heroical times and heroical men, take the story simply as it

stands! On the contrary, we try to explain it away; to prove it all not to have been so very wonderful; to

impute accident, circumstance, mean and commonplace motives; to lower every story down to the level of

our own littleness, or what we (unjustly to ourselves and to the God who is near us all) choose to consider our

level; to rationalise away all the wonders, till we make them at last impossible, and give up caring to believe

them; and prove to our own melancholy satisfaction that Alexander conquered the world with a pin, in his

And yet in this mood, as in most, there is a sort of lefthanded truth involved. These heroes are not so far

removed from us after all. They were men of like passions with ourselves, with the same flesh about them,

the same spirit within them, the same world outside, the same devil beneath, the same God above. They and

their deeds were not so very wonderful. Every child who is born into the world is just as wonderful, and, for

aught we know, might, 'mutatis mutandis, do just as wonderful deeds. If accident and circumstance helped

them, the same may help us: have helped us, if we will look back down our years, far more than we have

They were men, certainly, very much of our own level: but may we not put that level somewhat too low?

They were certainly not what we are; for if they had been, they would have done no more than we: but is not

a man's real level not what he is, but what he can be, and therefore ought to be? No doubt they were compact

of good and evil, just as we: but so was David, no man more; though a more heroical personage (save One)

appears not in all human records but may not the secret of their success have been that, on the whole (though

they found it a sore battle), they refused the evil and chose the good? It is true, again, that their great deeds

may be more or less explained, attributed to laws, rationalised: but is explaining always explaining away? Is

it to degrade a thing to attribute it to a law? And do you do anything more by 'rationalising' men's deeds than

prove that they were rational men; men who saw certain fixed laws, and obeyed them, and succeeded thereby,

To that question, perhaps, the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews will give the best answer, where

it says, that by faith were done all the truly great deeds, and by faith lived all the truly great men who have

There are, of course, higher and lower degrees of this faith; its object is one more or less worthy: but it is in

all cases the belief in certain unseen eternal facts, by keeping true to which a man must in the long run

succeed. Must; because he is more or less in harmony with heaven, and earth, and the Maker thereof, and has

therefore fighting on his side a great portion of the universe; perhaps the whole; for as he who breaks one

commandment of the law is guilty of the whole, because he denies the fount of all law, so he who with his

whole soul keeps one commandment of it is likely to be in harmony with the whole, because he testifies of

I shall devote a few pages to the story of an old hero, of a man of like passions with ourselves; of one who

had the most intense and awful sense of the unseen laws, and succeeded mightily thereby; of one who had

hard struggles with a flesh and blood which made him at times forget those laws, and failed mightily thereby;

of one whom God so loved that He caused each slightest sin, as with David, to bring its own punishment with

it, that while the flesh was delivered over to Satan, the man himself might be saved in the Day of the Lord; of

one, finally, of whom nine hundred and ninetynine men out of a thousand may say, 'I have done worse

In a poor farmhouse among the pleasant valleys of South Devon, among the white appleorchards and the

rich watermeadows, and the red fallows and red kine, in the year of grace 1552, a boy was born, as beautiful

as day, and christened Walter Raleigh. His father was a gentleman of ancient blood: few older in the land:

but, impoverished, he had settled down upon the wreck of his estate, in that poor farmhouse. No record of

him now remains; but he must have been a man worth knowing and worth loving, or he would not have won

the wife he did. She was a Champernoun, proudest of Norman squires, and could probably boast of having in

her veins the blood of Courtneys, Emperors of Byzant. She had been the wife of the famous knight Sir Otho

Gilbert, and lady of Compton Castle, and had borne him three brave sons, John, Humphrey, and Adrian; all

three destined to win knighthood also in due time, and the two latter already giving promises, which they well

fulfilled, of becoming most remarkable men of their time. And yet the fair Champernoun, at her husband's

death, had chosen to wed Mr. Raleigh, and share life with him in the little farmhouse at Hayes. She must

have been a grand woman, if the law holds true that great men always have great mothers; an especially

grand woman, indeed; for few can boast of having borne to two different husbands such sons as she bore. No

record, as far as we know, remains of her; nor of her boy's early years. One can imagine them, nevertheless.

Just as he awakes to consciousness, the Smithfield fires are extinguished. He can recollect, perhaps, hearing

of the burning of the Exeter martyrs: and he does not forget it; no one forgot or dared forget it in those days.

He is brought up in the simple and manly, yet highbred ways of English gentlemen in the times of 'an old

courtier of the Queen's.' His two elder halfbrothers also, living some thirty miles away, in the quaint and

gloomy towers of Compton Castle, amid the appleorchards of Torbay, are men as noble as ever formed a

young lad's taste. Humphrey and Adrian Gilbert, who afterwards, both of them, rise to knighthood,

arewhat are they not?soldiers, scholars, Christians, discoverers and 'planters' of foreign lands,

geographers, alchemists, miners, Platonical philosophers; manysided, highminded men, not without

fantastic enthusiasm; living heroic lives, and destined, one of them, to die a heroic death. From them

Raleigh's fancy has been fired, and his appetite for learning quickened, while he is yet a daring boy, fishing in

the gray troutbrooks, or going up with his father to the Dartmoor hills to hunt the deer with hound and horn,

amid the wooded gorges of Holne, or over the dreary downs of Hartland Warren, and the cloudcapt thickets

of Cator's Beam, and looking down from thence upon the far blue southern sea, wondering when he shall sail

thereon, to fight the Spaniard, and discover, like Columbus, some fairyland of gold and gems.

For before this boy's mind, as before all intense English minds of that day, rise, from the first, three fixed

The two first are the sworn and internecine enemies (whether they pretend a formal peace or not) of Law and

Freedom, Bible and Queen, and all that makes an Englishman's life dear to him. Are they not the incarnations

of Antichrist? Their Moloch sacrifices flame through all lands. The earth groans because of them, and refuses

to cover the blood of her slain. And America is the new world of boundless wonder and beauty, wealth and

fertility, to which these two evil powers arrogate an exclusive and divine right; and God has delivered it into

their hands; and they have done evil therein with all their might, till the story of their greed and cruelty rings

through all earth and heaven. Is this the will of God? Will he not avenge for these things, as surely as he is the

These are the young boy's thoughts. These were his thoughts for sixtysix eventful years. In whatsoever else

he wavered, he never wavered in that creed. He learnt it in his boyhood, while he read 'Fox's Martyrs' beside

his mother's knee. He learnt it as a lad, when he saw his neighbours Hawkins and Drake changed by Spanish

tyranny and treachery from peaceful merchantmen into fierce scourges of God. He learnt it scholastically,

from fathers and divines, as an Oxford scholar, in days when Oxford was a Protestant indeed, in whom there

was no guile. He learnt it when he went over, at seventeen years old, with his gallant kinsman Henry

Champernoun, and his band of a hundred gentlemen volunteers, to flesh his maiden sword in behalf of the

persecuted French Protestants. He learnt it as he listened to the shrieks of the San Bartholomew; he learnt it

as he watched the dragonnades, the tortures, the massacres of the Netherlands, and fought manfully under

Norris in behalf of those victims of 'the Pope and Spain.' He preached it in far stronger and wiser words than I

can express it for him, in that noble tract of 1591, on Sir Richard Grenville's death at the Azoresa Tyrtaean

trumpetblast such as has seldom rung in human ears; he discussed it like a cool statesman in his pamphlet of

1596, on 'A War with Spain.' He sacrificed for it the last hopes of his old age, the wreck of his fortunes, his

just recovered liberty; and he died with the old God's battlecry upon his lips, when it awoke no response

from the hearts of a coward, profligate, and unbelieving generation. This is the background, the keynote of

the man's whole life. If we lose the recollection of it, and content ourselves by slurring it over in the last

pages of his biography with some halfsneer about his putting, like the rest of Elizabeth's old admirals, 'the

Spaniard, the Pope, and the Devil' in the same category, then we shall understand very little about Raleigh;

though, of course, we shall save ourselves the trouble of pronouncing as to whether the Spaniard and the

Pope were really in the same category as the devil; or, indeed, which might be equally puzzling to a good

many historians of the last century and a half, whether there be any devil at all.

The books which I have chosen to head this review are all of them more or less good, with one exception, and

that is Bishop Goodman's Memoirs, on which much stress has been lately laid, as throwing light on various

passages of Raleigh, Essex, Cecil, and James's lives. Having read it carefully, I must say plainly, that I think

the book an altogether foolish, pedantic, and untrustworthy book, without any power of insight or gleam of

reason; without even the care to be selfconsistent; having but one object, the whitewashing of James, and of

every noble lord whom the bishop has ever known: but in whitewashing each, the poor old flunkey so

bespatters all the rest of his pets, that when the work is done, the whole party look, if possible, rather dirtier

Mr. Fraser Tytler's book is well known; and it is on the whole a good one; because he really loves and

admires the man of whom he writes: but he is sometimes careless as to authorities, and too often makes the

wish father to the thought. Moreover, he has the usual sentiment about Mary Queen of Scots, and the usual

scandal about Elizabeth, which is simply anathema; and which prevents his really seeing the time in which

Raleigh lived, and the element in which he moved. This sort of talk is happily dying out just now; but no one

can approach the history of the Elizabethan age (perhaps of any age) without finding that truth is all but

buried under mountains of dirt and chaffan Augaean stable, which, perhaps, will never be swept clean. Yet

I have seen, with great delight, several attempts toward removal of the said superstratum of dirt and chaff

from the Elizabethan histories, in several articles, all evidently from the same pen (and that one, more

perfectly master of English prose than any man living), in the 'Westminster Review' and 'Fraser's Magazine.'

Sir Robert Schomburgk's edition of the Guiana Voyage contains an excellent Life of Raleigh, perhaps the

best yet written; of which I only complain, when it gives in to the stockcharges against Raleigh, as it were at

secondhand, and just because they are stockcharges, and when, too, the illustrious editor (unable to

conceal his admiration of a discoverer in many points so like himself) takes all through an apologetic tone of

'Please don't laugh at me. I daresay it is very foolish; but I can't help loving the man.'

Mr. Napier's little book is a reprint of two 'Edinburgh Review' articles on Bacon and Raleigh. The first, a

learned statement of facts in answer to some unwisdom of a 'Quarterly' reviewer (possibly an Oxford

Aristotelian; for 'we think we do know that sweet Roman hand'). It is clear, accurate, convincing, complete.

There is no more to be said about the matter, save that facts are stubborn things.

The article on Raleigh is very valuable; first, because Mr. Napier has had access to many documents

unknown to former biographers; and next, because he clears Raleigh completely from the old imputation of

deceit about the Guiana mine, as well as of other minor charges. With his general opinion of Raleigh's last

and fatal Guiana voyage, I have the misfortune to differ from him toto coelo, on the strength of the very

documents which he quotes. But Mr. Napier is always careful, always temperate, and always just, except

where he, as I think, does not enter into the feelings of the man whom he is analysing. Let readers buy the

book (it will tell them a hundred things they do not know) and be judge between Mr. Napier and me.

In the meanwhile, one cannot help watching with a smile how good old Time's scrubbingbrush, which clears

away paint and whitewash from church pillars, does the same by such characters as Raleigh's. After each

fresh examination, some fresh count in the hundredheaded indictment breaks down. The truth is, that as

people begin to believe more in nobleness, and to gird up their loins to the doing of noble deeds, they

discover more nobleness in others. Raleigh's character was in its lowest nadir in the days of Voltaire and

Hume. What shame to him? For so were more sacred characters than his. Shall the disciple be above his

master? especially when that disciple was but too inconsistent, and gave occasion to the uncircumcised to

blaspheme? But Cayley, after a few years, refutes triumphantly Hume's silly slanders. He is a stupid writer:

Mr. Fraser Tytler shovels away a little more of the dirtheap; Mr. Napier clears him (for which we owe him

many thanks), by simple statement of facts, from the charge of having deserted and neglected his Virginia

colonists; Humboldt and Schomburgk clear him from the charge of having lied about Guiana; and so on; each

successive writer giving in generally on merest hearsay to the general complaint against him, either from fear

of running counter to big names, or from mere laziness, and yet absolving him from that particular charge of

which his own knowledge enables him to judge. In the trust that I may be able to clear him from a few more

charges, I write these pages, premising that I do not profess to have access to any new and recondite

documents. I merely take the broad facts of the story from documents open to all; and comment on them as

But I do so on a method which I cannot give up; and that is the Bible method. I say boldly that historians

have hitherto failed in understanding not only Raleigh and Elizabeth, but ninetenths of the persons and facts

in his day, because they will not judge them by the canons which the Bible lays downby which I mean not

only the New Testament but the Old, which, as English Churchmen say, and Scotch Presbyterians have ere

Mr. Napier has a passage about Raleigh for which I am sorry, coming as it does from a countryman of John

Knox. 'Society, it would seem, was yet in a state in which such a man could seriously plead, that the madness

he feigned was justified' (his last word is unfair, for Raleigh only hopes that it is no sin) 'by the example of

David, King of Israel.' What a shocking state of society when men actually believed their Bibles, not too

little, but too much. For my part, I think that if poor dear Raleigh had considered the example of David a little

more closely, he need never have feigned madness at all; and that his error lay quite in an opposite direction

from looking on the Bible heroes, David especially, as too sure models. At all events, let us try Raleigh by the

very scriptural standard which he himself lays down, not merely in this case unwisely, but in his 'History of

the World' more wisely than any historian whom I have ever read; and say, 'Judged as the Bible taught our

Puritan forefathers to judge every man, the character is intelligible enough; tragic, but noble and triumphant:

judged as men have been judged in history for the last hundred years, by hardly any canon save those of the

private judgment, which philosophic cant, maudlin sentimentality, or fear of public opinion, may happen to

have forged, the man is a phenomenon, only less confused, abnormal, suspicious than his biographers'

notions about him.' Again I say, I have not solved the problem: but it will be enough if I make some think it

both soluble and worth solving. Let us look round, then, and see into what sort of a country, into what sort of

a world, the young adventurer is going forth, at seventeen years of age, to seek his fortune.

Born in 1552, his young life has sprung up and grown with the young life of England. The earliest fact,

perhaps, which he can recollect is the flash of joy on every face which proclaims that Mary Tudor is dead,

and Elizabeth reigns at last. As he grows, the young man sees all the hope and adoration of the English

people centre in that wondrous maid, and his own centre in her likewise. He had been base had he been

otherwise. She comes to the throne with such a prestige as never sovereign came since the days when Isaiah

sang his paean over young Hezekiah's accession. Young, learned, witty, beautiful (as with such a father and

mother she could not help being), with an expression of countenance remarkable (I speak of those early days)

rather for its tenderness and intellectual depth than its strength, she comes forward as the champion of the

Reformed Faith, the interpretress of the will and conscience of the people of England herself persecuted all

but to the death, and purified by affliction, like gold tried in the fire. She gathers round her, one by one,

young men of promise, and trains them herself to their work. And they fulfil it, and serve her, and grow

grayheaded in her service, working as faithfully, as righteously, as patriotically, as men ever worked on

earth. They are her 'favourites'; because they are men who deserve favour; men who count not their own lives

dear to themselves for the sake of the queen and of that commonweal which their hearts and reasons tell them

is one with her. They are still men, though; and some of them have their grudgings and envyings against each

other: she keeps the balance even between them, on the whole, skilfully, gently, justly, in spite of weaknesses

and prejudices, without which she had been more than human. Some have their conceited hopes of marrying

her, becoming her masters. She rebukes and pardons. 'Out of the dust I took you, sir! go and do your duty,

humbly and rationally, henceforth, or into the dust I trample you again!' And they reconsider themselves, and

obey. But many, or most of them, are new men, country gentlemen, and younger sons. She will follow her

father's plan, of keeping down the overgrown feudal princes, who, though brought low by the wars of the

Roses, are still strong enough to throw everything into confusion by resisting at once the Crown and

Commons. Proud nobles reply by rebellion, come down southwards with ignorant Popish henchmen at their

backs; will restore Popery, marry the Queen of Scots, make the middle class and the majority submit to the

feudal lords and the minority. Elizabeth, with her 'aristocracy of genius,' is too strong for them: the people's

heart is with her, and not with dukes. Each mine only blows up its diggers; and there are many dry eyes at

their ruin. Her people ask her to marry. She answers gently, proudly, eloquently: 'She is marriedthe people

of England is her husband. She has vowed it.' And yet there is a tone of sadness in that great speech. Her

woman's heart yearns after love, after children; after a strong bosom on which to repose that weary head.

More than once she is ready to give way. But she knows that it must not be. She has her reward. 'Whosoever

gives up husband or child for my sake and the gospel's, shall receive them back a hundredfold in this present

life,' as Elizabeth does. Her reward is an adoration from high and low, which is to us now inexplicable,

For the whole nation is in a mood of exaltation; England is fairyland; the times are the last daysstrange,

terrible, and glorious. At home are Jesuits plotting; dark, crookedpathed, going up and down in all manner

of disguises, doing the devil's work if men ever did it; trying to sow discord between man and man, class and

class; putting out books full of filthy calumnies, declaring the queen illegitimate, excommunicate, a usurper;

English law null, and all state appointments void, by virtue of a certain 'Bull'; and calling on the subjects to

rebellion and assassination, even on the bedchamberwoman to do to her 'as Judith did to Holofernes.' She

answers by calm contempt. Now and then Burleigh and Walsingham catch some of the rogues, and they meet

their deserts; but she for the most part lets them have their way. God is on her side, and she will not fear what

Abroad, the sky is dark and wild, and yet full of fantastic splendour. Spain stands strong and awful, a rising

worldtyranny, with its darksouled Cortezes and Pizarros, Alvas, Don Johns, and Parmas, men whose path

is like the lava stream; who go forth slaying and to slay, in the name of their gods, like those old Assyrian

conquerors on the walls of Nineveh, with tutelary genii flying above their heads, mingled with the eagles who

trail the entrails of the slain. By conquest, intermarriage, or intrigue, she has made all the southern nations her

vassals or her tools; close to our own shores, the Netherlands are struggling vainly for their liberties; abroad,

the Western Islands, and the whole trade of Africa and India, will in a few years be hers. And already the

Pope, whose 'most Catholic' and faithful servant she is, has repaid her services in the cause of darkness by the

gift of the whole New Worlda gift which she has claimed by cruelties and massacres unexampled since the

days of Timour and Zinghis Khan. There she spreads and spreads, as Drake found her picture in the

Government House at St. Domingo, the horse leaping through the globe, and underneath, Non sufficit orbis.

Who shall withstand her, armed as she is with the threeedged sword of Antichristsuperstition, strength,

English merchantmen, longing for some share in the riches of the New World, go out to trade in Guinea, in

the Azores, in New Spain: and are answered by shot and steel. 'Both policy and religion,' as Fray Simon says,

fifty years afterwards, 'forbid Christians to trade with heretics!' 'Lutheran devils, and enemies of God,' are the

answer they get in words: in deeds, whenever they have a superior force they may be allowed to land, and to

water their ships, even to trade, under exorbitant restrictions: but generally this is merely a trap for them.

Forces are hurried up; and the English are attacked treacherously, in spite of solemn compacts; for 'No faith

need be kept with heretics.' And woe to them if any be taken prisoners, even wrecked. The galleys, and the

rack, and the stake are their certain doom; for the Inquisition claims the bodies and souls of heretics all over

the world, and thinks it sin to lose its own. A few years of such wrong raise questions in the sturdy English

heart. What right have these Spaniards to the New World? The Pope's gift? Why, he gave it by the same

authority by which he claims the whole world. The formula used when an Indian village is sacked is, that

God gave the whole world to St. Peter, and that he has given it to his successors, and they the Indies to the

King of Spain. To acknowledge that lie would be to acknowledge the very power by which the Pope claims a

right to depose Queen Elizabeth, and give her dominions to whomsoever he will. A fico for bulls!

By possession, then? That may hold for Mexico, Peru, New Grenada, Paraguay, which have been colonised;

though they were gained by means which make every one concerned in conquering them worthy of the

gallows; and the right is only that of the thief to the purse, whose owner he has murdered. But as for the

restWhy the Spaniard has not colonised, even explored, onefifth of the New World, not even one fifth

of the coast. Is the existence of a few petty factories, often hundreds of miles apart, at a few rivermouths to

give them a claim to the whole intermediate coast, much less to the vast unknown tracts inside? We will try

that. If they appeal to the sword, so be it. The men are treacherous robbers; we will indemnify ourselves for

So argued the English; and so sprung up that strange war of reprisals, in which, for eighteen years, it was held

that there was no peace between England and Spain beyond the line, i.e., beyond the parallel of longitude

where the Pope's gift of the western world was said to begin; and, as the quarrel thickened and neared,

extended to the Azores, Canaries, and coasts of Africa, where English and Spaniards flew at each other as

soon as seen, mutually and by common consent, as natural enemies, each invoking God in the battle with

Into such a world as this goes forth young Raleigh, his heart full of chivalrous worship for England's tutelary

genius, his brain aflame with the true miracles of the newfound Hesperides, full of vague hopes, vast

imaginations, and consciousness of enormous power. And yet he is no wayward dreamer, unfit for this

workday world. With a vein of song 'most lofty, insolent, and passionate,' indeed unable to see aught

without a poetic glow over the whole, he is eminently practical, contented to begin at the beginning that he

may end at the end; one who could 'toil terribly,' 'who always laboured at the matter in hand as if he were

born only for that.' Accordingly, he sets to work faithfully and stoutly, to learn his trade of soldiering, and

learns it in silence and obscurity. He shares (it seems) in the retreat at Moncontour, and is by at the death of

Conde, and toils on for five years, marching and skirmishing, smoking the enemy out of mountaincaves in

Languedoc, and all the wild work of war. During the San Bartholomew massacre we hear nothing of him;

perhaps he took refuge with Sidney and others in Walsingham's house. No records of these years remain,

save a few scattered reminiscences in his works, which mark the shrewd, observant eye of the future

When he returned we know not. We trace him, in 1576, by some verses prefixed to Gascoigne's satire, the

'Steele Glass,' solid, stately, epigrammatic, 'by Walter Rawley of the Middle Temple.' The style is his;

spelling of names matters nought in days in which a man would spell his own name three different ways in

Gascoigne, like Raleigh, knew Lord Grey of Wilton, and most men about town too; and had been a soldier

abroad, like Raleigh, probably with him. It seems to have been the fashion for young idlers to lodge among

the Templars; indeed, toward the end of the century, they had to be cleared out, as crowding the wigs and

gowns too much; and perhaps proving noisy neighbours, as Raleigh may have done. To this period may be

referred, probably, his Justice done on Mr. Charles Chester (Ben Jonson's Carlo Buffone), 'a perpetual talker,

and made a noise like a drum in a room; so one time, at a tavern, Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth,

his upper and nether beard, with hard wax.' For there is a great laugh in Raleigh's heart, a genial contempt of

One hears of him next, but only by report, in the Netherlands under Norris, where the nucleus of the English

line (especially of its musquetry) was training. For Don John of Austria intends not only to crush the liberties

and creeds of the Flemings, but afterwards to marry the Queen of Scots, and conquer England: and Elizabeth,

unwillingly and slowly, for she cannot stomach rebels, has sent men and money to the States to stop Don

John in time; which the valiant English and Scotch do on Lammas day, 1578, and that in a fashion till then

unseen in war. For coming up late and panting, and 'being more sensible of a little heat of the sun than of any

cold fear of death,' they throw off their armour and clothes, and, in their shirts (not overclean, one fears),

give Don John's rashness such a rebuff, that two months more see that wild meteor, with lost hopes and

tarnished fame, lie down and vanish below the stormy horizon. In these days, probably, it is that he knew

Colonel Bingham, a soldier of fortune, of a 'fancy high and wild, too desultory and overvoluble,' who had,

among his hundred and one schemes, one for the plantation of America as poor Sir Thomas Stukely (whom

Raleigh must have known well), uncle of the traitor Lewis, had for the peopling of Florida.

Raleigh returns. Ten years has he been learning his soldier's trade in silence. He will take a lesson in

seamanship next. The court may come in time: for by now the poor squire's younger son must have

discoveredperhaps even too fullythat he is not as other men are; that he can speak, and watch, and dare,

and endure, as none around him can do. However, there are 'good adventures toward,' as the 'Morte d'Arthur'

would say; and he will off with his halfbrother Humphrey Gilbert to carry out his patent for planting Meta

Incognita 'The Unknown Goal,' as Queen Elizabeth has named itwhich will prove to be too truly and

fatally unknown. In a latitude south of England, and with an Italian summer, who can guess that the winter

will outfreeze Russia itself? The merchantseaman, like the statesman, had yet many a thing to learn. Instead

of smiling at our forefathers' ignorance, let us honour the men who bought knowledge for us their children at

So Raleigh goes on his voyage with Humphrey Gilbert, to carry out the patent for discovering and planting in

Meta Incognita; but the voyage prospers not. A 'smart brush with the Spaniards' sends them home again, with

the loss of Morgan, their best captain, and 'a tall ship'; and Meta Incognita is forgotten for a while; but not the

Spaniards. Who are these who forbid all English, by virtue of the Pope's bull, to cross the Atlantic? That must

be settled hereafter; and Raleigh, ever busy, is off to Ireland to command a company in that 'common weal, or

rather common woe', as he calls it in a letter to Leicester. Two years and more pass here; and all the records

of him which remain are of a man valiant, daring, and yet prudent beyond his fellows. He hates his work, and

is not on too good terms with stern and sour, but brave and faithful Lord Grey; but Lord Grey is Leicester's

friend, and Raleigh works patiently under him, like a sensible man, just because he is Leicester's friend. Some

modern gentleman of noteI forget who, and do not care to recollectsays that Raleigh's 'prudence never

bore any proportion to his genius.' The next biographer we open accuses him of being too calculating,

cunning, timeserving; and so forth. Perhaps both are true. The man's was a character very likely to fall

alternately into either sindoubtless did so a hundred times. Perhaps both are false. The man's character

was, on occasion, certain to rise above both faults. We have evidence that he did so his whole life long.

He is tired of Ireland at last: nothing goes right there: When has it? Nothing is to be done there. That which

is crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. He comes to London and

to court. But how? By spreading his cloak over a muddy place for Queen Elizabeth to step on? It is very

likely to be a true story; but biographers have slurred over a few facts in their hurry to carry out their theory

of 'favourites,' and to prove that Elizabeth took up Raleigh on the same grounds that a boarding school miss

might have done. Not that I deny the cloak story to be a very pretty story; perhaps it justifies, taken alone,

Elizabeth's fondness for him. There may have been selfinterest in it; we are bound, as 'men of the world,' to

impute the dirtiest motive that we can find; but how many selfinterested men do we know who would have

had quickness and daring to do such a thing? Men who are thinking about themselves are not generally either

so quickwitted, or so inclined to throw away a good cloak, when by much scraping and saving they have got

one. I never met a cunning, selfish, ambitious man who would have done such a thing. The reader may; but

even if he has, we must ask him, for Queen Elizabeth's sake, to consider that this young Quixote is the close

relation of three of the finest public men then living, Champernoun, Gilbert, and Carew. That he is a friend of

Sidney, a pet of Leicester; that he has left behind him at Oxford, and brought with him from Ireland, the

reputation of being a rara avis, a new star in the firmament; that he had been a soldier in her Majesty's service

(and in one in which she has a peculiar private interest) for twelve years; that he has held her commission as

one of the triumvirate for governing Munster, and has been the commander of the garrison at Cork; and that it

is possible that she may have heard something of him before he threw his cloak under her feet, especially as

there has been some controversy (which we have in vain tried to fathom) between him and Lord Grey about

that terrible Smerwick slaughter; of the results of which we know little, but that Raleigh, being called in

question about it in London, made such good play with his tongue, that his reputation as an orator and a man

Within the twelve months he is sent on some secret diplomatic mission about the Anjou marriage; he is in

fact now installed in his place as 'a favourite.' And why not? If a man is found to be wise and witty, ready and

useful, able to do whatsoever he is put to, why is a sovereign, who has eyes to see the man's worth and

courage to use it, to be accused of I know not what, because the said man happens to be goodlooking?

Now comes the turningpoint of Raleigh's life. What does he intend to be? Soldier, statesman, scholar, or

seaadventurer? He takes the most natural, yet not the wisest course. He will try and be all four at once. He

has intellect for it; by worldly wisdom he may have money for it also. Even now he has contrived (no one can

tell whence) to build a good bark of two hundred tons, and send her out with Humphrey Gilbert on his second

and fatal voyage. Luckily for Raleigh she deserts and comes home, while not yet out of the Channel, or she

surely had gone the way of the rest of Gilbert's squadron. Raleigh, of course, loses money by the failure, as

well as the hopes which he had grounded on his brother's Transatlantic viceroyalty. And a bitter pang it must

have been to him to find himself bereft of that pure and heroic counsellor just at his entering into life. But

with the same elasticity which sent him to the grave, he is busy within six months in a fresh expedition. If

Meta Incognita be not worth planting, there must be, so Raleigh thinks, a vast extent of coast between it and

Florida, which is more genial in climate, perhaps more rich in produce; and he sends Philip Amadas and

On these Virginian discoveries I shall say but little. Those who wish to enjoy them should read them in all

their naive freshness in the originals; and they will subscribe to S. T. Coleridge's dictum, that no one

nowadays can write travels as well as the old worthies who figure in Hakluyt and Purchas.

But to return to the questionWhat does this man intend to be? A discoverer and colonist; a vindicator of

some part at least of America from Spanish claims? Perhaps not altogether: else he would have gone himself

to Virginia, at least the second voyage, instead of sending others. But here, it seems, is the fatal, and yet

pardonable mistake, which haunts the man throughout. He tries to be too many men at once. Fatal: because,

though he leaves his trace on more things than one man is wont to do, he, strictly speaking, conquers nothing,

brings nothing to a consummation. Virginia, Guiana, the 'History of the World,' his own career as a

statesmanas dictator (for he might have been dictator had he chosen)all are left unfinished. And yet

most pardonable; for if a man feels that he can do many different things, how hard to teach himself that he

must not do them all! How hard to say to himself, 'I must cut off the right hand, and pluck out the right eye. I

must be less than myself, in order really to be anything. I must concentrate my powers on one subject, and

that perhaps by no means the most seemingly noble or useful, still less the most pleasant, and forego so many

branches of activity in which I might be so distinguished, so useful.' This is a hard lesson. Raleigh took just

sixtysix years learning it; and had to carry the result of his experience to the other side of the dark river, for

there was no time left to use it on this side. Some readers may have learnt the lesson already. If so, happy and

blessed are they. But let them not therefore exalt themselves above Walter Raleigh; for that lesson is, of

course, soonest learnt by the man who can excel in few things, later by him who can excel in many, and latest

Few details remain concerning the earlier court days of Raleigh. He rises rapidly, as we have seen. He has an

estate given him in Ireland, near his friend Spenser, where he tries to do well and wisely, colonising, tilling,

and planting it: but like his Virginia expeditions, principally at second hand. For he has swallowed (there is

no denying it) the painted bait. He will discover, he will colonise, he will do all manner of beautiful things, at

second hand: but he himself will be a courtier. It is very tempting. Who would not, at the age of thirty, have

wished to have been one of that chosen band of geniuses and heroes whom Elizabeth had gathered round her?

Who would not, at the age of thirty, have given his pound of flesh to be captain of her guard, and to go with

her whithersoever she went? It is not merely the intense gratification to carnal vanitywhich if any man

denies or scoffs at, always mark him down as especially guiltywhich is to be considered; but the real,

actual honour, in the mind of one who looked on Elizabeth as the most precious and glorious being which the

earth had seen for centuries. To be appreciated by her; to be loved by her; to serve her; to guard her; what

Beside, he becomes a member of Parliament now; Lord Warden of the Stannaries; business which of course

keeps him in England, business which he performs, as he does all things, wisely and well. Such a generation

as this ought really to respect Raleigh a little more, if it be only for his excellence in their own especial

spherethat of business. Raleigh is a thorough man of business. He can 'toil terribly,' and what is more, toil

to the purpose. In all the everyday affairs of life, he remains without a blot; a diligent, methodical, prudent

man, who, though he plays for great stakes, ventures and loses his whole fortune again and again, yet never

seems to omit the 'doing the duty which lies nearest him'; never gets into mean money scrapes; never neglects

tenants or duty; never gives way for one instant to 'the eccentricities of genius.'

If he had done so, be sure that we should have heard of it. For no man can become what he has become

without making many an enemy; and he has his enemies already. On which statement naturally occurs the

questionwhy? An important question too; because several of his later biographers seem to have running in

their minds some such train of thought as thisRaleigh must have been a bad fellow, or he would not have

had so many enemies; and because he was a bad fellow, there is an a priori reason that charges against him

are true. Whether this be arguing in a circle or not, it is worth searching out the beginning of this enmity, and

the reputed causes of it. In after years it will be because he is 'damnable proud,' because he hated Essex, and

so forth: of which in their places. But what is the earliest count against him? Naunton, who hated Raleigh,

and was moreover a rogue, has no reason to give, but that 'the Queen took him for a kind of oracle, which

much nettled them all; yea, those he relied on began to take this his sudden favour for an alarm; to be sensible

of their own supplantation, and to project his; which shortly made him to sing, "Fortune my foe."'

Now, be this true or not, and we do not put much faith in it, it gives no reason for the early dislike of Raleigh,

save the somewhat unsatisfactory one which Cain would have given for his dislike of Abel. Moreover, there

exists a letter of Essex's, written as thoroughly in the Cain spirit as any we ever read; and we wonder that,

after reading that letter, men can find courage to repeat the old sentimentalism about the 'noble and

unfortunate' Earl. His hatred of Raleighwhich, as we shall see hereafter, Raleigh not only bears patiently,

but requites with good deeds as long as he can springs, by his own confession, simply from envy and

disappointed vanity. The spoilt boy insults Queen Elizabeth about her liking for the 'knave Raleigh.' She,

'taking hold of one word disdain,' tells Essex that 'there was no such cause why I should thus disdain him.' On

which, says Essex, 'as near as I could I did describe unto her what he had been, and what he was; and then I

did let her see, whether I had come to disdain his competition of love, or whether I could have comfort to

give myself over to the service of a mistress that was in awe of such a man. I spake for grief and choler as

much against him as I could: and I think he standing at the door might very well hear the worst that I spoke of

him. In the end, I saw she was resolved to defend him, and to cross me.' Whereupon follows a 'scene,' the

naughty boy raging and stamping, till he insults the Queen, and calls Raleigh 'a wretch'; whereon poor

Elizabeth, who loved the coxcomb for his father's sake, 'turned her away to my Lady Warwick,' and Essex

Raleigh's next few years are brilliant and busy ones; and gladly, did space permit, would I give details of

those brilliant adventures which make this part of his life that of a true knighterrant. But they are mere

episodes in the history; and we must pass them quickly by, only saying that they corroborate in all things our

original notion of the manjust, humane, wise, greatly daring and enduring greatly; and filled with the one

fixed idea, which has grown with his growth and strengthened with his strength, the destruction of the

Spanish power, and colonisation of America by English. His brother Humphrey makes a second attempt to

colonise Newfoundland, and perishes as heroically as he had lived. Raleigh, undaunted by his own loss in the

adventure and his brother's failure, sends out a fleet of his own to discover to the southward, and finds

Virginia. One might spend pages on this beautiful episode; on the simple descriptions of the fair new land

which the seakings bring home; on the profound (for those times at least) knowledge which prompted

Raleigh to make the attempt in that particular direction which had as yet escaped the notice of the Spaniards;

on the quiet patience with which, undaunted by the illsuccess of the first colonists, he sends out fleet after

fleet, to keep the hold which he had once gained; till, unable any longer to support the huge expense, he

makes over his patent for discovery to a company of merchants, who fare for many years as ill as Raleigh

himself did: but one thing one has a right to say, that to this one man, under the providence of Almighty God,

do the whole of the United States of America owe their existence. The work was double. The colony,

however small, had to be kept in possession at all hazards; and he did it. But that was not enough. Spain must

be prevented from extending her operations northward from Florida; she must be crippled along the whole

east coast of America. And Raleigh did that too. We find him for years to come a part adventurer in almost

every attack on the Spaniards: we find him preaching war against them on these very grounds, and setting

others to preach it also. Good old Hariot (Raleigh's mathematical tutor, whom he sent to Virginia) reechoes

his pupil's trumpetblast. Hooker, in his epistle dedicatory of his Irish History, strikes the same note, and a

right noble one it is. 'These Spaniards are trying to build up a worldtyranny by rapine and cruelty. You, sir,

call on us to deliver the earth from them, by doing justly and loving mercy; and we will obey you!' is the

answer which Raleigh receives, as far as I can find, from every noblernatured Englishman.

It was an immense conception: a glorious one: it stood out so clear: there was no mistake about its being the

absolutely right, wise, patriotic thing; and so feasible, too, if Raleigh could but find 'six cents hommes qui

savaient mourir.' But that was just what he could not find. He could draw round him, and did, by the spiritual

magnetism of his genius, many a noble soul; but he could not organise them, as he seems to have tried to do,

into a coherent body. The English spirit of independent action, never stronger than in that age, and most

wisely encouraged, for other reasons, by good Queen Bess, was too strong for him. His pupils will 'fight on

their own hook' like so many Yankee rangers: quarrel with each other: grumble at him. For the truth is, he

demands of them too high a standard of thought and purpose. He is often a whole heaven above them in the

hugeness of his imagination, the nobleness of his motive; and Don Quixote can often find no better squire

than Sancho Panza. Even glorious Sir Richard Grenvile makes a mistake: burns an Indian village because

they steal a silver cup; throws back the colonisation of Virginia ten years with his overstrict notions of

discipline and retributive justice; and Raleigh requites him for his offence by embalming him, his valour and

his death, not in immortal verse, but in immortal prose. The 'True Relation of the Fight at the Azores' gives

the keynote of Raleigh's heart. If readers will not take that as the text on which his whole life is a commentary

The game becomes fiercer and fiercer. Blow and counterblow between the Spanish king, for the whole

WestIndian commerce was a government job, and the merchant nobles of England. At last the Great

Armada comes, and the Great Armada goes again. Venit, vidit, fugit, as the medals said of it. And to Walter

Raleigh's counsel, by the testimony of all contemporaries, the mighty victory is to be principally attributed.

Where all men did heroically, it were invidious to bestow on him alone a crown, ob patriam servatam. But

henceforth, Elizabeth knows well that she has not been mistaken in her choice; and Raleigh is better loved

The immense value of his services in the defence of England should excuse him from the complaint which

one has been often inclined to bring against him,Why, instead of sending others Westward Ho, did be not

go himself? Surely he could have reconciled the jarring instruments with which he was working. He could

have organised such a body of men as perhaps never went out before or since on the same errand. He could

have done all that Cortez did, and more; and done it more justly and mercifully.

True. And here seems (as far as little folk dare judge great folk) to have been Raleigh's mistake. He is too

wide for real success. He has too many plans; he is fond of too many pursuits. The man who succeeds is

generally the narrow mall; the man of one idea, who works at nothing but that; sees everything only through

the light of that; sacrifices everything to that: the fanatic, in short. By fanatics, whether military, commercial,

or religious, and not by 'liberal minded men' at all, has the world's work been done in all ages. Amid the

modern cants, one of the most mistaken is the cant about the 'mission of genius,' the 'mission of the poet.'

Poets, we hear in some quarters, are the anointed kings of mankindat least, so the little poets sing, each to

his little fiddle. There is no greater mistake. It is the practical, prosaical fanatic who does the work; and the

poet, if he tries to do it, is certain to put down his spade every five minutes, to look at the prospect, and pick

flowers, and moralise on dead asses, till he ends a Neron malgre luimeme, fiddling melodiously while Rome

is burning. And perhaps this is the secret of Raleigh's failure. He is a fanatic, no doubt, a true knighterrant:

but he is too much of a poet withal. The sense of beauty enthrals him at every step. Gloriana's fairy court,

with its chivalries and its euphuisms, its masques and its tourneys, and he the most charming personage in it,

are too charming for himas they would have been for us, reader: and he cannot give them up and go about

the one work. He justifies his doublemindedness to himself, no doubt, as he does to the world, by working

wisely, indefatigably, and bravely: but still he has put his trust in princes, and in the children of men. His sin,

as far as we can see, is not against man, but against God; one which we do not nowadays call a sin, but a

weakness. Be it so. God punished him for it, swiftly and sharply; which I hold to be a sure sign that God also

So he stays at home, spends, sooner or later, 40,000 pounds on Virginia, writes charming courtpoetry with

Oxford, Buckhurst, and Paget, brings over Spenser from Ireland and introduces Colin Clout to Gloriana, who

lovesas who would not have loved?that most beautiful of faces and of souls; helps poor puritan Udall

out of his scrape as far as he can; begs for Captain Spring, begs for many more, whose names are only known

by being connected with some good deed of his. 'When, Sir Walter,' asks Queen Bess, 'will you cease to be a

beggar?' 'When your Majesty ceases to be a benefactor.' Perhaps it is in these days that he set up his 'office of

address'some sort of agency for discovering and relieving the wants of worthy men. So all seems to go

well. If he has lost in Virginia, he has gained by Spanish prizes; his winepatent is bringing him in a large

revenue, and the heavens smile on him. Thou sayest, 'I am rich and increased in goods, and have need of

nothing; and knowest not that thou art poor and miserable and blind and naked.' Thou shalt learn it, then, and

For, in the meanwhile, Raleigh falls into a very great sin, for which, as usual with his elect, God inflicts swift

and instant punishment; on which, as usual, biographers talk much unwisdom. He seduces Miss

Throgmorton, one of the maids of honour. Elizabeth is very wroth; and had she not good reason to be wroth?

Is it either fair or reasonable to talk of her 'demanding a monopoly of love,' and 'being incensed at the

temerity of her favourite, in presuming to fall in love and marry without her consent?' Away with such cant.

The plain facts are: that a man nearly forty years old abuses his wonderful gifts of body and mind, to ruin a

girl nearly twenty years younger than himself. What wonder if a virtuous womanand Queen Elizabeth was

virtuousthought it a base deed, and punished it accordingly? There is no more to be discovered in the

matter, save by the vulturine nose which smells carrion in every rosebed. Raleigh has a great attempt on the

Platefleets in hand; he hurries off from Chatham, and writes to young Cecil on the 10th of March, 'I mean

not to come away, as some say I will, for fear of a marriage, and I know not what . . . For I protest before

This famous passage is one of those over which the virtuosity of modern times, rejoicing in evil, has hung so

fondly, as giving melancholy proof of the 'duplicity of Raleigh's character'; as if a man who once in his life

had told an untruth was proved by that fact to be a rogue from birth to death: while others have kindly given

him the benefit of a doubt whether the letter were not written after a private marriage, and therefore Raleigh,

being 'joined unto' some one already, had a right to say that he did not wish to be joined to any one. But I do

not concur in this doubt. Four months after, Sir Edward Stafford writes to Anthony Bacon, 'If you have

anything to do with Sir W. R., or any love to make to Mistress Throgmorton, at the Tower tomorrow you

may speak with them.' This implies that no marriage had yet taken place. And surely, if there had been

private marriage, two people who were about to be sent to the Tower for their folly would have made the

marriage public at once, as the only possible selfjustification. But it is a pity, in my opinion, that

biographers, before pronouncing upon that supposed lie of Raleigh's, had not taken the trouble to find out

what the words mean. In their virtuous haste to prove him a liar, they have overlooked the fact that the words,

as they stand, are unintelligible, and the argument selfcontradictory. He wants to prove, we suppose, that he

does not go to sea for fear of being forced to marry Miss Throgmorton. It is, at least, an unexpected method

of so doing in a shrewd man like Raleigh, to say that he wishes to marry no one at all. 'Don't think that I run

away for fear of a marriage, for I do not wish to marry any one on the face of the earth,' is a speech which

may prove Raleigh to have been a fool, and we must understand it before we can say that it proves him a

rogue. If we had received such a letter from a friend, we should have said at once, 'Why the man, in his hurry

and confusion, has omitted THE word; he must have meant to write, not "There is none on the face of the

earth that I would be fastened to," but "There is none on the face of the earth that I would RATHER be

fastened to,"' which would at once make sense and suit fact. For Raleigh not only married Miss Throgmorton

forthwith, but made her the best of husbands. My conjectural emendation may go for what it is worth: but

that the passage, as it stands in Murdin's State Papers (the MSS. I have not seen) is either misquoted, or mis

written by Raleigh himself, I cannot doubt. He was not one to think nonsense, even if he scribbled it.

The Spanish raid turns out well. Raleigh overlooks Elizabeth's letters of recall till he finds out that the King

of Spain has stopped the Platefleet for fear of his coming; and then returns, sending on Sir John Burrough to

the Azores, where he takes the 'Great Carack,' the largest prize (1600 tons) which had ever been brought into

England. The details of that gallant fight stand in the pages of Hakluyt. It raised Raleigh once more to wealth,

though not to favour. Shortly after he returns from the sea, he finds himself, where he deserves to be, in the

Tower, where he does more than one thing which brought him no credit. How far we are justified in calling

his quarrel with Sir George Carew, his keeper, for not letting him 'disguise himself, and get into a pair of oars

to ease his mind but with a sight of the Queen, or his heart would break,' hypocrisy, is a very different matter.

Honest Arthur Gorges, a staunch friend of Raleigh's, tells the story laughingly and lovingly, as if he thought

Raleigh sincere, but somewhat mad: and yet honest Gorges has a good right to say a bitter thing; for after

having been 'ready to break with laughing at seeing them two brawl and scramble like madmen, and Sir

George's new periwig torn off his crown,' he sees 'the iron walking' and daggers out, and playing the part of

him who taketh a dog by the ears, 'purchased such a rap on the knuckles, that I wished both their pates

broken, and so with much ado they staid their brawl to see my bloody fingers,' and then set to work to abuse

the hapless peacemaker. After which things Raleigh writes a letter to Cecil, which is still more offensive in

the eyes of virtuous biographershow 'his heart was never broken till this day, when he hears the Queen

goes so far off, whom he followed with love and desire on so many journeys, and am now left behind in a

dark prison all alone.' . . . 'I that was wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking

like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair about her pure cheeks,' and so forth, in a style in which the

vulturine nose must needs scent carrion, just because the roses are more fragrant than they should be in a

world where all ought to be either vultures or carrion for their dinners. As for his despair, had he not good

reason to be in despair? By his own sin he has hurled himself down the hill which he has so painfully

climbed. He is in the Towersurely no pleasant or hopeful place for any man. Elizabeth is exceedingly

wroth with him; and what is worse, he deserves what he has got. His whole fortune is ventured in an

expedition over which he has no control, which has been unsuccessful in its first object, and which may be

altogether unsuccessful in that which it has undertaken as a pisaller, and so leave him penniless. There want

not, too, those who will trample on the fallen. The deputy has been cruelly distraining on his Irish tenants for

a 'supposed debt of his to the Queen of 400 pounds for rent,' which was indeed but fifty marks, and which

was paid, and has carried off 500 milch kine from the poor settlers whom he has planted there, and forcibly

thrust him out of possession of a castle. Moreover, the whole Irish estates are likely to come to ruin; for

nothing prevails but rascality among the English soldiers, impotence among the governors, and rebellion

among the natives. Three thousand Burkes are up in arms; his 'prophecy of this rebellion' ten days ago was

laughed at, and now has come true; and altogether, Walter Raleigh and all belonging to him is in as evil case

as he ever was on earth. No wonder, poor fellow, if he behowls himself lustily, and not always wisely, to

As for his fine speeches about Elizabeth, why forget the standing point from which such speeches were

made? Over and above his present ruin, it was (and ought to have been) an utterly horrible and unbearable

thing to Raleigh, or any man, to have fallen into disgrace with Elizabeth by his own fault. He feels (and

perhaps rightly) that he is as it were excommunicated from England, and the mission and the glory of

England. Instead of being, as he was till now, one of a body of brave men working together in one great

common cause, he has cut himself off from the congregation by his own selfish lust, and there he is left alone

with his shame. We must try to realise to ourselves the way in which such men as Raleigh looked not only at

Elizabeth, but at all the world. There was, in plain palpable fact, something about the Queen, her history, her

policy, the times, the glorious part which England, and she as the incarnation of the then English spirit, were

playing upon earth, which raised imaginative and heroical souls into a permanent exaltationa 'fairyland,' as

they called it themselves, which seems to us fantastic, and would be fantastic in us, because we are not at

their work, or in their days. There can be no doubt that a number of as noble men as ever stood together on

the earth did worship that woman, fight for her, toil for her, risk all for her, with a pure chivalrous affection

which has furnished one of the most beautiful pages in all the book of history. Blots there must needs have

been, and inconsistencies, selfishnesses, follies; for they too were men of like passions with ourselves; but let

us look at the fair vision as a whole, and thank God that such a thing has for once existed even imperfectly on

this sinful earth, instead of playing the part of Ham and falling under his curse,the penalty of slavishness,

cowardice, loss of noble daring, which surely falls on any generation which is 'banausos,' to use Aristotle's

word; which rejoices in its forefathers' shame, and, unable to believe in the nobleness of others, is unable to

As for the 'Alexander and Diana' affectations, they were the language of the time: and certainly this

generation has no reason to find fault with them, or with a good deal more of the 'affectations' and 'flattery' of

Elizabethan times, while it listens complacently night after night 'to honourable members' complimenting not

Queen Elizabeth, but Sir Jabesh Windbag, Fiddle, Faddle, Redtape, and party with protestations of deepest

respect and fullest confidence in the very speeches in which they bring accusations of every offence short of

high treasonto be understood, of course, in a 'parliamentary sense,' as Mr. Pickwick's were in a

'Pickwickian' one. If a generation of Knoxes and Mortons, Burleighs and Raleighs, shall ever arise again, one

wonders by what name they will call the parliamentary morality and parliamentary courtesy of a generation

'But Queen Elizabeth was an old woman then.' I thank the objector even for that 'then'; for it is much

nowadays to find any one who believes that Queen Elizabeth was ever young, or who does not talk of her as

if she was born about seventy years of age covered with rouge and wrinkles. I will undertake to say that as to

the beauty of this woman there is a greater mass of testimony, and from the very best judges too, than there is

of the beauty of any personage in history; and yet it has become the fashion now to deny even that. The plain

facts seem that she was very graceful, active, accomplished in all outward manners, of a perfect figure, and of

that style of intellectual beauty, depending on expression, which attracted (and we trust always will attract)

Britons far more than that merely sensuous loveliness in which no doubt Mary Stuart far surpassed her. And

there seems little doubt that, like many Englishwomen, she retained her beauty to a very late period in life,

not to mention that she was, in 1592, just at that age of rejuvenescence which makes many a woman more

lovely at sixty than she has been since she was thirty five. No doubt, too, she used every artificial means to

preserve her famous complexion; and quite right she was. This beauty of hers had been a talent, as all beauty

is, committed to her by God; it had been an important element in her great success; men had accepted it as

what beauty of form and expression generally is, an outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual

grace; and while the inward was unchanged, what wonder if she tried to preserve the outward? If she was the

same, why should she not try to look the same? And what blame to those who worshipped her, if, knowing

that she was the same, they too should fancy that she looked the same, the Elizabeth of their youth, and

should talk as if the fair flesh, as well as the fair spirit, was immortal? Does not every loving husband do so

when he forgets the gray hair and the sunken cheek, and all the wastes of time, and sees the partner of many

joys and sorrows not as she has become, but as she was, ay, and is to him, and will be to him, he trusts,

through all eternity? There is no feeling in these Elizabethan worshippers which we have not seen, potential

and crude, again and again in the best and noblest of young men whom we have met, till it was crushed in

them by the luxury, effeminacy, and unbelief in chivalry, which are the sure accompaniment of a long peace,

But we must hasten on now; for Raleigh is out of prison in September, and by the next spring in parliament

speaking wisely and well, especially on his fixed idea, war with Spain, which he is rewarded for forthwith in

Father Parson's 'Andreae Philopatris Responsio' by a charge of founding a school of Atheism for the

corruption of young gentlemen; a charge which Lord ChiefJustice Popham, Protestant as he is, will find it

Elizabeth, however, now that Raleigh has married the fair Throgmorton and done wisely in other matters,

restores him to favour. If he has sinned, he has suffered: but he is as useful as ever, now that his senses have

returned to him; and he is making good speeches in parliament, instead of bad ones to weak maidens; so we

find him once more in favour, and possessor of Sherborne Manor, where he builds and beautifies, with

'groves and gardens of much variety and great delight.' And God, too, seems to have forgiven him; perhaps

has forgiven; for there the fair Throgmorton brings him a noble boy. Ut sis vitalis metuo puer!

Raleigh will quote David's example one day, not wisely or well. Does David's example ever cross him now,

and those sad words,'The Lord hath put away thy sin, . . . nevertheless the child that is born unto thee shall

Let that be as it may, all is sunshine once more. Sherborne Manor, a rich share in the great carack, a beautiful

wife, a child; what more does this man want to make him happy? Why should he not settle down upon his

lees, like ninetynine out of the hundred, or at least try a peaceful and easy path toward more 'praise and

pudding?' The world answers, or his biographers answer for him, that he needs to reinstate himself in his

mistress's affection; which is true or not, according as we take it. If they mean thereby, as most seem to mean,

that it was a mere selfish and ambitious scheme by which to wriggle into court favour once morewhy, let

them mean it: I shall only observe that the method which Raleigh took was a rather more dangerous and

selfsacrificing one than courtiers are wont to take. But if it be meant that Walter Raleigh spoke somewhat

thus with himself,'I have done a base and dirty deed, and have been punished for it. I have hurt the good

name of a sweet woman who loves me, and whom I find to be a treasure; and God, instead of punishing me

by taking her from me, has rendered me good for evil by giving her to me. I have justly offended a mistress

whom I worship, and who, after having shown her just indignation, has returned me good for evil by giving

me these fair lands of Sherborne, and only forbid me her presence till the scandal has passed away. She sees

and rewards my good in spite of my evil; and I, too, know that I am better than I have seemed; that I am fit

for nobler deeds than seducing maids of honour. How can I prove that? How can I redeem my lost name for

patriotism and public daring? How can I win glory for my wife, seek that men shall forget her past shame in

the thought, "She is Walter Raleigh's wife?" How can I show my mistress that I loved her all along, that I

acknowledge her bounty, her mingled justice and mercy? How can I render to God for all the benefits which

He has done unto me? How can I do a deed the like of which was never done in England?'

If all this had passed through Walter Raleigh's mind, what could we say of it, but that it was the natural and

rational feeling of an honourable and righthearted man, burning to rise to the level which he knew ought to

be his, because he knew that he had fallen below it? And what right better way of testifying these feelings

than to do what, as we shall see, Raleigh did? What right have we to impute to him lower motives than these,

while we confess that these righteous and noble motives would have been natural and rational;indeed, just

what we flatter ourselves that we should have felt in his place? Of course, in his grand scheme, the thought

came in, 'And I shall win to myself honour, and glory, and wealth,'of course. And pray, sir, does it not

come in in your grand schemes; and yours; and yours? If you made a fortune tomorrow by some wisely and

benevolently managed factory, would you forbid all speech of the said wisdom and benevolence, because you

had intended that wisdom and benevolence should pay you a good percentage? Away with cant, and let him

So Raleigh hits upon a noble project; a desperate one, true: but he will do it or die. He will leave pleasant

Sherborne, and the bosom of the beautiful bride, and the firstborn son, and all which to most makes life

worth having, and which Raleigh enjoys more intensely than most men; for he is a poet, and a man of strong

And he will go forth to endure heat, hunger, fever, danger of death in battle, danger of the Inquisition, rack,

and stake, in search of El Dorado. What so strange in that? I have known half a dozen men who, in his case,

and conscious of his powers, would have done the same from the same noble motive.

He begins prudently; and sends a Devonshire man, Captain Whiddon probably one of The Whiddons of

beautiful Chagfordto spy out the Orinoco. He finds that the Spaniards are there already; that Berreo, who

has attempted El Dorado from the westward, starting from New Granada and going down the rivers, is trying

to settle on the Orinoco mouth; that he is hanging the poor natives, encouraging the Caribs to hunt them and

sell them for slaves, imprisoning the caciques to extort their gold, torturing, ravishing, kidnapping, and

Raleigh's spirit is stirred within him. If 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' fiction as it is, once excited us, how must a far

worse reality have excited Raleigh, as he remembered that these Spaniards are as yet triumphant in iniquity,

and as he remembered, too, that these same men are the sworn foes of England, her liberty, her Bible, and her

Queen? What a deed, to be beforehand with them for once! To dispossess them of one corner of that western

world, where they have left no trace but blood and flame! He will go himself: he will find El Dorado and its

golden Emperor; and instead of conquering, plundering, and murdering him, as Cortez did Montezuma, and

Pizarro Atahuallpa, he will show him English strength; espouse his quarrel against the Spaniards; make him

glad to become Queen Elizabeth's vassal tributary, perhaps leave him a bodyguard of English veterans,

perhaps colonise his country, and so at once avenge and protect the oppressed Indians, and fill the Queen's

Such is his dream; vague perhaps: but far less vague than those with which Cortez and Pizarro started, and

succeeded. After a careful survey of the whole matter, I must give it as my deliberate opinion, that Raleigh

was more reasonable in his attempt, and had more fair evidence of its feasibility, than either Cortez or Pizarro

had for theirs. It is a bold assertion. If any reader doubts its truth, he cannot do better than to read the whole

of the documents connected with the two successful, and the one unsuccessful, attempts at finding a golden

kingdom. Let them read first Prescott's 'Conquests of Mexico and Peru,' and then Schomburgk's edition of

Raleigh's 'Guiana.' They will at least confess, when they have finished, that truth is stranger than fiction.

Of Raleigh's credulity in believing in El Dorado, much has been said. I am sorry to find even so wise a man

as Sir Robert Schomburgk, after bearing good testimony to Raleigh's wonderful accuracy about all matters

which he had an opportunity of observing, using this term of credulity. I must dare to differ on that point even

with Sir Robert, and ask by what right the word is used? First, Raleigh says nothing about El Dorado (as

every one is forced to confess) but what Spaniard on Spaniard had been saying for fifty years. Therefore the

blame of credulity ought to rest with the Spaniards, from Philip von Huten, Orellano, and George of Spires,

upward to Berreo. But it rests really with no one. For nothing, if we will examine the documents, is told of

the riches of El Dorado which had not been found to be true, and seen by the eyes of men still living, in Peru

and Mexico. Not onefifth of America had been explored, and already two El Dorados had been found and

conquered. What more rational than to suppose that there was a third, a fourth, a fifth, in the remaining

fourfifths? The reports of El Dorado among the savages were just of the same kind as those by which Cortez

and Pizarro hunted out Mexico and Peru, saving that they were far more widely spread, and confirmed by a

succession of adventurers. I entreat readers to examine this matter in Raleigh, Schomburgk, Humboldt, and

Condamine, and judge for themselves. As for Hume's accusations, I pass them by as equally silly and

shameless, only saying, for the benefit of readers, that they have been refuted completely by every one who

has written since Hume's days; and to those who are inclined to laugh at Raleigh for believing in Amazons

About the Amazons, Raleigh told what he was told; what the Spaniards who went before him, and

Condamine who came after him, were told. Humboldt thinks the story possibly founded on fact; and I must

say that, after reviewing all that has been said thereon, it does seem to me the simplest solution of the matter

just to believe it true; to believe that there was, about his time, or a little before, somewhere about the Upper

Orinoco, a warlike community of women. Humboldt shows how likely such would be to spring up where

women flee from their male tyrants into the forests. As for the fable which connected them with the Lake

Manoa and the city of El Dorado, we can only answer, 'If not true there and then, it is true elsewhere now';

for the Amazonian guards of the King of Dahomey at this moment, as all know, surpass in strangeness and in

ferocity all that has been reported of the Orinocquan viragos, and thus prove once more that truth is stranger

Besideand here I stand stubborn, regardless of gibes and sneersit is not yet proven that there was not, in

the sixteenth century, some rich and civilised kingdom like Peru or Mexico in the interior of South America.

Sir Robert Schomburgk has disproved the existence of Lake Parima; but it will take a long time, and more

explorers than one, to prove that there are no ruins of ancient cities, such as Stephens stumbled on in

Yucatan, still buried in the depths of the forest. Fifty years of ruin would suffice to wrap them in a leafy veil

which would hide them from every one who did not literally run against them. Tribes would die out, or

change place, as the Atures and other great nations have done in those parts, and every traditional record of

them perish gradually; for it is only gradually and lately that it has perished: while if it be asked, What has

become of the people themselves? the answer is, that when any race (like most of the American races in the

sixteenth century) is in a dying state, it hardly needs war to thin it down, and reduce the remnant to savagery.

Greater nations than El Dorado was even supposed to be have vanished ere now, and left not a trace behind:

and so may they. But enough of this. I leave the quarrel to that honest and patient warder of tourneys, Old

Time, who will surely do right at last, and go on to the dogheaded worthies, without necks, and long hair

hanging down behind, who, as a cacique told Raleigh, that 'they had of late years slain many hundreds of his

father's people,' and in whom even Humboldt was not always allowed, he says, to disbelieve (so much for

Hume's scoff at Raleigh as a liar), one old cacique boasting to him that he had seen them with his own eyes.

Humboldt's explanation is, that the Caribs, being the cleverest and strongest Indians, are also the most

imaginative; and therefore, being fallen children of Adam, the greatest liars; and that they invented both El

Dorado and the dogheads out of pure wickedness. Be it so. But all lies crystallise round some nucleus of

truth; and it really seems to me nothing very wonderful if the story should be on the whole true, and these

worthies were in the habit of dressing themselves up, like foolish savages as they were, in the skins of the

Aguara dog, with what not of stuffing, and tails, and so forth, in order to astonish the weak minds of the

Caribs, just as the Red Indians dress up in their feasts as bears, wolves, and deer, with foxtails, false bustles

of bison skin, and so forth. There are plenty of traces of such foolish attempts at playing 'bogy' in the history

of savages, even of our own Teutonic forefathers; and this I suspect to be the simple explanation of the whole

mare's nest. As for Raleigh being a fool for believing it; the reasons he gives for believing it are very rational;

the reasons Hume gives for calling him a fool rest merely on the story's being strange: on which grounds one

might disbelieve most matters in heaven and earth, from one's own existence to what one sees in every drop

of water under the microscope, yea, to the growth of every seed. The only sound proof that dogheaded men

are impossible is to be found in comparative anatomy, a science of which Hume knew no more than Raleigh,

and which for one marvel it has destroyed has revealed a hundred. I do not doubt that if Raleigh had seen and

described a kangaroo, especially its all but miraculous process of gestation, Hume would have called that a lie

also; but I will waste no more time in proving that no man is so credulous as the unbelieverthe man who

has such mighty and worldembracing faith in himself that he makes his own little brain the measure of the

Raleigh sails for Guiana. The details of his voyage should be read at length. Everywhere they show the eye of

a poet as well as of a man of science. He sees enough to excite his hopes more wildly than ever; he goes

hundreds of miles up the Orinoco in an open boat, suffering every misery, but keeping up the hearts of his

men, who cry out, 'Let us go on, we care not how far.' He makes friendship with the caciques, and enters into

alliance with them on behalf of Queen Elizabeth against the Spaniards. Unable to pass the falls of the Caroli,

and the rainy season drawing on, he returns, beloved and honoured by all the Indians, boasting that, during

the whole time he was there, no woman was the worse for any man of his crew. Altogether, we know few

episodes of history so noble, righteous, and merciful as this Guiana voyage. But he has not forgotten the

Spaniards. At Trinidad he payed his ships with the asphalt of the famous Pitchlake, and stoodand with

what awe such a man must have stoodbeneath the noble forest of Moriche fanpalms on its brink. He then

attacked, not, by his own confession, without something too like treachery, the new town of San Jose, takes

Berreo prisoner, and delivers from captivity five caciques, whom Berreo kept bound in one chain, 'basting

their bodies with burning bacon'an old trick of the Conquistadoresto make them discover their gold. He

tells them that he was 'the servant of a Queen who was the greatest cacique of the north, and a virgin; who

had more caciqui under her than there were trees on that island; that she was an enemy of the Castellani

(Spaniards) in behalf of their tyranny and oppression, and that she delivered all such nations about her as

were by them oppressed, and having freed all the coast of the northern world from their servitude, had sent

me to free them also, and withal to defend the country of Guiana from their invasion and conquest.' After

which perfectly true and rational speech, he subjoins (as we think equally honestly and rationally), 'I showed

them her Majesty's picture, which they so admired and honoured, as it had been easy to have brought them

This is one of the stock charges against Raleigh, at which all biographers (except quiet, sensible Oldys, who,

dull as he is, is far more fair and rational than most of his successors) break into virtuous shrieks of 'flattery,'

'meanness,' 'adulation,' 'courtiership,' and so forth. One biographer is of opinion that the Indians would have

admired far more the picture of a 'red monkey.' Sir Robert Schomburgk, unfortunately for the red monkey

theory, though he quite agrees that Raleigh's flattery was very shocking, says that from what he knowsand

no man knows moreof Indian taste, they would have far preferred to the portrait which Raleigh showed

themnot a red monkey, butsuch a picture as that at Hampton Court, in which Elizabeth is represented in

a fantastic court dress. Raleigh, it seems, must be made out a rogue at all risks, though by the most opposite

charges. The monkey theory is answered, however, by Sir Robert; and Sir Robert is answered, I think, by the

plain fact that, of course, Raleigh's portrait was exactly such a one as Sir Robert says they would have

admired; a picture probably in a tawdry frame, representing Queen Bess, just as queens were always painted

then, bedizened with 'browches, pearls, and owches,' satin and ruff, and probably with crown on head and

sceptre in hand, made up, as likely as not, expressly for the purpose for which it was used. In the name of all

simplicity and honesty, I ask, why is Raleigh to be accused of saying that the Indians admired Queen

Elizabeth's beauty when he never even hints at it? And why do all commentators deliberately forget the

preceding paragraphRaleigh's proclamation to the Indians, and the circumstances under which it was

spoken? The Indians are being murdered, ravished, sold for slaves, basted with burning fat; and grand white

men come like avenging angels, and in one day sweep their tyrants out of the land, restore them to liberty and

life, and say to them, 'A great Queen far across the seas has sent us to do this. Thousands of miles away she

has heard of your misery and taken pity on you; and if you will be faithful to her she will love you, and deal

justly with you, and protect you against these Spaniards who are devouring you as they have devoured all the

Indians round you; and for a token of ita sign that we tell you truth, and that there is really such a great

Queen, who is the Indian's friendhere is the picture of her.' What wonder if the poor idolatrous creatures

had fallen down and worshipped the picture just as millions do that of the Virgin Mary without a

thousandth part as sound and practical reasonas that of a divine, allknowing, allmerciful deliverer? As

for its being the picture of a beautiful woman or not, they would never think of that. The fair complexion and

golden hair would be a sign to them that she belonged to the mighty white people, even if there were no

bedizenment of jewels and crowns over and above; and that would be enough for them. When will

biographers learn to do common justice to their fellowmen by exerting now and then some small amount of

dramatic imagination, just sufficient to put themselves for a moment in the place of those of whom they

So ends his voyage, in which, he says, 'from myself I have deserved no thanks, for I am returned a beggar and

withered.' The only thing which, as far as I can find, he brought home was some of the delicious scaly

peaches of the Moriche palmthe Arbol de Vida, or tree of life, which gives sustenance and all else needful

to whole tribes of Indians. 'But I might have bettered my poor estate if I had not only respected her Majesty's

future honour and riches. It became not the former fortune in which I once lived to go journeys of piccory'

(pillage); 'and it had sorted ill with the offices of honour which, by her Majesty's grace, I hold this day in

England, to run from cape to cape and place to place for the pillage of ordinary prizes.'

So speaks one whom it has been the fashion to consider as little better than a pirate, and that, too, in days

when the noblest blood in England thought no shame (as indeed it was no shame) to enrich themselves with

Spanish gold. But so it is throughout this man's life. If there be a nobler word than usual to be spoken, or a

more wise word either, if there be a more chivalrous deed to be done, or a more prudent deed either, that

But the blatant beast has been busy at home; and, in spite of Chapman's heroical verses, he meets with little

but cold looks. Never mind. If the world will not help to do the deed, he will do it by himself; and no time

must be lost, for the Spaniards on their part will lose none. So, after six months, the faithful Keymis sails

again, again helped by the Lord High Admiral and Sir Robert Cecil. It is a hard race for one private man

against the whole power and wealth of Spain; and the Spaniard has been beforehand with them, and

reoccupied the country. They have fortified themselves at the mouth of the Caroli, so it is impossible to get

to the gold mines; they are enslaving the wretched Indians, carrying off their women, intending to transplant

some tribes and to expel others, and arming cannibal tribes against the inhabitants. All is misery and rapine;

the scattered remnant comes asking piteously why Raleigh does not come over to deliver them? Have the

Spaniards slain him, too? Keymis comforts them as he best can; hears of more gold mines; and gets back

safe, a little to his own astonishment; for eightandtwenty ships of war have been sent to Trinidad to guard

the entrance to El Dorado, not surely, as Keymis well says, 'to keep us only from tobacco.' A colony of 500

persons is expected from Spain. The Spaniard is well aware of the richness of the prize, says Keymis, who all

through shows himself a worthy pupil of his master. A careful, observant man he seems to have been, trained

by that great example to overlook no fact, even the smallest. He brings home lists of rivers, towns, caciques,

poisonherbs, words, what not; he has fresh news of gold, spleenstones, kidneystones, and some fresh

specimens; but be that as it may, he, 'without going as far as his eyes can warrant, can promise Brazilwood,

honey, cotton, balsamum, and drugs, to defray charges.' He would fain copy Raleigh's style, too, and 'whence

his lamp had oil, borrow light also,' 'seasoning his unsavoury speech' with some of the 'leaven of Raleigh's

discourse.' Which, indeed, he does even to little pedantries and attempts at classicality; and after professing

that himself and the remnant of his few years he hath bequeathed wholly to Raleana, and his thoughts live

only in that action, he rises into something like grandeur when he begins to speak of that everfertile subject,

the Spanish cruelties to the Indians; 'Doth not the cry of the poor succourless ascend unto the heavens? Hath

God forgotten to be gracious to the work of his own hands. Or shall not his judgments in a day of visitation

by the ministry of his chosen servant come upon these bloodthirsty butchers, like rain into a fleece of wool?'

Poor Keymis! To us he is by no means the least beautiful figure in this romance; a faithful, diligent, loving

man, unable, as the event proved, to do great deeds by himself, but inspired with a great idea by contact with

a mightier spirit, to whom he clings through evil report, and poverty, and prison, careless of self to the last,

But here remark two things: first, that Cecil believes in Raleigh's Guiana scheme; next, that the occupation of

Orinoco by the Spaniards, which Raleigh is accused of having concealed from James in 1617, has been ever

Raleigh has not been idle in the meanwhile. It has been found necessary after all to take the counsel which he

gave in vain in 1588, to burn the Spanish fleet in harbour; and the heroes are gone down to Cadiz fight, and in

one day of thunder storm the Sevastopol of Spain. Here, as usual, we find Raleigh, though in an inferior

command, leading the whole by virtue of superior wisdom. When the good Lord Admiral will needs be

cautious, and land the soldiers first, it is Raleigh who persuades him to force his way into the harbour, to the

joy of all captains. When hotheaded Essex, casting his hat into the sea for joy, shouts 'Intramos,' and will in at

once, Raleigh's time for caution comes, and he persuades them to wait till the next morning, and arrange the

order of attack. That, too, Raleigh has to do, and moreover to lead it; and lead it he does. Under the forts are

seventeen galleys; the channel is 'scoured' with cannon: but on holds Raleigh's 'Warspite,' far ahead of the

rest, through the thickest of the fire, answering forts and galleys 'with a blur of the trumpet to each piece,

disdaining to shoot at those esteemed dreadful monsters.' For there is a nobler enemy ahead. Right in front lie

the galleons; and among them the 'Philip' and the 'Andrew,' two of those who boarded the 'Revenge.' This day

there shall be a reckoning for the blood of his old friend; he is 'resolved to be revenged for the "Revenge,"' Sir

Richard Grenvile's fatal ship, or second her with his own life'; and well he keeps his vow. Three hours pass of

desperate valour, during which, so narrow is the passage, only seven English ships, thrusting past each other,

all but quarrelling in their noble rivalry, engage the whole Spanish fleet of fiftyseven sail, and destroy it

utterly. The 'Philip' and 'Thomas' burn themselves despairing. The English boats save the 'Andrew' and

'Matthew.' One passes over the hideous record. 'If any man,' says Raleigh, 'had a desire to see hell itself, it

was there most lively figured.' Keymis's prayer is answered in part, even while he writes it; and the cry of the

The soldiers are landed; the city stormed and sacked, not without mercies and courtesies, though, to women

and unarmed folk, which win the hearts of the vanquished, and live till this day in wellknown ballads. The

Flemings begin a 'merciless slaughter.' Raleigh and the Lord Admiral beat them off. Raleigh is carried on

shore with a splinter wound in the leg, which lames him for life: but returns on board in an hour in agony; for

there is no admiral left to order the fleet, and all are run headlong to the sack. In vain he attempts to get

together sailors the following morning, and attack the Indian fleet in Porto Real Roads; within twentyfour

hours it is burnt by the Spaniards themselves; and all Raleigh wins is no booty, a lame leg, and the honour of

So he returns; having written to Cecil the highest praises of Essex, whom he treats with all courtesy and

fairness; which those who will may call cunning: we have as good a right to say that he was returning good

for evil. There were noble qualities in Essex. All the world gave him credit for them, and far more than he

deserved; why should not Raleigh have been just to him; even have conceived, like the rest of the world, high

hopes of him, till he himself destroyed these hopes? For now storms are rising fast. On their return Cecil is in

power. He has been made Secretary of State instead of Bodley, Essex's pet, and the spoilt child begins to

sulk. On which matter, I am sorry to say, historians talk much unwisdom, about Essex's being too 'open and

generous, etc., for a courtier,' and 'presuming on his mistress's passion for him'; and representing Elizabeth as

desiring to be thought beautiful, and 'affecting at sixty the sighs, loves, tears, and tastes of a girl of sixteen,'

and so forth. It is really time to get rid of some of this fulsome talk, culled from such triflers as Osborne, if

not from the darker and fouler sources of Parsons and the Jesuit slanderers, which I meet with a flat denial.

There is simply no proof. She in love with Essex or Cecil? Yes, as a mother with a son. Were they not the

children of her dearest and most faithful servants, men who had lived heroic lives for her sake? What wonder

if she fancied that she saw the fathers in the sons? They had been trained under her eye. What wonder if she

fancied that they could work as their fathers worked before them? And what shame if her childless heart

yearned over them with unspeakable affection, and longed in her old age to lay her hands upon the shoulders

of those two young men, and say to England, 'Behold the children which God, and not the flesh, has given

me!' Most strange it is, too, that women, who ought at least to know a woman's heart, have been especially

forward in publishing these scandals, and sullying their pages by retailing pruriences against such a one as

But to return. Raleigh attaches himself to Cecil; and he has good reason. Cecil is the cleverest man in

England, saving himself. He has trusted and helped him, too, in two Guiana voyages; so the connection is one

of gratitude as well as prudence. We know not whether he helped him in the third Guiana voyage in the same

year, under Captain Berry, a north Devon man, from Grenvile's country; who found a 'mighty folk,' who were

'something pleasant, having drunk much that day,' and carried bows with golden handles: but failed in finding

Raleigh's first use of his friendship with Cecil is to reconcile him, to the astonishment of the world, with

Essex, alleging how much good may grow by it; for now 'the Queen's continual unquietness will grow to

contentment.' That, too, those who will may call policy. We have as good a right to call it the act of a wise

and faithful subject, and to say, 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.' He

has his reward for it in full restoration to the Queen's favour; he deserves it. He proves himself once more

worthy of power, and it is given to him. Then there is to be a second great expedition: but this time its aim is

the Azores. Philip, only maddened by the loss at Cadiz, is preparing a third armament for the invasion of

England and Ireland, and it is said to lie at the islands to protect the Indian fleet. Raleigh has the victualling

of the landforces, and, like everything else he takes in hand, 'it is very well done.' Lord Howard declines the

By the time they reach the Azores, Essex has got up a foolish quarrel against Raleigh for disrespect in having

stayed behind to bring up some stragglers. But when no Armada is to be found at the Azores, Essex has after

all to ask Raleigh what he shall do next. Conquer the Azores, says Raleigh, and the thing is agreed on.

Raleigh and Essex are to attack Fayal. Essex sails away before Raleigh has watered. Raleigh follows as fast

as he can, and at Fayal finds no Essex. He must water there, then and at once. His own veterans want him to

attack forthwith, for the Spaniards are fortifying fast: but he will wait for Essex. Still no Essex comes.

Raleigh attempts to water, is defied, finds himself 'in for it,' and takes the island out of hand in the most

masterly fashion, to the infuriation of Essex. Good Lord Howard patches up the matter, and the hotheaded

coxcomb is once more pacified. They go on to Graciosa, where Essex's weakness of will again comes out,

and he does not take the island. Three rich Caracks, however, are picked up. 'Though we shall be little the

better for them,' says Raleigh privately to Sir Arthur Gorges, his faithful captain, 'yet I am heartily glad for

our General's sake; because they will in great measure give content to her Majesty, so that there may be no

Raleigh begins to see that Essex is only to be pitied; that the voyage is not over likely to end well: but he

takes it, in spite of illusage, as a kindhearted man should. Again Essex makes a fool of himself. They are to

steer one way in order to intercept the Plate fleet. Essex having agreed to the course pointed out, alters his

course on a fancy; then alters it a second time, though the hapless Monson, with the whole Platefleet in

sight, is hanging out lights, firing guns, and shrieking vainly for the General, who is gone on a new course, in

which he might have caught the fleet after all, in spite of his two mistakes, but that he chooses to go a

roundabout way instead of a short one; and away goes the whole fleet, save one Carack, which runs itself on

All want Essex to go home, as the season is getting late: but the wilful and weak man will linger still, and

while he is hovering to the south, Philip's armament has sailed from the Groyne, on the undefended shores of

England, and only God's hand saves us from the effects of Essex's folly. A third time the Armadas of Spain

are overwhelmed by the avenging tempests, and Essex returns to disgrace, having proved himself at once

intemperate and incapable. Even in coming home there is confusion, and Essex is all but lost on the Bishop

and Clerks, by Scilly, in spite of the warnings of Raleigh's sailingmaster, 'Old Broadbent,' who is so

exasperated at the general stupidity that he wants Raleigh to leave Essex and his squadron to get out of their

Essex goes off to sulk at Wanstead; but Vere excuses him, and in a few days he comes back, and will needs

fight good Lord Howard for being made Earl of Nottingham for his services against the Armada and at Cadiz.

Baulked of this, he begins laying the blame of the failure at the Azores on Raleigh. Let the spoilt naughty boy

take care; even that 'admirable temper' for which Raleigh is famed may be worn out at last.

These years are Raleigh's noonstormy enough at best, yet brilliant. There is a pomp about him, outward

and inward, which is terrible to others, dangerous to himself. One has gorgeous glimpses of that grand

Durham House of his, with its carvings and its antique marbles, armorial escutcheons, 'beds with green silk

hangings and legs like dolphins, overlaid with gold': and the man himself, tall, beautiful, and graceful, perfect

alike in body and in mind, walking to and fro, his beautiful wife upon his arm, his noble boy beside his knee,

in his 'white satin doublet, embroidered with pearls, and a great chain of pearls about his neck,' lording it

among the lords with an 'awfulness and ascendency above other mortals,' for which men say that 'his naeve

is, that he is damnable proud'; and no wonder. The reduced squire's younger son has gone forth to conquer the

world; and he fancies, poor fool, that he has conquered it, just as it really has conquered him; and he will

stand now on his blood and his pedigree (no bad one either), and all the more stiffly because puppies like

Lord Oxford, who instead of making their fortunes have squandered them, call him 'jack and upstart,' and

make impertinent faces while the Queen is playing the virginals, about 'how when jacks go up, heads go

down.' Proud? No wonder if the man be proud! 'Is not this great Babylon, which I have built?' And yet all the

while he has the most affecting consciousness that all this is not God's will, but the will of the flesh; that the

house of fame is not the house of God; that its floor is not the rock of ages, but the sea of glass mingled with

fire, which may crack beneath him any moment, and let the nether flame burst up. He knows that he is living

in a splendid lie; that he is not what God meant him to be. He longs to flee away and be at peace. It is to this

period, not to his death hour, that 'The Lie' belongs; {4} saddest of poems, with its melodious contempt and

lifeweariness. All is a liecourt, church, statesmen, courtiers, wit and science, town and country, all are

shams; the days are evil; the canker is at the root of all things; the old heroes are dying one by one; the

Elizabethan age is rotting down, as all human things do, and nothing is left but to bewail with Spenser 'The

Ruins of Time'; the glory and virtue which have been the greater glory and virtue which might be even

now, if men would but arise and repent, and work righteousness, as their fathers did before them. But no.

Even to such a world as this he will cling, and flaunt it about as captain of the guard in the Queen's progresses

and masques and pageants, with swordbelt studded with diamonds and rubies, or at tournaments, in armour

of solid silver, and a gallant train with orangetawny feathers, provoking Essex to bring in a far larger train in

the same colours, and swallow up Raleigh's pomp in his own, so achieving that famous 'feather triumph' by

which he gains little but bad blood and a good jest. For Essex is no better tilter than he is general; and having

'run very ill' in his orangetawny, comes next day in green, and runs still worse, and yet is seen to be the

same cavalier; whereon a spectator shrewdly observes that he changed his colours 'that it may be reported

that there was one in green who ran worse than he in orangetawny.' But enough of these toys, while God's

Raleigh knows that the handwriting is there. The spirit which drove him forth to Virginia and Guiana is fallen

asleep: but he longs for Sherborne and quiet country life, and escapes thither during Essex's imprisonment,

taking Cecil's son with him, and writes as only he can write about the shepherd's peaceful joys, contrasted

'Here are no false entrapping baits Too hasty for too hasty fates, Unless it be The fond credulity Of silly fish,

that worlding who still look Upon the bait, but never on the hook; Nor envy, unless among The birds, for

'Go! let the diving negro seek For pearls hid in some forlorn creek, We all pearls scorn, Save what the dewy

morn Congeals upon some little spire of grass, Which careless shepherds beat down as they pass And gold

Tragic enough are the after scenes of Raleigh's life: but most tragic of all are these scenes of vainglory, in

which he sees the better part, and yet chooses the worse, and pours out his self discontent in song which

proves the fount of delicacy and beauty which lies pure and bright beneath the gaudy artificial crust. What

might not this man have been! And he knows that too. The stately rooms of Durham House pall on him, and

he delights to hide up in his little study among his books and his chemical experiments, and smoke his silver

pipe, and look out on the clear Thames and the green Surrey hills, and dream about Guiana and the Tropics;

or to sit in the society of antiquaries with Selden and Cotton, Camden and Stow; or in his own Mermaid Club,

with Ben Jonson, Fletcher, Beaumont, and at last with Shakspeare's self to hear and utter

'Words that have been So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, As if that every one from whom they came Had

Anything to forget the handwriting on the wall, which will not be forgotten. But he will do all the good which

he can meanwhile, nevertheless. He will serve God and Mammon. So complete a man will surely be able to

do both. Unfortunately the thing is impossible, as he discovers too late: but he certainly goes as near success

in the attempt as ever man did. Everywhere we find him doing justly and loving mercy. Wherever this man

steps he leaves his footprint ineffaceably in deeds of benevolence. For one year only, it seems, he is governor

of Jersey; yet to this day, it is said, the islanders honour his name, only second to that of Duke Rollo, as their

great benefactor, the founder of their Newfoundland trade. In the west country he is 'as a king,' 'with ears and

mouth always open to hear and deliver their grievances, feet and hands ready to go and work their redress.'

The tinmerchants have become usurers 'of fifty in the hundred.' Raleigh works till he has put down their

'abominable and cutthroat dealing.' There is a burdensome westcountry tax on curing fish; Raleigh works

till it is revoked. In Parliament he is busy with liberal measures, always before his generation. He puts down a

foolish act for compulsory sowing of hemp in a speech on the freedom of labour worthy of the nineteenth

century. He argues against raising the subsidy from the threepound men'Call you this, Mr. Francis Bacon,

par jugum, when a poor man pays as much as a rich?' He is equally rational and spirited against the

exportation of ordnance to the enemy; and when the question of abolishing monopolies is mooted he has his

wise word. He too is a monopolist of tin, as Lord Warden of the Stannaries. But he has so wrought as to bring

good out of evil; for 'before the granting of his patent, let the price of tin be never so high, the poor workman

never had but two shillings a week'; yet now, so has he extended and organised the tin works, 'that any man

who will can find work, be tin at what price soever, and have four shillings a week truly paid . . . Yet if all

others may be repealed, I will give my consent as freely to the cancelling of this as any member of this

house.' Most of the monopolies were repealed: but we do not find that Raleigh's was among them. Why

should it be if its issue was more tin, full work, and double wages? In all things this man approves himself

faithful in his generation. His sins are not against man, but against God; such as the world thinks no sins, and

In the meanwhile, the evil which, so Spenser had prophesied, only waited Raleigh's death breaks out in his

absence, and Ireland is all aflame with Tyrone's rebellion. Raleigh is sent for. He will not accept the post of

Lord Deputy and go to put it down. Perhaps he does not expect fair play as long as Essex is at home. Perhaps

he knows too much of the 'common weal, or rather common woe,' and thinks that what is crooked cannot be

made straight. Perhaps he is afraid to lose by absence his ground at court. Would that he had gone, for

Ireland's sake and his own. However, it must not be. Ormond is recalled, and Knollys shall be sent: but Essex

will have none but Sir George Carew; whom, Naunton says, he hates, and wishes to oust from court. He and

Elizabeth argue it out. He turns his back on her, and she gives himor does not give him, for one has found

so many of these racy anecdotes vanish on inspection into simple wind, that one believes none of thema

box on the ear; which if she did, she did the most wise, just, and practical thing which she could do with such

a puppy. He claps his handor does notto his sword, 'He would not have taken it from Henry VIII.,' and

is turned out forthwith. In vain Egerton, the Lord Keeper, tries to bring him to reason. He storms insanely.

Every one on earth is wrong but he: every one is conspiring against him; he talks of 'Solomon's fool' too. Had

he read the Proverbs a little more closely, he might have left the said fool alone, as being a too painfully exact

likeness of himself. It ends by his being worsted, and Raleigh rising higher than ever.

I cannot see why Raleigh should be represented as henceforth becoming Essex's 'avowed enemy,' save on the

ground that all good men are and ought to be the enemies of bad men, when they see them about to do harm,

and to ruin the country. Essex is one of the many persons upon whom this age has lavished a quantity of

sentimentality, which suits oddly enough with its professions of impartiality. But there is an impartiality

which ends in utter injustice; which by saying carelessly to every quarrel, 'Both are right, and both are

wrong,' leaves only the impression that all men are wrong, and ends by being unjust to every one. So has

Elizabeth and Essex's quarrel been treated. There was some evil in Essex; therefore Elizabeth was a fool for

liking him. There was some good in Essex; therefore Elizabeth was cruel in punishing him. This is the sort of

slipshod dilemma by which Elizabeth is proved to be wrong, even while Essex is confessed to be wrong too;

while the patent facts of the case are, that Elizabeth bore with him as long as she could, and a great deal

longer than any one else could. Why Raleigh should be accused of helping to send Essex into Ireland, I do

not know. Camden confesses (at the same time that he gives a hint of the kind) that Essex would let no one

go but himself. And if this was his humour, one can hardly wonder at Cecil and Raleigh, as well as Elizabeth,

bidding the man begone and try his hand at government, and be filled with the fruit of his own devices. He

goes; does nothing; or rather worse than nothing; for in addition to the notorious illmanagement of the

whole matter, we may fairly say that he killed Elizabeth. She never held up her head again after Tyrone's

rebellion. Elizabeth still clings to him, changing her mind about him every hour, and at last writes him such a

letter as he deserves. He has had power, money, men, such as no one ever had before. Why has he done

nothing but bring England to shame? He comes home franticallythe story of his bursting into the

dressingroom rests on no good authoritywith a party of friends at his heels, leaving Ireland to take care of

itself. Whatever entertainment he met with from the fond old woman, he met with the coldness which he

deserved from Raleigh and Cecil. Who can wonder? What had he done to deserve aught else? But he all but

conquers; and Raleigh takes to his bed in consequence, sick of the whole matter; as one would have been

inclined to do oneself. He is examined and arraigned; writes a maudlin letter to Elizabeth. Elizabeth has been

called a fool for listening to such pathetical 'love letters': and then hardhearted for not listening to them. Poor

Lady! do what she would, she found it hard enough to please all parties while alive; must she be condemned

over and above in aeternum to be wrong whatsoever she did? Why is she not to have the benefit of the plain

straightforward interpretation which would be allowed to any other human being; namely, that she approved

of such fine talk as long as it was proved to be sincere by fine deeds: but that when these were wanting, the

fine talk became hollow, fulsome, a fresh cause of anger and disgust? Yet still she weeps over Essex when he

falls sick, as any mother would; and would visit him if she could with honour. But a 'malignant influence

counteracts every disposition to relent.' No doubt, a man's own folly, passion, and insolence has generally a

very malignant influence on his fortunes; and he may consider himself a very happy man if all that befalls to

him thereby is what befell Essex, namely, deprivation of his offices and imprisonment in his own house. He

is forgiven after all; but the spoilt child refuses his bread and butter without sugar. What is the pardon to him

without a renewal of his licence of sweet wines? Because he is not to have that, the Queen's 'conditions are as

crooked as her carcase.' Flesh and blood can stand no more, and ought to stand no more. After all that

Elizabeth has been to him, that speech is the speech of a brutal and ungrateful nature. And such he shows

himself to be in the hour of trial. What if the patent for sweet wines is refused him? Such gifts were meant as

the reward of merit; and what merit has he to show? He never thinks of that. Blind with fury, he begins to

intrigue with James, and slanders to him, under colour of helping his succession, all whom he fancies

opposed to him. What is worse, he intrigues with Tyrone about bringing over an army of Irish Papists to help

him against the Queen, and this at the very time that his sole claim to popularity rests on his being the leader

of the Puritans. A man must have been very far gone, either in baseness or in hatred, who represents Raleigh

to James as dangerous to the commonweal on account of his great power in the west of England and Jersey,

'places fit for the Spaniard to land in.' Cobham, as Warden of the Cinque Ports, is included in his slander; and

Some make much of a letter, supposed to be written about this time by Raleigh to Cecil, bidding Cecil keep

down Essex, even crush him, now that he is once down. I do not happen to think the letter to be Raleigh's. His

initials are subscribed to it; but not his name and the style is not like his. But as for seeing 'unforgiveness and

revenge in it,' whose soever it may be, I hold and say there is not a word which can bear such a construction.

It is a dark letter: but about a dark matter and a dark man. It is a worldly and expediential letter, appealing to

low motives in Cecil, though for a right end; such a letter, in short, as statesmen are wont to write nowadays.

If Raleigh wrote it, God punished him for doing so speedily enough. He does not usually punish statesmen

nowadays for such letters; perhaps because He does not love them as well as Raleigh. But as for the letter

itself. Essex is called a 'tyrant,' because he had shown himself one. The Queen is to 'hold Bothwell,' because

'while she hath him, he will even be the canker of her estate and safety,' and the writer has 'seen the last of her

good days and of ours after his liberty.' On which accounts, Cecil is not to be deterred from doing what is

right and necessary 'by any fear of afterrevenges' and 'conjectures from causes remote,' as many a stronger

instancegiven will prove, but 'look to the present,' and so 'do wisely.' There is no real cause for Cecil's

fear. If the man who has now lost a power which he ought never to have had be now kept down, then neither

he nor his son will ever be able to harm the man who has kept him at his just level. What 'revenge,

selfishness, and craft' there can be in all this it is difficult to see; as difficult as to see why Essex is to be

talked of as 'unfortunate,' and the blame of his frightful end thrown on every one but himself: the fact being

that Essex's end was brought on by his having chosen one Sunday morning for breaking out into open

rebellion, for the purpose of seizing the city of London and the Queen's person, and compelling her to make

him lord and master of the British Isles; in which attempt he and his fought with the civil and military

authorities, till artillery had to be brought up and many lives were lost. Such little escapades may be

pardonable enough in 'noble and unfortunate' earls: but readers will perhaps agree that if they chose to try a

similar experiment, they could not complain if they found themselves shortly after in company with Mr.

Mitchell at Spike Island or Mr. Oxford in Bedlam. However, those were days in which such Sabbath

amusements on the part of one of the most important and powerful personages of the realm could not be

passed over so lightly, especially when accompanied by severe loss of life; and as there existed in England

certain statutes concerning rebellion and high treason, which must needs have been framed for some purpose

or other, the authorities of England may be excused for fancying that they bore some reference to such acts as

that which the noble and unfortunate earl had just committed, as wantonly, selfishly, and needlessly, it seems

I may seem to jest too much upon so solemn a matter as the life of a human being: but if I am not to touch the

popular talk about Essex in this tone, I can only touch it in a far sterner one; and if ridicule is forbidden,

I have entered into this matter of Essex somewhat at length, because on it is founded one of the mean slanders

from which Raleigh never completely recovered. The very mob who, after Raleigh's death, made him a

Protestant martyras, indeed, he waslooked upon Essex in the same light, hated Raleigh as the cause of

his death, and accused him of glutting his eyes with Essex's misery, puffing tobacco out of a window, and

what notall mere inventions, so Raleigh declared upon the scaffold. He was there in his office as captain of

the guard, and could do no less than be there. Essex, it is said, asked for Raleigh just before he died: but

Raleigh had withdrawn, the mob having murmured. What had Essex to say to him? Was it, asks Oldys,

shrewdly enough, to ask him pardon for the wicked slanders which he had been pouring into James's

credulous and cowardly ears? We will hope so; and leave poor Essex to God and the mercy of God, asserting

once more that no man ever brought ruin and death more thoroughly on himself by his own act, needing no

And now begins the fourth act of this strange tragedy. Queen Elizabeth dies; and dies of grief. It has been the

fashion to attribute to her, I know not why, remorse for Essex's death; and the foolish and false tale about

Lady Nottingham and the ring has been accepted as history. The fact seems to be that she never really held up

her head after Burleigh's death. She could not speak of him without tears; forbade his name to be mentioned

in the Council. No wonder; never had mistress a better servant. For nearly half a century have these two noble

souls loved each other, trusted each other, worked with each other; and God's blessing has been on their

deeds; and now the faithful Godfearing man is gone to his reward; and she is growing old, and knows that

the ancient fire is dying out in her; and who will be to her what he was? Buckhurst is a good man, and one of

her old pupils; and she makes him Lord Treasurer in Burleigh's place: but beyond that all is dark. 'I am a

miserable forlorn woman; there is none about me that I can trust.' She sees through Cecil; through Henry

Howard. Essex has proved himself worthless, and pays the penalty of his sins. Men are growing worse than

their fathers. Spanish gold is bringing in luxury and sin. The last ten years of her reign are years of

decadence, profligacy, falsehood; and she cannot but see it. Tyrone's rebellion is the last drop which fills the

cup. After fifty years of war, after a drain of money all but fabulous expended on keeping Ireland quiet, the

volcano bursts forth again just as it seemed extinguished, more fiercely than ever, and the whole work has to

be done over again, when there is neither time nor a man to do it. And ahead, what hope is there for England?

Who will be her successor? She knows in her heart that it will be James: but she cannot bring herself to name

him. To bequeath the fruit of all her labours to a tyrant, a liar, and a coward: for she knows the man but too

well. It is too hideous to be faced. This is the end then? 'Oh that I were a milke maide, with a paile upon mine

arm!' But it cannot be. It never could have been; and she must endure to the end.

'Therefore I hated life; yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun; because I should leave it to

the man that shall be after me. And who knows whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have

rule over all my labour wherein I have showed myself wise, in wisdom, and knowledge, and equity . . .

Vanity of vanities, and vexation of spirit!' And so, with a whole book of Ecclesiastes written on that mighty

heart, the old lioness coils herself up in her lair, refuses food, and dies. I know few passages in the world's

Why did she not trust Raleigh? First, because Raleigh, as we have seen, was not the sort of man whom she

needed. He was not the steadfast singleeyed statesman; but the manysided genius. Besides, he was the

ringleader of the warparty. And she, like Burleigh before his death, was tired of the war; saw that it was

demoralising England; was anxious for peace. Raleigh would not see that. It was to him a divine mission

which must be fulfilled at all risks. As long as the Spaniards were opposing the Indians, conquering America,

there must be no peace. Both were right from their own point of view. God ordered the matter from a third

Besides, we know that Essex, and after him Cecil and Henry Howard, had been slandering Raleigh basely to

James. Can we doubt that the same poison had been poured into Elizabeth's ears? She might distrust Cecil too

much to act upon what he said of Raleigh; and yet distrust Raleigh too much to put the kingdom into his

hands. However, she is gone now, and a new king has arisen, who knoweth not Joseph.

James comes down to take possession. Insolence, luxury, and lawlessness mark his first steps on his going

amid the adulations of a fallen people; he hangs a poor wretch without trial; wastes his time in hunting by the

way;a bad and base man, whose only redeeming pointif in his case it be oneis his fondness for little

children. But that will not make a king. The wiser elders take counsel together. Raleigh and good Judge

Fortescue are for requiring conditions from the newcomer; and constitutional liberty makes its last stand

among the men of Devon, the old county of warriors, discoverers, and statesmen, of which Queen Bess had

said that the men of Devon were her right hand. But in vain; James has his way; Cecil and Henry Howard are

So down comes Rehoboam, taking counsel with the young men, and makes answer to England, 'My father

chastised you with whips; but I will chastise you with scorpions.' He takes a base pleasure, shocking to the

French ambassador, in sneering at the memory of Queen Elizabeth; a perverse delight in honouring every

rascal whom she had punished. Tyrone must come to England to be received into favour, maddening the soul

of honest Sir John Harrington. Essex is christened 'my martyr,' apparently for having plotted treason against

Elizabeth with Tyrone. Raleigh is received with a pun'By my soul, I have heard rawly of thee, mon'; and

when the great nobles and gentlemen come to court with their retinues, James tries to hide his dread of them

in an insult; poohpoohs their splendour, and says, 'he doubts not that he should have been able to win

England for himself, had they kept him out.' Raleigh answers boldly, 'Would God that had been put to the

trial.' 'Why?' 'Because then you would have known your friends from your foes.' 'A reason,' says old Aubrey,

'never forgotten or forgiven.' Aubrey is no great authority; but the speech smacks so of Raleigh's offhand

daring that one cannot but believe it; as one does also the other story of his having advised the lords to keep

out James and erect a republic. Not that he could have been silly enough to propose such a thing seriously at

that moment; but that he most likely, in his bold way, may have said, 'Well, if we are to have this man in

without conditions, better a republic at once.' Which, if he did say, he said what the next forty years proved to

be strictly true. However, he will go on his own way as best he can. If James will give him a loan, he and the

rest of the old heroes will join, fit out a fleet against Spain, and crush her, now that she is tottering and

impoverished, once and for ever. But James has no stomach for fighting; cannot abide the sight of a drawn

sword; would not provoke Spain for the worldwhy, they might send Jesuits and assassinate him; and as for

the money, he wants that for very different purposes. So the answer which he makes to Raleigh's proposal of

war against Spain is to send him to the Tower, and sentence him to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, on a

Having read, I believe, nearly all that has been written on the subject of this dark 'Cobham plot,' I find but one

thing come brightly out of the infinite confusion and mystery, which will never be cleared up till the day of

judgment, and that is Raleigh's innocence. He, and all England, and the very men who condemned him, knew

that he was innocent. Every biographer is forced to confess this, more or less, in spite of all efforts to be what

is called 'impartial.' So I shall waste no words upon the matter, only observing that whereas Raleigh is said to

have slandered Cecil to James, in the same way that Cecil had slandered him, one passage of this Cobham

plot disproves utterly such a story, which, after all, rests (as far as I know) only on hearsay, being 'spoken of

in a manuscript written by one Buck, secretary to Chancellor Egerton.' For in writing to his own wife, in the

expectation of immediate death, Raleigh speaks of Cecil in a very different tone, as one in whom he trusted

most, and who has left him in the hour of need. I ask the reader to peruse that letter, and say whether any man

would write thus, with death and judgment before his face, of one whom he knew that he had betrayed; or,

indeed, of one who he knew had betrayed him. I see no reason to doubt that Raleigh kept good faith with

Cecil, and that he was ignorant till after his trial that Cecil was in the plot against him.

I do not care to enter into the tracasseries of this Cobham plot. Every one knows them; no one can unravel

them. The moral and spiritual significance of the fact is more interesting than all questions as to Cobham's

lies, Brooke's lies, Aremberg's lies, Coke's lies, James's lies: Let the dead bury their dead. It is the broad

'The eagle, towering in his pride of place, Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed.'

This is the man who six months ago, perhaps, thought that he and Cecil were to rule England together, while

all else were the puppets whose wires they pulled. 'The Lord hath taken him up and dashed him down;' and

by such means, too, and on such a charge! Betraying his country to Spain! Absurdincrediblehe would

laugh it to scorn: but it is bitter earnest. There is no escape. True or false, he sees that his enemies will have

his head. It is maddening: a horrible nightmare. He cannot bear it; he cannot faceso he writes to that

beloved wife'the scorn, the taunts, the loss of honour, the cruel words of lawyers.' He stabs himself. Read

that letter of his, written after the mad blow had been struck; it is sublime from intensity of agony. The way

in which the chastisement was taken proves how utterly it was needed, ere that proud, successswollen,

And it is brought right. The wound is not mortal. He comes slowly to a better mind, and takes his doom like a

man. That first farewell to his wife was written out of hell. The second rather out of heaven. Read it, too, and

compare; and then see how the Lord has been working upon this great soul: infinite sadness, infinite

tenderness and patience, and trust in God for himself and his poor wife: 'God is my witness, it was for you

and yours that I desired life; but it is true that I disdain myself for begging it. For know, dear wife, that your

son is the son of a true man, and one who, in his own respect, despiseth death and all his ugly and misshapen

forms . . . The everlasting, powerful, infinite, and omnipotent God, who is goodness itself, the true life and

light, keep thee and thine, have mercy upon me, and teach me to forgive my persecutors and accusers, and

Is it come to this then? Is he fit to die at last? Then he is fit to live; and live he shall. The tyrants have not the

But not pardoned. No more return for him into that sinful world, where he flaunted on the edge of the

precipice, and dropped heedless over it. God will hide him in the secret place of His presence, and keep him

in His tabernacle from the strife of tongues; and a new life shall begin for him; a wiser, perhaps a happier,

than he has known since he was a little lad in the farmhouse in pleasant Devon far away. On the 15th of

December he enters the Tower. Little dreams he that for more than twelve years those doleful walls would be

his home. Lady Raleigh obtains leave to share his prison with him, and, after having passed ten years without

a child, brings him a boy to comfort the weary heart. The child of sorrow is christened Carew.

Little think those around him what strange things that child will see before his hairs be gray. She has her

maid, and he his three servants; some five or six friends are allowed 'to repair to him at convenient times.' He

has a chamberdoor always open into the lieutenant's garden, where he 'has converted a little henhouse into

a stillroom, and spends his time all the day in distillation.' The next spring a grant is made of his goods and

chattels, forfeited by attainder, to trustees named by himself, for the benefit of his family. So far, so well; or,

at least, not as ill as it might be: but there are those who cannot leave the caged lion in peace.

Sanderson, who had married his niece, instead of paying up the arrears which he owes on the wine and other

offices, brings in a claim of 2000 pounds. But the rogue meets his match, and finds himself, at the end of a

lawsuit, in prison for debt. Greater rogues, however, will have better fortune, and break through the law

cobwebs which have stopped a poor little fly like Sanderson. For Carr, afterwards Lord Somerset, casts his

eyes on the Sherborne land. It has been included in the conveyance, and should be safe; but there are others

who, by instigation surely of the devil himself, have had eyes to see a flaw in the deed. Sir John Popham is

appealed to. Who could doubt the result? He answers that there is no doubt that the words were omitted by

the inattention of the engrosserCarew Raleigh says that but one single word was wanting, which word was

found notwithstanding in the paperbook, i.e. the draftbut that the word not being there, the deed is

worthless, and the devil may have his way. To Carr, who has nothing of his own, it seems reasonable enough

to help himself to what belongs to others, and James gives him the land. Raleigh writes to him, gently,

gracefully, loftily. Here is an extract: 'And for yourself, sir, seeing your fair day is now in the dawn, and mine

drawn to the evening, your own virtues and the king's grace assuring you of many favours and much honour,

I beseech you not to begin your first building upon the ruins of the innocent; and that their sorrows, with

mine, may not attend your first plantation.' He speaks strongly of the fairness, sympathy, and pity by which

the Scots in general had laid him under obligation: argues from it his own evident innocence; and ends with a

quiet warning to the young favourite not to 'undergo the curse of them that enter into the fields of the

fatherless.' In vain. Lady Raleigh, with her children, entreats James on her knees: in vain again. 'I mun ha' the

land,' is the answer; 'I mun ha' it for Carr.' And he has it; patching up the matter after a while by a gift of 8000

pounds to her and her elder son, in requital for an estate of 5000 pounds a year.

So there sits Raleigh, growing poorer day by day, and clinging more and more to that fair wife, and her noble

boy, and the babe whose laughter makes music within that dreary cage. And all day long, as we have seen, he

sits over his still, compounding and discovering, and sometimes showing himself on the wall to the people,

who gather to gaze at him, till Wade forbids it, fearing popular feeling. In fact, the world outside has a sort of

mysterious awe of him, as if he were a chained magician, who, if he were let loose, might do with them all

what he would. Certain great nobles are of the same mind. Woe to them if that silver tongue should once

The Queen, with a woman's faith in greatness, sends to him for 'cordials.' Here is one of them, famous in

B. Zedoary and Saffron, each 0.5 lb. Distilled water 3 pints. Macerate, etc., and reduce to 1.5 pint. Compound

powder of crabs' claws 16 oz. Cinnamon and Nutmegs 2 oz. Cloves 1 oz. Cardamom seeds 0.5 oz. Double

Which, so the world believes, will cure all ills which flesh is heir to. It does not seem that Raleigh so boasted

himself; but the people, after the fashion of the time, seem to have called all his medicines 'cordials,' and

probably took for granted that it was by this particular one that the enchanter cured Queen Anne of a

desperate sickness, 'whereof the physicians were at the farthest end of their studies' (no great way to go in

Raleighthis is Sir Anthony Welden's account, which may go for what it is worthasks for his reward,

only justice. Will the Queen ask that certain lords may be sent to examine Cobham, 'whether he had at any

time accused Sir Walter of any treason under his hand?' Six are sent. Cobham answers, 'Never; nor could I:

that villain Wade often solicited me, and not so prevailing, got me by a trick to write my name on a piece of

white paper. So that if a charge come under my hand it was forged by that villain Wade, by writing

something above my hand, without my consent or knowledge.' They return. An equivocation was ready. 'Sir,

my Lord Cobham has made good all that ever he wrote or said'; having, by his own account, written nothing

but his name. This is Sir Anthony Welden's story. One hopes, for the six lords' sake, it may not be true; but

there is no reason, in the morality of James's court, why it should not have been.

So Raleigh must remain where he is, and work on. And he does work. As his captivity becomes more and

more hopeless, so comes out more and more the stateliness, selfhelp, and energy of the man. Till now he has

played with his pen: now he will use it in earnest; and use it as few prisoners have done. Many a good book

has been written in a dungeon'Don Quixote,' the 'Pilgrim's Progress': beautiful each in its way, and

destined to immortality: Raleigh begins the 'History of the World,' the most Godfearing and Godseeing

history which I know of among English writings; though blotted by flattery of James in the preface: wrong:

but pardonable in a man trying in the Tower to get out of that doleful prison. But all his writings are thirty

years too late; they express the creed of a buried generation, of the men who defied Spain in the name of a

God of righteousness,not of men who cringe before her in the name of a God of power and cunning. The

captive eagle has written with a quill from his own winga quill which has been wont ere now to soar to

heaven. Every line smacks of the memories of Nombre and of Zutphen, of Tilbury Fort and of Calais Roads;

and many a grayheaded veteran, as he read them, must have turned away his face to hide the noble tears, as

Ulysses from Demodocus when he sang the song of Troy. So there sits Raleigh, like the prophet of old, in his

lonely tower above the Thames, watching the darkness gather upon the land year by year, 'like the morning

spread over the mountains,' the darkness which comes before the dawn of the Day of The Lord; which he

shall never see on earth, though it be very near at hand; and asks of each newcomer, 'Watchman, what of the

But there is one bright point at least in the darkness; one on whom Raleigh's eyes, and those of all England,

are fixed in boundless hope; one who, by the sympathy which attracts all noble natures to each other, clings

to the hero utterly; Henry, the Crown Prince. 'No king but my father would keep such a bird in a cage.' The

noble lad tries to open the door for the captive eagle; but in vain. At least he will make what use he can of his

wisdom. He asks him for advice about the new ship he is building, and has a simple practical letter in return,

and over and above probably the two valuable pamphlets, 'Of the Invention of Ships,' and 'Observations on

the Navy and Sea Service'; which the Prince will never see. In 1611 he asks Raleigh's advice about the foolish

double marriage with the Prince and Princess of Savoy, and receives for answer two plainspoken discourses

These are benefits which must be repaid. The father will repay them hereafter in his own way. In the

meanwhile the son does so in his way, by soliciting the Sherborne estate as for himself, intending to restore it

to Raleigh. He succeeds. Carr is bought off for 25,000 pounds, where Lady Raleigh has been bought off with

8000 pounds; but neither Raleigh nor his widow will ever be the better for that bargain, and Carr will get

Sherborne back again, and probably, in the King's silly dotage, keep the 25,000 pounds also.

When he is at the last gasp, the poor Queen sends to Raleigh for some of the same cordial which had cured

her. Medicine is sent, with a tender letter, as it well might be; for Raleigh knew how much hung, not only for

himself, but for England, on the cracking threads of that fair young life. It is questioned at first whether it

shall be administered. 'The cordial,' Raleigh says, 'will cure him or any other of a fever, except in case of

The cordial is administered; but it comes too late. The prince dies, and with him the hopes of all good men.

At last, after twelve years of prison, Raleigh is free. He is sixty six years old now, grayheaded and worn

down by confinement, study, and want of exercise: but he will not remember that.

Now for Guiana, at last! which he has never forgotten; to which he has been sending, with his slender means,

He is freed in March. At once he is busy in his project. In August he has obtained the King's commission, by

the help of Sir Ralph Winwood, Secretary of State, who seems to have believed in Raleigh. At least Raleigh

believed in him. In March next year he has sailed, and with him thirteen ships, and more than a hundred

knights and gentlemen, and among them, strange to say, Sir Warham St. Leger. This is certainly not the

quondam Marshal of Munster under whom Raleigh served at Smerwick sixandthirty years ago. He would

be nearly eighty years old; and as Lord Doneraile's pedigree gives three Sir Warhams, we cannot identify the

man. But it is a strong argument in Raleigh's favour that a St. Leger, of a Devon family which had served

with him in Ireland, and intimately connected with him his whole life, should keep his faith in Raleigh after

all his reverses. Nevertheless, the mere fact of an unpardoned criminal, said to be non ens in law, being able

in a few months to gather round him such a party, is proof patent of what slender grounds there are for calling

But he does not sail without a struggle or two. James is too proud to allow his heir to match with any but a

mighty king, is infatuated about the Spanish marriage; and Gondomar is with him, playing with his hopes and

The people are furious, and have to be silenced again and again: there is even fear of rioting. The charming

and smoothtongued Gondomar can hate, and can revenge, too. Five 'prentices who have insulted him for

striking a little child, are imprisoned and fined several hundred pounds each. And as for hating Raleigh,

Gondomar had been no Spaniard (to let alone the private reasons which some have supposed) had he not

hated Spain's ancient scourge and unswerving enemy. He comes to James, complaining that Raleigh is about

to break the peace with Spain. Nothing is to be refused him which can further the one darling fancy of James;

and Raleigh has to give in writing the number of his ships, men, and ordnance, and, moreover, the name of

the country and the very river whither he is going. This paper was given, Carew Raleigh asserts positively,

under James's solemn promise not to reveal it; and Raleigh himself seems to have believed that it was to be

kept private; for he writes afterwards to Secretary Winwood in a tone of astonishment and indignation, that

the information contained in his paper had been sent on to the King of Spain before he sailed from the

Thames. Winwood could have told him as much already; for Buckingham had written to Winwood, on March

28, to ask him why he had not been to the Spanish Ambassador 'to acquaint him with the order taken by his

Majesty about Sir W. R.'s voyage.' But however unwilling the Secretary (as one of the furtherers of the

voyage) may have been to meddle in the matter, Gondomar had had news enough from another source;

perhaps from James's own mouth. For the first letter to the West Indies about Raleigh was dated from

Madrid, March 19; and most remarkable it is that in James's 'Declaration,' or rather apology for his own

conduct, no mention whatsoever is made of his having given information to Gondomar.

Gondomar offered, says James, to let Raleigh go with one or two ships only. He might work a mine, and the

King of Spain would give him a safe convoy home with all his gold. How kind. And how likely would

Raleigh and his fellowadventurers have been to accept such an offer; how likely, too, to find men who

would sail with them on such an errand, to be 'flayed alive,' as many who travelled to the Indies of late years

had been, or to have their throats cut, tied back to back, after trading unarmed and peaceably for a month, as

thirtysix of Raleigh's men had been but two or three years before in that very Orinoco. So James is forced to

let the large fleet go; and to let it go well armed also; for the plain reason, that otherwise it dare not go at all;

and in the meanwhile letters are sent from Spain, in which the Spaniards call the fleet 'English enemies,' and

But, say some, James was justified in telling Gondomar, and the Spaniards in defending themselves. On the

But it does seem hard on Raleigh, after having laboured in this Guiana business for years, and after having

spent his money in vain attempts to deliver these Guianians from their oppressors. It is hard, and he feels it

so. He sees that he is not trusted; that, as James himself confesses, his pardon is refused simply to keep a hold

As he well asks afterwards, 'If the King did not think that Guiana was his, why let me go thither at all? He

knows that it was his by the law of nations, for he made Mr. Harcourt a grant of part of it. If it be, as

Gondomar says, the King of Spain's, then I had no more right to work a mine in it than to burn a town.' An

argument which seems to me unanswerable. But, says James, and others with him, he was forbid to meddle

with any country occupate or possessed by Spaniards. Southey, too, blames him severely for not having told

James that the country was already settled by Spaniards. I can excuse Southey, but not James, for overlooking

the broad fact that all England knew it, as I have shown, since 1594; that if they did not, Gondomar would

have taken care to tell them; and that he could not go to Guiana without meddling with Spaniards. His former

voyages and publications made no secret of it. On the contrary, one chief argument for the plan had been all

through the delivery of the Indians from these very Spaniards, who, though they could not conquer them,

illused them in every way: and in his agreement with the Lords about the Guiana voyage in 1611, he makes

especial mention of the very place which will soon fill such a part in our story, 'San Thome, where the

Spaniards inhabit,' and tells the Lords whom to ask as to the number of men who will be wanted 'to secure

Keymish's passage to the mine' against these very Spaniards. What can be more clear, save to those who will

The plain fact is that Raleigh went, with his eyes open, to take possession of a country to which he believed

that he and King James had a right, and that James and his favourites, when they, as he pleads, might have

stopped him by a word, let him go, knowing as well as the Spaniards what he intended; for what purpose, but

to have an excuse for the tragedy which ended all, it is difficult to conceive. 'It is evident,' wisely says Sir

Robert Schomburgk, 'that they winked at consequences which they must have foreseen.'

And here Mr. Napier, on the authority of Count Desmarets, brings a grave charge against Raleigh. Raleigh in

his 'Apology' protests that he only saw Desmarets once on board of his vessel. Desmarets says in his

despatches that he was on board of her several timeswhether he saw Raleigh more than once does not

appearand that Raleigh complained to him of having been unjustly imprisoned, stripped of his estate, and

so forth; and that he was on that account resolved to abandon his country, and, if the expedition succeeded,

If this be true, Raleigh was very wrong. But Sir Robert Schomburgk points out that this passage, which Mr.

Napier says occurs in the last despatch, was written a month after Raleigh had sailed; and that the previous

despatch, written only four days after Raleigh sailed, says nothing about the matter. So that it could not have

been a very important or fixed resolution on Raleigh's part, if it was only to be recollected a month after. I do

not sayas Sir Robert Schomburgk is very much inclined to dothat it was altogether a bubble of French

fancy. It is possible that Raleigh, in his just rage at finding that James was betraying him and sending him out

with a halter round his neck, to all but certain ruin, did say wild wordsThat it was better for him to serve

the Frenchman than such a masterthat perhaps he might go over to the Frenchman after allor some folly

of the kind, in that same rash tone which, as we have seen, has got him into trouble so often already: and so I

leave the matter, saying, Beware of making any man an offender for a word, much less one who is being

However this may be, the fleet sails; but with no bright auguries. The mass of the sailors are 'a scum of men';

they are mutinous and troublesome; and what is worse, have got among them (as, perhaps, they were

intended to have) the notion that Raleigh's being still non ens in law absolves them from obeying him when

they do not choose, and permits them to say of him behind his back what they list. They have long delays at

Plymouth. Sir Warham's ship cannot get out of the Thames. Pennington, at the Isle of Wight, 'cannot redeem

his bread from the bakers,' and has to ride back to London to get money from Lady Raleigh. The poor lady

has it not, and gives a note of hand to Mr. Wood of Portsmouth. Alas for her! She has sunk her 8000 pounds,

and, beside that, sold her Wickham estate for 2500 pounds; and all is on board the fleet. 'A hundred pieces'

are all the ready money the hapless pair had left on earth, and they have parted them together. Raleigh has

fiftyfive and she fortyfive till God send it backif, indeed, He ever send it. The star is sinking low in the

west. Trouble on trouble. Sir John Fane has neither men nor money; Captain Witney has not provisions

enough, and Raleigh has to sell his plate in Plymouth to help him. Courage! one last struggle to redeem his

Then storms off Sicilya pinnace is sunk; faithful Captain King drives back into Bristol; the rest have to lie

by a while in some Irish port for a fair wind. Then Bailey deserts with the 'Southampton' at the Canaries; then

'unnatural weather,' so that a fourteen days' voyage takes forty days. Then 'the distemper' breaks out under the

line. The simple diary of that sad voyage still remains, full of curious and valuable nautical hints; but

recording the loss of friend on friend; four or five officers, and, 'to our great grief, our principal refiner, Mr.

Fowler.' 'Crab, my old servant.' Next a lamentable twentyfour hours, in which they lose Pigott, the

lieutenantgeneral, 'mine honest frinde, Mr. John Talbot, one that had lived with me a leven yeeres in the

Tower, an excellent general skoller, and a faithful and true man as ever lived,' with two 'very fair conditioned

gentleman,' and 'mine own cook Francis.' Then more officers and men, and my 'cusen Payton.' Then the water

is near spent, and they are forced to come to half allowance, till they save and drink greedily whole canfuls of

the bitter rain water. At last Raleigh's own turn comes; running on deck in a squall, he gets wet through, and

has twenty days of burning fever; 'never man suffered a more furious heat,' during which he eats nothing but

At last they make the land at the mouth of the Urapoho, far south of their intended goal. They ask for Leonard

the Indian, 'who lived with me in England three or four years, the same man that took Mr. Harcourt's brother

and fifty men when they were in extreme distress, and had no means to live there but by the help of this

Indian, whom they made believe that they were my men'; but the faithful Indian is gone up the country, and

they stand away for Cayenne, 'where the cacique (Harry) was also my servant, and had lived with me in the

Courage once more, brave old heart! Here at least thou art among friends, who know thee for what thou art,

and look out longingly for thee as their deliverer. Courage; for thou art in fairyland once more; the land of

boundless hope and possibility. Though England and England's heart be changed, yet God's earth endures,

and the harvest is still here, waiting to be reaped by those who dare. Twenty stormy years may have changed

thee, but they have not changed the fairyland of thy prison dreams. Still the mighty Ceiba trees with their

wealth of parasites and creepers tower above the palmfringed islets; still the dark mangrove thickets guard

the mouths of unknown streams, whose granite sands are rich with gold. Friendly Indians come, and Harry

with them, bringing maize, peccari pork, and armadillos, plantains and pineapples, and all eat and gather

strength; and Raleigh writes home to his wife, 'to say that I may yet be King of the Indians here were a

vanity. But my name hath lived among them'as well it might. For many a year those simple hearts shall

look for him in vain, and more than two centuries and a half afterwards, dim traditions of the great white

chief who bade them stand out to the last against the Spaniards, and he would come and dwell among them,

shall linger among the Carib tribes; even, say some, the tattered relics of an English flag, which he left among

Happy for him had he stayed there indeed, and been their king. How easy for him to have grown old in peace

at Cayenne. But no; he must on for honour's sake, and bring home if it were but a basketful of that ore to

show the king, that he may save his credit. He has promised Arundel that he will return. And return he will.

So onward he goes to the 'Triangle Islands.' There he sends off five small vessels for the Orinoco, with four

hundred men. The faithful Keymis has to command and guide the expedition. Sir Warham is lying ill of the

fever, all but dead; so George Raleigh is sent in his place as sergeantmajor, and with him five land

companies, one of which is commanded by young Walter, Raleigh's son; another by a Captain Parker, of

Keymis's orders are explicit. He is to go up; find the mine, and open it; and if the Spaniards attack him, repel

force by force: but he is to avoid, if possible, an encounter with them: not for fear of breaking the peace, but

because he has 'a scum of men, a few gentlemen excepted, and I would not for all the world receive a blow

from the Spaniards to the dishonour of our nation.' There we have no concealment of hostile instructions, any

more than in Raleigh's admirable instructions to his fleet, which, after laying down excellent laws for

morality, religion, and discipline, go on with clause after clause as to what is to be done if they meet 'the

enemy.' What enemy? Why, all Spanish ships which sail the seas; and who, if they happen to be sufficiently

numerous, will assuredly attack, sink, burn, and destroy Raleigh's whole squadron, for daring to sail for that

Raleigh runs up the coast to Trinidad once more, in through the Serpent's Mouth, and round Punto Gallo to

the lake of pitch, where all recruit themselves with fish and armadillos, 'pheasant' (Penelope), 'palmitos'

(Moriche palm fruit?), and guavas, and await the return of the expedition from the last day of December to

the middle of February. They see something of the Spaniards meanwhile. Sir John Ferns is sent up to Port of

Spain to try if they will trade for tobacco. The Spaniards parley; in the midst of the parley pour a volley of

musketry into them at forty paces, yet hurt never a man; and send them off calling them thieves and traitors.

Fray Simon's Spanish account of the matter is that Raleigh intended to disembark his men, that they might

march inland on San Joseph. He may be excused for the guess; seeing that Raleigh had done the very same

thing some seventeen years before. If Raleigh was treacherous then, his treason punished itself now.

However, I must believe that Raleigh is not likely to have told a lie for his own private amusement in his own

On the 29th the Spaniards attack three men and a boy who are ashore boiling the fossil pitch; kill one man,

and carry off the boy. Raleigh, instead of going up to Port of Spain and demanding satisfaction, as he would

have been justified in doing after this second attack, remains quietly where he is, expecting daily to be

attacked by Spanish armadas, and resolved to 'burn by their sides.' Happily, or unhappily, he escapes them.

Probably he thinks they waited for him at Margarita, expecting him to range the Spanish main.

At last the weary days of sickness and anxiety succeeded to days of terror. On the 1st of February a strange

report comes by an Indian. An inland savage has brought confused and contradictory news down the river

that San Thome is sacked, the governor and two Spanish captains slain (names given) and two English

captains, nameless. After this entry follow a few confused ones, set down as happening in January,

concerning attempts to extract the truth from the Indians, and the negligence of the mariners, who are diligent

The truth comes at lastbut when, does not appearin a letter from Keymis, dated January 8. San Thome

has been stormed, sacked, and burnt. Four refiners' houses were found in it; the best in the town; so that the

Spaniards have been mining there; but no coin or bullion except a little plate. One English captain is killed,

and that captain is Walter Raleigh, his firstborn. He died leading them on, when some, 'more careful of valour

and safety, began to recoil shamefully.' His last words were, 'Lord have mercy upon me and prosper our

enterprise.' A Spanish captain, Erinetta, struck him down with the butt of a musket after he had received a

bullet. John Plessington, his sergeant, avenged him by running Erinetta through with his halbert.

Keymis has not yet been to the mine; he could not, 'by reason of the murmurings, discords, and vexations';

but he will go at once, make trial of the mine, and come down to Trinidad by the Macareo mouth. He sends a

parcel of scattered papers, a roll of tobacco, a tortoise, some oranges and lemons. 'Praying God to give you

health and strength of body, and a mind armed against all extremities, I rest ever to be commanded, your

'Oh Absalom, my son, my son, would God I had died for thee!' But weeping is in vain. The noble lad sleeps

there under the palmtrees, beside the mighty tropic stream, while the fair Basset, 'his bride in the sight of

God,' recks not of him as she wanders in the woods of Umberleigh, wife to the son of Raleigh's deadliest foe.

Raleigh, Raleigh, surely God's blessing is not on this voyage of thine. Surely He hath set thy misdeeds before

Another blank of misery: but his honour is still safe. Keymis will return with that gold ore, that pledge of his

good faith for which he has ventured all. Surely God will let that come after all, now that he has paid as its

At last Keymis returns with thinned numbers. All are weary, spirit broken, discontented, mutinous. Where is

There is none. Keymis has never been to the mine after all. His companions curse him as a traitor who has

helped Raleigh to deceive them into ruin; the mine is imaginarya lie. The crews are ready to break into

Yes, God is setting this man's secret sins in the light of His countenance. If he has been ambitious, his

ambition has punished itself now. If he has cared more for his own honour than for his wife and children, that

sin too has punished itself. If he has (which I affirm not) tampered with truth for the sake of what seemed to

him noble and just ends, that too has punished itself; for his men do not trust him. If he has (which I affirm

not) done any wrong in that matter of Cobham, that too has punished itself: for his men, counting him as non

ens in law, will not respect or obey him. If he has spoken, after his old fashion, rash and exaggerated words,

and goes on speaking them, even though it be through the pressure of despair, that too shall punish itself; and

for every idle word that he shall say, God will bring him into judgment. And why, but because he is noble?

Why, but because he is nearer to God by a whole heaven than others whom God lets fatten on their own sins,

having no understanding, because they are in honour, and having children at their hearts' desire, and leaving

the rest of their substance to their babes? Not so does God deal with His elect when they will try to worship at

once self and Him; He requires truth in the inward parts, and will purge them till they are true, and

Keymis returns with the wreck of his party. The scene between him and Raleigh may be guessed. Keymis has

excuse on excuse. He could not get obeyed after young Raleigh's death: he expected to find that Sir Walter

was either dead of his sickness or of grief for his son, and had no wish 'to enrich a company of rascals who

made no account of him.' He dare not go up to the mine because (and here Raleigh thinks his excuse fair) the

fugitive Spaniards lay in the craggy woods through which he would have to pass, and that he had not men

enough even to hold the town securely. If he reached the mine and left a company there, he had no provisions

for them; and he dared not send backward and forward to the town while the Spaniards were in the woods.

The warnings sent by Gondomar had undone all, and James's treachery had done its work. So Keymis,

'thinking it a greater error, so he said, to discover the mine to the Spaniards than to excuse himself to the

Company, said that he could not find it.' From all which one thing at least is evident, that Keymis believed in

Raleigh 'rejects these fancies'; tells him before divers gentlemen that 'a blind man might find it by the marks

which Keymis himself had set down under his hand': that 'his case of losing so many men in the woods' was a

mere pretence: after Walter was slain, he knew that Keymis had no care of any man's surviving. 'You have

undone me, wounded my credit with the King past recovery. As you have followed your own advice, and not

mine, you must satisfy his Majesty. It shall be glad if you can do it: but I cannot.' There is no use dwelling on

such vain regrets and reproaches. Raleigh perhaps is bitter, unjust. As he himself writes twice, to his wife and

Sir Ralph Winwood, his 'brains are broken.' He writes to them both, and reopens the letters to add long

postscripts, at his wits' end. Keymis goes off; spends a few miserable days; and then enters Raleigh's cabin.

He has written his apology to Lord Arundel, and begs Raleigh to allow of it. 'No. You have undone me by

your obstinacy. I will not favour or colour your former folly.' 'Is that your resolution, sir?' 'It is.' 'I know not

then, sir, what course to take.' And so he goes out, and into his own cabin overhead. A minute after a

pistolshot is heard. Raleigh sends up a boy to know the reason. Keymis answers from within that he has

Half an hour after the boy goes into the cabin. Keymis is lying on his bed, the pistol by him. The boy moves

him. The pistolshot has broken a rib, and gone no further; but as the corpse is turned over, a long knife is

buried in that desperate heart. Another of the old heroes is gone to his wild account.

Gradually drops of explanation ooze out. The 'Sergeantmajor, Raleigh's nephew, and others, confess that

Keymis told them that he could have brought them in two hours to the mine: but as the young heir was slain,

and his father was unpardoned and not like to live, he had no reason to open the mine, either for the Spaniard

or the King.' Those latter words are significant. What cared the old Elizabethan seaman for the weal of such a

king? And, indeed, what good to such a king would all the mines in Guiana be? They answered that the King,

nevertheless, had 'granted Raleigh his heart's desire under the great seal.' He replied that 'the grant to Raleigh

was to a man non ens in law, and therefore of no force.' Here, too, James's policy has worked well. How

How, indeed, could they have found heart to sail at all? The only answer is that they knew Raleigh well

Puppies at home in England gave out that he had killed himself from remorse at having deceived so many

gentlemen with an imaginary phantom. Every one, of course, according to his measure of charity, has power

and liberty to assume any motive which he will. Mine is simply the one which shows upon the face of the

documents; that the old follower, devoted alike to the dead son and to the doomed father, feeling that he had,

he scarce knew how, failed in the hour of need, frittered away the last chance of a mighty enterprise which

had been his fixed idea for years, and ruined the man whom he adored, avenged upon himself the fault of

Here, perhaps, my tale should end; for all beyond is but the waking of the corpse. The last deathstruggle of

the Elizabethan heroism is over, and all its remains vanish slowly in an undignified, sickening way. All epics

end so. After the war of Troy, Achilles must die by coward Paris's arrow, in some mysterious, confused,

pitiful fashion; and stately Hecuba must rail herself into a very dog, and bark for ever shamefully around

lonely Cynossema. Young David ends as a dotardSolomon as worse. Glorious Alexander must die, half of

fever, half of drunkenness, as the fool dieth. Charles the Fifth, having thrown all away but his follies, ends in

a convent, a superstitious imbecile; Napoleon squabbles to the last with Sir Hudson Lowe about champagne.

It must be so; and the glory must be God's alone. For in great men, and great times, there is nothing good or

vital but what is of God, and not of man's self; and when He taketh away that divine breath they die, and

return again to their dust. But the earth does not lose; for when He sendeth forth His Spirit they live, and

renew the face of the earth. A new generation arises, with clearer sight, with fuller experience, sometimes

'The old order changeth, giveth place to the new, And God fulfils himself in many ways.

The Elizabethan epic did not end a day too soon. There was no more life left in it; and God had something

better in store for England. Raleigh's ideal was a noble one: but God's was nobler far. Raleigh would have

made her a gold kingdom, like Spain, and destroyed her very vitals by that gold, as Spain was destroyed. And

all the while the great and good God was looking steadfastly upon that little struggling Virginian village,

Raleigh's firstborn, forgotten in his new mighty dreams, and saying, 'Here will I dwell, for I have a delight

therein.' There, and not in Guiana; upon the simple tillers of the soil, not among wild reckless goldhunters,

would His blessing rest. The very coming darkness would bring brighter light. The evil age itself would be

the parent of new good, and drive across the seas steadfast Pilgrim Fathers and generous Royalist Cavaliers,

to be the parents of a mightier nation than has ever yet possessed the earth. Verily, God's ways are wonderful,

So ends the Elizabethan epic. Must we follow the corpse to the grave? It is necessary.

And now, 'you gentlemen of England, who sit at home at ease,' what would you have done in like

case?Your last die thrown; your last stake lost; your honour, as you fancy, stained for ever; your eldest son

dead in battleWhat would you have done? What Walter Raleigh did was this. He kept his promise. He had

But it is said his real intention, as he himself confessed, was to turn pirate and take the Mexico fleet.

That wild thoughts of such a deed may have crossed his mind, may have been a terrible temptation to him,

may even have broken out in hasty words, one does not deny. He himself says that he spoke of such a thing

'to keep his men together.' All depends on how the words were spoken. The form of the sentence, the tone of

voice, is everything. Who could blame him, if seeing some of the captains whom he had most trusted

deserting him, his men heaping him with every slander, and, as he solemnly swore on the scaffold, calling

witnesses thereto by name, forcing him to take an oath that he would not return to England before they would

have him, and locking him into his own cabinwho could blame him, I ask, for saying in that daring

offhand way of his, which has so often before got him into trouble, 'Come, my lads, do not despair. If the

worst comes to the worst, there is the Plate fleet to fall back upon'? When I remember, too, that the taking of

the said Platefleet was in Raleigh's eyes an altogether just thing; and that he knew perfectly that if he

succeeded therein he would be backed by the public opinion of all England, and probably buy his pardon of

James, who, if he loved Spain well, loved money better; my surprise rather is, that he did not go and do it. As

for any meeting of captains in his cabin and serious proposal of such a plan, I believe it to be simply one of

the innumerable lies which James inserted in his 'Declaration,' gathered from the tales of men who, fearing

(and reasonably) lest their heads should follow Raleigh's, tried to curry favour by slandering him. This

'Declaration' has been so often exposed that I may safely pass it by; and pass by almost as safely the argument

which some have drawn from a chance expression of his in his pathetic letter to Lady Raleigh, in which he

'hopes that God would send him somewhat before his return.' To prove an intention of piracy in the

despairing words of a ruined man writing to comfort a ruined wife for the loss of her firstborn is surely to

deal out hard measure. Heaven have mercy upon us, if all the hasty words which woe has wrung from our

Sir Julius Caesar, again, one of the commission appointed to examine him, informs us that, on being

confronted with Captains St. Leger and Pennington, he confessed that he proposed the taking of the Mexico

fleet if the mine failed. To which I can only answer, that all depends on how the thing was said, and that this

is the last fact which we should find in Sir Julius's notes, which are, it is confessed, so confused, obscure, and

full of gaps, as to be often hardly intelligible. The same remark applies to Wilson's story, which I agree with

Mr. Tytler in thinking worthless. Wilson, it must be understood, is employed after Raleigh's return as a spy

upon him, which office he executes, all confess (and Wilson himself as much as any), as falsely,

treacherously, and hypocritically as did ever sinful man; and, inter alia, he has this, 'This day he told me what

discourse he and the Lord Chancellor had about taking the Plate fleet, which he confessed he would have

taken had he lighted on it.' To which my Lord Chancellor said, 'Why, you would have been a pirate.' 'Oh,'

quoth he, 'did you ever know of any that were pirates for millions? They only that wish for small things are

pirates.' Now, setting aside the improbability that Raleigh should go out of his way to impeach himself to the

man whom he must have known was set there to find matter for his death, all, we say, depends on how it was

said. If the Lord Chancellor ever said to Raleigh, 'To take the Mexico fleet would be piracy,' it would have

been just like Raleigh to give such an answer. The speech is a perfectly true one: Raleigh knew the world, no

man better; and saw through its hollowness, and the cant and hypocrisy of his generation; and he sardonically

states an undeniable fact. He is not expressing his own morality, but that of the world; just as he is doing in

that passage of his 'Apology,' about which I must complain of Mr. Napier. 'It was a maxim of his,' says Mr.

Napier, 'that good success admits of no examination.' This is not fair. The sentence in the original goes on, 'so

the contrary allows of no excuse, however reasonable and just whatsoever.' His argument all through the

beginning of the 'Apology,' supported by instance on instance from history, isI cannot get a just hearing,

because I have failed in opening this mine. So it is always. Glory covers the multitude of sins. But a man who

has failed is a fair mark for every slanderer, puppy, ignoramus, discontented mutineer; as I am now. What

else, in the name of common sense, could have been his argument? Does Mr. Napier really think that

Raleigh, even if, in the face of all the noble and pious words which he had written, he held so immoral a

doctrine, would have been shameless and senseless enough to assert his own rascality in an apology

But still more astonished am I at the use which has been made of Captain Parker's letter. The letter is written

by a man in a state of frantic rage and disappointment. There never was any mine, he believes now. Keymis's

'delays we found mere delusions; for he was false to all men and hateful to himself, loathing to live since he

could do no more villany. I will speak no more of this hateful fellow to God and man.' And it is on the

testimony of a man in this temper that we are asked to believe that 'the admiral and vice admiral,' Raleigh

and St. Leger, are going to the Western Islands 'to look for homewardbound men': if, indeed, the looking for

homeward bound men means really looking for the Spanish fleet, and not merely for recruits for their crews.

I never recollectand I have read pretty fully the searecords of those dayssuch a synonym used either

for the Mexican or Indian fleet. But let this be as it may, the letter proves too much. For, first, it proves that

whosoever is not going to turn 'pirate,' our calm and charitable friend Captain Parker is; 'for my part, by the

permission of God, I will either MAKE A VOYAGE or bury myself in the sea.' Now, what making a voyage

meant there is no doubt; and the sum total of the letter is, that a man intending to turn rover himself accuses,

under the influence of violent passion, his comrades of doing the like. We may believe him about himself:

But the letter proves too much again. For Parker says that 'Witney and Woolaston are gone off ahead to look

for homewardbound men,' thus agreeing with Raleigh's message to his wife, that 'Witney, for whom I sold

all my plate at Plymouth, and to whom I gave more credit and countenance than to all the captains of my

And now, reader, how does this of Witney, and Woolaston, and Parker's intentions to 'pirate' separately, if it

be true, agree with King James's story of Raleigh's calling a council of war and proposing an attack on the

Platefleet? One or the other must needs be a lie; probably both. Witney's ship was of only 160 tons;

Woolaston's probably smaller. Five such ships would be required, as any reader of Hakluyt must know, to

take a single Carack; and it would be no use running the risk of hanging for any less prize. The Spanish main

was warned and armed, and the Western Isles also. Is it possible that these two men would have been insane

enough in such circumstances to go without Raleigh, if they could have gone with him? And is it possible

that he, if he had any set purpose of attacking the Plate fleet, would not have kept them, in order to attempt

that with him which neither they nor he could do without each other. Moreover, no 'piratical' act ever took

place; if any had, we should have heard enough about it; and why is Parker to be believed against Raleigh

alone, when there is little doubt that he slandered all the rest of the captains? Lastly, it was to this very

Parker, with Mr. Tresham and another gentleman, that Raleigh appealed by name on the scaffold, as

witnesses that it was his crew who tried to keep him from going home, and not he them.

My own belief is, and it is surely simple and rational enough, that Raleigh's 'brains,' as he said, 'were broken';

that he had no distinct plan: but that, loth to leave the New World without a second attempt on Guiana, he

went up to Newfoundland to revictual, 'and with good hope,' as he wrote to Winwood himself, 'of keeping

the sea till August with some four reasonable good ships,' probably, as Oldys remarks, to try a trading

voyage; but found his gentlemen too dispirited and incredulous, his men too mutinous to do anything; and

seeing his ships go home one by one, at last followed them himself, because he had promised Arundel and

Pembroke so to do; having, after all, as he declared on the scaffold, extreme difficulty in persuading his men

to land at all in England. The other lies about him, as of his having intended to desert his soldiers in Guiana,

his having taken no tools to work the mine, and so forth, one only notices to say that the 'Declaration' takes

care to make the most of them, without deigning, after its fashion, to adduce any proof but anonymous

hearsays. If it be true that Bacon drew up that famous document, it reflects no credit either on his honesty or

So Raleigh returns, anchors in Plymouth. He finds that Captain North has brought home the news of his

mishaps, and that there is a proclamation against him, which, by the bye, lies, for it talks of limitations and

cautions given to Raleigh which do not appear in his commission; and, moreover, that a warrant is out for his

apprehension. He sends his men on shore, and starts for London to surrender himself, in company with

faithful Captain King, who alone clings to him to the last, and from whom we have details of the next few

days. Near Ashburton he is met by Sir Lewis Stukely, his near kinsman, ViceAdmiral of Devon, who has

orders to arrest him. Raleigh tells him that he has saved him the trouble; and the two return to Plymouth,

where Stukely, strangely enough, leaves him at liberty and rides about the country. We should be slow in

imputing baseness: but one cannot help suspecting from Stukely's subsequent conduct that he had from the

first private orders to give Raleigh a chance of trying to escape, in order to have a handle against him, such as

The ruse, if it existed then, as it did afterwards, succeeds. Raleigh hears bad news. Gondomar hasor has

nottold his story to the king by crying, 'Piratas! piratas! piratas!' and then rushing out without explanation.

James is in terror lest what had happened should break off the darling Spanish match.

Raleigh foresees ruin, perhaps death. Life is sweet, and Guiana is yet where it was. He may win a basketful of

the ore still, and prove himself no liar. He will escape to France. Faithful King finds him a Rochelle ship; he

takes boat to her, goes half way, and returns. Honour is sweeter than life, and James may yet be just. The next

day he bribes the master to wait for him one more day, starts for the ship once more, and again returns to

Plymouthso King will make oathof his own free will. The temptation must have been terrible and the

sin none. What kept him from yielding but innocence and honour? He will clear himself; and if not, abide the

worst. Stukely and James found out these facts, and made good use of them afterwards. For now comes 'a

severe letter from my Lords' to bring Raleigh up as speedily as his health will permit; and with it comes one

Mannourie, a French quack, of whom honest King takes little note at the time, but who will make himself

And now begins a series of scenes most pitiable; Raleigh's brains are indeed broken. He is old, wornout with

the effects of his fever, lamed, ruined, brokenhearted, and, for the first time in his life, weak and silly. He

takes into his head the paltriest notion that he can gain time to pacify the King by feigning himself sick. He

puts implicit faith in the rogue Mannourie, whom he has never seen before. He sends forward Lady Raleigh

to Londonperhaps ashamedas who would not have been?to play the fool in that sweet presence; and

with her good Captain King, who is to engage one Cotterell, an old servant of Raleigh's, to find a ship

wherein to escape, if the worst comes to the worst. Cotterell sends King to an old boatswain of his, who owns

a ketch. She is to lie off Tilbury; and so King waits Raleigh's arrival. What passed in the next four or five

days will never be truly known, for our only account comes from two self convicted villains, Stukely and

Mannourie. On these details I shall not enter. First, because one cannot trust a word of them; secondly,

because no one will wish to hear them who feels, as I do, how pitiable and painful is the sight of a great heart

and mind utterly broken. Neither shall I spend time on Stukely's villanous treatment of Raleigh, for which he

had a commission from James in writing; his pretending to help him to escape, his going down the Thames in

a boat with him, his trying in vain to make honest King as great a rogue as himself. Like most rascalities,

Stukely's conduct, even as he himself states it, is very obscure. All that we can see is, that Cotterell told

Stukely everything: that Stukely bade Cotterell carry on the deceit; that Stukely had orders from headquarters

to incite Raleigh to say or do something which might form a fresh ground of accusal; that, being a clumsy

rogue, he failed, and fell back on abetting Raleigh's escape, as a last resource. Be it as it may, he throws off

the mask as soon as Raleigh has done enough to prove an intent to escape; arrests him, and conducts him to

There two shameful months are spent in trying to find out some excuse for Raleigh's murder. Wilson is set

over him as a spy; his letters to his wife are intercepted. Every art is used to extort a confession of a great plot

with France, and every art fails utterly simply, it seems to me, because there was no plot. Raleigh writes an

apology, letters of entreaty, selfjustification, what not; all, in my opinion, just and true enough; but like his

speech on the scaffold, weak, confusedthe product of a 'broken brain.' However, his head must come off;

and as a last resource, it must be taken off upon the sentence of fifteen years ago, and he who was condemned

for plotting with Spain must die for plotting against her. It is a pitiable business: but as Osborne says, in a

passage (p.108 of his Memoirs of James) for which one freely forgives him all his sins and lies, and they are

many'As the foolish idolaters were wont to sacrifice the choicest of their children to the devil, so our king

gave up his incomparable jewel to the will of this monster of ambition (the Spaniard), under the pretence of a

superannuated transgression, contrary to the opinion of the more honest sort of gownsmen, who maintained

that his Majesty's pardon lay inclusively in the commission he gave him on his setting out to sea; it being

incongruous that he, who remained under the notion of one dead in the law, should as a general dispose of the

But no matter. He must die. The Queen intercedes for him, as do all honest men: but in vain. He has

twentyfour hours' notice to prepare for death; eats a good breakfast; takes a cup of sack and a pipe; makes a

rambling speech, in which one notes only the intense belief that he is an honest man, and the intense desire to

make others believe so, in the very smallest matters; and then dies smilingly, as one weary of life. One makes

no comment. Raleigh's life really ended on that day that poor Keymis returned from San Thome.'

As we said, Truth is stranger than fiction. No dramatist dare invent a 'poetic justice' more perfect than fell

upon the traitor. It is not always so, no doubt. God reserves many a greater sinner for that most awful of all

punishmentsimpunity. But there are crises in a nation's life in which God makes terrible examples, to put

before the most stupid and sensual the choice of Hercules, the upward road of life, the downward one which

leads to the pit. Since the time of Pharaoh and the Red Sea host, history is full of such palpable, unmistakable

revelations of the Divine Nemesis; and in England, too, at that moment, the crisis was there; and the

judgment of God was revealed accordingly. Sir Lewis Stukely remained, it seems, at court; high in favour

with James: but he found, nevertheless, that people looked darkly on him. Like many selfconvicted rogues,

he must needs thrust his head into his own shame; and one day he goes to good old Lord Charles Howard's

The old lion explodes in an unexpected roar. 'Darest thou come into my presence, thou base fellow, who art

reputed the common scorn and contempt of all men? Were it not in mine own house I would cudgel thee with

my staff for presuming to speak to me!' Stukely, his tail between his legs, goes off and complains to James.

'What should I do with him? Hang him? On my sawle, mon, if I hung all that spoke ill of thee, all the trees in

the island were too few.' Such is the gratitude of kings, thinks Stukely; and retires to write foolish pamphlets

in selfjustification, which, unfortunately for his memory, still remain to make bad worse.

Within twelve months he, the rich and proud ViceAdmiral of Devon, with a shield of sixteen quarterings

and the bloodroyal in his veins, was detected debasing the King's coin within the precincts of the royal

palace, together with his old accomplice Mannourie, who, being taken, confessed that his charges against

Raleigh were false. He fled, a ruined man, back to his native county and his noble old seat of Affton; but Ate

'Slowly she tracks him and sure, as a lymehound, sudden she grips him, Crushing him, blind in his pride, for

A terrible plebiscitum had been passed in the West country against the betrayer of its last Worthy. The

gentlemen closed their doors against him; the poor refused himso goes the legendfire and water. Driven

by the Furies, he fled from Affton, and wandered westward down the vale of Taw, away to Appledore, and

there took boat, and out into the boundless Atlantic, over the bar, now crowded with shipping, for which

Sixteen miles to the westward, like a blue cloud on the horizon, rises the ultima Thule of Devon, the little isle

of Lundy. There one outlying peak of granite, carrying up a shelf of slate upon its southern flank, has defied

the waves, and formed an island some three miles long, desolate, flatheaded, fretted by every frost and

storm, walled all round with four hundred feet of granite cliff, sacred only, then at least, to puffins and

pirates. Over the single landingplace frowns from the cliff the keep of an old ruin, 'Moresco Castle,' as they

call it still, where some bold rover, Sir John de Moresco, in the times of the old Edwards, worked his works

of darkness: a gray, weird, uncanny pile of moorstone, through which all the winds of heaven howl day and

In a chamber of that ruin died Sir Lewis Stukely, Lord of Affton, cursing God and man.

The answer will depend much upon what readers consider to be a Nemesis. If to have found England one of

the greatest countries in Europe, and to have left it one of the most inconsiderable and despicable; if to be

fooled by flatterers to the top of his bent, until he fancied himself all but a god, while he was not even a man,

and could neither speak the truth, keep himself sober, nor look on a drawn sword without shrinking; if, lastly,

to have left behind him a son who, in spite of many chivalrous instincts unknown to his father, had been so

indoctrinated in that father's vices as to find it impossible to speak the truth even when it served his purpose;

But of that son, at least, the innocent blood was required. He, too, had his share in the sin. In Carew Raleigh's

simple and manful petition to the Commons of England for the restoration of his inheritance we find a

significant fact stated without one word of comment, bitter or otherwise. At Prince Henry's death the

Sherborne lands had been given again to Carr, Lord Somerset. To him, too, 'the whirligig of time brought

round its revenges,' and he lost them when arraigned and condemned for poisoning Sir Thomas Overbury.

Then Sir John Digby, afterwards Earl of Bristol, begged Sherborne of the King, and had it. Pembroke

(Shakspeare's Pembroke) brought young Carew to court, hoping to move the tyrant's heart. James saw him

and shuddered; perhaps conscience stricken, perhaps of mere cowardice. 'He looked like the ghost of his

father,' as he well might, to that guilty soul. Good Pembroke advised his young kinsman to travel, which he

did till James's death in the next year. Then coming over this is his own storyhe asked of Parliament to

be restored in blood, that he might inherit aught that might fall to him in England. His petition was read twice

in the Lords. Whereon 'King Charles sent Sir James Fullarton, then of the bedchamber, to Mr. Raleigh to

command him to come to him; and being brought in, the King, after using him with great civility,

notwithstanding told him plainly that when he was prince he had promised the Earl of Bristol to secure his

title to Sherborne against the heirs of Sir Walter Raleigh; whereon the earl had given him, then prince, ten

thousand pounds; that now he was bound to make good his promise, being king; that, therefore, unless he

would quit his right and title to Sherborne, he neither could nor would pass his bill of restoration.'

Young Raleigh, like a good Englishman, 'urged,' he says, 'the justness of his cause; that he desired only the

liberty of the subject, and to be left to the law, which was never denied any freeman.' The King remained

obstinate. His noble brother's love for the mighty dead weighed nothing with him, much less justice. Poor

young Raleigh was forced to submit. The act for his restoration was passed, reserving Sherborne for Lord

Bristol, and Charles patched up the affair by allowing to Lady Raleigh and her son after her a life pension of

Young Carew tells his story simply, and without a note of bitterness; though he professes his intent to range

himself and his two sons for the future 'under the banner of the Commons of England,' he may be a royalist

for any word beside. Even where he mentions the awful curse of his mother, he only alludes to its fulfilment

by'that which hath happened since to that royal family is too sad and disastrous for me to repeat, and yet

too visible not to be discerned.' We can have no doubt that he tells the exact truth. Indeed the whole story fits

Charles's character to the smallest details. The want of any real sense of justice, combined with the false

notion of honour; the implacable obstinacy; the contempt for that law by which alone he held his crown; the

combination of unkingliness in commanding a private interview and shamelessness in confessing his own

meanness all these are true notes of the man whose deliberate suicide stands written, a warning to all bad

rulers till the end of time. But he must have been a rogue early in life, and a needy rogue too. That ten

thousand pounds of Lord Bristol's money should make many a sentimentalist reconsiderif, indeed,

sentimentalists can be made to reconsider, or even to consider, anythingtheir notion of him as the

The widow's curse followed him home. Naseby fight and the Whitehall scaffold were surely God's judgment

{1} North British Review, No. XLV.1. 'Life of Sir Walter Raleigh.' By P. Fraser Tytler, F.R.S. London,

1853.2. 'Raleigh's Discovery of Guiana.' Edited by Sir Robert Schomburgk (Hakluyt Society), 1848.3.

'Lord Bacon and Sir Walter Raleigh.' By M. Napier. Cambridge, 1853.4. 'Raleigh's Works, with Lives by

Oldys and Birch.' Oxford, 18295. 'Bishop Goodman's History of his own Times.' London, 1839.

{2} I especially entreat readers' attention to two articles in vindication of the morals of Queen Elizabeth, in

'Fraser's Magazine' of 1854; to one in the 'Westminster' of 1854, on Mary Stuart; and one in the same of

1852, on England's Forgotten Worthies, by a pen now happily well known in English literature, Mr. Anthony

{3} Since this was written, a similar Amazonian bodyguard has been discovered, I hear, in Pegu.