Page 89 of 162

The queen had always declared to all the world, and even to the earl himself, that the purpose of her severity was to correct, not to ruin him;[*] and when she heard of his sickness, she was not a little alarmed with his situation. She ordered eight physicians of the best reputation and experience to consult of his case; and being informed that the issue was much to be apprehended, she sent Dr. James to him with some broth, and desired that physician to deliver him a message, which she probably deemed of still greater virtue, that if she thought such a step consistent with her honor, she would herself pay him a visit. The bystanders, who carefully observed her countenance, remarked, that in pronouncing these words her eyes were suffused with tears.[**]

When these symptoms of the queen’s returning affection towards Essex were known, they gave a sensible alarm to the faction which had declared their opposition to him. Sir Walter Raleigh in particular, the most violent as well as the most ambitious of his enemies, was so affected with the appearance of this sudden revolution, that he was seized with sickness in his turn; and the queen was obliged to apply the same salve to his wound, and to send him a favorable message, expressing her desire of his recovery.[***]

1600.

The medicine which the queen administered to these aspiring rivals was successful with both; and Essex, being now allowed the company of his countess, and having entertained more promising hopes of his future fortunes, was so much restored in his health as to be thought past danger. A belief was instilled into Elizabeth, that his distemper had been entirely counterfeit, in order to move her compassion;[****] and she relapsed into her former rigor against him. He wrote her a letter, and sent her a rich present on new-year’s day, as was usual with the courtiers at that time: she read the letter but rejected the present.[v] After some interval, however, of severity, she allowed him to retire to his own house; and though he remained still under custody, and was sequestered from all company, he was so grateful for this mark of lenity, that he sent her a letter of thanks on the occasion.

* Birch’s Memoirs, p. 444, 445. Sidney’s Letters, vol. ii.
p. 196.

** Sidney’s Letters, vol. ii. p. 151.

*** Sidney’s Letters, vol. ii. p. 139.

**** Sidney’s Letters, vol. ii. p. 153

v     Sidney’s Letters, vol. ii. p. 155, 156.

“This further degree of goodness,” said he, “doth sound in my ears, as if your majesty spake these words: ‘Die not, Essex; for though I punish thine offence, and humble thee for thy good yet will I one day be served again by thee.’ My prostrate soul makes this answer: ‘I hope for that blessed day.’ And in expectation of it, all my afflictions of body and mind are humbly, patiently, and cheerfully borne by me.”[*] The countess of Essex, daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, possessed, as well as her husband, a refined taste in literature; and the chief consolation which Essex enjoyed, during this period of anxiety and expectation, consisted in her company, and in reading with her those instructive and entertaining authors, which, even during the time of his greatest prosperity, he had never entirely neglected.

There were several incidents which kept alive the queen’s anger against Essex. Every account which she received from Ireland, convinced her more and more of his misconduct in that government, and of the insignificant purposes to which he had employed so much force and treasure. Tyrone, so far from being quelled, had thought proper, in less than three months, to break the truce, and joining with O’Donnel and other rebels, had overrun almost the whole kingdom. He boasted that he was certain of receiving a supply of men, money, and arms from Spain: he pretended to be champion of the Catholic religion: and he openly exulted in the present of a phoenix plume, which the pope, Clement VIII., in order to encourage him in the prosecution of so good a cause, had consecrated, and had conferred upon him.[**]

* Birch’s Memoirs, p. 444.

** Camden p. 617

The queen, that she might check his progress, returned to her former intention of appointing Mountjoy lord deputy; and though that nobleman, who was an intimate friend of Essex, and desired his return to the government of Ireland, did at first very earnestly excuse himself on account of his bad state of health, she obliged him to accept of the employment. Mountjoy found the island almost in a desperate condition; but being a man of capacity and vigor, he was so little discouraged, that he immediately advanced against Tyrone in Ulster. He penetrated into the heart of that country, the chief seat of the rebels; he fortified Derry and Mount-Norris, in order to bridle the Irish: he chased them from the field, and obliged them to take shelter in the woods and morasses: he employed, with equal success, Sir George Carew in Munster: and by these promising enterprises, he gave new life to the queen’s authority in that island.

As the comparison of Mountjoy’s administration with that of Essex contributed to alienate Elizabeth from her favorite, she received additional disgust from the partiality of the people, who, prepossessed with an extravagant idea of Essex’s merit, complained of the injustice done him by his removal from court, and by his confinement. Libels were secretly dispersed against Cecil and Raleigh and all his enemies: and his popularity, which was always great, seemed rather to be increased than diminished by his misfortunes. Elizabeth, in order to justify to the public her conduct with regard to him, had often expressed her intentions of having him tried in the star chamber for his offences: but her tenderness for him prevailed at last over her severity; and she was contented to have him only examined by the privy council. The attorney-general, Coke, opened the cause against him, and treated him with the cruelty and insolence which that great lawyer usually exercised against the unfortunate. He displayed in the strongest colors all the faults committed by Essex in his administration of Ireland: his making Southampton general of the horse, contrary to the queen’s injunctions; his deserting the enterprise against Tyrone, and marching to Leinster and Munster, his conferring knighthood on too many persons; his secret conference with Tyrone; and his sudden return from Ireland, in contempt of her majesty’s commands. He also exaggerated the indignity of the conditions which Tyrone had been allowed to propose; odious and abominable conditions, said he; a public toleration of an idolatrous religion, pardon for himself and every traitor in Ireland, and full restitution of lands and possessions to all of them.[*] The solicitor-general, Fleming, insisted upon the wretched situation in which the earl had left that kingdom; and Francis, son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, who had been lord keeper in the beginning of the present reign, closed the charge with displaying the undutiful expressions contained in some letters written by the earl.

* Birch’s Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 449.

Essex, when he came to plead in his own defence renounced, with great submission and humility, all pretensions to an apology;[*] and declared his resolution never, on this or any other occasion, to have any contest with his sovereign. He said, that having severed himself from the world, and abjured all sentiments of ambition, he had no scruple to confess every failing or error into which his youth, folly, or manifold infirmities might have betrayed him; that his inward sorrow for his offences against her majesty was so profound, that it exceeded all his outward crosses and afflictions, nor had he any scruple of submitting to a public confession of whatever she had been pleased to impute to him; that in his acknowledgments he retained only one reserve, which he never would relinquish but with his life, the assertion of a loyal and unpolluted heart, of an unfeigned affection, of an earnest desire ever to perform to her majesty the best service which his pool abilities would permit; and that, if this sentiment were allowed by the council, he willingly acquiesced in any condemnation or sentence which they could pronounce against him. This submission was uttered with so much eloquence, and in so pathetic a manner, that it drew tears from many of the audience.[**] All the privy counsellors, in giving their judgment, made no scruple of doing the earl justice with regard to the loyalty of his intentions. Even Cecil, whom he believed his capital enemy, treated him with regard and humanity. And the sentence pronounced by the lord keeper, (to which the council assented,) was in these words: “If this cause,” said he, “had been heard in the star chamber, my sentence must have been for as great a fine as ever was set upon any man’s head in that court, together with perpetual confinement in that prison which belongeth to a man of his quality, the Tower. But since we are now in another place, and in a course of favor, my censure is, that the earl of Essex is not to execute the office of a counsellor, nor that of earl marshal of England, nor of master of the ordnance; and to return to his own house, there to continue a prisoner till it shall please her majesty to release this and all the rest of his sentence.”[***] The earl of Cumberland made a slight opposition to this sentence; and said, that if he thought it would stand, he would have required a little more time to deliberate; that he deemed it somewhat severe; and that any commander-in-chief might easily incur a like penalty.