In the summer of 1611, Raleigh came into collision with Lord Salisbury and Lord Northampton on some matter at present obscure. Northampton writes: 'We had afterwards a bout with Sir Walter Raleigh, in whom we find no change, but the same blindness, pride, and passion that heretofore hath wrought more violently, but never expressed itself in a stranger fashion.' In consequence of their interview with Raleigh and other prisoners, the Lords recommended that 'the lawless liberty' of the Tower should no longer be allowed to cocker and foster exorbitant hopes in the braver sort of captives. Raleigh was immediately placed under closer restraint, not even being allowed to take his customary walk with his keeper up the hill within the Tower. His private garden and gallery were taken from him, and his wife was almost entirely excluded from his company. The final months of Salisbury's life were unfavourable to Raleigh, and there was no quickening of the old friendship at the last. When Lord Salisbury died on May 24, 1612, Raleigh wrote this epigram:

Here lies Hobinall our pastor whilere, That once in a quarter our fleeces did sheer; To please us, his cur he kept under clog, And was ever after both shepherd and dog; For oblation to Pan, his custom was thus, He first gave a trifle, then offered up us; And through his false worship such power he did gain, As kept him on the mountain, and us on the plain.

When these lines were shown to James I. he said he hoped that the man who wrote them would die before he did.

The death of Salisbury encouraged Raleigh once more. His intimacy with the generous and promising Prince of Wales had quickened his hopes. During the last months of his life, Henry continually appealed to Raleigh for advice. The Prince was exceedingly interested in all matters of navigation and shipbuilding, and there exists a letter to him from Raleigh giving him elaborate counsel on the building of a man-of-war, from which we may learn that in the opinion of that practised hand six things were chiefly required in a well-conditioned ship of the period: '1, that she be strong built; 2, swift in sail; 3, stout-sided; 4, that her ports be so laid, as she may carry out her guns all weathers; 5, that she hull and try well; 6, that she stay well, when boarding or turning on a wind is required.' Secure in the interest of the Prince of Wales, and hoping to persuade the Queen to be an adventurer, Raleigh seized the opportunity of the death of Salisbury to communicate his plans for an expedition to Guiana to the Lords of the Council. He thought he had induced them to promise that Captain Keymis should go, and that if so much as half a ton of gold was brought back, that should buy Raleigh his liberty. But the negotiations fell through, and Keymis stayed at home.

In September 1612, Raleigh was writing the second of his Marriage Discourses, that dealing with the prospects of his best and youngest friend. A month later that friend fell a victim to his extreme rashness in the neglect of his health. The illness of the Prince of Wales filled the whole of England with dismay, and when, on November 6, he sank under the attack of typhoid fever, it was felt to be a national misfortune. On the very morning of his death the Queen sent to Raleigh for his famous cordial, and it was forwarded, with the message that if it was not poison that the Prince was dying of, it must save him. The Queen herself believed that Raleigh's cordial had once saved her life; on the other hand, in the preceding August his medicines were vulgarly supposed to have hastened the death of Sir Philip Sidney's daughter, the Countess of Rutland. The cordial soothed the Prince's last agony, and that was all. Henry had with great difficulty obtained from his father the promise that, as a personal favour to himself, Raleigh should be set at liberty at Christmas 1612. He died six weeks too soon, and the King contrived to forget his promise. The feeling of the Prince of Wales towards Raleigh was expressed in a phrase that was often repeated, 'No man but my father would keep such a bird in a cage.'

We learn from Izaak Walton that Ben Jonson was recommended to Raleigh while he was in the Tower, by Camden. That he helped him in obtaining and arranging material for the History of the World is certain. In 1613 young Walter Raleigh, having returned to London, and having, in the month of April, killed his man in a duel, went abroad under the charge of Jonson. They took letters for Prince Maurice of Nassau, and they proceeded to Paris, but we know no more. It was probably before they started that young Walter wheeled the corpulent poet of the Alchemist into his father's presence in a barrow, Ben Jonson being utterly overwhelmed with a beaker of that famed canary that he loved too well. Jonson, on his return from abroad, seems to have superintended the publication of the History of the World in 1614. A fine copy of verses, printed opposite the frontispiece of that volume, was reprinted among the pieces called Underwoods in the 1641 folio of Ben Jonson's Works. These lines have, therefore, ever since been attributed to that poet, but, as it appears to me, rashly. In the first place, this volume was posthumous; in the second, for no less than twenty-three years Ben Jonson allowed the verses to appear as Raleigh's without protest; in the third, where they differ from the earlier version it is always to their poetical disadvantage. They were found, as the editor of 1641 says, amongst Jonson's papers, and I would suggest, as a new hypothesis, that the less polished draft in the Underwoods is entirely Raleigh's, having been copied by Jonson verbatim when he was preparing the History of the World for the press, and that the improved expressions in the latter were adopted by Raleigh on suggestion from the superior judgment of Jonson. The character of the verse is peculiarly that of Raleigh.

It was in 1607, as I have conjectured, that Raleigh first began seriously to collect and arrange materials for the History of the World; in 1614 he presented the first and only volume of this gigantic enterprise to the public. It was a folio of 1,354 pages, printed very closely, and if reprinted now would fill about thirty-five such volumes as are devised for an ordinary modern novel. Yet it brought the history of the world no lower down than the conquest of Macedon by Rome, and it is hard to conceive how soon, at this rate of production, Raleigh would have reached his own generation. He is said to have anticipated that his book would need to consist of not less than four such folios. In the opening lines he expresses some consciousness of the fact that it was late in life for him, a prisoner of State condemned to death at the King's pleasure, to undertake so vast a literary adventure. 'Had it been begotten,' he confesses, 'with my first dawn of day, when the light of common knowledge began to open itself to my younger years, and before any wound received either from fortune or time, I might yet well have doubted that the darkness of age and death would have covered over both it and me, long before the performance.' It is greatly to be desired that Raleigh could have been as well advised as his contemporary and possible friend, the Huguenot poet-soldier, Agrippa d'Aubigne, who at the close of a chequered career also prepared a Histoire Universelle, in which he simply told the story of his own political party in France through those stormy years in which he himself had been an actor. We would gladly exchange all these chronicles of Semiramis and Jehoshaphat for a plain statement of what Raleigh witnessed in the England of Elizabeth.

The student of Raleigh does not, therefore, rise from an examination of his author's chief contribution to literature without a severe sense of disappointment. The book is brilliant almost without a rival in its best passages, but these are comparatively few, and they are divided from one another by tracts of pathless desert. The narrative sometimes descends into a mere slough of barbarous names, a marish of fabulous genealogy, in which the lightest attention must take wings to be supported at all. For instance, the geographical and historical account of the Ten Tribes occupies a space equivalent to a modern octavo volume of at least four hundred pages, through which, if the conscientious reader would pass 'treading the crude consistence' of the matter, 'behoves him now both sail and oar.' It is not fair to dwell upon the eminent beauties of the History of the World without at the same time acknowledging that the book almost wilfully deprives itself of legitimate value and true human interest by the remoteness of the period which it describes, and by the tiresome pedantry of its method. It is leisurely to the last excess. The first chapter, of seven long sections, takes us but to the close of the Creation. We cannot proceed without knowing what it is that Tostatus affirms of the empyrean heavens, and whether, with Strabo, we may dare assume that they are filled with angels. To hasten onwards would be impossible, so long as one of the errors of Steuchius Eugubinus remains unconfuted; and even then it is well to pause until we know the opinions of Orpheus and Zoroaster on the matter in hand. One whole chapter of four sections is dedicated to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the arguments of Goropius Becanus are minutely tested and found wanting. Goropius Becanus, whom Raleigh is never tired of shaking between his critical teeth, was a learned Jesuit of Antwerp, who proved that Adam and Eve spoke Dutch in Paradise. It is not until he reaches the Patriarchs that it begins to occur to the historian that at his present rate of progress it will need forty folio volumes, and not four, to complete his labours. From this point he hastens a little, as the compilers of encyclopaedias do when they have passed the letter B.

With all this, the History of the World is a charming and delightful miscellany, if we do not accept it too seriously. Often for a score of pages there will be something brilliant, something memorable on every leaf, and there is not a chapter, however arid, without its fine things somewhere. It is impossible to tell where Raleigh's pen will take fire. He is most exquisite and fanciful where his subject is most unhopeful, and, on the other hand, he is likely to disappoint us where we take for granted that he will be fine. For example, the series of sections on the Terrestrial Paradise are singularly crabbed and dusty in their display of Rabbinical pedantry, and the little touch in praise of Guiana is almost the only one that redeems the general dryness. It is not mirth, or beauty, or luxury that fires the historian, but death. Of mortality he has always some rich sententious thing to say, praising 'the workmanship of death, that finishes the sorrowful business of a wretched life.' So the most celebrated passages of the whole book, and perhaps the finest, are the address to God which opens the History, and the prose hymn in praise of death which closes it. The entire absence of humour is characteristic, and adds to the difficulty of reading the book straight on. The story of Periander's burning the clothes of the women closes with a jest; there is, perhaps, no other occasion on which the solemn historian is detected with a smile upon his lips.

By far the most interesting and readable, part of the History of the World is its preface. This is a book in itself, and one in which the author condescends to a lively human interest. We cheerfully pass from Elihu the Buzite, and the conjectures of Adricomius respecting the family of Ram, to the actualities of English and Continental history in the generation immediately preceding that in which Raleigh was writing. When we consider the position in which the author stood towards James I. and turn to the pages of his Preface, we refuse to believe that it was without design that he expressed himself in language so extraordinary. It would have been mere levity for a friendless prisoner, ready for the block, to publish this terrible arraignment of the crimes of tyrant kings, unless he had some reason for believing that he could shelter himself successfully under a powerful sympathy. This sympathy, in the case of Sir Walter Raleigh, could be none other than that of Prince Henry; and it may well have been in the summer of 1612, when, as we know, he was particularly intimate with the Prince and busied in his affairs, that he wrote the Preface. With long isolation from the world, he had lost touch of public affairs, as The Prerogative of Parliament would alone be sufficient to show. It is probable that he exaggerated the influence of the young Prince, and estimated too highly the promise of liberty which he had wrung from his father.

It took James some time to discover that this grave Rabbinical miscellany, inspired by Siracides and Goropius Becanus, was not wholesome reading for his subjects. On January 5, 1615, after the book had been selling slowly, the King gave an order commanding the suppression of the remainder of the edition, giving as his reason that 'it is too saucy in censuring the acts of kings.' It is said that some favoured person at Court pushed inquiry further, and extracted from James the explanation that the censure of Henry VIII. was the real cause of the suppression. Contemporary anecdote, however, has reported that the defamation of the Tudors in the Preface to the History of the World might have passed without reproof, if the King had not discovered in the very body of the book several passages so ambiguously worded that he could not but suspect the writer of intentional satire. According to this story, he was startled at Raleigh's account of Naboth's Vineyard, and scandalised at the description of the impeachment of the Admiral of France; but what finally drew him up, and made him decide that the book must perish, was the character of King Ninias, son of Queen Semiramis. This passage, then, may serve us as an example of the History of the World:

Ninus being the first whom the madness of boundless dominion transported, invaded his neighbour princes, and became victorious over them; a man violent, insolent, and cruel. Semiramis taking the opportunity, and being more proud, adventurous, and ambitious than her paramour, enlarged the Babylonian empire, and beautified many places therein with buildings unexampled. But her son having changed nature and condition with his mother, proved no less feminine than she was masculine. And as wounds and wrongs, by their continual smart, put the patient in mind how to cure the one and revenge the other, so those kings adjoining (whose subjection and calamities incident were but new, and therefore the more grievous) could not sleep, when the advantage was offered by such a successor. For in regno Babylonico hic parum resplenduit: 'This king shined little,' saith Nauclerus of Ninias, 'in the Babylonian kingdom.' And likely it is, that the necks of mortal men having been never before galled with the yoke of foreign dominion, nor having ever had experience of that most miserable and detested condition of living in slavery; no long descent having as yet invested the Assyrian with a right, nor any other title being for him pretended than a strong hand; the foolish and effeminate son of a tyrannous and hated mother could very ill hold so many great princes and nations his vassals, with a power less mastering, and a mind less industrious, than his father and mother had used before him.

It is in passages like this, where we read the satire between the lines, and in those occasional fragments of autobiography to which we have already referred in the course of this narrative, that the secondary charm of the History of the World resides. It is to these that we turn when we have exhausted our first surprise and delight at the great bursts of poetic eloquence, the long sonorous sentences which break like waves on the shore, when the spirit of the historian is roused by some occasional tempest of reflection. In either case, the book is essentially one to glean from, not to read with consecutive patience. Real historical philosophy is absolutely wanting. The author strives to seem impartial by introducing, in the midst of an account of the slaughter of the Amalekites, a chapter on 'The Instauration of Civility in Europe, and of Prometheus and Atlas;' but his general notions of history are found to be as rude as his comparative mythology. He scarcely attempts to sift evidence, and next to Inspiration he knows no guide more trustworthy than Pintus or Haytonus, a Talmudic rabbi or a Jesuit father. In the midst of his disquisitions, the reward of the continuous reader is to come suddenly upon an unexpected 'as I myself have seen in America,' or 'as once befell me also in Ireland.'

Another historical work, the Breviary of the History of England, has been claimed for Sir Walter Raleigh. This book was first published in 1692, from a manuscript in the possession of Archbishop Sancroft, and, as it would appear, in Raleigh's handwriting. Before its publication, however, the Archbishop had noted that 'Samuel Daniel hath inserted into his History of England [1618], almost word for word, both the Introduction and the Life; whence it is that you have sometimes in the margin of my copy a various reading with "D" after it.' Daniel, a gentle and subservient creature, was the friend of Camden, and a paid servant of Queen Anne, during Raleigh's imprisonment. He died a few months after Raleigh's execution. It is very likely that he was useful to Raleigh in collecting notes and other material. It may even have been his work for the interesting prisoner in the Tower that caused Jonson's jealous dislike of Daniel. The younger poet's own account, as Mr. Edwards pointed out, by no means precludes the supposition that he used material put together by another hand. At the same time Sancroft's authority cannot be considered final as regards Raleigh's authorship of the Breviary, for the manuscript did not come into his hands until nineteen years after Raleigh's death.

No such doubt attaches to the very curious and interesting volume published nominally at Middelburg in 1628, and entitled The Prerogative of Parliament. This takes the form of a dialogue between a Counsellor of State and a Justice of the Peace. The dramatic propriety is but poorly sustained, and presently the Justice becomes Raleigh, speaking in his own person. The book was written in the summer of 1615, a few months after the suppression of the History of the World, and by a curious misconstruction of motive was intended to remove from the King's mind the unpleasant impression caused by those parables of Ahab and of Ninias. It had, however, as we shall see, the very opposite result. The preface to the King expresses an almost servile desire to please: 'it would be more dog-like than man-like to bite the stone that struck me, to wit the borrowed authority of my sovereign misinformed.' But Raleigh was curiously misinformed himself regarding the ways and wishes of James. His dialogue takes for its starting-point the trial of Oliver St. John, who had been Raleigh's fellow-prisoner in the Tower since April for having with unreasonable brutality protested against the enforced payment of what was called the Benevolence, a supposed free-will offering to the purse of the King. So ignorant was Raleigh of what was going on in England, that he fancied James to be unaware of the tricks of his ministers; and the argument of The Prerogative of Parliament is to encourage the King to cast aside his evil counsellors, and come face to face with his loyal people. The student of Mr. Gardiner's account of the Benevolence will smile to think of the rage with which the King must have received Raleigh's proffered good advice, and of Raleigh's stupefaction at learning that his well-meant volume was forbidden to be printed. His manuscript, prepared for the press, still remains among the State Papers, and it was not until ten years after his death that it was first timidly issued under the imprints of Middelburg and of Hamburg.

Not the least of Raleigh's chagrins in the Tower must have been the composition of works which he was unable to publish. It is probable that several of these are still unknown to the world; many were certainly destroyed, some may still be in existence. During the thirty years which succeeded his execution, there was a considerable demand for scraps of Raleigh's writing on the part of men who were leaning to the Liberal side. John Hampden was a collector of Raleigh's manuscripts, and he is possibly the friend who bequeathed to Milton the manuscript of The Cabinet Council, an important political work of Raleigh's which the great Puritan poet gave to the world in 1658. At that time Milton had had the treatise 'many years in my hands, and finding it lately by chance among other books and papers, upon reading thereof I thought it a kind of injury to withhold longer the work of so eminent an author from the public.' The Cabinet Council is a study in the manner of Macchiavelli. It treats of the arts of empire and mysteries of State-craft, mainly with regard to the duties of monarchy. It is remarkable for the extraordinary richness of allusive extracts from the Roman classics, almost every maxim being immediately followed by an apt Latin example. At the end of the twenty-fourth chapter the author wakes up to the tedious character of this manner of instruction, and the rest of the book is illustrated by historical instances in the English tongue. The book closes with an exhortation to the reader, who could be no other than Prince Henry, to emulate the conduct of Amurath, King of Turbay, who abandoned worldly glory to embrace a retired life of contemplation. The Cabinet Council must be regarded as a text-book of State-craft, intended in usum Delphini.

Probably earlier in date, and certainly more elegant in literary form, is the treatise entitled A Discourse of War. This may be recommended to the modern reader as the most generally pleasing of Raleigh's prose compositions, and the one in which, owing to its modest limits, the peculiarities of his style may be most conveniently studied. The last passage of the little book forms one of the most charming pages of the literature of that time, and closes with a pathetic and dignified statement of Raleigh's own attitude towards war. 'It would be an unspeakable advantage, both to the public and private, if men would consider that great truth, that no man is wise or safe but he that is honest. All I have designed is peace to my country; and may England enjoy that blessing when I shall have no more proportion in it than what my ashes make.' There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of these words; yet we must not forget that this pacific light was not that in which Raleigh's character had presented itself to Robert Cecil or to Elizabeth.

None of Raleigh's biographers have suggested any employment for his leisure during the year which followed his release from the Tower. Yet the expressions he used in the preface to his Observations on Trade and Commerce show that it must have been prepared during the year 1616 or 1617: 'about fourteen or fifteen years past,' that is to say in 1602, 'I presented you,' he says to the King, 'a book of extraordinary importance.' He complains that this earlier book was suppressed, and hopes for better luck; but the same misfortune, as usual with Raleigh, attended the Observations. That treatise was an impassioned plea, based upon a survey of the commercial condition of the world, in favour of free trade. Raleigh looked with grave suspicion on the various duties which were levied, in increasing amount, on foreign goods entering this country, and he entreated James I. to allow him to nominate commissioners to examine into the causes of the depression of trade, and to revise the tariffs on a liberal basis. It must have seemed to the King that Raleigh wilfully opposed every royal scheme which he examined. James had been a protectionist all through his reign, and at this very moment was busy in attempting to force the native industries to flourish in spite of foreign competition. Raleigh's treatise must have been put into the King's hands much about the time at which his violent protectionism was threatening to draw England into war with Holland. Raleigh's advice seems to us wise and pointed, but to James it can only have appeared wilfully wrong-headed. The Observations upon Trade disappeared as so many of Raleigh's manuscripts had disappeared before it, and was only first published in the Remains[10] of 1651.

Of the last three years of Raleigh's imprisonment in the Tower we know scarcely anything. On September 27, 1615, a fellow-prisoner in whom Raleigh could not fail to take an interest, Lady Arabella Stuart, died in the Tower. In December, Raleigh was deprived, by an order in Council, of Arabella's rich collection of pearls, but how they had come into his possession we cannot guess. Nor can we date the stroke of apoplexy from which Raleigh suffered about this time. But relief was now briefly coming. Two of Raleigh's worst enemies, Northampton and Somerset, were removed, and in their successors, Winwood and Villiers, Raleigh found listeners more favourable to his projects. It has been said that he owed his release to bribery, but Mr. Gardiner thinks it needless to suppose this. Winwood was as cordial a hater of Spain as Raleigh himself; and Villiers, in his political animus against the Somerset faction, would need no bribery. Sir William St. John was active in bringing Raleigh's claims before the Court, and the Queen, as ever, used what slender influence she possessed. Urged on so many sides, James gave way, and on January 30, 1616, signed a warrant for Raleigh's release from the Tower. He was to live in his own house, but, with a keeper; he was not to presume to visit the Court, or the Queen's apartments, nor go to any public assemblies whatever, and his whole attention was to be given to making due preparations for the intended voyage to Guiana. This warrant, although Raleigh used it to leave his confinement, was only provisional; and was confirmed by a minute of the Privy Council on March 19. Raleigh took a house in Broad Street, where he spent fourteen months in discreet retirement, and then sailed on his last voyage.



CHAPTER IX.

THE SECOND VOYAGE TO GUIANA.

Raleigh had been released from the Tower expressly on the understanding that he should make direct preparations for a voyage to Guiana. The object of this voyage was to enrich King James with the produce of a mine close to the banks of the Orinoco. In the reign of Elizabeth, Raleigh had stoutly contended that the natives of Guiana had ceded all sovereignty in that country to England in 1595, and that English colonists therefore had no one's leave to ask there. But times had changed, and he now no longer pretended that he had a right to the Orinoco; he was careful to insist that his expedition would infringe no privileges of Spain. He was anxious by every diplomatic subtlety to avoid failure, and for the first few months he kept extremely quiet. He had called in the 8,000l. which had been lying at interest ever since he had received it as part of the compensation for the Sherborne estates. Lady Raleigh had raised 2,500l. by the sale of some lands at Mitcham.[11] 5000l. more were brought together by various expedients, some being borrowed in Amsterdam through the famous merchant, Pieter Vanlore,' and 15,000l. were contributed by Raleigh's friends, who looked upon his enterprise much as men at the present day would regard a promising but rather hazardous investment.

His first business was to build one large ship of 440 tons in the Thames. This he named the 'Destiny,' and he received no check in fitting her up to his desire; the King paid 700 crowns, as the usual statutable bounty on shipbuilding, without objection. At the same time Raleigh built or collected six other smaller vessels, and furnished them all with ordnance. The preparation of such a fleet in the Thames could not pass unobserved by the representatives of the foreign courts, and during the last six months of 1616 Raleigh's name became the centre of a tangle of diplomatic intrigue, and one which frequently occurs in the correspondence of Sarmiento, better known afterwards as Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, and in that of Des Marets, the French ambassador. Mr. Edwards has remarked, with complete justice, that the last two years of Raleigh's life were simply 'a protracted death-struggle between him and Gondomar.' The latter had been in England since 1613, and had acquired a singular art in dealing with the purposes of James I. At the English Court during 1616 we find Spain watching France, and Venice watching Savoy, all of them intent on Raleigh's movements in the river. For the unravelment of these intrigues in detail, the reader must be referred to Mr. Gardiner's masterly pages.

On August 26, a royal commission was issued, by which Raleigh was made the commander of an expedition to Guiana, under express orders, more stringently expressed than usual, not to visit the dominions of any Christian prince. This was to allay the alarm of the Spanish ambassador, who from the first rumour of Raleigh's voyage had not ceased to declare that its real object was piracy, and probably the capture of the Mexican plate fleet. At the same time James I. allowed Gondomar to obtain possession of copies of certain documents which Raleigh had drawn out at the royal command describing his intended route, and these were at once forwarded to Madrid, together with such information as Gondomar had been able to glean in conversation with Raleigh. Spain instantly replied by offering him an escort to his gold mine and back, but of course Raleigh declined the proposition. He continued to assert that he had no piratical intention, and that any man might peacefully enter Guiana without asking leave of Spain.

It is doubtful whether the anecdote is true which records that Raleigh at this time applied to Bacon to know whether the terms of his commission were tantamount to a free pardon, and was told that they were. But it rests on much better testimony that Bacon asked him what he would do if the Guiana mine proved a deception. Raleigh admitted that he would then look out for the Mexican plate fleet. 'But then you will be pirates,' said Bacon; and Raleigh answered, 'Ah, who ever heard of men being pirates for millions?' There was no exaggeration in this; the Mexican fleet of that year was valued at two millions and a half. The astute Gondomar was at least half certain that this was Raleigh's real intention, and by October 12 he had persuaded James to give him still more full security that no injury should be done, at the peril of Raleigh's life, to any subject or property of the King of Spain.

The building of the 'Destiny' meanwhile proceeded, and Raleigh received many important visitors on board her. He was protected by the cordial favour of the Secretary, Sir Ralph Winwood; and if the King disliked him as much as ever, no animosity was shown. In the first days of 1617, Raleigh ventured upon a daring act of intrigue. He determined to work upon the growing sympathy of the English Court with Savoy and its tension with Spain, to strike a blow against the rich enemy of the one and ally of the other, Genoa. He proposed to Scarnafissi, the Savoyard envoy in London, that James I. should be induced to allow the Guiana expedition to steal into the Mediterranean, and seize Genoa for Savoy. Scarnafissi laid the proposal before James, and on January 12 it was discussed in the presence of Winwood. There was talk of increasing Raleigh's fleet for this purpose by the addition of a squadron of sixteen ships from the royal navy. For a fortnight the idea was discussed in secret; but on the 26th, Scarnafissi was told that the King had determined not to adopt it. Four days later Raleigh was released from the personal attendance of a keeper, and though still not pardoned, was pronounced free. On February 10, the Venetian envoy, who had been taken into Scarnafissi's counsel, announced to his Government that the King had finally determined to keep Raleigh to his original intention.

Raleigh was next assailed by secret propositions from France. Through the month of February various Frenchmen visited him on the 'Destiny,' besides the ambassador, Des Marets. He was nearly persuaded, in defiance of James, to support the projected Huguenot rebellion by capturing St. Valery. To find out the truth regarding his intention, Des Marets paid at least one visit to the 'Destiny,' and on March 7 gave his Government an account of a conversation with Raleigh, in which the latter had spoken bitterly of James, and had asserted his affection for France, and desire to serve her. It is in the correspondence of Des Marets that the names of Raleigh and Richelieu become for a moment connected; it was in February 1617 that the future Cardinal described his English contemporary as 'Ouastre Raly, grand marinier et mauvais capitaine.' In March the English Government, to allay fresh apprehensions on the part of Spain, forwarded by Gondomar most implicit assertions that Raleigh's expedition should be in no way injurious to Spain. And so it finally started after all, not bound for Mexico, or Genoa, or St. Valery, but for the Orinoco. Up to the last, Gondomar protested, and his protestations were only put aside after a special council of March 28. Next day Raleigh rode down to Dover to go on board the 'Destiny,' which had left the Thames on the 26th.

His fleet of seven vessels was not well manned. His own account of the crews is thus worded in the Apology: 'A company of volunteers who for the most part had neither seen the sea nor the wars; who, some forty gentlemen excepted, were the very scum of the world, drunkards, blasphemers, and such others as their fathers, brothers, and friends thought it an exceeding good gain to be discharged of, with the hazard of some thirty, forty, or fifty pound.' He was himself Admiral, with his son Walter as captain of the 'Destiny;' Sir William Sentleger was on the 'Thunder;' a certain John Bailey commanded the 'Husband.' The remaining vessels were the 'Jason,' the 'Encounter,' the 'Flying Joan,' and the 'Page.' The master of the 'Destiny' was John Burwick, 'a hypocritical thief.' Various tiresome delays occurred. They waited for the 'Thunder' at the Isle of Wight; and when the rest went on to Plymouth, the 'Jason' stayed behind ignominiously in Portsmouth because her captain had no ready money to pay a distraining baker. The 'Husband' was in the same plight for twelve days more. The squadron was, however, increased by seven additional vessels, one of them commanded by Keymis, through the enforced waiting at Plymouth, where, on May 3, Raleigh issued his famous Orders to the Fleet. On June 12 the fleet sailed at last out of Plymouth Sound.

West of Scilly they fell in with a terrific storm, which scattered the ships in various directions. Some put back into Falmouth, but the 'Flying Joan' sank altogether, and the fly-boat was driven up the Bristol Channel. After nearly a fortnight of anxiety and distress, the fleet collected again in Cork Harbour, where they lay repairing and waiting for a favourable wind for more than six weeks. From the Lismore Papers, just published (Jan. 1886), we learn that Raleigh occupied this enforced leisure in getting rid of his remaining Irish leases, and in collecting as much money as he could. Sir Richard Boyle records that on July 1 Raleigh came to his house, and borrowed 100l. On August 19 the last Journal begins, and on the 20th the fleet left Cork, Raleigh having taken a share in a mine at Balligara on the morning of the same day. Nothing happened until the 31st, when, being off Cape St. Vincent, the English fleet fell in with four French vessels laden with fish and train oil for Seville. In order that they might not give notice that Raleigh was in those waters, where he certainly had no business to be, he took these vessels with him a thousand leagues to the southward, and then dismissed them with payment. His conduct towards these French boats was suspicious, and he afterwards tried to prove that they were pirates who had harried the Grand Canary. It was also Raleigh's contention, that the enmity presently shown him by Captain Bailey, of the 'Husband,' arose from Raleigh's refusal to let him make one of these French ships his prize.

On Sunday morning, September 7, the English fleet anchored off the shore of Lanzarote, the most easterly of the Canaries, having hitherto crept down the coast of Africa. These Atlantic islands were particularly open to the attacks of Algerine corsairs, and a fleet of 'Turks' had just ravaged the towns of the Madeiras. The people of Lanzarote, waking up one morning to find their roadstead full of strange vessels, took for granted that these were pirates from Algiers. One English merchant vessel was lying there at anchor, and by means of this interpreter Raleigh endeavoured to explain his peaceful intention, but without success. He had a meeting on shore with the governor of the island, 'our troops staying at equal distance with us,' and was asked the pertinent question, 'what I sought for from that miserable and barren island, peopled in effect all with Moriscos.' Raleigh asserted that all he wanted was fresh meat and wine for his crews, and these he offered to pay for.

On the 11th, finding that no provisions came, and that the inhabitants were carrying their goods up into the hills, the captains begged Raleigh to march inland and take the town; 'but,' he says, 'besides that I knew it would offend his Majesty, I am sure the poor English merchant should have been ruined, whose goods he had in his hands, and the way being mountainous and most extreme stony, I knew that I must have lost twenty good men in taking a town not worth two groats.' The Governor of Lanzarote continued to be in a craven state of anxiety, and would not hear of trading. We cannot blame him, especially when we find that less than eight months later his island was invaded by genuine Algerine bandits, his town utterly sacked, and 900 Christians taken off into Moslem slavery. After three Englishmen had been killed by the islanders, yet without taking any reprisals, Raleigh sailed away from these sandy and inhospitable shores. But in the night before he left, one of his ships, the 'Husband,' had disappeared. Captain Bailey, who is believed to have been in the pay of Gondomar, had hurried back to England to give report of Raleigh's piratical attack on an island belonging to the dominion of Spain. As the great Englishman went sailing westward through the lustrous waters of the Canary archipelago, his doom was sealed, and he would have felt his execution to be a certainty, had he but known what was happening in England.

He called at Grand Canary, to complain of the Lanzarote people to the governor-general of the islands, but, for some reason which he does not state, did not land at the town of Palmas, but at a desert part, far from any village, probably west of the northern extremity of the island. The governor-general gave him no answer; but the men found a little water, and they sailed away, leaving Teneriffe to the north. On September 18 they put into the excellent port of the island of Gomera, 'the best,' he says, 'in all the Canaries, the town and castle standing on the very breach of the sea, but the billows do so tumble and overfall that it is impossible to land upon any part of the strand but by swimming, saving in a cove under steep rocks, where they can pass towards the town but one after the other.' Here, as at Lanzarote, they were taken for Algerines, and the guns on the rocks began to fire at them. Raleigh, however, immediately sent a messenger on shore to explain that they were not come to sack their town and burn their churches, as the Dutch had done in 1599, but that they were in great need of water. They presently came to an agreement that the islanders should quit their trenches round the landing-place, and that Raleigh should promise on the faith of a Christian not to land more than thirty unarmed sailors, to fill their casks at springs within pistol-shot of the wash of the sea, none of these sailors being permitted to enter any house or garden. Raleigh, therefore, sent six of his seamen, and turned his ships broadside to the town, ready to batter it with culverin if he saw one sign of treachery.

It turned out that when the Governor of Gomera knew who his visitors were, he was as pleased as possible to see them. His wife's mother had been a Stafford, and when Raleigh knew that, he sent his countrywoman a present of six embroidered handkerchiefs and six pairs of gloves, with a very handsome message. To this the lady rejoined that she regretted that her barren island contained nothing worth Raleigh's acceptance, yet sent him 'four very great loaves of sugar,' with baskets of lemons, oranges, pomegranates, figs, and most delicate grapes. During the three days that they rode off Gomera, the Governor and his English lady wrote daily to Sir Walter. In return for the fruit, deeming himself much in her debt, he sent on shore a very courteous letter, and with it two ounces of ambergriece, an ounce of the essence of amber, a great glass of fine rose-water, an excellent picture of Mary Magdalen, and a cut-work ruff. Here he expected courtesies to stay, but the lady must positively have the last word, and as the English ships were starting her servants came on board with yet a letter, accompanying a basket of delicate white manchett bread, more clusters of fruits, and twenty-four fat hens. Meanwhile, in the friendliest way, the sailors had been going to and fro, and had drawn 240 pipes of water. So cordial, indeed, was their reception, that, as a last favour, Raleigh asked the Governor for a letter to Sarmiento [Gondomar], which he got, setting forth 'how nobly we had behaved ourselves, and how justly we had dealt with the inhabitants of the islands.' Before leaving Gomera, Raleigh discharged a native barque which one of his pinnaces had captured, and paid at the valuation of the master for any prejudice that had been done him. On September 21 they sailed away from the Canaries, having much sickness on board; and that very day their first important loss occurred, in the death of the Provost Marshal of the fleet, a man called Stead.

On the 26th they reached St. Antonio, the outermost of the Cape Verde Islands, but did not land there. For eight wretched days they wandered aimlessly about in this unfriendly archipelago, trying to make up their minds to land now on Brava, now on St. Jago. Some of the ships grated on the rocks, all lost anchors and cables; one pinnace, her crew being asleep and no one on the watch, drove under the bowsprit of the 'Destiny,' struck her and sank. When they did effect a landing on Brava, they were soaked by the tropical autumnal rains of early October. Men were dying fast in all the ships. In deep dejection Raleigh gave the order to steer away for Guiana. Meanwhile Bailey had arrived in England, had seen Gondomar, and had openly given out that he left Raleigh because the admiral had been guilty of piratical acts against Spain. It does not seem that Winwood or the King took any notice of these declarations until the end of the year.

The ocean voyage was marked by an extraordinary number of deaths, among others that of Mr. Fowler, the principal refiner, whose presence at the gold mine would have been of the greatest importance. On October 13, John Talbot, who had been for eleven years Raleigh's secretary in the Tower, passed away. The log preserved in the Second Voyage is of great interest, but we dare not allow its observations to detain us. On the last of October, Raleigh was struck down by fever himself, and for twenty days lay unable to eat anything more solid than a stewed prune. He was in bed, on November 11, when they sighted Cape Orange, now the most northerly point belonging to the Empire of Brazil. On the 14th they anchored at the mouth of the Cayenne river, and Raleigh was carried from his noisome cabin into his barge; the 'Destiny' got across the bar, which was lower then than it now is, on the 17th. At Cayenne, after a day or two, Raleigh's old servant Harry turned up; he had almost forgotten his English in twenty-two years. Raleigh began to pick up strength a little on pine-apples and plantains, and presently he began to venture even upon roast peccary. He proceeded to spend the next fortnight on the Cayenne river, refreshing his weary crews, and repairing his vessels. An interesting letter to his wife that he sent home from this place, which he called 'Caliana,' confirms the Second Voyage, and adds some details. He says to Lady Raleigh: 'To tell you I might be here King of the Indians were a vanity; but my name hath still lived among them. Here they feed me with fresh meat and all that the country yields; all offer to obey me. Commend me to poor Carew my son.' His eldest son, Walter, it will be remembered, was with him.

In December the fleet coasted along South America westward, till on the 15th they stood under Trinidad. Meanwhile Raleigh had sent forward, by way of Surinam and Essequibo, the expedition which was to search for the gold mine on the Orinoco. His own health prevented his attempting this journey, but he sent Captain Keymis as commander in his stead, and with him was George Raleigh, the Admiral's nephew; young Walter also accompanied the party. On New Year's Eve Raleigh landed at a village in Trinidad, close to Port of Spain, and there he waited, on the borders of the land of pitch, all through January 1618. On the last of that month he returned to Punto Gallo on the mainland, being very anxious for news from the Orinoco. The log of the Second Voyage closes on February 13, and it is supposed that it was on the evening of that day that Captain Keymis' disastrous letter, written on January 8, reached Raleigh and informed him of the death of his son Walter. 'To a broken mind, a sick body, and weak eyes, it is a torment to write letters,' and we know he felt, as he also said, that now 'all the respects of this world had taken end in him.' Keymis had acted in keeping with what he must have supposed to be Raleigh's private wish; he had attacked the new Spanish settlement of San Thome. In the fight young Walter Raleigh had been struck down as he was shouting 'Come on, my men! This is the only mine you will ever find.' Keymis had to announce this fact to the father, and a few days afterwards, with only a remnant of his troop, he himself fled in panic to the sea, believing that a Spanish army was upon him. The whole adventure was a miserable and ignominious failure.

The meeting between Raleigh and Keymis could not fail to be an embarrassing one. Raleigh could not but feel that all his own mistakes and faults might have been condoned if Keymis had brought one basket of ore from the fabulous mine, and he could not refrain from reproaching him. He told him he 'should be forced to leave him to his arguments, with the which if he could satisfy his Majesty and the State, I should be glad of it, though for my part he must excuse me to justify it.' After this first interview Keymis left him in great dejection, and a day or two later appeared in the Admiral's cabin with a letter which he had written to the Earl of Arundel, excusing himself. He begged Raleigh to forgive him and to read this letter. What followed, Sir Walter must tell in his own grave words:

I told him he had undone me by his obstinacy, and that I would not favour or colour in any sort his former folly. He then asked me, whether that were my resolution? I answered, that it was. He then replied in these words, 'I know then, sir, what course to take,' and went out of my cabin into his own, in which he was no sooner entered than I heard a pistol go off. I sent up, not suspecting any such thing as the killing of himself, to know who shot a pistol. Keymis himself made answer, lying on his bed, that he had shot it off, because it had long been charged; with which I was satisfied. Some half-hour after this, his boy, going into the cabin, found him dead, having a long knife thrust under his left pap into his heart, and his pistol lying by him, with which it appeared he had shot himself; but the bullet lighting upon a rib, had but broken the rib, and went no further.

Such was the wretched manner in which Raleigh and his old faithful servant parted. In his despair, the Admiral's first notion was to plunge himself into the mazes of the Orinoco, and to find the gold mine, or die in the search for it. But his men were mutinous; they openly declared that in their belief no such mine existed, and that the Spaniards were bearing down on them by land and sea. They would not go; and Raleigh, strangely weakened and humbled, asked them if they wished him to lead them against the Mexican plate fleet. He told them that he had a commission from France, and that they would be pardoned in England if they came home laden with treasure.

What exactly happened no one knows. The mutiny grew worse and worse, and on March 21, when Raleigh wrote a long letter to prepare the mind of Winwood, he was lying off St. Christopher's on his homeward voyage; not knowing of course that his best English friend had already been dead five months. Next day, he made up his mind that he dared not return to England to face his enemies, and he wrote to tell his wife that he was off to Newfoundland, 'where I mean to make clean my ships, and revictual; for I have tobacco enough to pay for it.' But he was powerless, as he confesses, to govern his crew, and no one knows how the heartbroken old man spent the next two dreadful months. His ships slunk back piecemeal to English havens, and on May 23, Captain North, who had commanded the 'Chudleigh,' had audience of the King, and told him the whole miserable story. On May 26,[12] Raleigh made his appearance, with the 'Destiny,' in the harbour of Kinsale, and on June 21 he arrived in Plymouth, penniless and dejected, for the first time in his life utterly unnerved and irresolute. On June 16 he had written an apologetic letter to the King. By some curious slip Mr. Edwards dated this letter three months too late, and its significance has therefore been overlooked. It is important as showing that Raleigh was eager to conciliate James.



CHAPTER X.

THE END.

Gondomar had not been idle during Raleigh's absence, but so long as Winwood was alive he had not been able to attack the absent Admiral with much success. As soon as Bailey brought him the news of the supposed attack on Lanzarote, he communicated with his Government, and urged that an embargo should be laid on the goods of the English merchant colony at Seville. This angry despatch, the result of a vain attempt to reach James, is dated October 22; and on October 27 the sudden death of Winwood removed Gondomar's principal obstacle to the ruin of Raleigh. At first, however, Bailey's story received no credence, and if, as Howel somewhat apocryphally relates, Gondomar had been forbidden to say two words about Raleigh in the King's presence, and therefore entered with uplifted hands shouting 'Pirates!' till James was weary, he did not seem to gain much ground. Moreover, while Bailey's story was being discussed, the little English merchant vessel which had been lying in Lanzarote during Raleigh's visit returned to London, and gave evidence which brought Bailey to gaol in the Gate House.

On January 11, 1618, before any news had been received from Guiana, a large gathering was held in the Council Chamber at Westminster, to try Bailey for false accusation. The Council contained many men favourable to Raleigh, but the Spanish ambassador brought influence to bear on the King; and late in February, Bailey was released with a reprimand, although he had accused Raleigh not of piracy only, but of high treason. The news of the ill-starred attack on San Thome reached Madrid on May 3, and London on the 8th. This must have given exquisite pleasure to the baffled Gondomar, and he lost no time in pressing James for revenge. He gave the King the alternative of punishing Raleigh in England or sending him as a prisoner to Spain. The King wavered for a month. Meanwhile vessel after vessel brought more conclusive news of the piratical expedition in which Keymis had failed, and Gondomar became daily more importunate. It began to be thought that Raleigh had taken flight for Paris.

At, last, on June 11, James I. issued a proclamation inviting all who had a claim against Raleigh to present it to the Council. Lord Nottingham at the same time outlawed the 'Destiny' in whatever English port she might appear. It does not seem that the King was unduly hasty in condemning Raleigh. He had given Spain every solemn pledge that Raleigh should not injure Spain, and yet the Admiral's only act had been to fall on an unsuspecting Spanish settlement; notwithstanding this, James argued as long as he could that San Thome lay outside the agreement. The arrival of the 'Destiny,' however, seems to have clinched Gondomar's arguments. Three days after Raleigh arrived in Plymouth, the King assured Spain that 'not all those who have given security for Raleigh can save him from the gallows.' For the particulars of the curious intrigues of these summer months the reader must be referred, once more, to Mr. Gardiner's dispassionate pages.

On June 21, Raleigh moored the 'Destiny' in Plymouth harbour, and sent her sails ashore. Lady Raleigh hastened down to meet him, and they stayed in Plymouth a fortnight. His wife and he, with Samuel King, one of his captains, then set out for London, but were met just outside Ashburton by Sir Lewis Stukely, a cousin of Raleigh's, now Vice-Admiral of Devonshire. This man announced that he had the King's orders to arrest Sir Walter Raleigh; but these were only verbal orders, and he took his prisoner back to Plymouth to await the Council warrant. Raleigh was lodged for nine or ten days in the house of Sir Christopher Harris, Stukely being mainly occupied in securing the 'Destiny' and her contents. Raleigh pretended to be ill, or was really indisposed with anxiety and weariness. While Stukely was thinking of other things, Raleigh commissioned Captain King to hire a barque to slip over to La Rochelle, and one night Raleigh and King made their escape towards this vessel in a little boat. But Raleigh probably reflected that without money or influence he would be no safer in France than in England, and before the boat reached the vessel, he turned back and went home. He ordered the barque to be in readiness the next night, but although no one watched him, he made no second effort to escape.

On July 23 the Privy Council ordered Stukely, 'all delays set apart,' to bring the body of Sir Walter Raleigh speedily to London. Two days later, Stukely and his prisoner started from Plymouth. A French quack, called Mannourie, in whose chemical pretensions Raleigh had shown some interest, was encouraged by Stukely to attend him, and to worm himself into his confidence. As Walter and Elizabeth Raleigh passed the beautiful Sherborne which had once been theirs, the former could not refrain from saying, 'All this was mine, and it was taken from me unjustly.' They travelled quickly, sleeping at Sherborne on the 26th, and next night at Salisbury. Raleigh lost all confidence as he found himself so hastily being taken up to London. As they went from Wilton into Salisbury, Raleigh asked Mannourie to give him a vomit; 'by its means I shall gain time to work my friends, and order my affairs; perhaps even to pacify his Majesty. Otherwise, as soon as ever I come to London, they will have me to the Tower, and cut off my head.'

That same evening, while being conducted to his rooms, Raleigh struck his head against a post. It was supposed to show that he was dizzy; and next morning he sent Lady Raleigh and her retinue on to London, saying that he himself was not well enough to move. At the same time, King went on to prepare a ship to be ready in the Thames in case of another emergency. When they had started, Raleigh was discovered in his bedroom, on all fours, in his shirt, gnawing the rushes on the floor. Stukely was completely taken in; the French quack had given Raleigh, not an emetic only, but some ointment which caused his skin to break out in dark purple pustules. Stukely rushed off to the Bishop of Ely, who happened to be in Salisbury, and acted on his advice to wait for Raleigh's recovery. Unless Stukely also was mountebanking, the spy Mannourie for the present kept Raleigh's counsel. Raleigh was treated as an invalid, and during the four days' retirement contrived to write his Apology for the Voyage to Guiana. On August 1, James I. and all his Court entered Salisbury, and on the morning of the same day Stukely hurried his prisoner away lest he should meet the King. Some pity, however, was shown to Raleigh's supposed dying state, and permission was granted him to go straight to his own London house. His hopes revived, and he very rashly bribed both Mannourie and Stukely to let him escape. So confident was he, that he refused the offers of a French envoy, who met him at Brentford with proposals of a secret passage over to France, and a welcome in Paris. He was broken altogether; he had no dignity, no judgment left.

Raleigh arrived at his house in Broad Street on August 7. On the 9th the French repeated their invitation. Again it was refused, for King had seen Raleigh and had told him that a vessel was lying at Tilbury ready to carry him over to France. Her captain, Hart, was an old boatswain of King's; before Raleigh received the information, this man had already reported the whole scheme to the Government. The poor adventurer was surrounded by spies, from Stukely downwards, and the toils were gathering round him on every side. On the evening of the same August 9, Raleigh, accompanied by Captain King, Stukely, Hart, and a page, embarked from the river-side in two wherries, and was rowed down towards Tilbury. Raleigh presently noticed that a larger boat was following them; at Greenwich, Stukely threw off the mask of friendship and arrested King, who was thrown then and there into the Tower. What became of Raleigh that night does not appear; he was put into the Tower next day. When he was arrested his pockets were found full of jewels and golden ornaments, the diamond ring Queen Elizabeth had given him, a loadstone in a scarlet purse, an ounce of ambergriece, and fifty pounds in gold; these fell into the hands of the traitor 'Sir Judas' Stukely.

Outside the Tower the process of Raleigh's legal condemnation now pursued its course. A commission was appointed to consider the charges brought against the prisoner, and evidence was collected on all sides. Raleigh was obliged to sit with folded hands. He could only hope that the eloquence and patriotism of his Apology might possibly appeal to the sympathy of James. As so often before, he merely showed that he was ignorant of the King's character, for James read the Apology without any other feeling than one of triumph that it amounted to a confession of guilt. The only friend that Raleigh could now appeal to was Anne of Denmark, and to her he forwarded, about August 15, a long petition in verse:

Cold walls, to you I speak, but you are senseless! Celestial Powers, you hear, but have determined, And shall determine, to my greatest happiness.

Then unto whom shall I unfold my wrong, Cast down my tears, or hold up folded hands?— To Her to whom remorse doth most belong;

To Her, who is the first, and may alone Be justly called, the Empress of the Britons. Who should have mercy if a Queen have none?

Queen Anne responded as she had always done to Raleigh's appeals. If his life had lain in her hands, it would have been a long and a happy one. She immediately wrote to Buckingham, knowing that his influence was far greater than her own with the King, and her letter exists for the wonder of posterity. She writes to her husband's favourite: 'My kind Dog,' for so the poor lady stoops to address him, 'if I have any power or credit with you, I pray you let me have a trial of it, at this time, in dealing sincerely and earnestly with the King that Sir Walter Raleigh's life may not be called in question.' Buckingham, however, was already pledged to aid the Spanish alliance, and the Queen's letter was unavailing.

On August 17 and on two subsequent occasions Raleigh was examined before the Commissioners, the charge being formally drawn up by Yelverton, the Attorney-General. He was accused of having abused the King's confidence by setting out to find gold in a mine which never existed, with instituting a piratical attack on a peaceful Spanish settlement, with attempting to capture the Mexican plate fleet, although he had been specially warned that he would take his life in his hands if he committed any one of these three faults. It is hard to understand how Mr. Edwards persuaded himself to brand each of these charges as 'a distinct falsehood.' The sympathy we must feel for Raleigh's misfortunes, and the enthusiasm with which we read the Apology, should not, surely, blind us to the fact that in neither of these three matters was his action true or honest. We have no particular account of his examinations, but it is almost certain that they wrung from him admissions of a most damaging character. He had tried to make James a catspaw in revenging himself on Spain, and he had to take the consequences.

It was of great importance to the Government to understand why France had meddled in the matter. The Council, therefore, summoned La Chesnee, the envoy who had made propositions to Raleigh at Brentford and at Broad Street; but he denied the whole story, and said he never suggested flight to Raleigh. So little information had been gained by the middle of September, that it was determined to employ a professional spy. The person selected for this engaging office was Sir Thomas Wilson, one of the band of English pensioners in the pay of Spain. The most favourable thing that has ever been said of Stukely is that he was not quite such a scoundrel as Wilson. On September 9 this person, who had known Raleigh from Elizabeth's days, and was now Keeper of the State Papers, was supplied with 'convenient lodging within or near unto the chambers of Sir Walter Raleigh.' At the same time Sir Allen Apsley, the Lieutenant, who had guarded the prisoner hitherto, was relieved.

Wilson's first act was not one of conciliation. He demanded that Raleigh should be turned out of his comfortable quarters in the Wardrobe Tower to make room for Wilson, who desired that the prisoner should have the smaller rooms above. To this, and other demands, Apsley would not accede. Wilson then began to do his best to insinuate himself into Raleigh's confidence, and after about a fortnight seems to have succeeded. We have a very full report of his conversations with Raleigh, but they add little to our knowledge, even if Wilson's evidence could be taken as gospel. Raleigh admitted La Chesnee's offer of a French passage, and his own proposal to seize the Mexican fleet; but both these points were already known to the Council.

Towards the end of September two events occurred which brought matters more to a crisis. On the 24th Raleigh wrote a confession to the King, in which he said that the French Government had given him a commission, that La Chesnee had three times offered him escape, and that he himself was in possession of important State secrets, of which he would make a clean breast if the King would pardon him. This important document was found at Simancas, and first published in 1868 by Mr. St. John. On the same day Philip III. sent a despatch to James I. desiring him in peremptory terms to save him the trouble of hanging Raleigh at Madrid by executing him promptly in London. As soon as this ultimatum arrived, James applied to the Commissioners to know how it would be best to deal with the prisoner judicially. Several lawyers assured him that Raleigh was under sentence of death, and that therefore no trial was necessary; but James shrank from the scandal of apparent murder. The Commissioners were so fully satisfied of Raleigh's guilt that they advised the King to give him a public trial, under somewhat unusual forms. He was to be tried before the Council and the judges, a few persons of rank being admitted as spectators; the conduct of the trial to be the same as though it were proceeding in Westminster Hall. On receipt of the despatch from Madrid, that is to say on October 3, Lady Raleigh, whose presence was no longer required, was released from the Tower.

The trial before the Commissioners began on October 22. Mr. Gardiner has printed in the Camden Miscellany such notes of cross-examination as were preserved by Sir Julius Caesar, but they are very slight. Raleigh seems to have denied any intention to stir up war between England and Spain, and declared that he had confidently believed in the existence of the mine. But he made no attempt to deny that in case the mine failed he had proposed the taking of the Mexican fleet. At the close of the examination, Bacon,[13] in the name of the Commissioners, told Raleigh that he was guilty of abusing the confidence of King James and of injuring the subjects of Spain, and that he must prepare to die, being 'already civilly dead.' Raleigh was then taken back to the Tower, where he was left in suspense for ten days. Meanwhile the Justices of the King's Bench were desired to award execution upon the old Winchester sentence of 1603. It is thought that James hoped to keep Raleigh from appearing again in public, but the judges said that he must be brought face to face with them. On October 28, therefore, Raleigh was roused from his bed, where he was suffering from a severe attack of the ague, and was brought out of the Tower, which he never entered again. He was taken so hastily that he had no time for his toilet, and his barber called out that his master had not combed his head. 'Let them kem that are to have it,' was Raleigh's answer; and he continued, 'Dost thou know, Peter, any plaister that will set a man's head on again, when it is off?'

When he came before Yelverton, he attempted to argue that the Guiana commission had wiped out all the past, including the sentence of 1603. He began to discuss anew his late voyage; but the Chief Justice, interrupting him, told him that he was to be executed for the old treason, not for this new one. Raleigh then threw himself on the King's mercy, being every way trapped and fettered; without referring to this appeal, the Chief Justice proceeded to award execution. Raleigh was to be beheaded early next morning in Old Palace Yard. He entreated for a few days' respite, that he might finish some writings, but the King had purposely left town that no petitions for delay might reach him. Bacon produced the warrant, which he had drawn up, and which bore the King's signature and the Great Seal.

Raleigh was taken from Westminster Hall to the Gate House. He was in high spirits, and meeting his old friend Sir Hugh Beeston, he urged him to secure a good place at the show next morning. He himself, he said, was sure of one. He was so gay and chatty, that his cousin Francis Thynne begged him to be more grave lest his enemies should report his levity. Raleigh answered, 'It is my last mirth in this world; do not grudge it to me.' Dr. Tounson, Dean of Westminster, to whom Raleigh was a stranger, then attended him; and was somewhat scandalised at this flow of mercurial spirits. 'When I began,' says the Dean, 'to encourage him against the fear of death, he seemed to make so light of it that I wondered at him. When I told him that the dear servants of God, in better causes than his, had shrunk back and trembled a little, he denied it not. But yet he gave God thanks that he had never feared death.' The good Dean was puzzled; but his final reflection was all to Raleigh's honour. After the execution he reported that 'he was the most fearless of death that ever was known, and the most resolute and confident; yet with reverence and conscience.'

It was late on Thursday evening, the 28th, that Lady Raleigh learned the position of affairs. She had not dreamed that the case was so hopeless. She hastened to the Gate House, and until midnight husband and wife were closeted together in conversation, she being consoled and strengthened by his calm. Her last word was that she had obtained permission to dispose of his body. 'It is well, Bess,' he said, 'that thou mayst dispose of that dead, which thou hadst not always the disposing of when alive.' And so, with a smile, they parted. When his wife had left him, Raleigh sat down to write his last verses:

Even such is time, that takes in trust Our youth, our joys, our all we have, And pays us but with earth and dust; Who in the dark and silent grave, When we have wandered all our ways, Shuts up the story of our days; But from this earth, this grave, this dust, My God shall raise me up, I trust.

At the same hour Lady Raleigh was preparing for the horrors of the morrow. She sent off this note to her brother, Sir Nicholas Carew:

I desire, good brother, that you will be pleased to let me bury the worthy body of my noble husband, Sir Walter Raleigh, in your church at Beddington, where I desire to be buried. The Lords have given me his dead body, though they denied me his life. This night he shall be brought you with two or three of my men. Let me hear presently. God hold me in my wits.

There was probably some difficulty in the way, for Raleigh's body was not brought that night to Beddington.

In the morning the Dean of Westminster entered the Gate House again. Raleigh, who had perhaps not gone to bed all night, had just finished a testamentary paper of defence. Dr. Tounson found him still very cheerful and merry, and administered the Communion to him. After the Eucharist, Raleigh talked very freely to the Dean, defending himself, and going back in his reminiscences to the reign of Elizabeth. He declared that the world would yet be persuaded of his innocence, and he once more scandalised the Dean by his truculent cheerfulness. He ate a hearty breakfast, and smoked a pipe of tobacco. It was now time to leave the Gate House; but before he did so, a cup of sack was brought to him. The servant asked if the wine was to his liking, and Raleigh replied, 'I will answer you as did the fellow who drank of St. Giles' bowl as he went to Tyburn, "It is good drink, if a man might stay by it."'

This excitement lasted without reaction until he reached the scaffold, whither he was led by the sheriffs, still attended by Dr. Tounson. As they passed through the vast throng of persons who had come to see the spectacle, Raleigh observed a very old man bareheaded in the crowd, and snatching off the rich night-cap of cut lace which he himself was wearing, he threw it to him, saying, 'Friend, you need this more than I do.' Raleigh was dressed in a black embroidered velvet night-gown over a hare-coloured satin doublet and a black embroidered waistcoat. He wore a ruff-band, a pair of black cut taffetas breeches, and ash-coloured silk stockings, thus combining his taste for magnificence with a decent regard for the occasion. The multitude so pressed upon him, and he had walked with such an animated step, that when he ascended the scaffold, erect and smiling, he was observed to be quite out of breath.

There are many contemporary reports of Sir Walter Raleigh's deportment at this final moment of his life. In the place of these hackneyed narratives, we may perhaps quote the less-known words of another bystander, the republican Sir John Elyot, who was at that time a young man of twenty-eight. In his Monarchy of Man, which remained in manuscript until 1879, Elyot says:

Take an example in that else unmatched fortitude of our Raleigh, the magnanimity of his sufferings, that large chronicle of fortitude. All the preparations that are terrible presented to his eye, guards and officers about him, fetters and chains upon him, the scaffold and executioner before him, and then the axe, and more cruel expectation of his enemies, and what did all that work on the resolution of that worthy? Made it an impression of weak fear, or a distraction of his reason? Nothing so little did that great soul suffer, but gathered more strength and advantage upon either. His mind became the clearer, as if already it had been freed from the cloud and oppression of the body, and that trial gave an illustration to his courage, so that it changed the affection of his enemies, and turned their joy into sorrow, and all men else it filled with admiration, leaving no doubt but this, whether death was more acceptable to him, or he more welcome unto death.

At the windows of Sir Randolph Carew, which were opposite to the scaffold, Raleigh observed a cluster of gentlemen and noblemen, and in particular several of those who had been adventurers with him for the mine on the Orinoco. He perceived, amongst others, the Earls of Arundel, Oxford, and Northampton. That these old friends should hear distinctly what he had to say was his main object, and he therefore addressed them with an apology for the weakness of his voice, and asked them to come down to him. Arundel at once assented, and all the company at Carew's left the balcony, and came on to the scaffold, where those who had been intimate with Raleigh solemnly embraced him. He then began his celebrated speech, of which he had left a brief draft signed in the Gate House. There are extant several versions of this address, besides the one he signed. In the excitement of the scene, he seems to have said more, and to have put it more ingeniously, than in the solitude of the previous night. His old love of publicity, of the open air, appeared in the first sentence:

I thank God that He has sent me to die in the light, and not in darkness. I likewise thank God that He has suffered me to die before such an assembly of honourable witnesses, and not obscurely in the Tower, where for the space of thirteen years together I have been oppressed with many miseries. And I return Him thanks, that my fever [the ague] hath not taken me at this time, as I prayed to Him that it might not, that I might clear myself of such accusations unjustly laid to my charge, and leave behind me the testimony of a true heart both to my king and country.

He was justly elated. He knew that his resources were exhausted, his energies abated, and that pardon would now merely mean a relegation to oblivion. He took his public execution with delight, as if it were a martyrdom, and had the greatness of soul to perceive that nothing could possibly commend his career and character to posterity so much as to leave this mortal stage with a telling soliloquy. His powers were drawn together to their height; his intellect, which had lately seemed to be growing dim, had never flashed more brilliantly, and the biographer can recall but one occasion in Raleigh's life, and that the morning of St. Barnaby at Cadiz, when his bearing was of quite so gallant a magnificence. As he stood on the scaffold in the cold morning air, he foiled James and Philip at one thrust, and conquered the esteem of all posterity. It is only now, after two centuries and a half, that history is beginning to hint that there was not a little special pleading and some excusable equivocation in this great apology which rang through monarchical England like the blast of a clarion, and which echoed in secret places till the oppressed rose up and claimed their liberty.

He spoke for about five-and-twenty minutes. His speech was excessively ingenious, as well as eloquent, and directed to move the sympathy of his hearers as much as possible, without any deviation from literal truth. He said that it was true that he had tried to escape to France, but that his motive was not treasonable; he knew the King to be justly incensed, and thought that from La Rochelle he might negotiate his pardon. What he said about the commission from France is so ingeniously worded, as to leave us absolutely without evidence from this quarter. After speaking about La Chesnee's visits, he proceeded to denounce the base Mannourie and his miserable master Sir Lewis Stukely, yet without a word of unseemly invective. He then defended his actions in the Guiana voyage, and turning brusquely to the Earl of Arundel, appealed to him for evidence that the last words spoken between them as the 'Destiny' left the Thames were of Raleigh's return to England. This was to rebut the accusation that Raleigh had been overpowered by his mutinous crew, and brought to Kinsale against his will. Arundel answered, 'And so you did!' The Sheriff presently showing some impatience, Raleigh asked pardon, and begged to say but a few words more. He had been vexed to find that the Dean of Westminster believed a story which was in general circulation to the effect that Raleigh behaved insolently at the execution of Essex, 'puffing out tobacco in disdain of him;' this he solemnly denied. He then closed as follows:

And now I entreat that you will all join me in prayer to the Great God of Heaven, whom I have grievously offended, being a man full of all vanity, who has lived a sinful life in such callings as have been most inducing to it; for I have been a soldier, a sailor, and a courtier, which are courses of wickedness and vice; that His almighty goodness will forgive me; that He will cast away my sins from me; and that He will receive me into everlasting life.—So I take my leave of you all, making my peace with God.

Proclamation was then made that all visitors should quit the scaffold. In parting with his friends, Raleigh besought them, and Arundel in particular, to beg the King to guard his memory against scurrilous pamphleteers. The noblemen lingered so long, that it was Raleigh himself who gently dismissed them. 'I have a long journey to go,' he said, and smiled, 'therefore I must take my leave of you.' When the friends had retired he addressed himself to prayer, having first announced that he died in the faith of the Church of England. When his prayer was done, he took off his night-gown and doublet, and called to the headsman to show him the axe. The man hesitated, and Raleigh cried, 'I prithee, let me see it. Dost thou think that I am afraid of it?' Having passed his finger along the edge, he gave it back, and turning to the Sheriff, smiled, and said, ''Tis a sharp medicine, but one that will cure me of all my diseases.' The executioner, overcome with emotion, kneeled before him for pardon. Raleigh put his two hands upon his shoulders, and said he forgave him with all his heart. He added, 'When I stretch forth my hands, despatch me.' He then rose erect, and bowed ceremoniously to the spectators to the right and then to the left, and said aloud, 'Give me heartily your prayers.' The Sheriff then asked him which way he would lay himself on the block. Raleigh answered, 'So the heart be right, it matters not which way the head lies,' but he chose to lie facing the east. The headsman hastened to place his own cloak beneath him, so displaying the axe. Raleigh then lay down, and the company was hushed while he remained awhile in silent prayer. He was then seen to stretch out his hands, but the headsman was absolutely unnerved and could not stir. Raleigh repeated the action, but again without result. The rich Devonshire voice was then heard again, and for the last time. 'What dost thou fear? Strike, man, strike!' His body neither twitched nor trembled; only his lips were seen still moving in prayer. At last the headsman summoned his resolution, and though he struck twice, the first blow was fatal.

Sir Walter Raleigh was probably well advanced in his sixty-seventh year, but grief and travel had made him look much older. He was still vigorous, however, and the effusion from his body was so extraordinary, that many of the spectators shared the wonder of Lady Macbeth, that the old man had so much blood in him. The head was shown to the spectators, on both sides of the scaffold, and was then dropped into a red bag. The body was wrapt in the velvet night-gown, and both were carried to Lady Raleigh. By this time, perhaps, she had heard from her brother that he could not receive the body at Beddington, for she presently had it interred in the chancel of St. Margaret's, Westminster. The head she caused to be embalmed, and kept it with her all her life, permitting favoured friends, like Bishop Goodman, to see and even to kiss it. After her death, Carew Raleigh preserved it with a like piety. It is supposed now to rest in West Horsley church in Surrey. Lady Raleigh lived on until 1647, thus witnessing the ruin of the dynasty which had destroyed her own happiness.

No success befell the wretches who had enriched themselves by Raleigh's ruin. Sir Judas Stukely, for so he was now commonly styled, was shunned by all classes of society. It was discovered very soon after the execution, that Stukely had for years past been a clipper of coin of the realm. He did not get his blood-money until Christmas 1618, and in January 1619 he was caught with his guilty fingers at work on some of the very gold pieces for which he had sold his master. The meaner rascal, Mannourie, fell with him. The populace clamoured for Stukely's death on the gallows, but the King allowed him to escape. Wherever he met human beings, however, they taunted him with the memory of Sir Walter Raleigh, and at last he fled to the desolate island of Lundy, where his brain gave way under the weight of remorse and solitude. He died there, a maniac, in 1620. Another of Raleigh's enemies, though a less malignant one, scarcely survived him. Lord Cobham, who had been released from the Tower while Raleigh was in the Canaries, died of lingering paralysis on January 24, 1619. Of other persons who were closely associated with Raleigh, Queen Anne died in the same year, 1619; Camden in 1623; James I. in 1625; Nottingham, at the age of eighty-nine, in 1624; Bacon in 1629; Ben Jonson in 1637; while the Earl of Arundel lived on until 1646.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Mr. Edwards corrects the date to 1580 N.S., but this is manifestly wrong; on the 7th of February 1580 N.S. Raleigh was on the Atlantic making for Cork Harbour.

[2] Dr. Brushfield has found no mention of the elder Walter Raleigh later than April 11, 1578. As he was born in 1497, he must then have been over eighty years of age.

[3] Mr. J. Cordy Jeaffreson has communicated to me the following interesting discovery, which he has made in examining the Assembly Books of the borough of King's Lynn, in Norfolk. It appears that the Mayor was paid ten pounds 'in respecte he did in the yere of his maioraltie [between Michaelmas 1587 and Michaelmas 1588] entertayn Sir Walter Rawlye knight and his companye in resortinge hether about the Queanes affayrs;' the occasion being, it would seem, the furnishing and setting forth of a ship of war and a pinnace as the contingent from Lynn towards defence against the Armada. This is an important fact, for it is the only definite record that has hitherto reached us of Raleigh's activity in guarding the coast against invasion.

[4] In the first two numbers of the Athenaeum for 1886, I gave in full detail the facts and arguments which are here given in summary.

[5] Raleigh says that he appointed this man, 'taking him out of prison, because he had all the ancient records of Sherborne, his father having been the Bishop's officer.'—De la Warr MSS.

[6] Mr. Edwards has evidently dated this important letter a year too late (vol. ii. 397-8).

[7] In a letter Raleigh goes still further, and says that he found Meeres, 'coming suddenly upon him, counterfeiting my hand above a hundred times upon an oiled paper.'

[8] Among Sir A. Malet's MSS., for instance, we find Raleigh spoken of, so early as April 1600, as 'the hellish Atheist and Traitor,' and we look in vain for the cause of such violence.

[9] This date, till lately uncertain, is proved from the journal of Cecil's secretary.

[10] This was really the first edition of the Remains, although that title does not appear until the third edition of 1657.

[11] More exactly, a house at the corner of Wykford Lane, with a small estate at the back of it, an appendage to Lady Raleigh's brother's seat at Beddington.

[12] I gather this date, hitherto entirety unknown, from the fact that in the recently published Lismore Papers Sir Richard Boyle notes on May 27 that he receives letters from Raleigh announcing his arrival at Kinsale.

[13] Among the Bute MSS. is a letter from Raleigh to Bacon beseeching him 'to spend some few words to the putting of false fame to flight;' but Bacon's enmity was unalterable.



INDEX.

NOTE.—Read Raleigh for R.

Adricomius, 179

Albert, Aremberg, the Envoy of Archduke, 136

Alencon's contrast to R. at Court, 18; pageant at Antwerp for, 18

Algarve, Bishop of, library captured by Essex and nucleus of Bodleian, 101

Algerine corsairs, 193; sack Lanzarote, 194

Allen, Sir Francis, 42

America, its debt, to Sir H. Gilbert, 25; Gilbert's last expedition to, 27; R. renews Gilbert's charter, 28; R.'s costly expeditions to, 29, 37

Amidas, a captain in R.'s American fleet, 28; discovers Virginia, 29

Amurath, King of Turbay, 185

Anderson, one of R.'s Winchester judges, 146

'Angel Gabriel,' capture of ship, 40

Annales by Camden, 3

Anne of Denmark. See Queen

Annesley, R. takes up his command, 19

Antonio of Portugal, 41

Apology for the Voyage to Guiana by R., 193, 208-10

Apothegms, Bacon's, 113

Apsley, Sir Allen, Lieutenant of Tower, 211; relieved of R.'s custody, 211

Aremberg, Count, plotter in Durham House, 134; ambassador of Archduke Albert, 136; relations with Cobham, 137, 155; communications with R., 148; James accepts his protestations, 155

'Ark Raleigh' fitted for Gilbert's expedition by R., 27; purchased by Elizabeth, 54

'Ark Royal,' Lord Howard's ship, 93

Armada, account of, 37-39; Lynn contributes to resistance of, 38; R.'s advice for boarding ships, 39; R. and Drake receive prisoners from, 39

Armadillo in Guiana, 74, 80

Artson, R. captures sack from one, 41

Arundel, Earl of, Keymis writes to, 201; at R.'s execution as a friend 218; R. appeals to him in justification, 220; death of, 223

Ashley, Mrs. Catherine, R.'s aunt, 19

Ashley, Sir Anthony, notifies Cadiz victory, 100

Assapana Islands, 80

Astrophel, Elegy by R. in, 34

d'Aubigne, Histoire Universelle by, 177

Aubrey at Oxford with R., 3

Awbeg, river in Munster, sung by Spenser, 44

Azores, piratical expedition to, 33; Peter Strozzi lost at, 39; R.'s Report of the Fight in the, ib.; 'Revenge' and Armada fight off, 51; 'Madre de Dios' captured off, 60; second plate-ship expedition off, 107; capture of its towns arranged, ib.; R. takes Fayal, 108; Essex attacks San Miguel, 109

Bacon, Anthony, 42, 56

Bacon, Lord Francis, with R. at Oxford, 3; praise of Grenville's fight, 51; issues his Essays, 85; his Apothegms, 113; his cousins the Cookes, 90; asked if R.'s Guiana commission is equivalent to pardon, 191; if R. fails in Guiana asks what is his alternative? ib.; R. reveals his desire for Mexican plate fleet to, ib.; tells R. he must prepare to die, 213; asked by R. to protect his fame, 213; death of, 223

Bailey, John, commands 'Husband' in Guiana fleet, 194; prevented from seizing French ship, 195; deserts R.'s expedition, 196; returns and charges R. with piracy, 196, 204; in pay of Gondomar, 196; imprisoned and story discredited, 204; released with reprimand, 205

Balligara, R.'s share in, 194

Barlow, a captain in R.'s American fleet, 28; discovers Virginia, ib.

Barlow's reference to R., 7

Barry Court, Geraldine stronghold, 13; source of quarrel between R. and Ormond, 14; R. offers to rebuild, 16

Barry, David, Irish malcontent, 13

Barry, Lord, defeat at Cleve by R., 15

Basing House, Marquis of Winchester's, 122; Queen Elizabeth and French envoys at, 123

Bath, R. visits, 63, 115, 122, 127

Bear Gardens, R. takes French envoys to, 122

Beauchamp, Lord, R.'s deputy in Cornwall, 32

Beaumont's story of R. and King James, 133

Beaumont, Countess of, 167

Becanus, Goropius, 178

Beddington, Lady R. sells land at, 189; burial asked for R. at, 215

Bedford, Earl of, R. succeeds him in Stannaries, 32

Bedingfield Park, seat of Sir F. Carew, 135; King James and R. entertained at, ib.

Beeston, Sir Hugh, and R.'s execution, 214

Benevolence tax, 184

Berreo, Antonio de, Spanish Governor of Trinidad, describes Guiana, 66; his cruelty, 68; captured by R. at St. Joseph, ib.; attempts to lure R., ib.; submission to R., 68-69; founded Guayana Vieja, 73

Berrie, Captain Leonard, makes voyage to Guiana for R., 102

Beville, Sir R., inquires into Sir R. Grenville's death, 51

Bideford, Grenville's Virginian expedition stopped at, 37; R. sends ships to Virginia from, ib.

Bindon, Lord. See Howard

Biron, Duc de, special French Ambassador, 122-123; disgrace, 127

Blount, Sir Christopher, R.'s keeper at Dartmouth, 61; to make joint attack on San Miguel, 107; excites Essex against R., 109; tries to kill R., 120; pardoned by R. before execution, ib.

Bodleian Library, Bishop of Algarve's books captured by Earl of Essex contained in, 101

'Bonaventure,' ship, 105

Boyle, Richard, afterwards Earl of Cork, buys R.'s Irish estates, 129; lends R. 100l., 194; R. announces his arrival at Kinsale to, 203

Brett, Sir Alex., trustee of Sherborne, 164

Breviary of the History of England by R., 182-3

Broad-cloths, R.'s licence to export woollen, 29, 30

Broad Street, R. resides in, 188, 208

Brooke, George, conspires for Arabella Stuart, 102, 142; concerned in Watson's plot, 135; relationship to Cobham and Cecil, ib.; arrest, 136; execution, 158

Brooke, Henry, brother to Lady Cecil. See Cobham, 102

Brushfield, Dr., R.'s bibliography, vi.; researches, 2, 16

Bryskett, Lodovick, in Munster, 10; 'Thestylis' of Spenser, 45

Burghley, R. corresponds with, 8, 9; his moderate Irish policy, 22; joint author of The Opinion of Mr. Rawley, 22; assails R.'s broad-cloth patent, 30; references to, 31, 84; sends R. to Dartmouth to save prizes, 61

Burrow, Sir John, commands Indian Carrack venture, 54; successful attack of plate-ships, 59-60

Burwick, John, master of 'Destiny,' 194

Byron's Conspiracy by Chapman, 123

Cabinet Council by R., 186; published by Milton, ib.

Cadiz expedition, 87, 88-102; forced on by Lord Howard, 88; Queen Elizabeth reluctantly permits, ib.; Essex, Howard, and R. to consider, 89; Dutch to co-operate, ib.; R. to raise levies for, ib.; recruiting for, 90; strength of English and Dutch fleets, 91; R.'s Relation of the Action, 92; details of destruction of Spanish fleet, 92-98; the town sacked, 99-100; R. wounded in the leg, 98; fleet of carracks escape but burnt by Spaniards, 99; Queen Elizabeth claims the prize money, 101; the victory popular in England, 102

Caesar, Sir Julius, notes of R.'s second trial, 213

Caiama Island, 74

Camden with R. at Oxford, 3; his Annales, 3; recommends Jonson to R., 175; friend of Samuel Daniel, 183; his death, 223

Camden Miscellany, account of R.'s second trial in, 213

Canary Islands, R.'s Guiana fleet off, 195; exposed to Algerine corsairs, 195; Lanzarote sacked, 196; R. visits Gomera, 197

Cape Verde Islands, R.'s Guiana fleet off, 198; R. lands at Brava, 199

Capuri river, 80

Caracas plundered and burnt, 81

Carews, connections of R., 1

Carew, Sir Francis, R.'s uncle, 135; entertains King James and R., ib.

Carew, Sir George, at Lismore, 44; keeper of R. at Tower, 58; at Cadiz in 'Mary Rose,' 95; and Cormac MacDermod, 129

Carew, Sir Nicholas, and R.'s burial, 215

Carew, Sir Randolph, and friends witness R.'s execution, 218

Carleton, Dudley, at R.'s trial, 153

Caroni, river, 74

Carr, Earl of Somerset, and Sherborne, 171, 172, 187

Cashel, Magrath Archbishop of, 34

Castle Bally-in-Harsh, its capture, 15

Cayenne, R. off river, 199, 200

Cecil, Sir Robert, and R.'s marriage, 54, 63; R.'s letter of devotion for Queen sent to, 57; fails to control Devon sailors, 61; inquires into pillage of 'Madre de Dios,' 62; barters with R., 64; promises ship for Guiana expedition, 67; R. asks how result of Guiana voyage is viewed, 82; R. sends MS. account and presents from Guiana, 83; Discovery of Guiana dedicated to, 84; supports proposed attack on Cadiz, 88; informed by R. of victory at Cadiz, 100; death of his wife and R.'s sympathy, 102; R.'s intimacy with his family, ib.; obtains R.'s return to Court, 103; told of R.'s goodwill to Essex, 106; thwarts R. in being sworn of P. Council, 112; doubtful support of Guiana voyage, 113-4; son and young Walter R. playmates, 114; at Sherborne, 116; accused by Essex, 118; advised by R. to show Essex no mercy, 118-9; decline of friendship with R., 125; invited to Bath by R., 127; R. complains of Lord Bindon to, ib.; craftiness towards R., 129; created a peer by King James, 133; estranged from the Brookes, 135; describes R.'s attempted suicide, 138; aids R. with Sherborne estate, 144; sits on R.'s trial, 146, 157; influence sought to save R., 158; created Lord Cranborne, 164; and Earl of Salisbury, 166; R. writes of his condition to, ib.; references to, 167, 170, 173, 186; his death and epigram on, 173

Cecil, William. See Salisbury

Champernowne, Captain Arthur, in Azores, 108

Champernowne, Gawen, his career, 4

Champernowne, Henry, R.'s cousin, 4; his Huguenot contingent, 4

Champernowne, Sir Philip, 1

Champernownes, connections of R., 1

Chapman, George, his epic poem on Guiana, 86; his Byron's Conspiracy, 123

Chatham, R. raising sailors at, 54

Chaunis Temotam, its fabulous ores, 30

Cherbourg, R. takes barks from, 42

Christian IV. of Denmark and R., 169

Church, Dean, compares R.'s exploits with passages in Faery Queen, 43

Clarke executed for Watson's plot, 158

Cleve, Lord Barry defeated by R. at, 15

Clifford, Sir Conyers, at Cadiz, 95

Cobham, Lord, Henry Brooke succeeds as, 102; first mention by R. of, 106; R.'s increased intimacy, 113; invited to Sherborne and Bath, 115; goes to Ostend with R. ib.; called an enemy of England by Essex, 118; attends at Basing to entertain French, 123; plotting at Durham House, 134; R. only intimate friend, 136; Lord Warden of Cinque Ports, ib.; and Watson's plot, ib.; shown R.'s explanation, 137; accuses R., but retracts, ib.; communicates with R. by Mellersh, 142; tried at Staines for Arabella Stuart plot, 142; communications with R., 144; vacillation, 145; retracts to R, ib.; R. asks that Cobham should die first, 157; convicted of treason, 158; led out for execution, but reprieved, 160; death by paralysis, 223

Coke, Sir Edward, Attorney-General at R.'s Winchester trial, 146-7

Colin Clout, Spenser refers to R. in, 43, 48; Queen Elizabeth commands its publication, 49

Collectiones Peregrinationum, by De Bry, 114

Collier, J. P., 56

Commentaries, by Sir F. Vere, 97

Commerce, R.'s Observations on Trade and, 186

Conde, Prince of, his death, 4

Cookes, the, R. takes to Cadiz, 90

Copley and Watson's plot, 135; his arrest, 136

Corabby, R.'s courage at ford of, 14

Cordials made by R., 168

Cork, R. reinforces Sentleger at, 9; Geraldine executed at, ib.; R. governor of, 15; land granted to R. in, 34; cedars planted by R. still at, 47; R.'s second Guiana fleet takes refuge at, 194

Cornwall, R. Lieutenant and Vice-Admiral of, 32; R.'s deputy in, 32; R. collects miners to resist Armada, 38; its defences considered, 89; R.'s efforts for tin-workers in, 117; R. tries to retain office, but superseded by Earl of Pembroke, 163

Coro, burned, 81

Cotterell, messenger between R. and Cobham, 145, 169; examined against R., 170

Cotton, Sir Robert, lends books to R., 171

Court, early record of R.'s admission to, 5, 6; R. not a penniless adventurer at, 16; recognised courtier, 17, 19; R. inferior to Leicester, Walsingham, and Hatton at, 50; reference to R. at, 103, 115; R. excluded by James I., 188

Cranborne, Lord. See Cecil

'Crane,' the, R.'s ship, 42

Creighton's, Mrs., Period of R., vi.

Cross, Captain, and plate ship prize, 62

Crosse, Sir Robert, with R. meets King James, 132

Cucuina, river, R. ascends, 71

Cumana, Venezuela, spared by ransom and subsequently burnt by R.'s ships, 81

Cynthia, R.'s supposed lost poem, 45-46; fragments printed from Hatfield MS., 46; style and importance, 46-47; called The Ocean to, 46; and The Ocean's Love to, ib.; treated of in Athenaeum, 1886, ib.; publication urged by Spenser, 49

Dangers of a Spanish Faction in Scotland, by R., 124

Daniel, Samuel, and R, 182-3

Dartmouth, 'Madre de Dios' towed to, 60; R. stops spoliation of, 61

Davies, Sir John, Nosce teipsum and R.'s Cynthia, 46

Davis, John, R.'s partner for discovery of N.-W. passage, 28; refers to whereabouts of R., July 1595, 82

De Beaumont, French ambassador, refers to R., 133, 141

De Bry prints R.'s Discovery in his Collectiones, 114

'Destiny,' ship built by R. for Guiana expedition, 190; Des Marets visits the, 193; commanded by young Walter R., ib.; John Burwick the master, 194; outlawed, 205; arrives at Plymouth, 205, 206

Des Marets, French ambassador, 190; suspicious of R.'s Guiana voyage, ib.; visits R.'s 'Destiny,' 193; his correspondence, ib.