Grave Difficulties as to the Right of Succession—Statement of the Various Claims—Duke of Northumberland’s Selfish Scheme—Its Failure—His Arrest and Execution—Lady Jane Grey—Triumph of Mary—Her Coronation—Sir Thomas Wyatt’s Rebellion—Execution of Lady Jane and her Husband—Execution of Duke of Suffolk and Sir Thomas Wyatt—Accusation against the Princess Elizabeth—Her Imprisonment and Liberation—Death of Mary and Accession of Elizabeth—Her Coronation—Religious Troubles—Lord and Lady Hertford—Plots in Favour of the Queen of Scots—Hopes of the King of Spain—Hatred of Spain in the English Nation—Execution of the Duke of Norfolk, the First for Fourteen Years—Fresh Prisoners owing to the Jesuit Activity against the Queen—Execution of the Queen of Scots at Fotheringhay, and Results—Sir Walter Raleigh’s Imprisonment and Liberation—Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex—His Prosperity, Folly, Downfall—Death of the Queen.

There had been no doubt about the succession when Henry VIII died. Jane Seymour, the mother of Edward, was Henry’s lawful wife beyond question, for Queens Katharine and Anne were both dead when he married Jane. But on the death of Edward the matter looked very complicated in many eyes. Let us take the possible claimants in order. First, there were the two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, who had both been declared illegitimate on the ground that their mothers had never been lawful wives. King Henry, it is true, in his later years, had received them as his daughters, and as possible heirs, though the Statute disqualifying them had not been repealed. Next, Henry VII had left two daughters. The elder, Margaret, married James IV of Scotland, who was killed at Flodden. His son, James V, was father of Mary Queen of Scots, but she was excluded from right of succession by the Alien Act, having been born on a foreign soil. But further, Margaret, within a year of King James’s death, had married the Earl of Angus, and a wretched marriage it was. He had a wife already, but a papal brief decreed that, as she had married in good faith, her child Margaret was legitimate.

Henry VII’s second daughter, Mary, married Louis XII of France, but he died in his honeymoon. She then married Charles Brandon, afterwards created Duke of Suffolk, he having a wife alive. Their eldest daughter, Frances, was given in marriage to Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset, the greatgrandson of Sir John Grey, first husband of Elizabeth Woodville. Edward IV, on marrying her, made her son a peer. It is a miserable fact to have to record that the Marquis of Dorset, who now married the daughter of Brandon and Queen Mary, had put away his lawful wife in order to do so, the Lady Catherine FitzAlan, sister of the Earl of Arundel. No wonder that the latter, who had been an affectionate brother-in-law, became Dorset’s fierce enemy, and nursed his wrath in secret. Grey was created Duke of Suffolk on account of his royal spouse, and perhaps thought that the injury he had done was forgotten in his prosperity. His wife Frances, a lady of amiable temper, brought him three daughters, the eldest being the Lady Jane Grey, and out of all this crooked dealing came a great tragedy.

The Duke of Northumberland, who had risen victorious over the Seymour family, and was apparently in the plenitude of power at King Edward’s death, was an able, bold, and unprincipled man. He had wedded his fourth son, Lord Guildford Dudley, to the Lady Jane, and caused the dying Edward to declare her his legitimate successor. Obviously this was not the case, for her mother was yet alive, and would under any circumstances have had first claim. The poor girl was only sixteen years old. All accounts agree in making her both learned and amiable. She had no ambitions, but was told that duty lay upon her. The Duke for some hours kept the King’s death secret, while he took measures for securing the person of Mary, and brought the Lady Jane to the Tower, and also a large number of influential peers, to swear homage to her. But the Londoners were silent, “not a single shout of welcome or Godspeed was raised as they passed through the silent crowd on their way to the Tower,” writes Machyn in his diary. The Duke was hated for his arrogance, and the interference of France and Spain was to be looked for if Mary’s rights were interfered with. And Jane’s husband, a poor, wretched, selfish creature, whined and sulked because he had expected to be declared King Consort. Northumberland, having had Jane duly proclaimed, went forth to encounter Mary, and soon saw that the game was up. The fleet off Yarmouth had declared in Mary’s favour, so had the soldiers which he had sent against her. And so in the street at Cambridge he threw his cap up in the air with the cry, “God save Queen Mary!” But it availed him nothing. The Earl of Arundel, who had been forced by Northumberland to offer allegiance to Jane, but who waited his opportunity, came forward with a warrant for his arrest, signed by Mary, and on July 25, nineteen days after Edward’s death, he was brought a prisoner to the Tower; on August 18 he was tried and condemned for high treason in Westminster Hall, the Duke of Norfolk presiding as Lord High Sheriff. He was taken back to the Beauchamp Tower, and inscriptions which were cut by him and his sons may still be read on the walls. Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, had been a prisoner there under King Edward; he was now restored to his dignity, and he paid a visit to Northumberland, who, in the hope of saving his life, declared himself a Catholic. Gardiner naturally took the opportunity; Mass was celebrated in the White Tower Chapel, and the Duke received after making recantation. Next day he was beheaded on Tower Hill, still clinging desperately to the hope of life, and making profession all the way to the scaffold of the fervency of his faith. Sir John Gates and Sir Thomas Palmer, both implicated in the same treason, perished with him.

Meanwhile the “nine days’ reign” of the hapless Lady Jane was at an end. She was consigned to the Lieutenant’s Lodging, called the King’s House, and her husband to the Beauchamp Tower, where the one word “Jane,” carved on the wall by him, is still to be seen. All through the month of September Jane was allowed to walk in the garden, and her husband and his brother Henry to promenade the outer walk on the wall which leads from the Beauchamp to the Bell Tower.

Queen Mary was crowned with great splendour on October 1. She was accompanied by her half-sister Elizabeth.

On November 13 a procession went forth from the Tower Gate to the Guildhall. First the Gentleman Chief Warder, carrying the axe, next Archbishop Cranmer, followed by Lord Guildford Dudley and Lady Jane, the last-named accompanied by two of her ladies. They were arraigned for high treason, the Lord Mayor presiding, with the Duke of Norfolk as High Sheriff. They pleaded guilty, received sentence, and were taken back to the Tower.

It is possible that Mary may have had it in her mind to spare Lady Jane’s life, but there came a new event, namely, Wyatt’s ill-starred rising against the projected marriage of Queen Mary with Philip of Spain. The opinion of the nation was strongly against it, and Wyatt was certainly moved with an honest purpose. I would not venture to say as much for his fellow-conspirator, the Duke of Suffolk, Lady Jane’s father, who probably renewed his hopes of setting his daughter on the throne. He undertook to head a rising in Leicestershire, as Sir Peter Carew did in Devon. With the details of this unhappy expedition we have little to do here. Wyatt started from Maidstone, after publishing a declaration against the Queen’s marriage, and advanced with a numerous force to Rochester, where he defeated the Duke of Norfolk and Sir Henry Jerningham, who had been sent against him. Then he moved on to Gravesend, where he was met by some members of the Privy Council, who exhorted him to make known his grievances in a less disorderly manner. He assented, provided “the custody of the Tower and the Queen within it” were entrusted to him. This condition being declined, he went on towards London. Mary was exhorted to take refuge in the Tower, but cowardice was not one of her faults; she refused, and offered a reward of a hundred pounds a year to any man who would bring her Wyatt’s head; she also gave out to the citizens of London that she would not marry Philip if the match should be disagreeable to the nation. Wyatt, too, unappalled by his perilous situation, appeared at Southwark, opposite the Tower, fired upon it and was fired upon by the garrison, on both sides without effect, but the fact is to be noted as the last time in its history that the Tower was ever attacked. How he went on, crossed the river at Kingston, found himself more and more deserted, but still came forward with the courage of despair until he was captured between Temple Bar and Ludgate Hill, we all know. Now let Holinshed take up the narrative: “As for the principals of this faction, Thomas Wyat, William Knevet, Thomas Cobham, two brethren named Mantells, and Alexander Bret, were brought by Sir Henry Jerningham by water to the Tower, prisoners, where Sir Philip R. Denny received them at the bulworke, and as Wyat passed he said: ‘Go, traitor, there never was such a traitor in England’; to whom Sir Thomas Wyat turned and said, ‘I am no traitor, I would thou shouldst well know that thou art more traitor than I, it is not the point of an honest man to call me so,’ and so went forth. When he came to the Tower gate, Sir Thomas Bridges, the Lieutenant, took him through the wicket, first Mantell, and said, ‘Ah thou traitor, what hast thou and thy companie wrought.’ But he, holding downe his head, said nothing. Then came Thomas Knevet, whom Master Chambeleine, gentleman porter of the Tower, tooke in. Then came Alexander Bret, whome Sir Thomas Pope tooke by the bosome, saying, ‘Oh traitor, how couldest thou find in thy heart to worke such a villanie, as to take wages, and being trusted ouer a band of men, to fall to hir enemies, returning against hir in battell.’ Bret answered, ‘Yea I have offended in that case.’ Then came Thomas Cobham, whome Sir Thomas Poines tooke in, and said, ‘Alas, Maister Cobham, what wind headed you to worke such treason’; and he answered, ‘Oh sir, I was seduced.’ Then came in Sir Thomas Wyat, whom Sir John Bridges tooke by the collar and said, ‘Oh thou villen and unhappie traitor, how couldest thou find in thy hart to worke such detestable treason to the queenes maiestie, who gaue thee thy life and liuing once alreadie, although thou diddest before this time beare armes in the field against hir and now to yeeld hir battell. If it were not (saith he) but that the lawe must passe upon thee, I would sticke thee through with my dagger.’ To the which, Wyat holding his arms under his side, and looking grieuously with a grim looke upon the Lieutenant, said, ‘It is no maisterie now’; and so passed on. Thomas Wyat had on a shirt of maile, with sleeues verie faire, thereon a veluet cassocke, and a yellow lace, with the windlace of his dag hanging thereon, and a paire of boots on his legs, and on his head a faire hat of veluet, with a broad bone worke lace about it. William Kneuet, Thomas Cobham, and Bret, were the like apparelled.”

Wyatt was confined in the first floor of the great keep, his adherents in the crypt beneath. It is hardly to be wondered at that this fixed the fate of poor Lady Jane. Her father was imprisoned on February 10. Two days before Feckenham, the Queen’s confessor, afterwards Abbot of Westminster, was sent to bid her and her husband prepare for death, and to exhort them to embrace the Roman faith; but on this point they were both firm in their refusal, and the 12th was fixed for the fatal day. It was originally intended that they should both die on Tower Hill, but the fear that Jane’s beauty, simplicity, and sweetness would excite popular sympathy, induced the authorities to change the place of her suffering to the Tower Green. When Lord Guildford was told this he requested a final interview with her, but she declined it, lest it should change their constancy. On the day appointed he was led forth, and as he passed the window of “Master Partridge’s House,” where she was confined, she waved her farewell to him. At the Bulwark Gate, the sheriffs met him and conducted him to the scaffold, where he met his fate with firmness. The body was conveyed on a litter to the Tower Chapel, and Jane saw it on its way thither. “O Guildford, Guildford!” said she, “the antepast is not so bitter that thou hast tasted, and which I shall soon taste, as to make my flesh tremble: it is nothing compared to the feast of which I shall partake this day in Heaven.” When the Lieutenant of the Tower came to conduct her to her death, and asked her for some small present which he might keep in memory of her, she gave him her tablets on which she had just written three sentences, Latin, Greek, and English. At the scaffold she addressed the bystanders, protesting that she had erred through bad advice, in the belief that she was serving the interests of the country, and that she submitted to the consequences of her error without murmuring. She prayed fervently, and then—but let us hear Holinshed once more—“stood vp and gaue hir maid (called Mistress Ellin) her gloues and handkercher, and hir booke she also gaue to Maister Bridges, (brother of) the Lieutenant of the Tower, and so untied hir gowne: and the executioner pressed to helpe hir off with it, but she desired him to let hir alone, and turned hir toward hir two gentlewomen, who helped hir off therewith, and with hir other attires, and they gaue hir a fair handkercher to put about hir eies. Then the executioner kneeled downe and asked hir forgiuenesse, whom she forgaue most willinglie. Then he willed hir to stand vpon the straw, which doone, she saw the blocke, and then she said, ‘I pray you dispatch me quicklie.’ Then she kneeled downe, saiing, ‘Will you take it off before I laie me downe?’ Whereunto the executioner answered, ‘No, Madame.’ Then tied she the handkercher about hir eies, and, feeling for the blocke, she said, ‘Where is it? where is it?’ One of the standers-by guided hir thereunto, and she laid downe hir head vpon the blocke, and then stretched forth hir bodie, and said, ‘Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit,’ and so finished hir life.”

Eleven days later her father, the Duke of Suffolk, was beheaded, and many other participators in the ill-concerted rebellion were also put to death; three were hanged at Maidstone, three at Sevenoaks, more than fifty died in the City on the block or the gallows, the gates and London Bridge were disfigured with clusters of rotting heads, in several of the principal streets gibbets bore their ghastly burdens in chains, and the air was tainted far and wide. In the midst of this time Mary was married to Philip at Winchester.

Wyatt, who was put to death on April 11, had used some expressions which were held to implicate, among others, the Princess Elizabeth. The latter was lying sick, in semi-custody, at Ashridge in Herts, and a strong guard was sent to escort her to London, which performed its duty so zealously as to force admission into her bedchamber. She was brought, in spite of her remonstrances, by easy stages to London, and remained for a fortnight in close confinement at Whitehall, and was then conveyed to the Tower. Her angry protestations made a scene as she was landed at Traitors’ Gate on Palm Sunday, that day being fixed upon because the citizens were strictly ordered to Church, and it was feared that popular disaffection would be exhibited if the Princess was conducted through the city. Whilst in the Tower, her confinement was of the most rigid character; the Mass, though offensive to her, was constantly said in her apartment; at first she was not allowed to pass the threshold of her room, and when afterwards she obtained the privilege, through the intercession of Lord Chandos, she was constantly attended by the Lieutenant and Constable of the Tower, with a guard. “Queen Elizabeth’s Walk” is still the name of the path she daily promenaded. She was frequently examined by the Council, but nothing against her could be found, and Wyatt with his dying breath declared her innocence. On May 19 she was liberated from the Tower, and conveyed, under the charge of Sir Henry Bedingfield, to Woodstock. In the old London Tavern in Leadenhall Street is preserved a heavy pewter meat dish and cover, which it is said was used at the meal which she took after leaving the Tower. And there is another tradition that the bells of some of the city churches were joyously rung on her release, and that to these churches on her accession she gave silken bell-ropes.

There still remained many prisoners in the Tower who had been concerned in the Lady Jane attempt and Wyatt’s subsequent rebellion. A large number of these were now released. The Earl of Warwick and his three brothers, Ambrose, Robert and Dudley, were in the Beauchamp Tower, but the Earl died in October, 1554, and his brothers were liberated next year. There was a strong desire to win popular favour and make the Spanish marriage less unpopular. The Archbishop of York, who had been imprisoned for refusing to attend Queen Mary’s coronation, and some twenty other knights and gentlemen were set free.

With the religious persecutions which followed for three years and a half we have no concern here. There was one more rising against the increasing authority of the Spaniards; Thomas, the second son of Lord Stafford, landed at Scarborough and took the castle, but was defeated by the Earl of Westmoreland, and a large number of prisoners were brought to the Tower. Stafford was beheaded on Tower Hill, and the others were hanged at Tyburn. Queen Mary died on November 17, 1558, and the accession of Elizabeth was certainly hailed with joy by the English nation.

Elizabeth was at Hatfield when her sister died. On November 28 she came to London, and entered, amidst general acclamations, the fortress where she had been so rigorously imprisoned. It is no wonder if it found no charms for her; on December 5 she retired first to Somerset House, then to Whitehall, where she remained until the eve of her coronation, when she came back to the Tower again. The procession from hence to the Abbey was more splendid than any that had been recorded. Seated in an open chariot all glittering with gold, herself blazing with jewels, she was carried through streets strewn with flowers, with banners and tapestry on the houses, the conduits running wine, and the city companies manning the streets in their gorgeous liveries. A young woman called Deborah stood under a palm-tree in Fleet Street, and prophesied great prosperity to the nation.

Though the horrors of the stake were at an end, religious persecution was not; and the Tower seldom appears in the reign of Elizabeth save as a State prison. The Reformers were only too ready to retaliate on the Roman party, and so the Bishop of Winchester (Gardiner), who had rendered himself obnoxious under Mary, was soon in durance here, and was followed by the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of Ely, Lincoln, Worcester, Exeter, and Bath, and by Feckenham, Abbot of Westminster, and other Church dignitaries, for denying the Queen’s supremacy.

And there were fresh prisoners of State. Lady Catherine Grey, one of Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting, Lady Jane’s sister, married in 1560 Lord Hertford, eldest son of the Duke of Somerset, but secretly, as it was known that the Queen would not approve of the match. He was twenty-two, and she twenty. The young people walked from Whitehall to Lord Hertford’s house in Fleet Street, and here the marriage took place, though they could not remember the name of the minister who thus clandestinely united them. When in due time the union could no longer be concealed they were in a terrible fright, Lady Catherine being of near kin to the Queen. Lord Hertford could not face her majesty’s anger, and fled across sea, leaving his poor wife to do the best she could for herself. This was not much, for when she threw herself at her royal mistress’s feet and begged for pardon, Elizabeth in a fury sent her off to the Tower, where, soon after, her child was born.[3] Lord Hertford, returning to England, was sent also, and remained there many a long year, in the deeper disgrace because he could produce no proof of his marriage. He was separated from her, but bribed the keepers and gained access to her chamber, the result of which was the birth of another child. Elizabeth, we need hardly say, was more furious than ever; she declared, and probably thought, that there had been no marriage, dismissed summarily the Lieutenant, Warner, and had Hertford brought before the Star Chamber, where he was fined £15,000 and sent back to his prison, where he lay for nine years longer. During that time Lady Catherine died (1567). After his liberation he married again, but proved the validity of his first marriage in 1606 by discovering the minister who had performed it (Collins’s Peerage).

The Earl of Lennox was imprisoned in 1561, on suspicion of privately corresponding with the Queen of Scots, but was released next year. His wife, however, being a near kinswoman of Elizabeth, was continually suspected by her, and was imprisoned three times, “not for any crime of treason,” says Camden, “but for love matters; first when Thomas Howard, son of the first Duke of Norfolk of that name, falling in love with her, was imprisoned and died in the Tower of London; then for the love of Henry, Lord Darnley, her son, to Mary, Queen of Scots; and lastly for the love of Charles, her younger son, to Elizabeth Cavendish, mother to the Lady Arabella, with whom the Queen of Scots was accused to have made up the match.” In the King’s House there is an inscription in one of the rooms recording the second of these imprisonments.

The struggle between Elizabeth and the Queen of Scots was long and fierce. Before it closed on the scaffold at Fotheringhay, February, 1587, it had brought many prisoners to the Tower. Among the earliest were two more members of the Pole family, Arthur and Edmund, great grandchildren of the Duke of Clarence. They were imprisoned in the Beauchamp Tower in 1562 on the charge of conspiring to set Mary Stuart on the English throne. Inscriptions on the wall may still be seen, bearing their names. There can be no question that Elizabeth’s position was one of great danger. England was half ruined when she came to the throne—no army, no fleet, a huge debt, and the whole country containing a population less than that of London to-day. And Spain was rich and populous, with the finest army and navy in the world. Philip expected England to buy his support against her neighbour, France, by becoming a dependency of Spain. But he misjudged not only the courage of the Queen, but the indomitable determination of her nation. They had had enough of Spain. Unjustly, no doubt, they attributed all the miseries and disasters of Mary’s reign to the Spanish alliance, and it was the special feature which so wonderfully marked the reign of Elizabeth that her people rallied round her in the hour of danger as people had never done to a sovereign before. We have to bear this in mind when thinking of the high-handed doings of Burleigh and the astute diplomacies of Walsingham. A suspicion of conspiracy was a most serious matter then. In 1569 Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, son of the ill-fated Surrey, was brought in on the charge of high treason, his overt act being the proposal to wed the Queen of Scots. Others implicated in the conspiracy to place Mary on the throne were the Earls of Arundel and Southampton, Lord Lumley, Lord Cobham, and his brother Thomas. A batch of letters, written by an Italian banker named Ridolfi, resident in London, on the same business, got into the hands of the government, with the result that a fresh haul of prisoners was brought in. They furnished evidence that the Duke of Alva was laying plans for the murder of Elizabeth, prior to Norfolk’s marriage with Mary. These prisoners were distributed in the various towers, and a young man named Charles Bailly, who was seized at Dover with a number of treasonable letters in his possession, was placed in the Tower, and under torture gave evidence against many prisoners. There are several inscriptions by him in the Beauchamp Tower. The Duke of Norfolk was beheaded on Tower Hill June 2, 1579, the first execution there for fourteen years. The old scaffold had become rotten, and a new one was set up for the occasion. John Leslie, Bishop of Ross, when put on his trial for the same crime, pleaded that, being an ambassador, he was not amenable to criminal trial. And on this plea he was put back, kept prisoner for two years longer, and then dismissed the kingdom, to which he never returned. Some more executions took place, and a great many culprits were fined and set at liberty.

For the next few years the Tower held but few captives. Peter Burchet, a member of the Middle Temple, was committed in October, 1573, for attempting to murder Hawkins, the celebrated admiral, whom he mistook for the Chancellor Hatton. During his confinement, he struck to death a man left in charge of him, who was quietly reading the Bible at the window. His hand was first struck off for striking a blow in a royal palace, after which he was hanged at Temple Bar. In 1577 a gentleman named Sherin was drawn on a hurdle from hence to Tyburn and hanged for denying the Queen’s supremacy, and six others were carried to Norwich for the like fate for coining.

But it was in 1580 that the cells again became filled with Roman Catholic prisoners. It is easy to account for this. The breach with Rome was complete; the Papal Bull had been issued for the dethronement of Elizabeth, and the newly-established Order of Jesuits was sending forth its missionaries to carry out the decree. And so it was war to the knife. Thus, in June 1580, we have William and Robert Tyrwhitt sent to the Tower for attending Mass at their sister’s marriage; the Archbishop of Armagh, the Earls of Kildare and Clanricarde, with other nobles, for being concerned in the Earl of Desmond’s insurrection in Ireland; and before the year was out, six Catholic priests and three laymen are added. Next year it appears as if a system of torture was established; some were confined in “Little Ease,” a dungeon twenty feet below the level, in which they could neither stand upright nor lie down at length; some were racked, some placed in the “Scavenger’s Daughter,” an iron instrument which held bound the head, hands and feet. Add to these the thumbscrew and the boot. The most conspicuous prisoner in 1581 was Father Campion, an eloquent Jesuit who had worked hard to raise sedition in various parts of the country. He was dragged off with two other seminary priests to ignominious death, so were seven more priests that year; in 1583 a Warwickshire gentleman named Somerville strangled himself to avoid the ghastly dismemberment, but his father-in-law Arden suffered it. In 1584 five seminary priests suffered, as did Francis, the eldest son of Sir John Throckmorton, convicted of treasonable correspondence with the Queen of Scots. In January, 1585, a clearance was made of those prisoners charged with religious offences, and twenty-one of them were shipped off to France. But their places were occupied by others, charged with complicity with the treasonable practices of Throckmorton. Among them were the Earls of Northumberland and Arundel. The former killed himself in the Tower to prevent that bitch, as he called the Queen, from getting possession of his estates by his attainder. Arundel was tried and condemned to death in 1589, but Elizabeth delayed the execution, though she gave very strict orders about his confinement. He might “walk in the Queen’s garden two hours in the day, with a servant of the Lieutenant’s to attend him, the garden door being shut at the time of his walking.” This severity, coupled with the strictest religious austerities which he constantly practised, hastened his death (Nov. 19, 1595). A memorial of his piety, graven with his own hand, may be seen in the Beauchamp Tower. William Parry, instigated from Rome, arranged with Edmund Neville to shoot the Queen when she was out riding. But the Earl of Westmoreland died in exile. Neville was his next heir, and hoped that by revealing the plot he might recover the forfeited estates. The result was that Parry died a traitor’s death and Neville was kept close prisoner for many years. Many prisoners were brought in in 1586, charged with being concerned in Babington’s conspiracy. So was Davison, the Secretary of State, who was charged with sending the warrant for the death of the Queen of Scots without Elizabeth’s sanction. This is generally considered to have been a crafty device of the Queen to screen herself from the odium. He exculpated himself, but was kept in the Tower, and ruinously fined by the Star Chamber. In 1598 Sir John Perrot, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, whose righteous endeavours had done much to restore tranquillity to that country, having incurred the enmity of Lord Chancellor Hatton, was recalled home and sent to the Tower on a charge of treason. He was a hot-tempered man, and had used some disrespectful words against the Queen. This was the only charge proved against him, but on it he was condemned. On being conveyed to the Tower he said to the Lieutenant in great anger that the Queen was “suffering her brother to be offered up as a sacrifice to his strutting adversaries.” He was said to be an illegitimate son of King Henry VIII. Whether or not, when this speech was reported to the Queen, she refused to sign the warrant for his execution, and declared that his accusers were all knaves. He died in the Tower six months afterwards, broken-hearted.

An illustrious name comes before us in the annals of 1592. Sir Walter Raleigh was lodged here, having incurred the Queen’s displeasure by his amour with Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, the celebrated statesman. He soon regained his liberty, however, by using the most fulsome adulation of his royal mistress. Here is just one specimen, an extract from a letter which he wrote to Cecil, of course in order that it might be shown to her Majesty:—“My heart was never broken till this day, that I hear the Queen goes away so far off [she was about to start on her annual progress], whom I have followed so many years with so great love and desire in so many journeys, and am now left behind her in a dark prison, all alone. While she was yet near at hand, that I might hear of her once in two or three days, my sorrows were the less, but even now my heart is cast into the depth of all misery. I, that was wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair about her pure face like a nymph, sometimes sitting in the shade like a goddess, sometimes singing like an angel, sometimes playing like Orpheus.”

Elizabeth was always open to flattery, but in this case her “love-stricken swain” was further assisted by the arrival at Dartmouth of his good ship The Roebuck, which had taken a great Spanish treasure ship off Flores, with a treasure which Raleigh estimated at half a million pounds. The Queen gave him his liberty and sent him off to arrange the disposal of his capture, and of course got the lion’s share of it. He returned to Court fresh as ever, and this return was a fatal event in the fortunes of another brilliant courtier, in fact the most brilliant, of Elizabeth’s surrounding, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. He and Raleigh were bitter enemies. Ireland was again giving trouble. Raleigh advised that the disturbers should remorselessly be trampled out, Essex that justice and good-will should be shown. The discussion between them was firm on both sides, and when we remember that both men were high-spirited, full of ambition, jealous of each other as to the royal favour, we can understand how their selfwill and egotism proved the ruin of them both. Essex was strikingly handsome, brilliant both at Court and in the field. His father had been a personal friend of the Queen, the Earl of Leicester was his step-father, Sir Francis Knollys his grandfather, Walsingham his father-in-law, Lord Burleigh his guardian, Shakespeare his friend. He was now sent to Ireland with the task before him of subduing the factions which kept the country in continual insurrection, and he failed, whilst his enemies traduced him at home. Enraged at learning this, and in despair at his continued illfortune, he returned after two years to England unbidden, hoping to justify his actions in the presence of the Queen. But several charges of misconduct were proved against him, and he was deprived of his offices and banished from Court. The Queen had said that an unruly horse must be kept short of provender, and when this was repeated to him he retorted that the Queen’s mind was as crooked as her body, and it is difficult to imagine a speech which would anger her more. Then, instigated by his secretary, Cuffe, he formed the desperate resolution of breaking in upon the Court, removing by force the courtiers, and so ruling the Queen by force. A terrible blunder to make. He was perhaps the most popular noble in London, but the citizens had no idea of imperilling their lives and fortunes by countenancing such a harum-scarum idea as this. Nobody came to his call, and after a short siege in his own house in the Strand he was captured, along with the Earl of Southampton, and conveyed through the fatal Traitors’ Gate. This was on February 6, 1601; on the 19th he was adjudged a traitor, and on the 25th beheaded. The execution took place within the Tower, some say because Essex was so popular that there was a fear of a demonstration in his favour if it had been on Tower Hill, others that it was his own wish to die within the walls. He was buried in St. Peter’s Chapel. He was only thirty-five years of age! There is a story that the Queen expected a ring which he was to send her when in trouble, and which was to win him forgiveness; that he had entrusted it to Lady Nottingham, who kept it back; but this story is certainly untrue. Elizabeth, as one can quite understand, was unwilling to sign the warrant, considering the favour in which she had once held him, and after its execution she fell into a terrible fit of despondency, from which in fact she never recovered. Raleigh, who was never popular with the Londoners, was hooted in the streets for his enmity towards Essex, so was Bacon as one of his judges. Four of Essex’s fellow-conspirators were beheaded; Cuffe was hanged at Tyburn. Southampton was kept in close confinement, but liberated by special command of James I in 1603. Essex’s son, born 1593, lived to lead the Parliamentary army against Charles I.

Sad enough are the accounts of the last days of the great Queen, her loneliness and terror. No doubt the nature of her disease produced fits of delirium. She seemed to have no one near her to whom she could look for a loving or tender word. But she was a great monarch, and under her rule England rose out of weakness, confusion, distraction. Elizabeth had triumphed over all her enemies. Her bitterest foe, Philip of Spain, had gone to his grave five years before her, but not until he had seen his “Invincible Armada” beaten all to pieces. England was now in the first rank of the nations.