His reception—Arrest—Journey from Plymouth—Stukeley and Manourie—The final scene.

Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, had been active during Ralegh's absence to work his complete overthrow, but Ralegh remained some weeks at Plymouth before he knew the exact nature of the reception which awaited him.

Masterly was the way in which Gondomar handled James. He was about to start for Madrid on leave, when the news arrived from the townspeople of St. Thomas of the English attack. "Exaggerate as much as you can Ralegh's guilt and try to get the King to make a great demonstration," wrote Philip from Madrid. "Do not," he went on, "threaten him; but make him understand that I am offended, and that if a proper remedy be not forthcoming at once, we shall make reprisals and seize English property in Spain." Gondomar set about his task forthwith. He rushed into the royal presence crying with uplifted hands, "Pirates! pirates! pirates!" and urged James to remember his promise, that Ralegh should be sent in chains to Spain to be hanged in the Plaza of Madrid. This was no time for delay, for judicial examination: Ralegh should be despatched immediately on his landing, with all his pirate followers. But James could not, though he would, act thus uncompromisingly. Ralegh was too considerable a man, and feeling towards him had changed very much since the time of his first trial when he was hooted through the streets of London as a traitor. There was a large party in the country who were averse to James's wish of an alliance by marriage with Spain. For forty years Spain had tried to humble England, and for forty years England had more than held her own. And now was the King to be bullied into sacrificing one of his greatest subjects, unheard, unjudged, at the bidding of Spain's ambassador? Moreover, James felt that he was losing the popularity which he had won at the beginning of his reign. His favourites were disliked. The personal influence of Gondomar over him was disliked. So James temporised—in his habitual way he temporized—so that he might, like the weak man he was, enjoy the sense of power which he felt as he slowly tightened the rope round Ralegh. "James wants peace and must be frightened," wrote Gondomar. "The English have changed their tone since I came and I have shown them that I will stand no nonsense." And his boast was amply justified.

Sir Lewis Stukeley was sent to Plymouth to arrest Ralegh and take possession of his ship and cargo. Ralegh had already started from Plymouth with his wife and Captain King when he met Stukeley, near the old stannary town of Ashburton on the edge of Dartmoor, twenty miles on his way to London. Stukeley made him return with him to Plymouth: for Stukeley was anxious to make as much as possible for himself out of Ralegh's cargo on board the Destiny, for he was vice-admiral of Devon.

Sir Lewis Stukeley was a Devon man and kinsman of Ralegh, for he was nephew to the valiant Sir Richard Grenville. He did not maintain the traditions of his family or of his county. Ralegh stayed in Plymouth some ten days at the house of Sir Christopher Harris. He was not yet aware of the fate that awaited him, for Stukeley had only an order from the King and no warrant from the Lords of the Council. And Stukeley too was full of friendliness and soft words, partly to put Ralegh off his guard and partly because it was easier for him to be agreeable to a man like Ralegh, whom he could not bully. Lady Ralegh and Captain King were full of grave fears for Sir Walter. They begged him, valuing his life as they did, before everything else, to escape to France. They made all necessary preparations: a barque was in readiness just outside the harbour. Ralegh, still uncertain as to the best way of conducting the little business of life that remained to him, listened to their entreaties and actually went out in a small boat almost to the barque. But he turned back at the last moment, determined to face every danger that awaited him in order that he might clear his name in the eyes of posterity from the slur of false charges that he knew would be made against him. Exactly how that was to be compassed he did not yet know. Now, as before, in the troubled periods of his life, a kind of apathy, of weariness of life, closed in upon him; the apathy that comes from uncertainty, and which in his case preceded a great and definite action. His powers were slowly collecting for the last great moment of his life.

Towards the end of July a messenger arrived from the Privy Council, bearing an urgent summons to Stukeley to bring Ralegh to their presence without a moment's delay. "We command you," the message ran, "upon your allegiance, that you do safely and speedily bring hither the person of Sir Walter Ralegh, to answer before us such matters as shall be objected against him in His Majesty's behalf."

The message was sent on July 21, and arrived four days later. On the same day, July 25, Ralegh began his journey from Plymouth to London, as Stukeley's prisoner.

Slowly in Ralegh's mind a plan of action matured. He knew that in London he had with the King's enmity little hope of life. It remained for him to clear his name of slander; his own life was now of small consequence to him: he was considering how best to leave a fair name and some means of decent living for his family. He saw that time was an essential to him. He must take care not to be hurried to London, hurried before the Council, and hurried to the scaffold before men were properly aware of his presence, and aware of the importance of the event. He must contrive to die greatly, as acquittal was beyond man's power. He knew that he was innocent, he knew that James desired his death, and that innocence was of small account when pitted against a King's wish. He lived long enough not only to see but to experience the bad consequences which he had foreseen of absolute monarchy under a weak King. Civil war fell on England, and the rule of the Puritans before the policy which he had thought out when Elizabeth was an old woman, became established. He brooded long over many things on that sad journey from Plymouth—over the roads which he knew so well. All the country-side was dear to him. He had done with it all now.

He passed Sherborne, where he had lived and been happy; he spent the night quite close to Sherborne at the house of his acquaintance Parham. It was a melancholy home-coming. What now remained of his great hopes and his great doings? In the eyes of the world he had failed. But he must open the world's eyes to see his failure in its proper light.

At Salisbury, where they arrived the following day, his plan matured. It would not do to come nearer London and his judges unprepared and dreaming of his past life. Something still remained to be done. He must gain time. He must be expected too, that all might be ready to hear what he had to say. His device was brave and was pathetic. He determined to feign illness.

Now, at Plymouth he had met a man named Manourie, a Frenchman who was interested in chemistry. In Manourie Ralegh had the faith which a man is inclined to have in a fellow-craftsman on other matters than his craft. His confidence was unwise. Thinking over great matters, he was not sufficiently alert and not sufficiently distrustful. Nor is it certain that Manourie was false from the beginning. It is probable that he came to realize how dangerous a business he had undertaken, and, becoming alarmed, fell an easy prey to Stukeley's promises and suggestions.

Within sight of Salisbury Ralegh asked Manourie for a vomit. "It will be good," he said, "to evacuate bad humours. And 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. I cannot escape it without counterfeiting sickness."

They arrived in Salisbury a few days before King James and the Court were expected. Ralegh strung himself to his pathetic part, and played it so bravely that Stukeley and the whole retinue were convinced that a deadly sickness was approaching. On entering the house where he was to be lodged in Salisbury he staggered, as a man staggers who is overcome by sudden sickness, and fell against a pillar in the doorway, bruising his head. A delay was ordered. Lady Ralegh, with her retinue of servants and Captain King, was sent on towards London. Hardly had they started when a servant came to Stukeley's room, and said he, "My master is out of his wits. I have just found him in his shirt, upon all fours, gnawing at the rushes on the floor." Stukeley was amazed and perplexed. King James and the Court were daily expected at Salisbury, and his special instructions to hurry on the prisoner could only mean that the King was anxious not to be in Salisbury at the same time as Ralegh. And yet the prisoner must not be allowed to die. Moreover, pustules broke out all over Ralegh's body, and Stukeley could not have then known that they were produced by a cunning ointment which Manourie had given to Ralegh. Stukeley went to Bishop Andrewes, the bishop sent physicians to Ralegh, and they signed a certificate to say that he was not in a fit state of health to travel further. Ralegh's point was gained. He set to work and wrote his "Apology for the Voyage to Guiana," in which he stated his good case to the world.

It has been remarked, almost with astonishment, by some that Ralegh was not in the least ashamed of his action. But there was no reason why he should be ashamed. He decided in his own mind that to gain time was a necessity to him, and having done so he set about the business in the only way that he could, and he succeeded. Afterwards he was reproached for the lack of dignity he showed, and answered, "I hope it was no sin. The prophet David did make himself a fool, and suffered spittle to fall upon his beard, that he might escape the hands of his enemies; and to him it was not imputed as a sin." Men like Ralegh have different values from the values of ordinary men; in that, perhaps, chiefly lies their greatness. Dignity is a thing which can very well be left to look after itself; the dignity which needs any careful bolstering is not in itself of great value.

Meanwhile King James and his Court arrived at Salisbury, and orders were immediately issued that Ralegh should continue his journey to London. It was probably about this time that Manourie learned the full importance of the fellow-chemist whom he was assisting, and became afraid. Hereafter Stukeley was informed of all the things which Ralegh said and did, and of many things doubtless which he had never said and never done.

So Ralegh continued his journey with his two false friends. As they neared London, the French resident in London, by name Le Clerc, and David de Novion, Sieur de la Chesnaye, met the party. De Novion was awaiting Ralegh's arrival at Brentford. He was empowered by the French minister to offer Ralegh means of escape to France. Men in authority at the French Court considered that such an enemy of Spain, whose head the Spanish ambassador desired to fall as a tribute to Spain's power over James, would be a useful man to save. But Ralegh appears to have listened with no great eagerness to their proposals. He was no longer anxious to continue his life in a strange country under a strange king, to whom he was indebted. He needed all his strength for the last achievement on which his heart was set—to clear his name from slanders, and he was not sure that escape was the best means to his end; though he listened later to the entreaties of his wife and Captain King, to whom his very life was dear. But Ralegh must have listened with some pleasure: the anxiety shown on his account, for whatever reason, must have made it clear to him that now, at any rate, he could not be huddled away to the Tower and to his death, unheard, as he had feared. He desired publicity, that he might die, as he had lived—greatly.

On August 7 Ralegh reached London, and, instead of going to the Tower, was allowed to go to his own house, which was in Broad Street. Captain King was waiting for him. He had arrived some days previously, and had wasted no time. A barque was in readiness at Tilbury to take his master to France. Had Ralegh's whole mind been centred on escape, there is no doubt that he could have escaped, in spite of Stukeley's treachery. But his mind was divided. His own desire was to stay in England, and meet whatever his fate might be; but his desire was, no doubt, obscured by his wife's entreaties that he should seize any opportunity of life under any conditions. He allowed himself to be rowed down the Thames. Stukeley was actually with him, vowing that he wished his escape. A boat, however, was seen to be in pursuit. The men at the oars grew suspicious; they slackened their rowing, and at length turned back. At Greenwich Stukeley declared himself, and arrested Captain King and his master. Ralegh turned to Stukeley and said quietly, "Sir Lewis, these actions will not turn out to your credit," and to Captain King, from whom he took leave at the Tower gates, "You need be in fear of no danger. It is I only that am the mark shot at."

Once again Ralegh was in the Tower—the day he entered it was August 10. Manourie received £20 for his part of the treachery, Sir Lewis Stukeley £965 6s. 3d.; the money was made up, for the most part, of the price of jewels which were taken from Sir Walter's person on this day of his last entry to the Tower. Among these jewels was the ring he had always worn since it was put on his finger by Queen Elizabeth.

The attempt to escape had been encouraged by enemies who wished to strengthen the case against Ralegh. That was clear enough to him, even before he was brought face to face with the Lords of the Council at his trial. They strove again, as they had striven before, to win the King's favour by maligning him. They affirmed that the whole enterprise to Guiana was a fraud, which Ralegh had invented to gain his freedom. For two months they considered the most plausible means of bringing him to execution. During that time Ralegh wrote letters to those in authority, and especially a noteworthy letter to the King, thinking that there might remain some spark of just feeling in him.

"If it were lawfull," he wrote, "if it were lawfull for the Spanish to murther 26 Englishmen, tyenge them back to backe and then to cutt theire throtes, when they had traded with them a whole moneth, and came to them on the land without so much as one sword amongst them all; and that it may not be lawfull for your Majesties subjects, being forced by them, to repel force by force, we may justly say, 'O miserable English!'

"If Parker and Mutton took Campeach and other places in the Honduraes seated in the hart of the Spanish Indies; burnt townes, killed the Spaniards; and had nothing sayed to them at their returne—and that my selfe forbore to looke into the Indies, because I would not offend, I may as justly say, 'O miserable Sir Walter Ralegh!'

"If I had spent my poore estate, lost my sonne, suffred by sicknes and otherwise, a world of miseries; if I had resisted with the manifest hazard of my life the rebells and spoiles which my companyes would have made; if when I was poore I could have made my selfe rich; if when I had gotten my libertye which all men and Nature it selfe doth so much prise, I voluntarily lost it; if when I was master of my life, I rendred it again; if [though] I might elsewhere have sould my shipp and goods and put five or six thousand pounds in my purse, I have brought her into England; I beseech your Majestie to beleeve that all this I have done because it should not be sayed to your Majestie that your Majestie had given libertie and trust to a man whose ende was but the recovery of his libertie, and whoe had betrayed your Majesties trust."

It was to no purpose. Ralegh well knew by this time of what base fabric was the King's mind. The Lords in Council only delayed sentence because they could not determine on what grounds to execute their prisoner. At last, on October 24, Ralegh was told that sentence of death had been passed upon him. On October 28 he was summoned to Westminster, from his room in the Tower. A sharp attack of ague lessened the strength that still remained to him. He was old now and white haired as he stood before his judges. The Attorney-General read the writ against him and said: "My Lords, Sir Walter Ralegh, the prisoner at the bar, was fifteen years since convicted of high treason, by him committed against the person of His Majesty and the state of this kingdom, and then received the judgment of death, to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. His Majesty of his abundant grace hath been pleased to shew mercy upon him till now, that justice calls upon him for execution. Sir Walter Ralegh hath been a statesman, and a man who in regard of his parts and quality is to be pitied. He hath been as a star at which the world hath gazed; but stars may fall, nay, they must fall when they trouble the sphere wherein they abide. It is, therefore, His Majesty's pleasure now to call for execution of the former judgment, and I now require order for the same."

Ralegh listened to this pompous mockery and said, when asked what he could say for himself why execution should not be awarded against him, "My Lords, my voice is grown weak by reason of my late sickness, and an ague which I now have; for I was now brought hither out of it." And the Lord Chief Justice answered: "Sir Walter, your voice is audible enough."

Indeed, there was little to be said by Ralegh, or any man, against a charge thus raked up from the past. The affair of this trial was a mere form, and Ralegh reserved his strength for his last great avowal at the supreme moment of his life.

He was taken away to the Gatehouse prison. Immediately the carpenters set to work to erect the scaffold. His execution was fixed for an early hour on the following morning. For on that day men's attention would be turned from the happenings at Westminster; and towards the City where the Lord Mayor's show would take place. Men's attention was not desired for the morrow's deed at Westminster.

Ralegh was a poet. A man cannot be a poet in his spare time. There is a realm which Beauty rules—that Beauty which Castiglione celebrated, and the understanding of which he made the last and chief attribute of his Courtier, with that realm Ralegh was in communion. From it he drew strength for his life. Such communion does unfit a man for the business of life, but gives him power to cope with its difficulties by enabling him to look a little beyond them. It raises him above the pettiness of things, and makes him see more clearly because he sees things at their proper value and in their right proportion. This perception—this sensitiveness—made him suffer more acutely, but endowed him with the power of detachment, the power to rise above his personal griefs.

Ralegh was a poet. He expressed himself in his life in a way strangely akin to that in which he expressed himself in his actual poetry. He resembles some knight in a Morris romance in his adoration for his Queen, and in his love for his wife.

But true love is a durable fire,
In the mind ever burning,
Never sick, never old, never dead,
From itself never turning.

That spirit informed his life, and is linked with his every achievement. "SchÖnheit geniessen heiss die Welt verstehn." And one of the most memorable facts of the Russo-Japanese war was that the invincible Admiral Togo wrote home asking for plum trees in flower to be sent to him; he needed the strength which he drew from looking at their beauty. Castiglione was right. This perception of beauty is the last quality of the perfect courtier; from that alone can strength be gathered and stored for this strange struggle of life.

And now Ralegh had reached the last day of his life. Early next morning he was destined to solve the mighty problem with which poets and philosophers have always wrestled in vain—the problem which is the mightiest in life, which lends life colour and poignancy—the problem of death. The excitement of knowing that in a few hours he would be taken into that great mystery must have been overpowering. He no longer needed consolation: fear was lost in eagerness to know. And a sense of relief came to him that he would be driven no longer to fight on in the long battle of life with the fierce energy that mastered him. He had sufficient experience to be a little weary of life; he had sufficient vitality to welcome death. He knew that he saw the sun set for the last time; that for the last time he saw the approach of night, the familiar faces of men, and all the surroundings of man's life. His consciousness was coming to an end. "Do not carry it with too much bravery," said his kinsman, Francis Thynne. "It is my last mirth in this world," answered Ralegh. "Do not grudge it to me."

For the last time? Yet who can tell? What is man's knowledge when confronted by the portentous fact of death?

Once more Ralegh was about to journey into the unknown, and his spirit thrilled with excitement at this his last and most adventurous journey. Dr. Tounson, the worthy Dean of Westminster, came to visit him in the little room which was allotted to him in the Gatehouse prison. "When I began to encourage him against the fear of death he seemed to make so light of it that I wondered at him."

His body was weak; his spirit was strong. Sorrow he was leaving behind him. And until the clock struck the hour of midnight he who was to meet death in the morning of that very day sympathized and strengthened his wife, who had many days more through which she must live.

At midnight Lady Ralegh left him, and for the last time he began to set his affairs in order. He knew now how he could clear his name before the world. His spirit was so alive that he never doubted his power to die as he had lived—splendidly. He determined what he would say in the morning—quietly, resolutely—and having done so, still there was some time at his disposal. He opened the Bible that lay on the table and upon the first blank page he wrote—

Even such is time! who takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, and 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 that earth, that grave and dust
The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.

And now the time had come for him to face the high ordeal of public death, which was to be the last triumph of his great spirit. A goblet of sack was brought him and he made his way to the scaffold. A crowd was already assembled—waiting.

Ralegh walked to the scaffold with head erect, complete master of the terrible situation. He noticed an old man standing in the front of the crowd with uncovered head, and taking off the covering he wore under his hat, he gave it to the old man, saying, "You need this, my friend, more than I do." The crowd pressed upon Ralegh and the struggle to reach the scaffold made his body, still weak from the ague, breathless. It is in accordance with the irony of things that even this last path was not clear for him. At last he stood upon the scaffold, erect and smiling. The crowd listened for his death speech. The chief men in England were there to hear his last words and to witness his death. Ralegh began to speak. He said—

"I have had fits of ague for these two days. If therefore you perceive any weakness in me, ascribe it to my sickness rather than to myself. I am infinitely bound to God that He hath vouchsafed me to die in the sight of so noble an assembly, and not in darkness, in that Tower where I have suffered so much adversity and a long sickness. I thank God that my fever hath not taken me at this time, as I prayed to God it might not."

His voice grew weak. He feared that the nobles who were in the balconies would not hear him. So he asked them to come upon the scaffold. They consented and came. Each shook Ralegh's hand, as he thanked them for this last courtesy.

He continued his speech amidst the silence of the crowd. He defended himself against the charges of complicity with France, of disloyalty to the King, and then he said—

"For my going to Guiana many thought I never intended it, but intended only to gain my liberty,—which I would I had been so wise as to have kept. But as I shall answer it before the same God before whom I am shortly to appear, I endeavoured, and I hoped to have enriched the King, myself, and my partners. But I was undone by Keymis, a wilful fellow, who seeing my son slain and myself unpardoned, would not open the mine, and killed himself.

"It was also told the King that I was brought by force into England, and that I did not intend to come back again. I protest that when the voyage succeeded not, and that I resolved to come home, my company mutinied against me. They fortified the gun-room against me, and kept me within my own cabin; and would not be satisfied except I would take a corporal oath not to bring them into England until I had gotten the pardons of four of them,—there being four men unpardoned. So I took that oath. And we came into Ireland, where they would have landed in the north parts. But I would not, because there the inhabitants were all Redshanks. So we came to the south, hoping from thence to write to his Majesty for their pardons. In the meantime I offered to places in Devon and Cornwall, to lie safe till they had been pardoned."

Ralegh now turned towards Lord Arundel, who was standing on the scaffold. "I am glad that my Lord of Arundel is here. For when I went down to my ship, his Lordship and divers others were with me. At the parting salutation, his Lordship took me aside and desired me freely and faithfully to resolve him in one request, which was, 'Whether I made a good voyage or a bad, yet I should return again into England.' I made you a promise and gave you my faith that I would."

Lord Arundel said in a loud voice, "And so you did. It is true that they were the last words I spake unto you."

And Ralegh went on: "Other reports are raised of me, touching that voyage which I value not.... I will yet borrow a little time of Master Sheriff to speak of one thing more. It doth make my heart bleed to hear such an imputation laid upon me. It was said that I was a persecutor of my Lord of Essex, and that I stood in a window over against him when he suffered, and puffed out tobacco in disdain of him. I take God to witness that my eyes shed tears for him when he died. And as I hope to look in the face of God hereafter, my Lord of Essex did not see my face when he suffered. I was afar off, in the Armoury, where I saw him but he saw not me. And my soul hath been many times grieved that I was not near unto him when he died, because I understood that he asked for me, at his death, to be reconciled to me. I confess I was of a contrary faction. But I knew that my Lord of Essex was a noble gentleman, and that it would be worse with me when he was gone. For those that set me up against him did afterwards set themselves against me."

Ralegh knelt in prayer, asking the assembled crowd to pray with him. He rose and the executioner knelt before him to ask his forgiveness. Ralegh put his hand on the masked figure's two shoulders and said that he forgave him with all his heart. "Show me the axe," he cried, "show me the axe." Then he felt the edge with his thumb and approved of its sharpness. "This gives me no fear. It is a sharp and fair medicine to cure me of all my diseases." And presently, "When I stretch forth my hands despatch me." He turned to all the people and said in a loud voice, "Give me heartily your prayers."

His velvet cloak was taken off. He knelt in prayer. He laid his neck upon the block and stretched out his hands. But the masked figure in black, the executioner, was unmanned by the scene. He could not raise the axe. Again Ralegh stretched out his hands. The man remained motionless. Then Ralegh cried out, "What dost thou fear? Strike, man, strike!" It was necessary for him to give the man courage to kill him. At last the axe was lifted, and with two swift blows his neck was severed.

So lived Sir Walter Ralegh, and so he died.

"O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised: thou hast drawne together all the farre stretched greatnesse, all the pride, crueltie, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words—HÎc jacet."

[A] Professor Raleigh writes: "Ralegh, who never took kindly to a subordinate command, deserted the expedition for some reason unkonwn." But it is not at all probably that he ever started.—"The English Voyages," p. 58.