His early going to Oxford—Old Ascham on quick wit and education—Life at a University—The Queen at Oxford—To the wars in France—Henry Champernoun—Stories of the wars.

Of Ralegh's early education little is known: it is uncertain whether he was taught at home, or went to one of the Grammar Schools which Stowe records with pride existed in nearly every country town. When he was sixteen he went to Oriel College, Oxford, of which his kinsman, C. Champernoun, was already a commoner, and sixteen was an early age, even for an Elizabethan to go to the University.

His kinsman's presence accounts in a measure for this early going (he started most of his life's enterprises under their shelter, though in the end he grew to overtop them), but his quick wit was another and the chief reason. Old Ascham begs the fond schoolmaster to modify his propensity for caning, and to discriminate between "the harde witte and the quicke witte. But this I will say, that even the wisest of your great beaters do as oft punishe nature as they do correcte faultes. Yea, many times the better nature is sorer punished; for if one by quicknes of witte take his lesson readelie, another by hardnes of witte taketh it not speedilie: the first is alwaies commended, the other is commonlie punished, when a wise schoolmaster should ... not so much wey what either of them is able to do now, as what either of them is likelie to do hereafter." He will have none of the quick wit. Slow and sure is his adage. To him quick wits are "even like over-sharpe tooles whose edges be verie soone turned." And Ascham was the Queen's tutor, and was striking out a new line in his theme, in his treatment of it and in his language. For a scholar of his calibre to write of the education of little boys, and to write of it in English (fine English it is, too, with its balanced cadences), demanded profuse apologies, which he is not slow to offer, and to offer at full length in his preface. No apology would be necessary now, when Education Bills have been known to overturn Governments, or even a very few years later than Ascham himself; but in Ascham's actual day, Latin was regarded as the language of the learned, and dignity, which Ascham never lost, an attribute of learning. His remarks are always judicious, and his summing up of the temperament, which he calls the quick wit, is brilliant if not final. It is in the nature of generalization to be limited. For there are many wits where quickness and hardness, which he distinguishes so sharply, are as memorably, as in the case of young Ralegh, combined—"sharpe tooles" whose edges be never turned. Such incontestably was Ralegh. His mind and his character (the motive force) were on the same level of strength; neither preyed on the other, and he lived in a time when the world offered scope, as never perhaps in quite the same way before or since, to the resistless energy of united strength.

But to return to Ascham, whose little treatise throws an invaluable quiet light of its own upon the methods of the time, when he was old and Ralegh was young, and upon the making of great men and the great need of them—from its conception at the dinner party in the palace at Windsor, to its finish, years later, when the old man turned once more to the proper teaching of rudiments, doing his best for the younger generation whose best would outstrip all that he had ever dreamed of in his least scholastic moments. There is more than a touch of pathos in his warnings, for all their staid wisdom, and in his fears lest the young should be overcome by their "stout wilfulness"; blind as he could not but be to the goal to which stout wilfulness alone could lead them.

With a schoolmaster's conscious effort at broad-mindedness he would not have the young one sit all day at his studies. "To joyne learnyng with cumlie exercises Conto Baldesoer Castiglione in his booke Cortegiane doth trimlie teache: which booke advisedlie read and diligentlie folowed, but one year at home in England would do a yong ientleman more good, I wisse, then three yeares travell abrode spent in Italie." And he passes by way of example "two noble Primeroses of nobilitie, the yong Duke of Suffolk and Lord H. Matrevers" (such a two as "our tyme may rather wishe than looke for agayne") on to his famous invective against the Italianating of Englishmen, with that constant note of sadness at the falling off of the present generation. His ears were deaf to such names as Sidney, Gilbert, Champernoun, Ralegh, names which time has set at their proper value, and against which Ascham's noble primroses sink into their proper insignificance.

Ralegh was at Oxford only one year, and Anthony Wood writes: "His natural parts being strangely advanced by academical learning, under the care of an excellent tutor, he became the ornament of the juniors, and was worthily esteemed a proficient in Oratory and Philosophy." He seasoned his primer years at Oxford in knowledge and learning, a good ground, as Hooker says, and a sure foundation to build thereupon good actions.

Only one incident is recorded of that year of his life, and that is recorded by the illustrious Bacon in his apothegms. "... When Ralegh was a scholar at Oxford there was a cowardly fellow who happened to be a very good archer; but having been grossly abused by another, he bemoaned himself to Ralegh, and asked his advice what he should do to repair the wrong that had been offered him. Why, challenge him, answered Ralegh, to a match of shooting." It would be interesting to know how the repartee came to Lord Bacon's knowledge.

It is about in the proportion that Ralegh filled his life, compared with the ordinary way of living, that he took in one year out of Oxford what most men required seven years to take; for seven years was the usual time for a full course, and often, as in Germany to-day, men went from one University to another.

"Ein jeder lernt das was man lernen kann
Nur wer den Augenblick ergreifft das ist der rechte Mann."

Not that life at the University was restrained and dull. Far from it. Listen to Thomas Lever, who spoke of the work some twenty years before Ralegh's time. "From 5 to 6 a.m. there was common prayer with an exhortation of God's word in a common chapel, and from 6 to 10 either private study or common lectures. At 10 o'clock generally came dinner, most being content with a penny piece of beef amongst four. After this slender dinner the youths were either teaching or learning until 5 p.m., when they have a supper not much better than their dinner. Immediately after they went either to reasoning in problems or unto some other study until 9 or 10 of the clock, and then being without fire were fain to walk or run up and down half an hour to get a heat on their feet before they went to bed." This sounds splendidly strenuous, and shows what was expected by the authorities, and the standard of the dons to which doubtless many conformed. From Nash's trenchant pamphlets we see the other side of the picture. Thomas Lever was a preacher: Thomas Nash was not. It is while he is engaged in "pouring hot boiling ink on this contemptible Heggledepeg's barrain scalp" (or as we should put it, proving in controversy the errors of Gabriel Harvey) that he gives his sudden glimpses of life and customs in town and university. "What will you give me when I bring him uppon the Stage in one of the principallest Colledges in Cambridge? Lay anie wager with me and I will: or if you laye no wager at all, Ile fetch him aloft in Pedantius, that exquisite Comedie in Trinitie Colledge: where under the cheife part from which it tooke his name, as namely the concise and firking finicaldo fine Schoolmaster, hee was full drawen and delineated from the soale of his foot to the crowne of his head. The just manner of his phrase in his Orations and Disputations they stufft his mouth with and no Buffianism throughout his whole bookes but they bolstered out his part with ... whereupon Dick came and broke the Colledge glasse windowes and Doctor Perne (being then either for himself or Deputie Vice Chancellour) caused him to be fetcht in and set in the Stockes till the Shew was ended and a great part of the night after."

This tells a less sombre tale, and when Nash begins to be scurrilous about John Harvey, the third brother, and records "the olde reakes hee kept with the wenches in Queenes Colledge Lane" (how strangely places retain their character!), the tale becomes less sombre still.

The Queen, too, would make journeys with royal visitors to the University, as in 1566, when Stowe tells with pride that she made "on the sodain an oration in Latin to the whole universitie of Oxford in the presence of the Spanish ambassadors;" so that neither university would be out of touch with the great world. Nor did the undergraduates keep at the same respectful distance from royalty that they are wont to now, as another delightful story of Nash about Harvey shows, who when the Court was at Audley End came "ruffling it out huffty-tuffty on his suite of velvet, to doo his countrey more worship and glory." He disputed with the courtiers and maids of honour, and at last was brought to kiss the Queen's hand, and the Queen was pleased to say that he looked like an Italian, a compliment from which he never quite recovered.

So there would be much to occupy the thoughts and attention of an ordinary boy of sixteen. But Ralegh in a year was ripe for other things, and left Oxford for the wars in France. The opportunity came through his kinsman, Henry Champernoun, son of John Champernoun of Modbury, his mother's eldest brother, raising a company of gentlemen to fight on the Huguenot side: and Ralegh took the opportunity of active service.

Very interesting are the steps in a great man's life. Chance seems to play so small a part. The instinct to get the most out of his personality becomes the conscious effort to which perhaps a great man chiefly owes his greatness.

Precisely in this way is the boy the father of the man, and Ralegh's life is a pregnant example of it. He had, of course, no serious motive for leaving Oxford. He longed for fighting and adventures, and seized without a thought on the reckless impulse that led him to the wars, laughing probably at the sad head-shaking of his staid tutors. But he had learned how to learn: and his passion for life never damped his passion for knowledge, and impulse led him to the discipline which his nature demanded. The stern discipline and hardship of war were wanted to impress him, while still pliant, with the proper value of things by showing him with war's crude force the bare facts of life and death and human nature.

The strength and ability of the body told in those times, when man dealt directly with man, and encountered nature at closer quarters than he need now do, when her forces are fended off him and controlled for his use in ways then only dreamed of. Being weaker, men were rougher and more cruel.

That is manifest in the punishments of the Government. Executions were public. There was no other means for making the punishment known than by making the punishment visible. A man paid for trespass against the laws by disfigurement of his body—by branding on the forehead or palm, by loss of ear or hand: any one dangerous, or who threatened danger to the order with such difficulty established, was hung and quartered, or burned, or beheaded, and his execution was public and a sight not to be missed. The limbs of malefactors were exposed conspicuously at the Queen's pleasure.

Cruelty breeds fear, and fear breeds cunning. There was no longer the shelter of the monastery for the timid or the thoughtful. Accordingly, craftiness and conspiracy and secrecy prevailed in every corner of the country.

But there is the contrary side. The man who was able to be independent of these circumstances of cruelty, rose above them to heights of bravery and self-reliance and strength, which are almost unknown in more peaceful times. There could be no monotony, or slackness of endeavour when a mistake or a careless word, or even a foolish gesture, might bring with it the consequence of death. A man was braced to continual effort and unconquerable control, when a moment's lack of either might mean life's actual ending, or a lifetime's long disgrace. There was no place for mediocrity. Those were the days of heroes and nonentities; soaring heroes, crawling nonentities.

Thus the chance which led Ralegh to the French wars, and Ralegh's readiness to seize that chance (chance by itself does little), were fortunate in the extreme for the best furtherance of his personality's development.

In France the religious wars between the Guisards and the Huguenots had broken out in the year 1562; and as Hayward, a contemporary chronicler, recounts, "In regarde to her owne person and state the Queen considered that if the Duke of Guise should prevail these fires of France both easilie might and readilie would cast dangerous sparkes over the ocean into England." She could not give aid openly to the Huguenots: but privately she sanctioned the enterprises of gentlemen who offered their services in aid of the Huguenots. For the real danger was that if the Huguenots were wiped out, a formidably close union between France and Spain might result. It was thus convenient that France should remain in a state of unrest until England should become properly strengthened and solidified in her isolated position. Elizabeth's actions were ruled in this case, as in all cases, not by religious faith or by sympathy with the people who were suffering death for their faith, but wholly by political expediency. Religion with her was only a piece in the game, and she respected it as the most valuable piece. It is easy to cry "Shame!" and "Treachery!" when modern power over time and space has modified the rules of the diplomatic game; but game it remains, and truth in it still plays, and will always play, the subservient part of a nice convention or a fine pretext.

So those gallant gentlemen, who longed to fight and could find no more excellent reason than faith for fighting, went with their companies to France and fought their fill for the Huguenots. They realized the unfortunate necessity to which the Queen of England was put in ordaining that if they were taken prisoners a scroll should be pinned on their breasts as they dangled from the gallows, on which it was declared that they met their fate "for having come against the will of the Queen of England to the help of the Huguenots." That, probably, only lent zest to their endeavour. They would realize, too, that however the Queen of England might be forced to act, Elizabeth in her woman's heart sympathized deeply with the cause for which they fought; and Elizabeth, be sure, with her woman's wit, did her utmost to encourage them in this belief, and not without sincerity.

Henry Champernoun, of whose band of gentlemen volunteers, gathered mostly from Devonshire, Camden asserts that Ralegh was a member, was famous among these Huguenot supporters, though not so famous as his cousin, Gawen Champernoun, a son of Katherine, Ralegh's younger brother, Sir Arthur. Gawen progressed so far that he became son-in-law to the celebrated Count of Montgomery. No doubt Ralegh the nephew looked up to his uncles.

About his five or six years' absence in France (the date of his return is uncertain) Ralegh is reticent, partly, as Edwards suggests, in obedience to the maxim laid down in his "History of the World" which runs, "Whosoever in writing a Modern Historie shall follow Truth too near the heels it may haply strike out his teeth;" and partly, too, for the reason that his experiences as a boy would be adventurous rather than suggestive. He would have been too young to be enough behind the scenes to know the motives of movements in which he took part, and the motives would alone lend a broad or historical value to the adventures. Among relations, youngness is commonly taken into full account. And Ralegh, for all his ability, had not probably the opportunity given him of seeing things other than as isolated incidents. As likely as not, he was asked to leave the tent or the room when matters of moment were about to be discussed.

But certain anecdotes he recalls in his "History of the World," one of which is well worth telling in his own good words, because it shows the manner of fighting that prevailed in these wars: "I saw in the third Civil War of France certain caves in Languedoc which had but one entrance, and that very narrow, cut out in the midway of high rocks, which we knew not how to enter by any ladder or engine; till at last by certain bundles of straw, let down by an iron chain, and a weighty stone in the midst, those that defended it were so smothered as they rendered themselves with their plate, money and other goods therein hidden."

He was not, however, always among the caves and hedgerows; almost certainly he was in Paris in 1572, sheltering with Philip Sidney in the house of the ambassador, Walsingham, when the terrible and famous massacre took place during the night of St. Bartholomew's Eve, in which the friends of the Duke of Guise boasted that more Protestants were slain than in the whole of the twelve years of the war.

CHAPTER III