Possible successors to Elizabeth—Lord Henry Howard—Spies—Ralegh's position—The net is drawn round him—Letter of Cecil—Last illness and death of Elizabeth—Carey's ride to the North.

The position was one of acute interest. For Elizabeth had maintained her father's tradition that the sovereign reigned by divine right, and by her genius made the tradition credible. The responsibility of vesting any man or any woman with such power was immense. The choice might bring disaster to the nation, and it might bring disaster upon the men who opposed the final choice, even upon the men who supported it. And Elizabeth would not tolerate a mention even of her death, still less would she help to appoint a successor. Peter Wentworth had proposed to the House of Lords that a joint petition should be addressed to her, requesting her humbly to consider the question. Peter Wentworth was forthwith sent to the Tower, where he died after three years' imprisonment. All the hints of her higher ministers she treated with disdain. That she, Elizabeth, must die, it was impossible! But death was slowly approaching.

Sir Robert Cecil watched the approach of death, and made his secret preparations; for the greatest disaster of all would be that death should find the country unprepared. Mystery, carefully planned against the unravelling of chance or surprise, shrouds all the correspondence of the time. No one can properly tell what letters are authentic, what are written purposely to be discovered and to deceive. It was dangerous for any man to trust any man with his solution to the great problem. But Cecil was the political leader; in the Council he was informed of the undercurrents of opinion at home and abroad. He kept his hold upon that most important item—news, so difficult to acquire, so hard to test, that that alone made his position strong; and he determined that King James VI. of Scotland must succeed to the Crown. The accession of James would ensure his own prosperity, and James, being manageable, would ensure the prosperity of the country, for Cecil himself would continue to govern. He secretly corresponded with James; he explained his authority, and asserted his zeal on James's behalf.

Arabella Stuart and William Seymour, both of royal blood, were married in 1603, and their claim to the throne was strong and supported by those who desired the reintroduction of the Catholic religion. At one time Philip of Spain was anxious that the Infanta should become Queen of England. He thought that the Catholic party in England would welcome her. But he had neither the money nor the power to enforce such a claim, and the project was abandoned in favour of Arabella Stuart and William Seymour, as James VI. of Scotland, though his mother was a Catholic and he kept hinting that he was himself open to conversion, could not be trusted. Cecil, however, succeeded in proving to James that only through his own agency could he hope to wear the crown of England. Cecil's chief helper in this was Lord Henry Howard. They corresponded at length with James. Lord Henry Howard was an absolutely unscrupulous man, and he hated Ralegh. Whether or not he influenced Cecil against Ralegh is not known. Probably Cecil did not need much influence to see that Ralegh was too powerful a man to be kept in a properly subordinate place, and to work his undoing.

Lord Henry Howard stopped at nothing to poison James's mind against Ralegh. He always referred to him as the arch-enemy, the most dangerous man in England. James was ready to believe all that he was told. The Earl of Essex he had at one time regarded as his chief supporter in England; after his death James used to refer to him as "my martyr." Therefore the rival of Essex, whom many men said had brought Essex to the scaffold, was not one likely to be looked upon with favour by James.

Cecil saw that Essex and Ralegh were the only men considerable enough to thwart his own project of supremacy. He had disposed of Essex; he had urged him on to his ruin by appearing to favour his ambitions. Ralegh remained. And Ralegh's overthrow was deliberately schemed, and quietly carried into execution.

In Cecil's scheme the most unpleasant aspect of the time is apparent. The acquisition of home and foreign knowledge was necessarily accompanied by an intricate system of espionage. It was incumbent upon a man in Cecil's position to use spies and agents at home and abroad, to check and recheck all information that came to him. He must keep himself in touch with the under-current of feeling, in order that he might be prepared for emergency; and to a large extent upon this knowledge, which he was bound to acquire, was based his own power, and on his power he was perfectly justified in thinking that the safety of the country rested. It is for the moralist to decide between what is under-hand and what is politic. It would seem that the two were inextricably mingled, not because of the depravity of the men living at that time, but simply because of the extreme difficulty of acquiring exact information. Morality has perhaps changed less than appears on the surface. Morality, however, has been modified by the application of the powers of steam and of electricity more perceptibly than by the spread of religion. The character of life has changed rather than the character of men. Deceit is a confession of weakness, either in the deceiver or in the deceived; and the range of man's power was then limited by barriers which no longer exist.

There was a demand for spies, and therefore, according to an unwritten law, there was an ample supply. An undesirable class of man was developed because the weakness of man in grappling with the problems of time and space made that class a necessity. Continual contact with such men infected the character of Cecil, as it influenced in a less degree the character of all the greatest men of the time. Lord Henry Howard, Cecil's right hand in his secret dealings with James, was the most complete example of the species. Lord Henry Howard is the type of man on whom it is pleasant to heap abuse. Abuse is a luxury. It relieves the feelings. There is no term of abuse which is not applicable to him and to his methods. But it is well to remember that, without Cecil, this tool (however sharp) would have been powerless to do mischief. Mischief—was what these two men accomplished mischievous to the country? They were scheming primarily to bring in James VI. of Scotland to the throne of England, and to do so without involving the country in civil war. And they succeeded. James came to the throne, and civil war did not break out until some years after their death. It is interesting to know that the men who, as some think, freed England from tyranny were deeply influenced by Ralegh's writings, and it is almost certain that Ralegh was so far ahead of the thought of the time that he foresaw the disaster that must come to the country if it were hampered by a sovereign possessed with the prestige of divine right. His idea of government was far more modern in conception. Rumour, which is apt to be an exaggeration of the truth, relates that he was in favour of a republic. Probably he wanted a form of government far nearer to that which exists at the present day. He wanted a sovereign who was legally bound to be guided by his Council of State and by the wishes of the people. The days of Elizabeth's greatness showed the best features of tyranny, the days of her decline its worst features. And the worst feature is that undue power was placed in the hands of incompetent favourites.

After Elizabeth's death would have been the time to work the change without bloodshed. But that would have meant for Cecil that he must have shared his power with others. That was sufficient for Cecil. Always with Cecil his own prestige came first and blinded him to the ultimate benefit, which he sincerely wished might come to his country as it came to him.

But the warnings of Elizabeth's decline were not taken, and the prestige of her greatness was sufficient to carry on its tide the weight of her declining years and the reigns of two incompetent kings. Then matters came to such a point that only a bloody war could set them right, and the Puritan element, grown strong by abuses, triumphed, and its triumph swept away much that was valuable, and much that could ill be spared.

Sir Robert Cecil, however, and his tool, the Lord Henry Howard, determined to carry on the old tradition, and to make James VI. of Scotland King of England; and their scheme, as has been said, entailed the overthrow of Ralegh. They considered his overthrow necessary to the safety of their own position, and the safety of their own position was necessary to the welfare of the country. As a man who sees a little farther than the majority in matters of religion is apt to be called an atheist—Ralegh was called an atheist—so a man who sees a little farther in politics than the majority is apt to be called a traitor—Ralegh was called a traitor.

In November, 1601, the Duke of Lennox came into contact with Ralegh and Cobham. He had been sent by James to Henry IV. of France to win his support for James's claim to the English throne. Howard was furious that the Duke should be on terms of friendship with Ralegh; he wrote to the Earl of Mar suspicions of the Duke's fidelity, and to James that Ralegh and Cobham were his inveterate enemies. "Hell did never vomit up such a couple." That was not all. Howard knew that Cobham was weak and vacillating, he knew that many of Cobham's family were disposed to favour the Catholic cause. It would be easy to magnify any move of Cobham's in the Catholic direction into an absolute espousal of the Catholic claim. And what would be more likely than that the weak Cobham should be moved by the influence of his strong friend, Ralegh? In that way Ralegh could easily be caught in the toils of a conspiracy. The scheme was very subtle. To work its gradual fulfilment the Queen's mind must be turned against them. So Howard wrote to Cecil: "Hir Majesty must knowe the rage of their discontent for want of being called to that height which they affect; and be made to taste the perill that grows out of discontented minds.... So that roundly Hir Majestie must daily and by divers meanes be let to know the world's apprehendinge hir deepe wisdome in discerning the secret flawes of their affections. She must see some advertisements from forrain parts of the grief which the Queene's enemies doo take at their (i.e. Ralegh and Cobham) sittinge out, hoping that their placinge in authority would so far alienate the people's reverent affection as some mischief would succeed of it.... Rawlie that in pride exceedeth all men alive finds no vent for paradoxis out of a Council board ... and inspireth Cobham with his own passions. His wife as furious as Proserpina with failing of that restitution at Court which flatterie had moved her to expect." Cecil was instructed to inform the Queen of these things "that she may be more apt to receive impressions of more important reasons when time serves with opportunity." And then the crucial point of the deep plot to entrap Ralegh is clearly stated: "You must embark this gallant Cobham by your witt and interest, in some course the Spanish way as either may reveale his weaknesse or snare his ambition.... For my own part I account it impossible for him to escape the snares which wit may sett and weaknesse is apt to fall into."[C]

It is evident that Ralegh had some suspicion of what was being wrought against him; in sending a paper to the Queen against the proposals to declare a successor—the paper has unfortunately been lost—he writes a letter containing the following sentence:"Your Majestye may, perchance, speake herof to thos seeminge my great frinds, but I finde poore effects of that or any other supposed ametye. For, your Majesty havinge left mee I am left all alone in the worlde, and am sorry that ever I was att all. What I have donn is oat of zeale and love, and not by any incorngement: for I am only forgotten in all rights and in all affaires; and myne enemis have their wills and desires over mee. Ther ar many other things concerninge your Majesty's present service, which, meethinks are not, as they ought, remembered, and the tymes pass away, unmesured, of which more profitt might be taken."

He may have known that Lord Henry Howard was mischievously inclined towards him; Howard had always been his enemy. But it is unlikely that he could have suspected Cecil, for Cecil was at the pains to show all the appearance of friendship both to him and to Lady Ralegh.

Yet Cecil was, from the beginning of his own correspondence, working against his friend. "Your Majestie," he writes to King James, "will fynde it, in your case that a choyce election of a feaw in the present wilbe of more use than any general acclamation of many." And in his third letter he praises Howard for his fidelity, and refers bitterly to Ralegh.

"I do profess in the presence of Hym that knoweth and searcheth all men's harts, that if I dyd not sometyme cast a stone into the mouth of these gaping crabbs (i.e. Ralegh and Cobham) when they are in their prodigall humour of discourses, they wold not stick to confess dayly how contrary it is to their nature to resolve to be under your soverainty; though they confess—Ralegh especially—that (rebus sic stantibus) naturall pollicy forceth them to keep on foot such a trade against the great day of mart. In all which light and soddain humours of his, though I do no way chock him, because he shall not think I reject his freedome or his affection, but alwaies ... use contestation with him that I neyther had nor ever wold in individus contemplate future idea, nor ever hoped for more than justice in time of change; yet under pretext of extraordinary care of his well-doing, I have seemed to disswade him from ingaging himself to farr, even for himself; much more therefore to forbeare to assume for me or my present intentions. Let me, therefore, presume thus farr upon your Majesties favour that whatsoever he (i.e. Ralegh) shall take uppon him to say for me, uppon any new humor of kyndnes,—wherof sometime he wilbe replete, uppon the recept of privat benefite,—you will no more believe it, if it come in other shape, be it never so much in my commendation—then that his own conscience thoght it needfull for him to undertake to keep me from any humor of inanity; when, I, thank God, my greatest adversaries and my owne sowle have ever acquited me from that, of all other vices. Wold God I were as free from ofense towards God in seeking for private affection to support a person whom most religious men do hold anathema."

This is probably one of the most crafty letters that even the astute Cecil ever wrote. He wants James to think badly of Ralegh, and he has no reason which he can urge for this. He is afraid that James may suspect his motives. He is afraid that James may hear from others of the friendship between him and Ralegh, that Ralegh may speak well of him. So he warns James against this: he hints that Ralegh will speak well of him only to gain some private benefit, fearing Cecil's inanity or animosity. Then, lest James should suspect him of such a defect, he hastens to explain that animosity is quite foreign to his nature. Only men like Ralegh would suspect him of it. Indeed, his heart is so kind that he must needs have affection for Ralegh in spite of all, in spite even (and this is a touch which would go far with the religious James) of the fact that many godly men consider Ralegh anathema, indeed, little better than an atheist.

On the surface nothing was changed. Ralegh continued to make efforts to rouse fresh interest in his colonization schemes, both in Virginia and in Guiana, but without success. He joined with Cecil in organizing privateering enterprises. He wrote to Cecil about the threatened invasion of Ireland by Spain, and warned him on no account to put trust in the friendly protestations of Florence McCarthy, whom he well knew to be a rebel. He continued to devote much energy to the duties which his Governorship of Jersey entailed. And all the while Howard and Cecil were watching him and planning his destruction. They were waiting for him to fall into one of the snares which were set for him; it mattered not whether the decoy was Arabella Stuart or the Infanta and her husband, the Count Arembergh. Cobham about this time was in communication with the Count, who was Archduke of the Netherlands, and who desired to make a peace between England and Spain. James and Cecil too desired peace with Spain, but did not wish it to come through any other channel but their own. So they watched Cobham that they might surprise him in an indiscretion, as they had watched him in his dealings with Arabella Stuart. And once they held him they could easily lay hands on the friend who had influenced the poor impressionable fellow to take a traitorous step. It would be incredible to all that such a man as Cobham was known to be could have taken such a step on his own initiative.

Failure is the cause of many crimes. While a great financier is successful, everything is forgotten in the rush to make his acquaintance and to make money. No one is indiscreet enough to inquire into his methods. If he should fail to be successful, it fares ill with him. The rush to leave him is as swift as the previous rush to be near him. His methods are exposed relentlessly, and men blush with shame to think that such a scoundrel could have been in their midst. The blush is the token of innocence (easily paid) to morality. That was recognized to be the position in all the various projects about the Succession. Whoever failed became a traitor. Exactly what Ralegh did or did not do, is not known. It is enough that he eventually got into the power of Cecil. He failed, that is to say, he was not sufficiently alert to suspect the intrigues of his friends against him.

The last years of the Queen's reign are as tragic as the last years of the woman's life. The strength of the country was in a strange way bound up with the strength of Elizabeth, and as her strength declined so did the greatness of the country. Never has a woman used her power with such magnificent results. England was the husband, for whom her life was lived, and all the greatest men in England lived fiercely to win glory and her smile of approval; and they strove the harder because within them was the knowledge (such knowledge was an inspiration) that their great Queen could also be a beautiful woman to the man who found favour in her eyes. She lived greatly, and created almost an age of great men with such puissance did she employ one side of a woman's creative power. A child is not the only new life which a woman may produce, if she has once outgrown the little limits of what is miscalled purity. Coarse, as in many ways the Elizabethan age undoubtedly was, men did not fall into the fantastic error of confusing celibacy with chastity. The body had full scope, and in consequence the spirit throve untrammelled.

But Elizabeth was growing old. To the end she kept her grip on life; but effort was necessary. In that effort alone weakness became apparent. Strength was used not to plunder life as she had plundered it hitherto, but to withstand its encroachments. She would not yield. There is something great and yet something infinitely pathetic, childish even, in her indomitable will to resist the slow inevitable power of Time.

At last illness, which she had always dreaded with superstitious horror, and against which she had always defended herself with every charm which superstition could devise, laid hold on her.

Sir Robert Carey, who was Lord Warden of the Border, came to the Court, which was then at Richmond, in March, 1603, to see his friends and to renew his acquaintance. He found the Queen ill-disposed. "I found her in one of her withdrawing rooms sitting low upon her cushions. She called me to her. I kissed her hand, and told her, It was my chiefest happiness to see her in safety and health, which I wished might long continue.

"She took me by the hand, and wrung it hard, and said, 'No, Robin, I am not well!' and then discoursed with me of her indisposition, and that her heart had been sad and heavy for ten or twelve days: and in her discourse, she fetched not so few as forty or fifty great sighs.

"I was grieved at the first to see her in this plight: for in all my lifetime before, I never knew her fetch a sigh, but when the Queen of Scots was beheaded.... I used the best words I could to persuade her from this melancholy humour; but I found by her, it was too deep rooted in her heart, and hardly to be removed. This was upon a Saturday night: and she gave command that the Great Closet should be prepared for her to go to Chapel the next morning."

But they waited in vain for her coming, she was not well enough to attend the service. From that day her body grew weaker and weaker. She felt that death was approaching, and grimly she welcomed the approach of death. With a kind of fierce disdain she refused all food, and she refused to leave the chair in which she sat waiting. Night and day in silence she sat staring in front of her, face to face with death. Music was played to her in the hope that it might dispel the black gloom which had settled upon her. She did not hear the music. She sat motionless in her chair staring in front of her, greater than Cleopatra, but without the solace of the asp's quick kiss. Her eyes had no expression in them now. Her waiting-women were terrified. Cecil came to her and told her "to content the people she must go to bed." Then she spoke, saying that "must was not a word fit to be used to princes;" she dismissed Cecil from her presence, and as he went away she spoke again. "Little man, little man," she said, "if your father had lived ye durst not have said so much, but ye know I must die, and that makes ye so presumptuous." Lord Admiral Howard, Earl of Nottingham, remained with her. At last she spoke to him. "My lord, I am tied with a chain of iron about my neck." He bade her have courage, but she answered in a low voice, "I am tied, I am tied, and the case is altered with me."

Her waiting women were terrified. The powers of darkness seemed at play in the Palace at Richmond. Lady Southwell affirms that the queen of hearts was nailed under the Queen's chair, the nail through the forehead; "they durst not pull it out remembering that the like thing was used to the old Countess of Sussex and afterwards proved a witchcraft for which certain persons were hanged as instruments of the same." Lady Guildford left the Queen, as she thought, sleeping, but saw her walking from one room to another; she hurried back, and there she found the Queen still, as she thought, sleeping. Lady Guildford swore that it must have been the Queen's ghost which she had seen, while the Queen was yet living.

At length, after this long vigil of four days and four nights staring in the face of death, she was constrained to lie down in her bed. But the tired old woman might not die in peace; while she breathed she was Queen of England.

"By signs she called for her Council: and by putting her hand to her head," writes Sir Robert Carey, "when the King of Scots was named to succeed her, they all knew he was the man she desired should reign after her." It is easy to see how the astute Cecil would construe the dying Queen's movements into the right meaning for his own schemes. There is something fantastic in this solemn farce played round the great Queen's death-bed, made more fantastic and more terrible by the fact that it sprang from her own strange detestation of naming a successor. "Being given over by all and at the last gasp keeping still her sense in everything and giving apt answers, though she spake but seldom, having then a sore throat, the council required admittance, and she wished to wash her throat that she might answer freely to what they demanded which was to know whom she would have for king. Her throat troubling her much they desired her to hold up her finger when they named who she liked; whereupon they named the King of France (this was to try her intellect), she never stirred; the King of Scotland, she made no sign; then they named Lord Beauchamp—this was the heir of Seymour ... and words came to the dying lips, 'I will have—no rascal's son—in my seat—but one—worthy—to be a king,'" The effort of speech convulsed her: she put her hands to her head: her head was in pain: and Cecil pointed out how evident it was that she meant, a crowned king should rule in her stead. That is the irony of things: the State left: the Church entered.

"About six at night she made signs for the Archbishop, and her Chaplains to come to her, at which time I went in with them; and sat upon my knees full of tears to see that heavy sight.

"Her Majesty lay upon her back; with one hand in the bed, and the other without.

"The Archbishop kneeled down by her, and examined her first of her faith: and she so punctually answered all his several questions by lifting up her eyes and holding up her hand, as it was a comfort to all beholders.

"Then the good man told her plainly, What she was; and what she was come to: and though she had been long a great Queen here upon earth, yet shortly she was to yield an account of her stewardship to the King of Kings.

"After this he began to pray: and all that were by did answer him. After he had continued long in prayer, till the old man's knees were weary, he blessed her, and meant to rise and leave her.

"The Queen made a sign with her hand.

"My sister Scroope, knowing her meaning, told the Bishop, the Queen desired he would pray still.

"He did so for a long half-hour after, and then thought to have left her. The second time she made sign to have him continue in prayer. He did so for half an hour more, with earnest cries to God for her soul's health, which he uttered with that fervency of spirit as the Queen, to all our sight, much rejoiced thereat: and gave testimony to us all of her Christian and comfortable end. By this time it grew late; and every one departed: all but her women that attended her."

That evening Queen Elizabeth died.

Every precaution had been taken that the news of her death might not precede the Council's power of action. Every gate was locked; every approach was guarded. But Sir Robert Carey, the dead Queen's kinsman, realized, like many another, that all his means of life were now at the disposal of the new king, whoever he might be, and so he determined to be the bearer of the tidings to James of Scotland. He had quietly made his preparations for the emergency, and his sister, Philadelphia Lady Scroope, had in her possession a ring which would prove to James that the news of the Queen's death was authentic. It was necessary to take every precaution against treachery in such a crisis. How far Cecil knew of Carey's complicity with James is not certain. Probably James had kept it secret: he was not apt to trust any man wholly.

Carey found some difficulty in getting away, but he gave money to the right men and succeeded. Lady Scroope had been unable to give him the sapphire ring, "but waiting at the window till she saw him at the outside of the gate she threw it out to him; and he well knew to what purpose he received it." Efforts were made to detain him, but he managed to evade them, and next night at ten o'clock he started his great ride to the north, to bear the tidings to James at Edinburgh. That Thursday night he rode to Doncaster, which is one hundred and sixty-two miles from London.

"The Friday night I came to my own house at Widdrington (298 miles), and presently took order with my Deputies to see the Borders kept in quiet; which they had much to do; and gave order, the next morning, the King of Scotland should be proclaimed King of England and at Morpeth and at Alnwick. Very early on Saturday I took horse for Edinburgh and came to Norham (331 miles) about twelve at noon. So that I might well have been with the King at supper time: but I got a great fall by the way, and my horse, with one of his heels, gave me a great blow on the head that made me shed much blood. It made me so weak, that I was forced to ride a soft pace after: so that the King was newly gone to bed by the time I knocked at the gate."

The King received him immediately and at once asked him, on hearing of the Queen's death, what message he brought from the Council. Sir Robert Carey bore no message, but he gave the King the blue ring; and the King said, "It is enough. I know by this that you are a true messenger."

Every attention was paid to the messenger, worn out by his great ride and his fall. In four days he recovered and he was sworn one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber; "and presently I helped to take off his clothes and stayed till he was in bed.

"After this, there came, daily, Gentlemen and Noblemen from our Court; and the King set down a fixed day for his departure towards London."

The day fixed was April 5th, 1603.

CHAPTER XV