* Bacon, vol. iv. p. 530.
When sentence was pronounced, Essex spoke like a man who expected nothing but death; but he added, that he should be sorry if he were represented to the queen as a person that despised her clemency; though he should not, he believed, make any cringing submissions to obtain it. Southampton’s behavior was more mild and submissive; he entreated the good offices of the peers in so modest and becoming a manner, as excited compassion in every one.
The most remarkable circumstance in Essex’s trial was Bacon’s appearance against him. He was none of the crown lawyers; so was not obliged by his office to assist at this trial: yet did he not scruple, in order to obtain the queen’s favor, to be active in bereaving of life his friend and patron, whose generosity he had often experienced. He compared Essex’s conduct, in pretending to fear the attempts of his adversaries, to that of Pisistratus the Athenian, who cut and wounded his own body, and, making the people believe that his enemies had committed the violence, obtained a guard for his person, by whose assistance he afterwards subdued the liberties of his country.
After Essex had passed some days in the solitude and reflections of a prison, his proud heart was at last subdued, not by the fear of death, but by the sentiments of religion; a principle which he had before attempted to make the instrument of his ambition, but which now took a more firm hold of his mind, and prevailed over every other motive and consideration. His spiritual directors persuaded him, that he never could obtain the pardon of Heaven, unless he made a full confession of his disloyalty; and he gave in to the council an account of all his criminal design, as well as of his correspondence with the king of Scots. He spared not even his most intimate friends, such as Lord Mountjoy, whom he had engaged in these conspiracies; and he sought to pacify his present remorse by making such atonements as, in any other period of his life, he would have deemed more blamable than those attempts themselves which were the objects of his penitence.[*] Sir Henry Nevil, in particular, a man of merit, he accused of a correspondence with the conspirators though it appears that this gentleman had never assented to the proposals made him, and was no further criminal than in not revealing the earl’s treason; an office to which every man of honor naturally bears the strongest reluctance.[**] Nevil was thrown into prison, and underwent a severe persecution but as the queen found Mountjoy an able and successful commander, she continued him in his government, and sacrificed her resentment to the public service.
Elizabeth affected extremely the praise of clemency; and in every great example which she had made during her reign, she had always appeared full of reluctance and hesitation: but the present situation of Essex called forth all her tender affections, and kept her in the most real agitation and irresolution. She felt a perpetual combat between resentment and inclination, pride and compassion, the care of her own safety and concern for her favorite; and her situation, during this interval, was perhaps more an object of pity than that to which Essex himself was reduced. She signed the warrant for his execution; she countermanded it; she again resolved on his death; she felt a new return of tenderness. Essex’s enemies told her, that he himself desired to die, and had assured her, that she could never be in safety while he lived: it is likely that this proof of penitence and of concern for her would produce a contrary effect to what they intended, and would revive all the fond affection which she had so long indulged towards the unhappy prisoner. But what chiefly hardened her heart against him was his supposed obstinacy, in never making, as she hourly expected, any application to her for mercy; and she finally gave her consent to his execution. He discovered at his death symptoms rather of penitence and piety than of fear; and willingly acknowledged the justice of the sentence by which he suffered. The execution was private in the Tower, agreeably to his own request. He was apprehensive, he said, lest the favor and compassion of the people would too much raise his heart in those moments, when humiliation under the afflicting hand of Heaven was the only proper sentiment which he could indulge.[***] And the queen no doubt, thought that prudence required the removing of so melancholy a spectacle from the public eye.
* Winwood, vol. i. p. 300.
** Winwood, vol. i. p. 302.
*** Dr. Barlow’s Sermon on Essex’s Execution. Bacon, vol.
iv. p. 534
Sir Walter Raleigh, who came to the Tower on purpose, and who beheld Essex’s execution from a window, increased much by this action the general hatred under which he already labored: it was thought, that his sole intention was to feast his eyes with the death of an enemy; and no apology which he could make for so ungenerous a conduct could be accepted by the public. The cruelty and animosity with which he urged on Essex’s fate, even when Cecil relented,[*] were still regarded as the principles of this unmanly behavior.
* Murdin, p. 811.
The earl of Essex was but thirty-four years of age, when his rashness, imprudence, and violence brought him to this untimely end. We must here, as in many other instances, lament the inconstancy of human nature, that a person endowed with so many noble virtues—generosity, sincerity, friendship, valor, eloquence, and industry—should, in the latter period of his life, have given reins to his ungovernable passions, and involved, not only himself, but many of his friends, in utter ruin. The queen’s tenderness and passion for him, as it was the cause of those premature honors which he attained, seems, on the whole, the chief circumstance which brought on his unhappy fate. Confident of her partiality towards him, as well as of his own merit, he treated her with a haughtiness which neither her love nor her dignity could bear; and as her amorous inclinations, in so advanced an age, would naturally make her appear ridiculous, if not odious, in his eyes, he was engaged, by an imprudent openness, of which he made profession, to discover too easily those sentiments to her. The many reconciliations and returns of affection, of which he had still made advantage, induced him to venture on new provocations, till he pushed her beyond all bounds of patience; and he forgot, that though the sentiments of the woman were ever strong in her, those of the sovereign had still in the end appeared predominant.
Some of Essex’s associates, Cuffe, Davers, Blount, Meric, and Davies, were tried and condemned, and all of these except Davies, were executed. The queen pardoned the rest; being persuaded that they were drawn in merely from their friendship to that nobleman, and their care of his safety, and were ignorant of the more criminal part of his intentions.