A fruitless expedition to Spain, in favour of Don Antonio, Pretender to the crown of Portugal, did more honour to the bravery of the Earl of Essex than to his military talents. When he returned to England, he imprudently entered into a fierce struggle against the influence of the Cecils. Walsingham had died, in 1590, and Burleigh desired to have his office bestowed upon his son, Robert Cecil. Essex supported the cause of the unhappy Davison, unjustly disgraced for several years; the queen gave the office to Burleigh, authorizing him to obtain the assistance of his son. Hence there sprang a constant hostility which was to terminate in the ruin of Essex. Elizabeth had often differed in opinion from her great minister; she had offended him, ill-used him, vexed him, but none had ever succeeded in destroying his influence with her. Leicester had attempted it in vain. Essex was endeavouring to attain the same object in his turn, with as little chance of success. The queen knew to whom she owed in a great measure the prosperity of her reign, and the memory of the father was destined to constantly increase in her eyes the services and merits of the son.
The Earl of Essex consoled himself for his defeat at court, by departing for France at the head of the troops whom Elizabeth sent to the assistance of Henry of Navarre, now become Henry IV., king of France. Henry III. was stabbed by Jacques Clément, on the 21st of July, 1589, and since then, his legitimate successor was labouring to rescue his kingdom from the Leaguers obeying the Duke of Guise, and supported by Spain. He was besieging Rouen when the Earl of Essex joined him, at the head of the English reinforcements. He distinguished himself in the skirmishes, in one of which his brother, Walter Devereux, was killed: but the impatient attachment of his mistress recalled him to England. Duplessis-Mornay advised Henry IV. to send back Essex to Queen Elizabeth, if he wished to obtain of the latter fresh aids in men and money, which were becoming every day more necessary in order to check the attacks of the Duke of Parma, who had recently entered France. The war was popular in England, the English gentlemen having always been eager to enroll themselves in the ranks of the Huguenots. The queen had been, for a long while past, the faithful ally of Henry of Navarre. When he resolved, in 1593, to secure the peace of his kingdom and the establishment of his throne by adjuring Protestantism, indignation in England was violent. Elizabeth accused the king of treachery, but the Edict of Nantes soon satisfied the English Protestants, while securing to their brethren the free exercise of their religion, and the hostilities which continued between France and Spain, served the policy of Elizabeth too well for her to withdraw from her ally the efficacious support which she had always given him. The moment would not have been propitious for abandoning him; for the Spanish armies had again penetrated into France, and in the month of April, 1596, the Archduke Albert of Austria took possession of Calais which Elizabeth claimed of Henry IV., in exchange for her services. Amiens, Doullens, Cambray, were taken in succession. "It is very well to make a King of France," exclaimed Henry IV., on placing himself at the head of his troops; "it is time to make a King of Navarre," and he repulsed and defeated his enemies, while Queen Elizabeth, carrying war to their coasts, sent the Earl of Essex to Spain with Sir Walter Raleigh. The fleet commanded by Lord Howard bombarded Cadiz. Essex stormed the town and took possession of it; he wished to retain his prize, but, the council of England not approving that measure, Cadiz was delivered up to the flames before the English weighed anchor to return to their country. A second expedition directed against the Azores, brought about few results. The influence of the Cecils over the queen was still hostile to Essex, notwithstanding an apparent reconciliation. The earl retired to Wamstead House, inhabited by his wife, the daughter of Walsingham, and widow of the celebrated Sir Philip Sydney, the Christian hero of the chivalry of the sixteenth century, slain at thirty years of age, before Zutphen. The jealousy and affection of the queen soon recalled Essex to court; he was nominated earl-marshal. Notwithstanding the opposition of the court of England, the King of France had concluded, in 1598, with Philip II., the treaty of Verdun, and Sir Robert Cecil, who had been on a mission to Paris, brought back the Spanish proposals for peace. Essex, who only lived for war, and who could not exert his influence elsewhere, rose vigorously against these overtures. The queen was not in favour of peace, but the Cecils dwelt upon the embarrassments of the situation, upon the gravity of affairs in Ireland, upon the distress of the treasury. Burleigh, drawing from his pocket a book of Psalms, showed this prophetic verse: "The bloodthirsty man shall not live half his days." The quarrel became bitter. Essex flew into a passion, and turned his back upon the queen, who had reprimanded him. Elizabeth rose and gave a box on the ear to her insolent subject. Essex had his hand upon his sword: "I would not have such an affront from the hands of the king, her father," he said, "and I will not accept it of a petticoat." Lord Howard arrested his arm, and the earl impetuously quitted the council, to proceed to Wamstead, where he remained in retirement for four months. When he reappeared at the court, still powerful in appearance, Burleigh had disappeared from the scene; he died on the 4th of August, 1598, at the age of seventy-eight. His loss had cost his mistress bitter tears. Sir Robert Cecil, able and sagacious, but more corrupt than his father, and less faithfully attached to the interests of the queen, could not replace with Elizabeth the constant and sincere union of the sovereign and the minister, during forty years. The great consolation of the queen at this period was the death of Philip II. The war soon languished, and peace being concluded at the end of the year 1598, between the Spaniards and the United Provinces, delivered Elizabeth from the enormous subsidies which she had for a long time furnished her Dutch allies. The States-general recognized their debt to her Majesty, and undertook to discharge it by degrees. People in England were now only occupied with the imaginary or real plots which were discovered every day against the life of the queen, some hatched, it was said, by the Catholics, who still groaned under the weight of the most oppressive penal laws, others attributed to the Spanish influence. The King of Scotland was even accused of a project of assassination. He defended himself warmly against the charge. The queen wrote him that she could not think him guilty; but her confidence in his honour was so like a pardon for the alleged crime, that King James was not content, and demanded the trial of the accused, Valentine. The court of England contented itself with detaining in prison the wretch who had dared to tarnish the name of James VI.; when the latter succeeded to the throne, he enjoyed the pleasure of sending Valentine to the galleys.
The state of Ireland had for a long while preoccupied Queen Elizabeth and her ministers. A serious insurrection at the beginning of the reign had for a moment placed Shane O'Neil at the head of all the Irish of pure race. He had been betrayed and assassinated, but his country was not subjugated. The projects of colonization of the Earl of Essex, father of the favourite of Elizabeth, and encouraged by her, had not succeeded better than the devastating campaigns of the Lords-Lieutenant, Sir Henry Sidney and Fitzwilliam. The English had undertaken to civilize Ireland by destroying its inhabitants, as they had undertaken to establish Protestantism by prohibiting Catholic worship in a country entirely devoted to that religion. Both efforts had justly failed, and the jealous rivalries of the Irish noblemen, the ever-recurring quarrels of the Butler's and the Fitzgeralds, the revolts, the submissions, the arrests, the murders of the chiefs of these two houses, the rival pretensions of the Earls of Ormond and Desmond wearied the patience of the queen and council, exhausted the public treasury, and maintained the hopes of the enemies of England. Two adventurers, Stuckely and Fitzmaurice, conceived the idea of taking advantage of the papal pretensions to the possession of the islands, to attempt a bold stroke upon Ireland. They obtained a bull relieving the Irish of their allegiance to Elizabeth, besides assistance in money, a few soldiers and some arms. Stuckely remained in Portugal, and perished at the battle of Alcazar against the Moors, but Fitzmaurice, brother of the Earl of Desmond, landed in Ireland, in 1579, in the hope of bringing about an insurrection. He was coldly received, and compelled to take refuge at the residence of his brother. A reinforcement of pontifical soldiers, besieged in the fortress of Smerwick, were put to the sword by Sir Walter Raleigh. The Earl of Desmond, suspected of having taken part in the insurrection, was beheaded by the English troops, who seized him in a hut; Lord Grey de Wilton, who had become Lord-Lieutenant, restrained the revolt with a hand of iron, without obtaining any amelioration in the moral or material situation of the country. Sir John Perrot succeeded him in 1585; as severe as Lord Grey, but more just, he had the misfortune to give himself up in a fit of exasperation, to bitter words, not only against the queen, but against her "dancing chancellor," Hatton. The vengeance of the minister and the anger of the sovereign appeared to slumber, but when Perrot, weary of asking in vain for assistance and money, obtained his recall, he was accused of high treason, overwhelmed by the testimony of men whose excesses he had restrained during his government, and was soon condemned to death. His son had married a sister of Essex, and the influence of the earl counterbalanced that of his enemies. Grief or poison averted his execution, he died on the 20th of June, 1591, at the moment when the power of the Earl of Tyrone, Hugh, son of O'Neil, baron of Duncannon, was becoming great in Ireland. He was regarded by his fellow-citizens as the legitimate sovereign of Ulster. He claimed for his country liberty of conscience and the maintenance of ancient local customs, savage privileges having little compatibility with civilization. At the same time he also claimed all the property which had formerly belonged to his ancestors. Skilful and of noble appearance, he had contrived to discipline his fierce soldiers, and he conducted them in battle array against the troops of the queen. Sir John Norris had died of grief and anger. Sir Henry Bagnall was defeated and killed at Blackwater, in County Tyrone, and the insurrection spread throughout the whole of Ireland. It was asserted that the Pope and the King of Spain had promised assistance to the rebels. In this perilous situation the council of the queen decided that no other but the Earl of Essex could take command of the army. For a long time he refused. The viceroys of Ireland had all suffered disgrace or death. He finally yielded to the personal entreaties of Elizabeth, and left London in the month of March, 1599, accompanied by the flower of the English nobility. His absence was to inflict upon him a mortal blow. The troops were despatched slowly, ill armed, ill fed. In vain he demanded reinforcements. Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Robert Cecil assured the queen that her general had no other desire than to prolong the war. When he entered the province of Ulster, the centre of the rebellion, he had less than six thousand men with him. He concluded an armistice with the Earl of Tyrone, then without waiting for authority for this settlement he embarked in haste for England. Scarcely arrived in London, he repaired to the palace of the queen; she was at her toilet; he entered and threw himself upon his knees before her, kissing her hands. When he issued forth, he appeared radiant, congratulating himself after suffering far from home stormy troubles and inward griefs, and finding once more peace and quietude in his own country. On the morrow everything was changed. The Earl received orders to remain a prisoner in his apartment. Sir John Harrington, who had accompanied Essex to Ireland, was summoned to appear before the queen: "she chafed much, walked to and fro, looked with discomposure in her visage," says Sir John, "and when I kneeled to her she clutched at my girdle, saying, 'By God's son I am no queen, that man is above me! Who gave him command to come here so soon? I did send him on other business.' She bid me go home, I did not stay to be bidden twice. If all the Irish rebels had been at my heels, I should not have made better speed." On the morrow, Essex was summoned before the council. He replied with gravity and moderation, but was consigned to the care of the keeper of the seals. All the affection of the queen for the Earl appeared to have turned to anger. She forbade the friends, the physicians, and particularly the wife of the prisoner, to have any access to his person. He was ill, and had been detained for eight months, when, in the month of May, 1600, he wrote to the queen, reminding her of her former favour, of which his enemies had been so jealous that they continued to hate him habitually, "now that he was forgotten and thrown into a corner, like a dishonoured corpse." On the 26th of August, liberty was restored to him, but orders were given to him not to appear at court. Terrible is the intoxication of love of power and royal favour! Essex was learned; he had a taste for arts and literature; he might have retired into the country, and concealed the check he had received, but he desired to tempt fortune once more. His secretary, Cuffs, an enterprising man, without principle, urged him to attempt the rule of his enemies by a bold stroke. He was beloved by the population of London. An insurrection might rid him of Cecil, Raleigh, Cobham, the party of the court, as they were called, the earl opened the doors of his house to all malcontents, and assembled together the officers who had served under him. He involved in his cause King James VI., asserting that Cecil and his friends were endeavoring to banish him from the succession, in favour of the Infanta of Spain, Clara-Eugenia, daughter of Philip II., married to the Archduke Albert. Secret advices warned the Earl that his projects were known to the council. He resolved to act. He was surrounded by his friends on Sunday, the 8th of February, 1601, preparing to march to the City to rouse to insurrection the populace assembled at the cross of St. Paul's, at the moment of the sermon, and thus to open up a way for himself to the queen with the assistance of the mob. The keeper of the seals, and Lord Egerton and Sir William Knollys, arrived at his house at the same moment, demanding an explanation of this noisy assemblage. "There is a plot against my life: letters have been forged in my name; men have been hired to murder me in my bed," exclaimed Essex violently; then, as the magistrates promised justice, he invited them to enter an inner apartment; the door was closed upon them. Essex hastened to the City with Lord Rutland, Lord Southampton and a few others. The streets were deserted; no sermon had been delivered at the cross of St. Paul's. The citizens remained shut up in their houses. The aldermen had received the orders of the queen. Essex called every one to arms; none responded. He had great difficulty in re-entering his house, which he in vain endeavoured to defend. At the sight of the cannon leveled against the walls, he, as well as his friends, surrendered, and he was conducted to the Tower with the Earl of Southampton. When the accused appeared before the peers, on the 19th of February, Essex asserted that he had only obeyed the law of nature in defending his reputation and his life. The indictment of the crown was supported by Francis Bacon, whose career was soon to present so strange a mixture of greatness and infamy. He owed his elevation to the friendship and the protection of the Earl of Essex. He was less violent than his compeer, Coke, who accused the Earl of having desired to raise an insurrection. "He would have called a Parliament, and a bloody Parliament would that have been, where my Lord of Essex, that now stands all in black, would have worn a bloody robe; but now, in God's just judgment, he of his earldom shall be Robert the Last, that of a kingdom thought to be Robert the First." All the arguments of Essex were demolished by Bacon, although the latter reminded him of the language which he had himself used regarding the party which he now supported. No witness was confronted with the accused, whose condemnation to death was unanimously pronounced by the peers.
When the usual question was put to the two earls, whether they knew of any reason why they should not be condemned, Essex did not complain of the fate which awaited him. He was weary of life, he said, but he interceded keenly for his friend. Lord Southampton. He was urged to ask mercy of the queen. "Do not accuse me of pride," said the Earl, "but I could not ask for mercy in that way, though with all humility I pray her Majesty's forgiveness; I would rather die than live in misery; I have cleared my accounts, and have forgiven all the world." A confession signed by Essex was circulated, but many people believed it to be forged. It was also asserted that he had expressly asked to be executed in secret, although that fact was formally denied by King Henry IV. "Quite on the contrary," said the monarch, "he would have desired nothing so much as to die in public." The popularity of the Earl of Essex was dreaded, and the prolonged emotion which his death caused proved that this dread was not without foundation. He was beheaded on the 25th of February, 1601, at eight o'clock in the morning, in an outer court of the Tower. He was not thirty-three years of age. Sir Walter Raleigh witnessed the execution from a window, as well as that of several of the friends of the Earl. He did not know that the day would come in like manner when other eyes would in their turn come to contemplate his death. The Earl of Southampton remained in prison until the accession of King James, with whom he was soon in great favour.
If the King of Scotland had now found himself, as his mother had been, under the rule of the English law, he would have incurred serious dangers. His correspondence with Essex had compromised him so much that he felt compelled to send ambassadors to London to exonerate himself with Elizabeth. Sir Robert Cecil was in the service of the King of Scotland, faithful to the instinct of the courtier, who turns to the rising sun. The queen was appeased and increased the pay of her successor. If the chroniclers do not wrong her, she had shortly before been concerned in a strange plot, in which the king had narrowly escaped perishing by the hand of the sons of the Earl of Gowrie, beheaded for rebellion in 1584. The queen and her destined successor had little liking for each other, and bitter recollections estranged them. In despatching his emissaries to London, the King of Scotland had recommended them to proceed prudently between the two precipices of the queen and the people. The emissaries were sufficiently skilful to secure the best of guides. It was then that Sir Robert Cecil began with King James a correspondence which would have cost him his head if his mistress had been aware of it. Less skilful, Sir Walter Raleigh and Cobham did not contrive to gain in time the good graces of the future monarch, a fatal imprudence, as one of them afterwards found.
The war continued in Ireland, supported by a considerable body of Spaniards. Lord Mountjoy had besieged them in Kinsale and pressed them vigorously, when the Earl of Tyrone advanced, at the head of six thousand Irish, to second his allies. He was repulsed after a desperate fight; the Spaniards were obliged to capitulate and re-embark in their vessels. Mountjoy pursued Tyrone from retreat to retreat, until he was compelled to surrender, towards the end of 1602. The expenses of the war had been enormous; the Queen had convoked Parliament for the last time in the month of October, 1601. She was sick and depressed in spirits; but she appeared before the Houses more magnificently attired than ever, and obtained considerable supplies. The Commons, however, had determined to cause their favours to be paid for. They protested violently against the monopolies granted or sold by the Crown, which allowed the possessors to fix the price of articles of first necessity as suited them. The sale of wine, oil, salt, tin, steel and coal, were all objects of these monopolies. It was asked why bread was not among the number. "If no remedy is found for these," said a member, "bread will be there before the next Parliament." The discussion, formal and categorical in its nature, lasted four days. The ministers endeavoured to defend the prerogative, but Parliament held firm; the spirit of the Puritans had constantly gained ground during recent years, and the queen was compelled to yield. A promise was given to abolish the existing monopolies, and not to grant fresh ones. This engagement was not strictly kept, but the worst features of the evil diminished. Elizabeth no longer governed as of old. The energy of her will yielded to the growing feebleness of her body. She had always contrived to know the moment when it was necessary to make concessions; and she felt, besides, with bitter sorrow, that her popularity had diminished among the nation. The day of complete decline was approaching. The anxieties of absolute power, remorse for past cruelties, and regret for the death of the Earl of Essex, weighed upon that head, bent with age and sickness. Elizabeth did not seek confidants. Secret in her griefs as in her resolves, she bore alone the burden of her weariness; but the beginning of the year 1603 saw her strength diminishing day by day. She no longer showed herself in public, alleging the sorrow which she experienced at the recent death of the Countess Nottingham. She no longer slept, and scarcely ate; "She remains seated upon cushions," wrote the French Ambassador, at the beginning of March, "refusing to take any medicine or to go to bed." She no longer rose, yet she did not lie down; her eyes remained fixed upon the ground, and days elapsed without her saying a word. On the 21st of March her women put her to bed, and she listened attentively to the prayers of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Whitgift. On the morrow, the 22nd of March, Cecil, the Lord Admiral, and Lord Keeper of the Seals, approached her to ask her to name her successor. She trembled. "I told you my seat has been the seat of Kings; I will have no rascal to succeed me." The lords looked at each other, uncertain as to the meaning of her words. "I tell you that I will have no rascal. I must have a king, and who could that be but my cousin of Scotland?" "Is your Grace quite determined?" asked Cecil. She made a sign indicating yes, asking that she should be left in peace. She had again seen the archbishop, and was speechless when the lords of the council returned. "May your Grace deign to make a sign to indicate if you have chosen the the King of Scotland for your successor," they asked again. She raised herself, and joined her hands above her head as though to form a crown. Then she sank back upon her pillows and died in the night of the 24th of March, 1603, without having uttered a word. She was nearly seventy, and had wielded the sceptre for forty-five years.
Queen Elizabeth had willed and accomplished great things. She had governed England despotically, but was skilful, nevertheless, in observing the national tendencies and in yielding to them when resistance became dangerous. Under the influence and upon the advice of her faithful minister, Lord Burleigh, she had often been the arbitrator of Europe, constantly the patron and protector of the persecuted Protestants. She had tarnished the brilliancy of her reign, and for ever sullied her glory, by weaknesses and bad passions, while obstinately refusing to devote herself to the duties and to share in the legitimate happiness of a woman's life. Courageous, proud, farsighted, and persevering, she had displayed many great intellectual faculties and moral qualities, but rarely or never the tender and modest virtues which both inspire and retain private affections. She had long contrived to inspire sentiments of another nature. When in the midst of her glorious career, Elizabeth, asking a lady of her court how she preserved the affection of her husband, the latter replied, "By assuring him of mine, madam," the queen exclaimed, "It is thus that I possess the love of my many husbands, the people of England, by causing them to feel that which I bear to them." She had indeed possessed the love of her people, and she had made common cause with them during long years, and through great trials. When she died, the evils and dangers inherent in absolute power had done their worst. The English nation began to grow weary of the domination of its great queen, and to contemplate political and religious liberties which had no place in the mind or heart of Elizabeth Tudor.