Great Ralegh

by Hugh De Sélincourt

CHAPTER XIV

SUCCESSION PLOTS

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.