Great Ralegh

by Hugh De Sélincourt

That spirit informed his life, and is linked with his every achievement. "Schönheit geniessen heiss die Welt verstehn." And one of the most memorable facts of the Russo-Japanese war was that the invincible Admiral Togo wrote home asking for plum trees in flower to be sent to him; he needed the strength which he drew from looking at their beauty. Castiglione was right. This perception of beauty is the last quality of the perfect courtier; from that alone can strength be gathered and stored for this strange struggle of life.

And now Ralegh had reached the last day of his life. Early next morning he was destined to solve the mighty problem with which poets and philosophers have always wrestled in vain—the problem which is the mightiest in life, which lends life colour and poignancy—the problem of death. The excitement of knowing that in a few hours he would be taken into that great mystery must have been overpowering. He no longer needed consolation: fear was lost in eagerness to know. And a sense of relief came to him that he would be driven no longer to fight on in the long battle of life with the fierce energy that mastered him. He had sufficient experience to be a little weary of life; he had sufficient vitality to welcome death. He knew that he saw the sun set for the last time; that for the last time he saw the approach of night, the familiar faces of men, and all the surroundings of man's life. His consciousness was coming to an end. "Do not carry it with too much bravery," said his kinsman, Francis Thynne. "It is my last mirth in this world," answered Ralegh. "Do not grudge it to me."

For the last time? Yet who can tell? What is man's knowledge when confronted by the portentous fact of death?

Once more Ralegh was about to journey into the unknown, and his spirit thrilled with excitement at this his last and most adventurous journey. Dr. Tounson, the worthy Dean of Westminster, came to visit him in the little room which was allotted to him in the Gatehouse prison. "When I began to encourage him against the fear of death he seemed to make so light of it that I wondered at him."

His body was weak; his spirit was strong. Sorrow he was leaving behind him. And until the clock struck the hour of midnight he who was to meet death in the morning of that very day sympathized and strengthened his wife, who had many days more through which she must live.

At midnight Lady Ralegh left him, and for the last time he began to set his affairs in order. He knew now how he could clear his name before the world. His spirit was so alive that he never doubted his power to die as he had lived—splendidly. He determined what he would say in the morning—quietly, resolutely—and having done so, still there was some time at his disposal. He opened the Bible that lay on the table and upon the first blank page he wrote—

Even such is time! who takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, and all we have,
And pays us but with earth and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days.
But from that earth, that grave and dust
The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.

And now the time had come for him to face the high ordeal of public death, which was to be the last triumph of his great spirit. A goblet of sack was brought him and he made his way to the scaffold. A crowd was already assembled—waiting.

Ralegh walked to the scaffold with head erect, complete master of the terrible situation. He noticed an old man standing in the front of the crowd with uncovered head, and taking off the covering he wore under his hat, he gave it to the old man, saying, "You need this, my friend, more than I do." The crowd pressed upon Ralegh and the struggle to reach the scaffold made his body, still weak from the ague, breathless. It is in accordance with the irony of things that even this last path was not clear for him. At last he stood upon the scaffold, erect and smiling. The crowd listened for his death speech. The chief men in England were there to hear his last words and to witness his death. Ralegh began to speak. He said—

"I have had fits of ague for these two days. If therefore you perceive any weakness in me, ascribe it to my sickness rather than to myself. I am infinitely bound to God that He hath vouchsafed me to die in the sight of so noble an assembly, and not in darkness, in that Tower where I have suffered so much adversity and a long sickness. I thank God that my fever hath not taken me at this time, as I prayed to God it might not."