The man of genius was not yet entangled in the meshes of political parties, and was still contemplating on an imaginary land north of the Gulf of Florida, as studious of the art of navigation as he had been of the art of war. He has left a number of essays on both these subjects, composed for Prince Henry in the succeeding reign. He was already in favour with the queen, for she sanctioned a renewal of the unfortunate expedition under his brother. Rawleigh had the largest vessel built under his own eye, for he was skilful in naval architecture, and he named it “The Rawleigh,” anticipating the day when it should leave that name to a city or a kingdom. It was on this occasion that the queen commanded Rawleigh to present to his brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a precious gem on which was engraven an anchor guided by a lady, graciously desiring in return the picture of the hardy adventurer. Such were the arts of female coquetry which entered so admirably into her system of policy, kindling such personal enthusiasm in the professed lovers of their royal mistress, while she resigned her heroes to their enterprises at their own honourable cost of their fortunes or their lives. In this second expedition Sir Humphrey Gilbert realised a discovery of what was then called “The Newfoundland,” of which he took possession for England with the due formalities; but on his return his slender bark foundered, and thus obscurely perished one of the most enlightened of that heroic race of our maritime discoverers—the true fathers of future colonies.
Rawleigh, unrolling an old map which had been presented to her royal father, charmed the queen by the visions which had long charmed himself. Her majesty granted letters patent to secure to him the property of the countries which he might discover or might conquer. Rawleigh minutely planned the future operations, and by the captains he sent, for the queen would not part with her favourite, that country was discovered to which had the royal maiden not so eagerly given the name of “Virginia,” had probably borne that of Rawleigh; for subsequently he betrayed this latent design when he proposed founding a city with that romantic name.
But the pressing interests of our home affairs withdrew his mind from undiscovered dominions. Rawleigh was a chief adviser of Elizabeth in the great Spanish invasion. He was eminently active in various expeditions, and not less serviceable in parliament. The ceaseless topic of his counsels, and the frequent exercise of his pen, was the alarming aggrandisement of the Spanish power. At this day, perhaps, we can form no adequate notion of that Catholic and colossal dominion which Rawleigh dwells on. “No prince in the west hath spread his wing far over his nest but the Spaniard, and made many attempts to make themselves masters of all Europe.” Possibly he may have ascribed too great an influence to the treasures of India, which seem to have been always exaggerated; however, he assures us, and as a statesman he may have felt a conviction, that “its Indian gold endangers and disturbs all the nations of Europe; it creeps into counsels, purchases intelligence, and sets bound loyalty at liberty in the greatest monarchies. When they dare not with their own forces invade, they basely entertain the traitors and vagabonds of all nations.” We have here a complete picture of those arts of policy which, in the revolutionary system of France, endangered Europe, and which may yet, should ever a colossal power again overshadow its independent empires.
To clip “the wing that had spread far over its nest,” by cutting off the uninterrupted supplies of the plate fleets of Spain, was a course in which the queen only perceived the earnest loyalty of the intrepid adventurer; nor was that loyalty less for its perfect accordance with his own personal concerns.
Rawleigh and his joint adventurers in these discoveries were carrying on their expeditions at the risk of their private fortunes, and it appears that his own zeal had beguiled young men to change their immoveable lands for light pinnaces. The prudential ministers looked on with a cold eye, and the economical sovereign, as she was wont, rewarded her hero in her own way. Elizabeth bestowed titular honours, and cut out a seignory in Ireland from the Earl of Desmond’s domains, which Rawleigh’s own sword had chiefly won; twelve thousand acres, yielding no rents; dismantled farms and tenantless hamlets—an estate of fire and blood! A more substantial patent was conferred on him, to license taverns for the sale of wines; and at length it was enlarged to levy tonnage and poundage, specifying that the grant was “to sustain his great charges in the discovery of remote countries.”
This was one of those odious monopolies by which the parsimonious sovereign pretended to reward the services of the individual by the infliction of a great public grievance, infinitely more intolerable than any pension-list; for every monopoly was a traffic admitting all sorts of abuses. Rawleigh’s inventive faculty often broke forth into humbler schemes in domestic affairs. He seems first to have perceived in the expansion of society, the difficulty of communication for the wants of life. He projected an office for universal agency; and in this he anticipated that useful intelligence which we now recognise by the term of advertisement. New enterprises and ceaseless occupation were the aliment of that restless and noble spirit. But these monopolies, severely exacted, provoking complaints and contests, were one among other causes which may account for Rawleigh’s unpopularity, even at his meridian.
To his absorbing devotion to obtain the queen’s favour, he has himself ascribed his numerous enemies. While Elizabeth listened to his ingenious solutions of all her inquiries, many close at hand took umbrage lest they themselves were being supplanted; while he himself, with marked expressions, disdained all popularity. Hence, from opposite quarters, we learn how haughtily his genius bore him in commanding the world under him. And there is no doubt, as Aubrey tells us, that he was “damnably proud.” Even in the height of court favour, this great man was obnoxious to the people. This we see by an anecdote of Tarleton, the jester of Elizabeth, famed for his extemporal acting. Performing before the queen, while Rawleigh stood by her majesty, shuffling a pack of cards, and pointing to the royal box, the jesting comedian exclaimed, “See, the knave commands the queen!” Her majesty frowned; but the audience applauding, the queen, ever chary in checking any popular feeling, reserved her anger till the following day, when Tarleton was banished from the royal presence. Nor was Rawleigh less unpopular in the succeeding reign, when the mob hooted this great man, and when this great man condescended to tell them how much he despised such rogues and varlets! The inconsiderate multitude, in the noble preface to his great work, he compared to “dogs, who always bark at those they know not, and whose nature is to accompany one another in these clamours.”
However busied by the discovery of remote countries, the armed ships of Rawleigh often brought into port a Spanish prize. The day arrived—the short but golden day—when, as his contemporary and a secretary of state has told us, “he who was first to roll through want, and disability to exist, before he came to a repose,” betrayed a sudden affluence—in the magnificence about him—in the train of his followers, when he seemed to be the rival of the chivalrous Essex—in the gorgeousness of his dress, from the huge diamond which buttoned his feather, to his shoes powdered with pearls, darting from every point of his person the changeful light of countless jewels. In this habiliment, fitted to be the herald of that goddess of beauty to which Elizabeth was familiarly compared, beside the Queen during her royal progresses, stood the captain of her guard, and her eyes were often solaced as they dwelt on the minion of fortune, her own prosperous adventurer; it was with secret satisfaction that she knew his treasure was not taken out of her exchequer. It could only have been some great Spanish galleon, like that of “The Madre de Dios,” which furnished Rawleigh with that complete suit of armour of solid silver which fixed all eyes at the tilt; or which went to build the stately mansion of Sherborne, and to plan its fanciful gardens and groves, drawing the river through the rocks. Curious in horticulture as in the slightest arts he practised, Rawleigh’s hands transplanted the first orange trees which breathed in this colder clime, as he had given Ireland the Virginian potato, and England the Virginian tobacco, and perhaps the delicious ananas. But Sherborne was Church land. It is said that Sir Walter had often cast a wistful eye on it as it lay in his journeys from Devonshire. It gave umbrage to some in Church and State that, by frightening a timid Bishop of Salisbury, he had prevailed on him to alienate the manor of Sherborne from his see in favour of the Crown, that it might the more securely be transferred to him who had coveted it, till another coveter, in the despicable Carr, plundered him who had despoiled the diocese.
A genius versatile as ambitious, moving in the eventful court of a female sovereign, though often musing on “remote countries” or Spanish galleons, could not stand as a mere spectator amid the agitated amphitheatre of politics, nor in the luxuriance of courtly idleness save himself from softer, but not always less fatal, intrigues. Rawleigh was the victim of love and of politics.
On his first entrance to a court life, Rawleigh found Burleigh and Leicester watchful of each other. They were the heads of dark factions which clouded the Court of Elizabeth, and crooked were the ways our aspirant had to wind. Leicester seems to have been an early patron of Rawleigh, by means of his nephew Sir Philip Sidney. At length, perceiving his ascendancy over the Queen, the great lord, to overturn this idol of womanish caprice, introduced his youthful son-in-law, the famous and unfortunate Essex; nor had he, who himself had been a reigning favourite, miscalculated on the fascination of a new lover. The contest for the royal smile became too apparent; ruptures and reconciliations followed, till death closed these eventful jealousies. Rawleigh had glided over to the opposition under the subtle and the plotting Cecil.