The Great Captain: A Story of the Days of Sir Walter Raleigh

by Katharine Tynan

I had feared my lord’s face when he came to look on me in my disfigurement, for he loved beauty, so that I scarcely dared to lift my one sound eye to his. Yet when I had found courage to do so I found nothing but love in his regard, and he embraced me as a father might, kissing my seamed cheek and calling me his dear lad. And young Walter likewise; for in the years that followed, during which we continued the tender friendship that had sprung up between us at the first, I have never once seen in his manner that pity which I could not have borne.

But the end of our misfortunes was not yet. Elizabeth died, and the son of Mary of Scotland succeeded; and now my lord anticipated no more ill than came, for the Stuart truckled to King Philip as never a Tudor had done, and ’twas like the Spaniard’s first demand would be that the most glorious of his enemies should be laid away beyond power of annoying him more. So it was that presently my lord was accused of being joined with the Lord Cobham in a plot to bring the Lady Arabella Stuart to the throne, and was cast into the Tower.

Then began that long martyrdom which is the everlasting disgrace of the meanest of Kings. He had made friends with his mother’s slayer. What was to be looked for from him? But to shut an eagle in a cage, to clip a sea-bird’s wings, to confine in a little space the noblest, freest spirit that lived, and the loyalist to England! This remained for Mary Stuart’s son to do.

There was no end to that imprisonment. Again I went with him to the Tower; while my lady had a lodging without the walls. Young Walter still fought, as his father had before him, the battles of England by land and sea. And I was my lord’s squire in the Tower, and had as much glory and love in it as though ’twere the Field of Cloth of Gold.

For now I was to witness the greatness of his spirit. When it had been borne in upon him that this imprisonment was like to have no end, he fretted not as he did in those two months long ago, but solaced his heart by the writing of that great History of the World which remains his monument. Also religion came sweetly to his aid, for that which had been out of sight in his wild, seafaring days now leaped up like a flame. Indeed never have I seen a greater tranquillity. He also occupied himself with the distilling of sweet waters and medicinal herbs; and the Governor of the Tower, who loved him, permitted that his still should be set up in the Governor’s garden, where also he took up again his old gardening ways. Indeed he kept his pain as being a captive out of sight after the first, and contented himself heroically; although his lady, poor soul, deafened the court with her prayers for her brave Wat, as though it were not the Spaniard who had turned the key upon him.

Nor yet was he forgotten by his old lovers, the common people. They waited in crowds to see him walk upon the terrace. The sailors shouted for him as the ships came up the river. As the years passed, and his feats became a legend, ladies and cavaliers came praying from the lieutenant of the Tower a word with the lion-heart. Still he wore his velvets and silks and damasks; still he blazed with jewels: no dusty prisoner, but a splendid knight, pacing the terrace while summers and winters went.

Even the Queen came thither with her young son begging his “strawberry water” to cure her of an ailment; and if the mother returned not it was not so with the son. The young Prince Henry came again and again, and being a youth of high and generous spirit, loved my lord in time near as well as we did, who had seen his glories. “None save my father,” he quoth bitterly, “would have kept such a bird in a cage.”

His relation with my lord came in time to be as that of master and pupil, for he would pace with him for hours while my lord discoursed on the arts of peace and war and the duties of a prince to his subjects. So great grew the tenderness between them that I doubt not if the young Prince had lived my lord would have stood at his right hand. But that was not to be: he died untimely, and the last prayer on his lips was for the freeing of his friend.

The dead Prince’s prayer was forgotten; but presently when the King wanted money he remembered the treasures of Guiana and those gifts my lord had brought to Queen Elizabeth. ’Twas as mean a bargain as ever was made. My lord was to have his liberty. He was to find the money for the ships and the men; but whatever treasure the gold mines in the Orinoco yielded was to fall to the King. On these conditions, and that he was not to meddle with the Spaniards, my lord set out. I went with him; and young Walter also sailed. He who had been a noble and gallant youth was now become a noble and gallant man, and my lord had great hopes of him; but, alas, Death mows down the fairest and the most promising.

From the first the thing was ill-fated. We were not so far sailed when fever broke out and ravaged the ships. Now there is nothing like a pestilence for breaking the heart and reducing the spirit in men; and ere ever we reached Guiana shores there was grumbling a-shipboard and mutiny in the air. And when we were come there it was to find the Spaniards, with forces of ships and men guarding the mouth of the river; for all our secrets had been betrayed to them.