“A circumstance as remarkable as the work itself” (“History of the World”) “occurred in the author’s long imprisonment. By one of the strange coincidences in human affairs, it happened that in the Tower Raleigh was surrounded by the highest literary and scientific circle in the nation. Henry, the ninth Earl of Northumberland, on the suspicion of having favoured his relation Piercy, the Gunpowder Plot conspirator, was cast into this State prison, and confined during many years. This Earl delighted in what Anthony Wood describes as ‘the obscure parts of learning.’ He was a magnificent Mecaenas, and not only pensioned scientific men, but daily assembled them at his table, and in these intellectual communions, participating in their pursuits, he passed his life. His learned society was designated as ‘the Atlantis of the Northumberland world’! But that world had other inhabitants, antiquaries and astrologers, chemists and naturalists. There was seen Thomas Allen, another Roger Bacon, ‘terrible and tho’ vulgar,’ famed for his ‘Bibliotheca Alleniana,’ a rich collection of manuscripts, most of which have been preserved in the Bodleian; the name of Allen survives in the ardent commemorations of Camden, of Spelman, and of Selden. He was accompanied by his friend Doctor Dee, but whether Dee ever tried their patience or their wonder by his ‘Diary of Conferences with Spirits’ we find no record, and by the astronomical Torporley, a disciple of Lucretius, for his philosophy consisted of stones; several of his manuscripts remain in Sion College. The muster-roll is too long to run over. In this galaxy of the learned the brightest star was Thomas Hariot, who merited the distinction of being ‘the Universal Philosopher’; his inventions in algebra Descarte, when in England, silently adopted, but which Dr Wallis afterwards indignantly reclaimed; his skill in interpreting the text of Homer excited the grateful admiration of Chalman when occupied by his version. Bishop Corbet has described
‘Deep Hariot’s mine
In which there is no dross.’
“Two other men, Walter Warner, who is said to have suggested to Harvey the great discovery of the circulation of the blood, and Robert Huer, famed for his ‘Treatise on the Globes’—these, with Hariot, were the Earl’s constant companions; and at a period when science seemed connected with necromancy, the world distinguished the Earl and his three friends as ‘Henry the Wizard and his three Magi.’... Such were the men of science, daily guests in the Tower during the imprisonment of Raleigh; and when he had constructed his laboratory to pursue his chemical experiments, he must have multiplied their wonders. With one he had been intimately connected early in life, Hariot had been his mathematical tutor, was domesticated in his house, and became his confidential agent in the expedition to Virginia. Raleigh had warmly recommended his friend to the Earl of Northumberland, and Sion House became Hariot’s home and observatory.”
The elder Disraeli has argued that Raleigh could not possibly have written the whole of that large tome, “The History of the World,” himself, for want of books of reference whilst in the Tower. But as his friends supplied him with books, and he himself had probably taken copious notes for the work while living in the old home of the Desmonds at Youghal, in Ireland, where a remnant of the old Desmond library is still existing, the argument can scarcely be considered proved. The late Sir John Pope Hennessy has pointed out in his work on “Raleigh in Ireland,” that, by an odd coincidence, the son of the sixteenth Earl of Desmond, whose lands Raleigh held in Ireland, was a fellow-prisoner of Sir Walter’s in the Tower during his first imprisonment in the fortress during Elizabeth’s reign. Desmond died in prison in 1608, and was buried in St Peter’s Chapel. Raleigh had this youth’s sad fate in his mind, it seems, when he wrote from the Tower, “Wee shall be judged as we judge—and be dealt withal as wee deal with others in this life, if wee believe God Himself.”
An almost contemporary historian, Sir Richard Baker, refers to Raleigh’s imprisonment in the following quaint manner:—“He was kept in the Tower, where he had great honour; he spent his time in writing, and had been a happy man if he had never been released.” A strange description, surely, of what is generally understood by the term, “happy man.”
Henry, Prince of Wales, seems to have been the only member of his family who appreciated Sir Walter, frequently visiting him at the Tower. On one of the occasions when he had left him, the young prince remarked to one of his following that no king except his father could keep such a bird in such a cage. The Prince’s mother, Queen Anne, seems also to have shown some interest in Raleigh’s fate, and to have tried to induce her miserable husband to set him free.
Arabella Stuart.
(From a Contemporary Miniature.)
In 1611 Arabella Stuart was brought a prisoner into the Tower, and with her, Lady Shrewsbury. When the news of Arabella’s marriage with young William Seymour reached the King, her fate was sealed, for by this marriage the half-captivity in which she had lived was changed into captivity for life; and few of James the First’s evil actions, and they were not a few, were more mean or cowardly than his treatment of his poor kinswoman, Arabella Hertford.
She had never been known to mix in politics, and if she had any ambition, it was the noble ambition of wishing to lead a pure life away from an infamous court. Poor Arabella used to declare that although she was often asked to marry some foreign prince, nothing on earth would induce her to marry any man whom she did not know, or for whom she had no liking.
At Christmastide of 1609, James, hearing a rumour that seemed to point to Arabella being married to some foreign prince, had sent her to the Tower, releasing her when he discovered that his fears were groundless, and giving his consent to her marrying one of his subjects should she wish to do so. Unfortunately, Arabella took advantage of the King’s consent, trusting to his word, but she found to her bitter cost how hollow and false that promise was. In the following February (1610) she plighted her troth to William Seymour, both probably relying upon the Royal word. Whether James had forgotten that Seymour was a probable suitor for Arabella’s hand when he gave his promise cannot be known, but Arabella could not have made a more unlucky choice, as far as she herself was concerned, for the Suffolk claims had been recognised by Act of Parliament; and the same Parliament which had acknowledged James the First could not alter the order of succession, and, consequently, William Seymour being the grandson of Lord Hertford, by his wife, Catharine Grey, was in what was called the “Suffolk Succession.” His marriage to Arabella brought her still nearer to the Crown, and any children born of the marriage would have had a good chance of succeeding to the throne.
The young couple were summoned to appear before the Council, and were charged to give up all thoughts of marriage. But, in spite of King and Council, they were secretly married in the month of May 1611—a month said to be unlucky for marriages. Two months afterwards the news reached the King, and the storm burst over the unlucky lovers. Arabella was sent a prisoner to Lambeth Palace, and her husband to the Tower. From Lambeth Arabella was first removed to the house of Mr Conyers at Highgate, and thence she was to be sent to Durham Castle in charge of the Bishop. At Highgate, however, she fell ill, or pretended to fall ill, and the famous attempt made to escape by herself and her husband took place.