In the following year, 1592, Raleigh, weary of his Irish exile, and anxious by some splendid exploit to revive the declining favor of the queen, projected a formidable attack on the Spanish power in America, and engaged without difficulty in the enterprise a large number of volunteers. But unavoidable obstacles arose, by which the fleet was detained till the proper season for its sailing was past: Elizabeth recalled Raleigh to court; and the only fortunate result of the expedition, to the command of which Martin Frobisher succeeded, was the capture of one wealthy carrack and the destruction of another.
Raleigh, in the meantime, was amusing his involuntary idleness by an intrigue with one of her majesty's maids of honor, a daughter of the celebrated sir Nicholas Throgmorton. The queen, in the heat of her indignation at the scandal brought upon her court by the consequences of this amour, resorted, as in a thousand other cases, to a vigor beyond the laws; and though sir Walter offered immediately to make the lady the best reparation in his power, by marrying her, which he afterwards performed, Elizabeth unfeelingly published her shame to the whole world by sending both culprits to the Tower.
Sir Walter remained a prisoner during several months. Meanwhile his ships returned from their cruise, and the profits from the sale of the captured carrack were to be divided among the queen, the admiral, the sailors, and the several contributors to the outfit. Disputes arose; her majesty was dissatisfied with the share allotted her; and taking advantage of the situation into which her own despotic violence had thrown Raleigh, she appears to have compelled him to buy his liberty, and the undisturbed enjoyment of all that he held under her, by the sacrifice of no less than eighty thousand pounds due to him as admiral. Such was the disinterested purity of that zeal for morals of which Elizabeth judged it incumbent on her to make profession!
It may be curious to learn, from another incident which occurred about the same time, at what rate her majesty caused her forgiveness of lawful matrimony to be purchased.
Robert Cary, third son of lord Hunsdon, created lord Leppington by James I. and earl of Monmouth by his successor,—from whose memoirs of himself the following particulars are derived,—was at this time a young man and an assiduous attendant on the court of his illustrious kinswoman. Being a younger son, he had no patrimony either in possession or reversion; he received from the exchequer only one hundred pounds per annum during pleasure, and by the style of life which he found it necessary to support, had incurred a debt of a thousand pounds. In this situation he married a widow possessed of five hundred pounds per annum and some ready money. His father evinced no displeasure on the occasion; but his other friends, and especially the queen, were so much offended at the match, that he took his wife to Carlisle and remained there without approaching the court till the next year. Being then obliged to visit London on business, his father suggested the expediency of his paying the queen the compliment of appearing on her day. Accordingly, he secretly prepared caparisons and a present for her majesty, at the cost of more than four hundred pounds, and presented himself in the tilt-yard in the character of "a forsaken knight who had vowed solitariness." The festival over, he made himself known to his friends in court; but the queen, though she had received his gift, would not take notice of his presence.
It happened soon after, that the king of Scots sent to Cary's elder brother, then marshal of Berwick, to beg that he would wait upon him to receive a secret message which he wanted to transmit to the queen. The marshal wrote to his father to inquire her majesty's pleasure in the matter. She did not choose that he should stir out of Berwick; but "knowing, though she would not know it," that Robert Cary was in court, she said at length to lord Hunsdon, "I hear your fine son that has married lately so worthily is hereabouts; send him if you will to know the king's pleasure." His lordship answered, that he knew he would be happy to obey her commands. "No," said she, "do you bid him go, for I have nothing to do with him." Robert Cary thought it hard to be sent off without first seeing the queen; "Sir," said he to his father, who urged his going, "if she be on such hard terms with me, I had need be wary what I do. If I go to the king without her license, it were in her power to hang me at my return, and that, for any thing I see, it were ill trusting her." Lord Hunsdon "merrily" told the queen what he said. "If the gentleman be so distrustful," she answered, "let the secretary make a safe-conduct to go and come, and I will sign it." On his return with letters from James, Robert Cary hastened to court, and entered the presence-chamber splashed and dirty as he was; but not finding the queen there, lord Hunsdon went to her to announce his son's arrival. She desired him to receive the letter, or message, and bring it to her. But the young gentleman knew the court and the queen too well to consent to give up his dispatches even to his father; he insisted on delivering them himself, and at length, with much difficulty gained admission.
The first encounter was, as he expresses it, "stormy and terrible," which he passed over with silence; but when the queen had "said her pleasure" of himself and his wife, he made her a courtly excuse; with which she was so well appeased, that she at length assured him all was forgiven and forgotten, and received him into her wonted favor. After this happy conclusion of an adventure so perilous to a courtier of Elizabeth, Cary returned to Carlisle; and his father's death soon occurring, he had orders to take upon himself the government of Berwick till further orders. In this situation he remained a year without salary; impairing much his small estate, and unable to obtain from court either an allowance, or leave of absence to enable him to solicit one in person. At length, necessity rendering him bold, he resolved to hazard the step of going up without permission. On his arrival, however, neither secretary Cecil nor even his own brother would venture to introduce him to the queen's presence, but advised him to hasten back before his absence should be known, for fear of her anger. At last, as he stood sorrowfully pondering on his case, a gentleman of the chamber, touched with pity, undertook to mention his arrival to her majesty in a way which should not displease her: and he opened the case by telling her, that she was more beholden to the love and service of one man than of many whom she favored more. This excited her curiosity; and on her asking who this person might be, he answered that it was Robert Cary, who, unable longer to bear his absence from her sight, had posted up to kiss her hand and instantly return. She sent for him directly, received him with greater favor than ever, allowed him after the interview to lead her out by the hand, which seemed to his brother and the secretary nothing less than a miracle; and what was more, granted him five hundred pounds immediately, a patent of the wardenry of the east marches, and a renewal of his grant of Norham-castle. It was this able courtier, rather than grateful kinsman, who earned the good graces of king James by being the first to bring him the welcome tidings of the decease of Elizabeth.
Incidental mention has already been made of sir William Holles of Haughton in Nottinghamshire, the gentleman who refused to marry his daughter to the earl of Cumberland, because he did not choose "to stand cap in hand" to his son-in-law: this worthy knight died at a great age in the year 1590; and a few further particulars respecting him and his descendants may deserve record, on account of the strong light which they reflect on several points of manners. Sir William was distinguished, perhaps beyond any other person of the same rank in the kingdom, for boundless hospitality and a magnificent style of living. "He began his Christmas," says the historian of the family, "at Allhallowtide and continued it until Candlemas; during which any man was permitted to stay three days, without being asked whence he came or what he was." For each of the twelve days of Christmas he allowed a fat ox and other provisions in proportion. He would never dine till after one o'clock; and being asked why he preferred so unusually late an hour, he answered, that "for aught he knew there might a friend come twenty miles to dine with him, and he would be loth he should lose his labor."
At the coronation of Edward VI. he appeared with fifty followers in blue coats and badges,—then the ordinary costume of retainers and serving-men,—and he never went to the sessions at Retford, though only four miles from his own mansion, without thirty "proper fellows" at his heels. What was then rare among the greatest subjects, he kept a company of actors of his own to perform plays and masques at festival times; in summer they travelled about the country.
This sir William was succeeded in his estates by sir John Holles his grandson, who was one of the band of gentlemen pensioners to Elizabeth, and in the reign of James I. purchased the title of earl of Clare. His grandfather had engaged his hand to a kinswoman of the earl of Shrewsbury; but the young man declining to complete this contract, and taking to wife a daughter of sir Thomas Stanhope, the consequence was a long and inveterate feud between the houses of Holles and of Talbot, which was productive of several remarkable incidents. Its first effect was a duel between Orme, a servant of Holles, and Pudsey, master of horse to the earl of Shrewsbury, in which the latter was slain. The earl prosecuted Orme, and sought to take away his life; but sir John Holles in the first instance caused him to be conveyed away to Ireland, and afterwards obtained his pardon of the queen. For his conduct in this business he was himself challenged by Gervase Markham, champion and gallant to the countess of Shrewsbury; but he refused the duel, because the unreasonable demand of Markham, that it should take place in a park belonging to the earl his enemy, gave him just ground to apprehend that some treachery was meditated. Anxious however to wipe away the aspersions which his adversary had taken occasion to cast upon his courage, he sought a rencounter which might wear the appearance of accident; and soon after, having met Markham on the road, they immediately dismounted and attacked each other with their rapiers; Markham fell, severely wounded, and the earl of Shrewsbury lost no time in raising his servants and tenantry to the number of one hundred and twenty in order to apprehend Holles in case Markham's hurt should prove mortal. On the other side lord Sheffield, the kinsman of Holles, joined him with sixty men. "I hear, cousin," said he on his arrival, "that my lord of Shrewsbury is prepared to trouble you; but take my word, before he carry you it shall cost many a broken pate;" and he and his company remained at Haughton till the wounded man was out of danger. Markham had vowed never to eat supper or take the sacrament till he was revenged, and in consequence found himself obliged to abstain from both to the day of his death[111]. What appears the most extraordinary part of the story is, that we do not find the queen and council interfering to put a stop to this private war, worthy of the barbarism of the feudal ages. Gervase Markham, who was the portionless younger son of a Nottinghamshire gentleman of ancient family, became the most voluminous miscellaneous writer of his age, using his pen apparently as his chief means of subsistence. He wrote on a vast variety of subjects, and both in verse and prose; but his works on farriery and husbandry appear to have been the most useful, and those on field sports the most entertaining, of his performances.