"From your majesty's humblest servant,
"Essex."
At length, the queen prepared to make an end of this lingering business; the earl's entreaties that it might not be made a Star-chamber matter were listened to, and eighteen commissioners were selected out of the privy-council, to discuss his conduct, hear his accusation and defence, and finally pronounce upon him such a censure, for it was not to be called a sentence, as they should see fit. The crown lawyers,—amongst whom Francis Bacon chose to take his place, though the queen had offered to excuse his attendance on account of the ties of gratitude which ought to have attached him to Essex,—spoke one after another in aggravation of his offence; and some of them, as the attorney-general (Coke), with great virulence of language. Next came the prisoner's defence, which he pronounced kneeling;—an attitude in which he was suffered to remain during a great part of the proceedings. He began with a humble avowal of his errors, and many expressions of penitence and humility towards her majesty; a temperate apology for particular parts of his conduct, followed; but as he was proceeding to reflect in some points on the conduct of the Irish council, and to refute the exaggerated charges of his enemies, he was interrupted by the lord keeper, who reminded him that this was not a course likely to do him good. The earl explained that he had no wish but to clear himself of disloyalty; it was answered, that with this he never had been charged. The pathetic eloquence of the noble prisoner moved many of the council to tears, and was not without its effect on his enemies themselves. The secretary, who was the first to rise in reply, even in refuting a part of his excuses, did him justice in other points, and treated him on the whole with great courtesy. Finally, it was the unanimous censure of the council, that the earl should abstain from exercising the functions of privy-councillor, earl marshal, or master of the ordnance; that he should return to his own house, and there remain a prisoner as before, till it should please her majesty to remit both this and all the other parts of the sentence.
By this solemn hearing the mind of the queen was much tranquillized; because her grave councillors and learned judges in their speeches, "amplifying her majesty's clemency and the earl's offences, according to the manner in the Star-chamber," had held him worthy of much more punishment than he had yet received. A few days after her majesty repaired to lady Russel's house in Blackfriars to grace the nuptials of her daughter, a maid of honor, with lord Herbert, son of the earl of Worcester;—on which occasion it may be mentioned, that she was conveyed from the water-side in a lectica, or half-litter, borne by six knights. After dining with the wedding company, she passed to the neighbouring house of lord Cobham to sup. Here she was entertained with a mask of eight ladies, who, after performing their appointed part, chose out eight ladies more to dance the measure, when Mrs. Fitton the principal masker came and "wooed" the queen also to dance. Her majesty inquired who she was? "Affection," she replied. "Affection," said the queen, "is false;" yet she rose and danced.
Elizabeth was now possessed with a strange fancy of unmaking the knights made by Essex; being flattered in this folly by Bacon, who assured her, certainly in contradiction to all the laws of chivalry, that her general had no right to confer that degree after a prohibition laid upon him by her majesty. She was resolved to command at least that no ancient gentleman should give place to these new knights; and she had actually signed the warrant for a proclamation to this effect, when the timely interference of the secretary saved her from thus exposing herself.
Late in August 1600, the earl was acquainted in form by the privy-council that his liberty was restored, but that he was still prohibited from appearing at court. He answered, that it was his design to lead a retired life at his uncle's in Oxfordshire, yet he begged their intercession that he might be admitted to kiss the queen's hand before his departure. But this was still too great a favor to be accorded, and he was informed, that though free from restraint, he was still to regard himself as under indignation; a distinction which served to deter all but his nearest relations from resorting to him.
In the spring of this year, Vereiken, an ambassador from Flanders, was very honorably received by the queen, whose counsels had assumed a more pacific aspect since the disgrace of Essex.
Whyte informs us, with his usual minuteness, that the ambassador was lodged with alderman Baning in Dowgate; and that he was fetched to court in great state, the whole household being drawn up in the hall; the great ladies and fair maids appearing "excellently brave" in the rooms through which he passed; and the queen, very richly dressed and surrounded by her council, extending to him a most gracious reception. He solemnly congratulated himself on the happiness of beholding her majesty, "who for beauty and wisdom did excel all other princes of the earth;" and she, in requital, promised to consider of his proposals. The negotiation proved in the end abortive; but great offence was taken at the publication in this juncture of a letter by the earl of Essex against a peace with Spain.
Raleigh was at this time leaving London in discontent because nothing was done for him;—it does not appear what was now the particular object of his solicitation; but a writer has recorded it as an instance of the prudent reserve of Elizabeth in the advancement of her courtiers, that she would never admit the eloquent and ambitious Raleigh to a seat at her council-board[136].
In the midst of her extreme anxiety for the fate of Ireland,—where Tyrone for the present carried all things at his will, boasting himself the champion of the Romish cause, and proclaiming his expectation of Spanish aid; and of her more intimate and home-felt uneasiness respecting the effect of her measures of chastisement on the haughty mind of Essex,—we find Elizabeth promoting with some affectation the amusements of her court. "This day," says Whyte, "she appoints to see a Frenchman do feats upon a cord in the conduit court. Tomorrow she hath commanded the bears, the bull and the ape to be baited in the tilt-yard; upon Wednesday she will have solemn dancing."