His character.
In his lifetime Essex did many things which history must condemn, though he seems not in any way to have accused himself. On his deathbed he showed himself a hero, if patience under suffering and faith without worldly hope are to be considered heroic attributes. Two days before his death he wrote to Elizabeth, besought her forgiveness for any offence he might have given, and begged her to be a mother to his children. He reminded her that his son would be poor through his debts to the Crown, and that she would be no loser by remitting them, since the minor’s wardship would amount to as much or more. In another letter he recommended his son to the care of Burghley and Sussex, ‘to the end that he might frame himself to the example of my Lord of Sussex in all the actions of his life, tending either to the wars, or to the institution of a noble man, so he might also reverence your lordship for your wisdom and gravity, and lay up your counsels and advice in the treasury of his heart.’ He sent his love to Philip Sidney, ‘and wished him so well that if God do move both their hearts, I wish that he might match with my daughter. I call him son; he so wise, so virtuous, and godly; and if he go on in the course he hath begun, he will be as famous and worthy a gentleman as ever England bred.’ As regards Sidney he spoke prophetically, and it is but reasonable to suppose that had Penelope Devereux become his wife she would have been the glory instead of the scandal of her age. With almost his last words he sang a hymn which he had composed, and at the end ‘he strove to praise even when his voice could not be heard.’ When it failed altogether, Mr. Waterhouse—his faithful friend always—‘holding him by the hands, bade him give a sign if he understood the prayers, and at the name of Jesus he held up both his hands, and with that fell asleep in Christ as meekly as a lamb.’[331]
Leicester’s conduct to Essex.
The Jesuit Parsons accused Leicester of poisoning Essex, and he was probably not incapable of such a deed. The charge was made at the time, but Sidney’s contemporary account fully disposes of what he calls ‘a false and malicious brute,’ and the accusation was not made by any of those who were about the sick bed, nor was it believed by the dying man himself. But if Leicester is to be acquitted of poisoning the man whose widow he married, it is not so easy to clear him of having gained her affections clandestinely while using his political influence to keep her husband at a distance. In one letter Leicester hints that Essex does not expose his own person enough, and speaks somewhat slightingly of his abilities; nevertheless, he was angry with Sidney for not doing more to facilitate his return to Ireland. On the other hand, it would appear that Essex was on friendly terms with Leicester. What seems really clear is that Essex did not care much for his wife. His will contains no loving mention of her, and his last letter to the Queen speaks of the burden which dowries would lay upon his son’s inheritance. On his deathbed he spoke much of his daughters, lamenting the time which ‘is so frail and ungodly, considering the frailness of woman.’ While asking Elizabeth to be a mother to his son, he abstained from saying a word about that son’s natural mother. And it is evident that he cared little for his wife’s society; for after the failure of his great enterprise he was ready to live ‘altogether private in a corner of Ulster,’ rather than return home. The facts seem to exonerate Leicester from the charge of poisoning, but tally very well with the common report that he kept the Earl in Ireland while he made love to the Countess.[332]
Agitation against the cess.
The truth hard to discover.
The Queen continually upbraided Sidney with the expense of his government. He, on the contrary, maintained that there was no waste, and that the cost of supporting an army, without which government was impossible, grew greater every day. There had been a rise in prices unaccompanied by any increase in revenue, and the soldier found it hard to live without being burdensome to the country. The gentlemen of the Pale now took the high ground that no tax could be imposed except by Parliament or a Grand Council, though the cess was a customary payment, which in one form or another had been exacted since Henry IV.’s time. Sidney stood upon the prerogative, in this case strengthened by custom, ‘and not limited by Magna Charta, nor found in Littleton’s Tenures, nor written in the Book of Assizes, but registered in the remembrance of her Majesty’s Exchequer, and remaining in the Rolls of Records of the Tower, as her Majesty’s treasure.’ It was this Elizabethan way of looking at things that brought Charles I. to the scaffold, but in Sidney’s time no one thought such language strange. The theory that there should be no taxation without consent of Parliament was beginning to be advanced, but few were as yet so bold as openly to propose limits to the royal power. The efficiency of ill-paid soldiers is generally small, and many landlords said they could defend themselves better and more cheaply. The Lords of the Pale were usually called to the Council Board, and had ample opportunities of protesting against the cess. They admitted that it had been regularly imposed for thirty years for victualling the army, and more lately for the viceregal household. The old ‘Queen’s prices’ were not far from the real value, but they had crystallised into fixed rates, while the market had steadily risen, and was now about 150 per cent. higher. No doubt it was difficult to assess payments in kind. ‘The country,’ said Lord Chancellor Gerard, ‘set down notes falsifying the victuallers’ proportion. Because they varied in the weight of every beef and the number of loaves which every peck of corn would make, I played the butcher and baker on several market days, and weighed of the best, meanest, and worst sort of beeves, and also weighed the peck of corn and received the same by weight in loaves, containing the weight of 3 lbs. every loaf of bread; and found the same neither too weighty as the country set down, nor too light as the victuallers allege,’ &c.
The country, he said, paid a penny where the Queen paid a shilling. ‘The gentlemen,’ he adds significantly, ‘by their own confession, never lived so civilly and able in diet, clothing, and household, as at this day; marry! the poor churl never so beggarly.’[333]
The Pale sends counsel to London.
The Lords of the Pale, however, sent three lawyers to London to plead their cause, and in the meantime refused to commit themselves by arguing. The advocates selected were men of family, and thoroughly acquainted with their views, but not agreeable to Sidney. Barnaby Scurlock he allowed to be a man of credit and influence, but he had lately indulged in ‘undecent and undutiful speech;’ he had made a fortune as Attorney-General, but Sussex had dismissed him for negligence. Richard Netterville was a seditious, mutinous person, who sowed discord and promoted causes against the Government—in fact, an agitator ‘who had bred more unquiet and discontent among the people than any one man had done in Ireland these many years.’ As to Henry Burnell, Recorder of Dublin, whom Fitzwilliam had formerly described as one of the best spoken and most learned men in Ireland, but a perverse Papist, Sidney could only wish he would mind his practice at the Bar, which had made him rich, and not meddle with her Majesty’s prerogative. He was, he says, ‘the least unhonest of the three, and yet he trusted to see the English Government withdrawn.’[334]