During his confinement in the Tower he discovered another grievance against his "Belphoebe:" she prohibited him from sharing to the full in the expedition of 1592 which ended in the capture of the great Spanish carack, the "Madre de Dios." And, besides, the Queen's greed made the division of the spoils so extremely unequal that he, "to whom the success was owing, who bore the toils and burden of it all, was considerably the loser," whereas Lord Cumberland (who had invested only a relatively small sum in the piratical venture) made £17,000 profit.
Circumstances into which we need not now enter brought about his release from the Tower. But "freedom from confinement did not bring with it a return of the royal graciousness, and for some years he was practically an exile from the Court" (Buchan). Early in 1593 he was in retirement at his manor of Sherborne in Dorset, where he spent the time in hunting, hawking, cultivating potatoes, and attempting to grow tobacco. That this sort of life, coupled with ostracism from the Court (the latter extended also to his wife), must have been dreadfully galling to this bold and adventurous spirit, always hankering for battle and enterprise, can hardly be doubted. He seems to have been firmly convinced that in his case the Queen—who had been known to overlook the fickleness of lovers—would be obdurate and never again have anything to do with him. Here, then, at the age of forty, he saw his career ended, his dreams of power and rule shattered.
Would he permit himself to be doomed to a life of inaction and obscurity, to "keep a farm and carters?" Of course he would not. We know that he brooded on schemes of maritime adventure as an escape from the boredom to which an insulted Queen had banished him. London fascinated him and drew him like a magnet; the records show that he paid frequent visits to the capital. To keep in touch with the world he had himself elected to Parliament—and to his credit be it said that, notwithstanding the odium in which he was generally held, he took a lively interest in public affairs and championed what was just and reasonable in popular demands.
The Queen took advantage of every means in her power to harass him and make him feel the settled hate in her heart. Thus, she now made him recall all his people from Ireland where he had established a colony on his estates in the Counties of Westford and Cork; after Michaelmas, 1594, she ordered him to pay a rental of 100 Marks (instead of the 50 Marks he had been in the habit of paying) for one of his Irish estates. (See Malone's Variorum, 1821, vol. 2, p. 573.)
That he was watching his opportunity to get back into power, to find an outlet for his talents, to get into the limelight in the political arena, rather than to be restored to the Queen's good graces, seems to be proved by several circumstances. He protested loudly—no doubt more loudly than the circumstances warranted—against the Government's blundering policies as regards Ireland, and advocated a resolute and consistent despotism, sustained, if necessary, by treachery and murder. About this time—on February 28, 1593, to be exact—he also advocated open war with Spain. Three weeks later he opposed the bill in the House of Commons for the extension of the privileges of aliens in England. In the discussion of the latter measure he was the only one who spoke of expelling the strangers.
Sir Walter's attitude to the foreigners who were the objects of the city's "exceeding pitiful and great exclamations" at this time is deserving of careful attention. So grave was the situation that it occupied the House of Commons during several sessions (March 21, 23, and 24, 1593). Unmindful of the humanitarian pleas of some of his associates (Mr. Finch, Sir Robert Cecil, and others), Ralegh expostulated: "Whereas it is pretended, That for strangers it is against Charity, against Honour, against Profit to expel them; in my opinion it is no matter of Charity to relieve them.... I see no reason that so much respect should be given unto them. And to conclude, in the whole cause I see no matter of Honour, no matter of Charity, no Profit in relieving them."[37]
That his policies on public questions were the expression of his secret purposes cannot be doubted. A man, constituted as he was, conscious of his powers, his talents, his unemployed energy, his versatility, his military ability and skill, his scientific attainments, his popularity with the crews of his ships,[38] his ambitions, and smarting under the disabilities attendant on being in disgrace, would without a doubt be keenly on the alert for any opportunity that chance might offer to bring him back into a position of influence and power.
Sir Walter, like others of his distinguished contemporaries, was capable of treasonous intrigue against his Queen. This may reasonably be deduced from a letter of his written—on July 6, 1597—to the none too scrupulous Robert Cecil. In that letter he says: "I acquaynted the L: Generall [i.e., The Earl of Essex] wth your ... kynd acceptance of your enterteynment; hee was also wonderfull merry att ye consait of Richard the 2. I hope it shall never alter, & whereof I shall be most gladd of, as the treu way to all our good, quett, & advacemet, & most of all for her sake whose affaires shall therby fy[n]d better progression." This passage has been a hopeless conundrum to the biographers, but as Edward Edwards has shown,[39] there can be little doubt that it refers to Shakspere's Richard the Second which was then being performed at the Globe Theatre. It will be recalled that this tragedy, destined to play an important rôle in 1601 in the treasonous enterprise of the Lord General Essex, at this time included the celebrated "deposition scene" (IV. i, 154-318) which the Queen, conceiving that Richard II was a mask for herself, sternly disapproved of.[40] To the psychologist there will be profound significance in the unusual (and hitherto unnoticed) subscription to the above letter by Ralegh: "Sir, I will ever be yours: it is all I can saye, & I will performe it with my life & wth my fortune." He wrote better than he knew.
But let us return to 1593. Being in the frame of mind we have already described, and knowing that he could rely on the crews of his ships and the men of Devon, this malcontent must have thought of ways and means of bringing about some situation which would enable him to play a conspicuous part, get close to the Queen, oust his enemies from the Court, and possibly even take charge of the Government, as Essex planned to do a few years later. His life at the Court had acquainted him with the arts of indirect dealing. The hostility between the natives and the aliens and between the city and the national Government seemed to offer the coveted opportunity. We must remember that at this time he was in London a great deal; that he advocated publicly the expulsion of the aliens; that he was attempting to fan into a flame the smouldering anti-Hispanism, was openly criticising the Government's Irish policy, and was not without powerful political friends.[41]
It seems not too far-fetched, therefore, to conjecture that directly or indirectly, possibly with the assistance of his intimate associate, his other self, Harriott,[42] he convinced the manager of a theatrical company, preferably the Admiral's, that a play dealing with Sir Thomas More and the "ill May day" of 1517 would be timely and might prove a money maker.[43] Munday, "our best plotter," and his young associates, Heywood and Chettle, were entrusted with the task. They at once betook themselves to Hall's Chronicle, familiarized themselves with More's career, met together to outline the play, and set to work. Fortunately or unfortunately, however, for the course of history, the writing and revision of the play did not go on to completion.[44] The plague, which drove the actors out of London, may have had something to do with it, but the greater likelihood is that the revisers were interrupted by the informer's betrayal of Kyd's participation in a plot to expel French and Flemish subjects from London. And thus the plan centering around the tragedy of Sir Thomas Moore came to naught. For the time being, Sir Walter Ralegh's plots to be revenged on an unreasonable and irascible queen were frustrated, but, unfortunately for English literature, not before Christopher Marlowe had become so enmeshed in them that they cost him his life.