A Busy Life.
The Islands Voyage was the last for many years of Ralegh's personal adventures at sea. After it he found enough, and too much, to occupy him at home. He speaks of himself as 'mad with intricate affairs and want of means.' As soon as he returned he had to take precautions against an expected attack on Falmouth by a Spanish fleet of 110 or 160 sail. Only the tempest which had troubled Essex and him prevented its arrival while he was away. He was arranging for the journey into Spain of a spy, who had a pass from Philip, whereby he might safely look into the ports. He was urging on the Council the despatch of light warships against the Spanish treasure fleet. He represented it as a complement to the preceding expedition, less hazardous and likely to be much more lucrative. The squadron would be absent only in the dead of winter, and could be back by spring, 'sufficient timely to answer any attempt from Spain.' He was provisioning Western ports, paying their garrisons, and reckoning the cost of maintenance of captive Spaniards. He was scolding a presumptuous nephew, John Gilbert. He was upholding the ancient tenures of the Duchy of Cornwall, and resisting the exaction of obsolete licences for drying and packing fish. He was relieving miners from extortions by merchants. He was advocating an Irish policy of terrorism, in the course perhaps of a visit to Munster, as Mr. Payne Collier has inferred from the language of his letter itself, rather more confidently than it warrants, though a current rumour that he was out of heart at the moment with his Court prospects favours the hypothesis of self-banishment. At any rate, in October, 1598, he was writing to shame-faced Cecil in defence, it is sad to say, of official connivance at the assassination of Irish rebels: 'It can be no disgrace if it were known that the killing of a rebel were practised. But, for yourself, you are not to be touched in the matter.' In his History he condemns lying in wait privily for blood as wilful murder. In return for his activity and his fierceness he was recognised as both hostile and important enough to be singled out as a mark for the Ultramontane fury which kindled and fed Irish revolts. That at times assumed strange forms. His name is joined in 1597 with those of Cecil and the Lord Admiral as among the Englishmen whom Tempest the Jesuit destined to destruction. The instrument was a poison, for which the sole antidote was the utterance of the word Eguldarphe three times before drinking. Then the glass would break, or the wine, if in a silver cup, would froth and fume.
Counsellor and Debater.
Public affairs and private affairs, small things and great, filled Ralegh's life to overflowing. They were all transacted at high pressure. Everything he did he did with his whole might. He always 'toiled terribly.' He sat in the House of Commons in the winter of 1597-8, and his name often occurs in reports of debates and committees. He spoke on the infesting of the country by pretended soldiers and sailors, on the cognate subject of sturdy vagabonds and beggars, on the fruitful topic of the Queen's debts. He took part in the burning controversy whether the Lords were entitled to receive, seated, Members sent by the Lower House to confer on a Bill, instead of coming down to the bar. He was being consulted by the Privy Council on the right way of dealing with Tyrone's Ulster rising. He was praying a licence for a translation from the Italian of a history of King Sebastian's and Thomas Stukely's invasion of Morocco, on the ground that he had perused and corrected something therein. He was soliciting and obtaining a Governorship. He was seeking the enlargement out of prison of his cousin Henry Carew's 'distressed son.' He was nursing at Bath his ailments, of which their Lordships of the Council were very sorry to hear, and wished him speedy recovery. He was, through Cecil, and with the Queen's leave, applying pressure to Bishop Cotton of Salisbury, at the end of 1598, for the change of his lease of Sherborne into the fee. He was building there a new mansion. He was playing primero at the Palace with Lord Southampton, and doubtless as eagerly, though he did not, like the Peer, threaten to cudgel the Royal Usher who told them they must go to bed. He was exclaiming at the supineness which suffered Spain to prepare expeditions against Flanders or Ireland, capture 'our small men-of-war,' and send safe into Amsterdam 'the ship of the South Sea of Holland, with a lantern of clear gold in her stern, infinite rich—and none of yours stayed her!'
The Rivalry
with Essex.
Never was there a busier existence, or one apparently more evenly occupied. But at this period it had really a single engrossing care, and that was the rivalry with Essex. Once it had looked as if the two might become friends. Before the Islands Voyage, Essex had been closely allied both with him and with Cecil. Afterwards, on an alarm of a Spanish invasion in 1596, Essex and he seem to have been jointly directed to advise on a system of coast defence. Essex drew up a series of questions, to which Ralegh categorically replied. He expressed an opinion that it was not worth while to attempt to fortify aught but 'the river of Thames.' He thought it unwise either to hazard a battle, or to store much ammunition anywhere but in London. His reason was that 'we have few places guardable, Portsmouth excepted.' Essex and he hoped apparently to be given another foreign command. In October, 1597, Ralegh was prompt to report to Cecil the testimony of a Plymouth captain just come from abroad, that 'the Earl our General hath as much fame and reputation in Spain and Italy as ever, and more than, any of our nation had; and that for an enemy he is the most honoured man in Europe.' He appeared to nurse no anger for the reproaches and menaces used at Flores and Fayal. Those were reported by Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney to have been greatly misliked at Court, where Ralegh was 'happy to have good and Attempts at
Friendship. constant friends able by their wisdom and authority to protect and comfort him.' He did not take advantage of his influence there to direct attention to his commander's blunders at St. Michael's. On the contrary, he seized every opportunity, with seeming sincerity, of dwelling upon his courage and capacity. He exhibited friendliness in various ways. In December, 1597, he had accepted a mission from the Queen to compromise a question of precedence between Essex and the Lord High Admiral. Towards the beginning of 1598 he, Essex, and Cecil again met often at Essex House and Cecil House in secret conclave. Cecil in February, 1598, was sent to France on a mission to dissuade Henry IV from concluding a separate peace with Spain. His journey was made an occasion for special demonstrations of goodwill among the rival courtiers. Entertainments were given him in which Ralegh with Lady Ralegh, and members of the Essex party, like Lord Southampton and Lady Walsingham, equally participated. Essex accepted favours from Ralegh and Cecil. Ralegh offered him a third of the prizes he had captured. Cecil procured him a grant of £7000 from the sale of the cochineal belonging to the Crown. He was believed to have reciprocated the kindness of each by promising Cecil that in his absence nothing disagreeable to him should be done, and Ralegh, that he would join Cecil in having him appointed a Privy Councillor, if not Vice-Chamberlain. But the show of cordiality was deceptive, and Essex chose to imagine himself continually aggrieved. The Islands Voyage had been a failure. The Queen told him it had been. She blamed him for having accomplished nothing at Ferrol. She reproached him with the escape of the plate fleet. He was discontented with himself. His flatterers consoled him by assurances that others were in fault rather than he. They pointed at Ralegh; and the old jealousy revived with redoubled violence.
Ralegh was no longer an object for generosity. He was become again a power at Court. He was perpetually consulted on maritime and Irish affairs. Conferences were held between him and the Council in 1599 concerning Ireland, and his advice for the victualling of the garrisons was adopted in the January of the same year. His Western command, at a time when Spanish incursions were from moment to moment possible, brought him into peculiar prominence. When his hopes in 1598 either of the Vice-Chamberlainship, or Tolerance of
Disappointments. of a seat at the Privy Council, were frustrated, he was disappointed; unlike his adversary, he could bear disappointment. He was at once the most patient and the most impatient of men. His was the healthy form of disappointment, which, if an outlet in one quarter be closed, incites to the discovery of another. The gossip of the town reported in October, 1598, that he was meditating a voyage to Guiana in company with Sir John Gilbert: 'He is discontented he thrives no better.' It was one of a Court life's passing clouds, and he treated it so that it should pass. To the diseased mind of Essex he appeared prosperous and triumphant at all points, and beyond all deserving. Even the few laurels of the late expedition had been gathered by him. When they had been at variance, Ralegh had put him in the wrong. Ralegh could not tolerate an insolent superior. Essex could endure no equal. He was ever sulking at Wanstead, or raging. Ralegh's name was the established text for his outbursts of wrath. An anecdote told by the anonymous author, said to be Lord Clarendon, of The Difference between George Duke of Buckingham and Robert Earl of Essex, is supposed to illustrate the humiliations to which his temper exposed him. On the Queen's birthday, November 17, 1598, the accustomed tournament was being held in the Tilt-yard before her Majesty. Ralegh, not brooding on late rebuffs, led a gallant retinue in orange-tawny plumes. Essex had heard of Ralegh's preparations. He entered with his visor down, at the head of a larger and more magnificent troop flaunting 2000 feathers of the same colour. It must be admitted that, as Horace Walpole remarks, 'the affront is not very intelligible at present.' Apparently, he wished to produce an impression by his 'glorious feather triumph' that Ralegh and his followers were a company of esquires or pages. But the two bodies tilted, and Essex 'ran very ill.'
Essex in Ireland.
In chagrin, and almost despair, Essex at the end of March, 1599, went over to Ireland as Lord Deputy. The vacancy had been a theme of much dispute at Court. In 1598, Ralegh, Sir Robert Sidney, and Sir Christopher Blount, Essex's step-father, had been mentioned by rumour for the appointment. In March, Rowland Whyte had written positively to Sir Robert Sidney that it had been decided to nominate either Sir William Russell or Ralegh, but Russell had absolutely declined, and 'the other doth little like it.' Perilous as the post was, 'a fair way to destruction,' as Whyte described it, a refusal of it by Ralegh, had the choice been given him, is incredible. Essex in any case preserved enough influence to have hindered his nomination. At last, to exclude others, and to keep himself before the world, Essex consented to be appointed. As soon as he had landed in Ireland he began to bemoan his 'banishment and proscription into the cursedest of all islands.' So loud was his discontent as to give rise to extraordinary popular fancies. London was in the August of 1599 barricaded for a fortnight. A fleet was put in commission under Lord Thomas Howard as Admiral. Ralegh was Vice-Admiral, and 'took leave at Court of all the ladies' about August 18. He stayed in the Downs for three weeks or a month. The ostensible, and doubtless the true, reason was the threat of a Spanish descent upon the Isle of Wight. But not a few believed that it was a precaution, less against the Spaniard than against an apprehended invasion by Essex from Ireland. Wild as was the rumour, it was favoured by the reckless talk of Essex and his companions. Sir Christopher Blount on the scaffold confessed to Ralegh that some had designed the transport of a choice part of the army of Ireland to Milford, and a march upon London.