In the meantime Lord Burleigh and the Earl of Cumberland, with a herald, had entered the City and proclaimed Essex a traitor; a thousand pounds being offered for his apprehension. Despairing of success, the mad earl then turned towards his own house, and finding Ludgate barricaded by a strong party of citizens under Sir John Levison, attempted to force his way, killing two or three citizens, and losing Tracy, a young friend of his own. Then striking down to Queenhithe, the earl and some fifty followers who were left took boat for Essex Gardens.
On entering his house, he found that his treacherous confidant, Sir Ferdinand Gorges, had made terms with the court and released the hostages. Essex then, by the advice of Lord Sandys, resolved to fortify the place, hold out to the last extremity, and die sword in hand. In a few minutes, however, the Lord Admiral’s troops surrounded the building. A parley ensued between Sir Robert Sidney in the garden, and Essex and his rash ally, Shakspere’s patron, the Earl of Southampton, who were on the roof. The earl’s demands were proudly refused, but a respite of two hours was given him, that the ladies and female servants might retire. About six the battering train arrived from the Tower, and Essex then wisely surrendered at discretion.[41]
The night being very dark, and the tide not serving to pass the dangers of London Bridge, Essex and Southampton were taken by boat to Lambeth Palace, and the next morning to the Tower.
Essex had fully deserved death. He was executed privately, by his own request, at the Tower, February 25, 1601. Meyrick, his steward, and Cuffe, his secretary, were hanged and quartered at Tyburn. Sir Charles Davers and Sir Christopher Blount perished on Tower Hill. Other prisoners were fined and imprisoned, and the Earl of Southampton pined in durance till the accession of James I. (1603).
Among the even older tenants of Essex House, we must not forget that unhappy woman, the earl’s mother, who, first as Lettice Knollys, then as Countess of Essex, afterwards as Lady Leicester, and next as wife of Sir Christopher Blount, was a barb in Elizabeth’s side for thirty years. Married as a girl to a noble husband, she gave up her honour to a seducer, and there is reason to think that she consented to the taking of his life. While Devereux lived, she deceived the queen by a scandalous amour, and, after his death, by a clandestine marriage with the Earl of Leicester. While Dudley lived, she wallowed in licentious love with Christopher Blount, his groom of the horse. When her second husband expired in agony at Cornbury, not an hour’s gallop from the place in which Amy Robsart died, she again mortified the queen by a secret union with her last seducer, Blount. Her children rioted in the same vices. Essex himself, with his ring of favourites, was not more profligate than his sister Penelope, Lady Rich.[42]
This sister was the (Platonic?) mistress of Sydney, whose stolen love for her is pictured in his most voluptuous verse. On his death at Zütphen, she lived with Lord Montjoy, though her husband, Lord Rich, was still alive. Nor was her sister Dorothy one whit better. After marrying one husband secretly and against the canon, she wedded Percy, the wizard Earl of Northumberland, whom she led the life of a dog, until he indignantly turned her out of doors.[43] It is not easy, observes Mr. Dixon, except in Italian story, to find a group of women so depraved and so detestable as the mother and sisters of the Earl of Essex.
Essex, the rash noble, who died at the untimely age of thirty-three, had a dangerous, ill-tempered face, if we may judge by More’s portrait of him. He stooped in walking, danced badly, and was slovenly in his dress;[44] yet being a generous, frank friend, an impetuous and chivalrous if not wise soldier, and an enemy of Spain and the Cecils, he became a favourite of the people. The legend of the ring sent by Essex to the queen,[45] and maliciously detained by the Countess of Nottingham, we shall presently discuss. No applications for mercy by Essex (and he made many during his trial) affect the question of his deserving death. That the queen consented with regret to the death of Essex, on the other hand, needs no doubtful legend to serve as proof.
Elizabeth had forgiven the earl’s joining the Cadiz fleet against her wish, she forgave his secret marriage, she forgave his shameful abandonment of his Irish command and even his dishonourable treaty with Tyrone, but she could not forgive an open and flagrant rebellion at a time when she was so surrounded by enemies.
An historical writer, gifted with an eminently analytical mind, Mr. Hepworth Dixon, has lately, with great ingenuity, endeavoured to refute the charges of ingratitude brought against Bacon for his time serving and (to say the least) undue eagerness in aggravating the crimes of his old and generous friend. There can be, however, no doubt that Bacon too soon abandoned the unfortunate Essex, and, moreover, threw the weight of much misapplied learning into the scale against the prisoner. No minimising of the favours received by him from Essex can in my mind remove this stain from Bacon’s reputation.
In Essex House was born a less brilliant but a happier and a more prudent man—Robert, Earl of Essex, afterwards the well-known Parliamentary general. A child when his father died on the scaffold, he was placed under the care of his grandmother, Lady Walsingham, and was afterwards at Eton under the severe Saville. A good, worthy, heavy lad, brought up a Presbyterian, he was betrothed when only fourteen to Lady Frances Howard, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, who was herself only thirteen.