At his right hand worked Sir Francis Walsingham, who was more astute, but lacked Burghley's greatness of mind. Walsingham was an admirable servant: he would never have been successful under the full weight of responsibility. It was he who developed the system of espionage through every country in Europe, and brought it to an uncanny perfection. That system of secret messages was typical of the day; it was so easy to keep facts hidden, and to pervert them advantageously when news travelled so slowly, that it was a necessity to have reliable men on every spot to check statements and to watch events and tendencies. When Walsingham died in 1590, Burghley showed his indomitable energy by mastering the intricate cyphers and details connected with the business; he was then at the good age of seventy.
As his health failed, his son, Robert Cecil, took more and more of his great father's responsibilities upon himself; and "The Little Secretary," as the queen called him, became gradually the most important man in the realm. He was craftier than his father, and more adaptable, but he never rose to the greatness of Lord Burghley. His figure is not so imposing; there was something under-hand about his conduct, which does not appear in the slow, diplomatic wisdom of the older man.
There comes a strange interest in knowing that this great intelligence of Burghley arranged not only the affairs of the State, but the details of his household with the same impassive power. His steward writes to him about a new gown which is wanted for his mother: "The gown that you would make it must be for every day and yet because it comes from you (except you write to her to the contrary) she will make it her holiday gown, whereof she hath great store already, both of silk and cloth. But I think, sir, if you make her one of cloth with some velvet on it, with your letter to desire her for your sake to wear it daily, she would accustom herself to it: so as she would forget to go any longer in such base apparel as she hath used to have a delight in which is too mean for one of a lower estate than she is."
And of Burghley's earlier days, Roger Ascham gives an attractive glimpse in his introduction to The Schoolmaster, where he shows the man's methodical life and wide interests; for the renewal of learning did not at all pass Burghley by; he was an enthusiast about the proper pronunciation of the Greek tongue, and in 1541 was hotly engaged in the disputes. But to old Ascham: he writes about the important dinner, in 1563, at which the subject of his book was suggested to him: "M. Secretary hath this accustomed manner though his head be never so full of most weightie matters of the Realme, yet, at diner time he doth seeme to lay them alwaies aside; and findeth ever fit occasion to taulke pleasantly of other matters, but most gladly of some matter of learning: wherein he will curteslie heare the minde of the meanest at his table."
It is refreshing to see how in his private life he was a simple-minded man, who suffered from the gout and was plagued with quack remedies, all of which he carefully docketed, having no doubt tried their efficacy before he set them on one side.
Such were the chief figures when Ralegh came to the Court.
Nothing illustrates his rapid rise in favour so well as a letter which Ralegh writes to Lord Burghley from the Court at Greenwich. The letter shows that Burghley had asked for his help on behalf of his son-in-law, the Earl of Oxford, who was bitterly hostile to Ralegh and had, as may be gathered from the letter, gone out of his way to do him an injury. "I delivered Her Your Lordship's letter. What I said further, how honorable and profittabell it weare for Her Majestie to have regard to Your Lordship's healthe and quiett, I leve to the witnesse of God and good reporte of Her Highnesse. And the more to witnesse how desirous I am of Your Lordship's favor and good opinion, I am contente, for your sake, to laye the sarpente before the fire, as miche as in me lieth, that, having recovered strengthe, myself may be moste in danger of his poyson and stinge. For answere, Her Majestie would give me none other, but that she woulde satisfye Your Lordship, of whom she ever had, and would ever have, special regard.... I humblie take my lave. From Grenewiche this present Friday, May 12, 1583."
Here is Lord Burghley using the help of the young man whose valour and address in Ireland he had observed and whom he had helped to make. Ralegh is now prominent among the courtiers; he takes a leading part in the life of the Court, and the life of the Court is brilliant and occupied. The town was too small and the streets of the town too narrow for the courtiers to hold themselves aloof, as money allows the fashionable to do now; no special quarter of the town was assigned to them. They kept themselves distinct from the townspeople without the help of locality or space. The laws helped them, however, in the matter of dress. Curious sumptuary laws were still in force, which forbade any one under the degree of baron to have more than three linings to his breeches; which forbade any one whose income was less than £100 a year to wear satin, damask, silk, camlet, or taffeta, and any one who was not worth more than £200 to wear velvet or embroidery. "The English," writes Van Meteron, a Dutch historian and contemporary, "dress in elegant light and costly garments but they are very inconstant and desirous of novelties, changing their fashions every year, both men and women. When they go abroad riding or travelling, they don their best clothes, contrary to the practice of other nations." And to this craze for constant novelty in dress a contemporary poem bears amusing witness—
"Hees Hatted Spanyard-like, and bearded to,
Ruft Itallyon-like, pac'd like them also;
His hose and doublet Frenche: his boots and shoes
Are fashond Pole in heeles, but French in toes.
Oh! hees complete: what shall I descant on?
A compleate Foole? noe, compleate Englishe mon."
This fashion of dress lent wide scope to bad taste, and such books as Dekker's delightful Guls Hornbook show how hard gulls tried to be gallants and how ridiculously they often failed. And it gave the genuine courtier full scope for magnificence. Ralegh could wear white satin and pearls.
Not only in dress was the courtier distinct, but also in language. Fashions in speech were constantly in vogue. None was more pronounced than the fashion set by John Lyly, who wrote elegant court plays and the novel Euphues. Of Euphues with his instructive letters and sound moral tone Sir Charles Grandison is the direct descendant: Richardson owed as much to Lyly, as Defoe to Thomas Nash or Fielding to Defoe. But that is a literary by-path which leads to the history of fiction. His immediate influence was on the speech of the courtiers and the language of the Court. "That beautie in Court which could not parley Euphuisme was as shee which now there speaks not French." John Lyly came to Court about 1577 and was helped by Lord Burghley; perhaps the rage of affectation which he started, gave the stern Lord Treasurer a distaste for poets and was one of the reasons which made him disinclined to favour Spenser afterwards. Probably Lyly seemed innocuous enough at first, with his modest desire to lie shut in a lady's casket rather than open in a scholar's library. No one could have foreseen the frenzied fashion which he inaugurated and which with its stilted periphrases must have been sorely irritating to the great matter-of-fact man of business. No wonder he looked askance at poets. Euphuism, as the jargon is called, has been described many times; it was the first effort in English towards ornament in speech. In itself it was wholly good; in its excess it was wholly bad.
As a fashion of speech it must have been not a little wearisome. And indeed that proved to be the case; for its place was taken about as soon as dull people were beginning to obtain the knack of it by another fashion, no less elaborate, but of a different manner of elaborateness taken from Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia. Here a jingle on one word was the effect to be obtained, as for example, "Each senselesse thing had sense of pity; only they that had sense were senselesse." This fashion set by a writer upon the speech of the fashionable finds a modern counterpart in the influence of Oscar Wilde, with this difference that his pointed epigram becomes feeble nonsense and his genius for using the right word degenerates into amiable talk about passionate neckties and purple sin; whereas with Lyly's and Sidney's manner no imitation could be feebler or more exaggerated than the original often is—not always. Lyly has real wit and fancy, especially in his charming court plays, as when he writes, "They give us pap with a spoon before we can speak, and when we speake for that we love, pap with a hatchet"; there he is inimitable.
The common task of dress and language was sufficiently elaborate to keep a courtier of average intelligence busy. And when he was equipped in mind and body there were countless ceremonies and functions at which his presence was expected. The Queen was in continual progress, and every progress was a pageant, whether by land or river, whether she were journeying from one palace to another, or visiting a university to encourage learning, a town or a noble subject to show her gracious favour and to give her subjects the opportunity of proving by their hospitality their loyalty. She kept in constant touch with her people. And on her progresses she was accompanied by her principal courtiers, who were themselves followed by a suite of gentlemen retainers. In this excellent display of the superficial side of life—the very panoply of existence—Ralegh by his wit and by his bearing was conspicuous. He was as famous for his power of turning a neat phrase as he was famous for his power of wearing with grace a fortune in one suit. Many men were obliged to give all their attention to the brilliant outside of things to keep pace at all with the changes of phrase and habit; and would never be at ease in either. Ralegh owed his envied distinction in both chiefly to the reason that he always held them at their proper value. His nature was magnificent, and instinct led him naturally to a height which others could not climb to with the greatest conscious effort. In that he was like his mistress, Queen Elizabeth.
It is fitting that such life should be gorgeously caparisoned; there was no homespun in its disposition.
But there is another side to the picture of this Court, a second party in the Court and the country. For some fifteen years another woman had been living under restraint in England—a woman who was the mother of a king; who had been queen of two kingdoms and aspired to be queen of a third; she was of great personal power though not so powerful as Elizabeth. She was a devout Catholic and was called Mary, Queen of Scots. A large number of gentlemen had remained faithful to their religion. These Catholics were divided roughly into two classes, those who were faithful to their religion and to their country, and those who were primarily faithful to their religion and would stop at nothing to establish Catholicism again in England They looked on Mary, Queen of Scots, as their rightful head. The moderate Catholics wanted to make sure that she would succeed Elizabeth; the fanatical Catholics wanted to kill the usurper at once and let Mary reign in her stead.
As years passed by and Elizabeth remained unmarried and averse to the mention even of a successor, the question became acute, not in England only but throughout Europe. Spain and France were anxious to have a Catholic sovereign in England; but neither wanted the other to have the added strength of England as a dependency. Elizabeth kept playing them off one against the other with her various matrimonial schemes; and Mary was in correspondence with them, trying to exact promises of assistance. Intrigue grew more and more involved. At last matters came to a head. It became recognized, after the dismissal of the Duc d'Anjou as a suitor, that Time itself would no longer permit a marriage for Elizabeth. The Catholics in larger numbers resolved that her death was imperative and the death of her strong supporters. Elizabeth with the fearlessness of true strength had allowed Mary great freedom of correspondence in her confinement. Now she cut her off from the outside world, until a diplomatic necessity arose to know exactly how far foreign powers were prepared to support Mary, how far they were speaking their true intentions in their dealings with Elizabeth. Walsingham had spies in every influential Catholic household in England, at all the Courts and even the Jesuitical centres in Spain and France. But the information was not yet sufficient. Nothing illustrates more effectively the extraordinary difficulty of obtaining accurate news in those days of slow travelling and messengers, than the elaborate method which Walsingham and Elizabeth were obliged to arrange at this juncture. It is a mistake to suppose it illustrates the treachery and deceitfulness of the times. The times have changed not in moral tone but in quickness of transit. Men are very much the same; but steam and electricity, the telegraph, the telephone, and a postal system have altered the aspect of affairs and the methods of conducting business or intrigue.
The plan they contrived was both ingenious and successful. With the help of one Gilbert Gifford, trained in unscrupulous cunning by the Jesuits, they encouraged Mary to open a correspondence with her confederates abroad, and they tapped this correspondence at the fountain-head. Mary was removed to Chartley, near the home of Gifford, whose family was staunchly Catholic. A brewer at Burton supplied Chartley with beer. Into the cask of specially good beer for Mary and her attendants and secretaries was fitted a water-tight box, and in this box were placed the letters. With the brewer was staying Walsingham's secretary Phillipps, a thin red-haired man skilled in cypher, and he transcribed all the letters at Burton before they were sent through an underground post, which had been carefully arranged by the young and innocent-looking Gilbert Gifford, to the Jesuit agency in London. Only six people knew of the whole scheme. Elizabeth, Walsingham, Gifford, Phillipps, Paulet, Mary's Puritan keeper, and the brewer of Burton. The brewer was evidently a man whose business instinct was fully developed. Not only did he receive large and complicated bribes from Elizabeth and from Mary, but he demanded also a higher price for his beer. This demand shocked the good Paulet unspeakably, and throws an interesting sidelight upon the moral sense of the day, and proves that it worked as subtly then as it works now.
From this correspondence Elizabeth learned, what her strange foresight taught her to expect, that France and Spain were too frightened of each other to take any resolute step against her in favour of Mary. But it happened also that she learnt something quite unexpected and of extreme importance, and that was the plot which is known as the Babington conspiracy. She was able to thwart a national calamity and to preserve her own life.
Among the most fanatical of the Catholic disaffected was a Jesuit, named John Ballard. He had obtained a private bull from Gregory XIII., sanctioning the murder of Elizabeth, and was unremitting in his efforts to find a man daring enough to undertake the task. He travelled through England, disguised in blue velvet, as Captain Fortescue, rousing all the Catholic gentlemen to concerted action, and convincing them that Elizabeth's death was a papal necessity. Lord Arundel vouched that he could answer for the Tower, though he was a prisoner within its walls; his uncle, Lord Henry, would raise the eastern counties; Sir William Courtenay promised to seize Plymouth; Lord Montague, Lord Vaux, Lord Stourton, Lord Windsor, and many others, whose names on earth are dark, swore a great oath to stand by the cause and by themselves. Everything was in readiness for a general rising so soon as the blow should fall which should rid England of Elizabeth. The letters of Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, show how confident he is of a complete revolution. Certainly Elizabeth had need of staunch friends whom she was wise to bind to herself by every tie her personality could fashion, and staunch friends she possessed and held in her possession.
And now the men were found at last by Ballard who were ready to strike the blow. They were men who waited upon the Queen's person. The chief amongst them was Anthony Babington, of Dethick, in Derbyshire. He had been a page at Sheffield when the Queen of Scots was first in charge of Lord Shrewsbury, and, like many other men, young and old, who came under the fascination of her influence, he was passionately devoted to her, with all the strength of devotion that a beautiful woman in distress—still more, a beautiful queen—must inevitably arouse. The spirit of chivalry which the great rival Queens infuse into these plots takes away the sordidness and pettiness which breathes from mere political intrigue, and lends a poignant majesty to the terrible dramatic end of it all. This Anthony Babington obtained the help of Charles Tilney, one of Elizabeth's gentleman pensioners, of Edward Abington, the son of her under-treasurer, of Jones, of Dunn, of Robert Barnwell, who was an Irishman on a visit to the Court, and of other young men. Walsingham and Elizabeth knew of them all, and watched them continually. Elizabeth's bravery was magnificent Any moment she might have met death at the hand of an assassin; but she remained undaunted. Her fearlessness no doubt affected the conspirators, though quite unconsciously. They did not know that their every action was watched. Like many other young enthusiasts, they were reckless and self-confident to the verge of lunacy, and as soon as they came to realize that their plot was found out, they lost their heads completely. Abject fear took the place of their courage. They saw the resistless power that was ranged against them, waiting. They fled; but it was too late. The plot was revealed to the public. Ignominy and shameful death awaited the men who hoped to be welcomed as the saviours of their religion, the daring knights of their queen-lady. Their names were proclaimed and the nature of their intentions. Babington had fled to St. John's Wood, which was then a "forest interspersed with farms," and from there he managed to make his way to Harrow, where he with four others lay hid on haystacks and in the straw of barns. But they did not remain long undiscovered. Amid the ringing of bells and the wildest rejoicings they were taken back to London. And very soon they were hung, drawn and quartered publicly.
How many knew of the Queen's imminent danger is not certain. Probably she kept it from her most intimate friends. Her strength was equal even to that. Nor is it known how much Ralegh knew of his mistress's danger; it is not likely that he was entirely ignorant of it, for to him was given the whole of Babington's estates, which were large and remunerative. It is certainly a last proof of Queen Elizabeth's amazing vitality, that in the midst of this dangerous turmoil of plot and counterplot which surrounded her, she was able to find occasion for the display of love and affection. For it was during these last desperate endeavours of the Catholic party that she first drew Ralegh to herself. She had seen to his advancement, and taken care that he was provided with the wealth that he needed for his position at Court and that his personal taste for magnificence desired. She had given him the Farm of Wines, which, even allowing for the money that one Richard Browne tricked him out of, brought him in a good income; and, in 1585, he succeeded Francis, Earl of Bedford, as Lord Warden of the Stannaries, and shortly afterwards became Lieutenant of the county of Cornwall, and Vice-Admiral of the counties of Cornwall and Devon. The Queen had need of staunch friends around her. And it is not due only to a woman's whim, at which many have mocked, that she kept these men, her favourites, at Court even sometimes against their will, as when she prevented Sidney, in 1585, from heading the Virginian colonists, and, a year or two later, sent Sir Robert Carey to fetch back the Earl of Essex. Their presence became a necessity to her, because their presence helped to vouch for her personal safety. It gave her an assurance of security to see such men by her side, though doubtless their presence flattered her vanity as well. Moreover, there seems to be something exhilarating in a woman who could go in perpetual danger and known danger of murder, and yet keep to the end her woman's desire for admiration, which is the producer of many graces, and not at all in itself a proof of pettiness. It depends upon what she considers to be admirable.
The Babington conspiracy by which Ralegh was ultimately enriched brought about a crisis between the loyal and disaffected. The result of the ingenuity of Walsingham and Elizabeth in contriving the plan by which Mary, Queen of Scots betrayed herself, placed her intentions beyond all question. It was clear that she intended to stop at nothing; that she was anxious for Elizabeth's murder. It was certainly the easiest solution to her difficulties, and she was the protectress of the true religion, the head of which had sanctioned the murder. She was that most dangerous of enemies, a sincerely religious woman of great cleverness and no principles. Without discussing the ethics of murder and execution, it is easy to understand Mary's position; and it is not easy to understand Elizabeth's conduct. Mary was found guilty of high treason, and the law of the land assessed the penalty for high treason at death. But Elizabeth could not bring herself to sign the death warrant. It is difficult to understand why. She was supported by the authority of the kingdom, but she tried to avoid this last responsibility. Her conduct illustrates the peculiar blend of craft and sensitiveness which circumstances had developed in her character, and which, be it noted, were conspicuous traits of many other great characters of the time—conspicuously, for example, of Bacon and of Ralegh. She tried to make Walsingham incur the responsibility and the odium of the deed. She abused him when he demurred at her proposal. And finally, when she had given her signature, she swore that it had been by a mistake, and Walsingham, for ever impoverished by her displeasure, retired indignant to his house at Barnelms. He became hateful to her, and nothing could reinstate him in her favour. It was as though he were a tool which she had cut herself in using, which she flung from her in anger and without compunction.
But at length the day of Mary's death came. That was pre-eminently the time of pageant and display—the display of gorgeous life in the great Court functions; the display of dreadful death in the public executions. Both were combined in dramatic intensity at this last scene of Mary's life. Hers was a Queen's death.
In November of the year 1586 her sentence was passed. For three months Europe was agitated by uncertainty whether the sentence would be carried out, and what would be the result of her death, if it were. For three months she held her ground as the martyr of her religion, an unassailable position. For three months she decked her tragedy with the robes of majesty and of pathetic grace. When Paulet tore down the regal hangings from her room, saying that they no longer became a traitress, she hung the crucifix in their place and pointed to it in silence when he came to her again.
The day of her execution was the second Wednesday in February, 1587. Three hundred knights were assembled in the hall of Fotheringay Castle. When the Provost-Marshal and the Sheriff came to fetch her from her room, they found her no longer dressed in the customary grey cloth, but clothed in a robe of black satin. Her hand on the arm of one of the guard, she passed tall and erect down the broad oak staircase to the hall. At the end of the hall loomed the scaffold swathed in black; the dancing flames of a great crackling wood fire moved light shadows across its blackness, and flickered on the bright steel of the axe which was leaning against the block. By the block stood the executioners, masked and in black. She who was cousin to the Queen of England, who was a married Queen of France and anointed Queen of Scotland, passed up the hall, followed by her six friends. Her waiting women tried and tried vainly to keep back their sobs—Elizabeth Kennedy and Barbara Mowbray. She ascended the black scaffold and sat down—smiling. Beale read aloud the sentence.
"Madam," said Lord Shrewsbury, "you hear what we are commanded to do." "You will do your duty," was her reply. Then the Dean of Peterborough endeavoured to play his accorded part, but three times he broke down in addressing her. When he at length began to pray, Mary too prayed in Latin, and at length her voice alone sounded through the hall. No longer she prayed in Latin as she had prayed at first, she prayed in English without a falter in her voice. With sublime audacity she prayed that God might forgive and bless her son, James VI. of Scotland, and her cousin, Elizabeth of England, and that He might avert His wrath from Elizabeth's country. She finished; the black mutes stepped forward. The scaffold creaked under their movement. They asked her forgiveness for what they were going to do, according to the custom; and forgiveness was granted them. "I forgive you," she said, "because now I hope that you will end all my troubles." Her ladies, Elizabeth Kennedy and Barbara Mowbray, mounted the steps of the black scaffold in order that they might help her to make ready. They lifted the lawn veil carefully, not to disarrange her hair. Swiftly they removed the black robe; swiftly they took her arms from out the black jacket, slashed with velvet, and set the jacket on one side. Dazzling in crimson satin she stood on the black scaffold, revealed in red satin between the black mutes, as she drew over her white arms crimson sleeves, which her ladies, now trembling, handed to her. But she drew them on as a lady her gloves, without haste. "Ne criez-vous, j'ai promis pour vous," she turned to them and said. She knelt and laid her head on the block: it was hard to her soft neck, so she put her hand underneath, murmuring the Psalm "In Te, Domine, confido." But the headsman moved her hand away, fearing its softness might hinder his business. Then he struck, but the blow fell lightly, and fell on the knot of the hand-kerchief with which her eyes were bound. He struck again, and had only to move the axe across the block to cut the last shred of skin. "So perish all the enemies of the Queen," called out the Dean of Peterborough, as the executioner held out the head at his arm's length. Only the strength of her vitality and her cleverness had kept beauty in her face. The head that was thus held up at arm's length was the head of an old and wrinkled woman. Death grinned.
As they set about stripping the body, a lap-dog, hidden in her clothes, howled and lay down crying out by the neck from which the blood was flowing. It was carried away.
Then all her things—dress, beads, Paternoster, hand-kerchief—were taken to the great wood fire which still burned merrily, and burned before all the people. No relics must be left.
Henry Talbot, son of Lord Shrewsbury, was given the account of the proceedings, and rode off with them post-haste from Fotheringay along the bad roads to London.
So died Mary, Queen of Scots, and her death was one of the surest, most definite steps that was ever taken towards cutting England off from papal authority. Henceforward, England stood alone. Henceforward, the force of patriotism and of religion were to be combined.
Such things happened in the time of Walter Ralegh. He may have been present. If he were, the memory of it must have come to his mind some thirty years later, when he touched the edge of another axe with his thumb and approved of its sharpness.
CHAPTER VI
THE GREAT ENTERPRISE
Scheme of colonization—Preparation—The sailing—Queen's interest—Death of Sir Humfrey Gilbert—Another charter obtained—King Wingina—Hospitality—Sir Richard Grenville—Difficulties of first colonists—Personal outfit—Misfortune.
Court life, for all its brilliance and excitement, did not monopolize Ralegh's attention. He had gained wealth and position: he was near the Queen. That did not suffice him. He was a man of imagination, who could never rest content with the attainment which, as man of action, he had achieved. Rarely have the two qualities been so often combined as they were in the Elizabethan times, and rarely, even then, were they combined with such force and in so high a degree as they were in great Ralegh. He bent his energies on the scheme for colonization. The old idea was that Paradise lay somewhere on the surface of the world; all through the Middle Ages the dream existed. Columbus thought that the earth was probably shaped like a pear, not spherical but elongated, and "on the summit of the protuberance was situated the earthly Paradise, 'whither no one can go but by God's permission.'"
That dream continued. It came to Marlowe and obsessed him. But Marlowe dreamed of no mediæval Paradise.
"Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
In one self-place; for where we are is hell
And where hell is there must we ever be."
And his god was power; his demi-god, the man who, like Scythian Tamburlaine, lived—
"Threatening the world with high astounding terms
And scourging kingdoms with his conquering sword."
There was no limit set to the enterprise of man's energy; his power was measureless and divine. Only in the realm of beauty his step might falter; beyond all achievement, and all the beauty of achievement, there would always hover—
"One thought, one grace, one wonder at the least
Which into words no virtue can digest."
Marlowe wrote intoxicated with this elixir of infinite possibility. The sea-dogs, men of action, seemed almost to be realizing his dreams, fighting the next ship that met them, like Drake always sailing a little further on, coming home with spoils and tales of wonder, and starting out in search of fresh adventures; or there were men like Frobisher, who combined the buccaneer with the spirit of the scientist, and who were anxious to learn new geographical facts; or men like Gilbert, who were serious-minded enough to be whole-hearted in the cause of science; or men like Ralegh, in whom all these elements seem to have been struggling. This paradise of unknown lands worked in all ways upon his mind. Not Columbus before him, not Balzac after him, realized more keenly the power of money. He saw, with Gilbert and the industrious Hakluyt, the value of geographical knowledge, but what fired his imagination was the vision of another Empire across the seas, and that vision he was impatient to realize. He inspired the painstaking Hakluyt, and he quietly made it his life's purpose to further the project. It was Ralegh who grasped the true meaning of the vague aspirations and whose personality was big enough to set the first slow forces at work. His immediate schemes failed, but without those initial failures Captain John Smith would never have succeeded, as he did succeed some fifteen years later, in founding the colony of Virginia, from which has at length grown, in the space of four hundred years, the present American nation. So are our dreams of Paradise materialized into fact.
The attempt which Gilbert and Ralegh had made at colonization in 1578 had failed.
But Ralegh, in his influential position, saw a means of turning his scheme to advantage. As has been seen, the unrest of the Catholic party was becoming more and more acute, until it reached its climax in the Babington conspiracy and the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. Ralegh saw his opportunity. He knew as well as Walsingham that there were a large number of Catholic gentlemen who were desirous of remaining loyal to their country and loyal to their religion. The wish was as sane as it was difficult to realize. Naturally (and rightly from their point of view) the Jesuits and other Catholics, whose enthusiasm made them fanatical, hated these moderate gentlemen, and called them Schismatics. Ralegh saw how they might be employed to the advantage of his scheme, just as a few years previously, when the overcrowding of London was troubling Burghley, that overcrowding suggested the immediate material of his scheme. He suggested to Walsingham a solution of the difficulty, that these gentlemen should form a separate kingdom, should found the colony in Virginia. In June, 1582, Sir George Gerrard and Sir Thomas Peckham were empowered to do this. The new plan was set in motion in spite of Papal warnings and even Papal veto. Two ships were sent to spy out the land that summer, and in the spring of the following year all was at length in readiness for actual sailing. Ralegh himself intended to be vice-admiral,[A] but the Queen forbade him to join the expedition. He had, however, constructed, on plans of his own devising, an immense sailing-vessel of 200 tons, which was called the Bark-Ralegh (not to be confused with the flagship of the fleet which repulsed the Armada five years later, called the Ark-Ralegh). The other vessels were the Delight alias the George, of 120 tons, "which was the Admirall;" the Golden Hinde of 40 tons, "which was the Reare Admirall; "the Swallow, of 40 tons, and the Squirrill, of 10 tons. "We were in number," writes Mr. Edward Hayes, gentleman, who sailed on the Golden Hinde, "in all about 260 men: among whom we had of every faculty good choice, as Shipwrights, Masons, Carpenters, Smithes and such like, requisite to such an action: also Minerall men and Refiners. Besides for solace of our people and allurement of the Savages, we were provided of Musike in good variety: not omitting the least toyes, as Morris dancers, Hobby horsse, and Maylike conceits to delight the savage people whom we intended to winne by all faire meanes possible. And to that end we were indifferently furnished of all petty haberdasherie wares to barter with those simple people."
On June 11 the expedition sailed from Causon Bay. The day was Tuesday. Misfortune came very soon upon them. On Thursday evening the news was signalled from the Bark-Ralegh that the captain and to a subordinate command, deserted the expedition for some reason unknown." But it is not at all probable that he ever started.—"The English Voyages," p. 58. very many of the men were fallen sick; and at midnight, "notwithstanding we had the wind East, faire and good," the vice-admiral forsook them. The reason Mr. Hayes could never understand, he says in his account, and adds, "Sure I am, no cost was spared by their owner Master Ralegh in setting them forth: Therefore I leave it unto God." Sir Humfrey Gilbert was not so philosophic about the desertion; he wrote to his brother-admiral, Sir George Peckham, in wrath: "The Bark-Ralegh ran from me in fair and clear weather, having a large wind. I pray you solicit my brother Ralegh to make them an example to all knaves."
After this defection the Golden Hinde took the place of the Vice-Admiral, and hoisted her flag from the mizzen to the foretop. As they sailed northward they were "incumbered with much fogge and mists in maner palpable," so that great difficulty was experienced by the ships in keeping in touch one with the other. The danger of separation always threatened sailing vessels, and elaborate devices and instructions were always prepared to lessen its likelihood and to face the emergency. But on July 20 the Swallow and the Squirrill became separated from the company, and were not discovered again until the Newfoundland coast was reached on August 3. Soon after another misfortune occurred owing to the unruliness of the men on the Squirrill, who could not be restrained from plundering a fishing-boat. This bad act was sufficient to wreck the success of the expedition, and caused much dissatisfaction among the sailors, who were always superstitious. Moreover, the men's unruliness was a serious danger on such an expedition, apart from the question of God's wrath, which Mr. Hayes feared, and which fell upon the Squirrill and requited the ill-doers with death.
On August 5 Sir Humfrey Gilbert took possession of the harbour of St. John, and invested the Queen's Majesty with the title and dignity thereof. The arms of England, engraved in lead, were fixed upon a pillar of wood and erected. Men were sent to explore the land, and to make maps of it, while the ships were being overhauled and repaired. The report only survives; the maps were lost when the general died.
On August 27 they set sail again, and on the next day a great wind arose, bringing with it rain and thick mist, and drove the vessels upon the sands and flats. The Admirall struck; her stern and hinder parts were broken in pieces by the waves; the men leapt into the sea. "This was a heavy and grievous event to lose at one blow our chiefe shippe fraighted with great provision, gathered together with much travell, care, long time, and difficultie. But more was the losse of our men which perished to the number almost of a hundreth soules." Among the drowned was Budaeus, a learned man who was minded to record in the Latin tongue the gests and things worthy of remembrance; Daniel, a refiner of metals; and Captain Maurice Brawn, a virtuous, honest, and discreet gentleman. A few men, however, managed to keep afloat in a small boat for six days, and though two of them died of starvation, the others were rescued. This disaster brought dismay to the company and they lost courage. Winter, too, was drawing on, provisions were becoming scant, their clothes were worn out. Accordingly, Sir Humfrey Gilbert determined to make for home. "Be content," he said to the men, "we have seen enough: and take no care of expence past: I will set you forth royally the next Spring if God send us safe home. Therefore I pray you let us no longer strive here, where we fight against the elements." But calamity did not forsake them. Sir Humfrey Gilbert did not reach home. Before the expedition sailed in June, Elizabeth for her own reasons had persisted in denying Sir Humfrey the right to accompany his expedition; but his step-brother, Sir Walter Ralegh, had continued to use his influence to obtain permission, and the requisite permission had at last been granted.
"Brother,
"I have sent you a token from her Majesty, an ancor guided by a lady, as you see; and further, her Highness willed me to sende you worde that she wished you as great good-hap and safty to your ship, as if her sealf were ther in parson; desiring you to have care of your sealf as of that which she tendereth; and therefore for her sake, you must provide for hit accordingly.
"Farther, she commandeth that you leve your picture with me. For the rest I leve till our meeting, or to the report of this bearer, who would needs be the messengre of this good newse. So I committ you to the will and protection of God, who send us such life or death as He shall please or hath appointed.
"Richmonde this Friday morning.
"Your treu brother
"W. Ralegh"
The letter shows the Queen's interest and concern—her attitude towards the gentlemen who adventured their lives for the glory of her kingdom. But good-hap and safety were not vouchsafed to Gilbert's ship. The will and protection of God did not send life; death had been appointed.
They reached the Azores without mishap, except that the general caused himself great pain and inconvenience by treading upon a nail. The last conference took place on the Golden Hinde, on September 3, when he made merry with the company on board; his hopes of success ran high for the enterprise, he vowed to undertake once more the next spring. They were now coming near to England and the end of their distresses. But they met with foul weather, and terrible seas, breaking short and high, pyramid-wise. "Men which all their lifetime had occupied the Sea, never saw more outragious Seas." Upon the main-yard of the Golden Hinde appeared an apparition of a little fire by night. The little fire is an evil omen, and is called Castor and Pollux. "Munday the ninth of September, in the afternoon, the Frigat was neere cast away, oppressed by waves, yet at that time recovered: and giving forth signes of joy, the Generall sitting abaft with a book in his hand, cried out unto us in the Hinde (so oft as we did approach within hearing), 'We are as neare to Heaven by sea as by land.' Reiterating the same speech, well-beseeming a souldier, resolute in Jesus Christ, as I can testifie he was."
Sir Humfrey Gilbert was seen no more. Sitting abaft with a book in his hand — that was the last sight of him, and those were his last words, the great saying of a great sailor. For at midnight the lights of his vessel suddenly disappeared. The frigate was devoured and swallowed of the sea. So died Sir Humfrey Gilbert in the prime of his manhood at the age of forty-four.
The Golden Hinde managed to reach the coast of England, and brought the bad news of disaster to Sir Walter Ralegh, his step-brother, and to Adrian Gilbert, his younger brother.
They wasted no time in grief or mourning. They paid proper respect to the memory of the brave dead, and immediately made renewed efforts to further the enterprise to which their brother had devoted his life.
Within six months Ralegh obtained another charter from the Queen with larger powers. He and Adrian Gilbert and John Davies were incorporated under the new charter as "The College of the Fellowship for the Discovery of the North-west passage." That was the dream of the dead navigator. Ralegh always had a greater purpose in view, and the charter was later extended by clauses giving him powers to colonize. Directly these first steps were taken, a month after the charter's final signing, Ralegh despatched two captains, Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlow.
Captain John Smith gives an account of their voyage in his "History of Virginia." (John Smith it was who, profiting by initial failures, succeeded some years later in the fulfilment of the great scheme.) "The 27 of Aprill," he writes, "they set sail from the Thames, the tenth of May passed the Canaries, and the tenth of June the West Indies: which unneedful Southerly course (but then no better was knowne) occasioned them in that season much sicknesse." His interpolation—then no better was known—is significant. It throws a clear light on the difficulties with which these early colonizers were called upon to cope; they had not yet learned the best way even of reaching their destination.
However, on the 2nd of July the two captains arrived at Florida, "where they felt a most delicate sweete smell, though they saw no land, which ere long they espied, thinking it the Continent: an hundred and twenty miles they sailed not finding any harbour." That again is significant, taking into consideration the limited room on a sailing vessel for food and other necessaries. When they came to land, they had not yet the means of knowing anything about that land whatsoever. At length they discovered that they were upon an island, the island of Wokokon. It was fertile past all belief. Grapes grew in profusion right down to the water's edge, that the very surge of the sea sometimes over-flowed them. In the valleys tall cedars grew, and from the black cedars great cranes flew in white flocks, when the men discharged their muskets, "with such a cry as if an army of men had shouted together." The island was thickly wooded with other trees of excellent smell and quality; and in the woods there were conies and deere and fowle in incredible abundance. For three days none of the people were seen. On the third day, in a little boat, three of them appeared and showed no sign of fear. One of them stopped and conferred with the sailors, who gave him a shirt and a hat, meat and wine, which he liked. Then he went away; but soon returned with his boat quite full of fish, which he gave to the sailors. He had come from the mainland.
Next day the king's brother visited the ships, with forty or fifty men, "proper people and in their behaviour very civill." The king's brother's name was Granganamen. Soon after the king himself, Wingina, came. A mat was spread for him on the sea shore, and he sat down upon it. When the sailors came to him, he stroked his head and breast, and he stroked their heads and breasts, to express his love. He made a long speech, and divers toys, "which he kindly accepted," were presented to him. Especially a pewter pleased the king's fancy. He drilled a hole in it and hung it round his neck. It made him a capital breastplate, for which he was ready to give, and gave, twenty skin of deer, worth twenty crowns. He was so pleased with his bargain and treatment that a few days later he brought his wife and children on board. During all their stay in his kingdom, which was called Wingandacoa, King Wingina sent them almost every day a brace of bucks, conies, hares, fish and vegetables. The soil was fertile, as the woods were plentifully stocked with game—for the sailors put some peas in the ground, and in ten days they had grown to the height of fourteen inches.
They had, indeed, found the Land of Promise; and the people who inhabited the land were as friendly as their king. A party went on a little expedition to the island of Roanoak, which was distant some seven leagues. There the wife of the chief man, who was absent, welcomed them with much courtesy. She had their clothes taken off and washed; she had their feet bathed in warm water, while she herself attended to the preparation of food. While they were eating, warriors entered the room armed with bows and arrows. The sailors, fearful of treachery, grasped their muskets. There was no need for alarm, however. The woman saw their fear, and ordered the warriors immediately to snap their bows and arrows across their knees.
Hospitality could go no farther. The whole account of the land "luxuriant to the water's edge, and of their joyous reception by the Indians, makes the dreams of the pastoral poets seem true," as Professor Raleigh puts it. Indeed, the people were such as live after the manner of the Golden Age. Such, too, the Burmese were found to be some three hundred years later; they had the same childlike simplicity, the same earnest kindliness; they, too, were unspoiled and happy. The Indians were regarded as savages; they were not closely observed or sympathetically described by these stout-hearted adventurers, as the Burmese have been by Fielding Hall in his notable books. Their subsequent history bears out the resemblance. The Indians, simpler, more childish people—savages in fact—came into contact with a sterner younger civilization. Their history is known. The history of the subject Burmese is still in the making.
Captain Amadas and Captain Barlow returned in September. They brought with them two of the natives, many skins, and pearls as big as peas, which they duly delivered to Sir Walter Ralegh. He was overjoyed with the success of their voyage, and he obtained permission from the Queen to call his new land of Wingandacoa, Virginia, in her honour. He ordered a new seal of his arms to be cut, engraved with the legend, "Propria insignia Walteri Ralegh, militis, Domini et Gubernatoris Virginiae."
In the spring of the following year his colonizing fleet was ready. The command of the expedition was given to Sir Richard Grenville, the valiant, as John Smith calls him. The colony was to be under the management of Captain Ralph Lane. Sir Richard Grenville was not the man for the business, and the expedition would have had a very different result had Sir Philip Sidney undertaken its command, as it was intended that he should. Sir Richard was supreme as a fighter: his tactics were to hit first, and to hit hardest, and never to give way. He was indomitable, but more than sheer bravery was necessary for the undertaking, and more than sheer bravery Sir Richard Grenville did not possess.
The fleet of seven ships departed from Plymouth in April, and, without any serious mishap, they arrived on May 12 at the Bay of Moskito in the island of St. John's, where they cast anchor, and where in seven days they were joined amidst great rejoicing by Master Candish, captain of one of the ships which had been separated in a storm. The island of St. John was in possession of the Spaniards. It is probable that Sir Richard Grenville hated the Spaniards more than he loved the project of colonization; for in St. John he stayed till the end of May. He built a fort, and succeeded in capturing two Spanish frigates, one of which was well freighted with treasure, and having ransomed the Spaniards of account for good round sums, he went on his way to Isabella, on the north side of Hispaniola. Here again they delayed, hoping, as it would seem, for an opportunity to attack the Spaniards in possession; but the Spaniards, overawed, as the writer thinks, by their numbers, exhibited only the greatest courtesy. So they sailed on June 7, and eventually arrived a fortnight later at Wokokon, after having narrowly escaped complete shipwreck "on a breach called the Cape of Fear."
The colony was now on the verge of plantation. But the men did not see the immense need of living at amity with the natives, that they might win their support and trust, without which their task would be insuperable in difficulty. They had hardly lived among them for two days before strife broke out, in which, of course, the Englishmen were easily victorious. For it appears that a silver cup was missed, and theft was suspected. For this trivial reason the town of Aquascogok, which was supposed to shelter the culprit, was burned, and all the neighbouring cornfields were laid waste. Enmity was thus kindled, and the fire of enmity cannot easily be extinguished.
After that Sir Richard Grenville sailed away with his convoy, and passing on his way home a richly laden Spanish ship of three hundred tons, he boarded her (note the prodigious daring of the fellow!) with a boat made with boards of a chest, "which fell asunder and sunk at the ship's side as soon as ever he and his men were out of it." That was on the last day of August: on September 18 he sailed into Plymouth harbour, well-contented with his prize, "and was courteously received by divers of his worshipful friends."
But Ralph Lane was left behind in Virginia with his colonists, to the number of some hundred house-holders, and the hostile natives. From the New Fort he writes an enthusiastic letter, on September 3, to Master Richard Hakluyt. His report of the fertility of the country is more glowing even than the account of Amadas and Barlow, or than Ralegh himself could have dared imagine in his brightest dreams. "It is the goodliest and most pleasing territory of the world; for the continent is of a huge and unknown greatness, and very well peopled and towned, though savagely: and the climate is wholesome, that we had not one sick since we touched the land here." Horses and kine and sufficient Englishmen are alone needed, and no realm in Christendom would be comparable with Virginia. The men set to work to build themselves a settlement, making use of the equipment with which each man was provided.
Captain John Smith, who succeeded, some thirty years later, in erecting the colony on the ruins of these previous failures, gives an exact outfit, with the cost of each article, which a colonist would require. He could learn from the experience of others, and was wise enough to tabulate his own experience in minute lists that others might learn from him. Lane's colonists could not have been so well provided. They must have lacked many little necessaries which the wisest forethought could not have provided, they must have encumbered themselves with much that was comparatively useless. Here are some articles of personal outfit which John Smith—and John Smith knew—deemed indispensable. They read quaintly with their prices:—