Great Ralegh

Lane's colonists remained exactly one year in Virginia. Their life was varied and exciting. At first the Indians, in spite of the silver cup and the summary vengeance for its theft, were still inclined towards friendliness. Their kings visited New Fort. Menatonou, King of Chawanook, was especially well-disposed. He was a "man impotent in his limbs, but otherwise, for a savage, a very grave and wise man, and of a very singular good discourse in matters concerning the state, not only of his own country and the disposition of his own men, but also of his neighbours round about him as well far as near, and of the commodities that each country yieldeth." Among other things, he told Lane where pearls in large quantities could be found, and Lane devised a plan for making an expedition to that river of Moratoc.

And from this plan, which Lane records in full in a subsequent letter to Ralegh, peers out the mistake in judgment which brought disaster upon this first enterprise. These colonists had too much the spirit of Sir Richard Grenville. They were too adventurous, and esteemed the natives of too little account. Instead of quietly settling and making their base secure, while the Indians became gradually used to their presence, they must needs be hurrying further inland in pursuit of immediate and enormous wealth. Theirs was too much the spirit of the lion-hearted freebooter and not enough the spirit of the determined settler.

Misfortune awaited them. For there lived an old king in this land of fabulous wealth by the swift river of Moratoc or Moratico. Ensenore was his name, and he was friendly to the English. Not so his son Pemisapan. And at this crucial time Ensenore died and Pemisapan took his place at the head of the province, and immediately began his endeavours to undermine the little influence which the English had already gained among the neighbouring peoples. The position of the colonists became one of extreme danger in consequence. They found that they must not only struggle against the elements to secure food and shelter, but also fight for their lives against the inhabitants. They had expected support from England in the spring, with reinforcements of every kind. None, however, came, and probably the fear of isolation, brought about by events of which they had heard nothing, was added to their other fears. Small wonder then that, when Sir Francis Drake came to them with twenty tall ships, they should clamour to leave the perilous spot and return to England. They returned in June, Drake's fleet laden with the spoils he had garnered from the sack of the Spanish cities, St. Iago, St. Domingo, Carthagena, St. Anthony, and St. Helens. With them, too, they are said to have brought, for the first time, specimens of the plant Nicotiana, of which Ralegh discovered the sovereign virtues, and which, in despite of King James from Scotland and his counterblast, has soothed many millions of honest Englishmen.

A fortnight after the colonists departed, fearing that they were forsaken, the ship of a hundred tons which Ralegh had stored with provisions and other necessaries arrived, and a month after Sir Richard Grenville came with three ships, and found neither colonists nor the ship which Ralegh had sent out for their relief. Accordingly, after he had searched long in vain and made certain explorations on his own initiative, he landed fifteen brave men to retain possession of the country for England and sailed home. Nothing more was heard of the fifteen brave men.

So ended the first series of attempts to found an English colony in Virginia, doubtless, efforts which themselves just failed of success, but without which the final colonization of Virginia would have been impossible.

CHAPTER VII

BUSINESS MAN

The Stannaries—His grasp of detail—"Do it with thy might"—Estimate of squadron—Scheme of coast defence—The clash-mills of Mr. Crymes—Irish plans.

The Virginian enterprise did not engage all Ralegh's energy in affairs. Undoubtedly it was his greatest scheme. Its eventual results were of no less than world-wide importance, for they include the American nation, they include tobacco; and without either commodity modern civilization would surely be desolate. Ralegh had a capacity for business which approached genius; and would have attained to genius had his imagination not run a little in advance of his power over detail.

In his hands the posts which he obtained were no sinecures. Proper arrangement of things in being fascinated him almost as deeply as the possible development of the embryonic.

The various expeditions to Virginia involved a vast amount of work. But during that time he was actively engaged in the management of lesser matters.

As Lord Warden of the Stannaries his duties were to look after the interests of the tin-miners in Devonshire and Cornwall. He was head of the Stannary Courts in which justice was legally administered to the tinners; and he would be obliged to see that his substitutes performed their functions properly. For a privilege was granted to the tin-workers to have their disputes settled upon the spot in their own court, in order that they might not be drawn from their business during the long time that a visit to another court would involve. All through the time when he was engaged in great things at Court, or in great dreams of an Eldorado in South America, he always paid proper attention to the exacting little business of these tinners in Cornwall. In 1600 he writes a minute account to the Lord Treasurer, Buckhurst, and Secretary, Sir Robert Cecil, about the abatement of some tax on tin. He kept the interests of the tinners always in mind. In the same year he enters into the case of a gentleman, Mr. Crymes, who had erected certain clash-mills upon Roxburgh Down "to worke the tynn which upon that place is gott with extreame labour and charge out of the ground." But the townsmen of Plymouth objected to the mills, because they said that the mills diverted the course of their water. Ralegh went to view the clash-mills on Roxburgh Down in person, though it was the autumn of the year, and decided against the townsmen of Plymouth. If they had their way, as according to the letter of the law only they should, countless tinners would be thrown out of work. In reality no harm was done to the course of the river.

Accordingly Ralegh asks Secretary Sir Robert Cecil to take the matter from the Star Chamber, where the townsmen of Plymouth had sent it, and to let it be tried, as it was fitting that such a matter should be tried, in the Stannary Courts. "If this be suffered to proceed in the Starre Chamber it will not be avaylable to speake of her Majesties late imposicion or encrease of Custom, or to establish good laws among Tynners; when others who can by a great purse or procuring extraordinary meanes, diminish to their power her Majesties duties and the common benefytt of the people."

Do it with thy might was as sincerely his motto in little things as in big; and this it is well to remember in protest against those who are inclined to regard Ralegh merely as an unsuccessful dreamer of great dreams.

He was Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall. Among other duties which the post entailed, was the important duty of keeping the county ready to ward off an invasion, which was a very real danger all through his period of office. His letters to Lord Burghley give ample evidence of his care and wisdom. In 1587, one year before the Armada, he sent the Lord Treasurer a letter in which he gave it as his opinion that a company of two thousand foot and a troop of two hundred should be levied from the counties of Cornwall and Devon, and should be trained to be ready for defence at a moment's notice against surprise. The difficulties of his plan he saw clearly. There was, in the first place, a feeling of rivalry between the two Duchies which increased the difficulty of combination. The Lord Lieutenant of Devonshire, the Earl of Bath, was not easily brought to see the wisdom of the plan, though Sir John Gilbert and Sir Richard Grenville, staunch Devon men, were its supporters. The merchants of Exeter were not disposed to bear willingly any additional outlay in the matter of defence, because they were obliged to pay heavily to defend their merchandise against Barbary and other pirates. Ralegh incloses a tabulated list in his letter, showing exactly how these levies could be raised, and the exact cost of the raising. The payment of the troop of horse is of much interest. The men were to receive 1s. a day (the pay of an infantry man was 8d.). The horsemen were to be divided into four cornets: that would imply four captains at 5s., four lieutenants at 3s., four guidons at 2s. 6d., four clerks at 1s. 6d., four trumpetts at 1s. 6d. per day. He adds the charge of ammunition. "There is allowed for each soldier for this service of sixteen daies, tenn pounde of Powder at 12d. the pounde and is £500. Ther is allowed of matche for each soldier at halfe a pounde the daye, at 6d. the pounde and is £200. Of leade for each mann one pounde at 1½d. the pounde, and is £6 8s.

The whole estimated cost of training and raising came to £2163 5s. and unlike the majority of estimates, the one drawn up by Ralegh is as clear as it is concise.

But his best contribution to the problem of defence is a letter, written in the year 1595 to the Lords of the Council. It had been decided that "mutual succour be gyven from the Counties of Devon and Cornwall to each other," and the point of the letter is to show that Devonshire should be supplied with reinforcements from Somerset rather than from Cornwall. His reasons are well put and convincing. "If there shall any discent be made by the enymye in either county by the waie of surprise, and that the enymye doe but burne or sacke, and departe, then can nether be releeved as aforesaid, bycause there wilbe no tyme given to unite the forces of the same shere, where such attempt shalbe offered, much lesse for the drawing in of any numbers from affarr; and for any such enterpryze, where there is no purpose to hold and possesse the places gotten, each shire with 4000 men shalbe able either to repel or to resiste the same. But if the enymy dispose himself to fortyfye any part in Cornewall or to strengthen any neck of land of advantage, and thereby begyne to dryve us to a defensive warr, then there is noe country adjoyneth to Cornwall but Devon from whence any spedy supplie maie be had to impeach the begining of such a purpose. And if ought be attempted in Devon—of which Plymouth is most to be feared, having, in one indraught, two goodly harboroughes, as Cattwater and Aishewater—then it is also very likely that the enymye will either assure Cornewall, or seeke utterly to waste yt, because yt is next his supplies, both from Spayne and Brittaine (Brittany); and hath divers ports and good rodes to receive a fleete."

He proceeds to point out the length and narrowness of Cornwall, and the extreme difficulty of sending succour to Plymouth. The river can only be forded in two places, and that by small ferries at Stonehouse and Aishe, which would be of little use for horses or ammunition. Moreover, the enemy would bring "gallies" with them, which would enable them to command the river Tamar. If four thousand men were taken from Cornwall, the enemy would certainly become cognizant of the fact, and nothing would be easier for them, in that event, than to lay waste the whole shire, either by sending round a ship from Plymouth or across from Brittany. Three hundred soldiers would be sufficient.

He points out that no county in England is so dangerously situated as Cornwall, with the sea on both sides of it, and with sparse inhabitants. It is so narrow that if the enemy were to possess any of two or three straits, the men of the West would be quite cut off from the men of the East, for between Mount's Bay and the sea entering within St. Tees, it is but three miles and a half from sea to sea; between Truro and St. Pirom but five miles. He concludes the letter by making manifest the advantages of the position of Somerset, its breadth, its richness, and lack of separating rivers.

And he set his mind to these details of his defence at the time when his mind was eager to bring down to the realm of reality those high dreams by which Guiana caused him to be obsessed. A few days afterwards he writes to Sir Robert Cecil: "I beseich you lett us know whether wee shalbe travelers or tinkers; conquerors or novices. For if the winter pass without making provision there can be no vitling in the summer; and if it be now fore-slowed, farewell Guiana for ever.... Honor and gold and all good, for ever hopeless."

A great man, this Elizabethan, whose imperial dreams did not prevent him from mastering the little businesses under his hand! Visions of Eldorado did not blurr his view of Minnett or lessen his interest in the clash-mills of Mr. Crymes.

Not only was Ralegh Lord Warden of the Stannaries and Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall, but he was also what Edwards calls Captain of Industry in Ireland. The work connected with these duties was what may be looked upon as the business of his life. Each entailed work and responsibility which would suffice the energy of an ordinary man of business, a little above the modern average of capacity. It was typical of Ralegh's immense vitality that he dealt with them with as much thoroughness and ease as he managed his own household, and always he inspired them with new ideas and new life, even as his garden was the first in which orange-trees were cultivated. His imagination made him an originator. He was never content with the old way of doing things—he found a better. He was always seeing old facts for the first time, as though he had never seen them before, as all men of vigorous intellect do. Consequently he trusted his own opinion, and he had good cause to trust it.

Ralegh had first become prominent by his actions in Ireland, and very soon after he had attained to eminence he was employed by the Crown in their endeavour to bring some kind of prosperity to the country ravaged to desolation by war. Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant. Six hundred thousand acres of land had been confiscated from the Earl of Desmond, and probably at his own suggestion Ralegh undertook to plant an English colony there. Others joined in the enterprise. Ralegh's share consisted of some twelve thousand acres in the counties of Cork, Waterford, and Tipperary, and he rented, in addition, Lismore Castle at the annual charge of £13 6s. 8d., from Meyler Magrath, Bishop of the See of Lismore and Archbishop of Cashel. His tenants he had taken from men of Devon (the stamp of man he knew and approved), and his land was soon recognized as the most prosperous among all the estates which these "gentlemen under-takers," as they were called, were opening out. Fertility did not satisfy him. His acres were well forested, and an idea occurred to him by which he could turn the timber to good account. His scheme was to construct pipe-staves and hogsheads and barrel boards, and to transport them to the wine growers of Spain and France. It was a good scheme and practical. But he found the utmost difficulty in obtaining a licence from the Privy Council for their export. He was not in favour with Sir William Fitzwilliam, Lord-Deputy of Ireland, nor the deputy's cousin, one Richard Wingfield. By the time that sanction was obtained, Ireland was again in too unsettled a state for prosperity in quiet commerce, and Ralegh sold his estate to Richard Boyle, who afterwards became Earl of Cork. He had planted many products, which his men had brought from Virginia, on the land of his Irish estate, and among these was the potato. He also tried to cultivate tobacco, but with less success.

Had Ralegh been supported during the last ten years of the Queen's reign, he would have benefited Ireland considerably by his activity, even though he was, at the same time, engaged in many other affairs, naval, political, and commercial. But he was badly hampered in his projects by loss of favour. His enemies were many, and they found pleasure in vexing him in small matters. This enmity, while Elizabeth lived, did not seriously injure his power or his reputation, but it set obstacles in the way of his projects which were just sufficient to thwart them.

Such were Ralegh's chief business activities, which were the groundwork of his life, these and the duties of Captain of the Guard, which were chiefly decorative. It is not easy to realize, in a time of great splendour, the day to day existence of the men who made that time splendid. The mind is apt to leap from dramatic moment to dramatic moment, when mighty exploits mark out a time's history like stepping-stones. When events are sufficiently great to stand prominently forth, not only in the history of the reign, but in the history of all time, the prosaic intervals of dull hard work are apt to be forgotten; but they are the essential training, without which those events would not have happened.

The life of the man is the life of the nation in little. Just as Ralegh thought nothing beneath his notice, thought nothing to which he put his hand too insignificant not to be done with his might, so England, under her great Queen, was working and working to collect her strength, so that, when the moment at last came to strike, she might strike with effect.

Sir Walter Ralegh, Captain of the Guard, superb in pearls and silver, whom magnificence became, did not disdain on occasion to ride for many miles through the muddy roads of Devonshire to inspect the river at Roxburgh Down, and found time to write at length to Secretary Sir Robert Cecil, his opinion that the clash-mills of Mr. Crymes, the tinner, did not harm the townsmen of Plymouth. That incident is as significant of the time's energy as the defeat of the Spanish Armament.

CHAPTER VIII

AGAINST SPAIN

Spain's enmity—The Armada—Ralegh's opinion of tactics—With Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Norreys—The privateers.

Indeed Ralegh's immense energy is typical of the time. Do it with thy might could fitly have been the motto of the nation. Their capacity for hard work was unequalled. The Armada was England's day of triumph. Men applaud a prima-donna on the night of her success, and are apt to forget the long years of training and privation and self-control that have preceded the glory of the moment. It is even so with a nation. The little hour of triumph is as nothing compared with the long years of life which made that triumph possible; and only the greatest artist and the greatest nation can bear the added burthen of success. England lapsed after the impulse of that great action had died away. The nation as a whole was too young and too boisterous with youth to support a victory so overpowering in its magnificence.

The triumph itself was like few in the history of nations, and events conspired to lend a vivid dramatic colour to its greatness.

The time had come when Philip the Second at last decided that the insolence of England must be punished. The exploits of men like Hawkins and Drake and Ralegh and Frobisher were becoming intolerable, and though Elizabeth had at first given no sanction to their enterprises, treating them much as she had treated the English supporters of the Protestant cause in France, yet the knighthood of Drake on the deck of his own ship at length declared the bent of her sympathy. The time had come for action: and the time seemed specially favourable to Philip. Sextus the Fifth was Pope, and he had created the league for the subversion of heresy, and the arch-heretic of Europe must be put away. The Prince of Parma was in the Netherlands ready to invade England. The Catholics in England would be united by the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Protestants themselves would be averse to the surrender of the throne to her son and his Scotch followers. So Philip thought, and slowly set the immense machinery of preparation to work.

Elizabeth possessed remarkable foresight and a remarkable dislike for definite action. Her foresight was as uncanny as an instinct, or her power of dissimulation, which is the art of diplomacy. Accordingly, it is probable that her efforts for peace, and the treaty which she patched up with the Prince of Parma, did not arise from any fear of war, but were a clever design to increase the proud confidence of the enemy by making him think that England was in reality in a state of panic, quite unprepared for war. She knew well of the preparations, and of their huge scale. Drake had sent news to Lord Burghley: "Assuredly," he wrote, "there never was heard of or known so great preparations as the King of Spain hath and daily maketh ready for the invasion of England." With daring he sailed into the very harbour of Cadiz and damaged more than a hundred tall ships. He was forbidden to do further damage. Spain's enterprise was not destined to be strangled at home. Elizabeth's fear, if her fear existed, allowed Philip to spend untold sums of money on his fleet, and to adorn it with the flower of his nobility, and allowed England to overcome her enemy in the full ostentation of his display. Certainly Lord Howard of Effingham, Admiral of the Fleet, knew nothing of Elizabeth's intentions, nor did Sir John Hawkins, the paymaster. They wrote angry letters to Walsingham when the movements of their ships were confined, and some of their men disbanded. "Never," wrote Lord Howard, "never since England was England was there such a stratagem and mask made to deceive us as this treaty." And Sir John Hawkins was even more vehement: "We are wasting money, wasting strength, dishonouring and discrediting ourselves by our uncertain dallying." Naturally they desired to repeat Drake's exploit, to run every risk, like brave Englishmen, and to crush the Spanish fleet in the Spanish harbours. But they must wait. Elizabeth's fears or Elizabeth's diplomacy (conscious or unconscious in its working a strange instinct for the good of England was here) determined another course of action. "The Queen took upon herself the detailed management of everything. Lord Howard's letters prove that she and she only was responsible," as Froude, who accepts the view of her perverseness and levity, declared.

Meanwhile the King of Spain's preparations were at length completed. The galleons, "built high like castles," had been baptized each with the name of a saint, St. Matthew, St. Philip, St. John, ceremonially, as it was fitting that vessels about to fight for the Catholic cause should be baptised. The one hundred and twenty-nine vessels of the Armada, galleons and galleasses, set sail. They were strong only in pride and in the sense of their cause's sacredness.

Their vessels were unwieldy and old-fashioned, their ammunition was insufficient, and their admiral was high-born but incapable. For the veteran Don Alvarez de Baçan, Marquis of Santa Cruz, had died suddenly, and his place had been taken by the Duke of Medina Sidonia. On July 19 the Armada was reported off Plymouth. Beacons lit from hilltop to hilltop flamed the news to London.

The English fleet was ready. "Their ships had warped out into the Sound on the evening of the 19th: on the 20th they had plied out, to windward, against a fresh south-westerly breeze; and the Armada running to the eastward all night had, by daybreak on the 21st, given the English the weather-gage for which they had been working."

On the afternoon of the 21st the battle began. The Ark-Ralegh, built on Sir Walter's own design, in which was the Lord High Admiral, Howard of Effingham, and three other ships sailed along the rear of the Spanish line, sending quick volleys into the great vessels, and sailed back. The Spaniards vainly tried to grapple with them: the English ships were too swift and easily manoeuvred. And then, on the very opening of the long battle, the Spaniards recognized their weakness, that their great vessels were cumbrous, and so crank that their cannon sent their balls on the weather side high into space, and on the lee side very nearly plump into the water. For a week (there was little sleep for the men during that week) the fleets fought down the Channel till the Spanish fleet lay at last at Calais, but not for long. The English sent fire-ships among them and drove them out. "This great preparation," writes Bacon, "passed away like a dream. The Invincible Navy neither took any one barque of ours neither yet once offered to land; but after they had been well beaten and chased, made a perambulation about the Northern seas, ennobling many coasts with wrecks of mighty ships; and so returned home with greater derision than they set forth with expectation."

Two things are specially worthy of notice about this great battle. The first is the continued ignorance of the commanders of various English ships as to the actual damage which had been inflicted upon the enemy. They had, of course, only their unaided eyes to trust to, and great difficulty in announcing news from ship to ship. Lord Howard writes as late as August 8: "Although we have put the Spanish Fleet past the Firth, and I think past the Isles, yet God knoweth whether they go to the Nase of Norway or into Denmark or to the Isles of Orkney to refresh themselves and so to return." And Drake, too, wrote on the evening of the battle: "God hath given us so good a day in forcing the enemy so far to leeward, as I hope in God the Prince of Parma and the Duke of Sidonia shall not shake hands this few days."

And the second point is that though the English loss was small during the actual days of the battle, yet the strain and the food and the sanitation were such that directly they came to port, a frightful epidemic broke out among the men, who died, we are told, by hundreds in consequence.

In the actual fighting Ralegh probably took no part. When the first news came of the Armada's approach, he was in Ireland, attending to his duties as Mayor of Youghal. With the utmost speed at that time possible he sailed from Ireland and rode to the English coast. Certain it is, however, that he arrived too late for any official post to be assigned him, for the battle had been in progress for two days before his arrival. But many private gentlemen joined the fleet in craft hastily equipped for warfare, and it would be a thing to wonder at if Ralegh was behindhand when such doings were happening. No positive information is, however, forthcoming. Only it is known that the Lord High Admiral's ship was built from designs which Ralegh had matured, and that he agreed completely with the plan of the Lord High Admiral's attack. Many an evening Drake and Effingham and Ralegh would have spent in discussing the tactics of sea-battles, proud, as they well might be, of the swiftness and ease with which an English ship could be manoeuvred in comparison with the large unwieldiness of the carracks of Spain, who still considered herself (God help her) mistress of the sea.

In his "History of the World" occurs a passage about the tactics employed by the English against the Armada. There is a strong element of pathos in the idea of the man shut up in the little room in the Tower of London (he could watch the ships making their way down the Thames) writing of this great action, which he had seen, and writing with ardour, which nothing could extinguish. He had been recounting a fight between Roman vessels, heavy and slow, and the swift African galleys. Then he bursts out into this great paragraph of reminiscence, as though once again he were convincing some obstinate fellow of the patent rightness of the plan of attack.

"Certainly, hee that will happily perform a fight at sea must be skilful in making choice of vessels to fight in: he must beleeve that there is more belonging to a good man of war upon the waters, than great during; and must know that there is a great deale of difference betweene fighting loose or at large, and grapling. The guns of a slow ship pierce as well, and make as great holes, as those in a swift. To clap ships together without consideration, belongs rather to a madman than to a man of warre: for by such an ignorant braverie was Peter Strozzi lost at the Azores when he fought against the Marquesse of Santa Cruz. In like sort had the Lord Charles Howard, Admirall of England beene lost in the year 1588, if he had not been better advised than a great many malignant fooles were, that found fault with his demeanour. The Spaniards had an armie aboord them; and he had none; they had more ships than he had and of higher building and charging; so that had he intangled himself with those great and powerfull Vessels, he had greatly endangered this Kingdom of England.... But our Admirall knew his advantage, and held it: which had he not done, he had not beene worthy to have held his head. Heere to speake in generall of sea-fight (for particulars are fitter for private hands than for the Presse) I say, That a fleete of twentie ships all good sailers and goode ships have the advantage on the open Sea, of an hundred as good ships, and of slower sayling. For if the fleete of an hundred saile keep themselves neere together in a grosse squadron: the twentie ships charging them upon any angle, shall force them to give ground and to fall back upon their owne next fellowes: of which so many as intangle, are made unserviceable or lost. Force them they may easily, because the twentie ships, which give themselves scope, after they have given one broad side of Artillerie, by clapping into the winde, and staying, they may give them the other: and so the twentie ships batter them in pieces with a perpetuall vollie; whereas those, that fight in a troop, have no roome to turn and can alwaies use but one and the same beaten side."

And this is precisely what had taken place in the Armada. It is interesting to know that there was divergency of opinion about the proper tactics to follow, and it would be still more interesting to know who the "malignant fools" were, to whom Ralegh refers. Men who confuse the strategy of war with their own idea of manliness, are common to all times, and must indeed be the most desperate fellows for a proper soldier to convince. You can hear them saying, with that dreadful assumption of finality with which the pompous imbecile seems gifted, those runaway tactics may be very well for buccaneers, but are they seemly for the ships of the navy of England? Small wonder the memory of them once more exasperated Ralegh in his prison-room to renewed anger.

Before the Armada there had been many privateering expeditions against Spain on different waters; after the Armada these expeditions naturally became even more numerous, when they possessed the prestige of the Crown's authority.

Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Norreys were sent with a small fleet to reinstate Don Antonio on the throne of Portugal which had lapsed into the possession of Philip of Spain. Ralegh went on that expedition, which failed to attain its object but captured sixty Hanseatic vessels, laden with victual and ammunition, which report said, were intended to provision a new Armada.

Reprisals against Spain became the vogue, into which Ralegh threw himself with spirit. Every man whom money and opportunity favoured, fitted out his ship to spoil the Egyptian. The Queen's person, forsooth, was not to be harmed: she was to be conveyed to his Holiness the Pope at Rome? Such things, men knew, were said with happy confidence before the Armada, and such things, remembered and repeated, spurred Englishmen on to activity in which the hope of personal gain was small in comparison with the fury of personal resentment that their Queen should be so lightly valued and thought to be so sorrily championed. Nor did they always discriminate nicely between the nationality of ships which they waylaid. Ralegh, as Vice-Admiral of Devon, often received instructions to see to the restitution of ships to subjects of the French King; and a ship of his own had taken "two barks of Cherbourg from two of the French King's subjects." There is a wild recklessness in the exploits of these years; these gentlemen of England, whose names sound through history, exulted: and there is much in their exultation that resembles the behaviour of schoolboys rejoicing in an unexpected half-holiday in spring. The grave way in which their doings are recorded heightens by contrast the similarity. Ralegh and his men are bidden be careful "to minister no cause of grief unto any of the (French) King's subjects, in respect of the good amity and correspondence between Her Majesty and the French King, their realm and subjects." Austerely the records run; austerely, too, is related her Majesty's desire that a certain perfect waist-coat, the fame of which had reached her ears, should be put on one side for her Majesty's personal use.

They had the godlike capacity of remaining young, these Elizabethans; they did not outgrow their taste for splendid waistcoats. And the world found them irresistible.

CHAPTER IX

RALEGH AND SPENSER

Rise of Essex—Ralegh retires to Ireland—At Kilcolman—At Youghal—Friendship with Spenser—Brings Spenser to Court—Their dreams.

In 1588 Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, died. His influence with the Queen had for some years been decreasing, and there is a report, which bears the likelihood of truth, that he had summoned to Court his step-son Robert, the young Earl of Essex, in order that he might counteract the growing influence of Ralegh. Be that report true or false, young Essex came to Court about the year 1587, and his youth and spirit took the Queen's fancy mightily. Essex was as arrogant as his stepfather. Elizabeth was now an old woman in years and in appearance. She felt that her power as a woman was leaving her, and that drove her to make a last effort to regain it, defying age then as she defied death later. She cared for decorum less than she cared for life. That is the pathetic side of her immense vitality, if the word pathetic can ever be used of such a woman. She felt that she could take something of the youth which had left her, from the boy: he was little more than a boy. To his natural arrogance was added the arrogance of youth. He, too, was capricious and wilful, even as the old Queen was capricious; but he gained charm, and the Queen lost dignity thereby.

There was rivalry between Essex and Ralegh, who could not endure this spoiled boy. His impertinence to the Queen was distasteful to one who, like Ralegh, knew the meaning of reverence, and was able to understand greatness. This abasement of his sovereign lady hurt him, and he had no faith in Essex, neither in his character nor in his ability.

Small wonder, then, that Ralegh fell into disgrace, and in 1589 he went to Ireland to attend to his Irish estates. Gossip said, My Lord of Essex had chased him from the Court. The boy took his position with intolerable seriousness: he had even challenged Ralegh to mortal combat, and it was necessary to hush the matter up that the Queen might not hear of it. Ralegh went. Destiny led him to Kilcolman Castle, where Edmund Spenser was living.

But first he probably went to the Warden's house of the College of Youghal: the house was dear to him because it resembled the manor-house at Budleigh-Salterton, where he was born. The house was long and low; and the rooms were lined with small panels of Irish oak.[B] A large dining-room is on the ground floor, from which runs a subterranean passage connecting the house with the old tower of St. Mary's Church. In one of the kitchens the ancient wide arched fireplace remains. Sir Walter Ralegh's study had fine dark wainscot, deep, projecting windows, and a richly carved oak mantelpiece, which rose to the full height of the ceiling. The cornice rested upon three figures—of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and the rest of the structure was covered with dexterous carving, circular-headed panels, and strangely wrought emblematical devices. His bedroom adjoined the study: in it, too, was a carved mantelpiece of oak, and in the fireplace Dutch tiles, four inches square. Behind the wainscoting of this room was a recess, in which a part of the old monkish library was hidden at the time of the Reformation. Here Ralegh worked, taking notes, perhaps, for the great history which he was to write later: here he read Peter Comestor's "Historia Scolastica;" and a black-letter book, printed at Mantua in 1479, which tells of the events of the world from the Creation to the days of the Twelve Apostles. It is pleasant to brood upon the change from the turbulent Court life to the quiet of this monastic retreat at Youghal—the little town in Ireland of which the illustrious courtier was mayor. Not only in black-letter quartos was he interested, but also in the garden. He planted great yellow wallflowers and cedars and tobacco and Affane cherry trees: potatoes he introduced, and they were cultivated all through Munster. You can read, too, in a Gentleman's Magazine of some ninety years ago: "Potatoes were first planted here (that is, in Lancashire), having been brought from Ireland to England by the immortal Ralegh." The writer must have had a tooth for potatoes, he is spurred to such enthusiasm over the matter. Il faut cultiver le jardin.

And at Kilcolman Castle Edmund Spenser was living, conscious of the loneliness of the country.

"One day (quoth he) I sat (as was my trade)
Under the foote of Mole, that mountain hore
Keeping my sheepe amongst the cooly shade
Of the greene alders by the Mullaes shore:
There a strange shepheard chaunst to find me out,
Whether allured with my pipes delight,
Whose pleasing sound yshrilled far about
Or thither led by chaunce, I know not right:
Whom when I asked from what place he came,
And how he hight, himself he did ycleepe
The Shepheard of the Ocean by name,
And said he came far from the main-sea deepe.

He sitting me beside in that same shade,
Provoked me to plaie some pleasant fit;
And when he heard the musicke which I made,
He found himselfe full greatly pleased at it:
Yet, oemuling my pipe, he took in hond
My pipe, before that oemuled of many,
And played thereon; (for well that skill he cond;)
Himself as skilfull in that art as any.
He piped, I sung; and, when he sung, I piped.
By chaunge of turnes, each making other mery;
Neither envying other, nor envied,
So piped we, untill we both were weary."

That is Spenser's account—a very pretty account—of the time which he spent with Ralegh. It is written in "Colin Clouts Come Home Againe." They had, of course, met before, as young men and soldiers by Smerwick, when Spenser was secretary to Lord Grey of Wilton. But now many years had passed by: they met again, and knew that they were friends. The movement of a leaf is enough to show the direction of a large wind: and a phrase may point the attitude of a friendship between two men. A sentence thus pregnant occurs in Spenser's dedication to his pastoral account of his visit to London. With a whimsical humour, which is characteristic of him, he writes to the right worthy and noble knight, Sir Walter Ralegh, Captain of her Majesties Guard, Lord Warden of the Stannaries, and Lieutenant of the County of Cornwall.

"Sir,

      "That you may see that I am not alwaies ydle as yee thinke, though not greatly well occupied, nor altogither undutifull, though not precisely officious, I make you present of this simple Pastorall...."

You can see Spenser smile, as he writes, to think of this "strange shepheard's" terrific energy: how Ralegh came upon him when he was oppressed with melancholy and high dreams, which this melancholy did not allow him to express: how intercourse with Ralegh inspired him with new life. He would brood, too, of many things, which the memory of those days stirred up within him. For Ralegh, like Sidney, the friend of Spenser's earliest youth, was a poet as well as a man of action; and though Spenser was a bigger poet than either he was not a bigger man. The poet in Ralegh would draw him in reverence near to Spenser; and then he would break out into denunciation of the inertia which was inclined to creep over Spenser, and hold him in its long tentacles. The dreamer had a certain dependance on others. Yet almost against his will it would be that he submitted to the journey to Court, catching Ralegh's glow of admiration for his work—those three books of the "Faërie Queene," which Gabriel Harvey had told him were rubbish, but which he loved himself. He was ready to believe in their worth, too, though the dreamer could not help smiling at his friend's so restless energy, which could not allow him to sit and dream his life away, but which drove him always on to be up and doing. Ralegh was the Shepherd of the Ocean, and the Ocean (God wot) is—

"A world of waters heaped up on hie
Rolling like mountaines in wide wildernesse,
Horrible, hideous, roaring with hoarse crie.
And is the sea (quoth Coridon) so fearfull?
Fearfull much more (quoth he) than hart can fear:
Thousand wyld beastes with deep mouthes gaping direfull
Therin stil wait poore passengers to teare."

And yet it was good for the dreamer to know that the world wanted to listen to his dreams. The plaintive whimsical humour of his fancy, which fascinated Ralegh, has fascinated poets down the generations (even old Ben Jonson, though his honesty forced him to square those shoulders of his and pronounce—Spenser, in copying the ancients, writ no language), for any one who has heard the echo even of the music of the spheres, hears it again as he reads the strange cadence of Spenser's verse. No one can realize the homeliness of his insight and his boundless imagination, without coming under the mysterious spell of the combination: that homeliness indeed gives a magic strength to the wings of his magic fancy.

The life of a dreamer is apt to be sad; if the world touches him, he finds the touch heavy and hurtful. And Spenser could not free himself from state duties which forced him to live for ever witness of the misery and savageness of the peasants, and of the country's weird beauty which made a terrible contrast to their misery. In Ireland he felt solitary and neglected: but he had time and scope for his dreams. In England he quickly felt the pettiness of the busy Court life, to which he could not accustom himself. He never found the life which was most in harmony with his spirit. He was not the man to grapple effectually with circumstances: they hurt him. Those must have been halcyon days for him when he was able to enjoy intercourse with a mind like Ralegh's, in the peace and beauty of the country. Small wonder that he was encouraged to proceed with his fairy fashioning of the perfect gentleman, which Sidney's friendship had encouraged him to begin.

He went with Ralegh to the Court, and both were well received. Spenser was given a small pension by Elizabeth. But the ways of the Court did not please him. He had sat too long dreaming by the green alders of Mulla's stream to take kindly to the bustle and ceremony and coarseness of that life. He must have returned with gladness to Kilcolman, and to the work which he now knew the world deemed excellent. But he ever bore in mind one side of Court life which he describes with vividness, remembering probably what Ralegh had told him in their first long talks together.

"Cause have I none (quoth he) of cancred will
To quite them ill, that me demeaned so well:
But selfe-regard of private good or ill
Moves me of each, so as I found, to tell
And else to warne young shepheards wandring wit,
Which, through report of that lives painted blisse,
Abandon quiet home, to seeke for it,
And leave their lambes to losse misled amisse.
For sooth to say it is no sort of life
For shepheard fit to lead in that same place,
Where each one seeks with malice, and with strife,
To thrust down other into foule disgrace,
Himself to raise: and he doth soonest rise
That best can handle his deceitful wit
In subtil shifts, and finest sleights devise."

Ralegh knew this dark side of the Court life as well as Spenser knew it: he knew how some men were ready to slander a well-deemed name by lies and by forgery: how some men were pleased to creep into a man's secrecy and betray him: he knew the frequency of

"A filed toung furnisht with tearmes of art,
No art of schoole, but courtiers schoolery."

For there were many impostors at the Court; men eager to touch a great man's cloak-hem, and still more eager to raise the cry of Treason which should send that great man to his ruin. Ralegh, when he was well, was roused by these dangers to grapple with them: it stirred his fighting instinct and his pride. It proved his knowledge of men and tested his power of dealing with men. He liked to pass on his way with his head erect, scorning the clamour of the little men, that he might stoop the lower in reverence to his great Queen. But Spenser looked upon this darker side of Court life, and turned away from it in disgust. He had neither the power nor the instinct to overcome such circumstances: they merely tired and offended him. He was king of the land of dreams: a leader of men he could never be. And he did not complain against his kingdom, though his waking hours were troubled by care and sorrow.

It is uncommonly pleasant to linger over these quiet months of Ralegh's life: it is pleasant to think of Ralegh, one of the greatest men that have ever lived, finding that Edmund Spenser whom he remembered well enough, was his friend: hearing him read those three books of the "Faërie Queene," and finding that his new and gentle friend was a very great poet. Each man had his dream of a kingdom: Spenser, the realm of Faërie, where he would fashion the allegory of a perfect chivalry: Ralegh, the kingdom of Guiana, which was to make his Queen mighty and his country the greatest in the world. Neither dream was wrought out to its end.

CHAPTER X

EVIL TIMES

Ralegh and the Puritans—John Udall—Blount—Ralegh's marriage—Queen's anger—In the Tower—His sincerity—The Episode in the "Faërie Queene"—Madre de Dios—Robert Cecil—Sherborne.

Ralegh returned to Court in 1591, bringing the greatest poet who had yet come to English literature with him. He was able after his respite to manage circumstances once more, even that most trying circumstance of all, young Essex, and joined with him in helping the Puritans who were at that time being treated more hardly even than they deserved.

It is unlikely that their views influenced Ralegh in any way. He was beyond the constraint of any fixed creed. But he saw sincere men and honest men receiving injuries; and he exerted himself on their behalf. He was called an atheist, naturally enough; that has always been the cry against men who dared to think beyond the scope of sects' understanding. Not even Shelley was less of an atheist, however.

One, John Udall, who was an eminent Hebrew scholar, had come under ecclesiastical disgrace (dissenters are apt to be malignant to other forms of dissent—witness the hues and cries raised lately against a new Theology) by writing a book in which he pointed out the need of reform in the reformed church. The book had the portentous name of "The Demonstration of Discipline which Christ hath prescribed in His Word for the government of the Church, in all times and places, until the World's end." The English Church was in too shocking a state to allow such a book to go quietly on its way. They laid hands on John Udall, put him in a prison at Southwark, and sentenced him to death. Something about the man's straightforwardness and sincerity seems to have appealed to Ralegh. He advised Udall to draw up a schedule of his opinions, which he promised to show to the Queen. These opinions had been twisted and exaggerated into treasonable utterances by enemies, who had thus turned the Queen against Udall; but Ralegh was convinced that he would be able to change the Queen's mind by his own influence. Essex, too, was in favour of Udall's release. Their efforts were so far successful that the sentence was mitigated to one of banishment, but while the exact nature of the sentence was under discussion, John Udall died in the prison at Southwark. The bishops could not be hurried in their deliberations. Rigorous repression begun thus early, strengthened the cause of the Puritans beyond all reasonable necessity. There is nothing to show that Ralegh was in any sympathy with their cause or with their hatred of playhouses and dancing and games. He probably did not take them more seriously than Spenser when he wrote of the Crab on which jolly June was riding.

"And backward yode, as bargemen wont to fare
Bending their force contrary to their face
Like that ungracious crew which faines demurest grace."

But John Udall was a scholar and an honest man; and Ralegh reverenced scholarship and honesty, knowing the value of letters and the courage that honesty required. Moreover he always favoured tolerance in dealing with those whose consciences gave them peculiar views, as is seen by his speech in Parliament a few years later, when he opposed the banishment of the sect called Brownists.

Meanwhile Essex had not grown in any way less arrogant. About this time a younger brother of Lord Mountjoy attracted the Queen's notice; his name was Charles Blount, and Naunton described him as "brown-haired, of a sweet face, and of a most neat composure tall in his person." The Queen seeing him at dinner at Whitehall gave him her hand to kiss, and afterwards a chessman as favour. Blount wore the piece on his sleeve, and Essex remarking it and being told whose favour it was, said, "Ah! I see every fool must have a favour now-aday." Blount challenged Essex. They fought in what is now called Regent's Park, and Essex was wounded in the thigh. "God's death," cried out Elizabeth when she heard of it, "it was time that some one or other should take him down and teach him better manners; otherwise there would be no rule with him."

And now an event of some importance occurred in the life of Sir Walter Ralegh—his marriage. His behaviour has called down much censure upon him. Macaulay invented a phrase which has had potent results, "the disease of biographers." Every man seems fearful lest he should be branded with the ignominy of the complaint; yet he must be a strange fellow who can live again with a man like Ralegh in times like Ralegh's times and not catch the fire of enthusiasm. But enough. At this point in his career, writers are wont to show their breadth of judgment: "There could have been no true nobility in the man ..." writes one of his letter to the Queen. Fortunately ideas differ as to the nature of true nobility. Now this is the basis of the censures levelled against him. Of the facts of his courtship very little is known, and what is known is strangely mingled with the business of reprisals against Spain, in which Ralegh was actively engaged. This is the letter which he wrote to Sir Robert Cecil:—

"Sir,

      "I received your letters this present day at Chattame concerninge the wages of the mariners and others. For myne own part, I am very willing to enter bonde, as you persuaded me, so as the Privey Seale be first sente for my injoyinge the third: but I pray consider that I have layd all that I am worth, and must do, ere I depart on this voyage. If it fall not out well, I can but loose all, and if nothinge be remayning, wherewith shall I pay the wages.... And farther I have promised Her Majestie that, if I can perswade the Cumpanies to follow Sir Martin Furbresher, I will without fail returne.... But, Sir, for mee then to be bounde for so great a sume, uppon the hope of another man's fortune, I will be loth: and besides, if I weare able, I see no privy seale for my thirds. I mean not to cume away, as they say I will, for feare of a marriage and I know not what. If any such thinge were, I would have imparted it unto yoursealf before any man livinge: and therefore I pray believe it not, and I beseich you to suppress, what you can, any such mallicious report. For I protest before God, ther is none on the face of the yearth that I would be fastned unto. And so in haste I take my leave of your Honor. From Chattame, the 10th of Marche.

"Your's ever to be commanded,
"W. Ralegh"       

Ralegh was anxious to stop this gossip about the relations between himself and Elizabeth Throgmorton. What they were, was entirely his own affair. At any rate he wanted Secretary Cecil to be quite clear that they would in no way affect his willingness to work as he had always worked for his country. And so little was he "fastned" to any on the face of the earth that he relaxed no effort to forward his enterprise of Guiana, and in three years' time he set sail for Guiana, though his marriage was then an established fact.

It was for many reasons advisable to crush, if possible, the spread of gossip, and especially because the Queen Elizabeth hated her favourites to marry. As she grew old and began to lose her power as a woman, this feeling increased in violence. Whether that feeling be good or bad, is of no importance. It existed, and Ralegh knew well that it existed. Many consider that his devotion (and that of most of her courtiers) was merely based upon the advantages which he could get from the old woman: that he really flattered and despised her; that his conduct was base and unscrupulous. This view would seem to be at fundamental variance with the facts of his nature, of the Queen's extraordinary power, and of the whole tendency of the time. Not for nothing were love-sonnets the fashion: though there are men who think that fashion sufficient to prove once for all the coldheartedness and insincerity of the time.

When Ralegh returned, he was sent to the Tower, avowedly because he had disobeyed orders in setting sail at all, really because the Queen looked upon his marriage as a kind of personal treason. She detested marriage, thinking it did not improve the efficiency of a man. And Ralegh, without any treachery to his wife, whom he continued to love until the end of his life, was thrown into misery by the Queen's anger. There are men whose nature will not admit of more than one call upon their affection, and that of a limited kind. You will find that they are apt to preen themselves upon their loyalty, wisely enough. Ralegh was not made on those lines. His feeling for the Queen was a real and vital feeling, and was not swayed by every circumstance of his life. She was a woman whom he had loved, and a great woman for all her caprices: she was his Queen and an illustrious Queen: she was Queen of England, which under her rule had crushed Spain's power. It would have been strange if her fierce resentment of his action had not affected him. As it was he wrote from the Tower—men, English men, were not then ashamed of their feelings: they liked to try and express them—

"My heart was never broken till this day, that I hear the Queen goes away so far off—whom I have followed so many years with so great love and desire, in so many journeys and am now left behind her, in a dark prison all alone. While she was yet nire at hand, that I might hear of her once in two or three dayes, my sorrows were the less: but even now my heart is cast into the depth of all misery. I that was wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair about her pure cheeks, like a nymph: sometime siting in the shade like a Goddess; sometime singing like an angell; sometime playing like Orpheus. Behold the sorrow of this world! Once amiss, hath bereaved me of all. O Glory that only shineth in misfortune, what is becum of thy assurance? Al wounds have skares, but that of fantasie, all affections their relenting, but that of womankind. Who is the judge of friendship but adversity? or when is grace witnessed but in offences? There were no divinety, but by reason of compassion; for revenges are brutish and mortall. All those times past,—the loves, the sythes, the sorrows, the desires, can they not way down one frail misfortune? Cannot one dropp of gall be hidden in so great heapes of sweetness? I may then conclude Spes et fortuna valete. She is gone in whom I trusted, and of me hath not one thought of mercy, nor any respect of that that was. Do with me now, therefore, what you list. I am more weary of life than they are desirous I should perish; which if it had been for her, as it is by her, I had been too happily born.

"Your's not worthy any name or like,
"W. R."                  

There are some who see in this letter merely an artifice to play upon the senile affections of a doting woman. They write nimbly of true nobility: they describe the deterioration of an old woman's body; they ask, could a man care for such a person? and assert that all Ralegh desired was money and appointments. Their point of view is wearisome and false: it leaves the bad taste that the report of divorce-court proceedings leaves—with that pettiness and familiarity, which is disgusting.

Meanwhile Ralegh remained in prison: and his enemies triumphed at his downfall.

It is refreshing to read Spenser's account of the story, written a little after the event, as an episode of the "Faërie Queene." It clears the air with its gentleness and that sweet mingling of humour and sadness.

Belph[oe]be has left the squire with Amoret, and comes back.

"There she him found by that new lovely Mate
Who lay the whiles in swoune, full sadly set,
From her faire eyes wiping the deawy wet
Which softly stild and kissing them atweene,
And handling soft the hurts which she did get:...

"Which when she saw with sodaine glauncing eye,
Her noble heart, with sight thereof was fild
With deep disdaine and great indignity,
That in her wrath she thought them both have thrild
With that selfe arrow which the Carle had kild:
Yet held her wrathfull hand from vengeance sore:
But drawing nigh, ere he her well beheld,
'Is this the paith?' she said—and said no more
But turned her face and fled away for evermore."

He smiles a little at the intensity of the squire's grief, but makes no hint at his insincerity, and he could have done so quite easily without injuring his friend, Ralegh. All through the character of Timias the Squire, he dwells on the impetuosity of his feeling with kindly humour. For Spenser must have often teased Ralegh on that terrible restless energy which drove him from experience to experience, and from the height of enthusiasm to the depth of despair. "Do it with thy Might" was a singularly characteristic device.

"And his faire lockes, that wont with ointment sweet
To be embalm'd, and sweat out dainty dew,
He let to grow and griesly to concrew,
Uncomb'd, uncurl'd, and carelesly unshed."

His wife was a lady named Elizabeth Throgmorton, daughter of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton. Much is not known of her: enough, however, is known to prove that she was a woman of character and attainments. The marriage, in spite of its inaugural storm, was a success.

Ralegh's imprisonment occurred when he was busily engaged in fitting out expeditions against the Spaniards to command the trade-route through the Azores. In 1591 a rough squadron had been despatched under Lord Howard; but the enemy had got wind of it, and had sent a powerful fleet to protect their vessels. Of this Lord Howard heard in time to avoid disaster; he weighed anchor from Flores where he was anchoring, and escaped. Sir Richard Grenville, however, refused to fly: with his small ship the Revenge he awaited the attack, and the full fury of the Spanish Fleet fell upon him. His resistance was as gallant as his disobedience had been audacious. Ralegh wrote a superb account of his friend's undaunted valour, and his friend's death spurred him on to renewed enterprise against the Spaniards.

In the following year, 1592, he took the chief part in an expedition which, under his management, was far more successful. "Sir Walter Ralegh," writes Hakluyt, "upon commission received from her Majesty for an expedition to be made to the West Indies, slacked not his uttermost diligence to make full provision of all things necessary, as both in his choice of good ships, and sufficient men to performe the action evidently appeared. For his shippes, which were in number 14 or 15, those two of her Majesties, the Garland and the Foresight were the chiefest; the rest either his owne or his good friends or adventurers in London." Sir John Burrough was in command, and under him was the stern Sir Martin Frobisher, whose rigour even the hardiest sailors disliked. Contrary winds prevented the fleet from sailing for some weeks from the western ports where they were anchored; and the Queen, disliking the delay, recalled Ralegh. But Ralegh, being deeply involved in the enterprise, did not obey her first summons. The wind at length became favourable; and he set sail. But when they were, on May 11th, off Cape Finisterre, "a tempest of strange and uncouth violence" arose, and Sir Walter himself in the Garland was in danger of being swallowed up by the sea. The storm did much damage to the vessels. Moreover, they had learned from two ships homeward bound for London, that no Spanish vessel would move that year, and that the hope of plunder in the West Indies was small. Accordingly, Ralegh determined to divide his fleet into two squadrons, one under the command of Sir John Burrough, and one under the command of Sir Martin Frobisher, and to lie in wait, the first at the Azores, the second by the Spanish coast "to amuse the home fleet." He himself then returned home, and forthwith on his arrival was imprisoned in the Tower of London.

On August 3rd, an immense Spanish galleon, the Madre de Dios, was sighted by Captain Thomson, in The Dainty. He immediately attacked, and was beaten off with some loss, until Sir John Burrough came up with the Roebuck, and the attack was resumed at close range. Still, however, the galleon held her own: Sir R. Cross then sailed up in the Foresight, and Sir John Burrough conferred with him as to the best course to pursue. At all costs they must prevent the Portuguese from taking her to shore and firing her, as they had fired the Santa Cruz, a few months earlier. They decided to board the Madre de Dios. Their first attack was repulsed: the galleon slowly kept on her way to the island. Then Sir R. Cross encouraged his men to make a final attempt. For three hours they fought on alone, when two ships of the Earl of Cumberland arrived, and the galleon was at length taken.

Naturally there was considerable anger among the men of Ralegh's fleet, when the Earl of Cumberland's captains demanded their share of the spoils. Feeling ran high between both parties, and many valuables were stolen, for the galleon was beyond all belief, rich in treasure. And when, on the eighth of September, they arrived with the capture at Dartmouth, and learned that Ralegh was in the Tower, the disorder grew perilously near to mutiny. Ralegh's presence became a necessity, and he was released. He went to the West as a State prisoner. Sir Robert Cecil preceded him.

News of the treasure on the captured ship had spread far and wide: and a proclamation was issued throughout the towns in Devon and Cornwall "that all passengers should be stopped, and that all trunks, carriers, packs, hampers, cloak-bags, portmanteaus, and fardells, that are likely to have in them any part of the goods lately arrived in the ports of Dartmouth or Plymouth in a Spanish carrock ... should be stayed and searched." For the galleon, besides jewels and bullion, contained spices, drugs, silks, calicoes, carpets and quilts, to the value of about £150,000.