[508] The unfortunate Davison, born apparently to be made a scapegoat, had to bear Leicester’s reproaches for the Queen’s anger, which the Earl said was owing to Davison’s ineffective or insincere advocacy—Davison being a distant connection both of Burghley’s and Leicester’s. The latter even had the meanness to allege that it was mainly owing to Davison’s persuasion that he accepted the sovereignty, and Davison was disgraced and banished from court for a time in consequence. See Sir Philip Sidney’s letters to Davison (Harl. MSS., 285).

[509] Cotton, Galba, cx. (Leycester Correspondence).

[510] Harl. MSS., 6994 (Edwards’ “Letters of Ralegh”).

[511] Amongst many other proofs may be mentioned her letter to Charles Paget, 27th July 1586 (Hatfield Papers, part iii.), in which she says: “Upon Ballard’s return the principal Catholics who had despatched him oversea imparted to her their intentions;” but she advises that “nothing is to be stirred on this side until they have full assurance and promise from the Pope and Spain.” In another letter of the same date to Mendoza she says that although she had turned a deaf ear for six months to the various overtures made to her by the Catholics, now that she had heard of the intentions of the King of Spain, she had consented thereto (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, part iii.). Again, on the same day, she instructed the French Ambassador to ask Burghley to be careful in the choice of a new guardian for her, “so that whatever happen, whether it be the death of the Queen of England, or a rebellion in the country, my life may be safe” (Labanoff).

[512] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. iii. The reference to Parma applies to certain negotiations for peace which had been attempted by Andrea de Looe, Agostino Graffini, and William Bodenham. In a statement furnished by an English agent to Philip in November, it is also asserted that these negotiations were initiated by Burghley “who was always against the war.”

[513] Mendoza wrote to Philip (8th November): “When Cecil saw the papers (taken in Mary’s rooms) he told the Queen that now that she had so great an advantage, if she did not proceed with all rigour at once against the Queen of Scotland, he himself would seek her friendship. These words are worthy of so clever a man as he is, and were intended to lead the other Councillors to follow him in holding the Queen of England back.” It is evident from this that Mendoza did not consider Cecil to be Mary’s enemy.

[514] Babington, Savage, Ballard, Barnewell, Tylney, Tichbourne, and Abingdon were executed at St. Giles-in-the-Fields on the 20th September. Mendoza says that as Babington’s heart was being torn out he was distinctly heard to pronounce the word “Jesus” thrice.

[515] State Papers, Domestic.

[516] Camden.

[517] Davison, who had just been appointed an additional Secretary of State, wrote to Burghley from Windsor (5th October) that the Queen did not like the wording, “Tam per Maria filiam et hæredem Jacobi quinti nuper Scotorū Regis ac communiter vocatam Scotorū Regis et dotare Franciæ.” She wished it to be, “Tam per Maria filiam &c. … Scotorū Regis et dotare Franciæ communiter vocata Regina Scotorū.” Thus it is seen that, although Elizabeth made no difficulty about acknowledging Mary as Queen Dowager of France, she would not recognise her as of right Queen of Scots. Davison adds that she was sending a special messenger to Burghley to discuss the matter with him.

[518] He was the secret means of communication between Mendoza and his spies in England.

[519] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[520] Nau and Curll, the two Secretaries, had been closely examined by Burghley in London, and at first had denied everything, but subsequently when confronted with their own handwriting, were obliged to acknowledge—especially Nau—Mary’s cognisance of Babington’s plans. Nau afterwards (1605) endeavoured to minimise his admissions, but Mary’s letter to Mendoza (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, 23rd November) which was not delivered or opened until long after Mary’s death, leaves no doubt whatever that Mary considered he had betrayed her. Curll lived for the rest of his life on a handsome pension from Spain, but Nau got nothing. Mary’s first answer to her accusers, that she was a free princess and not subject to Elizabeth’s tribunal, had been foreseen by Beale (see his opinion, Harl. MSS., 4646).

[521] Queen to Burghley, 12th October (Cotton, Caligula, cix.).

[522] Camden Annals, and Life of Sir Thomas Egerton.

[523] Hatfield Papers, part iii.

[524] Howell’s State Trials. Burghley writes to Davison (15th October, Cotton, Caligula): “She has only denied the accusations. Her intention was to move pity by long artificial speeches, to lay all blame upon the Queen’s Majesty, or rather upon the Council, that all the troubles past did ensue from them, avowing her reasonable offers and our refusals. And in these speeches I did so encounter her with reasons out of my knowledge and experience, as she hath not the advantage she looked for. And, as I am assured, the auditory did find her case not pitiable, and her allegations untrue.”

[525] Hollingshead.

[526] Mary to Mendoza, 24th November (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, part iii.).

[527] Paris Archives; in extenso in Von Raumer.

[528] Philip’s secret agent in London wrote at the time urging that “a message should be sent from Spain to the Lord Treasurer, who is the ruling spirit in all this business, and is desirous of peace, to let him know that your Majesty wished for his friendship” (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, part iii.).

[529] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, part iii.

[530] Bellièvre did not arrive in England until 1st December. An account of his embassy will be found printed in Labanoff. The regular Ambassador, Chateauneuf, did his best, for he was a Guisan, but Elizabeth flatly told him she believed he was exceeding his instructions. His own doubts as to his master’s real wishes are expressed in a letter to D’Esneval in Paris (20th October): “Je vous prie me mander privément, ou ouvertement, l’intention de Sa Majesté sur les choses de deça; car il me semble que l’on se soucie fort peu de par dela du fait de la Reine d’Ecosse.” Davison wrote to Burghley at Fotheringay (8th October), telling him of the “presumption” of Chateauneuf’s first remonstrance, and the rebuke sent to him by the Queen “for attempting to school her in her actions.”

[531] Mendoza to Philip, 7th December (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, part iii.).

[532] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, part iii. In a marginal note to another letter, Philip himself expresses an opinion that Bellièvre has gone, not to save Mary’s life, but for another purpose.

[533] See Lord Burghley’s notes of this appeal for his reply thereto (Hatfield State Papers, part iii.); and also Elizabeth’s own most interesting letter to Henry III. (Harl. MSS., 4647). She ends by a hit at Henry’s helpless position: “I beg you, therefore, rather to think of the means of preserving than of diminishing my friendship. Your States, my good brother, cannot bear many enemies; do not for God’s sake give the rein to wild horses, lest they throw you from your seat.” Another characteristic step taken in England at the same time was to concoct a bogus plot to murder Elizabeth, in which it was pretended that the Ambassador Chateauneuf was concerned. This gave an opportunity for much anger and complaint on the part of Elizabeth, especially against the Guises; and in Lord Burghley’s memoranda giving reasons for Mary’s execution, this so-called plot of Stafford, Moody, and Destrappes is gravely set forth as a contributing factor.

[534] Gray’s own feelings in the matter may be seen by his copious correspondence with Archibald Douglas, at Hatfield. He had, when he was in Flanders, proposed that Mary might be put out of the way by poison, and was hated by Mary’s friends in consequence. “If she die,” he said, “I shall be blamed, and if she live I shall be ruined;” but he was forced against his will to accept the embassy and acted in a similar way to Bellièvre—pleaded with strong words but weak arguments, in order that his own position might be saved whether Mary lived or died.

[535] Mendoza to Philip, 24th January 1587 (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. iv.).

[536] The matter is fully discussed in Nicolas’s Life of Davison.

[537] It is curious that the warning should come from Howard, a Catholic and a Conservative, several of whose relatives were Spanish pensioners.

[538] Hatfield Papers, part iii. There is no mention of the poison letter to Paulet, but it was written, and is printed in Nicolas’s Life of Davison, with Paulet’s reply.

[539] The Queen kept up a pretence of anger against the Councillors for some time, and especially against Burghley, who on the 13th February wrote her a submissive letter praying for her favour. He was excluded from her presence, and complains that she “doth utter more heavy, hard, bitter, and minatory speeches against me than against any other,” which he ascribes to the calumnies of his many enemies, and to the fact that he alone was not allowed to justify his action personally to her. “I have,” he says, “confusedly uttered my griefs, being glad that the night of my age is so near by service and sickness as I shall not long wake to see the miseries that I fear others shall see that are like to overwatch me.” When at length he obtained audience of the Queen, she treated him so harshly that he again retired, and was only induced to return again by the intercession of Hatton. Elizabeth’s special anger with Burghley may have been an elaborate pretence agreed upon between them, or, what is more probable, the result of some calumnies of Leicester.

[540] An interesting statement of Burghley’s treatment of Davison in later years will be found in Harl. MSS., 290. Part of his unrelenting attitude to him is commonly attributed to Burghley’s desire to secure the Secretaryship of State for his son, Sir Robert Cecil. It is evident, however, that Davison was adopted by Essex as one of his instruments to oppose Burghley’s policy, and the restoration of Davison would thereafter have meant a defeat for the Cecils. This, it appears to me, amply explains the Lord Treasurer’s attitude.

[541] Hatfield Papers, part iii. 223.

[542] That Lord Burghley was desirous of dissociating himself personally from the execution, and of remaining on good terms with the Catholic party, is further seen by a remark made in a letter from Mendoza to Philip (26th March 1587): “Cecil, the Lord Treasurer, said publicly that he was opposed to the execution, and on this and all other points feeling was running very high in the Council; Cecil and Leicester being open opponents” (Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth).

[543] Walsingham, conveying this news to Leicester in Flanders (17th April), says: “There are letters written from certain of my Lords, by her Majesty’s effectual command, to inhibit him (Drake) to attempt anything by land or within the ports of Spain.” On the 11th he wrote: “This resolution proceedeth altogether upon a hope of peace, which I fear may do much harm.”

[544] The first hint to this effect reached Philip too late to be useful. It was conveyed by Mendoza from Stafford in Paris on the 19th April, the day that Drake reached Cadiz.

[545] Foreign Office Records, Flanders, 32.

[546] This was the great galleon San Felipe, one of the richest prizes ever brought to England.

[547] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[548] His mother, the owner of Burghley, had just died, aged eighty-five; and his unmanageable son-in-law, the Earl of Oxford, still caused him endless trouble. His only family consolation at the time was the promise of his favourite son, Sir Robert Cecil, whose great talents and application were already remarkable. How incessant and varied Lord Burghley’s labours still were may be seen by the great number of letters addressed to him, entreating him for help, influence, or advice. The Catholic Earl of Arundel from the Tower, the Earl of Huntingdon, Lord Buckhurst, Lord Cobham, and a host of other nobles appealed to him to forward their suits; Puritan divines like Hammond, Cartwright, Humphreys, and Travers; prelates like Whitgift, Aylmer, Herbert, and Sandys, by common accord chose him as the arbiter of their constant disputes. The Court of Wards, too, entailed a large correspondence and much personal attention; whilst at this period Burghley was also deeply concerned in checking the tendency of Cambridge students to indulge in “satin doublets, silk and velvet overstocks, great fine ruffs, and costly facings to their gowns.”

[549] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[550] As instances see letters—Ralegh to Burghley, 27th December 1587 (State Papers, Domestic, ccvi. 40); Howard to Burghley, 22nd December (State Papers, Domestic, ccvi. 42); same to same (Harl. MSS., 6994, 102); Burghley’s own holograph list of ships and their destinations, 5th January 1588; Hawkins to Burghley, 18th January 1588 (both in State Papers, Domestic, cviii.); and many similar papers of this period in State Papers, Domestic, cviii., and Harl. MSS., 6994.

[551] Stafford told Mendoza (25th February) that Burghley had written to him saying, that he would do his best to prevent Drake from sailing, as his voyages were only profitable to himself and his companions, but an injury to the Queen and an irritation to foreign princes; and in May, Burghley told Stafford that if he had remained out of town two days longer, his colleagues would have let Drake go.

[552] Hatfield Papers, part iii.

[553] Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[554] This mission was said to have been entrusted originally to Paulet, and afterwards to Herbert; but as they did not go to Flanders, it is more likely to have been left to Crofts. I can, however, find no record of it except in Spanish account.

[555] The Commissioners were the Earl of Derby, Lord Cobham, Sir James Crofts, with Valentine Dale and Rogers. Burghley’s son, Sir Robert Cecil, was also attached. The whole correspondence of the Commissioners, mostly directed to Lord Burghley, will be found in Cotton, Vesp., cviii.

[556] Motley thought that Burghley was referred to, but surely Howard would not call him witless. Probably Crofts is meant.

[557] State Papers, Domestic, ccix.

[558] Howard, writing on the 13th June to Walsingham, says: “I forbear to write unto my Lord Treasurer because I am sure he is a very heavy man for my lady his daughter, for which I am most heartily sorry.”

[559] Writing to Walsingham, “from my house near the Savoy,” 17th July, he says: “I am at present by last night’s torment weakened in spirits, as I am not able to rise out of my bed; which is my grief the more, because I cannot come thither where both my mind and duty do require;” and yet on the same day he (Burghley) sent a long minute corrected with his own hand to Darrell, giving directions for the victualling of the navy.

[560] In September, when the news came of the flight of the Armada, grand reviews of these forces were held previous to their being disbanded. Lord Chancellor Hatton entertained the Queen at dinner in Holborn, and his hundred men-at-arms in red and yellow paraded before her Majesty. The next day (20th August) a similar ceremony took place at Cecil House, and shortly afterwards Leicester’s troop was reviewed. But they were all thrown into the shade by Essex’s splendid force of sixty musketeers and sixty mounted harquebussiers, in orange-tawny, with white silk facings, and two hundred light horsemen, in orange velvet and silver.

[561] See his letter, 30th July (O.S.), to his father, giving him an account from hearsay of what had happened off Calais (State Papers, Domestic, ccxiii.).

[562] The ordinary Arabic numbers were never used by Burghley, even in calculations.

[563] One of the last letters that Leicester wrote was to Burghley, from Maidenhead, two days only before his death, asking for some favour for a friend, Sir Robert Jermyn, and apologising for leaving court without taking leave of the Lord Treasurer; and in November the widowed Countess of Leicester—the mother of Essex—wrote begging Burghley to use his influence with the Queen to buy a vessel belonging to her late husband.

[564] Lord Burghley’s memoranda (State Papers, Domestic). For particulars of the expedition see “The Year after the Armada,” by the present writer.

[565] Don Antonio had been deceived so often in England, that although preparations for the expedition were being made for some months previously, he was not convinced that it was really intended for him until the end of the year 1588.

[566] On the eve of his flight Essex thus explained his action in a letter to Heneage (Hatfield Papers, part iii. 966): “What my courses have been I need not repeat, for no man knoweth them better than yourself. What my state now is I will tell you. My revenue is no greater than when I sued my livery, my debts at least two or three and twenty thousand pounds. Her Majesty’s goodness has been so great I could not ask her for more; no way left to repair myself but mine own adventure, which I had much rather undertake than offend her Majesty with suits, as I have done. If I speed well, I will adventure to be rich; if not, I will not live to see the end of my poverty.”

[567] His entry in his diary recording the fact runs thus: “1589. April 4 Die Veneris inter hor 3 et 4 mane obdormit in Domino, Mildreda Domina Burgley.” She is interred at Westminster Abbey, with her daughter the Countess of Oxford; a very long Latin inscription is on the tomb, written by Burghley, recording their many virtues and the writer’s grief at their loss. There is at Hatfield (part iii. 973) a note of the mourners and arrangements for the funeral in Lord Burghley’s handwriting.

[568] MSS. Lansdowne, ciii. 51.

[569] This is a not unnatural mistake under the circumstances for 9th April 1589. The year then began on the 1st April, and in his sorrow Lord Burghley had overlooked the change of year. More than a month after this he wrote a letter, full of grief still, to his old friend the Earl of Shrewsbury, by which we see that he was still living in retirement in one of the lodges of his park at Theobalds, as it is signed “From my poore lodge neare my howss at Theobalds, 27 Maii 1589. P.S. The Queene is at Barn Elms, but this night I will attend on her at Westminster, for I am no man mete for feastings.”

[570] For the particulars of the Catholic plots of Huntly, Crawford, Errol, Claud Hamilton, and Bothwell (Stuart), see Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth.

[571] State Papers, Domestic.

[572] The Vidame de Chartres was the Huguenot agent in Elizabeth’s court for some years, and was constantly craving aid for the cause. His promises of repayment were very rarely kept, as the Huguenots had most of the wealth of France against them. Hence the saying quoted.

[573] Egerton MSS., 359.

[574] “November 30. I have heard a rumour that you have arrived at Calais, and that if the enemy comes to attack that place you will be there with troops to defend it. If this news be true I pray you let me hear it from yourself, and advertise me by the ordinary courier what the enemy is doing and what you think of these designs. For I shall be very happy to see some opportunity by which we could together win honour and serve the common weal. I am idle here, and have nothing to do but to hearken for such opportunities.” (Essex to La Noue; Hatfield Papers, part iii.)

[575] Hatfield Papers, part iv.

[576] A letter from Sir John Smith to Burghley, 28th January 1590, expresses sorrow “to hear that you were very dangerously sick, being next unto her Majesty, in my opinion, the pillar and upholder of the Commonwealth. Howbeit, I am now very glad to hear you have recovered your health;” to which the Lord Treasurer appends the note “relatio falsæ” (Hatfield Papers, part iv.). Later in the year, however (October), the Clerk of the Privy Seal, writing to Lord Talbot, says, “I never knew my Lord Treasurer more lusty or fresh in hue than at this hour.” How heavily business still pressed upon the Lord Treasurer is seen by a remark of his in a letter to Mr. Grimstone (January 1591): “The cause” (of his not having written) “is partly for that I have not leisure, being, as it were, roundly besieged with affairs to be answered from north, south, east, and west; whereof I hope shortly to be delivered by supply of some to take charge as her Majesty’s principal secretary” (Bacon Papers, Birch).

[577] Soon afterwards, Essex was at issue with Robert Cecil about the appointment of a successor to one of Heneage’s offices (Essex to Sir Henry Unton; Hatfield Papers, part iv.). How bitter Essex was against the Cecils is shown by a letter from him to Sir Henry Unton in Paris (June 1591): “Things do remain in the same state as they did. They who are most in appetite are not yet satisfied, whereof there is great discontentment. If it stand at this stay awhile longer they will despair, for their chief hour-glass hath little sand left in it, and doth run out still.”

[578] In one of the letters suggested by the secret intelligence secretary, Phillips, to be written to English Catholics abroad (31st August 1591), Robert Cecil’s appointment to the Council is noted; “but the Queen seems determined against Robert Cecil for the Secretaryship; but my Lord being sick, the whole management of the Secretary’s place is in his (Robert’s) hands, and as he is already a Councillor, any employment of him between the Queen and his father will be the means of installing him in the place” (State Papers, Domestic).

[579] He expressed this wish as soon as Essex’s opposition to Robert Cecil’s appointment became manifest. A letter (State Papers, Domestic) from Hatton, 15th July 1590, thus refers to the matter: “We can well witness your endless travails, which in her Majesty’s princely consideration she should relieve you of; but it is true the affairs are in good hands, as we all know, and thereby her Majesty is the more sure, and we her poor servants the better satisfied. God send you help and happiness to your better contentment.” Nearly all through 1590 and 1591 repeated reference is made in his correspondence to Burghley’s infirmities. This, added to the everlasting disputes between the Prelatists and the Puritans, in which he was between two fires, and the galling opposition of Essex to his son’s appointment, might well have excused his desire to be relieved of his heavy burden.

[580] Bacon Papers, Birch. Sir John Norris had recently gone to Brittany with a small English auxiliary force, and had captured Guingamp. There were also 600 Englishmen in Normandy and an English squadron on the Brittany coast. Burghley holds out hopes also of sending 600 more men to Brittany.

[581] Henry wrote one of his clever characteristic letters to Elizabeth (5th August), expressing in fervent terms his delight at hearing of her intention of coming to Portsmouth during his visit to Normandy. He swears eternal gratitude, and begs her to allow him to run across the Channel; “et baiser les mains comme Roi de Navarre, et etre aupres d’elle deux heures, a fin que j’aie ce bien d’avoir veu, au moins une fois, en ma vie, celle a qui j’ai consacré et corps et tant ce que j’aurai jamais; et que j’aime et révère plus que chose que soit au monde.” Referring to Essex’s force, he says: “Le secours que qu’il vous a pleu à présent m’accorder m’est en singulière grace, pour la qualité de celluy auquel vous avez donné la principale charge, et pour la belle force dont il est composé.” (Hatfield Papers, part iv.)

[582] The Earl’s brother, Walter Devereux, was killed in the siege.

[583] Essex seems to have quarrelled with every one in France, and the Council in England condemned his proceedings from the first. In a letter to the Council (September) he says the whole purport of their letters is “to rip up all my actions and to reprove them” (Hatfield Papers, part iv.). The Queen also wrote him a very angry letter (4th October) consenting on strict conditions that the English shall only be allowed to remain a month longer in France.

[584] From a long letter from Burghley (22nd October), Essex appears to have again left his command and run over to England. He begged Burghley to ask the Queen’s permission for him to join Biron at the siege of Caudebec. The Lord Treasurer says he had not done so, as he was sure the Queen would refuse. Her strict orders were that neither Essex nor his men should risk themselves at the siege of Havre or elsewhere except by her orders. Essex appears to have disobeyed, and returned to France at once without seeing the Queen. During his absence the Englishmen had deserted wholesale. Burghley says there were not 2000 of them remaining—they were unpaid and mutinous, and, according to Biron and Leighton, were committing outrages on all sides. Beauvoir de Nocle wrote to Essex as soon as he had gone back to France (22nd October), “Les courroux de la reine redoublent.”

[585] See the Queen’s very angry letter peremptorily recalling him (24th December 1591), (Hatfield Papers, part iv.).

[586] The heroic but unprofitable result of the expedition was the famous fight of the Revenge and the death of Sir Richard Grenville, who quite needlessly, and out of sheer obstinacy, engaged the whole Spanish squadron. The great difficulty of getting the expedition together is seen by the large number of towns which addressed Lord Burghley personally or the Council, begging on the score of poverty to be excused from fitting the ships, as they had been commanded to do. Southampton, Hull, Yarmouth, Newcastle, and other towns professed to be so decayed as to be quite unable to contribute ships (Hatfield Papers, part iv.).

[587] The reports of spies of plots in Flanders at the time amply justified the precautionary measures taken. Burghley was still appealed to by both religious parties, and he appears at this time to have been claimed by both. In March 1591 one of the spy-letters suggested by Phillips to be sent abroad mentions Burghley’s feud with Archbishop Whitgift and his favour to the Puritans. The Catholic spy in Flanders, Snowdon, in June of the same year, says that the anti-Spanish English Catholic refugees there, Lord Vaux, Sir T. Tresham, Mr. Talbot, and Mr. Owen were opposed to the plots then in progress. “It is said amongst them that if occasion be offered they will requite the relaxation now afforded them by his Lordship’s (Burghley’s) moderation, for it is noted that since the cause of the Catholics came to his arbitrament things have gone on with wonderful suavity” (State Papers, Dom.). On the other hand, Phillips (in July) tells another spy, St. Mains, of the extravagances of the fanatics, Hacket, Coppinger, and Ardington, and speaks of Burghley as being on the side of the Puritans.

[588] In a spirited reply (Hatfield Papers) to a remonstrance of Antony Standen, Lord Burghley insists that Catholics who were punished by death in England are “only those who profess themselves by obedience to the Pope to be no subjects of the Queen; and though their outward pretence be to be sent from the seminaries to convert people to their religion, yet without reconciling them from their obedience to the Queen they never give them absolution.” Those, he says, who still retain their allegiance to the Queen, but simply absent themselves from churches, are only fined in accordance with the law. The same contention is more elaborately stated in Lord Burghley’s essay on “The Execution of Justice.” The examinations of various spies, giving alarming accounts of the plots in Flanders at this time to kill the Queen and Burghley (State Papers, Domestic), afford ample proof that Lord Burghley’s contention as to the aims of the Spanish seminarists was correct.

[589] Francis Bacon frankly confessed that he adhered to Burghley’s enemies because he thought it would be for his own personal advantage as well as for that of the State; and his brother Antony writes (Bacon Papers): “On the one side, I found nothing but fair words, which make fools fain, and yet even in those no offer or hopeful assistance of real kindness, which I thought I might justly expect at the Lord Treasurer’s hands, who had inned my ten years’ harvest into his own barn.”

[590] It was during this progress at Oxford that the circumstance thus related by Sir J. Harrington happened: “I may not forget how the Queen in the midst of her oration casting her eye aside, and seeing the old Lord Treasurer standing on his lame feet for want of a stool, she called in all haste for a stool for him; nor would she proceed in her speech till she saw him provided. Then she fell to it again as if there had been no interruption.” Harrington says that some one (probably Essex) twitted her for doing this on purpose to show off her Latin.

[591] Writing to Archibald Douglas advising him how to excuse as well as he might the depredations of Scotsmen on Danish shipping, he says in a postscript, “I write not this in favour of piracies, for I hate all pirates mortally” (Hatfield Papers, part iv.).

[592] Lansdowne MSS., lxx.

[593] Lansdowne MSS., lxx., and Hatfield Papers, part iv.

[594] Through the whole of the autumn and winter Lord Burghley was busy in the liquidation and division of the vast plunder brought in the carrack. Ralegh had risked every penny he possessed, and came out a loser. The Queen got the lion’s share, and the adventurers, with the exception of Ralegh, received large bonuses.

[595] One of Thomas Phillips’ suggested spy-letters to be sent abroad (22nd March 1591) says that although the Puritan party is the weaker, Essex has made Ralegh join him in their favour. Ralegh’s Puritan birth and breeding naturally gave him sympathy for Essex’s party, whilst his active temperament and his greed made him in favour of war, especially with Spain. His only tie with the Cecils was his early political connection. Though he was usually in personal enmity with Essex, his natural bent was therefore more in sympathy with Essex’s party than with that to which he was supposed to be attached.