When the disbanding of the troops was over, the Earl of Leicester took his departure from court for Kenilworth Castle, but he fell suddenly ill on the road, and died at Cornbury in Oxfordshire, on the 4th day of September. The queen did not appear to grieve much for his loss, and almost immediately after his death she caused his effects to be sold by auction, for the satisfaction of certain debts he owed her treasury.' The fact was, the queen had been for some time provided with another darling, to whom she transferred the strange affection which for so many years she had bestowed on Leicester. This new favourite was Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, ROBERT DEVEREUX, Earl of Essex.-After Oliver. son of the unfortunate earl who had died in Ireland, and whose wife had been very irregularly married to Leicester. At first the queen hated him on his mother's account, but this feeling gave way to an admiration of his handsome person and vivacious disposition. He was made master of the horse, knight of the Garter, and captain-general of the cavalry in 1587, before he was twenty years of age. Upon the death of Leicester he succeeded at once to the dangerous post of prime favourite-a post almost as disagreeable as it was dangerous, for it called for the daily and hourly exercise of flattery and gallantry towards an old woman, a sort of service which ill suited the frank and impetuous character of Essex. that kingdom, had taken refuge in England, where for some time he was left to pine in abject poverty. But now Elizabeth resolved to use him as a means of annoying Philip of Spain, in his recent usurpation of Portugal. She boldly set forth that Don Antonio was a legitimate prince, and her parliament, breathing revenge and conquest, voted her most liberal supplies, and petitioned her to carry the war into Philip's dominions. She told them that she was very poor, and needed all the money they had voted; but thereupon an association, headed by Drake and Norris, undertook to defray the greater part of the expenses, and in a short time they collected an armament of about 200 sail of all sizes, carrying nearly 20,000 men. Don Antonio embarked in royal state, and the fleet commanded by Drake set sail. It was scarcely gone out of Plymouth when the queen was thrown into tender anxieties by missing the young Earl of Essex, who had disobeyed her orders, and gone to indulge his taste for war. The expedition was badly planned, miserably supplied with money and ammunition, and but lamely conducted after the landing of the troops. It was also disgraced by cruelties unusual even in that age. Drake repaired in the first instance to Corunna, where he took four ships of war and burned the lower town. The troops, which were commanded by Sir John Norris, defeated a body of Spaniards intrenched in the neighbourhood, but they could not take the upper town; and as their powder began to fall short, and sickness to rage in their ranks, they were re-embarked and carried to Peniche, on the Portuguese coast. From Peniche the fleet proceeded to the mouth of the Tagus, while the army marched through Torres-Vedras to Lisbon, proclaiming everywhere their Don Antonio. But, contrary to their expectations, no one joined the Don, and they found the country laid waste and bare. There was only a weak Spanish garrison within Lisbon, and the English said they would certainly have taken that capital if it had not been for their total want of proper artillery! Famine was now added to sickness; and Norris, who had disagreed with Drake as to the management of the campaign, thought the best thing to do was to re-embark and return home. The young Earl of Essex displayed a romantic bravery, yet the campaign, on the whole, was exceedingly inglorious. When they counted their numbers at Plymouth, more than one-half of their 20,000 had perished, or were missing. On his return to court, Essex found that he had been nearly supplanted in the royal favour by Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Charles Blount, the latter, second son of Lord Mountjoy, and a student in the Temple; but he soon prevailed over these aspirants. Raleigh was sent into Ireland, where he remained for several years; and, after fighting a duel with him, Essex contracted a great friendship for Blount, who soon afterwards became Earl of Mountjoy. But though Essex enjoyed the queen's good graces, and readily obtained gifts and favours for himself, he was generally unsuccessful in his applications for his friends, being constantly thwarted by the jealousy of the Cecils, and their party. In 1590, when Walsingham, the principal secretary, died, Essex earnestly pressed the claims of the unfortunate William Davison, who had been sacrificed to a state subterfuge; but the "old fox," as Essex called Lord Burghley, was resolved to put his son Robert, afterwards Earl of Salisbury, in Walsingham's place. The queen, beset by these rival parties, had recourse to one of those middle means which were familiar to her; she desired Burghley to take upon himself the vacant place, with permission to his son to act as his assistant. Essex, who was rather passionate than malicious, soon forgot the dispute, but it was treasured up in the cold, hollow heart of Sir Robert Cecil. About this time Essex married the widow of the lamented Sir Philip Sidney, who was a daughter of Walsingham. This was gall and wormwood to the queen, who, however, gradually seemed to forget the offence. perfidy and double-dealing; but when the French king agreed to maintain an offensive and defensive war against Philip, as long as Philip should remain at war with England, she was fain to be satisfied. Henry IV. derived no very great advantage from his war with Spain, to which Elizabeth had bound him. He saw Champagne invaded and Burgundy threatened, Picardy overrun and Doullens and Cambrai taken by the Spaniards; and in the month of April, 1596, the Archduke Albert, who had succeeded to the government of the Spanish Netherlands, took from him the town and citadel of Calais. Elizabeth, who had of late been very sparing of her money and troops, was alarmed at the latter conquest, which brought the Spaniards, who were again talking of invasion, to the very threshold of her own door, and her grief and consternation were great, as her two chief naval commanders, Drake and Hawkins, had died of sickness and vexation in the preceding year, in the course of a very unsuccessful expedition to Spanish America. She now took to writing prayers, and Sir Robert Cecil told Essex that no prayer is so fruitful as that which proceedeth from those who nearest in nature and power approach the Almighty; but the Lord Howard of Effingham, thinking that something In the following year, 1591, the earl, whose more was wanting, suggested another attack upon ruling passion was a love of military glory, passed the Spanish coast; and in the month of June, over to France with a small army of 4000 men, 1596, a fleet of 150 sail, with 14,000 land troops, to assist Henry of Navarre, now Henry IV. of sailed from Plymouth. The lord-admiral took the France. Henry, on the death of his predecessor, command of the fleet, and the Earl of Essex of found himself opposed by the French Catholic the army; but to make up for the inexperience League, and obliged to strengthen his right of and rashness of the young earl, he was ordered birth with the right of conquest. He attempted, to submit all important measures to a council of indeed, to disarm the hostility of the Catholic war, composed of Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir George party by large concessions; but this so incensed Carew, and other tried officers. In the month the Huguenots, who had hitherto been his sup- of June the fleet sailed into Cadiz Bay, and in port, and in whose religion he had been brought defiance of the fire from the forts and battlements up, that they threatened to leave him to the fury and fifteen large men-of-war, they got into the of his enemies. He was forced to abandon for harbour, where, after a fierce fight, which lasted a time the siege of Paris, and to retire into Nor- six hours, three of the largest of the Spanish ships mandy. At this crisis he applied to his old secret were taken, and about fifty sail were plundered ally, Queen Elizabeth, who very opportunely sup- and burned. As soon as this was over, Essex plied him with £20,000 in gold, and with some disembarked a part of the land force, and on the troops. Essex greatly distinguished himself, and | next day he forced the city of Cadiz to capitulate. lost by a musket-shot his only brother, Walter The inhabitants paid 12,000 crowns for their Devereux, to whom he was fondly attached. lives; their houses, their merchandise, their goods Other expeditions were sent over from time to of all kinds were plundered by the conquerors, time, that contributed to check the enemies of and the whole loss sustained by the Spaniards Henry, particularly in Brittany, where the on this occasion was estimated at 20,000,000 duSpaniards, in alliance with the lords of the League, cats. Essex, who was the real hero of this short had landed a considerable force. This war, though campaign, would have retained the conquest, and omewhat costly, and contributing in no very he offered to remain at Cadiz and Isla de Leon direct manner to any English interest, was very with 3000 men, but he was overruled, and compopular with the Protestants; but in 1593, Hen-pelled to re-embark, having first seen the fortiy, to secure peace to his throne, embraced the fications razed. Catholic religion. Elizabeth charged him with On the return of this expedition, which was not absent above ten weeks, dissensions and jealousies the destruction of the new Armada in its own broke out among the commanders, and the queen ports, for the intercepting of the treasure ships, was incensed at the small portion of the plunder and the harassing the Spanish coasts and colonies. which was brought to her treasury. The Cecils The command was given to the ardent Essex, had taken advantage of his absence to undermine who had under him Lord Thomas Howard and the great credit of Essex, and now he was insi- Sir Walter Raleigh. The fleet sailed from Plymouth in the month of July, 1597, but it was almost immediately driven back upon the coast by a tremendous storm, which disabled many of the ships. It did not get to sea again till the 17th of August, by which time the men had eaten up all their provisions. Although Essex captured three Spanish ships, which were returning | from the Havannah, and which were valued at £100,000, and although he took, in the Azores, the isles of Fayal, Graciosa, and Flores, which the English could not keep, his expedition was considered a failure. A Spanish fleet had threatened the English coast in his absence, and on his return the queen received him with frowns and reproaches. The earl, who was further incensed by some steps gained in the government by Sir Robert Cecil and his friends, retired to his house at Wanstead in Essex, and, under pretence of sickness, refused to go either to court or parliament. But the queen, who was constantly quarrelling with him when present, could not bear his prolonged absence, and she got him back by creating him hereditary earl-marshal. diously assailed from all sides, and Sir Walter Raleigh intrigued against him, and claimed to himself the chief merit of the expedition. Essex was sinking to rise no more, when a lucky accident came to his assistance. The Spanish treasure ships from the New World arrived safely in Spain, with 20,000,000 dollars on board. Essex maintained that he had projected a voyage from Cadiz to Terceira, for the purpose of intercepting this rich prize, and that he certainly should have succeeded in doing so had he not been thwarted and overruled by the creatures of the Cecils. Old Burghley, who made some false steps to recover the good-will of Essex-things almost unaccountable in such a man was called to his face a miscreant and coward, and driven for a time from court. Essex was somewhat over-proud and confident on this victory, but not being capable of a lasting hatred, he consented, in the course of a few months, to a regular treaty of peace and amity with the Cecils, which was managed, for his own purposes, by Sir Walter Raleigh. But in the beginning of the year 1597 Essex quarrelled with the queen for promoting his personal enemy, Henry Lord Cobham, to the office of warden of the Cinque-ports, which he, Essex, had petitioned Elizabeth to grant to his near connection, Sir Robert Sidney. He left the court, and was mounting his horse to go into Wales when the queen pressingly recalled him, and to pacify him made him master of the ordnance. Philip of Spain was now preparing a new Armada. The English cabinet resolved to anticipate this attack, and after some struggles with the queen's economy, they fitted out a powerful armament for At this moment Spain, which for some time had been secretly negotiating with France, intimated that it would gladly include England in a general peace, and in the month of May, 1598, Sir Robert Cecil, who had been on a mission to Paris, brought direct proposals for a treaty. The Cecils, with all the rest of that tribe, insisted that these proposals should be entertained, but the warlike Essex argued hotly for a continuation of hostilities. The dispute in the cabinet grew violent, and old Burghley, losing his temper altogether, told Essex that he thought of nothing but blood and slaughter, and drawing out of his pocket a psalm-book, pointed to the words "blood-thirsty men shall not live out half their days." The Cecil party carried the majority of the nation with them. In the meanwhile Henry IV. of France had signed with Philip the treaty of Vervins, by which he recovered possession of Calais and the other places which he had lost for forty long years. Elizabeth is said to have during his alliance with Elizabeth. wept bitterly at his death. About the same time, however, her heart was lightened by intelligence of the death of her arch-enemy, Philip of Spain. Ireland was in a most alarming state, and it was deemed expedient to send over a new lorddeputy with extraordinary powers. The Cecils We pass over many of the persecutions, state trials, and sanguinary executions, which threw a gloom on the last years of this reign: but there is one case which, on account of its frightful absurdity, seems to merit a moment's notice. One Stanley accused a private soldier, named Squires, of a design to poison the queen. Squires, after lying on the rack for five hours, confessed that Walpole, a Jesuit, had engaged him to commit the crime, and had furnished him with a most powerful poison. The poison was contained in a double bladder, which Squires was to prick with a pin, and then to press on the pommel of the queen's saddle. The queen (so went the story) would undoubtedly touch the poison with her hand, and afterwards move her hand to her mouth or nose, and so death must ensue, as the said poison was "so subtle and penetrating" that it would instantly reach either her lungs or her stomach. The tortured man moreover confessed that he had actually rubbed some of the poison into the pommel of the saddle on which the SIR ROBERT CECIL, afterwards Earl of Salisbury. From the queen's majesty had actually ridden. On the portrait by Zucchero. trial one of the queen's counsel could not describe her majesty's peril for weeping, and another of them declared that her escape was as great a prisoner now said that he had confessed all sorts of things on the rack merely to escape from that torture. He was executed as a traitor, and died maintaining his innocence of what we may pretty safely call an impossible crime. Upon the accession of Philip III., though no treaty of peace was concluded, the war was allowed to languish, and by degrees all parties began to entertain the notion of an enduring peace. proposed one officer, Essex another: the queen sided with the Cecils, and attacked Essex with her usual severity of language.' The earl, forget-miracle as any recorded in Holy Writ. The ting himself and his duty, turned his back upon his sovereign in a kind of contempt. The queen would not bear this insolence, and so bestowed on him a box on the ear and bade him go to the devil. Essex immediately clapped his hand on his sword, and swore a great oath, that he neither could nor would put up with an affront of that nature, nor would he have taken it at the hands of Henry VIII. himself; and so saying, he rushed out of the apartment, and instantly withdrew from court, again to brood over his wrongs in his house at Wanstead. From June till October he remained in that solitude, but then, to the surprise of most people, he returned to court, and apparently to the possession of his former favour. It is doubted, however, whether Elizabeth ever forgave him. "His friends," says Camden, "dated the earl's ruin from this unfortunate circumstance; making this remark, that fortune rarely caresses a cast-off favourite a second time." During Essex's seclusion Burghley had gone to his grave. That remarkable statesman died on the 4th of August, 1598, in the 78th year of his age, having mainly directed the councils of Elizabeth The struggle here was, not which of the two, Essex or the Cecila, should appoint his friend, but which should prevent his friend's being appointed. The post of lord-lieutenant or deputy in Ireland was no longer an enviable one. Meanwhile, the state of Ireland grew worse and worse, though before this time things were brought to such extremities, that Walsingham had thought it no treason to wish the island and all in it buried in the sea. "The Irish nation," says a quaint old historian of the court of Elizabeth, " we may call a malady, and a consumption of her times, for it accompanied her to her end; and it was of so profuse and vast an expense, that it drew near unto a distemperature of state and of passion in herself; for, towards her last, she grew somewhat hard to please, her armies being accustomed to prosperity, and the Irish prosecution not answering her expectations, and her wonted success; for it was a good while an unthrifty and inauspicious war, which did much disturb and mislead her judgment; and the more for that it was a precedent taken out of her own pattern. For as the queen, by way of division the effect of scanty or bad provisions, broke out amongst them. By the month of August he had no more than 3500 foot and 300 horse in the field. He demanded and obtained a reinforcement of 2000 men, upon which he marched, for the first time, into Ulster, the centre of the rebellion. He went, however, complaining that he had received nothing but "discomforts and soul wounds," and that Raleigh and Cobham with others were working his ruin at home. On the 5th of September Essex came up with Tyrone and his whole army in the county of Louth, but instead of a battle their meeting ended in a personal parley, the result of which was an armistice for six weeks, which was to be renewed from six weeks to six weeks, until May-day following. The Earl of Tyrone gave Essex several demands on the part of the Irish, which he undertook to deliver to the queen. Tyrone returned with all his forces into the heart of his country. Essex, upon receiving some angry despatches from England, left the government of Ireland to the Archbishop of Dublin and Sir George Carew, and, without waiting for any order or permission, hastened to London. Upon Michaelmas Eve, about ten o'clock in the morning, he alighted at the court-gate in post, and made all haste up to the presence, and so to the privy-chamber, and stayed not till he came to the queen's bed-chamber, where he found the queen newly up, with her hair about her face; he kneeled unto her, kissed her hands, and had some private speech with her, which seemed to give him great contentment; for when he came from her majesty he was very pleasant, and thanked God, though he had suffered much trouble and storms abroad, he found a sweet calm at home. In the course of the forenoon he had a had, at her coming to the crown, supported the | took every advantage of this fresh quarrel, and revolting states of Holland, so did the King of they no doubt helped to check the earl's supplies Spain turn the trick upon herself, towards her and embarrass his operations. His troops seem, going out, by cherishing the Irish rebellion."1 indeed, to have been a Falstaff's army; many deThe present leader of the Irish insurgents wasserted, many fell lame, and could not, or would Hugh, the son of the late Baron of Duncannon, not, march; and then a sickness of a serious kind, who had been exalted by the queen to the earldom of Tyrone, and who had exalted himself to be the O'Neil and rightful Irish sovereign of Ulster an extraordinary man, ambitious, crafty, brave, and of an indefatigable activity. Under his guidance the Irish pursued a consistent plan, which they had never done before. They wore out the English troops by a desultory warfare among marshes, woods, and hills; and strong in their numbers and improved discipline, they ventured to face them in the open field. Sir John Norris, the veteran who had gained honour in the Netherlands and in France, was harassed to death, and died of sheer grief and vexation. Sir Henry Bagnall was defeated in a pitched battle fought at Blackwater, in Tyrone, and lost his own life, the lives of 1500 of his men, his artillery, and ammunition. After this victory all the Irish, with the exception of a few septs, proclaimed the Earl of Tyrone the saviour of his country, and rose in arms, with the hope of wholly expelling the English. To meet the storm and to measure swords with the Earl of Tyrone, it was necessary to appoint a general of superior ability, and one that enjoyed the favour of the English army. The Cecils suggested that none was so fit as the Earl of Essex, for they wished to remove him from court, and involve him in a business which had brought death, or disgrace and ruin to all preceding commanders. The earl was warned by his friends to beware of Ireland: he expressed great reluctance to take the command; but at last he yielded to the requests of the queen, and the temptations of a large sum of money and greater powers and privileges than had been enjoyed by any of his predecessors; and in the month of March, 1599, he left London for Ireland. Almost as soon as he reached Ire-long conference with her majesty, who was very land he appointed his friend the Earl of Southampton to be general of the horse, considering that the power to make such an appointment was vested in him. But the queen, after some angry correspondence, compelled him to revoke it. Soon after he was accused of wasting time and money. He replied that he acted by the advice of the lords of the Irish council, and in consideration of the state of affairs. The queen harshly told him that she had great cause to think that his purpose was to prolong the war. The Cecils 1 Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia. gracious towards him. All the lords and ladies and court gentlemen also were very courteous – only a strangeness was observed between the earl and Sir Robert Cecil and that party. But after dinner, when Essex went again to the queen, he found her much changed; and she began to call him to question for his unauthorized return, and his leaving of all things in Ireland in such peril and confusion. At night, between ten and eleven o'clock, he received an order from her majesty to consider himself a prisoner in his room. On the next day the lords sat in council, and called Essex before them. It was said that never man an 2 It appears that Lord Southampton's disfavour with the swered with more temper, more gravity, or dis queen arose from his marrying without her leave a kinswoman of the Earl of Essex. 3 Sidney Papers |