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doubt the assertion-and that the Spaniards broke in upon him by surprise, in the middle of the night, and butchered many of his people in their sleep. In the morning the English assaulted the town and forced their way into it. The fight was desperate: on one side the governor, a near relation of the ambassador Gondomar, was slain; on the other the brave young Captain Walter Raleigh, the general's eldest son. This young Walter was the true son of his father: he cut down one of the chief officers of the Spaniards, and was cut down himself in the act of charging at the head of his own company of pikemen. His death infuriated the English, who loved him dearly; and, after much bloodshed, they set fire to the houses. All the Spaniards that escaped retired to strong positions among the hills and woods, to guard, as Raleigh said, the approaches to some mines they had found in the neighbourhood of St. Thomas. We cannot help suspecting that the adventurers expected to find and secure some rich prize, like what had been pounced upon by the Drakes and Hawkinses, but all they really found in the captured and destroyed town of St. Thomas were two ingots of gold and four empty refining-houses. They immediately showed their disappointment and discontent, became mutinous and dangerous, and Keymis, oppressed with grief for the loss of young Raleigh, and confounded by their clamours and conflicting projects, appears to have lost his head. He, however, led them some way higher up the river; but, on receiving a volley from a body of Spaniards lying in ambush, which killed two and wounded six of his men, he retreated and made all haste to join his chief. Their meeting was dreadful: Raleigh, in anguish and despair, accused Keymis of having undone him, and ruined his credit for ever. The poor captain answered, that when his son was lost, and he reflected that he had left the general himself so weak that he scarcely thought to find him alive, he had no reason to nrich a company of rascals, who, after his son's leath, made no account of him. Raleigh, in the utter anguish of his soul, repeated his charges. Keymis drew up a defence of his conduct in a letter to the Earl of Arundel, which he requested his commander to approve of; but, though some days had been allowed to elapse, Raleigh was not yet in a humour to be merciful to the brave friend of many years. He refused to sign the letter; he vented reproaches of cowardice or incapacity; and then, Keymis retiring to his cabin, in the general's ship, put an end to his existence with a pistol

I rejected all these his arguments, and told him that I must leave it to himself to answer it to the king and state. He shut himself into his cabin, and shot himself with a pocket pistol, which brake one of his ribs; and finding that he had not pre

and a knife. All now was horror, confusion, and mutiny in the fleet. Captain Whitney took off his ship, and sailed for England, and Captain Woollaston went with him. Others followed"a rabble of idle rascals"-and Sir Walter was soon left with only five ships. But the men that remained were, for the most part, dashing, daring sailors, or desperate adventurers; and these men would have wished Raleigh to take a leaf or two out of the book of the lives of some of his predecessors (men honoured above all naval heroes in the annals of their country); and, though Raleigh rejected their plans of plunder, it appears to have been after a struggle with the overwhelming feeling of his utter desperation. With his "brains broken," he sailed down the North American coast to Newfoundland, where he refitted his ships. When they were ready for sea, a fresh mutiny broke out, and Raleigh avowedly kept them together by holding out the hope of intercepting the treasure galleons. What followed at sea is open to much doubt; but, in the month of June, 1618, Sir Walter came to anchor at Plymouth, where he was welcomed by the intelligence that there was a royal proclamation against him. Gondomar, who had received intelligence of all that had passed on the Orinoco, and of the death of his kinsman, had rushed into the royal presence, crying, "Pirates! pirates!" and had so worked upon James that the worst possible view of Raleigh's case was instantly adopted at the English court, and a proclamation was published, accusing him of scandalous outrages in infringing the royal commission, and inviting all who could give information to repair to the privy council, in order that he might be brought to punishment; and, a few days after Raleigh's arrival, Buckingham wrote a most humble letter to the Spanish ambassador, informing him that they had got the offender safe, and had seized his ships and other property; that King James held himself more aggrieved by the proceedings than King Philip could do; that all kinds of property belonging to the subjects of the King of Spain should forthwith be placed at his disposal; and that, though the offenders could not be put to death without process of law, the King of England promised that a brief and summary course should be taken with them. As if this were not enough, Buckingham concluded by saying that the king, his master, would punctually perform his promise by sending the offenders to be punished in Spain, unless the King of Spain should think it more satisfactory and exemplary that they should receive the reward of their crimes in

vailed, he thrust a long knife under his short ribs up to the handle, and died."—Raleigh's Letter to his Wife.

2 This striking expression is Raleigh's own, in a letter to his wife.

England: and he requested the ambassador to send an express messenger into Spain, because the king, his master, would not have the vindication of his affection to the King of Spain, or his sincere desire to do justice, long suspended. This warmth of affection arose out of James's belief that Philip was now quite ready to bestow the infanta, with a large sum of ready money, upon Prince Charles.

nive at his escape. On reaching London, his faithful friend, Captain King, informed him that he had a bark waiting near Tilbury Fort; and on that same evening Le Clerc, the French chargé d'affaires, sought him out privately, and gave him a safe-conduct to the governor of Calais, with letters of recommendation to other gentlemen in France. On the following morning, as he was descending the Thames, he was basely betrayed by Stukely, who, to the last moment, pretended that he was assisting him through the toils.' He was brought back to London, and se

The thirst of the Spaniards for Raleigh's blood was provoked by many causes besides the burning of the little town of St. Thomas. He was hated and feared as the ablest commander Eng-curely lodged in that wretched prison where he land possessed, and one whose place it was thought would not soon be supplied. It was remembered how he had butchered the Spaniards in the surrendered fort on the coast of Ireland, and the feeble garrison on the coast of Guiana, at the time of his first voyage thither in 1595. There were other bitter recollections of his exploits with Essex among the Azores and the Canary Islands, and Gondomar was eager to avenge the death of his kinsman. Sir Walter was fully aware of his danger; his sailors had told him that if he returned to England he would be undone; but, according to the testimony of his younger son, Carew, given many years after his father's death, the Earls of Pembroke and Arundel had become bound for his return, and he had therefore come to discharge his friends from their heavy engagement, and to save them from trouble on his account. Upon landing at Plymouth, he was arrested by Sir Lewis Stukely, vice-admiral of Dover, and his own near relation, who took him to the house of Sir Christopher Harris, not far from that seaport, where he remained more than a week. As he had returned and delivered himself up, Pembroke and Arundel were released from their bond, and Sir Walter now attempted to escape to France, but he failed through his indecision, or-which is more probable--through the faithlessness of his agents and the vigilance of Stukely.

When he was carried forward from the coast to be lodged again in the Tower, Sir Walter feigned to be sick, to have the plague, to be mad; and if what is related of him be true, which we doubt, never did man play wilder or sadder pranks to save his life. Having gained a little wretched time and the king's permission to remain a few days at his own house at London before being locked up, he sent forward Captain King, one of his old officers and friends, to secure a bark for him in the Thames, in which he might yet escape to the Continent. He then followed slowly to the capital, giving a rich diamond to his loving kinsman Stukely, and some money to one Manourie, a Frenchmen, Stukely's servant, who both took the bribes, and promised to con

had already spent so many years, and where he was soon subjected to frequent examination by a commission composed of the Archbishop of Canterbury (Abbot), Lord-chancellor Bacon, Sir Edward Coke, and some other members of the privy council. He was charged, first, with hav ing fraudulently pretended that his expedition was to discover a mine, while his real object was to recover his liberty, and commence pirate; secondly, that he intended to excite a war with Spain; thirdly, that he barbarously abandoned his ships' companies, and exposed them unnecessarily to extreme danger; fourthly, that he had spoken disrespectfully of the king's majesty; that he had imposed upon the king by feigning sick ness and madness; and lastly, had attempted to escape in contempt of his authority. Raleigh replied that his sincerity as to the gold mine was proved by his taking out refiners and tools, at his own expense, "of not less than £2000;" that the affair of St. Thomas was contrary to his orders; that he never abandoned his men, or exposed them to more danger than he underwent himself; that all that he had said of the king was, that he was undone by the confidence he had placed in his majesty, and that he knew his life would be sacrificed to state purposes. As to his feigning sickness and attempting to escape, it was true, but natural and justifiable. As the commissioners could gain no advantage over him in these interrogatories, it was resolved to place a familiar or spy over him, who might ensnare him into admissions and dangerous correspondence. The person chosen for this detestable, but at that time not uncommon office, was Sir Thomas Wilson, keeper of the State Paper Office, a learned, ingenious, base villain. If this Wilson is to be credited, Raleigh acknowledged that, had he fallen in with the treasure-ships, he would have made a prize of them according to the old principles which he had learned in the school of Drake and Cavendish. To which my lord-chancellor said, "Why, you would have been a pirate." "O!" quoth he, "did you ever

1 For the particulars of Stukely's villainy, see Mr. Tytler's Life of Raleigh.

know of any that were pirates for millions? They | a writ of privy seal, nor a warrant under the that work for small things are pirates." Bacon's great seal, would be a sufficient authority, after palm must have itched as he thought of all this so great a lapse of time, to order execution withgold, and perhaps, in spite of James's fears, Ra-out calling upon the party to show cause against leigh's fate would have been somewhat different it; and, in the end, they unanimously resolved if he had returned with the "millions." But as that the legal course would be to bring the prithings were, there was no making a capital crime soner to the bar by a writ of habeas corpus. Acof an intention; nor could all the cunning, and cordingly, such a writ was issued to the lieutenant zeal, and perseverance of Sir Thomas Wilson ex- of the Tower, who, upon the 28th of October, at tract or detect anything of the least consequence. an early hour of the morning, made Raleigh, who As it was fully resolved that he should lose his was suffering from fever and ague (this time his head, James ordered his council to devise some maladies were not feigned), rise from his bed and other means; and, on the 18th of October, Bacon dress himself. As soon as he was brought to the and Coke and the other commissioners who had bar of the Court of King's Bench at Westminexamined him presented two forms of proceeding ster, Sir Henry Yelverton, the attorney-general, for his majesty's consideration. The one was to said, "My lords, Sir Walter Raleigh, the prisend his death-warrant at once to the Tower, soner at the bar, was, fifteen years since, cononly accompanying it with a narrative of Ra-victed of high treason at Winchester; then he leigh's late offences, to be printed and published; the other form, to which they said they rather inclined, as being nearer to legal proceedings, was "that the prisoner should be called before a council of state, at which the judges and several of the nobility and gentlemen of quality should be present; that some of the privy council should then declare that this form of proceeding was adopted because he was already civilly dead (in consequence of the sentence pronounced at Winchester fifteen years before); that, after that, the king's council should charge his acts of hostility, depredation, abuse of the king's commission, and of his subjects under his charge, impostures, attempts to escape, and other his misdemeanors:" and they recommended that, after this charge, the "examinations should be read, and Sir Walter heard, and some persons confronted against him, if need were; and then he was to be withdrawn and sent back, because no sentence could by law be given against him; and, after he was gone, the lords of the privy council and the judges should give their advice whether upon these subsequent offences, the king might not, with justice and honour, give warrant for his execution." For reasons not explained, this latter form was jected, and the former alternative, somewhat modified, was adopted; and a privy seal was sent to the judges of the Court of King's Bench, directing them to order immediate execution of the old sentence upon Sir Walter Raleigh. The judges, cowardly and corrupt as they were, were startled with the novelty and injustice of the

case.

received judgment to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, but his majesty, of his abundant grace, hath been pleased to show mercy unto him till now, when justice calls upon him for execution. Sir Walter Raleigh hath been a statesman and a man who, in respect of his parts and quality, is to be pitied; he hath been as a star at which the world hath gazed; but stars may fall, nay, they must fall when they trouble the sphere wherein they abide. It is, therefore, his majesty's pleasure now to call for execution of the former judgment, and I now require your lordships' order for the same." Then, the clerk of the crown having first read the old conviction and judg ment, the prisoner was asked why execution should not be awarded. "My lords," said Raleigh, "my voice is grown weak by reason of sickness." Montague, the chief-justice, told him his voice was audible enough. "Then, my lords," continued Raleigh with admirable composure, "all I have to say is this: I hope that the judgment which I received to die so long since cannot now be strained to take away my life; for since that judgment was passed it was his ina jesty's pleasure to grant me a commission to prore-ceed in a voyage beyond the seas, wherein I had power, as marshal, over the life and death of others; so, under favour, I presume I am discharged of that judgment. By that commission I gained new life and vigour; for he that hath power over the lives of others, must surely be master of his own. . . . Under my commission I departed the land, and undertook a journey, to honour my sovereign and to enrich his kingdom with gold, the ore whereof this hand hath found and taken in Guiana; but the voyage, notwithstanding my endeavour, had no other event but

and a consultation of all the twelve judges was held, wherein it was determined that neither

'Sir Thomas Wilson's own MS. in the State Paper Office, as quoted by Mr. Tytler, Life of Raleigh. It appears that the Spa nish ambassador expressly charged Raleigh with "propounding to his fleet to go and intercept some of the Plate galleons." Howell, Letters.

2 "Gondomar will never give him over till he hath his head 3 Cayley, Life of Raleigh.

off his shoulders."-Ibid.

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what was fatal to me the loss of my son and the wasting of my whole estate." The chief-justice told him that he spoke not to the purpose; that his voyage had nothing to do with the judgment of death formerly given against him, which judgment it was now the king's pleasure, upon certain occasions best known to himself, to have executed; that the commission given to him could in no way help him, for by that he was not pardoned, nor was there any word tending to pardon him in all that commission;' that in cases of treason there must be a pardon by express words. To this Raleigh replied, that, if such was the law, he must put himself on the mercy of the king, and hope that he would be pleased to have compassion. He then said, "Concerning that judgment at Winchester passed so long ago, I presume that most of you that hear me know how that was obtained; nay, I know that his majesty was of opinion that I had hard measure therein, and was so resolved touching that trial; and if he had not been anew exasperated against me, certain I am, I might, if I could by nature, have lived a thousand and a thousand years before he would have taken advantage thereof." The chief-justice told him that he had had an honourable trial at Winchester (and honourable it was to Raleigh!); that for fifteen years he had been as a dead man in the law, and might at any minute have been cut off, had not the king, in mercy, spared him. "You might justly think it heavy," he continued, "if you were now called to execution in cold blood; but it is not so; for new offences have stirred up his majesty's justice to revive what the law hath formerly granted. (This was admitting what Raleigh said, and what all the world knew.) And after praying God to have mercy on his soul, he ended with the fatal words-"Execution is granted." The undaunted victim then begged for a short respite to settle his affairs, and for the use of pen, ink, and paper, to "express something," and to discharge himself of some worldly trust;" "and I beseech you," he said, "not to think that I crave this to gain one minute of life; for now, being old, sickly, disgraced, and certain to go to death, life is wearisome unto me." The gentle James had the barbarity to refuse, the brief respite; but pen, ink, and paper were allowed, or procured from the humanity of the jailer. Sir Walter, instead of being carried back to the Tower, was conveyed to the Gatehouse at Westminster, where, in the evening, his affectionate wife took her last farewell. At an early hour on the following morn

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"The old sentence," says Howell, "still lies dormant against him, which he could never get off by pardon, notwithstanding that he mainly laboured in it before he went; but his majesty could never be brought to it; for he said he would keep this as a curb to hold him within the bounds of his commission, and of good behaviour."-Letters.

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THE GATLHOUSE, WESTMINSTER.2-From a print by Vertue. This dean administered the sacrament, which he took very reverently, declaring that he forgave all men, even his relative Sir Lewis Stukely, who had so basely betrayed him. It has been well said of Raleigh, by a contemporary, that he rather loved life than feared death-the reverse, we believe, being generally the case with inferior minds. He would have lived on for the beauty of this visible world, of which, as a traveller, he had seen so much; for the science and the literature he cultivated; for the grand schemes of discovery he indulged in to the last; for his wife and dear boy. But as soon as he felt his doom to be inevitable, he made up his mind to meet it with alacrity and cheerfulness. He breakfasted heartily, smoked a pipe of tobacco after it, as was his usual practice, and when they brought him a cup of good sack, and asked him how he liked it, he said, gaily, that it was good drink if a man might tarry by it. It was mercifully arranged at court that he should be beheaded instead of being hanged, drawn, and quartered. At about eight o'clock in the morning he was

This prison, which obtained much celebrity during the civil wars, on account of the incarceration of so many eminent men within its walls, was erected in the reign of Edward III., and was originally the principal approach to the inclosure of the monastery at Westminster, from the open space in front of the western towers of the altey. It was converted into an eeclesiastical prison shortly afterwards, and was used for criminals on the suppression of monasteries It was pulled down in 1777, at which period it had become a debtors' prison.

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"Even such is Time, that takes on trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have
And pays us but with age and dust:
Who, in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wander'd all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days."1

King James made a merit of this execution with
the court of Spain: the people set it down to his
eternal disgrace.

The death of Sir Walter Raleigh was soon fol-
lowed by that of Queen Anne, who had interceded
warmly but in vain in his favour; and by a war
into which James found himself dragged, in spite
of his soul.

conveyed to the scaffold erected in Old Palace, cine, but it will cure all diseases." He laid his
Yard, Westminster, where an immense crowd neck across the block; the executioner hesitated;
was collected, including many great lords and "What dost thou fear?" said he; "strike, man!"
courtiers, and no doubt ladies—for it was com- The headsman struck, and at two blows severed
mon then for high-born dames to attend these the neck of the soldier, sailor, statesman, poet- -
scenes of blood. There was so great a press that the universal Raleigh, who was then in the sixty-
it was with difficulty the sheriffs and their men seventh year of his age:-
could get him through. When Sir Walter was
upon the scaffold he saluted, with a cheerful
countenance, the lords, knights, and gentlemen.
He then began to speak, and, perceiving a win-
dow where the Lords Arundel, Northampton, and
Doncaster were seated, he said he would strain
his voice, for he would willingly have them hear.
But my Lord of Arundel said, "Nay, we will
rather come down to the scaffold." And this he
and some others did; and then Raleigh, after
saluting them one by one, continued to speak.
He thanked God heartily that he had brought
him to die in the light, and not left him to perish
obscurely in the dark prison of the Tower, where
for so many years he had been oppressed with
many miseries: he denied, by all his hopes of
salvation, that he ever had any plot or intelli-
gence with France; that he had ever spoken dis-
honourably or disloyally of his sovereign. He
solemnly asserted, that in going to Guiana he
knew that the mine he spoke of really ex-
isted, and that it was his full intent to search for
gold for the benefit of his majesty and himself,
and of those that ventured with him, together
with the rest of his countrymen. Then, after
defending himself at some length against other
charges, he spoke about the fall and death of the
gillant Essex, by which he knew he had lost the
favour of the people, and which (as we believe)
weighed heavily on his soul in spite of his
denial of having hastened that execution. Then
the dean of Westminster asked him in what
faith he meant to die; and Raleigh said in the
faith professed by the Church of England. "Then,
before he should say his prayers, because the
morning was sharp, the sheriff offered him to
bring him down off the scaffold to warm him-
self by a fire. No, good Mr. Sheriff,' said he,
let us despatch, for within this quarter of an
hour mine ague will come upon me, and if I be
not dead before then, mine enemies will say that
I quake for fear." So he made a most admirable
prayer, and then rose up and clasped his hands,
saying, "Now I am going to God." He then
took his leave of the lords, knights, and gentle-
men. Though so ready to die, he was anxious
for the fame that should survive him; and, in
bidding farewell to the Earl of Arundel, he en-
treated him to desire the king that no scandalous
writing to defame him might be published after
his death. He poised the axe, felt its edge, and
then said, with a smile, "This is a sharp medi-

VOL. II.

The country of Bohemia, surrounded on all sides by mountains, was occupied by an interesting people, a branch of the great Slavonian family of nations. The Cteches, or Bohemians, as they were called in the rest of Europe, maintained their independence, and were governed by an elective king of their own choosing till the year 1526, when the house of Austria, a house which has gained more by fortunate marriages than by arms, obtained the sovereignty through the union of Ferdinand I. with the daughter of Lewis II. Long before this event, sects had arisen in the country inimical to the Church of Rome: Conrad Stekna, John Milicz, and Mathias Janowa, between the middle and the end of the fourteenth century, had raised their voices against some fundamental doctrines, for which the pope proceeded against them as heretics. The reader will remember that our unfortunate King Richard II. married a Bohemian princess, the good Queen Anne, as she was affectionately called by the English. At her death in 1394, many persons of her household who had accompanied her from her native country, returned thither, and contributed to spread the doctrines of our first reformer Wyckliffe. At the same period, a considerable intercourse existed between the universities of Prague and Oxford. English students occasionally frequented the former-Bohemian students the latter. Hieronymus of Prague, the friend of John Huss, and in the end his companion at the stake, is supposed to have returned from Oxford about the year 1400. He probably assisted Huss when, shortly after, that Reformer translated all the works of Wyckliffe. Huss was burned in 1414 by sentence of the council of Constance, but his opinions survived him, and when

Raleigh's Works.

It is said that he wrote these lines on a
blank leaf of his Bible the night before his execution.
151-2

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