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DEATH OF SIR R. GRENVILLE.

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ransome as their estate would bear, and in the mean season to be free from galley or imprisonSir Richard, being thus overmatched, was sent unto by Alfonzo Bazan, to remove out of the Revenge, the ship being marvellous unsavoury, filled with blood, and bodies of dead and wounded men, like a slaughter-house. Sir Richard answered that he might do with his body what he list; for he esteemed it not; and as he was carried out of the ship he swooned, and reviving again, desired the company to pray for him." The Spaniards, who greatly respected him for his valour, tended him. with the utmost care; but he died of his wounds the second or third day after he had been taken on board the Spanish ship. "Here die I," he said to the Spaniards who stood round, "Richard Grenville, with a joyfull and quiet mind, for that I have ended my life as a good soldier ought to do, who has fought for his country and his Queen, for honour and religion. Wherefore my soul joyfully departeth out of this body, leaving behind it an everlasting fame, as a true soldier who hath done his duty as he was bound to do. But the others of my company have done as traitors and dogs; for which they shall be reproached all their lives, and have a shameful name for ever." Grenville's condemnation does not seem to have been deserved by Lord Thomas Howard, who would have come to his assistance, if his crews would have let him. Ralegh thinks it was better that he did not, considering the smallness of his fleet, its bad condition,

and the sickness of the men. "The dishonour and loss to the Queen had been far greater than the spoil or harm that the enemy could any way have received."

After this fight a tremendous storm arose, and did great havoc amongst the Spanish fleet; and also to the fleet of Spanish treasure-ships coming home from the West Indies. "Thus," adds Ralegh, "it hath pleased God to fight for us, and to defend the justice of our cause against the ambitious and bloody pretences of the Spaniards, who, seeking to devour all nations, are themselves devoured.” Ralegh looked upon ceaseless opposition to the Spaniard as the sacred duty of every Englishman. He seems to have grasped the nature of Philip II.'s vast schemes to restore the Romish faith, and place puppet kings on the thrones of France and Germany. With a monarch who cherished such schemes there could be no possibility of peace; and it was this feeling, as much as love of booty, that sent the English privateers into the Spanish seas. Grenville's fight in the Revenge shows the spirit which animated them. They knew no fear, they counted no costs before they attacked, but trusted to their own courage and to God. Doubtless the rich booty won in these fights was very welcome; but a larger motive existed besides the love of plunder, and in some perhaps was the strongest. "Let not any Englishman," writes Ralegh, "of what religion soever, have other opinion of the Spaniard, but . . . that he useth

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his pretence of religion for no other purpose but to bewitch us from the obedience of our natural Prince, thereby hoping in time to bring us to slavery and subjection." As Ralegh grew older, and learned more, his opposition to Spain grew more and more statesmanlike. With this view he wished to found colonies, that through them England's trade and wealth might grow, and she might become more able to resist the encroachments of Spain.

In 1592 Ralegh planned a new attack upon Spain. The Queen lent him two ships, and he fitted out thirteen others. With these he intended to sail towards the Isthmus of Darien, and lie in wait there for Spanish treasure-ships. This time. he started himself with the fleet on the 6th of May, 1592. But the next day he was overtaken by a swift pinnace, in which was Sir Martin Frobisher, bearing a letter from Elizabeth bidding him return at once.

On the 11th of May accordingly he left the fleet, giving one squadron in charge to Frobisher, and another to Sir John Burroughs. There is some obscurity about the cause of Ralegh's recall. It is generally supposed that Queen Elizabeth had found out his intrigue with Bessy Throgmorton, and wished to punish him for it. It is supposed by others that she did not like her favourite to run any risk, and that this recall had been arranged with himself before he started. Be this as it may, his love affair was known to the Queen

immediately after his return, and in July, 1592, Ralegh was lodged in the Tower for his offence.

Two years before, Essex had excited the Queen's bitter anger by his marriage with Frances Walsingham, the widow of Sir Philip Sidney. So violent was Elizabeth's anger, that in a letter written from Court, even some months after, we find it said : "The earl doth use it with good temper, concealing his marriage as much as so open a matter may be; not that he denies it to any, but, for her Majesty's better satisfaction, is pleased that my lady should live very retired in her mother's house." But Elizabeth could not get on without Essex, and her love for him was strong enough to make her overlook his marriage, and receive him into favour again.

With Ralegh it was different. In her first burst of anger Elizabeth committed him to the Tower. His enemies did their utmost to keep him in disgrace, so that he remained under the cloud of royal displeasure for a long while, and never quite regained his former favour. It is not possible to fix the date of his marriage with Elizabeth Throgmorton; but it seems to have taken place some time in 1592, whether before or after his imprisonment we do not know.

From the Tower Ralegh wrote letters describing, in the exaggerated language of the time, his despair at being banished from the presence of his royal mistress. In a letter written in July, 1592, he describes himself as "being become like a fish

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cast on dry land gasping for breath, with lame legs and lamer lungs." In another letter written to Sir Robert Cecil, Burleigh's son, in July, 1592, when Elizabeth was just starting on a progress, he says: "My heart was never broken till this day that I hear the Queen goes 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 nigh at hand, that I might hear of her once in two or three days, 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 sitting in the shade like a goddess, sometime singing like an angel, sometime playing like an Orpheus." He ends his letter by saying, "Do with me as you list; I am more weary of life than they are desirous I should perish." When we think that Ralegh was writing of a woman in her sixtieth year, this language seems absurdly overstrained; but such was the fashion of the day.

One day Ralegh saw from the windows of the Tower the Queen in her barge, followed by a gay procession of boats, pass down the river.

Suddenly," we are told by Sir Arthur Gorges, who was present, "he brake out into a great distemper, and swore that his enemies had brought

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