Sir Walter Ralegh: A Biography - free ebook by W. (William) Stebbing

STEBBING

HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK A Biography By...

13 minute read

Read Chapter

WILLIAM STEBBING, M.A.

FORMERLY FELLOW OF WORCESTER COLLEGE, OXFORD AUTHOR OF 'SOME VERDICTS OF HISTORY REVIEWED' REISSUE WITH A FRONTISPIECE AND A LIST OF AUTHORITIES Oxford AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1899 Oxford PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS BY HORACE HART, M.A. PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY...

2 minute read

Read Chapter

PREFACE

Students of Ralegh's career cannot complain of a dearth of materials. For thirty-seven years he lived in the full glare of publicity. The social and political literature of more than a generation abounds in allusions to him. He appears and reappears continually in the correspondence of Burleigh, Robert Cecil, Christopher Hatton, Essex, Anthony Bacon, Henry Sidney, Richard Boyle, Ralph Winwood, Dudley Carleton, George Carew, Henry Howard, and King James. His is a very familiar name in the Calenda

6 minute read

Read Chapter

AUTHORITIES

Not a few readers and critics, who have been so kind as to speak otherwise only too favourably of the book, have intimated that its value would be increased by references to the authorities. In compliance with the suggestion, the author now prints the list—a formidable one. He has drawn it up in a form which, he hopes, may enable students without much difficulty to trace the sources of the statements in the text. The figures in the parentheses ( ) after the title of each authority are the date o

28 minute read

Read Chapter

CORRIGENDA

P. 5 , l. 12, for 'him. It has not been' read 'his career. Until lately it had not even.' P. 5 , ll. 22-26, for 'In fact no trace ... face of Ralegh's words' read 'But a few years ago an entry was discovered in the Registers of St. Mary Major, Exeter, of the burial in that church on February 23, 1581, of "Mr. Walter Rawlye, gentelman." Katherine Ralegh, as appears from her will, found in 1895, died in 1594.' P. 89 , l. 10, omit 'published in 1615.' P. 90 , l. 2 from bottom, omit 'in 1615 by Rale

2 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER I.

Genealogy. The Raleghs were an old Devonshire family, once wealthy and distinguished. At one period five knightly branches of the house flourished simultaneously in the county. In the reign of Henry III a Ralegh had been Justiciary. There were genealogists who, though others doubted, traced the stock to the Plantagenets through an intermarriage with the Clares. The Clare arms have been found quartered with those of Ralegh on a Ralegh pew in East Budleigh church. The family had held Smallridge, n

7 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER II.

In Search of a Career (1552-1581). Walter, the second son by the third marriage of Walter Ralegh of Fardell and Hayes, was born in the reign of Edward VI, it has been supposed, in 1552. The exact date is not beyond doubt; for the registration of baptisms at East Budleigh was not begun till two or three years later. If the inscription on the National Portrait Gallery picture, '1588, aetatis suae 34,' and that on Zucchero's in the Dublin Gallery, 'aet. 44, 1598,' be correct, his birth must have be

25 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER III.

Royal Favour (1581-1582). This visit of Ralegh's to the Court was the turning-point in his career. How it became that has been explained in different ways. According to Naunton a variance between him and Grey drew both over to plead their cause. Naunton goes on to say that Ralegh 'had much the better in telling of his tale; and so much that the Queen and the lords took no slight mark of the man and his parts; for from thence he came to be known, and to have access to the Queen and the lords.' It

16 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER IV.

Offices and Endowments (1582-1587). His promotion, when it commenced, was liberal; it was not meteoric. He had won his full entry at Court before he gained permanent offices and emoluments. For a time he continued dependent upon the long-suffering Irish Exchequer. In February he received an order for £200 upon the entertainment due to him in Ireland. That, however, seems to have been payment of arrears for previous and actual service. Notwithstanding an angry protest by the Lord Deputy, already

14 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER V.

Virginia (1583-1587). Ralegh was not freer from the faults of his class than the rest. Beyond the rest, he showed public spirit in his expenditure. By arguments, by his influence, by his example, he fanned the rising flame of national enterprise. From the first he devoted a large part of his sudden opulence to the promotion of the maritime prosperity of the nation. Among his earliest subjects of outlay was the construction in 1583 of the Ark Ralegh. It was, according to a probable account, of tw

17 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER VI.

Patron and Courtier (1583-1590). In social and private as well as public life Ralegh was open-handed and liberal in kind offices. Those are not unpopular characteristics. He was a patron of letters. His name may be read in many dedications. Few of them can have been gratuitous. Martin Bassanière of Paris inscribed to him very appropriately his publication of Laudonnière's narrative of the French expedition to Florida. Richard Hakluyt, junior, during his residence in France, had lighted upon Laud

10 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER VII.

Essex. The Armada (1587-1589). As a favourite Ralegh was certain to have originally been hated by the people. His favour might have been tolerated by courtiers, or by a sufficient section of them, if he had been content to parade and enjoy his pomps, and had let them govern. His strenuous vigour exasperated them as much as his evident conviction of a right to rule. They never ceased to regard him on that account as a soldier of fortune, and an upstart. So poor a creature as Hatton had his party

13 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER VIII.

The Poet. (1589-1593). Ralegh would have been happier if he could have gone on fighting Spain instead of returning to the discord of Court rivalries. Before the summer was over he was again immersed in bickerings with Essex. The Earl was prone to take offence. After the defeat of the Armada he had challenged Ralegh to mortal combat. The unknown grievance was probably not more serious than the title to a ribbon of the Queen's, for which, a little later, he provoked a duel with Blount, Lord Mountj

20 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER IX.

The Revenge. (September, 1591). Long after Ralegh began to be recognized in his new circle as a poet, he first showed himself a master of prose diction. The occasion came from his loss of an opportunity for personal distinction of a kind he preferred to literary laurels. The hope and the disappointment alike testify that, whatever had been the Queen's demeanour in 1589, she frowned no longer in 1591. Essex's temporary disgrace, on account of his marriage with Lady Sidney in 1590, had improved Ra

9 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER X.

In the Tower. The Great Carack. (1592). Immediately on his return, if not before, he understood the reason of his recall. He had written to Cecil on March 10: 'I mean not to come away, as they say I will, for fear of a marriage, and I know not what. If any such thing were, I should have imparted it unto yourself before any man living; and therefore, I pray, believe it not, and I beseech you to suppress, what you can, any such malicious report. For, I protest, there is none on the face of the ear

20 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XI.

At Home; and in Parliament. (1592-1594). Ralegh generally could hold his own, even in a bargain with his Queen. In 1592 his hands were tied. He had to use his prize, as he said himself, for his ransom; and it effected his purpose. Once more he was a free man, and he had much to render liberty precious and delightful. He had a bride beautiful, witty, and devoted; and in 1594 a son was born to him, whom he named Walter. He had many pursuits, and wealth which should have been abundant, though all E

13 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XII.

Guiana (1594-1595). Had not history preserved the memory of Ralegh's exile from Court, his public life was so animated that the displeasure of the Queen need hardly have been remarked. To himself the blight on his prospects was always and dismally visible. The Queen had raised him from obscurity, and afforded his genius scope for shining. Well as he understood the value of his powers, he knew they derived still from her, as ten or a dozen years before, their opportunity of exercise. He was not b

27 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XIII.

Cadiz. The Islands Voyage. (1596-1597). Ralegh, like his wife and Keymis, may have thought his labour and his money thrown away. They had not been. Guiana, after all, rehabilitated him. His advice that England should not let herself be constrained to a defensive war by the power of the Indian gold of Spain, was followed. Again he emerged into official prominence as a warrior. He had never ceased to carry himself as one who owed it to the State to counsel and to lead. In November, 1595, he was wa

25 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XIV.

Final Feud with Essex (1597-1601). The Islands Voyage was the last for many years of Ralegh's personal adventures at sea. After it he found enough, and too much, to occupy him at home. He speaks of himself as 'mad with intricate affairs and want of means.' As soon as he returned he had to take precautions against an expected attack on Falmouth by a Spanish fleet of 110 or 160 sail. Only the tempest which had troubled Essex and him prevented its arrival while he was away. He was arranging for the

22 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XV.

The Zenith (1601-1603). From Essex's execution to the death of Elizabeth, on March 24, 1603, is a period of two years wanting a month. It constitutes another stage in Ralegh's career. No more fascinating Court favourite, no Leicester, Essex, or mere Hatton, stood now in his way. If even Elizabeth's vivacious temperament may have ceased to require attentions as from a lover, she never grew insensible to wit, grace, versatility, and valour like his. The Lord Oxford. jealousy he continued to arouse

20 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XVI.

Cobham and Cecil (1601-1603). He did not know it, but he was now at the culmination of his prosperity. His kinsman, the learned Richard Carew, dedicated to him at the beginning Impatience of Subordination. of 1602 the Survey of Cornwall , in terms, which, however exalted, were not exaggerated. He had a noble estate, his sovereign's renewed confidence, and many important offices. In politics he was still among those who followed rather than led, who executed, and did not direct. Of constant subor

19 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XVII.

The Fall (April-June, 1603). Elizabeth died on March 24, 1603. In the previous September Howard had reported her 'never so gallant many years, nor so set upon jollity.' James set out from Scotland on April 5. Ralegh at the Queen's death was in the West. He returned hastily to London. There is a legend, countenanced by Sir John Hawles, that, with Sir John Fortescue and Cobham, he tried a movement for 'articling' with James before proclaiming him. Unsuspicious Aubrey narrates that at a consultatio

9 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XVIII.

Awaiting Trial (July-November, 1603). We now enter the period of the plot and plot within plot in which Anthony Copley, the priests William Watson and Francis Clarke, George Brooke and his brother Cobham, Sir Griffin Markham and his brothers, the Puritan Lord Grey of Wilton, and Sir Edward Parham were variously and confusedly implicated. The intrigue, 'a dark kind of treason,' as Rushworth calls it, 'a sham plot' as it is styled by Sir John Hawles, belongs to our story only so far as the cross m

35 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XIX.

The Trial (November 17). On September 21 Ralegh had been indicted at Staines for having, with Cobham and Brooke, compassed in the Parish of St. Martin in the Fields to deprive the King of his crown, to alter the true religion, and to levy war. The indictment alleged that Cobham had discoursed with him on the means of raising Arabella Stuart to the crown; that Cobham had treated with Arenberg for 600,000 crowns from the King of Spain, and had meant to go to Spain in quest of support for Arabella.

25 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XX.

Justice and Equity of the Conviction. Students of English judicial history, with all their recollections of the strange processes by which criminal courts in Ralegh's age leaped to a presumption of a State prisoner's guilt, stand aghast at his conviction. Mr. Justice Foster, in his book, already cited, on The Trial of the Rebels in Surrey in 1746 , professes his inability to see how the case, excepting Exceptionally iniquitous. the extraordinary behaviour of the King's Attorney, differed in hard

15 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXI.

Reprieve (December 10, 1603). The nation was doing a great man justice, though tardily. Not even its hero's temporary self-abasement could put it out of conceit with him. One of the many curious surprises in Ralegh's history is the manner in which a sudden change in his demeanour seemed to give the lie to the general admiration. Almost a worse grievance against the Court and its legal tools than their persecution is the effect it had in humiliating and degrading him for a time. Though the procee

15 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXII.

A Prisoner (1604-1612). On December 16, 1603, Ralegh, with his fellow convicts, returned to London. That would have been the close of an ordinary man's career. To him alone it did not seem the end, and he resolved it should not be. He had his life. Liberty and fortune were still to be regained. He looked around him, and endeavoured to retrieve the scattered fragments of his wealth. Like all his peers in arms and politics he had ever believed in the importance of riches. But now he was grasping a

39 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXIII.

Science and Literature (1604-1615). In prison as in freedom, if Ralegh failed in one effort for the reconstruction whether of his fortune, or of his career, he was always ready for another. He felt all the tedium of the uphill struggle. 'Sorrow rides the ass,' he exclaimed; 'prosperity the eagle.' Never for an instant was he dejected to the extent of faltering in the energy of his protests against the endeavours to suppress him. As Mr. Rossetti has noted in an exquisite sonnet, his mind remained

37 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXIV.

The Release (March, 1616). No merits of his, and no sense of justice to him, opened, or ever would have opened, his prison doors. But at length it was become inconvenient to keep him under duress. The gaolers who cared to detain him were gone. In their places stood others who had an interest in sending him forth, though with a chain on his ankle. He could never have been brought to trial on a fantastic charge, or been convicted without evidence, unless for the weight of popular odium, which enab

17 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXV.

Preparing for Guiana (1616-1617). Ralegh's freedom was for a period conditional. The King's warrant 'fully and wholly enlarging' him, was not issued till January 30, 1617. From the preceding March 19, or, Camden says, March 29, he was permitted to live at his own house in the city. But he was attended by a keeper, and his movements were restricted. On March 19, the Privy Council had written to him: 'His Majesty being pleased to release you out of your imprisonment in the Tower, to go abroad with

23 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXVI.

The Expedition (May, 1617-June, 1618). On May 3 he published his orders to the fleet. They were a model of godly, severe, and martial government, as testified a gentleman of his company. Divine service was to be solemnised every morning and evening. The pillage of ships of friendly Powers was rigorously prohibited. Courtesy towards the Indians was strictly injoined. All firearms were to be kept clean. Rules were laid down in the event of an encounter with 'the enemy' at sea. Cards, dice, and swe

29 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXVII.

Return to the Tower (June-August, 1618). He arrived in his flagship the Destiny at Plymouth on June 21. No other ships accompanied him. At the news Lady Ralegh, sorrowing and glad, hastened from London. No painter has tried to portray the meeting, one of the most pathetic scenes in English history. His return had long been provided for by others than his noble wife. Captain Bayley, who stole away Bayley's Calumnies. from Lancerota early in September, 1617, reached England in October. There he sk

19 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A Moral Rack (August 10-October 15). On the morning of Monday, August 10, Ralegh finally entered the Tower. This time he was made to feel that he was a prisoner indeed. He had meant to Ralegh's Trinkets. transport to France charts of Guiana, the Orinoko, Nuova Regina, and Panama, with five assays of the ore of the Mine. They were on him, and they were taken from him. He was stripped also of his trinkets, except a spleen stone. This and an ounce of ambergris were left with him for his personal us

25 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXIX.

A Substitute for a Trial (October 22, 1618). Bacon, his fellow Commissioners, and the Law Officers were consulted by the Crown on the fitting procedure for the setting up of the old conviction. Coke seems to have been deputed by the other Commissioners to embody in legal form their unanimous opinion, which Bacon, as Lord Chancellor, delivered to James on October 18. The only copy in existence is in Coke's Two Courses. handwriting. It was to the purport that Ralegh, being attainted already of hig

19 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXX.

Ralegh's Triumph (October 28-29, 1618). Ralegh was confined in the Gate-house of the old monastery of St. Peter. It was a small two-storied building of the age of Edward III, standing at the western entrance to Tothill-street. The structure embraced two adjoining The Gate-house. gates, with rooms which had been turned into prison cells. By the side of the gate leading northwards from the College-court, was the Bishop of London's prison for convicted clerks and Romish recusants. With the other ga

15 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXXI.

Spoils and Penalties. A shudder is said to have run through the crowd of spectators as the axe fell. The trunk was carried from the scaffold to St. Margaret's Church, and buried in front of the Communion table. A single line in the burial register, 'Sir Walter Rawleigh Kt.,' records the interment. James Harrington, author of Oceana , occupies the next grave. Why Ralegh's body was not taken to Beddington is unknown. Long afterwards a wooden tablet was fixed by a churchwarden on the wall of the so

23 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXXII.

Contemporary and Final Judgments. More judicious or less prejudiced observers than James and his confidants would have suspected earlier the rise of the popular tide of sympathy and indignation. Strangers had remarked the tendency before the execution. A Popular Indignation. Spanish Dominican friar in England on a secret political mission had, Chamberlain told Carleton in October, been labouring for Ralegh's life from dread of the ill-will towards Spain which his death would cause. Many Englishm

10 minute read

Read Chapter