ELIZABETH AND ESSEX: a tragic history

by Strachey, Lytton

  Essex felt that he was misunderstood, and composed a pamphlet to explain his views. It was a gallantly written work, but it convinced no one who was not convinced already. As for the Queen, she still wavered. The Dutch sent an embassy, offering large sums of money if she would continue the war. This was important, and she appeared to be coming round finally to an anti-Spanish policy; but it was appearance and nothing more; she sheered away again with utter indecision.

  Nerves grew jangled, and tempers dangerously short. Everything, it was clear, was working up towards one of those alarming climaxes, with which all at Court had grown so familiar; and, while they waited in dread, sure enough, the climax came. But this time it was of a nature undreamt of by the imagination of any courtier: when the incredible story reached them, it was as if the earth had opened at their feet. The question of the Irish appointment had become pressing, and Elizabeth, feeling that something really must be done about it, kept reverting to the subject on every possible occasion, without any result. At last she thought she had decided that Sir William Knollys, Essex’s uncle, was the man. She was in the Council Chamber, with Essex, the Lord Admiral, Robert Cecil, and Thomas Windebank, clerk of the signet, when she mentioned this. As often happened, they were all standing up. Essex, who did not want to lose the support of his uncle at Court, proposed instead Sir George Carew, a follower of the Cecils, whose absence in Ireland would, he thought, inconvenience the Secretary. The Queen would not hear of it, but Essex persisted; each was annoyed; they pressed their candidates; their words grew high and loud; and at last the Queen roundly declared that, say what he would, Knollys should go. Essex, overcome with irritation, contemptuous in look and gesture, turned his back upon her. She instantly boxed his ears. “Go to the devil!” she cried, flaring with anger. And then the impossible happened. The mad young man completely lost his temper, and, with a resounding oath, clapped his hand to his sword. “This is an outrage,” he shouted in his sovereign’s face, “that I will not put up with. I would not have borne it from your father’s hands.” - He was interrupted by Nottingham, who pressed him backwards. Elizabeth did not stir. There was an appalling silence; and he rushed from the room.

  Unparalleled as was the conduct of Essex, there was yet another surprise in store for the Court, for the Queen’s behaviour was no less extraordinary. She did nothing. The Tower - the block - heaven knows what exemplary punishment - might naturally have been expected. But nothing happened at all. Essex vanished into the country, and the Queen, wrapped in impenetrable mystery, proceeded with her usual routine of work and recreation. What was passing in her head? Had she been horrified into a paralysis? Was she overcome by the workings of outraged passion? Was she biding her time for some terrific revenge? It was impossible to guess. She swept on her way, until … there was indeed an interruption. The great, the inevitable, misfortune had come at last; Burghley was dying. Worn out by old age, the gout, and the cares of his great office, he was sinking rapidly to the grave. He had been her most trusted counsellor for more than forty years - from a time - how unbelievably distant! - when she had not been Queen of England. Her Spirit, she had always called him; and now her Spirit was leaving her for ever. She could attend to nothing else. She hoped against hope, she prayed, she visited him constantly, waiting with grand affection - the solicitude of some strange old fairy daughter - beside his dying bed. Sir Robert sent him game, but he was too feeble to lift the food to his mouth, and the Queen fed him herself.

  “I pray you,” he wrote to his son, “diligently and effectually let Her Majesty understand how her singular kindness doth overcome my power to acquit it, who, though she will not be a mother, yet sheweth herself, by feeding me with her own princely hand, as a careful norice; and if I may be weaned to feed myself, I shall be more ready to serve her on the earth; if not, I hope to be, in heaven, a servitor for her and God’s Church. And so I thank you for your partridges.”

  When all was over, Elizabeth wept long and bitterly; and her tears were still flowing - it was but ten days after Burghley’s death - when yet another calamity fell upon her. There had been a terrible disaster in Ireland. Sir Henry Bagenal, marching at the head of a powerful army to the relief of the fort on the Blackwater, had been attacked by Tyrone; his army had been annihilated, and he himself killed. The whole of northern Ireland, as far as the walls of Dublin, lay open to the rebels. It was the most serious reverse that Elizabeth had suffered in the whole of her reign.

  The news was quickly carried to Whitehall; it was also carried to the Escurial. King Philip’s agony was coming to an end at last. The ravages of his dreadful diseases had overwhelmed him utterly; covered from head to foot with putrefying sores, he lay moribund in indescribable torment. His bed had been lifted into the oratory, so that his dying eyes might rest till the last moment on the high altar in the great church. He was surrounded by monks, priests, prayers, chantings, and holy relics. For fifty days and nights the extraordinary scene went on. He was dying as he had lived - in absolute piety. His conscience was clear: he had always done his duty; he had been infinitely industrious; he had existed solely for virtue and the glory of God. One thought alone troubled him: had he been remiss in the burning of heretics? He had burnt many, no doubt; but he might have burnt more. Was it because of this, perhaps, that he had not been quite as successful as he might have wished? It was certainly mysterious - he could not understand it - there seemed to be something wrong with his Empire - there was never enough money - the Dutch - the Queen of England … as he mused, a paper was brought in. It was the despatch from Ireland, announcing the victory of Tyrone. He sank back on his pillows, radiant; all was well, his prayers and his virtues had been rewarded, and the tide had turned at last. He dictated a letter to Tyrone of congratulation and encouragement. He promised immediate succour, he foretold the destruction of the heretics, and the ruin of the heretic Queen. A fifth Armada … he could dictate no more, and sank into a tortured stupor. When he awoke, it was night and there was singing at the altar below him; a sacred candle was lighted and put into his hand, the flame, as he clutched it closer and closer, casting lurid shadows upon his face; and so, in ecstasy and in torment, in absurdity and in greatness, happy, miserable, horrible, and holy, King Philip went off, to meet the Trinity.

  XI

  Essex had gone away to Wanstead, where he remained in a disturbed, uncertain, and unhappy condition. The alternating contradictions in his state of mind grew more extreme than ever. There were moments when he felt that he must fling himself at the feet of his mistress, that, come what might, he must regain her affection, her companionship, and all the sweets of the position that had so long been his. He could not - he would not - think that he had been in the wrong; she had treated him with an indignity that was unbearable; and then as he brooded over what had happened, anger flamed up in his heart. He would tell her what he thought of her. Had he not always done so - ever since that evening, more than ten years ago, when he had chided her so passionately, with Raleigh standing at the door? He would chide her now, no less passionately, but, as was fitting, in a deeper and a sadder tone. “Madam,” he wrote, “when I think how I have preferred your beauty above all things, and received no pleasure in life but by the increase of your favour towards me, I wonder at myself what cause there could be to make me absent myself one day from you. But when I remember that your Majesty hath, by the intolerable wrong you have done both me and yourself, not only broken all laws of affection, but done against the honour of your sex, I think all places better than that where I am, and all dangers well undertaken, so I might retire myself from the memory of my false, inconstant and beguiling pleasures…. I was never proud, till your Majesty sought to make me too base. And now, since my destiny is no better, my despair shall be as my love was, without repentance…. I must commend my faith to be judged by Him who judgeth all hearts, since on earth I find no right. Wishing your Majesty all comforts and joys in the world, and no greater punishment for your wrongs to me, than to know the faith of
him you have lost, and the baseness of those you shall keep,

  “Your Majesty’s most humble servant,

  “R. ESSEX.”

  When the news of the disaster on the Blackwater reached him, he sent another letter, offering his services, and hurried to Whitehall. He was not admitted. “He hath played long enough upon me,” Elizabeth was heard to remark, “and now I mean to play awhile upon him, and stand as much upon my greatness as he hath upon stomach.” He wrote a long letter of expostulation, with quotations from Horace, and vows of duty. “I stay in this place for no other purpose but to attend your commandment.” She sent him a verbal message in reply. “Tell the Earl that I value myself at as great a price as he values himself.”

  He wrote again: “I do confess that, as a man, I have been more subject to your natural beauty than as a subject to the power of a king.” He obtained an interview; the Queen was not ungracious; the onlookers supposed that all was well again. But it was not, and he returned to Wanstead in darker dudgeon than ever.

  It was clear that what Elizabeth was waiting for was some apology. Since this was not forthcoming, a deadlock had apparently been reached, and it seemed to the moderate men at Court that it was time an effort should be made to induce the Earl to realise the essence of the situation. The Lord Keeper Egerton, therefore, composed an elaborate appeal. Did not Essex understand, he asked, that his present course was full of danger? Did he not see that he was encouraging his enemies? Had he forgotten his friends? Had he forgotten his country? There was only one thing to do - he must beg for the Queen’s forgiveness; whether he was right or wrong could make no difference. “Have you given cause, and yet take scandal to yourself? Why then, all you can do is too little to give satisfaction. Is cause of scandal given to you? Let policy, duty, and religion enforce you to yield, and submit to your sovereign, between whom and you there can be no proportion of duty.” “The difficulty, my good Lord,” Egerton concluded, “is to conquer yourself, which is the height of all true valour and fortitude, whereunto all your honourable actions have tended. Do it in this, and God will be pleased, Her Majesty well satisfied, your country will take good, and your friends comfort by it; yourself shall receive honour; and your enemies, if you have any, shall be disappointed of their bitter-sweet hope.”

  Essex’s reply was most remarkable. In a style no less elaborate than the Lord Keeper’s, he rebutted all his arguments. He denied that he was doing wrong either to himself or his friends; the Queen’s conduct, he said, made it impossible for him to act in any other way. How could he serve his country when she had “driven him into a private kind of life” - when she had “dismissed, discharged, and disabled” him? “The indissoluble duty,” he continued, “which I owe to Her Majesty is only the duty of allegiance, which I never will, nor never can, fail in. The duty of attendance is no indissoluble duty. I owe to Her Majesty the duty of an Earl and Lord Marshal of England. I have been content to do Her Majesty the service of a clerk, but can never serve her as a villain or a slave.” As he wrote, he grew warmer. “But, say you, I must yield and submit; I can neither yield myself to be guilty, or this imputation laid upon me to be just…. Have I given cause, ask you, and take scandal when I have done? No, I give no cause…. I patiently bear all, and sensibly feel all, that I then received when this scandal was given me. Nay more” - and now he could hold himself in no longer - “when the vilest of all indignities are done unto me, doth religion enforce me to sue?” The whole heat of his indignation was flaring out. “Doth God require it? Is it impiety not to do it? What, cannot princes err? Cannot subjects receive wrong? Is an earthly power or authority infinite? Pardon me, pardon me, my good Lord, I can never subscribe to these principles. Let Solomon’s fool laugh when he is stricken; let those that mean to make their profit of princes shew to have no sense of princes’ injuries; let them acknowledge an infinite absoluteness on earth, that do not believe in an absolute infiniteness in heaven. As for me, I have received wrong, and feel it. My cause is good, I know it; and whatsoever come, all the powers on earth can never shew more strength and constancy in oppressing than I can shew in suffering whatsoever can or shall be imposed on me.”

  Magnificent words, certainly, but dangerous, portentous, and not wise. What good could come of flaunting republican sentiments under the calm nose of a Tudor? Such oratory was too early or too late. Hampden would have echoed it; but in truth it was the past rather than the future that was speaking with the angry pen of Robert Devereux. The blood of a hundred Barons who had paid small heed to the Lord’s Anointed was pulsing in his heart. Yes! If it was a question of birth, why should the heir of the ancient aristocracy of England bow down before the descendant of some Bishop’s butler in Wales? Such were his wild feelings - the last extravagance of the Middle Ages flickering through the high Renaissance nobleman. The facts vanished; his outraged imagination preferred to do away with them. For, after all, what had actually happened? Simply this, he had been rude to an old lady, who was also a Queen, and had had his ears boxed. There were no principles involved, and there was no oppression. It was merely a matter of bad temper and personal pique.

  A realistic observer would have seen that in truth there were only two alternatives for one in Essex’s position - a graceful apology followed by a genuine reconciliation with the Queen, or else a complete and final retirement from public life. More than once his mind swayed - as so often before - towards the latter solution; but he was not a realist, he was a romantic - passionate, restless, confused, and he shut his eyes to what was obvious - that, as things stood, if he could not bring himself to be one of those who “make their profit of princes” he must indeed make up his mind to a life of books and hunting at Chartley. Nor were those who surrounded him any more realistic than himself. Francis Bacon had for many months past avoided his company; Anthony was an enthusiastic devotee; Henry Cuffe was rash and cynical; his sisters were too ambitious, his mother was too much biased by her lifelong quarrel with Elizabeth, to act as a restraining force. Two other followers completed his intimate domestic circle. His mother’s husband - for Lady Leicester had married a third time - was Sir Christopher Blount. A sturdy soldier and a Roman Catholic, he had served his stepson faithfully for many years, and, it was clear, would continue to do so, whatever happened, to the end. More dubious, from every point of view, was the position of Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy. The tall young man with the brown hair and the beautiful complexion, who had won Elizabeth’s favour by his feats at tilting, and who had fought a duel with Essex over the golden chessman given him by the Queen, had grown and prospered with the years. The death of his elder brother had brought him the family peerage; he had distinguished himself as Essex’s lieutenant in all his expeditions, and he had never lost the favour of Elizabeth. But he was united to Essex by something more than a common military service - by a singular romance. The Earl’s favourite sister, Lady Penelope, had been the Stella Sir Philip Sidney had vainly loved. She had married Lord Rich, while Sidney had married Walsingham’s daughter, who, on Sir Philip’s death, had become the wife of Essex. Penelope had not been happy; Lord Rich was an odious husband, and she had fallen in love with Lord Mountjoy. A liaison sprang up - a lifelong liaison - one of those indisputable and yet ambiguous connexions which are at once recognised and ignored by society - between Essex’s friend and Essex’s sister. Thus Mountjoy, doubly bound to the Earl, had become - or so it seemed - the most faithful of his adherents. The little group - Essex, Lady Essex, Mountjoy, and Penelope Rich - was held together by the deepest feelings of desire and affection; while behind and above them all there hovered, in sainted knightliness, the shade of Sir Philip Sidney.

  And so there was no barrier to hold Essex back from folly and intemperance; on the contrary, the characteristics of his environment - personal devotion, family pride, and military zeal - all conspired to urge him on. More remote influences worked in the same direction. Throughout the country the Earl’s popularity was a growing force. The reasons for this were vague, but n
one the less effectual. His gallant figure had taken hold of the popular imagination; he was generous and courteous; he was the enemy of Raleigh, who was everywhere disliked; and now he was out of favour and seemed to be hardly used. The puritanical City of London, especially, tending, as it always did, to be hostile to the Court, paid an incongruous devotion to the unregenerate Earl. The word went round that he was a pillar of Protestantism, and Essex, who was ready enough to be all things to all men, was not unwilling to accept the r��le. Evidence of another kind of esteem appeared when, on the death of Burghley, the University of Cambridge at once elected him to fill the vacant place of Chancellor. He was delighted by the compliment, and as a mark of gratitude presented the University with a silver cup of rare design. The curious goblet still stands on the table of the Vice-Chancellor, to remind the passing generations of Englishmen at once of the tumult of the past and of the placid continuity of their history.

  Egged on by private passion and public favour, the headstrong man gave vent, in moments of elation, to strange expressions of anger and revolt. Sir Christopher Blount was present at Wanstead when one of these explosions occurred, and, though his stepson’s words were whirling and indefinite, they revealed to him with startling vividness a state of mind that was full, as he said afterwards, of “dangerous discontentment.” But the moments of elation passed, to be succeeded by gloom and hesitation. What was to be done? There was no satisfaction anywhere; retirement, submission, defiance - each was more wretched than the others; and the Queen still made no sign.

  In reality, of course, Elizabeth too was wavering. She kept up a bold front; she assured everybody, including herself, that this time she was really going to be firm; but she knew well enough how many times before she had yielded in like circumstances, and experience indicated that the future would resemble the past. As usual, the withdrawal of that radiant presence was becoming insupportable. She thought of Wanstead - so near, so far - and almost capitulated. Yet no, she would do nothing, she would go on waiting; only a little longer, perhaps, and the capitulation would come from the other side. And then one dimly discerns that, while she paused and struggled, a new and a sinister element of uncertainty was beginning to join the others to increase the fluctuation of her mind. At all times she kept her eyes and her ears open; her sense of the drifts of feeling and opinion was extremely shrewd, and there were many about her who were ready enough to tell unpleasant stories of the absent favourite and expatiate on his growing - his extraordinary - popularity all over the country. One day a copy of the letter to Egerton was put into her hand. She read it, and her heart sank; she scrupulously concealed her feelings, but she could no longer hide from herself that the preoccupation which had now come to wind itself among the rest that perturbed her spirit was one of alarm. If that was his state of mind - if that was his position in the country … she did not like it at all. The lion-hearted heroine of tradition would not have hesitated in such circumstances - would have cleared up the situation in one bold and final stroke. But that was very far indeed from being Elizabeth’s way. “Pusillanimity,” the Spanish ambassadors had reported; a crude diagnosis; what really actuated her in the face of peril or hostility was an innate predisposition to hedge. If there was indeed danger in the direction of Wanstead she would not go out to meet it - oh no! - she would propitiate it, she would lull it into unconsciousness, she would put it off, and put it off. That was her instinct; and yet, in the contradictory convolutions of her character, another and a completely opposite propensity may be perceived, which nevertheless - such is the strange mechanism of the human soul - helped to produce the same result. Deep in the recesses of her being, a terrific courage possessed her. She balanced and balanced, and if, one day, she was to find that she was exercising her prodigies of agility on a tightrope over an abyss - so much the better! She knew that she was equal to any situation. All would be well. She relished everything - the diminution of risks and the domination of them; and she would proceed, in her extraordinary way, with her life’s work, which consisted … of what? Putting out flames? Or playing with fire? She laughed; it was not for her to determine!