Drums and a trumpet call. Tounson’s voice. The sheriff beside him, facing the crowd and raising his hands for quiet.
Ralegh touches the hand of the headsman.
“Are you not Mr. Gregory Brandon?”
“Aye, sir.”
His hand heavy and warm, not flinching from touch.
“I should have known you, but it has been much time.”
“The years go at a gallop, sir.”
“And is that boy yonder your son?”
With his free hand Brandon motions toward the boy, calls softly.
“Come make your manners to the gentleman.”
The sheriff with arms raised still and the crowd beginning to quiet. The boy comes shuffling, head down, shy.
“This is my son, Richard.”
“A fine lad who favors his father.”
Ralegh touches the boy, and the boy, startled, raises his head, wide-eyed.
“Your father is a good and honest man,” he says. “I pray you shall favor him in character as you do in appearance.”
The boy drops his eyes again.
“Bless you, boy,” Ralegh says, slipping a ring from his fingers and placing it in the palm of the boy’s hand.
The boy clasps the ring in a tight claw, a white-knuckled fist. Steps back to his place.
“Pardon the lad, sir. It is new to him.”
“I have a son myself, Mr. Brandon. I know …”
Now the sheriff’s voice, breaking with hoarseness in the first words so he must clear his throat and commence again. He begins to read the sentence of execution.
Walter Ralegh places his hat on his head, squarely this time and pulled down almost to the ears against the breeze. Turns slowly, tall, to face the crowd.
Breeze is dying away. The crowd stands listening as the sheriff strains to raise his voice and be heard, reading from the document.
His head unmoving, but eyes shadowed by the low brim of his hat, Ralegh glances upward toward the windows of the old palace. Sees color, fine clothing of courtiers and ladies, and the white of faces there. The upturned faces near him are flushed and tanned in sun and chill.
The sheriff reads, holding the document now close to his nose, now at arm’s length. Poor fellow has need of spectacles. Perhaps he has forgotten them.…
Finished, he turns to face Ralegh. Moves closer.
“It is bitter cold, sir. Would you wish to warm yourself by a fire before you speak? My men can kindle a blaze at the foot of the scaffold.”
“I thank you, but I fear it would aggravate my ague, Mr. Sheriff, and cause me to tremble and shiver. Besides which, I doubt my legs would freely mount this scaffold a second time. One climbing is sufficient.”
“An’ it please you,” the sheriff answers. “Have you some words to say?”
“A few words. A few …”
Producing from beneath folds of his gown a sheaf of papers, thick, crawling with many words. The sheriff startled by the bulk of it.
“Patience,” Ralegh whispers. “I shall not read it all.”
Steps forward to the edge of the scaffold, gripping the papers, to read.
It is very quiet now. So quiet that a mother’s shushing of a child far at the edges of the crowd is loud. Still, he has never been blessed with much voice.
“My honorable good lords, and you, the rest of my friends who have come to see me die.…”
Lowers the papers.
“For two days I have suffered two fits of ague. Yesterday morn I was taken from my bed in the midst of a fit of fever to stand before King’s Bench. It has left me much weakened. Whether or no I shall escape it this morning, I cannot tell. Chills and fever come and go as they will, forbearing no time or place or occasion. I pray God to spare me from it this one last time. And I implore you all, out of honest love and charity, that if you shall mark any disability in my voice or seeming sadness and dejection of countenance, you shall impute it to the disorder of my body and not to any dismay of mind or shrinking of the soul.…”
Raising the papers to begin again.
“Honorable lords and friends, I offer my thanks to Almighty God that He hath vouchsafed me to die in daylight and in the presence of such an honorable assembly and not alone in the darkness.”
Looking up again toward the windows where the great ones, the greatest here today, lean far out from high chambers and apartments to catch his words. Cupping his hands to call out, as if at sea.
“I will seek to strain my voice,” he calls. “For I would willingly have all your honors hear me.”
The crowd turning their necks to follow his glance. Silent staring at the windows. A moment of hesitant silence before one up there with a deep clear voice replies.
“Nay, sir. We shall rather come down to you and come upon the scaffold.”
Faces vanish from the windows. Crowd buzzes and hums. Gregory Brandon, who has slipped from the scaffold unnoticed, returns from his cart bearing a small stool for Ralegh to sit on while he waits. Ralegh nods and sits.
Tounson stands aside, clasping his heavy Bible.
The sheriff looks in the direction of the river gate. He is as sad-faced as a basset hound.
“Pray, be of good cheer,” Ralegh tells him. “At worst the Lord Mayor can join us as a witness.”
“My orders were most strict,” the sheriff says.
“Well,” says Ralegh, “it is a difficult time for both of us. Let us try to make the best of it.”
A noise and ripple in the crowd reveal the lords and nobles coming across the yard toward the scaffold. Ralegh watches their passage until he can see their faces clearly. Arundel, Oxford, Northampton, the Lord Sheffield, and others of distinction and lesser rank.
Also, though out of the crowd itself and not from the palace, comes James Hay, his clothes water-stained, mud-spattered. His face and beard dirty, lined and pouched from lack of sleep. But his head high, himself in one sense the proudest of them all.
“Ah, Mr. Sheriff, these are the nobility. We must wait upon them, if that is their will.”
“I know, I know,” the sheriff groans.
When they reach the scaffold Ralegh rises to greet them. As if he were host. As if he welcomed them into his chambers. Presents them to the sheriff, to Dean Tounson and to Mr. Gregory Brandon.
At last, after all courtesy and amenity, with these men grouped about him, he faces the assembly and begins to read his speech again.
“As I have said already, I thank God most heartily that He has brought me out of the darkness into daylight to die. He would not suffer me to die in the dark prison of the Tower. And I offer thanks to the Almighty that I seem now upon this morning to have been so far spared my fever and chills. I prayed that I might be spared. And I believe that prayer has been answered.”
True, his color is good now and his voice is clear enough as, reading quickly, he summarizes the case and the suspicions of King and Council against him. Then he denies all the charges and suspicions, raising his voice to call upon God to be his witness.
“For any man to call upon God as his witness to a falsehood, at any time, is a most grievous sin. And for a man at the time of his death to do so is far more grievous and impious. Such a man can have no hope of salvation. And so, knowing that within this hour I shall hope to see God in His Kingdom, I call upon God to witness the truth of my words. And if I do not speak true, O God, let me never enter into Thy Kingdom.”
Next denies further plot or disloyalty against the King in word or deed at any time. Unequivocal denial. Adding:
“Nay, I will protest even further. I say here that never in my life did I harbor any evil or disloyal thought against the King. Not in my most secret heart.
“It is not for me to flatter the King or any of the kings of this world. For I am now the humble subject of Death. And soon I shall appear before the great tribunal of the King of Kings, our Sovereign in heaven.
“If I speak falsely, let the Lord blot out my name from the Book of Life.”
&nbs
p; Pauses and eyes them all. Then confesses, briefly, to some faults in this affair. That he did, indeed, out of fear for his life, seek to escape. That also he did dissemble and pretend sickness in Salisbury to gain time.
“But I hope this was no sin. I recall from Holy Scripture that David, a king himself and a man after God’s own heart, did for the safety of his life make himself a fool. He let his spittle fall upon his ragged beard and he, as wise as Solomon after him, went upon all fours like a beast. Yet it has not been imputed as a sin of David to do so.
“I intend no ill against His Majesty. I intended only to prolong my time and, hopefully, to gain the ear of the King, in hope also of some compassion, some commiseration from him.
“But I now forgive all those who spoke against me then, just as I likewise do forgive Sir Lewis Stukely with all my heart for the wrongs he has done me. For I have received the sacrament this morning from Dr. Tounson here beside me. Receiving the holy sacrament, I have forgiven all men, even as I ask God to forgive me. Still, in love and charity to my fellowmen, I am bound to caution against him and such as he is.
“Touching, then, upon my kinsman, Sir Lewis Stukely …”
A slow itemized account of the dealings and double-dealings of Sir Judas. Nonetheless confused, knotty, perplexing. Yet himself, Ralegh, so clear and open and evidently generous that all the shadows and doubts fall upon Stukely. And pausing there, allowing the picture of his shadowy kinsman to sink from view while he shuffles his papers and notes, as if searching for something, seeking some sign of remembrance. A moment for the listeners to shift their weight, to cough and clear throats. To be fully conscious, living bodies again.
He looks up at them from the papers and smiles.
“Well, I have gone thus far,” he says. “Bear with me patiently. A little more, only a little more and I shall be done.”
Still, more still than any time before, faces upturned, they become a field of eyes and ears again.
“It was told to the King that I did not return freely to England, but was brought back here by mutineers.…”
And now, in the form of a story, his version of what took place. Much the opposite of all report. How he was kept close prisoner in his cabin by mutineers. How they had forced him to take an oath, or be cast into the sea, that he would never bring them home to England. How “by wine, gifts, and fair words” he managed to divide them against each other and took command again. How he agreed to pardon those who would serve him and bring them safely home, if they wished. Those who feared England he would leave in the south of Ireland. And so he did.
“There was some report, also,” he continues, “that I never meant to go to Guiana at all. That there was no mine. That I sought only my liberty. Which, it would seem, I lacked the wit to keep.…”
Here he smiles broadly and invites laughter. And there is some laughter from the crowd.
“It was my full intent to go for gold for the benefit of His Majesty and myself, for those who sailed with me …”
Turning suddenly to the Earl of Arundel, but speaking for all to hear.
“My lord, you yourself were in the gallery of my ship at my departure. And I remember how you took me by the hand and said you had but one request to make of me. Which request was that, whether I had a bone voyage or a bad one, I should return to England. And, my lord, I promised you in faith that I would do so.”
Arundel of the clear loud voice replies, nodding, to Ralegh and for the crowd.
“So you did,” Arundel says. “It is true. Those were our last words before you sailed.”
Swift then, point by point, to scotch reports and rumors concerning his last voyage to Guiana. All trivial, each point. Of interest and import to his hearers only in that they should seem significant to Ralegh at this urgent hour.
That he intended to leave his men in Guiana. Not so.
That he had stinted them of fresh water. Not so. Though some, unaccustomed to the sea, may have been quite thirsty on that voyage.
That he carried sixteen thousand pieces of gold with him secretly. Not so. He considered himself most fortunate to have one hundred pounds for divers purchases.
Here he stops speaking. Lowers his head, as if in a deep study. Moments pass slowly.
The sheriff steps forward. Nervously, touches his arm.
“I will borrow but a little more of your time, Mr. Sheriff. I shall not detain you very long.”
A muttering from the crowd. The sheriff steps back, behind the shield of the nobility.
And just so, in metaphor, does Walter Ralegh himself, though literally alone and unmoving on the stage of the plain scaffold, alone and tall in velvet from chin to toes, his white hair and white beard pale against the lean sunburned face, alone at the edge of the scaffold, though standing against a background of the nobility, not new men but young men with old and ancient titles and names, just as the sheriff steps out of view, so Walter Ralegh (more graceful to be sure, a step as light as a dancer’s) in one step dismisses trivial present time, like a magician with a wand of words, banishes the present to reappear in and from the past, a younger past, himself sharing and partaking of that youth, summoning out of memory a glory which has been lost forever and, being lost, is now valued as priceless, calling up ghostly figures dancing to a music of which even the echoes have faded to the absolute purity of silence.
Or so it would seem, must seem, does so seem to those here standing to hear his soft voice and Westcountry accent for the last time; thus so attentive, so still, that it is as if he had turned them into stone; a man speaking to a field of stones. A man in the wilderness addressing sun-struck, sun-dazzled stones with naked words, words of the heart itself. The stones not passive, though still and quiet, but sentient. Though unmoving, able to be moved by words. Totally attentive, drinking his words. As a man with a black, chapped, salty, thirst-ridden mouth might kneel by a spring and cup the cold, light-dancing clarity of water in both hands.…
They see him, true, tall, and unmoving. See all that is to be seen. Yet already like the chorus in an English play, he has painted scene after scene more palpable than anything they see. So that, at last, they sway as to a spell, hearing words but seeing most with mind’s eye.
As if in afterthought, as if in haste against the power of the present, which is being measured and signaled and tolled by bells in London, and those bells growing louder and clearer to mark a slow progress on the Thames, as if in afterthought (thus all the more urgent for its apparent inspiration), he calls upon one fading memory from the past.
“I shall speak somewhat of my lord, the Earl of Essex.”
Breath caught and held, the stones listen. His voice overmastering the sounds of bells. Accompanied not by bells and distant trumpets of the present but by ghostly music.
“The imputation has been laid upon me that I was the persecutor of my lord of Essex. It has been said that I rejoiced in his death. It has been told that when the Earl of Essex stood upon the old scaffold in the shadows of the Tower, I stood in a high window over against him and puffed out tobacco smoke in rude defiance of him.
“God is my witness that I shed tears for him when he died. As I hope and pray to look God in the face hereafter, I swear that my lord of Essex did not see my face at the time of his death. For I was far off in the Armory. I saw him, but he did not see me.
“It is true that I was of another faction, a contrary faction to his own. But I take the same God for my witness that I had no hand in his death. Nor did I bear my lord of Essex any ill affection. I always believed it would have been better that his life had been preserved.
“After his death I got the hatred of many of those who had wished me well before in better days. And those who set me against him afterwards did set themselves against me. They became my greatest enemies.
“My soul hath many times grieved that I was not nearer to my lord of Essex when he died. Because, as I was to understand afterwards, at his death he asked for me by name and desired that we should be reconcil
ed.”
There it stands, the death of Essex acted out again in theater of memory. Ending at last in reconciliation. Across a wide gulf of years Essex offers his hand to Walter Ralegh. They shake hands and embrace upon that scaffold and upon this one, being one and the same now just as the green and shadowy Yard of the Tower becomes one with the space of Old Palace Yard; and, dizzy from turning and turning in time, his hearers can believe they are in both times and both places.
He is no longer alone upon a scaffold with a few living lords of the land—but stands in the company of all the great men dead and gone, friends and enemies alike. They are all here, next in the crowd, though invisible, as the men at each elbow. And the scaffold is huge, crowded with familiar and forgotten faces drawn larger than life.
It is as if he had already stepped aside from skin and bones, not content to wait upon the brutal parting of head from body, stepped out of flesh to become not alone, but one of a multitude stitched in many colors into the texture of an arras. An arras more brilliant than all flags, rich and intricate as English springtime.
Has already departed them and this scene, stepping out of time into the memory of springtime. And over that springtime rules, rejoicing, beautiful as once she had been, herself a springtime of jewels, clad in richest and strangest of leaves and flowers, Elizabeth, Queen of England then and now and still for as long as there is England. The Queen whose name has not been mentioned once here because she need not be named to be honored.
It is in her honor he and the Earl of Essex shake hands and embrace, reconciled at last. And thus they die together. And their deaths becoming a sort of allegory. As if in old armor they only pretended to die. A play or pageant for the tiltyard …
Excepting some act of mercy from the King, he must die in the present. Yet has made that truth, that present, almost inconsequential. A mere symbolic act, no more. Death or life, rigor or clemency, no matter. For he has already lightly stepped out of time and his aging, dying body to become a member of the evergreen court of history.
Giving life or death, the King of England cannot change that.
Death of the Fox Page 60