Queen Elizabeth Part 8

Ten years pa.s.sed away, and Ess.e.x rose higher and higher in estimation and honor. He was sometimes in the queen's palaces at home, and sometimes away on the Spanish seas, where he acquired great fame. He was proud and imperious at court, relying on his influence with the queen, who treated him as a fond mother treats a spoiled child. She was often vexed with his conduct, but she could not help loving him. One day, as he was coming into the queen's presence chamber, he saw one of the courtiers there who had a golden ornament upon his arm which the queen had given him the day before. He asked what it was; they told him it was a "favor" from the queen. "Ah," said he, "I see how it is going to be; every fool must have his favor." The courtier resented this mode of speaking of his distinction, and challenged Ess.e.x to a duel. The combatants met in the Park, and Ess.e.x was disarmed and wounded. The queen heard of the affair, and, after inquiring very curiously about all the particulars, she said that she was glad of it; for, unless there was somebody to take down his pride, there would be no such thing as doing any thing with him.

Elizabeth's feelings toward Ess.e.x fluctuated in strange alternations of fondness and displeasure. At one time, when affection was in the ascendency, she gave him a ring, as a talisman of her protection. She promised him that if he ever should become involved in troubles or difficulties of any kind, and especially if he should lose her favor, either by his own misconduct or by the false accusations of his enemies, if he would send her that ring, it should serve to recall her former kind regard, and incline her to pardon and save him. Ess.e.x took the ring, and preserved it with the utmost care.

Friends.h.i.+p between persons of such impetuous and excitable temperaments as Elizabeth and Ess.e.x both possessed, though usually very ardent for a time, is very precarious and uncertain in duration. After various petulant and brief disputes, which were easily reconciled, there came at length a serious quarrel. There was, at that time, great difficulty in Ireland; a rebellion had broken out, in fact, which was fomented and encouraged by Spanish influence. Ess.e.x was one day urging very strongly the appointment of one of his friends to take the command there, while the queen was disposed to appoint another person. Ess.e.x urged his views and wishes with much importunity, and when he found that the queen was determined not to yield, he turned his back upon her in a contemptuous and angry manner. The queen lost patience in her turn, and, advancing rapidly to him, her eyes sparkling with extreme resentment and displeasure, she gave him a severe box on the ear, telling him, at the same time, to "go and be hanged." Ess.e.x was exceedingly enraged; he clasped the handle of his sword, but was immediately seized by the other courtiers present. They, however, soon released their hold upon him, and he walked off out of the apartment, saying that he could not and would not bear such an insult as that. He would not have endured it, he said, from King Henry the Eighth himself. The name of King Henry the Eighth, in those days, was the symbol and personification of the highest possible human grandeur.

The friends of Ess.e.x among the courtiers endeavored to soothe and calm him, and to persuade him to apologize to the queen, and seek a reconciliation. They told him that, whether right or wrong, he ought to yield; for in contests with the law or with a prince, a man, they said, ought, if wrong, to submit himself to _justice_; if right, to _necessity_; in either case, it was his duty to submit.

This was very good philosophy; but Ess.e.x was not in a state of mind to listen to philosophy. He wrote a reply to the friend who had counseled him as above, that "the queen had the temper of a flint; that she had treated him with such extreme injustice and cruelty so many times that his patience was exhausted, and he would bear it no longer. He knew well enough what duties he owed the queen as an earl and grand marshal of England, but he did not understand being cuffed and beaten like a menial servant; and that his body suffered in every part from the blow he had received."

His resentment, however, got soothed and softened in time, and he was again admitted to favor, though the consequences of such quarrels are seldom fully repaired. The reconciliation was, however, in this case, apparently complete, and in the following year Ess.e.x was himself appointed the Governor, or, as styled in those days, the Lord Deputy of Ireland.

He went to his province, and took command of the forces which had been collected there, and engaged zealously in the work of suppressing the rebellion. For some reason or other, however, he made very little progress. The name of the leader of the rebels was the Earl of Tyrone.[D] Tyrone wanted a parley, but did not dare to trust himself in Ess.e.x's power. It was at last, however, agreed that the two leaders should come down to a river, one of them upon each side, and talk across it, neither general to have any troops or attendants with him. This plan was carried into effect. Ess.e.x, stationing a troop near him, on a hill, rode down to the water on one side, while Tyrone came into the river as far as his horse could wade on the other, and then the two earls attempted to negotiate terms of peace by shouting across the current of the stream.

[Footnote D: Spelled in the old histories Tir-Oen.]

Nothing effectual was accomplished by this and some other similar parleys, and in the mean time the weeks were pa.s.sing away, and little was done toward suppressing the rebellion. The queen was dissatisfied.

She sent Ess.e.x letters of complaint and censure. These letters awakened the lord deputy's resentment. The breach was thus rapidly widening, when Ess.e.x all at once conceived the idea of going himself to England, without permission, and without giving any notice of his intention, to endeavor, by a personal interview, to reinstate himself in the favor of the queen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HOUSE OF THE EARL OF ESs.e.x.]

This was a very bold step. It was entirely contrary to military etiquette for an officer to leave his command and go home to his sovereign without orders and without permission. The plan, however, might have succeeded. Leicester did once succeed in such a measure; but in this case, unfortunately, it failed. Ess.e.x traveled with the utmost dispatch, crossed the Channel, made the best of his way to the palace where the queen was then residing, and pressed through the opposition of all the attendants into the queen's private apartment, in his traveling dress, soiled and way-worn. The queen was at her toilet, with her hair down over her eyes. Ess.e.x fell on his knees before her, kissed her hand, and made great professions of grat.i.tude and love, and of an extreme desire to deserve and enjoy her favor. The queen was astonished at his appearance, but Ess.e.x thought that she received him kindly. He went away after a short interview, greatly pleased with the prospect of a favorable issue to the desperate step he had taken. His joy, however, was soon dispelled. In the course of the day he was arrested by order of the queen, and sent to his house under the custody of an officer. He had presumed too far.

Ess.e.x was kept thus secluded and confined for some time. His house was on the bank of the river. None of his friends, not even his countess, were allowed access to him. His impetuous spirit wore itself out in chafing against the restraints and means of coercion which were pressing upon him; but he would not submit. The mind of the queen, too, was deeply agitated all the time by that most tempestuous of all mental conflicts, a struggle between resentment and love. Her affection for her proud-spirited favorite seemed as strong as ever, but she was determined to make him yield in the contest she had commenced with him. How often cases precisely similar occur in less conspicuous scenes of action, where they who love each other with a sincere and uncontrollable affection take their stand in att.i.tudes of hostility, each determined that the obstinacy of the other shall give way, and each heart persisting in its own determination, resentment and love struggling all the time in a dreadful contest, which keeps the soul in a perpetual commotion, and allows of no peace till either the obstinacy yields or the love is extinguished and gone.

It was indirectly made known to Ess.e.x that if he would confess his fault, ask the queen's forgiveness, and pet.i.tion for a release from confinement, in order that he might return to his duties in Ireland, the difficulty could be settled. But no, he would make no concessions. The queen, in retaliation, increased the pressure upon him. The more strongly he felt the pressure, the more his proud and resentful spirit was aroused. He walked his room, his soul boiling with anger and chagrin, while the queen, equally distressed and hara.s.sed by the conflict in her own soul, still persevered, hoping every day that the unbending spirit with which she was contending would yield at last.

At length the tidings came to her that Ess.e.x, worn out with agitation and suffering, was seriously sick. The historians doubt whether his sickness was real or feigned; but there is not much difficulty in understanding, from the circ.u.mstances of the case, what its real nature was. Such mental conflicts as those which he endured suspend the powers of digestion and accelerate the pulsations of the heart, which beats in the bosom with a preternatural frequency and force, like a bird fluttering to get free from a snare. The result is a sort of fever burning slowly in the veins, and an emaciation which wastes the strength away, and, in impetuous and uncontrollable spirits, like that of Ess.e.x, sometimes exhausts the powers of life altogether. The sickness, therefore, though of mental origin, becomes bodily and real; but then the sufferer is often ready, in such cases, to add a little to it by feigning. An instinct teaches him that nothing is so likely to move the heart whose cruelty causes him to suffer, as a knowledge of the extreme to which it has reduced him. Ess.e.x was doubtless willing that Elizabeth should know that he was sick. Her knowing it had, in some measure, the usual effect. It reawakened and strengthened the love she had felt for him, but did not give it absolutely the victory. She sent _eight_ physicians to him, to examine and consult upon his case. She caused some broth to be made for him, and gave it to one of these physicians to carry to him, directing the messenger, in a faltering voice, to say to Ess.e.x that if it were proper to do so she would have come to see him herself. She then turned away to hide her tears. Strange inconsistency of the human heart--resentment and anger holding their ground in the soul against the object of such deep and unconquerable love. It would be incredible, were it not that probably every single one of all the thousands who may read this story has experienced the same.

Nothing has so great an effect in awakening in the heart a strong sentiment of kindness as the performance of a kind act. Feeling originates and controls action, it is true, but then, on the other hand, action has a prodigious power in modifying feeling. Elizabeth's acts of kindness to Ess.e.x in his sickness produced a renewal of her tenderness for him so strong that her obstinacy and anger gave way before it, and she soon began to desire some mode of releasing him from his confinement, and restoring him to favor. Ess.e.x was softened too. In a word, there was finally a reconciliation, though it was accomplished by slow degrees, and by means of a sort of series of capitulations. There was an investigation of his case before the privy council, which resulted in a condemnation of his conduct, and a recommendation to the mercy of the queen; and then followed some communications between Ess.e.x and his sovereign, in which he expressed sorrow for his faults, and made satisfactory promises for the future.

The queen, however, had not magnanimity enough to let the quarrel end without taunting and irritating the penitent with expressions of triumph. In reply to his acknowledgments and professions, she told him that she was glad to hear of his good intentions, and she hoped that he would show, by his future conduct, that he meant to fulfill them; that he had tried her patience for a long time, but she hoped that henceforth she should have no further trouble. If it had been her father, she added, instead of herself, that he had had to deal with, he would not have been pardoned at all. It could not be a very cordial reconciliation which was consummated by such words as these. But it was very like Elizabeth to utter them. They who are governed by their temper are governed by it even in their love.

Ess.e.x was not restored to office. In fact, he did not wish to be restored. He said that he was resolved henceforth to lead a private life. But even in respect to this plan he was at the mercy of the queen, for his private income was in a great measure derived from a monopoly, as it is called, in a certain kind of wines, which had been granted to him some time before. It was a very customary mode, in those days, of enriching favorites, to grant them monopolies of certain kinds of merchandise, that is, the exclusive right to sell them. The persons to whom this privilege was granted would underlet their right to merchants in various parts of the kingdom, on condition of receiving a certain share of the profits. Ess.e.x had thus derived a great revenue from his monopoly of wines. The grant, however, was expiring, and he pet.i.tioned the queen that it might be renewed.

The interest which Ess.e.x felt in the renewal of this grant was one of the strongest inducements to lead him to submit to the humiliations which he had endured, and to make concessions to the queen. But he was disappointed in his hopes. The queen, elated a little with the triumph already attained, and, perhaps, desirous of the pleasure of humbling Ess.e.x still more, refused at present to renew his monopoly, saying that she thought it would do him good to be restricted a little, for a time, in his means. "Unmanageable beasts," she said, "had to be tamed by being stinted in their provender."

Ess.e.x was sharply stung by such a refusal, accompanied, too, by such an insult. He was full of indignation and anger. At first he gave free expression to his feelings of vexation in conversation with those around him. The queen, he said, had got to be a perverse and obstinate old woman, as crooked in mind as she was in body. He had plenty of enemies to listen to these speeches, and to report them in such a way as that they should reach the queen. A new breach was consequently opened, which seemed now wider than ever, and irreparable.

At least it seemed so to Ess.e.x; and, abandoning all plans for again enjoying the favor of Elizabeth, he began to consider what he could do to undermine her power and rise upon the ruins of it. The idea was insanity, but pa.s.sion always makes men insane. James, king of Scotland, the son and successor of Mary, was the rightful heir to the English throne after Elizabeth's death. In order to make his right of succession more secure, he had wished to have Elizabeth acknowledge it; but she, always dreading terribly the thoughts of death, could never bear to think of a successor, and seemed to hate every one who entertained any expectation of following her. Ess.e.x suppressed all outward expressions of violence and anger; became thoughtful, moody, and sullen; held secret consultations with desperate intriguers, and finally formed a scheme to organize a rebellion, to bring King James's troops to England to support it, to take possession of the Tower and of the strong-holds about London, to seize the palace of the queen, overturn her government, and compel her both to acknowledge James's right to the succession and to restore Ess.e.x himself to power.

The personal character of Ess.e.x had given him a very wide-spread popularity and influence, and he had, consequently, very extensive materials at his command for organizing a powerful conspiracy. The plot was gradually matured, extending itself, in the course of the few following months, not only throughout England, but also into France and Spain. The time for the final explosion was drawing near, when, as usual in such cases, intelligence of the existence of this treason, in the form of vague rumors, reached the queen. One day, when the leading conspirators were a.s.sembled at Ess.e.x's palace, a messenger came to summon the earl to appear before the council. They received, also, private intelligence that their plots were probably discovered. While they were considering what to do in this emergency--all in a state of great perplexity and fear--a person came, pretending to be a deputy sent from some of the princ.i.p.al citizens of London, to say to Ess.e.x that they were ready to espouse his cause. Ess.e.x immediately became urgent to commence the insurrection at once. Some of his friends, on the other hand, were in favor of abandoning the enterprise, and flying from the country; but Ess.e.x said he had rather be shot at the head of his bands, than to wander all his days beyond the seas, a fugitive and a vagabond.

The conspirators acceded to their leader's councils. They sent word, accordingly, into the city, and began to make their arrangements to rise in arms the next morning. The night was spent in anxious preparations.

Early in the morning, a deputation of some of the highest officers of the government, with a train of attendants, came to Ess.e.x's palace, and demanded entrance in the name of the queen. The gates of the palace were shut and guarded. At last, after some hesitation and delay, the conspirators opened a wicket, that is, a small gate within the large one, which would admit one person at a time. They allowed the officers themselves to enter, but shut the gate immediately so as to exclude the attendants. The officers found themselves in a large court-yard filled with armed men, Ess.e.x standing calmly at the head of them. They demanded what was the meaning of such an unusual a.s.semblage. Ess.e.x replied that it was to defend his life from conspiracies formed against it by his enemies. The officers denied this danger, and began to expostulate with Ess.e.x in angry terms, and the attendants on his side to reply with vociferations and threats, when Ess.e.x, to end the altercation, took the officers into the palace. He conducted them to a room and shut them up, to keep them as hostages.

It was now near ten o'clock, and, leaving his prisoners in their apartment, under a proper guard, Ess.e.x sallied forth, with the more resolute and desperate of his followers, and proceeded into the city, to bring out into action the forces which he supposed were ready to co-operate with him there. He rode on through the streets, calling to arms, and shouting, "For the queen! For the queen!" His design was to convey the impression that the movement which he was making was not against the queen herself, but against his own enemies in her councils, and that she was herself on his side. The people of London, however, could not be so easily deceived. The mayor had received warning before, from the council, to be ready to suppress the movement, if one should be made. As soon, therefore, as Ess.e.x and his company were fairly in the city, the gates were shut and barred to prevent his return. One of the queen's princ.i.p.al ministers of state too, at the head of a small troop of hors.e.m.e.n, came in and rode through the streets, proclaiming Ess.e.x a traitor, and calling upon all the citizens to aid in arresting him. One of Ess.e.x's followers fired a pistol at this officer to stop his proclamation, but the people generally seemed disposed to listen to him, and to comply with his demand. After riding, therefore, through some of the princ.i.p.al streets, he returned to the queen, and reported to her that all was well in the city; there was no danger that Ess.e.x would succeed in raising a rebellion there.

In the mean time, the further Ess.e.x proceeded, the more he found himself environed with difficulties and dangers. The people began to a.s.semble here and there with evident intent to impede his movements. They blocked up the streets with carts and coaches to prevent his escape. His followers, one after another, finding all hope of success gone, abandoned their despairing leader and fled. Ess.e.x himself, with the few who still adhered to him, wandered about till two o'clock, finding the way of retreat every where hemmed up against him. At length he fled to the river side, took a boat, with the few who still remained with him, and ordered the watermen to row as rapidly as possible up the river.

They landed at Westminster, retreated to Ess.e.x's house, fled into it with the utmost precipitation, and barricaded the doors. Ess.e.x himself was excited in the highest degree, fully determined to die there rather than surrender himself a prisoner. The terrible desperation to which men are reduced in emergencies like these is shown by the fact that one of his followers did actually station himself at a window bare-headed, inviting a shot from the pistols of the pursuers, who had by this time environed the house, and were preparing to force their way in. His plan succeeded. He was shot, and died that night.

Ess.e.x himself was not quite so desperate as this. He soon saw, however, that he must sooner or later yield. He could not stand a siege in his own private dwelling against the whole force of the English realm. He surrendered about six in the evening, and was sent to the Tower. He was soon afterward brought to trial. The facts, with all the arrangements and details of the conspiracy, were fully proved, and he was condemned to die.

As the unhappy prisoner lay in his gloomy dungeon in the Tower, the insane excitement under which he had for so many months been acting slowly ebbed away. He awoke from it gradually, as one recovers his senses after a dreadful dream. He saw how utterly irretrievable was the mischief which had been done. Remorse for his guilt in having attempted to destroy the peace of the kingdom to gratify his own personal feelings of revenge; recollections of the favors which Elizabeth had shown him, and of the love which she had felt for him, obviously so deep and sincere; the consciousness that his life was fairly forfeited, and that he must die--to lie in his cell and think of these things, overwhelmed him with anguish and despair. The brilliant prospects which were so recently before him were all forever gone, leaving nothing in their place but the grim phantom of an executioner, standing with an ax by the side of a dreadful platform, with a block upon it, half revealed and half hidden by the black cloth which covered it like a pall.

Elizabeth, in her palace, was in a state of mind scarcely less distressing than that of the wretched prisoner in his cell. The old conflict was renewed--pride and resentment on the one side, and love which would not be extinguished on the other. If Ess.e.x would sue for pardon, she would remit his sentence and allow him to live. Why would he not do it? If he would send her the ring which she had given him for exactly such an emergency, he might be saved. Why did he not send it?

The courtiers and statesmen about her urged her to sign the warrant; the peace of the country demanded the execution of the laws in a case of such unquestionable guilt. They told her, too, that Ess.e.x wished to die, that he knew that he was hopelessly and irretrievably ruined, and that life, if granted to him, was a boon which would compromise her own safety and confer no benefit on him. Still Elizabeth waited and waited in an agony of suspense, in hopes that the ring would come; the sending of it would be so far an act of submission on his part as would put it in her power to do the rest. Her love could bend her pride, indomitable as it usually was, _almost_ to the whole concession, but it would not give up quite all. It demanded some sacrifice on his part, which sacrifice the sending of the ring would have rendered. The ring did not come, nor any pet.i.tion for mercy, and at length the fatal warrant was signed.

What the courtiers said about Ess.e.x's desire to die was doubtless true.

Like every other person involved in irretrievable sufferings and sorrows, he wanted to live, and he wanted to die. The two contradictory desires shared dominion in his heart, sometimes struggling together in a tumultuous conflict, and sometimes reigning in alternation, in calms more terrible, in fact, than the tempests which preceded and followed them.

At the appointed time the unhappy man was led out to the court-yard in the Tower where the last scene was to be enacted. The lieutenant of the Tower presided, dressed in a black velvet gown, over a suit of black satin. The "scaffold" was a platform about twelve feet square and four feet high, with a railing around it, and steps by which to ascend. The block was in the center of it, covered, as well as the platform itself, with black cloth. There were seats erected near for those who were appointed to be present at the execution. Ess.e.x ascended the platform with a firm step, and, surveying the solemn scene around him with calmness and composure, he began to speak.

He asked the forgiveness of G.o.d, of the spectators present, and of the queen, for the crimes for which he was about to suffer. He acknowledged his guilt, and the justice of his condemnation. His mind seemed deeply imbued with a sense of his accountability to G.o.d, and he expressed a strong desire to be forgiven, for Christ's sake, for all the sins which he had committed, which had been, he said, most numerous and aggravated from his earliest years. He asked the spectators present to join him in his devotions, and he then proceeded to offer a short prayer, in which he implored pardon for his sins, and a long life and happy reign for the queen. The prayer ended, all was ready. The executioner, according to the strange custom on such occasions, then asked his pardon for the violence which he was about to commit, which Ess.e.x readily granted.

Ess.e.x laid his head upon the block, and it required three blows to complete its severance from the body. When the deed was done, the executioner took up the bleeding head, saying solemnly, as he held it, "G.o.d save the queen."

There were but few spectators present at this dreadful scene, and they were chiefly persons required to attend in the discharge of their official duties. There was, however, one exception; it was that of a courtier of high rank, who had long been Ess.e.x's inveterate enemy, and who could not deny himself the savage pleasure of witnessing his rival's destruction. But even the stern and iron-hearted officers of the Tower were shocked at his appearing at the scaffold. They urged him to go away, and not distress the dying man by his presence at such an hour.

The courtier yielded so far as to withdraw from the scaffold; but he could not go far away. He found a place where he could stand un.o.bserved to witness the scene, at the window of a turret which overlooked the court-yard.

CHAPTER XII.

THE CONCLUSION.

1600-1603

Question of Ess.e.x's guilt.--General opinion of mankind.--Elizabeth's distress.--Fall of Ess.e.x's party.--Wounds of the heart.--Elizabeth's efforts to recover her spirits.--Emba.s.sage from France.--A conversation.--Thoughts of Ess.e.x.--Harrington.--The Countess of Nottingham.--The ring.--The Countess of Nottingham's confession.--The queen's indignation.--Bitter reminiscences.--The queen removes to Richmond.--Elizabeth grows worse.--The private chapel and the closets.--The wedding ring.--The queen's friends abandon her.--The queen's voice fails.--She calls her council together.--The chaplains.--The prayers.--The queen's death.--King James proclaimed.--Portrait of James the First.--Burial of the queen.--Westminster Abbey.--Its history.--The Poet's Corner.--Henry the Seventh's Chapel.--Elizabeth's monument.--James.--Mary's monument.--Feelings of visitors.--Summary of Elizabeth's character.

There can be no doubt that Ess.e.x was really guilty of the treason for which he was condemned, but mankind have generally been inclined to consider Elizabeth rather than him as the one really accountable, both for the crime and its consequences. To elate and intoxicate, in the first place, an ardent and ambitious boy, by flattery and favors, and then, in the end, on the occurrence of real or fancied causes of displeasure, to tease and torment so sensitive and impetuous a spirit to absolute madness and phrensy, was to take the responsibility, in a great measure, for all the effects which might follow. At least so it has generally been regarded. By almost all the readers of the story, Ess.e.x is pitied and mourned--it is Elizabeth that is condemned. It is a melancholy story; but scenes exactly parallel to this case are continually occurring in private life all around us, where sorrows and sufferings which are, so far as the heart is concerned, precisely the same result from the combined action, or rather, perhaps, the alternating and contending action, of fondness, pa.s.sion, and obstinacy.

The results are always, in their own nature, the same, though not often on so great a scale as to make the wrong which follows treason against a realm, and the consequences a beheading in the Tower.

There must have been some vague consciousness of this her share in the guilt of the transaction in Elizabeth's mind, even while the trial of Ess.e.x was going on. We know that she was hara.s.sed by the most tormenting suspense and perplexity while the question of the execution of his sentence was pending. Of course, when the plot was discovered, Ess.e.x's party and all his friends fell immediately from all influence and consideration at court. Many of them were arrested and imprisoned, and four were executed, as he had been. The party which had been opposed to him acquired at once the entire ascendency, and they all, judges, counselors, statesmen, and generals, combined their influence to press upon the queen the necessity of his execution. She signed one warrant and delivered it to the officer; but then, as soon as the deed was done, she was so overwhelmed with distress and anguish that she sent to recall it, and had it canceled. Finally she signed another, and the sentence was executed.

Time will cure, in our earlier years, most of the sufferings, and calm most of the agitations of the soul, however incurable and uncontrollable they may at first appear to the sufferer. But in the later periods of life, when severe shocks strike very heavily upon the soul, there is found far less of buoyancy and recovering power to meet the blow. In such cases the stunned and bewildered spirit moves on, after receiving its wound, staggering, as it were, with faintness and pain, and leaving it for a long time uncertain whether it will ultimately rise and recover, or sink down and die.

Dreadfully wounded as Elizabeth was, in all the inmost feelings and affections of her heart, by the execution of her beloved favorite, she was a woman of far too much spirit and energy to yield without a struggle. She made the greatest efforts possible after his death to banish the subject from her mind, and to recover her wonted spirits. She went on hunting excursions and parties of pleasure. She prosecuted with great energy her war with the Spaniards, and tried to interest herself in the siege and defense of Continental cities. She received an emba.s.sage from the court of France with great pomp and parade, and made a grand progress through a part of her dominions, with a long train of attendants, to the house of a n.o.bleman, where she entertained the emba.s.sador many days in magnificent state, at her own expense, with plate and furniture brought from her own palaces for the purpose. She even planned an interview between herself and the King of France, and went to Dover to effect it.

But all would not do. Nothing could drive the thoughts of Ess.e.x from her mind, or dispel the dejection with which the recollection of her love for him, and of his unhappy fate, oppressed her spirit. A year or two pa.s.sed away, but time brought no relief. Sometimes she was fretful and peevish, and sometimes hopelessly dejected and sad. She told the French emba.s.sador one day that she was weary of her life, and when she attempted to speak of Ess.e.x as the cause of her grief, she sighed bitterly and burst into tears.

When she recovered her composure, she told the emba.s.sador that she had always been uneasy about Ess.e.x while he lived, and, knowing his impetuosity of spirit and his ambition, she had been afraid that he would one day attempt something which would compromise his life, and she had warned and entreated him not to be led into any such designs, for, if he did so, his fate would have to be decided by the stern authority of law, and not by her own indulgent feelings but that all her earnest warnings had been insufficient to save him.

It was the same whenever any thing occurred which recalled thoughts of Ess.e.x to her mind; it almost always brought tears to her eyes. When Ess.e.x was commanding in Ireland, it will be recollected that he had, on one occasion, come to a parley with Tyrone, the rebel leader, across the current of a stream. An officer in his army, named Harrington, had been with him on this occasion, and present, though at a little distance, during the interview. After Ess.e.x had left Ireland, another lord-deputy had been appointed; but the rebellion continued to give the government a great deal of trouble. The Spaniards came over to Tyrone's a.s.sistance, and Elizabeth's mind was much occupied with plans for subduing him. One day Harrington was at court in the presence of the queen, and she asked him if he had ever seen Tyrone. Harrington replied that he had. The queen then recollected the former interview which Harrington had had with him, and she said, "Oh, now I recollect that you have seen him before!" This thought recalled Ess.e.x so forcibly to her mind, and filled her with such painful emotions, that she looked up to Harrington with a countenance full of grief: tears came to her eyes, and she beat her breast with every indication of extreme mental suffering.

Things went on in this way until toward the close of 1602, when an incident occurred which seemed to strike down at once and forever what little strength and spirit the queen had remaining. The Countess of Nottingham, a celebrated lady of the court, was dangerously sick, and had sent for the queen to come and see her, saying that she had a communication to make to her majesty herself, personally, which she was very anxious to make to her before she died. The queen went accordingly to see her.

When she arrived at the bedside the countess showed her a ring.