 CHAPTER 10 THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA Thirty years of Queen Elizabeth's reign passed away. During all this time the murderous contests between the Catholic governments of France and Spain, and their Protestant subjects, went on with terrible energy. Philip of Spain was the great leader and head of the Catholic powers, and he prosecuted his work of exterminating heresy with the sternest and most merciless determination. Obstinate in protracted wars, cruel tortures, and imprisonments and executions without number marked his reign. And withstanding all this, however, strange as it may seem, the country increased in population, wealth, and prosperity. It is, after all, but a very small proportion of fifty millions of people which the most cruel monster of a tyrant can kill even if he devotes himself fully to the work. The natural deaths amongst the vast population within the reach of Philip's power amounted probably to two millions every year, and if he destroyed ten thousand every year, it was only adding one death by violence to two hundred produced by accidents, disasters, or age, dreadful as are the atrocities of persecution and war, and vast and incalculable as are the encroachments on human happiness which they produce. We are often led to overrate their relative importance, compared with the aggregate value of the interests and pursuits which are left unharmed by them, by not sufficiently appreciating the enormous extent and magnitude of these interests and pursuits in such communities as England, France, and Spain. Sometimes, it is true, the operations of military heroes have been on such a prodigious scale as to make very serious inroads on the population of the greatest states. Napoleon, for instance, on one occasion took five hundred thousand men out of France for his expedition to Russia. The campaign destroyed nearly all of them. It was only a very insignificant fraction of the vast army that ever returned. By this transaction, Napoleon thus just about doubled the annual mortality in France at a single blow. Xerxes enjoys the glory of having destroyed about a million of men, and these not enemies, but countrymen, followers, and friends, in the same way, on a single expedition. Such vast results, however, were not attained in the conflicts which marked the reigns of Elizabeth and Philip of Spain. Notwithstanding the long protracted international wars and dreadful civil commotions of the period, the world went on increasing in wealth and population, and all the arts and improvements of life made very rapid progress. America had been discovered, and the way to the East Indies had been opened to European ships, and the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the English, and the French had fleets of merchant vessels and ships of war in every sea. The Spaniards particularly had acquired great possessions in America, which contained very rich mines of gold and silver, and there was a particular kind of vessels called galleons, which went regularly once a year under a strong convoy to bring home the treasure. They used to call these fleets Armada, which is the Spanish word donating an armed squadron. Nations at war with Spain always made great efforts to intercept and seize these ships on their homeward voyages, when, being laden with gold and silver, they became prizes of the highest value. Things were in this state about the year 1585, when Queen Elizabeth received a proposition from the Continent of Europe, which threw her into great perplexity. Among the other dominions of Philip of Spain, there were certain states situated in the broad tract of low, level land which lies northeast of France, and which constitutes at the present day the countries of Holland and Belgium. This territory was then divided into several provinces which were called usually the Low Countries, on account of the low and level situation of the land. In fact, there are vast tracts of land bordering the shore which lie so low that dikes have to be built to keep out the sea. In these cases there are lines of windmills of great size and power all along the coast, whose vast wings are always slowly revolving to pump out the water which percolates through the dikes, or which flows from the water courses after showers of rain. The Low Countries were very unwilling to submit to the tyrannical government which Philip exercised over them. The inhabitants were generally Protestants, and Philip persecuted them cruelly. They were, in consequence of this, continually rebelling against his authority, and Elizabeth secretly aided them in their struggles, though she would not openly assist them as she did not wish to provoke Philip to open war. She wished them success, however, for she knew very well that if Philip could once subdue his Protestant subjects at home he would immediately turn his attention to England, and perhaps undertake to depose Elizabeth and place some Catholic prince or princess upon the throne in her stead. Things were in this state in 1585, when the Confederate provinces of the Low Countries sent an embersage to Elizabeth, offering her the government of the country as sovereign queen, if she would openly espouse their cause and protect them from Philip's power. This proposition caused for very serious and anxious consideration. Elizabeth felt very desirous to make this addition to her dominions on its own account, and besides, she saw at once that such an acquisition would give her a great advantage in her future contests with Philip if actual war must come. But then, on the other hand, by accepting the proposition war must necessarily be brought on at once, Philip would in fact consider her espousing the cause of his rebellious subjects as an actual declaration of war on her part, so that making such a league with these countries would plunge her at once into hostilities with the greatest and most extended power on the globe. Elizabeth was very unwilling thus to precipitate the contest, but then on the other hand she wished very much to avoid the danger that threatened of Philip's first subduing his own dominions and then advancing to the invasion of England with his undivided strength. She finally concluded not to accept the sovereignty of the countries, but to make a league, offensive and defensive, with the governments, and to send out a fleet and an army to aid them. This, as she had expected, brought on a general war. The queen commissioned Leicester to take command of the forces which were to proceed to Holland and the Netherlands. She also equipped a fleet and placed it under the command of Sir Francis Drake, a very celebrated naval captain, to proceed across the Atlantic and attack the Spanish possessions on the American shores. Leicester was extremely elated with his appointment, and set off on his expedition with great pomp and parade. He had not, generally, during his life held stations of any great trust or responsibility. The queen had conferred upon him high titles and vast estates, but she had confided all real power to far more capable and trustworthy hands. She thought, however, perhaps that Leicester would answer for her allies, so she gave him his commission and sent him forth, charging him with many injunctions as he went away, to be discreet and faithful, and to do nothing which should compromise in any way her interests or honour. It will perhaps be recollected that Leicester's wife had been before her marriage with him the wife of a nobleman named the Earl of Essex. She had a son who, at his father's death, succeeded to the title. This young Essex accompanied Leicester on this occasion. His subsequent adventures, which were romantic and extraordinary, will be narrated in the next chapter. The people of the Netherlands, being extremely desirous to please Elizabeth, their new ally, thought that they could not honour the great general she had sent them too highly. They received him with most magnificent military parades, and passed a vote in their assembly, investing him with absolute authority as head of government, thus putting him, in fact, in the very position which Elizabeth had herself declined receiving. Leicester was extremely pleased and elated with these honours. He was a king in all but name. He provided himself with a noble life-guard in imitation of royalty, and assumed all the state and heirs of a monarch. Things went on so very prosperously with him for a short time, until he was one day thunderstruck by the appearance at his palace of a nobleman from the Queen's court named Hennidge, who brought him a letter from Elizabeth which was in substance, as follows. How foolishly, and with what contempt of my authority I think you have acted, the messenger I now send to you will explain. I little imagine that a man whom I had raised from the dust and treated with so much favour would have forgotten all his obligations and acted in such a manner. I command you now to put yourself entirely under the direction of this messenger, to do in all things precisely as he requires, upon pain of further peril. Leicester humbled himself immediately under this rebuke, sent home most ample apologies and prayers for forgiveness, and after a time gradually recovered the favour of the Queen. He soon however became very unpopular in the Netherlands, grievous complaints were made against him, and he was at length recalled. Leicester's rebuke was more successful. He was a bold, undaunted and energetic seamen, but unprincipled and merciless. He manned and equipped his fleet and set sail towards the Spanish possessions in America. He attacked the colonies, sacked the towns, plundered the inhabitants, intercepted the ships, and searched them for silver and gold. In a word he did exactly what pirates are hung for doing, and executed afterwards by all mankind. But, as Queen Elizabeth gave him permission to perform these exploits, he has always been applauded by mankind as a hero. We would not be understood as denying that there is any difference between burning and plundering innocent towns and robbing ships, whether there is or is not a governmental permission to commit these crimes. There certainly is a difference. It only seems to us surprising that there should be so great a difference, as is made by the general estimation of mankind. Drake in fact had acquired a great and honourable celebrity for such deeds before this time, by a similar expedition several years before, in which he had been driven to make the circumnavigation of the globe. England and Spain were there nominally at peace, and the expedition was really in pursuit of prizes and plunder. Drake took five vessels with him on this first expedition, but they were all very small. The largest was only a vessel of one hundred tons, while the ships which are now built are often of three thousand. With this little fleet Drake set sail boldly, and crossed the Atlantic, being fifty-five days out of sight of land. He arrived at last on the coast of South America, and then turned his course southward, toward the straits of Magellan. Two of his vessels he found were so small as to be of very little service, so he shipped the men on board the others, and turned the two adrift. When he got well into the southern seas, he charged his chief mate, whose name was Doughty, with some offence against the discipline of his little fleet, and had him condemned to death. He was executed at the straits of Magellan, beheaded. Before he died the unhappy convict had the sacrament administered to him, Drake himself partaking of it with him. It was said, and believed at the time, that the charge against Doughty was only a pretense, and that the real cause of his death was that Lester had agreed with Drake to kill him when far away, on account of his having assisted with others, in spreading the reports that Lester had murdered the Earl of Essex, the former husband of his wife. The little squadron passed through the straits of Magellan, and then encountered a dreadful storm, which separated the ships, and drove them several hundred miles to the westward, over the then boundless and trackless waters of the Pacific Ocean. Drake himself afterward recovered the shore with his own ship alone, and moved northward. He found Spanish ships and Spanish merchants everywhere, who, not dreaming of the presence of an English enemy in those distant seas, were entirely secure, and they fell, one after another, a very easy prey. The very extraordinary story is told of his finding in one place a Spaniard asleep upon the shore, waiting perhaps for a boat, with thirty bars of silver by his side, of great weight and value, which Drake and his men seized and carried off without so much as waking the owner. In one harbour which he entered he found three ships, from which the seamen had all gone ashore, leaving the vessels completely unguarded, so entirely unconscious were they of any danger near. Drake broke into the cabins of these ships, and found fifty or sixty wedges of pure silver there, of twenty pounds each. In this way as he passed along the coast he collected an immense treasure in silver and gold, with coin and bullion, without having to strike a blow for it. At last he had of a very rich ship, called the Caco Fogo, which had recently sailed for Panama, to which place they were taking the treasure in order that it might be transported across the Isthmus, and so taken home to Spain, for before Drake's voyage scarcely a single vessel had ever passed round Cape Horn. The ships which he plundered had all been built upon the coast, by Spaniards who had come across the country at the Isthmus of Darien, and were to be used only to transport the treasure northward, where it could be taken across to the Gulf of Mexico. Drake gave chase to the Caco Fogo. At last he came near enough to fire into her, and one of his first shots cut away her formast and disabled her. He soon captured the ship, and he found immense riches on board. Besides pearls and precious stones of great value there were eighty pounds of gold, thirteen chests of silver coin, and silver enough in bars to ballast a ship. Drake's vessel was now richly laden with treasures, but in the meantime the news of his plunderings had gone across the continent, and some Spanish ships of war had gone south to intercept him at the Straits of Magellan on his return. In this dilemma the adventurous sailor conceived of the sublime idea of avoiding them, by going round the world to get home. He pushed boldly forward, therefore, across the Pacific Ocean to the East Indies, thence through the Indian Ocean to the Cape of Good Hope, and after three years from the time he left England he returned to it safely again, his ship loaded with the plundered silver and gold. As soon as he arrived in the Thames the whole world flocked to see the little ship that had performed all these wonders. The vessel was drawn up alongside the land and a bridge made to it, and after the treasure was taken out it was given up for some time to banquettings and celebrations of every kind. The queen took possession of all the treasure, saying that Philip might demand it and she be forced to make restitution, for it must be remembered that all this took place several years before the war. She, however, treated the successful sailor with every mark of consideration and honour. She went herself on board his ship and partook of an entertainment there, conferring the honour of knighthood at the same time on the admiral, so that Sir Francis Drake was thenceforth his proper title. If the facts already stated did not give sufficient indications of the kind of character which in those days made a naval hero, one other circumstance may be added. At one time during this voyage a Spaniard whose ship Drake had spared made him a present of a beautiful negro girl. Drake kept her on board his ship for a time and then sent her ashore on some island that he was passing and inhumanly abandoned her there to become a mother among strangers, utterly friendless and alone. It must be added, however, injustice to the rude men among whom this wild buccaneer lived, that though they praised all his other deeds of violence and wrong, this atrocious cruelty was condemned. It had the effect even in those days of tarnishing his fame. Philip did claim the money, but Elizabeth found plenty of good excuses for not paying it over to him. This celebrated expedition occupied more than three years. Going round the world is a long journey. The arrival of the ship in London took place in 1581, four years before the war actually broke out between England and Spain, which was in 1585. And it was in consequence of the great celebrity which Drake had acquired in this and similar excursions, that when at last hostilities commenced, he was put in command of the naval preparations. It was not long before it was found that his services were likely to be acquired near home, for rumours began to find their way to England that Philip was preparing a great fleet for the actual invasion of England. The news put the whole country into a state of great alarm. The reader, in order to understand fully the grounds for this alarm, must remember that in those days Spain was the mistress of the ocean, and not England herself. Spain possessed the distant colonies and the foreign commerce, and built and armed the great ships, while England had comparatively few ships, and those which he had were small. To meet the formidable preparations which the Spaniards were making, Elizabeth equipped only four ships. To these, however, the merchants of London added twenty or thirty more of various sizes, which they furnished on condition of having a share in the plunder which they hoped would be secured. The whole fleet was put under Drake's command. Robbers and murderers, whether those that operate upon the sea or on the land, are generally courageous, and Drake's former success had made him feel doubly confident and strong. Philip had collected a considerable fleet of ships in Cadiz, which was a strong seaport in the south-eastern part of Spain on the Mediterranean Sea, and others were assembling in all the ports and bays along the shore wherever they could be built or purchased. They were to rendezvous finally at Cadiz. Drake pushed boldly forward, and to the astonishment of the world forced his way into the harbour, through a squadron of galleys stationed there to protect the entrance, and burned, sunk and destroyed more than a hundred ships which had been collected there. The whole work was done, and the little English fleet was off again, before the Spaniards could recover from their astonishment. Drake then sailed along the coast, seizing and destroying all the ships he could find. He next pushed to sea a little way, and had the good fortune to intercept and capture a richly laden ship of very large size called a Karak, which was coming home from the East Indies. He then went back to England in triumphs. He said he had been singeing the whiskers of the King of Spain. The booty was divided among the London merchants, as had been agreed upon. Philip was exasperated and enraged beyond expression at this unexpected destruction of armaments which had cost him so much time and money to prepare. His spirit was irritated and aroused by the disaster, not quelled, and he immediately began to renew his preparations, making him now on a still vaster scale than before. The amount of damage which Drake affected was, therefore, after all, of no greater benefit to England than putting back the invasion for about a year. At length, in the summer of 1588, the preparations for the sailing of the Great Armada, which was to dethrone Elizabeth and put back the English nation again under the dominion of some papal prince, and put down finally the cause of Protestantism in Europe, were complete. Elizabeth herself, and the English people in the meantime, had not been idle. The whole kingdom had been for months filled with enthusiasm to prepare for meeting the foe. Armies were levied and fleets raised, every maritime town furnished chips, and rich noblemen in many cases built or purchased vessels with their own funds, and sent them forward ready for the battle as their contribution toward the means of defence. A large part of the force thus raised was stationed at Plymouth, which is the first great seaport which presents itself on the English coast in sailing up the Channel. The remainder of it was stationed at the other end of the Channel, near the Straits of Dover, for it was feared that, in addition to the vast armament which Philip was to bring from Spain, he would raise another fleet in the Netherlands, which would, of course, reach the shores of England from the German Ocean. Besides the fleets, a large army was raised. Twenty thousand men were distributed along the southern shores of England, in such positions as to be most easily concentrated, at any point where the armada might attempt to land, and about as many more were marched down the Thames, and encamped near the mouth of the river, to guard that access. This encampment was at a place on the northern bank of the river, just above its mouth. Lester, strange as it may seem, was put in command of this army. The queen, however, herself, went to visit this encampment, and reviewed the troops in person. She rode to and fro on horseback along the lines, armed like a warrior. At least she had a corsetlet of polished steel over her magnificent dress, and bore a general's truncheon, a richly ornamented staff used as a badge of command. She had a helmet, too, with a white plume. This, however, she did not wear. A page bore it, following her, while she rode, attended by Lester and the other generals, all mounted on horses in splendidly comparison, from rank to rank, animating the men to the highest enthusiasm by her courageous bearing, her look of confidence, and her smiles. She made an address to the soldiers. She said that she had been warned by some of her ministers of the danger of trusting herself to the power of such an armed multitude, for these forces were not regularly enlisted troops, but volunteers from among the citizens, who had suddenly left their ordinary avocations and pursuits of life to defend their country in this emergency. She had, however, she said, no such apprehensions of danger. She could trust herself without fear to the courage and fidelity of her subjects, as she had always, during all her reign, considered her greatest strength and safeguard as consisting in their loyalty and goodwill. For herself, she had come to the camp, she assured them, not for the sake of empty pageantry and parade, but to take her share with them in the dangers and toils and terrors of the actual battle. If Philip should land, they would find their queen in the hottest of the conflict fighting by their sides. I have, said she, I know, only the body of a weak and feeble woman. But I have the heart of a king, and I am ready for my God, my kingdom and my people, to have that body laid down, even in the dust. If the battle comes, therefore, I shall myself be in the midst and front of it, to live or die with you. These were, thus far, but words, it is true, and how far Elizabeth would have vindicated their sincerity, if the entrance of the Armada into the Thames had put her to the test, we cannot now know. Sir Francis Drake saved her from the trial. One morning a small vessel came into the harbour at Plymouth, where the English fleet was lying, with the news that the Armada was coming up the channel under full sail. The anchors of the fleet were immediately raised, and great exertions made to get it out of the harbour, which was difficult as the wind at the time was blowing directly in. The squadron got out at last, as night was coming on. The next morning the Armada hove in sight, advancing from the westward up to the channel in a vast crescent which extended for seven miles from north to south and seemed to sweep the whole sea. It was a magnificent spectacle, and it was the ushering in of that far grander spectacle still, of which the English channel was the scene for the ten days which followed, during which the enormous naval structures of the Armada, as they slowly made the way along, were followed and fired upon and harassed by the smaller and lighter and more active vessels of their English foes. The unwieldy monsters pressed on, surrounded and worried by their nimbler enemies, like hawks driven by kingfishers through the sky. Day after day this most extraordinary contest, half flight and half battle, continued. Every promontory on the shores covered all the time with spectators, who listened to the distant booming of the guns, and watched the smokes which arose from the cannonading and the conflagrations. One great galleon after another fell a prey. Some were burned, some taken as prizes, some driven ashore. And finally, one dark night, the English sent a fleet of fire-ships, all in flames, into the midst of the anchorage to which the Spaniards had retired, which scattered them in terror and dismay, and completed the discomforture of the squadron. The result was that by the time the invincible Armada had made its way through the channel and had passed the Straits of Dover, it was so dispersed and shattered and broken, that its commanders, far from feeling any disposition to sail up the Thames, were only anxious to make good their escape from the indefatigable and tormenting foes. They did not dare in attempting to make this escape to return through the channel, so they pushed northward into the German Ocean. Their only course for getting back to Spain again was to pass round the northern side of England, among the cold and stormy seas that are rolling in continually, among the ragged rocks and gloomy islands which darken the ocean there. At last a miserable remnant of the fleet, less than half, made their way back to Spain again. CHAPTER XI. The Earl of Essex. The lady whom the Earl of Lester married was a short time before he married her, the wife of the Earl of Essex, and she had one son who, on the death of his father, became the Earl of Essex in his turn. He came to court and continued in Lester's family after his mother's second marriage. He wasn't accomplished an elegant young man, and well regarded with a good deal of favour by the Queen. He was introduced at court when he was but 17 years old, and being the stepson of Lester, he necessarily occupied a conspicuous position. His personal qualities, joined with this, soon gave him a very high and honourable name. About a month after the victory obtained by the English over the invincible Armada, Lester was seized with a fever on a journey, and, after lingering for a few days, died, leaving Essex as it were in his place. Elizabeth seems not to have been very inconsolable for her favourite's death. She directed or allowed his property to be sold at auction, to pay some debts which he owed her, or, as the historians of the day express it, which he owed the Crown, and then seemed at once to transfer her fondness and affection to the young Essex, who was at that time 21 years of age. Elizabeth herself was now nearly 60. Cecil was growing old also, and was somewhat infirm, though he had a son who was rapidly coming forward in rank and influence at court. This son's name was Robert. The young Earl of Essex's name was Robert, too. The elder Cecil and Lester had been all their lives watchful and jealous of each other, and in some sense rivals. Robert Cecil and Robert Devereaux, for that was in full the Earl of Essex's family name, being young and ardent, inherited the animosity of their parents, and were less cautious and wary in expressing it. They soon became open foes. Robert Devereaux, or Essex as he is commonly called in history, was handsome and accomplished, and impulsive and generous. The war with Spain, not withstanding the destruction of the Armada, continued, and Essex entered it with all zeal. The Queen, who with all her ambition and her proud and domineering spirit felt, like any other woman, the necessity of having something to love, soon began to take a strong interest in his person and fortunes, and seemed to love him as a mother loves a son, and he, in turn, soon learned to act toward her as a son, full of youthful courage and ardor, often acts toward a mother over whose heart he feels that he has a strong control. He would go away without leave, to mix in a phrase with the Spanish ships in the English Channel, and then the Bay of Biscay, and then come back and make his peace with the Queen by very humble petitions for pardon, and promises for future obedience. When he went, with her leave on these expeditions, she would charge his superior officers to keep him out of danger, while he, with an impetuosity which strongly marked his character, would evade and escape from all these injunctions, and press forward into every possible exposure, always eager to have battle given, and to get himself into the hottest part of it, when it was begun. At one time, off Cadiz, the officers of the English ships hesitated some time whether to venture an attack upon some ships in the harbor, Essex burning with impatience all the time, and when it was at length decided to make the attack, he was so excited with enthusiasm and pleasure that he threw his cap up into the air and overboard, perfectly wild with delight, like a schoolboy in anticipation of a holiday. Ten years passed away, and Essex rose high 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 core, 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 motive speaking of his distinction, and challenged Essex to a duel. The combatants met in the park, and Essex 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 anything with him. Elizabeth's feeling toward Essex fluctuated in strange alternations of fondness and displeasure. At one time, when affection was in ascendancy, 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. Essex took the ring and preserved it with the utmost care. Friendship between persons of such impetuous and excitable temperaments as Elizabeth and Essex 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 formanted and encouraged by Spanish influence. Essex 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. Essex 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. Essex 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 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 VIII himself. The name of King Henry VIII in those days was the symbol and personification of the highest possible human grandeur. The friends of Essex, 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 a very good philosophy, but Essex was not in a state of mind to listen to philosophy. He wrote a letter to a 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 Essex 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. Tyrone wanted a parley, but did not dare to trust himself in Essex'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. Essex, 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. Nothing effectual was accomplished by this and some other similar parleys, and in the meantime the weeks were passing away, and little was done towards suppressing the rebellion. The Queen was dissatisfied. She sent Essex letters of complaint and censure. These letters awakened the Lord Deputy's resentment. The breach was thus rapidly widening when Essex all at once conceived the idea of going himself to England without permission and without airing any notice of his intention to endeavor by a personal interview to reinstate himself in the favor of the Queen. The House of the Earl of Essex. 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. Lester did once succeed in such a measure, but in this case, unfortunately, it failed. Essex traveled with the utmost dispatch across 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 wayworn. The Queen was at her toilet with her hair down over her eyes. Essex fell on his knees before her, kissed her hand, and made great professions of gratitude and love and of an extreme desire to serve and enjoy her favor. The Queen was astonished at his appearance, but Essex 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. Essex was kept thus secluded and confined for some time. His house was on the bank of the river. None of his friends, nor 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 impetuous 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 attitudes 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 no peace till either the obstinacy yields or the love ex extinguished and gone. It was indirectly made known to Essex that if he would confess his fault, as the Queen's forgiveness, and petition for 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 roused. He walked his room, his soul boiling with anger and chagrin, while the Queen, equally distressed and harassed 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 Essex, 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 circumstances 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 Essex, sometimes exhaust 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. Essex 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 Essex 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 Essex 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. Essex 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 communication between Essex 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 and reply to his acknowledgments and professions. She told him that she was glad to hear of his good intentions and 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 it had to deal with him, 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. Essex 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, and a certain kind of wines which had been granted to him sometime before. It was a very customary mode in those days of enriching favorites to grant them monopolies and certain kinds of merchandise, that is, the exclusive right to sell them. The persons 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. Essex had thus derived a great revenue from his monopoly of wines. The grant, however, was expiring, and he petitioned the Queen that it might be renewed. The interest which Essex 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 Essex 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 preventer. Essex 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 excitation and 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 Essex, and abandoning all plans for again enjoying the favour 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 passion 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 everyone who entertained any expectation of following her. Essex suppressed all outward expressions of violence and anger, became thoughtful, moody, and sullen, held secret consultations with desperate intrigers, 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 strongholds 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 Essex himself to power. The personal character of Essex had given him a very widespread 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 assembled at Essex'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 principal citizens of London to say to Essex that they were ready to espouse his cause. Essex 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 Essex said he had rather be shot at the head of his bands than to wander all his days beyond the seas of fugitive and vagabond. The conspirators acceded to their leaders' 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 attendance, came to Essex'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 attendance. The officers found themselves in a large courtyard filled with armed men. Essex standing calmly at the head of them. They demanded what was the meaning of such an unusual assemblage. Essex replied that it was to defend his life from conspiracies formed against it by his enemies. The officers denied this danger and began to espotulate with Essex in angry terms and the attendance on his side to rely with vociferations and threats. When Essex, 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, Essex 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 cooperate with him there. He wrote 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 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 Essex and his company were fairly in the city, the gates were shut and barred to prevent his return. One of the queen's principal ministers of state too, at the head of a small troop of horsemen, came in and rode through the streets proclaiming Essex a traitor and calling upon all the citizens to aid in arresting him. One of Essex'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 principal streets, he returned to the queen and reported to her that all was well in the city, there was no danger that Essex would succeed in raising a rebellion there. In the meantime, the further Essex proceeded, the more he found himself environed with difficulties and dangers. The people began to assemble 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. Essex himself, with the few who still adhere to him, wandered about till two o'clock, finding the way of retreat everywhere hemmed up against him. At length, he fled to the riverside, 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 Essex's house, fled into it with the utmost precipitation, and barricaded the doors. Essex 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, bareheaded, 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. Essex himself was not quite so desperate as this. He soon saw, however, that he must soon 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 approved 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 been for so many months been acting slowly ebbed away. He woke 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 axe 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 one side and love which would not be extinguished on the other. If Essex 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 Essex wished to die, that he knew 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 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 was, almost to the whole concession, but it would not give up quite all. It demanded some sacrifice on his part which sacrificed the sending of the ring would have rendered. The ring did not come. Nor any petition for mercy and at length the fatal warrant was signed. What the courtiers said about Essex'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 alteration in calm's more terrible in fact than the tempest which preceded and followed them. At the appointed time the unhappy man was led out to the courtyard 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 12 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. Essex 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 God 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 God 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 then he 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 Essex readily granted. Essex 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, God 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 Essex'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 unobserved to witness the scene at the window of a turret which overlooked the courtyard. End of Chapter 11 Recording by Elana Jordan in St. Louis, Missouri. There can be no doubt that Essex 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 fancy causes of displeasure, to tease and torment so sensitive and impetuous the spirit to absolute madness and frenzy, 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. Essex 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, passion, and obstinacy. The results are always in their own nature the same, though not often on so great a scale is to make the wrong which follows treason against a realm and the consequences of 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 when the trial of Essex was going on. We know that she was harassed 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, Essex'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 ascendancy, 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 distressed and anguished that she sent to recall it and had it cancelled. 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 far less buoyancy in 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 favourite, 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 wanted 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 defence of continental cities. She received an embassage 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 nobleman, where she entertained the Ambassador 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 affect it. But all would not do. Nothing could drive the thoughts of Essex 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 passed away, but time brought no relief. Sometimes she was fretful and peevish, and sometimes hopelessly dejected and sad. She told the French Ambassador one day that she was weary of her life, and when she attempted to speak of Essex as the cause of her grief, she sighed bitterly and burst into tears. When she recovered her composure, she told the Ambassador that she had always been uneasy about Essex 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 the law, and not by her own indulgent feelings, but that all of her earnest warnings had been insufficient to save him. It was the same whenever anything occurred which recalled thoughts of Essex to her mind. It almost always brought tears to her eyes. When Essex 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 Essex 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 assistance, 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 Essex so forcibly to her mind, and filled her with such painful emotions, that she looked up to Harrington with accountants full of grief. Tears came to her eyes, and she beat her breast with every indication of extreme mental suffering. Things went on this way until toward the close of 1602, when an incident occurred which seemed to strike down at once and for ever 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. Elizabeth immediately recognized it as a ring which she had given to Essex, and which she had promised to consider a special pledge of her protection, and which was to be sent to her by him whenever he found himself in any extremity of danger and distress. The Queen eagerly demanded where it had come from. The Countess replied that Essex had sent the ring to her during his imprisonment in the tower, and after his condemnation, with an earnest request that she would deliver it to the Queen as the token of her promise of protection, and of his own supplication for mercy. The Countess added that she had intended to deliver the ring according to Essex's request, but her husband, who was the unhappy prisoner's enemy, forbade her to do it, that ever since the execution of Essex she had been greatly distressed at the consequences of her having withheld the ring, and that now, as she was about to leave the world herself, she felt that she could not die in peace without first seeing the Queen, and acknowledging fully what she had done and imploring her forgiveness. The Queen was thrown into a state of extreme indignation and displeasure by this statement. She reproached the dying Countess in the bitterest terms, and shook her as she lay helpless in her bed, saying, God may forgive you if he pleases, but I never will. She then went away in a rage. Her exasperation, however, against the Countess, was soon seceded by bursts of inconsolable grief at the recollection of the hopeless and irretrievable loss of the object of her affection, whose image the ring called back so forcibly to her mind. Her imagination wandered in wretchedness and despair to the gloomy dungeon in the tower where Essex had been confined, and painted him pining there, day after day, in dreadful suspense and anxiety, waiting for her to redeem the solemn pledge by which she had bound herself in giving him the ring. All the sorrow which she had felt at his untimely and cruel fate was awakened to fresh, and became more poignant than ever. She made them place cushions for her upon the floor, in the most inner and secluded of her apartments, and there she would lie all the day long, her hair disheveled, her dress neglected, her food refused, and her mind apprayed to almost uninterrupted anguish and grief. In January, 1603, she felt that she was drawing toward her end, and she decided to remove from Westminster to Richmond, because there was there an arrangement of closets communicating with her chamber, in which she could easily and conveniently attend divine services. She felt that she had now done with the world, and all the relief and comfort which she could find at all from the pleasure of her distress in that sense of protection and safety which she experienced when in the presence of God and listening to the exercises of devotion. It was a cold and stormy day in January when she went to Richmond, but being restless and ill at ease she would not be deterred by that circumstance for making the journey. She became worse after this removal. She made them put cushions again for her upon the floor, and she would lie upon them all day, refusing to go to her bed. There was a communication from her chamber to closets connected with a chapel, where she had been accustomed to sit in here divine service. These closets were of the form of small galleries, where the queen and her immediate attendants could sit. There was one open in public, another, a smaller one was private, with curtains which could be drawn before it, so as to screen those within from the notice of the congregation. The queen intended first to go into the great closet, but feeling too weak for this she changed her mind, and ordered the private one to be prepared. At last she decided not to attempt to make even this effort, but ordered the cushions to be put down upon the floor near the entrance in her own room, and she lay there while the prayers were read, listening to the voice of the clergyman as it came into her through the open door. One day she asked them to take off the wedding ring with which she had commemorated her espousal to her kingdom and her people on the day of her coronation. The flesh had swollen around it so that it could not be removed. The attendants procured an instrument and cut it in two, and so relieved the finger from the pressure. The work was done in silence and solemnity. The queen herself, as well as the attendants, regarded it as a symbol that the union, of which the ring had been the pledge, was about to be sundered for ever. She sunk rapidly day by day, and as it became more and more probable that she would soon cease to live, the nobles and statesmen who had been attendants at her court for so many years withdrew one after another from the palace and left London secretly, but with eager dispatch to make their way to Scotland in order to be the first to hail King James, the moment they should learn that Elizabeth had ceased to breathe. Her being abandoned thus by these heartless friends did not escape the notice of the dying queen. Though her strength of body was almost gone, the soul was as active and busy as ever within its failing tenement. She watched everything, noticed everything, growing more and more jealous and irritable just in proportion as her situation became helpless and forlorn. Everything seemed to deepen the despondency and gloom which darkened her dying hours. Her strength rapidly declined. Her voice grew fainter and fainter until, on the twenty-third of March, she could no longer speak. In the afternoon of that day she aroused herself a little and contrived to make signs to have her counsel called to her bedside. Those who had not gone to Scotland came. They asked her whom she wished to have succeed her on the throne. She could not answer, but when they named King James of Scotland, she made a sign of assent. After a time the counselors went away. At six o'clock in the evening she made signs for the archbishop and her chaplains to come to her. They were sent for and came. When they came in they approached her bedside and kneeled. The patient was lying upon her back, speechless, but her eye, still moving watchfully and observing everything, showed that the faculties of the soul were unimpaired. One of the clergymen asked her questions respecting her faith. Of course she could not answer in words. She made signs, however, with her eyes and her hands, which seemed to prove that she had full possession of all her faculties. The bystanders looked on with breathless attention. The aged bishop, who had asked the questions, then began to pray for her. He continued his prayer a long time, and then, pronouncing a benediction upon her, he was about to rise, but she made a sign. The bishop did not understand what she meant, but a lady present said that she wished the bishop to continue his devotions. The bishop, though weary with kneeling, continued his prayer half an hour longer. He closed again, but she repeated the sign. The bishop, finding thus that his ministrations gave her so much comfort, renewed them with greater fervency than before, and continued his supplications for a long time. So long that those who had been present at the commencement of the service went away softly, one after another, so that when at last the bishop retired, the queen was left with her nurses and her women alone. These attendants remained at their dying sovereign bedside for a few hours longer, watching the failing pulse, the quickened breathing, and all the other indications of approaching dissolution. As hour after hour thus passed on, they wished that their weary task was done, and that both their patient and themselves were at rest. This lasted until midnight, and then the intelligence was communicated about the palace that Elizabeth was no more. In the meantime all the roads to Scotland were covered, as it were, with eager aspirants for the favour of the distinguished personage there, who from the instant Elizabeth ceased to breathe became King of England. They looked into Scotland by sea and by land, urging their way as rapidly as possible to be foremost and paying homage to the rising sun. The council assembled and proclaimed King James. Elizabeth lay neglected and forgotten. The interest she had inspired was awakened only by her power, and that being gone nobody mourned for her or lamented her death. The attention of the kingdom was soon universally absorbed in the plans for receiving and proclaiming the new monarch from the north, and in anticipation of the splendid pageantry which was to signalize his taking his seat upon the English throne. In due time the body of the deceased queen was deposited with those of its progenitors in the ancient place of sepulchre of the English kings, Westminster Abbey. Westminster Abbey, in the sense in which that term is used in history, is not to be conceived of as a building, nor even as a group of buildings, but rather as a long succession of buildings like a dynasty, following each other in a line, the various structures having been renewed and rebuilt constantly, as parts or holes decayed from century to century for twelve or fifteen hundred years. The spot received its consecration at a very early day. It was then an island formed by the waters of a little tributary to the Thames, which has long since entirely disappeared. Written records of its sacredness and of the sacred structures which have occupied it go back more than a thousand years, and beyond that time tradition mounts still further, carrying the consecration of the spot almost to the Christian era, by telling us that the Apostle Peter himself, on his missionary wanderings, had a chapel or an oratory there. The spot has been, in all ages, the great burial place of the English kings, whose monuments and effigies adorn its walls and aisles in endless variety. A vast number, too, of the statesmen, generals, and naval heroes of the British Empire have been admitted to the honor of having their remains deposited under its marble floor. Even literary genius has a little corner assigned to it. The mighty aristocracy whose mortal remains it is, the main function of the building to protect, having so far condescended toward intellectual greatness as to allow Milton, Addison, and Shakespeare modest monuments behind a door. The place is called the poet's corner, and so famed and celebrated is the vast edifice everywhere that the phrase by which even the obscure and insignificant portion of it is known is familiar to every ear and every tongue throughout the English world. The body of Elizabeth was interred in a part of the edifice called Henry VII's Chapel. The word chapel, in the European sense, denotes ordinarily a subordinate edifice connected with the main body of a church and opening into it. Most frequently in fact, a chapel is a mere recess or alcove separated from the area of the church by a small screen or a gilded iron railing. In the Catholic churches, these chapels are ornamented with sculptures and paintings, with altars and crucifixes, and other such furniture. Sometimes they are built expressly as monumental structures, in which case they are often of considerable size and are ornamented with great magnificence and splendor. This was the case with Henry VII's Chapel. The whole building is in fact his tomb. Vast sums were expended in the construction of it, the work of which extended through two rains. It is now one of the most attractive portions of the great pile which it adorns. Elizabeth's body was deposited here, and here her monument was erected. It will be recollected that James, who now succeeded Elizabeth, was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots. Soon after his accession to the throne, he removed the remains of his mother from their place of sepulchre, near the scene of her execution, and interred them in the south aisle of Henry VII's Chapel, while the body of Elizabeth occupied the northern one. He placed also over Mary's remains a tomb very similar in its plan and design to that by which the memory of Elizabeth was honored, and there the rival queens have since reposed in silence and peace under the same paved floor. And though the monuments do not materially differ in their architectural forms, it is found that the visitors who go continually to the spot gaze with a brief, though lively, interest at the one, while they linger long and mournfully over the other. The character of Elizabeth has not generally awakened among mankind much commendation or sympathy. They who censure or condemn her should, however, reflect how very conspicuous was the stage on which she acted, and how minutely all her faults have been paraded to the world. That she deserved the approaches which have been so freely cast upon her memory cannot be denied. It will moderate, however, any tendency to censoriousness in our mode of uttering them, if we consider to how little advantage we should ourselves appear, if all the words of fretfulness and irritability which we have ever spoken, all our insincerity in double dealing, our selfishness, our pride, our petty resentments, our caprice, and our countless follies were exposed as fully to the public gaze as were those of this renowned and glorious but unhappy queen.