would have remained in his camp, but the Ulster chiefs were desperate to return home, and he was forced to retreat. D'Aguilar obtained fair terms and was permitted to carry off his garrisons to Spain, and the Munster resistance was put down in a series of skirmishes and massacres throughout the mountains and bogs.

Thereupon Tyrone saw his cause to be hopeless, and offered terms of peace. The news came when Elizabeth's health and strength were fast failing, and her spirit was oppressed by the thought of the horrible war of extermination which Essex would have prevented if she had listened to him.

She insisted that peace should be made on any terms, and her Council were anxious to have all pacified before her death, lest the Spaniards should find a party in Ireland. Tyrone, finding his force constantly melting away, consented to renounce the title of "the O'Neill," and to make his submission to Mountjoy upon his knees, when he received a full pardon, with restoration to his estates. He was still with the Deputy when the tidings of the Queen's death arrived, and he burst into tears, whether from the thought of her past kindness, or of the opportunity he had missed, cannot be known.

CAMEO XXXVII.

Tyrone's Overthrow

1502.

VOL. V.

САМЕО

THE last Tudor tragedy is in some respects the saddest of all, as it XXXVIII. broke the heart of the perpetrator, while it fell upon an unusually noble victim.

Essex's Character.

The Earl of Essex was a strange mixture, circumstances had made him the spoilt child of the Court; but beneath the outer shell of vanity and petulance there was growing on him the spirit of a Montfort, as he looked upon the tyrannies that had been imposed on the nation by the Tudors. If he had lived to a maturer age, and seen the new reign begin, he might have secured alterations which would have prevented the rebellion in which his son took a leading part. It is strange to think of Queen Elizabeth's gay courtiers and poets as Puritans at heart, yet such had Leicester and Spenser been, and such was Essex, probably because Spain and Rome were then at their worst, and all that savoured of connection with them was hateful.

Essex surrounded himself with Puritan preachers, who inflamed hin with the dread that Elizabeth, in her vacillations, would leave the kingdom open to the Infanta and her husband. He entered into corre spondence with James of Scotland, who eagerly accepted his advice on the means of securing his own accession. At the same time, Essex, who was really Earl Marshal of England, listened to all sorts of com plaints from those who were pressed heavily by the customs that had grown up in the Tudor times. He believed that, as Earl Marshal, he had a right to interfere with the administration of upstarts like Cecil, Raleigh, and Cobham, who, according to his view, secluded the Queen from hearing the truth from him, and he hoped to drive them from her presence, get a Parliament summoned, and begin a course of reform.

The

It was unfortunate, however, for his reputation, that he did not perceive that his reforms ought to begin at home, with a self-denying ordinance. Monopolies were among the abuses of the time. Sovereigns granted, to certain persons, licenses to be the sole vendors of certain articles at any price they chose for a certain period of years. Essex derived no less than 50,000l. a year from a monopoly on sweet wines, and as it expired just at the period of his disgrace, he sent petition on petition to the Queen for its renewal.

She answered that she would inquire into it, and that when horses were unmanageable they were best tamed by being stinted in their food. The Earl was so deep in debt that he knew not how to dispense with this income, and he petitioned again, but Elizabeth had resolved to appropriate the revenue, and answered him contemptuously.

Once again, on the 17th of November, the anniversary of her coronation, he wrote her a letter appealing to her old kindness for him, and entreating its restoration; but she paid no attention to it, and he lost patience, and began to talk wildly and foolishly, consorting with the discontented.

His house at Temple Bar, and his friend Southampton's at Drury Lane, were the resort of all the disaffected. The Puritan connections of Leicester and of Walsingham made him the favourite champion of those who were discontented with the Church government of Elizabeth and Whitgift, and they preached before him and crowds of hearers of their own persuasion. He even put to them, as a case of conscience, whether a sovereign might be compelled by force to govern according to law?

The Queen was nearing the age of man, and had lived and reigned longer than any sovereign since Edward III., yet she still gave no sign of designating her heir, and the nation was growing uneasy on the subject. James Stuart, as a foreign sovereign, was far less obvious than he appears to us, and there was, in many persons, an extreme dislike of Scotland and the Scots. His cousin, Arabella, was by some looked on as a more suitable sovereign, being to all intents and purpose; an Englishwoman born and bred; and some thought of Lord Beauchamp, the Tower-born son of poor Lady Katherine Grey; but there had of late been friendly negotiations with the Archduke Albert and the Infanta Isabel in Flanders, and this had raised a bugbear that the Queen meant actually to revive the old claim of the descent from the house of Lancaster in their behalf. As she had formerly coquetted with her lovers, so now she coquetted with her would-be heirs, being resolved that there should be no certainty. She had been shocked at the headlong rush from her sister's death-bed to greet her as Queen, and she meant to hinder anything of the kind.

But the nation could not brook the doubt. The idea that the Infanta would reign over them after all maddened the Puritans, and Raleigh, Cobham, and even Cecil, were supposed to prefer such an alternative to the Scottish succession. Essex, who had worked himself up to believe

CAVEO XXXVIII.

Essex's Disgrace.

1601.

CAMEO XXXVIII.

Essex's letter to

James. 1601.

them capable of anything, actually wrote to warn James that he had better send an embassy to demand a recognition of his rights, promising to risk everything for his support. James decided on sending off two envoys, one to the Queen, the other to consult with the conspirators, who were wont to meet at Southampton's house in Drury Lane. Meantime, Essex talked without restraint of his wrongs, and called the Queen "an old woman as crooked in mind as in person.' The city was in a state of disorder, with much rioting, and the Queen was exceedingly discomposed, pacing about the room, scarcely eating, and refusing to change her dress, or to see her friends, especially Harrington, whose knighthood at the Earl's hand was a special offence. "Go tell that witty fellow, my godson, to get home," she said; "it is no season to fool it here."

Cecil had spies everywhere, among them Sir Ferdinando Gorges, whom Essex supposed his great friend; and he discovered that the wild plan of the discarded Deputy was that his stepfather, Sir Christopher Blount, with a trusty band, should seize the gates of the palace, and that he himself should burst upon the Queen, fall on his knees before her, and exerting the ascendancy in which he still believed, insist on her dismissing her present advisers, and then have a Parliament called, and justice done. All this was disclosed by his supposed friends.

Orders were brought by Secretary Herbert that my Lord of Essex should appear before the Council. He was further alarmed by a message from Sir Henry Neville to take care of himself. He replied that he was unwell and could not come, but during the night he sent messengers to all his friends, who mustered at his house to the number of 300. It was Sunday, and he told them that the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors were to hear a sermon at St. Paul's Cross. Thither he meant to repair, to explain his wrongs and theirs, and lead them to obtain redress from the Queen.

They

However, at ten o'clock, the Lord Keeper Egerton, the Earl of Worcester, and others of the Council, were at the gate of Essex's house demanding admission. After some hesitation, the heads of the party were admitted through a wicket, but without their attendants. asked the cause of the court being full of armed men, and Essex began to storm about a plot against his life, and Southampton mentioned an old assault by Lord Grey's servants for which the offender had been punished.

The Lord Keeper desired Essex to explain his grievances in private, but the armed men around broke out in loud cries, "They abuse you, my lord; they are undoing you; you lose your time! "

Egerton put on his cap, and in the Queen's name commanded the company to lay aside their arms and disperse, but this made them more tumultuous; and Essex leading the way into the house, the Keeper and his companions followed, but the mob shouted, "Keep them for pledges! Kill them! Throw the Great Seal out of window!" They found two rooms full of musketeers, through whom Essex led them,

evidently meaning to shelter them; and putting them into a room at the back of the house he begged them to have patience for half an hour, entrusted them to the care of four gentlemen, and bolted them in.

The die was now cast, and, having made the Queen's deputation prisoners, he was forced to go on; and, drawing his sword, he dashed out into the street, followed by his friends Southampton, Rutland, Sandys, and Mounteagle. and about eighty knights and gentlemen, besides the rabble.

The Lords Bedford and Cromwell afterwards joined him, as he rushed along Fleet Street, crying, "England is sold to Spain by Cecil and Raleigh! Citizens, arm for England and the Queen!"

There was a guard at Ludgate Hill whom he entreated to let him pass, declaring that he wanted to save his life from Raleigh and Cobham. They let him through, but he found nobody at Paul's Cross, the Mayor having prudently stopped the sermon and sent orders to every one to remain within doors; so the streets were empty as the Earl rode along shouting, "For the Queen! for the Queen!" He reached the house of Sheriff Smith, who had made him large promises, but he found it empty and deserted; and thus seeing that his plan had failed, he shut himself into one of the rooms to recover his spirits.

The Court meanwhile was in consternation; Cecil knew not whom to trust, and only doubled the guards; but Elizabeth's old spirit awoke, and she declared her intention of going forth to quell the rebels with a glance of her eye. However, Cecil preferred sending his brother, Lord Burghley, with a herald, also the gallant and faithful Lord Cumberland and Sir Thomas Gerard, into the city in different quarters to proclaim Essex a traitor, and to offer a pardon to every one else who would return to his duty.

Essex left the house of Sheriff Smith with much smaller numbers than he had brought to it. He had tried to procure weapons at an armourer's shop, but in vain, and he found the streets barricaded with chains and carts. Lord Burghley gave way before him and he broke the guard on Ludgate Hill by a charge headed by Sir Christopher Blount but a shot went through his hat, and his followers fell away from him at every street. However, he reached Queenhithe, took boat, and returned to his own house, where he trusted to make terms for his own safety by means of the Lord Keeper and the other hostages, but on his arrival he found the birds flown; Sir Ferdinando Gorges had liberated them as soon as the mob had streamed off after him and left the way clear.

In despair he began to fortify the house, but he was presently besieged by the Lord Admiral and the Queen's guard. Sir Robert Sidney came into the garden, and parleyed with Essex and Southampton on the roof. They made demands which were refu ed, but a respite of two hours was granted to allow the ladies, children, and women to escape. By that time cannon had been brought from the Tower, and there was another summons to surrender. Lord Sandys wished to sally out and

CAMEO XXXVIII.

Insurrection of Essex. 1601.