138

Departure of Essex from Ireland.

After half an hour's behaved with great

that, in so advanced a season, it would be impossible for him to effectuate any thing against an enemy, who, though superior in number, were determined to avoid every decisive action. He harkened, therefore, to a message sent him by Tyrone, who desired a conference; and a place near the two camps was accordingly appointed. The generals met without any of their attendants, and a river ran between them, into which Tyrone entered to the depth of his saddle: but Essex stood on the opposite bank. conference, where Tyrone submission and respect to the lord-lieutenant, a cessation of arms was concluded to the 1st of May, renewable from six weeks to six weeks; but which might be broke off by either party upon a fortnight's warning. Essex also received from Tyrone proposals for a peace, in which that rebel had inserted many unreasonable and exorbitant conditions and there appeared afterwards some reason to suspect, that he had here commenced a very unjustifiable correspondence with the enemy.

It might naturally be expected, that such an inglorious termination of an extensive undertaking, should excite the displeasure of Elizabeth, who was of a temper extremely irrascible. She ordered Essex to continue in Ireland till her pleasure for his departure should be signified to him; but Essex, who was fully apprised of her displeasure, and who dreaded the secret machinations of his enemies at court, resolved to disobey her in

His reception by Queen Elizabeth.

139

structions. He quitted Ireland suddenly, and hastened with all expedition to London, where he presented himself before the Queen most unexpectedly, and in his travelling attire. He threw himself on his knees before her, kissed her hand, and had some private conference, from which he retired so well pleased with his success, that he declared, though he had had storms and tempests abroad, he had found sweet peace and calm at home. The calm, however, upon which he relied, proved deceitful. Elizabeth had been taken by surprise, and acting from the sudden impulse of her feelings, had displayed a placability of temper not very natural to her. When Essex had departed, she had leisure to reflect upon his conduct, and to listen to the suggestions of those about her, who were eager enough to prepossess her against a hated rival and favourite.

Accordingly, when Essex waited upon the Queen in the afternoon, he experienced a reception altogether different from that which he had found when he first hastened into her presence on his return from Ireland. The coldness of her manner sufficiently betokened the change in her sentiments, and Essex was no doubt skilful enough in the ways of courts and courtiers, to know that that change was the forerunner of his own downfall. The Queen ordered him to be confined to his own. chamber, had him examined twice before the privy council, and finally committed him to the custody of the lord-keeper Egerton, not permitting him any

140 Sir Robert Naunton's character of Essex.

intercourse, even by letter, with his Countess. Essex affected all submission to her will, and expressed his determination of retiring from the splendid career of ambition, to lead a private and innoxious life in some calm and rural retreat. But his philosophy was only assumed, for the displeasure of the Queen weighed so heavily upon his spirits, that he became ill; and though he afterwards partially regained her favour, yet the intrigues of his adversaries were too powerful, and he at last fell a victim to them. He was tried, condemned, and executed on the 25th February, 1601, betrayed at last by the perfidy of a woman (the Countess of Nottingham) to whose hands he bad entrusted a ring to deliver to the Queen, to remind her majesty of that token, which she had given him as a security in the hour of danger.

Sir Robert Naunton, in his Fragmenta Regalia, has given the following character of this distinguished but unfortunate nobleman :

"My Lord of Essex, as Sir Henry Wotton, a gentleman of great parts, and partly of his times and retinue, observes, had his introduction by my Lord of Leicester, who had married his mother, a tie of affinity: which, besides a more urgent obligation, might have invited his ear to advance him, his fortune being then, and through his father's infelicity, grown low. But that the son of a Lord, Ferrers of Charley, Viscount Hartford, and Earl of Essex, who was of the ancient nobility, and formerly in the Queen's good grace,

The nature of Elizabeth's faoor towards him. 141

could not have a room in her favour, without the assistance of Leicester, was beyond the rule of her nature, which, as I have elsewhere taken into observation, was ever inclinable to favour the nobility. Sure it is, that he no sooner appeared at court, but he took with the Queen and courtiers ; and I believe they all could not choose, but look through the sacrifice of the father on his living son, whose image, by the remembrance of former passages, was afresh, like the bleeding of men murdered, represented to the court, and offered up as a subject of compassion to all the kingdom*. There was in this young lord, together with a most goodly person, a kind of urbanity, or innate courtesy, which both won the Queen, and too much took upon the people, to gaze upon the new adopted son of her favour. And as I go along, it

were not amiss to take into observation two notable quotations; the first was a violent indulgency of the Queen (which is incident to old age, where

"It was shrewdly suspected, that Walter, Earl of Essex, father to the favourite, was poisoned by Crampton, the yeoman of his bottles, and Loyd, his secretary, at the instigation of Leicester, and to clear the way for his wedding the widowed countess. The accusation is thus stated in a libel, called "Leicester's Ghost."

The valiant Earl, whom absent I did wrong,

In breaking Hymeneus' holy band,

In Ireland did protract the time too long,
While some in England ingled under haud,
And at his coming homeward to this land,
He died with poison, as they say, infected
Not without cause, for vengeance I suspected."

142 The haughtiness of Essex's character.

it encounters with a pleasing and suitable object) towards this lord, all which argued a non-perpetuity; the second was a fault in the object of her grace; my lord himself, who drew in too fast, like a child sucking on an over uberous nurse; and had there been a more decent decorum observed in both, or either of those, without doubt the unity of their affections had been more permanent, and not so in and out as they were, like an instrument ill tuned and lapsing to discord.

"The greater error of the two, though unwillingly, I am constrained to impose on my Lord of Essex, or rather on his youth, and none of the least of his blame on those that stood centinels about him, who might have advised him better; but that like men intoxicated with hopes, they likewise had sucked in with the most, and of their Lord's receipt; and so like Cæsar's would have all or none, a rule quite contrary to nature, and the most indulgent parents, who though they may express more affection to one in the abundance of bequests, yet cannot forget some legacies, just distributives, and dividends to others of their begetting; and how hateful partiality proves, every day's experience tells us, out of which, common consideration might have framed to their hands, a maxim of more discretion for the conduct and management of their now graced lord and master.

"But to omit that of infusion, and to do right to truth, my Lord of Essex, even of those that truly loved and honoured him, was noted for too