From 1589, when the English Queen had deliberately dislocated the plans of Drake's Lisbon expedition, changing it from a great political stroke into an unsatisfactory raid, till the closing months of 1594 when once again a decisively damaging blow was dealt to Philip's naval schemes, the war had given ample occasion for stirring deeds of valour and brilliant feats of arms, but the scheme of operations throughout had been narrow and shortsighted. Though the honours still lay unmistakably with England, Spain had in fact been gaining ground, slowly remedying those defects in her organisation which had been so glaringly exposed by the breakdown of the Armada: and when Frobisher fell at Crozon, she was more formidable than at any time since Medina Sidonia had sailed from Corunna But besides the main open contest, Philip throughout these years had been dallying after his old fashion with the factions outside of England which might be looked to as possible instruments for shaking the throne of Elizabeth.

These were to be found among the exiled English Catholics, in Scotland, and in Ireland.

[Sidenote: Spain and the English Catholics]

With the Catholic exiles however, there was little to be done. Those indeed who were closely a.s.sociated with the Jesuits founded their hopes of a Catholic restoration on Spanish dominion, with the Infanta Isabella as Queen of England; but the fact by itself sufficed to keep the bulk of the party cold if not antagonistic. The price was too high to pay, for any but Parsons and his a.s.sociates. English Catholics looked by preference to the succession possibly of the Catholic Stanleys of Derby [Footnote: See _Front_]--who unfortunately stood aloof--or of either James of Scotland or his cousin Arabella (representing the half-English Lennox Stewarts), both Protestants of whose conversion hopes were maintained. Patriotism, Nationality, held precedence over Religion: even although in 1593 fresh and harsh measures against Catholics as well as Puritans were adopted by Parliament. Under these conditions, plots for the removal of Elizabeth by methods which would make all the lukewarm elements in England actively hostile to Spain were not likely to receive encouragement from Philip. A variety of such plots were in fact concocted and duly revealed by informers or suspects under torture, and fathered on Philip or his ministers; but in every case the evidence connecting them with the Spaniards is of the weakest. Naturally, Ess.e.x and the war-party in England made the most of these stories, in order to inflame public opinion against Philip, and with no little success. Nevertheless, whatever element of truth they may have contained, they are too flimsy and unsubstantial to be seriously included in the indictments against Philip's character-which are indeed sufficiently grave without them. [Footnote: See Hume's _Treason and Plot,_ cc. iv. v., where the evidence in a series of these plots is impartially set forth. The most notable of the group is that of Lopez, who was executed in 1594.]

[Sidenote: Scottish Intrigues]

Scottish intrigues with Philip were equally abortive. James, on the throne, played an unceasing game of chicane and double-dealing, perpetually playing off parties and persons against each other with that curious cunning which he designated "king-craft". The Catholic n.o.bles alternated between hopes of capturing him, or of ejecting him, and fears of their own suppression. They tried to bargain with Philip, on the hypothesis of effecting James's conversion and placing him on the English throne; on the hypothesis of a Catholic restoration in Scotland; for one brief interval, on the hypothesis of giving Philip a free hand. But James had an ingenious trick of playing at friendship with his Catholic lords and introducing himself into these negotiations; whereas Philip had no idea of stirring a finger to help James to the English succession: and the Scottish Catholic lords themselves were by no means ready to relinquish the national aspiration to seat a Scots king on the throne of England. So that while these intrigues caused some perturbation in the English court, and led Elizabeth to lecture her young kinsman and disciple with a fine show of pained indignation, they never came within measurable distance of definite action.

[Sidenote: Ireland, 1583-92]

Ireland however offered a more promising field of operations. For a decade following the suppression of Desmond's rebellion, that country had lain in a state of exhaustion. English "under-takers" had been planted in the desolated and forfeited lands of Munster. In the North, Tyrconnel was loyal--that is, was not disposed to rebellion; Tirlough Lynagh, head of the O'Neills, was of a like mind; and Hugh O'Neill, the successor to the Earldom of Tyrone, had been brought up in England, and was a professed supporter of English rule: against which there was no one to make head. Even the coming of the Armada, while creating some nervousness, produced no disturbances, though the a.s.sistance given by a chief here and there to ship-wrecked Spaniards brought them into trouble. But this was the calm of exhaustion merely. The unvarying impression produced by the Irish letters of the time is that Englishmen regarded the native chiefs as a low type of savage, and the common folk as a noxious kind of vermin; and it is painfully clear that the standard of civilisation was of that debased type which must prevail where the governing powers have habitually set the example of distorting the first four commandments of the decalogue and ignoring the other six. The normal att.i.tude of the bulk of the native Irish and Anglo-Irish was one of repressed hatred and veiled defiance towards the English, ready to break out openly whenever an opportunity should seem to present itself. That att.i.tude would probably have been universal had not some of the chiefs, like Ormonde, been convinced that even the English system was preferable to the anarchy and strife of septs which would result from a temporarily successful rebellion: finding in friendly relations with the Government the best guarantee for the security of their own position.

Masterful and capable men however like the old Kildare and Shan O'Neill had demanded more. To Kildare the Henries had granted that more; Shan had come near to securing it in despite of Elizabeth. Now an abler man than either, Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, dissatisfied with his treatment at the hands of the English was making up his mind to renew the contest.

[Sidenote: Tyrone, 1592-94]

Tyrone did not raise the standard of revolt. But in 1592-3, Tyrone, his brother in law Hugh Roe O'Donnell, [Footnote: Hugh O'Donnell had been trapped and held prisoner in Dublin as a hostage for Tyrconnell's good behaviour; but succeeded in making his escape.] Tyrconnell's son, his neighbours Maguire and O'Rourke, and the McWilliams or Burkes of Connaught--dwellers in the parts furthest from the Pale--were in active defiance of the Government. Tyrone was engaged in officially placating or repressing or remonstrating with them, ostensibly doing his best to serve the Queen; ready to hand over hostages, to present himself in person to the Deputy Fitzwilliam and demonstrate his loyalty, or to take the field against the rebels with the royal forces. The Deputy, and the President of Connaught, had information that he was in fact in collusion with the rebels, but none which could be brought home to him; and the royal forces--amounting only to between four and five thousand men--were as usual inadequate to doing more than march into disturbed districts, accomplish some burnings and hangings, enjoy one or two sharp skirmishes, and march out again. But by 1594 Tyrone and his friends were in communication with Spain, and Philip was again contemplating the expulsion of the English from Ireland as an effective line of operation in his war with Elizabeth.

[Sidenote: 1595 Drake's last voyage]

By this time the Queen was waking up to the fact that the Spanish sea- power was not diminishing but recovering: the attack on the Brittany ports points to the revival of a more far-seeing naval policy; Drake was returning to favour, and the younger Cecil was well-disposed towards him. It was decided that he and old John Hawkins should revive the past methods and conduct a grand attack on the Spanish Main and Panama. As usual however, fluctuating orders from the Queen delayed the start till some months after the intended date; the Plate fleet reached its destination in safety; the Spaniards got wind of the expedition; and when Drake and Hawkins at last put to sea they had instructions calculated effectively to prevent their accomplishing anything like a surprise. Porto Rico, the first main objective, had due warning, and so was able to offer a successful resistance to the attack, energetically as it was conducted. The death of Hawkins, who had grown too cautious to work well with Drake, relieved the expedition of divided counsels; but Drake had not realised that in the years of his inaction the Spaniards had profited by the lessons he had taught them. Though he sacked and burnt La Hacha, Santa Marta, and Nombre de Dios, the spoils were small; the enemy, prepared for his coming, had secured the pa.s.ses through Darien to Panama, and it was found that there was no possibility of forcing them. Then came the final disaster; Drake himself was seized with dysentery, and on January 28th, 1598, the great seaman died. He found in the Ocean his fitting grave: and the expedition returned to England having failed to accomplish anything noteworthy, though it had to fight a not unsuccessful battle with a slightly superior fleet on the way home.

Six months before Drake sailed on his last voyage, Raleigh had gone on a notable exploring expedition to the Orinoco; the forerunner of not a few voyages in search of the fabled Eldorado. Beyond some extension of geographical knowledge however, the venture was unfruitful.

[Sidenote: 1596 The Cadiz expedition]

Although Drake's expedition had been spoilt, his theories were once more, in the main, in the ascendant; and in June 1598 a great attacking force was again organised, with Cadiz for its princ.i.p.al objective. An effective blow at Philip's navy was made all the more necessary at the moment, because the Archduke Albert, now in command in the Netherlands, had just succeeded in capturing Calais from the French. Howard of Effingham again commanded as admiral, with Ess.e.x as general in chief, a council which included Raleigh and Lord Thomas Howard, and a Dutch contingent which was under the orders of the English chief. The Spaniards had this time no suspicion of what was on foot. The harbour of Cadiz was full of shipping; which included however a number of ships of war in fighting trim. Thus it was not without a fierce conflict that the English drove their way in. Two ships only were captured, and transferred from the Spanish to the English navy, but numbers were sunk or burnt. The exploit was a brilliant one, owing its success largely to a change from the original plan of attack, for which that advocated by Raleigh was subst.i.tuted. Cadiz itself was stormed, captured, and put to ransom; but the victors displayed what was in those days a singular and notable restraint and courtesy in their treatment of the vanquished. In spite, however, of the protests of Ess.e.x, who wished to remain in occupation of Cadiz, Lord Howard was content with the heavy spoils secured and the immense destruction wrought, and the expedition returned home.

[Sidenote: Ireland, 1595-96]

Tyrone in the meantime was playing his difficult game in Ireland with remarkable success. He consistently maintained his professions of loyalty, though by now calling himself "The O'Neill," like Shan, he fostered the belief that he was only waiting to declare himself anti- English; he continued to evade action against the more open rebels; he continued to correspond with Spain; and yet Sir John Norreys, now in command of the army in Ireland, could not resist the belief that he meant to be loyal and would be loyal and would make the other chiefs so, if his a.s.sistance were loyally accepted and his position frankly confirmed by the English. Whether such antic.i.p.ations would have proved true if he had been treated as Henry VII. treated Kildare, it is impossible to say. But the Deputy Fitzwilliam, and his successor Russell, regarded him as a traitor at heart, and persistently provided him with palpable excuse for distrusting them [Footnote: Tyrone received a letter from Philip, which he showed the Deputy, as a proof of the tempting offers made to him and of his own loyalty, on condition that it should neither be copied nor retained. But it was kept by the English, and used by them to attack Philip, and others.] in turn. Under such conditions, loyal or not at bottom, it was no part of the Earl's policy to break with Philip, or on the other hand to commit himself too deeply till Philip should be also irrevocably committed to rendering real solid a.s.sistance.

So Norreys went on recommending conciliation, and Russell went on opposing that policy, while Elizabeth persistently abstained alike from effective conciliation and from the one practicable alternative policy of placing a really strong organised and orderly garrison in the country: maintaining instead only a few ill-paid ill-disciplined ill- behaved troops who might on occasion meet the raw Irish levies but were wholly unfitted to be the instruments of a firm government. And all the time from every officer in Ireland arose the perpetual pet.i.tion to be recalled from service in a country where neither a soldier nor an administrator could possibly escape lowering any reputation he might have previously acquired. It was well for England that Drake's last expedition demanded the entire attention of the Spanish Fleet; and that, following thereon, the Cadiz expedition was even more destructive to the prospects of the new Armada which Philip was still seeking to organise, than Drake's former Cadiz expedition had proved itself to the Great Armada in 1587. Tyrone was thereby baulked of Spanish help, without which he would not plunge into such a rebellion as might threaten seriously to embarra.s.s Elizabeth and benefit Philip.

[Sidenote: 1596 The second Armada]

So matters stood in the summer of 1596. One quality however Philip possessed with which Englishmen must sympathise; he never recognised that he was beaten. Crushing as the blow at Cadiz was, the northern ports were left alone, and there the laborious building up of a great fleet was in steady progress. Philip was stirred to deal a counterstroke, and late in October a huge new Armada of nearly a hundred vessels sailed from Vigo Bay, its destination unknown save to Philip, its very existence unrealised in England, where no one believed that a Spanish fleet would put to sea so late in the year. The Irish chiefs however had notice that an invading force was coming. But the old story was repeated. The preparations had been thrown out of gear by the disaster of the summer; all the provisions were incomplete; the ships were hopelessly ill-found; and the fleet had hardly started when a terrific storm fell on it and shattered it. Thirty or more of the vessels were lost at sea; when the rest of the battered armament struggled back to Ferrol, pestilence broke out, and the crews died and deserted by hundreds if not by thousands. The stars in their courses fought against Philip and ruined the second Armada--this time without the help of hostile man.

[Sidenote: 1597 The Island Voyage, etc.]

This was followed again in the next summer by another English expedition, known as the "Island Voyage," with Ess.e.x, Lord Thomas Howard, and Raleigh in command; with a score of ships from the Royal Navy, and a Dutch contingent as in the Cadiz expedition. [Footnote: The soldiers wanted an army to attack Calais. Raleigh's insistence however carried the day in favour of a naval blow. (Raleigh, _Opinion on the Spanish Alarum_.)] The affair however was mismanaged. From the start, there were adverse tempests. [Footnote: _S. P. Dom._ iv., p. 463.]

Corunna and Ferrol, which it was intended to attack, were found warned and armed for defence; and the gales were unfavourable. The fleet made for the Azores, and captured Fayal, Graciosa, and St. Michael's; but the treasure-fleet by good fortune evaded the English and found safety at Terceira. Raleigh and Ess.e.x quarrelled violently; and the fleet returned home with little accomplished. It succeeded however in weathering a storm which once more had made havoc of still another Spanish Armada, which sought to seize the opportunity for making a raid on Cornwall with a view to seizing and holding some port, to be used as an advance post for operations in the Channel--a sufficiently wild scheme at the best, with Ess.e.x's fleet returning almost on the heels of the expedition.

The failure decided Tyrone that Spain was a thoroughly broken reed; and he succeeded in making terms with the English Government [Footnote: _S.

P. Irish,_ vi., pp. 477-479.] that winter, if only with a view to organising a more determined and independent rebellion in the near future.

[Sidenote: 1598 Spain]

It is abundantly evident in this the last year of Philip's life that he was beaten at every point, however his obstinate fanaticism might refuse to admit it. His designs on the throne of France were foiled; the negotiations were already far advanced for the Peace of Vervins which was to set the French King free from the war. The prospect of placing Isabella [Footnote: Philip was now arranging to bestow Flanders upon her as an independent sovereignty.] on the English throne was more visionary than ever. The Spanish party among the English Catholics were growing more and more out of favour; pride in the prestige of English arms, scorn that England should be dominated by a nation which could not match her in open fight, strengthened the patriotic section. The Scots would not stir a finger except to make their own monarch king of the neighbouring country. The Pope himself had no desire to see Spain so aggrandised as to be able to dictate to Christendom. The prospect of the Netherlands being reduced to submission had all but vanished. As for the maritime rivalry, all the Spanish efforts had been in vain. The ships had been improved; the defence of the trade-routes had been better organised. Several of the blows aimed by England had been more or less abortive; but one at least had been staggering, and every attempt at a counterstroke had ended in plain disaster. Moreover from first to last the Spaniards, valiant as they often proved themselves, had fought as beaten men, the English as a.s.sured victors; both alike with a perfect conviction that the latter were certain to win against any but overwhelming odds. Such a fight as that of the _Revenge,_ with the nationalities of the combatants reversed, was unimaginable.

Yet even in 1598 Philip and some of his ecclesiastical counsellors were unconvinced, and a brief alarm was created when a Spanish flotilla dashed up the Channel and made its way to Calais, not yet restored to France. Completely unexpected as it was, however, English squadrons were on the seas almost at a day's notice. Half the flotilla was lost outside Calais, and immediately afterwards the Spanish ports were in a ferment at the report that c.u.mberland was hovering off their own coast --very sufficient evidence of the immense superiority of the English, both in organisation and _morale._

[Sidenote: Death of Philip, Sept.]

In September, Elizabeth's great enemy breathed his last. He was not exactly the monster of iniquity that he has been painted; not a criminal for the love of criminality. He was a Tiberius rather than a Nero; a morbid influence, not a devouring pestilence. A perfectly sombre bigot; an example of what the Greeks would have called [Greek: hubris] of a very exceptional kind, who believed devoutly in himself as the instrument chosen by the Saints for the overthrow of heretics; convinced that his aims and interests were favoured by Heaven, ranking before those of the Papacy itself; without a qualm as to the righteousness of all means he could adopt to further those aims. Save in one slight instance, we seek in vain to find in him any sign of human affections--tenderness, sympathy, generosity. Infinitely laborious, his idea of government was to elaborate an enormous machinery, of which every portion should be under his personal control; eternally suspicious, he trusted no man, and kept the hands of his servants tied and bound; immovably cautious, he always waited to strike till he thought he could do so with overwhelming force, and he always waited till the time to strike had pa.s.sed--till his opponent had crippled him by striking first. Forty years before, he was lord of the New World, lord of the seas, lord of Spain, of half Italy, of the Netherlands, and seemed destined to be lord of England, almost of Europe. Elizabeth and Cecil had seen where lay the weakness of his position; they had evaded, cajoled, finally had defied and triumphed over him. When he sank to the grave, the lordship of the sea had pa.s.sed, the lordship of the Netherlands was pa.s.sing, the lordship of the New World was tottering. His overweening egotism had sucked the life-blood of Spain. The Power which forty years before had threatened to dominate the world was no better than a decrepit giant; the form still loomed gigantic, but the substance was gripped with the chill paralysis wherewith Philip had smitten it, since he had entered like a poisonous blight upon his inheritance.

[Sidenote: Death of Burghley, Aug.]

Philip was seventy-one when he died. Six weeks earlier Lord Burghley, seven years his senior, pa.s.sed away, leaving Elizabeth with none beside her of her own generation. For forty years too, he had been the Queen's first minister. However we read the enigma of Elizabeth's apparent frivolity, vacillation, trickery and success, he had been throughout the one man with whose counsel she would not dispense, even when she seemed to flout him. Essentially he was a master of compromise, of balance; a devotee of moderation, of the _via media._ Hardly less averse to war than his mistress, he would yet have preferred war to some of the ignominious shifts by which she evaded it; for he had a cool level-headed confidence in England's essential vitality and power of weathering the storm, if it should burst, even at times when outside observers imagined that that confidence was hurrying her to ruin. When obliged to lean to one side or the other in religious controversy, he adopted the cause of "his brethren in Christ" as Elizabeth dubbed them with a sneer, because that was more compatible with his _via media_ than the other: but he had none of Walsingham's puritanic enthusiasm. His ideal for England was a prosperous respectability: breaches of political propriety shocked him. He would take no share in the profits of buccaneering exploits: but it was the same mental quality which kept him from any zeal for Causes which might drag the country into incalculable ventures. When it seemed to him that a vigorous support of European Protestantism was the only alternative to submission to Spain, he went with Walsingham, though Elizabeth found her own alternative in spite of them both: but he did it reluctantly, and always at bottom with the hope that Spain and England might yet attain mutual amity. After the death of Nicholas Bacon in 1579 he inclined more to believe in that possibility, and in proportion as the war-party was strengthened by the Armada his antagonism to it became the more marked. After his seventieth year his direct interference in politics had become less; but his astute son, Robert Cecil, represented him. All through his career, he was a consistent opportunist, using without scruple all currently admissible tools, never missing the chance of the half-loaf. The most industrious of men, a supremely shrewd judge of character and motive, he was rarely--save in the case of the Queen--misled by superficial appearances; though his own lack of sentiment prevented him from fully appreciating the sentimental factor in politics. Always at all risks he was loyal to Queen and Country; and habitually, even at some risk, to servants and colleagues. If he does not stand absolutely in the first rank of English statesmen, they are yet few who stand above him.

CHAPTER XXVI

ELIZABETH (xi), 1598-1603-THE QUEEN'S LAST YEARS

[Sidenote: A new generation]

By Burghley's death, Elizabeth was left alone, reft of all her earlier counsellors. Nicholas Bacon had died as far back as 1579, Leicester in 1588, Walsingham in 1590, her kinsmen Knollys and Hunsdon--less prominent, but of sober weight--more recently. Except Howard of Effingham (created Earl of Nottingham after the Cadiz expedition), Burghley was the last; and their sombre antagonist of forty years had followed him in a few weeks. She herself was sixty-five years old. The leading men at home and abroad--Henry IV., Philip III., Robert Cecil, Raleigh, Ess.e.x, who was now only thirty-- were of a younger generation. Lonely but stubborn and indomitable as ever she ruled still to the end.

Those last five years were troubled enough.

[Sidenote: 1598 Ireland]

We have seen that in Ireland Tyrone was resolved to place no more dependence on Spanish aid; but it was equally clear that the Government as const.i.tuted was quite unable to quell him. Norreys was now dead, and Ormonde was in command of the Queen's army, such as it was. The English garrison was quite incapable of vigorous aggression. In 1598 a few raw levies were sent over, instead of the strong disciplined force without which nothing could be effected. In the middle of August a force was dispatched against Tyrone, who was beleaguering the Blackwater fort not far from Armagh; and Tyrone inflicted on it a complete and disastrous defeat, [Footnote: S. P. _Irish_, pp. 236 ff.] which caused nothing less than a panic among the Council at Dublin. The practical effect was that outside the Pale the chiefs were doing as they chose, and the English could hardly move beyond their fortifications; even within the Pale ravaging was almost unchecked; and if it had been possible for Tyrone to march in force on Dublin, the capital would probably have fallen.

In the troubles of Ireland, Ess.e.x was to seek a ladder for his ambitions, and to find, as others before and after him have found, the road to ruin.

[Sidenote: Ess.e.x]

The personal interest of these years belongs very much to the rivalries of three men; Robert Cecil, sly, cautious, and plausible; Raleigh, brilliant and bitter, intellectually a head and shoulders above the rest; Ess.e.x, not lacking in abilities distorted by inordinate vanity. a.s.sociated on equal terms, in war, with the experience of Howard and the genius of Raleigh, at the Council-board with the astute and consummately trained Cecil, petted and spoiled by the elderly Queen as she had spoiled no one since the days of Leicester's youth, a public favourite by reason of his undoubted courage and his popular habits, Ess.e.x, young as he was, had long imagined himself the greatest man in the kingdom, chafing at every favour bestowed on a rival, and treating men who knew themselves his superiors with intolerable arrogance. Now, when the state of Ireland, and the remedies, were the subject of grave anxiety, he clamoured of the blank incompetence to the task of every one who had undertaken it or could be suggested as fitted for it; with the result that he was invited to undertake it himself. Thereupon he made unprecedented conditions. Some months elapsed before the conditions could be arranged; it would certainly seem that his object was to get under his own captaincy a force large enough to enable him to defy all control, though he was not without friends to warn him that his influence with Elizabeth depended on the fascination of his presence--a fact of which his ill-wishers were equally aware, and by which they intended to profit to the full. Not the least part of the danger to Ess.e.x lay in the fact that the political air was thick with intrigues as to the succession when Elizabeth should die, and that his rivals might utilise his absence to secure the throne for a candidate who under the circ.u.mstances would be certain to prove unfriendly to him.

[Sidenote: 1599 Ess.e.x in Ireland]

But the hot-headed Earl had deprived himself of the power of choice though he was almost equally unwilling to resign or to undertake the task to which he was committed. In April 1599 he appeared in Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, virtually with plenary powers alike in civil and military affairs, and a warrant to return in a year's time. Yet he chafed at such restrictions as were imposed upon him, at the incompetence of the officers with whom he was provided, at the refusal to permit appointments objectionable to the Queen, at the inefficiency of his troops and the inadequacy of his supplies. In theory, he was come to Ireland to strike straight at the heart of the rebellion and crush Tyrone in his own fastnesses. He found that the condition of the country absolutely precluded an immediate campaign in the North. He proceeded instead on a military progress through Leinster and Munster, capturing castles which surrendered with no more than a show of resistance, scattering small garrisons, perpetually hara.s.sed by guerilla companies who avoided pitched battles. He gave Southampton command of the cavalry in defiance of the Queen's orders, and then received from her so peremptory a message that he dared not maintain the appointment. The rebels cut up the forces of the President of Connaught, and another detached column in Wicklow: and on his way back to Dublin, Ess.e.x himself had much ado to beat off an attack on his main army at Arklow.

In the meantime, he was writing letters of furious complaint that the Council in London--in especial Raleigh, who was now a.s.sociated with Cecil--were deliberately seeking to cripple him for their own ends--a charge which they declined to answer, as being merely a piece of excited extravagance; and Elizabeth rated him, not more sharply than he deserved, for wasting the unusually large sums provided for Ireland on a procedure so vain. Further, she peremptorily ordered him to march against O'Neill without delay, warning him on no account to withdraw from the country.

[Sidenote: Fall of Ess.e.x]

So at the end of August Ess.e.x set out. But when he found himself within striking distance of Tyrone's forces, the latter invited him to a parley. It was granted and held, and was followed by two more meetings; with the amazing result that a truce was concluded and both armies withdrew. That some personal compact was made can hardly be doubted; what it was remains unknown, and it was never carried out; but the presumption is that there was some joint scheme for securing the succession of King James to the throne, with Tyrone supreme in Ireland and Ess.e.x in England.

Tyrone himself gave the Spaniards an obviously improbable version of the plan (after it had collapsed), according to which he had induced Ess.e.x to contemplate adhesion to the ultra-Spanish party, though he was the most p.r.o.nouncedly hostile to Spain and to Catholicism of all the English leaders.

Whatever the plot, the ignominy of such a termination to the lavish preparations and boastings preceding was palpable. Elizabeth was furious, and her expressions of resentment were scathing. Whereupon Ess.e.x took the very worst step possible in his own interests. Relying on the Queen's curious infatuation for his person, which had survived innumerable quarrels and flagrant impertinences, he left his office, sped across the channel, rode post haste across England, flung himself, all mud-bespattered into the presence of his mistress in her chamber, and prayed for pardon. For the moment, she was too utterly taken aback to be herself; he left her thinking he had won. But the outrage was too gross. That evening he found himself under arrest. His enemies' policy of "giving him rope enough" had been more completely successful than they could have hoped. He had set the noose about his neck with his own hand, though it was not yet tightened.