Life of Elizabeth I (83 page)

Elizabeth's resolve to make an end of Essex was strengthened on 12 February, when one of his followers, a Captain Lea, who had served as his messenger to Tyrone - and in 1597 had presented Elizabeth with the severed head of an Irish rebel, much to her disgust - was arrested in the palace kitchen on his way to the chamber where she supped with her ladies, his intention being to force her at knife-point to issue a warrant for Essex's release. Lea was tried at Newgate on 14 February, and hanged at Tyburn the following day.

On 19 February, Essex and Southampton were tried by their peers at Westminster Hall, Buckhurst presiding as Lord High Steward. They were accused of plotting to deprive the Queen of her crown and life, 
imprisoning the councillors of the realm, inciting the Londoners to rebellion with false tales, and resisting the Queen's soldiers sent to arrest them. As Essex looked on smiling, Sir Edward Coke, Francis Bacon and Sir John Popham presented a devastating case for the Crown, Coke accusing him of aspiring to be 'Robert, the first of his name, King of England'. Bacon's defection was, to Essex, 'the unkindest cut of all', but Bacon pointed out to the court, 'I loved my Lord of Essex as long as he continued a dutiful subject. I have spent more hours to make him a good subject to Her Majesty than I have about my own business.'

Essex, dressed in black and very much in control of himself, pleaded not guilty, as did Southampton, and boldly did his best to refute the charges, arguing heatedly with his accusers. He insisted that Raleigh had tried to murder him, but Raleigh, summoned as a witness, stoutly denied it. When Essex insisted that his chief intention had been to petition the Queen to impeach Cecil, whose loyalty was false, Bacon retorted that it was hardly usual for petitioners to approach Her Majesty armed and guarded, nor for them to 'run together in numbers. Will any man be so simple to take this as less than treason?' When Cecil demanded to know where Essex had learned that he was plotting to set the Infanta on the throne, Essex was forced to admit that this slander was based on a chance remark of Cecil's, made two years before, and taken out of context. 'You have a wolfs head in a sheep's garment. God be thanked, we know you now,' commented Cecil, vindicated.

The verdict was a foregone conclusion, the peers having asked the advice of senior judges beforehand, and taken into account the wishes of the Queen: after an hour's debate, they found Essex guilty of high treason, whereupon Buckhurst sentenced him to the appalling barbarities of a traitor's death - a sentence which, in the case of a peer of the realm, was invariably commuted by the monarch to simple beheading.

After being sentenced, Essex, who remained calm, dignified, and unmoved by the terrible fate awaiting him, was allowed to address the court: 'I think it fitting that my poor quarters, which have done Her Majesty service in divers parts of the world, should now at the last be sacrificed and disposed at Her Majesty's pleasure.' He asked for mercy for Southampton, but said he would not 'fawningly beg' for it for himself, and, looking at the peers, added, 'Although you have condemned me in a court of judgement, yet in the court of your conscience, ye would absolve me, who have intended no harm against the prince.' The condemned were generally expected to express humble submission, and Essex's speech was reckoned by many of those present to be unfittingly arrogant for one on the brink of Divine Judgement, and whose guilt was so manifest.

Southampton, who declared he had been led away by love for Essex, was also condemned to death, but the Queen was merciful, and later commuted his punishment to life imprisonment in the Tower. After her death, he was released by James I.

Many people at court believed that, if Essex begged the Queen for mercy, she would spare his life, but Essex remained true to his word and proudly refrained from making any 'cringing submission'. Despite the efforts of the Dean of Norwich, who had been sent to him by the Council, he would not acknowledge his guilt. Even had he done so, he would have posed too great a threat to the Queen's security to be allowed to live. On the day after the trial, without her usual prevarication, Elizabeth signed his death warrant in a firm hand; it may still be seen in the British Library.

On 21 February, Cecil, Nottingham, Egerton and Buckhurst were requested to attend on Essex in the Tower. His chaplain, having conjured up a terrifying vision of the punishment that awaited him in Hell if he did not own up to his sins, had succeeded where the Dean had failed and, in an agony of remorse, Essex had asked to make a full confession of his crimes in the presence of the Council. With great humility, he declared he was 'the greatest, most vilest and most unthankful traitor that has ever been in the land', and admitted that 'the Queen could never be safe as long as he lived'. He then rehearsed all his misdeeds, implicating most of his friends, and even his own sister, without a qualm. He asked to see Henry Cuffe, and when the secretary was brought in, accused him of being the author 'of all these my disloyal courses into which I have fallen'.

Lady Essex had written begging Cecil to intercede with the Queen for her husband's life, saying that if he died, 'I shall never wish to breathe one hour after'. Cecil was in fact grieved to see Essex brought so low, but the Queen was implacable. Later, she told the French ambassador that, had she been able to spare Essex's life without endangering the security of the realm, she would have done so, but 'he himself had recognised that he was unworthy of it'. She did, however, grant Essex's request for a private execution.

On 23 February, having been delayed to give the prisoner time to make his confession, Essex's death warrant was delivered to the Lieutenant of the Tower, but the Queen sent a message after it, ordering that the execution be postponed until the next day.

Shrove Tuesday fell on 24 February; the Queen attended the customary banquet at court, and watched a performance of one of Shakespeare's plays. That night, she sent a message commanding the Lieutenant of the Tower to proceed with Essex's execution on the 
morrow, ordering that two executioners be summoned to despatch the prisoner: 'If one taint, the other may perform it to him, on whose soul God have mercy.' Then she retired to the privacy of her apartments and remained there throughout the following day.

There is a legend, often repeated, that Elizabeth had once, in happier times, given Essex a ring, saying that, if ever he was in trouble, he was to send it to her and she would help him. A gold ring with a sardonynx cameo of the Queen, said to be this one, is in the Chapter House Museum in Westminster Abbey. In the seventeenth century, it was claimed that, whilst in the Tower, Essex leaned out of his window and entrusted the ring to a boy, telling him to take it to Lady Scrope and ask her to give it to the Queen; however, the boy mistakenly gave it to Lady Scrope's sister, the Countess of Nottingham, wife of Essex's rival, the Admiral, who, out of malice, made her keep the ring to herself. The story went that she only revealed its existence to the Queen when she herself was on her deathbed in 1603, whereupon Elizabeth is said to have told her bitterly, 'May God forgive you, Madam, but I never can.'

The story is a fabrication. It is first referred to in 1620 in John Webster's
The Devil's Law Case,
and later recounted in detail in
The Secret History of the Most Renowned Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Essex, by a Person of Quality,
a work of fiction published in 1695. Camden, Elizabeth's usually well-informed biographer, knew of the tale, and condemned it as false, and this is borne out by the fact that Elizabeth, who did attend the death-bed of her great friend, Lady Nottingham, was so devastated with grief at her death that her own health was fatally undermined.

During the night of 24 February, Essex prepared for death, apologising to his guards for having no means of rewarding them, 'for I have nothing left but that which I must pay to the Queen tomorrow in the morning'.

In the early hours of the 25th, a select company of lords, knights and aldermen arrived at the Tower. They had been invited to watch the execution, and took their seats around the scaffold, which had been built in the courtyard of the Tower in front of the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. When Raleigh appeared, being required, as Captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners, to attend, there was a frisson of disapproval, for it was known that he had been Essex's enemy, and several people, seeing him position himself near the block, accused him of having come to gloat. He therefore withdrew to the armoury in the nearby White Tower, and watched the proceedings from a window. Later, he claimed he had been moved to tears.

Supported by three clergymen, Essex was brought to the scaffold just 
before eight o'clock; he was dressed in a black velvet gown over a doublet and breeches of black satin, and wore a black felt hat. Having ascended the steps, he took off his hat and bowed to the spectators. It was traditional for the condemned person to make a last speech before departing the world, and Essex's was abject in tone; 'he acknowledged, with thankfulness to God, that he was justly spewed out of the realm'. Then he continued:

My sins are more in number than the hairs on my head. I have bestowed my youth in wantonness, lust and uncleanness; I have been puffed up with pride, vanity and love of this wicked world's pleasures. For all which, I humbly beseech my Saviour Christ to be a mediator to the eternal Majesty for my pardon, especially for this my last sin, this great, this bloody, this crying, this infectious sin, whereby so many for love of me have been drawn to offend God, to offend their sovereign, to offend the world. I beseech God to forgive it us, and to forgive it me - most wretched of all.

He begged God to preserve the Queen, 'whose death I protest I never meant, nor violence to her person', and he asked those present 'to join your souls with me in prayer'. He ended by asking God to forgive his enemies.

His speech over, he removed his gown and ruff, and knelt by the block. A clergyman begged him not to be overcome by the fear of death, whereupon he commented that several times in battle he had 'felt the weakness of the flesh, and therefore in this great conflict desired God to assist and strengthen him'. Looking towards the sky, he prayed fervently for the estates of the realm, and recited the Lord's Prayer. The executioner then knelt, as was customary, and begged his forgiveness for what he was about to do. He readily gave it, then repeated the Creed after a clergyman. Rising, he took off his doublet to reveal a long- sleeved scarlet waistcoat, then bowed to the low block and laid himself down over it, saying he would be ready when he stretched out his arms. Many spectators were weeping by now.

'Lord, be merciful to Thy prostrate servant!' Essex prayed, and twisted his head sideways on the block. 'Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.' A clergyman enjoined him to recite the 51st Psalm, but after two verses, he cried, 'Executioner, strike home!' and flung out his arms, still praying aloud. It took three strokes to sever his head, but he was probably killed by the first, since his body did not move after it. Then the headsman lifted the head by its long hair and shouted, 'God save the Queen!' 

Of the other conspirators, Blount, Danvers, Meyrick and Cuffe were executed. Otherwise, the Queen, on Cecil's advice, was disposed to be merciful. Some forty-nine were imprisoned or fined - some
of
whom would become involved in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 - while Lady Rich and thirty others were allowed to go free. Lady Essex remarried twice, and Lettice Knollys, Blount's widow, lived to the age of ninety- four. Anthony Bacon, broken by the loss of his old friend, died three months after the rebellion. His brother Francis was rewarded by the Queen for his services with a grant of ,12,000.

Essex's passing was mourned by many of the common people, who commemorated his deeds in popular ballads such as
Essex's Last Good Night,
and
Sweet England's pride is gone, well-a-day, well-a-day,
but the Queen, who had sent him to his death yet grieved for him on a personal level, had no doubt that he had deserved it, and that England was a more stable and secure state without him.

Chapter 26

'The Sun Setteth At Last'

Elizabeth never showed any sign of regret for having executed Essex. As far as she was concerned, she had been justified in doing so. Yet she remembered him with sadness, and for the rest of her life wore a ring he had given her.

With Essex dead, the most powerful man in England was Cecil, that able and consummate statesman. However, he was not popular, and the people blamed him and Raleigh for Essex's death. 'Little Cecil trips up and down, he rules both court and crown,' ran a contemporary rhyme. This was not strictly true, for, although the public thought otherwise, the Queen remained firmly in control of affairs. 'I know not one man in this kingdom that will bestow six words of argument, if she deny it,' Cecil testified. The only man who would have done so was dead, and there was at last an unusual peace at court which not even Raleigh's pretensions could ruffle. Elizabeth knew he was jealous of Cecil's power, but was also aware that his 'bloody pride' would ensure he was never a serious rival.

In March 1601, Cecil began paving the way for James VI's succession, and his own continuance in office, by instituting a private correspondence with the Scots King, which was to be conducted in the strictest secrecy, Cecil insisting that James could expect nothing from him that was prejudicial to Elizabeth's estate. If James would accept his advice and guidance, however, he could rest assured that the crown would pass peacefully to him when the time came. James was only too pleased to co-operate.

In May, he sent envoys to Elizabeth to request that she openly acknowledge him her heir, but, as Cecil informed England's ambassador in Edinburgh, 'Her Majesty gave nothing but negative answers, the matter being of so sour a nature to the Queen.' By now, she had a pathological aversion to any discussion of the succession question, and 
even the news that the Scottish King, angry at her response, was doing his best to enlist foreign support for his claim, did not encourage her to settle the matter. Hence, relations between herself and James were tense for the rest of the reign; once, she informed him that she knew that all was in readiness for her funeral. Nevertheless, it is clear from her letters that she favoured him above all others as her successor. What she dared not do was acknowledge him openly as such. Yet she told Harington in private that 'they were great fools that did not know that the line of Scotland must needs be next heirs'.