-

1600.

VI. 4. Buttery, who keepeth the King's door, and that he re-
paired to the King at sundry times and in sundry places;
and amongst divers speeches of many things concerning
the state of England and her Majesty's person, the King
fell one day into some speech of the Lord Treasurer,
whom he wished Valentine Thomas to kill, as having ever
been his enemy about the Queen, which fact when Valen-
tine undertook to execute, after some speeches how it
might best be done, the King further replied, "Nay, I
must have you do another thing for me, and all is one;
for it is all but blood. You shall take an occasion to

deliver a petition to the Queen in manner as you shall
think good, and so may you come near to stab her." And
Valentine told the King that it was a dangerous piece of
work, but he would do it, so the King would reward him
thereafter, and the King said, "You shall have enough."
And after this, Valentine took his leave of the King, and
said he was to go to Glasgow for a time to his kinsman's
wedding: and the King said "Go, as you say, to Glasgow,
and then come again, when you hear that Sorleboy is
come." And so he left the King, and the Laird Arkin-
glasse came to the King.

[Signed]

[Attested by] JOHN PEYTON.

EDW. COKE.

THO. FLEMYNG.

FR. BACON.

WM. WAAD.

VALENTYNE THOMAS.

The Government has kept this story secret. The Queen, indeed, professes to believe it false, and she is wise to do so. James stands beyond her reach; her courts cannot punish him; after her death he must be King.

ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE RALEIGH.

117

1600.

To prove him an assassin is to make of him, and of all who VI. 4. support his claims, the most ruthless of her foes. James, knowing of Thomas's arrest, is anxious to be spared the disgrace of a public trial; yet the knowledge that such a crime has been contemplated helps to nerve the hand of every one who loves his Queen-the visible embodiment of English virtue and English strength.

5. If only the Papists share the heart of Blount, still, where he fancies that either private love or lust of spoil will tempt a man to arm, he throws his line. From Lancashire, from Norfolk, and from Devon, friends of the conspirators prick to town. Among them comes Sir Ferdinando Gorges, governor of Plymouth, a brave and loyal gentleman akin to Sir Walter Raleigh, who, seeing him drawn into a dangerous plot, sends to warn him. Blount, now ready for the blow that is to make him father-in-law to a king, persuades Gorges to invite the Captain of the Queen's Guard to come and speak with him at Essex House. Raleigh jumps into his barge. At Essex-stairs the plotters beg him to land; but finding the fox too wise to trust his life in such hands, Blount, throwing off the mask, sends an armed boat in chase of him, which, failing to catch its prey, fires four pieces into his barge.

1601.

Jan.

6. The blood of the conspirators mounts with this Feb. 6. attempt at assassination. On Sunday they will rise: the pretext to be spread through the streets and lanes being that Raleigh has formed a plot to murder the Earl. The parts in the play are all given out. While

5. Declaration of the Practice of the Earl of Essex, 1601; Gorges' Answer to certain Imputations, quoted in Cayley, i. 337; State Trials, i. 1424.

6. Jardine's Criminal Trials, i. 320.

1601.

Feb.

VI. 6. Smith secures the city in their rear, a force will march from Essex House and seize the avenues of Whitehall. Blount is to keep the palace-gates, Davis the hall, Danvers the entrance of the presence-chamber, while Essex himself, pushing into the royal closet, is to force the aged Queen, sword in hand, to yield.

Feb. 7.

Feb. 8.

7. To fan the courage of their crew, and prepare the citizens for news of a royal deposition, the chiefs of the insurrection think good to revive for a night their favourite play. They send for Augustine Phillips, manager of the Blackfriars theatre, to Essex House. Monteagle, Percy, and two or three more-among them Cuffe and Meyrick, gentlemen whose names and faces he does not recognise-receive him; and Lord Monteagle, speaking for the rest, tells him they want to have played the next day Shakespeare's deposition of Richard the Second. Phillips objects that the play is stale, that a new one is running, and that the company will lose money by a change. Monteagle meets his objections. The theatre shall not lose; a host of gentlemen from Essex House will fill the galleries; if there is fear of loss, here are forty shillings to make it up.

Phillips takes the money; and King Richard is duly deposed for them and put to death.

8. Next morning, after the play, when the conspirators are about to rise, Egerton, Popham, and Knollys knock at the gates of Essex House. This visit of the Lord Keeper, the Lord Chief Justice,

Chamberlain, disconcerts their plans.

and the Queen's

They meant to

7. Examination of Augustine Phillips, Feb. 18, 1601, S. P. O. This examination has been printed by Mr. Collier, but with an error in the

names.

8. Council Reg., Feb. 14, 1601; State Trials, i. 1333-1409.

ENDEAVOUR TO RAISE THE CITY.

119

1601.

Feb. 8.

begin by a street tumult and a march on Whitehall, VI. 8. under cover of a design to punish Raleigh and restore the Queen to her freedom of choice. The arrival of these great officers of State compels them either to lay down their arms and submit to the law, or to rush into the city, raising the cry of war against the Queen. Mad as the action seems, they choose to strike. Putting the Ministers under guard, the Papist rabble, Blount, Catesby, Tresham, Danvers, Davis, Wright, Grant, Lyttleton, Baynham, and their fellows, tear past Temple-bar, yelling to the astonished citizens to arm and follow the young Earl.

9. The Queen sits in her palace superbly calm. Raleigh himself has scarcely her nerve of steel. Told at dinner that her faithless kinsman is in arms against her, she eats her meal, no more disturbed than by a tumult on the stage. When, some minutes later, comes in news that London has risen for the Earl, she proudly puts aside the lie: "He who placed me in this seat will preserve me in it."

10. Essex is no more Bolingbroke than Elizabeth Richard. It is Sunday morning, and the people crowd the streets; some making holiday, more on their way to church. Yet, though the Earl rides past them, not a man from Temple Bar to Cheap arms to follow this descendant of John of Gaunt. As the Papists wheel into the city, the inhabitants shut their gates. Halberds and lances soon gleam out from city doors; not to guard the Earl, but to defend religion and the Queen; so that, when the baffled insurgents,

9. Birch, ii. 468; Jardine's Criminal Trials, i. 309.

10. Lodge's Illustrations, ii. 545; List of Prisoners in the Poultry and the Compter, Feb. 8, 1601, S. P. O.; Council Reg., Feb. 14, 1601.

1601. Feb. 8.

VI. 10. pressed from the upper lanes about Guildhall, beat a retreat towards St. Paul's, they find the gorge of Ludgate and the long line of approaches to Essex House blocked up with pikes. Deceived in the promises of Smith, the despairing bands fall back on Ludgate Hill, where Levison, with a party of soldiers, guards the pass. Blount sounds a charge. Some fall, some turn, some cut their way through. Seeing his old adversary Waite in the ranks before him, Blount rushes upon him, and, though faint with wounds, chops the assassin down. It is the last pang of joy before he yields.

Feb. 19.

The game is now up. All London is against them in an hour, as England will be in a week. The gangs disperse. Some crawl into alehouse-vaults; some leap into boats, and drop with the tide; but every honest man's hand is against them, and at sundown most of the leaders are safe in jail. In less than forty-eight hours from the first rebellious shout near Temple-bar, Ogle and Throckmorton are in the Gatehouse; Baynham, Lyttleton, and Percy in the Fleet; Smith and Constable in the Poultry; Blount in Mr. Newsom's house in Paul's Churchyard, when his wounds allow, to be carried to the Tower; Whitelocke in the Marshalsea; Catesby in the house of Sheriff Gamble; Grant and the two Wrights in the White Lion; Danvers, Essex, Lee, Southampton, and Monteagle in the Tower.

11. Swift justice is the only mercy they can now hope

from man.

Never has criminal fairer trial, less partial judges, than the Earl. His peers, the companions of his youth, the connexions of his blood, are summoned by a special message from the Crown. The most odious facts against

11. Council Reg., Feb. 13, 1601; Jardine, i. 376.