IV. 6. 1596. June 12. June 19. "Shall we go with you, Sir John?" asks a trooper. "You shall go with a better man than me-than Sir Thomas Lucas," shouts Smyth. "Here is a noble man of the blood royal, brother to Lord Beauchamp; he shall be your captain. I myself shall be his assistant. Down with Burghley! Who goes with me, hold up his hand." Not one. No hand, no cry is raised. Treason that halts is lost; and whoever is not with the traitor is against him. Meshed in a fearful crime, the four horsemen prick from the field, part in the slob, and hide themselves from pursuit in the sands of the sea-shore. Smyth seeks a boat for France; but the summer morning dawns on him staggering, faint and hopeless on the coast; when, crazed with fear, he skulks home to Baddow, where he vainly hopes to hide his face from the local magistrates, now hurrying on his track. 7. Sent up to London, lodged in the Tower, Smyth confesses his crime. Coke and Fleming receive orders from the Privy Council to call in Bacon and Waad, a clerk of the Council, and then to take the evidence, look up the law, and, if they find the offence treason, prepare articles of indictment against Smyth. These four commissioners meet, find the acts at Colchester treason, and report that the offence is punishable by a special statute. Bacon, not content, like the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General, with setting the law in motion to hang this wretched man, asks himself how a country knight, not wholly crazed, could ever have dreamt that, on a cry of "Down with sheep and deer," honest men could be 7. Smyth to the Council, June 19, 1596, S. P. O.; Council to Coke, Fleming, Waad, and Bacon, June 27, 1596, S. P. O.; Smyth's Examination, June 28, 1596, S. P. O.; Abstract of Evidence against Sir John Smyth, July 1596, S. P. O. NEWS OF A GREAT VICTORY. 77 1596. June 19. roused to mutiny against their Queen. To a philosophic IV. 7. mind the reason of a thing is often of larger interest than the thing itself. Is there discontent among the yeomen ? If so, is there cause? He makes a wide and sweeping study of this question of Pasturage versus Tillage, of Deer versus Men, which convinces him of the cruelty and peril of depopulating hamlets for the benefit of a few great lords. This study will produce when Parliament meets again a memorable debate and an extraordinary change of law. 8. While Coke and Bacon wind out of Smyth's confes- July 16. sions the threads of his interrupted treason, comes in, wave on wave, the news of such a victory as only twice or thrice in a thousand years has stirred our English phlegm. It comes in first by a Dutch skipper, who puts three men on the Devonshire coast. The tale they tell is beyond belief: the city of Cadiz taken, an armada sunk, Porto Santa Maria wrapt in flame, the Duke of Medina Coeli driven from his lines, the road from San Lucar to Seville blocked up with the fugitive population of a great province hurrying for their lives. Some nine days pass, when a Scotch boat drops into Dartmouth with the same news. A few hours later still the van of the victorious fleet rides into Plymouth Sound, laden with such spoil, such heaps of plate, gold, jewels, damasks, silks, hangings, carpets, scarfs, as living Englishmen have only seen in dreams. To hear that the fleet is safe would have been joy enough; this fiery triumph of our arms, this glow of spoil and conquest, all but drive men mad. 8. Carey to Cecil, July 16, 1596, S. P. O.; Report from Cadiz, July 16, 19, 21, 1596, S. P. O.; Report of the Spoil taken at Cadiz, Aug. 11, 1596, S. P. O. IV. 9. 1596. Sept. 9. Most mad of all is Essex. The glory obtained by Raleigh and Effingham chafes his pride; the elevation of Cecil in his absence into First Secretary of State disturbs his power. If much remains to him, much is not enough. A warrior who has pushed through the Puerta de la Tierra, and seen the loveliest city in the west of Europe at his feet, should be suffered, he thinks, to enjoy a monopoly of power and fame. Yet a senseless country shares the credit with his rivals, while a forgetful Queen has given the most active place in her government to his foe. On every side he is robbed of his due: getting neither his fair part of the spoil, nor anything like his fair part of the reputation. So he sulks and pouts; prints his own account of the voyage; finds fault with the generals and admirals; tells the sailors of the fleet and the soldiers in the camp that their success would have been far more prompt, their prizes far more abundant, had his command of them been unfettered by such a council of fools and cowards. But Cecil's rise at home provokes him more than Raleigh's success abroad. This case is a repetition of Bacon's case. Sir Thomas Bodley, that experienced scholar and diplomatist to whose wealth and taste we owe the princely library at Oxford, has, like Bacon, been of use to the Earl. Essex, who pays his debts in offices and grants, has pledged his word that Bodley shall be Secretary of State. The Queen has not kept her kinsman's pledge. On his return from Spain, perceiving that he was sent away from London to give Cecil an open field, he begins to sulk and storm. He will not stay at court to be mocked. He will bury his grief at Wanstead, or rush 9. Lambeth MSS. 658, fol. 21; Censures of the Omissions in the Expedition to Cadiz, 1596; Camden's Ann. Eliz., 1596; Bacon's Apologie, 19, 20; Devereux, i. 380. away to the wars, and find peace of heart on a Spanish IV. 9. pike! Lady Ann's quick ear and loving eye perceive the change that Cecil's elevation, the Earl's discomfiture, must work at court. Now that her sister's son, who so bitterly hates the Earl and so sharply resents the connexion of any of his own able kin with the insolent and brainless peer, has come to his height of power, she writes to warn Anthony of the evil days in store for them, now Cecil is greater than before, and of the need for her sons to walk with a more wary step. It is the last letter from her pen, closing, as a good woman's letters should do, with words of love. LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. July 10, 1596. Now that Sir Robert is fully stalled in his long longed-for secretary's place, I pray God give him a religious, wise, and an upright heart before God and man. I promise you, son, in my conjectural opinion, you had more need now to be more circumspect and advised in your troublous discoursings and doings and dealings in your accustomed matter, either with or for yourself or others, whom you heartily honour, nor without cause. He now hath great advantage and strength to intercept, prevent, and to say where he hath been or is in. Son, be it revelation or suspicion, you know what terms he standeth in towards yourself, and would needs have me tell you so; so very vehement he was. Then you are said to be wise, and to my comfort I willingly think so; but surely, son, on the other side, for want of some experience by action and your tedious unacquaintance of your own country by continual chamber and bed-keeping, you must need miss of considerate judgment in your verbal only travailing. 1596. 1596. IV. 9. If all were scant sound before betwixt the Tiagλ [Earl of Essex] and him, friends had need to walk more warily in his days; for all affectionate doing he may hurt though pretending good. The father and son are joined in power and policy. The Lord ever bless you in Christ. Still I hearken for Yates; I doubt somebody hindereth his coming to me. It were small matter to come speak with me. You know what you have to do in regard touching the Spaniard. I reck not his displeasure; God grant he mar not all at last with Spanish popish subtlety. Alas! what I wrote touching the poor sum of five pounds to your brother [Francis], I meant but to let you know plainly. I would rather nourish than any little way weaken true brotherly love, as appeareth manifestly to you both. God forbid but that you should always love heartily, mutually, and kindly. God commandeth love as brethren, besides bond of nature. This present time I am brewing but for hasty and home drinking. In truth, if I should purposely make a tierce somewhat strong for you, I know not how to have it carried through. It were pity that you and I both should be disappointed. Burn, burn, in any wise. From your mother, A. B. Bacon warns the Earl against hasty speeches and offensive acts. Essex swears the rough way is the only way with Elizabeth. She may be driven, not led. "My lord," says Bacon, "these courses are like hot waters; they may help at a pang, but they will not do for daily use." Essex seems crazed. Bacon seeks to dissuade him from this lust of arms; his proper weapon being a chamberlain's stick. In happy phrase he tells him that this |