[1]"Toujours ce compagnon dont le cœur n'est pas sûr,La Femme—enfant malade et douze fois impur."
[1]
"Toujours ce compagnon dont le cœur n'est pas sûr,La Femme—enfant malade et douze fois impur."
[2]Goethe has a marked imitation of Shakespeare's Cleopatra in the Adelheid of Götz von Berlichingen. And he has placed Weislingen between Adelheid and Maria as Antony stands between Cleopatra and Octavia bound to the former and marrying the latter.
[2]Goethe has a marked imitation of Shakespeare's Cleopatra in the Adelheid of Götz von Berlichingen. And he has placed Weislingen between Adelheid and Maria as Antony stands between Cleopatra and Octavia bound to the former and marrying the latter.
Out of tune—out of tune!
Out of tune the instrument whereon so many enthralling melodies had been played—glad and gay, plaintive or resentful, full of love and full of sorrow. Out of tune the mind which had felt so keenly, thought so deeply, spoken so temperately, and stood so firmly "midst passion's whirlpool, storm, and whirlwind." His life's philosophy has become a disgust of life, his melancholy seeks the darkest side of all things, his mirth is grown to bitter scorn, and his wit is without shame.
There was a time when all before his eyes was green—vernally green, life's own lush, unfaded colour. This was followed by a period of gloom, during which he watched the shadows of life spread over the bright and beautiful, blotting out their colours. Now it is black, and worse than black; he sees the base mire cover the earth with its filth, and heeds how it fills the air with its stench.
Shakespeare had come to the end of his first great circumnavigation of life and human nature: an immense disillusionment was the result. Expectation and disappointment, yearning and content, life's gladness and holiday-making, battle mood and triumph, inspired wrath and desperate vehemence—all that once had thrilled him is now fused and lost in contempt.
Disdain has become a persistent mood, and scorn of mankind flows with the blood in his veins. Scorn for princes and people; for heroes, who are but fellow-brawlers and braggarts after all; and for artists, who are but flatterers and parasites seeking possible patrons. Scorn for old age, in whose venerableness he sees only the unction or hypocrisy of an old twaddler. Scorn for youth, wherein he sees but profligacy, slackness, and gullibility, while all enthusiasts are impostors, and all idealists fools. Men are either coarse and unprincipled, or so weakly sentimental as to be under a woman's thumb; and woman's distinguishing qualities are feebleness, voluptuousness, fickleness, and falsehood;a fool he who trusts himself to them or lets his actions depend upon them.
This mood has been growing on Shakespeare for some time. We have felt it grow. It shows first inHamlet, but is harmless as yet in comparison with the scathing bitterness of later times. There is a breath, a whisper, in the "Frailty, thy name is Woman!" addressed to Hamlet's mother. Ophelia is rather futile than specially weak; she is never false, still less faithless. Even the inconstant Queen Gertrude can scarcely be called false. There was malignity and temper in that challenge of moral hypocrisy,Measure for Measure, and enough earnestness to overpower the comic, although not sufficient bitterness to make the peaceful conclusion impossible. The tragedy ofMacbethwas brought to a consoling end; the powers of good triumphed at the last.
There was only one malign character inOthello, evil indeed, but solitary. Othello, Desdemona, Emilia, &c., are all good at heart. There is no bitterness inLear, no scorn of mankind, but sympathy and a wonderful compassion pervading and dominating all. Shakespeare has divided his own Ego among the characters of this play, in order to share with them the miseries and suffering of life on this earth; he has not gathered himself up to judge and despise.
It is from thenceforward that the undertone of contempt first begins to be felt. A period of some years follows, in which his being narrows and concentrates itself upon an abhorrence of human nature, accompanied, so far as we can judge, by a correspondingly enormous self-esteem. It is as though he had for a moment felt such a scorn for his surroundings of court and people, friends and rivals, men and women, as had nearly driven him wild.
We see the germs of it inAntony and Cleopatra. What a fool is this Antony, who puts his reputation and a world-wide dominion in jeopardy in order to be near a cold-blooded coquette, who has passed from hand to hand, and whose caprice puts on all the colours of the rainbow. We find it in full bloom inTroilus and Cressida. What a simpleton this Troilus, who, credulous as a child, devotes himself body and soul to a Cressida; a typical classic she, treachery in woman's form, as false and flighty as foam upon the waves, whose fickleness has become a by-word.
Shakespeare has now reached that point of departure where man feels the need of stripping woman of the glamour with which romantic naïveté and sensual attraction have surrounded her, and finds a gratification in seeing merely the sex in her. Sympathy with love, and a conception of woman as an object worthy of love, goes the way of all other sympathies and illusions at this stage. "All is vanity," says Kohélet, and Shakespeare with him. As in all artist souls, there was in his a peculiar blending ofenthusiast and cynic. He has now parted with enthusiasm for a time, and cynicism is paramount.
Such an all-pervading change in the disposition and temper of a great personality was not without its reasons, possibly its one first cause. We can trace its workings without divining its origin, but we may seek to orient ourselves with regard to its conditions. Leverier came to the conclusion in 1846 that the disturbances in the path of Uranus were caused by something behind the planet which neither he nor anybody else had ever seen. He indicated its probable position, and three weeks afterwards Galle found Neptune on the very spot. Unfortunately, Shakespeare's history is so very obscure, and such fruitless search in every direction has been made after fresh documents, that we have no great hope of finding any new light.
We can but glance around the horizon of his life, and note how English circumstances and conditions grouped themselves about him. Material for cheering or depressing reflections can be found at all times, but the mind is not always equally prone to assimilate the cheering or depressing. Certain it is that Shakespeare has now elected to seek out and dwell upon the ugly and sorrowful, the unclean and the repulsive. His melancholy finds its nourishment therein, and his bitterness has learned to suck poison from every noxious plant which borders his path through life. His contempt of mankind and his weariness of existence swell and grow with each experience, and in the events and conditions of those years there was surely matter enough for abhorrence, rancour, and scorn.
Under the circumstances Shakespeare could do nothing but keep as close to King and Court as possible, even though the King's dreary, and the Court's profligate qualities grew year by year. James aspired to a comparison with Solomon for wisdom; he certainly resembled him in prodigality, and Henry III. of France in his susceptibility to manly beauty. His passion for his various favourites recalls that of Edward II. for Gaveston in Marlowe's drama. He was, says a chronicle of the time, as susceptible as any schoolgirl to handsome features and well-formed limbs in a man. The parallels his contemporaries drew between him and his predecessor on this score did not work out to his advantage. Elizabeth, they said, who was unmarried, loved only individuals of the opposite sex, all eminent men, whom, even then, she never allowed to rule her. James, on the contrary, was married, and yet entertained a passion for onemignonafter another, giving the most exalted positions in the country to these men, who were worthless and arrogant, and by whom he was entirely led. In our day Swinburne has characterised James as combining with "northern virulence and pedantry ... a savour of the worst qualities of the worst Italians of the worst period of Italian decadence." Was he, in truth, of Scotch descent on both sides? His exterior recalled little of his mother's charms, and still less those of the handsome Darnley. His contemporaries doubted. They neither believed that Darnley's jealousy was groundless, nor the modern embellishment that the Italian singer and private secretary's ugly face made any tender feeling on Mary Stuart's side quite impossible. The Scottish Solomon was invariably alluded to by the outspoken, jest-loving Henry IV. of France as "Solomon, the son of David" (Rizzio).
The general enthusiasm which greeted King James on his accession speedily gave way to a very decided unpopularity. Again and again, upon a score of different points, did he offend English national pride, sense of justice, and decency.
The lively Queen, who romped through the court festivities, and spent her days in dressing herself out for masquerades, hadher favourites, much as the King had his. At one time, indeed, the same family served them both. The Queen set her affection on the elder brother, the Earl of Pembroke, and the King bestowed his upon the younger, whom he made Earl of Montgomery and Knight of the Garter. Whether he did not find the harmony of disposition for which he had looked, or whether the impression Montgomery made upon him was displaced by another and stronger, certain it is that no later than 1603 he was already violently infatuated with a youth of twenty, who afterwards became the most powerful man in Great Britain.
This was a young Scot, Robert Carr, who first attracted the King's attention by breaking his leg in a tourney at which James was present. He had as a lad been one of the King's pages at home in Scotland, had since pursued his fortunes in France, and was now in service with Lord Hay. The King gave special orders that he should be nursed at the castle, sent his own doctor to him, visited him frequently during his illness, and made him Knight and Gentleman of the Bedchamber as soon as he was convalescent. He kept him constantly about his person, and even took the trouble to teach him Latin. Step by step the young man was advanced until he stood among the foremost ranks of the country.
It was his nationality which specially offended the people, for Scottish adventurers swarmed about the King, and the Scots were still regarded as stranger-folk in England. The new title of Great Britain had also caused great discontent. Was the glorious name of England no longer to distinguish them? Scotch moneys were made current on English soil, and English ships were compelled to carry the cross of St. Andrew, with that of St. George upon their flags. Englishmen found themselves slighted, and were fearful that the Scot would creep into English lordships and English ladies' beds, as a contemporary writing expresses it. The conflicts in Parliament concerning the extension of national privileges to the Scotch were incessant. Bacon undertook the King's cause, and discreet and biblical objections were made that things would fall out as they did with Lot and Abraham. Families combined together, or were set at variance among themselves; and it grew to a case of, "Go you to the right? I go to the left."
In 1607 James observed that he intended to "give England the labour and the sweat, Scotland the fruit and the sweet;" and it was a notorious fact, that where his passions were concerned, the Scotch were persistently preferred to the English.
James, having meanwhile found it necessary to provide his favourite with estates, procured them in the following manner. When Raleigh came to grief, he had secured the revenues of his estate, Sherborne, to Lady Raleigh, and his son as heir to it after his death. A few months later the King's lawyers discovereda technical error in the deed of conveyance which rendered it invalid. Raleigh wrote from his prison to Salisbury, entreating the King not to deprive his family of their subsistence for the sake of a copyist's blunder. The King made many promises, and assured Raleigh that a new and correct deed should be drawn up. The imprisoned hero had begun, at about this time, to entertain renewed hope of freedom, for he believed that Christian IV., then on a visit to England, 1606, would intercede for him. But when Lady Raleigh, under this impression, threw herself on her knees before James at Hampton Court, the King passed her by without a word. From the year 1607 the King had resolved upon seizing Sherborne for his favourite. In 1608 Raleigh was required to prove right and title thereunto, and he possessed only the faulty document. At Christmastide, taking her two little sons by the hand, Lady Raleigh cast herself a second time before James, and implored him for a new and accurate deed. The only reply she obtained was a broad Scotch, "I maun hae the lond—I maun hae it for Carr." It is said that the high-spirited woman lost all patience upon this, and springing to her feet called upon God to punish the despoiler of her property. Raleigh, on the 2nd of January 1609, tried the more politic method of writing to Carr, entreating him not to aspire to the possession of Sherborne. He received no answer, and upon the 10th of the same month the estate was handed over to the favourite as a gift. It is to be regretted that Raleigh, who had never concealed his opinion of the King's favourites, should have lowered himself by writing to Carr as "one whom I know not, but by honourable fame."
Lady Raleigh accepted a sum of money in compensation, which bore no relation to the real value of Sherborne, and Raleigh was left in the Tower. It is a highly characteristic feature that he remained there year after year until he succeeded (in 1616) in arousing his kingly gaoler's cupidity afresh. In the hope of his finding the anticipated gold-mines in Guiana his prison doors were opened for a while (1616-17), and his failure to discover them was made a pretext for his execution.[1]
[1]"Sir Walter Raleigh was freed out of the Tower the last week, and goes up and down, seeing sights and places built or bettered since his imprisonment,"—Letter from John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton, 27th March 1616 ("The Court and Times of James the First"). Gardiner's "History of England," ii. 43; Gosse, "Raleigh," 172.
[1]"Sir Walter Raleigh was freed out of the Tower the last week, and goes up and down, seeing sights and places built or bettered since his imprisonment,"—Letter from John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton, 27th March 1616 ("The Court and Times of James the First"). Gardiner's "History of England," ii. 43; Gosse, "Raleigh," 172.
The King's interest in parsons and theological discussions was not a whit inferior to his passion for his favourites. He constantly gave public expression to a superstition which diverted even contemporary culture. It is jestingly alluded to in a letter from Sir Edward Hoby to Sir Thomas Edmondes, dated Nov. 19, 1605. "His Majesty in his speech observed one principal point, that most of all his best fortunes had happened unto him upon the Tuesday; and particularly he repeated his deliverance from Gowry [the brothers Ruthven] and this [Gunpowder Plot], in which he noted precisely that both fell upon the fifth day of the month: and therefore concluded that he made choice that the next sitting of Parliament might begin upon a Tuesday." If James supported the claims of the clergy, it was less on religious grounds than because his own kingly power was thereby strengthened, and he disseminated, to the best of his ability, the doctrine that all questions must finally be referred to his personal wisdom and insight. Relations between the temporal and the spiritual jurisdictions were already strained. The secular judges frequently objected that the Spiritual Court entered into certain lawsuits before making sure that the case appertained to them. The clergy resisted, asserting that the two courts were independent of one another, and that their spiritual prerogatives emanated direct from the Crown. In 1605 the Archbishop of Canterbury complained of the secular judges to the King, and they, in their turn, appealed to Parliament. Fuller, a member of Parliament, and one of the principal advocates of the Puritan party, defended two of the accused who had been shamefully mishandled by the Spiritual Court (the High Commission), and he denied this "Popish authority," as he called it, any right to impose fines or inflict imprisonment. For these reckless utterances he was sent to gaol, and kept there until he retracted. The question of the supremacy of temporal jurisdiction over the spiritual began to ferment in the public mind. The King held by the latter, because it exercised an authority which Parliament was powerless to control, while Lord Chief Justice Coke stood by the former. Onthe latter giving vent, however, to the opinion, in the King's presence, that the sovereign was bound to respect the law of the land, and to remember that spiritual jurisdiction was extraneous, James clenched angry fists in his face, and would have struck him, had not Coke, alarmed, fallen on his knees and entreated pardon.
The King's ardent orthodoxy prompted him next to appear as a theological polemist. A certain professor of theology at Leyden, Conrad Vorstius by name, had, according to James's ideas, been guilty of heresy. It was of so slight a nature that, in spite of the rigid orthodoxy of the greater part of the Dutch theologians, it had raised no protest in Holland, since statesmen, nobles, and merchants were all agreed upon tolerance in matters of religion. James, however, made such a vindictive assault upon them, that, for fear of forfeiting their English alliance, they were compelled to give Vorstius his dismissal.
At the precise moment of James's full polemical heat against Vorstius, two unlucky Englishmen, Edward Wrightman and Bartholomew Legate, were convicted of holding heretical opinions. The latter admitted that he was an Aryan, and had not prayed to Jesus for many years. James was fire and flame. Elizabeth had burnt two heretics. Why shouldn't he? Public opinion saw no cruelty, but merely righteousness in such a proceeding, and they were both accordingly burned alive in March 1612.
It was one of the clerkly James's customs to issue proclamations. Among the first of these was a warning issued against the encroachments of the Jesuits, advising them of a date by which they must have decamped from his kingdom and country. Another very forcibly recommended unanimity of religion—that is to say, complete uniformity of ceremony. A bold priest, Burgess by name, preached a sermon in the King's presence, soon after this, on the insignificance of ceremonies. They resembled, he said, the glass of the Roman Senator, which was not worth a man's life or subsistence. Augustus, having been invited to a feast by this Senator, was greeted on his arrival by terrible cries. A slave, who had broken some costly glass, was about to be thrown into the fishpond. The Emperor bade them defer the punishment until he had inquired of his host whether he had glass worth a man's life. Upon the Senator answering that he possessed glass worth a province, Augustus asked to see it, and smashing it into fragments, remarked, "Better that it should all perish than that one man should die." "I leave the application to your Majesty."
The proclamations continued undiminished, however, and it became a favourite amusement of James to issue edicts forbidding lawful trades. This was the cause of much discontent, and appeal was made to the Lord Chief Justice. In 1610 two questions were, laid before Coke: whether the King could prohibit theerection of new houses in London by proclamation (a naïve notification had been issued with a view to preventing the "overdevelopment" of the capital), or forbid the manufacture of starch (in allusion to a manifesto limiting the uses of wheat to purposes of food). The answer was, returned that the King had neither power to create offences by proclamation, nor make trades, which did not legally subject themselves to judicial control, liable to punishment by the Star Chamber. After this ensued a temporary respite from edicts levying fines or threatening imprisonment.
The dissensions between King and People became so violent that they soon led to a complete rupture between James and the House of Commons, which would not submit to his highhanded levying and collecting of taxes in order to squander the money on his own pleasures and caprices. James, who required £500,000 to pay his debts, was made to endure a speech in Parliament concerning the prodigality of himself and favourites. An insulting rumour added that it had been said in the House that the King must pack all the Scots in his household back to the country whence they came. James, losing all patience, prorogued Parliament, and finally dissolved it in February 1611.
This was the beginning of a conflict between the Crown and the People which lasted throughout James's lifetime, causing the Great Revolution under his son, and being only finally extinguished seventy-eight years afterwards by the offer from both Houses of the Crown to William of Orange.
It was to no purpose that the King's revenues were increased year by year, by illegal taxation too: nothing sufficed. In February 1611 he divided £34,000 among six favourites, five of whom were Scotch. In the March of the same year he made Carr Viscount Rochester and a peer of England. For the first time in English history a Scot took his seat in the House of Lords, and a Scot, moreover, who had done his best to inflame the King against the Commons.
To relieve its pecuniary distress the Court hit upon the expedient of selling baronetcies. Every knight or squire possessed of money or estates to the value of a hundred a year could become a baronet, provided he were willing to disburse £1080 (a sum sufficient to support thirty infantry-men in Ireland for three years) in three yearly payments to the State coffers. This contrivance brought no very great relief, however. Either the extravagance was too reckless, or the seekers after titles were not sufficiently numerous.
Things had gone so far in 1614, that, in spite of the hitherto unheard-of sale of Crown property, James was at his wits' end for want of money. He owed £680,000, not to mention a yearly deficit of £200,000. The garrisons in Holland were on the point of mutinying for their pay, and the fleet was in much the same condition. Fortresses were falling into ruins for want ofrepair, and English Ambassadors abroad were fruitlessly writing home for money. It was once more decided to summon Parliament. In spite of the most shameless packing, however, the Commons came in with a strong Opposition; and they had much to complain of. The King, among other things, had given Lord Harrington the exclusive right of coining copper money, in return for his having lent him £300,000 at his daughter's wedding. He had also granted a monopoly of the manufacture of glass, and had given the sole right of trade with France to a single company.
The Upper House declined to meet the Lower on a common ground of procedure, and when Bishop Neile, one of the greatest sycophants the royal influence possessed in the Lords, permitted himself some offensive strictures on the Commons, such a storm broke loose among the latter that one member (an aristocrat), abused the courtiers as "spaniels" towards the King and "wolves" towards the people, and another went so far as to warn the Scotch favourites that the Sicilian Vespers might find a parallel in England.
James, who, in a lengthy peroration, had attempted to influence the Commons in his favour, saw that he had nothing to hope from them and dissolved Parliament in the following year.
In order to free him from debt, and to contrive, if possible, some means of supplying the sums swallowed up by the Government and Court, a scheme was devised of inducing private citizens to send money to the King, apparently of their own free will. The bishops inaugurated it by offering James their Church plate and other valuables. This example was followed by all who hoped or expected favours from the court; and a great number of people sent money to the Treasury at Whitehall. Thus the idea obtained that James should issue a summons for all England to follow this example. It seemed, at first, as if this self-taxation would bring in a good round sum. The King asked the city for a loan of £100,000, and it replied (very differently to the response it had made to Elizabeth) that they would rather give £10,000 than lend £100,000. In the course of little over a month £34,000 came in, but with that the stream ceased. Government wrote fruitlessly to all the counties and their officials, &c., to renew the summons. The sheriffs unanimously replied that if the King were to summon Parliament he would experience no difficulty in getting money. During two whole months only £500 came in. Fresh appeals were made and renewed pressure attempted without obtaining the desired results.
The luckless Raleigh, who had heard of these things in his prison, but was without adequate information from the outside world, wrote a pamphlet on the prerogatives of Parliament, full of good advice to the King, whom he assumed to be personally guiltless of the abuses his ministers practised in his name. Henaïvely looked for his freedom in return for the tract, which naturally was suppressed.
The notorious Peckham case was another cause of popular ill-humour. In the course of this trial, a man who had been greatly exasperated by clerical and official demeanour, and had expressed himself indiscreetly thereon, was subjected to repeated torture on the pretext of a sermon which had never been preached or printed, but which an examination of his house had brought to light. Bacon degraded himself by urging on the executioners at the rack—a form of torture which had been abolished in common law, but was still considered legitimately applicable in political cases.
That James was personally cruel is shown, amongst other things, by his frequent pardons on the scaffold. He kept such men as Cobham, Grey, and Markham waiting two hours with the axe hanging over their heads, undergoing all the tortures of death, before they were informed that their execution had been deferred. The times, however, were as cruel as he. Through all the published letters of that period runs incessant mention of hanging, racking, breaking on the wheel, half hanging, and executions, without the least emotion being expressed. Any death gave invariable rise to suspicions of poison. Even when the King lost his eldest son, it was stubbornly believed that he had rid himself of him from jealousy of his popularity. As every death was attributed to foul play, so every disease or sickness was assigned to witchcraft. Sorcerers and witches were condemned and despised, but believed in, nevertheless, even by such men as Philip Sidney's friend, Fulk Greville, Lord Brook and Chancellor of the Exchequer under James. He obviously fully credits the witchcraft of which he speaks so disdainfully in his work, "Five Years of King James's Government."
The tone of the Court was vicious throughout. Relations between the sexes were much looser than would have been expected under a king who, in general, troubled himself little about women. We find a description in Sir Dudley Carleton's letters of a bridal adventure, which ended in the King going in night-gear to awaken the bride next morning and remaining with her some time, "in or upon the bed, chuse which you will believe." James spoke of the Queen in public notices as "Our dearest bedfellow." In the half-imbecile, half-obscene correspondence between James and Carr's successor, Buckingham, the latter signs himself, "Your dog," while James addresses him as "Dog Steenie." The King even calls the solemn Cecil, "little beagle;" and the Queen, writing to Buckingham to beg him intercede with the King for Raleigh's life, addresses him as "my kind dog."
With personal dignity, all decency also was set aside. Even the elder Disraeli, James's principal admirer and apologist, acknowledges that the morals of the Court were appalling, and that these courtiers, who passed their days in absolute idleness and preposterous luxury, were stained by infamous vices. He quotes Drayton's lines from the "Mooncalf," descriptive of a lady and gentleman of this circle—
"He's too much woman, and she's too much man."
Neither does he deny the contemporary Arthur Wilson's account of many young girls of good family, who, reduced to poverty by their parents' luxurious lives, looked upon their beauty as so much capital. They came up to London in order to put themselves up for sale, obtained large pensions for life, and ultimately married prominent and wealthy men. They were considered sensible, well-bred women, and were even looked upon asesprits forts. The conversation of the men was so profligate, that the following sentiment, less decently expressed, must have been frequently heard: "I would rather that one should believe I possessed a lady's favours, though I did not, than really possess them when none knew thereof."
Gondomar, the Spanish envoy, played an important part at the Court of King James. Don Diego Sarmiento de Acuna, Count of Gondomar, was one of the first diplomatists of Spain. He must have lacked the intuitions of a statesman, in so far as heflattered himself that England could be brought back to Roman Catholicism, but he was a past-master in the art of managing men. He knew how to awe by rare firmness of decision and how to win by exemplary suppleness; he knew when to speak and when to be silent; and, finally, he understood how to further his master's aims by the most intelligent means. He had as free access to James as any English courtier, having acquired it by lively sallies and by talking bad Latin, in order to give the King an opportunity of correcting him.
Ladies of rank crowded on to their balconies to attract this man's attention as he rode or drove to his house; and it appears, says Disraeli, that any one of them would have sold her favours for a good round sum. Noticeable among these ladies of title, says Wilson, were many who owned some pretensions to wit, or had charming daughters or pretty nieces, whose presence attracted many men to their houses. The following anecdote made considerable noise at the time, and has been variously repeated. In Drury Lane, Gondomar, one day, passed the house of a charming widow, a certain Lady Jacob. He saluted her, and was amazed to find that in return to his greeting she merely moved her mouth, which she opened, indeed, to a very great extent. He was profoundly astonished by this lack of courtesy, but reflected that she had probably been overtaken by a fit of the gapes. The same thing occurring, however, on the following day, he sent one of his retinue to inform her that English ladies were usually more gracious than to return his greeting in such an outrageous manner. She replied, that being aware that he had acquired several good graces for a handsome sum, she had wished to prove to him that she also had a mouth which could be stopped in the same fashion. Whereupon he took the hint, and immediately despatched her a present.
In all this, however, the women merely followed the example of the men. The English Ambassador at Madrid had long been aware of, and profited by, the possibility of buying the secrets of the Spanish Government at comparatively reasonable prices. In May 1613, however, he discovered that Spain, in the same manner, annually paid large sums to a whole series of eminent persons in England. He saw, to his disgust, the name of the English Admiral, Sir William Monson, among the pensioners of Spain, and learned, to his consternation, that the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Salisbury, had been in her pay up to the moment of his death. In the following December he obtained a complete list of men enjoying Spanish pay, and was thunderstruck on reading the names of men whose integrity he had never doubted, and who were filling the highest offices of state. Not daring to trust the secret to paper, correspondence by no means being considered inviolable in those days, he applied for permission to bring the disgraceful information to James in person.
An event occurring in the royal family (concerning which Gardiner observes that, in our day, such a thing would rouse the wrath of the British people from one end of the kingdom to the other) serves to illustrate both the heartlessness of the King and the lawless condition of the people.
Arabella Stuart, who was King James's cousin, had possessed her own appanage from the time of Queen Elizabeth. She had her apartments in the Palace, and associated with the Queen's ladies. Her letters show a refined and lovable woman's soul, absolutely untroubled by any political ambition. She says in a letter to her uncle Shrewsbury that she wishes to refute the apparent impossibility of a young woman's being able to preserve her purity and innocence among the follies with which a court surrounds her. She is alluding, amongst other things, to one of the eternal masquerades through which the Queen and her ladies racketed, attired, upon this occasion, "as sea nymphs or nereids, to the great delight of all beholders" (Arthur Wilson's "History of Great Britain," 1633). She kept apart as much as possible from this whirl of gaiety, and the various foreign potentates who applied for her hand were all dismissed. She would not, she said, wed a man whom she did not know. Nevertheless it was rumoured that she intended to marry some foreign prince who would enforce her rights to the English throne. James sent her to the Tower at Christmas 1609 on account of this report, and summoned the Council. The misunderstanding was cleared up, and she was hastily set at liberty, James expressly assuring her that he would have no objection to her marrying a subject.
A few weeks after she learned to know and love the man to whom she devoted herself with a passion and fidelity which recalls that of Imogen for Posthumus in Shakespeare'sCymbeline. This was young William Seymour, a son of Lord Beauchamp, one of the first noblemen in England. He was received in her apartments, and obtained her promise in February, the King's assurance to Arabella giving them every security for the future. Nevertheless, the young Princess's choice could not have fallen more unfortunately. Lord Beauchamp was the son of the Earl of Hertford and Catherine Grey, the inheritress of the Suffolkrights to the throne. The Earl's eldest son was still alive, and William Seymour had no claim to the crown at the moment; but the fact that his brother might die childless made him an always possible pretender. The Suffolk claims had been recognised by Act of Parliament, and the Parliament which had acknowledged James was powerless to change the succession. In the face of this notorious fact, James ignored the consideration that neither Seymour and Arabella, nor any one else, wanted to deprive him of the throne in favour of the young pair. Both were summoned before the Council and examined.
Seymour was made to renounce all thought of marriage with Arabella, and the young couple did not see each other for three months. In May 1610, however, they were secretly married.
When the news reached James's ears in July, he was furious. Arabella was detained in custody at Lambeth, and Seymour was sent to the Tower.
Arabella strove in vain to touch the King's heart. Great sympathy was felt in London, however, for the young couple, and secret meetings were permitted them by their gaolers. When the correspondence between them was discovered, Arabella was commanded to travel to Durham and put herself under the care of its Bishop. On her refusal to quit her apartments, she was carried away by force. Falling ill on the journey, she was given permission to pause by the way, and, attiring herself like one of Shakespeare's heroines, she seized the opportunity to escape. She drew on a pair of French trousers over her skirt, put on a man's coat and high boots, wore a manly wig with long curls over her hair, set a low-flapped black hat upon her head, threw a short cloak, around her, and fastened a small sword at her side. Thus disguised, she fled by horse to Blackwall, where a French ship awaited her and Lord Seymour, the latter having arranged his escape for the same time. An accident prevented their meeting, and Arabella's friends, growing impatient, insisted, in spite of her protests, on setting out at once. When Seymour arrived next day, he learned to his disappointment, that the ship had set sail. He succeeded, however, in getting put over to Ostend. Meanwhile, Arabella, a few miles from Calais, induced the captain to lay-to for an hour or so to give Seymour an opportunity of overtaking them. They were here surprised by an English cruiser, which had been sent from Dover to capture the fugitives, and Arabella was brought back to the Tower. When she implored pardon, James brutally replied that she had eaten forbidden fruit, and must pay the price of her disobedience. Despair deprived her of her reason, and she died miserably, after five years of imprisonment. Not until after her death was her husband permitted to return to England.
It was Rochester who was the real ruler of England all this time. He was the acknowledged favourite; to him every suitor applied and from him came every reward. He was made head of the Privy Council after the death of Lord Dunbar, and was nominated Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, a title which gave him great prestige in his native country. He was also made Baron Brandspech, and, in accordance with the general expectation, Viscount Rochester and Knight of the Garter. The only decided opposition he had to encounter was that of young Prince Henry, the nation's darling, who could not endure his arrogant way, and was, moreover, his rival in fair ladies' favours. After the death of the Prince, Rochester was more powerful than ever. As principal Secretary, Carr managed all the King's correspondence, and on more than one occasion he answered letters without consulting either King or Council. The King, if he was aware of this, had reached such a pitch of infatuation that he submitted to everything. Carr was given a new title in 1613 and the Viscount Rochester was made Earl of Somerset. In 1614 the King made him Lord Chamberlain "because he loved him better than all men living." In the interim he had been appointed Keeper of the Seals and Warden of the Cinque Ports.
It was from such a height as this that he fell, and the circumstances of his overthrow form perhaps the most interesting events, from a psychological point of view, of James' reign. They made a great impression on contemporary minds, and occupy a large space in the letters of the period—letters in which Shakespeare's name is never mentioned and of whose very existence their historico-polemical writers do not seem to have been aware.
It was one of James's ambitions on his coming to England to put an end to the feuds and dissensions which were rife among the great families. To this end he arranged a match between Essex's son, and a daughter of the house which had ruined his father and driven him to death. In January 1608, accordingly, the fourteen-year-old Earl was married to the Lady Frances Howard, just thirteen years of age, and he thus became allied with the powerful houses of Howard and Cecil. Mr. Pory wrote to Sir Robert Cotton on the occasion of the marriage, "The bridegroomcarried himself as gravely and as gracefully as if he were of his father's age."
The Church in those times sanctioned these marriages between children, but every sense of fitness demanded that they should be immediately parted. Young Essex was sent on foreign travel, and did not return to claim his bride until he was eighteen. He was a solidly built youth, possessed of a heavy and imperturbably calm disposition. Frances, on the other hand, was obstinately and stormily passionate in both her likes and dislikes. She had been brought up by a coarse and covetous mother, and early corrupted by contact with the vices of the Court. She took a deep dislike to her youthful bridegroom from the first and refused to live with him. Her relations, however, compelled her to accompany him to his estate, Chartley.
She had previously attracted the attention of both Prince Henry and the favourite Rochester. Expecting more from Rochester, as a contemporary document explains, than from the unprofitable attentions of the Prince, she chose the former, a fact which can hardly have failed to augment the ill-will already existing between the King's son and the King's friend. From the moment of her choice all the passionate intensity of her nature was concentrated upon avoiding any intercourse with her husband and in assuring Rochester that his jealousy on that score was groundless.
She chose for her confidante a certain Mrs. Turner, a doctor's widow, who, after leading a dissipated life, was settling down to a reputation for witchcraft. Lady Essex begged some potion of her which should chill the Earl's ardour, and this not working to her satisfaction, she wrote the following letter to her priestess, which was later produced at the trial and made public by Fulk Greville:—
"Sweet Turner, as thou hast been hitherto, so art thou all my hopes of good in this world. My Lord is lusty as ever he was, and hath complained to my brother Howard, that hee hath not layne with mee, nor used mee as his wife. This makes me mad, since of all men I loath him, because he is the only obstacle and hindrance, that I shall never enjoy him whom I love."
Upon the Earl's complaining a second time, the two applied to a Dr. Forman, quack and reputed sorcerer, for some means of causing an aversion (frigidityquoad hanc) in the Earl. The mountebank obligingly performed all manner of hocus-pocus with wax dolls, &c., and these in their turn failing, Lady Essex wrote to him:—
"Sweet Father, although I have found you ready at all times to further mee, yet must I still crave your helpe; wherefore I beseech you to remember that you keepe the doores close, and that you still retaine the Lord with mee and his affection towards mee. I have no cause but to be confident in you, though the world be against mee; yet heaven failes mee not; many are the troubles I sustaine, the doggednesse of my Lord, the crossenesseof my enemies, and the subversion of my fortunes, unlesse you by your wisdome doe deliver mee out of the midst of this wildernesse, which I entreat for God's sake. From Chartley.—Your affectionate loving daughter,FRANCES ESSEX."
"Sweet Father, although I have found you ready at all times to further mee, yet must I still crave your helpe; wherefore I beseech you to remember that you keepe the doores close, and that you still retaine the Lord with mee and his affection towards mee. I have no cause but to be confident in you, though the world be against mee; yet heaven failes mee not; many are the troubles I sustaine, the doggednesse of my Lord, the crossenesseof my enemies, and the subversion of my fortunes, unlesse you by your wisdome doe deliver mee out of the midst of this wildernesse, which I entreat for God's sake. From Chartley.—Your affectionate loving daughter,FRANCES ESSEX."
In the beginning of the year 1613, a woman named Mary Woods accused Lady Essex of attempting to bribe her to poison the Earl. The accusation came to nothing, however, and the Countess soon afterwards tried a new tack. It was now three years since her husband's return from abroad, and if she could succeed in convincing the Court that the marriage had never been consummated there was some chance of its being declared void. Having won her father and her utterly unscrupulous uncle, the powerful Lord Northampton, to her side, she induced the latter, who played Pandarus to this Cressida, to represent the situation to the King. James, loving Rochester as much as ever, and taking a pleasure in completing the happiness of those he loved, lent a willing ear. Northampton and Suffolk both took the matter up warmly, clearly seeing how advantageous an alliance with Carr, whom they had hitherto regarded as an enemy, would be to their plans. A meeting between the relatives of both parties was arranged. It consisted of the Earls of Northampton and Suffolk on Lady Essex's side, and the Earl of Southampton and Lord Knollys on her husband's. Essex, while resolved not to make any declaration which might prove an obstacle to his marrying again, fully conceded that he was not qualified to be this particular lady's husband. A commission of clergy and lawyers was therefore appointed to inquire into the matter.
A committee was nominated of six midwives and ten Godfearing matrons of rank, who had all borne children, to ascertain if Lady Essex was, as she asserted, a virgin. The lady's modesty insisted upon being closely veiled during the examination, which naturally gave rise to a rumour that another woman had been substituted.
The examination, which terminated in favour of the plaintiff, convinced none but those who had undertaken it, and was the occasion of much coarse-grained jesting.
With considerable impudence, Lady Essex maintained that her husband had been deprived of his manhood by witchcraft; but she was careful not to mention either Dr. Forman or herself as the instigators of this sorcery. Several members of the commission were prepared beforehand to declare the marriage void, it having been made worth their while to fall in with the wishes of the King and his favourite. Archbishop Abbot, however, an independent spirit, insisted from the first that it was utterly improbable that witchcraft could produce the assigned result, and urged that in accommodating the Countess they were establishing a precedent of which any childless wife could take advantage. The votes being equal, Abbot petitioned the King to allow hiswithdrawal. James, however, appointed two new members, both bishops, instead, and thus made the votes 7 to 5 in favour of "nullity." Abbot, as the result of his protest, became for a while the most popular man in England. Bishop Neile, who had always been despised, sank still lower in the public esteem, and Bishop Bilson of Winchester, of whom better things had been expected, was overwhelmed with ridicule. His son, whom the King knighted in order to reward his father, was acclaimed by general consent, Sir Nullity Bilson.
Throughout his whole career, and in his late relations with Lady Essex, Rochester had been guided by an intimate and capable adviser, Sir Thomas Overbury. He had assisted Rochester in the composition of his love-letters to the Countess, and he knew a great deal too much about the secret meetings, which he had himself arranged, between the lovers at Paternoster Row, Hammersmith, &c. When he learned that Rochester intended to supplement the connection by marriage, he strove by every means in his power to prevent it. He had been accustomed to dictate to his master in everything, but Rochester had now grown restive, and was resolved, by fair means or foul, on freeing himself from this control. To this end the King was given to understand that it was a common jest that Rochester managed the King, but Overbury ruled Rochester. In order to get rid of him in an honourable manner, he was appointed to some official post abroad. Overbury, however, whose ambition bound him to England, detected that this was but a mild form of banishment, and strove to excuse himself, finally declining outright. This was considered a breach of a subject's duty by James, and, upon the advice of the favourite, Overbury was sent to the Tower. Rochester now began to play a double game, and while assuring the prisoner that he was doing his utmost to obtain his release, he was, in reality, concentrating all his influence upon keeping him where he was. It was necessary to befool Overbury into thinking he had reason to be grateful to him, in case the prisoner should one day be released, and should wish to reveal all that Rochester was most anxious to keep concealed.
It was commanded from the first that Overbury should have no contact whatever with the outside world, an order which speaks for itself. When, however, the Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir William Wood, interpreted these directions so literally that he refused Rochester's own messengers access, it became necessary to replace him by the more amenable Sir Gervase Helwys.
Lady Essex, who was not the woman for half measures, preferred to make certain of Overbury once for all, and was determined that he should never leave the Tower alive. For this purpose she again applied to Mrs. Turner, who was well supplied with means serviceable to the occasion. The first thing necessary was to assure themselves of the man to whose immediate carethe prisoner was intrusted. Lady Essex applied to Sir Thomas Monson, Master of the Tower Armoury, and through his influence Helwys was induced to dismiss Overbury's attendant and supply his place with Richard Weston, a former servant of Anne Turner.
This man was instructed by Mrs. Turner to meet Lady Essex at Whitehall, and to receive from her a little phial whose contents were to be mixed with the prisoner's food. Meeting Helwys on his way to Overbury's cell, and supposing him to be initiated into the secret, Weston consulted him as to the best way of administering the poison. Helwys, horror-stricken, prevailed upon him to throw away the contents of the phial. He was in too much awe of the Howard family to venture an accusation, and Weston at his instigation told Lady Essex that the poison had been duly administered, and that the prisoner's health was failing in consequence. Overbury was, in truth, suffering greatly from the frustration of his hopes of release, and he naïvely requested Rochester to send him an emetic in order that the King, hearing of his sickness, might be moved to compassion. It is not known what kind of medicament Rochester sent, nor whether he was aware of Lady Essex's attempt, but he seems to have played his own hand on this occasion.
On finding that Overbury, in spite of his steadily failing health, still continued to live, Lady Frances renewed her activity. Rochester was sending sweetmeats, jellies, and wines to the prisoner, and Lady Essex mixed poison with all these condiments, quite unconscious of the fact that Helwys, now upon the alert, took care that none of them should reach the prisoner. Losing all patience, she looked round for some more certain means than this poison, which worked with such astonishing and irritating deliberation. Learning that the apothecary Franklin was attending Overbury, she bribed his boy to give the sick man a poisoned injection. This was done, and the prisoner died in the Tower on the following day. Northampton immediately spread about a report that Sir Thomas Overbury had by no means led such a secluded life in the Tower as was generally supposed, but had by his dissolute life there contracted a disease of which he died. The rumour was generally believed, but that some suspicions were entertained can be seen in the letters of the times. John Chamberlain, writing to Sir Dudley Carleton on the 14th October 1613, speaks of Overbury's death as being caused by this disease, "or something worse."
Thus the last obstacle was cleared from the path which led this brilliant pair to the altar. Lady Frances was happy, and much farther removed from any feeling of remorse than Lady Macbeth. The King was full of affection for her, and, in order that she might not be wanting her title of Countess, Rochester was made Earl of Somerset. The wedding was celebrated with inordinate pomp onthe 26th December 1613. The bride had the assurance to appear with maidenly hair unbound upon her shoulders. John Chamberlain, writing to Mrs. Alice Carleton, December 30th, says, "She was married in her hair, and led to the chapel by her bridemen, a Duke of Saxony that is here, and the Earl of Northampton, her great-uncle." The wedding was celebrated in the Chapel Royal, in the same place and by the same bishop who had solemnised the previous marriage. King, Queen, and Archbishop were all present, not to mention those of the nobility who wished to stand well with the King and his favourite, and rich gifts were brought by all. Gondomar, wishing to show himself attentive to so highly favoured a pair, sent them some magnificent jewels. The City of London, the Merchant Adventurers, the East India Company, and the Customs sent each their present of precious metals of great value. Gold, silver, and jewels were showered upon them throughout the first half of January 1614. Bacon, though personally no admirer of Somerset, naturally did not hold back. It is very significantly remarked in a letter from John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton, December 23, 1613, "Sir Francis Bacon prepares a masque to honour the marriage, which will stand him in about £2000, and though he have been offered some help by the House, and especially by Mr. Solicitor, Sir Henry Yelverton, who would have sent him £500, yet he would not accept it, but offers them the whole charge with the honour." A few years later it is Bacon who conducts the poisoning case against Rochester.
The day following the wedding the King sent a message to the Lord Mayor, inviting him to arrange a fête for Lord and Lady Somerset. The City vainly endeavoured to excuse itself on the ground of insufficient space, but the King himself suggested a remedy, and it was arranged that the guests should go in procession from Westminster to the City, the gentlemen on horseback and the ladies in carriages. The bride was pleased to consider her carriage suitable to the occasion, but not being satisfied with her horses, she sent to borrow Lord Winwood's. He, replying that it did not beseem so great a lady to borrow, gallantly begged her acceptance of the horses as a gift.
Macaulay has likened this Court to that of Nero, and Swinburne has added that these celebrations recall the bridals of Sporus and Locusta. Chapman had already inscribed to Rochester two of the dedicatory sonnets which accompanied the last books of his translation of the Iliad, and filled them with absurdly exaggerated praise of the Viscount's "heroic virtues." He now wrote his "Andromeda Liberata" in glorification of the nuptials, and on his being attacked on that score, he retorted with his exceedingly naïve "Defence of Perseus and Andromeda."
Life with Lady Frances could have no beneficial effect upon Somerset's character. Nothing was magnificent enough for him,and he was constantly importing new fashions in order to please his master and his wife. That ingenuously moralising historian, Arthur Wilson, complains bitterly of his appearance, his curled and perfumed locks, smooth shaven face and bare neck, and the golden embroideries lavished upon his attire. His only occupation was to solicit estates and money of the King. The subjects supplied him handsomely, for every petitioner paid tribute to Somerset. How much he received in this manner is uncertain, but he spent not less than £90,000 a year. It may be said to his credit, that he never, as did the later favourites, sought to tamper with the law, and he now and then displayed some generosity, but it was the exactions of his Howard connections which ruined him. The Council's most honourable members, amongst whom was Shakespeare's patron, Pembroke, saw with indignation that he predisposed the King in favour of their rivals.
His successor appeared in 1614. George Villiers, a young, handsome man of lively disposition, was promoted step by step, yet not too hastily, for fear of wounding Somerset's feelings. His presence at Court, however, was exceedingly disagreeable to the latter, who treated his rival with cold insolence, and seized every opportunity of humbling him. Somerset's passionate temper and arrogant disposition soon betrayed him into treating the King with similar superciliousness. He was rebuked by James, and a temporary reconciliation was effected; but how far Carr was from the enjoyment of a clear conscience is shown by his soliciting a general pardon, such as Wolsey had received from Henry VIII., from the King at this time, which was to include every possible offence, not forgetting murder. This, he pointed out to James, was in case his enemies should attempt to destroy him by false accusations after the King's death. James was willing, but Lord Ellesmere refused to apply the great seal to the document in question. The King's wrath was great but unavailing. Ellesmere fell upon his knees, but refused to affix the seal.
Soon after this Somerset experienced the need of this comprehensive absolution which he had failed to secure. The apothecary's boy, who had administered the injection to Overbury, fell dangerously ill at Flushing, and, wishing to ease his burdened soul, confessed the murder to Lord Winwood. Helwys was examined, Weston was examined, and Lord and Lady Somerset were soon implicated in the case. As soon as Somerset heard that he was accused, he quitted the King, with whom he was staying at Royston, and started for London in order to clear himself. The King, by this time, was profoundly weary of his old favourite, and entirely taken up by his new. To give some idea of James's dissimulation, we will quote Sir Anthony Weldon's account, as an eye-witness, of the parting between the King and Somerset. "The Earle when he kissed his hand, the King hung about his neck, slabbering his cheeks, saying, 'For God's sake,when shall I see thee again? On my soul, I shall neither eat nor sleep until you come again.' The Earle told him, on Monday (this being on the Friday). 'For God's sake, let me,' said the King. 'Shall I, shall I;' then lolled about his neck. 'Then, for God's sake, give thy lady this kiss for me.' In the same manner at the stayres' head, at the middle of the stayres, and at the stayres' foot. The Earl was not in his coach when the King used these very words, 'I shall never see his face more.'"
Short work was made of the subordinate culprits. Mrs. Turner, Weston, Helwys, and the apothecary Franklin, were all declared guilty and hanged. The Countess bore testimony to her husband's innocence, and he went to the Tower with the collar of the Garter and the George about his neck. He threatened that if he were brought to trial he would betray secrets which contained an accusation against the King—contemporary letters show that this was understood to mean that he would confess to having poisoned Prince Henry at the King's instigation; but he abandoned this accusation later, and conducted his defence with dignity, denying all complicity in the murder. The Countess was less self-possessed. The judgment hall was filled with spectators, and the Earl of Essex amongst them was seated exactly opposite her. As the accusation was read, she trembled and turned pale, and when Weston's name was reached, she covered her face with her fan. When, according to custom, she was asked if she acknowledged herself guilty, she could but answer, Yes. She was condemned to death, and to the question whether she had anything further to add, replied that she would say nothing to palliate her guilt, but prayed the King's mercy. Somerset was also unanimously declared guilty.
The King pardoned them both. He could hardly send to the scaffold the man who had so long been his most intimate friend, neither could he well despatch thither the daughter of his Chancellor of the Exchequer. But although Somerset steadily maintained his innocence, both he and his wife were sent to the Tower.
In the letters written at the time of the trial, as much mention is made of Sir George Villiers as of Somerset. The new favourite has been ill for some time, "not without suspicion of smallpox, which if it had fallen outactum erat de amicitia. But it proves otherwise, and we say there is much casting about how to make him a great man, and that he shall now be made of the Garter," &c.
He was soon made Cupbearer, Chamberlain, Master of the Horse, Marquis of Buckingham, and Keeper of the Great Seal, and he retained his pernicious influence well into the reign of Charles the First. It is highly characteristic of James that he was now as anxious to procure Villiers Raleigh's old estate, Sherborne, from the imprisoned Somerset as he had been to wrest it from the imprisoned Raleigh for Somerset. He must have regarded it as a lawful "morrowing gift," so inextricablyhad it become associated with a rising favourite in his mind. Somerset was given to understand that he would obtain a free pardon, together with the restitution of the rest of his properties, if he would secure the now all-powerful Villiers' protection by relinquishing Sherborne in his favour. On his obstinately refusing, he and Lady Somerset were left to languish for six long years in the Tower.[1]