Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/569

] cap, and commanded every man, in the queen's name, to lay down his arms and depart. The crowd outside continued to shout, "Kill them, kill them! Keep them for hostages! Throw the great seal out of the window!" The queen's officers, being shown into a back room guarded by musketeers, Essex begged them to have patience for half an hour, and, locking the door upon them, left them. Sir John Davis, Sir Gilly Merrick, Francis Tresham, and Owen Salisbury were left in charge of them.

Then Essex, rushing into the street, drew his sword, and followed by Southampton, Rutland, Sandys, Mounteagle, and most of the knights and gentlemen, he made for the City. They were joined on the way by the Earl of Bedford and Lord Cromwell, with 200 others. At Ludgate the guard suffered them to pass, Essex declaring that he was endeavouring to save his life from Raleigh, Cobham, and their accomplices. To their great disappointment, they found nobody at St. Paul's Cross, the queen having sent and warned the corporation to keep away, and see that the people kept within their houses. Essex rode along shouting, "For the queen, my mistress! a plot is laid for my life!" and called upon the citizens to come and follow him. He had relied on his popularity with the masses; but he now found himself miserably deceived. The common people shouted "God bless your honour!" but no man joined him. He had placed much dependence on Smith, one of the sheriffs; but on reaching his house he found him away, and then felt that his whole scheme was abortive. Ho became greatly agitated, and remained a long time in Smith's house, uncertain what to do.

In the meantime there had been great terror at the palace. The ministers were afraid of the friends of Essex declaring in his favour, and admitting him or the people. They therefore had the guards mustered, every avenue to the palace closed, and the streets barricaded with carriages and chairs. The queen alone had shown any courage. About two in the afternoon, Lord Burleigh, with a herald, and the Earl of Cumberland, with Sir Thomas Gerard, proceeded to the City in different directions, proclaimed Essex a traitor, and offered a reward of £1,000 for his apprehension, with a pardon for all his associates who at once returned to their allegiance.

Essex, at the same time, was endeavouring to return towards the Strand, when he met Lord Burleigh, who fled at the sight of him. The guard at Ludgate now resisted his return, and he returned to Queenhithe, whence he went by water to Essex House. There he found that a man in whom he had placed the utmost trust, Ferdinando Gorges, had liberated the Lords of the Council and escorted them to Court, as the price of his own pardon. Captain Owen Salisbury, with better faith, had stood out, and was so wounded as he looked out of a window, that he died the next day.

Essex set about fortifying the house; but it was presently surrounded by a military force with a battering train, and not a soul rose in his defence. The case was hopeless, and about ten o'clock at night Essex and Southampton held a parley from the top of the house with Sir Robert Sidney, and surrendered on promise of a fair trial. They were conveyed for the night to Lambeth Palace. The next day, Essex and Southampton were committed to the Tower, and the other prisoners to different gaols in London and Westminster. But the first victim of this insane insurrection was a soldier of fortune named Thomas Lee, who, on the evening of Essex's arrest, had offered his services to Sir Robert Cecil; but was reported to havo said a day or two after that it Essex's friends meant to save his life, they should petition the queen in a body, and not depart till their prayer was granted. For this trivial expression of opinion he was arrested as he stood in the throng at the door of the presence-chamber whilst the queen was at supper, and, in spite of his protestations of innocence, was accused of a design to murder the queen, and was condemned and executed at Tyburn as a traitor.

On the 19th of February, Essex and Southampton were arraigned before a commission of twenty-five peers, Lord Buckhurst being Lord Steward. With a flagrant contempt of justice, Cobham, Grey, and others, the bitter enemies of Essex, were amongst his judges. He pointed them out to Southampton and smiled. He then demanded of the Lord Chief Justice whether the privilege granted to every commoner of challenging such of his jurors as he had real cause of exception against was to be refused to peers. The Chief Justice replied that peers could not be challenged, for such was their estimation that they were not required to take any oath on arraignment. The Crown lawyers engaged against them were Coke, Yelverton, and Bacon. Coke, as Attorney-General, gave way to all that savage insolence and abuse for which he was famous. He branded the noble prisoners as Papistical, dissolute, desperate, and atheistical rebels. The Earl of Essex, he said, "would have called a Parliament, and a bloody Parliament would that have been, when my Lord of Essex, that now stands all in black, would have worn a bloody robe; but now, in God's judgment, he of his earldom shall be Robert the Last, that of a kingdom thought to be Robert the First."

Essex protested against being judged by Coke's ferocious and unfounded words, declaring that no thought of violence to the queen had ever entered his head, but that they had been compelled to take arms to remove evil counsellors, naming Cobham and Raleigh. Cobham thereupon rose in his place, and denied that he had any hatred to Essex, but only to his ambition. Essex replied that he would gladly lose his right hand to remove from the queen's council such a talebearing, vile calumniator as Cobham. Yelverton compared Essex to Cataline; and on Lord Southampton appealing to Coke whether he really in his conscience believed that they would have done any injury to the queen were it in their power, Coke retorted that in his soul and his conscience he did believe she would not have lived long had she been in their power, remarking that they would have treated her as Henry IV. did Richard II. This base allusion was to the history of Henry IV. by Hayward, which had so much incensed the queen.

From Yelverton and Coke, who, with all their abilities, were time-serving and truculent lawyers, no better could be expected; but every one who reverences the fame of Bacon must read with pain the speech by which he sought to bring the head of his generous patron to the block, and extol the characters of Cecil, Raleigh, and Cobham. Essex asked him who composed the eloquent letters which he had been advised to send to Her Majesty in