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Devereux eighteenth centuries, and its popularity fully accounts for the wide dissemination of the anecdote of the ring. Francis Osborn, in his `Traditionall Memoires of Elizabeth' (1658), repeats this version, but he is not to be trusted, and in 1682 the story was dramatised by John Banks (fl. 1696)[q. v.] in the `Unhappy Favourite.' In 1680 Louis Aubery, Sieur du Maurier, issued at Paris a French history of Holland, and in the course of his account of Prince Maurice tells the tale again, alleging that Sir Dudley Carleton told it to Prince Maurice (pp. 260-1 ). Here the Countess of Nottingham is induced by her husband to retain the ring, and Cecil is not mentioned. Aubery's book was translated into English in 1693, but the ring episode was omitted. That Essex should have committed the care of so precious a token to the wife of his enemy, the Earl of Nottingham, is sufficiently improbable. To meet this criticism Lady Elizabeth Spelman, at the end of the seventeenth century, related, on the alleged authority of her ancestor, Sir Robert Carey, that Essex directed a boy to carry the ring to Lady Scrope, the Countess of Nottingham's sister, who was in attendance on Elizabeth, and that the boy gave it by mistake to Lady Nottingham. According to the later portions of the story, Lady Nottingham fell ill soon after Essex's death; when dying was visited by the queen, and confessed that she had wilfully withheld the ring. The queen is stated to have burst into a violent passion, and on her return home sickened of remorse and died. This account of Elizabeth's death is quite unsupported by contemporary authorities. Their silence as to the whole episode, the improbability of its details, and the suspicious character of all the testimony in its favour stamp it as spurious (cf., Hist. Oxf. transl. i. 352-3; Brewer in Quart. Rev. 1876, i. 23). A ring, stated to be the identical token, was in the possession of Lord John Thynne at Hawnes, Bedfordshire, and is said to have descended to him through Essex's daughter Frances. Other rings, of which the same story is told, exist, and have as little claim to authenticity (, ii. 183-4;, Progresses, iv. 550).

Elizabeth showed great reluctance to sign Essex's death-warrant. The first signature was recalled. On 24 Feb. she signed the warrant a second time, and it was duly executed. On Wednesday, the 26th, Essex, dressed in black and accompanied by Ashton, Barlow, and Montford, was led to the high court above Cæsar's Tower, within the Tower precincts. About a hundred persons were present. Essex acknowledged the justice of his sentence, and asseverated that he died a protestant. After praying aloud his head was severed at three blows. Cecil wrote that he `suffered with great patience and humility.' Marshal Biron, who met with a similar fate soon afterwards, declared that he died more like a minister than a soldier. He was buried in the Tower. By the queen's special order his banner as knight of the Garter was not removed from St. George's Chapel. Elizabeth doubtless grieved deeply over Essex's death, but when in April 1601 she thanked James VI for his congratulations on the suppression of the rebellion, her words prove that she did not doubt the justice of Essex's execution (Correspondence of Elizabeth and James VI, p. 136). When Henry IV of France sent his envoy Biron to England in September, Elizabeth is stated by Camden and Stow to have dwelt in vigorous language on the heinousness of Essex's crimes. A speech purporting to have been delivered by her on the occasion was published in French at the Hague in 1607. Elizabeth is there made to acknowledge that she would have pardoned Essex had he appealed to her for mercy and confessed himself worthy of death. Identical expressions are attributed to the queen by George Chapman the dramatist in his tragedy of 'Marshal Biron' (probably written in 1602).

The populace regretted Essex's fall, and Derrick, the executioner, is said to have narrowly escaped death at the hands of the mob on the day of the earl's death. Two extant ballads (Roxburghe Coll. i. 274-5) attest the popular sympathy, but show that his execution was generally judged to be inevitable. An official `Declaration of the Treasons' was drawn up and published by Bacon in 1601, and in 1603 Bacon published an `Apologie,' in which he endeavoured to justify his complicated relations with Essex. For many years the government, apparently fearing the effects of a bad example, rigorously suppressed all published apologies for Essex. Father Parsons states that a defence entitled `The Finding of the Rayned Deer' was issued at Antwerp (Notes and Queries, 1st ser. ii. 103). In 1604 a panegyric by Robert Pricket, entitled `Honor's fame in Triumph Riding,' attempted to exculpate Essex, and seems to have been suppressed (Gawdy MSS. 1885, p. 92). Samuel Daniel's `Philotas' was censured on a like suspicion in 1605 [see Daniel, Samuel (DNB00), 1562-1619]. But Sir Thomas Smith, in his `Voiage in Rushie,' 1605, was allowed to make honourable mention of the earl. The permanence of Essex's popular reputation as a sturdy champion of British interests against Spain was attested in 1624 by the publication of `Robert, Earl of Essex, his Ghost sent from Elizium to the Nobility,