——“guilty! guilty! i shall despair! there is no creature loves me: and, if i die, no soul will pity me! nay, wherefore should they? since i myself find in myself no mercy to myself!”—king richard iii.
the twelfth hour of the night had already been announced from half the steeples of england’s metropolis, and the echoes of its last stroke lingered in mournful cadences among the vaulted aisles of westminster. it was not then, as now, the season of festivity, the high-tides of the banquet and the ball, that witching time of night. no din of carriages or glare of torches disturbed the sober silence of the streets, illuminated only by the waning light of an uncertain moon; no music streamed upon the night-wind from the latticed casements of the great, who were contented, in the days of their lion-queen, to portion out their hours for toil or merriment, for action or repose, according to the ministration of those great lights which rule the heavens with an indifferent and impartial sway, and register their brief career of moments to the peer as to the peasant by one unvarying standard.
a solitary lamp burned dim and cheerlessly before a low-browed portal in st. stephen’s; and a solitary warder, in the rich garb still preserved by the yeomen of the guard, walked to and fro with almost noiseless steps—his corslet and the broad394 head of his shouldered partisan flashing momentarily out from the shadow of the arch, as he passed and repassed beneath the light which indicated the royal residence—distinguished by no prouder decorations—of her before whose wrath the mightiest of europe’s sovereigns shuddered. a pile of the clumsy fire-arms then in use, stacked beneath the eye of the sentinel, and the dark outlines of several bulky figures outstretched in slumber upon the pavement, seemed to prove that some occurrences of late had called for more than common vigilance in the guarding of the place.
the prolonged cry of the watcher, telling at each successive hour that all was well, had scarcely passed his lips, before the distant tramp of a horse, and the challenge of a sentry from the bridge, came heavily up the wind. for a moment the yeoman listened with all his senses; then, as it became evident that the rider was approaching, he stirred the nearest sleeper with the butt of his heavy halbert. “up, gilbert! up, man, and to your tools, ere they be wanted. what though the earl’s proud head lie low?—he hath friends and fautors enough in the city, i trow, to raise a coil whene’er it lists them!” the slumbers of the yeomen were exchanged on the instant for the guarded bustle of preparations; and, before the horseman, whose approach had caused so much excitement, drew bridle at the palace-gate, a dozen bright sparks glimmering under the dark portal, like glow-worms beneath some bushy coppice, announced the readiness of as many levelled matchlocks.
“stand, ho! the word—”
“a post to her grace of england!” was the irregular reply, as the rider, hastily throwing himself from off his jaded hackney, advanced toward the yeoman.
“stand there, i say!—no nearer, on your life! shoot, gilbert, shoot, an’ he stir but a hand-breadth!”
395 “tush! friend, delay me not,” replied the intruder, halting, however, as he was required to do; “my haste is urgent, and that which i bear with me passeth ceremony—a letter to the queen! on your heads be it, if i meet impediment! see that ye pass it to her grace forthwith.”
“a letter? ha! there may be some device in this; yet pass it hitherward.” a broad parchment, secured by a fold of floss silk, with its deeply-sealed wax attached, was placed in his hand. a light was obtained from the hatch of a caliver, and the superscription, evidently too important for delay, hurried the guards to action. “the earl of nottingham”—it ran—“to his most high and sovereign lady, elizabeth of england. for life! for life! for life!—ride and run—haste, haste, post-haste, till this be delivered!”
after a moment’s conference among the warders, the bearer was directed to advance; a yeoman led the panting horse away to the royal meuf; and the corporal of the guard, striking the wicket with his dagger-hilt, shortly obtained a hearing and admission from the gentleman-pensioner on duty. within the palace no result was immediately perceived from the occurrence which had caused so much bustle outside the gates; the soldiers on duty conversed for a while in stifled whispers, then relapsed into their customary silence; the night wore on without further interruption to their watch, and ere they were relieved they had well nigh forgotten the messenger’s arrival.
not so, however, was the letter received by the inmates of the royal residence. ushers and pages were awakened, lights glanced, and hurried steps and whispering voices echoed through the corridors. the chamberlain, so great was considered the urgency of the matter, was summoned from his pillow; and he with no small trepidation proceeded at once to the apartment of elizabeth. his hesitating tap at the door of the ante-chamber—occupied by the ladies whose duty it was to watch the person of their imperious mistress by night—failed indeed to396 excite the attention of the sleeping maidens, but caught at once the ear of the extraordinary woman whom they served.
“without there!” she cried, in a clear, unbroken tone, although full sixty winters had passed over her head.
“hunsdon, so please your grace, with a despatch of import from the earl of nottingham.”
“god’s death! ye lazy wenches! hear ye not the man without, that i must rive my throat with clamoring? up, hussies, up—or, by the soul of my father, ye shall sleep for ever!” the frightened girls sprang from their couches at the raised voice of their angry queen, like a covey of partridges at the yelp of the springer, and for a moment all was confusion.
“what now, ye fools!” she cried again, in harsh and excited accents, that reached the ears of the old earl without—“hear ye not that my chamberlain awaits an audience? fling yonder robe of velvet o’er our person, and rid us of this night-gear—so!—the mirror now! my ruff and curch! and now—admit him!”
“admit him! an’ it list your grace, it were scarce seemly in ladies to appear thus disarrayed—”
“heard ye, or heard ye not? i say, admit him! think ye old hunsdon cares to look upon such trumpery as ye, or must i wait upon my wenches’ pleasure? god’s head, but ye grow malapert!”
the old queen’s voice had not yet ceased, before the door was opened; and although the ladies had taken the precaution of extinguishing the light, and seeking such concealment as the angles of the chamber afforded, the sturdy old earl—who, notwithstanding the queen’s assertion, had as quick an eye for beauty as many a younger gallant—could easily discover that the modesty which had demurred to the admission of a man was not by any means uncalled for or even squeamish. had he been, however, much more inclined to linger by the way397 than his old-fashioned courtesy permitted, he must have been a bold man to delay; for twice, ere he could cross the floor to her chamber, did his name reach his ears in the impatient accents of elizabeth: “hunsdon! i say—hunsdon! ’s death! art thou crippled, man?”
there was little of the neatness or taste of modern days displayed in the decorations of the royal chamber. tapestries there were, and velvet hangings, carpets from turkey, and huge mirrors of venetian steel; but a plentiful lack of linen, and of those thousand nameless comforts, which a peasant’s dame would miss to-day, uncared for in those rude times by princesses. huge waxen torches flared in the wind, which found its way through the ill-constructed lattice; and a greater proportion of the smoke, from the logs smouldering in the jams of a chimney wider than that of a modern kitchen, reeked upward to the blackened rafters of the unceiled roof.
rigid and haughty, in the midst of this strange medley of negligence and splendor, sat the dreaded monarch, approached by none even of her most favored ministers save with fear and trembling. her person, tall and slender from her earliest years, and now emaciated to almost superhuman leanness by the workings of her own restless spirit, even more than by her years, presented an aspect terrible, yet magnificent withal. it seemed as though the dauntless firmness of a more than masculine soul had won the power to support and animate a frame which it had rescued from the grave; it seemed as though the years which had blighted had failed in their efforts to destroy; it seemed as though that faded tenement of clay might yet endure, like the blasted oak, for countless years, although the summer foliage, which rendered it so beautiful of yore, had long since been scattered by the wild autumnal hurricane, or seared by the nipping frosts of winter. her eye alone, in the general decay of her person, retained its wonted brilliancy, shining398 forth from her pale and withered features with a lustre so remarkable as to appear almost supernatural.
“so! give us the letter—there! pause not for thy knee, man; give us the letter!”—and tearing the frail band by which it was secured asunder, she was in a moment entirely engrossed, as it would seem, in its contents. her countenance waxed paler and paler as she read; and the shadows of an autumn morning flit not more changefully across the landscape, as cloud after cloud is driven over the sun’s disk, than did the varying expressions of anxiety, doubt, and sorrow, chase one another from the speaking lineaments of elizabeth.
“ha!” she exclaimed, after a long pause, “this must be looked to. see that our barge be manned forthwith, and tarry not for aught of state or ceremony. thyself will go with us, and stop not thou to don thy newest-fashioned doublet: this is no matter that brooks ruffling!—’sdeath, man! ’tis life or death! and now begone, sir! we lack our tirewoman’s service!”
an hour had not elapsed before a barge—easily distinguished as one belonging to the royal household, by its decorations, and the garb of the rowers—shot through a side arch of westminster bridge, and passed rapidly, under sail and oar, down the swift current of the river, now almost at ebb tide. it was not, however, the barge of state, in which the progresses of the sovereign were usually made; nor was it followed by the long train of vessels, freighted with ladies of the court, guards, and musicians, which were wont to follow in its wake. in the stern-sheets sat two persons: a man advanced in years, and remarkable for an air of nobility, which could not be disguised even by the thick boat-cloak he had wrapped about him, as much perhaps to afford protection against the eyes of the inquisitive as against the dense mists of the thames; and a lady, whose tall person was folded in wrappings so voluminous as to defy399 the closest scrutiny. at a short distance in the rear, another boat came sweeping along, in the crew and passengers of which it would have required a penetrating glance to discover a dozen or two of the yeomen of the guard, in their undress liveries of gray and black, without either badge or cognizance, and their carbines concealed beneath a pile of cloaks.
it was elizabeth herself, who, in compliance with the mysterious despatch she had so lately received, was braving the cold damps of the river at an hour so unusual, and in a guise so far short of her accustomed state. the moon had already set, and the stars were feebly twinkling through the haze that rose in massive volumes from the steaming surface of the water, but no symptoms of approaching day were as yet visible in the east; the buildings on the shore were entirely shrouded from view by the fog, and the few lighters and smaller craft, moored here and there between the bridges, could scarcely be discovered in time to suffer the barge to be sheered clear of their moorings. it was perhaps on account of these obstacles that their progress was less rapid than might reasonably have been expected from the rate at which they cut the water.
of the six stately piles which may now be seen spanning the noble stream, but two were standing at the period of which we write; and several long reaches were to be passed before the fantastic mass of london bridge, with its dwelling-houses and stalls for merchandise towering above the irregular thoroughfares of the city, loomed darkly up against the horizon. scarcely had they threaded its narrow and cavern-like arches, before a pale and sickly light, of a faint yellow hue, more resembling the glare of torches than the blessed radiance of the sun, gilded the decreasing fog-wreaths, and glanced upon the level water. the sun had risen, and for a time hung blinking on the misty horizon, and shorn of half his beams, till a fresh breeze from the westward brushed the vapors aloft, and hurried400 them seaward with a velocity which shortly left the scenery to be viewed in unobscured beauty. just as this change was wrought upon the face of nature, the royal barge was darting, with a speed that increased every instant, before the esplanade and frowning artillery of the tower; the short waves were squabbling and splashing beneath the dark jaws and lowered portcullis of the “traitor’s gate,” that fatal passage through which so many of the best and bravest of england’s nobility had entered, never to return!
brief as was the moment of their transit in front of that sad portal, hunsdon had yet time to mark the terrible expression of misery, almost of despair, that gleamed across the features of the queen. she spoke not, but she wrung her hands with a sigh, that uttered volumes of repentance and regret, too late to be availing; and the stern old chamberlain, who felt his heart yearn at the sorrows of a mistress whom he loved no less than he revered, knew that the mute gesture and the painful sigh were extorted from that masculine bosom only by the extremity of anguish. she had not looked upon that “den of drunkards with the blood of princes” since it had been glutted with its last and noblest victim. essex, the princely, the valiant, the generous, and the noble essex—the favorite of the people, the admired of men, the idol, the cherished idol of elizabeth—had gone, a few short moons before, through that abhorred gateway—had gone to die—had died by her unwilling mandate! bitter and long had been the struggle between her wounded pride and her sincere affection; between her love for the man and her wrath against the rebel: thrice had she signed the fatal warrant, and as often consigned it to the flames; and when at length her indignation prevailed, and she affixed her name to the fell scroll—which, once executed, she never smiled again—that indignation was excited, not so much by the violence of his proceedings against her crown, as by his obstinate delay401 in claiming pity and pardon from an offended but indulgent mistress.
onward, onward they went, the light boat dancing over the waves that added to its speed, the canvass fluttering merrily, and the swell which their own velocity excited laughing in their wake. it was a time and a scene to enliven every bosom, to make every english heart bound happily and proudly. vessels-of-war, and traders, galliot, and caravel, and bark, and ship, lay moored in the centre of the pool and along the wharves, the thousand dwellings of a floating city. all this elizabeth herself had done: the commerce of england was the fruit of her fostering; the power of her courage and sagacity; the mighty navy of her creation.
they passed below the dark broadsides and massive armaments of forty ships-of-war, some of the unwonted bulk of a thousand tons, with the victorious flags of howard, hawkins, frobisher, and drake, streaming from mast and yard; but not a smile chased the dull expression of fixed grief from the brow of her who had “marred the armada’s pride;” nor did the slightest symptom on board her three most chosen vessels—the speedwell, the tryeright, or the blak-galley, the very models of the world for naval architecture—show that the queen and mistress of them all was gliding in such humble trim below their victorious batteries.
the limits of the city were already left far behind; green meadows and noble trees now filled the place of the crowded haunts of wealth and industry, while here and there a lordly dwelling, with its trim avenues, and terraced gardens sloping to the water’s edge, adorned the prospect. the turrets of nottingham house, the suburban palace of that powerful peer, were soon in view; when a pageant swept along the river, stemming the ebb tide with a proud and stately motion—a pageant which, at any other period, would have been calculated, above all402 things else, to wake the lion-like exultation of the queen, though now it was passed in silence, and unheeded. the rover cavendishh—who, a few years before, a gentleman of wealth and worship, had dissipated his paternal fortunes, and in the southern seas and on the spanish main had become a famous free-booter—was entering the river with his prizes in goodly triumph. the flag-ship, a caravel of a hundred and twenty tons only, led the van, close-hauled and laden almost gunwale-deep with the precious spoils of spain. her distended topsail flashed in the sunlight like a royal banner, a single sheet of the richest cloth of gold; her courses were of crimson damask, her mariners clad in garments of the finest silk; banners flaunted from every part of the rigging; and over all the “meteor flag of england,” the red cross of st. george, streamed rearward, as if pointing to the long train of prizes which followed. nineteen vessels, of every size and description then in use—carracks of the western indies, galleons of castile and leon, with the flag of spain, so late the mistress of the sea, disgracefully reversed beneath the captor’s ensign—sailed on in long and even array; while in the rear of all, the remainder of the predatory squadron, two little sea-wasps of forty and sixty tons burden, presented themselves in proud contrast to their bulky prizes, the hardy crews filling the air with clamors, and the light cannon booming in feeble but proud exultation. time was when such a sight had roused her enthusiastic spirit almost to frenzy, but now that spirit was occupied, engrossed by cares peculiarly its own. the coxswain of the royal barge, his eye kindling with patriotic pride, and presuming a little on his long and faithful services, put up the helm, as if about to run alongside403 of the leading galley; but a cold frown and a forward wafture of the hand repelled his ardor; and the men their oars bending to the work, the barge was at her moorings ere many minutes had elapsed, by the water-gate of nottingham-house—and the queen made her way, unannounced and almost unattended, to the chamber of the aged countess.
h this incident, which is strictly historical, even to the smallest details, did in fact occur several years earlier; as the death of elizabeth did not take place until the year 1603, whereas the triumphant return of thomas cavendish is related by hume as having happened a. d. 1587. it is hoped that the anachronism will be pardoned, in behalf of the picture of the times afforded by its introduction.
the sick woman had been for weeks wasting away beneath a slow and painful malady; her strength had failed her, and for days her end had been almost hourly expected. still, with that strange and unnatural tenacity through which the dying sometimes cling to earth, even after every rational hope of a day’s prolonged existence has been extinguished—she had hovered as it were on the confines of life and death, the vital flame flickering like that of a lamp whose aliment has long since been exhausted, fitfully playing about the wick which can no longer support it. her reason, which had been partially obscured during the latter period of her malady, had been restored to its full vigor on the preceding evening; but the only fruit of its restoration was the utmost anguish of mental suffering and conscientious remorse. from the moment when the messenger, whose arrival we have already witnessed, had been despatched on his nocturnal mission, she had passed the time in fearful struggles with the last foe, wrestling as it were bodily with the dark angel; now pleading with the almighty, and adjuring him by her sufferings and by her very sins, to spare her yet a little while; now shrieking on the name of elizabeth, and calling her, as she valued her soul’s salvation, to make no long tarrying. in the opinion of the leeches who watched around her pillow, and of the terrified preacher who communed with his own heart and was still, her life was kept up only by this fierce and feverish excitement.
at a glance she recognised the queen, before another eye had marked her entrance. “ha!” she groaned, in deep, sepulchral404 tones, “she is come, before whose coming my guilty soul had not the power to pass away! she is come to witness the damnation of an immortal spirit! to hear a tale of sin and sorrow that has no parallel! hear my words, o queen! hear my words now, and laugh—laugh if you can; for, by him who made us both, and is now dealing with me according to my merits, never shall you laugh again! hereafter you shall groan, and weep, and tremble, and curse yourself, as i do! laugh, i say, elizabeth of england—laugh now, or never laugh again!”
for a moment the spirit of the queen, manly and strong as it was, beyond perhaps all precedent, was fairly overawed and cowed by the fierce intensity of the dying woman’s manner. not long, however, could that proud soul quail to any created thing.
“’fore god, woman,” she cried, “thou art bewitched, or desperately wicked! what, in the fiend’s name, mean ye?”
“in the fiend’s name truly, for he alone inspired me! look here—and then pardon me, elizabeth; in god’s name, pardon me!”
as she spoke, she held aloft, in her thin and bird-like fingers, a massive ring of gold, from which a sapphire of rare price gleamed brilliantly, casting a bright, dancing spark of blue reflection upon her hollow, ghastly features. “know you,” she screamed, “this token?”
“where got you it, woman? speak, i say, speak, or i curse you!—where got you that same token?” the proud queen shook and shuddered as she spoke, like one in an ague-fit.
“essex!” sighed the dying countess, through her set teeth—“the murthered essex!”
“murthered? god’s death, thou liest! he was a traitor—done to death! o god! o god! i know not what i say!” and a big tear-drop—the first in many a year, 405the first perhaps that ever had bedewed that iron cheek—slid slowly down the face of elizabeth, and fell heavily on the brow of the glaring sufferer, who still held the ring aloft, in hands clasped close in attitude of supplication. “speak,” she said again, in milder accents, “speak, nottingham: what of—of essex?”
“that ring he gave to me, to bear it to thy footstool, and to pray a gracious mistress’s favor to an erring but a grateful servant—”
“and thou, woman—thou!” absolutely shrieked the queen.
“gave it not to thee—that essex might die, not live!” was the steady reply. “pardon me before i die; pardon me, as god shall pardon thee!—”
“god shall not pardon me, woman!—neither do i pardon thee! he, an’ he will, may pardon thee; but that will i do never! never!—by the life of the eternal, never!”—and, in the overpowering fury and agitation of the moment, she seized the dying sinner with an iron gripe, and shook her in the bed, till the ponderous fabric creaked and quivered. not another word, not another sob passed the lips of the old countess: her frame was shaken by a mightier hand than that of the indignant queen; a deep, harsh rattle came from her chest; she raised one skinny arm aloft, and after the jaw had dropped, and the glaring eyeball fixed, that wretched limb stood erect, appealing as it were from a mortal to an immortal judge!
the paroxysm was over. speechless, and all but motionless, the miserable queen was borne by her attendants to the barge; the tide had shifted, and was still in their favor, though their course was altered. on their return, they again passed the triumphant fleet of cavendish, bearing the mightiest sovereign of the world, the envied of all the earth—a wretched, feeble, heart-broken woman, grovelling like a crushed worm beneath the bitterest of human pangs, the agonies of self-merited misery! a few hours found her outstretched upon the floor of406 her chamber, giving away to anguish uncontrolled and uncontrollable. refusing the earnest prayers of her women, and of her physicians, to suffer herself to be disrobed, and to recline upon her bed; feeding on tears and groans alone; uttering no sound but the name of essex, in one plaintive and oft-repeated cry; mocking at all consolation; acknowledging no comforter except despair—ten long days and nights she lingered thus, in pangs a thousand times more intolerable than those which she had inflicted on her scottish rival: and when, at length, the council of the state assembled, in her last moments, around the death-bed of a sovereign truly and not metaphorically lying in dust and ashes—she named to them, as her successor in the kingdom, the son of that same rival. who shall say that the death of mary stuart went unavenged?
