Raleigh and Essex
In 1596 Raleigh joined the expedition against Cadiz, fighting hard and writing the story of it as he fought. He was wounded in the leg, and the queen, treating him kindly, made him captain of her guard. In 1597 he commanded part of the fleet that Essex led to the Azores. Separated from the rest by a storm, his ships met the enemy and defeated him, and Essex, whose victory Raleigh had snatched, never forgave him.
Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, was even more charming than Raleigh. He had Walter's ambition, taste and pride, was more impetuous in temper and less witty, and was the more chivalrous of the two. He believed a nobleman should live by the code of nobility. Active and fond of clever people, he won at the joust and showed great courage in war, yet loved poetry and philosophy and patronized poets and philosophers. When his mother became Leicester's second wife, Leicester brought the youth to court to offset the appeal of Raleigh.
The queen, then in her fifties, felt a motherly affection for the hot-tempered, handsome young man of twenty, and he was in effect the son who eased her childlessness. They talked, rode, listened to music and played cards together. It was said she remarked that his lordship did not go home till the birds began to sing at dawn. When Essex secretly married the widow of Philip Sidney, the aging queen was hurt, but she soon forgave him and kept him on the Privy Council until 1593. Still, he was not made for courts or politics. His secretary Cuffe said love and hatred showed on his face and he did not know how to hide his feelings. He made enemies of Raleigh, of William and Robert Cecil, and in the end of the grateful Bacon and the untamable queen.
The young Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, destined to influence Europe's thought more than any other man of Elizabeth's era, was born in 1561 at York House, the official residence of the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, an office held by his father Sir Nicholas. Elizabeth called the clever boy her young Lord Keeper. Weak health turned him from sport to study, and his learning soon became one of the marvels of the age. After three years at Cambridge he was sent to France with the English ambassador to learn statecraft. There his father died suddenly in 1579 before buying land for his youngest son, and Francis, left poor, returned to study law at Gray's Inn. As a nephew of Burghley he asked for office, and after four years of waiting wrote his uncle a curious note arguing that his youth was offset by the length of his gown. In 1584, at twenty-three, he was elected to Parliament and won notice for his tolerance toward the Puritans, among whom his mother counted herself. The queen ignored his arguments, but he repeated them boldly in a private tract, An Advertisement Touching the Controversies of the Church of England (1589).
He proposed that anyone who promised to defend England against every foreign power opposing her independence and liberty, the papal power included, should not be persecuted for his belief. Elizabeth and Cecil thought the young philosopher a little forward, and in truth he was ahead of his age.
The adviser and the earl
Essex admired Bacon's wit and listened to his counsel. The young scholar urged the young nobleman to be humble, or else to moderate his spending, and to seek civil rather than military offices, since political failures are easier to mend than military ones. He told him to see his popularity with the crowd as a danger in the queen's eyes. Bacon hoped Essex would become a statesman and so open a path for his own advancement. In 1592, writing to Burghley, he declared that at thirty-one he had taken all knowledge to be his province and that this ambition was fixed in him beyond removing.
When Essex pressed Cecil and the queen to give Bacon the vacant post of attorney-general, he failed. Edward Coke, older and technically better qualified, was chosen. Essex felt at fault and gave Bacon an estate at Twickenham, which the book values at 1,800 pounds. Before enjoying it Bacon spent a short time in prison for debt. In 1597 he was made one of the queen's learned counsel.
The slap and the fall
Against Bacon's advice Essex entered the army and sought supreme command. His dash at Cadiz made him popular and so alarmed the council, while his failure at the Azores, his pride, his extravagance and his sharp tongue irritated courtiers and the queen. When she refused his choice of Sir George Carew for Ireland, Essex turned his back on her in scorn. Furious, Elizabeth boxed his ears and cried out that he should be gone. Gripping his sword, he said aloud that he would not take such an insult, not even from her father. He stormed out, and everyone expected the Tower (1598). But she did nothing, and a few months later sent him to Ireland as her lord deputy, perhaps to be rid of him.
Bacon had warned him against taking a command in a hopeless struggle of force. Essex wanted to lead an army. He left Dublin's road on 27 March 1599 amid the cheers of the crowd, the worry of friends and the satisfaction of enemies. Six months later, after failing, he returned without leave, burst into the queen's dressing room and tried to justify himself. She listened through clenched teeth and placed him in the Lord Keeper's custody at York House pending charges. London, unaware of his failure and remembering his victories, was displeased. The council ordered a semi-public hearing, and Bacon, as one of the queen's learned counsel, was told to draw up the charges. He asked to be excused, but when pressed he agreed. His charge was mild, Essex admitted it was fair and promised to obey the law. He was stripped of his offices and confined at home until the queen should relent (5 June 1600). Bacon defended him, and on 26 August Essex was freed.
The rising of 1601
At home Essex went on seeking power. A friend of his, the Earl of Southampton, patron of Shakespeare, was sent to Ireland to urge Lord Mountjoy to return with his army and let Essex take the government. Mountjoy refused. In early 1601 Essex wrote to James VI of Scotland offering to defend his claim to succeed Elizabeth, and James replied encouragingly. London buzzed with rumors: that Robert Cecil meant to put the Spanish king's daughter on the throne, that Essex would be locked in the Tower, and that Raleigh had sworn to kill him.
Young Cecil had the queen summon Essex to the council, perhaps to hear him explain his conduct. His friends warned him it might be a trap. One of them, Sir Gelly Meyrick, paid Chamberlain's company to perform Shakespeare's Richard II at Southwark that night, a play about a king rightfully deposed. Next day (the book says 7 February 1601) about three hundred supporters of Essex gathered armed in his courtyard. When the Lord Keeper and three nobles came to inquire, they were held, and the group, with Essex himself still hesitating, marched into London to raise a revolt. He expected the people to rise, but preachers told them to stay indoors, and they did. Government forces dispersed the rebels. Essex was captured and sent to the Tower.
He was quickly tried for treason. The council ordered Bacon to help Coke prepare the charge. Refusing would have wrecked his career; consenting, in the end, damaged his reputation after death. When Coke stumbled in reading the indictment, Bacon rose and presented the case with convincing and damning clarity. Essex confessed and named his associates. Five were arrested and executed, and Southampton was sentenced to life in prison; James I later freed him. A story says the queen once gave Essex a ring and promised help if he returned it in time of need, but if he sent it, it never reached her. On 25 February 1601 Essex, at thirty-five, met the fate his own nature had prepared and faced death bravely. Raleigh, his enemy, is said to have wept as it was done.