ease, yet you embrace that condition which many noble spirits have accepted for advantage; which is that you go upon the greater peril of your fortune, and the less of your reputation; and so the honour countervaileth the adventure. Of which honour your Lordship is in no small possession, when that her Majesty (known to be one of the most judicious princes in discerning of spirits that ever governed) hath made choice of you (merely out of her royal judgment, her affection inclining rather to continue your attendance) into whose hand and trust to put the commandment and conduct of so great forces; the gathering of the fruit of so great charge; the execution of so many counsels; the redeeming of the defaults of so many former governors; and the clearing of the glory of so many and happy years' reign, only in this part eclipsed. Nay further, how far forth the peril of that State is interlaced with the peril of England, and therefore how great the honour is, to keep and defend the approaches or avenues of this kingdom, I hear many discourse; and indeed there is a great difference, whether the tortoise gather herself within her shell hurt or unhurt. And if any man be of opinion, that the nature of the enemy doth extenuate the honour of the service, being but a rebel and a savage,-I differ from him. For I see the justest triumphs that the Romans in their greatness did obtain, and that whereof the emperors in their styles took addition and denomination, were of such an enemy as this; that is people barbarous and not reduced to civility, magnifying a kind of lawless liberty, prodigal in life, hardened in body, fortified in woods and bogs, and placing both justice and felicity in the sharpness of their swords. Such were the Germans and the ancient Britons, and divers others. Upon which kind of people, whether the victory were a conquest, or a reconquest upon a rebellion or a revolt, it made no difference that ever I could find in honour. And therefore it is not the enriching predatory war that hath the pre-eminence of honour, else should it be more honour to bring in a carrack of rich burden than one of the twelve Spanish Apostles. But then this nature of people doth yield a higher point of honour, considering the truth and substance,1 than any war can yield which should be achieved against a civil enemy, if the end may be pacique? im 1 considered in truth and substance: Resusc. ponere morem, to replant and refound the policy of that nation; to which nothing is wanting, but a just and civil government. Which design as it doth descend unto you from your noble father who lost his life in that action (though he paid tribute to nature and not to fortune), so I hope your Lordship shall be as fatal a captain to this war as Africanus was to the war of Carthage, after that both his uncle and father had lost their lives in Spain in the same war. Now although it be true that these things which I write, being but representations unto your Lordship of the honour and appearance of success of the enterprise, be not much to the purpose of any advice: yet it is that which is left to me, being no man of war, and ignorant in the particulars of State. For a man may by the eye set up the white right in the midst of the butt, though he be no archer. Therefore I will only add this wish, according to the English phrase, which terms a well-willing advice a wish; that your Lordship in this whole action, looking forward, would set down this position, That merit is worthier than fame; and looking back hither, would remember this text, That obedience is better than sacrifice. For designing to fame and glory may make your Lordship in the adventure of your person to be valiant as a private soldier, rather than as a General: it may make you in your commandments rather to be gracious than disciplinary: it may make you press action (in respect of the great expectation conceived) rather hastily than seasonably and safely; it may make you seek rather to achieve the war by fine force, than by intermixture of practice: it may make you (if God shall send prosperous beginnings) rather seek the fruition of that honour, than the perfection of the work in hand. And for the other point, that is the proceeding like a good Protestant upon express warrant, and not upon good intention, your Lordship knoweth in your wisdom that as it is most fit for you to desire convenient liberty of instructions, so it is no less fit for you to observe the due limits of them; remembering that the exceeding of them may not only procure in case of adverse accident a dangerous disavow; but also in case of prosperous success be subject to interpretation, as if all were not referred to the right end. Thus have I presumed to write these few lines to your Lordship, in methodo ignorantiæ; which is when a man speaketh of 'So 'Resuscitatio.' The words from "position" to "this" are omitted in the MS. a subject not according to the parts of the matter,1 but according to the model of his own knowledge; and I most humbly desire your Lordship, that the weakness thereof may be supplied in your Lordship by a benign acceptation, as it is in me by my best. wishing. 5. The Earl set out on the 27th of March, 1599, with great popular expectation and acclamation, but with strange and serious misgivings on the part of other people besides Bacon, among those who had better means of judging. A very confidential letter of advice and warning addressed to Sir John Harington by a friend and kinsman holding some office about the Court, and printed in the 'Nuge Antiquæ,' gives us a glimpse behind the curtain. ... "I hear you are to go to Ireland with the Lieutenant, Essex. If so, mark my counsel. . . . Observe the man who commandeth, and yet is commanded himself: he goeth not forth to serve the Queen's realm, but to humour his own revenge. . . . . . If the Lord Deputy performs in the field what he hath promised in the Council, all will be well; but though the Queen hath granted forgiveness for his late demeanour in her presence, we know not what to think hereof. She hath in all outward semblance placed confidence in the man who so lately sought other treatment at her hands: we do sometime think one way and sometime another. . . . . You have now a secret from one that wisheth you all welfare and honour; I know there are overlookers set on you all, so God direct your discretion. Sir William Knolles is not well pleased, the Queen is not well pleased, the Lord Deputy may be pleased now, but I sore fear what may happen hereafter." And more in the same strain. These were conjectures no doubt, drawn from dark hints and rumours of the Court; but they were conjectures formed at the time by lookers-on not personally implicated, and when questions arise hereafter as to the objects with which Essex undertook and entered upon his task, it is fit they should be remembered. And to me I must confess that however gaily and hopefully he expressed himself to private friends like Harington and Bacon,3 the tone of his letters to the Government from the very first seems less like that of a man undertaking either a hopeful enterprise with spirit or an unhopeful one with resolution, than of one who is preparing to quarrel with 3 So 'Resuscitatio.' The MS. has "not according to the matter." 2 Mr. Robert Markham to Sir J. H. Nuge Antiquæ, 1. 240. 'Confessing that your Lordship, in your last conference with me before your journey, spake not in vain, God making it good, that you trusted we should say Quis putasset." See further on, p. 150. his employers and throw upon them the responsibility for what may happen. All his demands are for increase of strength and authority. As fast as one is granted he makes another. And upon the least demur comes always the querulous warning that if things go wrong it is not his fault. A little before, he had proposed to make the Earl of Southampton (a man then under the Queen's displeasure, but entirely devoted to himself) General of the Horse; and when the Queen "showed a dislike of his having any office," he had told her that she might revoke his commission if she would, but if she meant him to execute it "he must work with his own instruments." And now immediately upon his departure, when he was yet no further on his way than Bromley, we find him insisting in the same peremptory fashion upon the appointment of his step-father Sir Christopher Blount to a seat in the Irish Council. Sir Christopher was a Roman Catholic, and a man who was ready (as appeared afterwards) to go almost all lengths of disloyalty with him. The Queen had agreed that he should accompany him as Marshal of the Army; whereupon Essex applied to have him made a Councillor also; which being refused, he replied that in that case he should not want him, and had therefore sent him back. "I have returned Sir Christopher Blount whom I hoped to have carried over; for I shall have no such necessary use of his hands, as being debarred the use of his head I would carry him to his own disadvantage and the disgrace of the place he should serve in. Hereof I thought fit to advertise your Lordships, that you might rather pity than expect extraordinary successes from me."3 So he wrote to the Council on the 1st of April; charging the bearer at the same time with a verbal message for the Queen to this effect: he would do his best to discharge both offices himself, but begged that his successor might quickly be sent after him—for “he that should do two such offices, and discharge them as he ought, should not value his life at many months' purchase."4 And though he can hardly have meant so petulant a proceeding to be well taken, the offence which it naturally gave was accepted as another grievance. "As for Sir Christopher Blount's ill-success, or rather mine for him, I fear it will be semble to all my speed when I sue or move for anything. I sued to her Majesty to grant it out of favour, but I spake a language that was not understood, or to a goddess not at leisure to hear prayers. I since, not for my sake but for her service sake, desired to have it granted: but I see, let me plead in any form, it is in vain. I must save myself by protestation that it is not Tyrone and the Irish rebellion that amazeth me, but to see myself 1 Lives of the Earls of Essex, ii. p. 44. 2 not all: see p. 148. 4 Ibid. p. 21. sent of such an errand, at such a time, with so little comfort or ability from the Court of England to effect that I go about." To leave Sir Christopher behind however was not his intention. He had not really sent him back; and upon a second letter from the Council, he agreed, though he were " utterly unprovided of all things necessary for such a journey," to take him. "But, my Lords, (he added) it must be all our devout prayers to God and our humble suit to her Majesty that she will be as well served by her vassals as obeyed; and that when she grants not the ability she will not expect nor exact great performance. For myself, if things succeed ill in my charge I am like to be a martyr for her: but as your Lordships have many times heard me say, it had been far better for her service to have sent a man favoured by her, who should not have had these crosses and discouragements which I shall ever suffer. Of your Lordships3 I do entreat that you will forget my person and the circumstances of it, but remember that I am her Majesty's minister in the greatest cause that ever she had; that though to keep myself from scorn and misery it shall be in mine own power, yet to enable me to reduce that rebellious kingdom of Ireland to obedience lies in her Majesty: for if I have not inward comfort and outward demonstration of her Majesty's favour, I am defeated in England."4 All this comes from a man who is setting out at the head of an army of 16,000 foot and 1500 horse-an army "as great as himself required, and such for number and strength as Ireland had never seen;"" carrying with him "three months' pay beforehand, and likewise victual, munition, and all habiliments of war whatsoever, with attendance of shipping allowed and furnished in a suitable proportion, and to the full of all his own demands;"6 with commission "to command peace or war, to truce, parley, or such matter as seemeth best for the enterprise and the good of the realm;"7 to pardon all treasons and offences; to bestow almost all offices; to remove all officers not holding by patent, and suspend such as held by patent; to make martial laws and punish the transgressors; to dispose of the lands of rebels; to command the ships; to issue treasure to the amount of £300,000 by the year, with liberty, by consent and advice of the Irish Council, "to alter that which was signed by the Lords in England," provided only that he did not exceed the sum of the 'Lives of the Earls of Essex, ii. p. 18. April 3. 2 he in Captain Devereux's copy. 3 Captain Devereux puts the full-stop after "Lordships." But I can hardly doubt that the punctuation, as I have altered it, represents the intended construction. 4 Lives of the Earls of Essex, ii. p. 21. April 5. 6 Proceedings of the Earl of Essex. See further on. 5 Moryson, p. 27. |