and declared their intention of only yielding with their lives.

The troops of the Lord Admiral surrounded the house, and it was only owing to the presence of Essex's wife and Lady Rich (Sidney's Stella), within the walls, that it was not burned to the ground.

However, even the angry Earl could not attempt to stand a siege, and he surrendered before nightfall, the Queen sending word that she would not sleep until Essex House was taken.

Then came the Earl's second and real imprisonment, and his trial in which Bacon bore so prominent a part.

The judgment pronounced both Essex and Southampton guilty of treason, but only one was reprieved. It was a struggle for Elizabeth to bring herself to sign the death-warrant of her favourite, but she felt his conduct was indefensible, and that if he were pardoned no offender need expect condemnation.

Late in the evening of Tuesday, February 24th, 1601, the Constable of the Tower, Lord Thomas Howard, opened the gates to receive the warrant which condemned the Earl to die on the scaffold⚫ the next morning.

He had begged the Queen to let his execution

be private, and she had not denied him this last boon.

Early in the morning he came forth from his prison, accompanied by the two divines the Queen had sent to care for his soul, and together they mounted the black-hung scaffold, the Earl clad in black from head to foot.

Seated on forms, to watch the end, were about a hundred lords, and Essex entreated their prayers, "for me, the most wretched creature upon earth."

He acknowledged the justice of his condemnation, he prayed for the long life and prosperity of the Queen, and then, led to the block by his chaplain, he cried out, "O God, give me true humility and patience to endure to the end!" And to the waiting noblemen, now mostly weeping in silent sympathy, he said, "Pray with me and for me that... it may please the everlasting God to send down His angels to carry my soul before His mercy-seat..

The blow fell: then came silence, only broken by the solemn words of the headsman, "God save the Queen."

CHAPTER XI

LORD BURGHLEY, ROBERT CECIL, AND

SIR FRANCIS WALSINGHAM

FROM the stirring deeds on sea and land of such men as Raleigh, Drake, Sidney, and Essex, let us turn now to that quiet council chamber where for nearly half a century the great Lord Burghley did his part in building up the England of to-day from the chaos in which he found it. His family both before his time, and until our own day, have been politicians, and it was to his unwearied toil, his clear head and sound judgment, that more than all besides Elizabeth's reign owed its greatness.

Weak in health, cool and quiet in manner, self-controlled where most men were violent, forgiving where others sought revenge, he forms a striking contrast to the figures among whom he moved.

His character appealed to one side of Elizabeth's nature, and she trusted him as she trusted no one else on earth.

William Cecil was born in 1520, at Bourn, in

Lincolnshire, where his family had lived for three generations. His father had been Master of the Robes to Henry VIII., and the son's rise into courtly favour is said to have begun in the following unconventional manner. In the year 1542, after his education at St. John's College, Cambridge, had been completed, and he was studying at Gray's Inn, he met in the presence chamber two chaplains of the Irish chief O'Neill, who was then on a visit to the King. "And talking long with them in Lattin," as the chronicler says, "he fell in disputation with the priests, wherein he showed so great learning and witt, as he proved the poore priests to have neither, who weare so putt down as they had not a word to saie, but flung away no less discontented than ashamed to be foiled in such a place by so younge a berdless yewth." This worsting of the priests so pleased the King, that he sent for young Cecil to his presence, and directed his father to seek out some post to be bestowed upon him. And the reversion of the custos brievium in the Court of Common Pleas, which was the post selected, was the first of many official appointments held by William Cecil.

From his earliest years Cecil was unlike the other great men of his time: his strong points were those most wanting in such men as Raleigh and