been refused, received from the favourite a large private gift thus bestowed :I know that you are the least part of your own matter, but you fare ill because you have chosen me for your mean and dependence. You have spent your time and thoughts in my matters. I die, if I do not somewhat towards your fortune. You shall not deny to accept a piece of land, which I will bestow upon you." The answer of him who accepted a park from the hands of the generous man who had failed to procure him a place, was prophetic. The Duke of Guise, he said, was the greatest usurer in France, "because he had turned all his estates into obligations, having left himself nothing.

I would not have you imitate this course, for you will find many bad debtors." It was this man who, in the darkest hour of Essex, when he was hunted to the death, said to the Lord Steward, " My lord, I have never yet seen in any case such favour shown to any prisoner."

"Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude."

Who can doubt that the ingratitude had begun long before the fatal catastrophe of the intrigues of Cecil and Raleigh? Francis Bacon, the ingrate, justifies himself by the "rules of duty" which opposed him to his benefactor, at the bar in his "public service." The same rules of duty were powerful enough to lead him to blacken his friend's character after his death, by garbling with his own hand the depositions against the victim of his faction, and publishing them as authentic records of the trial.* Essex, before the last struggles, had acquired experience of "bad debtors." The poet of As You Like It might have done something in teaching him to bear this and other afflictions bravely :

:

"Thou seest, we are not all alone unhappy

This wide and universal theatre

Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in."

Essex was released from custody in the August of 1600; but an illegal sentence had been passed upon him by commissioners, that he should not execute the offices of a Privy Councillor, or of Earl Marshal, or of Master of the Ordnance. The Queen signified to him that he was not to come to Court without leave. He was a marked and a degraded man. The wily Cecil, who at this very period was carrying on a correspondence with James of Scotland, that might have cost him his head, was laying every snare for the ruin of Essex. He desired to do what he ultimately effected, to goad his fiery spirit into madEssex was surrounded with warm but imprudent friends. They relied upon his unbounded popularity not only as a shield against arbitrary power, but as a weapon to beat down the strong arm of authority. During the six months which elapsed between the release of Essex and the fatal outbreak of 1601, Essex House saw many changing scenes, which marked the fitful temper and the wavering counsels of its unhappy owner. Within a month after he had

ness.

See Jardine's Criminal Trials,' vol. i., p. 387.

been discharged from custody, the Queen refused to renew a valuable patent to Essex, saying that "to manage an ungovernable beast he must be stinted in his provender." On the other hand, rash words that had been held to fall from the lips of Essex were reported to the Queen. He was made to say, "She was now grown an old woman, and was as crooked within as without."* The door of reconciliation was almost closed for ever. Essex House had been strictly private during its master's detention at the Lord Keeper's. Its gates were now opened, not only to his numerous friends and adherents, but to men of all persuasions, who had injuries to redress or complaints to prefer. Essex had always professed a noble spirit of toleration, far in advance of his age; and he now received with a willing ear the complaints of all those who were persecuted by the government for religious opinions, whether Roman Catholics or Puritans. He was in communication with James of Scotland, urging him to some open assertion of his presumptive title to the crown of England. It was altogether a season of restlessness and intrigue, of bitter mortifications and rash hopes. Between the closing of the Globe Theatre and the opening of the Blackfriars, Shakspere was in all likelihood tranquil amidst his family at Stratford.

There is a slight resemblance in a passage in The Tempest:

"And as with age his body uglier grows,

So his mind cankers."

The

winter comes, and then even the players are mixed up with the dangerous events of the time. Sir Gilly Merrick, one of the adherents of Essex, was accused, amongst other acts of treason, with "having procured the out-dated tragedy of the Deposition of Richard II.' to be publicly acted at his own charge, for the entertainment of the conspirators."* In the Declaration of the Treasons of the late Earl of Essex and his Complices,' which Bacon acknowledges to have been written by him at the Queen's command, there is the following statement :-"The afternoon before the rebellion, Merrick, with a great company of others, that afterwards were all in the action, had procured to be played before them the play of deposing King Richard the Second ;-when it was told him by one of the players, that the play was old, and they should have loss in playing it, because few would come to it, there was forty shillings extraordinary given to play, and so thereupon played it was." In the State Trials' this matter is somewhat differently mentioned: "The story of Henry IV. being set forth in a play, and in that play there being set forth the killing of the King upon a stage; the Friday before, Sir Gilly Merrick and some others of the Earl's train having an humour to see a play, they must needs have the play of Henry IV. The players told them that was stale; they could get nothing by playing that; but no play else would serve and Sir Gilly Merrick gives forty shillings to Phillips the player to play this, besides whatsoever he could get." Augustine Phillips was one of Shakspere's company; and yet it is perfectly evident that it was not Shakspere's Richard II., nor Shakspere's Henry IV., that was acted on this occasion. In his Henry IV. there is no "killing of the king upon a stage. His Richard II., which was published in 1597, was certainly not an out-dated play in 1601. A second edition of it had appeared in 1598, and it was no doubt highly popular as an acting play. But if any object was to be gained by the conspirators in the stage representation of the 'deposing King Richard II.,' Shakspere's play would not assist that object. The editions of 1597 and 1598 do not contain the deposition scene. That portion of this noble history which contains the scene of Richard's surrender of the crown was not printed till 1608; and the edition in which it appears bears in the title the following intimation of its novelty: The Tragedie of King Richard the Second, with new additions of the Parliament Sceane, and the deposing of King Richard. As it hath been lately acted by the Kinges servantes, at the Globe, by William Shake-speare.' In Shakspere's Parliament scene our sympathies are wholly with King Richard. This, even if the scene were acted in 1601, would not have forwarded the views of Sir Gilly Merrick, if his purpose were really to hold up to the people an example of a monarch's dethronement. But nevertheless, it may be doubted whether such a subject could be safely played at all by the Lord Chamberlain's players during this stormy period of the reign of Elizabeth. Her sensitiveness on this head was most remarkable. There is a very curious record existing of "that which passed from the Excel

6

This is the translation of the passage in Camden's 'Annales,' &c., as printed in Kennett's 'History of England.' The accusation against Merrick is thus stated in the original :--" Quod exoletam tragoediam de tragicâ abdicatione regis Ricardi Secundi in publico theatro coram conju ratis datâ pecuniâ agi curasset."

lent Majestie of Queen Elizabeth, in her Privie Chamber at East Greenwich, 4o Augusti, 1601, 43° Reg. sui, towards William Lambarde," which recounts his presenting the Queen his Pandecta' of historical documents to be placed in the Tower, which the Queen read over, making observations and receiving explanations. The following dialogue then takes place ::

:-

"W. L. He likewise expounded these all according to their original diversities, which she took in gracious and full satisfaction; so her Majesty fell upon the reign of King Richard II., saying, 'I am Richard II., know ye not that?'

W. L. Such a wicked imagination was determined and attempted by a most unkind gentleman, the most adorned creature that ever your Majesty made.'

"Her Majesty. 'He that will forget God will also forget his benefactors: this tragedy was played forty times in open streets and houses.'"

The "wicked imagination" that Elizabeth was Richard the Second is fixed upon Essex by the reply of Lambarde, and the rejoinder of the Queen makes it clear that the "wicked imagination" was attempted through the performance of the Tragedy of the Deposition of Richard the Second: "This tragedy was played forty times in open streets and houses." The Queen is speaking six months after the outbreak of Essex; and it is not improbable that the outdated play-that performance which in the previous February the players "should have loss in playing "-had been rendered popular through the partisans of Essex after his fall, and had been got up in open streets and houses with a dangerous avidity. But there is a circumstance which renders it tolerably evident that, although Sir Gilly Merrick might have given forty shillings to Phillips to perform that stale play, the company of Shakspere were not the performers. In the Office Book of the Treasurer of the Chamber + there is an entry on the 31st of March, 1601, of a payment to John Heminge and Richard Cowley, servants to the Lord Chamberlain, for three plays showed before her Highness on St. Stephen's Day at night [26th of December, 1600], Twelfth Day at night [January 6th, 1601], and Shrove Tuesday at night [Easter Day being on the 12th of April in 1601, Shrove Tuesday would be on the 3rd of March]. Shakspere's company were thus performing before the Queen within a week of the period when Essex was beheaded. They would not have been so performing had they exhibited the offensive tragedy. In her conversation with Lambarde, Elizabeth uttered a great might not be unmingled with a retrospect of the fate of Essex. the days of her ancestors, she said,-" In those days force and arms did prevail, but now the wit of the fox is everywhere on foot, so as hardly a faithful or virtuous man may be found." When Raleigh was called upon the trial of Essex, and "his oath given him," Essex exclaimed, What booteth it to swear the fox? " The fox had even then accomplished his purpose. He had driven his victim onwards to that fatal movement of Sunday the 8th of February, which, begun without reasonable plan or fixed purpose, ended in casual bloodshed and death by the law. We may readily believe that the anxiety of Shakspere for

truth, which

Speaking of

This was first printed from the original in Nicholls's 'Progresses of Queen Elizabeth.' Lam. barde died in a fortnight after this interview.

+ Cunningham's 'Revels at Court.'

his friends and benefactors would have led him to the scene of that wild com. motion. He might have seen Essex and Southampton, with Danvers, Blount, Catesby, Owen Salisbury, and a crowd of followers, riding into Fleet Street, shouting, "For the Queen! for the Queen!" He might have heard the people crying on every side, "God save your honour! God bless your honour!" An nour or two later he might have listened to the proclamation in Gracechurch Street and Cheapside, that the Earl and all his company were traitors. By two o'clock of that fatal Sunday, Shakspere might have seen his friends fighting their way back through the crowds of armed men who suddenly assailed them, and, taking boat at Queenhithe, reach Essex House in safety. But it was surrounded with soldiers and artillery; shots were fired at the windows; the cries of women within mingled with the shouts of fury without. At last came the surrender, at ten o'clock at night. The axe with the edge turned towards the prisoners followed as a matter of course.

The period at which Essex fell upon the block, and Southampton was under condemnation, must have been a gloomy period in the life of Shakspere. The friendship of Southampton in all likelihood raised the humble actor to that just appreciation of himself which could alone prevent his nature being subdued to what it worked in. There had been a compromise between the inequality of rank and the inequality of intellect, and the fruit had been a continuance and a strengthening of that "love" which seven years earlier had been described as "without end." Those ties were now broken by calamity. The accomplished noble, a prisoner looking daily for death, could not know the depth of the love of his "especial friend." He was beyond the reach of any service that this

* The expression is used by Southampton in his Letter to Lord Ellesmere introducing Shakspere and Burbage in 1608. See Collier's New Facts,' p. 33.