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Raleigh and Coke were born in the same
year – 1552 – but led very different lives, the former as a navigator,
explorer, colonist, soldier, courtier, scientist, author and poet; the former as
a lawyer, parliamentarian, and judge. Prior to Raleigh’s treason trial, their
paths frequently crossed, notably when Raleigh, as a member of the House of
Commons, succeeded where Coke (as Speaker) had failed, in negotiating the
resolution to an impasse between the Commons and the House of Lords; and also
at the treason trial of the Earl of Essex.
Each was a product of the system of personal
patronage which filled all important offices during Elizabeth’s reign.
Raleigh was long one of the Queen’s favourites, and the story of his laying a
cloak over a muddy puddle for the Queen to walk upon, even if apocryphal,
reveals truths both about Raleigh’s love of fine and ostentatious clothing, and
his chivalrous attitude to his sovereign. For some time he fell into disfavour,
for marrying one of the Queen’s “maids of honour” without Her Majesty’s
permission, and was confined to the Tower of London. But, towards the end of
the reign, Raleigh had
returned to favour, and was rivalled only by the young and dashing Earl of
Essex.
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Essex
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Raleigh
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Coke originally rose to power as protégé of
Lord Burghley and his son, Sir Robert Cecil – grandfather and uncle,
respectively, of Coke’s second wife – who procured his election as Speaker of
the House of Commons during his first term as a member. Having successfully
managed the passage of the Queen’s (that is, Burghley’s and Cecil’s)
legislative programme, including the all-important revenue laws required to fund
the continuing war with Spain – albeit, as previously mentioned, with Raleigh’s
important assistance – Coke was promoted to solicitor-general.
When the position of attorney-general fell
vacant upon the appointment of Lord Ellesmere as Master of the Rolls, Essex lobbied
for the advancement of his own nominee, Bacon, even though the youthful Bacon
then had no actual court experience. Cecil pushed for Coke’s appointment, and
was ultimately successful – quite possibly with Raleigh’s
support.
For some years, Cecil maintained a “divide and
rule” stratagem as between the Queen’s leading favourites, Essex and Raleigh, generally
supporting whichever of them was the “under-dog” to prevent the other from
consolidating a position of power. As Essex rose in
the Queen’s affections, this strategy increasingly brought Cecil into alliance
with Raleigh. Indeed,
it seems that Raleigh was
genuinely beguiled by Cecil’s assurances of affection, loyalty and support;
even as Cecil was plotting Raleigh’s
ultimate fall, Raleigh continued
to correspond with Cecil in terms of deep gratitude towards the person whom he
regarded as his greatest friend at court. In the first instance, though, Essex was a
greater threat to Cecil than Raleigh, and it suited
both Raleigh and Cecil to have Essex out of
the way. Nor would the removal of Essex’s
influence do any harm to Coke’s position, given Essex’s support
for Coke’s rival, Bacon.
Cecil, naturally, had a secret agenda – an agenda which was
certainly unknown to Raleigh, and
most probably unknown to Coke. Burghley and Cecil, father and son, had been the
powers behind the throne throughout Elizabeth’s
reign; but the reign was coming to an end. The Virgin Queen was the last of the
Tudor line, and there were several competing claims to the succession. James
Stuart – James VI of Scotland,
the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, who had been beheaded for treason at Elizabeth’s
orders – was not closest in line to the throne, and was arguably ineligible as
a “foreigner”. But England
needed a strong and experienced ruler, and the rival claimants were too young,
too feeble (or feeble-minded), or women.
Father
and Son - Lord Burghley and Sir Robert Cecil
James’s succession had other advantages. It would bring
about the unification of the English and Scottish crowns. The public demanded a Protestant king, and James was
Protestant; yet it was imagined that James would also be tolerant to the
Catholic Church, in which he had been baptised. Whilst his succession
remained uncertain, he encouraged English Catholics to hope for such tolerance;
but no sooner had he ascended the throne than he was heard to remark (in his
thick Scottish
accent), “na, na, we’ll nae need the Papishes now”. This would, in due
course, lead to further troubles – including the Bye and Main Plots and the
Gunpowder Plot; but, at this point, all of that lies in the future.
Cecil’s concern was not merely that of a patriotic
statesman, to ensure the succession; more important for Cecil was to ensure,
not only that he was in good standing with Elizabeth’s successor, but that
others of Elizabeth’s favourites did not enjoy a similar advantage.
With Raleigh,
there was no difficulty. An envoy on behalf of James, the Duke of Lennox,
sought a secret meeting with Raleigh,
but Raleigh spurned the proposal,
informing Lennox that he was “over-deeply engaged and
obliged to his own mistress to seek favour anywhere else, that should divert
his eye or diminish his sole respect to his sovereign”. Raleigh then made the
mistake of reporting to Cecil that he had “denied any kind of proffer of
devotion or kind affection to have been made to King James”; to which Cecil
disingenuously replied: “You did well; and as I myself would have made the answer,
if the like offer had been made to me”. Even as Cecil wrote those words, he was
engaged in encrypted correspondence with James, attempting to secure his own future under the anticipated Jacobite
monarchy.
Knowing, therefore, that Raleigh had little prospect of maintaining his
position of influence after
Elizabeth’s death, Cecil set about to rid himself of his only remaining rival,
the Earl of Essex. But Essex
largely solved the problem for himself, by openly doing that which Cecil was
doing covertly: attempting
an alliance with James. Already in disgrace over a failed assignment to
suppress a rebellion in Ireland, and knowing that his final fall was near,
Essex attempted a
coup d’état in the expectation that, with assistance from James, the rebellion
commenced by a small force under his command would attract spontaneous support from Catholics and
others opposed to Elizabeth’s regime.
Essex’s rebellion was a dismal
failure. Support which had been promised to Essex – or
which Essex convinced himself had been promised to him –
was not forthcoming. Though Essex, ever popular with the
public, was cheered by crowds of Londoners, they did not rise up to join him.
His co-conspirators, once they saw which way the wind was blowing, melted away.
Finally, with a small group of his closest followers, Essex
was besieged in his own London
house, and forced to surrender. From distant Scotland,
James was quick to dissociate himself from the plot – though happy to claim the
dashing Essex as his “martyr” when James eventually
became King.
Essex was put on trial for treason.
Coke, as Attorney-General,
led the prosecution. He conducted the case vigorously, but not
viciously. More surprising was Bacon’s role in the prosecution of his former
patron. No doubt anxious to dissociate himself from the traitors, Bacon took an
active and passionate part in the prosecution.
Essex’s defence (if it can be called
that) was to the effect that he was forced to rebel because Cecil and Raleigh
were plotting to
have him murdered. During the trial, Essex
interrupted Bacon’s address to “plead Mr. Bacon for a witness”, as Bacon had
written and
delivered for him a letter to the Queen seeking her protection against “the course of
private persecution”. Bacon’s reply was: “My Lord, I spent more hours to make
you a good subject than upon any man in the world besides”. This, as much as
any event in Bacon’s odious life, justified Pope’s description of him as “the
wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind”.
Coke’s role in the prosecution was, by contrast, an
honourable one; as was Raleigh’s.
Raleigh gave evidence against Essex, comprising a factual description of his
part (as Captain of the Queen’s Guard) in putting down the rebellion, but without taking the opportunity – as so many
other witnesses did – to introduce court gossip regarding Essex’s motives, or
otherwise to denigrate his character. It was Raleigh’s duty to officiate at Essex’s execution, and
by doing so Raleigh attracted the enmity of the public; but, in
fact, Raleigh discharged his duty with every possible
courtesy and consideration.
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