Young Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, rode with his fatherin-law Leicester on the Dutch mud-banks in 1586, a captaingeneral of cavalry, although only twenty years of age. When Leicester died, he secured the principal share of Elizabeth's favour, although she carried on flirtations too with Ralegh and the courtly Charles Blount. Essex possessed in a great degree that brilliant, often foolhardy, valour which exercises a peculiar fascination on the female fancy. He loved fighting for fighting's sake; but his skill in war did not correspond with his dash and daring. When in 1589 a fleet set sail from Plymouth under Drake's command to place Don Antonio of Portugal on his uncle's throne, Essex crept on board and went to fight at Lisbon as a volunteer. His absence, sorely against the queen's will, almost cost him her favour; but he rose to the surface again in no long time. In 1591 he fought in France for Henry the Fourth. During ten summer weeks of 1596 he reduced Cadiz to ashes and filled the English ships with Spanish ducats. The following year saw him, with Thomas Howard and Walter Ralegh, engaged in the same golden chase, which he pursued instead of carrying out the object of his cruise-the destruction in its own ports of a new Armada, which Philip was fitting out for the invasion of England.

A most unlucky day it was for Essex when he landed on the Irish shore to measure strength with the victorious rebel, Hugh, Earl of Tyrone, who had set the whole island in a blaze, and against whom the English captains were putting forth all their strength in vain. The first omen of the coming storm was a peremptory order from Elizabeth to depose the Earl of Southampton from the command of the cavalry, to which post Essex had personally raised this friend. Then his army began to melt away mysteriously among the bogs and woods. faced Tyrone in Louth, merely to conclude a sort of shifting truce; and then without leave or notice he returned to London, and went boldly into the royal presence. Elizabeth received

He

him quietly. It was evening before her rage burst out; and then it was such as her father might have shown. For nearly a year Essex lay in prison, and then he received freedom, with the command to show his face no more at court. The monopoly of sweet wines, which had been a chief source of his income, having expired, he asked for its renewal and was refused. Then, at the instigation of his secretary Cuffe, he tried to raise the Londoners, who loved him well. On Sunday the 8th of February 1601, he passed with naked sword through the streets, followed by Southampton and other malcontents. Though the Londoners loved Essex, they loved peace and money better: not a citizen took up the cry. He escaped by boat to his own house by the Thames, and after holding out awhile there, he surrendered, and with Southampton was committed to the Tower. Convicted of treason and sentenced to the block, Essex closed his short and fitful career at the age of thirty-three (Feb. 25th).

1601

The old queen did not long survive her favourite. The close of the Irish rebellion, achieved by the brave and skilful Mountjoy, who inflicted a final defeat on Tyrone, and forced his Spanish allies into a surrender at Kinsale, cast a gleam of light upon the cloudy close of her life. But seventy years had nearly done their work, and the manly queen was failing fast. The courtiers' flatteries, once so sweet and pleasant, fell dull upon her ear. At last she came to lie on cushions on the floor, her finger always in her mouth, and her eyes fixed in a rigid downward stare. Almost with her last breath she named her cousin of Scotland as her proper suc

cessor.

1603

Not many seconds after the last Tudor sovereign had passed gently out of life, the sharp clatter of horse-hoofs broke the morning stillness of the London streets. The sun had not risen on the 24th of March 1603, when Sir Robert Carey went spurring madly along the northern road, with great news for James of Scotland.

CHAPTER VII.

DRAKE'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD.

Francis Drake-Across to Brazil-The Strait and its storms-A solitary ship -Piracies-Across the Pacific-The perilous reef-Homeward boundThe dinner at Deptford.

M

OST notable of the Elizabethan sailors was Francis Drake, the son of a poor vicar, and born in 1544 about a mile from Tavistock, where the humble old-fashioned cabin in which he first saw the light stood not long ago. Trained among the Biscay waves, he joined Hawkins in a. slaving trip to Guinea and the Indies, on which occasion he commanded the Judith, of fifty tons, and saw dangerous service against the Spaniards.

On the 13th of December 1577, five ships, which had been driven back by a storm a month earlier, weighed anchor a second time in Plymouth Sound, bound, it was said, for Alexandria, but really destined for privateering against the Spaniards. Francis Drake commanded the fleet, which consisted of the Pelican, the Elizabeth, the Swan, the Marygold, and the Christopher. They carried with them the frames of four pinnaces, to be put up when necessary, and were manned by one hundred and sixty-four gentlemen and sailors. Rich furniture adorned the cabins; massive silver plate glittered on the table of the captain-general, who carried with him also expert musicians. After some delay at Mogadore on the Barbary coast, they reached Cape Blanco, where the Christopher was left, a Spanish

Feb. 5, 1578

canter of forty tons being taken in its place. Near the island of Santiago they took a Portuguese wine-ship, bound for Brazil, whose pilot, Nuno da Sylva, Drake pressed into his service, sending the rest of the crew adrift in a pinnace. Through calm, hurricane, thunder, and torrid heat they sailed for nine weeks from the Cape Verd Islands, until they sighted the Brazilian shore. Before crossing the line, Captain Drake bled with his own hands every one of the men under his flag. Sometimes losing a ship, again joyfully finding it, killing and salting seals within the estuary of the Plata, rowing to the shore to see a savage shouting and dancing with a rattle in his hand, Drake found himself on the edge of that unknown land we call Patagonia.* Here he replenished his stock of food by taking more than fifty dried ostriches from a native store which he found by the sea; some of the thighs were described as being like good-sized legs of mutton. At this place, known as Seal Bay from the numbers of these animals found there, the Swan was broken up for firewood, since Drake had found that the scattering of his ships caused much annoyance and delay. At Port St. Julian, where the fleet stayed nearly two months (from June 20th to August 17th), some unlucky events occurred. An affray with the

natives cost Drake two lives-Robert Winter and Oliver the master-gunner being pierced with arrows; and one Master Doughtie, an accomplished volunteer, was executed for plotting mutiny against the captain-general. The ships, now reduced to three-Pelican, Elizabeth, and Marygold, for the Spanish canter had been cast adrift and the Portuguese prize broken up-sailed away from this sad harbour, leaving behind them three English graves. Coasting on past Cape Virgenes, a huge gray rock spotted with black, Drake found himself at the eastern mouth of that remarkable strait which forms the

* So called from the Spanish patagon, a large clumsy foot, because the natives wore huge sandals.

first passage on that shore into the South Seas. He now sailed in the Golden Hind, for he had altered the name of his flagship, the old Pelican.

Twice before, European keels had cut the waters of that channel. The Dutch seaman Magalhaens, popularly Magellan, whose name it bears, had been the first to sail in 1520 between its iron rocks; and in 1558 Juan Ladrilleros had sailed through it, returning to the Chili coast with only two of his crew alive. On between terraced mountains, rising in gigantic steps from sea to snow, the adventurous Englishmen passed for seventeen days, stopping occasionally to name an island, or to fill their larder with the clumsy penguins which strut about there in stupid solemn thousands.

On the 6th of September 1578 Drake steered his little squadron into the South Seas, already added pompously with sword and banner to the dominions of Spain. A terrible storm then fell on the fleet, driving them far from their course. When, scudding under bare poles before the furious north-east wind, they had reached a point two hundred miles west of the strait, the Marygold disappeared, blown right away, never to be heard of more. Sorely battered, the Hind and the Elizabeth crept a week later into a bay, and anchored there among the rocks to spend the dreadful night. The Golden Hind broke her cable, and was blown out to sea. Winter in the Elizabeth next day got once more into the strait, where he lighted fires on the rocks as a signal to his chief. Sailing further into the sheltered sea, he landed his sick crew in a pleasant spot, where the rich juicy mussels, full of seedpearls too, and the unbroken rest, quickly restored them to health. Then Winter lost heart, and against his sailors' will returned to England.

Meanwhile Drake was driven about the shores of Tierra del Fuego and away towards the South Pole, until at length in the end of October the poor Golden Hind rested her worn and