by Alison Weir
Later that day, in order to rouse the populace of London, Essex's friend, Sir Gelli Meyrick, paid a reluctant Shakespeare and his company of actors, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, forty shillings to stage a production of the inflammatory Richard II, with its banned abdication scene, at the Globe Theatre in Southwark.
Cecil was also preparing for a confrontation: he summoned levies from the nearby shires, instructed the London preachers to tell the citizens to remain indoors on the morrow, and arranged for the guard to be doubled at Whitehall. Danvers, who had been watching the palace, warned Essex that his plans were known, and warned him to escape while he could. Essex refused to listen.
On the next day, the 8th, he staged his coup. As he gathered his friends and supporters and two hundred soldiers in the courtyard of Essex House, there was so much noise and commotion that the Queen, hearing of it, sent Lord Keeper Egerton, the Lord Chief Justice, Sir John Popham, the Earl of Worcester and Sir William Knollys to find out the cause of it and insist that Essex come and explain himself to the Council. Essex invited them into his library, but the crowd swarmed up the stairs behind them, crying, 'Kill them! Kill them!', drowning the lords' injunctions to disarm. Essex locked the four councillors in the library, and left with his by now unruly following for the City on foot.
Wearing his normal clothes rather than armour to signify his peaceful intent, and carrying just a sword, he marched through Temple Bar into Fleet Street, crying, 'For the Queen! For the Queen! The crown of England is sold to the Spaniard! A plot is laid for my life!' But he had overestimated his popularity and credibility: far from flocking to his side, the astonished citizens remained indoors and even tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent him forcing his way through Ludgate, which had been locked against his coming. By the time he reached St Paul's Cathedral, he was forced to face the fact that there would be no popular rising in his favour. As he turned into Cheapside, his face was 'almost molten with sweat' and suffused with fear. When he reached the house of the Sheriff of London, Thomas Smyth, who had offered his support, he was perspiring so much that he asked for a clean shirt. But already, his followers were deserting him, covering their faces with their cloaks, and Smyth, regretting having ever got involved in such a madcap scheme, escaped out of the back door to summon the Mayor, who was busy obeying the Queen's injunction to summon all the citizens to arms.
Meanwhile, heralds had ridden abroad proclaiming Essex a traitor, and government troops had begun erecting a barricade of coaches across the road that led from Charing Cross to Whitehall. Many citizens had hurried to the palace, one remarking that there was 'such a hurly burly at the court as I never saw'. A force under Sir John Leveson occupied Ludgate, and every one of London's seven gates was locked.
Around two o'clock in the afternoon, realising that all was lost, Essex abandoned his remaining followers and fled to Queenhithe, where he took a barge back to his house, only to find that Gorges had released his hostages and returned with them to Whitehall. Realising his predicament, Essex locked himself in and burned dozens of incriminating papers as well as his black pouch containing the Scottish King's message. But it was not long before the Queen's soldiers, under the command of Lord Admiral Nottingham, came and surrounded his house and trained their cannon upon it, demanding he give himself up.
Essex clambered up on to the roof and brandished his sword. 'I would sooner fly to Heaven!' he cried. Nottingham replied, very well then, he would blow the house up. Essex had no choice but to come out, just after ten in the evening, and surrender his sword. He asked only that his chaplain, Abdy Ashton, remain with him. Before long, eighty-five rebels had been rounded up and taken into custody.
During the rebellion, Elizabeth had remained coolly in control and displayed remarkable courage, giving orders to Cecil and never doubting her people's loyalty. She took her meals as usual, stating that God had placed her on her throne and He would preserve her on it, and would not allow the normal routine of the day to be disrupted. At one stage, she received a false report that the City had gone over to Essex, but was no more disturbed by this 'than she would have been to hear of a fray in Fleet Street'. 'She would have gone out in person to see what any rebel of them all durst do against her, had not her councillors, with much ado, stayed her.' Nottingham spoke admiringly of the way she had placed her reliance on God: 'I beheld Her Majesty with most princely fortitude stand up like the Lord's Anointed and offer in person to face the boldest traitor in the field, relying on God's almighty providence, which had heretofore maintained her.' Cecil spoke for many when he gave thanks for 'the joy of Her Majesty's preservation'.
Having demonstrated that she was still in authoritative control of her realm, the Queen expressly ordered that Essex and Southampton be taken that night under guard to Lambeth Palace rather than the Tower, 'because the night was dark and the river not passable under [London] Bridge'. But on the next tide, at three o'clock the next morning, they were rowed to the Tower, closely followed by Rutland, Danvers, Blount and several others of gentle birth. Elizabeth would not retire to bed until she had been assured that her orders had been carried out. Cuffe and other rebels were thrown into the common gaols.
On 9 February, the Queen told the French ambassador that Essex, that 'shameless ingrate, had at last revealed what had long been in his mind'. She had indulged him too long, she confessed, and with mounting passion, spoke scornfully about Essex parading himself through the City, making vain speeches and retreating shamefully. Had he reached Whitehall, she declared, she had been resolved to go out and face him, 'in order to know which of the two of them ruled'.
After the rising had collapsed, however, the strain told. Harington noticed that Elizabeth was 'much wasted' and could not be bothered to put on all her finery.
She disregardeth every costly dish that cometh to the table, and taketh little but manchet and pottage. Every new message from the City doth disturb her, and she frowns on all the ladies. I must not say much, but the many evil plots and designs hath overcome all Her Highness's sweet temper. She walks much in her chamber, and stamps with her feet at ill news, and thrusts her rusty sword at times into the arras [tapestry] in great rage. But the dangers are over, and yet she always has a sword by her table. And so disordered is all order, that Her Highness hath worn but one change of raiment for many days, and swears much at those that cause her griefs, to the no small discomfiture of all about her.
As Elizabeth wanted the chief offenders brought to trial without delay, the Council began examining them, uncovering the full details of the doomed plot. On 13 February, in the Star Chamber, these were made public. Four days later, indictments against Essex, Southampton and many others were laid, and it was decided that the two principals should be tried two days hence. Bacon was one of those chosen to act for the Crown, and had no qualms now about doing so. The Queen was prepared to overlook Mountjoy's involvement, in view of his successes in Ireland, and also refrained from complaining to James VI about his support of Essex.
Elizabeth's resolve to make an end of Essex was strengthened on 12 February, when one of his followers, a Captain Lea, who had served as his messenger to Tyrone - and in 1597 had presented Elizabeth with the severed head of an Irish rebel, much to her disgust - was arrested in the palace kitchen on his way to the chamber where she supped with her ladies, his intention being to force her at knife-point to issue a warrant for Essex's release. Lea was tried at Newgate on 14 February, and hanged at Tyburn the following day.
On 19 February, Essex and Southampton were tried by their peers at Westminster Hall, Buckhurst presiding as Lord High Steward. They were accused of plotting to deprive the Queen of her crown and life, imprisoning the councillors of the realm, inciting the Londoners to rebellion with false tales, and resisting the Queen's soldiers sent to arrest them. As Essex looked on smiling, Sir Edward Coke, Francis Bacon and Sir John Popham presented a devastating case for the Crown, Coke accusing him of aspiring to be 'Robert, the first of his name, King of England'. Bacon's defection was,
to Essex, 'the unkindest cut of all', but Bacon pointed out to the court, 'I loved my Lord of Essex as long as he continued a dutiful subject. I have spent more hours to make him a good subject to Her Majesty than I have about my own business.'
Essex, dressed in black and very much in control of himself, pleaded not guilty, as did Southampton, and boldly did his best to refute the charges, arguing heatedly with his accusers. He insisted that Raleigh had tried to murder him, but Raleigh, summoned as a witness, stoutly denied it. When Essex insisted that his chief intention had been to petition the Queen to impeach Cecil, whose loyalty was false, Bacon retorted that it was hardly usual for petitioners to approach Her Majesty armed and guarded, nor for them to 'run together in numbers. Will any man be so simple to take this as less than treason?' When Cecil demanded to know where Essex had learned that he was plotting to set the Infanta on the throne, Essex was forced to admit that this slander was based on a chance remark of Cecil's, made two years before, and taken out of context. 'You have a wolfs head in a sheep's garment. God be thanked, we know you now,' commented Cecil, vindicated.
The verdict was a foregone conclusion, the peers having asked the advice of senior judges beforehand, and taken into account the wishes of the Queen: after an hour's debate, they found Essex guilty of high treason, whereupon Buckhurst sentenced him to the appalling barbarities of a traitor's death - a sentence which, in the case of a peer of the realm, was invariably commuted by the monarch to simple beheading.
After being sentenced, Essex, who remained calm, dignified, and unmoved by the terrible fate awaiting him, was allowed to address the court: 'I think it fitting that my poor quarters, which have done Her Majesty service in divers parts of the world, should now at the last be sacrificed and disposed at Her Majesty's pleasure.' He asked for mercy for Southampton, but said he would not 'fawningly beg' for it for himself, and, looking at the peers, added, 'Although you have condemned me in a court of judgement, yet in the court of your conscience, ye would absolve me, who have intended no harm against the prince.' The condemned were generally expected to express humble submission, and Essex's speech was reckoned by many of those present to be unfittingly arrogant for one on the brink of Divine Judgement, and whose guilt was so manifest.
Southampton, who declared he had been led away by love for Essex, was also condemned to death, but the Queen was merciful, and later commuted his punishment to life imprisonment in the Tower. After her death, he was released by James I.
Many people at court believed that, if Essex begged the Queen for mercy, she would spare his life, but Essex remained true to his word and proudly refrained from making any 'cringing submission'. Despite the efforts of the Dean of Norwich, who had been sent to him by the Council, he would not acknowledge his guilt. Even had he done so, he would have posed too great a threat to the Queen's security to be allowed to live. On the day after the trial, without her usual prevarication, Elizabeth signed his death warrant in a firm hand; it may still be seen in the British Library.
On 21 February, Cecil, Nottingham, Egerton and Buckhurst were requested to attend on Essex in the Tower. His chaplain, having conjured up a terrifying vision of the punishment that awaited him in Hell if he did not own up to his sins, had succeeded where the Dean had failed and, in an agony of remorse, Essex had asked to make a full confession of his crimes in the presence of the Council. With great humility, he declared he was 'the greatest, most vilest and most unthankful traitor that has ever been in the land', and admitted that 'the Queen could never be safe as long as he lived'. He then rehearsed all his misdeeds, implicating most of his friends, and even his own sister, without a qualm. He asked to see Henry Cuffe, and when the secretary was brought in, accused him of being the author 'of all these my disloyal courses into which I have fallen'.
Lady Essex had written begging Cecil to intercede with the Queen for her husband's life, saying that if he died, 'I shall never wish to breathe one hour after'. Cecil was in fact grieved to see Essex brought so low, but the Queen was implacable. Later, she told the French ambassador that, had she been able to spare Essex's life without endangering the security of the realm, she would have done so, but 'he himself had recognised that he was unworthy of it'. She did, however, grant Essex's request for a private execution.
On 23 February, having been delayed to give the prisoner time to make his confession, Essex's death warrant was delivered to the Lieutenant of the Tower, but the Queen sent a message after it, ordering that the execution be postponed until the next day.
Shrove Tuesday fell on 24 February; the Queen attended the customary banquet at court, and watched a performance of one of Shakespeare's plays. That night, she sent a message commanding the Lieutenant of the Tower to proceed with Essex's execution on the morrow, ordering that two executioners be summoned to despatch the prisoner: 'If one taint, the other may perform it to him, on whose soul God have mercy.' Then she retired to the privacy of her apartments and remained there throughout the following day.
There is a legend, often repeated, that Elizabeth had once, in happier times, given Essex a ring, saying that, if ever he was in trouble, he was to send it to her and she would help him. A gold ring with a sardonynx cameo of the Queen, said to be this one, is in the Chapter House Museum in Westminster Abbey. In the seventeenth century, it was claimed that, whilst in the Tower, Essex leaned out of his window and entrusted the ring to a boy, telling him to take it to Lady Scrope and ask her to give it to the Queen; however, the boy mistakenly gave it to Lady Scrope's sister, the Countess of Nottingham, wife of Essex's rival, the Admiral, who, out of malice, made her keep the ring to herself. The story went that she only revealed its existence to the Queen when she herself was on her deathbed in 1603, whereupon Elizabeth is said to have told her bitterly, 'May God forgive you, Madam, but I never can.'
The story is a fabrication. It is first referred to in 1620 in John Webster's The Devil's Law Case, and later recounted in detail in The Secret History of the Most Renowned Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Essex, by a Person of Quality, a work of fiction published in 1695. Camden, Elizabeth's usually well-informed biographer, knew of the tale, and condemned it as false, and this is borne out by the fact that Elizabeth, who did attend the death-bed of her great friend, Lady Nottingham, was so devastated with grief at her death that her own health was fatally undermined.
During the night of 24 February, Essex prepared for death, apologising to his guards for having no means of rewarding them, 'for I have nothing left but that which I must pay to the Queen tomorrow in the morning'.
In the early hours of the 25th, a select company of lords, knights and aldermen arrived at the Tower. They had been invited to watch the execution, and took their seats around the scaffold, which had been built in the courtyard of the Tower in front of the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. When Raleigh appeared, being required, as Captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners, to attend, there was a frisson of disapproval, for it was known that he had been Essex's enemy, and several people, seeing him position himself near the block, accused him of having come to gloat. He therefore withdrew to the armoury in the nearby White Tower, and watched the proceedings from a window. Later, he claimed he had been moved to tears.
Supported by three clergymen, Essex was brought to the scaffold just before eight o'clock; he was dressed in a black velvet gown over a doublet and breeches of black satin, and wore a black felt hat. Having ascended the steps, he took off his hat and bowed to the spectators. It was traditional for the condemned person to make a last speech before departing the world, and Essex's was abject in tone; 'he acknowledged, with thankfulness to God, that he was justly spewed out of the realm'. Then he continued:
My sins are more in number than the hairs on my head. I have bestowed my youth in wantonness, lust and uncleanness; I have been puffed up with pride, vanity and love of this wicked world's pleasures. For all which, I humbly beseech my Saviour Christ to be a mediator to the eternal Majesty for my pardon, especially for this my last sin, this great, t
his bloody, this crying, this infectious sin, whereby so many for love of me have been drawn to offend God, to offend their sovereign, to offend the world. I beseech God to forgive it us, and to forgive it me - most wretched of all.
He begged God to preserve the Queen, 'whose death I protest I never meant, nor violence to her person', and he asked those present 'to join your souls with me in prayer'. He ended by asking God to forgive his enemies.
His speech over, he removed his gown and ruff, and knelt by the block. A clergyman begged him not to be overcome by the fear of death, whereupon he commented that several times in battle he had 'felt the weakness of the flesh, and therefore in this great conflict desired God to assist and strengthen him'. Looking towards the sky, he prayed fervently for the estates of the realm, and recited the Lord's Prayer. The executioner then knelt, as was customary, and begged his forgiveness for what he was about to do. He readily gave it, then repeated the Creed after a clergyman. Rising, he took off his doublet to reveal a long- sleeved scarlet waistcoat, then bowed to the low block and laid himself down over it, saying he would be ready when he stretched out his arms. Many spectators were weeping by now.
'Lord, be merciful to Thy prostrate servant!' Essex prayed, and twisted his head sideways on the block. 'Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.' A clergyman enjoined him to recite the 51st Psalm, but after two verses, he cried, 'Executioner, strike home!' and flung out his arms, still praying aloud. It took three strokes to sever his head, but he was probably killed by the first, since his body did not move after it. Then the headsman lifted the head by its long hair and shouted, 'God save the Queen!'
