The Voyage of the Destiny

by Robert Nye

  Forgive your hosban. Pardon that pathetic S wisser Swatter, pitiable only for his appalling and most ugly self-pity. This fool in the Tower who could write only about the pain in his guts when he should rightly have sent you whatever remains of his heart.

  53

  15 October

  The spy has been called off.

  I mean, of course, Sir Thomas Wilson, Keeper of the State Papers.

  J acta est alea.

  I can write freely now. I care not who reads this.

  For more than a month I had to bear with his company, knowing that every idle word I uttered was being written down and sent to their Lordships. He had nothing from me. There was nothing to have. If Mr Lieutenant considers it his duty to copy this present scribble and send it to the Privy Council then let me put it down now on record that I crave their Lordships’ indulgence for such a waste of time and expense. The truth is that poor Wilson did his job well. He tried every trick in the book. A most experienced and sympathetic Government agent. I recommend him for their future use. He has failed to find out evidence against me for the very simple reason that there is no evidence to be had. No doubt when there are traitors to be persuaded to incriminate themselves out of their own mouths, this same Wilson will prove valuable. I place my trust in English justice. I am sure the sad wretch will not be punished by your Lordships if, due to a decent lack of imagination, he has not even managed to invent a few lies once he realised that he dealt with a passing honest man.

  One small note of criticism, however.

  In Secretary Cecil’s day you could always tell a first-class spy by his clean teeth. (Even Kit Marlowe - by no means a first-class spy, being only a poet - used to make efforts now and again with a quart of honey, as much vinegar, and half as much white wine, all boiled together by way of a mouthwash.)

  Now - your Lordships may welcome my advising you? - this otherwise admirable and most thorough Sir Thomas Wilson lacks somewhat in that important small department. If I had possessed any secrets I would have been unlikely to whisper them into his ear. It would take a stronger stomach than mine to delight in his close company. These cells are not well-ventilated, and when a man seeks day and night for more than a month to persuade you to confide in him there is a distinct reluctance which builds up if he does so with breath like a Chick Lane dunghill.

  I prescribe for Sir Thomas Wilson a visit to some barber who will scale his teeth with Aqua Fortis.

  *

  Two items of news.

  (I had these from Wilson, in amongst much other chatter designed to make me see him as something other than a wolf in sheep’s clothing.)

  First, Sir Lewis Stukeley has put in a claim for expenses incurred in the exercise of his vocation.

  To wit:

  £965 6s 3d for bringing up out of Devonshire the person of Sir Walter Ralegh, Knight. I consider this a reasonable figure.

  At the current exchange rate it is no doubt exactly equal to 30 pieces of silver.

  The six shillings and threepence would be for broken strings on his violin.

  Cousin Lewis is nothing if not his father’s son.

  *

  The other bit of news is perhaps more interesting.

  His Majesty, my Sovereign Lord, King James, has received a formal letter from his dear brother King Philip III of Spain conveying Spain’s wish that Don Guattaral be done to death in England.

  No reason was given, to my knowledge.

  Perhaps King Philip has too many innocent men of his own for execution?

  For myself, I might laugh if my lungs still had power left for it.

  I trust the prospect of this task gives King James no sleepless nights.

  54

  23 October

  There will be no public trial. There will be no trial at all.

  Wilson could find no new treason. Their Lordships of the Privy Council took evidence from such members of my expedition as volunteered. None of that can have amounted to much. I have nothing to answer for, and they know it

  Does Sir Walter Ralegh go free then?

  Will his Majesty permit him to live out his last days in peace as a country gentleman, tending his garden, minding his own business, ordering his estate, with his wife and his son to comfort him in his old age?

  Not a bit of it.

  No new treason to be found?

  What matter?

  The old treason will do.

  *

  All this I learned today from Allen Apsley, Mr Lord Lieutenant of the Tower. A decent fellow, with honour enough to be obsolete. He seems not to relish what is happening. Yet he does his duty, Mr Apsley. He serves the King. As I do. An honest soldier. May no black fate befall this honourable Lieutenant for his courtesy in telling his poor prisoner the truth.

  *

  The truth.

  The truth is exquisitely neat. It is also disgusting.

  Some excellent judicial brain has been employed to remind King James that Sir Walter Ralegh stands already quite properly attainted of high treason.

  There is therefore no need for the aforesaid traitor to be tried and judged guilty or innocent concerning any crimes committed since.

  Sir Walter Ralegh’s ‘recent offences against Spain’ can be brushed aside as an irrelevance.

  Legally, lawfully, constitutionally, it is all in order for his Majesty to revoke his limited reprieve and to issue a simple warrant for Sir Walter Ralegh’s immediate execution according to the death-sentence passed on him at Winchester in 1603.

  Simple.

  Simplicity itself.

  The simplicity of a viper.

  I smell it. I smell genius, brilliance, philosophy.

  I smell another old friend.

  I smell Bacon.

  *

  Apsley says that Gondomar has gone off to Spain in a fury of impotence and belly-ache. Things haven’t turned out as he wanted, and everyone knows. Stones were thrown at the Count’s carriage as he passed through the streets. God bless us. There must be a few other left-overs from Elizabeth’s day still alive and troublesome in London.

  *

  My son, remember this well.

  Your father, Sir Walter Ralegh, was condemned to death for being a friend to the Spaniards. He is now to lose his life for being their enemy. And all on the one sentence.

  That is the way of this world.

  As the Indian said: It is a place apart.

  Nothing to find here after your own heart.

  *

  Apsley says I might have a week left. Maybe less. Most certainly no more. There will have to be some sort of formal pantomime. The Lord Chancellor conveying the King’s pleasure. Mr Attorney General, Sir Henry Yelverton, declaring the legality of it. And all to be done in private, of course, and quickly, behind closed doors. They won’t want to give me the chance to open my mouth much before they cram the clay in and stop it for good.

  *

  Bacon. Of course. Francis Bacon. Apsley admits that all London knows it was Bacon who advised the King how to be rid of me with the minimum of fuss. Coke wanted a trial. James dismissed him. It was Bacon who murmured that I was already a man dead in law. He reminded the King that I had only existed these last 15 years thanks to his Majesty’s mercy and forbearance. That this Sir Walter Ralegh is thus a ghost. That his dispatch will not be so much as an execution; more an exorcism. Buckingham told Clapton the story, admiring its capital wit. It’s common gossip now. To be sure, not everyone likes it. But the beauty of Bacon’s reasoning is cause for much wonder.

  He’s come far, Francis Bacon. He’ll go farther yet. His Majesty will assuredly reward this most subtle and simple of Lord Chancellors. For myself, I might claim that I never underestimated him. No more than Bacon ever underestimated himself. He penned a charming little autobiographical essay once. Ego cum me ad utilitates humanas natum existimarem, it began. ‘Since I first thought myself born to be of advantage to mankind’ (Carew, take heed. Always put on Latin when tempted by the insanity of self-exalta
tion.)

  So here we have another fine example of Bacon’s birth being of advantage to mankind. I can remember others. He started by exerting himself most diligently to gain the favour of my Lord Essex. Essex, impressed, did his best for him. He told the Queen he’d make a grand Attorney General. Elizabeth refused. I can say it now: Elizabeth never liked Bacon. She said he stuttered like a new-clipped crow. Essex then sought to have Bacon made Solicitor General. The Queen again resisted, despite all manner of coaxing and tantrums from her great boy. Essex was embarrassed. He sweetened Bacon’s disappointment with many gifts - a parcel of lands near Twickenham, in particular. Then, when Essex went mad and was tried for his treasons, his protégé forgot all this kindness and remembered mankind. Essex was doomed, but it was Bacon who secured that execution. Coke made his usual mess of the case for the Crown. He kept allowing the plain thread of the evidence to escape with his rhetoric. It was Bacon who stepped forward, zealously, cleverly, bringing things back to the point: the point of the axe for his gibbering patron’s poor neck. His performance was stunning and clear-cut. I never heard anything to equal it. Not for truth, not for treachery. If any man killed Essex, apart from Essex himself, it was Sir Francis Bacon. He gave his friend in need a helping hand right up the steps to the scaffold.

  O yes. A born advantage to mankind.

  A most splendid philosopher.

  But there are more things in heaven and earth

  *

  All the same, I must bow to your skills, my Lord Chancellor.

  How well, dear old friend, you dealt with those awkward pestering questions of mine in Gray’s Inn gardens!

  ‘Should I not try and purchase a pardon before sailing for Guiana?’

  To which, you: ‘Not at all. A pardon is a mere formality. The King has made you his Admiral. You have freedom to sail and power of life and death over those who sail with you. Such Commission is equivalent to a pardon.’

  To which I, still troubled, knowing you well, demanded: ‘Specifically, then, does it cancel out my conviction and sentence for high treason?’

  You shut your viper eyes, Francis Bacon, when I asked you that.

  Can it be that you have sufficient sensibility left in that hailstone heart, that diamond mind of yours, that you prefer not to look upon those you intend to betray? Surely not?

  I do you an injustice, my Lord Aristotle Junior. You looked keenly and openly on Essex when you ruined him.

  Your nerves are in perfect working order.

  You must just have been tired, or bored, or both.

  You will perhaps forgive me for supposing that you ever had anything resembling a soul, or even a miniature conscience.

  Pardon me also for still hearing in this foolish head of mine your shut-eyed words then:

  ‘Your Commission as Admiral seems to me as good a pardon for all former offences as the Law of England can afford you!’

  As you see, sir, your old friend is afflicted with this terrible and incurable disease of remembrance.

  I feel confident that your own mental health is far superior.

  *

  Apsley just allowed me an hour’s conversation with the Indian. (He remains in the cell next to mine. God knows what will happen to him. I have written to Bess suggesting that she might find him service in some gentleman’s company if - as I dare to suppose - he is set free from the Tower once I am safely disposed of.)

  I told Christoval the news.

  That he would see what he had come for.

  That I must die.

  He said: ‘Would it make any difference if I told Elizadeath the truth about Don Palomeque?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  He thought this over.

  He said: ‘I see.’ He was looking hard at me. At last, he said: ‘What if I named all those Spaniards who owned gold mines out there in Guiana? The ones I told you about, you understand? Pedro Rodrigo de Parana…. Hermano Frunt-ino …. Francisco Fachardo …. You know what I mean?’

  I knew what he meant.

  It was good of him.

  I shook my head.

  ‘No/ I said. ‘There is nothing that can save me now.’ True.

  Nothing can save me from Elizadeath.

  But it was more than good of the Indian, what he offered.

  *

  We sat in silence for a while. I smoked a pipe of tobacco. Then he said: ‘I want to tell you a story. It is a legend among my people. It is about the song of the Sun God. Before there were men in the lands of the Chibcha, there were birds, and all the birds knew that there was one song sweeter and stronger than any that they could sing. It was the song which can only be heard in the topmost heights of the sky, in that blue empty place where the Sun God lives. All the birds desired to hear that song. If they could hear it, only once, then they too might be able to sing it. The smaller birds never even dared to try to reach so high. But the great birds tried. They flew higher and higher, until their wings grew weak, and they could rise no more. They all failed. The last to try was the condor. His wings were wide, he was very strong, he was the bravest of all the birds. He soared far out of sight. Yet even he could not reach the home of the Sun God, although he came very close to it before he fell back to earth again. So the greatest of the birds, the mighty condor himself, had failed. But that is not the end of the story. You see, when the condor took off on his flight a small brown bird had hopped on his back. It was a bird so light and insignificant that the great condor did not even feel the weight of it. And when the condor had to give up his struggle, and fell back down, the little bird flew on by himself, on his own wings. The condor had come so near to the home of the Sun God that the small unimportant bird, being fresh and unwearied, had no trouble in flying the short distance that still remained. He flew into the palace of the Sun God, and he heard the Sun God’s song. He lay there for a long time, hidden in a corner, singing the song of the Sun God over and over in his own heart until he knew it note for note, quite perfectly. Then he spread his wings and drifted gently down to earth. It was not difficult. It is easy for the smallest and weakest to fall down on the currents of the wind, even though the most powerful cannot fly the same distance upwards. Over and over again, the brown bird sang the sweet song of the Sun God to himself. But he was afraid. He was afraid that when the condor found out what had happened he would kill him, having done all the work and yet never heard the Sun God’s song. He was afraid that the other birds would be jealous, and he had good reason for that, since all he had done to win the song was to ride on someone else’s wings. So he hid himself. He hid himself in the thickest bushes he could find, and to this day he lives like a hermit, seldom seen, although sometimes heard. And to this day the sweetest and strongest song in the world is the song of this creature.’

  Its name?’ I enquired.

  The Indian shrugged.

  ‘Some call it the hermit thrush.’

  ‘And others?’

  ‘The mocking bird’

  ‘I shall call it the hermit thrush,’ I said.

  *

  Later. A game of chess with Apsley. I was thinking of Christoval’s story. I still managed to win.

  As Apsley put the ivory pieces away, he remarked:

  ‘Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back into the same box.’

  I handed him a knight he had overlooked.

  55

  28 October

  It took them only an hour. Which was apt. Because adding the two minutes it took me to limp the length of Westminster Hall, and the other two minutes to limp out again, that makes 64.

  One minute for each year of my life.

  Quite poetic.

  I am to die tomorrow at nine o’clock.

  *

  It was Wilson who came with the summons. He looked very spruce. His teeth, when he smiled, were still yellow, but his breath not so bad. Apsley, noticing me noticing this, looked ashamed and embarrassed. He need not have done. As Lord Lieutenant of the Tower, he has his little duties to perform.
I am well aware that he must read these papers, and have them copied. I am glad to have done the State some service in this matter of dental hygiene amongst Government intelligencers. More importantly, on a personal note, Apsley has now given me his word that the originals of these my final writings will be passed on to Bess once I am dead. I record my gratitude for that. I pray again that no harm befall this gentleman for his charity towards me. He has done nothing I would not have done, had our rôles been reversed. And that does not make him a traitor. Unless Christian kindness be construed as treachery these days?

  *

  The hearing was begun at ten o’clock.

  In the King’s great hall at Westminster, as I say.

  Apsley read over the writ of habeas corpus. He found it in order. He delivered me into their charge.

  Seven judges present. And two observers.

  The judges:

  His Majesty’s Attorney General, Sir Henry Yelverton. His Majesty’s Solicitor General, Sir Thomas Coventry. Sir Henry Montagu, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. (Coke’s replacement.) Justice Sir Robert Houghton. Justice Sir John Croke. Justice Sir John Doderidge.

  The seventh, of course, Francis Bacon, my Lord Chancellor. Bacon sitting on the King’s white marble bench. Bacon never looked at me once. He was busy with papers. Some of them - who knows? - may even have been concerned with my case. But more likely he was working on his own philosophy.

  The two observers:

  George Abbot, my Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.

  James Hay, Viscount Doncaster, a Scot. (I knew why he was there, as a sort of courier. In his youth he was one of James’s favourites. His job today was to act as the King’s eyes, then report to the King.)

  His Majesty, but naturally, not present. It is the hunting season. He’d be occupied in pursuit of other game.

  I stood leaning on my cane until Bacon made his entrance.

  Then they gave me a fine black stool to sit upon.

  *

  Yelverton began the proceedings. He called on the Clerk of the Crown - a Mr Fanshawe, I believe - to remind all those present of my previous conviction and the judgement then passed upon it. Namely that long before, in the presence of divers noble personages, I had been legally convicted of high treason at Winchester, and was then and there sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. That done, Yelverton said: