Great Ralegh. Hugh De Sélincourt
quartered, or burned, or beheaded, and his execution was public and a sight not to be missed. The limbs of malefactors were exposed conspicuously at the Queen's pleasure.
Cruelty breeds fear, and fear breeds cunning. There was no longer the shelter of the monastery for the timid or the thoughtful. Accordingly, craftiness and conspiracy and secrecy prevailed in every corner of the country.
But there is the contrary side. The man who was able to be independent of these circumstances of cruelty, rose above them to heights of bravery and self-reliance and strength, which are almost unknown in more peaceful times. There could be no monotony, or slackness of endeavour when a mistake or a careless word, or even a foolish gesture, might bring with it the consequence of death. A man was braced to continual effort and unconquerable control, when a moment's lack of either might mean life's actual ending, or a lifetime's long disgrace. There was no place for mediocrity. Those were the days of heroes and nonentities; soaring heroes, crawling nonentities.
Thus the chance which led Ralegh to the French wars, and Ralegh's readiness to seize that chance (chance by itself does little), were fortunate in the extreme for the best furtherance of his personality's development.
In France the religious wars between the Guisards and the Huguenots had broken out in the year 1562; and as Hayward, a contemporary chronicler, recounts, "In regarde to her owne person and state the Queen considered that if the Duke of Guise should prevail these fires of France both easilie might and readilie would cast dangerous sparkes over the ocean into England." She could not give aid openly to the Huguenots: but privately she sanctioned the enterprises of gentlemen who offered their services in aid of the Huguenots. For the real danger was that if the Huguenots were wiped out, a formidably close union between France and Spain might result. It was thus convenient that France should remain in a state of unrest until England should become properly strengthened and solidified in her isolated position. Elizabeth's actions were ruled in this case, as in all cases, not by religious faith or by sympathy with the people who were suffering death for their faith, but wholly by political expediency. Religion with her was only a piece in the game, and she respected it as the most valuable piece. It is easy to cry "Shame!" and "Treachery!" when modern power over time and space has modified the rules of the diplomatic game; but game it remains, and truth in it still plays, and will always play, the subservient part of a nice convention or a fine pretext.
So those gallant gentlemen, who longed to fight and could find no more excellent reason than faith for fighting, went with their companies to France and fought their fill for the Huguenots. They realized the unfortunate necessity to which the Queen of England was put in ordaining that if they were taken prisoners a scroll should be pinned on their breasts as they dangled from the gallows, on which it was declared that they met their fate "for having come against the will of the Queen of England to the help of the Huguenots." That, probably, only lent zest to their endeavour. They would realize, too, that however the Queen of England might be forced to act, Elizabeth in her woman's heart sympathized deeply with the cause for which they fought; and Elizabeth, be sure, with her woman's wit, did her utmost to encourage them in this belief, and not without sincerity.
Henry Champernoun, of whose band of gentlemen volunteers, gathered mostly from Devonshire, Camden asserts that Ralegh was a member, was famous among these Huguenot supporters, though not so famous as his cousin, Gawen Champernoun, a son of Katherine, Ralegh's younger brother, Sir Arthur. Gawen progressed so far that he became son-in-law to the celebrated Count of Montgomery. No doubt Ralegh the nephew looked up to his uncles.
About his five or six years' absence in France (the date of his return is uncertain) Ralegh is reticent, partly, as Edwards suggests, in obedience to the maxim laid down in his "History of the World" which runs, "Whosoever in writing a Modern Historie shall follow Truth too near the heels it may haply strike out his teeth;" and partly, too, for the reason that his experiences as a boy would be adventurous rather than suggestive. He would have been too young to be enough behind the scenes to know the motives of movements in which he took part, and the motives would alone lend a broad or historical value to the adventures. Among relations, youngness is commonly taken into full account. And Ralegh, for all his ability, had not probably the opportunity given him of seeing things other than as isolated incidents. As likely as not, he was asked to leave the tent or the room when matters of moment were about to be discussed.
But certain anecdotes he recalls in his "History of the World," one of which is well worth telling in his own good words, because it shows the manner of fighting that prevailed in these wars: "I saw in the third Civil War of France certain caves in Languedoc which had but one entrance, and that very narrow, cut out in the midway of high rocks, which we knew not how to enter by any ladder or engine; till at last by certain bundles of straw, let down by an iron chain, and a weighty stone in the midst, those that defended it were so smothered as they rendered themselves with their plate, money and other goods therein hidden."
He was not, however, always among the caves and hedgerows; almost certainly he was in Paris in 1572, sheltering with Philip Sidney in the house of the ambassador, Walsingham, when the terrible and famous massacre took place during the night of St. Bartholomew's Eve, in which the friends of the Duke of Guise boasted that more Protestants were slain than in the whole of the twelve years of the war.
CHAPTER III
TOWARDS MANHOOD
Friendship with George Gascoyne—Its importance—Ralegh in London—The arch-gossip Aubrey—Elizabethan London—Ralegh and Sir Humfrey Gilbert—The beginning of the great enterprise.
Ralegh returned from France in 1575 or 1576; and there are three years of his life—important years, from the age of twenty-three to twenty-six—which contain little or no record of his doings. Some authors, on the slenderest authority, maintain that he trailed a pike in the Lowlands, under Sir John Norris. But this is unlikely. The time of his possible presence there has been adroitly whittled down by William Oldys to the early part of the year 1578, and quite recently a document has been discovered bearing his signature, and the date of the deed is April 11th, 1578. If the signature is genuine, and expert evidence points to the fact that it is so, this is an additional, almost conclusive, proof that during these three years he remained in England.
There is another matter, intrinsically small, but exceedingly important because it throws a great light on his pursuits at this time. To George Gascoigne's satirical poem "The Steele Glas" is appended, among other commendatory verses, a poem by Walter Rawely, of the Middle Temple, which runs as follows—
"Swete were the sauce, would please ech kind of tast
The life likewise, were pure that never swerved
For spyteful tongs, in cankred stomaches plaste,
Deeme worst of things, which best (percase) deserved:
But what for that? this medcine may suffyse,
To scorne the rest, and seke to please the wise.
"Though sundry mindes in sundry sorte do deeme
Yet worthiest wights yelde praise for every payne,
But envious braynes, do nought (or light) esteeme
Such stately steppes as they cannot attaine.
For who so reapes, renowne above the rest,
With heapes of hate, shal surely be opprest.
"Wherefore to write, my censure of this booke
This Glasse of Steele impartially doth shewe,
Abuses all, to such as in it looke,
From prince to poore, from high estate to lowe
As for the verse, who lists like trade to trye,