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$Title{Makers Of History Queen Elizabeth
Chapter XII. The Conclusion.}
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$Author{Abbott, Jacob}
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$Subject{queen
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$Date{1876}
$Log{Hear To The Countess Of Nottingham*48120007.aud
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Title:       Makers Of History Queen Elizabeth
Book:        Queen Elizabeth
Author:      Abbott, Jacob
Date:        1876

Chapter XII. The Conclusion.

     There can be no doubt that Essex was really guilty of the treason for
which he was condemned, but mankind have generally been inclined to consider
Elizabeth rather than him as the one really accountable, both for the crime
and its consequences.  To elate and intoxicate, in the first place, an ardent
and ambitious boy, by flattery and favors, and then, in the end, on the
occurrence of real or fancied causes of displeasure, to tease and torment so
sensitive and impetuous a spirit to absolute madness and phrensy, was to take
the responsibility, in a great measure, for all the effects which might
follow.  At least so it has generally been regarded.  By almost all the
readers of the story, Essex is pitied and mourned - it is Elizabeth that is
condemned.  It is a melancholy story; but scenes exactly parallel to this case
are continually occurring in private life all around us, where sorrows and
sufferings which are, so far as the heart is concerned, precisely the same
result from the combined action, or rather, perhaps, the alternating and
contending action, of fondness, passion, and obstinacy.  The results are
always, in their own nature, the same, though not often on so great a scale as
to make the wrong which follows treason against a realm, and the consequences
a beheading in the Tower.

     There must have been some vague consciousness of this her share in the
guilt of the transaction in Elizabeth's mind, even while the trial of Essex
was going on.  We know that she was harassed by the most tormenting suspense
and perplexity while the question of the execution of his sentence was
pending.  Of course, when the plot was discovered, Essex's party and all his
friends fell immediately from all influence and consideration at court.  Many
of them were arrested and imprisoned, and four were executed, as he had been.
The party which had been opposed to him acquired at once the entire
ascendency, and they all, judges, counselors, statesmen, and generals,
combined their influence to press upon the queen the necessity of his
execution.  She signed one warrant and delivered it to the officer; but then,
as soon as the deed was done, she was so overwhelmed with distress and anguish
that she sent to recall it, and had it canceled.  Finally she signed another,
and the sentence was executed.

     Time will cure, in our earlier years, most of the sufferings, and calm
most of the agitations of the soul, however incurable and uncontrollable they
may at first appear to the sufferer.  But in the later periods of life, when
severe shocks strike very heavily upon the soul, there is found far less of
bouyancy and recovering power to meet the blow.  In such cases the stunned and
bewildered spirit moves on, after receiving its wound, staggering, as it were,
with faintness and pain, and leaving it for a long time uncertain whether it
will ultimately rise and recover, or sink down and die.

     Dreadfully wounded as Elizabeth was, in all the inmost feelings and
affections of her heart, by the execution of her beloved favorite, she was a
woman of far too much spirit and energy to yield without a struggle.  She made
the greatest efforts possible after his death to banish the subject from her
mind, and to recover her wonted spirits.  She went on hunting excursions and
parties of pleasure.  She prosecuted with great energy her war with the
Spaniards, and tried to interest herself in the siege and defense of
Continental cities.  She received an embassage from the court of France with
great pomp and parade, and made a grand progress through a part of her
dominions, with a long train of attendants, to the house of a nobleman, where
she entertained the embassador many days in magnificent state, at her own
expense, with plate and furniture brought from her own palaces for the
purpose.  She even planned an interview between herself and the King of
France, and went to Dover to effect it.

     But all would not do.  Nothing could drive the thoughts of Essex from her
mind, or dispel the dejection with which the recollection of her love for him,
and of his unhappy fate, oppressed her spirit.  A year or two passed away, but
time brought no relief.  Sometimes she was fretful and peevish, and sometimes
hopelessly dejected and sad.  She told the French embassador one day that she
was weary of her life, and when she attempted to speak of Essex as the cause
of her grief, she sighed bitterly and burst into tears.

     When she recovered her composure, she told the embassador that she had
always been uneasy about Essex while he lived, and, knowing his impetuosity of
spirit and his ambition, she had been afraid that he would one day attempt
something which would compromise his life, and she had warned and entreated
him not to be le into any such designs, for, if he did so, his fate would have
to be decide by the stern authority of law, and not by her own indulgent
feelings bu that all her earnest warnings had been insufficient to save him.

     It was the same whenever any thing occurred which recalled thoughts of
Essex to her mind; it almost always brought tears to her eyes.  When Essex was
commanding in Ireland, it will be recollected that he had, on one occasion,
come to a parley with Tyrone, the rebel leader, across the current of a
stream.  An officer in his army, named Harrington, had been with him on this
occasion, and present, though at a little distance, during the interview.
After Essex had left Ireland, another lord-deputy had been appointed; but the
rebellion continued to give the government a great deal of trouble.  The
Spaniards came over to Tyrone's assistance, and Elizabeth's mind was much
occupied with plans for subduing him.  One day Harrington was at court in the
presence of the queen, and she asked him if he had ever seen Tyrone.
Harrington replied that he had.  The queen then recollected the former
interview which Harrington had had with him, and she said, 'Oh, now I
recollect that you have seen him before!" This thought recalled Essex so
forcibly to her mind, and filled her with such painful emotions, that she
looked up to Harrington with a countenance full of grief: tears came to her
eyes, and she beat her breast with every indication of extreme mental
suffering.

     Things went on in this way until toward the close of 1602, when an
incident occurred which seemed to strike down at once and forever what little
strength and spirit the queen had remaining.  The Countess of Nottingham, a
celebrated lady of the court, was dangerously sick, and had sent for the queen
to come and see her, saying that she had a communication to make to her
majesty herself, personally, which she was very anxious to make to her before
she died.  The queen went accordingly to see her.

     When she arrived at the bedside the countess showed her a ring. Elizabeth
immediately recognized it as the ring which she had given to Essex, and which
she had promised to consider a special pledge of her protection, and which was
to be sent to her by him whenever he found himself in any extremity of danger
and distress.  The queen eagerly demanded where it came from.  The countess
replied that Essex had sent the ring to her during his imprisonment in the
Tower, and after his condemnation, with an earnest request that she would
deliver it to the queen as the token of her promise of protection, and of his
own supplication for mercy.  The countess added that she had intended to
deliver the ring according to Essex's request, but her husband, who was the
unhappy prisoner's enemy, forbade her to do it; that ever since the execution
of Essex she had been greatly distressed at the consequences of her having
withheld the ring; and that now, as she was about to leave the world herself,
she felt that she could not die in peace without first seeing the queen, and
acknowledging fully what she had done, and imploring her forgiveness.

     The queen was thrown into a state of extreme indignation and displeasure
by this statement.  She reproached the dying countess in the bitterest terms,
and shook her as she lay helpless in her bed, saying, "God may forgive you if
he pleases, but I never will!" She then went away in a rage.

[Hear To The Countess Of Nottingham]
The queen was thrown into a state of extreme indignation and displeasure.

     Her exasperation, however, against the countess was soon succeeded by
bursts of inconsolable grief at the recollection of the hopeless and
irretrievable loss of the object of her affection whose image the ring called
back so forcibly to her mind.  Her imagination wandered in wretchedness and
despair to the gloomy dungeon in the Tower where Essex had been confined, and
painted him pining there, day after day, in dreadful suspense and anxiety,
waiting for her to redeem the solemn pledge by which she had bound herself in
giving him the ring.  All the sorrow which she had felt at his untimely and
cruel fate was awakened afresh, and became more poignant than ever.  She made
them place cushions for her upon the floor, in the most inner and secluded of
her apartments, and there she would lie all the day long, her hair disheveled,
her dress neglected, her food refused, and her mind a prey to almost
uninterrupted anguish and grief.

     In January, 1603, she felt that she was drawing toward her end, and she
decided to be removed from Westminster to Richmond, because there was there an
arrangement of closets communicating with her chamber, in which she could
easily and conveniently attend diving service.  She felt that she had now done
with the world, and all the relief and comfort which she could find at all
from the pressure of her distress was in that sense of protection and safety
which she experienced when in the presence of God and listening to the
exercises of devotion.

     It was a cold and stormy day in January when she went to Richmond; but,
being restless and ill at ease, she would not be deterred by that circumstance
from making the journey.  She became worse after this removal. She made them
put cushions again for her upon the floor, and she would lie upon them all the
day, refusing to go to her bed.  There was a communication from her chamber to
closets connected with a chapel, where she had been accustomed to sit and hear
divine service.  These closets were of the form of small galleries, where the
queen and her immediate attendants could sit. There was one open and public;
another - a smaller one - was private, with curtains which could be drawn
before it, so as to screen those within from the notice of the congregation.
The queen intended, first, to go into the great closet; but, feeling too weak
for this, she changed her mind, and ordered the private one to be prepared.
At last she decided not to attempt to make even this effort, but ordered the
cushions to be put down upon the floor, near the entrance, in her own room,
and she lay there while the prayers were read, listening to the voice of the
clergyman as it came in to her through the open door.

     One day she asked them to take off the wedding ring with which she had
commemorated her espousal to her kingdom and her people on the day of her
coronation.  The flesh had swollen around it so that it could not be removed.
The attendants procured an instrument and cut it in two, and so relieved the
finger from the pressure.  The work was done in silence and solemnity, the
queen herself, as well as the attendants, regarding it as a symbol that the
union, of which the ring had been the pledge, was about to be sundered
forever.

     She sunk rapidly day by day, and, as it became more and more probable
that she would soon cease to live, the nobles and statesmen who had been
attendants at her court for so many years withdrew one after another from the
palace, and left London secretly, but with eager dispatch, to make their way
to Scotland, in order to be the first to hail King James, the moment they
should learn that Elizabeth had ceased to breathe.

     Her being abandoned thus by these heartless friends did not escape the
notice of the dying queen.  Though her strength of body was almost gone, the
soul was as active and busy as ever within its failing tenement.  She watched
every thing - noticed every thing, growing more and more jealous and irritable
just in proportion as her situation became helpless and forlorn. Every thing
seemed to conspire to deepen the despondency and gloom which darkened her
dying hours.

     Her strength rapidly declined.  Her voice grew fainter and fainter,
until, on the 23d of March, she could no longer speak.  In the afternoon of
that day she aroused herself a little, and contrived to make signs to have her
council called to her bedside.  Those who had not gone to Scotland came. They
asked her whom she wished to have succeed her on the throne.  She could not
answer, but when they named King James of Scotland, she made a sign of assent.
After a time the counselors went away.

     At six o'clock in the evening she made signs for the archbishop and her
chaplains to come to her.  They were sent for and came.  When they came in,
they approached her bedside and kneeled.  The patient was lying upon her back
speechless, but her eye, still moving watchfully and observing every thing,
showed that the faculties of the soul were unimpaired.  One of the clergymen
asked her questions respecting her faith.  Of course, she could not answer in
words.  She made signs, however, with her eyes and her hands, which seemed to
prove that she had full possession of all her faculties.  The bystanders
looked on with breathless attention.  The aged bishop, who had asked the
questions, then began to pray of her.  He continued his prayer a long time,
and then pronouncing a benediction upon her, he was about to rise, but she
made a sign.  The bishop did not understand what she meant, but a lady present
said that she wished the bishop to continue his devotions.  The bishop, though
weary with kneeling, continued his prayer half an hour longer. He then closed
again, but she repeated the sign.  The bishop, finding thus that his
ministrations gave her so much comfort, renewed them with greater fervency
than before, and continued his supplications for a long time - so long, that
those who had been present at the commencement of the service went away
softly, one after another, so that when at last the bishop retired, the queen
was left with her nurses and her women alone.  These attendants remained at
their dying sovereign's bedside for a few hours longer, watching the failing
pulse, the quickened breathing, and all the other indications of approaching
dissolution.  As hour after hour thus passed on, they wished that their weary
task was done, and that both their patient and themselves were at rest.  This
lasted till midnight, and then the intelligence was communicated about the
palace that Elizabeth was no more.

     In the mean time all the roads to Scotland were covered, as it were, with
eager aspirants for the favor of the distinguished personage there, who, from
the instant Elizabeth ceased to breathe, became King of England.  They flocked
into Scotland by sea and by land, urging their way as rapidly as possible,
each eager to be foremost in paying his homage to the rising sun. The council
assembled and proclaimed King James.  Elizabeth lay neglected and forgotten.
The interest she had inspired was awakened only by her power, and that being
gone, nobody mourned for her, or lamented her death.  The attention of the
kingdom was soon universally absorbed in the plans for receiving and
proclaiming the new monarch from the North, and in anticipations of the
splendid pageantry which was to signalize his taking his seat upon the English
throne.

     In due time the body of the deceased queen was deposited with those of
its progenitors, in the ancient place of sepulture of the English kings,
Westminster Abbey.  Westminster Abbey, in the sense in which that term is used
in history, is not to be conceived of as a building, nor even as a group of
buildings, but rather as a long succession of buildings like a dynasty,
following each other in a line, the various structures having been renewed and
rebuilt constantly, as parts or wholes decayed, from century to century, for
twelve or fifteen hundred years.  The spot received its consecration at a very
early day.  It was then an island formed by the waters of a little tributary
to the Thames, which has long since entirely disappeared.  Written records of
its sacredness, and of the sacred structures which have occupied it, go back
more than a thousand years, and beyond that time tradition mounts still
further, carrying the consecration of the spot almost to the Christian era, by
telling us that the Apostle Peter himself, in his missionary wanderings, had a
chapel or an oratory there.

     The spot has been, in all ages, the great burial-place of the English
kings, whose monuments and effigies adorn its walls and aisles in endless
variety.  A vast number, too, of the statesmen, generals, and naval heroes of
the British empire have been admitted to the honor of having their remains
deposited under its marble floor.  Even literary genius has a little corner
assigned it - the mighty aristocracy whose mortal remains it is the main
function of the building to protect having so far condescended toward
intellectual greatness as to allow to Milton, Addison, and Shakspeare modest
monuments behind a door.  The place is called the Poets' Corner; and so famed
and celebrated is this vast edifice every where, that the phrase by which even
this obscure and insignificant portion of it is known is familiar to every ear
and every tongue throughout the English world.

     The body of Elizabeth was interred in a part of the edifice called Henry
the Seventh's Chapel.  The word chapel, in the European sense, denotes
ordinarily a subordinate edifice connected with the main body of a church, and
opening into it.  Most frequently, in fact, a chapel is a mere recess or
alcove, separated from the area of the church by a small screen or gilded iron
railing.  In the Catholic churches these chapels are ornamented with
sculptures and paintings, with altars and crucifixes, and other such
furniture.  Sometimes they are built expressly as monumental structures, in
which case they are often of considerable size, and are ornamented with great
magnificence and splendor.  This was the case with Henry the Seventh's Chapel.
The whole building is, in fact, his tomb.  Vast sums were expended in the
construction of it, the work of which extended through two reigns.  It is now
one of the most attractive portions of the great pile which it adorns.
Elizabeth's body was deposited here, and here her monument was erected.

     It will be recollected that James, who now succeeded Elizabeth, was the
son of Mary Queen of Scots.  Soon after his accession to the throne, he
removed the remains of his mother from their place of sepulture near the scene
of her execution, and interred them in the south aisle of Henry the Seventh's
Chapel, while the body of Elizabeth occupied the northern one. ^* He placed,
also, over Mary's remains, a tomb very similar in its plan and design to that
by which the memory of Elizabeth was honored; and there the rival queens have
since reposed in silence and peace under the same paved floor.  And though the
monuments do not materially differ in their architectural forms, it is found
that the visitors who go continually to the spot gaze with a brief though
lively interest at the one, while they linger long and mournfully over the
other.

[Footnote *: See our history of Mary Queen of Scots, near the close Aisles in
English Cathedral churches are colonnades, or spaces between columns on an
open floor, and not passages between pews, as with us.  In monumental churches
like Westminster Abbey there are no pews.]

     The character of Elizabeth has not generally awakened among mankind much
commendation or sympathy.  They who censure or condemn her should, however,
reflect how very conspicuous was the stage on which she acted, and how
minutely all her faults have been paraded to the world.  That she deserved the
reproaches which have been so freely cast upon her memory can not be denied.
It will moderate, however, any tendency to censoriousness in our mode of
uttering them, if we consider to how little advantage we should ourselves
appear, if all the words of fretfulness and irritability which we have ever
spoken, all our insincerity and double-dealing, our selfishness, our pride,
our petty resentments, our caprice, and our countless follies, were exposed as
fully to the public gaze as were those of this renowned and glorious, but
unhappy queen.