For Essex had now indeed abandoned himself to desperate courses. Seeing no more of Anthony Bacon, he listened only to the suggestions of his mother and Penelope Rich, to the loud anger of Sir Christopher Blount, and to the ruthless counsel of Henry Cuffe. Though Mountjoy had abandoned him, he still carried on a correspondence with the King of Scotland, and still hoped that from that direction deliverance might come. Early in the new year, (1601), he wrote to James, asking him to send an envoy to London, who should concert with him upon a common course of action. And James, this time, agreed; he ordered the Earl of Mar to proceed to England, while he sent Essex a letter of encouragement. The letter arrived before the ambassador; and Essex preserved it in a small black leather purse, which he wore concealed about his neck.

The final explosion quickly followed. The Earl’s partisans were seething with enthusiasm, fear, and animosity. Wild rumours were afloat among them, which they disseminated through the City. The Secretary, it was declared, was a friend to the Spaniards; he was actually intriguing for the Spanish Infanta to succeed to the Crown of England. But more dangerous still was the odious Raleigh. Everyone knew that that man’s ambition had no scruples, that he respected no law, either human or divine; and he had sworn — so the story flew from mouth to mouth — to kill the Earl with his own hand, if there was no other way of getting rid of him. But perhaps the Earl’s enemies had so perverted the mind of the Queen that such violent measures were unnecessary. During the first week of February the rumour rose that he was to be at once committed to the Tower. Essex himself perhaps believed it; he took counsel with his intimates; and it seemed to them that it would be rash to wait any longer for the arrival of Mar; that the time had come to strike, before the power of initiative was removed from them. But what was to be done? Some favoured the plan of an attack upon the Court, and a detailed scheme was drawn up, by which control was to be secured over the person of the Queen with a minimum of violence. Others believed that the best plan would be to raise the City in the Earl’s favour; with the City behind them, they could make certain of overawing the Court. Essex could decide upon nothing; still wildly wavering, it is conceivable that, even now, he would have indefinitely postponed both projects and relapsed into his accustomed state of hectic impotence if something had not happened to propel him into action.

That something bears all the marks of the gentle genius of Cecil. With unerring instinct the Secretary saw that the moment had now arrived at which it would be well to bring matters to an issue; and accordingly he did so. It was the faintest possible touch. On the morning of Saturday, February 7th, a messenger arrived from the Queen at Essex House, requiring the Earl to attend the Council. That was enough. To the conspirators it seemed obvious that this was an attempt to seize upon the Earl, and that, unless they acted immediately, all would be lost. Essex refused to move; he sent back a message that he was too ill to leave his bed; his friends crowded about him; and it was determined that the morrow should see the end of the Secretary’s reign.

The Queen herself — who could be so base or so mad as to doubt it?— was to remain inviolate. Essex constantly asserted it; and yet there were some, apparently, among that rash multitude, who looked, even upon the divine Gloriana, with eyes that were profane. There was a singular episode on that Saturday afternoon. Sir Gilly Merrick, one of the most fiery of the Earl’s adherents, went across the river with a group of his friends, to the players at Southwark. He was determined, he said, that the people should see that a Sovereign of England could be deposed, and he asked the players to act that afternoon the play of “Richard the Second.” The players demurred: the play was an old one, and they would lose money by its performance. But Sir Gilly insisted; he offered them forty shillings if they would do as he wished; and on those terms the play was acted. Surely a strange circumstance! Sir Gilly must have been more conversant with history than literature; for how otherwise could he have imagined that the spectacle of the pathetic ruin of Shakespeare’s minor poet of a hero could have nerved any man on earth to lift a hand, in actual fact, against so oddly different a ruler?

The Government, aware of everything, took its precautions, and on Sunday morning the guards were doubled at Whitehall. Sir Charles Davers went there early to reconnoitre, and returned with the news that it was no longer possible to surprise the Court; he recommended the Earl to escape secretly from London, to make his way into Wales, and there raise the standard of revolt. Sir Christopher Blount was for immediate action, and his words were strengthened by the ever-increasing crowd of armed men, who, since daybreak, had been pouring into the courtyard of Essex House. Three hun............