The Grove of Eagles by Winston Graham
Even when in good health he was fond of experimenting on himself with dosages and brews; sometimes out of scientific interest, sometimes I believe out of a morbid curiosity in his own body’s strength and weakness. All around him who were unable to refuse were dosed from time to time, I among them; and I believe it was his sudden discovery that I knew something of the uses of herbs that weakened the barrier which my youth and his great position put between us.
The samples of strange medicines and infusions he had brought back from the Indies filled half a room, and where Katherine Footmarker would have been satisfied to make from them a salve to cure a burn, he would delight in heating the ingredients in a crucible to see if they would explode. Many times he burst tubes and bottles and the mixture ran to waste on the floor. Sometimes he would laugh like a mischievous boy at the result.
It was strange to see him so, because most times the shadows sat upon his face as if they marked it for their own.
After he came back from Cornwall he was much busied writing a forceful report of the deficiencies of the defences of the West Country. He also wrote constantly on war matters to the Privy Council, bombarding them with ideas and suggestions and warnings. His policy was always that offence was the best defence, and he argued that if an attack on England were to be warded off, a resumption of active war was the best way to avert it. He even offered to send a pinnace at his own expense to discover so far as it could the present state of Spanish preparations. For the most part it seemed that the Privy Council paid no heed to his advice.
I remember one night at the turn of the year he was absent unexpectedly and Lady Ralegh was worried for him. He returned in early morning, and told that all yesterday he and the Lord Lieutenant of Dorset with a group of servants had been hunting a Jesuit priest. In the night they had caught him and now he was where he could do no more harm.
One knew and averted one’s thoughts from the later processes of the Law; but Sir Walter was restless all day and the following night was absent again. When he returned it seemed that he had obtained permission to see the priest in his cell and so, having spent one night hunting him, he now had spent all the next arguing with him on religion—and listening too.
I heard him say to Keymis: “Such men have to be stepped on, stamped out—they would betray England, assassinate the Queen—but I found his beliefs vastly interesting. This is the other end of the scale from the Brownists whom I spoke for in Parliament recently … Whence comes the certitude, the morbid infallibility of such men, each convinced of a passionate dogma that allows no compromise, each believing in the same God but ready to perpetrate all injury upon the other for a set of interpretations! It confounds me. I believe intolerance to be one of the cardinal sins!”
Hariot was at the table but he did not speak then, a quiet plump man with a bland pasty face and eyes screwed up as if unaccustomed to the light; but that night a great debate developed, first at the supper table and then later in the green drawing chamber.
It began on the nature of the soul and ranged over all the quarters of the mind, passing this way and that with the quickness of a ball between tennis players. Ralegh asserted that there were three divisions of the soul, which consisted of the animal, the reasonable and the spiritual. The souls of beasts rose only to reason and consciousness through the perception of what was before their eyes; man achieved a closer kinship with God by perceiving, though dimly, the reality beyond the material world. Christ, he said, was of the same substance as God, as far spiritualized beyond man as man was beyond the animals. Through Christ only could man begin to apprehend the wisdom and the purchase of God, for God by His nature was pure and eternal and therefore never to be wholly discovered.
“How do we know what we may or may not discover, Walter?” Hariot said suddenly in his soft cushiony voice. “Where are the limits of human reason set except by the human himself? Except by his sense of unworthiness, except by prohibition of the church or state, except by his own lack of reason. We are yet at the birth of knowledge. If there is a God, then, as sceptics, we are all agreed that He is Transcendent, above the universe, beyond human experience. But he may well not be beyond knowledge.”
“I don’t deny the value of what knowledge we may get, Tom,” said Sir Walter. “ But I don’t fret myself at its limitations. I don’t believe we can ever measure the infinite, plumb the bottomless, adapt our conception of the nature of time to the beginning or end of the universe. We are joined to the earth, compounded of the earth, and we live on it. The heavens are high and far off. Eternal grace can only come by revelation.”
“But how do you define eternal grace, Walter?” asked the Earl of Northumberland, a thin, younger man with sharp brown eyes like a thrush. “I’m with Tom on this, though we seldom see eye to eye on philosophical matters. Where does human aspiration end and divine grace begin? If by observing Tycho’s great star we may foretell the second coming of Christ, are we not reaching to a knowledge beyond the normal limits of our powers; if by studying the aqueous sign of Pisces we may calculate and predict the excessive rain which has fallen on this land in the last three years, are these not—”
“Yes,” said Sir Walter, “ we’re reaching to a knowledge beyond the normal limits of our powers, and often failing, as we shall always fail. There has been no second coming of Christ—yet. When He comes I do not think we shall have to study the heavens to be forewarned. God is above nature. We may accept His existence or deny it, but we shall not get nearer Him by an excessive marshalling of fact or an excessive exercise of reason.”
Thomas Hariot filled his pipe. “We are all groping, friends; Henry here most of all. To him the horoscope and the telescope are equal servants of philosophy and as worthy of trust. It’s a common view. Even Johann Kepler appears to hold it, alas for him. I do not hold it. Until a firmer line is taken we shall make no sure progress. Once the division has been made I believe there is no limit to what we may know and what we may do. The capacity of men to reason differs as much as their sensibility to material things. But because knowledge may be stored, each pioneer may leave his discoveries behind him like a ladder leading to the next loft, waiting for another to climb. In the world of science there should be no need of prediction—which is a form of guesswork—only of speculation which can be susceptible of proof. That is true science, and it is the true destiny of man.”
“I think,” said Sir Walter, “there cannot be a true destiny of man which rests on intellectual pride.”
“Ah, but it is not personal pride. As men we are insignificant, temporary—we carry, a few of us only, the bricks of knowledge one or two rungs higher. If there is pride, then it is pride of species, that in this great universe where God seems increasingly remote we ask nothing of ourselves but to be worthy of our reason and worthy of our place. Mortality, that is certain; immortality, that is the gift of God.”
Towards the end of the year Lord Northumberland married Lady Perrot, the widow of Sir Thomas Perrot. Lady Perrot had in her maidenhood been Lady Dorothy Devereux and was the sister of the Earl of Essex. As soon as they were married Northumberland brought her to the house and reconciled her with Sir Walter.
Fifteen years ago, I was told, before either of them was married. Sir Walter had had a quarrel with Sir Thomas Perrot which had resulted in a duel and in their both spending six weeks in the Fleet as a punishment. But the swordplay had not let the bad blood, and there had never been any reconciliation. When Lady Dorothy married Sir Thomas she had done so without the permission of the Queen, so had been banished from Court. She had taken up her husband’s attitude towards Ralegh; so a year or so later when she had come secretly into the Queen’s presence at Lady Warwick’s hoping for forgiveness, Ralegh had drawn Her Majesty’s attention to her and she had again been summarily banished. This had led to the first great quarrel between Sir Walter and Lord Essex, when Essex had violently denounced Ralegh to the Queen while Ralegh was within earshot.
Sir Walter, though quick to take offence and
“The only obstacle,” said Northumberland, fingering the goblet he held, “is in the essential similarity between you and Robert—little as you may think so, Walter. Y’are both proud, both quick of temper, impatient of others less able than yourselves. You’ve both got the energies of three men. And you’re both warm-hearted under your arrogance. Once come together and you may likely become the closest of friends.”
Sir Walter said: “ Well for my part I wish him no ill. He’s a man who has matured and sobered greatly since the days of our quarrels. I would happily talk with him at some friend’s house. But I find it hard to suggest such a meeting since I stand to gain so much more than he.”
“Let’s not be too sure of that,” said Northumberland. “At any event I think this is the time to make the approach. And I can do it direct, without the knowledge of Anthony Bacon or any of his cronies. He’s a truly generous man, Wat; but he is surrounded by mean advisers.”
“I could wish for nothing better,” said Lady Ralegh, looking at her husband. “ Lord Essex was my friend before we married, and he stood by me in trouble when some others did not. But there is one thing I do not like, which is that this reconciliation would seem to be aimed at Robert Cecil, who is also our friend. I would not wish him to feel we were changing sides against him. There is a matter of loyalty to be considered.”
“Oh, loyalty from Cecil!” said Carew Ralegh.
Sir Walter was at his walking again. “I don’t think it need be aimed at anyone, Bess. Anyway, Henry’s is a pretty notion and we must not reject it. As for his wife, having realised my great error in so short a time, I cannot believe that any brother of hers could but be worthy of the highest esteem. I’ll meet him wherever or whenever you say.”
“As soon as it can be done,” said Lady Northumberland. To Lady Ralegh she said: “We have come a long way. Let us go on in friendship. I think my brother will want it too.”
They met for a parley in London, though I do not know where, just at the turn of the year. Sir Walter’s book on Guiana had been delayed at the printer’s, but a proof copy of it was put in Essex’s hands and he declared himself greatly impressed. The meeting went well, for Sir Walter came home to Sherborne alive with enthusiasm for the future. He was certain now that friendship with Essex would not shake his accord with Cecil. Why, he asked, should they not all three be on good terms? They had nothing to lose except enmity and outworn divisions. At that I heard Carew Ralegh mutter: “Get Essex and Cecil to lie in the same bed? Get a peacock to lie with a snake.”
Essex, said Ralegh, had told him he had some great project on hand for the coming summer—together with Howard, the Lord Admiral, which gave some clue as to its nature—but he was not permitted to divulge more. Ralegh, if not too deeply engaged in Guiana, might be invited to play some major role. This was the greatest of temptations, for it appeared to be putting into effect the very urgings that Sir Walter had been sending in to the Privy Council all winter. And glory close at hand always weighed heavier with the Queen than glory at a remove of four thousand miles. In the meantime Sir Walter had invited Essex to visit him at Sherborne; by then the book would be out and its effects known. All the same he flung himself with his usual feverish impatience into immediate preparations for a new visit to Guiana. Even if only on a reduced scale, smaller much than last summer, it must be undertaken to fulfil his promise to the natives and keep their interest in England alive.
From my knowledge of what went on, it will have been guessed that I was treated all through the winter more like a member of the family than a servant, far more like a cousin than a secretary. I shared their board and was as often as not at their private talk. This was done so naturally, almost, one thought, in absence of mind, that I was quite won over.
Sir Walter was a man with high standards for his helpers and a biting tongue when they fell short, and it took me time to get to know him. But he had disarming qualities which would take the sting out of his arrogance. For a man capable, as I saw sometimes, of dubious stratagems of business and the most tortuous approaches to statecraft, he yet had a profound candour among his friends, and a frankness and a capacity for trust that I have not seen bettered.
I looked at no girl while at Sherborne, though one or two looked at me, but I made a friend of Victor Hardwicke, a kinsman of Lady Ralegh who acted as an assistant steward on the estate. When Sir Walter was away we would borrow two of his nags and go riding together; he was 24 and a great change from the raffish Belemus, being a serious young man with an infection of the lungs, who coughed much and played the lute and wrote poetry and was in love with a married woman at Cerne Abbas, the young wife of the hosier who sold Sir Walter his gloves and his jerkins.
He told me that Sir Walter, in spite of his great incoming from the wine and broadcloth business, was in debt from his expeditions to Guiana to the amount of £30,000. He had lost also £40,000 on his adventures in trying to found the colony in Virginia, and this had never been properly recouped.
“The taking of the Madre de Dios two years ago should have enriched him permanently but he gave all his profit to the Queen—£80,000 or more—to buy his liberty. So he is in straits.”
“Like others,” I said, thinking of my father.
“Yes, but while out of favour he has little opportunity to recover his losses. That’s why he must go with Essex. It’s his great chance. Unless the Queen relents, Guiana must wait.”
At least, I thought, my father has a marriageable son …
Nothing all this while of Drake and Hawkins. Then in the new year came word that they had taken Havana. This set aside all Sir Walter’s fears for them. The genius of the old sea-dogs had triumphed over the new organisation of Spain, for Havana was the key to the West Indies.
It was in this mood that he first went down the steps of Sherborne to welcome the Earl of Essex from his carriage. I watched them from a window.
My master always loved to dress magnificently, was fond of diamonds and big pearls and grey silks, and this was an occasion when every magnificence was justified. As they walked up the steps together there was little to choose between them for brilliance and for dignity. They were both big men but Essex, fourteen years the younger, topped his host by perhaps two inches; brown bearded in a fuller fashion but with a clean shaven front chin, dark haired, big boned, slim waisted, vital. One saw the magnetism even at a distance.
I saw little else at that meeting, for they dined six only together: the Raleghs, with Carew, Essex and the Northumberlands. At ten the coach drove away. In spite of all protestations to the contrary, a meeting such as this between the two greatest contenders for the Queen’s favour was fraught with significance for all who ruled England and therefore the more secret the better. I wondered if Sir Robert Cecil would hear of it. Some said that a pin dropped in the royal bedchamber at Greenwich would always be heard in Theobalds.
For the next days Sir Walter was thoughtful and moody—not depressed nor yet exalted, as if the meeting had gone but moderate well. In fact, though I did not know it then, he was wrestling wi
The only comment Sir Walter made in my hearing was: “ I wish such power as they are being granted had been put in Francis Drake’s hands. If he has captured Havana with his meagre force, with what Essex is mounting he could have won the war.”
That month was published by Robert Robinson a book entitled The Discovery of the Large, Rich and Beautiful Empire of Guiana, with a relation of the Great and Golden City of Manoa (which the Spaniards call El Dorado). Performed in the year 1595 by Sir Walter Ralegh, Knight, Captain of Her Majesty’s Guard, Lord Warden of the Stannaries and Her Highness’s Lieutenant General of the County of Cornwall.
Its reception could hardly have been more gratifying. Four printings were sold in as many weeks. The Germans, the Dutch, the French, the Italians wished to bring out editions. Many in England spoke of it. Cecil, to whom the book was dedicated, politely praised it. But Sir Walter found no happiness or satisfaction in this at all. He lived each day on tenterhooks, for the one person who counted gave no sign. She might not yet have read it. For all he knew it might have been deliberately kept from her. He waited on Cecil to enlist his help; Cecil was polite but cold: his father was unwell; he could not leave Burghley House except on the business of his office. Essex—yes, said Sir Walter, even Essex was more generous than Cecil. Warmly and impulsively he commended it to the Privy Council and promised to see that the Queen received her copy. Still no response.
There was also some laughter, and in time this seeped through to Sherborne. The Bacons led the scornful whispering. Men without heads? Amazons who consorted with men for only one month of the year and if they conceived male children returned them to their fathers though females were brought up to be as warlike as themselves? This was Sir Walter at his usual game. He would sell his soul, perhaps already had sold his soul, to gain advancement. A pretty piece of fiction, this relation of supposed travels in a remote country.