Essex took a different view and wanted to put a stop to negotiations for peace. He eventually won the day with the Council, to the chagrin of Lord Burleigh and Robert Cecil.
Essex started to work against his enemies with that furious energy which was typical of him. My brother William, who, now that my father was dead, had inherited the title, tried to dissuade him from his vehemence. Christopher worshiped Essex blindly and, although in the first place I had been glad of this accord between them, I now wished Christopher would show a little discrimination. Mountjoy warned him, so did Francis Bacon, who remembered what a good friend Essex had always been to him; but in his headstrong way Essex would listen to nobody.
The Queen disapproved strongly of what he was doing and showed this in her manner towards him. It was a hot July day when matters came to a climax, and I think that the first irrevocable step towards disaster was taken then, for Essex did that which the Queen would never tolerate and never lightly forgive: he assaulted her dignity and in fact came near to assaulting her person.
Ireland was a matter of great contention, as it always had been, and the Queen was considering sending a lord deputy there.
She said she trusted Sir William Knollys. He was a kinsman on whose loyalty she could rely. His father had served her well all his life and Sir William was the man she would propose for the task.
Essex cried out: "It will not do. The man for that task is George Carew." Carew had taken part in the expedition to Cadiz and to the Azores. He had been in Ireland and had knowledge of affairs there. Moreover he was a close friend of the Cecils and if he could be exiled from the Court, all the better from Essex's point of view.
"I say William Knollys," said the Queen.
"You are wrong, Madam," retorted Essex. "My uncle is quite unsuited. Carew is your man."
No one ever spoke to the Queen in that manner. No one told her she was wrong. If her ministers felt strongly about something, she was gently and subtly persuaded to change her view. Burleigh, Cecil and the rest were adept at this maneuver. But to say: "Madam, you are wrong" so defiantly was something which could not be tolerated—even from Essex.
When the Queen ignored him with a gesture which implied that the suggestion of this impertinent young man was of no importance, a sudden rage seized Essex. She had insulted him in public. She was telling him that what he said was insignificant. For a moment his temper got the better of his common sense. He turned his back on the Queen.
She had accepted his outburst—for which he would no doubt be reprimanded later and warned never to do such a thing again— but this was a deliberate insult.
She sprang at him and boxed him soundly on the ears, telling him to go and be hanged.
Essex, blinded by rage, put his hand to his sword hilt, and would have drawn it, if he had not been immediately seized. As he was hustled out of the chamber he shouted that he would not have taken such an insult from Henry VIII. No one before had ever witnessed such a scene between a monarch and a subject.
Penelope hurried to Leicester House to talk it over with Christopher and me, and my brother William joined us with Mountjoy.
William was of the opinion that it must be the end of Essex, but Penelope would not have it.
"She is too fond of him. She will forgive him. Where has he gone?"
"To the country," Christopher told her.
"He should stay there for a while until this blows over," said William. "That's if ever it does."
I was worried indeed, for I did not see how such an insult could be forgiven. To have turned his back on the Queen was bad enough but to have drawn his sword on her was outrageous and could be treason—and he had many enemies.
We were all plunged into gloom and I was not sure that Penelope really believed in the optimism she expressed.
Everyone was talking about the decline of Essex until a matter of great importance ousted my son from the public eye. Lord Burleigh, who was seventy-eight and had been ailing for some time, was dying. He had suffered terribly with his teeth (an affliction with which the Queen was in great sympathy since she suffered likewise) and of course he had been subject to strain throughout his life. With the meticulous care he had given to state affairs, he set his personal ones in order. I heard that he took to his bed, called his children to him, blessed them and the Queen, and gave his will to his steward; then quietly he slipped away.
When the news was taken to the Queen she was inconsolable. She went to her own chamber and wept; and for some time afterwards when his name was mentioned her eyes would fill with tears. Not since the death of Leicester had she shown such emotion.
He had died in his house in the Strand and his body was taken to Stamford Baron for burial, but his obsequies were performed in Westminster Abbey. Essex came up from the country, in black mourning, to attend these and it was noticed that none of the mourners looked as melancholy as he did.
Afterwards he was at Leicester House and my brother William Knollys was there with Christopher and Mountjoy. Although Essex had opposed William's appointment, my brother realized that the family fortunes were tied up in my son. Moreover, Essex had a charm which very often overcame the resentment of those whom he had slighted or wronged in some way. Like my father, William was a farsighted man and he was not one to let a momentary upset affect the future. So he was as eager as the rest of us to see Essex back in favor.
He said: "Now is the time for you to go to the Queen. She is broken down with grief. It is for you to go and comfort her."
"She is out of humor with me," grumbled Essex, "but no more so than I with her."
I retorted: "She has insulted me, but if she were to ask me to come to Court tomorrow, most willingly would I go. I beg of you, do not play the fool, my son. One does not consider personal affronts when dealing with monarchs."
William flashed a look of warning at me. My brother was like our father—a very cautious man.
"The more you stay away, the more she will harden towards you," Mountjoy warned Essex.
"She will have no thought for me now," retorted Essex. "We shall hear what a good man Burleigh was. How he never crossed her. Differences of opinion they had, but he never forgot he was her subject. Nay, I have no intention of going to Court to listen to a panegyric on the virtues of Burleigh."
In vain did we try to make him realize what would be good for him. His stubborn pride stood in his way. She must ask him to come, and then he might consider going.
He was unrealistic, this son of mine, and I trembled for him.
Mountjoy told me that the Queen had ceased to think of Essex, so deep in mourning was she for Burleigh. She would talk to those about her of that good man—her Spirit, she still called him. "He never failed me," she said. She talked of how there had been a rivalry between those two dear men who had meant so much to her —Leicester and Burleigh. "I could not have done without either of them," she said, and wept again. Her Eyes, her Spirit, both lost to her. How different were the men of this age! Then she would talk about the goodness of Burleigh. He had been a good father to his children. Look how he had advanced Robert, her Little Elf. Of course, Robert was a clever man. Burleigh had known that. He had not tried to bring his eldest—now Lord Burleigh—to her notice because he had known he had not the wit to serve her. No, it was Robert the hunchback, the splayfooted Little Elf, who was the genius. And his good father had known it. Oh, how she missed her dear, dear Spirit.
And so it went on without a regret for the absence of Essex.
"I cannot compete with a dead man in the heart of a sentimental woman," he said.
His utterances were becoming more and more reckless. We trembled for him—all of us. Even Penelope, who was constantly urging him to what I thought of sometimes as even greater recklessness.