against him, and he was deprived of his offices and banished from Court. The Queen had said that an unruly horse must be kept short of provender, and when this was repeated to him he retorted that the Queen’s mind was as crooked as her body, and it is difficult to imagine a speech which would anger her more. Then, instigated by his secretary, Cuffe, he formed the desperate resolution of breaking in upon the Court, removing by force the courtiers, and so ruling the Queen by force. A terrible blunder to make. He was perhaps the most popular noble in London, but the citizens had no idea of imperilling their lives and fortunes by countenancing such a harum-scarum idea as this. Nobody came to his call, and after a short siege in his own house in the Strand he was captured, along with the Earl of Southampton, and conveyed through the fatal Traitors’ Gate. This was on February 6, 1601; on the 19th he was adjudged a traitor, and on the 25th beheaded. The execution took place within the Tower, some say because Essex was so popular that there was a fear of a demonstration in his favour if it had been on Tower Hill, others that it was his own wish to die within the walls. He was buried in St. Peter’s Chapel. He was only thirty-five years of age! There is a story that the Queen expected a ring which he was to send her when in trouble, and which was to win him forgiveness; that he had entrusted it to Lady Nottingham, who kept it back; but this story is certainly untrue. Elizabeth, as one can quite understand, was unwilling to sign the warrant, considering the favour in which she had once held him, and after its execution she fell into a terrible fit of despondency, from which in fact she never recovered. Raleigh, who was never popular with the Londoners, was hooted in the streets for his enmity towards Essex, so was Bacon as one of his judges. Four of Essex’s fellow-conspirators were beheaded; Cuffe was hanged at Tyburn. Southampton was kept in close confinement, but liberated by special command of James I in 1603. Essex’s son, born 1593, lived to lead the Parliamentary army against Charles I. Sad enough are the accounts of the last days of the great Queen, her loneliness and terror. No doubt the nature of her disease produced fits of delirium. She seemed to have no one near her to whom she could look for a loving or tender word. But she was a great monarch, and under her rule England rose out of weakness, confusion, distraction. Elizabeth had triumphed over all her enemies. Her bitterest foe, Philip of Spain, had gone to his grave five years before her, but not until he had seen his “Invincible Armada” beaten all to pieces. England was now in the first rank of the nations. FOOTNOTE: