On the eve of Essex’s disastrous expedition to Ireland, Shakespeare referred to his friend in the prologue of Act v. of the play of _Henry V._ After “broaching rebellion in Ireland,” Essex is thus referred to:
“Were now the general of our gracious empress As in good time he may, from Ireland coming, Bringing rebellion broached on his sword, How many would the peaceful city quit To welcome him!”
But the poet’s prophecy was not to be fulfilled; for two years after the declamation of these proud lines foretelling Essex’s glory, both their subject and Southampton—who had accompanied Essex to Ireland as Master of the Horse—were charged with treasonable conduct and neglect of duty. Thus Shakespeare lost his two most influential friends by one and the same fatality.
Essex, half mad with rage and disappointment at his failure, and smarting under the bitterness of mortified vanity and ambition, and under what he considered the ingratitude of the Queen, lost his self-control. Raleigh, he believed, had poisoned Elizabeth’s mind against him, quite forgetting his own insolences to his Sovereign on many occasions. Had he not during one of his outbursts of temper exclaimed in the hearing of some of the people attached to her person, that Elizabeth was as crooked in her mind as she was in her body? Essex must have been well aware that the aged monarch would never pardon such a speech; and it was probably one of the chief causes which led her to sign the warrant that consigned her former favourite to the scaffold.
HIC TVVS ILLE COMES GENEROSA ESSEXIA NOSTRIS QVEM QVAM GAVDEMVS REBVS ADESSE DVCEM.]
Enraged at the charges brought against him and the failure of the Irish expedition, Essex formed a wild plot to seize the Queen’s person, being assisted in the scheme by Southampton and some other hot-heads, amongst them, Rutland, Sandys, Cromwell, and Monteagle; with these were a band of about three hundred armed men. Although Essex was immensely popular with the Londoners, the sober citizens had no idea of imperilling their lives and possessions in such a harum-scarum adventure as this promised to be. Consequently Essex and his friends found no support, and instead of seizing the Queen and upsetting the Government they themselves were taken prisoners after a short siege in Essex’s townhouse. Early in February 1601 Essex with Southampton passed under Traitor’s Gate.