has entered under the year 1618:
'Sir Walter Ralegh had the favour to be beheaded at Westminster, where
he died with great applause of the beholders, most constantly, most
Christianly, most religiously.' Hampden could not bear that any
fragments of his writing should be lost. Cromwell pored over his
History. Milton printed his essays. Eliot at the date of the execution
was twenty-eight. He had long been a friend, and still followed the
fortunes, of Villiers. He did not belong yet to the popular party. So
far was he from forgetting the spectacle in a week that, many years
after, he recalled the whole in a glow of enthusiasm both for the King's
victim and the Devon hero. He wrote in the _Monarchy of Man_, which he
did not complete till 1631, that all history scarcely contained a
parallel to the fortitude of 'our Ralegh'; that the placid courage of
'that great soul,' while it turned to sorrow the joy of the enemies who
had come to witness his sufferings, filled all men else with emotion;
'leaving with them only this doubt, whether death were more acceptable
to him, or he more welcome unto death.'

Something both of political and religious partisanship mixed with and
exalted the zeal of Pym, Hampden, Eliot, Cromwell, and Milton for the
foe of Jesuits and Bishops, the scapegoat of a Stuart's infatuation for
Spain, the survivor of a Court which had believed in the present
grandeur of England, and a future more splendid still. The feeling was
wonderfully tenacious. Ralegh remained for the generation which
witnessed his death, and for the next also, the patriot scourge of a
still detested Spain. Gradually that especial ground of kindness for
him subsided, along with the aversion on which it rested. English
hatred of Spain has long been so obsolete a sentiment as to be virtually
inconceivable. Not many care to thread the mazes of the plots he was
alleged to have countenanced, or of those contrived against him. His
acts have been relegated to a side channel of history. Yet for
Englishmen his figure keeps its prominence and radiance. It is the more
conspicuous for the poverty of the period in which a large and
calamitous part of his career was spent. As the student plods along one
of the dreariest wastes of the national annals, his name gleams across
the tedious page. When from time to time he flits over the stage, the
quagmire of Court intrigues and jobbing favouritism is illuminated with
a sparkle of romance.

[Sidenote: _Perp