r forgave, nor forgot
to destroy, his enemies, had now triumphed over the last passion of the
doting queen. Essex had gone to perdition.

Son of the great minister who had brought the mother of James to the
scaffold, Salisbury had already extorted forgiveness for that execution
from the feeble king. Before Elizabeth was in her grave, he was already
as much the favourite of her successor as of herself, governing Scotland
as well as England, and being Prime Minister of Great Britain before
Great Britain existed.

Lord High Treasurer and First Secretary of State, he was now all in all
in the council. The other great lords, highborn and highly titled as they
were and served at their banquets by hosts of lackeys on their
knees--Nottinghams, Northamptons, Suffolks--were, after all, ciphers or
at best, mere pensioners of Spain. For all the venality of Europe was not
confined to the Continent. Spain spent at least one hundred and fifty
thousand crowns annually among the leading courtiers of James while his
wife, Anne of Denmark, a Papist at heart, whose private boudoir was
filled with pictures and images of the Madonna and the saints, had
already received one hundred thousand dollars in solid cash from the
Spanish court, besides much jewelry, and other valuable things. To
negotiate with Government in England was to bribe, even as at Paris or
Madrid. Gold was the only passkey to justice, to preferment, or to power.

Yet the foreign subsidies to the English court were, after all, of but
little avail at that epoch. No man had influence but Cecil, and he was
too proud, too rich, too powerful to be bribed. Alone with clean fingers
among courtiers and ministers, he had, however, accumulated a larger
fortune than any. His annual income was estimated at two hundred thousand
crowns, and he had a vast floating capital, always well employed. Among
other investments, he had placed half a million on interest in Holland,'
and it was to be expected, therefore, that he should favour the cause of
the republic, rebellious and upstart though it were.

The pigmy, as the late queen had been fond of nicknaming him, was the
only giant in the Government. Those crooked shoulders held up, without
flinching, the whole burden of the State. Pale, handsome, anxious,
suffering, and intellectual of visage, with his indomitable spirit, ready
eloquence, and nervous energy, he easily asserted supremacy over all the
intriguers, foreign and domestic, the stipe