Ralegh and King James

Abstract

Two issues dominated everybody’s mind in the governing circle at the end of Elizabeth’s reign: the question of the succession and that of the peace with Spain. The resolution of the second came to depend on the first, and both, in the circumstances of those days, were extremely dangerous to touch. This did not stop Ralegh from meddling with both of them — and in the worst possible conditions, having incurred the mistrust of the man who had proved himself his strongest friend, Robert Cecil. The unwisdom of it all is made the more pointed by the circumstance that Cecil was in the key-position to control the solution to both these great questions. Ralegh’s conduct at this critical juncture, however, was not controlled by reason, but by pique; and Cecil’s reaction was not only one of mistrust, but of resentment at ingratitude. By August 1601 he was writing that he was ‘left to seek new friends’.¹