John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh

“ It may be said, indeed, that Rawlings had a perfect mastery in that direction. It was a pity that he did not use his powers to better purpose, while for the one he so easily twisted round his fingers, it may be said that it was a pity in his case that Sturton did not at once deal severely with him. For discipline and force are also persuasive powers. There are many youths and men also who, when left to their own devices, pursue a crooked line, their course marked by tempers, perverseness, and ill-feeling. ”

“ Finding his life at Cambridge rather too exacting, Rayleigh resigned his professorship at the end of 1884 and retired to Terling to pursue his researches in his private laboratory. A few months later he accepted the secretaryship of the Royal Society, vacant through the resignation of Sir George G. Stokes. ”

“ But the popular belief was that the immediate agency to which he owed his freedom was neither equity nor policy; it was the prisoner's own money. A half-brother of George Villiers, Sir Edward Villiers, and Sir William St. John, a kinsman of Sir Edward's wife, are alleged in the Observations on Sanderson's History of King James, to have procured Sir Walter Ralegh's liberty, and to have had £1500 for their labour. ”

“ In 1583, in the reign of Elizabeth, a grand shooting match was held in London, and the captain of the archers assuming his title of Duke of Shoreditch, summoned a suit of nominal nobility, under the titles of marquis of Barlo, of Clerkenwell, of Islington, of Hoxton, of Shacklewell, and earl of Pancrass, &c. and these meeting together at the appointed time, with their different companies, proceeded in a pompous march from Merchant Taylors Hall, consisting of three thousand archers, sumptuously apparelled; Strype says, "odly habited;" every man had a long-bow, and four arrows. ”

“ He changed his mind, and ordered King to return to Radford. Next day he sent money to the Frenchman, and begged him to wait for him another night. Night came, but Raleigh did not stir. This singular irresolution in a man so energetic, ready, and firm, points surely to the fact that he was ill at the time, suffering from the ague which so often prostrated him. Stukeley at length received orders to take his prisoner to London, and the opportunity to escape was gone for ever. ”

“ It is the protest of romance against the commonplace of life. The incidents of the legend become the hero's surest passport to immortality. The ironic philosopher reflects with a smile that Sir Walter Raleigh is more safely inshrined in the memory of mankind because he set his cloak for the Virgin Queen to walk on than because he carried the English name to undiscovered countries. Charles Strickland lived obscurely. He made enemies rather than friends. ”

“ Students of Ralegh's career cannot complain of a dearth of materials. For thirty-seven years he lived in the full glare of publicity. The social and political literature of more than a generation abounds in allusions to him. He appears and reappears continually in the correspondence of Burleigh, Robert Cecil, Christopher Hatton, Essex, Anthony Bacon, Henry Sidney, Richard Boyle, Ralph Winwood, Dudley Carleton, George Carew, Henry Howard, and King James. ”

“ We now enter the period of the plot and plot within plot in which Anthony Copley, the priests William Watson and Francis Clarke, George Brooke and his brother Cobham, Sir Griffin Markham and his brothers, the Puritan Lord Grey of Wilton, and Sir Edward Parham were variously and confusedly implicated. The intrigue, 'a dark kind of treason,' as Rushworth calls it, 'a sham plot' as it is styled by Sir John Hawles, belongs to our story only so far as the cross machinations involved Ralegh. His slender relation to it is as hard to fix as a cobweb or a nightmare. ”

“ If Norman could have his own way he would have allowed matters to go on much as they were before Harvey took the lead. He had grumbled then at the added energy required. He positively growled when he had read Sturton's notice.
"What if we kick?" he repeated, for in Rawlings he found a ready and sympathetic listener. "What'll he do? Can't kick the whole lot of us, can he?"
"Then he'd have to grin and bear it," smiled Rawlings sardonically. "One would think we'd come to Ranleigh to be at Sturton's beck and call. Supposing a chap hates games; he's got to play 'em simply because of this idiot. ”

“ His father, Walter Raleigh, whose ancestors were known before the Conquest, had an estate near Plymouth; his mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Philip Camperdown. He received the earlier part of his education at a school in the parish of Budely; at the age of sixteen we find that he was a commoner at Oxford, and already distinguished as an orator and a philosopher. A year later he went as a volunteer with one of his relations to help the Protestants in France, and afterwards served in the Netherlands under the Prince of Orange. ”

“ Among them was a diamond ring, supposed by Naunton to have been a present from Queen Elizabeth, though Ralegh told Sir Thomas Wilson he had never any such of the Queen's giving. There were a Guiana idol of gold and copper, and sixty-three gold buttons with sparks of diamonds. All these were entrusted to Stukely by the Lieutenant of the Tower. It would be strange if some did not stay with their custodian. It may have been with reference to them that Ralegh admitted the traitor to a last interview in the Lieutenant's lodgings on the Wednesday after his committal. ”

“ Struthers, the picture man, come to us—R. Alonzo Struthers, of London and 'Frisco, he was—and showin' us a picture, he says:
"'Ain't that great? Sunday supplements! Full page! Big display! eh?'
"It sure was. 'Bout 9x9, and showing every detail of the Reception saloon. There was 'Single Out' analyzing the cuspidore and 'Curly' dozin', as contorted and well-done as a pretzel. ”

“ The summer was usually passed at Stratton, the winter in London. Three children were born to them—two daughters, in 1674 and 1676, and a son in 1680,—blessings which were counterbalanced by the loss of her beloved sister, Lady Elizabeth 6Noel. The society of the children enhanced the delight of their beloved home at Stratton. On one occasion Rachel wrote to her husband at the last-mentioned place from Southampton House in answer to a letter from him. She is so glad he finds Stratton sweet, and hopes he will live for fifty years to enjoy it, and that God may permit her to have his good company. ”

“ Travelling on this kind of ground was, indeed, more distressing to the cattle than even the hard pull over sand; for it was impossible for the bullock-drivers to steer clear of the many fissures and holes on these flats, and the shock, when the drays fell into any of them, was so great, that it shook the poor brutes almost to pieces.
From this period to the 9th there was a sameness in our progress up the Darling. On the 3rd we crossed a small creek, into which the waters of the river were flowing fast ”

“ Later, at breakfast, heads were turned from all directions to watch the various members of the team on whom the honour of Ranleigh was to depend. Those lucky gentlemen were eating stolidly and with satisfaction. It was clear that, whatever the ordeal before them, their appetites were not impaired. As for Sturton, he was positively boisterous.
"We'll put up a game, at any rate," he told Bagshaw across the scholars' table. "We'll give those Parkland fellows the game of their lives."
"And don't forget," cautioned his friend, "steady does it. Training is everything. ”

“ The populace clamoured for Stukely's death on the gallows, but the King allowed him to escape. Wherever he met human beings, however, they taunted him with the memory of Sir Walter Raleigh, and at last he fled to the desolate island of Lundy, where his brain gave way under the weight of remorse and solitude. He died there, a maniac, in 1620. Another of Raleigh's enemies, though a less malignant one, scarcely survived him. Lord Cobham, who had been released from the Tower while Raleigh was in the Canaries, died of lingering paralysis on January 24, 1619. ”

“ Indeed, Masters showed no great inclination that way. Clive found him, after a while, when they had become more intimate, a merry, contented fellow, but dreadfully lazy.
"A regular slacker," Sturton declared on more than one occasion. "There's a cart-load of sisters at his home, and they molly-coddle the fellow. If he imagines an ache or a pain, even in his toe, he lies abed in the morning and is fed by one of the many sisters. But there's no bringing chaps up here on the spoon. No hand-rearing at Ranleigh if I know it. When a chap's ill, he can go to the sick-room. ”

“ Also that of "Eagremond Radclyff 1576, pour parvenir" the undoubted autograph cut in stone, of a person, noble by birth, the son of Henry earl of Suffex, half brother to Thomas, then earl of Suffex, lord high chamberlain of the queen's household. But being young, says Strype, and of a haughty spirit, and a papist, he was engaged in the rebellion in the north in 1569, and made a shift afterwards to fly into Spain and Flanders. He ventured to Calais in 1575, and we soon afterwards find him committed to the Tower of London. ”

“ Thereupon, according to Manourie, Ralegh bribed him with twenty crowns, and an offer of £50 a year, to aid his escape. On the same suspicious testimony, he was furious against the King, and uttered menaces. Ralegh informed Manourie of King's Tilbury project. He said he must fly, for 'a man that fears is never secure.' Further, he asserted his conviction that the courtiers had concluded among them 'a man must die to reassure the traffic which he had broken in Spain.' Manourie pretended Ralegh handed to him jewels and money for the purchase of Stukely's connivance. ”

“ Even Sturton could not have kicked the ball harder. Moon's terrific blow sent it soaring away over the heads of the players to the centre of the field, thus saving the goal for Ranleigh. Ah! They know at Ranleigh how to encourage a man, how to show their approval. The groan which went up from the lips of the visitors, their grumbles at their want of fortune, were drowned out of hearing by the shrill yells of Ranleigh boys, by their mad cheers and cries of delight. It was magnificent! Clive felt quite overcome. ”

“ A prefect also, he was senior in his old dormitory, reigning where Sturton had once held sway.
Masters had managed to crawl to the Lower Sixth, and was noted in the school more for games than for lessons. His sturdy, genial figure attracted the admiring eye of many a junior as he tramped the corridor, and when we admit that he was still as much a boy as ever, we do no harm to his reputation. Trendall, now an excellent fellow, was with Susanne and Bert in the Upper Sixth, while Hugh, now Ranleigh's chief exponent of gymnastics, was in the Upper Fifth. ”

“ This kind-hearted individual was Mrs Baillie, widow of the Rev. Dr Baillie of Hamilton, who was then resident at Longcalderwood, and whose celebrated daughter, Joanna Baillie, afterwards took a warm interest in the fame and fortunes of her mother's protégé. From the age of eight to fourteen, young Struthers was engaged as a cowherd and in general work about a farm; he then apprenticed himself to a shoemaker. On the completion of his indenture, he practised his craft several years in his native village till September 1801, when he sought a wider field of business in Glasgow. ”

“ If, after that, he chose to give Stucley his confidence, he could only expect it to be betrayed. Stucley certainly gave hostile, but not necessarily false, evidence against Ralegh. No one will pretend that Stucley's conduct was chivalrous, but it seems to have been very much what might have been expected from an honest but narrow and vulgar minded man who believed that he had an injury done to his father to redress. Popular opinion, however, idealising Ralegh, vented on Stucley the indignation which could not be expressed against the king. ”

“ He did not repeat his protest against the mock conviction of 1603. He uttered no scorn of the King's betrayal to the Court of Spain of the plan of his Denial of
Stukely's Calumnies. expedition. In general he was content to defend himself; he was sparing of attacks. Only his 'keeper and kinsman,' Stukely, he could not pass over in silence. Having received the Sacrament he forgave the man; but he held himself bound to caution the world against him, out of charity to others. He repudiated warmly a calumny against Carew and Doncaster, that they had advised him to fly. ”

“ His figure, dressed in an overcoat over his pyjamas, often with a towel about his curly head, was familiar to all in the dormitory who happened to open their sleepy eyes in the early morning. For Sturton was "swatting." He had some examination in view, and since the rules of Ranleigh forbade the burning of the candle at both ends, and indeed compelled the shutting down of all lights by ten o'clock at night, Sturton perforce had to burn the candle at one end only, and that the daylight one. Five o'clock found him poring over his books at the dormitory table. ”

“ The Sovereign levied fines thus for the benefit of favourites on men too guilty to be let off scot-free, and not guilty enough to be capitally punished. Ralegh himself appears in after years to have received large sums from two pardoned accomplices of Essex, Sir Edward Bainham and Mr. John Littleton. ”