frustrated, he was disappointed; unlike his adversary, he could bear
disappointment. He was at once the most patient and the most impatient
of men. His was the healthy form of disappointment, which, if an outlet
in one quarter be closed, incites to the discovery of another. The
gossip of the town reported in October, 1598, that he was meditating a
voyage to Guiana in company with Sir John Gilbert: 'He is discontented
he thrives no better.' It was one of a Court life's passing clouds, and
he treated it so that it should pass. To the diseased mind of Essex he
appeared prosperous and triumphant at all points, and beyond all
deserving. Even the few laurels of the late expedition had been gathered
by him. When they had been at variance, Ralegh had put him in the wrong.
Ralegh could not tolerate an insolent superior. Essex could endure no
equal. He was ever sulking at Wanstead, or raging. Ralegh's name was the
established text for his outbursts of wrath. An anecdote told by the
anonymous author, said to be Lord Clarendon, of _The Difference between
George Duke of Buckingham and Robert Earl of Essex_, is supposed to
illustrate the humiliations to which his temper exposed him. On the
Queen's birthday, November 17, 1598, the accustomed tournament was being
held in the Tilt-yard before her Majesty. Ralegh, not brooding on late
rebuffs, led a gallant retinue in orange-tawny plumes. Essex had heard
of Ralegh's preparations. He entered with his visor down, at the head of
a larger and more magnificent troop flaunting 2000 feathers of the same
colour. It must be admitted that, as Horace Walpole remarks, 'the
affront is not very intelligible at present.' Apparently, he wished to
produce an impression by his 'glorious feather triumph' that Ralegh and
his followers were a company of esquires or pages. But the two bodies
tilted, and Essex 'ran very ill.'

[Sidenote: _Essex in Ireland._]

In chagrin, and almost despair, Essex at the end of March, 1599, went
over to Ireland as Lord Deputy. The vacancy had been a theme of much
dispute at Court. In 1598, Ralegh, Sir Robert Sidney, and Sir
Christopher Blount, Essex's step-father, had been mentioned by rumour
for the appointment. In March, Rowland Whyte had written positively to
Sir Robert Sidney that it had been decided to nominate either Sir
William Russell or Ralegh, but Russell had absolutely declined, and 'the
other doth little like it.' Perilous as the post was, 'a fair way to
destruct