daggers, he said, were
thirsting for his blood.

It was probably in the summer of 1600 that Raleigh wrote the curious
letter of advice to Cecil which forms the only evidence we possess that
he had definitely come to the decision that Essex must die. His language
admits of no doubt of his intention. He says:

If you take it for a good counsel to relent towards this tyrant,
you will repent it when it shall be too late. His malice is
fixed, and will not evaporate by any of your mild courses. For
he will ascribe the alteration to her Majesty's pusillanimity
and not to your good nature, knowing that you work but upon her
humour, and not out of any love towards him. The less you make
him, the less he shall be able to harm you and yours; and if her
Majesty's favour fail him, he will again decline to a common
person. For after-revenges, fear them not, for your own father
was esteemed to be the contriver of Norfolk's ruin, yet his son
followeth your father's son and loveth him.

This advice has been stigmatised as worse than ungenerous. It was, at
all events, extremely to the point, and it may be suggested that for
Raleigh and Cecil the time for showing generosity to Essex was past.
They took no overt steps, however, but it is plain that they kept
themselves informed of the mad meetings that went on in Essex House. On
the morning before the insurrection was to break out, February 18, 1601,
Raleigh sent a note to his kinsman, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who was one
of Essex's men, to come down to Durham House to speak with him. Gorges,
startled at the message, consulted Essex, who advised him to say that he
would meet Raleigh, not at Durham House, but half-way, on the river.
Raleigh assented to this, and came alone, while Gorges, with two other
gentlemen, met him. Raleigh told his cousin that a warrant was out to
seize him, and advised him to leave London at once for Plymouth. Gorges
said it was too late, and a long conversation ensued, in the course of
which a boat was seen to glide away from Essex stairs and to approach
them. Upon this Gorges pushed Raleigh's boat away, and bid him hasten
home. As he rowed off towards Durham House, four shots from the second
boat missed him; it had been manned by Sir Christopher Blount, who,
with three or four servants of Essex, had come out to capture or else
kill Raleigh.

For this treason Blount asked and obtained Raleigh's pardon a few days
later