, on the scaffold. At the last moment of his life, Essex also had
desired to speak with Raleigh, having already solemnly retracted the
accusations he had made against him; but it is said that this message of
peace was not conveyed to Raleigh until it was too late. According to
Raleigh's own account, he had been standing near the scaffold, on
purpose to see whether Essex would address him, and had retired because
he was not spoken to. His words in 1618 were these:

It is said I was a persecutor of my Lord of Essex; that I puffed
out tobacco in disdain when he was on the scaffold. But I take
God to witness I shed tears for him when he died. I confess I
was of a contrary faction, but I knew he was a noble gentleman.
Those that set me up against him, did afterwards set themselves
against me.

Raleigh was accused of barbarity by the adherents of Essex, but there is
nothing to rebut the testimony of one of his own greatest enemies,
Blount, who confessed, a few minutes before he died, that he did not
believe Sir Walter Raleigh intended to assassinate the Earl, nor that
Essex himself feared it, 'only it was a word cast out to colour other
matters.' We are told that Raleigh suffered from a profound melancholy
as he was rowed back from the Tower to Durham House after the execution
of Essex, and that it was afterwards believed that he was visited at
that time by a presentiment of his own dreadful end.

During the summer of 1601, Raleigh became involved in a vexatious
quarrel between certain of his own Dorsetshire servants. The man Meeres,
whom he had appointed as bailiff of the Sherborne estates nine years
before, after doing trusty service to his master, had gradually become
aggressive and mutinous. He disliked the presence of Adrian Gilbert,
Raleigh's brother, who had been made Constable of Sherborne Castle, and
who overlooked Meeres on all occasions. There began to be constant petty
quarrels between the bailiff of the manor and the constable of the
castle, and when Raleigh at last dismissed the former bailiff and
appointed another, Meeres put himself under the protection of an old
enemy of Raleigh's, Lord Thomas Howard, now Lord Howard of Bindon, and
refused to quit. In the month of August, Meeres audaciously arrested the
rival bailiff, whereupon Raleigh had Meeres himself put in the stocks in
the market-place of Sherborne. The town took Raleigh's side, and when
Meeres was released, the people riotousl