hands any longer. I will
rather lose my life, and I think that my Lord Puritan Peryam
doth think that the Queen shall have more use of rogues and
villains than of men, or else he would not, at Bindon's
instances, have yielded to try actions against me being out of
the land.

The vexation was a real one, but this is the language of a petulant
invalid, of a man to whom the grasshopper has become a burden. We are
therefore not surprised to find him at Bath on September 15, so ill that
he can barely write a note to Cecil warning him of the approach of a
Spanish fleet, the news of which has just reached him from Jersey. He
grew little better at Bath, and in October we find him again at
Sherborne, in very low spirits, sending by Cobham to the Queen a stone
which Bartholomew Gilbert had brought from America, and which Raleigh
took to be a diamond. Immediately after this, he set out on what he
calls his 'miserable journey into Cornwall,' no other than his customary
autumn circuit through the Stannary Courts. Once he had enjoyed these
bracing rides over the moors, but his animal spirits were subdued, and
the cold mosses, the streams to be forded, the dripping October woods,
and the chilly granite judgment-seat itself, had lost their attraction
for his aching joints. In November, however, he is back at Sherborne,
restored to health, and intending to linger in Dorsetshire as long as he
can, 'except there be cause to hasten me up.'

Meanwhile he had paid a brief visit to London, and had spoken with the
Queen, as it would appear, for the last time. Cecil, who was also
present, has recorded in a letter of November 4 this interview, which
took place the previous day. On this last occasion Elizabeth sought
Raleigh's advice on her Irish policy. The President of Munster had
reported that he had seen fit to 'kill and hang divers poor men, women,
and children appertaining' to Cormac MacDermod McCarthy, Lord of
Muskerry, and to burn all his castles and villages from Carrigrohan to
Inchigeelagh. Cecil was inclined to think that severity had been pushed
too far, and that the wretched Cormac might be left in peace. But
Elizabeth had long been accustomed to turn to Raleigh for advice on her
Irish policy. He gave, as usual, his unflinching constant counsel for
drastic severity. He 'very earnestly moved her Majesty of all others to
reject Cormac MacDermod, first, because his country was worth her
keeping, secondly, because h