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Tim Lavers

Learn to Program with Kotlin

From the Basics to Projects with Text and Image
Processing
1st ed.
Tim Lavers
Woonona, NSW, Australia

Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the

author in this book is available to readers on GitHub via the book’s
product page, located at www.apress.com/9781484268148. For more
detailed information, please visit http://www.apress.com/source-code.

ISBN 978-1-4842-6814-8 e-ISBN 978-1-4842-6815-5

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-6815-5

© Tim Lavers 2021

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively
licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is
concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in
any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks,

service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the
absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general
use.

The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the
advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate
at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Apress imprint is published by the registered company APress

Media, LLC part of Springer Nature.
The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY
10004, U.S.A.
Preface
This book is for anyone who wants to learn computer programming.
Whether you are an absolute beginner, or you have experience with
JavaScript, R, Python, or another programming language, this is your
path to developing a clear understanding of important fundamental
concepts used by software engineering professionals and gaining the
skills to implement those concepts in interesting and realistic projects.
I learned programming in my mid-20s, more than 25 years ago, and
have worked as a software engineer since then. My opinion, based on
this experience, is that the very best way to learn coding is by doing lots
of it.
This book gives you the opportunity to get that essential practice. At
the same time, you will be working on fascinating programs such as text
analysis, image manipulation, and computer vision. These programs
progress in a series of small steps that you, the reader, implement. Each
step is a simple change to a working program, so that you are never
outside your comfort zone and learning becomes a pleasure. Fully
worked solutions are provided for each step.
The book is organized into four parts, as follows: In Part I, you will
set up the tools needed, get a first program running, and then learn just
enough syntax that you can start working on the projects. Part II
concentrates on software for text analysis and word games. This
introduces the concepts of Object-Oriented Programming and Unit
Testing, which are two cornerstones of modern software engineering.
Part III is about image processing and concludes with a CGI (computer-
generated imagery) program. By doing this project, you will learn
Functional Programming, which is an extremely important feature of
modern computer languages. Finally, in Part IV, you will consolidate
your skills by developing a computer vision system that reads speed
signs.
Throughout the book, you will use the same language and tools that
are used by professional software engineers worldwide. The language,
Kotlin, is very modern and has a simpler syntax than almost any other
language used today. Not only is Kotlin a beautiful and powerful
language, but it is employed in a wide variety of situations, from hugely
complex business software to web programming, to data science, to
Android apps. The skills that you learn here will be applicable in any of
these areas.
Kotlin programs are written with an editor that highlights errors
and offers genuinely useful corrections in most cases. By using
professional-grade tools, you should feel the excitement of knowing
that the programs that you are working on are of industry standard. If
you get stuck, the large and active community of Kotlin users can help
you out.
When you finish the projects in this book and move on to your own
programs, you will have all the skills required for success and will have
a working knowledge of one of the best programming languages that I
have used in my 25 years of professional software engineering. Happy
coding!

January 2021

Tim Lavers
Table of Contents
Part I: Basics
Chapter 1:​Getting Started
1.​1 What Is Programming?​
1.​2 Installing Java
1.​3 Installing Git
1.​4 Installing IntelliJ
1.​5 Our First Program
1.​6 Changing the Appearance of IntelliJ
1.​7 Troubleshooting
1.​8 Running Our First Program
1.​9 Source Code for Our Program
Chapter 2:​Simple Patterns
2.​1 Shades of Gray
2.​2 Changing the Pattern
2.​3 Solutions to Challenges
Chapter 3:​Arrays and Loops
3.​1 Array Indexes
3.​2 Loops
3.​3 Nested Loops
3.​4 Summary and Solutions to Challenges
Chapter 4:​Binary Choices
4.​1 If-Else Statements
4.​2 The Or Operator
4.​3 The And Operator
4.​4 If-Else-If Statements
 4.​5 Summary and Solutions to Challenges
Chapter 5:​Integers
5.​1 Addition, Subtraction, and Multiplication
5.​2 Division
5.​3 Making Patterns Using Arithmetic
5.​4 Summary and Solutions to Challenges
Chapter 6:​Values and Variables
6.1 Using vars
6.2 Using vals
6.​3 Scope
6.​4 Summary and Solutions to Challenges
Chapter 7:​Strings
7.​1 Strings as Objects
7.2 String Iteration
7.3 Building New Strings
7.4 More on String Iteration
7.​5 Summary and Solutions to Challenges
Chapter 8:​Data Structures
8.​1 Lists
8.​2 Sets
8.​3 Maps
8.4 null Objects
8.​5 Summary and Solutions to Challenges
Chapter 9:​The File System
9.​1 Reading
9.​2 Writing
 9.​3 Summary and Solutions to Challenges
Part II: Text
Chapter 10:​Project Austen
10.​1 Object-Oriented Programming
10.​2 Unit Tests
10.​3 Project Structure and Setup
10.​4 LineTest and Line
10.5 Further Tests of Line
10.​6 HistogramTest and Histogram
10.​7 BookTest and Book
10.8 Back to LineTest and Line
10.​9 Testing with Real Data
10.​10 Almost Finished
10.​11 Counting the Words
10.​12 Putting Things in Order
10.​13 Taking Things Further
10.​14 Summary
Chapter 11:​Anagrams
11.​1 Main Classes
11.2 The Dictionary Class
11.3 The Term Class
11.​4 Permutations
11.5 The permutations Function
11.6 Generating the Permutations of a Term
11.​7 Putting It All Together
11.​8 Summary
Chapter 12:​Palindromes
12.1 Reversing a Term
12.​2 Detecting Palindromes
12.​3 Putting It All Together
12.​4 Summary
Chapter 13:​Word Switch
13.​1 The Algorithm
13.​1.​1 Generation 1
13.​1.​2 Generation 2
13.​1.​3 Generation 3
13.​1.​4 Generation 4
13.​1.​5 Algorithm Termination with Success
13.​1.​6 Algorithm Termination with Failure
13.​2 Main Classes and Project Setup
13.3 The WordChecker Class
13.4 The WordNode Class
13.5 Refactoring WordNodeTest
13.6 Further Tests of WordNode
13.7 Implementing WordNode
13.8 The WordSwitch Class
13.9 The Implementation of lookForTarget
13.​10 Finding the Path
13.​11 Putting It All Together
13.​12 Summary and Step Details
13.​12.​1 Details of Project Step 13.​1
13.​12.​2 Details of Project Step 13.​2
 13.​12.​3 Details of Project Step 13.​3
13.​12.​4 Details of Project Step 13.​4
13.​12.​5 Details of Project Step 13.​5
13.​12.​6 Details of Project Step 13.​6
13.​12.​7 Details of Project Step 13.​9
13.​12.​8 Details of Project Step 13.​10
13.​12.​9 Details of Project Step 13.​12
13.​12.​10 Details of Project Step 13.​13
13.​12.​11 Details of Project Step 13.​16
13.​12.​12 Details of Project Step 13.​21
Part III: Images
Chapter 14:​Color Pictures
14.​1 Modeling Color
14.​2 Modeling Pictures
14.​3 Photographs
14.​4 Flipping an Image
14.​5 Summary and Solutions to Challenges
Chapter 15:​Pixel Transformations
15.​1 Blood Sunset
15.​2 A Unit Test
15.​3 Conditional Transformations
15.​4 Position-Based Transformations
15.​5 Summary and Solutions to Challenges
Chapter 16:​Cropping and Resizing Images
16.​1 Cropping
16.​2 Improving the Unit Tests
 16.​3 Shrinking an Image
16.​4 Storing Images
16.​5 Summary and Solutions to Challenges
Chapter 17:​Project Dino
17.​1 Producing the Screen
17.​2 Photographing the Dinosaur
17.​3 First Attempt at Superposition
17.​4 Letting the Background Through
17.​5 Hiding the Feet
17.​6 Summary
Part IV: Vision
Chapter 18:​Overview
18.​1 A Bit More Kotlin
18.​2 Project Structure
18.​3 Image Slicing
18.​4 Summary and Step Details
18.​1.​1 Details of Project Step 18.​1
18.​2.​2 Details of Project Step 18.​2
18.​3.​3 Details of Project Step 18.​3
Chapter 19:​Finding Digits
19.​1 DigitFinder
19.​2 Thresholding the Sign Images
19.​3 Slicing the Thresholded Image
19.​4 A More General Slicing Function
19.​5 Filtering the Slices
19.​6 Summary and Step Details
 19.​1.​1 Details of Project Step 19.​1
19.​2.​2 Details of Project Step 19.​2
19.​3.​3 Details of Project Step 19.​3
Chapter 20:​Parsing the Images
20.​1 Terminology
20.​2 Project Structure
20.​3 Identifying the Digit “1”
20.​4 Identifying the Digit “2”
20.​5 Identifying “5” and “7”
20.​6 Identifying “0”
20.​7 Summary and Step Details
20.​1.​1 Details of Project Step 20.​1
20.​2.​2 Details of Project Step 20.​2
20.​3.​3 Details of Project Step 20.​3
20.​4.​4 Details of Project Step 20.​4
20.​5.​5 Details of Project Step 20.​5
20.​6.​6 Details of Project Step 20.​6
Chapter 21:​Reading Speed Signs
21.​1 SpeedReader
21.​2 Base 10 Numbers
21.​3 Putting It All Together
21.​4 Summary
21.​5 Project Steps
21.​5.​1 Details of Project Step 21.​1
21.​5.​2 Details of Project Step 21.​3
21.​5.​3 Details of Project Step 21.​4
Index
About the Author
Tim Lavers
has 25 years’ experience in commercial
software engineering. He has worked on
a variety of applications using many
different programming languages. He
loves learning new programming
technologies and passing that knowledge
on to his colleagues. He also taught
mathematics for several years, and from
that knows how to help people learn
difficult things. Apart from
programming, Tim enjoys running,
bushwalking, and playing the piano.
About the Technical Reviewer
Ted Hagos
is a software developer by trade; at the moment, he’s Chief Technology
Officer and Data Protection Officer of RenditionDigital International, a
software development company based out of Dublin. He wore many
hats in his 20+ years in software development, for example, team lead,
project manager, architect, and director for development. He also spent
time as a trainer for IBM Advanced Career Education, Ateneo ITI, and
Asia Pacific College. He has written Learn Android Studio 4 (2020) and
Beginning Android Games Development (2020) for Apress.
Part I
Basics
Basics
In Part I, we set up Kotlin and learn the most important features of the
language.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to APress Media, LLC, part of Springer
Nature 2021
T. Lavers, Learn to Program with Kotlin
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-6815-5_1

1. Getting Started
Tim Lavers1
(1) Woonona, NSW, Australia

In this chapter, we set up our programming environment and get our

first program running.

1.1 What Is Programming?

A computer program is a set of instructions that tell a computer to
perform an action such as showing an image or printing out some text.
These instructions are written using special sets of words and
symbols, called programming languages. In this book, we are going to
use a language called Kotlin. Kotlin is quite new and is closely related to
another language, called Java, which is extremely popular in industry
and in universities around the world. While Java is an excellent
language, it is over 20 years old, which is ancient in computing terms.
Additionally, since Java was first developed, there have been many
improvements in programming that Kotlin takes advantage of. These
improvements mean that Kotlin programs tend to be simpler than their
Java equivalents, and many sources of mistakes are avoided outright.
Unlike human beings, computers do not understand vague
instructions and are not able to move beyond the simple typographical
errors that we easily make. This can make programming a very
frustrating task, as even tiny mistakes, such as a missing comma, can
stop an otherwise perfect program from working. To avoid these
problems, some introductory programming books use very simple
languages or even Lego-style visual programming tools in which syntax
errors are not possible.
We’ve decided to stick with Kotlin in this book because by learning
it you will be gaining skills in a language that is the first choice for
thousands of other programmers and can be used to program lots of
different kinds of devices, such as personal computers (obviously),
Android devices, microcomputers, and so on. Also, there are lots of code
samples that can be found for solving particular problems.
To handle the problems brought about by the complexity of a full-
powered language, we will work by modifying existing programs using
a code editor that highlights errors and offers sensible corrections.

1.2 Installing Java

As mentioned before, Kotlin is related to an older language called Java.
In fact, in order to write and run Kotlin programs, we will need to
install the programming tools for Java. These are bundled as what is
called the Java Development Kit or Java Platform, or JDK, which is a free
download from Oracle at the site
www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase-
downloads.html.On this page, shown in Figure 1-1, click the “JDK
Download” link. This will take you to a page that provides download
links for a variety of operating systems. Choose the one that suits your
system and download and install the software.
Figure 1-1 The Java download site. Click the “JDK Download” link

1.3 Installing Git

Git is a program that is used to share source code between
programmers. All of the code in this book can be obtained using Git.
This is extremely convenient, but the downside is that we need to
install another piece of software. To begin, visit https://git-
scm.com/. From this site, download the version for your operating
system. Running the installer is a pretty lengthy process, as there are
lots of screens that present different setup options. Just accept the
default options at each screen.

1.4 Installing IntelliJ

A good code editor is extremely helpful in avoiding and correcting
errors in programs. IntelliJ is the best code editor for Kotlin and is very
popular with professional programmers. We will be using the
“Community Edition” of the tool, which is free for noncommercial use.
IntelliJ can be downloaded from the JetBrains website,
www.jetbrains.com/idea/, and the installation process is simple
and well documented.
1.5 Our First Program
Our first program is available from a Git repository that can be opened
with IntelliJ. The IntelliJ tool for opening a Git repository is available
from the “Welcome to IntelliJ IDEA” screen shown in Figure 1-2.

Figure 1-2 The IntelliJ welcome screen

To get the first program:

1. Click the Get from VCS button.

2. Wait for the “Get from Version Control” dialog, shown in Figure 1-3,
to show.

3. Copy this address: https://github.com/Apress/learn-

to-program-w-kotlin-basics.git into the URL field.

4. Create a new directory, also known as a “folder” in Windows, and

copy the location into the Directory field.
5. Press the Clone button.

Figure 1-3 The IntelliJ dialog for getting a Git repository

After some time, which depends on your Internet connection and
computer speed, IntelliJ will present the downloaded project, as in
Figure 1-4. In the bottom right-hand corner, there might be a pop-up
(not shown here) asking about adding files to Git. Just click the Don’t
ask again option.

Figure 1-4 The project in IntelliJ. This part of the IntelliJ user interface is called the
project tree. It contains the source files for our programs

The upper left-hand side of this screen has what is called the project
tree. We will use this later to locate our first program and run it. The
project tree can be shown or hidden by pressing the Alt and 1 keys at
the same time. If, for whatever reason, the project tree is not showing,
use this key combination to reveal it. If that does not work, use the
menu Windows ➤ Restore Default Layout to put things right.

1.6 Changing the Appearance of IntelliJ

As with many programs, the appearance of IntelliJ is configurable. This
is done by selecting a visual “theme.” The default theme uses the dark
colors that can be seen in the preceding screenshots—in fact, the theme
is called “Darcula.” To change the theme, use the menu File ➤
Settings to display the Settings dialog. Then select Appearance in
the tree on the left of the settings screen. The Theme drop-down has a
number of built-in themes from which you can select one you like, as
shown in Figure 1-5. In the interests of producing clearer screenshots, I
will be using the “IntelliJ Light” theme from now on, as shown.

Figure 1-5 Setting the visual theme

1.7 Troubleshooting
If IntelliJ was installed before Git, you may get an error message about
the path to the Git executable not being found. This can generally be
fixed by setting the path within IntelliJ. To do this, choose File ➤
Settings and then select Git under the Version Control
heading, as in Figure 1-6. The Test button in the top right-hand corner
can be used to check that IntelliJ knows where Git is installed. If this
test fails, you may need to adjust the setup in IntelliJ by changing the
Path to Git executable value.

Figure 1-6 Configuring Git in IntelliJ

Figure 1-7 The program is run by clicking the green triangle

1.8 Running Our First Program

By clicking the folder icons (they look like > signs) in the project tree,
you should be able to navigate to the file FirstProgram.kt. Double-
click this to open it in the main editor pane. To run the program, click
the little green triangle at line 7 of the program text. A pop-up will
show, with the option Run ‘FirstProgramKt’. Select this option.
After a half-minute or so of background activity, you should see an
application frame with a pattern of black and white squares.
Congratulations! You’ve got the first program running! If you click the
small cross at the upper right-hand corner, the display will close and
the program will terminate.
Figure 1-8 Our first program shows a simple pattern of black and white tiles

1.9 Source Code for Our Program

As a wrap-up for this chapter, let’s have a quick look at the code for our
program, just to get a bit more familiar with what Kotlin code looks like.
The aim here is just to understand a little of the broad outline of a
program. The details will come later.

1 package lpk.basics
2
3 import javax.swing.ImageIcon
4 import javax.swing.JFrame
5 import javax.swing.SwingUtilities
6
7 fun main() {
8 SwingUtilities.invokeLater {
FirstProgram().doLaunch() }
9 }
10 class FirstProgram {
11
12 fun tileColors() : Array<Array<Int>> {
13 return arrayOf(
14 arrayOf(0, 255),
15 arrayOf(255, 0)
16 )
17 }
18
19 fun doLaunch() {
20 val frame = JFrame("Basics")
21 frame.defaultCloseOperation =
JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE
22 frame.iconImage =
ImageIcon("./src/lpk/basics/icon.png").image
23 frame.add(TilePanel(tileColors()))
24 frame.pack()
25 frame.isVisible = true
26 }
27 }
Note that some of the import statements (lines 3 to 5) might not
be showing. Instead, they might appear as a collapsed code block that
can be expanded by clicking the + sign.

Figure 1-9 The import statements might be hidden as a collapsed code block

Even this short program contains a lot of detail that will be totally
incomprehensible to a first-time programmer. Don’t worry! You don’t
need to understand everything at once. The main parts of the program
can be understood in the following terms:
1. The first line tells the system what package our program belongs
in. The complete name of a program includes its package, just as the
combination of street name plus other details makes a postal
address unique.

2. The import statements let the system know what other programs
are needed in our code. All software that does anything remotely
 complex, such as showing a user interface, makes use of prebuilt
components. The import statements are used to make them
available to our code.

3. The block containing tileColors() sets up a grid of color values.

We’ll look at this in detail in the next few chapters.

4. Lines 19 to 26 tell the system how to turn the block of colors into a
user interface element that can be drawn on the screen.

5. The function called main on line 7 is the starting point for the
system to launch the program.

In the next chapter, we will begin modifying this code to produce

new patterns.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to APress Media, LLC, part of Springer
Nature 2021
T. Lavers, Learn to Program with Kotlin
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-6815-5_2

2. Simple Patterns
Tim Lavers1
(1) Woonona, NSW, Australia

In this chapter, we will see how black, white, and other shades of gray
can be represented in Kotlin. This will allow us to modify our program
from the previous chapter to show different tile patterns. In making
these changes, we will be getting familiar with basic Kotlin syntax and
with the programming environment.

2.1 Shades of Gray

Software engineering is about modeling aspects of the real world, such
as colors, shapes, sounds, and so on, using simple mathematical
constructs such as numbers. For now, we are working with shades of
gray, and there are many ways that these can be represented in a
computer program, for example:
1. Giving specific shades names such as black, white, light
gray, dark gray, and so on

2. Representing black by 0, white by 1, and intermediate shades by

numbers between these values

3. Representing black as 0 and white as 255, with each intermediate

shade given by a whole number between these values
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Robert Winter, Grant, and Bates, were drawn on hurdles to the west
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approved fashion of execution for high treason.
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Tower. Fawkes, besides being tortured by the rack, was placed in
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for fifty days. Father Oldcorn was imprisoned in the lower room of the
Bloody Tower, whilst Father Fisher was in the White Tower;
Northumberland, the “Wizard Earl,” as he was called on account of
his leaning towards chemical experiments, was lodged in the Martin
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 Until the month of August in that year (1605), Sir Walter Raleigh’s
imprisonment in the Bloody Tower had not been very stringent. Sir
George Harvey had filled the position of Lieutenant of the Tower, and
Sir George and Sir Walter were on friendly terms. His lodging, for a
prison, was comfortable enough; his wife and son were still with him,
Lady Raleigh having been confined of a second son about this time.
In addition to the attendance of his servants and the visits of his
friends, as I have mentioned before, he was allowed to have all the
books he required for the great literary labour that now began to
occupy much of his time. When not working in his little garden by the
Tower, or experimenting with his chemicals and decoctions in a small
outbuilding which he had built in the garden, or taking exercise on
the wall terrace which overlooked the wharf and the river beyond, he
would be writing at his “History of the World,” that wonderful
fragment which is one of the marvels of our literature.
Unfortunately for Sir Walter, his friend Sir George Harvey, with
whom he often dined and passed the evening, ceased being
Lieutenant at this time, being succeeded by Sir William Waad.
Raleigh’s feelings towards the new Lieutenant appear to have
resembled those of Napoleon to Sir Hudson Lowe. Waad, who had
been Clerk of the Council, on his side seems to have had a personal
dislike to the great captive over whom he was placed in charge, and
to have done all he could—and he had the power of doing a great
deal—to render Raleigh’s life as unpleasant and galling as possible.
For instance, Waad ordered a brick wall to be built in front of the
terrace where Raleigh walked, so that the captive could no longer
watch the passing life beneath him on the wharf or river. Then Waad
complained to Cecil of Raleigh making himself too conspicuous to
the people who passed beneath the Bloody Tower, and, not content
with annoying Sir Walter, pestered Lady Raleigh, and deprived her of
the poor satisfaction of driving her coach into the courtyard of the
fortress, a privilege that had hitherto been allowed her. In these and
many other petty ways the new Lieutenant contrived to make himself
as unpleasant as he possibly could to Raleigh and his wife.
During the alarm consequent upon the Gunpowder Plot, Raleigh
was examined by the Council, probably in the Lieutenant’s, now the
King’s House, but naturally nothing could be found to implicate him
with the conspiracy, and the King had to bide his time before he
could bring his great subject to the block. In 1610, for some unknown
reason, Sir Walter was kept a close prisoner in his tower for three
months, and Lady Raleigh was taken from him.
In Disraeli’s “Amenities of Literature” is the following interesting
description of those friends of Sir Walter who shared his pursuits and
studies in the Tower:—
“A circumstance as remarkable as the work itself” (“History of the World”)
“occurred in the author’s long imprisonment. By one of the strange
coincidences in human affairs, it happened that in the Tower Raleigh was
surrounded by the highest literary and scientific circle in the nation. Henry, the
ninth Earl of Northumberland, on the suspicion of having favoured his relation
Piercy, the Gunpowder Plot conspirator, was cast into this State prison, and
confined during many years. This Earl delighted in what Anthony Wood
describes as ‘the obscure parts of learning.’ He was a magnificent Mecaenas,
and not only pensioned scientific men, but daily assembled them at his table,
and in these intellectual communions, participating in their pursuits, he passed
his life. His learned society was designated as ‘the Atlantis of the
Northumberland world’! But that world had other inhabitants, antiquaries and
astrologers, chemists and naturalists. There was seen Thomas Allen, another
Roger Bacon, ‘terrible and tho’ vulgar,’ famed for his ‘Bibliotheca Alleniana,’ a
rich collection of manuscripts, most of which have been preserved in the
Bodleian; the name of Allen survives in the ardent commemorations of
Camden, of Spelman, and of Selden. He was accompanied by his friend Doctor
Dee, but whether Dee ever tried their patience or their wonder by his ‘Diary of
Conferences with Spirits’ we find no record, and by the astronomical Torporley,
a disciple of Lucretius, for his philosophy consisted of stones; several of his
manuscripts remain in Sion College. The muster-roll is too long to run over. In
this galaxy of the learned the brightest star was Thomas Hariot, who merited
the distinction of being ‘the Universal Philosopher’; his inventions in algebra
Descarte, when in England, silently adopted, but which Dr Wallis afterwards
indignantly reclaimed; his skill in interpreting the text of Homer excited the
grateful admiration of Chalman when occupied by his version. Bishop Corbet
has described

‘Deep Hariot’s mine

In which there is no dross.’
 “Two other men, Walter Warner, who is said to have suggested to Harvey the
great discovery of the circulation of the blood, and Robert Huer, famed for his
‘Treatise on the Globes’—these, with Hariot, were the Earl’s constant
companions; and at a period when science seemed connected with
necromancy, the world distinguished the Earl and his three friends as ‘Henry
the Wizard and his three Magi.’... Such were the men of science, daily guests in
the Tower during the imprisonment of Raleigh; and when he had constructed
his laboratory to pursue his chemical experiments, he must have multiplied their
wonders. With one he had been intimately connected early in life, Hariot had
been his mathematical tutor, was domesticated in his house, and became his
confidential agent in the expedition to Virginia. Raleigh had warmly
recommended his friend to the Earl of Northumberland, and Sion House
became Hariot’s home and observatory.”

The elder Disraeli has argued that Raleigh could not possibly have
written the whole of that large tome, “The History of the World,”
himself, for want of books of reference whilst in the Tower. But as his
friends supplied him with books, and he himself had probably taken
copious notes for the work while living in the old home of the
Desmonds at Youghal, in Ireland, where a remnant of the old
Desmond library is still existing, the argument can scarcely be
considered proved. The late Sir John Pope Hennessy has pointed
out in his work on “Raleigh in Ireland,” that, by an odd coincidence,
the son of the sixteenth Earl of Desmond, whose lands Raleigh held
in Ireland, was a fellow-prisoner of Sir Walter’s in the Tower during
his first imprisonment in the fortress during Elizabeth’s reign.
Desmond died in prison in 1608, and was buried in St Peter’s
Chapel. Raleigh had this youth’s sad fate in his mind, it seems, when
he wrote from the Tower, “Wee shall be judged as we judge—and be
dealt withal as wee deal with others in this life, if wee believe God
Himself.”
An almost contemporary historian, Sir Richard Baker, refers to
Raleigh’s imprisonment in the following quaint manner:—“He was
kept in the Tower, where he had great honour; he spent his time in
writing, and had been a happy man if he had never been released.”
A strange description, surely, of what is generally understood by the
term, “happy man.”
 Henry, Prince of Wales, seems to have been the only member of
his family who appreciated Sir Walter, frequently visiting him at the
Tower. On one of the occasions when he had left him, the young
prince remarked to one of his following that no king except his father
could keep such a bird in such a cage. The Prince’s mother, Queen
Anne, seems also to have shown some interest in Raleigh’s fate, and
to have tried to induce her miserable husband to set him free.

Arabella Stuart.
(From a Contemporary Miniature.)

In 1611 Arabella Stuart was brought a prisoner into the Tower, and
with her, Lady Shrewsbury. When the news of Arabella’s marriage
with young William Seymour reached the King, her fate was sealed,
for by this marriage the half-captivity in which she had lived was
changed into captivity for life; and few of James the First’s evil
actions, and they were not a few, were more mean or cowardly than
his treatment of his poor kinswoman, Arabella Hertford.
 She had never been known to mix in politics, and if she had any
ambition, it was the noble ambition of wishing to lead a pure life
away from an infamous court. Poor Arabella used to declare that
although she was often asked to marry some foreign prince, nothing
on earth would induce her to marry any man whom she did not know,
or for whom she had no liking.
At Christmastide of 1609, James, hearing a rumour that seemed to
point to Arabella being married to some foreign prince, had sent her
to the Tower, releasing her when he discovered that his fears were
groundless, and giving his consent to her marrying one of his
subjects should she wish to do so. Unfortunately, Arabella took
advantage of the King’s consent, trusting to his word, but she found
to her bitter cost how hollow and false that promise was. In the
following February (1610) she plighted her troth to William Seymour,
both probably relying upon the Royal word. Whether James had
forgotten that Seymour was a probable suitor for Arabella’s hand
when he gave his promise cannot be known, but Arabella could not
have made a more unlucky choice, as far as she herself was
concerned, for the Suffolk claims had been recognised by Act of
Parliament; and the same Parliament which had acknowledged
James the First could not alter the order of succession, and,
consequently, William Seymour being the grandson of Lord Hertford,
by his wife, Catharine Grey, was in what was called the “Suffolk
Succession.” His marriage to Arabella brought her still nearer to the
Crown, and any children born of the marriage would have had a
good chance of succeeding to the throne.
The young couple were summoned to appear before the Council,
and were charged to give up all thoughts of marriage. But, in spite of
King and Council, they were secretly married in the month of May
1611—a month said to be unlucky for marriages. Two months
afterwards the news reached the King, and the storm burst over the
unlucky lovers. Arabella was sent a prisoner to Lambeth Palace, and
her husband to the Tower. From Lambeth Arabella was first removed
to the house of Mr Conyers at Highgate, and thence she was to be
sent to Durham Castle in charge of the Bishop. At Highgate,
however, she fell ill, or pretended to fall ill, and the famous attempt
made to escape by herself and her husband took place.
By some means she procured a disguise in the shape of a wig and
male attire, with long, yellow riding-boots and a rapier, and thus
accoutred, on the 4th of June she rode to Blackwall, where she had
hoped to find her husband, but, failing in this, she rowed with a
female attendant and a Mr Markham, who had accompanied her
from Highgate, to a French vessel lying near Leigh, which took them
on board. Seymour, also disguised, escaped from the Tower by
following a cart laden with wooden billets. He got away unperceived,
and managed to reach a boat waiting for him by the wharf at the Iron
Gate, but, on arriving at Leigh, they found the French ship, with
Arabella on board, had put out to sea. The weather was against the
ship in which Seymour was sailing making Calais, and he had to go
on to Ostend, where he disembarked.
 Lady Arabella Seymour.
Sweet brother
every one forſakes me but those that cannot helpe me.
Your most unfortunate ſister
Arbella Seymaure
Her Autograph from the Original in the Possession of
John Thane.
Meanwhile, a hue and cry rang out from London. King’s
messengers galloped in hot haste from Whitehall to Deptford, and
orders arrived at all the southern ports to search all ships and barks
that might contain the runaways; a proclamation was issued to arrest
the principals and the abettors of their flight. A ship of war was sent
over to Calais, and others were despatched along the French coast
as far as Flanders to intercept the fugitives. When half-way across
the Channel, one of these vessels, named the Adventurer, came in
sight of a ship crowding on all sail in order to reach Calais; the wind,
meanwhile, had dropped, and further flight was impossible. A boat
was lowered from the Adventurer, the crew who manned it being
armed to the teeth. A few shots were exchanged, and the flying
vessel, which proved to be French, was boarded, and the poor
runaway was taken back to the English man-of-war; on board of her
Arabella was made a prisoner, and as a prisoner was landed at the
Tower, never to leave it again until her luckless body was taken from
it for burial at Westminster.
James made as much ado about this attempted escape of the
Hertfords as if he had discovered a second Gunpowder Plot. And not
only did he have all those who had been concerned in Arabella’s
flight seized and imprisoned in the Tower, but kept the Countess of
Shrewsbury and the Earl strict prisoners in their house, and ordered
the old Earl of Hertford to appear before him.
From all appearances William Seymour showed a lack of courage
at this time, not unlike the husband of Lady Catherine Seymour in
the last reign, for he remained abroad while the storm with all its fury
fell and crushed his young wife. Poor Arabella lingered on in her
prison till death released her from her troubles on the 25th of
September 1615. She had been kept both in the Belfry Tower and in
the Lieutenant’s House, but had lost her reason some time previous
to her final release both from durance and the world. Her body was
taken in the dead of night to Westminster Abbey, and placed below
the coffin of Mary Queen of Scots. Mickle, the author of “Cumnor
Hall,” and “There’s nae luck about the house,” is credited with having
written the touching ballad on Arabella Stuart, which is included in
Evans’s “Old Ballads.”
 “Where London’s Tower its turrets shew,
So stately by old Thames’s side,
Fair Arabella, child of woe,
For many a day had sat and sighed.
And as she heard the waves arise,
And as she heard the black wind roar,
As fast did heave her heartfelt sighs,
And still so fast her tears did pour.”

William Seymour survived Arabella for nearly half-a-century; he

married again, his second wife being a sister of the Parliamentary
general, the Earl of Essex, the son of Elizabeth’s favourite and
victim. In 1660 Seymour became Duke of Somerset, and lived just
long enough to welcome Charles II. He had shown far more loyalty to
Charles I. than he had done to poor Arabella Stuart.
In 1613, Sir William Waad, to the great delight of Raleigh, as well
as of the other prisoners in the Tower, vacated his post as
Lieutenant. He had been charged with the theft of the unfortunate
Arabella’s jewels, but his dismissal was also connected with a still
more tragic story—the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury—a murder
which throws a very lurid light upon the doings of James the First’s
court and courtiers. Two years before Arabella’s death, the Tower
had been the scene of a most foul murder. Scandalous as was the
court of James, murder had not yet been associated with it, but in the
year 1613 the fate of Sir Thomas Overbury added that dark crime to
its other villainies.
 The portraiture of Robert Car Earle of Somerset, Vicount
Rochester, Knight of the most noble order of the Garter &c.
And of the Ladie Francis his wife.
The Earl & Countess of Somerset.
(From a Contemporary Print.)

Macaulay has compared the court of James the First to that of

Nero; it would have been more correct to have likened it to that of the
Valois, Henry III. Although it was never proved, there were strong
suspicions that the somewhat sudden death of Henry, Prince of
Wales, was brought about by poison, and there is no doubt that
poison was made use of by James’s courtiers, as the death of
Overbury proves. Sir Thomas Overbury was the confidant of the
King’s worthless favourite, Robert Carr, a handsome youth who had
been brought by James from Scotland in his train, and whom he had
knighted in 1607. James had also given Raleigh’s confiscated
estates to his favourite two years after making him a knight, and in
1614 created him Lord Rochester and Earl of Somerset, as well as
Lord Chamberlain. Overbury belonged to a Gloucestershire family,
and had travelled on the Continent, whence he returned what was
then called “a finished gentleman.” Overbury and Carr were firm
friends, and it was probably on the recommendation of the latter that
James knighted Overbury in 1608. When, however, Somerset
determined to marry the notoriously improper Lady Frances Howard,
the daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, and the girl-wife of Lord Essex,
from whom she was separated, Overbury most strongly persuaded
his friend from committing such a rash action. His attitude coming to
the knowledge of Lady Frances, she vowed to avenge herself upon
Sir Thomas, and carried her threat to its bitter execution. On some
frivolous pretext Overbury was sent to the Tower; Lady Somerset, as
Lady Frances had become, notwithstanding Overbury’s advice, now
determined to rid herself of the man she mostly feared. With the help
of a notorious quack, and of a procuress, Mrs Turner, with whom she
had been brought up, she set about the task of consummating her
revenge. Poison was supplied by Mrs Turner, with which the
unfortunate Overbury was slowly killed; but as the drug—it is
believed to have been corrosive sublimate—did not act sufficiently
quickly, two hired assassins, named Franklin and Lobell, were called
in, and stifled the victim with a pillow. Sir William Waad at this time
had ceased to be the Lieutenant, through Lady Essex’s influence,
and had been succeeded by Sir Gervase Elwes, a creature of
Somerset’s, who was not only cognisant of Overbury’s death in the
Bloody Tower, where he was confined, but even aided Lady
Somerset in her crime. Mrs Turner was the inventor of a peculiar
yellow starch which was used for stiffening the ruffs worn at that
time; she wore one of these ruffs when she was sentenced to die for
her participation in this murder by the Chief-Justice, Sir Edward
Coke, and was also hanged in it at Tyburn in March 1615, with the
natural consequence that yellow starched ruffs suddenly ceased to
be the fashion. Lady Somerset was also tried, and although found
guilty of Overbury’s murder, received a pardon from the King, but she
and her husband, Somerset, spent six years as prisoners in the
Tower, where they occupied the same rooms in the Bloody Tower
which shortly before had been tenanted by the wife’s victim. Sir
Thomas Overbury was buried in St Peter’s Chapel, his grave lying
next to that of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.
Prince Henry’s death in 1612 was a terrible loss to Raleigh. The
Queen had already tasted Sir Walter’s famous cordial or elixir, and
when her son was given up by the physicians, Anne implored them
to try Raleigh’s specific medicine, which, according to its inventor,
was safe to cure all diseases save those produced by poison. Henry
was already speechless when the elixir was administered to him, but
after he had swallowed one or two drops he was able to utter a few
words before he expired. What was the nature of this wonderful
mixture of Raleigh’s cannot now be ascertained, although Charles
II.’s French physician, Le Febre, prepared what was believed to be
the actual concoction and wrote a treatise upon it. Some of its
ingredients were indeed awful, the flesh of vipers forming one of
them, and it speaks much for the strength of James’s Queen that she
survived the taking of this terrible physic.
 VERA EFFIGIES CLARISSMI VIRI DOMNI GUALTHERI RALEGH EQV
AUR. etc
AMORE ET VIRTVTE
The true and lively portraiture of the honourable and
learned Knight Sr. Walter Ralegh.
Raleigh had intended dedicating his history to Prince Henry, but
after that young Prince’s death he seems to have lost his former zest
in the work. There is a story told that he threw part of the manuscript
into the fire on hearing that Walter Burr, the publisher of the first
edition in 1614, had been a loser by bringing it out. Of that first part
Mr Hume, in his “Life of Raleigh,” writes, “The history, as it exists, is
probably the greatest work ever produced in captivity, except Don
Quixote. The learning contained in it is perfectly encyclopædic.
Raleigh had always been a lover and a collector of books, and had
doubtless laid out the plan of the work in his mind before his fall. He
had near him in the Tower his learned Hariot, who was indefatigable
in helping his master. Ben Jonson boasted that he had contributed to
the work, and such books or knowledge as could not be obtained or
consulted by a prisoner, were made available by scholars like Robert
Burhill, by Hughes, Warner, or Hariot. Sir John Hoskyns, a great
stylist in his day, would advise with regard to construction, and from
many other quarters aid of various sorts was obtained. But, withal,
the work is purely Raleigh’s. No student of his fine, flowing, majestic
style will admit that any other pen but his can have produced it. The
vast learning employed in it is now, for the most part, obsolete, but
the human asides where Raleigh’s personality reveals itself, the little
bits of incidental autobiography, the witty, apt illustrations, will
prevent the work itself from dying. To judge from a remark in the
preface, the author intended at a later stage to concentrate his
history with that mainly of his own country, and it would seem that
the portion of the book published was to a great extent introductory.
Great as were his powers and self-confidence, it must have been
obvious to him that it would have been impossible for a man of his
age (he was in his sixtieth year when he began the work) to
complete a history of the whole world on the same scale, the first six
books published reaching from the beginning of the world to the end
of the second Macedonian war. In any case,” adds Mr Hume, “the
book will ever remain a noble fragment of a design, which could only
have been conceived by a master-mind.” And who, recalling those
mighty lines on death with which Raleigh bids farewell to his great
work, but will agree with the above admirable criticism of the work?
“O Eloquent, just and mighty Death! whom none could advise thou
hast persuaded: what now none hath dared thou hast done; and
whom the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world
and despised: thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched
greatness, all the pride, cruelty, ambition of man, and covered it over
with these two narrow words: ‘Hic Jacet.’” How noble, too, are the
introductory lines to Ben Jonson, wherein he commends the serious
study of history:

“... that nor the good might be defrauded, nor the great so cured;
But both might know their ways are understood,
And the reward and punishment assured.”

No wonder that James disapproved of such sentiments and said of

the “History,” “it is too saucy in censuring the acts of princes.”
To Raleigh, more than to any other of the great Elizabethan
heroes, does England owe her mighty earth-embracing dominion. Sir
Walter never ceased to urge the expansion of the empire, nor
wearied in his efforts to make the English fleet the foremost in all the
seas, not only as a check to Spain, but in order that the colonial
possessions of the kingdom might be increased; and he, more than
any of our great soldier-statesmen deserved those noble lines of
Milton: “Those who of thy free Grace didst build up this Brittanick
Empire to a glorious and enviable height, with all her daughter
islands about her, stay us in this felicitie.”
In 1616 Raleigh was allowed to leave the fortress, but, as I have
said before, in order to obtain his liberty he had been obliged to bribe
George Villiers and his brother, who had roused James’s cupidity by
persuading him that if Raleigh were allowed to lead a fresh
expedition to the West Indies, he might return with a great treasure
of which James would take the lion’s share. A warrant, dated the
19th of March of this year, was drawn up, giving Raleigh permission
to go abroad in order that he might make the necessary
arrangements for his voyage. The twelve years of imprisonment had
sadly marred and aged the gallant knight, but his spirit was as bold
and courageous as ever, and he employed the first days of his liberty
in revisiting his old London haunts; many changes must have struck
him in the city. In Visscher’s panoramic view of London, taken from
Southwark nearly opposite to St Paul’s, a very clear general
impression may be gained of the appearance of the English capital in
that year of sixteen hundred and sixteen, the year when
Shakespeare was dying at Stratford-on-Avon, when Raleigh was on
his way to his last journey across the Atlantic, and when Francis
Bacon was writing his famous essays in Gray’s Inn. Those quaint,
circular, Martello-like buildings in the foreground are the Globe and
Swan theatres, with the Bear Garden close by; but the former
theatre, in Visscher’s view, is not the one so intimately connected
with Shakespeare, for that was burned down in 1613, and the
building represented here is the new one erected upon its site.
Opposite to the Swan Theatre, on the Surrey side of the river, are
Paris Garden Stairs, where was a much frequented ferry, Blackfriars
Bridge now spanning the river where this ferry once used to ply.
There was also a theatre at Blackfriars, and Shakespeare and his
players must often have used the ferry on their way from the Globe
Theatre across the river from Blackfriars, where the poet lived. In
front is old St Paul’s, towering over all the surrounding buildings and
dwarfing the highest; scores of spires and towers break the skyline
as the eye follows the panorama towards the west, where stands the
former old London Bridge, covered along its sides with picturesque
houses. So large and massive are the great blocks of gabled
buildings that span the bridge, that it presents the appearance of a
little town crossing the river, such as is the Ponte Vecchio at
Florence in little. The gates at its ends are covered with men’s
heads, stuck all over their roofs like pins upon a pincushion. More
steeples and towers crown the opposite bank, and as the eye travels
farther eastward it is arrested by the Tower, with its encircling wall,
and its river wharf all covered with cannon. The river is alive with
vessels of every shape and size, State barges and little pinnaces,
great galleons and small craft, appear in all directions, some with,
some without sails. Beyond, the distant hills of Middlesex and Essex
are dotted with villages and hamlets, whilst on the heights of
Highgate cluster a group of windmills. It is a wonderful panorama
that the old Dutch artist has handed down to us. Looking at it we see
the same scene, the same picture of time-honoured churches and
palaces, the noblest river in the world flowing beneath them, and
bearing on its shining surface all the pleasure, commerce, industry,
and travail of old London, that Shakespeare did, when, standing near
his theatre at Bankside, he gazed upon that shifting scene. All is
changed now, except the Tower. The great Gothic cathedral of St
Paul’s and most of its surrounding churches, whose towers and
spires helped to make old London an object of beauty, perished in
the great fire which swept over the city fifty years after Visscher drew
his panorama. Old London Bridge escaped the fire, and indeed
remained until 1834, although the houses clustering over it had been
removed at the close of the reign of George II., and the only
prominent building in the panorama which Shakespeare or Raleigh
would now be able to recognise, could they look across the rivers
Styx and Thames, would be the great White Tower with its
surrounding lesser towers and battlements. All the rest, like “the
baseless fabric of a vision,” has passed away for ever.
But to return to Sir Walter Raleigh. He invested all that remained of
his own and his wife’s fortunes in furnishing the expedition to
Guiana, which proved so disastrous, on which he now embarked. On
his return, a ruined man and a prisoner, he expressed his
amazement at having thus in one desperate bid placed his life and
all that he possessed in that unlucky venture. But before Raleigh had
left England, Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador, had told his
master, the King of Spain, that Raleigh was a pre-doomed man. For
James had not only revealed every detail relating to the Guiana
expedition to Gondomar, but on condition that if any subject or
property belonging to Spain were touched he had promised to hand
over Raleigh to the Spanish Government in order that he might be
hanged at Seville. To assure Gondomar of his good faith, James
actually showed the ambassador a private letter written him by
Raleigh, in which the exact number of his ships, men, and the place
where the great silver mine was said to be located on the Orinoco,
were all set forth. As the Spaniards claimed the whole of Guiana, it
was evident that if Raleigh landed there he must infringe upon the
Spanish possessions, and thus place himself, according to James’s
promise to Gondomar, in the power of his enemies.
The expedition sailed from England at the end of March 1617,
from Plymouth, and consisted of fourteen ships and nine hundred
men. But its story was one of continued disaster, and on the 21st of
June 1618, writing to his friend Lord Carew, Raleigh gives a detailed
account of all his misfortunes. In the postscript he adds: “I beg you
will excuse me to my Lords for not writing to them, because want of
sleep for fear of being surprised in my cabin at night” (even on his
own ship he was a prisoner, the crew having mutinied) “has almost
deprived me of sight, and some return of the pleurisy which I had in
the Tower has so weakened my hand that I cannot hold the pen.” Sir
Walter’s eldest son was killed gallantly fighting in Guiana.
Then followed a miserable time, and on his road to London the
hope of life at times impelled him to attempt escape, but he was
doomed to drink the bitter cup of his King’s ingratitude to the dregs.
On the 10th of August he again entered the Tower where so much of
his life had been spent, and which was now to be his last abode on
earth.
The next day the Council of State met to decide upon Sir Walter’s
fate, and incredible as it seems, it was actually debated whether
Raleigh should be handed over to the tender mercies of the
Spaniards or executed in London. Surely if what passed on this earth
could have been known to Elizabeth, she would have burst her tomb
at Westminster to protest against this abomination, this unspeakable
shame and disgrace to the name of England.
James was now all impatience to get rid of Raleigh as quickly as
possible; he trembled at the threats of Gondomar, and had the
sapient monarch not given his word that Raleigh should die? The
great difficulty before the Council, however, was to find a pretext for
condemning Raleigh to death. Bacon and his colleagues racked their
wise brains to invent a cause by which he could be found guilty of
high treason. At length the Lord Chief-Justice, Montagu, with a
committee of the Council decided that the King should issue a
warrant for the re-affirmation of the death sentence given at
Winchester in 1603, by which it might be made valid and carried out.
Sir Walter pleaded that the King’s commission appointing him head
of the Guiana expedition with powers of life and death, invalidated
the former sentence and its punishment, both in the eyes of justice
and of reason. But Sir Walter was overruled. On the 24th of October
the warrant for the execution was signed and sealed by the King,
and four days later Sir Walter was taken from the Tower to the King’s
Bench. He was then suffering from ague, and having been roused
from his sleep very early had not had time to have his now snow-
white hair dressed with his usual care. One of his servants noticed
this as he was being taken away, and telling him of it, Raleigh
answered, smiling, “Let them kem (comb) it that have it,” then he
added, “Peter, dost thou know of any plaister to set a man’s head on
again when it is cut off?”

Entrance to the Bloody Tower and Steps leading to

Raleigh’s Walk
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