[1] The following are the leading dates in Raleigh's life. He was born
about 1562 at Hayes, near Budleigh Salterton; he was at Oriel in 1572;
he was present at the battles of Jarnac and Montcontour in 1569; he may
have been in Paris during the massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572; he
was in Islington in 1577; and fighting in the Low Countries in 1578. He
left England on a freebooting expedition the same year, and returned in
1579. He was about the Court on his return, and in 1580 went to Ireland,
where he massacred the Spanish prisoners taken at Smerwick. In 1581 he
returned to the Court, and attracted the Queen's notice, possibly by
laying down his cloak for her to walk over, according to the well-known
legend, for which Professor Laughton and Mr. Sidney Lee consider that
there may be a foundation in fact. He was knighted in 1584, and made
Warden of the Stannaries in 1585, and subsequently received many other
profitable grants. In 1584 he sent out the expedition which discovered
Virginia, and other expeditions to occupy it, but without success, in
1585 and 1587. In 1588 began his quarrel with Essex; he was in Ireland
in 1589, and returned to introduce Spenser to the Queen. In 1592 he
helped to fit out a powerful expedition, and against the Queen's orders
took it to sea himself; returning in a few months, after capturing the
_Madre de Dios_, containing a cargo estimated at the value of half a
million. He was committed to the Tower in July for having carried on an
intrigue with Elizabeth Throgmorton, and he retired to Sherborne in the
same year. In 1593 Raleigh and his friends Harriot and Marlowe incurred
the suspicion of the government as atheists, and an inquiry was held, of
which the results are not known. In February 1594-95 he started on his
first Guiana expedition, and returned in 1595 after sailing some way up
the Orinoco. He took part in the expedition to Cadiz in 1596. In July
1600 he was sent with Lord Cobham to congratulate Lord Grey on the
battle of Nieuport, and later in the year went as governor to Jersey. He
was present, as related in the text, at Essex's trial (see p. 70). The
immediate causes which led to his trial are stated above.
[2] Archduke Albert was a younger brother of the Emperor Rudolf II., and
had married Isabella, the eldest daughter of Philip II. of Spain, who
made over the sovereignty of the Netherlands to his daughter and
son-in-law a few years before his death in 1598.
[3] Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk (1561-1626), was the second son of
the Duke of Norfolk beheaded by Elizabeth in 1572. He gained
considerable distinction as a sailor, taking part in the defeat of the
Armada and the attack on the Spanish treasure-ship in which Sir Richard
Grenville was killed. He rose to a position of influence under
Elizabeth, was made an Earl on James's accession, and after filling many
high offices became Lord High Treasurer in 1614, which office he held
till 1619. In that year he was dismissed, fined L30,000, and imprisoned
in the Tower, for serious embezzlements and other frauds. He was
afterwards received back into favour: it was generally supposed that his
wife was chiefly to blame for his defalcations. He was grandfather to
the second Lord Howard of Escrick, the witness against Lord Russell,
whose trial see in vol. ii.
[4] Charles Blunt, Earl of Devon (1563-1606), was the second son of the
eighth Lord Mountjoy. He soon attracted the Queen's notice, fought in
the Low Countries, and took part in the defeat of the Armada. He was
offered and accepted the post of Lord Deputy of Ireland after it was
vacated by Essex, and was to some extent implicated in Essex's
subsequent treason. In 1602 he obtained Tyrone's surrender in Ireland
after three years' fighting. He returned to England in 1603, and held
occasional important appointments. In 1605 he was married by Laud to
Lady Rich, the former mistress of Sir Philip Sidney and himself, and the
divorced wife of Lord Rich. The event is chiefly remarkable for the part
taken in it by Laud.
[5] Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton (1540-1614), was the second son of
the Earl of Surrey, beheaded in Henry VIII.'s reign. After a long period
of political intrigue he rose to power on James's accession, having long
been in correspondence with him. He was an avowed enemy of Raleigh. He
maintained a position of great influence till the end of his life,
generally using his influence in support of the king's prerogative and
the Catholics. After his death he was accused of complicity in the
poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury in the Tower: not altogether without
reason. He built Northumberland House.
[6] Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury (1563?-1612), was at the time of
this trial at the middle point of his long official career. He first
appears in a public capacity in 1588, when he was sent to Spain in the
train of Lord Derby, having been appointed ambassador to negotiate
conditions of peace. He represented Hertfordshire in the House of
Commons in 1589; in 1591 he was sworn of the Privy Council; and in 1596,
during the absence of his rival Essex on the Cadiz expedition, he was
appointed Secretary of State. In 1598 he took part in an embassy to
Paris with Lord Brooke, Raleigh, and others to hinder an alliance
between France and Spain. In 1600 Cecil was a member of a Commission
appointed to report on Essex's return from Ireland without permission,
and managed to mitigate the gravity of his offence; but in 1601, on
Essex's trial for treason, had to defend himself from an accusation by
Essex of having declared himself in favour of the Infanta's claim to the
throne. By careful preparations he secured the peaceable accession of
James II. to the throne, and was raised to the peerage, and eventually
made Earl of Salisbury in consequence. For the rest of his life he
remained James's most trusted minister.
[7] John Popham (1531-1607) was born of a good family in Somersetshire.
He was reported to have been stolen by gypsies in his youth, but was
educated at Balliol. He began life in London as a law-student and a
highwayman; but soon became, according to Campbell, a consummate lawyer,
practising chiefly as a special pleader. He became a Serjeant and
Solicitor-General in 1578, Speaker in 1580, Attorney-General in 1581,
and Lord Chief-Justice in 1592. He presided at the trial of Guy Fawkes
and his fellow-conspirators. He enjoyed the reputation of being a sound
lawyer and a severe judge. He left the greatest estate that had ever
been amassed by a lawyer; but it is probably untrue that he acquired
Littlecot Hall by fraudulently acquitting 'Wild Darrell' of the murder
of its newly born heir. He was, however, reported to have saved money
while he was a highwayman.
[8] Sir Edmund Anderson (1530-1605) was born at Flinborough or Broughton
in Lincolnshire. He was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford, called to
the bar, and made a Serjeant in 1577. He tried Robert Brown, founder of
the Brownists, as assistant judge on the Norfolk Circuit in 1581; in the
same year he tried Campian, the Jesuit, on the Western Circuit. In both
cases he expressed strong views as to the claims of the Established
Church. He was promoted to the chiefship of the Common Pleas in 1582,
and tried Babington for treason in 1586, and Davison for beheading Mary,
Queen of Scots. He also took part in the trials of the Duke of Arundel;
Sir John Perrot, Lord Deputy of Ireland; and the Earl of Essex. He also
tried Udall, the puritan, and no doubt tried to entrap him into a
confession of guilt. Apart from political trials, he had the reputation
of being a good judge and a sound lawyer.
[9] Henry Brooke, eighth Lord Cobham, was the son of a leading favourite
of Queen Elizabeth's. On his father's death he succeeded to much of his
father's influence; Robert Cecil married his sister; and they were both
enemies of Essex. Cobham's influence did not last into James's reign,
and he entered on the transactions which are discussed in Raleigh's
trial. He himself was tried and convicted after Raleigh (see p. 6), but
after being pardoned on the scaffold he remained a prisoner in the Tower
till 1617, when he was allowed to pay a visit to Bath for his health: he
died on the way home.
[10] Arabella Stuart was the daughter of the Earl of Lenox, younger
brother of Lord Darnley, the grandson of Margaret, eldest sister of
Henry VII., and thus stood next in succession to James. Her claim to the
throne as against James was that she was born in England, whereas he was
an alien. She had been arrested by Elizabeth in consequence of a rumour
that she was to marry William Seymour, grandson of Catherine Grey. She
was imprisoned in 1609 on another rumour of her marriage to some person
unknown. In 1610 she became actually engaged to William Seymour: he
promised not to marry her without the King's consent, but married her
secretly a few months afterwards. The marriage was discovered, and she
was committed to private custody whilst her husband was committed to the
Tower. She escaped, disguised in a man's clothes, but was arrested in
the Straits of Dover. She died in the Tower in 1615.
[11] Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634) came of an old Norfolk family, and was
educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was called to the bar in
1578, having already acquired a reputation as a lawyer. He entered
public life as member for Aldborough in 1589, and as member for Norfolk
in 1592. He became Speaker in 1593, and in opposition to Bacon became
Attorney-General in 1593. In 1598, on the death of his first wife, he
married Elizabeth Hatton, Burghley's granddaughter, again depriving
Bacon of a prize. He was retained to prosecute Essex, Southampton, and
the Gunpowder Plot conspirators, against all of whom he showed the same
animus that he did against Raleigh. In 1606 he became Chief-Justice of
the Common Pleas, in which capacity he maintained the independence of
the Law Courts against ecclesiastical interference. He likewise offered
a resolute opposition to the King's claim to place impositions on
imported merchandise, and to regulate by proclamation such matters as
the erection of new buildings in London and the manufacture of starch
from wheat. In 1613 Coke, much against his will, was promoted, on
Bacon's advice, to the post of Chief-Justice of the King's Bench, where,
though his dignity was greater, his profits were less, and he was less
likely to have opportunity for opposing the King's measures. At the same
time he was made a Privy Councillor. His opposition to the power of the
Chancellor to exercise his equitable jurisdiction by injunction, and to
the King's power to grant commendams proved less successful than his
former measures; and what was considered his excess of zeal in inquiring
into the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, his opposition to the growth of
the powers of the Ecclesiastical Commission and the Star Chamber, and no
doubt other less public matters, led to his being deprived of his office
on the 5th of November 1616. After his dismissal he became engaged in a
most undignified quarrel with his wife as to whether their daughter
should marry Buckingham's elder brother, which she eventually did. In
1617 he was recalled to the Council, and occasionally judicially
employed. In 1621 he re-entered the House of Commons, and took up the
popular side in resisting monopolies and other abuses. He was engaged in
drawing up the charges against Bacon in the same year. He drew up the
'Protestation' affirming the privileges of Parliament in December 1621,
and was committed to the Tower in consequence. He was released in August
1622, but remained in a kind of qualified confinement. He resisted an
attempt by James to exclude him from the 1624 Parliament by sending him
on a commission to Ireland, and though he continued in opposition
contrived to reconcile himself to the King to some extent. He opposed
Charles's demands for money in his first two parliaments and drafted the
Petition of Right, and made his final appearance in the debate on the
Grand Remonstrance (1628), when he openly accused Buckingham as being
the cause of the misfortunes of the country.
[12] _Post_, p. 45.
[13] Andrews (1555-1626) was appointed to the living of St. Giles,
Cripplegate, in 1589, through Walsingham's influence. He was made Master
of Pembroke Hall soon after. He refused two bishoprics offered him by
Elizabeth because he would not consent to the alienation of any part of
their revenues; but became Dean of Windsor in 1601. He subsequently
became Bishop of Chichester in 1605; of Ely in 1609; of Winchester in
1619. He took part in the Hampton Court Conference, and his name stands
first in the list of the authors of the Authorised Version.
[14] Patrick Galloway had followed the King from Scotland: he had
assisted James in some of his religious writings, and was Moderator of
the General Assembly in 1590 and 1602. He afterwards upheld the
liberties of the Kirk against the attempts of James to restrict them,
and warmly supported the Five Articles of Perth in 1618.
[15] See _ante_, p. 5.
[16] See _ante_, p. 7.
[17] Sir Amyas Preston came of a good family settled at Crichet in
Somerset. He was lieutenant of the _Ark_ in the attack on the Armada:
and afterwards ravaged the West Indies, in company of Somers, in 1596.
He was knighted by Howard during his Cadiz expedition. He seems to have
been a friend of Essex; the challenge to Raleigh took place in 1601, but
did not lead to a meeting.
[18] Edmund Campian (1540-1581), the famous Jesuit, was educated at
Christ's Hospital, and afterward at St. John's, Oxford. He took an oath
against the Pope's supremacy on proceeding to a Master's degree, in
1564; but was probably always a Catholic at heart. He welcomed Elizabeth
to Oxford in a Latin oration in 1566, and was subsequently patronised by
Leicester and Cecil. He took deacon's orders, and went to Dublin in the
hope of having the direction of the Dublin University, which it was
proposed to resuscitate. He fell under suspicion as a Papist, but
managed to escape arrest and return to England, whence, after hearing
Dr. Storey's trial in 1571, he repaired to Douay, and formally renounced
the Protestant faith. He went to Rome, became a Jesuit, and was among
the first to be despatched to England on a Jesuit mission. He landed at
Dover in 1580, and was arrested, but released and went to London. After
various adventures in different parts of the country he was again
arrested, and brought to London in 1581. He was rigorously examined as
to his mission, but concealed the fact that he was charged to persuade
Catholics to separate themselves from the English communion. Afterwards
he was tortured, and a report, probably false, was spread abroad that he
had betrayed his companions. He was then called upon to meet his
adversaries in a public disputation, which he did with great courage and
skill. After being again tortured, he was tried and convicted of treason
in stirring up sedition. His trial was most unfairly conducted, and it
seems probable that the charge was altogether false. He was executed on
1st December 1581.
[19] 'Take heed of a preacher as Essex did.' Essex admitted his guilt at
the end of his trial. Howell (_State Trials_, vol. i. p. 1358) says: 'On
the 25th of February 1601, which was the day appointed for his
execution, Thomas Mountford and William Barlow, doctors of divinity,
with Ashton, the minister of the Church in the Tower, were sent unto him
early to administer Christian consolation to his soul. In the presence
of these men he gave thanks to Almighty God from the bottom of his
heart, that his designs, which were so dangerous to the state, succeeded
not. He told them he had now looked thoroughly and seriously into his
sin, and was heartily sorry he had so obstinately defended an unjust
cause at the bar.... He acknowledged how worthy he was to be spued out
(these were his words) by the Commonwealth for the wickedness of his
enterprize, which he likened to a leprosy spread far and near, and that
he had infected many.'