Weeks, months, and years passed away like a tale that is told; and on
their passing we shall not pause, dear reader, for to say truth we
should have little to relate, which in a work such as this would be
pleasing to your ear. What satisfaction could you derive from pictures
of a court full of venality and corruption?--What satisfaction would
it be either to the writer or the reader to look into the pruriences
of the most disgusting monarch that ever sat upon the English throne?
We will not, therefore, attempt to paint him to you, either in his
villanous efforts to crush the liberties of his people, and to
establish the tyranny of prerogative upon the ruins of the English
constitution; or, in his pitiful pedantry, erecting himself into an
ecclesiastical judge, and setting himself up as the Pope of Great
Britain. We will not represent him in his unjust and illiberal
prodigality, stripping the crown of its wealth, robbing his
subjects of their property, and despoiling the best servants of the
state of their just reward, to bestow with a lavish and a thoughtless
hand the plunder of the people upon the unworthy heads of base and
ill-deserving favourites. We will not display him in his cold,
fanatical cruelties, more horrible than the wildest excesses of
passionate tyranny; we will not show him dangling with his upstart
minions, in those sickening scenes which have caused not unreasonable
suspicions of the most horrible crimes.
We will leave the course of James I. to the page of history, where it
remains a foul blot, which not all the blood and horrors of the great
rebellion--of which it was the origin and cause--have been able to
efface. If ever the sins of the fathers were, according to the
unshakeable decree of the Almighty, visited upon the children, such
was most strikingly the case in the destiny of the unhappy race which
sprang from his loins.
We must, however, touch upon some points affecting the fate of several
of those whom we have brought upon the scene; and first we must
conclude the sad tale of the conspirators. We shall do so, however, as
briefly as possible; for this, too, is a matter of mere history, and
only one or two of those personages lived to take part in the
succeeding events.
As the plague still raged in London, the judges met at Maidenhead to
inquire into the case against the prisoners, and examinations were
entered into of a very irregular character, which were succeeded by a
special commission, the chief end and object of which seemed to be, to
set every principle of law and justice at defiance, to trample out the
last sparks of liberty and security, and to show the British people
that they were quite at the mercy of a vain and vicious king.
At the head of this special commission were Cecil and the Earl of
Suffolk, with two chief justices; but two other judges sat in the
court. The trials took place at Winchester, and George Brooke, Sir
Griffin Markham, with several of the inferior conspirators, were first
put to the bar. They were all found guilty, principally upon their own
confessions, which were probably made in the hope of obtaining pardon;
and upon all the severe sentence of high treason was pronounced. The
two priests, Watson and Clarke, were also condemned; and then Cobham,
Grey, and Raleigh were severally brought to trial.
The demeanour of these three gentlemen in court excited not a little
attention at the time, the deportment of each being very different
from that of the others, and each marked with strong characteristic
traits. Lord Cobham displayed nothing but weakness, imbecility, and
fear; he trembled violently during the reading of the indictment,
endeavoured to excuse himself by casting the blame upon his friends,
made a confession more ample, it is generally supposed, than even
truth warranted, and ended by begging hard for life, when sentence of
death was pronounced upon him.
A very different scene was displayed at the trial of Lord Grey de
Wilton. He defended himself with courage, vigour, and eloquence,
without the slightest sign of fear or anxiety; showed himself learned
in the law of the land, and by his gallant bearing and skilful
reasoning both won the favour, and shook the opinion, of many of his
judges. Nevertheless, the confessions of George Brooke and Sir Griffin
Markham, in which his name was mentioned, were received as conclusive
evidence against him, and he likewise was pronounced guilty of high
treason. When asked if he had anything to say why sentence of death
should not be passed upon him, he replied at first, "Nothing!" but
then added, "Non eadem omnibus decora. The house of the Wiltons have
spent many lives in their princes' service, and Grey cannot beg his."
Raleigh was the next to undergo the torture of a public trial, and
against him there was arrayed the envy of inferior minds, the hatred
of a king, the malice of private enemies, the prepossession of his
judges, and all the virulence of legal insolence. The conduct of the
attorney-general, Sir Edward Coke, stamped him for posterity as one of
the greatest villains, as well as one of the greatest lawyers, that
ever lived; and his speech against the illustrious prisoner offers a
model, too frequently imitated in France, of all that the counsel for
the prosecution should not say.
Raleigh displayed upon this terrible occasion all those powers of mind
which distinguished him through life; and he also showed much temper
and moderation in reply to the virulent abuse of Coke. The evidence
upon which he was condemned--namely, a vague and unsatisfactory
confession of Lord Cobham, unsigned, taken down from word of mouth,
and recanted in the most solemn manner by a letter to Raleigh himself,
and the testimony of a man named Dyer, who swore that a stranger in
Lisbon had said to him, that the King would never be crowned, for Don
Raleigh and Don Cobham would first cut his throat--would of course
never be even heard in a court of justice, in the present day; and yet
this was all that could be brought against him. But it was found
sufficient in the minds of the judges; and, although Raleigh demanded
that Lord Cobham should be confronted with him, and urged that no man
could be condemned upon the written testimony of only one witness, he
was found guilty of high treason, and condemned to death. All that the
prisoner required, after the verdict was given, was, that the King
should be requested that his death might be an honourable and not an
ignominious one. He hinted, however, a desire that his execution
should be delayed till after Cobham's, probably in the hope that on
the scaffold itself his former friend would do him justice, and
declare his innocence with his dying breath.
After the trials, the Court and the country were all eager to know,
what would be the conduct of the King, with whom alone the fate of the
prisoners now remained; but James, following the usual principles of
his kingcraft, kept his determinations to his own bosom, suffering not
even his most favourite counsellors to know whether he would show
lenity or severity. The crimes proved against George Brooke, and his
general bad reputation, decided his fate, and he suffered the full
penalties of high treason in the month of November, 1603. He died in
the same bold and careless manner in which he had lived, apparently
without either fear or regret; and the whole country seems to have
approved of the firmness of the King in carrying his sentence into
execution.
Different feelings, however, were entertained in regard to the two
priests, Watson and Clarke, who suffered nearly at the same time.
Neither of them showed the slightest want of courage, and Clarke
boldly proclaimed on the scaffold, that he was a martyr to his
religious faith. The Roman Catholics of course exalted their virtues
and their devotion, and cried out against the severity with which they
were treated by a monarch who had flattered the Papists with false
hopes of toleration.
These three executions, however, created great alarm amongst the
friends of the other prisoners; and various efforts were made to avert
their fate by petition and solicitation. Still James remained silent
and unmoved, the day appointed for the punishment of Cobham, Grey, and
Markham approached rapidly, and at length the death-warrant was sent
down to Winchester, and another was signed for the execution of
Raleigh on the Monday following, three days after the period appointed
for the fate of his fellow-prisoners. Markham received some reason to
hope, from private friends at the Court, that his life would be
spared, but the two peers and Raleigh were directed to prepare
themselves for certain death. The Bishop of Chichester and the Bishop
of Winchester remained constantly with Lord Cobham and Sir Walter
Raleigh, having been instructed by the King not only to give them
religious consolation, but to induce them to make a full confession,
with a view, it would appear, of reconciling the discrepancy of their
statements.
If this was the monarch's object, however, no success was obtained;
for while the weak and imbecile Lord Cobham once more varied in his
statements, and re-asserted all that he had previously laid to the
charge of Raleigh, the knight firmly maintained his innocence, and
varied not in the least from his former account.
At length, on the Friday appointed for the execution, Markham was
brought out of the castle, at ten o'clock in the morning, to the
scaffold erected on the green. Finding all the preparations for the
work of death ready, he complained bitterly of having been deluded
with false hopes, admitted that he had listened but little to the
exhortations of the priests, having been always assured that he would
receive a pardon, and added that he was in no degree prepared to die.
Nevertheless, he displayed no want of courage, but calmly took leave
of some of his friends who stood near the scaffold; but one of them
having given him a handkerchief to cover his eyes, he threw it
indignantly from him, saying that he could look death in the face
without blushing. He then crossed himself, knelt, and prayed; after
which he stripped off his doublet, and turned back the collar of his
shirt, that his neck might receive the blow of the axe unimpeded.
Whilst he was performing this last sad ceremony, a Scotch gentleman,
of the name of John Gibb, groom of the bedchamber to the king,
approached the scaffold from the side of the castle, and called the
sheriff down to speak with him. Their conversation seemed long to the
spectators, and probably not less so to the unfortunate Markham, who
remained with his neck and shoulders bare, waiting for the order to
lay his head upon the block. At length Sir Benjamin Tichborne, the
sheriff, returned, and addressing the prisoner, said, "Sir, since you
tell me that you are so ill-prepared for death, having been led by
false hopes that your life would be spared, I take upon me, after
consultation with a gentleman attached to the king, to grant you two
hours' respite, that you may reconcile yourself, if possible, to God
before you die.--Follow me."
Hastily covering his throat, and resuming his garments, with his whole
brain whirling and his heart full of doubt and uncertainty, Markham
followed the sheriff from the scaffold, and was conducted to the wide
old stone chamber known in those days as Prince Arthur's Hall, where,
the door being locked, he was left to meditate in solitude, without
even the presence of a priest to afford him consolation, or encourage
him to hope.
In the meanwhile, Lord Grey de Wilton was led to the scaffold,
accompanied by a Puritan minister of the name of Field, and a large
troop of noble friends. His countenance was gay and smiling, his whole
demeanour easy and unaffected; and after Field had prayed for some
time, the young lord addressed the people in an eloquent speech, full
of deep religious feeling, and confidence in the mercy of God. He
looked, says one of the authors of that day, more like a bridegroom
than a condemned criminal.
In the midst of his speech, however, he was interrupted by the
sheriff, who informed him that he had the king's command to stay the
order of the execution, and to behead Lord Cobham first. With much
surprise, and with no expression of satisfaction, Lord Grey, whose
mind was perfectly made up to his fate, suffered himself to be led
back to the castle, where he also was locked up in Prince Arthur's
Hall, to converse with Sir Griffin Markham upon their strange
situation. Lord Cobham was next brought upon the scene, and he also
went through the same ceremony of prayer and preparation for the
block. He showed none of that timidity and want of resolution, now
that his fate was decided, which he had displayed while it seemed
doubtful, but maintained that what he had said of Sir Walter Raleigh
was true, though, as some writers have justly observed, no one could
tell what he did really wish to impute and what he did not, as,
amongst his various confessions and retractions, there was no one part
that did not contradict another.
As he was about to kneel down to receive the stroke of the axe, the
sheriff stopped him, saying, that he had orders to confront him, even
at that last hour, with some of the other conspirators; and a message
having been sent into the castle, Lord Grey and Sir Griffin Markham
were brought back to the scaffold, where Sir Benjamin Tichborne
addressed them in a long speech, inquiring whether they did not
confess they were justly condemned, and merited death.
To this they assented, without reserve, and the sheriff announced to
them that the king, in his great mercy, had determined to spare their
lives. A full pardon, however, was not given; and Lords Cobham and
Grey were destined to endure a long and painful imprisonment,
terminated in the case of the first by his escape being connived at,
and he himself allowed to drag out a few years in the most abject
poverty and misery, till a wretched death, hastened by actual want,
filth, and wretchedness, terminated the sorrows of a man who not long
before had been one of the most wealthy peers of the realm. The proud
and eager spirit of Lord Grey brought his career to an earlier close;
and that most common of all diseases, which has obtained--why or
wherefore I know not--the name of a broken heart, terminated his
sufferings a few years after. Markham and several of the inferior
conspirators were banished from the realm; and of one of them, at
least, we shall have to speak hereafter. Raleigh, as all the world
knows, was suffered to languish in prison for many years, with a
capital sentence hanging over his head, and destined in the end to be
one of the most illustrious victims to the tyranny and injustice of a
base and low-minded king.
Thus did James contrive even with mercy to mingle tyranny, to deprive
apparent clemency of all real lenity, and to display the pitiful
frivolity of his nature in the solemn exercise of his holiest and his
highest prerogative. There were not one of those, except Markham, whom
he reprieved at Winchester, to whom immediate death would not have
been pity, compared with the fate for which he reserved them; and yet
the country rang with applause even while the spirit of historic truth
stamped the act with the infamous brand it deserves.