THE TRIAL (November 17).
[Sidenote: _The Indictment._]
On September 21 Ralegh had been indicted at Staines for having, with
Cobham and Brooke, compassed in the Parish of St. Martin in the Fields
to deprive the King of his crown, to alter the true religion, and to
levy war. The indictment alleged that Cobham had discoursed with him on
the means of raising Arabella Stuart to the crown; that Cobham had
treated with Arenberg for 600,000 crowns from the King of Spain, and had
meant to go to Spain in quest of support for Arabella. It alleged that
Ralegh and Cobham had agreed Arabella should by letter promise the
Archduke of Austria, the King of Spain, and the Duke of Savoy, to
maintain a firm truce with Spain, to tolerate Papistry, and be guided by
the three princes in her marriage. It alleged the publication and
delivery by Ralegh to Cobham of a book traitorously devised against the
King's title to the crown. Finally, it alleged that Cobham had agreed,
when he should have received the money from Arenberg, to deliver eight
or ten thousand crowns to Ralegh to enable him the better to effect the
intended treasons. Jurors were summoned in September for the trial of
this indictment. But for some reason the hearing was deferred till
November.
[Sidenote: _Mob Judgments._]
The plague raging in London and the neighbourhood may account for the
delay. Pym relates in his _Diary_ that it killed 2000 a week. The Tower
was reported in September, 1603, to be infected. The King's Bench kept
the next term at Winchester. So to Winchester their respective
custodians conveyed Brooke, Sir Griffin Markham, Sir Edward Parham, who
finally was acquitted, Brooksby, Copley, Watson, Clarke, Cobham, and
Grey. They were escorted by under-wardens of the Tower, the Keeper of
the Westminster Gate-house, and fifty light horse. Ralegh set out on
November 10 in his own coach, under the charge of Sir Robert Mansel and
Sir William Waad. Waad wrote to Cecil that he found his prisoner much
altered. At Wimbledon a group of friends and relatives had assembled to
greet him as he passed. Generally he encountered none but looks of
hatred. Precautions had to be taken to steal the planter of Virginia,
the hero of Cadiz, the wit and poet, the splendid gentleman, the lavish
patron, from the curs of London, without outrage, or murder. It was 'hob
or nob,' writes Waad to Cecil, whether or not Ralegh 'should have been
brought alive through such multitudes of unruly people as did exclaim
against him.' He adds, that it would hardly have been believed the
plague was hot in London in presence of such a mob. Watches had to be
set through all the streets, both in London and the suburbs. 'If one
hare-brain fellow amongst so great a multitude had begun to set upon
him, as they were near to do it, no entreaty or means could have
prevailed; the fury and tumult of the people was so great.'
Tobacco-pipes, stones, and mud were, wrote Cecil's secretary, Mr.
Michael Hickes, to Lord Shrewsbury, thrown by the rabble, both in London
and in other towns on the road. Ralegh is stated to have scorned these
proofs of the aversion of base and rascal people. Mr. Macvey Napier, in
his thoughtful essay, attributes to him 'a total want of sympathy with,
if not a dislike of, the lower orders.' His disgust, perhaps, was rather
evoked by the want of discrimination in all masses. He was habitually
good to his dependents, and was beloved by them. A multitude, whatever
the rank of its constituents, he regarded as 'dogs who always bark at
those they know not.' He had never flattered a mob. He did not now cower
before it. To manifestations of popular odium his nature rose, as to
every peremptory call upon his powers. He foresaw that posterity would
understand him, and would right him.
[Sidenote: _Chief Justice Popham._]
[Sidenote: _The Jury._]
Two days were taken to reach Bagshot, and three more to traverse the
remaining thirty miles to Winchester. Ralegh and others of the accused
were lodged in the Royal Castle of Winchester, built by Bishop Henry,
Stephen's brother. A King's Bench Court had been fitted up in Wolvesey
Castle, the old episcopal palace, now a ruin. There the trial opened on
November 17. Sir John Popham was Lord Chief Justice of England. He was
not prepossessing in appearance, 'a huge, heavy, ugly man,' and he had
an uncouth history. As a child he had been stolen by gipsies. In early
manhood he was a notorious gamester and reveller. He took purses, it is
stoutly affirmed, on Shooter's Hill, when he was a barrister, and thirty
years of age. Then he reformed his morals, read law, and entered the
House of Commons. In 1581 he was elected Speaker, and in 1592 was
appointed Chief Justice. Essex had imprisoned him in Essex House on the
day of the rising, but protected his life from his crazy followers. He
had the generosity to requite the favour by venturing to advise the
Queen to grant a pardon. He amassed a vast estate, part of it being
Littlecote, which he was fabled to have wrested, together with an
hereditary curse, from a murderer, Sir Richard Dayrell. With Popham,
Chief Justice Anderson, and Justices Gawdy and Warburton, there sat as
Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer, Lord Thomas Howard, since July Earl
of Suffolk and Lord Chamberlain, Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy and Earl
of Devonshire, Lord Henry Howard, Robert Cecil, now Lord Cecil, Lord
Wotton, Vice-Chamberlain Sir John Stanhope, and Sir William Waad. That
the King, with his personal knowledge of Henry Howard's fierce hatred of
Ralegh, as evinced in the whole private correspondence with Holyrood,
should have appointed him a judge was an outrage upon decency.
Attorney-General Coke, Serjeant Hele, who had been Ralegh's counsel
against Meere, and Serjeant Phillips, prosecuted. The law allowed no
counsel to prisoners. Sir Michael Stanhope, Sir Edward Darcy, Ralegh's
neighbour in Durham House, and Sir William Killigrew, had been, it was
rumoured, on the jury panel, but were 'changed overnight, being found
not for their turn.' The report of a sudden modification in the list is
not necessarily untrue, though the jury, it is said, was a Middlesex
jury, and had been ordered long before to attend at Winchester. Other
Middlesex men, of whom many were at Winchester, may have been
substituted. At any rate, Ralegh did not except to any names. 'I know,'
said he, 'none of them. They are all Christians and honest gentlemen.'
Sir Thomas, or John, Fowler was chosen foreman.
Ralegh asked leave to answer the points particularly as they were
delivered, on account of his failing memory and sickness. Coke objected
to having the King's evidence dismembered, 'whereby it might lose much
of its grace and vigour.' Popham was more considerate. He promised to
let Ralegh, after the King's counsel should have produced all the
evidence, answer particularly what he would. Hele opened. I cull a few
flowers of his eloquence and logic: 'You have heard of Ralegh's bloody
attempt to kill the King, in whom consists all our happiness, and the
true use of the Gospel, and his royal children, poor babes that never
gave offence. Since the Conquest there was never the like treason. But
out of whose head came it? Out of Ralegh's. Cobham said to Brooke: "It
will never be well in England till the King and his cubs are taken
away." It appears that Cobham took Ralegh to be either a god or an idol.
Bred in England, Cobham hath no experience abroad. But Ralegh is a man
of great wit, military, and a swordsman. Now, whether these things were
bred in a hollow tree, I leave to them to speak of who can speak far
better than myself.'
[Sidenote: _The Main, and the Bye._]
He meant Sir Edward Coke, who then addressed the Court. He started
gently: 'We carry a just mind, to condemn no man but upon plain
evidence.' Thence he proceeded: 'Here is mischief, mischief _in summo
gradu_, exorbitant mischief!' He first explained 'the treason of the
Bye.' That was the alleged plot of Grey, Brooke, and Markham to surprise
the King, and carry him to the Tower. Ralegh reminded the jury that he
was not charged with the Bye. 'No,' retorted Coke, but 'all these
treasons, though they consisted of several points, closed in together;
like Samson's foxes, which were joined in the tails, though the heads
were severed.' He anticipated the objection that the Crown had but one
witness, Cobham. It had, he argued, more than two witnesses: 'When a man
by his accusation of another shall by the same accusation also condemn
himself, and make himself liable to the same punishment, this is by law
more forcible than many witnesses, and is as the inquest of twelve men.
For the law presumes that a man will not accuse himself in order to
accuse another.' That is, Coke chose to confuse an argument for the
sufficiency of a man's evidence of his own guilt with its cogency as
evidence of another's. After this, he declaimed upon the horror of the
treason in the present case. 'To take away the fox and his cubs! To
whom, Sir Walter, did you bear malice? To the royal children?' Ralegh
protested: 'What is the treason of Markham and the priests to me?' Coke
burst forth: 'I will then come close to you. I will prove you to be the
most notorious traitor that ever came to the bar. You, indeed, are upon
the Main; but you followed them of the Bye in imitation.' Ralegh asked
for proof. 'Nay,' cried Coke, 'I will prove all. Thou art a monster;
thou hast an English face, but a Spanish heart. Your intent was to set
up the Lady Arabella, and to depose our rightful King, the lineal
descendant of Edward IV.' Coke, it will be seen, did not choose to trace
the Stuarts to Henry VII. He treated the Tudors as interlopers. 'You
pretend,' he continued, that the money expected from Arenberg was to
'forward the Peace with Spain. Your jargon was peace, which meant
Spanish invasion and Scottish subversion.' Cobham, argued Coke, never
was a politician, nor a swordsman. Ralegh was both. Ralegh and Cobham
both were discontented, and Cobham's discontent grew by Ralegh. Such was
Ralegh's machiavellian policy that he would never confer with but one
at once. He would talk with none but Cobham; 'because, saith he, one
witness can never condemn me.'
[Sidenote: _Master Attorney's zeal._]
Next, Coke turned to the communications between Ralegh and Cobham in the
Tower. He exclaimed to the jury: 'And now you shall see the most
horrible practices that ever came out of the bottomless pit of the
lowest hell.' In reply to a protest by Ralegh as to his liability for
some underhand practices of Cobham, as Warden of the Cinque Ports, Coke
foamed out: 'All he did was by thy instigation, thou viper; for I thou
thee, thou traitor! I will prove thee the rankest traitor in all
England.' 'No, Master Attorney,' was the answer: 'I am no traitor.
Whether I live or die, I shall stand as true a subject as ever the King
hath. You may call me a traitor at your pleasure; yet it becomes not a
man of quality or virtue to do so. But I take comfort in it; it is all
that you can do; for I do not yet hear that you charge me with any
treason.' The Lord Chief Justice interposed: 'Sir Walter Ralegh, Master
Attorney speaks out of the zeal of his duty for the service of the King,
and you for your life; be patient on both sides.' It is hard to see how
Ralegh had shown impatience. Some impatience he manifested on the
reading of Cobham's declaration of July 20. 'Cobham,' said he, 'is not
such a babe as you make him. He hath dispositions of such violence which
his best friends could never temper.' He was not of a nature to be
easily persuaded by Ralegh. Assuredly Ralegh was not likely to 'conspire
with a man that hath neither love nor following,' against a vigorous and
youthful King, in reliance on a State so impoverished and weak as Spain,
and so detested by himself. He ridiculed the notion that King Philip
either could or would freely disburse 600,000 crowns on the mere word of
Cobham. Elizabeth's own Londoners did not lend to her without lands in
pawn. Yet more absurd was the supposition that Ralegh was in the plot.
Thrice had he served against Spain at sea. Against Spain he had
expended, of his own property, 40,000 marks. 'Spanish as you term me, I
had at this time writ a treatise to the King's Majesty of the present
state of Spain, and reasons against the peace.'
[Sidenote: _Call for Cobham._]
When the first or second examination of Cobham was cited, Popham offered
himself practically as a witness. He had heard Cobham say of Ralegh, as
he signed his deposition: 'That wretch! That traitor Ralegh!' 'And
surely,' added the Chief Justice, 'his countenance and action much
satisfied me that what he had confessed was true, and that he surely
thought Sir Walter had betrayed him.' Upon this Ralegh demanded to have
his accuser, who was under the same roof, brought in, and examined face
to face. Long before, and equally in vain, had his father-in-law, Sir
Nicholas Throckmorton, called, as Sir Michael Foster mentions, for the
witnesses against him 'to be brought face to face upon the trial.'
Ralegh cited 1 Edward VI, that no man shall be condemned of treason,
unless he be accused by two lawful accusers. He referred also to 1 and 2
Phil. and Mary, which ordained that an accuser of another of treason
shall, if living and in the realm, be brought forth in person before the
party arraigned, if he require it. The Canon of God itself in
Deuteronomy, he urged, requires two witnesses. 'I beseech you then, my
Lords, let Cobham be sent for. Let him be charged upon his soul, upon
his allegiance to the King; and if he will then maintain his accusation
to my face, I will confess myself guilty.' Popham's answer was: 'This
thing cannot be granted; for then a number of treasons should flourish.
The accuser may be drawn by practice while he is in prison.' Again and
again Ralegh called for Cobham. Popham objected that he might
prevaricate in order to procure the acquittal of his 'old friend.' 'To
absolve me,' cried Ralegh sarcastically, 'me, the infuser of these
treasons! Me, the cause of all his miseries, and the destruction of his
house!' Coke asserted: 'He is a party and cannot come. The law is
against it.' 'It is a toy to tell me of law,' was the reply, 'I defy
law. I stand on the facts.' At one moment his passionate appeal seemed
to have awed the Court into justice. Cecil asked if he would really
abide by Cobham's words. 'Yes, in a main point.' 'If he say you have
been the instigator of him to deal with the Spanish King, had not the
Council cause to draw you hither?' asked Cecil. 'I put myself on it,'
answered Ralegh. 'Then, call to God, Sir Walter,' said Cecil; 'and
prepare yourself; for I verily believe my Lord will prove it.' Cecil
knew of Cobham's recent reiteration of his charge, and supposed he could
be trusted to insist upon it in Court. The Lords Commissioners, on
consultation, doubted this, and finally decided to keep him back, and
rely upon his letter.
[Sidenote: _Two Witnesses._]
[Sidenote: _A Spider of Hell._]
The trial pursued its course. Popham laid it down that 1 Edw. VI. c. 12,
was repealed by 1 and 2 Phil. and Mary. Mr. Justice Gawdy corroborated
this, uttering the solitary judicial dictum recorded of him, that 'the
statute of Edward had been found inconvenient, and had therefore been
repealed.' The provision cited by Ralegh from Philip and Mary's
repealing statute, Popham ruled, applied solely to the specific treasons
it mentioned. The Act ordained that the trial of treasons in general
should follow common law procedure, as before the reign of Edward VI.
But by common law one witness was sufficient. The confession of
confederates was full proof, even though not subscribed, if it were
attested by credible witnesses. Indeed, remarked Popham, echoing Coke,
'of all other proofs the accusation of one, who by his confession first
accuseth himself, is the strongest. It hath the force of a verdict of
twelve men.' Coke himself later, when, as Mr. Justice Michael Foster
expresses it, 'his disgrace at Court had given him leisure for cool
reflection,' intimated in his _Institutes_ that the statute of Edward
the Sixth had not been repealed, and that the obligation, as specified
by it, to produce two witnesses to charges of treason remained in force.
That was not the view of Elizabethan Judges. At the trial of the Duke of
Norfolk it was laid down that the necessity no longer existed. In
fairness it must be admitted that Popham and his brethren were bound to
assume the law had then been correctly stated. They were equally bound
by a series of precedents to allow written depositions to be treated as
valid testimony. Only by the assent of counsel for the Crown was the
oral examination of witnesses permitted. Ralegh did not struggle against
the ruling. He could but plead, 'though, by the rigour and severity of
the law, this may be sufficient evidence without producing the witness,
yet, your Lordships, as ministers of the King, are bound to administer
the law in equity.' 'No,' replied Popham: 'equity must proceed from the
King; you can have only justice from us.' Coke triumphantly exclaimed:
'This dilemma of yours about two witnesses led you into treason.'
Cobham's letter of July 29 to the Council about the money asked of
Arenberg was read. In it occurred the expression: 'We did expect the
general discontentment.' Coke's comment was: 'The peace pretended by Sir
Walter Ralegh is merely jargon; for it is clear the money was for
discontented persons. Now Ralegh was to have part of the money;
therefore, he was a discontented person, and, therefore, a traitor.'
That was the logic thought good enough at a trial for treason. So, to
Ralegh's indignant remonstrance at the use of the evidence of 'hellish
spiders,' like Clarke and Watson, concerning 'the King and his cubs' as
evidence against him, Coke answered: 'Thou hast a Spanish heart, and
thyself art a spider of hell; for thou confessest the King to be a most
sweet and gracious Prince, and yet thou hast conspired against him.'
With equal relevancy he cited from the depositions: 'Brooke thinketh the
project for the murder of the King was infused by Ralegh into his
brother's head.' For Coke this was valid evidence against Ralegh.
[Sidenote: _Serjeant Phillips._]
On rolled the muddy stream of inconsequential testimony, and of
reasoning to match; the 'irregular ramble,' as Sir John Hawles has
termed it. Snagge's book was discussed; how Ralegh borrowed it from
Burleigh's library; and how Cobham had it, whether by gift from Ralegh,
or by borrowing it when Ralegh was asleep. To Ralegh the whole appeared
the triviality it was. 'It is well known,' said he, 'that there came out
nothing in those times but I had it. I believe they will find in my
house almost all the libels writ against the late Queen.' As utterly
irrelevant against him was the introduction of Arabella Stuart to deny
her knowledge of any plots in her pretended interest. Worse than
irrelevant was pilot Dyer's gossip with a gentleman at Lisbon, to whom
Dyer had observed that the King of England was shortly to be crowned.
'Nay,' saith the Portugal, 'that shall never be; for his throat will be
cut by Don Ralegh and Don Cobham before he be crowned.' 'What will you
infer upon that?' asked Ralegh. 'That your treason hath wings,' replied
Coke. Hereupon Serjeant Phillips relieved Coke, and almost outdid him.
Phillips argued that the object of procuring money was to raise up
tumults in Scotland, and to take the lives of his Majesty and his issue.
For those purposes a treasonable book against the King's right to the
Crown was 'divulged.' Commencing with the unproved allegation that 'Sir
Walter Ralegh confesseth my Lord Cobham guilty of all these treasons,'
Phillips proceeded: 'The question is, whether Ralegh be guilty, as
joining with or instigating him. If Lord Cobham's accusation be true, he
is guilty. If not, he is clear. Ralegh hath no answer. Of as much wit as
the wit of man can devise, he useth his bare denial. A denial by the
defendant must not move the jury.' Nothing could be more crushing than
the calm rejoinder: 'You have not proved any one thing by direct proofs,
but all by circumstances. I appeal to God and the King on this point
whether Cobham's accusation be sufficient to condemn me.'
[Sidenote: _Cobham's New Statement._]
So weak was the case for the prosecution that to this stage, by the
admission of a reporter of the trial, the result was very doubtful.
Coke, however, with the cognizance, it may be presumed, of the Court,
had prepared a dramatic surprise. Cobham, the day before, had written or
signed a repetition of his charge. Ralegh's account of the transaction
at the trial was that Lady Kildare, Lady Ralegh's enemy, had persuaded
Cobham to accuse Ralegh, as the sole way of saving his own life. A
letter from her to him goes some length towards confirming the
allegation. She writes: 'Help yourself, if it may be. I say no more; but
draw not the weight of others' burdens.' According to another, and not
very likely, story, told by Sir Anthony Welldon in his _Court of King
James_, Cobham subsequently stated that Waad had induced him by a trick
to sign his name on a blank page, which afterwards was thus filled in.
The paper alleged a request by Ralegh to obtain for him a pension of
L1500 for intelligence. 'But,' it ambiguously proceeded, 'upon this
motion for L1500 per annum for intelligence I never dealt with Count
Arenberg.' 'Now,' added the writer, as if it were a conclusion from
premisses, 'as by this may appear to your Lordships, he hath been the
original cause of my ruin. For, but by his instigation, I had never
dealt with Count Arenberg. And so hath he been the only cause of my
discontentment; I never coming from the Count, or Court, but still he
filled and possessed me with new causes of discontentments.' The reading
of the statement was set in a more than usually decorated framework of
Coke's amenities. Ralegh throughout the trial had been for the King's
Attorney an 'odious fellow;' the 'most vile and execrable traitor.' He
had been stigmatized as 'hateful to all the realm for his pride,' to
which Ralegh had retorted: 'It will go near to prove a measuring cast,
Mr. Attorney, between you and me.' With Cobham's deposition in his hand,
Coke cried: 'I will lay thee on thy back for the confidentest traitor
that ever came to a bar.' When Cecil prayed him not to be so impatient,
Coke flew out: 'If I may not be patiently heard, you will encourage
traitors.' Sulkily down he sat, and would speak no more till the
Commissioners entreated him to go on. Resuming, he criticized Ralegh's
letter to Cobham in the Tower, which was next read: 'O damnable Atheist!
He hath learned some text of Scripture to serve his own purpose. Essex
died the child of God. Thou wast by.
Et lupus et turpes instant morientibus ursae.'
Being asked what he said of Cobham's statement to the Lords, 'I say,'
answered Ralegh, 'that Cobham is a base, dishonourable, poor soul!' 'Is
he base?' retorted Coke. 'I return it into thy throat on his behalf. But
for thee he had been a good subject.'
[Sidenote: _Exaggeration of its Importance._]
The document did not amount to a confession by Cobham even of his own
treason. At highest it was evidence against him of negotiations with
Count Arenberg which might have been 'warrantable,' and of discontent
which need not have been in the least criminal. If such secondary
testimony had been legal when its author was available as a witness, and
if its statements had been incontrovertible, it ought to have been held
worthless against Ralegh. Nothing, so far as appears even from the
paper, was ever done towards the gratification of the desire for a
foreign pension imputed to him. Within limits, Cobham's allegation that
Ralegh had fomented his anger against the new state of things is
plausible enough. It would be strange if the two disgraced favourites
did not at their frequent meetings club and inflame their mutual pique.
Obviously, apart from acts, of which there was no evidence, no
irritation by Ralegh, however envenomed, as it was not shown to have
been, of Cobham's discontent, could in him have been treason. Judged by
all sound laws of evidence, the testimony of the statement was as flimsy
as all the rest of the proofs. To attach importance to it was a
burlesque of justice. It was treated as demonstrative by a packed Bench,
a Bar hungering for place, and a faint-hearted jury, anxious above all
things to vindicate authority, and not caring to discriminate among the
prisoners on the charges against them. To the whole court it came like a
godsend. The author of the fullest report, that which is preserved in
the Harleian MSS., expresses the sentiment of Jacobean lawyers: 'This
confession gave a great satisfaction, and cleared all the former
evidence, which before stood very doubtful.'
[Sidenote: _The Prior Recantation._]
In the reporter's judgment it overwhelmed the defendant himself.
Reasonably Ralegh 'was much amazed.' He could not have anticipated
Cobham's retractation of his retractation. He perceived the new peril in
which he was plunged by the statement that he had solicited, or been
offered by Cobham, a Spanish pension, though, as he told the King in
January, 1604, so little account had he made at the time of the
conversation in which the offer was made, that he never remembered any
such thing till it was at his trial objected against him. He felt public
opinion shaken. His faith in himself was not weakened. 'By and by,' says
the reporter, 'he seemed to gather his spirits again.' Pulling out of
his pocket the recantation, the second, which Cobham had addressed to
him from the Tower, and attested by his hope of salvation and God's
mercy on his soul, he insisted upon having it too read in court.
Hereupon, says the reporter, 'was much ado, Mr. Attorney alleging that
the letter was politicly and cunningly urged from the Lord Cobham,' and
that the latest paper was 'simply the truth.' When Ralegh raised the
natural objection that a statement written by Cobham on the eve of his
own trial might be supposed to have been extorted in some sort by
compulsion, Coke appealed to Popham to interrogate the Commissioners.
Devonshire, as their mouthpiece, declared to the jury that it was 'mere
voluntary,' and had not been written under a promise of pardon. But
Cecil supported Ralegh in the demand that the jury should have before it
the earlier letter also. Coke, in a report printed in 1648 under the
name of Sir Thomas Overbury, is represented as exclaiming: 'My Lord
Cecil, mar not a good cause.' Cecil replied: 'Master Attorney, you are
more peremptory than honest; you must not come here to show me what to
do.' Throughout he had been careful to blend the friend with the judge,
so far as professions of regret went. He had spoken of the former
dearness between himself and this gentleman, tied upon the knot of his
virtues. He had declared that his friendship was not extinguished, but
slaked. He had vowed himself still his friend, 'excepting faults, I call
them no worse.' Now he strained that friendship to the extent of the
simple justice of undertaking the duty, 'because he only knew Cobham's
hand,' of reading out the letter, which, if the construction put by the
prosecution on the other paper were correct, proved the writer a
perjured liar either in the Tower or at Winchester.
Coke need not have feared the consequences. Both judges and jurymen had
comfortably made up their minds. They were not to be moved by so slight
a thing as a contradiction of Cobham in one place by Cobham in another.
So prejudiced were they that the Tower letter does not appear to have
produced any effect at all. Ralegh, at all events, could do no more. He
had striven for many hours, and was utterly exhausted. Without more
words he let the jury be dismissed to consider its verdict.
[Sidenote: _The Verdict and Judgment._]
[Sidenote: _Popham's Exhortation._]
In a quarter of an hour it returned into court with a verdict of guilty
of high treason. Ralegh received the decision with dignity: 'My Lords,'
said he, 'the jury hath found me guilty. They must do as they are
directed. I can say nothing why judgment should not proceed. You see
whereof Cobham hath accused me. You remember his protestation that I was
never guilty. I desire the King should know the wrong I have been done
to since I came hither.' Then Popham pronounced judgment. Addressing
Ralegh, he said: 'In my conscience I am persuaded Cobham hath accused
you truly. You cannot deny that you were dealt with to have a pension of
L1500 a year to be a spy for Spain; therefore, you are not so true to
the King as you have protested yourself to be.' He lamented the fall of
one of 'so great parts,' who 'had showed wit enough this day,' 'who
might have lived well with L3000 a year; for so I have heard your
revenues to be.' Spite and covetousness he held to have been Ralegh's
temptations. Yet the King could not be blamed for wishing to have for
Captain of the Guard 'one of his own knowledge, whom he might trust,' or
for desiring no longer to burden his people with a wine monopoly for
Ralegh's particular good. Popham embellished his confused discourse,
partly apologetic, and partly condemnatory, but not intentionally brutal
or malevolent, by a glance at Ralegh's reputed free-thinking. He had
been taxed, said Popham, by the world with the defence of most
heathenish and blasphemous opinions. 'You will do well,' the virtuous
Chief Justice exhorted him, 'before you go out of the world, to give
satisfaction therein. Let not any devil,' or, according to the Harleian
MSS. version, 'Hariot nor any such doctor, persuade you there is no
eternity in Heaven; if you think thus, you shall find eternity in Hell
fire.' Ralegh had warned Cobham against confessions. Let him not apply
the advice to himself. 'Your conceit of not confessing anything is very
inhuman and wicked. In this world is the time of confessing, that we may
be absolved at the Day of Judgment.' By way of peroration he added: 'It
now comes into my mind why you may not have your accuser face to face.
When traitors see themselves must die, they think it best to see their
fellow live, that he may commit the like treason again, and so in some
sort seek revenge.' Lastly, he pronounced the savage legal sentence.
When Popham had ended Ralegh spoke a few words. He prayed that the jury
might never have to answer for its verdict. He 'only craved pardon for
having concealed Lord Cobham's offer to him, which he did through a
confidence that he had diverted him from those humours.' Praying then
permission to speak to Lords Suffolk, Devonshire, Henry Howard, and
Cecil, he entreated their intercession, which they promised, Cecil with
tears, that his death might be honourable and not ignominious. He is
alleged further to have requested their mediation with the King for a
pardon, or, at least, that, if Cobham too were convicted, and if the
sentence were to be carried out, Cobham might die first. The petition
was not an ebullition of vindictiveness. It had a practical purpose. On
the scaffold he could say nothing for Cobham; Cobham might say much for
him. It was possible that, when nothing more was to be gained by
falsehoods, his recreant friend would clear his fame once for all. Then
he quitted the hall, accompanying Sir Benjamin Tichborne, the High
Sheriff, to the prison, according to Sir Thomas Overbury, 'with
admirable erection, yet in such sort as a condemned man should.'