Part 14 (1/2)

[Sidenote: _Cobham's New Statement_]

So as 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 draned a repetition of his charge Ralegh's account of the transaction at the trial was that Lady Kildare, Lady Ralegh's eneh, as the sole way of saving his own life A letter froation She writes: 'Help yourself, if it ht 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 hie, which afterwards was thus filled in

The paper alleged a request by Ralegh to obtain for hiuously proceeded, 'upon this ence I never dealt with Count Arenberg' 'Now,' added the writer, as if it were a conclusion from premisses, 'as by this inal cause of ation, I had never dealt with Count Arenberg And so hath he been the only cause offrom the Count, or Court, but still he filled and possessedof the statement was set in a more than usually decorated frahout the trial had been for the King's Attorney an 'odious fellow;' the 'matized as 'hateful to all the realo near to prove acast, 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 e traitors' Sulkily down he sat, and would speak no , he criticized Ralegh's letter to Cobham in the Tohich 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 instantasked what he said of Cobhah, '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 Cobhaainst hiht have been 'warrantable,' and of discontent which need not have been in the least crial when its author was available as a witness, and if its stateht to have been held worthless against Ralegh Nothing, so far as appears even froratification of the desire for a foreign pension ih had fos is plausible enough It would be strange if the two disgraced favourites did not at their frequent s club and inflame their mutual pique

Obviously, apart froh, however envenomed, as it was not shown to have been, of Cobhaed 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 de for place, and a faint-hearted jury, anxious above all things to vindicate authority, and not caring to discriainst 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 sentireat satisfaction, and cleared all the former evidence, which before stood very doubtful'

[Sidenote: _The Prior Recantation_]

In the reporter's judgment it overwhelh '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 Cobha in January, 1604, so little account had he made at the time of the conversation in which the offer wastill 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 see 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'sit too read in court

Hereupon, says the reporter, 'wasthat the letter was politicly and cunningly urged from the Lord Cobham,' and that the latest paper was 'sih raised the natural objection that a stateht be supposed to have been extorted in soate the Commissioners

Devonshi+re, as their mouthpiece, declared to the jury that it was 'mere voluntary,' and had not been written under a proh in the demand that the jury should have before it the earlier letter also coke, in a report printed in 1648 under the na: 'My Lord Cecil, ood cause' Cecil replied: 'Master Attorney, you are more peremptory than honest; you hout he had been careful to blend the friend with the judge, so far as professions of regret went He had spoken of the forentleman, tied upon the knot of his virtues He had declared that his friendshi+p was not extinguished, but slaked He had vowed hi faults, I call them no worse' Now he strained that friendshi+p to the extent of the si the duty, 'because he only knew Cobha 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 ht 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 uilty They ment should not proceed You see whereof Cobham hath accused uilty I desire the King should know the wrong I have been done to since I ca 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 1500 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 lareat parts,' who 'had shoit enough this day,' 'who ht have lived ith 3000 a year; for so I have heard your revenues to be' Spite and covetousness he held to have been Ralegh's te to have for Captain of the Guard 'one of his own knowledge, whoer to burden his people with a wine ood Pophaetic, and partly condelance 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 hiive 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 Cobhaainst confessions Let him not apply the advice to hi is very inhu, that we ment' 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 ain, and so in soal sentence

When Pophah spoke a feords He prayed that the jury ht never have to answer for its verdict He 'only craved pardon for having concealed Lord Cobhah a confidence that he had diverted hi then permission to speak to Lords Suffolk, Devonshi+re, Henry Howard, and Cecil, he entreated their intercession, which they proht be honourable and not ignoed further to have requested theirfor a pardon, or, at least, that, if Cobham too were convicted, and if the sentence were to be carried out, Cobhaht die first The petition was not an ebullition of vindictiveness It had a practical purpose On the scaffold he could say nothing for Cobhaht sayained by falsehoods, his recreant friend would clear his fa Sir Benja to Sir Thomas Overbury, 'with admirable erection, yet in such sort as a condemned man should'

CHAPTER XX

JUSTICE AND EQUITY OF THE CONVICTION

[Sidenote: _Exceptionally iniquitous_]

Students of English judicial history, with all their recollections of the strange processes by which crie leaped to a presuhast at his conviction Mr Justice Foster, in his book, already cited, on _The Trial of the Rebels in Surrey in 1746_, professes his inability to see how the case, excepting the extraordinary behaviour of the King's Attorney, differed in hardshi+p froal points ruled by the judges against Ralegh Possibly previous prisoners had been as ill-treated; and the fact alish justice But one broad distinction separates this frouilty, though their guilt ically proved Ralegh's guilt of the crime imputed to him was not proved at Winchester, and has never been proved since If to have cherished resentment for the loss of offices, to have incurred popular odiuacious coed by that ate, to be disaffected at a ti rebellion, to have abstained fro overtures for the exertion by him of an influence he never used and did not possess on behalf of a pacification which the sovereign was negotiating, be high treason, then it is possible, though even then not certain, that Ralegh was a traitor If none of these possibilities amount to the crime of treason, then he was not

[Sidenote: _The Spanish Pension_]