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was in those days no regular system of reporting; and though many detailed narratives of the proceedings were written and circulated, it is evident upon comparison that the best of them are far from perfect. Each writer had his own points of interest, his own periods of attention and inattention, of physical activity and exhaustion. Imperfect notes were probably completed afterwards from imperfect recollection; and the omission or misunderstanding of a few words at a critical juncture may give a false aspect to all that follows. From any and from all of them however, one fact may be surely inferred-that the case was very badly managed: most of the time having been occupied in the discussion of points immaterial or irrelevant, raised one after another in the most desultory and disorderly manner, and followed on both sides in apparent forgetfulness of the question really at issue. In part no doubt this was owing to the injudicious indulgence of the Court in allowing the prisoners not only to say what they liked, but to interrupt the evidence as often and to enter into personal altercations with whom they liked: an irregularity for which Coke was not responsible. But the error was much aggravated by an infirmity of his own. Interruptions by the prisoners would have been comparatively harmless, if the Counsel could have been content merely to wait till they had done speaking, and then to go on with their own story. But Coke could not resist the temptation of replying and disputing and not being careful to confine his charges within the limits of his proofs, he allowed himself not only to be led away from the point which it was his business to prove and which he could prove, but to be drawn into discussions in which he did not seem always to have the best of it. The result of all which was that the true aspect of the case,-a case of treason as clearly proved, as completely without excuse, and as dangerous, as ever went into a court of justice,—was so weakly and confusedly presented to people's minds, that according to Camden " some called it a fear, others an error; they which censured it more hardly termed it an obstinate impatience and desire of revenge, and such as censured it most heavily called it an inconsiderate rashness; and to this day few there are who have thought it a capital crime."

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The fact probably is, that those who thought so held their tongues; for why should, any man have cared to make himself odious for the sake of correcting the popular judgment of a crime which had paid its penalty? To men of understanding however who were present, the case, with all its disadvantages in the setting forth, could wear but one aspect and it may be worth while to add a summary account of the trial by a very intelligent and quite disengaged and dispassionate spectator, written a few days after.

"The 19th hereof" (writes John Chamberlain to Dudley Carleton, on the 24th of February, 1600-1) "the Earls of Essex and Southampton were arraigned at Westminster before the Lord Treasurer, Lord High Steward of England for that day, and twenty-five of their peers, whereof were nine Earls and sixteen Barons. The only matters objected were his practice to surprise the Court, his coming in arms into London to raise rebellion, and the defending his house against the Queen's forces. To the two latter he answered that he was drawn for the safety of his life: to the former that it was a matter only in consultation and not resolved upon; and if it had taken effect it was only to prostrate himself at her Majesty's feet and there manifest such matter against his enemies as should make them odious and remove them from about her person, and recall him to her former favour. This was the sum of his answer; but delivered with such bravery and so many words, that a man might easily perceive that as he had ever lived popularly, so his chief care was to leave a good opinion in the people's minds now at parting. But the worst of all was his many and loud protestations of his faith and loyalty to the Queen and state, which no doubt caught and carried away a great part of the hearers; but I cannot be so easily led to believe protestations (though never so deep) against manifest proof. . . .

"At his coming to the bar his countenance was somewhat unsettled; but after he was once in, I assure you I never saw any go through with such boldness, and show of resolution and contempt of death: but whether this courage were borrowed and put on for the time, or natural, it were hard to judge. But I hear he begins to relent, and among other faults to be sorry for his arrogant (or rather as Mr. Secretary well termed it to his face) his impudent behaviour at his arraignment; and which is more, to lay open the whole plot and to appeach divers not yet called in question. His execution was expected on Saturday, then yesterday, now to-morrow, or on Thursday. Most of the Council have been with him these three or four days together. The Earl of Southampton spake very well (but methought somewhat too much as well as the other), and as a man that would fain live, pleaded hard to acquit himself; but all in vain, for it could not be whereupon he descended to entreaty and moved great commiseration, and though he were generally well liked, yet methought he was somewhat too low and submiss, and seemed too loath to die before a proud enemy." 991

1 S. P. O. The whole series of Chamberlain's letters during the reign of Elizabeth has recently been printed by the Camden Society; carefully and well edited by Miss Williams. I wish she would go on and edit the rest in the same style; for the copies contained in the Court and Times of James I.,' "edited by the author of the Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea, etc.," are so full of all kinds of blunders, that to me the book is of no use except for collation. I can correct the text in less time than I could make a fresh transcript; but I could not quote anything from it without previous reference either to the originals or to Dr. Birch's copies. See for a few instances out of, and instead of, many, Vol. I. p. 467, and Vol. II. pp. 11 and 18.

233

CHAPTER X.

A.D. 1601.-FEBRUARY TO APRIL.

ÆTAT. 40.

1.

THOSE who make light of the crime of which Essex was found guilty make him guilty of one much worse. What Chamberlain had heard was true he had begun not only to confess for himself but "to appeach divers not yet called in question." The precise import and spirit of his confessions indeed we shall never know: for only fragments of them were divulged at the time, and neither the original record nor any copy of it is now to be found. Enough however has transpired, to show that he not only admitted his own guilt fully and freely, but disclosed and proclaimed that of his associates; nor of those alone whose confessions had been fatal to himself, but of others likewise who had kept his secrets only too faithfully and would else have passed unsuspected.

Of the occasion of this change two different stories are told. Sir Robert Cecil seems to have taken it for an act of retaliation. "Before he went out of the hall," says he, writing to Winwood on the 7th of March," when he saw himself condemned, and found that Sir John Davis, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Sir Christopher Blount, and Sir Charles Davers, had confessed all the conferences that were held at Drury House by his direction for surprising the Queen and the Tower of London, he then broke out to divers gentlemen that attended him in the Hall, that his confederates who had now accused him had been principal inciters of him and not he of them, ever since August last, to work his access to the Queen with force. And when he was brought to the Tower again, he sent to the Lord Thomas Howard, then Constable of the Tower, to entreat him to move her Majesty to send unto him the Lord Keeper, Lord Treasurer, Lord Admiral, and me the Secretary by name, that he might now discharge his conscience," etc.: a story which is partly confirmed by the reporter of the trial; who represents him as saying, towards the close of the proceedings, "that before his death he would make something known that should be acceptable to her Majesty in point of state.”

On the other hand, in a letter addressed to Anthony Bacon, three months after, by some man not known, the change is imputed entirely to the influence of one Ashton, a Puritan preacher who at tended the Earl in the Tower by his own particular desire. The story told in this letter, which is very full and circumstantial, professes to be the same which Ashton himself told to "a worthy person" (not named) from whom, through how many mouths we are not informed, it came to the writer. And though an unsigned letter by a practised penman, especially when addressed to a man who was not alive at the time-(the letter is dated May 30, 1601, Anthony Bacon died before May 271)—is no very good evidence in such a case, yet I see nothing improbable on the face of the narrative as far as it goes. That the Earl did petition to have "his own preacher" to attend him in the Tower, we know upon other authority: it was one of his last requests after receiving sentence. And when it was answered "that it was not so convenient for him at that time to have his own chaplain as another," he replied that "if a man in sickness would not willingly commit his body to an unknown physician, he hoped it would not be thought but a reasonable request for him at that time to have a preacher which had been acquainted with his conscience, to whom he might more boldly open his heart." Now a preacher who had stood in that relation to him was well qualified to judge of the sincerity of his professions; and if he found him (as the letter states he did) "exceeding cheerful and prepared with great contentation for his end," might very well think that that was not a fit frame of mind for the occasion. Upon which the rest of the story follows naturally enough: namely that having frankly declared that he did not believe his tale, he succeeded at last, after long, severe, and solemn expostulation, in convincing him that it was his duty to make a full confession: which he accordingly agreed to do: and thereupon admitted that his real end was to get the succession settled by Act of Parliament upon the King of Scotland; "and named to him sundry worthy persons both of religion, honour, and state that had given their consents and were engaged with him therein." This according to the writer was all: and to this effect, at Ashton's instance, who threatened otherwise to reveal it himself, he made a formal confes. sion.2

Now that this was the way in which the Earl was induced to begin his confessions, does not strike me as improbable. The story agrees to a certain extent with a declaration (from which indeed with the 1 Chamberlain to Carleton. S. P. O.

2 "A letter to Mr. A. Bacon concerning the Earl of Essex." 30th May, 1601. -Hearne's edition of Camden's Annales, iii. 960.

help of a little invention it might have been constructed) made by Cecil at one of the subsequent trials: nor is it impossible that the disclosure which the Earl first made went no further than the writer of the letter says. But though his intrigue with Scotland formed no doubt a principal item in his revelations and a very formidable one, seeing that if he told the worst he must have involved no less a person than Lord Montjoy in a charge of very high treason,-it is certain that they did not stop there. What passed between Essex and Ashton, the writer may have had means of knowing: but for what he said to the Lords of the Council when they attended him, we must seek our information from one of themselves.

"The next day after" (proceeds Cecil in his letter to Winwood) "being Saturday, when it pleased her Majesty to send us four unto him, he did with very great penitency confess how sorry he was for his obstinate denials at the bar; desiring he might have liberty to set down in writing his whole project of coming to the Court in that sort: which he hath done in four sheets of paper, all under his own hand; and even concurring with Sir Charles Davers, Sir John Davis, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and Mr. Littleton's confessions. And acknowledged that he sent divers articles to Drury House to be considered of: as namely, whether it were not good at the same time of coming to the Court to possess the Tower, for to give reputation to the action, if the City should mislike it. Moreover that Sir Christopher Blount with a company of armed men should take the Court Gate; Sir John Davis should master the Hall; and go up into the Great Chamber, where there should be some persons who unsuspected one after another should aforehand be gotten into that room, and have seized upon the halberts of the guard, which commonly stand piled up against the wall; and Sir Charles Davers should have been in the Presence, where some other gentlemen should likewise have made good that place. Whereby my Lord of Essex with the Earls of Southampton, Rutland, and other noblemen should have gone in to the Queen, and then having her in their possession, to have used the shadow of her authority for the changing of the government; and then to have called a Parliament and have condemned all those whom they scandalized to have misgoverned the state. This is the substance of his confession, which he both verbally delivered to us, and afterwards set down in writing. He further asked forgiveness of the Lord Keeper and those whom he had imprisoned in his house; sorrowing in his heart that they were put in fear of their lives by his followers. Then he did most passionately desire in Christian charity forgiveness at the hands of those persons whom he had particularly called his enemies; protesting that when he had resolved of this rebellious act to come to the Court with force, he saw not what better pretext he could have than a particular quarrel to those whom he had at the bar named his greatest adversaries. And being urged still to say what he knew or could

1 State Trials, i. 1442. Ed. 1816.

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