Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/23

1603.] the violence of the plague, which caused the king to flee into the country, postponed the trials of the conspirators. The court, followed by the judges and their suitors, fled from place to place for several months, pursued by the plague; and it was not till November that the trials took place, in the castle at Winchester. Another cause had, perhaps still more than the plague, deferred them,—the presence of Aremberg, who was deeply implicated, and whose intrigues could not be opened up whilst he was in the country, at the same time that issuing an order for his quitting it, would have embarrassed the affairs of Spain. In October he left, and on the 15th of November the trials of the conspirators commenced. The accomplices of the "Bye," Brooke, Brookesby, Markham, Copley, Watson, and Clarke, with others. They were all condemned on their own confessions; for they had been so managed that they not only accused each other, but made the most ample confessions of their own guilt, as if each thought he should obtain pardon by discovering most. These confessions, which had been carefully compiled, were put in as evidence against them. Sir Edward Parham only was acquitted, who pleaded that he joined solely to rescue the king from the hands of those who held him in captivity; and yet Cecil threw in his word in his favour, suggesting that the king's dignity consisted as much in freeing the innocent as condemning the guilty. This conduct gave an air of impartiality to the proceedings, of which no one could estimate the effect more fully than the astute Cecil.

Sir Walter Raleigh was next put upon his trial. His extraordinary ability, and his knowledge of court secrets, made it too dangerous an attempt to connect him with the "Bye," and arraign him along with the unhappy and weak members of that part of the conspiracy. He was not placed at the bar even along with Cobham, for the only evidence against him which the court dared to bring forward, was that of Cobham; and they knew too well that in Raleigh's presence, the wavering Cobham would be worse than useless. Already repenting of his accusation of Raleigh in the surprise of his resentment, he had retracted his accusations; and when pressed and cross-questioned by the council, had so contradicted himself, that to bring him into public, would be to render his evidence worthless. True, the council was in possession of intercepted letters, which had passed betwixt Aremberg and the archduke of Austria, which were sufficiently criminatory of Raleigh and Cobham; but these could not be produced without an exposure of the fact that the correspondence of ambassadors and their principals was not safe in England. In fact, Coke, who was of course duly instructed in the particulars of this correspondence, having made some too intelligible reference to Aremberg, Cecil compelled him to apologise to the ambassador, and hastened to assure the other ambassadors of foreign courts that Aremberg had no notion of the purpose for which Cobham and Raleigh had solicited money from Spain.

Coke's accusation of Raleigh being thus hemmed in with difficulties, he was obliged to have recourse to his first-rate faculty for abuse and blackguardism. Raleigh, on his part, conducted himself with a degree of calmness, dignity, and sagacity, which excited in the public the utmost admiration. His trial lasted from eight in the morning to nine at night. The indictment charged him with having, with sundry other persons, conspired to kill the king, to raise a rebellion, in order to change the religion, subvert the government, and cause the invasion of the realm by its enemies. That on the 9th of June, Sir Walter had conspired with lord Cobham to depose the sovereign and raise Arabella Stuart to the throne. That for this purpose Cobham had agreed, at the instigation of Raleigh, to make a journey to Spain to solicit the advance of six hundred thousand crowns, for the payment of the necessary forces and partisans. That Arabella Stuart should herself write letters to the king of Spain, the archduke, and the Duke of Savoy, urging them to support her claim, and promising, in return for their aid, to make an advantageous peace with Spain, tolerate popery, and on her own part, accept a marriage with such person as should be most agreeable to his catholic majesty. Cobham, as already stated, was then declared to have it in charge to pass over from the Continent to Jersey to Sir Walter, there to settle the plan of the plot, and to decide on the men who were to be bribed with Spanish money to carry it out. That on the very day that Sir Water had communicated his views to lord Cobham, Cobham had imparted them to his brother, George Brooke, who had assented to it; and that the two had declared "that there would never be a good world in England till the king and his cubs were taken away." Moreover, that Raleigh had given Cobham a book written against the king's title; and that in pursuance of Raleigh's advice, both Arabella Stuart and Cobham had applied, through La Rensie, to Aremberg, the king of Spain, and the other princes mentioned. That the money had been promised, and that Cobham had agreed to hand over to Raleigh eight thousand crowns of it, and to his brother Brooke one thousand crowns.

Sir Walter pleaded not guilty, and Heale, the king's sergeant, opened the case against him, recapitulating the points of the indictment; and when he came to the clause implicating Arabella Stuart, he foolishly exclaimed—"As for Arabella Stuart, she hath no more title to the crown than I have, and I utterly renounce any." Raleigh, even in his critical situation, could not restrain a smile at this absurdity. Coke then went into the case at length, and what he lacked in proof he endeavoured to supply by the most virulent abuse. He described in inflated language the intentions of the agitators of the "Bye," and amongst other things that they meant to make proclamation against monopolies, as if that were absolute treason. Raleigh calmly reminded him that he was not charged with the "Bye." "You are not," replied Coke; "but it will be seen that all these treasons, though they consisted of several parts, closed in together like Samson's foxes, which were joined in their tails, though their heads were separated." Raleigh still insisted that the "Bye" was the treason of the priests, and said, "What is the treason of the priests to me?" "I will then come close to you," said Coke. "I will prove you to be the most notorious traitor that ever came to the bar; you are, indeed, upon the 'Main,' but you have followed them upon the 'Bye' in imitation." And Raleigh's pertinent checks so enraged the scurrilous lawyer, that he went on furiously denouncing Raleigh as a damnable atheist, a spider of hell, the most vile and execrable of traitors. "You speak indiscreetly, barbarously, and un-civilly," interposed Raleigh. "I want words," shouted Coke, "I want words to express thy viperous treasons." "True," replied Raleigh; "for you have spoken the same things half a dozen times over already."