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Devereux and Essex was taken to the Tower. His adherents were distributed among the London prisons (for full lists see Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. vi. 5; Townshend MSS. in Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. 10-1). The queen, who never lost her presence of mind, issued a proclamation on the Monday thanking the citizens for their loyalty. Thomas Leigh, a captain of Essex's Irish army, was found a day or two later lurking near Whitehall, and was executed on 17 Feb. on a charge of meditating the queen's assassination. He confessed that he sought an interview with Elizabeth to petition for Essex's pardon, and made some very compromising admissions respecting Essex s conduct in Ireland, on which it is impossible to place much reliance.

Two days later (19 Feb.) Essex and Southampton were brought before a commission of twenty-five peers and nine judges, sitting in Westminster Hall. Essex was refused permission to challenge three of his judges, who were his personal enemies, and he laughed contemptuously when the name of Lord Grey de Wilton, with whom he had quarrelled in Ireland, was called. Serjeant Yelverton, Coke, the lord keeper, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and Raleigh spoke in support of the charge of compassing the queen's death. Essex interrupted the proceedings by asserting that Sir Robert Cecil had declared the Spanish infanta to be the queen's rightful successor; but this Cecil emphatically denied. Essex appealed to Southampton as his informant, and Southampton stated that Sir William Knollys, Essex's uncle, gave him the information. Knollys was summoned, but discredited the assertion. The confessions of his friends, taken on 18 Feb., revealed the deliberations at Drury House, and showed incidentally that in case of success Essex promised increased toleration for the catholics. All the actors in the rebellion freely cast the blame on one another, but by the official suppression of some material points in their testimonies the case against Essex was made to look blacker than the facts warranted. Francis Bacon was the last to speak for the prosecution, and Essex frequently interposed reproaches. But the old personal relations between the men seemed to increase the heinousness of the earl's offences, and Bacon contributed almost more than any other to his summary conviction. After he was declared guilty Essex asserted that he was ready to die, and was neither an atheist nor a papist. At seven at night sentence of death was passed, and Essex accepted the intimation with dignity, asking for the attendance of a clergyman in the Tower, and praying Lords De la Warr and Morley for forgiveness for leading their sons into error. He also apologised to Worcester and Lord-chief-justice Popham for having detained them in Essex House. Essex, on returning to prison, declined the services of Dove, dean of Norwich, but talked freely to Ashton, his own chaplain, who advised him to repent. Two other divines, Thomas Montford and William Barlow [q. v.], were in attendance on Essex. Essex denied that he had either aimed at the throne or meditated doing the queen any bodily injury: on 21 Feb. he confessed his negotiations with Mountjoy. At his request his secretary, Cuffe, was brought before him. The earl charged Cuffe with having instituted him in his treasonable devices. His friends entreated him to beg for pardon; but this advice was rejected, althougn he did not give up all hope that Elizabeth would show him mercy spontaneously. His wife appealed to Sir Robert Cecil, who was at first greatly incensed by Essex's charge of his support of the Spanish infanta's claim to the throne, but subsequently showed signs of willingness to act with Lady Essex. Raleigh wrote to Cecil warning him not to relent. While awaiting execution Essex wrote a pathetic letter to Southampton, which was first published in 1642.

The story that Essex, when in favour, had received a ring from Elizabeth, with an undertaking that she would pardon him any offence if he sent it her when in danger, and that just before his death he forwarded it to the Countess of Nottingham, who retained it, is quite apocryphal. Manningham the diarist is the only contemporary writer who makes any reference to a ring when noticing Essex's relations with Elizabeth, and, contrary to the popular version of the story, he merely notes that the queen wore till her death a ring given her by Essex (Diary, p. 159). Clarendon, writing after 1641 in reply to Wotton's `parallel,' refers to a rumour about a ring sent by Essex to Elizabeth before his death, but rejects it as 'a loose report.' About 1650 was published a 'History of the most renowned Queen Elizabeth and her great Favourite, the Earl of Essex. In Two Parts. A Romance.' Here the story is told at length, but the whole tract abounds in glaring historical errors, and is quite worthless as an historical authority. The queen, the Countess of Nottingham, and the Countess of Rutland are each represented as rivals for Essex's love, and Essex is made to marry Lady Rutland, the author being quite ignorant of the fact that Essex was already a married man. Cecil is said to have intercepted the ring when in Lady Nottingham's hands. This tract was repeatedly reissued in the seventeenth and