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Rh the country sold to Spain. The Queen's forces easily quelled the rising, and within twelve hours Essex was a prisoner in the Tower, charged with high treason.

On February 19, the Earls of Essex and Southampton were arraigned together. The Attorney-General, Sir Edward Coke, conducted the prosecution, and Bacon appeared with him as Queen's counsel. Essex's defence was that he had taken up arms not to overturn the government, but to protect his own life. Bacon spoke twice during the trial, interposing both times to recall the court to the main issue against Essex, and to show that his defence of a private grievance was a pretext invented by him at the eleventh hour. Essex's answer to one of these speeches is a sufficient reply to those who say he spoke no word of reproach to Bacon,—

"To answer Mr. Bacon's speech at once, I say thus much; and call forth Mr. Bacon against Mr. Bacon. You are then to know that Mr. Francis Bacon hath written two letters, the one of which hath been artificially framed in my name, after he had framed the other in Mr. Anthony Bacon's name to provoke me. In the latter of these two he lays down the grounds of my discontentment, and the reasons I pretend against my enemies, pleading as orderly for me as I could do myself. . . . if those reasons were then just and true, not counterfeit, how can it be that now my pretences are false and injurious? For then Mr. Bacon joined with me in mine opinion, and pointed out those to be mine Rh