Part 9

RALEIGH--Kemish added more, I never bade him speak those words.

(Note.--Mr. Attorney here offered to interrupt him.)

LORD CECIL--It is his last discourse; give him leave Mr. Attorney.

RALEIGH--I am accused concerning Arabella, concerning Money out of Spain. My Lord Chief-Justice saith, a man may be condemned with one witness, yea, without any witness. Cobham is guilty of many things, Conscientia mille testes; he hath accused himself, what can he hope for but mercy? My lords, vouchsafe me this grace: Let him be brought, being alive, and in the house; let him avouch any of these things, I will confess the whole indictment and renounce the king's mercy.

LORD CECIL--Here hath been a touch of the lady Arabella Stuart, a near kinswoman of the king's. Let us not scandal the innocent by confusion of speech: she is as innocent of all these things as I, or any man here; only she received a Letter from my lord Cobham, to prepare her; which she laughed at, and immediately sent it to the king. So far was she from discontentment, that she laughed him to scorn. But you see how far the count of Aremberg did consent.

The lord Admiral (Nottingham) being by in a Standing, with the lady Arabella, spake to the court: The lady doth here protest upon her salvation, that she never dealt in any of these things, and so she willed me to tell the court.

LORD CECIL--The lord Cobham wrote to my lady Arabella, to know if he might come to speak with her, and gave her to understand, that there were some about the king that laboured to disgrace her; she doubted it was but a trick. But Brook saith his brother moved him to procure Arabella to write Letters to the king of Spain; but he saith, he never did it.

RALEIGH--The lord Cobham hath accused me, you see in what manner he hath forsworn it Were it not for his Accusation, all this were nothing. Let him be asked, if I knew of the letter which Lawrency brought to him from Aremberg. Let me speak for my life, it can be no hurt for him to be brought; he dares not accuse me. If you grant me not this favour, I am strangely used; Campian was not denied to have his accusers face to face.

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--Since he must needs have justice, the acquitting of his old friend may move him to speak otherwise than the truth.

RALEIGH--If I had been the infuser of all these Treasons into him; you gentlemen of the jury, mark this, he said I have been the cause of all his miseries, and the destruction of his house, and that all evil hath happened unto him by my wicked counsel; if this be true, whom hath he cause to accuse and to be revenged on, but on me? and I know him to be as revengeful as any man on earth.

ATTORNEY--He is a party, and may not come; the law is against it.

RALEIGH--It is a toy to tell me of law; I defy such law, I stand on the fact.

LORD CECIL--I am afraid my often speaking (who am inferior to my lords here present) will make the world think that I delight to hear myself talk. My affection to you, sir Walter, was not extinguished, but slaked in regard to your deserts. You know the law of the realm (to which your mind doth not contest) that my lord Cobham cannot be brought.

RALEIGH--He may be, my lord.

LORD CECIL--But dare you challenge it?

RALEIGH--No.

LORD CECIL--You say that my lord Cobham, your main accuser, must come to accuse you. You say he hath retracted: I say, many particulars are not retracted. What the validity of all this is, is merely left to the jury. Let me ask you this, If my lord Cobham will say you were the only instigator of him to proceed in the treason, dare you put yourself on this?

RALEIGH--If he will speak it before God and the king, that ever I knew of Arabella's matter or the money out of Spain, or of the surprizing treason; I put myself on it, God's will and the king's be done with me.

LORD H. HOWARD--How! If he speak things equivalent to that you have said?

RALEIGH--Yes, in the main point.

LORD CECIL--If he say, you have been the instigator of him to deal with the Spanish king, had not the Council cause to draw you hither?

RALEIGH--I put myself on it.

LORD CECIL--Then, sir Walter, call upon God and prepare yourself; for I do verily believe that my lords will prove this. Excepting your faults (I call them no worse), by God I am your friend. The heat and passion in you, and the Attorney's zeal in the king's service, make me speak this.

RALEIGH--Whosoever is the workman, it is reason he should give an account of his work to his workmaster. But let it be proved that he acquainted me with any of his conferences with Aremberg: he would surely have given me some account.

LORD CECIL--That follows not: if I set you on work, and you give me no account, am I therefore innocent?

ATTORNEY--For the lady Arabella, I said she was never acquainted with the matter. Now that Raleigh had conference in all these treasons, it is manifest. The jury hath heard the matter. There is one Dyer, a pilot, that being in Lisbon met with a Portugal gentleman, who asked him if the king of England was crowned yet: to whom he answered, 'I think not yet, but he shall be shortly.' Nay, saith the Portugal, that shall never be, for his throat will be cut by Don Raleigh and Don Cobham before he be crowned.

Dyer was called and sworn, and delivered this evidence.

DYER--I came to a merchant's house in Lisbon, to see a boy that I had there; there came a gentleman into the house, and enquiring what countryman I was, I said, an Englishman. Whereupon he asked me, if the king was crowned? And I answered, No, but that I hoped he should be shortly. Nay, saith he, he shall never be crowned; for Don Raleigh and Don Cobham shall cut his throat ere that day come.