soon deprived of his office of captain of the guard, and ultimately dismissed from court. Such unworthy treatment was keenly felt by the high-spirited Raleigh, who, in the height of his chagrin and indignation, allowed his better judgment to become so far obscured as to become a party in the wild and unintelligible conspiracy for altering the succession to the crown, historically known by the name of "Raleigh's plot," although the actual extent of Raleigh's participation in it is by no means clear. Accused by the wretched Cobham of having been the prime instigator in this singular piece of treason, Raleigh was committed to the tower, and, in the bitterness of his spirit, attempted to commit suicide by stabbing himself in the breast with a knife. Happily for his own reputation, the wound was not dangerous. On the 17th of Nov., 1603, Raleighs trial commenced at Winchester, whither the court had retired to avoid the plague then ravaging the metropolis. The indictment charged him with having conspired to dethrone the king, to stir up sedition, to introduce the Romish religion, and to procure a foreign invasion of the kingdom. It further charged him with having composed a book against the king's title, and instigated the lady Arabella Stuart to write three letters to foreign princes, with the view of persuading them to support her title. Sir Edward Coke, as attorneygeneral, headed the prosecution, and the subservient jury returned a verdict of guilty, although the only fact proved against him was his having listened to proposals made by Cobham of a bribe from Spain, if he would further the peace between that power and England,-a proposal to which he had only replied, "When I see the money, I will tell you more." Raleigh admitted that some conversation had passed between him and Cobham on the subject of a bribe from Spain to promote a peace between the two countries, but denied that he had ever connected himself with the Spanish faction. Presumptions," he said, "must proceed from precedent or subsequent facts. I, that have always condemned the Spanish faction, methinks it a strange thing that now I should affect it!" He entreated them to produce the only witness against him : "Let Lord Cobham be sent for," he said, “Call my accuser before my face, and I have done! Charge him on his soul, and on his allegiance to the king; and, if he affirm it, let me be taken to be guilty." On the jury returning a verdict of guilty, Raleigh calmly observed, 66 They must do as they are directed !" Sentence of death, with confiscation of property, was passed against him, but was not carried into immediate execution; meanwhile he was remanded back to the tower. In this situation Raleigh amused himself with the study of chemistry, and with music and painting, beside employing himself in his great work, the History of the World,' perhaps the most extraordinary literary work ever accomplished in such circumstances. In his scientific and literary pursuits, he found a young and liberal patron in Prince Henry of Wales, the heir apparent to the throne, who obtained access to him in the tower, and who was heard to observe, that " none but his father would keep such a bird in such a cage." At his earnest solicitation, his wife and son were allowed to reside with him, and in 1604, his younger son was born in the Tower, and christened Carewprobably in honour of Lord Carew, a relative and friend of his father's. Though his estates in general were preserved to him, yet the rapacity of Car, earl of Somerset, the king's minion, deprived him of his fine 66 manor of Sherborne, upon the plea of a flaw in his prior conveyance of it to his son. At last, on the 17th of March, 1615, after twelve years confinement, Sir Walter obtained his liberation through the mediation of Villiers, the new favourite, whose good offices he purchased for the sum of fifteen hundred pounds. He now revived his Guiana project, but the period was most inauspicious, on account of the Spanish influence over the king and court. The king not only withheld his countenance from the undertaking, but even communicated the particulars of Raleigh's project to the Spanish ambassador. Raleigh embarked his whole fortunes and those of his wife in this expedition, and through the mediation of Sir Ralph Winwood obtained a commission constituting him admiral of the fleet, and authorizing him to found a settlement in Guiana, with the necessary powers for that purpose. On the 28th of March, 1618, Raleigh's fleet sailed down the Thames, having on board his eldest son, a captain, and two hundred volunteers, eighty of whom were gentlemen by birth, but many of them of disreputable character. After encountering many difficulties, the expedition reached the continent of South America in November. He immediately despatched the most interprizing of his followers up the Oronooko river, where they were attacked by the Spaniards, who had been already apprised of their approach by intelligence from England. In the first action the Spaniards were driven out of their new town of St Thomas, but young Raleigh was killed. After an absence of two months, the exploring party rejoined Raleigh at Punto de Gallo, and a scene of mutual recrimination took place betwixt Captain Keymis and his principal, immediately after which the former, retiring to his cabin, shot himself through the ribs, and stabbed himself to the heart. It was now determined in a council of war to return to Newfoundland to repair and clean the ship; but on arriving at that island—a mutiny having broken out amongst his men-Raleigh instantly sailed for England. Spanish influence, however, had already ruined Raleigh's cause with the king, in so much so that, some weeks previous to his landing in England, a proclamation was issued against him, declaring the king's utter dislike and detestation of the violences and excesses said to have been committed upon the territories of his dear brother of Spain, and requiring all persons who could supply information upon the subject to repair to the privy council to make known their whole knowledge and understanding concerning the same. leigh, on arriving at Plymouth, was informed of the royal proclamation, but, conscious of his integrity, sent his sails ashore, moored his ship, and set out for London. Before reaching Ashburton, a town twenty miles from Plymouth, he was arrested by Sir Lewis Stukley, who carried him back to Plymouth. Here a plan was laid for enabling him to make his escape to France, and might have been carried into execution, had not Sir Walter himself ultimately determined on rejecting it. On being conducted to the metropolis, and learning from his friends and acquaintances the extent of the toils in which the machinations of his enemies had involved him, he entered into a fresh project for making his escape from the country, in which he was encouraged by the perfidious Stukley, with the express intention of betraying him to his enemies, a design in which he succeeded too well, the party being seized at Greenwich by the emissaries of Stukley, on the 10th of August, 1618. Ra 66 Raleigh was again consigned to the Tower, and on the 28th of October, was brought before the court of king's bench, where his plea of an implied pardon in his last commission from the king was over-ruled. He was told that for the last fifteen years he had been a dead man in the eye of the law, and might at any moment have been led to the scaffold; that new offences had now stirred up his majesty's justice to revive what the law had formerly cast upon him, and that justice must now take its course. Sentence of death was now pronounced against him, but, as a favour, the mode of execution was changed from hanging to that of beheading. On the morning of the following day, October 29th, he met his doom in Old Palace yard. "The time of his execution," says John Aubrey, in one of his letters recently published from the Bodleian library, was contrived to be on my Lord Mayor's day, that the pageants and fine shows might draw away the people from beholding the tragedie of one of the gallantest worthies that ever England bred." His behaviour at the scaffold was calm and intrepid even to cheerfulness. Having addressed the spectators, and bidden farewell to the noblemen and other friends who stood around him, he desired the executioner to show him the instrument of destruction. The man hesitating to comply, Sir Walter said, "I pr'ythee let me see it: dost thou think that I am afraid of it?" Having passed his finger on the edge of the axe, he returned it, saying to the sheriff, "This is a sharp medicine, but it is a cure for all diseases." When asked as he laid his head on the block in which direction he would place it, he ca ly answered, by observing, "that if the heart was right it were no matter which way the head was laid." By two strokes his head was severed from his body; it was afterwards given to Ladv Raleigh, who bequeathed it to her son, Carew, in whose grave it was buried. His body was interred in the church of St Margaret, Westminster. The lines entitled 'Raleigh's Epitaph,' were given, according to Archbishop Sandcroft, by Sir Walter to one of his attendants the night before his execution. They are thus quoted in the Oxford edition of his works. Even such is time, that takes on trust And pays us but with age and dust; Who in the dark and silent grave, When we have wandered all our ways, Shuts up the story of our days! But from this earth, this grave, this dust, The poetical effusion entitled 'The Farewell,' which is sometimes said to have been the composition of his last hours, was in print so early as the year 1608. It has been justly said of Sir Walter that he was one of the very chief glories of an age crowded with towering spirits.' Memoirs by Mrs Thomson.-Phillip's State Trials. Brook, Lord Cobham. DIED A. D. 1619. JAMES, at his accession to the throne of England, found his council divided into two factions, mortal enemies to each other. The secretary, Cecil, with his colleagues, formed one of these parties; the earl of Northumberland, with the lords Gray and Cobham, and Sir Walter Raleigh composed the other. Of these latter personages, Northumberland paid the most successful court to the new monarch, and might have won his favour, but for the predominating influence of Cecil and his own rashness; but towards Cobham and Raleigh James ever manifested the most rooted dislike. In this situation, Raleigh engaged in the wild plot to raise Arabella Stuart to the throne of England. This unfortunate lady was the daughter and heiress, by a lady of the family of Cavendish, of Charles Stuart, the younger brother of Lord Darnley ; and, in right of her grandmother, Margaret, countess of Lennox, daughter of the queen-dowager of Scotland, and niece of Henry VIII., stood next in succession to the English throne to James and his immediate posterity. Her claims were supported by Pope Clement VII., who aimed at a marriage betwixt Arabella and her brother, Cardinal Farnese, whom he proposed to secularise, in order to enable him to enter into the marriage relation. Cobham opened a negotiation with Aremberg, the ambassador from the Netherlands, the object of which was to obtain the countenance of Spain for Arabella's cause. In the meantime, a subordinate and equally wild plot, to seize the person of the king, was got up under the direction of Sir Griffin Markham, George Brook, the brother of Lord Cobham, and one Watson, a catholic missionary. The Lord Gray of Wilton was also persuaded to engage in Markham's enterprise. These transactions were soon discovered by Cecil; and Cobham and Gray were, in consequence, arraigned before their peers. Cobham made a full confession of his guilt, but coupled it with the most abject solicitations for mercy; his fellow-prisoner disdained such meanness, and, by his noble bearing, as well as by the candour of his statements, won the esteem of the very judges by whom he was condemned. The other conspirators were likewise placed upon their trial, and sentence of death pronounced against them. But of the lay-conspirators Brook alone was executed. James had resolved to exhibit his royal clemency in union with a fine piece of king-craft on this occasion. We shall give Carlton's relation of this singular transaction : "Warrants were signed and sent to Sir Benjamin Tichborne, on Wednesday last at night, for Markham, Grey, and Cobham, who in this order were to take their turns as yesterday, being Friday, about ten of the clock ...... Markham, being brought to the scaffold, was much dismayed, and complained much of his hard hap, to be deluded with hopes, and brought to that place unprepared. One might see in his face the very picture of sorrow; but he seemed not to want resolution ; for a napkin being offered by a friend that stood by to cover his face, he threw it away, saying, he could look upon death without blushing. He took leave of some friends that stood near, and betook himself to his devotions, after his manner; and those ended, prepared himself to the block. "The sheriff, in the mean time, was secretly withdrawn by one John Gib, a Scotch groom of the bed-chamber, whereupon the execution was stayed, and Markham left to entertain his own thoughts, which, no doubt, were as melancholy, as his countenance sad and heavy. The sheriff, at his return, told him, that since he was so ill prepared he should yet have two hours' respite; so led him from the scaffold, without giving him any more comfort, and locked him into the great hall to walk with Prince Arthur. The Lord Grey, whose turn was next, was led to the scaffold by a troop of the young courtiers, and was supported on both sides by two of his best friends; and coming in this equipage had such gaiety and cheer in his countenance, that he seemed a dapper young bridegroom. At his first coming on the scaffold, he fell on his knees, and his preacher made a long prayer to the present purpose, which he seconded himself with one of his own making, which, for the phrase, was somewhat affected, and suited to his other speeches; but, for the fashion, expressed the fervency and zeal of a religious spirit. . . . Being come to a full point, the sheriff stayed him, and said he had received orders from the king to change the order of the execution, and that the Lord Cobham was to go before him. Whereupon he was likewise led to Prince Arthur's hall. .... "The Lord Cobham, who was now to play his part, and by his former actions promised nothing but matiere pour rire, did much cozen the world; for he came to the scaffold with good assurance and contempt of death. He said some short prayers after his minister, and so out-prayed the company that helped to pray with him, that a stander by said, 'He had a good mouth in a cry, but was nothing single.' . For Sir Walter Raleigh, he took it upon the hope of his soul's resurrection, that what he had said of him was true, and with these words would have taken a short farewell of the world. .... .He was stayed by the sheriff, and told, that there resteth yet somewhat else to be done, for that he was to be confronted with some other of the prisoners, but named none. So as Grey and Markham, being brought back to the scaffold, as they then were.... ...looked strange one upon the other, like men beheaded and met again in the other world. Now all the actors being together on the stage (as use is at the end of a play), the sheriff made a short speech unto them, by way of the interrogatory of the heinousness of their offences, the justness of their trials, their lawful condemnation and due execution there to be performed, to all which they assented; then saith the sheriff, See the mercy of your prince, who, of himself, hath sent hither a countermand and given you your lives.' There was no need to beg a plaudite of the audience, for it was given with such hues and cries, that it went from the castle into the town, and there began afresh, as if there had been some such like accident..... 66 Raleigh, you must think (who had a window opened that way), had hammers working in his head to beat out the meaning of this stratagem. His turn was to come on Monday next; but the king has pardoned him with the rest, and confined him with the two lords in the Tower of London, there to remain during pleasure. Markham, Brookesby and Copley are to be banished the realm. This resolution |