taken his part, by such counterfeited harm and danger: whereas his aim and drift was to take the government of the city into his hands, and alter the form thereof. With like pretences of dangers and assaults the Earl of Essex entered the City of London and passed through the bowels thereof, blanching rumours that he should have been murdered and that the state was sold; whereas he had no such enemies, no such dangers: persuading themselves that if they could prevail, all would have done well. But now magna scelera terminantur in hæresin: for you, my Lord, should know that though princes give their subjects cause of discontent, though they take away the honours they have heaped upon them, though they bring them to a lower estate than they raised them from, yet ought they not to be so forgetful of their allegiance that they should enter into any undutiful act; much less upon rebellion, as you, my Lord, have done. All whatsoever you have or can say in answer hereof are but shadows. And therefore methinks it were best for you to confess, not to justify.

9.

The Earl's attempts to draw the Court away from the point by interposing personal charges and exciting personal altercations had succeeded so well hitherto, that when this speech of Bacon's threatened to bring them back to the real question and prepare them to hear the rest of the evidence, he tried again to effect a diversion in the same way. If the reader remembers the letters drawn up by Bacon a few months before, one as from his brother to the Earl, the other as from the Earl in answer (see above, p. 197), he remembers likewise the occasion and purpose of them; and can judge of the pertinency and propriety of the retort with which the Earl now replied upon him.

"To answer Mr. Bacon's speech at once," said he, "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 that 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 mine enemies, pleading as orderly for me as I could do myself. Much such matter it contains as my sister the Lady Rich her letter, upon which she was called before your Honours. 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 enemies and to hold me in disgrace with her Majesty, whom he seems now to clear of such mind towards me; and therefore I leave the truth of what I say and he opposeth unto your Lordships' indifferent considerations."

Another report represents him as proclaiming the fact that these letters were written for the purpose of being shown to the Queen. And certainly a stroke better aimed, if the object was to introduce another angry and irrelevant altercation,-worse, if to offer a serious answer to Bacon's argument,-could not well have been devised. But Bacon was not to be so seduced. He merely replied that "those letters, if they were there, would not blush to be seen for anything contained in them; and that he had spent more time in vain in studying how to make the Earl a good servant to the Queen and state, than he had done in anything else;" and then sitting down allowed the business to proceed; which was to produce the rest of the evidence, first as to the preparatory consultations at Drury House, and then as to the proceedings of Sunday. Whether this was now brought in upon Bacon's motion, the report does not enable me to say; but it is represented as immediately following his speech. So there was some prospect at last of seeing the charges in the indictment proved as well as disputed upon; and though the case was not destined to proceed in an orderly manner to the end, a considerable step was certainly made at this point.

10.

I need not recount the particulars of the evidence, which will all appear in their proper place in the authorized narrative. But as Bacon had occasion to interpose once more before the trial concluded, I must follow the course of it a little further.

:

The confessions of Davers, Davis, and Blunt, the three remaining witnesses who could speak to the consultations at Drury House, were now read, and fully confirmed the evidence already given by Gorge. Nor did any material interruption occur, until Essex began in attestation of his innocence to appeal to his nightly practices of devotion upon which Coke charging him with "hypocrisy in religion" and "countenancing religious men of all sorts,"-a charge which even if true formed no part of the case,-gave him another occasion -the best he had yet had-of producing a diversion in his own favour. The imputation was not only irrelevant, but unjust. His religious belief, unlike his loyalty, was simple, earnest, and unaffected; too earnest (in a large and open understanding) to consist with the sec

tarian prejudices which refused to believe in the sincerity either of Papists on one side or Puritans on the other. In creed, his personal sympathy was probably most with the Puritans; nor had he ever shown the least personal inclination towards Popery. But I doubt whether in all his writings a single sentence can be found implying an illiberal depreciation of any religious party. It was too serious a subject with him to be trifled or trafficked with. And if " in his usual talk he was wont to say that he liked not that any man should be troubled for his religion," it is not necessary now to observe that respect for the rights of conscience in other men does not imply any want of conscience in a man's self. The tone in which he replied to this charge, and solemnly affirmed the sincerity of his faith in the religion which he had all his life professed, contrasted strangely with the weakness and inconsistency of his answers upon the questions really at issue, and made a corresponding impression on the Court: insomuch that when Coke offered to reply and make good his accusation, they refused to hear him. And thereupon the case was once more resumed and the evidence allowed to go on.

11.

The depositions which were now read concerning the proceedings in the City on Sunday brought the case home to the Earl of Southampton, whom the evidence had hitherto touched only incidentally and indirectly; and brought out his answer to the charges in general; the substance of which was, that the object of the consultations at Drury House was merely to procure for Essex the means of speaking to the Queen; that the action which had been suggested with that view, whether treasonable or not, had never taken place-had not even been resolved upon; while the action which had taken place was, so far as he understood and was concerned in it, no treason, but an act of self-defence in a private quarrel. He declared that he never heard either the message of the Lord Keeper or the proclamation of the herald; and in spite of several interruptions from Coke, who tried to fasten upon him the responsibility for what had passed in Essex House, succeeded in telling a story plausible enough to make the Peers hesitate, and require the opinion of the Judges upon the point in law. His case was no doubt very different from that of his fellowprisoner; for he might possibly have believed Essex's story about his personal danger, though it was not possible to suppose that Essex believed it himself. The point on which they desired to be satisfied was this:-"whether the rising to go to Court with such a company 1 Sir Christopher Blount's examination, 18th Feb. S. P. O.

only to present my Lord of Essex his complaints, without all manner of purpose of violence to the person of her Majesty or any otherwhether this were treason ?" The Judges gave opinion that it was. And there the case might have been allowed to rest. For it is quite conceivable that the conspirators did in fact expect all difficulties to to vanish before them, and did not intend to hurt anybody, otherwise than in the legal construction, which supposes to be intended whatever a reasonable man might expect to follow. Coke however was not satisfied to stop there. They must in their consultations have counted on resistance-must have foreseen that in case of resistance there would be violence-must therefore have intended violence. "The Earl of Essex replied that the act was to be judged by the intent in conscience. Nay,' said Mr. Attorney, 'our law judgeth the intent by the overt act.' 'Well,' said the Earl, ' plead you law and we will plead conscience.'”

To conduct an argument clearly in dialogue, which appears to have been Coke's favourite form, is never easy unless the same person manages both parts; least of all before a popular audience; which in this case it was important to satisfy, as well as the law and the lawyers. Hence it was again becoming necessary to remind the Court how the case really stood,-what was the real accusation and what the defence; for more than half the charges and replies which they had been listening to all the day lay quite outside the case; and to perform this office Bacon, with or without the permission of his leader, now rose once more, and spoke to this effect.1

I have never yet seen in any case such favour shown to any prisoner; so many digressions, such delivering of evidence by fractions, and so silly a defence of such great and notorious treasons. May it please your Grace, you have seen how weakly he hath shadowed his purpose and how slenderly he hath answered the objections against him. But, my Lord, I doubt the variety of matters and the many digressions may minister occasion of forgetfulness, and may have severed the judgments of the Lords; and therefore I hold it necessary briefly to recite the Judges' opinions.

That being done, he proceeded to this effect.

Now put the case that the Earl of Essex's intent were, as he

This speech is reported very imperfectly and incorrectly in the Tollemache MS. The version which I have given comes from a MS. in the Bodleian Library (Tanner MS. 76, fo. 77), except the first sentence, which I have supplied from Mr. Jardine's account of the trial.

This Tanner MS. is in other respects inferior to the Tollemache.

would have it believed, to go only as a suppliant to her Majesty. Shall their petitions be presented by armed petitioners? This must needs bring loss of liberty to the prince. Neither is it any point of law, as my Lord of Southampton would have it believed, that condemns them of treason. To take secret counsel, to execute it, to run together in numbers armed with weapons,-what can be the excuse? Warned by the Lord Keeper, by a herald, and yet persist! Will any simple man take this to be less than treason?

The Earl of Essex answered that if he had purposed anything against others than those his private enemies, he would not have stirred with so slender a company. Whereunto Mr. Bacon answered:

It was not the company you carried with you, but the assistance which you hoped for in the City which you trusted unto. The Duke of Guise thrust himself into the streets of Paris on the day of the Barricados in his doublet and hose, attended only with eight gentlemen, and found that help in the city which (thanks be to God) you failed of here. And what followed? The King was forced to put himself into a pilgrim's weeds and in that disguise to steal away to scape their fury. Even such was my Lord's confidence too, and his pretence the same an all-hail and a kiss to the City. But the end was treason, as hath been sufficiently proved. But when he had once delivered and engaged himself so far into that which the shallowness of his conceit could not accomplish as he expected, the Queen for her defence taking arms against him, he was glad to yield himself; and thinking to colour his practices turned his pretexts, and alleged the occasion thereof to proceed from a private quarrel.

"To this" (adds the reporter)" the Earl answered little." Nor was anything said afterwards by either of the prisoners, either in the thrust-and-parry dialogue with Coke that followed, or when they spoke at large to the question why judgment should not be pronounced, which at all altered the complexion of the case. They were both found guilty, and sentence was passed in the usual form.

12.

It would be rash perhaps to criticize the management of a trial like this upon the evidence of casual and unauthorized reports. There

1 The MS. has, that nothing condemns them of the treason. Another report adds "but it is apparent in common sense:" rightly I should think.