13th of October. The first meeting of the Commissioners was on the 15th. On the 19th, Somerset (who had in the mean time been to Royston and back), finding that he could not prevent the inquiry from going on, took a step which tended to increase the suspicion against him. Being still at large, and still holding the seals of his office, he sent a pursuivant, accompanied by a constable and a locksmith, to the house of Weston's son, with a warrant "to search for bonds and writings concerning Mrs. Hynde;" under pretense of which," divers writings concerning Mrs. Turner" were seized and carried away. The Commissioners, seeing that Mrs. Turner was at the time the King's prisoner on a charge which was under investigation by the King's Commission, considered this so great a contempt that they at once ordered both Somerset and the Countess to keep their several chambers, and see nobody except their own necessary servants. And when they found that, in spite of this, the very next morning Somerset had endeavored to get a message conveyed to Mrs. Turner, they committed him to close custody under the charge of Sir Oliver St. John. All which having reported to the King on the 18th, they received a message from him the next day signifying approval of their proceedings, and encouraging them to prosecute the business.

So far the inquiry had been conducted with zeal, diligence, and discretion by all parties. The King had entrusted it to Commissioners unexceptionable in character and position, and given them full liberty of action. The Commissioners in dealing with it had followed the order prescribed by law, which required that the principal should be convicted before the accessory were tried, and regarded as principal not the man who contrives and procures, but the man who executes the deed. And though the evidence implicated the Somersets only as accessories, there can be no doubt that it fully justified

the Commissioners in placing them under restraint in the mean time, that they might be forthcoming, if the principals were found guilty, to answer for their own part in the transaction.

But the next proceeding, in which Coke acted on his own judgment without consulting the other members of the Commission, was not so judicious. The case against Weston, who was accused of actually administering the poison, was now supposed to be complete, and on the 19th of October he was brought up for trial. In order that the trial might proceed according to law, it was necessary that he should "put himself upon his country." This he refused to do. In that case (strange to say) the law had then only one weapon by which it could enforce its own authority. It could order him to be put under physical pressure till he either consented or died. The nature of which alternative- the peine forte et dure — having been carefully explained to him, the trial was adjourned for four days in hope that he would think better of it. So far well. But there was a large audience that day in Court, including "some of the nobility and many gentlemen of great quality," who had gathered to hear the news, and would be much disappointed if they were sent empty away. For their benefit the Judges thought meet (I use Coke's own words) "to have openly and at large read the confessions of the said Richard Weston, and the testimonies of others, as well concerning the fact of the said Richard Weston as the Earl and Countess of Somerset, and Mrs. Turner; without sparing any of them, or omitting anything material against them.” This was required (Coke said) by "the necessity and course of the evidence," because "it appeared thereby that the said Richard Weston was procured and wagered by some of them." A strange reason for a strange proceeding! For if the story could not be told without what amounted to a declaration from the Bench of the

guilt of parties who had not yet been so much as accused, it would surely have been better to leave it untold. All that the audience needed to know was why the trial did not go on; and for that it would have been enough to say that according to law a prisoner who refused to put himself upon his country could not be tried, and Weston refused to put himself upon his country. But Coke had not yet arrived at the great principle which he was destined to discover before he died; and whether it were that he wished to commit the King irrevocably to the prosecution of Somerset, or only that he could not hold in his secret any longer, he certainly did think it right on that occasion for the Judges of the King's Bench "to deliver their opinion beforehand of a criminal case which was to come before them judicially," an opinion not private but conspicuously public, and of a case in which they had not yet heard one word of what the accused persons had to say in explanation or defense. It is true that the story was told not by Coke himself, but by Sir Lawrence Hyde, the Queen's Attorney, who conducted the prosecution: but being told by direction and in presence of the Judges, it could not have been mistaken. by the public for anything less than the declaration of the Court. And when Weston was persuaded at last to plead, and brought up again for trial on the 23d of October, it had to be told over again.

Before the trial commenced (into the details of which I need not enter, as Bacon had nothing to do with it) Weston expressed a hope that they were not making a net to catch the little fishes and let the great ones break through words which seemed to imply a charge against others guiltier than himself. Coupled with the extraor dinary revelations which had been made in Court, they naturally caused a great deal of curiosity and excitement, and the friends both of Overbury and of Somerset were impatient to hear the interpretation. On the morning of

the 25th, the day appointed for his execution, a distinguished company assembled at Tyburn to hear his last words; and when it appeared that he was going to die without making any further disclosure, the following scene occurred, as described the next day by one who had a principal part in it.

"At the execution of Richard Weston there were present together Sir John Hollis, Sir Thomas Vavasor, Sir John Wentworth, Mr. Sackvill, Sir John Ayres, Sir William Mounson, Sir Henry Vane, and others: and many of them spake together, and asked Weston whether he had poisoned Sir Thomas Overbury or not? Whereupon this examinate asked Weston whether he poisoned Sir Thomas Overbury or no? Who answered that he had left his mind behind with the Lord Chief Justice: and remembereth that upon his question to Weston, Sir John Wentworth said, Sir John, it is nobly said, ask him again :' but this examinate, seeing advantage taken of his words, held his peace."

This examinate was Sir John Lidcot, brother-in-law of Overbury, who appears to have asked the question in the expectation that Weston would confirm the story that had been told, and so satisfy the world. Sir John Wentworth, on the other hand, was an ally of Somerset's, and urged him to repeat the question in the hope that he would repudiate it. On both sides the curiosity was natural enough, as we see to this day that whenever a man is convicted of murder with mystery there is always an intense curiosity to obtain a confession from him before he dies; but when a man had been by due process of law found guilty and was about to suffer the penalty, to ask him publicly whether he was guilty or not was an af front to justice which could not be permitted or passed over. Several of the parties were committed to prison, and it was resolved to bring two of them Sir John Wentworth and Sir John Hollis- before the Star Chamber: and along with them one Thomas Lumsden, who,

though not present on this occasion, had been guilty of a kindred offense in sending the King an account of the first day's proceedings in Weston's case, which being referred to Coke was pronounced "false and malicious." It was Bacon's duty to prepare the information against them and it appears to have been the first proceeding connected with the Overbury trials in which he had to take any part, either private or public. But before the case came on, another important step had been taken.

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When the King first heard of the adjournment of Weston's trial, he wanted him to be confronted in the interval with the Countess and with Mrs. Turner, and, if needful, with the Earl himself. This, if it could have been done, would probably have cleared up several points which remain to this day doubtful. But Coke told him that "a reëxamination or confronting, after a public conviction of the party delinquent, was not such as had been used in the course of his laws.' And it was not till the 25th of October, after Weston's execution, that Somerset was examined. The result of his examination that afternoon, and again on the 28th, was a report, signed by all the Commissioners, that there was "vehement suspicion, and that the matter upon consideration of the examinations and testimonies was pregnant against him for being accessory to the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury before the fact done;" and that it was "necessary that he should be committed to the Tower:" and on the 2d of November he was deprived of the seals and staff of office, and committed to the Tower accordingly. On the 7th Mrs. Turner was tried as an accessory, found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged; though the sentence had not yet been carried out, when on the 10th Bacon had to appear in the Star Chamber and deliver his charge against the gentlemen who had questioned Weston on the scaffold.

This was all that Bacon had to do with the trials of