 Chapter 7 Part 1 of Raleigh This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Tony Oliva. Raleigh by Edmund Goss, Chapter 7, Part 1. The Trial at Winchester. Raleigh was in the West when the Queen died, and he had no opportunity of making the rush for the North, which emptied London of its nobility in the beginning of April. King James had reached Bergley before Raleigh, in company with his old comrade Sir Robert Cross, met him on his southward journey. It was necessary that he should ask the new monarch for a continuation of his appointments in Devon and Cornwall. His posts at court he had probably made up his mind to lose. One of the blank forms which the King had sent up to be signed by Cecil nominally, excusing the recipient from coming to meet James, had been sent to Raleigh. And this was of evil omen. The King received him ungraciously, and Raleigh did not make the situation better by explaining the cause of his disobedience. James, it is said, admitted in a blunt pun that he had been prejudiced against the late Queen's favourite. On my soul, man, he said, I have heard but Raleigh of thee. Raleigh was promised ladders of continuance for the stanteries, but was warned to take no measures with regard to the woods and parks of the Duchy of Cornwall, until further orders. After the first rough greeting, James was fairly civil, but on April 25th privately desired Sir Thomas Lake to settle Raleigh's business speedily and send him off. In the first week of May, Sir Walter Raleigh was informed by the council that the King had chosen Sir Thomas Erskine to be captain of the guard. It was the most natural thing in the world that James should select an old friend and a scotchman for this confidential post, and Raleigh, as the council book records, in a very humble manner, did submit himself to show that no injury to his fortunes was intended. The King was pleased to remit the tax of £300 a year, which Elizabeth had charged on Raleigh's salary as Governor of Jersey. That does not seem to be any evidence that Raleigh was led into any imprudent action by all these changes. Mr Gardner appears to put some faith in a dispatch of Beaumonts to Villarrois on May 2nd, according to which Raleigh was in such a rage at the loss of one of his officers that he rushed into the King's presence and poured out accusations of treason against Cecil. I cannot but disbelieve this story. The evidence all goes to prove that he still regarded Cecil among the crowd of his enemies as at least half his friend. On May 13th Cecil was raised to the peerage as a sign of royal favour. Lady Raleigh had always regretted the carelessness with which her husband expended money upon Durham House, his town mansion, without ever securing a proper lease of it. Her prognostications of evil were soon fulfilled. James I was hardly safe on his throne before the Bishop of Durham demanded the restitution of the ancient town palace to his sea. On May 31st of 1603 a royal warrant announced that Durham House was to be restored to the Bishop. The said dwellers in it having no right to the same, and Sir Walter Raleigh was warned to give quiet possession of the house to such as the Bishop might appoint. Raleigh, much incommodated, had so sudden noticed a quit, begged to be allowed to stay until Mikkelmas. The Bishop considered this very unreasonable and would grant him no later date than June 23rd. In this dilemma Raleigh appealed to the Lord commissioners saying that he had spent £2,000 on the house and that the poorest artificer in London hath a quarters warning given him by his landlord. It is interesting to us as giving us a notion of Raleigh's customary retinue that he says that he has already laid in provision for his London household of forty persons and nearly twenty horses. Now to cast out my hay and oats into the streets at an hour's warning, for the Bishop wanted to occupy the stables at once, and to remove my family and stuff in fourteen days after is such a severe expulsion as hath not been offered to any man before this day. What became of his chattels and what lodging he found for his family is uncertain. He gained no civility by his appeal. That he was disturbed by the Bishop and busily engaged in changing houses all through June is not unimportant in connection with the accusation at the trial that he had spent so much of this month plotting with Cobham and Ahrenberg at Durham House. It was plain that he was not judicious in his behaviour to James. At all times he had been an advocate of war rather than peace, even when peace was obviously needful. Spain too was written upon his heart as Calais had been on Marys, and even at this untoward juncture he must need thrust his enmity on unwilling ears. It is hardly conceivable that he should not know that James was deeply involved with promises to the Catholics, and though the King had said in the face of his welcome to England that he should not need them now, he had no intention of exasperating them. As to Spain the King was simply waiting for ovatures from Madrid. Raleigh, who was never a politician, saw nothing of all this, and merely used every opportunity he had of gaining the King's ear to urge his distasteful projects of a war. On the last occasion when, so far as we know, Raleigh had an interview with James, they were both the guests of Raleigh's uncle Sir Nicholas Carrou at Beddingfield Park. It would seem that he had already placed in the royal hands the manuscript of his discourse touching war with Spain, and of the protecting of the Netherlands, and he offered to raise two thousand men at his own expense, and to lead them in person against Spain. James the first must have found this persistence, especially from a man against whom he had formed a prejudice, exceedingly galling. No doubt too, long familiarity with Queen Elizabeth in the decline of her powers had given Raleigh a manner in approaching royalty which was not to James' liking. In July the King's Catholic troubles reached ahead. Watson's plot involving Copley and the young Lord Grey de Wilton occupied the Privet Council during that month, and it was discovered that George Brooke, a younger brother of Lord Cobham's, was concerned in it. The Brooks, it will be remembered, were the brothers-in-law of Cecil himself, but by this time completely estranged from him. It is more interesting to us to note that Cobham himself was the only intimate friend left to Raleigh. With extraordinary rapidity Raleigh himself was drawn into the net of Watson's misdoings. Copley was arrested on the sixth, and first examined on July the twelfth. He incriminated George Brooke, who was arrested on the fourteenth. Cobham, who was busy on his duties as Lord Warden of the Sank ports, was brought up for examination on the fifteenth or sixteenth, and on the seventeenth, Sir Walter Raleigh, who it is said had given information regarding Cobham, was himself arrested at Windsor. Raleigh was walking to and fro on the Great Terrace at Windsor on the morning of July the seventeenth of sixteen-oh-three, waiting to ride with the King when Cecil came to him and requested his presence in the Council Chamber. What happened there is unknown, but it is plain amid the chaos of conflicting testimony that Cecil argued that what George Brooke knew Cobham must know, and that Raleigh was privy to all Cobham's designs, what form the accusation finally took we shall presently see. When it was over Raleigh wrote a letter to the Council in which he made certain random statements with regard to offers made to Cobham about June 9th by a certain attendant of Count Ahrenberg, the ambassador of the Archduke Albert. From the windows of Durham House he had seen, he said, Cobham's boat cross over the Austrians' lodgings in St. Saviors. He probably felt himself forced to state this from finding that the Council already knew something of Cobham's relations with Ahrenberg. Still, in the light of later events, the writing of this letter may seem to us a grave mistake. It was instantly shown on the very next day to Cobham, and doctored in such a way as to make the latter suppose that Raleigh had gratuitously betrayed him. On the day that Raleigh was arrested, by the 17th, George Brooks said in examination that the conspirators among themselves thought, so Walter Raleigh a fit man to be of the action. This did not amount much, but Brooks soon became more copious and protested a fuller tale day by day. Nothing, however, that could touch Raleigh was obtained from any witness until on the 20th Lord Cobham, who had been thoroughly frightened by daily cross examination, was shown the letter, or part of the letter, from Raleigh to Cecil, to which reference has just been made. He then broke out with, O traitor, O villain, now will I tell you all the truth, and proceeded at once to say that he had never entered into those courses but by Raleigh's instigation, and that he would never let him alone. This accusation he entirely retracted nine days later, in consequence of some expostulation from Raleigh which had found its way from one prisoner to the other, for Raleigh was by this time safe in the Tower of London. It is most probable that he was taken thither on July the 18th, immediately after his arrest. On the 20th, after Cobham's formal accusation, he was evidently more strictly confined, and it must have been immediately after receiving news of this charge that he attempted to commit suicide. He would be told of Cobham's words in all likelihood on the morning of the 21st. He would write the letter to his wife, after meditating on the results of his position, and then would follow the scene that Cecil describes, in a letter dated fifteen days later. Although lodged and attended as well in his own house, yet one afternoon, while divers of us were in the Tower examining these prisoners, Sir Walter Raleigh attempted to have murdered himself, whereof when we were advertised we came to him, and found him in some agony, seeming to be unable to endure his misfortunes and protesting innocency with callousness of life. In that way he had wounded himself under the right pap, but no way mortally. There is no reason whatever for supposing that this was not a genuine attempt at suicide. We can have no difficulty in entering into the mood of Raleigh's mind. Roused to fresh energy by misfortune, his brain and will had, of late, once more become active, and he was planning adventures by land and sea. If James did oust him from his posts about the court in favour of Leo Scotchman, Raleigh would brace himself by some fresh expedition against Cadiz, some new settlement of Virginia, or Guiana, in the midst of such schemes the blow of his unexpected arrest would come upon him out of the blue. He could bear poverty, neglect hardships, even death itself, but imprisonment with a disgraceful execution as the only end of it, that he was not at first prepared to endure. He had tasted captivity in the tower once before. He knew the intolerable tedium and fret of it, and the very prospect maddened him. Nor would his thoughts be only or mainly of himself. He would reflect that if he were once condemned, nothing but financial ruin and social obliquy would attend his wife and children, and this it was which inspired the passionate and pathetic letter which he addressed to Lady Raleigh just before he stabbed himself. This letter seems to close the real life of Raleigh. He was to breathe indeed for fifteen years more, but only in a sort of living death. He began thus distractedly, receive from thy unfortunate husband these last lines, these the last words that ever thou shalt receive from him, that I can live never to see thee, and my child more I cannot. I have desired God and disputed with my reason, but nature and compassion hath the victory, that I can live to think how you are both left a spoil to my enemies, and that my name shall be a dishonour to my child. I cannot, I cannot endure the memory thereof. Unfortunate woman, unfortunate child, comfort yourselves, trust God, and be contented with your poor estate. I would have battered it if I had enjoyed a few years. He goes on to tell his wife that she is still young and should marry again, and then falls into a tumult of distress over his own accusation. Presently he grows calmer after a wild denunciation of Cobham and bids his wife forgive as he does. Live humble, for thou hast but a time also. God forgive my Lord Harry, Howard, for he was my heavy enemy, and for my Lord Cecil I thought he would never forsake me in extremity. I would not have done it him, God knows, but do not thou know it, for he must be master thy child, and may have compassion of him. Be not dismayed that I died in despair of God's mercies, strive not to dispute, but assure thyself that God has not left me, nor Satan tempted me. Hope and despair live not together. I know it is forbidden to destroy ourselves, but I trust it is forbidden in this sort that we destroy not ourselves despairing of God's mercy. After an impassioned prayer he speaks of his estate, his debts he confesses are many, and as the latest of them he mentions what he owes to an expedition to Virginia, then on the return voyage, the expedition at which Cecil had a share, then his shame and anger break out again. What will my poor servants think at their return when they hear I am accused to be Spanish who sent them at my great charge to plant and discover upon this territory, oh intolerable infamy, oh God, I cannot resist these thoughts, I cannot live to think how I am divided to think of the expectation of my enemies, the scorns I shall receive, the cruel words of lawyers, the infamy, enormous taunts and despites, to be made a wonder and a spectacle. I commend unto you my poor brother Adrian Gilbert. The lease of Sandridge is his and none of mine. Let him have it for God's cause. He knows what is due me upon it, and be good to Camus, for he is a perfect honest man and hath much wrong for my sake. For the rest I commend me to thee and thee to God, and the Lord knows my sorrow to part from thee and my poor child, but part I must. I bless my poor child, and let him know his father was no traitor. Be bold of my innocence, for God, to whom I offer life and soul, knows it, and the Lord for ever keep thee and give thee comfort in both worlds. There are few documents of the period more affecting than this, but he suffered no return of this mood. The pain of his wound and the weakness it produced quieted him at first, and then hope began to take the place of this agony of despair. Meanwhile his treason was taken for granted and he was stripped of his appointments. He had been forced to resign the wardenship of the Stannery's to Sir Francis Godolphin, and the wine patent was given to the Earl of Nottingham, who behaved with scant courtesy to his old friend and comrade. Sir John Payton, after guarding Raleigh for ten days at the tower, was released from the post of Lieutenant, and was given the governorship of Jersey, of which Raleigh was deprived. On the next day, August 1st, Sir George Harvey took Payton's place as Lieutenant of the tower, the last report from the outgoing officer being that Sir Walter Raleigh's hurt is doing very well. It was evidently not at all severe, for on the 4th he was pronounced cured, both in body and mind. On the 3rd de Beaumont, the French ambassador had written confidentially to Henry the 4th that Raleigh gave out that this attempt at suicide was formed in order that his fate might not serve as a triumph to his enemies, whose power to put him to death despite his innocence he well knows. On August the 10th, there had still been made no definite accusation linking Raleigh or even Cobham with Watson's plot. All that could be said was that Raleigh and Cobham were intimate with the plotters, and that they had mutually accused each other, vaguely of entering into certain possibly treasonable negotiations with Austria. On that day, de Beaumont was inclined to think that both would be acquitted. It does not seem that James was anxious to push matters to an extremity, but the government instigated by Suffolk insisted on severity. On August the 13th, Raleigh was again examined in the tower, and this time more rigorously. A distinct statement was now gained from him to the effect that Cobham had offered him ten thousand crowns to further a peace between Spain and England. Raleigh had answered, when I see the money I will make you an answer, for I thought it one of his ordinary idol conceits. He insisted, however, that this conversation had nothing to do with Armbag. All through the month of September the plague was raging in London. In spite of all precautions, it found its way into the outlying posts of the tower. Sir George Harvey sent away his family and Wood, who was in special charge of the state prisoners, abandoned them to the lieutenant. On September the 7th we find Harvey sending Raleigh's private letters by a man of the name of Melish, who had been Cobham's steward, and was now his secretary. Raleigh and Cobham had become convinced that whatever was their innocence or guilt it was absolutely necessary that each should have some idea what the other was confessing. On September the 21st Raleigh, Cobham and George Brook were indicted at stains. The indictment shows us for the first time what the government had determined to accuse Raleigh of plotting. It is plainly put that he is charged with exciting rebellion against the king and raising one Arabella Stuart to the crown of England. Without going into vexed questions of the claim of this unhappy woman, we may remind ourselves that Arabella Stuart was James I's cousin. The daughter of Charles Stuart, 5th Earl of Lennox, Don Lee's elder brother. Her father had died in 1576, soon after her birth. About 1588 she had come up to London to be presented to Elizabeth, and on that occasion had amused Raleigh with her gay accomplishments. The legal quibble on which her claim was founded was the fact that she was born in England whereas James as a scotchman was supposed to be excluded. Arabella was no pretender. Her descent from Margaret, the sister of Henry VIII was complete, and if James had died childless and she had survived him it is difficult to see how her claim could have been avoided in favour of the Suffolk line. Meantime she had no real claim and no party in the country. But Elizabeth, in one of her fantastic moods, had presented Arabella to the wife of a French ambassador, as, she that will sometime be Lady Mistress here even as I am. Before the queen's death Arabella's very name had become hateful to her, but this was the slander ground upon which Cobhams, but scarcely Raleigh's hopes were based. The jury was well packed with adverse names. The precept is signed by Raleigh's old and bitter enemy Lord Howard of Bindon, now Earl of Suffolk, the trial, probably on account of the terror caused by the ravages of the plague, was adjourned for nearly two months which Raleigh spent in the tower, almost the only remnant of all his great wealth, which was not by this time forfeited, was his cluster of estates at Sherbourne. He attempted to tie these up to his son and his brother, Adrian Gilbert, and Cecil appears to have been a friend to Lady Raleigh in this matter. It was so generally taken for granted that Raleigh would be condemned that no mock modesty prevented the king's scotch favourites from asking for his estates. In October Cecil informed Sir James Elphinstone that he was at least the twelfth person who had already applied for the gift of Sherbourne. Fortunately Raleigh as late as the summer of 1602 had desired the judge Sir John Dodridge to draw the up a conveyance of Sherbourne to his son and then to his brother with a rent charge of two hundred pounds a year for life to Lady Raleigh. For the present Cecil firmly refused to allow anyone to tamper with this conveyance, and Sherbourne was the raft upon which the Raleigh sailed through the worst tempest of the trial. Cecil undoubtedly retained a certain tenderness towards his old friend Lady Raleigh, and for her sake rather than her husband's he extended a sort of protection to them in their misfortune. She appealed to him in touching language to pity the name of your ancient friend on his poor little creature which may live to honour you, that we may all lift up our hands and hearts in prayer for you and yours. If you truly knew you would pity your poor unfortunate friend which relives wholly on your honourable and wanted favour, Cecil listened and almost relanted. At first Cobham was not confined in the tower, and before he came there Raleigh was advised by some of his friends to try to communicate with him. According to Raleigh's account he wrote first of all, you or I must go to trial. If I first, then your accusation is the only evidence against me. Cobham's reply was not satisfactory, and Raleigh wrote again, and Cobham then sent what Raleigh thought a very good letter. The person who undertook to carry on this secret correspondence was no other than young Sir John Payton, whom James had just knighted, the son of the late Lieutenant of the Tower. Sir George Harvey seems to have suspected without wishing to be disagreeable, for Raleigh had to hint to Cobham that the Lieutenant might be blamed if it were discovered that letters were passing. Cobham shifted from hour to hour, and changed colour like a moral chameleon. Raleigh could not depend on him, nor even influence him. Meanwhile Cobham was transferred to the tower, and now communication between the prisoners seemed almost impossible. However the servant who was waiting upon Raleigh, a man named Cotterill, undertook to speak to Cobham, and desired him to leave his window in the Wardrobe Tower ajar on a certain night. Raleigh had prepared a letter in treating Cobham to clear him at all costs. This letter Cotterill tied around an apple, and at eight o'clock at night threw it dexterously into Cobham's room. Half an hour afterwards, a second letter of still more complete retractation was pushed by Cobham under his door. This Raleigh hid in his pocket, and showed to no one. Thus October passed, and during these ten weeks the popular fury against the accused had arisen to a tumultuous pitch. On November the 5th, Sir W. Ward was instructed to bring Raleigh out of the tower, and prepare him for his trial. As has been said, the plague was in London, and the prisoner was therefore taken down to Winchester to be tried in Wolvesy Castle. So terrible was the popular hatred of Raleigh, that the conveyance of him was attended with difficulty, and had to be constantly delayed. It was harp or knob whether he should have been brought alive, through such multitudes of unruly people as did exclaim against him, and to escape lynch law. A whole week had to be given to the transit. The fury and tumult of the people was so great, that Ward had to set watches and hasten his prisoner by a stage at a time when the mob was not expecting him. The wretched people seemed to forget all about the plague for the moment, so eager were they to tear Raleigh to pieces. When he had reached Winchester it was thought well to wait five days more, to give the popular fury time to quiet down a little. A court of King's Bench was fitted up in the castle, an old Episcopal palace not well suited for that purpose. On Thursday, November 17th, 1603, Raleigh's trial began, in the center of the upper part of the court, under a canopy of brocade, set the Lord Chief Justice of England, Popham, and on either side of him, has sped up the court of King's Bench. Special commissioners Cecil, Ward, the earls of Suffolk and Devonshire, with the judges Anderson, Gardie, and Warburton, and other persons of distinction. Opposite Popham set the Attorney General, Sir Edward Koch, who conducted the trial. It was actually opened, however, by Hale, the sergeant who attempted, as soon as Raleigh had pleaded not guilty to the indictment, to raise an unseemly laugh by saying that Lady Arabella hath no more title to the crown than I have, which, before God, I utterly renounce. Raleigh was noticed to smile at this, and we can imagine that his irony would be roused by such buffoonery on an occasion so serious. There was no more jesting of this kind, but the whole trial has remained a type of what was uncouth and undesirable in the conduct of criminal trials through the beginning of the seventeenth century. The nation so rapidly increased in sensitiveness, and in a perception of legal decency, that one of the very judges who conducted Raleigh's trial, Gardie, lived to look back upon it with horror, and to say when he himself lay upon his deathbed that such a moda procedure injured and degraded the justice of England. When Hale had ceased his fooling, Koch began in earnest. He was a man a little older than Raleigh, and of a conceited and violent nature, owing not a little of his exaggerated reputation to the dread that he inspired. He was never more rude and brutal than in his treatment of Sir Walter Raleigh upon this famous occasion, and even in a court packed with enemies in which the proud poet and navigator might glance round without meeting one look more friendly than that in the cold eyes of Cecil. The needless insolence of Koch went too far, and caused a revulsion in Raleigh's favor. Koch began by praising the clemency of the king, who had forbidden the use of torture, and proceeded to charge Sir Walter Raleigh with what he called treason of the main, to distinguish it from that of George Brooke and his fellows, which was of the by. He described this latter and tried to point out that the former was closely cognate to it in order to mask the difficulty, nay, the impossibility of doing this successfully on the evidence which he possessed. He wandered off into a long and wordy disquisition on treasonable plots in general, and in abruptly with that of Edmund de la Paul, then for the first time, Koch faced the chief difficulty of the government, namely that there was but one witness against Raleigh. He did not allow, as indeed he could not be expected to do, that Cobham had shifted like a Ruben, and was now adhering, for the moment, to an eighth several confession of what he and Raleigh had actually done or meant to do. It was enough for Koch to insist that Cobham's evidence, that is to say, which either of the eight conflicting statements suited the prosecution best, was as valuable in a case of this kind as the inquest of twelve men, having thus, as he thought, shut Raleigh's mouth with regard to this one great difficulty. He continued to claim against those traitors, obstinately persisting in mixing up Raleigh's main with the boy in spite of the distinction which he himself had drawn. Raleigh appealed against this once or twice, and at last showed signs of impatience. Koch then suddenly turned upon him and cried out, To whom, sir Walter, did you bear malice to the royal children? In the altercation that followed Koch lost his temper in earnest and allowed himself to call Raleigh a monster with an English face, but a Spanish heart. He then proceeded to state what the accusation of sir Walter really amounted to, and in the midst of the inexplicable chaos of this whole affair, it may be well to stand for a moment on this scrap of solid ground. Koch's words were, You would have stirred England and Scotland both. You incited the Lord Cobham as soon as Count Aaramburg came into England to go to him. The night he went, you supped with the Lord Cobham and he brought you after supper to Durham House, and then the same night by a back way went with Lorenzi to Count Aaramburg and got from him a promise for the money. After this it was arranged that the Lord Cobham should go to Spain and return by Jersey where you were to meet him about the distribution of the money, because Cobham had not so much policy or wickedness as you. Your intent was to set up the Lady Arabella as a titular queen and to depose our present rightful king. A lineal descendant of Edward IV. You pretend that this money was to fall with the peace with Spain. Your jargon was peace which meant Spanish invasion and Scottish subversion. This was plain language at least. This was the case for the prosecution stripped of all pedantic juggling and Raleigh now drew himself together to confute these charges as best he might. Let me answer, he said. It concerns my life. And from this point onwards, as Mr. Edwards remarks, the trial becomes a long and impassioned dialogue. Koch refused to let Raleigh speak and in this was supported by Popham, a very old man who owed his position in that court more to his age than his talents and who was solicitous to be on friendly terms with the attorney. Koch then proceeded to argue that Raleigh's relations with Cobham had been notoriously so intimate that there was nothing surprising or improbable in the accusation that he shared his guilt. He then nimbly went on to expatiate with regard to the circumstances of Cobham's treason and was deft enough to bring these forward in such a way as to leave on the mind of his hearers the impression that these were things proved against Raleigh. To this practice, which deserved the very phrases which Koch used against the prisoner's dealings, devilish and Machiavellian policy, Raleigh protested again and again that he ought not to be subjected until Koch lost his temper once more and cried, I thou thee thou traitor and I will prove thee the rankest traitor in all England. A sort of hubbub now ensued and the Lord Chief Justice again interfered to silence Raleigh with a poor show of impartiality. Koch, however, had well nigh exhausted the slender stalk of evidence with which he had started. For a few minutes longer he tried by sheer bluster to conceal the poverty of the case and, last of all, he handed one of Cobham's confessions to the clock of the crown to be read in court. It entered into no particulars which Cobham said there, Lordships must not expect from him for he was so confounded that he had lost his memory. But it vaguely asserted that he would never have entered into these courses but for Raleigh's instigation. The reading being over, Koch at last sat down. Raleigh began to address the jury very quietly at first. He pointed out that this solitary accusation by the most wavering of mortals uttered in a moment of anger was absolutely all the evidence that could be brought against him. He admitted that he suspected Cobham of secret communications with Count Ahrenberg but he declared that he knew no details and that whatever he discovered Cecil also was privy to. He had hitherto spoken softly. He now suddenly raised his voice and electrified the court by turning upon Sir Edward Koch and pouring forth the eloquent and indignant protest which must now be given in his own words. Master Attorney, whether to favour or to disable my Lord Cobham, you speak as you will of him yet he is not such a babe as you make him. He hath dispositions of such violence which his best friends could never tamper. But it is very strange that I, at this time, should be thought to plot with the Lord Cobham knowing him a man that hath neither love nor following and myself at this time having resigned a place of my best command in an office I had in Cornwall. I was not so bare of sense but I saw that if ever this state was strong it was now that we have the Kingdom of Scotland united whence we were want to fear all our troubles. Ireland quieted where our forces were want to be divided. Denmark assured whom before we were always want to have in jealousy. The low countries our nearest neighbour and instead of a lady whom time had surprised we had now an active King who would be present at his own businesses for me at this time to make myself a Robin Hood, a Watt Tyler in the inadvertence of the moment he seems to have said a Tom Taylor by mistake a Kett or a Jack Kidd. I was not so mad. I knew the state of Spain well, his weakness, his poorness, his humbleness at this time. I knew that six times we had repulsed his forces. Thrice in Ireland, Thrice at sea, once upon our coast and twice upon his own. Thrice had I served against him, myself at sea, wherein for my country's sake I had expended of my own property forty thousand marks. I knew that where before time he was want to have forty great sales at the least in his ports now he hath not passed six or seven and for sending to his indies he was driven to have strange vessels I think contrary to the institutions of his ancestors who straightly forbade that even in case of necessity they should make their necessity known to strangers. I knew that of twenty five millions which he had from the indies he had scarce and he left. Nay, I knew his poorness to be such at this time that the Jesuits his imps begged at his church doors. His pride so abated that notwithstanding his former high terms he was become glad to congratulate his majesty and to send creeping unto him for peace. In these fiery words the audience was reminded of the consistent hatred which Raleigh had always shown to Spain and of the services which he himself now a prisoner at the bar had performed for the liberties of England. The sympathies of the spectators began to be moved. Those who had executed Raleigh most felt that they had been deceived and that so noble an Englishman however indiscreet he might have been could not by any possibility have intrigued with the worst enemies of England. But the prisoner had more to do than to rouse the irresponsible part of his audience by his patriotic eloquence. The countenances of his judges remained as cold to him as ever and he turned to the serious business of his defense. His quick intelligence saw that the telling point in Koch's diatribe had been the emphasis he had laid on Raleigh's intimate friendship with Cobham. He began to try and explain away this intimacy. Stating what we now know was not exactly true, namely that his privateness with Cobham only concerned business in which the latter sought to make use of his experience. He dwelt on Cobham's wealth and argued that so rich a man would not venture to conspire. All this part of the defense seems to me injudicious. Raleigh was on safer ground in making another sudden appeal to the sentiment of the court as for my knowing that he conspired all these things against Spain for Arabella and against the king I protest before almighty God I am as clear as whoever here is freest. After a futile discussion as to the value of Cobham's evidence the foreman of the jury asked a plain question. I desire to understand the time of Sir Walter Raleigh's first letter and of the Lord Cobham's accusation. Upon this Cecil spoke for the first time spinning out a long and completely unintelligible sentence which was to serve the foreman as an answer. Before the jury could recover from their bewilderment this extraordinary trial which proceeded like an adventure in Wonderland was begun once more by Koch who started afresh with voluble denunciation of the defendant for whom he said it would have been better to have stayed in Guiana than to be so well acquainted with the state of Spain. Koch was still pouring out a torrent of mere abuse when Raleigh suddenly interrupted him and addressing the judges claimed that Cobham should then and there be brought face to face with him. Since he had been in the tower he had been studying the law and he brought forth statutes of Edwards the Third and the Fourth to support his contention that he could not be convicted on Cobham's bare accusation. The long speech he made at this point was a masterpiece of persuasive eloquence and it is worth noting that Dudley Carlton who was in court wrote to a friend that though when the trial began he would have gone a hundred miles to see Raleigh hanged when it had reached this stage he would have gone a thousand to save his life. The judges however and Popham in particular were not so moved and Raleigh's objection to the evidence of Cobham was overruled Koch was so far influenced by it that he now attempted to show that there was other proof against the prisoner and tried very awkwardly to make the confessions of Watson and George Brooke in the buy tell against Raleigh in the main. Raleigh's unlucky statement made it wenser to the effect that Cobham had offered him ten thousand crowns and an examination in which Raleigh's friend Captain Camus admitted a private interview between Cobham and Raleigh during Count Arambag's stay in London were then read in the discussion on these documents the court and the prisoner fell to actual wrangling in the buzz of voices it was hard to tell what was said until a certain impression was at last made by Koch who screamed that Raleigh had a Spanish heart and was a spider of hell this produced a lull and therefore followed an irrelevant dispute as to whether or no Raleigh had once had in his possession a book containing reasonable allusions to the claims of the King of Scotland. Raleigh admitted the possession of this volume and said that Cecil gave him leave to take it out of Lord Burgleys library. He added that no book was published towards the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign that did not pass through his hands. It would be interesting to know whether he meant that he exercised a private censorship of the press or that he bought everything that appeared at all events the point was allowed to drop Raleigh now gave his attention to the evidence which Camus had given under threat of the rack that this torture had been threatened in express disobedience to the King's order staggered some of the commissioners and covered Sir William Ward with confusion. The eliciting of this fact seems to have brought over to Raleigh's side the most valuable and unexpected help for in the discussion that ensued Cecil suddenly pleaded that Raleigh should be allowed fair play. The attorney then brought forward the case of Arabella Stewart and a fresh sensation was presented to the audience who after listening to Cecil were suddenly thrilled to hear a voice at the back of the court shout the lady doth hear protest upon her salvation that she never dealt in any of these things. It was the voice of the Earl of Nottingham who had entered unperceived and who was standing there with Arabella Stewart on his arm. Their apparition was no surprise to the judges it had been carefully prearranged. The trial dragged on with irrelevant production of evidence by Koch occasional bullying by the Lord Chief Justice and repeated appeals for fairness from Cecil who cautiously said that but for his fault he was still Raleigh's friend. Posterity has laughed at one piece of the attorney's evidence there is one dire, a pilot that being in Lisbon met with a Portugal gentleman and asked him if the King of England was crowned yet to whom he answered I think not yet but he shall be shortly Ne said the Portugal that shall he never be for his throat will be cut by Don Raleigh and Don Cobham before he be crowned a prosecution that calls for evidence such as this has simply broken down the whole report of the trial is so purile that it can only be understood by bearing in mind that as Mr Gardner says the government were in possession of a good deal of evidence which they could not produce in court the King wished to spare Arabella and to accept Arambag's protestations with the courtesy due to an ambassador it was therefore impossible to bring forward a letter which Cecil possessed from Cobham to Arabella and to from Arambag to Cobham the difficulty was not to prove Cobham's guilt however but to connect Raleigh closely enough with Cobham and this Koch went on laboring to do at last he laid a trap for Raleigh he induced him to argue on the subject and then Koch triumphantly drew from his pocket a long letter Cobham had written to the commissioners the day before a letter in which Cobham disclosed all the secret correspondence Raleigh had had with him since his imprisonment and even the picturesque story of the letter that was bound round the apple and thrown into Cobham's window in the tower at the production of this document Sir Walter Raleigh fairly lost his self-possession he had no idea that any of these facts were in the hands of the government his bewilderment and ejection soon however left him sufficiently for him to recollect the other letter of Cobham's which he possessed he drew it from his pocket and Cobham's writing being very bad he could not from his agitation read it Koch desired that it should not be produced Cecil interposed once more and volunteered to read it aloud this letter was Raleigh's last effort he said when Cecil had finished now my masters you have heard both that showed against me is but a voluntary confession this under oath and the deepest protestations a Christian man can make therefore believe which of these half more force the jury then retired and in a quarter of an hour returned with the verdict guilty Raleigh had in fact confessed that Cobham had mentioned the plot to him though nothing would induce him to admit that he had asked Cobham for a sum of money or consented to take any active part still this was enough and in the face of his unfortunate prevarication about the interview with Ransey the jury could hardly act otherwise for a summing up of both sides of the vexed question what shadow of truth there was in the general accusation the reader may be recommended to Mr Gardner's brilliant pages Raleigh had defended himself with great courage and intelligence and the crowd in court were by no means in sympathy with the brutal and violent address in which Cobham gave judgment on the very day on which Raleigh was condemned there began that reaction in his favour which has been proceeding ever since when the Lord Chief Justice called the noble prisoner a traitor and an atheist the bystanders who after all were Englishmen though they had met prepared to tear Raleigh limb from limb could bear it no longer and they hissed the judge as a little before they had hooted coke to complete the strangeness of this strange trial when sentence had been passed Raleigh advanced quickly up the court one prevented and spoke to Cecil and one or two other commissioners asking as a favour that the king would permit Cobham to die first before he was secured by the officers he had found time for this last protest Cobham is a false and cowardly accuser he can face neither me nor death without acknowledging his falsehood he was then led away to jail for a month Raleigh was retained at Winchester he found a friend almost the only one who dared to speak for him in Lady Pembroke the saintly sister of Sir Philip Sidney who showed Veteris Vettigia Flamme the ambers of the old love Raleigh had met with from her brother's family and sent her son Lord Pembroke to the king he did little good and Raleigh did still less by a letter which he now wrote to James the first personal appeal he had made to his majesty it was a humble entreaty for life begging the king to listen to the charitable advice which the English law knowing her own cruelty doth give to her superior to be pitiful more than just this letter has been thought obsequious and unmanly but it abates no jot of the authors as severations that he was innocent of all offence and surely in the very face of death a man may be excused for riding humbly to a despot Lady Raleigh meanwhile was clinging about the knees of Cecil whose demeanor during the trial had given her fresh hopes but neither the king nor Cecil gave any sign and in the gathering reaction in favour of Raleigh remained apparently firm for punishment the whole body of the accused were by this time convicted Watson and all his companions on the 16th Raleigh on the 17th Cobam and Gray on the 18th the 29th Watson and Clark the other priest were executed next day the Spanish ambassador pleaded for Raleigh's life but was repulsed the king desired the clergy who attended the surviving prisoners to prepare them rigorously for death and the Bishop of Winchester gave Raleigh no hope on the 6th George Brooke was executed and now James seems to have thought that enough blood had been spilled he would find out the truth by collecting dying confessions from culprits who after all should not die the next week was occupied with the performance of the curious burlask which James had invented the day after George Brooke was beheaded the king drew up a warrant to the sheriff of Hampshire for a stay of all the other executions with this document in his bosom he signed death warrants for Markham, Gray and Cobam to be beheaded on the 10th and Raleigh on the 13th the king told nobody of his intention except a scotch boy John Gibb who was his page at the moment on December the 10th at 10 o'clock in the morning Sir Walter Raleigh was desired to come to the window of his cell in Wolvesley Castle the night before he had written an affecting letter of farewell to his wife and such at least is my personal conviction from the internal evidence the most extraordinary and most brilliant of his poems the pilgrimage by this time he was sorry that he had bemeaned himself in his first paroxysm of despair and he entreated Lady Raleigh to try to get back the letters in which he sued for his life for, he said I disdain myself for begging it he went on know it dear wife that your son is the child of a true man and who in his own respect despiseth death and all his misshapen and ugly forms I cannot write much God knows how hardly I stole this time when all sleep and it is time to separate my thoughts from the world beg my dead body which living was denied you and either lay it at share-born if the land continue yours or in extra church by my father and mother I can write no more time and death call me away from his window overlooking the castle green Raleigh saw Markham a very monument of melancholy led through the steady rain to the scaffold he saw the sheriff presently called away but could not see the Scotch lad who called him who was Gib riding with the reprieve he could see Markham standing before the block he could see the sheriff return speak in a low voice to Markham and lead him away into Arthur's hall and lock him up there to then see Grey led out he could see his face light up with a gleam of hope as he stealthily stirred the wet straw with his foot and perceived there was no blood there he could see though he could not hear Grey's lips move in the prayer in which he made his protestation of innocence and as he stood ready at the block he could see the sheriff speak to him also and lead him away and lock him up with Markham in Arthur's hall then Raleigh wandering more and more so violently curious that the crowd below noticed his eager expression could see Cobham brought out weeping and muttering in a lamentable disorder he could see him praying and when the prayer was over he could see the sheriff leave him to stand alone trembling on the scaffold while he went to fetch Grey and Markham from their prison then he could see the trio with an odd expression of hope in their faces stand side by side a moment to be harranged by the sheriff and then suddenly on his bewildered ears rang out the plaudits of the assembled crowd all Winchester clapping its hands because the King had massively saved the lives of the prisoners and still the steady rain kept falling as the castle green grew empty and Raleigh at his window was left alone with his bewilderment he was very soon told that he also was spared and on December the 16th of 1603 he was taken back to the Tower of London such was James Curious but not altogether inhuman sketch for a burlesque End of Chapter 7 Part 2 Chapter 8 Part 1 of Raleigh This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org Raleigh by Edmund Goss Chapter 8 in the Tower It is no longer possible for us to follow the personal life of Raleigh as we have hitherto been doing step by step in the deep monotony of confinement 12 years passed over him without leaving any marks of months or days upon his chronicle of patience a hopeless prisoner seizes to take any interest in the passage of time and Raleigh's few letters from the Tower are almost all of them undated his comfort had its vicissitudes he was now tormented, now indulged a whisper from the outer world would now give him back a gleam of hope now a harsh answer would complete again the darkness of his hopelessness he was vexed with ill health and yet from the age of 51 to that of 63 the inherent vigor of his constitution and his invincible desire to live were unabated from all his pains and sorrows he took refuge, as so many have done before him in the one unfailing nepence the consolatory self-forgetfulness of literature it was in the Tower that the main bulk of his voluminous writings were produced he was confined in the upper story of what was called the Garden Tower now the Bloody Tower and not, as is so often said in the White Tower saw that the little cell with a dim arched light the chapel crypt of Queen Elizabeth's Armoury which used to be pointed out to visitors as the dungeon in which rarely wrought the history of the world never in all probability heard the sound of his footsteps it is a myth that he was confined at all in such a dungeon as this according to Mr. Lofty his apartments were those immediately above the principal gate to the inner world and had besides a window looking westward out of the tower an entrance to themselves at a higher level the level of the lieutenants and constables lodging they probably opened directly into a garden which has since been partly built over rarely was comfortably lodged it was Sir William Wadd's complaint that the rooms were too spacious Lady Rayleigh and her son shared them with him for a considerable time and Sir Walter was never without three personal servants he was poor in comparison with his former opulent state but he was never in want Sherburne just sufficed for six years to supply such needs as presented themselves to a prisoner his personal expenses in the tower slightly exceeded 200 pounds or 1000 pounds of our money there was left a narrow margin for Lady Rayleigh the month of January and February 1604 were spent in trying to make the best terms possible for his wife and son in a letter to the lords of the council Rayleigh mentions that he has lost 3000 pounds or 15,000 pounds in Victorian money a year by being deprived of his five main sources of income namely the governorship of Jersey the patent of the wine office the wardenship of the stanneries the rangership of Gillingham Forest and the lieutenancy of Portland Castle he besought that he might not be reduced to utter beggary and he did his best to retain the duchy of Cornwall and his estates at Sherburne the former, as he might have supposed could not be left in the charge of a prisoner it was given to a friend to the Earl of Pembroke and Rayleigh showed a dangerous obstinacy in refusing to give up the seal of the duchy direct to the Earl he was presently induced to resign it into Cecil's hands and then nothing but Sherburne remained his debts were 3000 pounds his rich collections of plate and tapestry had been confiscated or stolen if the king permitted Sherburne also to be taken it would be impossible to meet the exorbitant charges of the lieutenant and under these circumstances it's only too probable that Rayleigh might have been obliged to crouch in the traditional dungeon 10 feet by 8 feet the retention of Sherburne then meant comfort and the status of a gentleman it is therefore of the highest interest to us to see what had become of Sherburne we have seen that up to that date of the trial Cecil held at bay the Scottish jackals who went prowling around the rich dorset sheer manner and when the trial was over Cecil, as Lady Rayleigh said has been our only comfort in our lamentable misfortune as soon as Rayleigh was condemned commissioners has sent down to Sherburne and began to prepare the division of the prize they sold the cattle and began to root up the corpses they made considerable progress in dismantling the house itself Rayleigh appealed to the lords of the council and Cecil sent down two trustees who in February 1604 put a sudden stop to all this havoc and sent the commissioners about their business of the latter one was the infamous Mears Rayleigh's former bailiff and this fact was particularly galling to Rayleigh on July 30 in the same year Sherburne Castle and the surrounding manors were conveyed to Sir Alexander Brett and others in trust for Lady Rayleigh and her son Walter Sir Walter are nominally forfeiting the life interest in the states which he had reserved to himself in the conveyance of 1602 on the monies collected by these trustees Lady Rayleigh supported herself and her husband also she was not turned out of the castle at first twice at least in 1605 we find her there on the second occasion causing all the armor to be scoured some persons afterwards considered that this act was connected with gunpowder plot others maintained that it was merely due to the fact that the armor was rusty the great point is that she was still mistress of Sherburne Lord Justice Popham however as early as 1604 pronounced Rayleigh's act of conveyance invalid and in 1608 negotiations began for purchase or rather a confiscation of Sherburne to the king to this we shall presently return in the meanwhile Captain Kimis acted as warden of Sherburne Castle as soon as the warm weather closed in in the summer of 1604 the malaria in the tower began to affect Rayleigh's health as he tells Cecil now Lord Cranbourne in a most dollarous letter he was withering in body and mind the plague had come close to him his son having lain at fortnight with only a paper wall between him and the woman whose child was dying had terrible complaint Lady Rayleigh at last had been able to bear the terror of infection no longer and had departed with little Walter Rayleigh thereupon in a fit of extreme dejection presumed to tell their lordships of his miserable state daily in danger of death by the palsy nightly of suffocation by wasted and abstracted lungs he entreated to be removed to more wholesome lodgings his prayer was not answered earlier in the year he had indeed enjoyed a short excursion from the tower at Easter the king had come to attend a bull baiting on Tower Hill and Rayleigh was hastily removed to the fleet prison beforehand lest the etiquette of such occasion should oblige James against his inclination to give obnoxious prisoners their liberty Rayleigh was one of five persons so hurried to the fleet on March 25 on the next day the king came and caused all the prisons of the tower to be opened and all the persons then within them to be released after the bull baiting was over the accepted prisoners were quietly brought back again this little change was all the variety that Rayleigh enjoyed until he left for Guyana in 1617 when it transpired in 1605 that through as it appears the negligence of the copying clerk the conveyance by which Rayleigh thought that he had secured Sherbourne to his son was null and void he had to suffer from a vindictive attack from his wife herself she, poor woman, had now for nearly two years bustled hither and thither intriguing in not always the most judicious manner for her family but never resting never leaving a stone unturned which might lead to their restitution the sudden discovery that the lawyers had found the flaw in the conveyance was more than her over-strung nerves could endure and in a fit of tempo she attacked her husband and rushed about the town denouncing him Rayleigh, in deepest depression of mind and body brought the sizzle who had now taken another upward step in the hierarchy of James's protein house of lords and who was Earl of Salisbury hence forward of the true cause of my importunities one is that I am every second or third night in danger either of sudden death or of the loss of my limbs or sense being sometimes two hours without feeling or motion of my hand and whole arm I complain not of it I know in vain that there is none that has compassion thereof the other that I shall be made more than wary of my life by her crying and bewailing who will return in post when she hears of your lordship's departure and nothing done she has already brought her eldest son in one hand and her suckling child Kerry Rayleigh, born in the winter of 1604 in another crying out of her and their destruction charging me with unnatural negligence and that having provided for my own life I am without sense and compassion of theirs these torments added to my desolate life receiving nothing but torments and where I should look for some comfort together with the consideration of my cruel destiny my days and times worn out in trouble and imprisonment is sufficient either utterly to distract me or to make me curse the time that ever I was born into the world and had a being things were not commonly in so bad a way as this we may be sure Rayleigh who did nothing by hope was not accustomed to underrate his own misfortunes his health was uncertain indeed and it was still worse in 1606 but his condition otherwise was not so deplorable as this letter would tend to prove Lady Rayleigh soon recovered her equanimity and the lieutenant of the tower Sir George Harvey indulged Rayleigh in a variety of ways he frequently invited him to his table and finding that the prisoner was engaged in various chemical experiments he lent him his private garden to set up his still end in one of Rayleigh's few letters of this period we get a delightful little vignette Rayleigh is busy working in the garden and the pale being down the charming young lady effingham his old friend Nottingham's daughter strolls by along the terrace on the arm of the Countess of Beaumont the ladies lean over the pailing and watch the picturesque old magician pouring over his crucibles his face lighted up with the flames from his furnace they follow chatting with him and Lady Effingham coaxes him to spare her a little of that famous balsam which he brought back from Guyana he tells her that he has none prepared but that he will send her some by their common friend Captain Whitlock and presently he does so a captivity which admitted such communications with the outer world as this could not but have had its alleviations the letter quoted on the last page evidently belongs to the summer of 1605 when for a few months Rayleigh was undoubtedly in great discomfort on August 15 Sir George Harvey was succeeded by Sir William Wadd who had shown Rayleigh great severity before his trial he, however, although not well disposed shrank from actually ill treating his noble prisoner he hinted to Lord Salisbury that he wanted the garden for his own use and that he thought the pailing and insufficient barrier between Rayleigh and the world meanwhile Salisbury did not take the hint and the brick wall Wadd wished built up was not begun Wadd evidently looked upon the chemical experiments with suspicion Sir Walter Rayleigh he wrote hath converted a little hen house in the garden into a still where he doth spend his time all the day in his distillations some of the remedies which the prisoner invented became exceedingly popular his lesser cordial of strawberry water was extensively used by ladies and his greater cordial which was understand to contain whatever is most choice and sovereign in the animal, vegetable and mineral world continued to be a favorite panacea until the close of the century when in November gunpowder plot was discovered Sir Walter Rayleigh was for a moment suspected no evidence was found in culpating him in the slightest degree but his life was for the moment at least made distinctly harder when he returned from examination the wall which Wadd had desired to put between the prisoner and the public was in course of construction when finished it was not very formidable for Wadd complains that Rayleigh was in the habit of standing upon it in the sight of passersby the increased confinement in the spring of 1606 brought his ill health to a climax he thought he was about to suffer an apoplectic seizure and he was allowed to take medical advice the doctor's certificate dated March 26 1606 is still in existence it describes his paralytic symptoms and recommends that Sir Walter Rayleigh should be removed from the cold lodging which he was occupying to the little room he had built in the garden and joining his still house which would be warmer this seems to have been done and Rayleigh's health improved during the year 1606 various attempts were made to persuade the king to release Rayleigh but in vain the queen had made his acquaintance and had become his friend and there was a general hope that when her father, the king of Denmark came over to see James in the summer he would plead for Rayleigh there is reason to believe that if he had done so with success he would have invited Rayleigh to return with him and become admiral of the Danish fleet but matters never got so far as this James the first had an inkling on what was coming and he took an early opportunity of saying to Christian the fourth promise me that you will be no man's solicitor in spite of this before he left England Christian did ask for Rayleigh's pardon and was refused when he had left England and all hope was over in September Lady Rayleigh made her way to Hampton Court and pushing her way into the king's presence fell on her knees at his feet James went by and neither spoke nor looked at her it must have been about this time or a little later that Queen Anne brought her unfortunate eldest son Henry to visit Rayleigh at the tower Prince Henry, born in 1594 was now only 12 years of age his intimacy with Sir Walter Rayleigh belongs rather to the years 1610 to 1612 in February 1607 Rayleigh was exposed to some annoyance from Edward Cotterall the servant who in 1603 had carried his injudicious correspondence with Lord Cobham to and fro this man had remained in Lady Rayleigh's service and attended on her and her little house opposite her husband's room on Tower Hill he professed to be able to give evidence against his master but in examination before the Lord Chief Justice nothing intelligible could be extracted from him about the same time we find Rayleigh encouraged it would appear by the Queen proposing to Lord Salisbury that he should be allowed to go to Guyana on an expedition for gold it is pathetic to read the earnest phrases in which he tries to meddle out of the cold minister permission to set out westward once more across the ocean that he loved so much he offers lest he should be looked upon as a renegade to leave his wife and children behind him as hostages and the Queen and Lord Salisbury may have the treasure he brings back if only he may go he pleads how rich the land is and how no one knows the way to it as he does we seem to hear the very accents of another wary king of the sea it is not too late to seek a newer world push off and sitting well in order smite the sounding furrows for my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars until I die such was Rayleigh's purpose but it was not that of Prince and of Salisbury on the contrary he was kept a faster prisoner in July 1607 fresh regulations came into force in the tower by which at 5pm Rayleigh and his servants had to retire to their own apartments and Lady Rayleigh go back to her house nor were guests any longer to be admitted in the evening Lady Rayleigh had thoroughly offended Sir William Wadd by driving into the tower in her coach she was informed that she must do so no more it was probably these long quiet evenings which specially predisposed Rayleigh to literary composition he borrowed books mainly of an historical character in all directions a letter to Sir Robert Cotton is extant in which he desires the loan of no less than 13 obscure and bulky historians and we may imagine his silent evenings spent in pouring over the precious manuscripts of the annals of Tewkesbury and the chronicle of Yves Schoen in this year young Walter Rayleigh now 14 years of age proceeded to Oxford at corpus on October 30th 1607 his tutors were a certain hooker and the brilliant young theologian Dr. Daniel Feetley afterwards to be famous as a controversial divine throughout the year 1608 Rayleigh buried in his history makes no sign to us early in 1609 the uncertain tenure of Cherbourg which had vexed Rayleigh so much that he declared himself ready to part with the estate in exchange for the pleasure of never hearing of it again once more came before the notice of the government a proposition had been made to Rayleigh to sell his right in it to the king but he had refused he said that it belonged to his wife and child and that those that never had a fee simple could not grant a fee simple about Christmas 1608 Rayleigh brought the matter up again and leading her sons by the hand she appeared in the presence chamber and besought James to give them a new conveyance with no flaw in it the king had determined to seize Cherbourg and he told her I mount hay the lawn I mount hay it for car it is said that losing all patience Elizabeth Rayleigh started to her feet and implored God to punish this robbery of her household Sir Walter was more politic and on January 2nd 1609 he wrote a letter favored imploring him not to covet Cherbourg it is to be regretted that Rayleigh whose opinion of James's minions was not on private occasions concealed should write to car of all people in England as one whom I know not but by an honourable fame and that the eloquence of his appeal should be thrown away on such a recipient for yourself, Sir he says seeing your day is but now in the dawn and mine come to the evening your own virtues and the king's grace assuring you of many good fortunes and much honour I beseech you not to begin your first building upon the ruins of the innocent and that their griefs and sorrows do not offend your first plantation car, of course took no notice whatever and on the 10th of the same month these states at Cherbourg were bestowed on him at Prince Henry's request the king presently purchased them back again and gave them to his son who soon after died Mr. Edwards had discovered that Cherbourg passed through eight successive changes of ownership before 1617 to Lady Riley and her children the king gave 8000 pounds as purchase money of the life security in Cherbourg the interest on this sum was very irregularly paid and the Guyana voyage in 1617 swallowed up most of the principal thus the vast and princely fortune of Riley came out of the way like a drift of snow in the summer of 1611 Riley came into collision with Lord Salisbury and Lord Norhampton on some matter at present obscure Norhampton writes we had afterwards about with Sir Walter Riley in whom we find no change but the same blindness pride and passion has wrought more violently but never expressed itself in a stranger fashion in consequence of their interview with Riley and other prisoners the Lord recommended that the lawless liberty of the tower should no longer be allowed to cocker and foster exorbitant hopes in the braver sort of captives Riley was immediately placed under closer restraint not even being allowed to take his customary walk with his keeper up the hill within the tower his private garden and gallery were taken from him and his wife was almost entirely excluded from his company the final months of Salisbury's life were unfavorable to Riley and there was no quickening of the old friendship at the last when Lord Salisbury died on May 24th, 1612 Riley wrote this epigram here lies Habinol our pastor Rileyre that once in quarter our fleeces did shear to please us his care he kept under clone and was ever after both Shepard and Dodd for ablation to Pan he first gave a trifle then offered up us and through his false worship such power he did gain as kept him on the mountain and us on the plane when these lines were shown to James the first he said he hoped that the man who wrote them would die before he did the death of Salisbury encouraged Riley once more his intimacy with the generous and promising Prince of Wales had quickened his hopes during the last months of his life Henry continually appeared to Riley for advice the prince was exceedingly interested in all matters of navigation and shipbuilding and there exists a letter to him from Riley giving him a labored council on the building of a man of war on which we may learn that the opinion of that practiced hand six thing were chiefly required in a well conditioned ship of the period one that she be strong built two swift in sail three stout sided four that her ports be so laid as she may carry out her guns all weathers five that she can dry well six that she stay well when boarding or turning on a wind is required secure in the interest of the Prince of Wales and hoping to persuade the Queen to be an adventurer Riley seized the opportunity of the death of Salisbury to communicate his plans for an expedition to Guyana to the lords of the council he thought he had induced them to promise that Captain Kimis should go and that if so much as half a ton of gold was brought back that should buy Riley his liberty but the negotiations fell through and Kimis stayed at home End of chapter 8 part 1