Great Ralegh

by Hugh De Sélincourt

Ralegh. "You have heard a strange tale of a strange man. Now he thinks he hath matter enough to destroy me; but the king and all of you shall witness, by our deaths, which of us was the ruin of the other. I bid a poor fellow throw in the letter at his window, written to this purpose: You know you have undone me, now write three lines to justify me. In this will I die that he hath done me wrong."

Then Ralegh pulled a letter out of his pocket, which the Lord Cobham had written to him, and desired my Lord Cecil to read it because he only knew his hand. Cecil read the letter. "Seeing myself so near my end, for the discharge of my own conscience, and freeing myself from your blood, which also will cry vengeance against me, I protest upon my salvation I never practised with Spain upon your procurement: God so comfort me in this my affliction, as you are a true subject, for anything that I know. I will say as Daniel, Purus sum a sanguine hujus. So God have mercy upon my soul, as I know no treason by you!"

"Now I wonder," said Ralegh, "how many souls this man hath; he damns one in this letter: another in that."

Such were Ralegh's last recorded words before the verdict was given. He had said all that was to be said. He had stood his ground undismayed for many hours, though the chief men in England and the cleverest lawyers in England were set against him. He must gradually have realized that all were resolute to condemn him: he must gradually have realized that all his efforts were futile against such malignant opposition.

The King's Attorney alleged that the last letter was politicly and cunningly urged from the Lord Cobham, and the first was simply the truth. The Earl of Devonshire assured the Lord Chief Justice that Cobham had written the first letter of his own free will, uninfluenced by any hope or promise of pardon. A marshal was sworn to keep the jury private. The jury retired. In less than a quarter of an hour the jury returned and gave their verdict. The verdict was GUILTY. "Sir Walter Ralegh," said the Clerk of the Crown, "thou hast been indicted, arraigned, and pleaded not guilty, for all these several treasons and for trial thereof hast put thyself upon thy country, which country are these who have found thee guilty. What canst thou say for thyself why judgment and execution of death should not pass against thee?"

And Ralegh, now doomed, made answer, "My Lords, the jury have found me guilty, they must do as they are directed. I can say nothing why judgment should not proceed. You see whereof Cobham hath accused me: you remember his protestations that I was never guilty...." And later he said, "I submit myself to the king's mercy. I know his mercy is greater than my offence. I recommend my wife, and son of tender years, unbrought-up, to his compassion."

And then the Lord Chief Justice Popham rose to deliver judgment, which he prefaced by a pompous and insulting speech. "I thought I should never have seen this day, to have stood in this place to give sentence of death against you; because I thought it impossible that one of so great parts should have fallen so grievously. God hath bestowed on you many benefits. You had been a man fit and able to have served the king in good place—you have brought yourself into a good state of living.... It is best for man not to seek to climb too high, lest he fall; nor yet to creep too low lest he be trodden on....

"You have been taxed by the world with the defence of the most heathenish and blasphemous opinions; which I list not to repeat because Christian ears cannot endure to hear them, nor the authors and maintainers of them be suffered to live in any Christian commonwealth.... You shall do well before you go out of the world, to give satisfaction therein, and not to die with these imputations on you. Let not any devil persuade you to think there is no eternity in heaven. For if you think thus you shall find eternity in hell-fire. In the first accusation of my Lord Cobham I observed his manner of speaking: I protest before the living God I am persuaded he spoke nothing but the truth! You wrote that he should not in any case confess anything to a preacher, telling him an example of my Lord Essex, that noble Earl that is gone. Who if he had not been carried away with others had lived in honour to this day among us. He confessed his offences, and obtained mercy of the Lord; for I am verily persuaded in my heart he died a worthy servant of God. Your conceit of not confessing anything is very inhuman and wicked. In this world is the time of confessing that we may be absolved at the day of judgment. You have shewed a fearful sign of denying God in advising a man not to confess the truth. It now comes in my mind why you may not have your accuser come face to face; for such an one is easily brought to retract, when he seeth there is no hope of his own life. It is dangerous that any traitors should have access to or conference with, one another. When they see themselves must die, they will think it best to have their fellow live that he may commit the like treason again, and so in some sort seek revenge.

"Now it resteth to pronounce the judgment which I wish you had not been this day to have received of me.

"For if the fear of God in you had been answerable to your other great parts you might have lived to have been a singular good subject. I never saw the like trial, and hope I shall never see the like again.