The plot to place Lady Arabella on the throne was regarded as dangerous by the court, owing to James’s unpopularity, which was not surprising, for at that time everything Scottish was cordially detested by the English. The Scotch had been as inimical to us as either the French or the Spaniards, and for a far longer period, whilst the Scottish alliance with France had added still more to the national dislike. Neither was the new King’s appearance one to win the admiration of his new subjects, for a more ungainly individual had surely never appeared out of a booth at a fair. The English were as susceptible then, as they are now, to the outward appearance of their rulers, and even Henry VIII., for all his tyranny and cruelty, was popular among the people on account of his fine presence; and when Elizabeth appeared in public, all aglow with splendour, her lieges shouted themselves hoarse with delight, and worshipped that “bright occidental effulgence.” What a contrast to these was James Stuart. With his huge head, and padded shanks, his great tongue lolling from out his mouth, his goggle eyes, and rolling gait, and the incomprehensible, to English ears, jargon of Lowland Scotch which he spoke, his was not a very kingly figure, and he made anything but a favourable impression upon his new subjects. It appears that Raleigh, at the time of James’s arrival, let fall some remarks which were repeated to the King, to the effect that it would be well not to allow the Scottish locusts to eat too much of the Southern pastures. It has been supposed that Raleigh, at a meeting at Whitehall, proposed to found a republic, and Aubrey, a contemporary writer, even gives his words, “Let us keep the staff in our own hands, and set up a commonwealth, and not remain subject to a needy beggarly nation.” Raleigh met the King for the first time at Burleigh, when James, who prided himself on his wit, said to Sir Walter, that he thought but “rawly” of him; it is a vile pun, but is interesting as showing the way in which his contemporaries pronounced Raleigh’s name.
Cecil, who had brought Essex to the scaffold, now lost no time in bringing Raleigh, Essex’s rival, to the Tower, and on the 20th of July 1603, the prison gates of that fortress once again closed upon the founder of Virginia, on a charge of treason, based on the Arabella Stuart conspiracy, nor did they open for him until twelve years had passed. On the following day Raleigh attempted to stab himself with a table-knife, for he seems to have been maddened by his treatment by James and Cecil. In November the plague was so violent in London, that the Law Courts were transferred to Winchester, and it was to that city that Sir Walter and his fellow-prisoners were taken and tried on a charge of “attempting to deprive the King of his crown and dignity; to molest the Government, and alter the true religion established in England, and to levy war against the King.”
George Brooke, a brother of Lord Cobham’s, and two priests were found guilty and executed, Lords Grey de Wilton, Cobham, and Raleigh were respited, and were taken back to their prison in the Tower. Cobham never regained his liberty, he was a ruined man, and died probably in the Tower. The place of his burial is unknown.
The de Cobhams were an early family of importance in the twelfth century, and from the thirteenth to the sixteenth one of the most powerful in the south of England. Henry de Cobham was summoned to Parliament in 1313. The direct line ended in Joan de Cobham, who married five times; her third husband was Sir John Oldcastle, commonly called Lord Cobham, jure uxoris, but inaccurately, for he was summoned to Parliament under his own name, Oldcastle.
In descent from Joan was Henry Brooke, Lord Cobham, attainted first of James the First. He was born 1564, and succeeded to the title 1596–7, and shortly after installed Knight of the Garter. He married Francis Howard, daughter of the Earl of Nottingham, and widow of the Earl of Kildare. He was committed to the Tower December 16th, 1603, tried, and condemned to death, and actually brought out to be executed, but had been privately reprieved beforehand by James the First, who played with Cobham and Gray, and their companions, as a cat would with mice. After fifteen years’ rigorous confinement in the Tower, his health failed, and he was allowed out, attended by his gaolers, to visit Bath. This was in 1617, and was taken so ill on his way back he had to stay at Odiham, Hants, at the house of his brother-in-law, Sir Edward Moore. He died, with very little doubt, in the Tower, January 24th, 1619, but the place of his burial has been undiscovered. He had been well supplied with books, for the Lieutenant of the Tower seized a thousand volumes at the time of his death of “all learning and languages.” In a letter from Sir Thomas Wynne to Sir Dudley Carlton (State Papers, Dom Jac, 1st vol., 105), 28th of January 1619, occurs this passage: “My Lord Cobham is dead, and lyeth unburied as yet for want of money; he died a papist.” This probably was only gossip. While in the Tower he was allowed eight pounds a week for maintenance, but very little of this ever reached him, it probably was absorbed by his keepers and the Lieutenant. During his long imprisonment Lady Kildare never troubled herself further about him. She lived comfortably, first at Cobham, and afterwards at Copthall, Essex.
By the will of George, Lord Cobham, 1552, the Cobham estates, by an elaborate settlement, were strictly entailed, so that Henry, Lord Cobham, only had a life interest, and the King could not seize them; and probably it was to that fact he owed his life, for the King could possess them during his life, but not alienate them.
Unfortunately, the next heir was the son of George Brooke, executed for treason at Winchester, Lord Cobham’s brother, who, at the time of his uncle’s death, was an infant of tender age, and without friends, so negotiations were carried on with the next in succession, Duke Brooke, a cousin of Lord Cobham’s, and this man parted with his prospective rights to the King for about £10,000, which enabled this “specimen of King craft” to enter into possession. Duke Brooke, dying soon after, Charles Brooke, his brother, parted with several other manors to Cecil, Earl of Salisbury. None of these transactions were legal; Henry, Lord Cobham, was not dead, nor the children of George Brooke, William, and his two sisters, Frances and Elizabeth. For some reason they were “restored in blood,” but with the express proviso they should not inherit any of the property of their fathers or their uncles; nor was William to take the title of Lord Cobham. And this was all done with the connivance of Cecil, Lord Burleigh, brother-in-law to Henry, Lord Cobham. No wonder William Brooke became a devoted Parliamentarian in the next reign, and died fighting against the King at Newbury, 1643. Many letters of Henry Brooke have been preserved while in the Tower: “To my very good Lord and Brother-in-law, Lord Burleigh.” He must both have been clever and learned, for during his captivity he translated Seneca’s treatises, De Providentia, De Ira, De Tranquilitate, De Vita Beata, and De Paupertate: the original manuscript of one, De Providentia, is in the library at Ufford Place, Suffolk, the seat of his representative, Edward Brooke, Esq., written in a beautifully fine hand. Raleigh and Cobham’s “treason” was that known as the Main or Spanish Treason, one of the supposed objects of which was to place the Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne.
The Moat looking West
Lord Grey de Wilton, a young man of great promise, died in St Thomas’s Tower in 1617, after passing nine years in the Brick Tower. Lord Grey had made an eloquent defence during his trial, which lasted from eight in the morning until eight at night, during which, according to the Hardwicke State Papers, many “subtle traverses and escapes,” took place. When Grey was asked why judgment of death should not be passed against him, he replied, “I have nothing to say.” Then he paused a little, and added, “And yet a word of Tacitus comes into my mind, ‘non eadem omnibus decora,’ the house of the Wiltons have spent many lives in their Princes’ service and Grey cannot beg his.”