[2] Archduke Albert was a younger brother of the Emperor Rudolf ii., and had married Isabella, the eldest daughter of Philip ii. of Spain, who made over the sovereignty of the Netherlands to his daughter and son-in-law a few years before his death in 1598.
[3] Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk (1561-1626), was the second son of the Duke of Norfolk beheaded by Elizabeth in 1572. He gained considerable distinction as a sailor, taking part in the defeat of the Armada and the attack on the Spanish treasure-ship in which Sir Richard Grenville was killed. He rose to a position of influence under Elizabeth, was made an Earl on James's accession, and after filling many high offices became Lord High Treasurer in 1614, which office he held till 1619. In that year he was dismissed, fined £30,000, and imprisoned in the Tower, for serious embezzlements and other frauds. He was afterwards received back into favour: it was generally supposed that his wife was chiefly to blame for his defalcations. He was grandfather to the second Lord Howard of Escrick, the witness against Lord Russell, whose trial see in vol. ii.
[4] Charles Blunt, Earl of Devon (1563-1606), was the second son of the eighth Lord Mountjoy. He soon attracted the Queen's notice, fought in the Low Countries, and took part in the defeat of the Armada. He was offered and accepted the post of Lord Deputy of Ireland after it was vacated by Essex, and was to some extent implicated in Essex's subsequent treason. In 1602 he obtained Tyrone's surrender in Ireland after three years' fighting. He returned to England in 1603, and held occasional important appointments. In 1605 he was married by Laud to Lady Rich, the former mistress of Sir Philip Sidney and himself, and the divorced wife of Lord Rich. The event is chiefly remarkable for the part taken in it by Laud.
[5] Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton (1540-1614), was the second son of the Earl of Surrey, beheaded in Henry viii.'s reign. After a long period of political intrigue he rose to power on James's accession, having long been in correspondence with him. He was an avowed enemy of Raleigh. He maintained a position of great influence till the end of his life, generally using his influence in support of the king's prerogative and the Catholics. After his death he was accused of complicity in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury in the Tower: not altogether without reason. He built Northumberland House.
[6] Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury (1563?-1612), was at the time of this trial at the middle point of his long official career. He first appears in a public capacity in 1588, when he was sent to Spain in the train of Lord Derby, having been appointed ambassador to negotiate conditions of peace. He represented Hertfordshire in the House of Commons in 1589; in 1591 he was sworn of the Privy Council; and in 1596, during the absence of his rival Essex on the Cadiz expedition, he was appointed Secretary of State. In 1598 he took part in an embassy to Paris with Lord Brooke, Raleigh, and others to hinder an alliance between France and Spain. In 1600 Cecil was a member of a Commission appointed to report on Essex's return from Ireland without permission, and managed to mitigate the gravity of his offence; but in 1601, on Essex's trial for treason, had to defend himself from an accusation by Essex of having declared himself in favour of the Infanta's claim to the throne. By careful preparations he secured the peaceable accession of James ii. to the throne, and was raised to the peerage, and eventually made Earl of Salisbury in consequence. For the rest of his life he remained James's most trusted minister.
[7] John Popham (1531-1607) was born of a good family in Somersetshire. He was reported to have been stolen by gypsies in his youth, but was educated at Balliol. He began life in London as a law-student and a highwayman; but soon became, according to Campbell, a consummate lawyer, practising chiefly as a special pleader. He became a Serjeant and Solicitor-General in 1578, Speaker in 1580, Attorney-General in 1581, and Lord Chief-Justice in 1592. He presided at the trial of Guy Fawkes and his fellow-conspirators. He enjoyed the reputation of being a sound lawyer and a severe judge. He left the greatest estate that had ever been amassed by a lawyer; but it is probably untrue that he acquired Littlecot Hall by fraudulently acquitting 'Wild Darrell' of the murder of its newly born heir. He was, however, reported to have saved money while he was a highwayman.
[8] Sir Edmund Anderson (1530-1605) was born at Flinborough or Broughton in Lincolnshire. He was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford, called to the bar, and made a Serjeant in 1577. He tried Robert Brown, founder of the Brownists, as assistant judge on the Norfolk Circuit in 1581; in the same year he tried Campian, the Jesuit, on the Western Circuit. In both cases he expressed strong views as to the claims of the Established Church. He was promoted to the chiefship of the Common Pleas in 1582, and tried Babington for treason in 1586, and Davison for beheading Mary, Queen of Scots. He also took part in the trials of the Duke of Arundel; Sir John Perrot, Lord Deputy of Ireland; and the Earl of Essex. He also tried Udall, the puritan, and no doubt tried to entrap him into a confession of guilt. Apart from political trials, he had the reputation of being a good judge and a sound lawyer.
[9] Henry Brooke, eighth Lord Cobham, was the son of a leading favourite of Queen Elizabeth's. On his father's death he succeeded to much of his father's influence; Robert Cecil married his sister; and they were both enemies of Essex. Cobham's influence did not last into James's reign, and he entered on the transactions which are discussed in Raleigh's trial. He himself was tried and convicted after Raleigh (see p. 6), but after being pardoned on the scaffold he remained a prisoner in the Tower till 1617, when he was allowed to pay a visit to Bath for his health: he died on the way home.
[10] Arabella Stuart was the daughter of the Earl of Lenox, younger brother of Lord Darnley, the grandson of Margaret, eldest sister of Henry vii., and thus stood next in succession to James. Her claim to the throne as against James was that she was born in England, whereas he was an alien. She had been arrested by Elizabeth in consequence of a rumour that she was to marry William Seymour, grandson of Catherine Grey. She was imprisoned in 1609 on another rumour of her marriage to some person unknown. In 1610 she became actually engaged to William Seymour: he promised not to marry her without the King's consent, but married her secretly a few months afterwards. The marriage was discovered, and she was committed to private custody whilst her husband was committed to the Tower. She escaped, disguised in a man's clothes, but was arrested in the Straits of Dover. She died in the Tower in 1615.
[11] Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634) came of an old Norfolk family, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was called to the bar in 1578, having already acquired a reputation as a lawyer. He entered public life as member for Aldborough in 1589, and as member for Norfolk in 1592. He became Speaker in 1593, and in opposition to Bacon became Attorney-General in 1593. In 1598, on the death of his first wife, he married Elizabeth Hatton, Burghley's granddaughter, again depriving Bacon of a prize. He was retained to prosecute Essex, Southampton, and the Gunpowder Plot conspirators, against all of whom he showed the same animus that he did against Raleigh. In 1606 he became Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas, in which capacity he maintained the independence of the Law Courts against ecclesiastical interference. He likewise offered a resolute opposition to the King's claim to place impositions on imported merchandise, and to regulate by proclamation such matters as the erection of new buildings in London and the manufacture of starch from wheat. In 1613 Coke, much against his will, was promoted, on Bacon's advice, to the post of Chief-Justice of the King's Bench, where, though his dignity was greater, his profits were less, and he was less likely to have opportunity for opposing the King's measures. At the same time he was made a Privy Councillor. His opposition to the power of the Chancellor to exercise his equitable jurisdiction by injunction, and to the King's power to grant commendams proved less successful than his former measures; and what was considered his excess of zeal in inquiring into the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, his opposition to the growth of the powers of the Ecclesiastical Commission and the Star Chamber, and no doubt other less public matters, led to his being deprived of his office on the 5th of November 1616. After his dismissal he became engaged in a most undignified quarrel with his wife as to whether their daughter should marry Buckingham's elder brother, which she eventually did. In 1617 he was recalled to the Council, and occasionally judicially employed. In 1621 he re-entered the House of Commons, and took up the popular side in resisting monopolies and other abuses. He was engaged in drawing up the charges against Bacon in the same year. He drew up the 'Protestation' affirming the privileges of Parliament in December 1621, and was committed to the Tower in consequence. He was released in August 1622, but remained in a kind of qualified confinement. He resisted an attempt by James to exclude him from the 1624 Parliament by sending him on a commission to Ireland, and though he continued in opposition contrived to reconcile himself to the King to some extent. He opposed Charles's demands for money in his first two parliaments and drafted the Petition of Right, and made his final appearance in the debate on the Grand Remonstrance (1628), when he openly accused Buckingham as being the cause of the misfortunes of the country.