A.D. 1603.]

the castle.

TRIAL OF COBHAM AND GREY.

11

had anything to say why judgment should not be pro- the accused parties and Aremberg, they were never nounced against him, he replied that he was perfectly inno-produced. cent of the charges of Cobham, but that he submitted him- Cobham and Grey were arraigned before a tribunal of self to the king's mercy, and recommended to the compassion their peers, consisting of eleven earls and nineteen barons. of his majesty his wife and his son of tender years. After the Nothing could be more striking than the cowardice and sentence of high treason, with all its disgusting details had meanness of Cobham, and the noble dignity of Grey. been pronounced, the prisoner asked to speak privately with Cobham was all fear and trembling, ready to accuse everyCecil, lord Henry Howard, and the earls of Suffolk and body to excuse himself. He repeatedly interrupted the Devonshire, entreating them that, in consideration of the reading of the indictment to protest against what he deposition which he had held under the crown, his death might clared was not true; and at its conclusion said that he meant not be so ignominious as the strict sentence required. They to have confessed everything, but as so many untruths were promised to use their influence, and he was taken back to mixed with the truths in the indictment, he was compelled to plead not guilty. He denied any design of setting up Arabella Stuart, though she admitted that he had sent her a letter to that effect; and his cringing, obsequious manner to his judges, was in strange contrast with the bitterness with which he accused not only Raleigh, but his own brother George Brooke, whom he pronounced a most wicked wretch, murderer, and viper. He not only declared that what he had said of Raleigh in his letters was true, but he accused the youth Harvey, the son of the lieutenant of the Tower, of having engaged to carry letters between them. "Thus," says Sir Dudley Carleton, "having accused all his friends, and so little excused himself, the peers were not long in deliberating what to judge; and after sentence of condemnation given, he begged a great while for life and favour, alleging his confession as a meritorious act." The same authority says that to move the king, he reminded him that the king's father was his godfather, and that his own father had suffered imprisonment for the king's mother.

The admirable defence of Sir Walter produced the most wonderful effect on all that heard him, causing a thorough revolution of opinion in his favour. Sir Dudley Carlton, as reported in the Hardwicke State Papers, said "That he answered with that temper, wit, learning, courage, and judgment, that, save it went with the hazard of his life, it was the happiest day that ever he spent. And so well he shifted all advantages that were taken against him, that were not fama mala gravius quam res, and an ill name half-hanged, in the opinion of all men he had been acquitted. The two first that brought the news to the king were Roger Ashton and a Scotchman, whereof one affirmed that never man spoke so well in times past, nor would do in the world to come; and the other said that whereas, when he saw him first, he was so led with the common hatred, that he would have gone a hundred miles to have seen him hanged, he would, ere he parted, have gone a thousand to have saved his life. In one word never was a man so hated and so popular in so short a time.

There can be little doubt that the King and Cecil were both jealous of Raleigh's brilliant and popular talents, and were glad to have him in their power. But Raleigh had been his own worst enemy, in not displaying a nature as generous and noble, as it was highly endowed. He had endeavoured to pull down Essex, and the people never forgave him for it. Even at this moment, when his masterly conduct and his unrivalled oratorical genius had won him such admiration and good-will amongst those who heard him, the people, as we learn from a contemporary, expressed their contempt and aversion for him on account of his desertion and betrayal of Essex. All through London and the other towns through which he passed to his trial, the people followed him with execrations, and threw mud, stones, and tobacco pipes, at the coach in which he was.

Very different was the conduct of lord Grey of Wilton. Though he was a young man with everything to make life desirable, he manifested no such contemptible fear of death as Cobham did; far less did he seek to exculpate himself by the betrayal of his friends. He defended himself in a long speech of the most elevated and eloquent description. He fought the whole ground with the crown lawyers manfully, from eight in the morning to eight at night. His judges admired and commiserated him as much as they despised Cobham, and would fain have acquitted him, but the proofs were too strong. He was condemned, and on being asked why sentence of death should not be pronounced against him, he replied, "I have nothing to say; "but then, as if recollecting himself, he added, “and yet a word of Tacitus comes into my mind-' Non eadem omnibus decora.' The house of the Wiltons hath spent many lives in their princes' service, and Grey cannot beg his. God send the king a long and prosperous reign, and to your lordships all honour."

The charges which were made against Arabella Stuart, in the indictment against Raleigh, were of a nature which called for denial on her part. She was present at the trial The two priests were first conducted to execution. They in a gallery; and Charles Howard, earl of Nottingham, who suffered all the bloody horrors of the law at Winchester, on was sitting by her, arose, and in her name protested, on her the 29th of November. It was surmised that James was salvation, that she had never meddled in any such matters. glad to be rid of Watson as one of the individuals to whom, There appeared, indeed, no disposition at this moment to before coming to the English throne, he had promised toleimplicate the lady Arabella, though her relation to the ration to the catholics. There was an attempt to prove the crown made her an object of anxiety to James, as we shall non-existence of such a promise, by the earl of Northampton' soon have occasion to see. Cecil himself acquitted her of visiting him in prison, and on his return asserting that he any concern in this treason, admitting that though she had denied having received any such promise; but this obtained received a letter from Cobham, entreating her to counte- no credit. At the gallows both Watson and Clarke declared nance it, she only laughed at it, and at once sent it to the their conviction that they owed their death to their priestking. Of the actual extent of Raleigh's participation, and hood. They were cut down alive, and their bowels torn out. what was his real object, we have no means of judging, for The next execution was that of Brooke. He was simply though James was in possession of the letters betwixt | beheaded, also at Winchester, on the 5th of December. The

1

people expressed great sympathy for him, under a belief that he had first been employed by Cecil in the troubled waters of these conspiracies, and then victimised by him. Cecil had married his sister, and was thus closely allied to both Cobham and him. Whilst in custody, he wrote to Cecil to ask what he was to expect "after so many promises received, and so much conformity and accepted service performed by him for Cecil." His words on the scaffold also favoured the suspicion that he had been deceived and trapanned by Cecil, to whom, Clarendon says, "it was as necessary that there should be treasons, as it was for the state to punish them."

But when the time of the chief conspirators came, the country was astonished by one of the most extraordinary spectacles that ever occurred under any king or in any country. It was a marvellous example of the kingcraft on which James especially prided himself. The moment that Brooke had fallen beneath the axe, the bishop of Chichester, by express order of the king, went to his brother Cobham in his cell, to prepare him for his end, and to obtain his con

execution, and so positively refused to listen to any inter-
cession on behalf of the prisoners, that there appeared no
hope of pardon or reprieve. At the same time he snubbed
Galloway, the preacher of Perth-" who preached so hotly
against remissness and moderation of justice, as if it were
one of the seven deadly sins "-telling him that he would ge
no whit the faster for his driving. On Wednesday he
signed the death-warrants of Markham, Grey, and Cobham,
fixing Friday for the day of execution. Accordingly on
that morning Markham was first brought out, about ten
o'clock, to the scaffold, and was permitted to take leave of
his friends and prepare himself for the block.
He was
evidently surprised at this proceeding, declaring that he had
been promised his life; and when a napkin was offered to
him to bind his eyes with, he indignantly refused it, saying
he was, notwithstanding, able to look upon death without
blushing. At the moment that he was about to lay his
head upon the block, there was a disturbance outside, and
the sheriff was called away. On his return, he told the
tantalised prisoner that as he had thought himself deceived,

and therefore was but ill-prepared for death, he should have two hours more for his devotions; whereupon, without further explanation, he locked him up apart.

When Markham was withdrawn, Grey was led forth to the scaffold. He came attended by a number of young noblemen, and supported on each hand by two of his dearest friends. He appeared thoroughly undaunted, and falling on his knees before the block prayed fervently for half an hour, in a manner which deeply affected all that heard him. At the moment that he expected to suffer, the sheriff told him that he had been brought forward by mistake; that it was for Cobham to die first; and withdrew him also. This proceeding equally astonished the condemned and the spectators: it was perfectly unexampled, and no one could penetrate the meaning of it.

fession. He found Cobham ready to die, and obtained a promise that he would assert on the scaffold the truth of his charges against Raleigh. At the same time the bishop of Winchester, also by order of the king, waited on Raleigh for the same purpose; but so far from confessing himself guilty, like the pusillanimous Cobham, he stoutly denied the whole of the charges, except, as he had admitted on the trial, a pension had once been mentioned to him, but no steps taken to carry it out. For the rest, he expressed himself at ease in his conscience, and prepared to die like a Christian. Grey and Markham were also ordered to prepare themselves for death, but were not troubled by the interrogations of bishops or other royal messengers. Grey, who was attended by a puritan preacher, was observed to be in as cheerful a mood of mind as if on the verge of liberation instead of death, and spent his time in prayer. On the No sooner was lord Grey removed than Cobham was other hand, Markham declared that he had received assur- brought forward. Here again the public was at fault. Inances of pardon on which he could rely, and refused to stead of the mean, cringing man, pitifully begging for his life, believe in the fulfilment of the sentence. appeared a bold and thoroughly composed person, who looked Meantime the king proceeded with regular steps for their calmly on the apparatus of death, confessed his own guilt,

PARDON OF THE CONSPIRATORS.

them, according to Sir Dudley Carlton, "how much he had been troubled to resolve in this business; for to execute Grey, who was a noble, young, spirited fellow, and save Cobham, who was as base and unworthy, were a matter of injustice; to save Grey, who was of a proud, insolent nature, and execute Cobham, who showed great tokens of humility and repentance, were as great a solecism; and so went on with Plutarch's comparisons in the rest, still travelling in contrarieties, but holding the conclusion in so indifferent balance, that the lords knew not what to look for, till the end came out and, therefore, I have saved them all!'"

The fortune of James, however, with all his cunning and kingcraft, was to be suspected, and to leave the knots which he undertook to unravel still knots, and enveloped in confusion. Doubts have always been cast on his version of the Gowry conspiracy; and the exact objects of the present plot, so far as Raleigh was concerned, and the precise guilt of most of the prisoners, remain still obscure. James took possession of the fortunes of the conspirators, and retained them for a considerable time, in spite of the eager desire of the greedy courtiers to get hold of them. The fate of the prisoners was various. Though they were pardoned, they were not liberated. Grey lived in the Tower eleven years and died there. Cobham after a few years was discharged, but he was an object of general contempt, and endured an existence of poverty in a wretched house in the Minories, where, in a loft, to which he climbed by a ladder, he is supposed to have perished by starvation. Markham, Copley, and Brookesby were banished for life. Sir Walter Raleigh, who, though reprieved, was not pardoned, remained a prisoner for twelve years, when he came abroad only to return to the Tower and the axe.

persecutors of his mother; and that to the very hour in which he escaped into the larger field of English power, they had goaded him with their demands and defied his authority. As he drew nearer to the English throne, the charms of the English church increased in his imagination. A church which set up the king as its head was a church as much after James's own heart as after that of Henry VIII. Like that monarch, he dearly loved to shine in polemics, and long before he arrived in England, it required no great shrewdness to perceive where his affections lay. In 1590 "he had," says Calderwood, "stood up in the general assembly at Edinburgh, with his bonnet off, and his hands lifted up to heaven, and said that he praised God that he was born in the time of the light of the gospel, and in such a place, as to be king of such a church, the sincerest (purest) kirk in the world. The church of Geneva, he said, keeps pasch and yule, what have they for them? They have no institution. As for our neighbour kirk of England, their service is an evil-said mass in English; they want nothing of the mass but the liftings. I charge you, my good ministers, doctors, elders, nobles, gentlemen, and barons, to stand to your purity, and to exhort the people to do the same; and I, forsooth, as long as I brook my life, shall maintain the same."

This was solemn and emphatic, but it was all hollow, and merely a play of that kingcraft which James gloried in. No sooner was he in England than he spoke his mind roundly as to his real feelings towards the puritans. He said to the bishops and courtiers: "I will tell you, I have lived amongst this sect of men ever since I was ten years old; but I may say of myself as Christ said of himself, though I lived amongst them, yet, since I had ability to judge, I was never of them." And this was at least sincere. He The effect of this conspiracy was to deepen James' sus- had grown more undisguisedly episcopalian as he saw Elizapicion of the catholics and his dislike of the puritans. The beth sinking, and felt his hold on the throne through her own catholics, since his coming to the English throne, had ministers. He had given seats in parliament to a certain conducted themselves with more policy than their robustious number of clergymen, thus making them bishops without rivals, the puritans. They had claimed, indeed, the fulfil- the name; but it was in his Basilicon Doron, or manual ment of his promises whilst merely king of Scotland, to for the instruction of his son, published in 1779, that he had favour them, as the stanch friends of his mother, and serious given loose to his deep dislike of the presbyterians. He tells sufferers on her account; but they had preferred their claims his son to "take heed to such puritans, very pests in the with a degree of courtesy and moderation to which the church and commonwealth, whom no deserts can oblige, brusque reformers were strangers. The pope, Clement VIII., neither oaths nor promises bind, breathing nothing but probably led by the same expectations, had by two breves sedition and calumnies, aspiring without measure, ruling addressed to the archpriest and provincial of the Jesuits, without reason, making their own imaginations, without strictly enjoined the missionaries to confine themselves to any warrant of the Word, the square of their conscience. I their spiritual duties, and on no account to mix themselves protest," he added, "before the great God, and since I am here up with the agitators for political change. He condemned upon my testament, it is no place for me to lie in, that you unequivocally the conduct of Watson and Clarke, and sent shall never find with any Highland or Border thieves a secret envoy to the English court, expressing his abhorrence greater ingratitude, and more lies and perjuries than with of all acts of disloyalty, and offering to withdraw any mis- these fanatic spirits; and suffer not the principal of them sionary from the kingdom that was in any way obnoxious to brook your land, if ye list to sit at rest; except you to the king and council. James appeared so far influenced would keep them for trying your patience, as Socrates did by this moderation, that though he stoutly refused all appli- an evil wife." cation for a free exercise of the catholic worship, and even committed individuals to the Tower who offended in this respect, yet he invited the catholics to frequent his court, he conferred knighthood on some of them, and assured them generally that they should not suffer for recusancy so long as they abstained from a breach of the laws as it regarded religion, and from all acts of political insubordination.

But towards the puritans he was by no means so courteous. He could never forget the restraint in which they had kept hiinfancy and youth: that they had been the defamers and

But whilst the royal Solomon thus plainly enunciated his hatred of puritanism, he was cautious not to let the English bishops too early into his fixed intention to patronise them. He liked to feel himself the undoubted head of that church, and to see those dignitaries in fear and trembling prostrate at his feet; and it was not till they had sufficiently humbled themselves before him, that he revived their spirits with the declaration of his real sentiments. The puritans precipitated this avowal, by urging on James a further reform of the church, and its purgation from ceremonies. In their

A.D. 1604.]

THE CONFERENCE AT HAMPTON COURT.

15

millenary petition, so called because it was expected it would | best of the argument, James himself took up the debate, and have a thousand signatures, but in reality it had only about conducted it in that royal style which admits of no contraeight hundred, they demanded a conference, in which to diction. He was now in his true element: theological dissettle the form and doctrines of the church. This, of all cussion was his pride and glory, and he believed himself things, delighted James. It was the very arena in which capable of silencing all Christendom. Dr. Reynolds, howto display his theological knowledge; he gladly consented to ever, who was the chief speaker, undaunted by his crowned it, and appointed it to take place early in January, 1604. opponent, insisted boldly on various points; but when he On the 14th of that month the first assembly took place; came to the demand for the disuse of the apocrypha in the and the bishops, who were first admitted to the royal pre- church service James could bear it no longer. He called sence alone, were so alarmed at the prospect of a conference for a Bible, read a chapter out of Ecclesiasticus, and exwhich had been demanded by dissenters, that they threw pounded it according to his own views; then turning to the themselves on their knees, and earnestly entreated the king lords of his council, he said, "What trow ye makes these not to alter the constitution of the church, nor to give the men so angry with Ecclesiasticus? By my soul, I think puritans the triumph in the coming debate, lest the popish | Ecclesiasticus was a bishop, or they would never use him so." recusants should rejoice over and declare them justly punished The bishops and courtiers applauded the royal wit. James for their repulsion and persecution of them. Then James con- continued to hold forth on all sorts of topics-baptism, condescended to lift the weight of fear from their hearts, for he firmation, absolution, which he declared to be apostolical, meant to give the puritans a sound flagellation: the truth and a very good ordinance—and assured the anti-episcopal could no longer be disguised. He avowed to them that he divines that in his opinion, if there were no bishops, there was a sincere convert to the church of England, and thanked would soon be no king. God who had brought him to the promised land, to a country where religion was purely professed, and where he sate among grave, reverend, and learned men; not as before, elsewhere, a king without state, without honour, and without order, and braved to his face by beardless boys under the garb of ministers."

The delight of the bishops and dignitaries may be imagined at this gracious confession, who were nearly twenty in number, whilst the number of the reformers summoned was only four-namely, Doctors Reynolds and Sparkes, divinity professors of Oxford, and Doctors Knewtubs and Chatterton, of Cambridge. James something cooled the raptures of the churchmen, by adding that he knew all things were not perfect, and that, as there required, in his opinion, some modifications of the ritual and the ecclesiastical courts, he had called them together in the first instance, in order that they might settle what concessions should be made to the puritans. It was necessary to show some compliance; and after the day's discussion it was agreed that some explanatory words should be added in the book of common prayer to the forms of general absolution and of confirmation; that the chancellor and the chief justice should reform the practice of the commissary court; that excommunication should only be inflicted for particularly serious offences; that the bishops should neither confer ordinations nor pronounce censures, without the assistance and concurrence of other eminent divines; that baptism should not be administered by women or by laymen. These points being determined, on the 16th the four puritan divines were admitted, and desired to state their demands. These were, first, a general revision of the book of common prayer, and the withdrawal of excommunication, baptism by women, the use of the ring in marriage, bowing at the name of Jesus, confirmation, the wearing of the cap and surplice, the reading of the apocrypha; that pluralities and non-residence should cease, the obligation to subscribe the thirty-nine articles be abrogated, as well as the commendatories held by bishops. The matter being cut and dried to their hands, the bishops defended such parts of the church service and practices as the king had agreed should remain, and the prelates of London and Winchester argued in their behalf long and vehemently. As the puritan doctors were not thus to be satisfied, and had by much the

When he had tired himself out with talking, Dr. Reynolds again ventured to open his mouth, and inquired how ordinances of the church agreed with Christian liberty. This was touching James closely it brought back to his memory the harangues on the same liberty which he had heard from his clergy in Scotland. He declared that he would not argue that point, but answer as kings were wont to do in parliament, Le roy s'avisera. Without pretending to treat the matter as one of conviction, he treated it as one of authority. He exclaimed, "I will have none of that: I will have one doctrine and one discipline, one religion in substance and in ceremony." He was resolved to be as absolute over every man's conscience and understanding as Henry VIII. had been. "If that is what you be at, then I tell you that a Scottish presbytery agreeth with monarchy as well as God with the devil. Then shall Jack and Tom and Dick meet, and at their pleasure censure me and my council and all our proceedings. Then Will shall stand up and say, It must be thus; then Dick shall reply and say, Nay, marry, but we will have it thus;' and therefore, here I must once more reiterate my former speech, and say, Le roy s'avisera.”

It was in vain that Dr. Reynolds, who was reputed one of the most able divines and logicians of the age, attempted to state his views and opinions. The king constantly interrupted him and scoffed at him, treating him in the most insolently overbearing manner, and when he paused, asked him, "Well, doctor, have you anything more to say?" Reynolds, perceiving it useless, replied, "No, please your majesty;" on which James told these brow-beaten divines, that had they disputed no better in college, and he had been moderator, he would have had them all fetched up and flogged for dunces; that if that was all they had to say for themselves, he would make them conform, or hurry them out of the kingdom, or worse. With this scandalous treatment they were dismissed till the 18th, when the conference met again. The greater part of the day was consumed by the king, the council, and prelates in inquiring into the abuses of the high commission court, and devising means for checking them. At a late hour the dissenting delegates were again admitted, not to continue the discussion, but to hear the fixed decision of the king. On hearing it they prayed that a certain time might be allowed before the