Earl of Suffolk Lord Chamberlain Earl of Devon Lord Henry Howard Lord Cecil Earl of Salisbury Lord Wotton Sir Iohn Stanhope Vice-Chamberlain Lord Chief-Justice of England Popham Lord Chief-Justice of the Common-Pleas Anderson Justice Gaudie Justice Warburton and Sir William Wade Commissioners First The Commission of Oyer and Terminer was read by the Clerk of the Crown-Office and the Prisoner bid hold up his Hand And then presently the INDICTMENT was in effect as followeth THat he did Conspire and go about to deprive the King of his Government to raise up Sedition within the Realm to alter Religion to bring in the Roman Superstition and to procure Foreign Enemies to invade the Kingdoms That the Lord Cobham the ninth of June last did meet with the said Sir Walter Raleigh in Durham-House in the Parish of St. Martins in the Fields and then and there had Conference with him how to advance Arabella Stuart to the Crown and Royal Throne of this Kingdom and that then and there it was agreed that Cobham should treat with Aremberg Embassador from the Arch-Duke of Austria to obtain of him 600000 Crowns to bring to pass their intended Treasons It was agreed that Cobham should go to the Arch-Duke Albert to procure him to advance the pretended Title of Arabella from thence knowing that Albert had not sufficient means to maintain his own Army in the Low-Countries Cobham should go to Spain to procure the King to assist and further her pretended Title It was agreed the better to effect all this Conspiracy that Arabella should write three Letters one to the Arch-Duke another to the King of Spain and a third to the Duke of Savoy and promise three things First to establish firm Peace between England and Spain Secondly To tolerate the Popish and Roman Superstition Thirdly To be ruled by them in contracting of her Marriage And for the effecting these Traiterous Purposes Cobham should return by the Isle of Jersey and should find Sir Walter Raleigh Captain of the said Isle there and take Counsel of Raleigh for the distributing of the aforesaid Crowns as the Occasion or Discontentment of the Subjects should give cause and way And further That Cobham and his Brother Brook met on the 9th of June last and Cobham told Brook all these Treasons To the which Treasons Brook gave his Assent and did joyn himself to all these and after on the Thursday following Cobham and Brook did speak these words That there would never be a good World in England till the King meaning our Soveraign Lord and his Cubs meaning his Royal Issue were taken away And the more to disable and deprive the King of his Crown and to confirm the said Cobham in his Intents Raleigh did publish a Book falsly written against the most just and Royal Title of the King knowing the said Book to be written against the just Title of the King which Book Cobham after that received of him Further for the better effecting these Traiterous Purposes and to establish the said Brook in his Intent the said Cobham did deliver the said Book unto him the 14th of June And further the said Cobham on the 16th of June for accomplishment of the said Conference and by the traiterous Instigation of Raleigh did move Brook to incite Arabella to write to the three forenamed Princes to procure them to advance her Title and that she after she had obtained the Crown should promise to perform three things viz. Peace between England and Spain 2. To tolerate with impunity the Popish and Roman Superstitions 3. To be ruled by them three in the contracting of her Marriage To these Motions the said Brook gave his Assent And for the better effecting of the said Treasons Cobham on the seventeenth of June by the Instigation of Raleigh did write Letters to Count Aremberg and did deliver the said Letters to one Matthew de Lawrency to be delivered to the said Count which he did deliver for the obtaining of the 600000 Crowns which Money by other Letters Count Aremberg did promise to perform the payment of and this Letter Cobham received the eighteenth of June And then did Cobham promise to Raleigh that when he had received the said Mony he would deliver 8000 Crowns to him to which motion he did consent and afterwards Cobham offered Brook that after he should receive the said Crowns he would give to him 10000 thereof to which Motion Brook did assent To the Indictment Sir Walter Raleigh pleaded Not Guilty The JURY Sir Ralph Conisby Knights Sir Thomas Fowler Knights Sir Edward Peacock Knights Sir William Rowe Knights Henry Goodyer Esquires Roger Wood Esquires Thomas Walker Esquires Thomas Whitby Esquires Thomas Highgate Gentlemen Robert Kempthon Gentlemen Iohn Chawkey Gentlemen Robert Brumley Gentlemen Sir Walter Raleigh Prisoner was asked whether he would take Exceptions to any of the Jury Raleigh I know none of them they are all Christians and honest Gentlemen I except against none E. Suff. You Gentlemen of the Kings Learned Counsel follow the same course as you did the other day Raleigh My Lord I pray you I may answer the Points particularly as they are delivered by reason of the weakness of my memory and sickness Popham Chief Iustice. After the Kings Learned Counsel have delivered all the Evidence Sir Walter you may answer particularly to what you will Heale the Kings Serjeant at Law You have heard of Raleigh's bloody Attempts to kill the King and his Royal Progeny and in place thereof to advance one Arabella Stuart The particulars of the Indictment are these First That Raleigh met with Cobham the ninth of Iune and had Conference of an Invasion of a Rebellion and an Insurrection to be made by the King's Subjects to depose the King and to kill his Children poor Babes that never gave offence Here is Blood here is a new King and Governour In our King consists all our Happiness and the true use of the Gospel a thing which we all wished to be setled after the death of the Queen Here must be Money to do this for Money is the Sinew of War Where should that be had Count Aremberg must procure it of Philip King of Spain five or six hundred thousand Crowns and out of this Sum Raleigh must have eight thousand But what is that Count Aremberg though I am no good Frenchman yet it is as much as to say in English Earl of Aremberg Then there must be Friends to effect this Cobham must go to Albert Arch-Duke of Austria for whom Aremberg was Ambassador at that time in England And what then He must perswade the Duke to assist the pretended Title of Arabella From thence Cobham must go to the King of Spain and perswade him to assist the said Title Since the Conquest there was never the like Treason But out of whose Head came it Out of Raleigh's who must also advise Cobham to use his Brother Brook to incite the Lady Arabella to write three several Letters as aforesaid
guided by Gondamor he could hope for little Mercy therefore he wisely contriv'd the design of an Escape into France which Sir Lewis Steuckley betrayed But the fate of Traytors pursued him and brought him to a Contemptible End to dye a poor distracted Beggar in the Isle of Lindey having for a Bag of Money falsified his Faith confirmed by the tye of the holy Sacrament if we may give credit to Mr Howel who hath given us this Story as also before the Year came about to be found clipping the same very Coyn in the King 's own House at VVhite-Hall which he had received for a Reward of his Perfideousness for which being condemn'd to be hang'd he was forc'd to sell himself to his Shirt to purchase his Pardon of two Knights King James was willing to sacrifice the Life of Sir Walter to the Advancement of Peace with Spain but not upon such Grounds as the Ambassadour had design'd for he desir'd a Judgment upon the pretended Breach of Peace that by this Occasion he might slily gain from the English an Acknowledgment of his Master 's Right in those Places and hereafter both stop their Mouthes and quench their Heat and Valour Hence upon his old Condemnation for having had experience upon a former Tryal they cared not to run the hazard of a second he was sentenced The old Judgment being only Averred against him and from Westminster-Hall he was carried to the Gate-House and from thence the next Morning to the Parliament-Yard where he had the Favour of the Ax granted him But all Persons have wondred how that old Sentence that had lain dormant sixteen Years and upwards against Sir Walter could have been made use of to take off his Head afterwards Considering the then Lord Chancellor Verulam told him positively as Sir Walter was acquainting him with that Proffer of Sir William St. Geon for a Pecuniary Pardon which might have been obtained for a less Sum than his Guiana Preparations amounted to in these words Sir the Knee Timber of your Voyage is Money spare your Purse in this particular for upon my Life you have a sufficient Pardon for all that is passed already the King having under his Broad Seal made you Admiral of your Fleet and given you Power of the Martial Law over the Officers and Souldiers It was the Opinion of most Lawyers that he who by his Majesties Patent had power of Life and Death over the Kings Leige People should be esteemed or judged Rectus in Curia and free from all old Convictions But Sir Walter hath made the best Defence for his Guiana Actions in his Letter to his Majesty which I have here inserted May it please your most excellent Majesty IF in my Journey outward bound I had my Men murdered at the Island and yet spared to take Revenge If I did discharge some Spanish Barques taken without spoil If I did for bear all parts of the Spanish Indies wherein I might have taken twenty of their Towns on the Sea Coasts and did only follow the Enterprise I undertook for Guiana where without any Directions from me a Spanish Village was burnt which was new set up within three miles of the Mine by your Majesties favour I find no Reason why the Spanish Ambassador should complain of me If it were lawful for the Spaniards to murder 26 Englishmen binding them back to back and then cutting their Throats when they had traded with them a whole Month and came to them on the Land without so much as one Sword and that it may not be lawful for your Majesties Subjects being charged first by them to repel Force by Force we may justly say O miserable English If Parker and Metham took Campeach and other Places in the Honduraes seated in the Heart of the Spanish Indies burnt Towns killed the Spaniards and had nothing said to them at their Return and my self forbore to look into the Indies because I would not offend I may justly say O miserable Sir Walter Raleigh If I spent my poor Estate lost my Son suffered by Sickness and otherwise a world of Miseries if I have resisted with the manifest hazard of my Life the Robberies and Spoils which my Company would have made if when I was Poor I might have made my self Rich if when I had gotten my Liberty which all Men and Nature it self do so much prise I voluntarily lost it if when I was sure of my Life I rendred it again if I might elsewhere have sold my Ship and Goods and put 5 or 6000 Pound in my Pocket and yet have brought her into England I beseech your Majesty to believe that all this I have done because it should not be said to your Majesty that your Majesty had given Liberty and Trust to a Man whose End was but the Recovery of his Liberty and who had betrayed your Majesties Trust. My Mutineers told me that if I returned for England I should be undone but I believed in your Majesties Goodness more than in all their Arguments Sure I am that I am the first that being free and able to enrich my self have imbraced Poverty and Peril And as sure I am that my Example shall make me the last But your Majesties Wisdom and Goodness I have made my Judges who have ever been and shall ever be Your Majesties most humble Vassal WALTER RALEIGH But this Apology though never so perswasive could not satisfy Gondamor's Rage who was resolv'd to sacrifice the only Favourite left of Queen Elizabeth to the Spanish Interest And who as Osburn remarks was the only Person of Essex's Enemies that died lamented and the only Man of Note left alive that had help'd to beat the Spaniard in the Year 1588. Upon Thursday the 29th of Octob. 1618. Sir Walter Raleigh was conveyed by the Sheriffs of London to a Scaffold in the Old Palace at Westminster where he was executed about nine of the Clock in the Morning of the same Day Whose Confession and several Speeches there delivered with his Gesture and Behaviour were as follows His first appearance upon the Scaffold was with a smiling Countenance saluting the Lords Knights and Gentlemen with others of his Acquaintance there present when after a Proclamation of Silence by an Officer appointed he addressed himself to speak in this manner I desire to be born withal because this is the third Day of my Feaver And if I shew any weakness I beseech you attribute it to my Malady for this is the hour I look for it Then pawsing a while directing himself towards a Window where the Lord of Arundel and the Lord of Doncaster with some other Lords and Knights sate with a loud Voice he said as followeth I thank God of his infinite Goodness that he hath sent me to dye in the sight of so Honourable an Assembly and not in Darkness But by reason the place where they sat was some distance from the Scaffold that they could not easily hear him he said I will strain my self for
Citizens to an Insurrection But the City then being Rich was not so apt to rebel Rebellion being usually the Daughter of Poverty and Discontent For these Treasonable Actions being found guilty he was condemned and executed That he died bravely and like a Gentleman is not to be question'd but that Sir Walter Raleigh should come openly to see him die on purpose only to fat his Eyes with the Sacrifice of his Enemy can never be granted if we may believe himself in the same circumstances on the Scaffold where he told his Auditors on the words of a Dying-man he only came there to defend himself if any thing had been urg'd against him by the Earl Thus ended that Favourite whose Death struck a damp on the Queens prosperous days and gave blackness to her declining Reign This Blow like that of Gunpowder not only blew up his Friends and Neighbours but shook his Enemies at a distance for it reach'd Sir Walter too who wanting strength to grapple with his Rival the Treasurer and not owning humility enough to be his Servant perish'd at last in the Encounter This himself presag'd if we may believe Osborn as he came from the Execution of Essex in a Boat when he was heard to say That it was more safe to have many Enemies at Court of equal power than one false and ambitious Friend who hath attain'd to the absoluteness of Command The Queen could not long survive her Favourite for I find her Death to be the next year following A Queen who had enrich'd the Nation reform'd Religion curb'd the Pride of Spain supported France preserv'd Scotland protected the Hollander against the Spaniard and had vanquish'd his Armies by Sea and Land reduc'd Ireland to obedience notwithstanding all the subtil Practices of Spain and open Assistance given in Arms to her Irish Rebels with many other things which might seem too much to be the Atchievements of one Reign King James her Successor came to the possession of a Kingdom arrived at the heighth of Prosperity which like other Bodies when they are at their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tend to Corruption and degenerate This Sir Walter perceiv'd would have as he thought remedied Sir Iohn Fortescue the Lord Cobham Sir Walter and others would have obliged the King by Articles before his coming to the Crown that his Country-mens number should be limited But this was stopt by the prudent Treasurer and the bold Northumberland Sir Walter fear'd that the Scots like Locusts would quickly devour this Kingdom it being probable that like the Goths and Vandals they would settle in any Country rather than their own and would make it their business to render our Nation as poor as their own for this he with the rest of them was afterwards frown'd on by the King and lost his Command of the Guards However Sir Walter still pursued the Good and Glory of his Country and as formerly in Active Times gave his Advice against the Peace with Spain which might now with no great difficulty be brought on its knees At the entrance of the King he presented him with a Manuscript of his own writing with no weak Arguments against the Peace But Sir VValter was mistaken for his Counsel was ill tim'd and a new Part was now to be acted the Scene being changed Peace was the King's Aim whether out of Fear or Religious Principles I determine not But with Spain a Peace is concluded with an Enemy already humbled who now had time given them to recover their former Losses and were as it were cherish'd to assault us with the greater vigor which how true it proved every Man can tell And as if the King would quite run counter to the Queens Politiques the Estates of the Netherlands are despised slighted and deserted under pretence that it were of ill example for a Monarch to protect them The King is hardly warm in his Throne but there is a great noise of a Plot generally call'd Sir Walter Raleigh's Treason but upon vvhat Grounds I know not since he had the least hand in it as by his Tryal will appear A Plot that is still a Mystery and hath a Vail spread over it A Plot compos'd of such a Hodg-podg of Religion and Interests that the World stands amazed Sir Walter Raleigh should ever be drawn into it A Plot so unlikely to hurt others or benefit themselves that as Osborn tells us If ever Folly was capable of the title or Pity due to Innocence theirs might claim so large a share as not possibly to be too severely condemn'd or slightly enough punished Envy and Disdain as Sir Walter has told us in his Remains seek Innovation by Faction Discontent is the great Seducer which at first put him to search into a Plot he afterwards was betray'd into The chief Ingredients in this Medley were two Priests Watson and Clerk and Count Arembergh Ambassador Extraordinary for the Arch-Duke who brought in Cobham and he his Brother George Brook both Protestants at least seeming so George Brook hook'd in Parham and others and they the Lord Grey of Wilton a rank Puritan then came in Sir Walter the wisest of them all according to Sanderson who as he tells us dallied like a Fly in the flame till it consum'd him Willing he was to know it and thought by his Wit to over-reach the Confederates whom he knew well enough thô he dealt with none but Cobham as I can find out One Mr. Lawrency an Antwerp-Merchant was the property made use of by Arembergh and a Crony of the Lord Cobhams These carried on the Contrivance a long while which as Sanderson tells us was betray'd by Lawrency and the vigilancy of Cecil And indeed it was morally impossible that so many disagreeing weak Souls should carry on a Project without taking Air the least glimpse being enough to give light to the States-men of those times Their Designs were 1. To set the Crown on the Lady Arabella or to seize the King and make him grant their Desires and a Pardon 2. To have a Toleration of Religion 3. To procure Aid and Assistance from Foreign Princes 4. To turn out of the Court such as they dislik'd and place themselves in Offices Watson to be Lord-Chancellor George Brook Lord-Treasurer Sir Griffin Markham Secretary of State Lord Grey Master of the Horse and Earl-Marshal of England But it seems they made no provision for Sir Walter which is no inconsiderable Argument of his Innocency who could have deserv'd and might have expected as great a Reward as any of them had he been engaged in the Plot. To oblige to Secrecy VVatson draws up an Oath But all is betray'd they are seiz'd examin'd and try'd How well or ill Sir Walter has acquitted himself we shall leave to the Opinion of the Readers of the following TRYAL which was exactly and faithfully taken THE ARRAIGNMENT OF Sir Walter Raleigh Knight AT Winton Thursday the 17th of November Anno Dom. 1603 before the Right Honourable The