discovered, for da Renzy would fly; yet if he were then apprehended, it would give matter of suspicion to Lord Cobham." Naturally Cobham, reading such words at the moment when they were shown him, constructed them into his death sentence, and broke out into fury of denunciation sufficient for the bad purpose of the examiners--to close the net round Ralegh. Lord Henry Howard justly remarks in his "Adversaria," "It is an old observation of jugglers to make others give fire to the piece after they themselves have charged it, and thereby put them into the peril of recoil or breaking, if any mischief follow." Lord Henry Howard may be taken as an authority on this subject. Immediately after Cobham's outbreak, Ralegh was arrested and sent to the Tower, to await the slow, strange process of justice. His arrest took place at the beginning of August. Almost immediately the Government of Jersey was transferred to Sir John Peyton, Governor of the Tower. James in his grant stated that the post was forfeited by Sir Walter Ralegh through the grievous treason against the Crown. With the King thus quickly convinced of his guilt, Ralegh knew that he had small chance of proving his innocence. Dismay came upon him and despair. His hopes fell from a great height and were broken. Suddenly shut closely in by four stone walls, he was obliged to wait the slow approach of an ignominious death--a death which would involve the ruin of his family, and the immediate disgrace of his name. He was a man of action; he could not sit and do nothing but think. Despair brought madness to him; he tried to kill himself in a fit of impotent despair. This is the way in which Cecil, once Ralegh's friend, writes of it. "Although lodged and attended as well as in his own house, yet one afternoon, while divers of us were in the Tower examining these prisoners, Sir Walter Ralegh attempted to have murdered himself. Whereof, when we were advertised, we came to him and found him in some agony, seeming to be unable to bear his misfortune, and protesting innocency, with carelessness of life. In that humour he had wounded himself under the right pap, but no way mortally; being in truth rather a cut than a stab."