So ended the worst and greatest day of Ralegh's life. The Lord Cecil was victorious. Ralegh was overthrown. But from despair so poignant that reason yielded to its sway and he was driven to attempt madly to make away with himself, he had risen to make a defence so admirable against his accusers that men who heard and saw him at the trial, heard him with wonder and watched him with astonishment. And well they might. The man whose judgment had saved the situation at Cadiz from the reckless inexperience of Essex, whose patience and courage had taken an expedition far up the dangerous unknown rivers to Guiana, whose insight had discovered the poet Spenser and made him known to the world, showed the same insight and courage and patience and judgment at this trial when he was standing for his life against the combined assault of the cleverest brains in England, combined by the hope of future favours from a new King to work his overthrow. When one tired or stumbled, another was prompt to take his place; but always Ralegh remained alert and ready and steadfast--alone. Sir Dudley Carleton was present at the trial and wrote an account of it to his friend, Mr. John Chamberlain. Carleton was at that time Secretary to the Earl of Northumberland. This is how he describes Ralegh's demeanour. "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 malum gravius quam res_, and an ill-name half hanged, in the opinion of all men, he had been acquitted." Carleton proceeds to tell his friend of two others who were present and who were the first to bring the news of the trial to the King at Wilton. One was Roger Ashton. He said that never any one spoke so well in times past nor would do in the world to come. The other was a Scotchman. He said that whereas when he saw Ralegh 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. And Carleton comments on this aptly enough: "In one word never was a man so hated and so popular in so short a time."