At this time, the ground was already trembling beneath SOMERSET’S feet, though he little suspected the source of his real danger. He knew, ere long, that an attempt would be made to charge him with embezzling jewels of the Crown. In connection with this charge there was a State secret, in which Sir Robert COTTON was a participant with SOMERSET, and with the King himself. And a secret it has remained. Such jewels, it is plain, were in SOMERSET’S hands, and by him were transferred to those of COTTON. Few persons who have had occasion to look closely into the surviving documents and correspondence which bear upon the subsequent and famous trials for the murder of OVERBURY, will be likely to doubt that the secret was one among those ‘alien matters’ of which SOMERSET was so urgently and so repeatedly adjured and warned, by JAMES’S emissaries, to avoid all mention, should he still persist (despite the royal, repeated, and almost passionate, entreaties with which he was beset) in putting himself upon his trial; instead of pleading guilty, after his wife’s example, and trusting implicitly to the royal mercy. For the purpose of warding off the lesser, but foreseen, danger, COTTON advised the Earl to take a step of which the Crown lawyers made subsequent and very effective use, in order to preclude all chance of his escape from the unforeseen and greater danger. [Sidenote: 1615. July.] By Sir Robert’s recommendation he obtained from the King permission to have a pardon drawn, in which, amongst other provisions, it was granted that no account whatever should be exacted from SOMERSET at the royal exchequer; and to that pardon the King directed the Chancellor to affix the Great Seal. The Seal, however, was withheld, and a remarkable scene ensued in the Council Chamber. There are extant two or three narratives of the occurrence, which agree pretty well in substance. Of these GONDOMAR’S is the most graphic. The incident took place on the 20th of August. The despatch in which it is minutely described was written on the 20th of October. There is reason to believe that the Ambassador drew his information from an eye-witness of what passed.