The letters were undated. That they should be so was in accordance with the practice of a majority of the letter-writers of the time—as students of history know to their sorrow. [Sidenote: Extracts of Examinations, &c. (R. H.).] When suspicion was aroused and inquiry commenced about the real cause of OVERBURY’S death, COTTON’S advice was sought by SOMERSET. He told me, says SOMERSET himself: ‘These letters of yours may be dated, so as may clear you of all imputation.’ Did he mean that the dates might be forged, and so be made to bear false witness? Or did he mean that, by putting their true dates to the letters, their contents would exculpate an innocent man? To these questions there is absolutely no answer, save the presumptive answer of character.[10] Whatever may be our estimate of the difficulty attending on the admission of such exculpation as that, in respect of a charge which amounts (in substance) to participation, after the fact, in the crime of murder, there is really now no alternative. That Sir Robert COTTON put dates to SOMERSET’S undated letters is certain. It was found to be absolutely impossible, after desperate effort, to prove that the dates were false. It is alike impossible to prove that they are true. These dates are in COTTON’S own hand, without any attempt to disguise it. Upon the hypothesis of SOMERSET’S guilt, the question is beset with as much difficulty, as upon the hypothesis of his innocence. By procuring OVERBURY’S imprisonment—with whatever motive, or beneath whatever influence—SOMERSET had brought himself under inevitable suspicion of complicity in the ultimate result of that imprisonment. He was already within the web. His struggles made it only the more tangled. Sir Robert COTTON remained in custody until the middle of the year 1616. He was effectually prevented from appearing in May of that year as a witness at his friend’s trial. [Sidenote: _Domestic Corresp._ James I, vol. lxxxvii, f. 67 (R. H.).] He was himself put to no form of trial whatever. But he had to purchase his pardon at the price of five hundred pounds. It received the Great Seal on the 16th July. [Sidenote: Bacon to Villiers, Feb. 1; and April 18; 1616.] Remembering BACON’S share in each stage of the proceedings against SOMERSET, and the lavishness of his professions to VILLIERS of the extreme delight he felt in following the lead of the new favourite throughout every step of the prosecution of the old one, it is suggestive to note that the framers, five years afterwards, of a pardon for the Lord Chancellor BACON were directed to follow the precedent of the pardon granted in July 1616 to Sir Robert COTTON.