Henry IV: 'Sir Walter Ralegh is said to have declared that his design to kill himself arose from no feeling of fear, but was formed in order that his fate might not serve as a triumph to his enemies, whose power to put him to death, despite his innocency, he well knows.' Confiscation was the triumph of which he wished to deprive his persecutors, if he really contemplated suicide. His motive would be the rescue of Sherborne for his wife and child from forfeiture through attainder, the sure result, as he truly foresaw, of a trial for treason. [Sidenote: _A Disputed Letter._] 'After he had hurt himself,' it is stated on the extant copy of the letter, though more probably, if at all, on the eve of the attempt, he is alleged to have written to apprise his wife of his approaching death. In 1839, in an edition of Bishop Goodman's _Court of King James the First_, the late Professor John Brewer printed an unsigned paper, purporting to be such a letter, which had been found in All Souls College Library. Mr. Brewer describes it as in Sir Henry Yelverton's Collection, for no other apparent reason than that the document is in a commonplace book, which includes three speeches by Yelverton. The contents are miscellaneous, ranging from satirical verses to State papers, and of dates from 1500 to 1617. Mr. Oman, of All Souls, considers that the hand, the same throughout, of the copyist is of ordinary seventeenth century character. The volume came to the college from the collection of Narcissus Luttrell. The name of the original owner, for or by whom the matter was compiled and transcribed, is not known. Consequently, belief in the authenticity of the supposed letter from Ralegh depends on its own intrinsic probability. [Sidenote: _An Apocryphal Daughter._]