Having read, I believe, nearly all that has been written on the subject of this dark ‘Cobham plot,’ I find but one thing come brightly out of the infinite confusion and mystery, which will never be cleared up till the day of judgment, and that is Raleigh’s innocence. He, and all England, and the very men who condemned him, knew that he was innocent. Every biographer is forced to confess this, more or less, in spite of all efforts to be what is called ‘impartial.’ So I shall waste no words upon the matter, only observing that whereas Raleigh is said to have slandered Cecil to James, in the same way that Cecil had slandered him, one passage of this Cobham plot disproves utterly such a story, which, after all, rests (as far as I know) only on hearsay, being ‘spoken of in a manuscript written by one Buck, secretary to Chancellor Egerton.’ For in writing to his own wife, in the expectation of immediate death, Raleigh speaks of Cecil in a very different tone, as one in whom he trusted most, and who has left him in the hour of need. I ask the reader to peruse that letter, and say whether any man would write thus, with death and judgment before his face, of one whom he knew that he had betrayed; or, indeed, of one who he knew had betrayed him. I see no reason to doubt that Raleigh kept good faith with Cecil, and that he was ignorant till after his trial that Cecil was in the plot against him. I do not care to enter into the tracasseries of this Cobham plot. Every one knows them; no one can unravel them. The moral and spiritual significance of the fact is more interesting than all questions as to Cobham’s lies, Brooke’s lies, Aremberg’s lies, Coke’s lies, James’s lies:—Let the dead bury their dead. It is the broad aspect of the thing which is so wonderful; to see how ‘The eagle, towering in his pride of place, Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed.’ This is the man who six months ago, perhaps, thought that he and Cecil were to rule England together, while all else were the puppets whose wires they pulled. ‘The Lord hath taken him up and dashed him down;’ and by such means, too, and on such a charge! Betraying his country to Spain! Absurd—incredible—he would laugh it to scorn: but it is bitter earnest. There is no escape. True or false, he sees that his enemies will have his head. It is maddening: a horrible nightmare. He cannot bear it; he cannot face—so he writes to that beloved wife—‘the scorn, the taunts, the loss of honour, the cruel words of lawyers.’ He stabs himself. Read that letter of his, written after the mad blow had been struck; it is sublime from intensity of agony. The way in which the chastisement was taken proves how utterly it was needed, ere that proud, success-swollen, world-entangled heart could be brought right with God.