State Trials, Political and Social. Volume 1 (of 2)
History
State Trials, Political and Social. Volume 1 (of 2)
Trials -- Great Britain
RALEIGH--I am accused concerning Arabella, concerning Money out
of Spain. My Lord Chief-Justice saith, a man may be condemned
with one witness, yea, without any witness. Cobham is guilty of
many things, _Conscientia mille testes_; he hath accused
himself, what can he hope for but mercy? My lords, vouchsafe me
this grace: Let him be brought, being alive, and in the house;
let him avouch any of these things, I will confess the whole
indictment and renounce the king's mercy.
LORD CECIL--Here hath been a touch of the lady Arabella Stuart,
a near kinswoman of the king's. Let us not scandal the innocent
by confusion of speech: she is as innocent of all these things
as I, or any man here; only she received a Letter from my lord
Cobham, to prepare her; which she laughed at, and immediately
sent it to the king. So far was she from discontentment, that
she laughed him to scorn. But you see how far the count of
Aremberg did consent.
_The lord Admiral (Nottingham) being by in a Standing, with the
lady Arabella, spake to the court_: The lady doth here protest
upon her salvation, that she never dealt in any of these things,
and so she willed me to tell the court.
LORD CECIL--The lord Cobham wrote to my lady Arabella, to know
if he might come to speak with her, and gave her to understand,
that there were some about the king that laboured to disgrace
her; she doubted it was but a trick. But Brook saith his brother
moved him to procure Arabella to write Letters to the king of
Spain; but he saith, he never did it.
RALEIGH--The lord Cobham hath accused me, you see in what manner
he hath forsworn it Were it not for his Accusation, all this
were nothing. Let him be asked, if I knew of the letter which
Lawrency brought to him from Aremberg. Let me speak for my life,
it can be no hurt for him to be brought; he dares not accuse me.
If you grant me not this favour, I am strangely used;
Campian[18] was not denied to have his accusers face to face.
LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--Since he must needs have justice, the
acquitting of his old friend may move him to speak otherwise
than the truth.
RALEIGH--If I had been the infuser of all these Treasons into
him; you gentlemen of the jury, mark this, he said I have been
the cause of all his miseries, and the destruction of his house,
and that all evil hath happened unto him by my wicked counsel;
if this be true, whom hath he cause to accuse and to be revenged
on, but on me? and I know him to be as revengeful as any man on
earth.
ATTORNEY--He is a party, and may not come; the law is against
it.
RALEIGH--It is a toy to tell me of law; I defy such law, I stand
on the fact.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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