On the twenty-third of October, a discussion took place in the Privy Council as to the mode in which prisoners who had been condemned for treason, and set at liberty, could be executed. The subject was one of much perplexity, but everything that was subservient and expedient could be accomplished in those days. It was, however, determined to send a Privy Seal to the judges on the King’s Bench, desiring them to try Sir Walter Ralegh “according to law.” The death to which he was doomed, by the hand of the executioner, was already impending over the illustrious prisoner in the form of disease. He had sent to the merciless Cecil his mournful manifesto of privation and sickness; his left side was numbed, his fingers on the same side were beginning to be contracted, his tongue and speech affected; he spoke feebly, and feared he might altogether lose the power of utterance. An application had therefore been made for his removal from his damp, cold lodging in the Tower, to a little room in the garden, which he had himself built, close to his laboratory, or, as it was styled, his stilhouse.[245] Footnote 245: Letter in the State Paper Office, no date. See Life of Sir Walter Ralegh, by the author. Appendix, p. 395. But the time was at hand when his spirit should breathe in a freer atmosphere; and all that man could do to him should cease to be of a source of dread. “The world,” he calmly observed, “was but a large prison, out of which some were daily selected for execution.” On the twenty-eighth of October, he was tried, and of course, condemned, in the King’s Bench. Henry Yelverton, then attorney-general, could not help again, in his address for the Crown, describing the prisoner as one who, for his parts and quality, was to be pitied; “one who had been a star, yea, and of such nature, that shineth far; but out of the necessity of state, like stars when they trouble the sphere, must indeed fall.” It is remarkable that Yelverton, who had been patronised by Somerset, did himself, in after days, fall, having incurred the enmity of Villiers.