Cecil, who had brought Essex to the scaffold, now lost no time in bringing Raleigh, Essex’s rival, to the Tower, and on the 20th of July 1603, the prison gates of that fortress once again closed upon the founder of Virginia, on a charge of treason, based on the Arabella Stuart conspiracy, nor did they open for him until twelve years had passed. On the following day Raleigh attempted to stab himself with a table-knife, for he seems to have been maddened by his treatment by James and Cecil. In November the plague was so violent in London, that the Law Courts were transferred to Winchester, and it was to that city that Sir Walter and his fellow-prisoners were taken and tried on a charge of “attempting to deprive the King of his crown and dignity; to molest the Government, and alter the true religion established in England, and to levy war against the King.” George Brooke, a brother of Lord Cobham’s, and two priests were found guilty and executed, Lords Grey de Wilton, Cobham, and Raleigh were respited, and were taken back to their prison in the Tower. Cobham never regained his liberty, he was a ruined man, and died probably in the Tower. The place of his burial is unknown. The de Cobhams were an early family of importance in the twelfth century, and from the thirteenth to the sixteenth one of the most powerful in the south of England. Henry de Cobham was summoned to Parliament in 1313. The direct line ended in Joan de Cobham, who married five times; her third husband was Sir John Oldcastle, commonly called Lord Cobham, _jure uxoris_, but inaccurately, for he was summoned to Parliament under his own name, Oldcastle.