Sir Walter Raleigh: In Life & Legend (36 page)

The surviving testimony for the Bye and Main plots is substantial, but one or two documents have gone missing over the years, notably the complete record of some important statements by Sir Griffin Markham. As with many a contemporary criminal investigation there are also suggestions, here and there, that some evidence was deliberately not preserved, either as a housekeeping measure, with paperwork of little value, or perhaps to avoid embarrassment for leading figures at Court. One of Markham's longer confessions survives only in an annotated abstract. Here one finds his assertion that George Brooke had advised him against bringing Northumberland into the Bye Plot, because the Earl's 'discontent with a faire word was presently pacified and for feare of revealing yt to Rawley who had power to bewitch him'. It is possible that a transcriber's error was made when drawing up the abstract, since at Ralegh's trial Markham was reported to have confessed that Brooke had advised him, for this very reason, to avoid telling Cobham too much. An alternative explanation is that Markham had misunderstood the information he had received from Brooke, and that a subsequent comparison of their testimony had shown up his mistake; these lines are indeed lightly crossed through in the abstract of Markham's confession. Either way, it is impossible to miss the power of persuasion, amounting to an almost magical compulsion, so easily attributed to Ralegh.

The reader might also wonder why Northumberland's name should have appeared at all in this context, and at the thought processes that lay behind the error, if error it was.
46
 Unaware of his close shave, the Earl passed an uneventful summer and autumn. He followed the Court on progress, relaxing on his estates at Syon House and Petworth, and observing the usual, genteel courtesies towards influential friends through gifts and visits, the costs of which are carefully recorded in household accounts: Cecil's book-keeping, for example, documents a reward given to Northumberland's servant, who had brought a gift of grapes from Syon.
47

Ambassadors caught up in this miasma were better deployed elsewhere. Arenberg departed quietly. His last audience with the King was on 1 October, and he left Court on the eleventh.
48
 It was a timely move, for the prisoners were soon to be brought to the bar, and statesmen and lawyers were steadily working through the logistics that underpinned every early modern state trial. In October a decision was taken to hold the trials in Winchester; Reading, the other alternative considered, was perhaps too close to plagueridden London. Cobham and Grey were brought down from the capital on 4 November, the other prisoners following on the tenth, with a halt at Bagshot.
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 A cavalcade of local gentry and their followers provided a secure escort: at least 140 men rode with the party from Bagshot to Winchester.
50
 For Ralegh in particular it was a trying journey; he had scorned the pursuit of popularity in the past, and now his contempt for the common man was vigorously returned.
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 Everywhere he encountered hatred, and glee at his impending downfall. Sir William Waad wrote that the mob in London had shouted for his death. It was 'hob or nob' whether the prisoner 'should have been brought alive through such multitudes of unruly people', united in condemnation, and Waad was not alone in noting the temper of the moment.
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 Verses circulated, mocking an upstart broken and destroyed.

Stories invariably arise to colour the downfall of great men; these occasions remain in the memory. As his coach rolled across Hounslow Heath, Ralegh noticed an old man - a creditor - standing by the roadside. He made a point of halting the coach, declaring his debt publicly, and beseeching the King to 'be good to this worthy gentleman'. Both wept.
54

Treason trials in this period were never sedate affairs. Public spectacles, with seats commanding high prices on the open market, they served to express revulsion at the actions of individuals who threatened the head of state and, by extension, the state itself. Always there was a sense of theatre in these proceedings. Spectators openly passed judgement on what they were seeing, as they would have done in the Globe or the Rose.
55
 Procedures in court were driven by accusation and confrontation: the prisoner faced evidence presented to him for the first time on the day of trial, by the monarch's expert legal representatives, and he was obliged to respond as best he might, alone and with only his own wit to guide him. There was usually some verbal cut and thrust, and always ample scope for any presentation of the prosecution and defence cases to become blurred, particularly for an audience unfamiliar with the detail. Even by the standards of the day, however, Ralegh's trial, staged in the thirteenth-century Great Hall of Winchester Castle on 17 November, was noted for its obscurity. The prosecution case was subtle, and demanded clarity and patience from the advocate. At times, however, anger and frustration led rather to incoherence, and incoherence resulted in a still more insidious confusion and in a sense of unfinished business, both at the time and in the many accounts of the trial that survive today.
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The charge that confronted the prisoner was based on Cobham's testimony of 20 July, enlivened with innuendo, and with hearsay detail from George Brooke's many statements. Ralegh, the indictment insisted, had consipired'to deprive the King of his government...to raise up sedition within the Realme, to alter Religion...to bring in the Romish superstition, and to procure forraigne enemies to invade the Kingdomes'. He and Cobham had discussed how to advance Arbella Stuart to the throne of England. They had agreed that Cobham should seek the 600,000 crowns from Arenberg, and that he should also lobby the governments in both Brussels and Madrid to further these aims, with Arbella's written support if possible. The two conspirators would then meet in Jersey to discuss how best to spend the money. On the basis of these discussions, Cobham had brought Brooke into the plots.
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 Their actions had subsequently confirmed their intentions. Cobham had indeed written letters to Arenberg, and had sent them by the Ambassador's servant, Matthew De Renzy.
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To no one's surprise, Ralegh pleaded not guilty.

Commanding his stage, Ralegh made a particularly strong impression on eye-witnesses. He was full of a strange confidence that sometimes comes to men and women on trial for their lives. From the very start, he seemed to know and understand his role; the first impression was particularly telling. When brought to the bar Ralegh 'sate upon a stoole within a place made of purpose for the prisoner to be in, and expected the comming of the Lords, during which time he saluted divers of his acquaintance with a very steadfast and chearefull countenance'.
59
 When invited to do so, he courteously declined to challenge any member of the jury, pointedly acknowledging the integrity of the landed English gentleman: 'I know none of them; but think them all honest and Christian men. I know my own innocency and therefore will challenge none. All are indifferent to me.' The jurymen were duly sworn: four knights, four esquires, four gentlemen. Here Ralegh set the tone for his behaviour throughout the trial; his composure earned him general admiration. During his ordeal, the prisoner was 'humble, yet not prostrate; dutifull, yet not dejected [to the Lords,] towards the Jurie affible, but not fawning; not in dispaire nor beleeving, but hoping in them, carefully perswading them with reasons, not distemperately importuning them with conjurations; rather shewing love of life, then feare of death'.
60
 For most of the day he also showed the respect due to the King's Counsel, losing his temper only when it paid him to do so. Of course this called for fine judgements, though a prisoner on trial for high treason had little choice but to try. It was, in any case, a role made for Ralegh.

Coke the Attorney General, on the other hand, was heavily criticized. Very few people admired the way in which he presented his case for the prosecution. Thomas Overbury, who was either an eye-witness or the copier of an eye-witness account, noted that, in line with orders from 'above', the Attorney General had dutifully alluded to the balancing act demanded of a new King; James wanted to be tolerant, but in both politics and religion he also wished to make it clear that there were boundaries beyond which his subjects could not trespass. Moreover, Coke had indeed shown 'great wisdome and care' in assembling the 'presumptions' that fortified Cobham's accusation.
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 But Overbury's positive spin has about it a touch of desperation; he concedes that the same wisdom and care were too often absent on the day of the trial. Even allowing for his obvious 'zeale in the Kings service, and...the passion which overwhelmed him in the cause of his Countrey', ,all the assembly could have wished that [Coke] had not behaved himselfe so violently and bitterly, nor used so great provocation to the prisoner'. Most already knew how Coke set about his prosecutions; as Overbury reminded his readers, the Attorney General was to some extent prejudged by his past record, by 'the insolency of his owne disposition given to tryumph upon poore delinquents, and men in misery'.
62
 Indeed this was in several ways a typical Coke prosecution, full of bombast, full of showy learning, attempting a methodical presentation of the facts, but short on elegance and subtlety, and falling into the trap of highlighting, inadvertently, every weakness in the prosecution's argument. And he grovelled more than was proper. Many 'thought him full of impertinent phrases and compliments, and specially when hee spake of the King, his Issue, or of the Lords'. 'After he said hee would say nothing of them', according to one onlooker, Coke fell 'into grosse and palpable adulation of them to their faces'.
63

Adulation was understandable, given the universal wish to flatter a new king and his advisers. 'We are all men,' said Lord Grey at his trial a few days later, 'and princes favoures as showres on the springing grasse'.
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 But the crowd in open court expected flattery to go hand in hand with flair, and in this expectation they were disappointed. Coke's brutal assault on Ralegh's morals and character went badly awry. It was all very well to call Ralegh names, and Coke used plenty of names that day, likening Ralegh to a 'monster', a 'viper', 'an odious fellow', 'the rankest traitor in all England'. But if the lambasting concealed a less than straightforward case, and was indeed openly seen to conceal it, the public grew uneasy, and restive. At Winchester, the 'standers by begann to hyss and MrAttorney to be something daunted'.
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Nevertheless, Overbury had a point: Coke's 'wisdome' helped him to understand the essential requirement. Diverted by all the name-calling, people too often fail to see what he was trying to achieve at Winchester that day. Ever methodical, Coke recognized that the best way to bring home the charge against Ralegh was to expose the prisoner's weaknesses: the flaws in his character and his dubious reputation. Having reminded the court what sort of man they were dealing with, he could then fit Ralegh squarely to the 'type' of character expected in a shiftless traitor. For all his fine words, his airs, his graces, Ralegh would thus be shown to be no different from other conspirators, men and women who broke faith. So Coke threw before the court everything that 'bath been scattered upon the wrack of report', while dutifully pointing out to the jury that this was hearsay, that they must 'carry a just mind', and should seek to 'condemn no man, but upon plain evidence'. In Coke's hands such an assault lacked any finesse, but by the end of the day no listener was able to forget that Ralegh had never been noted for his honesty. It is also just possible that Coke was playing a more personal game. As Karen Cunningham observes, he used the trial 'as a forum for publicizing his long-held notion that the Tudors were mere interlopers', making his 'bid for patronage by revising the royal succession, accusing Ralegh of plotting to "depose our rightful King, the lineal descendant of Edward IV" rather than HenryVIl'.
66

Of course, Coke's tactics carried their own risk. They allowed Ralegh full scope to present himself as a victim, as the wronged yet still faithful courtier. The eloquence of self-pity, Ralegh's favourite form, now found powerful expression within the theatre of a courtroom. He brushed aside the prosecution's denunciations with contempt. If words were all that the Attorney could throw at him, he crowed, then there was really no case to answer. He furiously denied the insinuation, drawn from George Brooke's confession, that he had spoken of improving the situation in England by 'taking away', or murdering, the 'king and his cubs'. Focusing on the Attorney's apparent malice - Coke, he said,'used him basely, barbarously, and rigorously' when laying such words to his charge - Ralegh took comfort in the fact that no evidence could be brought forward to support these smears.
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 In Ralegh's view the whole case for the prosecution amounted to nothing more than innuendo and false conclusions. Where, he asked, was the substance behind these absurd charges? And where, indeed, was the logic? What could possibly have prompted him to seek money from a bankrupt Spanish king; everyone knew that Madrid would not spend one penny more fomenting trouble within England?