THE CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OF JAMES I. 137 



sentenced to be cut off? It was no wonder then that Burnett 

 should say, while sympathizing with the fate of this illustrious vic- 

 tim to sceptred hatred and tyranny, that " the first condemnation 

 of Sir Walter was very black, but the executing him after so many 

 years and after an employment that had been given him, was count- 

 ed a barbarous sacrificing him to the Spaniards."* Most readers of 

 English History are aware that Sir Walter Raleigh was accused of 

 conspiring to overthrow the government, and to place Arabella 

 Stewart on the throne. But no satisfactory clue has been afforded 

 to this revolutionary labyrinth. In what manner the whole machi- 

 nery of insurrection was to be directed, when the contrivers of it 

 were so much at variance with each other in their religious and 

 political principles, history has in vain attempted to discover. Upon 

 a paper, however, purporting to be the examination or confession of 

 Lord Cobham, the supposed originator of this great political achieve- 

 ment, Sir Walter was convicted of high treason. t A publicist, or 

 lawyer of the present day, whether whig or tory, would be seiz- 

 ed with mingled emotions of surprise and disgust, who should for 

 the first time read, that when Raleigh insisted that two witnesses 

 were indispensable to prove the fact of his imputed guilt — that the 

 common law, the statute law, and the law of God;}; alike required 

 such evidence — and that the witnesses ought to appear in court and 

 be confronted with the accused, the judges had the audacity to de- 

 clare that the statutes of the 1st of Ed. VI, and 5th and 6th of 

 Ed. VI, were repealed.§ But how would those sensations be 



* History of his own Time, vol. i, p. 29. 



•f For the report of the trial, see the conclusion of Oldy's Life of Raleigh, 

 prefixed to the best edition of his History of the World, and Phillip's State 

 Trials, vol. i, p. 83. 



% " At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is 

 worthy of death be put to death ; but at the mouth of one witness he shall 

 not be put to death." — Deut., chap, xvii, v. 5. 



§ In the opening days of free discussion, Sir John Hawles, a solicitor ge- 

 neral in the reign ofWilliam III, in his passion for justice and wisdom, has 

 warmly asked, ''I would know by what law is the deposition of a person who 

 might be brought face to face to the prisoner, read as evidence ; I would 

 know by what law it is forbidden that the accuser should be brought face to 

 face to the accused ; I would know by what law Brook's deposition of what 

 the Lord Cobham told him of Raleigh — I would know by what law the story 

 Dyer told of what an unknown man said to him at Lisbon of Don Raleigh, 

 was evidence against Raleigh ; I would know by what statute the statutes of 

 the twenty-filth of Edward III, and fifth of Edward VI, are repealed." — See 

 Reply to Sir Bartholomew Shower's Mayixlracy and Gorcrnment of England 

 vindicated, p. 98; and Winwood, vol. ii, p. 8, 11. This crown officer and 

 vol vim., no. xxin. 19 



