THE CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OF JAMES I. 139 



should have denied a doctrine which his calm and settled opinion 

 afterwards so fully admitted.* We have his full admission, which 

 has since been confirmed by volumes of English law, that a single 

 witness was not sufficient to convict a person of high treason ; yet, 

 in expounding the rationale of the ancient doctrine, in that respect, 

 it would have been most satisfactory to the philosopher and philan- 

 thropist if he had explained why two witnesses are required to prove 

 the guilt of treason, and but one only if the indictment refer to 

 any other capital felony. 



We are told that Raleigh came to his trial with all the signs and 

 symptoms of his being the most unpopular man in England ; but 

 the close of it converted him into the most popular. Now, it costs 

 us no effort to believe this assertion perfectly consistent with the 

 truth, if we keep in mind these two preliminary facts to it : — first, 

 that the information of one witness sworn, retracted and re-sworn — 

 and that witness, Cobham, his friend and accomplice — but not pro- 

 duced, was the evidence against Raleigh : and, secondly, that the 

 self-command, the noble bearing, the legal still, the tact and point- 

 ed quickness of reply, and precision and polish of expression, dis- 

 played by Raleigh at this crisis of his destiny, extorted even the 

 admiration of one who seems to have had no respect for the personal, 

 character of this extraordinary man. " Sir Walter Raleigh served 

 for a whole act, and played all the parts himself. He answered, 

 indeed, with that temper, wit, learning, courage, and judgment, 

 that, save that it went with the hazard of his life, it was the happi- 

 est day that ever he spent. And so well did he shift all advantag- 

 es that were taken against him, that were not Jama malum gravius, 

 quam res, and an ill name half hanged in the opinion of all men, 

 he had been acquitted."* Such, in short, was the superlative exam- 

 Narrative in Hackluyt's Collection of Early Voyages, #»., vol. iii, p. 338. But 

 the verses of Sir Walter, entitled My Pilgrimages, are alone sufficient to 

 prove his believing view of the cross, or of the high mediatorship opened be- 

 tween God and man in the New Testament — See Cayley's Life of Raleigh, 

 vol. ii, p. 159. 



• " Sic lihere animam mcam liberavi," 3 Inst. 27, are the words of Sir Ed- 

 ward, after pronouncing, in the most authoritative tone, that the statutes of 

 1 Edw. VI, and 5 Edw. VI, had never been repealed. Pity it was, that his 

 conscience had not extorted this memorable confession from him during the 

 trial ; for then, at the close of it, he would not have been so frenzied with 

 the passions of hatred and revenge, as impiously to exclaim, "Now. Jesus 

 hall be glorified." — See Secret Hist. •>/ Court of James /, vol. i, p. 159. 



f See Letter of Sir Dudley Carleton, in the Hardwicke State Papers, vol. 

 i, p. 37U. 



