TRIAL OF ESSEX. 



that he had made a divorce between himself and the world, 

 and that, rather than bear a charge of disloyalty or want of 

 affection, he would tear his heart out of his breast with his 

 own hands. The first part of his defence drew tears from 

 many of the hearers ; but, being somewhat touched by the 

 sharp speeches and rhetorical flourishes of his accusers, he 

 expressed himself with so much heat, before he had gone 

 half through with his reply, that he was interrupted by the 

 lord keeper, who told him &quot; this was not the course to do 

 him good ; that he would do well to commit himself to her 



O 



majesty s mercy; that he was acquitted by all present of 

 disloyalty, of which he did not stand charged, but of dis 

 obedience and contempt; and if he meant to say that he 

 had disobeyed, without an intention of disobedience, it was 

 frivolous and absurd.&quot; 



In pronouncing the censure, the lord keeper declared, 

 that if Essex had been tried elsewhere, and in another 

 manner, a great fine and imprisonment for life must have 

 been his sentence, but as he was in a course of favour, his 

 censure was, &quot; That the Earl of Essex should be suspended 

 from his offices, and continue a prisoner in his own house 

 till it pleased her majesty to release him.&quot; The Earl of 

 Cumberland declared, that, if he thought the censure was 

 to stand, he would ask more time, for it seemed to him 

 somewhat severe; and intimated how easily a general com 

 mander might incur the like, but, in confidence of her 

 majesty s mercy, he agreed with the rest. 



Of this day s proceedings a confused and imperfect ac 

 count has been published by several historians, (a) and an 

 unfair view taken of the conduct of Bacon, who could not 

 have any assignable motive for the course they have attri 

 buted to him. The Queen was evidently determined to 



(a) See particularly Hume. 



