188 CHARGE AGAINST FRANCES 



grees of light from Western, but yet left it imper 

 fect. 



After it was referred to Sir Edward Coke, chief 

 justice of the King s Bench, as a person best practised 

 in legal examinations, who took a great deal of inde 

 fatigable pains in it, without intermission, having, as 

 I have heard him say, taken at least three hundred 

 examinations in this business. 



But these things were not done in a corner. I 

 need not speak of them. It is true, that my lord 

 chief justice, in the dawning and opening of the light, 

 finding that the matter touched upon these great 

 persons, very discreetly became suitor to the king to 

 have greater persons than his own rank joined with 

 him. Whereupon, your lordship, my lord High 

 Steward of England, to whom the King commonly 

 resorteth &quot; in arduis,&quot; and my lord steward of the 

 king s house, and my lord Zouch, were joined with 

 him. 



Neither wanted there this while practice to sup 

 press testimony, to deface writings, to weaken the 

 king s resolution, to slander the justice, and the like. 

 Nay, when it came to the first solemn act of justice, 

 which was the arraignment of Weston, he had his 

 lesson to stand mute ; which had arrested the wheel 

 of justice. But this dumb devil, by the means of 

 some discreet divines, and the potent charm of jus 

 tice, together, was cast out. Neither did this poi 

 sonous adder stop his ear to those charms, but 

 relented, and yielded to his trial. 



