THE CHARGE, BY WAY OF EVIDENCE, 

 BY SIR FRANCIS BACON, KNIGHT, HIS MAJESTY S 



ATTORNEY-GENERAL, BEFORE 

 THE LORD HIGH STEWARD, AND THE PEERS;* 



AGAINST FRANCES, COUNTESS OF 



SOMERSET, CONCERNING THE POISONING OF 



SIR THOMAS OVERBURY. 



It may please your Grace, my Lord High Steward of England, 

 and you my Lords the Peers : 



I AM very glad to hear this unfortunate lady doth 

 take this course, to confess fully and freely, and 

 thereby to give glory to God and to justice. It is, 

 as I may term it, the nobleness of an offender to 

 confess : and therefore those meaner persons, upon 

 whom justice passed before, confessed not; she doth. 

 I know your lordships cannot behold her without 

 compassion : many things may move you, her youth, 

 her person, her sex, her noble family ; yea, her pro 

 vocations, if I should enter into the cause itself, and 

 furies about her; but chiefly her penitency and 

 confession. But justice is the work of this day ; the 

 mercy-seat was in the inner part of the temple ; the 

 throne is public. But since this lady hath by her 

 confession prevented my evidence, and your verdict, 



* The lord chancellor Egerton, lord Ellesmere, and earl of 

 Bridgwater. 



