EARL OF SOMERSET. 219 



my lord of Northampton s letters, whose hand was 

 deep in this business, written, I must say it, in dark 

 words and clauses ; that there was one thing pre 

 tended and another intended ; that there was a real 

 charge, and there was somewhat not real ; a main 

 drift, and a dissimulation. Nay farther, there be 

 some passages which the peers in their wisdom will 

 discern to point directly at the impoisonment. 

 After this inducement followed the evidence itself.] 



TO HIS MAJESTY, ABOUT THE EARL OF SOMERSET. 

 It may please your most excellent Majesty, 



AT my last access to your majesty, it was fit for me 

 to consider the time and your journey, which maketh 

 me now trouble your majesty with a remnant of 

 that I thought then to have said : besides your old 

 warrant and commission to me, to advertise your 

 majesty when you are &quot; aux champs,&quot; of any thing 

 that concerned your service and my place. I know 

 your majesty is &quot; nunquam minus solus, quam cum 

 solus ;&quot; and I confess, in regard of your great 

 judgment, under which nothing ought to be pre 

 sented but well weighed, I could almost wish that 

 the manner of Tiberius were in use again, of whom 

 Tacitus saith, &quot; Mos erat quamvis praesentem 

 scripto adire ;&quot; much more in absence. I said 

 to your majesty that which I do now repeat, that the 

 evidence upon which my lord of Somerset standeth 

 indicted is of a good strong thread, considering im- 



