220 CHARGE AGAINST ROBERT 



poisoning is the darkest of offences ; but that the 

 thread must be well spun and woven together ; for, 

 your majesty knoweth, it is one thing to deal with a 

 jury of Middlesex and Londoners, and another to 

 deal with the peers ; whose objects perhaps will not 

 be so much what is before them in the present case, 

 which I think is as odious to them as to the vulgar, 

 but what may be hereafter. Besides, there be two 

 disadvantages, we that shall give in evidence shall 

 meet with, somewhat considerable ; the one, that the 

 same things often opened lose their freshness, ex 

 cept there be an aspersion of somewhat that is new ; 

 the other is the expectation raised, which makes 

 things seem less than they are, because they are less 

 than opinion. Therefore I were not your attorney, 

 nor myself, if I should not be very careful, that in 

 this last part, which is the pinnacle of your former 

 justice, all things may pass &quot; sine offendiculo, sine 

 scrupulo.&quot; Hereupon I did move two things, which, 

 having now more fully explained myself, I do in all 

 humbleness renew. First, that your majesty will be 

 careful to choose a steward of judgment, that may 

 be able to moderate the evidence and cut off digres 

 sions ; for I may interrupt, but I cannot silence : 

 the other, that there may be special care taken for 

 the ordering the evidence, not only for the knitting, 

 but for the list, and, to use your majesty s own 

 words, the confining of it. This to do, if your ma 

 jesty vouchsafe to direct it yourself, that is the best ; 

 if not, I humbly pray you to require my lord chan 

 cellor, that he, together with my lord chief justice, 



