220 CHARGE AGAINST ROBERT 



TO SIR GEORGE VILLIERS, ABOUT THE EARL OF 

 SOMERSET. 



Sir, 



I RECEIVED from you a letter of very brief and 

 clear directions ; and I think it a great blessing of 

 God upon me and my labours, that my directions 

 come by so clear a conduit, as they receive no tinc 

 ture in the passage. 



Yesterday my lord chancellor, the duke of Lenox, 

 and myself, spent the whole afternoon at the Tower, 

 in the examination of Somerset, upon the articles 

 sent from his majesty, and some other additional, 

 which were in effect contained in the former, but ex 

 tended to more particularity, by occasion of some 

 what discovered by Cotton s examination and Mr. 

 Vice-Chamberlain s information. 



He is full of protestations, and would fain keep 

 that quarter toward Spain clear : using but this 

 for argument, that he had such fortunes from his 

 majesty, as he could not think of bettering his 

 conditions from Spain, because, as he said, he was no 

 military man. He cometh nothing so far on, for 

 that which concerneth the treaty, as Cotton, which 

 cloth much aggravate suspicion against him : the far 

 ther particulars I reserve to his majesty s coming. 



In the end, &quot; tanquam obiter,&quot; but very ef 

 fectually, my lord chancellor put him in mind of the 

 state he stood in for the impoisonment ; but he was 

 little moved with it, and pretended carelessness of 

 life, since ignominy had made him unfit for his ma- 



