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Воок 1, Chap. II.

LIFE OF

SIR ROBERT
COTTON.

1614. February.

either in his own ambassadorial lodging, or upon credentials given in the name and by the command of King JAMES. That COTTON Sought him he suggests, by implication. That the visit, in which the ground was broken, was made at the King's instance, he states circumstantially. Both the suggestion and the assertion are false.

As the reader has seen, Sir Robert's openness in exhibiting his library and his antiquities was matter of public notoriety. Profiting by that well-known facility of access, the Spanish Ambassador presented himself at Cotton House in the guise of a virtuoso. Do me the favour-with your wonted benevolence to strangers-to let me see your Museum.' With some such words as these, GONDOMAR volunteered his first visit; led the conversation, by and bye, to politics; found that COTTON was not amongst the fanatical and undiscriminating enemies of Spain at all price-outspoken, as he had been, from the first, in his assertion both of the wisdom and of the duty of England to protect the Netherlanders; showed him certain letters or papers (not now to be identified, it appears), and in that way produced an impression on COTTON's mind which led him to confer with SOMERSET, and eventually with the King. So much is certain. Unfortunately, the speeches at the famous Conference' on the Spanish Treaty, in 1624, are reported in the most fragmentary way imaginable. The reporter gives mere hints, where the reader anxiously looks for details. Their present value lies in the conclusive reasons which notwithstanding the lacunæ—they supply for weighing, with many grains of caution, the accusations of an enemy of England against an English statesman— whensoever it chances that those accusations are uncorroborated. King JAMES himself (it may here be added), when looking back at this mysterious transaction some years later,

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Chap. 11.

LIFE OF

SIR ROBERT
COTTON.

and in one of his Anti-Spanish moods-said to Sir Robert: BOOK I "The Spaniard is a juggling jack. I believe he forged those letters;' alluding, as the context suggests, to the papers-whatever they were-which GONDOMAR showed to COTTON at the outset of their intercourse, in order to induce him to act as an intermediary between himself and the Earl of SOMERSET.

At this time, the ground was already trembling beneath SOMERSET's feet, though he little suspected the source of his real danger. He knew, ere long, that an attempt would be made to charge him with embezzling jewels of the Crown. In connection with this charge there was a State secret, in which Sir Robert COTTON was a participant with SOMERSET, and with the King himself. And a secret it has remained. Such jewels, it is plain, were in SOMERSET's hands, and by him were transferred to those of COTTON. Few persons who have had occasion to look closely into the surviving documents and correspondence which bear upon the subsequent and famous trials for the murder of OVERBURY, will be likely to doubt that the secret was one among those 'alien matters' of which SOMERSET was so urgently and so repeatedly adjured and warned, by JAMES's emissaries, to avoid all mention, should he still persist (despite the royal, repeated, and almost passionate, entreaties with which he was beset) in putting himself upon his trial; instead of pleading guilty, after his wife's example, and trusting implicitly to the royal mercy.

For the purpose of warding off the lesser, but foreseen, danger, COTTON advised the Earl to take a step of which the Crown lawyers made subsequent and very effective use, in order to preclude all chance of his escape from the un- 1615. foreseen and greater danger. By Sir Robert's recommenda

July.

Book I,
CHAP. II.
LIFE OF

COTTON.

tion he obtained from the King permission to have a pardon drawn, in which, amongst other provisions, it was granted SIR ROBERT that no account whatever should be exacted from SOMERSET at the royal exchequer; and to that pardon the King directed the Chancellor to affix the Great Seal. The Seal, however, was withheld, and a remarkable scene ensued in the Council Chamber. There are extant two or three narratives of the occurrence, which agree pretty well in substance. Of these GONDOMAR's is the most graphic. The incident took place on the 20th of August. The despatch in which it is minutely described was written on the 20th of October. There is reason to believe that the Ambassador drew his information from an eye-witness of what passed.

THE SCENE

IN THE

COUNCIL

CHAMBER,

RESPECTING

DRAWN BY SIR R.

COTTON FOR SOMERSET. 1615.

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As the King was about to leave the Council Board,' writes GONDOMAR, 'SOMERSET made to him a speech which, as I was told, had been preconcerted between them. He said that the malice of his enemies had forced him to ask for a pardon; adduced arguments of his innocency; and then besought the King to command the Chancellor THE PARDON to declare at once what he had to allege against him, or else to put the seal to the pardon. The King, without permitting anything to be spoken, said a great deal in SOMERSET's praise; asserted that the Earl had acted rightly in asking for a pardon, which it was a pleasure to himself to grant—although the Earl would certainly stand in no need of it in his days-on the Prince's account, who was then present.' Here, writes GONDOMAR, the King placed his hand on the Prince's shoulder, and added-'That he may not undo what I have done.' Then, turning to the Chancellor, the King ended with the words: And so, my Lord Chancellor, put the seal to it; for such is my will.' The Chancellor, instead of obeying, threw himself on his

August.

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Chap.11.

LIFE OF

SIR ROBERT
COTTON.

knees, told the King that the pardon was so widely drawn BOOK I that it made SOMERSET (as Lord Chamberlain) absolute master of jewels, hangings, tapestry, and of all that the palace contained; seeing that no account was to be demanded of him for anything.' And then the Chancellor added: If your Majesty insists upon it, I entreat you to grant me a pardon also for passing it; otherwise I cannot do it.' On this the King grew angry, and with the words, I order you to pass it, and you must pass it," left the Council Chamber. His departure in a rage, before the pardon was sealed, gave SOMERSET's enemies another opportunity by which they did not fail to profit. They had the Queen on their side. On that very day, too, the King set out on a progress, long before arranged. For the time the matter dropped. Before the Ambassador of Spain took up his pen to tell the story to his Court, VILLIERS, 'the new favourite,' had begun to supplant his rival; so that the same despatch which narrates the beginnings of the fall of SOMERSET, tells also of the first stage in the rapid rise of BUCKINGHAM.

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THE SECOND

DRAWN BY

COTTON.

1615, Sept.

Report of the
Earl of

Trial of the

About a month after this wrangling at the Council Board, SOMERSET again advised with Sir Robert COTTON PARDON on the same subject. COTTON recommended him to have the Pardon renewed; saying to the Earl, 'In respect you have received some disgrace in the opinion of the world, in having passed' [i. e. missed] that pardon which in the summer you desired, and seeing there be many precedents of larger pardons, I would have you get one after the largest precedent; that so, by that addition, you may recover your honour.' Strangely as these closing words now sound, in relation to such a matter, they seem to embody both the feeling and the practice of the times.

In another version of the proceedings at the trial of May,

Somerset.

(MS. R H.)

Book I,

Chap. LIFE OF

H.

SIR ROBERT the whole drawing and

COTTON.

of Trial

(R. H).

1616, SOMERSET is represented as using in the course of his defence these words: To Sir Robert COTTON I referred despatch of the Pardon.' And again I first sought the Pardon by the motion and persuasion of Sir Robert COTTON, who told me in what dangers great persons honoured with so many royal favours had MS. Report stood, in former times.' Sir Robert's own account of this and of many correlative matters of a still graver sort has come down to us only in garbled fragments and extracts from his examinations, such as it suited the purposes of the law-officers of the Crown to make use of, after their fashion. The original documents were as carefully suppressed, as COTTON's appearance in person at the subsequent trial was effectually hindered. At that day it was held to be an unanswerable reason for the non-appearance of a witness,—whatever the weight of his testimony,to allege that he was regarded by the Crown as 'a delinquent,' and could not, therefore, be publicly questioned upon ' matters of State.' There is little cause to marvel that a scrutinising reader of the State Trials (in their published form) is continually in doubt whether what he reads ought to be regarded as sober history, or as wild and, it may be, venomous romance.

1615.

May 24.

One other incident of 1615 needs to be noticed before we proceed to the catastrophe of the Gondomar story.

In May of this year Sir Robert wrote a letter to Prince CHARLES, which is notable for the contrasted advice, in Comp. MS respect to warlike pursuits, which it proffers to the new Prince, from that more famous advice which had but to certain recently been offered to his late brother. He had lately found, he tells Prince CHARLES, a very ancient volume containing the principal passages of affairs between the

F. vi, § 1. 'An Answer

military men, &c., (April, 1609).

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