Chap. 37. LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. two kingdoms of England and France under the reigns of BOOK I King HENRY THE THIRD and King HENRY THE FIFTH, and had caused a friend of his to abstract from it the main grounds of the claim of the Kings of England to the Crown of France; translating the original Latin into English. This he now dedicates to the Prince, as a piece of evidence concerning that title which, at the time when God hath appointed, shall come unto you.' He ends his letter in a strain more than usually rhetorical: ' - This title hath heretofore been pleaded in France, as well by ordinary arguments of civil and common law, as also by more sharp syllogisms of cannons in the field. There have your noble ancestors, Kings of this realm, often argued in arms; there have been their large chases; there, their pleasant walks; there have they hewed honour out of the sides of their enemies; there-in default of peaceable justice—they have carried the cause by sentence of the sword. God grant that your Highness may, both virtues and victories, not only imitate, but far excel them.' in Sir R. Cotton to Prince Charles. 223. fol. 7.) (C) (MS. Lansd (B. M.) Archbishop The royal commission for the first examination of COTTON The King to was issued on the 26th of October, 1615. Two months of Canterafterwards he was committed to the custody of one of the bury, &c. Aldermen of London. His library and papers were also Corresp searched. Domestic James I, vol. lxxxvi, § 16. COTTON'S accusation was that of having communicated (R. H.) papers and secrets of State to the Spanish Ambassador. He was subjected to repeated examinations, which (as we have seen) are extant only in part. He maintained his innocence of all intentional offence. "The King,' he said, COTTON'S ΕΧΑΜΙΝΑ TIONS BY COMMISSION gave me instruction to speak as I did. If I misunderstood His Majesty my fault was involuntary. I followed the Jan.-- April, King's instruction to the best of my belief and recollection.' BOOK I, Chap. 11. LIFE OF COTTON. The examiners, however, were more intent by far on extracting something from COTTON that would tell against SIR ROBERT SOMERSET, than on the punishment of the fallen favourite's ally and agent. COKE, in particular, was indefatigable in the task. It was as congenial to him as was the study of BRACTON or of LITTLETON. What then must have been his delight when,—whilst attending a sermon at Paul's Cross,-word was brought to him which gave hope of a discovery of SOMERSET's most secret correspondence? The pending proceedings had stirred men's minds in city and suburb, as well as at Court. A London merchant had been asked, a little while before, to take into his charge a box of papers. The depositor was a woman of the middle class, with whom his acquaintance was but slight. At that time there was nothing in the incident to excite suspicion. But, at a moment when strange rumours were afloat, the depositor suddenly requested the return of the deposit. The merchant bethought himself that the circumstances now looked mysterious. If the papers should chance to bear on matters of State, to have had any concern with them, howsoever innocent, might be dangerous. He carried the box to Sir Edward COKE's chambers. Not a moment was lost in apprising the absent lawyer of the incident. Such news was of more interest than the sermon. Probably, the preacher had not finished his exordium, before all the faculties of COKE and of a fellow-commissioner were bent on the letters which had passed between SOMERSET and NORTHAMPTON. If GONDOMAR is to be believed, some secret papers belonging to King JAMES himself were part of the precious spoil. * Por diferentes vias le confirmado que contra el Conde [Somerset] no se averigua cosa de sustancia en lo de la muerte del Ovarberi; y de la del Principe [Henry, Prince of Wales,] no ha permetido Chap. II. COTTON. As usual, there are two accounts of the original secretor BOOK I, of the papers so opportunely discovered. According to one LIFE OF of them, the box was delivered by SOMERSET'S Own order SIR ROBERT to the woman by whom it was carried to the London merchant. According to another, SOMERSET entrusted the COTTON'S papers to COTTON; and the latter, anticipating the search WITH SOMERand sealing up of his library, gave them to a female acquaintance with whom he thought they would remain in 1615. safety, but whose own fears led her to shift their custody, in her turn. That the letters which NORTHAMPTON had received from SOMERSET containing, amongst many other things, numerous references to the imprisonment of OVERBURY in the Tower-had been in Sir Robert COTTON's hands is unquestioned. After NORTHAMPTON's death, COTTON, to use his own words, had been 'permitted to peruse and oversee all the writings, books, &c. in the Earl's study.' In the course of this examination he proceeds to say, 'I had collected thirty several letters of my Lord of SOMERset to the Earl of Northampton, which, upon request, I delivered to my Lord Treasurer [the Earl of SUFFOLK,] who sent them to the Earl of SOMERSET.' SUFFOLK, it is to be remembered, was NORTHAMPTON's heir. Thus far, no charge rests upon COTTON in relation to this correspondence. What he did in disposing of SOMERSET'S el Rey que se hable en ella; y todo lo demas probado hasta agora viene a parar en que dio un decreto antes que le prendiesen, para recojer unos papeles, diziendo que era orden del Rey, sin haverla tenido para ello. Fue lo que causo su prision, y el aver entregado despues todos los papeles que tenia de importancia, con algunas joyas, a un amigo suyo [Sir Robert Cotton], para que lo guardase que se coxieron. Y el Rey ha sentido infinito que se ayan visto algunos papeles que havia suyos para Conde,. y assi carga agora toda la yra sobre el Conde,' &c. Gondomar to Philip III,-Simancas MS. 2595, f. 23; and in Archæologia (by Gardiner), vol. xli, p. 29. el DEALINGS SET'S CORRE- Book I, LIFE OF SIR ROBERT Extracts of letters was done by order of the representatives of their deceased owner. It is far otherwise with respect to their treatment after they had repassed, by SUFFOLK's gift, into the hands of SOMERSET, their writer. The letters were undated. That they should be so was in accordance with the practice of a majority of the letterwriters of the time—as students of history know to their sorrow. When suspicion was aroused and inquiry commenced about the real cause of OVERBURY's death, COTTON'S He told me, says advice was sought by SOMERSET. SOMERSET himself: These letters of your's may be dated, so as may clear you of all imputation.' Did he mean that the dates might be forged, and so be made to bear false witness? Or did he mean that, by putting their true dates to the letters, their contents would exculpate an innocent man? To these questions there is absolutely no answer, save the presumptive answer of character.* * On this point, it is my wish to leave the reader to form his own estimate of probabilities. Probabilities, only, are attainable; and I have no side to take, in any attempt to weigh them. But it may be well to ask the reader's attention to a passage in the Diary of a contemporary of Sir R. Cotton, a man of high character, and one who sat by Cotton's side in Parliament, fighting with him for the liberties of England, during many years; one who is also remarkable for speaking about the faults of his friends with abundant candour. 'Sir Robert Cotton, being highly esteemed by the Earl of Somerset, ... was acquainted with this murder [of Overbury] by him, a little before it now came to light, and had advised him what he took to be the best course for his safety.' This passage occurs in the private diary of Sir Symonds D'Ewes-'a man,' says a great writer, of somewhat Grandisonian ways, a man of 'scrupulous Puritan integrity, of high flown conscientiousness,.. the pink of Christian country gentlemen, (Carlyle's Essays, iv, 297.) This scrupulous Puritan' knew all that was current about the terrible 'Great Oyer of Poisoning,' as Sir Edward Coke called it. He lived in familiar intercourse with Cotton, and regarded their long acquaintance as an honour to himself; whilst speaking freely about certain social habits and limitations-neither Grandisonian or Puritanic-on Cotton's part, ambitious to be Chap. II. SIR ROBERT Whatever may be our estimate of the difficulty attending BOOK I, on the admission of such exculpation as that, in respect of a LIFE OF charge which amounts (in substance) to participation, after COTTON. the fact, in the crime of murder, there is really now no alternative. That Sir Robert COTTON put dates to SOMERSET'S undated letters is certain. It was found to be absolutely impossible, after desperate effort, to prove that the dates were false. It is alike impossible to prove that they are true. These dates are in COTTON's own hand, without any attempt to disguise it. Upon the hypothesis of SOMERSET'S guilt, the question is beset with as much difficulty, as upon the hypothesis of his innocence. By procuring OVERBURY's imprisonment— with whatever motive, or beneath whatever influenceSOMERSET had brought himself under inevitable suspicion of complicity in the ultimate result of that imprisonment. He was already within the web. His struggles made it only the more tangled. Corresp. vol. lxxxvii, Sir Robert COTTON remained in custody until the middle of the year 1616. He was effectually prevented from appearing in May of that year as a witness at his friend's Domestic trial. He was himself put to no form of trial whatever. But James I, he had to purchase his pardon at the price of five hundred £. 67 (R. II.). pounds. It received the Great Seal on the 16th July. Remembering BACON's share in each stage of the proceedings against SOMERSET, and the lavishness of his pro- Feb. 1; and as precluding their intercourse from ripening into that close friendship which such a man as D'Ewes could form only with men likeminded with himself on the highest interests of humanity. Is it not easy to infer-and is not the inference also inevitable-that by the fact of Somerset acquainting Cotton with the murder of Overbury a little before' it became public, and advising him as to the course for his safety,' D'Ewes understood such a communication and such advice as are entirely compatible with Somerset's innocence of his wife's crime? Bacon to Villiers, April 18; 1616. |