mission, as of his Majesty's subjects under his charge, impostures, attempts of escape, declining his Majesty's justice, and the rest, evidently proved, or confessed by himself, he had made himself utterly unworthy of his Majesty's further mercy: And, because he could not, by law, be judicially called in question, for that his former attainder of treason is the highest and last work of the law, whereby he was Civiliter mortuus, his Majesty was forced, except attainders should become privileges for all subsequent offences, to resolve to have him executed upon his former attainder.

His Majesty's just and honourable proceedings being thus made manifest to all his good subjects, by this preceding declaration, not founded upon conjecture or likelihoods, but either upon confession of the party himself, or upon the examination of divers unsuspected witnesses, he leaves it to the world to judge, how he could either have satisfied his own justice (his honourable intentions having been so perverted and abused by the said Sir Walter Raleigh) or yet make the uprightness of the same his intentions appear to his dearest brother, the King of Spain, if he had not, by a legal punishment of the offender, given an example, as well of terror to all his other subjects, not to abuse his gracious meanings, in taking contrary courses for the attaining to their own unlawful ends, as also of demonstration to all other foreign princes and states, whereby they might rest assured of his Majesty's honourable proceeding with them, when any the like case shall occur. By which means, his Majesty may the more assuredly expect and claim an honourable concurrence, and a reciprocal correspondence from them, upon any the like occasion. But, as to Sir Walter Raleigh's confession at his death, what he confessed, or denied, touching any the points of this declaration, his Majesty leaves him and his conscience therein to God, as was said in the beginning of this discourse. For sovereign princes cannot make a true judgment, upon the bare speeches, or asseverations, of a delinquent, at the time of his death, but their judgment must be founded upon examinations, reexaminations, and confrontments, and such like real proofs, as all this former discourse is made up of and built upon; all the material and most important of the said examinations being taken under the hands of the examinates that could write, and that in the presence of no fewer than six of his Majesty's privy council, and attested by their alike several subscriptions under their hands; which were my Lords, the Archbishop of Canterbury; the Lord Verulam Lord Chancellor of England; the Earl of Worcester, Lord Privy Seal; Master Secretary Naunton; the Master of the Rolls; and Sir Edward Coke.

THE

HUMBLE PETITION AND INFORMATION

OF

SIR LEWIS STUKELEY, KNIGHT,

VICE-ADMIRAL OF DEVON,

Touching his own Behaviour in the Charge committed unto him,

FOR THE

BRINGING UP OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH,

AND THE

SCANDALOUS ASPERSIONS CAST UPON HIM FOR THE SAME.

Imprinted at London, by Bonham Norton and John Bill, Printers to the King's most excellent Majesty, Anno 1618. Quarto, containing seventeen Pages.

TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.

The whole Story of Sir Walter Raleigh is so affecting, and the justice of his sentence, and the integrity of his conduct, has been so much ́controverted, that every tract, from which any information concerning him can be attained, ought to be esteemed worthy to be preserved. We have therefore inserted, in this collection, Sir William Stukely's vindication of himself, from the artifices which were thrown upon him by Raleigh on the scaffold, which probably give occasion to the declaration which was afterward published for the vindication of the King. The facts, however disadvantageous to Sir Walter's character, are declared with asseverations sufficient to gain belief, but they appear likewise to have been denied with equal solemnity. The reader must judge therefore from his circumstances, who ought to be credited. - J.*.

BEING

EING deterred by your Majesty's more important affairs from any hope of redress of those scars cast upon my reputation by Sir Walter Raleigh at his death, without some remonstrance of the business,

made by myself; I have presumed to offer, to your most excellent Majesty, a just defence of my carriage in that affair: wherein as I hold it the part of an honest man, to prefer publick duty before private affection; so I cannot but keep the heart of a gentleman, which is ever more sensible of a wound given to his reputation, than to his life. I have no pleasure to fight with a ghost: But, seeing an angel of darkness did put on him the shape of an angel of light at his departure, to perform two parts most cunningly: First, to poison the hearts of discontented people; Secondly, to blemish me in my good name, a poor instrument of the just desires of the state, with false imputations give me leave, most gracious sovereign, to speak for myself, which I do not to insult upon the dead, but to defend myself against the false reports of the living, taken from the dead upon trust, to strike me directly, but, through my sides indirectly, aiming at a higher mark. All men have long known, that this man's whole life was a mere sophistication, and such was his death, in which he borrowed some tincture of holiness, which he was thought not to love in his life, therewith to cover his hatred of others in his death. As it appeareth, that, being moved by the Dean of Westminster, and thereupon promising charity to me in the prison, doth thus vent his hatred on the scaffold, in shew of charity to the living, to take heed of so dangerous a man. An uncharitable charity, not much unlike that man's repentance, who, purposing to hang himself, writes his repentance of that sin before hand in his book, which he did purpose to commit.

Yet will not I take upon me to judge of his last repentance, I leave him unto God, to whom he stands or falls; but I would he had given a better sign of it, than by godly words at his death to gather credit to himself to work upon the compassion of men, thereby to infuse more warily the venom of sedition, into the hearts of as many as he might, and to gain reputation upon his sovereign, but to spend his malice upon me your poor servant, who did nothing, but execute your just commands, with the peril of my life. Witness his open invitation of divers to his death, wherein he meant, as in his last will and testament, to leave a legacy of his hatred unto me, to be executed upon me by them to my destruction.

But it is nothing, in respect of his general end, to spread by them, whom he had invited, the contagion of his seditious humour unto others, which the event doth manifest: That it grows very questionable, whether this man did more hurt by his life, or by his death: By his life, through his ill example; by his death, through his false testimony, to traduce the justice and instruments of the state. Yea but it was the testimony of a dying man, now a penitent, as all say, as some say a saint, even then when, as himself said, it was no time to flatter, or fear princes; yea, but it was the testimony of an enemy, of a perjured, of a condemned man. First, of an enemy, and of an angry enemy, even with your Majesty that would have justice executed on him, upon his original condemnation, who were satisfied, as he publickly did speak of his innocency in that cause, as privately before

he bewrayed his deep discontentment, when it was urged, that the testimony of the Lord Cobham was never retracted, Sir Walter Raleigh did peremptorily deny it. To whom answer was made, that then the publick act registered in the council-book would manifest it, for there it appears. So fain would this man cast aspersion upon your justice for taking the life of an innocent in that cause, wherein he was condemned by his country. When this would not serve his turn, then did he fly to the commission of a general; pleading it as an implicit pardon of that former offence: Not considering that, being already a man condemned for treason, he was, as the learned in the law held, uncapable of another trial, by which he might have been found as nocent as before. For, he having a commission, to go into those parts of America, unpossessed by any Christian prince in league with your Majesty, and no where else, either to plant or trade, he made his design for the river of Oroonoko, where he knew the subjects of the King of Spain were already planted, which, as he confessed under his hand to your Majesty, he concealed from you; and this under pretence of his gold mine, which he did apparently to this end, to break the league, and to imbroil the two states. Many generals have for exceeding their commissions been punished, even for good services; how then could he have escaped, for this his disservice, being against his commission, if he might by the law have been tried upon it? It is clear then, that he was angry with your Majesty, for commanding justice to be done upon him; how then could he chuse but be angry with me the poor instrument, who brought him back to justice, from whence he intended often to make an escape?

First at sea, upon his return, making motion to be set on shore în France, and to quit his ship to his company in that condition; for the which he was blocked up in his cabbin for a month together, as himself hath confessed unto me, and is to be proved by divers of his company: By which it is clear again, that, out of his guiltiness, he did not so much trust in your goodness, as he said on the scaffold he did too much, or else he had not suffered death. Next at Plymouth, after he was, by your Majesty's special command, committed to my keeping, he plotted with two French captains; by naine with Captain Flory, and Captain Le Grand, to escape in one of their ships, then there in harbour, as he then confessed to the lords commissioners, it being first evidently proved against him; by which it appeareth again, he did not trust your Majesty's goodness, as he wrote and said, at his death. But I am sure by this he did much wrong my kindness, to my undoing, had not the goodness of heaven prevented him. Next he plotted his escape at Salisbury, which my worthy cousin, William Herbert, first discovered to your Majesty. Last upon the same Saturday, when I received your Majesty's commission, by my cousin Herbert, by whom also I received intelligence, that at that instant he was flying from my custody without my privity; not having as yet made him any semblance of condescent, so that I almost came on him at unawares, even at the instant that he was putting on his false beard and his other disguisements: Which declares he did still distrust your

goodness; doubtless, out of the conscience of his guiltiness, whatsoever he wrote or said to the contrary. And is it any marvel then, that he was angry with me at his death for bringing him back? Besides, that, being a man, as he was thought, of so great a wit, it was no small grief, that a man, of so mean a wit as I, should be thought to go beyond him. Yea, but you should not have used such craft to go beyond him. No? Sic ars deluditur arte. Neque enim lex justior ulla est quam necis artifices arte perire sua. But why did not you execute your commission barely to his apprehension on him in his house? Why? my commission was to the contrary, to discover his other pretensions, and to seize his secret papers, &c. And can any honest subject question my honesty, in the performance of such a commission, which tended to the discovery of the secret intentions of an ill affected heart to my sovereign? How can any dislike this in me, and not bewray his own dishonest heart unto the state? Yea, but though another might have done this, yet how might you do it, being his kinsman, and his friend? surely, if I had been so, yet in a publick employment, and trust laid upon me, I was not to refuse it, much less to prefer private kindness or amity, before my publick duty and loyalty: For what did I know the dangerous consequence of these matters which were to be discovered? Or who knows them yet, of those that make themselves my competent judges? But, if there were no kindred or amity between us, as I avow there never was, what bond then might tie me to him, but the tie of compassion of his misery? Which was in my sovereign's heart to distribute, when he saw time, that did command me, and not in the dispensation of me, nor of any other instrument's power that is to be commanded. Hitherto I have proved he was angry, both with your Majesty, and with myself, and therefore his testimony ought not to be of any force against me. It followeth next to prove, that his protestations and oaths concerning others were false, both before he came to the scaffold, and upon the scaffold. Before, against Queen Elisabeth, of infinite famous memory, who advanced him with great favour from the dust. For one day myself upbraiding him with the notorious extreme injury he did my father, in deceiving him of a great adventure which my said father had in the Tyger, when he went to the West-Indies with my uncle, Sir Richard Greenville; which was, by his own confession, worth fiftythousand pounds, which came all to his hands, my father's portion at the least being ten thousand pounds that he might lawfully claim, He answered, that the Queen, howsoever she seemed a great good mistress unto him in the eyes of the world, yet was so unjust and tyrannous unto him, that she laid the envy, as well of this, as of many other her oppressions upon him; and that she took all the pearl in a cabinet unto herself, without ever giving him so much as one pearl. This he swore to me, and to Captain Pennington; he did so basely and barbarously rail upon that our most excellent Queen oftentimes, as he can attest, that no man hath cause to believe his oath against others, that would break his oath of allegiance to so excellent a mistress, that had raised him from such meanness to such greatness, as we of his country did well know,