dy explanation to Cecil it is
plain that he effectually discouraged Cobham's disposition to be
Ralegh's apologist to the Council. He underrated, however, Ralegh's
energy and dexterity. Cecil imagined that Ralegh had solicited from
Cobham the original retractation. Messages, he suspected, had passed
between the two in which Ralegh had 'expostulated Cobham's unkind using
of him.' The correctness of his conjecture for the past is unknown. It
was true of the present. Ralegh managed to have a letter, inclosed in,
or fastened to, an apple, thrown, in November, four nights before they
came to Winchester, into Cobham's window in Wardrobe tower. At the time
the Lieutenant was at supper. In it he entreated Cobham to do him
justice by his answer, and to signify to him that he had wronged him in
his accusation. He added: 'Do not, as my Lord of Essex did, take heed of
a preacher. By his persuasion he confessed, and so made himself guilty.'
Cobham, though later he forgot the fact, appears to have duly replied in
a letter, which was pushed under Ralegh's door. In it he admitted the
wrong he had done to Ralegh. The language was not distinct enough. It
was 'not to my contenting,' as afterwards said Ralegh, who wrote again.
He did not ask for another written confession. Instead, he besought
Cobham to declare his innocence when he should himself be arraigned.
Thereupon Cobham sent a letter described by Ralegh as 'very good,' a
complete and solemn justification, of which Howell in his _State Trials_
adopts the following transcript: 'Seeing myself so near my end, for the
discharge of my own conscience, and freeing myself from your blood,
which else will cry vengeance against me, I protest upon my salvation I
never practised with Spain by your procurement. God so comfort me in
this my affliction, as you are a true subject for anything that I know.
I will say, as Daniel, _Purus sum a sanguine hujus_. So God have mercy
upon my soul as I know no treason by you.' According to another version,
differing in language, not in tenor, the letter ran: 'To free myself
from the cry of blood, I protest upon my soul, and before God and His
angels, I never had conference with you in any treason, nor was ever
moved by you to the things I heretofore accused you of; and, for
anything I know, you are as innocent and as clear from any treasons
against the King as is any subject living. And God so deal with me and
have mercy upon my soul, as this is true.' Ralegh s