considerate. He promised to
let Ralegh, after the King's counsel should have produced all the
evidence, answer particularly what he would. Hele opened. I cull a few
flowers of his eloquence and logic: 'You have heard of Ralegh's bloody
attempt to kill the King, in whom consists all our happiness, and the
true use of the Gospel, and his royal children, poor babes that never
gave offence. Since the Conquest there was never the like treason. But
out of whose head came it? Out of Ralegh's. Cobham said to Brooke: "It
will never be well in England till the King and his cubs are taken
away." It appears that Cobham took Ralegh to be either a god or an idol.
Bred in England, Cobham hath no experience abroad. But Ralegh is a man
of great wit, military, and a swordsman. Now, whether these things were
bred in a hollow tree, I leave to them to speak of who can speak far
better than myself.'

[Sidenote: _The Main, and the Bye._]

He meant Sir Edward Coke, who then addressed the Court. He started
gently: 'We carry a just mind, to condemn no man but upon plain
evidence.' Thence he proceeded: 'Here is mischief, mischief _in summo
gradu_, exorbitant mischief!' He first explained 'the treason of the
Bye.' That was the alleged plot of Grey, Brooke, and Markham to surprise
the King, and carry him to the Tower. Ralegh reminded the jury that he
was not charged with the Bye. 'No,' retorted Coke, but 'all these
treasons, though they consisted of several points, closed in together;
like Samson's foxes, which were joined in the tails, though the heads
were severed.' He anticipated the objection that the Crown had but one
witness, Cobham. It had, he argued, more than two witnesses: 'When a man
by his accusation of another shall by the same accusation also condemn
himself, and make himself liable to the same punishment, this is by law
more forcible than many witnesses, and is as the inquest of twelve men.
For the law presumes that a man will not accuse himself in order to
accuse another.' That is, Coke chose to confuse an argument for the
sufficiency of a man's evidence of his own guilt with its cogency as
evidence of another's. After this, he declaimed upon the horror of the
treason in the present case. 'To take away the fox and his cubs! To
whom, Sir Walter, did you bear malice? To the royal children?' Ralegh
protested: 'What is the treason of Markham and the priests to me?' Coke
burst forth: 'I will then come close to you. I will prove you to