shown him. Of the correctness of the inference from them, Lingard
admits, 'we have no opportunity of judging.' That the Frenchman would
rejoice to believe a rival diplomatist had traitors for his
confederates, and that they had tampered with assassination plots, is
obvious. His bias towards such a result must have been so strong as to
incapacitate him, even beyond de Thou, for a neutral scrutiny of the
facts. Inquirers since have ransacked all sources of information,
official and unofficial, English, Spanish, French, and Venetian. No
higher criminality has been discovered in him than that he may have been
aware of the project of an acquaintance to influence by means of Spanish
gold the King's policy. If he were guilty of worse than this, it is a
solecism in the history of treasons that in the course of three
centuries not a tittle of evidence of it should have been unearthed.

[Sidenote: _Cobham's Trial._]

Ralegh, to the last, clung to the chance of rehabilitation through
Cobham. He should have understood the man too well by this time to
repose the most slender trust in his truthfulness, generosity, or
courage. Privy Councillors examined him after Ralegh's trial, and he
repeated his calumnies. On the following Friday he was tried by his
peers in the County hall, the great hall of Winchester Castle, known as
Arthur's Hall from a picture of the Round Table at the east end.
'Never,' reported Sir Dudley Carleton, afterwards Lord Dorchester, who
was present at both trials, 'was there so poor and abject a spirit.' He
listened to his indictment with fear and trembling. He confessed he had
hammered in his brains imaginations of the matters charged against him,
but never had purposed to bring them to effect. He repeated in an
incoherent manner his charges against Ralegh. Ralegh, he asserted, had
stirred him up to discontent, and thereby overthrown his fortunes.
Ralegh had proposed the despatch of a Spanish army to Milford Haven.
Ralegh had made himself a pensioner of Spain. As earnest of services for
which he expected a salary of 1500 crowns, Ralegh had disclosed to
Arenberg State deliberations at Greenwich. Ralegh had nothing to hope
from the compiler of this wonderful medley, who was willing to buy his
life by calumnies upon his friend. He had nothing to hope from the legal
justice of his cause. His only real hope was in a discovery by the
Fountain of Mercy that the prosecution of him was a mistake; that he was
too preciou