ome of them, with their master, were capable of thinking,
or affecting to think, any incredible evil of him, and all belonging to
him. It was accounted an alarming circumstance that in the September of
1605 Lady Ralegh, during a visit to Sherborne, had the old arms in the
castle scoured.

[Sidenote: _Lady Ralegh's Expulsion._]

In 1607 the Council instituted an inquiry into the manner in which
Harvey had played the gaoler. Ralegh was brought before it, and
interrogated. So was Edward or William Cottrell, described as 'alias
Captain Sampson.' He was found to have been living for some time past at
Sherborne, perhaps under his alias, on a pension granted him by Ralegh.
In terror, or through an offer of better terms, he now confessed his
part in the bygone transmission of messages between Ralegh, Keymis, and
Cobham. Again, in 1610 some new and shadowy charges were brought against
Ralegh. The Council sat at the Tower. On Cecil was thrown the task, we
will hope, the very ungrateful task, of addressing to him a solemn
rebuke. He was subjected to three months of close imprisonment, and his
wife was obliged to leave the Tower. An order was served upon her: 'The
Lady Raleighe must understand his Majesty's express will and commandment
that she resort to her house on Tower Hill or ellswhere with her women
and sonnes to remayne there, and not to lodge hereafter within the
Tower.' Ralegh prayed earnestly that she might 'again be made a prisoner
with me, as she hath been for six years last past, in this unsavoury
place--a miserable fate for her, and yet great to me, who in this
wretched estate can hope for no other thing than peaceable sorrow.' The
offence for which he was censured and immured was never revealed to the
public; for the excellent reason, it may be presumed, that to the public
it would have appeared frivolous. His true criminality now and
throughout is to be gathered from the testimony of Henry Howard in the
year following. In July, 1611, fresh rumours of offences committed by
him were spread. Howard, now Earl of Northampton and Lord Chamberlain,
and another Privy Councillor, were commissioned to inquire. To Howard's
taste, his spirit was not at all sufficiently subdued. In a letter to
his notable accomplice and pupil, and the future husband of his great
niece, Carr, Lord Rochester and Privy Seal, Howard expressed his spite:
'We had a bout with Sir Walter Ralegh, in whom we find no change, but
the same boldness, pride,