French admiral, and that La Chesnee, the interpreter to the
French Ambassador, had offered to assist in his escape. Meanwhile a
commission had been sitting to advise the King as to the best course for
him to follow. In the end they reported that Raleigh could not be tried
for any offence of which he had been guilty as an attainted man, that if
he were executed at all, he must therefore be executed upon the old
judgment, and that it would not be illegal to send him to execution on a
simple warrant. At the same time, they recommended that he should be
allowed something as near a trial as the circumstances admitted of; that
there should be a public proceeding in which the witnesses should be
publicly called, and that Raleigh should be heard in his own defence.

This, however, the King would not allow; and on the 28th of October
1618, Raleigh was brought up from the Tower to the King's Bench at
Westminster to receive judgment. He was called on to say why execution
should not be awarded against him, and pleaded that whereas since
judgment he had held the King's commission for a voyage beyond the seas,
with power of life and death over others, he was discharged of the
judgment; 'but the voyage, notwithstanding my endeavour, had no other
success, but what was fatal to me, the loss of my son, and the wasting
of my whole estate.'

Sir Edward Coke, now Lord Chief-Justice, ruled that this plea was bad,
as the commission had not the effect of a pardon, 'for by words of a
special nature, in case of treason, you must be pardoned, and not
implicitly.' He then proceeded, not without dignity, to order that
execution should be granted.

The night before the Execution, Sir Walter wrote the following
Letters, the one to the King, the other to his Wife:--

_Sir Walter Raleigh's Letter to the King._

'The life which I had, most mighty prince, the law hath taken
from me, and I am now but the same earth and dust out of which I
was made. If my offence had any proportion with your majesty's
mercy, I might despair, or if my deserving had any quantity with
your majesty's unmeasurable goodness, I might yet have hope; but
it is you that must judge that, not I. Name, blood, gentility or
estate, I have none; no not so much as a _vitam plantae_: I have
only a penitent soul in a body of iron, which moveth towards the
loadstone of death, and cannot be with-held from touching it,
except your maje