were
represented to the queen as a person that despised her clemency; though
he should not, he believed, make any cringing submissions to obtain it.
Southampton's behavior was more mild and submissive; he entreated the
good offices of the peers in so modest and becoming a manner, as excited
compassion in every one.

The most remarkable circumstance in Essex's trial was Bacon's appearance
against him. He was none of the crown lawyers; so was not obliged by
his office to assist at this trial: yet did he not scruple, in order to
obtain the queen's favor, to be active in bereaving of life his friend
and patron, whose generosity he had often experienced. He compared
Essex's conduct, in pretending to fear the attempts of his adversaries,
to that of Pisistratus the Athenian, who cut and wounded his own body,
and, making the people believe that his enemies had committed the
violence, obtained a guard for his person, by whose assistance he
afterwards subdued the liberties of his country.

After Essex had passed some days in the solitude and reflections of a
prison, his proud heart was at last subdued, not by the fear of death,
but by the sentiments of religion; a principle which he had before
attempted to make the instrument of his ambition, but which now took a
more firm hold of his mind, and prevailed over every other motive and
consideration. His spiritual directors persuaded him, that he never
could obtain the pardon of Heaven, unless he made a full confession
of his disloyalty; and he gave in to the council an account of all
his criminal design, as well as of his correspondence with the king
of Scots. He spared not even his most intimate friends, such as Lord
Mountjoy, whom he had engaged in these conspiracies; and he sought to
pacify his present remorse by making such atonements as, in any other
period of his life, he would have deemed more blamable than those
attempts themselves which were the objects of his penitence.[*]
Sir Henry Nevil, in particular, a man of merit, he accused of a
correspondence with the conspirators though it appears that this
gentleman had never assented to the proposals made him, and was no
further criminal than in not revealing the earl's treason; an office to
which every man of honor naturally bears the strongest reluctance.[**]
Nevil was thrown into prison, and underwent a severe persecution but as
the queen found Mountjoy an able and successful commander, she continued
him in his government,