L OF SOMERSET.]

The countess was first tried. She trembled and shed tears during the
reading of the indictment, and, in a low voice, pleaded guilty. On being
asked why sentence of death should not be passed against her, she replied
meekly, "I can much aggravate, but nothing extenuate my fault. I desire
mercy, and that the lords will intercede for me with the king." Sentence
of death was passed upon her.

Next day the earl was brought to trial. He appears to have mistrusted the
promises of James, and he pleaded not guilty. With a self-possession and
confidence which he felt, probably, from his knowledge of the king's
character, he rigorously cross-examined the witnesses, and made a stubborn
defence. After a trial which lasted eleven hours he was found guilty, and
condemned to the felon's death.

[Illustration: THE COUNTESS OF SOMERSET.]

Whatever may have been the secrets between the criminal and the king, the
latter, notwithstanding his terrific oath, was afraid to sign the
death-warrant. It might, perchance, have been his own. The earl and
countess were committed to the Tower, where they remained for nearly five
years. At the end of this period, to the surprise and scandal of the
community, and the disgrace of its chief magistrate, they both received
the royal pardon, but were ordered to reside at a distance from the court.
Having been found guilty of felony, the estates of the earl had become
forfeited; but James granted him out of their revenues an income of
4000l. per annum! Shamelessness could go no further.

Of the after-life of these criminals nothing is known, except that the
love they had formerly borne each other was changed into aversion, and
that they lived under the same roof for months together without the
interchange of a word.

The exposure of their atrocities did not put a stop to the practice of
poisoning. On the contrary, as we shall see hereafter, it engendered that
insane imitation which is so strange a feature of the human character.
James himself is supposed, with great probability, to have fallen a victim
to it. In the notes to Harris's _Life and Writings of James I._, there is
a good deal of information on the subject. The guilt of Buckingham,
although not fully established, rests upon circumstances of suspicion
stronger than have been sufficient to lead hundreds to the scaffold. His
motives for committing the crime are stated to have been a desire of
revenge for the coldness with which t