Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n
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A59998
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The life of the valiant & learned Sir Walter Raleigh, Knight with his tryal at Winchester.
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Shirley, John, 1648-1679.
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1677
(1677)
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Wing S3495; ESTC R14700
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67,858
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244
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Aremberg nor of the surprising Treason Lord Ch. Iustice. In my Conscience I am perswaded that Cobham hath accused you truly You cannot deny but that you were dealt with to have a Pension to be a Spy for Spain therefore you are not so true to the King as you have protested your self to be Raleigh I submit my self to the King's Mercy I know his Mercy is greater than my Offence I recommend my Wife and Son of tender years unbrought up to his Compassion Lord Chief Iustice. I had thought I should never have seen this Day to have stood in this place to give Sentence of Death against you because I thought it impossible that one of so great Parts should have fallen so grievously God hath bestowed on you many Benefits You had been a Man fit and able to have served the King in good Place You had brought your self into a good State of Living if you had entred into a good Consideration of your Estate and not suffered your own Wit to have intrapped your self you might have lived in good comfort It is best for Man not to seek to climb too high lest he fall nor yet to creep too low lest he be trodden on It was the Posie of the wisest and greatest Counsellor of our time in England In medio spatio mediocria firma locantur You might have lived well with 3000 Pound a Year for so I have heard your Revenues to be I know nothing might move you to be discontented but if you had been down you know Fortunes Wheel when it is turned about riseth again I never heard that the King took away any thing from you but the Captainship of the Guard which he did with very good Reason to have one of his own knowledg whom he might trust in that Place You have been taken for a wise Man and so have shewed Wit enough this Day Again for Monopolies for Wine c. If the King had said it is a Matter that offends my People should I burthen them for your private Good I think you could not well take it hardly that his Subjects were eased though by your private hindrance Two Vices have lodged chiefly in you one is an eager Ambition the other corrupt Covetousness Ambition in desiring to be advanced to equal Grace and Favour as you have been before-time that Grace you had then you got not in a Day or Year For your Covetousness I am sorry to hear that a Gentleman of your Wealth should become a base Spie for the Enemy which is the vilest of all other wherein on my Conscience Cobham hath said true by it you would have increased your Living 1500 Pound a Year This Covetousness is like a Canker that eats the Iron Place where it lives Your Case being thus let it not grieve you if I speak a little out of zeal and love to your good You have been taxed by the World with the Defence of the most Heathenish and Blasphemous Opinions which I list not to repeat because Christian Ears cannot endure to hear them nor the Authors and Maintainers of them suffered to live in any Christian Common-wealth You know what Men said of Harpool You shall do well before you go out of the World to give satisfaction therein and not to die with these Imputations on you Let not any Devil perswade you to think there is no Eternity in Heaven for if you think thus you shall find Eternity in Hell-Fire In the first Accusation of my Lord Cobham I observed his manner of speaking I protest before the Living God I am perswaded he spoke nothing but the Truth You wrote that he should not in any case confess any thing to a Preacher telling him an Example of my Lord of Essex that noble Earl that is gone who if he had not been carried away with others had lived in Honour to this Day among us He confessed his Offences and obtained Mercy of the Lord for I am verily perswaded in my Heart he died a worthy Servant of God Your Conceit of not confessing any thing is very inhumane and wicked In this World is the time of Confessing that we may be absolved at the Day of Judgment You have shewed a fearful Sign of denying God in advising a Man not to confess the Truth It now comes in my mind why you may not have your Accuser come face to face for such an one is easily brought to retract when he seeth there is no hope of his own Life It is dangerous that any Traytors should have any Access to or Conference with one another when they see themselves must die they will think it best to have their Fellow live that he may commit the like Treason again and so in some sort seek Revenge Now it resteth to pronounce the Judgment which I wish you had not been this day to have received of me For if the Fear of God in you had been answerable to your other great Parts you might have lived to have been a singular good Subject I never saw the like Trial and hope I shall never see the like again The Iudgment But since you have been found guilty of these horrible Treasons the Judgment of this Court is That you shall be had from hence to the Place whence you came there to remain until the Day of Execution and from thence you shall be drawn upon a Hurdle through the open Streets to the Place of Execution there to be hanged and cut down alive and your Body shall be opened your Heart and Bowels pluckt out and your Privy Members cut off and thrown into the Fire before your Eyes then your Head to be strucken off from your Body and your Body shall be divided into four Quarters to be disposed of at the King's Pleasure And God have Mercy upon your Soul Sir Walter Raleigh besought the Earl of Devonshire and the Lords to be Suiters on his behalf to the King that in regard of Places of Estimation he did bear in his Majesties time the Rigour of his Judgment might be qualified and his Death honourable and not ignominious Wherein after they had promised him to do their utmost Endeavours the Court rose and the Prisoner was carried up again to the Castle Here follows the Continuation of the Life IT was observed that before the Lords principally to my Lord Cecil at Winchester for there he was tried the Sickness then reigning in London he was humble but not prostrate dutiful but not deject For in some cases he would humbly thank them for gracious Speeches in other acknowledge that their Honours said true as in relating some Circumstances And in such points wherein he would not yield unto them he would crave pardon and with reverence urge them and answer them as in points of Law or essential matters of Fact To the Jury he was affable but not fawning hoping but not trusting in them carefully perswading them with Reason not distemperately importuning them with Conjuration rather shewing love of Life
his own hands he wrote this Letter Now Sir you shall see whether you had Intelligence with Cobham within four days before he came to the Tower If he be wholly Spanish that desired a Pension of 1500 Pound a Year from Spain that Spain by him might have Intelligence then Raleigh is a Traytor He hath taken an Apple and pinned a Letter unto it and threw it into my Lord Cobham's Window the Contents whereof were this It is doubtful whether we shall be proceeded with or no perhaps you shall not be tried This was to get a Retractation Oh! it was Adam's Apple whereby the Devil did deceive him Further he wrote thus Do not as my Lord of Essex did take heed of a Preacher for by his Perswasion he confessed and made himself guilty I doubt not but this day God shall have as great a Conquest by this Traytor and the Son of God shall be as much glorified as when it was said Vicisti Galilaee you know my meaning What though Cobham retracted yet he could not rest nor sleep till he confirmed it again If this be not enough to prove him a Traytor the King my Master shall not live three years to an end Nota. Here Mr. Attourney produced the Lord Cobham's Letter and as he read it inserted some speeches I have thought fit to set down this to my Lords wherein I protest on my Soul to write nothing but the truth I am now come near the period of my time therefore I confess the whole Truth before God and his Angels Raleigh four days before I came from the Tower caused an Apple Eves Apple to be thrown in at my Chamber-Window the effect of it was to intreat me to right the wrong that I had done him in saying that I should have come home by Iersey which under my hand to him I have retracted His first Letter I answered not which was thrown in the same manner wherein he prayed me to write him a Letter which I did He sent me word that the Judges met at Mr. Attourneys House and that there was good hope the Proceedings against us should be stayed He sent me another time a little Tobacco At Aremberg's coming Raleigh was to have procured a Pension of fifteen hundred Pounds a Year for which he promised that no Action should be against Spain the Low-Countries or the Indies but he would give knowledg before-hand He told me the States had Audience with the King Attourney Ah! is not this a Spanish Heart in an English Body He hath been the Original Cause of my Ruine for I had no dealing with Aremberg but by his instigation He hath also been the cause of my Discontentment he advised me not to be overtaken with Preachers as Essex was and that the King would better allow of a constant Denial than to accuse any Attourney Oh damnable Atheist he hath learned some Text of Scripture to serve his own purpose but falsly alledged He counsels him not to be counselled by Preachers as Essex was He died the Child of God God honoured him at his death thou wast by when he died Et Lupus Turpes instant morientibus Ursae He died indeed for his Offence The King himself spake these words He that shall say Essex died not for Treason is punishable Raleigh You have heard a strange Tale of a strange Man Now he thinks he hath matter enough to destroy me but the King and all of you shall witness by our Deaths which of us was the Ruine of the other I bid a poor Fellow throw in the Letter at his Window written to this purpose You know you have undone me now write three Lines to justifie me In this I will die that he hath done me wrong Why did not he acquaint me with his Treasons if I acquainted him with my Dispositions Lord Chief Iustice. But what say you now of the rest of the Letter and the Pension of 1500 l. per annum Raleigh I say that Cobham is a base dishonourable poor Soul Attourney Is he base I return it into thy Throat on his behalf But for thee he had been a good Subject Lord Chief Iustice. I perceive you are not so clear a Man as you have protested all this while for you should have discovered these Matters to the King Nota. Here Raleigh pulled a Letter out of his Pocket which the Lord Cobham had written to him and desired my Lord Cecil to read it because he only knew his hand the Effect of it was as followeth Cobham's Letter of Iustification to Raleigh Seeing my self so near my End for the discharge of my own Conscience and freeing my self from your Blood which else will cry Vengeance against me I protest upon my Salvation I never practised with Spain by your procurement God so comfort me in this my Affliction as you are a true Subject for any thing that I know I will say as Daniel Purus sum a sanguine hujus So God have mery on my Soul as I know no Treason by you Raleigh Now I wonder how many Souls this Man hath he damns one in this Letter and another in that Here was much ado Mr. Attourney alledged that his last Letter was politickly and cunningly urged from the Lord Cobham and that the first was simply the Truth and that lest it should seem doubtful that the first Letter was drawn from my Lord Cobham by promise of mercy or hope of favour the Lord Chief Justice willed that the Jury might herein be satisfied Whereupon the Earl of Devonshire delivered that the same was meer voluntary and not extracted from the Lord Cobham upon any hopes or promise of Pardon Nota. This was the last Evidence whereupon a Marshal was sworn to keep the Jury private The Jury departed and staid not a quarter of an hour but returned and gave their Verdict Guilty Serj. Heale demanded Judgment against the Prisoner Clerk of the Crown Sir Walter Raleigh Thou hast been indicted arraigned and pleaded not guilty for all these several Treasons and for tryal thereof hast put thy self upon thy Country which Country are these who have found thee guilty What canst thou say for thy self why Judgment and Execution of Death should not pass against thee Raleigh My Lords the Jury have found me Guilty They must do as they are directed I can say nothing why Judgment should not proceed You see whereof Cobham hath accused me You remember his Protestations that I was never guilty I desire the King should know of the Wrongs done unto me since I came hither Lord Chief Iustice. You have had no wrong Sir Walter Raleigh Yes of Mr. Attourney I desire my Lords to remember three things to the King 1. I was accused to be a Practiser with Spain I never knew that my Lord Cobham meant to go thither I will ask no mercy at the Kings hands if he will affirm it 2. I never knew of the practice with Arabella 3. I never knew of my Lord Cobhams practice with