Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

have come seen them.

with messages to his house, it did not follow that he had The warrant to break open Weston's house and search for papers was granted, he said, at the request of his wife, who "desired it for Mrs. Turner's sake"-which was very likely not only the truth, but the whole truth.

So far, his answer to the charges was plausible, and (except in the two points which I have noticed) might seem to offer a reasonable explanation of all the facts adduced; which were all that he had expected to be brought against him. What he had not anticipated, and was not at all prepared for, was the discovery of his attempts to get rid of evidence which might incriminate him, and to forge evidence which might be alleged in exculpation. There was no way of reconciling this with the rest of his story; and being urged with it unexpectedly, he had no answer ready. He denied nothing:—neither the recovery of the letters from Davis, nor the burning, nor the clipping, nor the dating. "Now for the ante-dates," he said, " which are used as a circumstance against me, Sir R. Cotton moved me to it, saying that the dates might prove useful to me at this time." So his words are reported in the 'State Trials.' (P. 995.) According to the other report, "the dating of the letters he did not deny, but said Sir Robert Cotton did persuade him so to do, telling him that they might be so dated as might clear him of all imputation." So again with regard to the burning and clipping: "I confess Sir Robert Cotton delivered me back those letters I had sent my Lord of Northampton, and that I burned them,2 and that some parts were cut off as impertinent."3

His attempt to arm himself beforehand with a pardon large enough to save him harmless in case he were questioned, was not so fatal a fact as the forgery. He could assign a motive for it which had no reference to his present case. Sir Robert Cotton (he said) advised him, seeing that he had received some disgrace in the opinion of the world through the failure of the last pardon, to recover his honour by getting one drawn after the largest precedent: so he “bade him search for the largest." "And for any general words, the lawyers put them in without his privity."

At another time this explanation might have passed. At any time

1 Amos, p. 155. According to the Cambridge MS. "The Lord Compton desired to know the date of the letter [the letter in which the powder was enclosed] but the same being showed, it appeared that at the writing it wanted a date; and Sir R. Cotton upon examination had confessed he dated the same as my Lord appointed him. He" [i. e. I think, Somerset] “answered, he caused the true date according to the time he received it to be set down."

2 "Touching the burning of the letters between him and the Earl of Northampton, he answered that he had no occasion to keep his own letters, neither did he want to make monuments of his own lines." Camb. MS. 3 State Trials,' p. 991.

and in any circumstances Sir R. Cotton would have recommended him to follow precedents, and would have been ready to produce them; and it is conceivable that he might, under certain conditions, have advised him to outface Court enemies with some such Court triumph as this. But that if Cotton did not believe him to be guilty he would ever have advised him to resort to forgery for evidence of innocence, the Peers must have found it very hard to believe. And that the destruction, mutilation, and misdating of the letters, and the procurement of a very unusual kind of protection, should come all together, just at the time when he knew he was to be called in question for the murder of the man to whose affairs the letters related, and the history of whose death depended very much upon the dates must have seemed a coincidence which called for explanation. He had not a word of explanation to offer. The effect of his defence, though it began confidently and appears to have contained one or two spirited and forcible passages, was ruined by this fatal defect, and evidently made no impression upon the Court in his favour: so little, indeed, that Bacon did not think it worth while to make any reply. When Somerset had said all he could think of-for he was neither hurried nor checked nor in any way interfered with-Bacon rose, and, according to the report in the 'State Trials,' addressed these few words to the Court.

It hath, my Lord, formerly at arraignments been a custom after the King's counsel and the prisoner's defence hath been heard, briefly to sum up what hath been said: but in this we have been so formal in the distribution that I do not think it necessary. And therefore now there is no more to be done, but that the Peers will be pleased to confer, and the prisoner to withdraw until the censures be past.

[ocr errors]

Somerset, as he withdrew, addressed the Peers again in a few words, which read like the peroration of the speech which he had intended to make, but which had been upset by the unexpected evidence which confronted him-concluding with a protestation that he was "neither guilty nor privy to any wrong that Overbury suffered in this kind." Then the Lord Steward summed up, and the Peers (having first conferred by themselves for the space of an hour, during which they sent for the two Chief Justices to assist them1) returned into Court, and being asked one by one, all answered Guilty. Upon which Bacon spoke again.

1 Camb. MS.

My Lord High Steward, Robert Earl of Somerset hath been indicted and arraigned, and put himself upon his Peers, who all without the difference of one voice have found him Guilty. I pray judgment.

And judgment was passed accordingly.

Somerset had said nothing whatever during the whole trial which in any way reflected upon the King.1

6.

The judgment of the bystanders appears to have quite concurred. with that of the Peers. Chamberlain (though he cannot be taken as speaking for himself, because he did not stay to hear Somerset's defence) reports what he had found no doubt to be the general opinion, when, writing to Carleton on the 8th of June, he says.

"When I wrote last I left the Earl of Somerset pleading for his life: but that he said for himself was so little, that he was found guilty by all his Peers; which did so little appal him, that when he was asked what he could say why sentence should not be pronounced, he stood still on his innocence, and could hardly be brought to refer himself to the King's mercy; upon which terms he stands still; and having leave to write to the King, hath only required that his judgment of hanging should be changed to heading; and that his daughter might have such of his lands as the King doth not resume and reserve in his own hands."

Sherburn, also an intelligent witness, writing to Carleton on the 25th of May, gives a fuller report.

1 According to the Cambridge MS. he repeated his protestation of innocence once more after the verdict had been given. "Then he spake to the Lords and said his case might be any of theirs hereafter, desired them to consider that it was but the testimony of two women of bad condition that had condemned him, protested upon his salvation that he never saw Weston's face, and that he was innocent of that he was condemned."

2 The little he heard of it he must have heard imperfectly: for in a letter written immediately on his return from the Court, he tells Carleton that he does not know how the business will end: "for" (says he) "he denies all, even his own letters, saying they be counterfeited, and will not be brought to write, whereby to shew the conformity of the character; but says that it is against law that he should be put to it :"'-a passage of which there is no trace in any of the reports; and which is the more difficult to understand because there was nothing given in evidence which required the identification of Somerset's handwriting. His own letters he had himself by his own admission destroyed: and the act of destroying them was alleged against him as suspicious: but no writing of his own was produced. I think Chamberlain must have misunderstood something which possibly passed with reference to Sir R. Cotton's interpolations. Somerset may possibly have denied at first that the inserted dates were in Cotton's hand, and there may have been some talk about measures for identifying it, which the reporters missed, because the objection was presently withdrawn.

"This day my L. of Somerset came likewise to his trial... His L. had much favour shown him by being allowed for his better memory pen ink and paper, to take such notes as he thought best. His answers were so poor and idle as many of the Lords his Peers shook their heads and blushed to hear such slender excuses come from him, of whom much better was expected. The only thing worth note in him was his constancy and undaunted carriage in all the time of his arraignment, which as it began so did it continue to the end, without any change or alteration."1

To these may be added the opinion of the author of the report of the trial which Sherburn sent to Carleton; who, though he gives much the best and fullest and most spirited version of Somerset's defence that exists, evidently considered it a failure. I am not aware that any contemporary evidence can be produced which tells the other way. And it is quite possible that those who heard and saw the trial had better ground for their opinion than we know. It is the peculiar infelicity of Somerset's case (supposing him to have been innocent), that the only evidence in his favour is the absence of direct and conclusive evidence against him. Not a single fact was alleged at the trial, or has ever (so far as I know) been alleged since, which is at all difficult to reconcile with the supposition of his guilt. Nothing was proved or pretended in the nature of an alibi. He was always on the spot, always within reach, always in close and confidential correspondence with those who were certainly engaged in the murder. Nothing was brought forward which seemed to show that he was acting towards Overbury in a different spirit. We do not hear of any personal visit; nor of any earnest endeavour to ascertain his real condition, with a view to help or to prevent consequences worse than were intended; nor of any manifestation of surprise or regret at the event; nor of any anxiety to understand how it came about. It is true there is a letter to Dr. Craig, written by Somerset, informing him that whenever Overbury desires to see him "the King is pleased he shall go," and adding a request from himself that he will give him his best help, and as much of his company as he shall require; and there is another letter from Northampton to the Lieutenant of the Tower apparently upon the same occasion. But this was by the King's order upon the direct application of Overbury's father to the King himself;3 and after this, if old Mr. Overbury is to be believed, Somerset told him that petitions to the King for his son's release would hinder it, and advised him to send

1 S. P. Dom. James I., vol. lxxxvii. no. 29.

2 Amos, p. 166.

3 See Northampton's letter to Helwysse; "Old Mr. Overbury's petition contained another request," etc.

no more.

Now if in addition to this unfortunate absence of all direct evidence in his favour, Somerset's manner when confronted with the confession of Sir Robert Cotton showed (as the report seems to indicate) confusion and perplexity, it is possible that the Peers may have had reason enough for their verdict, although to us the evidence may not appear to justify it. We hold cheap the authority of the Judges and Juries of those times, because they proceeded so much upon depositions, without producing the witnesses in open Court, where their behaviour under cross-examination might have modified the effect of their testimony. And it is true that they would have been better able to judge if they had insisted more upon viva voce evidence. But we forget that in this very respect we are ourselves in a worse position to judge than they were. They had at any rate the advantage of seeing the prisoner and the Counsel, and could ask questions of them. In many cases, and notably in this of which we are speaking, they saw several of the witnesses. We on the contrary have nothing but depositions to go upon, and can ask questions of nobody. We may assume, if we will, that we are wiser and juster and more virtuous, ourselves being the judges, of course we are, but I do not see how we can assume that we know as much about the cases. And therefore though we may justly hesitate to accept their conclusions as conclusive, we ought, I think, to rest in scepticism, and not insist upon the substitution of our own.

And here I should have been content for my own part to leave this case, as requiring no further explanation. That Overbury was murdered in the manner described, and that the Countess was the chief procuress, there is no doubt at all. That Somerset and Northampton1 were aiding and abetting, there is much reason to suspect, though to us no absolute proof. That the discovery of all this was brought about by a rumour, which led to inquiry, and was followed up with a laudable determination, springing from a natural intolerance of murder, to get to the bottom of it if possible,—is a supposition which involves no difficulty, and leaves nothing unaccounted for. What reason is there for supposing that there was anything behind? My own answer is that there is no reason at all. I do not myself believe that there was anything behind. But it is true that there was at the time a general expectation of further discoveries, and there has been a prevalent belief since that some guilty secret was then hushed up. What it was, the ingenuity of historians has exhausted itself in vain endeavours to conjecture. But the existence of such a

I include Northampton, because those who accept Somerset's story as true, will find it difficult to refuse him the benefit of it.

[merged small][ocr errors]
« AnteriorContinuar »