Politics & government > Life of Sir Walter Raleigh

266 from raleigh’s first confinement
undress, and the executioner deemed it was his time to
begin, when the sheriff opportunely interposed; and,
waving off the last officer of the law, informed his lord-
ship that it was the king’s desire he should step aside for
an hour into the same hall where Markham was shut up,
and give precedence to Cobham. This prisoner came
now upon the stage with good assurance. His former
conduct had been so contemptible and abject, that all
were surprised to see his present firmness; but Cecil
had undertaken to stand his friend, and he had probably
some idea that this was not his last act.* Be this as it
may, he briefly declared that what he said of Raleigh
was true,—an assertion which, as his stories had been
various and contradictory, did not go for much; and
having shortly bade the world adieu, he was about to
unbutton his doublet, when the sheriff once more inter¬
fered, and bade him defer a while, for something else yet
remained to be done. Grey and Markham were then
brought hack to the scaffold, all “ looking strange upon
one another, like men beheaded and met again in the
other world.” A short speech was next addressed to
them on the heinousness of their offences, and the law¬
fulness of their condemnation. To this they bowed in
token of assent. “ Now,” said the sheriff, “ see the
mercy of your prince, who of himself hath sent hither
to countermand, and given you your lives.” “ There was
then no need,” says Dudley, “ to heg a plaudite of the
audience, for it was given with such hues and cries, that
it went from the castle into the tower, and there began
afresh.”
It is easy to imagine the delight which the king expe¬
rienced in the invention and evolution of this stratagem,
though it failed in its main object, the eliciting of addi¬
tional evidence against Raleigh. Sir Dudley Carleton’s
observations are so characteristic of James’s manner, and
his style of eloquence, when the British Solomon, as he
delighted to hear himself called, communicated it to his
See Remarks at the end of the volume.