Note 51 — COBHAM HALL, KENT.

At the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, at Winton, the 17th of November, 1 Jac. 1603, for high treason, “in conspiring to depose the king and set up the Lady Arabella Stuart, and corresponding with Spain for that purpose;” a variety of documents and letters were produced and read; written, as alleged, by Lord Cobham, implicating Sir Walter, admitting his own guilty participation, and affirming that “he would not have entered into these courses but by his, Raleigh’s, instigation.” Raleigh’s demand to be brought “face to face” with his accuser was refused, on the ground that “the accuser may be drawn by practise to retract what he had deposed, while he is here in person.” To this Raleigh replied, “He dares not accuse me. He said I was the cause of all his miseries and the destruction of his house, by my wicked counsel. If this be true, whom hath he to accuse or be revenged of but me?” “I say,” he added, “that Cobham is a base, dishonourable, poor soul.” Cobham, however, had retracted his assertions concerning Raleigh, who, at his trial, produced a letter from Cobham, to this effect:—“Seeing myself so near my end, for the discharge of my conscience and freeing myself 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 anything I know. I will say as Pilate, ‘Purus sum a sanguine hujus.’ So God have mercy upon my soul, as I know no treason by you.” The letter, however, availed Sir Walter nothing; the attorney-general affirming “that it had been procured by subtle practices; and that the first declaration was drawn up voluntarily by my lord Cobham, and without any hopes of pardon.” Under a most iniquitous sentence then pronounced, Raleigh was executed fifteen years afterwards; and Cobham had been a houseless wanderer, meanwhile, perishing unpitied and unwept. Of their intimacy there is no doubt; and it is more than probable that the Old Hall we are describing was often the home of Sir Walter Raleigh, when distinguished as “the noble and valorous knight.” It is grievous to think that so great a “worthy” should have been sacrificed to the pitiful cowardice of so “poor a soul” as the last of the Cobhams—the degenerate scion of a munificent and valorous race.