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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2012
The document which has recently been discovered by James More Molyneux, Esq. F.S.A. amongst the extensive collection of manuscripts at Loseley, containing a complete and authentic report of a message sent by King James I. to the Earl of Somerset on the 29th of December, 1615, is a valuable addition to the four letters printed in the Archæologia, nearly fifty years ago, from the autographs in the same collection. Those letters were written to Sir George More, between the 9th and 24th of May, 1616, just before the trial; and there is another at Lambeth (not an autograph, but I suppose a true copy) addressed to Somerset himself in the preceding October, just before the committal. This new document gives us conclusive evidence as to the relation in which the King stood towards him in the middle stage of the proceedings, about half-way between those dates; and makes the history of it so clear and complete that no room is left for any further doubt about it. It appears therefore to be a fit occasion for collecting and reviewing the whole of the evidence bearing upon that point, of which we have now a great deal, when all is brought properly together; and of a kind too which is entitled not only to consideration but to precedence, as being better evidence than those who first told the story had access to, and such as they would themselves have preferred if they had had it.
page 79 note a Vol. xviii. p. 313.
page 82 note a “There is now one Pecham, a minister of Somersetshire, in the Towre for that and a worse quarrell, having written seditious discourses under colour of petitions to the last parlement,” &c. Chamberlain to Oarleton, 5 Jan. 1614–5. (S.P.O.)
page 82 note b So MS.; a word has apparently been omitted: perhaps “same.”
page 83 note a So MS.
page 83 note b “Sr Walter Raleigh's booke is called in by the Kinges commaundment, for divers exceptions, but specially for beeing too sawcie in censuring princes.” Chamberlain to Carleton, 5 January, 1614–5.
page 84 note a So MS.
page 85 note a Lambeth MSS. 930, 90. Docketed, “Adrian Moore, Jhone Holland. These three letters weare in the black boxe signed with that seale wch Sir Tho. Maye brought.” The MS. is not divided into paragraphs.
page 86 note a For the relation between him and the King as late as the 20th of August, see Mr. Gardiner's copy of Gondomar's despatch, Oct. 
, 1615, which I had not seen when I wrote this.
page 87 note a Bacon's charge against the Countess.
page 87 note b Read at the arraignment of the Countess, and the original shown to the Peers. See State Trials, vol. ii. p. 956.
page 88 note a He had been sent to Bath, I believe, to attend the Queen.
page 89 note a So in MS.
page 89 note b S. P. Dom. James I. vol. lxxxi. p. 132, A. The first sheet is missing; no signature, date, or docket.
page 89 note c Bacon's Charge against the Countess of Somerset.
page 89 note d Gondomar's despatch, Oct. , 1615, which supplies some new particulars concerning the movements of Somerset and Coke at the time the Commissioners were appointed, does not give the date. But he states that the first meeting of the Commissioners was on the 15th of October; and I have no doubt that Mr. Gardiner is right in supposing that the Commission was signed and delivered to Coke in person at Koyston on the evening of Friday the 13th.
I have thought it better to add these corrections in foot-notes than to incorporate them in the text, because I did not know of this new evidence when I drew up my narrative, and if I were to introduce alterations I might make it inconsistent with itself.
page 90 note a It would seem from a passage in the newly discovered paper as if Coke had actually objected on legal grounds to acquaint the King with the evidence : “And whereas he [Somerset] desires me to acquaint hym beforehand wth the thinges that ar to be layed to his charge, besides that it is so farre against the conseiens and honor of a King to doe it, it is altogether impossible for me so to doe, although I had never so good a will to doe it; for the Chief Justice refuses absolutely to serve in his place, as I told hymself at Roiston, if I shall be acquainted wt any articles concerning blood before the partie come to his publick triall.”
page 91 note a So MS.
page 92 note b Lamb. MSS. 930, 91. Docketed, “Adriane Moore, Jhone Holland.”
page 93 note a Lord Fenton to the L. Chancellor, 19 Oct. 1615.
page 93 note b The Judges of the King's Bench to the King. S. P. Dom. James I.
page 95 note a Camden.
page 95 note b This is the docket, and is in Coke's own hand.
page 96 note a November 2. Somersetto sigilla adimuntur: baculum Camerarii Regii insigne deponere et se Delegatis sistere per Baronem Wottonum jubetur; a quibus ad arcem Londinensem in custodiam mittitur, Georgio Moro arcis prrefecto constitute—Camden.
page 96 note b Sir G. More to the Commissioners 18 Nov. Statement of Sir G. More 22 Nov.
page 96 note c Ellesmere and Coke to the King.
page 96 note d Decem. 18. Baro Knolles et Baro Haye submissi a Rege ad Somersettum—Camden.
page 97 note a Coke to the King, 27 Nov. 1615
page 98 note a “The effect of Franklin's arraignment,” S. P. Dom. 27 Nov.
page 98 note b For instance, “Being asked whether he should not have had an hundred pounds to be employed to the Palsgrave and the Lady Elizabeth, aunswered, ‘An hundred? Nay 500, I will not say how much’ …. Being tould that the Quene had bene extraordinarly sicke and payned, and heryong children taken away, sayd he, ‘Soft, I am not come, to it yet‘.… It was sayd to him that it was not possible so yong a lady as the Lady Somerset should contrive such a plott without some helpes. ‘No, no,’ said he, ‘who can thinke otherwise? for the lady had no money; but the money was had from the old lady,’” &c.
page 98 note c “And where your M. wryght that you would gladly knowe whether this newe discovery concerneth only this villany, or if it touch me in some higher nature, may it please your Matie to be advertised that it concerneth not your Maties own royal person, nor the Prince that now is, but some overture is made of some wicked attempt (besides this villany) against some that be dere and nere unto you, and besides some probable suspitions are given of some other persons, I will not say of what sexe they be, to have had an hand in this crieing syn of poisoninge.” S. P. Dom. 83, 344.
page 99 note a Sir J. Throckmorton to Mr. Trumbull, 20 Dec. 1615. See “Court and Times of James I.” i. 384.
page 99 note b Examination of John Lepton (taken by Coke), 5 Feb. 1615–16. 8. P. Dom. vol. 86, p. 31.
page 99 note c Camden. Lord Carew's Letters (Camden Society), p. 23.
page 100 note a “To have a man chased to death in such a manner (as it appears now by matter of record, for other privacy of the case I know not),” &c. Charge against Lumsden, &c. in the Star Chamber, 10 Nov. 1615.
page 101 note a Bacon to the King, 22 Jan. 1615–16.
page 101 note b Whether Somerset had committed high treason in revealing secrets to the Spanish ambassador, appears to have been the point in question. See “Notes for an Indictment” (drawn up by Coke). S. P. Dom. Feb. (?) 1615–16.
page 102 note a Bacon to Villiers, 6 May.
“The Heads of the Charge:” marginal note in the King's own hand. Bacon's Works, vi. p. 97.
page 103 note a S. P. Dom. 86, 6; printed in Gardiner's “History of England, 1603–1616,” vol. ii. p. 387.
page 103 note b 8 Jan. 1616, Gardiner id. ibid.
page 103 note c Bacon to Villiers, 13 April.
page 103 note d Bacon to Villiers, 2 May.
page 103 note e “That part of the evidence of the lady's exposition of the pronoun (he) which was first caught hold by me, and afterwards by his Majesty's singular wisdom and conscience excepted to, and is now by her re-examination retracted, I have given order to Serjeant Montagu (within whose part it falleth) to leave it out of the evidence.” Bacon to Villiers, 5 May.
page 105 note a Edward Sherburn to Dudley Carleton, 17 May, 1616.
page 105 note b “Ye shall therefore give him assurance in my name, that, if he will yet before his trial confess clearly unto the commissioners his guiltiness of this fact, I will not only perform what I promised by my last messenger both towards him and his wife, but I will enlarge it, according to the phrase of the civil law, quod gratiæ sunt ampliandæ. I mean not that he shall confess if he be innocent, but ye know how evil likely that is, and of yourself ye may dispute with him what should mean his confidence now to endure a trial when as he remembers that this last winter he confessed to the Chief Justice that his cause was so evil likely as he knew no jury could quit him. Assure him that I protest upon my honour my end in this is for his and his wife's good; ye will do well likeways of yourself to cast out unto him, that ye fear his wife will plead weakly for his innocency, and that ye find the commissioners have, ye know not how, some secret assurance that in the end she will confess of him; but this must only be as from yourself, and therefore ye must not let him know that I have written unto you, but only that I sent you private word to deliver him this message.” (Archseologia, vol. xviii. p. 352.)
Whether the Commissioners had any such secret assurance I cannot say. If not, this last direction is the most questionable part of the transaction. It is to be remembered however that the object of it still was, though by a false alarm, to get at the truth; nor was there any danger of its leading to anything else; for, if Somerset knew that he was not guilty, he knew also that his wife would not confess of him.
page 106 note a Archæologia, vol. xviii.
page 107 note a So in the original.
page 107 note b Archæologia, vol. xviii.
page 111 note a “As for all the subsequent evidences, they are so little evident, as una litura may serve them all.” The King's note in the margin of Bacon's letter. (Lambeth MSS. 933, 125.)
page 112 note a E. Sherburn to Carleton, 31 May, 1616. S. P. O. It appears, however, from Mr. Gardiner's extracts from Gondomar's despatches, that the King spent great part of that day in talking with Gondomar about the Spanish match.
page 112 note b The words said to have been addressed by him to the Judges at Whitehall, concluding with this famous imprecation, rest only on Weldon's authority. Whether they were truly reported or not, and when they were spoken, if spoken at all, is immaterial; for all that they meant was repeated by him in writing several times over, as we have seen. From Gondomar's despatch (Oct. ) it would seem that they were addressed to the Counsel when he gave Coke his first Commission.
page 114 note a Sherburn to Carleton, 31 May, 1616. (S. P. O.)
page 114 note b Coke to the King, 8 Feb. 1615–16.
page 114 note c “Great Oyer of Poisoning,” p. 411.
page 115 note a Edward Palavicino to Carleton, 29 May, 1616. (S. P. O.)