idenote: _Negotiations with Arenberg._]

Early in June the Count arrived in London, under the escort of Henry
Howard. Cobham, with la Renzi, visited him on June 9. At night Cobham
supped with Ralegh at Durham House; or Ralegh supped with Cobham at
Blackfriars, being accompanied by him back to Durham House afterwards.
From Durham House Cobham was alleged to have gone privily with la Renzi
to obtain a promise of money from the Count. According to Cecil's
narrative in the following August to Sir Thomas Parry, the Ambassador at
Paris, Cobham had told Arenberg that if he would provide four or five
hundred thousand crowns, 'he could show him a better way to prosper than
by peace.' Scaramelli, the Secretary to the Venetian Legation, wrote
home on December 1, 1603, that Arenberg promised 300,000 ducats in cash,
and an equal sum when he should have returned to Flanders. Ralegh
subsequently was accused of having on this occasion been offered money
by Cobham to be a promoter of peace. Cobham, in the written statement
read at the trial, alleged that Ralegh had bargained for L1500 a year
for divulging Court secrets. How Ralegh, out of favour and wholly
eclipsed, was to learn them, Cobham did not indicate. Ralegh mentioned
subsequently he had noticed from a window of Durham House that Lord
Cobham once or twice after visiting him was rowed past his own mansion
at Blackfriars. He went to St. Saviour's, on the other side of the
river. There la Renzi was known to be residing. This is the sum of the
facts out of which the large fabric of Ralegh's guilt was to be
constructed.

[Sidenote: _The 'Surprising Treason.'_]

He had attended the Court to Windsor. There he heard of the arrest of
Anthony Copley in Sussex on July 6. From Copley, according to Cecil at
the trial, the first discovery of the Bye or Surprising Treason came. By
letter from Windsor, Ralegh informed Cobham. On July 12 Copley was
examined. George Brooke was arrested on the 14th, and the arrests of
Lord Grey of Wilton and Sir Griffin Markham were ordered. One day
between the 12th and the 16th Ralegh was on the Terrace at Windsor. The
King was preparing to hunt, and Ralegh was waiting to join the
cavalcade. Cecil came out, and bade him, as from the King, stay. The
Lords in the Chamber, Cecil said, had some questions to put to him. How
far he was interrogated on the intercourse of Cobham with the Count, and
how much he disclosed, is obscure. At his trial he gave his story of th