d with separation from the 'chemical stuffs,' with which he
loved constantly to drench himself from phials containing all spirits,
sneered ignorant Wilson, but the spirit of God. The Tower physician
could not tell what they were. He, and apparently Sir Allen Apsley too,
at first apprehended another attempt at suicide. They need not. Ralegh,
landless, ruined, had no longer aught to gain by self-destruction for
his family. Apart from a sense of religious duty, he had every motive
for reserving his head for the block, for wishing to 'die in the light.'
Wilson's employers might not have been sorry had his view been
different. Though sometimes the conversation turned on the topic of
noble Roman suicides, Ralegh showed no inclination to take his own life.
Wilson said with a taunt he did not abstain out of principle, but simply
because he, who knew not what fear was, 'had no such Roman courage.'

[Sidenote: _Promises in the King's Name._]

It would be unfair to Wilson and to his confederate Naunton, who had
hoped that the other would 'not long be troubled with that cripple,' to
infer that they were disappointed at Ralegh's reluctance to disembarrass
the Court by self-murder of the trouble of him. There can be no doubt of
the dishonesty of the devices Wilson adopted to secure him for the
block. He tempted him with mendaciously ambiguous declarations that, if
he disclosed all he knew, the King would forgive him, and do him all
kindness. Wilson, James, and Naunton were engaged in a common
conspiracy, that the first, without directly pledging the royal word to
a grant of grace, should coax from Ralegh a confession by allowing him
to fancy such a pledge had been given. Naunton's rebukes, as well as
Wilson's own avowals to him, indicate that Wilson all but positively
bound the King. He need scarcely have resorted to falsehoods, which did
not impose upon his prisoner. Ralegh's experience of the King's justice
and clemency had been too long and intimate for him to be deluded by a
Sir Thomas Wilson. Though he had a right to tax the King with promises
given in the King's name, he did not hope, he told Wilson, thus to save
his life. 'He knew that the more he confessed, the sooner he should be
hanged.' But he was not unwilling to talk and write. He wished, absurd
as seemed to Wilson his pretension to such a possession, 'to discharge
his conscience in all things to his Majesty.' He rejoiced besides in an
opportunity for clearing up obscuri