saw that the telling point in
Coke's diatribe had been the emphasis he had laid on Raleigh's intimate
friendship with Cobham. He began to try and explain away this intimacy,
stating what we now know was not exactly true, namely that his
'privateness' with Cobham only concerned business, in which the latter
sought to make use of his experience. He dwelt on Cobham's wealth, and
argued that so rich a man would not venture to conspire. All this part
of the defence seems to me injudicious. Raleigh was on safer ground in
making another sudden appeal to the sentiment of the court: 'As for my
knowing that he had conspired all these things against Spain, for
Arabella, and against the King, I protest before Almighty God I am as
clear as whosoever here is freest.'

After a futile discussion as to the value of Cobham's evidence, the
foreman of the jury asked a plain question: 'I desire to understand the
time of Sir Walter Raleigh's first letter, and of the Lord Cobham's
accusation.' Upon this Cecil spoke for the first time, spinning out a
long and completely unintelligible sentence which was to serve the
foreman as an answer. Before the jury could recover from their
bewilderment, this extraordinary trial, which proceeded like an
Adventure in Wonderland, was begun once more by Coke, who started afresh
with voluble denunciation of the defendant, for whom, he said, it would
have been better 'to have stayed in Guiana than to be so well acquainted
with the state of Spain.' Coke was still pouring out a torrent of mere
abuse, when Raleigh suddenly interrupted him, and addressing the judges,
claimed that Cobham should then and there be brought face to face with
him. Since he had been in the Tower he had been studying the law, and he
brought forward statutes of Edwards III. and IV. to support his
contention that he could not be convicted on Cobham's bare accusation.
The long speech he made at this point was a masterpiece of persuasive
eloquence, and it is worth noting that Dudley Carleton, who was in
court, wrote to a friend that though when the trial began he would have
gone a hundred miles to see Raleigh hanged, when it had reached this
stage he would have gone a thousand to save his life.

The judges, however, and Popham in particular, were not so moved, and
Raleigh's objection to the evidence of Cobham was overruled. Coke was so
far influenced by it that he now attempted to show that there was other
proof against the prisoner, and trie