counsellors to examine farther, who gained some degrees of light from Weston, but yet left it imperfect After it was referred to Sir Edward Coke, chief justice of the King's Bench, as a person best practised in legal examinations, who took a great deal of indefatigable pains in it, without intermission, having, as I have heard him say, taken at least three hundred examinations in this business. But these things were not done in a corner. I need not speak of them. It is true, that my lord chief justice, in the dawning and opening of the light, finding that the matter touched upon these great persons, very discreetly became suitor to the king to have greater persons than his own rank joined with him. Whereupon, your lordship, my lord high steward of England, to whom the king commonly resorteth in arduis, and my lord steward of the king's house, and my lord Zouch, were joined with him. Neither wanted there this while practice to suppress testimony, to deface writings, to weaken the king's resolution, to slander the justice, and the like. Nay, when it came to the first solemn act of justice, which was the arraignment of Weston, he had his lesson to stand mute; which had arrested the wheel of justice. But this dumb devil, by the means of some discreet divines, and the potent charm of justice, together, was cast out. Neither did this poisonous adder stop his ear to those charms, but relented, and yielded to his trial. Then follow the proceedings of justice against the other offenders, Turner, Helwisse, Franklin. But all these being but the organs and instruments of this fact, the actors and not the authors, justice could not have been crowned with this last act against these great persons. Else Weston's censure or prediction might have been verified, when he said, he hoped the small flies should not be caught, and the great escape. Wherein the king being in great straits, between the defacing of his honour and of his creature, hath, according as he useth to do, chosen the better part, reserving always mercy to himself. The time also of this justice hath had its true motions. The time until this lady's deliverance was due unto honour, christianity, and humanity, in respect of her great belly. The time since was due to another kind of deliverance too; which was, that some causes of estate, that were in the womb, might likewise be brought forth, not for matter of justice, but for reason of state. Likewise this last procrastination of days had the like weighty grounds and causes. And this is the true and brief representation of this extreme work of the king's justice. Now for the evidence against this lady, I am sorry I must rip it up. I shall first shew you the purveyance or provisions of the poisons: that they were seven in number brought to this lady, and by her billetted and laid up till they might be used: and this done with an oath or vow of secresy, which is like the Egyptian darkness, a gross and palpable darkness, that may be felt. Secondly, I shall shew you the exhibiting and sorting of this same number or volley of poisons; white arsenic was fit for salt, because it is of like body and colour. The poison of great spiders, and of the venomous fly cantharides, was fit for pigs sauce or partridge sauce, because it resembled pepper. As for mercury-water, and other poisons, they might be fit for tarts, which is a kind of hotch-pot, wherein no one colour is so proper: and some of these were delivered by the hands of this lady, and some by her direction. Thirdly, I shall prove and observe unto you the cautions of these poisons; that they might not be too swift, lest the world should startle at it by the suddenness of the dispatch: but they must abide long in the body, and work by degrees: and for this purpose there must be essays of them upon poor beasts, etc. And lastly, I shall shew you the rewards of this impoisonment, first demanded by Weston, and denied, because the deed was not done; but after the deed done and perpetrated, that Overbury was dead, then performed and paid to the value of 1807. And so without farther aggravation of that, which in itself bears its own tragedy, I will conclude with the confessions of this lady herself, which is the strongest support of justice; and yet is the footstool of mercy. For, as the scripture says, Mercy and Truth have kissed each other; there is no meeting or greeting of mercy, till there be a confession, or trial of truth. For these read, Franklin, November 16, The Countess's letter without date, The Countess's confession, January 8. It may please your Grace, my lord High Steward of England, and you my lords the peers: I AM very glad to hear this unfortunate lady doth take this course, to confess fully and freely, and thereby to give glory to God and to justice. It is, as I may term it, the nobleness of an offender to confess: and therefore those meaner persons, upon whom justice passed before, confessed not; she doth. I know your fordships cannot behold her without compassion: many things may move you, her youth, her person, her sex, her noble family; yea, her provocations, if I should enter into the cause itself, and furies about her; but chiefly her penitency and confession. But justice is the work of this day; the mercy-seat was in the inner part of the temple; the throne is public. But since this lady hath by her confession prevented my evidence, and your verdict, and that this day's labour is eased; there resteth, in the legal proceeding, but for me to pray that her confession may be recorded, and judgment thereupon. The lord chancellor Egerton, lord Ellesmere, and earl of Bridgwater. Given May 24, 1616. But because your lordships the peers are met, and that this day and to-morrow are the days that crown all the former justice; and that in these great cases it hath been ever the manner to respect honour and satisfaction, as well as the ordinary parts and forms of justice; the occasion itself admonisheth me to give your lordships and the hearers this contentment, as to make declaration of the proceedings of this excellent work of the king's justice, from the beginning to the end. It may please your grace, my lord high steward of England: this is now the second time, within the space of thirteen years reign of our happy sovereign, that this high tribunal-seat, ordained for the trial of peers, hath been opened and erected, and that with a rare event, supplied and exercised by one and the same person, which is a great honour unto you, my lord steward. In all this mean time the king hath reigned in his white robe, not sprinkled with any one drop of the blood of any of his nobles of this kingdom. Nay, such have been the depths of his mercy, as even those noblemen's bloods, against whom the proceeding was at Winchester, Cobham and Grey, were attainted and corrupted, but not spilt or taken away: but that they remained rather spectacles of justice in their continual imprisonment, than monuments of justice in the memory of their suffering. It is true that the objects of his justice then and now were very differing: for then it was the revenge of an offence against his own person and crown, and upon persons that were malcontents, and contraries to the state and government; but now it is the revenge of the blood and death of a particular subject, and the cry of a prisoner: it is upon persons that were highly in his favour; whereby his majesty, to his great honour, hath shewed to the world, as if it were written in a sun-beam, that he is truly the lieutenant of Him with whom there is no respect of persons; that his affections royal are above his affections private; that his favours and nearness about him are not like popish sanctuaries, to privelege malefactors; and that |