“’I have never yet seen in any case such favour shown to any prisoner; so many digressions, such delivering of evidence by fractions, and so silly a defence of such great and notorious treasons.  May it please your Grace, you have seen how weakly he hath shadowed his purpose and how slenderly he hath answered the objections against him.  But, my Lord, I doubt the variety of matters and the many digressions may minister occasion of forgetfulness, and may have severed the judgments of the Lords; and therefore I hold it necessary briefly to recite the Judges’ opinions.’

     “That being done, he proceeded to this effect: 

“’Now put the case that the Earl of Essex’s intents were, as he would have it believed, to go only as a suppliant to her Majesty.  Shall their petitions be presented by armed petitioners?  This must needs bring loss of property to the prince.  Neither is it any point of law, as my Lord of Southampton would have it believed, that condemns them of treason.  To take secret counsel, to execute it, to run together in numbers armed with weapons—­what can be the excuse?  Warned by the Lord Keeper, by a herald, and yet persist!  Will any simple man take this to be less than treason?’

     “The Earl of Essex answered that if he had purposed anything
     against others than those his private enemies, he would not have
     stirred with so slender a company.  Whereunto Mr. Bacon answered: 

“’It was not the company you carried with you but the assistance you hoped for in the City which you trusted unto.  The Duke of Guise thrust himself into the streets of Paris on the day of the Barricades in his doublet and hose, attended only with eight gentlemen, and found that help in the city which (thanks be to God) you failed of here.  And what followed?  The King was forced to put himself into a pilgrim’s weeds, and in that disguise to steal away to scape their fury.  Even such was my Lord’s confidence too, and his pretence the same—­an all-hail and a kiss to the City.  But the end was treason, as hath been sufficiently proved.  But when he had once delivered and engaged himself so far into that which the shallowness of his conceit could not accomplish as he expected, the Queen for her defence taking arms against him, he was glad to yield himself; and thinking to colour his practices, turned his pretexts, and alleged the occasion thereof to proceed from a private quarrel.’

“To this” (adds the reporter) “the Earl answered little.  Nor was anything said afterwards by either of the prisoners, either in the thrust-and-parry dialogue with Coke that followed, or when they spoke at large to the question why judgment should not be pronounced, which at all altered the complexion of the case.  They were both found guilty and sentence passed in the usual form.”

Bacon’s legal position was so subordinate a place that there must have been a special reason for