Having read, I believe, nearly all that has been written on the
subject of this dark 'Cobham plot,' I find but one thing come
brightly out of the infinite confusion and mystery, which will never
be cleared up till the day of judgment, and that is Raleigh's
innocence. He, and all England, and the very men who condemned him,
knew that he was innocent. Every biographer is forced to confess
this, more or less, in spite of all efforts to be what is called
'impartial.' So I shall waste no words upon the matter, only
observing that whereas Raleigh is said to have slandered Cecil to
James, in the same way that Cecil had slandered him, one passage of
this Cobham plot disproves utterly such a story, which, after all,
rests (as far as I know) only on hearsay, being 'spoken of in a
manuscript written by one Buck, secretary to Chancellor Egerton.'
For in writing to his own wife, in the expectation of immediate
death, Raleigh speaks of Cecil in a very different tone, as one in
whom he trusted most, and who has left him in the hour of need. I
ask the reader to peruse that letter, and say whether any man would
write thus, with death and judgment before his face, of one whom he
knew that he had betrayed; or, indeed, of one who he knew had
betrayed him. I see no reason to doubt that Raleigh kept good faith
with Cecil, and that he was ignorant till after his trial that Cecil
was in the plot against him.

I do not care to enter into the tracasseries of this Cobham plot.
Every one knows them; no one can unravel them. The moral and
spiritual significance of the fact is more interesting than all
questions as to Cobham's lies, Brooke's lies, Aremberg's lies, Coke's
lies, James's lies:- Let the dead bury their dead. It is the broad
aspect of the thing which is so wonderful; to see how