Sir N. T. No! I never will accuse myself unjustly; but since I am come hither to be tried, I pray you let me have the law favourably.

Attorney-General. It is evident you lay in London as an agent, to give intelligence as well to them in the West as to Wyatt in Kent.

Sir N. T. How do you prove that? Who accuses me but this condemned man?

Attorney-General. Why, will you deny this matter? You shall have Vaughan to justify his whole confession here before your face.

Sir N. T. There is no occasion for it, I know his assurance; he has avowed some of this false talk before this time to my face, and it is not unlikely, considering the price, but that he will do the same again.

Attorney-General. My Lords and Masters, you shall have Vaughan to justify this here before you all, and to confirm it with a book oath.

Sir N. T. He that has said and lied so much, will not, in such case as he is in, hesitate to swear and lie.

Then Cuthbert Vaughan was brought into the court. Officer. How say you, Cuthbert Vaughan, is this your own Confession, and will you stand by every thing that is contained therein ?

Vaughan. Let me see it, and I will tell you.

Then his Confession was shewed him.

Attorney-General. Because you of the jury may the better credit him, I pray you, my Lords, let Vaughan

be sworn.

He was sworn accordingly on a book to say nothing but the truth.

Vaughan. My Lords and Masters, I could have been well content to have chosen seven years' imprisonment, though I had been innocent, rather than I would this day have given evidence against Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, unto whom I bear no displeasure; but as I must needs confess my knowledge, I must own that what is written there is true. What say you, Master Throckmorton, was there any displeasure between you and me, that should move me to say any thing against you?

Sir N. T. Not that I know. How say you, Vaughan,

what acquaintance was there between you and me; and what letters of credit or tokens did you bring me from Wyatt, or any body else, that should induce me to trust you?

Vaughan. As for acquaintance, I knew you as I did other gentlemen; and as for letters, I brought nothing more than commendations from Sir Thomas Wyatt to you, as I did to several others of his acquaintance at London.

Sir N. T. You might as well have forged the commendations as the rest; but if you have done with Vaughan, my Lords, I pray you give me leave to answer. Bromley, C.J. Speak, and be short.

Sir N. T. I speak generally to all here present, but especially to you of my jury, touching the credibility of Vaughan's depositions against me, who is a condemned man. And mark, I beseech you, the circumstances, which are very material. I pray you to remember the little intimacy there was between him and me, as he hath avowed before you; and he hath also confessed here that he brought neither letter nor token from Wyatt, or any body else, to give him credit with me. Now I will suppose Vaughan to be in as good condition as any other man here, that is to say, an uncondemned man; I leave it to your good judgment, whether it was likely that I, who only knew Vaughan's person from another man, without any more acquaintance with him, would so freely discover my mind to him in so dangerous a matter? How improbable, I say, is this, when several of these gentlemen, now in custody, who were my very familiar friends, and who upon their examinations have been pressed to say all they could of me, could not depose any such matter against me as this? And though I be not a wise man, I am not so rash as to utter to an unknown man, for so comparatively I may call him, a matter so dangerous for me to speak and for him to hear. But because my truth and his falsehood may the better appear to you, I will show you the inconsistency of his evidence; and that I may the better be believed, I take you, Master Southwell, to witness, whether Vaughan, when he first justified this his unjust accusation of me before the Lord Paget, the Lord Chamberlain,

yourself, and others, did not refer to a letter sent from him to Sir Thomas Wyatt for a confirmation of this surmise against me; which letter has neither yet been produced, nor any testimony of the said Wyatt against me upon that account; for I doubt not but Sir Thomas Wyatt has been examined about me, and has said what he could, directly or indirectly, concerning me.-I come now to speak of Vaughan's present condition, as a condemned man, whose testimony is nothing worth by any law. By God's law his testimony is of no avail; for hear what St. Jerome says in expounding a passage in the Gospel, which mentions the accusation of false witnesses: They be false witnesses," saith he, "which do add, alter, wrest, double, or do speak for hope to avoid death, or for malice to procure another man's death; for all men may easily gather that he cannot speak truly of me, or in the case of another man's life, who hath hope of his own by reason of his accusation." By the civil law, there are many exceptions to be made against such testimonies; but because we are not governed by that law, neither am I tried by it, it would be needless to waste your time about it, and therefore you shall hear what your own law says. There was a statute* made in the time of my late sovereign lord and master, concerning Accusation, and these are the words:

"Be it enacted, that no person nor persons shall be indicted, arraigned, condemned or convicted for any offence of treason, petit-treason, misprision of treason, for which the same offender shall suffer any pains of death, imprisonment, loss or forfeiture of his goods, lands, &c. unless the same offender be accused by two sufficient and lawful witnesses, or shall willingly, without violence, confess the same."

And also in the sixth year of his reign it is thus ratified, in the following words :

"That no person nor persons shall be indicted, arraigned, condemned, convicted, or attainted for any treasons that now be, or hereafter shall be, unless the same offender or offenders be thereof accused by two

*The statute here alluded to is the 1st Edward VI. c. 13, s. 22. That cited immediately below is the 5th and 6th Edward, c. 11, s. 12.

Jawful accusers, who at the time of the arraignment of the party accused (if they be then living), shall be brought in person before the party so accused, and avow and maintain what they have to say against him, to prove him guilty, unless the said party arraigned shall willingly, without violence, confess the same."

Here note, I pray you, that our law requires two lawful and sufficient Accusers to be brought face to face, and Vaughan is but one, and a most insufficient and unlawful one; for who can be more unlawful and insufficient than a condemned man, and one who knows, that to accuse me is the way to save his own life? Remember, I pray you, how long and how many times Vaughan's execution has been respited*, and how frequently he has been conjured to accuse others, which by God's grace he withstood till the last hour; but then perceiving there was no way to escape but by charging me or somebody else, he has most unjustly and shamefully redeemed his life.

Hare. Why should he accuse you more than any body else, seeing there had been no difference between you, if the fact had not been true?

Sir N. T. Because he must either charge some man or suffer death, and so he chose rather to hurt him, whom he least knew, and so loved least, than another well known to him, and whom he loved more. But to you of my jury, I speak especially, and therefore I pray you to note what I say. In a matter of less weight than a trial for life and land, a man by law may take exceptions against such as are impannelled to try the controversies between the parties; for example, a man may challenge that the sheriff is his enemy, and for that reason hath made a partial return; or, if my adversary's villein or vassal be impannelled, I may lawfully challenge him, because the adversary has power over his villein's lands and goods, and the use of his body for servile offices. Much more may I of right take exceptions to Vaughan's testimony, my life and all that I have depending thereupon; and the same Vaughan being more bound to the Queen's Highness, my adversary, (woe is me that it is thus! but so the law does here *See ante p. 76, note,

term her Majesty,) than any villein to his lord; for her Highness has not only power over his body, lands, and goods, but also over his life.

Stamford. Exceptions may be taken against the jury in such cases, but not against the witness or accuser; therefore your argument serveth little for you.

Sir N. T. That is not so, for the use of witnesses and a jury are the same, and the effects and consequences of their acts are similar; and thus I make my comparison. By the civil law the judge passes sentence upon the deposition of the witness, and by your law the judge gives judgment upon the verdict of the jury, so that the effect of both is the same, viz. a trial at law to terminate the matter, the one by the depositions of the witness, the other by the jury's verdict; though they vary in form and circumstance; so Vaughan's testimony being believed, it may be the material cause of my condemnation, the jury being induced by his depositions to give their verdict that way, and so the judge finally to pass sentence thereupon; and therefore I may use the same exceptions against the witnesses, or any of them, as against the jury, or any of them, as the chief means that may occasion my condemnation.

Bromley, C.J. Do you deny that any part of Vaughan's tale is true?

Sir N. T. I confess some part of Vaughan's Confession to be true, as the name, places, time, and somewhat of the matter.

Attorney-General. So you of the jury may observe that the prisoner confesses something to be true.

Sir N. T. As to my sending to Sir Peter Carew, or his sending to me, or my advice to Sir Thomas Wyatt to stir or repair hither, or the Earl of Devon's departing from hence and my going with him, or the business of the Earl of Pembroke, I do avow and say that what Vaughan has said in reference to them is all false.

Southwell. As for my Lord of Pembroke, you need not excuse him, for he has shewed himself clear of these things like a nobleman, and this we all know.

Hare. What was the talk between you and Vaughan, which lasted so long in Paul's; if things were not as they were represented, how came you to meet so often?