The Court of Star Chamber. to satisfy his questions and said, " I die not unworthily, my Lord Chief Justice hath my mind under my hand, and he is an honor able and just judge." Hollis meanwhile stood by, not himself questioning, but urging Weston to discharge his conscience and satisfy the world. When they found they were unable to work upon Weston further, they turned away, and Hollis in indigna tion exclaimed that he was sorry for such a conclusion, that was to have the state honored or justified. Hollis's offense was aggravated, for he had publicly announced on the day the verdict was given that if he were of the jury he would doubt what to do. Stephen says, " It is difficult to see how this could be regarded as in any sense criminal conduct; but it seems to have been thought that Wentworth's question and Hollis's re marks remotely implied that Weston's guilt might perhaps be not absolutely certain notwithstanding his conviction." This is indeed a very liberal view of the matter. A careful consideration of the case would likely result in a different opinion.1 1 Shiel, in his sketches of the Irish Bar, in speaking of the custom of the Irish peasants of a century ago, of urging condemned criminals to confess, says : " In cases exciting any unusual interest, no sooner is a convicted person handed over to the executioner, than he is beset on all sides with entreaties to make what is called a last satisfaction to jus tice and to the public mind, by an open confession of his guilt. As between the convict and the law such a proceed ing is utterly nugatory. If he denies his guilt, he is not believed; if he admits it, he only admits a fact so conclu sively established as to every practical purpose that any supplemental corroboration is superfluous. If the verdict of a jury required the sanction of a confession, no sentence could be justif1ably executed in any case where that sanc tion was withheld. "But this could not be. In submitting the question of guilt or innocence to the process of a public trial we apply the most efficacious method that our laws have been able to devise for the discovery of the truth. The result, like that of all other questions depending upon human testi mony, may be erroneous. The condemned may be a martyr, for juries are fallible; but for the purposes of society their verdict must be final except upon those rare occasions where its propriety is subsequently brought into doubt by new evidence emanating from a less questionable source than that of the party most interested in arraigning it. Then, as far as regards the satisfaction of the public mind with the justice of the conviction (for upon this great stress is also laid), the public should never be en-
3»i
The case came on to be heard before the Lord Chamberlain, the Archbishop of Can terbury, Lord Crew, Lord Steward, Earl of Pembroke, Bishop of London, Bishop of Winton, Lord Zouch, Lord Knowles, Sec retary Winwood, Chancellor of the Duchy, Sir Thomas Lake and the three Chief Jus tices. The proceedings seem to have been conducted with the utmost calmness and dignity. Bacon informed against the defendant, ore tains, " for a misdemeanor of a high nature tending to the defacing and scandal of justice in a great cause capital." After dwelling at some length upon the heinousness of the crime of poisoning (or " impoisonment," as he called it) and the efforts of the King to discover and punish Overbury's murderers, he reviewed the circum stances of Weston's arraignment, his stub born refusal at first to plead, his trial and conviction, and spoke of his repeated ac knowledgments of guilt. Referring to Lumsden's gratuitous inter ference on behalf of Weston, he said that while Lumsden was a Scot and therefore ignorant of English laws and forms, he could couraged to require a higher degree of certainty than the law requires. "But the practice of harassing convicts -for a confession before the crowds assembled to witness their execution produces this effect : it teaches them to divert their at tention from the best and only practical test of a ques tion that should no longer be at issue, and to set a value upon a test the most deceptive that can be imagined. A voluntary admission of guilt may to be sure be depended on, but after conviction no kind of reliance can be placed upon the most solemn asseverations to the contrary. Death and eternity are dreadful things, and it is dreadful to think of wretches determined to brave them with a de liberate falsehood upon their lips; yet there are men — many — that have the nerve to do this. In Ireland it is of frequent occurrence; particularly in cases of conviction for political offenses, and more or less in all others. A regard for posthumous reputation — the false glory of being re membered as a martyr — a stubborn determination to make no concession to a system of laws that he never respect ed — concern for the feelings and character of relatives by whom a dying protestation of innocence is cherished, and appealed to as a bequest to the honor of a family name : these and similar motives attend the departing culprit to the final scene, and prevail to the last over every suggestion of truth and religion."
