not tell " whether this doth extenuate his fault ... or aggravate it much in respect of presumption; that he would meddle in that that he understood not." He intimated that Lumsden had been the instrument of another, and that the false report of the proceeding was another's work; " some other man's cunningwrought upon this man's boldness," he said. He argued upon the circumstance of the slanderous matter having been sent directly to the King, saying : " I note to your Lordships that this infusion of a slander into a King's ear is of all forms of libels and slanders the worst. . . . But where a King is pleased that a man shall answer for his false information, there, I say, the false informa tion to a King exceeds in offense the false information of any other kind, being a kind (since we are in matter of poison) of impoisonment of a King's ear." Coming to a consideration of Hollis' and Wentworth's misbehavior, he charged it to be done "to supplant his" (Weston's) "Christian resolution, and to scandalize the justice already past and perhaps to cut off the thread of that which is to come" (re ferring to the trials of Weston's co-conspira tors). He said that the questions put to Weston were directly contrary to what had been already tried and judged in the King's Bench. Wentworth had said that he wanted to pray with Weston. " I know not," says Bacon, " that Sir John Wentworth is an ecclesiastic that he should cut any man from the communion or prayer." Of Hollis's proclaimed dissatisfaction with the evidence of Weston's guilt at the trial (which Hollis said he knew not whether it was before or after the verdict), he said, "Whether Sir John Hollis was a pro-ixox or a post-]uror, one was to prejudge the jury, the other was to taint them." In conclusion he said, " Of the offense of these two gentlemen in general, your lord ships must give me leave to say that it is an offense greater and more dangerous than is conceived. I know well that as we have no
Spanish Inquisition nor justice in a corner, so we have no gagging of men's mouths at their death, but that they may speak freely at the last hour; but then it must come from the free motion of the party, not by tempta tion of questions. The questions that are to be asked ought to tend to farther reveal ing of their own or other's guiltiness; but to use a question in the nature of a false inter rogatory to falsify that which is res judicata, is intolerable. For that were to erect a court or commission of review at Tyburn, against the King's Bench at Westminster. And besides it is a thing vain and idle, for if they answer according to the judgment past, it adds no credit; or if it be contrary it derogateth nothing. But yet it subjecteth the majesty of justice to popular and vulgar talk and opinion. My Lords, these are great and dangerous offenses, for if we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us." Lumsden's answer to the charge against him was that he had not himself been pres ent at the arraignment of Weston, and what he had written he had heard from others in com mon discourse, who, upon being demanded to justify what they had repeated, denied it. Therefore he confessed that what he had written was false, but pleaded ignorance of the law, and disclaimed any intention of prej udicing the cause of justice. Bacon replied that Lumsden's answer and submission were modest, but that " whoso ever would raise a slander and refuse to tell his author . . . that he was the author him self ... I hold it not unworthy a gentleman to discharge his fault upon the first author: and by the law the not doing thereof maketh him the first author : so he becomes a false accuser of himself." Wentworth admitted that he had asked the questions of Weston concerning the poisoning of Overbury. He had seen other do the same thing at the same time. Again, not being at the trial and having heard that Weston had denied his guilt, " he was desir ous to be satisfied of the truth of himself;
