arise and stand, and as he grew fatigued in the latter part of the day, was permitted to lean against a cupboard. Sir Edward Coke, Yelverton, Flemming, and Sir Francis Bacon were the Crown lawyers employed against him. Bacon has been taxed with ingratitude for his suffering himself to appear against his benefactor. It is but justice to the great lawyer and still greater philosopher, to say that he had repeatedly endeavoured to soften Elizabeth and prevail upon her to forgive Essex, but finding that he was on the point of losing her favour by his zealous advocacy of his friend, he was not martyr enough to give his own fortune for his friendship.
James VI. of Scotland.
The result of this trial was that Essex was condemned to forfeit every office which he held by patent from the Crown and to remain a prisoner at the Royal pleasure. Elizabeth trusted that now she had broken the proud spirit of the lord deputy, and that the sentence of the court would bring him humbly to sue for forgiveness. But the great failing of Essex was his high spirit, his indignant sense of wrong, and obstinate refusal to surrender his own will when he felt himself right; though there was no other way of appeasing the determined mind of his equally self-willed sovereign. He only begged to be dismissed, and that she "would let her servant depart in peace." He declared that all the pleasures and ambitions of the world had palled upon his mind; that he saw their vanity, and desired only to live in retirement with his wife, his friends, and his books in the country. Had that been real, few men were better qualified, by their refined and elevated taste, and their love of litera-
