Editor's Notes

This transcript comes from the microfilm copy produced by University Microfilm International, Ann Arbor, Michigan. On my photocopy from that source, its call number is A3758, shown as "The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation of Robert Earl of Essex. For Thos. Basset, Sam. Heyrick, and Matth. Gillyflower, 1679. Fol* [folio] T.C.I.363."

Photocopied on the same page is the hand written notation: "Early English Books F524 805:37" . How this "transcript" came to be taken is not noted. The printing date is 80 years after the event. It disagrees here and there with the Calendar of State Papers, Domestic as quoted in Robert Lacey's Robert Earl of Essex: An Elizabethan Icarus. It may be somewhat contrived for dramatic effect, and appears to have gaps as well as errors.

I have regularized and modernized spelling, capitalization, and some punctuation, and provided paragraphing where the original does not, all in the interest of clarity. Several methods are used in the original to indicate who is speaking; in general, I have maintained those conventions. Items in parentheses are in brackets in the original. Italicized items in brackets are my own readings or corrections or glosses. Some names or titles have been re-spelt to their more familiar forms; e.g., Knollys instead of Knowles.

I have taken some editorial liberties (as every editor does) in order to achieve what I believe to be the most sensible rendering. Otherwise, everything is pretty much as I found it. In the course of such a project, some interpretation is unavoidable. If in doubt, please consult the original.

The more direct record of the trial is in the Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, Acts of the Privy Council; Historic Manuscript Commission, Salisbury (aka Cecil Papers, Hatfield House). This is quoted extensively in Lacey.

A complete account is also in William Camden's Annals, London, 1630.

Margaret Pierce Secara

Edited by Maggie Pierce Secara
Designed for the World Wide Web by Paula Kate Marmor
This site is part of