During this period Cobham frequently met Ralegh. He was negotiating the purchase of a fee farm from the Crown, and trusted much to Ralegh's advice. He had confided to Ralegh £4000 worth of jewels to complete the contract. Their talk, Ralegh admitted later, though commonly about private affairs, would sometimes turn upon questions of State. Before the Queen's death, it must be repeated, Ralegh would have committed no crime, or even impropriety, in listening, if he ever listened, without disapproval to Cobham's most intemperate assertions in favour of the title of Arabella, and against that of James. The evidence adduced of their talk on politics after the King's accession contains no reference to any such topic. Even if its subject then had been improper, nothing worse than passive complicity was proved against Ralegh. Thus, one day at dinner, in Cobham's house at Blackfriars, Cobham declared that the Count, when he came, would yield such strong arguments for peace as would satisfy any man. He specified great sums of money to be given to certain Councillors for their aid. Cecil and Lord Mar were instanced by him. On the same occasion he held out liberal offers to Ralegh. Ralegh, by his own account, which was not contradicted by other testimony, only listened. When he was taxed at his trial with having given ear to matters he had not to deal in, he exclaimed: 'Could I stop my Lord Cobham's mouth!' The teaching of adversity showed him that in prudence he should have removed himself from the possibility of hearing. 'Venture not thy estate,' he wrote in his _Instructions to his Son and to Posterity_, 'with any of those great ones that shall attempt unlawful things, for thou shalt be sure to be part with them in the danger, but not in the honour. I myself know it, and have tasted it in all the course of my life.' But the application of the warning, and the regret, to the hearing of Cobham's vague after-dinner flights might have seemed, unless for the result, impossibly remote.
[Sidenote: _Negotiations with Arenberg._]
Early in June the Count arrived in London, under the escort of Henry Howard. Cobham, with la Renzi, visited him on June 9. At night Cobham supped with Ralegh at Durham House; or Ralegh supped with Cobham at Blackfriars, being accompanied by him back to Durham House afterwards. From Durham House Cobham was alleged to have gone privily with la Renzi to obtain a promise of money from the Count. According to Cecil's narrative in the following August to Sir Thomas Parry, the Ambassador at Paris, Cobham had told Arenberg that if he would provide four or five hundred thousand crowns, 'he could show him a better way to prosper than by peace.' Scaramelli, the Secretary to the Venetian Legation, wrote home on December 1, 1603, that Arenberg promised 300,000 ducats in cash, and an equal sum when he should have returned to Flanders. Ralegh subsequently was accused of having on this occasion been offered money by Cobham to be a promoter of peace. Cobham, in the written statement read at the trial, alleged that Ralegh had bargained for £1500 a year for divulging Court secrets. How Ralegh, out of favour and wholly eclipsed, was to learn them, Cobham did not indicate. Ralegh mentioned subsequently he had noticed from a window of Durham House that Lord Cobham once or twice after visiting him was rowed past his own mansion at Blackfriars. He went to St. Saviour's, on the other side of the river. There la Renzi was known to be residing. This is the sum of the facts out of which the large fabric of Ralegh's guilt was to be constructed.