The treason trial of Robert Devereux, Second Earl of Essex and Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton began on the morning of February 19, 1601, eleven days after the Essex Rebellion -- a story recorded in Shakespeare's Sonnets, which are the author's own version of Prince Hamlet's soliloquies, using the personal pronoun "I" to express his deepest thoughts and feelings for posterity...

THE TRIAL OF ESSEX & SOUTHAMPTON

WESTMINSTER HALL

19 FEBRUARY 1601

                           THE SESSIONS  

Summoned to the Sessions (treason trial) was fifty-two-year-old Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, who presided as Lord Great Chamberlain and highest-ranking earl among the twenty-five peers sitting in judgment.  To save the life of Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, his unacknowledged royal son by Queen Elizabeth I of England, he was forced to join his peers in rendering the unanimous guilty verdict, thereby condemning him to death. 

                                            Sonnet 30

          When to the Sessions of sweet silent thought

          I summon up remembrance of things past,

          I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

         And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:

         Then can I drown an eye (un-used to flow) 

         For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

         And weep afresh love's long-since canceled woe,

         And moan th'expense of many a vanished sight.

         Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

         And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

         The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

         Which I new pay as if not paid before.

                But if the while I think on thee (dear friend)

                All losses are restored, and sorrows end.

Oxford was Southampton's adverse party at the trial, but he also became his Advocate or legal defender behind the scenes in order to save his life.  

      Thy adverse party is thy Advocate,

     And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence...    

Edward de Vere made a lawful plea to his former brother-in-law Robert Cecil, the little hunchbacked Secretary, who emerged from the Rebellion as the victor and holder of all power behind the throne.

Oxford agreed that Henry Wriothesley would give up any claim to the throne.  He also agreed to the permanent obliteration of his own identity -- as the father of Southampton and as the author of the "Shakespeare" works that he had dedicated to him.

As he recorded for his son:

       Your name from hence immortal life shall have,

     Though I (once gone) to all the world must die.