courage, the Judges and law officers reported that disobedience of orders and return without permission did not exactly amount to that offence.

Nevertheless, he was examined before the Privy Council, suspended from all his employments, and committed to the custody of the Lord Keeper, to be kept in ward at York House. It seems strange to find a great noble, or an officer of state, turned into a gaoler; but this was by no means an unprecedented course where a milder and more honourable imprisonment was to be inflicted; and the Queen of Scots had been for many years in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury.

The Lord Keeper now rendered to his prisoner all those kind offices that humanity the most sensible, and politeness the most delicate, could suggest; and, when he had to sit judicially upon his case, tempered justice with compassion, preserving a proper medium between the duty of the magistrate and the generosity of the friend. There is preserved a warm-hearted effusion of his in the shape of a letter from the Court at Richmond by way of consolation and advice to his prisoner:

"Her Majesty is gracious towards you, and you want not friends to remember and commend your former services. Of these particulars you shall know more when we meet. In the mean time, by way of caution take this from me; there are sharp eyes upon you; your actions, public and private, are observed; it behoveth you, therefore, to carry yourself with all integrity and sincerity both of hands and heart, lest you overthrow your own fortunes and discredit your friends, that are tender and careful of reputation and well-doing.

The first public proceeding against Essex was in the Star Chamber, and a sketch of it may be interesting, as show[Nov. 1599.] ing how this tribunal was then used, not only to punish obnoxious individuals, but as an instrument to lead public opinion in the absence of government newspapers and parliamentary reports. On the day after Michaelmas term, the Lord Keeper, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Admiral, the Lord Chamberlain, most of the other ministers, and nearly all the Judges assembled in the usual place of meeting at Westminster, and an immense crowd from the City of London attended. The object was to check "the dangerous libels cast abroad in court, city, and country, as also by table and alehouse talk, both in the city and country, to the great scandal of her Majesty and her Council.” The Lord Keeper opened with a long speech. He first declared

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it to be her Majesty's pleasure and express command, that all justices of the peace should forthwith repair to the country, there to exercise hospitality and to preserve the public tranquillity. He lamented that, at this time, there were very many seditious people breeding rebellion by vomiting abroad many false and slanderous speeches against her Majesty and Council concerning the affairs of Ireland, and publishing many scandalous libels, "which kind of people he did censure to be no better than traitors." Therefore, in her Majesty's name, he commanded all Judges, Justices, and other officers, to proceed diligently against all such talkers of sedition and makers of such libels, and all who kept company with them, that the authors thereof might be the better boulted out and known, and those who, by the ancient laws of this realm, were traitors might receive due punishment." He added, "to stop the mouths of all seditious discoursers and traitorous libellers, and to satisfy all that have true and faithful hearts to judge, and any common sense to discern, it shall not be amiss, in a matter so manifest, to remember some particularities, to the end that it may demonstratively appear that there was never Prince did, with greater care and more royal means, provide to suppress rebellious subjects, and to preserve a torn and declining kingdom, than her Majesty hath done for this accommodation of Ireland." -The Lord Keeper proceeds with a narrative of the formidable preparations for putting down Tyrone's rebellion, of the great military force and resources intrusted to Essex, and the wise instructions he had received. He then complains of the General's inaction, and still more of his conference and composition with the arch-rebel, and his unwarranted return from Ireland. "In this dangerous and miserable state he presumed to leave that realm, and to come over hither under pretext to present unto her Majesty this dishonourable and deceitful composition, with no better assurance than the rebel's own word for temporary cessation of arms. These things being thus, what malicious and traitorous hearts can bear these insolent and wicked persons, that dare intrude into the counsels of a Prince, and take upon them to censure their Sovereign for that which either she hath done or which God shall direct her heart to do in a matter of so high and weighty importance?" The Lord Treasurer Buckhurst, the Earl of Nottingham, High Admiral, Mr. Secretary Cecil, and others of the Council, severally addressed the assembled multitude to the same effect, and then the Court adjourned, the ministers having had the advantage of publicly praising their own measures, and inveighing against all opposition to them, without any danger of reply or a division.*

The reporter, Francis Woodward, in a letter to Sir Robert Sydney, after giving the first three speeches at length, says, "the rest did speak so softly and the thronge and presse so mightie, that I was driven so far back that I could not hear what they said. I came not in time to take a place where I might conveniently hear all such matters as were then declared."-Sydney State Papers, vol. ii. p. 146. This reminds one of the abrupt termination to the report of the famous case of

Essex remained in the custody of the Lord Keeper above six months without being brought to trial, the Queen saying that she wished "to correct, not to ruin him." [A. D. 1600.] During this time he fell, or pretended to fall, dangerously ill. She ordered eight physicians, of the best reputation, to visit him; and being informed that the issue was much to be apprehended, she sent him some broth, with a message that if she thought such a step consistent with her honour she would herself pay him a visit. He recovered; but a suspicion being instilled into Elizabeth that h's distemper had been counterfeit in order to move her compassion, she relapsed into her former rigour against him. She was, however, so far softened by his protestations, that she released him from his imprisonment under the Lord Keeper, and allowed him to reside in his own house in the Strand, and he probably would have escaped with entire impunity had not the complaints of his family and friends raised such a public clamour against the harsh treatment of the individual, who had the rare fortune to be much beloved by the people as well as by the Sovereign. She at last ordered him to be tried—not before the Star Chamber, or any recognised tribunal, but before eighteen Commissioners, consisting of the Lord Keeper, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Admiral, most of the great officers of state, and five of the Judges. They assembled in the hall of York House, and sat in chairs at a long table for eleven hours, from eight in the morning till seven at night.

[JUNE 5, 1600.]

His treatment gives us a strange notion of the manners of the times. At his entrance the Commissioners all remained covered, and gave no sign of salutation or courtesy. He knelt at the upper end of the table, and for a good while without a cushion. He was at last supplied with one on the motion of the Archbishop of Canterbury; but he was suffered to kneel till after the Lord Keeper had expounded the nature of the Commission, and till the end of the speech of the Queen's Serjeant, who opened the case for the Crown. He was then allowed to stand up, and by-and-by, through the interference of the Archbishop, he was indulged with liberty to sit on a stool.

He opened his defence by offering thanks to God for his mercy, and to the Queen for her clemency towards him, and was proceeding to justify his conduct, when the Lord Keeper (probably from a friendly motive) interrupted him, telling him "this was not the course that was likely to do him good; that he began well by submitting himself to her Majesty's mercy and pardon, which himself and the rest of the Lords were glad to hear, and no doubt her princely and gracious nature was by that way most likely to be inclined to favour; that all extenuation of his offence was but the

STRADLING V. STYLES, in which the question was, whether under a bequest of all the testator's black and white horses, PYEBALLED HORSES passed, as reported by Martinus Scribleus: "Le reste del argument Ieo ne pouvois oyer car Ìeo fui disturb en mon place."-Pope's Miscell. vol. iv. p. 210.

lessening of her Majesty's mercy in pardoning, that he, with all the other Lords, would clear him of all suspicion of disloyalty, and that therefore he might do well to spare the rest of his speech, and save time, and commit himself to her Majesty's mercy.'

Essex replying "that he spoke nothing but only to clear himself from a malicious corrupt affection," the Lord Keeper told him, that "if he meant the crime of disloyalty, it was that which he needed not to fear, all that was now laid to him being contempt and disobedience, and that it was absurd to cover direct disobedience by a pretended intention to obey. If the Earl of Leicester did evil in coming over contrary to the Queen's commandment, the Earl of Essex did more in imitating the Earl of Leicester, and was so much the more to be punished for it." After a warm panegyric on the Queen and her Irish government, he then proceeded to pronounce sentence, which, he said, "in the Star Chamber must have been the heaviest fine ever yet imposed, and perpetual imprisonment in the Tower; but in this mode of proceeding the Court, out of favour to him, merely ordered that he should not execute the office of Privy Councillor, nor of Earl Marshal of England, nor Master of the Ordnance; and that he should return to his own house, there to remain a prisoner during the Queen's pleasure."

The sentence, or censure," as it was called, so pronounced by the Lord Keeper, was dictated by the Queen, who, to bring him again near her person, had directed that the office of "Master of the Horse" should not be included among those for which he was disqualified; and the Court may be absolved from any great violation of the constitution on this occasion, as the whole of the punishment might have been inflicted lawfully by her own authority -with the exception of the imprisonment,-which she immediately remitted.

But Egerton had still to pass through extraordinary scenes in connection with Essex, to whom Elizabeth now behaved with a mixture of fondness and severity, which drove him to destruction. He for some time seemed completely restored to her favour, and then she refused to renew his monopoly of Sweet Wines, saying that " an ungovernable beast must be stinted in his provender." He thought that she had completely surrendered herself to the Cecils and Sir Walter Raleigh, and he entered into the conspiracy to raise the city of London, where he was so popular, and by force to get her person into his power, and to rid himself of his

enemies.

On the memorable Sunday, the 8th of February, 1601, when he had collected a large force in Essex House, in the Strand, and was about to execute his project with the assistance of the Earls of Southampton and Rutland,-the Queen being informed of these designs, and having ordered the Lord Mayor and Aldermen to take measures to secure the peace of the city, she directed the Lord Keeper, with Chief Justice Popham, the Earl of Worcester,

and Sir William Knollys, controller of the household, to repair to Essex House, and demanding admittance, to require in her name that the disturbers of the public peace should disperse, and that the laws should be obeyed.

This was a service by no means free from danger, for it was well known that Essex had for some weeks been collecting under his roof many desperate characters [A. D. 1601.] who had returned from the wars in Ireland and in the Low Countries, and who were likely to pay very little respect to civil magistrates, however exalted their station. The Lord Keeper proceeded on his mission with becoming firmness, being preceded by his purse-bearer carrying the Great Seal, and followed only by the ordinary attendants of himself, the Chief Justice, and his other companions.

On

The

Arriving at the gate of Essex House, a little before ten in the forenoon, they were refused admittance. They desired that it might be intimated to the Earl that they came thither by the express command of her Majesty. He gave orders that they should be introduced through the wicket, but that all their attendants, with the exception of the purse-bearer, should be excluded. entering, they found the court-yard filled with armed men. Lord Keeper demanded in the Queen's name the cause of this tumultuary meeting. Essex answered, “There is a plot laid for my life; letters have been counterfeited in my name, and assassins have been appointed to murder me in bed. We are met to defend our lives, since my enemies cannot be satisfied unless they suck my blood." The Chief Justice said, "the Queen would do impartial justice;" and the Lord Keeper desired Essex to explain his grievances in private,-when several voices exclaimed, "They abuse you, my Lord; they are undoing you. You lose your time." The Lord Keeper, undaunted, turned round, and putting on his hat, in a calm and solemn tone, as if he had been issuing an order from his tribunal,—commanded them in the Queen's name upon their allegiance to lay down their arms and to depart. Essex entered the house, and the multitude, resolved to offer violence to these venerable magistrates, but divided as to the mode of doing so, shouted out, "Kill them, keep them for pledges, throw the Great Seal, out of the window.” A guard of musketeers surrounded them, and conducting them through several apartments filled with insurgents, introduced them to a small back room where they found the Earl, who was about to sally forth in military array to join his friends at Paul's Cross. He requested that they would remain there patiently for half an hour, and himself withdrawing, ordered the door to be bolted, and left them as prisoners in the care of Sir John Davis and Sir Gilly Merrick, guarded by sentinels bearing muskets primed and cocked. Here they remained for some hours listening to the shouts of the insurgents and the distant discharge of fire-arms. They frequently required Sir John Davis to allow them to depart, or at least to permit some one of