tain and uphold. A cruelty which might be illustrated. by some of the arbitrary licenses attempted by prison officials in the exercise of unrestrained authority, in our own time, but which on all hands must be held inexcusable, if not indefensible.

Next, that there were peculiarly flagitious features in each administration of the penalty, with which his name is associated, inasmuch, as while all ordinary applications of this ordeal were, on known criminals, or notorious malefactors, or persons singled out by religious intolerance, his victims were men obnoxious on neither of these grounds. That they were racked in periods of comparative repose. That one at least of his victims was known to be an innocent man; and that, finally, the crimes were heightened by the circumstance that the person urging it knew that the act was illegal. That it was in contravention of the law. And that the step was dictated by no plea of public policy, but by the basest motive of personal advantage. That it was not attempted under pressure or command, and defensible on the ground of duty, but that at least in one, if not in both cases, the act proceeded by direct inspiration from Francis Bacon, the philosopher.

Thus, with certain justification, I leave the case very strong in proof (I would it were not so) of the great statesman's criminality.

The modes of torture, according to Lingard,* derived from Tanner's 'Societas Europæa,'† were four.

1. The Rack.

2. The Skevington's Daughter (called the Scavenger's Daughter).

3. The Gauntlets, or Manacles.

4. The Cell of Little Ease.

1. THE RACK was a large open frame of oak, raised three

* Vol. vi.,

p.

688.

† Page 18.

feet from the ground. The prisoner was laid under it, on his back, on the floor; his wrists and ankles were attached by cords to two rollers at the end of the frame; these were moved by levers in opposite directions till the body rose to a level with the frame.

Questions were then put, and if the answers did not prove satisfactory, the sufferer was then stretched more and more, till the bones started from their sockets.

2. SKEVINGTON'S DAUGHTER was a broad hoop of iron hinged together. The victim (bent double) was compressed within its circumference till the blood started from his nostrils. 'Sometimes, it was believed, from the

hands and feet."

66

3. GAUNTLETS. These could be contracted at pleasure, by means of a screw. The victim, with his hands inserted in these and his wrists compressed, was suspended by them from a beam, with his feet from the ground.

4. LITTLE EASE was a cell in which the prisoner could neither stand, walk, sit, nor lie in it at full length; the victim remaining in this durance for several days.

NOTE ON THE STORY OF THE RING. (Vide p. 236.)

In deference to the modern mode of writing history, in which novelty is the great aim and end, and of which the ordinary recipe is simply to deny everything that has been hitherto believed, the story that Essex confided a ring to Lady Nottingham after his trial, to be delivered. to the Queen as a pledge of his submission, is discredited. It matters little, but surely there is nothing inconsistent with the Queen's affection for her young kinsman that in happier days she should have confided to him a ring, and that he in the hour of extremest need, unwilling to make a long statement of his faults or of his repentance, should attempt to make this old proof of aflection do duty as a messenger for mercy. The story comes commended to us on fair evidence. Its denial has neither philosophy nor reason to support it. Simply novelty. It existed in report a very short time after the Queen's death; it has been sub

stantiated by several independent witnesses, professing to have received their information from contemporary sources. If these witnesses, whose motives are not impeachable, aver truly, their informants could not have been in collusion.

The first notice we have of the existence of the story "to a loose rewas by an allusion by Lord Clarendon, port," existing probably before the year 1620; the next in a pamphlet entitled, The History of the most renowned Queen Elizabeth, and her great favourite, the Earl of Essex,' in two parts. A Romance, printed probably about the year 1650, in which the Queen is represented as saying, "Keep this as a pledge of my kindness, which I conjure you to keep in the state it is in; and on that condition I promise you, never to deny you, anything you desire of me, when you show me this ring, though it cost me my life and my fortune." This is, of course, as it professes to be, the mere language of romance; it is certain that the Queen did not employ the phraseology here set down; it is most probable that there were no conditions attached to its gift, but that simply a ring was given, which ring, returned by Essex, was detained in transitu by Lady Nottingham.

To corroborate this view, we have the testimony of Lady Spelman, who derived her information from Sir Robert Cary, afterwards Earl of Monmouth;* and that of De Maurier, derived from Sir Dudley Carleton, Ambassador at the Hague, through his father, a friend of Sir Dudley; but it is right to say that neither of these accounts were published for more than fifty years after Elizabeth's death. De Maurier's account is sufficiently circumstantial, and is to this effect.

"Que la reine Elisabeth donna une bague au Comte d'Essex, dans la plus grand ardeur de sa passion, lui disant qu'il la gardât bien; et quoiqu'il pût faire, en lui rendant ce dépôt, qu'elle lui pardonneroit."

It is, of course, possible that both these stories were

* See 'Devereux Lives and Letters,' vol. ii., p. 181. By the Hon. Walter Bourchier Devereux. Murray, 1853. Mr. Devereux says that the history of the ring is also related in a little book called The Secret History of the renowned Queen Elizabeth,' not being perhaps aware that this last-named pamphlet is merely a reprint, with alterations, of the work alluded to above. Sold by Bates, Sun and Bible, Giltspurstreet.

derived from one source, the narrative of the Romance, but it is most improbable that they should have been; the circumstance itself was not one likely to suggest itself to the romance writer, who was in his narrative merely reproducing, with imaginative additions, a wellknown story of the day. While the difference in their asserted origin, as well as the qualifications of the actual narrator's witnesses, both conspire to establish an independent testimony, and a separate and unimpeachable source for each declaration.

On the other hand, the fervid and romantic nature of the attachment, Essex's behaviour and language on his trial, the Queen's excessive grief after his death, and her swift decline in health immediately after her interview with Lady Nottingham, the character of her lamentations on her death-bed, no less than the concurrent belief of her courtiers, all tend to show that such an incident was not impossible, though, as before indicated, the material circumstance is barely of sufficient importance to make the argument material. Enough reason, however, is shown to warrant those who are weak enough to prefer believing, what their ancestors believed, that they may allow their opinion to remain much the same as before, without any imputation of improper credulity.

THE END.

LONDON

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS STAMFORD STAFET.