by his means to the prisoner, had been supplied by Mrs. Turner, who was tried, found guilty, and hanged, as was likewise Weston. Monson was shortly after released, partly from want of proof, and partly from some mysterious influence attributed by common report to the King himself.

Elways made so bold and able a defence that it was thought at first he would be acquitted; but one Franklin, being produced as evidence, swore that, being with Mrs. Turner at Lady Essex's house, to receive orders for the purchase and preparation of poisons, a letter chanced to be brought to her from Elways, which from its bad writing she could not well read, and desired Franklin, who knew his handwriting better, to read it to her. This he did; and, in doing so, observed particularly the expression, in reference to Overbury, that "This scab is like the fox, the more he is cursed the more he thrives." Upon this, and other corroborating evidence, Elways was sentenced to death, but permitted, at his special entreaty, to be hanged on Tower Hill instead of at Tyburn. He exercised a curious taste in dress on this occasion. "He was habited in a black suit and black jerkin with hanging sleeves; on his head he wore a crimson satin cap laced round about, and under that a white linen night-cap with a border, and over that a black hat with a broad ribbon and ruff-band, thick couched with lace, a pair of sky-coloured silk stockings, and a pair of three-soled shoes (quære, high-heeled ?)." On the scaffold, at Tower Hill, he acknowledged his sentence to be just; but declared, that, though he knew of the murder, he had no

actual part in it, and that he had received all his instructions from Sir T. Monson, on behalf of the Countess of Somerset.

He was accompanied to the gallows by two of the King's chaplains, Drs. Whyting and Felton. A large number of persons of condition also attended at his execution, to whom he thus returned his thanks for the compliment : "Nobles and others," he said, "to see your faces here rejoiceth me, whereby you show your love in granting my request to witness my death." After some other

remarks to the same effect, he went on to say, "that though his end was a bitter cup, it was mingled with God's mercy in calling him away thus, whereas He might have taken his life in shooting London Bridge, or by some fall or accident, and then some unrepented sin had been damnation to him." He said also that he accounted it a favour of the King that he should die on Tower Hill, and not at Tyburn, which was a place of more public reproach, "whereby," said he, "I now see the Tower, wherein of late I had been called to business of the State."

This wretched man seems to have set great value on his office in the Tower, as it came out on his trial, that, so far from his appointment being a gratuitous benefit conferred on him by Somerset, he had paid Waad no less than 1400l. to vacate it in his favour, and had further engaged to pay him 600l. more. No doubt the emoluments and fees extorted in those days from the state prisoners, produced a large income; but the sum was a very large one, especially when the nomination was conditional on his abetting a murder.

It is recorded of Sir G. Elways's own servant, as a proof of his extreme devotion to his master, that he assisted the executioner's man in pulling his legs after he was turned off the ladder; a kindness no doubt in shortening his sufferings, but one which few could have brought themselves to perform.

The trial of the Earl and Countess of Somerset was put off, on different pretexts, till May 1616, when the Countess confessed herself guilty; and as it was evident to the lords who tried the case, that Somerset knew of his abandoned wife's proceedings, they were both sent back to the Tower, where the Earl remained a prisoner till 1621; but, strange to say, the Countess very soon after received the royal pardon. They were both ordered to repair either to Grays or Cowsham, houses of Lord Wallingford, in Oxfordshire, and to remain, on pain of death, within three miles' compass of the same. Here they retired, shunned and abhorred by all, till the year 1624, when, a few months before his own death, the King granted them both a full pardon, leaving them, however, so destitute from the confiscation of their property, that they were compelled to remain in entire obscurity. The Countess died in 1632, but Somerset survived her several years in want and misery.

The Earl of Essex, after his wife's desertion of him, served many years in the Low Countries, where he acquired that knowledge of war so often fatal to the Royalists when he became General of the Parliament's army in the Civil War.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

EW characters in English history have inspired more interest that the gallant and unfortunate Sir Walter Raleigh.

A full narrative of his brilliant career during the reign of Elizabeth would be a history of some of the most glorious passages of her reign. A soldier, a seaman, and a statesman, it was by his advice she was mostly guided in the measures so successfully carried out for encountering the great Armada, and defeating that prodigious armament.

But before this event, his gallant conduct in the Netherlands, his voyages of discovery and conquests, especially the planting of the British flag by one of his captains, Sir Richard Greenville, on the shores of what is now named Carolina, but was then named Virginia by the Queen herself, and his eminent services in Ireland, had raised the fame of Raleigh to a very high standard, not n England only, but throughout all parts of Europe. The Queen loaded him with honours and riches, but, with all her consideration for him as a statesman and a soldier, the delight she took in descending to the most absurd coquetry, led her to encourage the competition

of Raleigh and Essex for her favour, and by a show of alternate preference to keep up the farce of a romantic rivalry between them.

After the defeat of the Armada, to which the spirit and skill of Raleigh had so greatly contributed, he had reached the highest pinnacle of court favour, when the discovery by the Queen of his intrigue with Elizabeth Throgmorton, one of her maids of honour, threw her into transports of fury, and she at once consigned them both to a close imprisonment in the Tower. The cell which tradition has assigned to Raleigh on this occasion proves the severity of his captivity, while the Queen's anger lasted.

After a short time, however, Raleigh, by a letter to the Queen of the most fulsome flattery, obtained his release and married Elizabeth Throgmorton, who proved a most devoted and faithful wife, through all the trying vicissitudes of fortune which afterwards befel him. But the Queen still owed him a grudge for having admired any woman but herself, and his first expedition to Guiana seems to have been undertaken while he was yet in disgrace, and in order to keep out of her Majesty's sight till her displeasure should have passed. After his return he was again recalled to Court, where, as Captain of the Body Guard, he was generally near her Majesty's person, and his ability to discourse with eloquence on all matters, from the highest affairs of state, to his own marvellous adventures and perils by sea and land, attracted the Queen's attention and favour, while his display of dress and magnificence flattered her vanity.