other members of his family, who he feared would suffer on .account of his crime.

"But to undo desert and innocence

Is to my mind grief's chiefest pestilence."

The poems and letters sent furtively by Sir Everard from the Tower were discovered by accident some seventy years after his death. The executors for the estate, who were about to sell it, having inquired for writings to make out the titles, were directed by an old servant to a secret cupboard, in which some papers lay hid that she had observed Sir Kenelm used often to read. They were laid together in a velvet bag, but proved to be not title-deeds, but the original letters and poems of Sir Everard, written with juice of lemon.

When sentence of death was passed upon him he seemed much affected, and, making a low bow to those on the bench, he said: "If I could hear any of your Lordships say you forgive me, I should go more cheerfully to the gallows." Whereupon the Lords answered: "God forgive you, and we do."

After acknowledging his guilt, he petitioned "That since the offence was confined and contained within himself, the punishment might extend only to himself, and not be transferred to his wife, children, sisters, or others; and therefore he humbly craved that his wife might enjoy her jointure; his son the benefit of the entail made long before this action was thought of; his sisters their just and due portions which were in his hands; his creditors their rightful debts. . . . For himself he had only one petition, he entreated to be beheaded, desiring all men to forgive him; and that his death might satisfy them for his trespass."1 His request that his punishment might be commuted to beheading was disregarded, but the other parts of his petition seem to have been attended to.

Four of the prisoners, Sir Everard Digby, Robert Winter, Grant, and Bates were executed on Thursday, January 30, at the West End of St. Paul's in London; and the other four, Rookwood, Thomas Winter, Keyes, and Guy Fawkes, the next day, in the Old Palace Yard at Westminster.

1 Jardine.

Sir Everard was the first to receive the fatal summons. Mounting the scaffold with a firm step, his youth (for he was only twenty-six), his noble aspect, and undaunted demeanour, awakened as they had done throughout the trial-the sympathy of the beholders. Looking round, he thus addressed the assemblage: "Good people, I am here about to die, ye well know for what cause. Throughout the matter I have acted according to the dictates of my conscience. They have led me to undertake this enterprise, which in respect to my religion I hold to be no offence, but in respect of the law a heinous offence, and I therefore ask forgiveness of God, of the king, and of the whole realm."

Crossing himself devoutly he then knelt down, and repeated his prayers in Latin; after which he arose, and again looking round, said in an earnest voice-"I desire the prayers of all good Catholics and none other."

Garnet's

Stephen Littleton was executed at Worcester. execution was deferred till May 3, when it took place in St. Paul's Churchyard. The fate of Tresham, who was not apprehended until November 12, is shrouded in mystery. He died in the Tower on the 23rd of December, and it is generally thought he was poisoned.

Notwithstanding the revelations that had taken place, King James still believed that many ramifications of the plot had not yet been discovered, and in consequence, on no other ground than that of mere suspicion, severely punished several other gentlemen. The Earl of Northumberland, chiefly on account of the crime of being related to Percy, was fined £30,000, and ordered to be imprisoned for life; whilst Lord Mordaunt, and others, although they appear to have been entirely innocent, were condemned to fines of £10,000, and imprisonment during royal pleasure.

According to Lipscomb, in one of the apartments at Gayhurst "was formerly shown a movable floor, which to ordinary observers offered nothing remarkable in its appearance, but was made to revolve on a pivot, which, by a secret bolt, disclosed underneath it another room (receiving light from the lower part of a mullioned window, not discoverable

exteriorly unless at a very great distance), in which the conspirators were said to have holden their meetings." That some of the conspirators held meetings in this room, which for many years was called "Digby's Hole," is very possible; but the tradition that it was the hiding-place of Sir Everard is utterly without foundation, for the north wing, in which was this room, at the time of the conspiracy had been built only a few years, and no one would dream of hiding in a place almost fresh from the architect's hands, every cranny of which must have been well known; neither is it likely that he hid in any other part of the house, for previous to the panic at Dunmore he had no occasion to hide, and after the panic he fled with the other conspirators to Holbeach. It is possible, however, that Garnet found shelter at Gayhurst during part of the two months he was dodging about the midland counties after Sir Everard's apprehension; but if so his hiding-place must have been one of those in the south wing, or oldest portion of the mansion.

If the tradition is true which Lipscomb quotes that the conspirators met in "Digby's Hole," their reason for choosing this place would be the desire to conceal their affairs not so much from their enemies as from their friends; for they wished all knowledge of the plot to be kept from Digby's wife and family. And so closely, it should be observed, was Sir Everard's secret kept that the discovery of the plot was the first intimation that Lady Digby had of its existence.

Sir Kenelm Digby, the celebrated son of Sir Everard, and author of the well-known "Private Memoirs" (written to please his beautiful wife Lady Anastasia), and other works, also spent most of his life at Gayhurst.

XVIII.

CLIFTON REYNES.

On the brow of Clifton Hill, in the time of Cowper, stood three structures of interest-the Church, the Rectory, and the Hall; but the last, called also the Manor House, the "Mr. Small's house" of Cowper's letters, has now quite disappeared.

Clifton Hall was a large, square, and strongly built mansion of stone, with a large porch at the front that faced the river. It was of no great antiquity, having been built by Alexander Small, Esq., about 1750 (his bust in a large wig by Scheemaker can be seen in the church), but it stood doubtless on or near the site of the ancient castellated mansion of the Borards and Reyneses, lords of Clifton, whose effigies lie in the church.

The mansion built by Mr. Small stood at a distance of about eighty yards to the north-west of the church; the fishpond, the orchard, a portion of the avenue, and the wall round the garden still remain, and as the gate between the Hall garden and the churchyard was removed only recently, its position is indicated by the new appearance of the added portion of the wall.

The only appurtenance to Clifton Hall now standing is the remarkable circular dove-house, built of local cornbrash, which stands in the middle of the village. Its circumference at the base is 63 feet. The other ancient dove-house of the parish, that of the Wake Manor, which was square in plan, has disappeared.

The Rectory is a building of considerable antiquity, portions of it being about 300 years old. In a terrier (Nov. 11, 1639) of Thomas Webb (a rector who, by the bye, is said to have been suspended for sheep-stealing) it is described as "The Parsonage, consisting of five bays, built of stone, and covered with thatch."

It is an interesting fact that the next rector to Mr. Webb

was named Samuel Pepys, and that he died in 1703, the same year that his namesake (possibly his cousin), Samuel Pepys, the celebrated diarist, died. The Rev. Samuel Pepys was instituted July 23, 1661, on the King's presentation by lapse, the living having remained vacant since the death of Mr. Webb.

He

was buried in Clifton Chancel, April 15, 1703. Pepys the diarist died in May, and was buried in Crutched Friars Church, London. The chief interest of Clifton Rectory arises from its having been for some time the residence of Lady Austen, of