courses of a peer's coming in to discover the same, which now proves to be the Lord Howard." Note, endorsed by Lady Russell:-"This was said before (by?) the Lady Chaworth." "There having run a story of a letter, without a name, writ to the King, promising a discovery against Lord Russell, which some said was Lord Huntingdon's, some Lord Essex's, Lord Howard and his wife being here on Sunday last, a lady coming in, whispered me in the ear, that here was the Lord that now they said had written the said letter to His Majesty. I whispered to her again, and asked her whether she would give me leave to tell him. She answered, Aye, if you will, when I am gone, without naming me. After which, she and all the rest of the company being gone, except Lord Howard and his lady, who staid for their coach, I said to my lord and his wife, My Lord, they say now that you are the person that writ the nameless letter to the King. To which he replied, My Lord of Essex as much as I; and I, as much as my Lord of Essex. May my Lord Russell, and all innocent men, live till I accuse them!" Hampden and Lord Russell were imprisoned upon Lord Howard's information; and, four : days afterwards, Lord Russell was brought to trial but, in order to possess the public mind with a sense of the blackness of the plot, Walcot, Hone, and Rouse were first brought to trial, and condemned, upon the evidence of Keeling, Lee, and West, of a design to assassinate the King. A circumstance of more melancholy interest, but also tending to produce an impression unfavourable to Lord Russell, happened on the very morning of his trial. We have seen that Lord Essex staid in his own house, without any apparent uneasiness, from an apprehension that his flight would be injurious to his friend. An order was now given for his arrest, on the information of Lord Howard. A party of horse was sent to bring him up from his house at Cassiobury. He was at first in some disorder, but soon recovered himself. When he came before the council, however, he was in much confusion. He was sent to the Tower, and there fell under a great depression of spirits. He sent, by his servant, a very melancholy message to his wife: that what he was charged with was true; that he was sorry he had ruined her and her children; and that he had sent to Lord Clarendon, who had married his sister, to speak freely to him. She immediately sent back to him, to beg that he would not think of her or her children, but only study to support his own spirits; and de sired him to say nothing to Lord Clarendon, nor to any one else, till she should come to him, which she hoped to get leave to do in a day or two. Lord Clarendon came to him upon his message, but he turned the matter off, as if he only wished to explain something he had said before the council. Lord Clarendon was satisfied that he had nothing farther to communicate. * After this he sent another message to his wife, that he was much calmer, especially when he found how she took his condition to heart, without seeming concerned for herself. The condition of his friend, Lord Russell, seems to have pressed heavily on his mind. He sent to the Earl of Bedford to say, he was more concerned for his son's condition than even Lord Bedford himself. And Lord Russell, when he looked towards Lord Essex's window, had observed him retire immediately into his room. On the morning appointed for Lord Russell's trial, his servant Bommeny (as he asserted), thinking he staid longer in his room than ordinary, looked through the key-hole, and there saw him lying dead. He said that, upon breaking open the door, he found his master with his throat cut, quite dead. At the time, it was universally supposed that Lord Essex was the author Burnet. of his own death; but this opinion was afterwards rendered doubtful, by the deposition of two children of thirteen years of age, totally unknown to each other, who declared that they saw a bloody razor thrown out of the window of Lord Essex's chamber. Braddon, who gave currency to these reports, was tried and convicted as a spreader of false news. After the Revolution, a Committee of the House of Lords, consisting of Lord Bedford, Lord Devonshire, Lord Delamere, and Lord Monmouth, was named, to enquire into the death of Lord Essex. They examined above sixty witnesses; but Lord Devonshire, Lord Delamere, and Lord Monmouth, being obliged to leave London on public business, the investigation was suspended, and Parliament being soon afterwards dissolved, it was never resumed. Some time before this, however, Lady Essex had called a meeting of her relations, at which Lord Bedford, Lord Devonshire, and Bishop Burnet were present; at which she declared she believed Lord Essex had killed himself, and desired the business might be let fall.* The depositions taken before the Lords are not to be found; it would be idle, therefore, at the present time, to pretend to give any opinion on the subject; and I should say * Diary of Henry Earl of Clarendon. no more on it, were it not that I have been assured by the present Earl of Essex, that Lord Onslow, then a Lord of the Treasury, told him, when a boy, that he had seen the entry of a grant of money to Bommeny in the books of the Treasury. The following circumstance corroborates strongly this testimony. At Russell Farm, near Cassiobury, there exists a copy of Lord Essex's letters, published in 1770, prefixed to which is an account of his life. In the margin of the page where he is stated to have been committed to the Tower, is the following note in the hand-writing of the Countess of Essex, grandmother of the present Earl. "Bommeny had a pension from the Treasury by the King's order till the day of his death, as Mr. Grenville told us appeared upon the Treasury books; Lady Carlisle, his daughter, likewise said that the family were of the same opinion, but his widow did not care to stir about it on account of her son." The Lady Essex who wrote this note was of the Russell Family: by the word "us" she probably means herself and a daughter who lived with her, A search was made at my request, but without success, into some of the Treasury books: there are others, however, in such confusion that it would be very difficult to examine them. The opinion that |
