you secure to repose great confidence; you are not ignorant, that out of that stocke some have sprange out, which would have disrobed your kinge of all kingly authority. As to the rest to which this place and tyme seem to deny an answere, because they are many in number, and those also severally to be examined, you shall attende the determination of certayne of my counsell assigned by mee for the same purpose. In the meane tyme content yourself, and trouble me no more.

MARGARET LAMBRUN.

The death of Mary Queen of Scots so affected one of her retinue, that he died soon after of grief, leaving his widow, Margaret Lambrun, who became so infuriated in consequence, that she resolved to revenge the death of both upon the person of Queen Elizabeth. To accomplish her purpose, she dressed herself as a man, assumed the name of Anthony Spark, and attended at the court of Elizabeth with a pair of pistols, with one of which she intended to kill the queen, and with the other to shoot herself, should she be discovered. One day, as she was pushing through the crowd in order to get to her majesty, she accidentally dropped one of her pistols. This being observed by one of the guards, she was immediately seized. The queen interfered, and desired to examine the culprit. She accordingly demanded her name; to which Margaret, with undaunted resolution, replied, “Madam, though I appear before you in this garb, yet I am a woman. My name is Margaret Lambrun. I was several years in the service of Mary, a queen whom

you have unjustly put to death, and thereby deprived me of the best of husbands, who could not survive that bloody catastrophe of his innocent mistress. His memory is hardly more dear to me than that of my injured queen; and regardless of consequences, I determined to revenge their death upon you. Many, but fruitless, were the attempts made to divert me from my purpose. I found myself constrained to prove by experience the truth of the maxim, that neither reason nor force can hinder a woman from vengeance, when she is impelled to it by love."

Highly as the queen had cause to resent this speech, she heard it with coolness and moderation." You are persuaded, then," said her majesty, “that in this step you have done nothing but what your duty required. What think you is my duty to you?" "Is that question put in the character of a queen, or that of a judge?" enquired Margaret, with the same intrepid firmness. Elizabeth professed to her it was in that of a queen. "Then," continued Lambrun, "it is your majesty's duty to grant me a pardon." "But what security," demanded the queen, can you give me, that you will not make the like attempt upon some future occasion?" "" A favour ceases to be one madam," replied Margaret, "when it is yielded under such restraints; in doing so, your majesty would act against me as a judge."

Elizabeth, turning to her courtiers, exclaimed, “I have been a queen thirty years; I never had such a lecture read to me before." She then immediately granted an unconditional pardon to Margaret Lambrun, though in opposition to the advice of her council.

SIR NICHOLAS THROCKMORTON.

One of the earliest and most pleasing triumphs of the trial by jury in this country, was displayed in the case of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, accused of high treason in 1554. He was indicted for being concerned in Wyatt's rebellion, and was brought to trial before Lord Chief Justice Bromley, and a special commission of privy counsellors, judges, and crown lawyers. He had been in close confinement for fifty-eight days, without any of his friends being allowed access to him, or any assistance of counsel, which was never then permitted. Sir Nicholas was no lawyer by profession; yet under all these disadvantages he made a defence not only distinguished for its plain good sense and strong reasoning, but incomparably more learned as a legal argument, than any thing that was urged against him by the united knowledge of the bench and bar. In every question of law that occurred, he baffled the whole host of lawyers opposed to him; and the judges got at last so irritated, that they made an attempt to put him to silence, by refusing to order certain statutes which he called for to be read. To their astonishment, however, he repeated them with perfect accuracy, after complaining indignantly, that instead of law, they gave him "only the form and image of law." When he had finished, the chief justice exclaimed with surprise," why do not you of the queen's learned counsel answer him? Methinks, Throckmorton, you need not have the statutes, for you have them perfectly." When the judges quoted cases against him, he retorted others in which these had been condemned as erroneous; till Sergeant Stanford, on the part of the

crown, peevishly remarked, that if he had known the prisoner was so well furnished with cases, he would have come better prepared. Throckmorton coolly replied, that he had no law, but what he had learned from Mr. Sergeant Stanford himself, when attending in parliament. At length Griffin, the attorney-general, fairly lost all patience at the dexterity and acuteness displayed by the prisoner, and called out, I pray you, my lords, that be the queen's commissioners, suffer not the prisoner to use the queen's counsel thus; I was never interrupted thus in my life, nor I never knew any thus suffered to talk as this prisoner is suffered; some of us will come no more at the bar, an we be thus handled."

The jury acquitted the prisoner; for which (such was the degree of freedom then in England) they were immediately imprisoned; and those who did not make due acknowledgment of their fault in deciding according to their consciences, were afterwards heavily fined by the star chamber, even to the ruin of some of them, particularly the foreman and another, who lay in jail eight months.

LONG SPEECHES.

His late majesty observed one day to a gentleman of high literary character, and of distinguished political reputation, that oratory in this country was carried to a height far beyond its real use; and that the desire of excelling in this accomplishment, made many young men of genius neglect the more solid branches of knowledge. "I am sure," said his majesty, "that the rage for public speaking, and the

extravagant length to which some of our most popular orators carry their harangues in parliament, is very detrimental to the national business, and I wish that in the end it may not prove injurious to the public peace." It is remarkable, that the opinion of the king agrees exactly with that of Aristotle, who says, "Nothing so effectually contributes to the ruin of popular governments, as the petulence of their orators." (Polit. lib. v.)

EARL OF CARNARVON.

In the debate relative to the impeachment of the treasurer, the Earl of Danby, in the House of Lords, 1678, several noblemen spoke very warmly on both sides of the question, and among others, the Earl of Carnarvon, a nobleman who had never opened his lips before in the house. Having been dining with the Duke of Buckingham, the Duke (who intended no favour to the treasurer, but only ridicule) had got the earl to promise, before he went to the house, that he would speak upon any subject that should offer itself. Accordingly he rose in the debate, and spoke as follows: "My lords, I understand but little Latin, but a good deal of the English History, from which I have learnt the mischiefs of such kinds of prosecutions as these, and the ill fate of the prosecutors. I could bring many instances, and those very ancient; but, my lords, I shall go no father back than the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign; at which time the Earl of Essex was run down by Sir Walter Raleigh. My Lord Bacon he ran down Sir Walter Raleigh, and your lordships know what became of Lord Bacon.