pleaded not guilty. A jury of English and foreigners brought in a verdict of guilty, and the five prisoners were sentenced to be hanged. Every effort was made to save Don Pantaleon's life; but Cromwell's only reply was: "Blood has been shed, and justice must be satisfied." The only mercy shown was a respite of two days, and a reprieve from the disgraceful death of hanging; the Ambassador having requested that he might be permitted to kill his brother with his own sword, rather than he should be hanged.

A remarkable coincidence concluded this strange story while Don Pantaleon lay in Newgate, awaiting his trial, Gerard, with whom the quarrel in the New Exchange had arisen, got entangled in a plot to assassinate Cromwell, was tried and condemned to be hanged, which, as in the Don's case, was changed to beheading. Both suffered on the same day, on Tower Hill. Don Pantaleon, attended by a number of his brother's suite, was conveyed in a mourning-coach with six horses, from Newgate to Tower Hill, to the same scaffold whereon Gerard had just suffered. The Don, after his devotions, gave his confessor his beads and crucifix, laid his head on the block, and it was chopped off at two blows. On the same day, the English boyservant was hanged at Tyburn. The three Portuguese were pardoned. Pennant says that Gerard died with intrepid dignity; Don Pantaleon with all the pusillanimity of an assassin. Cromwell's stern and haughty justice, and perfect retribution exacted on this occasion, have been much extolled; it tended to render his Government still more respected abroad; and settled a knotty point as to "the inviolability of ambassadors."

and he was killed by a pistol shot through the head. The crowd now grew enraged, and Don Pantaleon and the Portuguese retreated to the house of embassy, caused the gates to be shut, and put all the servants in arms to defend it. Meanwhile, the Horse Guard on duty had apprehended some of the Portuguese; and Cromwell sent Colonel Whaley in command, who pursued others to the Ambassador's house with his horse, and there demanded that the rest should be given up. The Ambassador insisted upon his privilege, and that by the law of nations his house was a sanctuary for all his countrymen; but finding the officer resolute, and that he was not strong enough for the encounter, desired time to send to the Lord General Cromwell, which was granted, and he complained of the injury, and desired an audience. Cromwell sent a messenger in reply, to state that a gentleman had been murdered, and several other persons wounded, and that if the criminals were not given up, the soldiers would be withdrawn, and "the people would pull down the house, and execute justice themselves." Under this threat, Don Pantaleon, three Portuguese, and an English boy, the Don's servant, were given up; they were confined in the guard-house for the night, and next day sent prisoners to Newgate, whence in about three weeks the Don made his escape, but was retaken.

By the intercession of the Portuguese merchants, the trial was delayed till the 6th of July in the following year, when the prisoners were arraigned for the crime of murder. Don Pantaleon, at first, refused to plead, as he held a commission to act as Ambassador, in the event of his brother's death, or absence from England. He was then threatened with the press, when he

pleaded not guilty. A jury of English and foreigners brought in a verdict of guilty, and the five prisoners were sentenced to be hanged. Every effort was made to save Don Pantaleon's life; but Cromwell's only reply was: "Blood has been shed, and justice must be satisfied." The only mercy shown was a respite of two days, and a reprieve from the disgraceful death of hanging; the Ambassador having requested that he might be permitted to kill his brother with his own sword, rather than he should be hanged.

A remarkable coincidence concluded this strange story: while Don Pantaleon lay in Newgate, awaiting his trial, Gerard, with whom the quarrel in the New Exchange had arisen, got entangled in a plot to assassinate Cromwell, was tried and condemned to be hanged, which, as in the Don's case, was changed to beheading. Both suffered on the same day, on Tower Hill. Don Pantaleon, attended by a number of his brother's suite, was conveyed in a mourning-coach with six horses, from Newgate to Tower Hill, to the same scaffold whereon Gerard had just suffered. The Don, after his devotions, gave his confessor his beads and crucifix, laid his head on the block, and it was chopped off at two blows. On the same day, the English boyservant was hanged at Tyburn. The three Portuguese were pardoned. Pennant says that Gerard died with intrepid dignity; Don Pantaleon with all the pusillanimity of an assassin. Cromwell's stern and haughty justice, and perfect retribution exacted on this occasion, have been much extolled; it tended to render his Government still more respected abroad; and settled a knotty point as to "the inviolability of ambassadors."

SIR RICHARD WILLIS'S PLOT AGAINST CHARLES II.

AT Lincoln's Inn, in the south angle of the great court, leading out of Chancery Lane, formerly called the Gate-house Court, but now Old Buildings, and on the left hand of the ground floor of No. 24, Oliver Cromwell's Secretary, Thurloe, had chambers from 1645 to 1659. Thither one night came Cromwell for the purpose of discussing secret and important business, They had conversed together for some time, when Cromwell suddenly perceived a clerk asleep at his desk. This happened to be Mr. Morland, afterwards Sir Samuel Morland, the famous mechanician, and not unknown as a statesman. Cromwell, it is affirmed, drew his dagger, and would have despatched him on the spot, had not Thurloe, with some difficulty, prevented him. He assured him that his intended victim was certainly sound asleep, since, to his own knowledge, he had been sitting up the two previous nights. But Morland only feigned sleep, and overheard the conversation, which was a plot for throwing the young King Charles II., then resident at Bruges, and the Dukes of York and Gloucester, into the hands of the Protector; Sir Richard Willis having planned that, on a stated day, they should pass over to a certain port in Sussex, where they would be received on landing by a body of 500 men, to be augmented on the following morning by 2,000 horse. Had the royal exiles fallen into the snare, it seems that all three would have been shot immediately on reaching the shore; but Morland disclosed the designs to the royal party, and thus frustrated the diabolical scheme.

The suites of chambers of which we have been speak

ing were chiefly erected about the time of King James I.; and notwithstanding that square-headed doorways have superseded the arches, and sashed windows have taken the places of the original lattices and mullions, the buildings retain much of their original character.* Curious it is to reflect, as we pass through "the great legal thoroughfare" of Chancery Lane, that in Thurloe's chambers, by a slight stratagem, was saved, some two centuries since, the Royal cause of England. Cromwell must often have been in these chambers at Lincoln's Inn; and here, by the merest accident, was discovered in the reign of William III. a collection of papers concealed in the false ceiling of a garret, in the same house, by a clergyman who had borrowed the rooms during the long vacation, of his friend, Mr. Tomlinson, the owner of them. This clergyman soon after disposed of the papers to Lord Chancellor Somers, who caused them to be bound up in 67 volumes in folio. These form the principal part of the Collections afterwards published by Dr. Birch, known by the name of the Thurloe State Papers.

The above anecdote is told by Birch, in his Life of Thurloe, but rests upon evidence which has been questioned. There is a tradition, too, that Cromwell had chambers in or near the gate-house, but his name is not in the registers of the Society; his son Richard was admitted as student in the 23rd year of Charles II.

* Lincoln's Inn and its Library, by Spilsbury.