FullReads

[Footnote 250:
Clarendon notices that Felton was “of a gentleman’s family in Suffolk, of good fortune and reputation.” I find that during his confinement, the Earl and Countess of Arundel, and Lord Maltravers, their son, “he being of their blood,” says the letter-writer, continually visited him, gave many proofs of their friendship, and brought his “winding-sheet,” for to the last they attempted to save him from being hung in chains: they did not succeed. ]

[Footnote 251:
Rushworth, vol. i. 638. ]

[Footnote 252:
The original reads “It is for our sins our hearts are hardened.” ]

[Footnote 253:
Lansdowne MSS. No. 203, f. 147. The original paper above described was in the possession of the late William Upcott; he had it from Lady Evelyn, who found it among John Evelyn’s papers at Wotton, in Surrey. Evelyn married the daughter of Sir Richard Browne, who had married the only daughter of Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State, and one of the persons before whom Felton was examined at Portsmouth. The words on this remarkable paper differ from the transcripts just given, and are exactly these:–“That man is cowardly, base, and deserveth not the name of a gentleman or souldier, that is not willinge to sacrifice his life for the honor of his God, his Kinge, and his countrie. Lett noe man commend me for doinge of it, but rather discommend themselves as the cause of it, for if God had not taken away our hearts for our sinnes, he would not have gone so longe unpunished.” ]

[Footnote 254:
Harl. MSS. 7000. J. Mead to Sir Matt. Stuteville, Sept. 27, 1628. ]

[Footnote 255:
The rack, or brake, now in the Tower, was introduced by the Duke of Exeter in the reign of Henry VI., as an auxiliary to his project of establishing the civil law in this country; and in derision it was called his daughter.–Cowel’s Interp. voc. Rack. ]

[Footnote 256:
This remarkable document is preserved by Dalrymple: it is an indorsement in the handwriting of Secretary Winwood, respecting the examination of Peacham–a record whose graduated horrors might have charmed the speculative cruelty of a Domitian or a Nero. “Upon these interrogatories, Peacham this day was examined before torture, in torture, between torture, and after torture; notwithstanding, nothing could be drawn from him, he persisting still in his obstinate and insensible denials and former answer.”–Dalrymple’s “Memoirs and Letters of James I.” p. 58. ]

[Footnote 257:
Z. Townley, in 1624, made the Latin oration in memory of Camden, reprinted by Dr. Thomas Smith at the end of “Camden’s Life.”–Wood’s “Fasti.” I find his name also among the verses addressed to Ben Jonson prefixed to his works. ]

[Footnote 258:
The allusion here is to Charles Townley, Esq., whose noble collection of antique marbles now enrich our British Museum. He was born 1737, and died January 3, 1805. The collection was purchased by a national grant of 28,200 l.; and a building being expressly erected for them, in connexion with Montague House, then converted into a national museum, was opened to the public in 1808. ]

[Footnote 259:
This poem has been collated afresh from the original in the Sloane MS. No. 603. It concludes with the four lines forming the duke’s epitaph, as printed in p. 369. ]