273 



o£Bcei of Sicily, until the Sicilians rebelled, and a general massacre of 8,000 

 Frenchmen, it is said, took place as they were at vespers on Easter Sunday or 

 Monday, for accounts differ as to the exact day.) 



The immediate consequence of the Sergeant's rashness will be best shown 

 by some quotations from a letter written by Sir Henry Wotton to Sir Edmund 

 Bacon (June 8th, 1611) :— 



"It pleased his Majesty the very next morning to call to examination 

 before the lords of his council divers members of the House, for speeches 

 better becoming a senate of Venice, where the debaters are perpetual princes, 

 than where those who speak so irreverently are so soon to return to the natural 

 capacity of subjects. Of these, four are committed close prisoners to the tower. 

 First Sir Walter Chute, secondly John Hoskyns, thirdly one Wentworth (ancestor 

 of Earl Fitzwilliam), a lawyer, and fourthly Christopher Nevil (second son to my 



lord of Abergavenny)." "John Hoskyns having been questioned 



whether he well understood the consequence of that ' Sicilian Vesper ' whereunto 

 he had made some desperate allusion in the House, made answer that he had no 

 more than a general information thereof, being but little conversant with thos« 

 histories that lay out of the way of his profession." . . . " Thus you see, Sir, 

 the natural end of a great man, and the accidental ruin of others, which I had 

 rather you should see in a letter than as I did, for it grieved my soul to behold 

 a grave and learned gentleman of good hopes and merits carried away in the face 

 of the whole court, and such a greediness at all windows to gaze at unfortunate 

 spectacles." 



He had, however, noble companions in misfortune. A recent historian 

 ("Knight's Pictorial History of England," vol. III., p. 72), with reference to tha 

 imprisonment in the Tower of Sir Walter Raleigh, writes as follows : — " He found 

 several men fit to be his mates, and these were increased year by year by the 

 absurd tyranny of the Court, till it seemed almost to be James's intention to 

 shut up all the genius, taste, and enterprise of England in that great cage. Henry 

 Percy, the accomplished Earl of Northumberland, the friend of science and 

 scientific men ; and Serjeant Hoskyns, the scholar, poet, wit, and critic, tha 

 admired of Camden, Selden, Daniel, Walton, and Donne, the friend and polisher 

 of Ben Jonson,* were among the distinguished co-mates of Raleigh ; and these 

 men constantly attracted to the Tower some of the most intellectual of their 

 contemporaries, who enlivened their captivity with learned and pleasant dis- 

 course." 



Serjeant Hoskyns was, however, released after twelve months' confinement, 

 and was subsequently held in high estimation by the King, who appointed him 

 a Judge for the Welsh Circuits, and one of the Council of the Marches. 



On the list of contributors towards the building of the College quadrangle 

 at Hereford, the name of " John Hoskyns, serjeant-at-law," is placed second, 

 next to Sir Samuel Aubrey, and he is followed by "Folk Walwyn, of Marcle, 



* " I do confess it. Father Hoskyns hath made me speak clean."— Ben Jonton. 



k2 



