98 James Ley, Earl of Marlborough. 
bended knee of his heart for his conduct tuwards her.” Whether 
he repented of his marriage or lamented the estrangement from his 
daughter is a question which we need not decide. 
And now comes the tragic end of the good Earl. For some time 
he must have seen that darker days were drawing on, and it may be 
that his counsels were unheeded by the King, and in that case what 
passed between his royal master and himself was a secret which he 
would never have divulged. The end came when the King dissolved 
his fourth Parliament, and declared that he would rule without the 
aid of parliaments. The Earl of Marlborough and his son, Lord 
Ley, were both present in the House of Lords at the delivery of 
the King’s speech, in which he said :—* I thought it necessary to 
come here to-day to declare to you and to all the world that it was 
merely the undutiful and seditious carriage in the Lower House 
that hath caused the dissolution of this Parliament. You, my Lords, 
are so far from being the causers of it, that I take as much comfort 
in your dutiful demeanour as I am justly distasted with their pro- 
ceedings. Yet to avoid mistakings, let me tell you that it is so 
far from me to adjudge all the House equally guilty, that 1 know 
that there are many there as dutiful subjects as any in the world ; 
it being but some few vipers among them that did cast this mist of 
undutifulness over most of their eyes. As these vipers must look 
for their reward of punishment, so you, my Lords, must justly 
expect from me that favour and protection that a good King oweth 
to his loving and faithful nobility.” 
The Earl went home with a broken heart, for he loved his country 
and his King. Four days afterwards he was dead, and his body 
was brought from London to Westbury and laid in the same grave 
with his first wife—the mother of all his children—in the south 
transept of the Church. 
And as I began with his epitaph, so I will end with words which 
have immortalised his memory, the sonnet which Milton addressed 
to Lady Margaret, his daughter :—' 
1 Milton diverted himself sometimes of an evening in visiting Lady Margaret 
Ley, daughter of the Earl of Marlborough, Lord High Treasurer of England and 
President of the Privy Council to King James I. This lady, being a woman of 
