370 Mysterious Death of a Lord-Lieutenant of Wiits ; 
thirty miles distant from Marlborough, and an hundred miles from 
London, and, being there at The Dolphin, he was informed that 
the Earl of Essex had cut his throat in the Tower. I did desire 
Burgess to write me a letter to the master of the house at Frome, 
to inform me if he could remember who it was that reported this 
at his house. I did at Marlborough likewise speak with one Lewis, 
who informed me, that about two o’clock the day the Earl died, as 
he was riding up Husband’s Hill, not far from Andover, he overtook 
a gentleman riding a very easy traveller’s pace, and as they were 
discoursing of the news in the country, the gentleman said he had 
heard a report of the Earl of Essex that he had cut his throat in 
the Tower; but the gentleman was altogether a stranger to him, 
and therefore he could not inform me how or where to find him. 
With Burgess’s letter I was riding to Frome, but when I came 
within six miles of the place, at a town called Bradford, I stopped 
at an inn-door to drink a glass of cider; upon which, one Beach, ! 
an attorney notorious in his country and generation, informed a 
Justice of Peace [Colonel William Eyre] then there, that I looked 
like a disaffected person, by wearing band and cuffs, and, therefore, 
in that dangerous time, I ought to be examined. Upon which the 
Justice came out [of the inn] to examine me; and there came with 
him one who knew me, so that the Justice seemed well satisfied. 
But Beach taking the Justice aside, tells him that he ought to be 
more strict and search me, for by my wearing band and cuffs it 
was plain I was disaffected to the Government. Of this I have 
been often told by some then there. Upon this the Justice told 
me he must search me. When I perceived this, I thought it proper 
to give the Justice a particular account of the occasion of my being 
in the country, as also of what papers I had about me; which 
papers being read, after some debate and advising with Beach, he 
made a warrant for my commitment, the form whereof in the con- 
clusion was the most illegal I ever saw. It ran in these words :— 
1 Thomas Beach, of West Ashton and Bradford, Steward under the Crown, 
for the Manor of Steeple Ashton, and of the Manor of Trowbridge for the 
Seymour Family. He married Anne Martyn, of East Town; died 1729, aged 92, 
and was buried at Steeple Ashton. He is mentioned by Aubrey, Nat. His., 
of Wilts, p. 41. 
