S AN OLD HAMPSHIRE MANOR HOUSE. 



principles and practices of the late Rebellion. Besides, my lord, I 

 should have been the most ungrateful person living should I have 

 been disloyal, or acted anything against the present king, consider- 

 ing how much I was obliged to him for my estate." 



" My Lord, had I been tried in London I could have had my 

 Lidy Abergavenny and several other persons of quality that could 

 have testified how much I was against the rebellion, and with what 

 detestation I spoke against it during the time of it, for I was all 

 that time in London, and staid there till after the Duke of Mon- 

 mouth was beheaded, and if I had certainly known the time of my 

 trial in the country, I could have had the testimony of those 

 persons of honour for me. But, my lord, I am told, and so I 

 thought it would have been, that I should not have been tried as 

 a traitor for harbouring him, till he was convicted for a traitor. 

 My lord, I should take my death of it, that I never knew of 

 Nelthorpe coming, nor anything of his being Nelthorpe, I never 

 asked his name, and if he had told it me I had then remembered 

 the Proclamation. I do assure you, my lord, for my own part I 

 did abhor those that were in that horrid plot and conspiracy 

 against the king's life. I know my duty to the king better, 

 and have always exercised it. I defy anybody in the world 

 that ever knew the contrary, to come and give testimony as to 

 what they say of my denying Nelthorpe to be in the house ; I 

 was in great consternation and fear of the soldiers, who were very 

 rude and violent, and could not be restrained by their officers from 

 robbery and plundering my house, and I beseech your lordship to 

 make that construction of it, and I humbly beg of your lordship 

 not to harbour an ill opinion of me because of those false reports 

 that go about of me relating to my carriage towards the old king, 

 that I was anyways consenting to the death of King Charles the 

 First, for, my lord, that is as false as God is true. My lord, I was 

 not out of my chamber all the day in which the king was 

 beheaded, and I believe I shed more tears for him than 

 any woman living did, and this, the late Countess of INIonmouth, 

 and my Lady Marlborough, and my Lord Chancellor Hyde, if they 



