TUTBURY CASTLE AND THE RIFER DOVE. 413 



and its contents were lost in the Dove, and the unlucky 

 treasurer, compelled to fly before daylight discovered 

 him, never after had an opportunity of returning to 

 attempt their recovery. 



The earl himself, deserted by those on whom he 

 depended, was soon after betrayed into the hands of his 

 enemies, who conducted him to Pontefract, where, after 

 suffering the greatest indignities, as is generally the case 

 with fallen greatness, his head was struck off", towards the 

 end of March or beginning of April, 1322. 



The subsequent troubles appear to have caused the 

 loss of this treasure to be forgotten, and probably of the 

 few who witnessed its immersion in the Dove none ever 

 returned to Tutbury ; so that the poor earl's money, which 

 perhaps might have saved him his head, had he chanced 

 to possess it before his capture, was destined to remain 

 in the bed of the river undisturbed, except by the rushing 

 waters, for more than five hundred years, and would 

 in all likelihood have continued so, but for a curious 

 chance. 



This happened in June, 1831. In the long interval 

 that had elapsed, the Dove had been spanned by two 

 bridges ; corn and cotton mills were erected on its banks 

 near this spot ; and the stream had been troubled with 

 all manner of weirs and dams, cuts and alterations, but 

 without revealing the secret it contained. On the ist of 

 June, in that year, however, the proprietors of the cotton 

 mills having commenced the operation of deepening the 

 river, with the object of giving a greater fall of water to 

 the wheel, the workmen found among the gravel, about 

 three-score yards below the present bridge, a few small 



