Politics and Social Changes 



the assassins with her bouquet of flowers ; the 

 younger son lifted to a throne in such a 

 baptism of fire. Never have the " fiercer 

 Goth and more hideous Hun " perpetrated a 

 fouler deed. 



" Duncan is in his grave ; 

 After life's fitful fever he sleeps well ; 

 Treason has done its worst : nor steel, nor poison, 

 Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, 

 Can touch him further ! " 



A year has passed, and the origin of the 

 whole affair is still shrouded in mystery. No 

 serious inquiry into it has been held, a fact in 

 itself somewhat damaging to the reputation of 

 a civilized country. One naturally presumes 

 that those in authority fear to stir the mud. 

 And we have the usual result of hushing: things 

 up — an innumerable crop of wild rumours and 

 secret insinuations against various prominent 

 persons, most of whom are, of course, innocent 

 of all complicity in the crime. 



I have found that the political conditions 

 ruling in Portugal at the time are little under- 

 stood in England, in spite of the able articles 

 on them in the Times. That Joao Franco's 

 rule was generally described as a dictatorship, 



97 H 



