By C. E. Long, Esq. 



213 



It has been previously asserted that, until the publication of 

 Rokeby, and of Aubrey's Memoir of Judge Popham, in the "Let- 

 ters from the Bodleian/' no printed account of this Littlecote tra- 

 gedy could be met with. Researches were made in the library of 

 the British Museum for one or two old works of the period bearing 

 on such subjects, such as "A Mass of Murders" printed in 1595; 

 "London's Cry" in 1620; and "God's Revenge," in 1621, but they 

 have not been found. Nevertheless there is in a modern compilation 

 called "Anecdotes and Biography, selected from the Portfolio of a dis- 

 tinguished literary character lately deceased," and collected and edited 

 by "L. T. Rede," a story somewhat similar. My attention was 

 drawn to it by the kindness of Mr. Hunter of the Record Office. 

 At page 41, second edition 1799, we have a tale commencing thus. 

 "In a county verging on London, lived within this century, &c, 

 &c." "The counsel himself" it is stated in conclusion "is a peer 

 with at least £10,000 per annum." It may be that Mr. Rede, or 

 the "literary character," may have heard the Littlecote story, and 

 endeavoured to give it greater effect by fixing it on some unnamed 

 living parties. This story, nearly word for word, is the one re- 

 counted in Burke's Commoners, vol. ii. p. 12, of the "Alterations 

 and Additions." There is, however, this exception, viz. that Mr. 

 Burke has fastened it upon "an ancient and respectable family in 

 Wiltshire," and by so doing has virtually stamped it as the Little- 

 cote story. 



But we now come to another, and a real narrative bearing a 

 most exact similarity to our Wiltshire legend. This was lately re- 

 marked by Mr. John Bruce, while employed in the arrangement of 

 his Index at the State Paper Office, and obligingly made known to 

 me. In a letter dated "Hague, May 30, 1616," from Dudley, 

 afterwards Sir Dudley, Carleton, then our Ambassador in Holland, 

 to his friend, Mr. John Chamberlain, and addressed to him "at Mr. 

 Richard Chamberlain's house in Aldermanburie," the following 

 passage occurs. 



" We hear" he writes "of a bloudie accident on the Archduke's 

 side," (he means, of course, in Flanders) " where two men came 

 masqued into a midwife's house, and carried her away, partly by 

 force partly by persuasion, to a woman in child-bed whom she found 



