Lord Nithsdale's Escape.

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of a race too heroic for weakness when the safety of those dear to her was in peril.

Still feigning great distress at her maid's delay, she went back to Lord Nithsdale's cell. She talked as if he were still there, and even imitated his voice, till she thought that the fugitives had had time to escape. She then partly opened the door, and, as if addressing her husband inside, said she could not think what made her maid so late.' Then pulling the door to, so that it could only be opened from the outside, she called out as she passed Lord Nithsdale's servant (when she went out), 'that he need not carry in candles yet awhile, as his master desired to finish some prayers first.'

What must not she have felt as she went out ! She had saved him!

She had intended presenting a last petition in Lord Nithsdale's behalf that very night. A kind Duchess befriended her, and the Countess hurried to tell her the good news.

The Duchess of Montrose expected to see her in tears, and thought, on seeing her radiant with joy, 'that her troubles had driven her out of her senses.' She urged Lady Nithsdale to fly; and, after a brief interview, the heroic Countess joined her husband at a lodging opposite the guard-house.

There they remained concealed two days. They dared not rise from the bed, where they had thrown

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themselves, for fear that they might be heard moving about below stairs. They had a bottle of wine and some bread, but nothing more to subsist on till the day after, when, disguised as a liveried servant, Lord Nithsdale went down in the Venetian ambassador's coach and six to Dover, and then escaped to France, in a little vessel going over to Calais.

When King George heard next day of Lord Nithsdale's escape, he is said to have observed, 'It was the best thing a man in his condition could have done.'

Lord Nithsdale went to Rome, and never returned to Scotland. He died there in 1744. His heroic wife was forbidden to appear in public, although the Government could not actually prove how large a share she had had in the escape of such a determined rebel as her husband was reputed to be.

After saving the father, she secured all the family papers that related to the rights of her little son, and then joined her husband at Rome. She died in 1749, and her story has made her name memorable as long as the rebellion in favour of James Stuart shall be recorded in history.

Perhaps in all the history of those troublous times, there is nothing finer to be told than this tale of courage that has been handed down to us, of Winifred, Countess of Nithsdale.

The Earl of Derwentwater.

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Another nobleman, who was condemned at the same time as the Earl of Nithsdale, was not so fortunate as to escape his doom; and that was James Radcliffe, Earl of Derwentwater, one of the 'most brave, open, generous, and hospitable' English gentlemen who ever graced so high a station.

He was descended from the Stuarts in the female line, Sir Francis Radcliffe having married, in James II.'s reign, Lady Mary Tudor, the natural daughter of Charles II.

But beside family ties, it was natural to a Northumberland gentleman to be loyal to the Stuart cause. Living in counties remote from the metropolis, the north country gentry were too far from the court to witness the abuses, bad management of public affairs, and religious intolerance that at length alienated England from the Stuart kings. Newspapers in those days were scarce, and in northern counties, where even simple country gentlemen like Colonel Anthony Byerley of Midridge Grange, in Durham (who equipped a regiment of yeomen at his own expense for Charles I., during the civil wars, called Byerley's bull-dogs,' and in whose ancient mansion, now passed away from his descendants, there were to be seen, to a late date, a number of crooks in the lofts, where the troopers are said to have swung their hammocks), garrisoned their mansions rather than fail