Lambe's awaited him, and is thus described in a letter sent by Sir Dudley Carleton to the Queen on the afternoon : 'This day, betwixt nine and ten of the clock in the morning, the Duke of Buckingham, then comming out of a parlor into a hall, to goe to his coach, and soe to the king (who was four miles off), having about him diverse lords, colonells, and captains, and many of his owne servants, was by one Felton (once a lieutenant of this our army) slaine at one blow with a dagger knife. In his staggering he turn'd about, uttering onely this word "Villaine !" and never spake word more; but presently plucking out the knife from himselfe, before he fell to the ground, hee made towards the traytor two or three paces, and then fell against a table, although he were upheld by diverse that were neere him, that (through the villaine's close carriage in the act) could not perceive him hurt at all, but guess'd him to be suddenly overswayed with some apoplexie, till they saw the blood come gushing from his mouth and the wound so fast, that the life and breath at once left his begored body.'

The house in which the murder was committed is now standing in Portsmouth (No. 10, High Street), but has been so repeatedly altered, both within and without, in converting it first into an inn and then into a private house, that it retains scarcely any of its old features.

Howell says that Felton 'had thought to have done the deed' in the room where the Duke was being shaved, after rising from bed, for he was leaning upon the window all the while.'

Wotton thus describes the murder: 'The Duke came with Sir Thomas Fryer close at his ear; in the very moment as the said knight withdrew himself from the Duke, the assassin gave him, with a back blow, a deep wound into his left side, leaving the knife in his body, which the Duke himself pulling out, on a sudden effusion of spirits, he sank down under the table in the next room, and immediately expired.'

Sir Symonds D'Ewes, who was related to the Duchess of Buckingham, in his account of the murder, says: "The Duke having received the stroake, instantlie clapping his right hand on his sword-hilt, cried out, "God's wounds! the villaine has killed me!"?

Felton had sewed in the crown of his hat, half within the lining, a written paper, which ran as follows: 'That man is cowardly base, and deserveth not the name of a gentleman of souldier, that is not willinge to sacrifice his life for the honor of his God, his kinge, and his countrie. Lett noe man commend me for doinge of it, but rather discommend themselves as the cause of it; for if God had not taken away or harts for or sinnes, he would not have gone so longe unpunished.-JNO. FELTON.'

At the death, the paper was not found, and what had become of it was not known for a certainty. It was long in the possession of Mr. Upcott, and had been found among the Evelyn papers at Wotton, endorsed twice over in John Evelyn's handwriting, 'A note found about Felton when he killed the Duke of Buckingham, 23 Aug. 1628.' Sir Edward

Nicholas, Secretary of State, who had the first possession of it, was one of the persons before whom Felton was examined at Portsmouth. His daughter married Sir Richard Browne, and the learned and philosophic Mr. John Evelyn married. the only daughter of Sir Richard Browne. Lady Evelyn, the widow of his descendant, presented it to Mr. Upcott.

King Charles had parted but the day before from Buckingham, and was staying at Southwick Park, a seat of the Norton family a few miles from Portsmouth, from which place Carleton's letter is dated, he having probably posted there with the news. The King was at prayers, when Sir John Hippesly immediately went up to him and whispered the tidings in his ear. The King is reported to have heard it without visible emotion; but when the service was ended, he hastily went to his chamber, and bewailed his death passionately, casting himself on his bed with abundance of

tears.

Felton had been bred a soldier, and came of a good family in Suffolk. During his imprisonment he was visited by the Earl and Countess of Arundel and their son, 'he being of their blood.' Sir Henry Wotton terms Felton 'a younger brother of mean fortune, by nature of a deep, melancholy, silent, and gloomy constitution.' Felton stated his inducements to the crime to be the imputations thrown. out against the Duke in a pamphlet, and his denunciation by the people and Parliament. The latter was no doubt the real cause, inasmuch as, when Felton was exhorted by the royal chaplain to confess his motives, he answered, 'Sir,

I shall be brief: I killed him for the cause of God and my country.' It was this feeling which probably induced Felton to take so little interest in his own fate, when he might have escaped so easily, as is narrated in Carleton's letter.

Suspicion at first was excited towards the Frenchmen about the Duke, who were with difficulty saved from the vengeance of the Duke's attendants. Felton meanwhile walked quietly into the kitchen of the house, and remained there unnoticed until the first stupor of amazement had passed away, and the real murderer was sought for. He had expected a sudden death at the hands of the Duke's servants when he struck the blow, and it was this which induced him to fasten the written paper in his hat; he wished not to avoid the death he expected, and on the loud outcry of Where is the murderer?' he coolly confronted the enraged inquirers with 'I am the man!' His life was with difficulty saved, and he was conveyed under guard to the house of the governor of Portsmouth.

He had performed his journey to Portsmouth 'partly on horseback and partly on foot,' says Wotton; for he was indigent, and low in money.' But before leaving London,

in a bye cutler's shop on Tower Hill, he bought a tenpenny knife (so cheap was the instrument of this great attempt), and the sheath thereof he sewed to the lining of his pocket, that he might at any moment draw forth the blade alone with one hand, for he had maimed the other.'1

A different tale is told by the historians of Sheffield, who say: 'In 1626, Thomas Wild, cutler, living in the Crooked-bill Yard, High

Felton was conveyed to the Tower in September; and Charles would have had him put upon the rack to discover if he had any accomplices, but that the judges decided that ' torture was not justifiable according to the law of England.' He constantly affirmed that he did it of his own will, 'not maliciously, but out of an intent for the good of his country.' He was hanged at Tyburn, and his body conveyed to Portsmouth, and hung there in chains.

Buckingham was buried at Westminster secretly on the 17th of September, and a public funeral, with an empty coffin, paraded on the next night, guarded by soldiers with raised pikes and muskets, as if the people's well-known dislike was expected to be vented on his remains. His heart is affirmed to have been placed in the marble urn which forms the centre of the monument in Portsmouth church. It was at first, 'greatly in contravention of religious decorum,' erected within the communion rails, but has been removed to the north aisle of the chancel.

That Buckingham's unpopularity outlived him, is evident from the fears of the Court at his funeral; and the sympathy of the populace was more with Felton than with the murdered Minister. Such was his love of truth and rigid honour,

Street, made Lieutenant Felton the knife with which he stabbed the Duke of Buckingham. The knife was found in the Duke's body, and had a corporation mark upon it, which led to the discovery of the maker, who was immediately taken to the Earl of Arundel's house in London, when he acknowledged the mark was his, and that he had made Lieutenant Felton two such knives when he was recruiting at Sheffield, for which he charged him tenpence.'