empt, he
commanded that he should be taken by force from the bar. The jury then
heard the opinion of the judge, that good characters were of no weight
against positive evidence, though they might turn the scale, where it
was doubtful; and that though two men attack each other, the death of
either is only manslaughter; but where one is the aggressor, as in the
case before them, and in pursuance of his first attack kills the other,
the law supposes the action, however sudden, to be malicious. The jury
determined, that Mr. Savage and Mr. Gregory were guilty of murder, and
Mr. Marchant who had no sword, only manslaughter.

Mr. Savage and Mr. Gregory were conducted back to prison, where they
were more closely confined, and loaded with irons of fifty pound weight.
Savage had now no hopes of life but from the king's mercy, and can it be
believed, that mercy his own mother endeavoured to intercept.

When Savage (as we have already observed) was first made acquainted with
the story of his birth, he was so touched with tenderness for his
mother, that he earnestly sought an opportunity to see her.

To prejudice the queen against him, she made use of an incident, which
was omitted in the order of time, that it might be mentioned together
with the purpose it was made to serve.

One evening while he was walking, as was his custom, in the street she
inhabited, he saw the door of her house by accident open; he entered it,
and finding no persons in the passage to prevent him, went up stairs to
salute her. She discovered him before he could enter her chamber,
alarmed the family with the most distressful out-cries, and when she had
by her screams gathered them about her, ordered them to drive out of the
house that villain, who had forced himself in upon her, and endeavoured
to murder her.

This abominable falsehood his mother represented to the queen, or
communicated it to some who were base enough to relate it, and so
strongly prepossessed her majesty against this unhappy man, that for a
long while she rejected all petitions that were offered in his favour.

Thus had Savage perished by the evidence of a bawd, of a strumpet, and
of his mother; had not justice and compassion procured him an advocate,
of a rank too great to be rejected unheard, and of virtue too eminent to
be heard without being believed. The story of his sufferings reached the
ear of the countess of Hertford, who engaged in his support with the
tenderness and humanit