d been
visiting Nottingham House on some duty connected with his office of
Vice-Admiral of Devon. He complained to the King, who befriended him, of
the affronts he received. The answer was said to have been: 'Were I
disposed to hang every one that speaks ill of thee, there would not be
trees enough in all my kingdom to hang them on.' According to another
tale, reported by J. Pory to Carleton, the King replied to his
protestation of the truth of his accusations: 'I have done amiss; Sir
Walter's blood be upon thy head.' In vain he endeavoured to defend
himself through the press. On August 10 he had printed a short _Apology_
for his conduct as Ralegh's keeper. In it he took up the only
practicable ground, that he had simply obeyed the orders of the Crown.
After Ralegh's execution he was stung by the obloquy he had incurred
into the publication of a formal indictment of the memory of the dead.
On November 26 appeared a rhetorical document, which he had retained the
Rev. Dr. Sharpe to help him in drawing up. It was entitled the 'Humble
Petition and Information of Sir Lewis Stukely, touching his own
behaviour in the charge committed to him for the bringing up of Sir
Walter Ralegh, and the scandalous aspersions cast upon him for the
same.' Fact and fiction are audaciously mingled in the narrative. As a
specimen of its temper may be mentioned the statement that Ralegh in the
Gate-house asked its keeper, Weekes, if any Romish priests were under
his charge. The insinuation was that the Protestant hero would have
liked an opportunity of reconciliation to the Church of Rome before his
death.

[Sidenote: _A Convicted Criminal._]

Such calumnies increased the popular wrath. The whole nation exulted in
the tidings within a few months that their author was about to be
indicted for the capital offence of clipping coin. Manourie was arrested
at Plymouth on the same charge. He accused his friend, whose old
confederate in clipping and sweating coin he had been. By way, it is to
be feared, of embellishment of a tale of righteous retaliation, it was
reported that Sir Lewis had been caught on Twelfth Night within the
precincts of the Palace of Whitehall in the act of clipping the very
gold pieces, the wages of his perfidy, paid to him on the previous New
Year's eve. He was confined first in the Gate-house, and then in the
Tower, in Ralegh's old cell, and in due course was tried. Fruitlessly he
endeavoured to shift the crime on his son, who