emselves for their passive
courage: impelled by affection, or the sense of duty, they have
occasionally become heroic. When the band of conspirators, who sought
the life of James II. of Scotland, burst into his lodgings at Perth, the
king called to the ladies, who were in the chamber outside his room, to
keep the door as well as they could, and give him time to escape. The
conspirators had previously destroyed the locks of the doors, so
that the keys could not be turned; and when they reached the ladies'
apartment, it was found that the bar also had been removed. But, on
hearing them approach, the brave Catherine Douglas, with the hereditary
courage of her family, boldly thrust her arm across the door instead of
the bar; and held it there until, her arm being broken, the conspirators
burst into the room with drawn swords and daggers, overthrowing the
ladies, who, though unarmed, still endeavoured to resist them.

The defence of Lathom House by Charlotte de la Tremouille, the worthy
descendant of William of Nassau and Admiral Coligny, was another
striking instance of heroic bravery on the part of a noble woman. When
summoned by the Parliamentary forces to surrender, she declared that
she had been entrusted by her husband with the defence of the house,
and that she could not give it up without her dear lord's orders, but
trusted in God for protection and deliverance. In her arrangements for
the defence, she is described as having "left nothing with her eye to
be excused afterwards by fortune or negligence, and added to her former
patience a most resolved fortitude." The brave lady held her house and
home good against the enemy for a whole year--during three months of
which the place was strictly besieged and bombarded--until at length the
siege was raised, after a most gallant defence, by the advance of the
Royalist army.

Nor can we forget the courage of Lady Franklin, who persevered to the
last, when the hopes of all others had died out, in prosecuting the
search after the Franklin Expedition. On the occasion of the Royal
Geographical Society determining to award the Founder's Medal to Lady
Franklin, Sir Roderick Murchison observed, that in the course of a long
friendship with her, he had abundant opportunities of observing and
testing the sterling qualities of a woman who had proved herself worthy
of the admiration of mankind. "Nothing daunted by failure after failure,
through twelve long years of hope deferred, she h