after," as the ghost had
foretold to him.

Finally, Clarendon makes the appearances set in six months before
Felton slew the duke. The percipient, unnamed, was in bed. The
narrative now develops new features; the token given on the ghost's
third coming obviously concerns Buckingham's mother, the Countess, the
"one person more" who knew the secret communicated. The ghost
produces no knife from under his gown; no warning of Buckingham's
death by violence is mentioned. A note in the MS. avers that
Clarendon himself had papers bearing on the subject, and that he got
his information from Sir Ralph Freeman (who introduced the unnamed
percipient to the duke), and from some of Buckingham's servants, "who
were informed of much of it before the murder of the duke". Clarendon
adds that, in general, "no man looked on relations of that sort with
less reverence and consideration" than he did. This anecdote he
selects out of "many stories scattered abroad at the time" as "upon a
better foundation of credit". The percipient was an officer in the
king's wardrobe at Windsor, "of a good reputation for honesty and
discretion," and aged about fifty. He was bred at a school in Sir
George's parish, and as a boy was kindly treated by Sir George, "whom
afterwards he never saw". On first beholding the spectre in his room,
the seer recognised Sir George's costume, then antiquated. At last
the seer went to Sir Ralph Freeman, who introduced him to the duke on
a hunting morning at Lambeth Bridge. They talked earnestly apart,
observed by Sir Ralph, Clarendon's informant. The duke seemed
abstracted all day; left the field early, sought his mother, and after
a heated conference of which the sounds reached the ante-room, went
forth in visible trouble and anger, a thing never before seen in him
after talk with his mother. She was found "overwhelmed with tears and
in the highest agony imaginable". "It is a notorious truth" that,
when told of his murder, "she seemed not in the least degree
surprised."

The following curious manuscript account of the affair is, after the
prefatory matter, the copy of a letter dated 1652. There is nothing
said of a ghostly knife, the name of the seer is not Parker, and in
its whole effect the story tallies with Clarendon's version, though
the narrator knows nothing of the scene with the Countess of
Buckingham.

CAVALIER VERSION {121}

"1627. Since William Lilly the Rebells Jugler and Mountebank in his