artillery, marched into England in July, 1648. The rebel force in the north retreated before them, and, having on their way into Lancashire reduced Appleby Castle, they proceeded to Kendal, where they were joined by the Scottish regiments which had for some time served in Ireland, and had now left that country to attach themselves to the Royal cause. Almost destitute of intelligence, they reached Preston before they discovered that the troops under Lambert, which they had expected to meet, had been lately joined by a force yet superior, commanded by Cromwell, whose very name was now a host. The rebel army was so near that Hamilton had no choice but to engage, and the result of a short action left him no chance of avoiding ruin but in a hasty retreat towards Scotland. He marched precipitately into Staffordshire, and reached Uttoxeter, where the misery and confusion of the remnant of his troops having been completed by a mutiny among them, he was on the point of surrendering to the Governor of Stafford, and the militia of the county, when he was spared that ignominy by the appearance of Lambert, with whom, in the last week of August, 1648, he signed articles of capitulation, one of which expressly provided for the security of the lives of himself and those who were captured with him. He was now conducted to Ashby de la Zouch, in Leicestershire, where he remained a close prisoner in the castle till the beginning of December, when he was removed to Windsor, where he had the melancholy gratification of seeing once more his unfortunate Prince. On the twenty-first of the month the King was led through that town to the place of his approaching sacrifice, and Hamilton obtained leave to speak to him for a moment. It was a pathetic moment. The Duke knelt on the road as the royal victim passed, and, kissing his hand, exclaimed, "My dear master;" Charles embraced him with tenderness, and said, "I have indeed been so to you." They were then hastily separated.

During his confinement at Windsor, Cromwell repeatedly

visited him, in the vain hope of tempting him to discover the persons in England with whom he had concerted his late ill-fated enterprise, and in their conversations let fall some expressions, which, together with the diabolical fury that marked the proceeding then carrying on against the King, left him no room to hope either for justice or mercy. He resolved therefore to attempt an escape, and, having planned the means with a Mr. Cole, one of his faithful retainers, and bribed his keeper, left his prison on the night of the memorable thirtieth of January, and rode towards London, where, through an alteration imprudently made by himself as to the appointed place of meeting with Cole, he fell into the hands of some rebel soldiers in Southwark, and was immediately committed to strict custody. On the sixth of the following month he was brought to a trial before the same persons who, under the assumed denomination of the high court of justice, had a few days before decreed the murder of their King. It was extended to eleven days, in a hypocritical affectation of solemn and candid enquiry, of which there needs no better proof than the determination of his judges that the engagement in the treaty at Uttoxeter for the safety of his life had no further meaning than that he should be protected at the time from the vengeance of the soldiery. At length on the sixth of March they pronounced him guilty, and sentenced him to be beheaded, and on the ninth he suffered in New Palace Yard, with admirable patience and heroism, in company with the Earl of Holland, and the gallant Lord Capel. His death was little regretted, for he had been the constant object of envy in the English Court and State, and of doubt and jealousy in his own country. The true nature of his public services was correctly known only by the King, and himself, and a discovery of it would probably have exposed him to the bitterest hatred. Flattering, dividing, balancing, and betraying, factions, it may perhaps be no injustice to his memory to consider him as an over zealous partisan, who not unfrequently sacrificed the exactness of honour and truth to personal affection

and profound loyalty. That such a character should have provoked much obloquy might fairly be expected, but that a writer so wise, so well-informed, and so candid, as Lord Clarendon, should have so repeatedly and severely arraigned it, without adducing a single fact of sinister conduct whereon to ground his multifarious censures, is altogether astonishing.

The Duke married Mary, daughter of William Fielding, first Earl of Denbigh, by whom he had three sons, Charles, James, and William, all of whom died children; and three daughters, of whom Mary, the eldest, died also young. The second, Anne, inherited under a special entail, the title of Duchess of Hamilton, on the death of her uncle, mentioned here as Earl of Lanerick, who was her father's immediate successor: she married William Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, eldest son of William, Marquis of Douglas, and obtained for him, soon after the Restoration, the title of Duke of Hamilton. The youngest, Susannah, married John Kennedy, seventh Earl of Cassilis.