tied—like a dangerous criminal—whilst sentence of death was passed upon him and three others who had been tried at the same time. The prisoner was allowed but three clear days before he was hanged at the corner of King Street and Cheapside, within sight of the Guildhall, which he had so often frequented as an Alderman of the City, and on which his head was afterwards placed. He met his end with courage and with many pious expressions, but to the last maintained his innocence with such vehemence that his enemies gave out that he had died in a fit of fury.” It is pleasing to add that four years later an Act of Parliament was passed reversing the attainder of Cornish. It is also pleasing to think that the blood of this innocent man, like the blood of the martyrs, was remembered by his fellow-citizens, that it strengthened the side of freedom and accelerated the fall of James. On the same day the people of London had a choice between two spectacles: that of Henry Cornish’s hanging, which was calculated to make every citizen thoughtful; or that of the burning of Elizabeth Gaunt at Tyburn—an act of brutal wickedness which ought to have made every citizen mad with indignation. Elizabeth Gaunt was a woman of great piety and charity; she visited the prisoners in the gaols; she relieved the sick; she fed the poor; she helped all who were afflicted, or in want, or in danger. Among others she helped a man named Burton, who was an outlaw, to escape. For this she was actually burned alive! The wretched man, Burton, turned King’s evidence and informed against his benefactress. One feels that it would be a moral lesson if we could ascertain the after-lives of Messrs. Rumsey, Goodenough, and Burton. The unfortunate gentlewoman behaved with fortitude, arranging with her own hands the straw around her so that she might the more quickly die. To us it seems incredible that judges should pass such sentences or should have such cases as those of Henry Cornish and Elizabeth Gaunt brought before them. As for the effect produced by these executions, they might, and no doubt did, terrify for a short time, but it was a terror which led to exasperation. We must remember that the temper of the City during the whole of the seventeenth century was profoundly hostile to the Catholics. The Gunpowder Plot; the Romish leanings of Laud; the Fire of London; the so-called Romanist plots; the Protestant literature of the period; the terrible stories of the Spanish Inquisition; everything conspired to keep alive the hatred and suspicion of the Catholic Church. And an event which happened in October 1685 taught the people, who were ripe for such a lesson, what was to be expected of a Roman Catholic Government.