First, with regard to the conspirators, a number had been executed, among whom I suppose must be reckoned my Lord Russell--an upright man, I think; yet one who had at least played with very hot fire. Frankly, I do not believe that he aimed ever at the King's life, but that my Lord Howard witnessed that he did, in order to save himself. Of the others that were executed, I think all deserved it; and the principal, I suppose, was Mr. Sidney, that ancient Republican and Commonwealth man, who was undoubtedly guilty. Besides him, my Lord Essex had killed himself in prison--for I never believed the ugly story of the bloody razor having been thrown out of his window--and Sir Thomas Armstrong was executed--and richly he had earned it by a thousand crimes and debaucheries--and old Colonel Rumbald; whose fate, I must allow, caused me a little sorrow (even though he had flung a sharp cleaver at my head), for he was very much more of a man than that puling treacherous hound my Lord Howard, who was taken hiding in his shirt, up his own chimney, and turned traitor to his friends. Holloway too--a merchant of Bristol, and a friend of Mr. Ferguson--was executed, and several in Edinburgh, of the Scottish plotters under Argyle, among whom the principal was Baillie of Jerviswood. The torture of the boot and the thumbscrews was used there, I am sorry to say; for they had plenty of evidence without it. Of the others some evaded altogether, of whom a good number went to Holland, which was their great refuge at this time, and others again saved their lives by turning King's evidence. The Reverend Mr. Ferguson proved himself a clever fellow, as indeed I had thought him, and a courageous one too, for after attending my Lord Shaftesbury upon his deathbed, he returned again to Edinburgh, and there, upon search being made for him, hid himself in the very prison to which they wished to consign him, and so escaped the death he had earned.