He wrote several tracts on parliamentary subjects, and _Verses on the Death of his Nephew, Charles Edmonds, 7th July, 1661, æt. 30_. But the most amusing of the publications bearing his name is one entitled _Familiar Letters to his Lady of Delight; also her kinde Returnes: with his Rivall R. Pettingall’s Heroicall Epistles_. Printed by Edmundus de Speciosâ Villâ [_i.e._, EDMUND GAYTON]. _Bellositi Dobunorum_ [Oxford], 1662 and 1663, 4to. Another edition, with additions, appeared in 1685. “These epistles,” says D’ISRAELI, “paint to the life the loose habits and _espiègleries_ of this witty profligate; and I think they have been referred to by some inconsiderate writers as a _genuine_ correspondence.” They were probably altogether concocted by GAYTON. He was severely attacked in various scurrilous lampoons, some of which are printed among the _Rump Songs_, 1662. On his trial he was found guilty and sentenced to death; but the good feeling created among many who had in his prosperous days enjoyed his society and hospitality, and even among many of his former opponents by his generous treatment of them when in danger, stood him in good stead, and it was by a well-timed and humorous appeal to the Judges—such as he himself might have used—that his life was saved. Henry, fourth Viscount FALKLAND, whose virtuous and heroic father fell at the first Battle of Newbury while fighting for the King, said to the Judges: “Gentlemen, ye talk here of making a _sacrifice_: it was old law that all sacrifices were to be without spot or blemish; and now you are going to make an old rotten rascal a sacrifice”. This piece of wit pleased his Judges, and his sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life. He was confined in Chepstow Castle, Monmouthshire, for twenty years, and died in September, 1680, aged seventy-eight. He must have felt some contrition for his vicious life, for some time before his death he made this epitaph, by way of _acrostic_, on himself: H ere, or elsewhere (all’s one to you, to me), E arth, air, or water gripes my ghostly dust, N one knowing when brave fire shall set it free. R eader, if you an oft tryed rule will trust, Y ou’ll gladly do and suffer what you must. M y life was worn with serving you and you, A nd now death’s my pay, it seems, and welcome too. R evenge destroying but itself, while I T o birds of prey leave my old cage, and fly. E xamples preach to the eye, care (then mine says) N ot how you end, but how you spend your days.