In these disastrous affrays both antagonists were armed. But reckless roysterers and swaggering bobadils were easily provoked, and they did not hesitate, in a moment of mad passion, to use their swords upon defenceless men. Bailiffs and the lesser officers of justice were especially obnoxious to these high-tempered bloods. I read in ‘Luttrell,’ under date Feb. 1698, “Captain Dancy of the Guards killed a bailiff in Exeter Street, and is committed to Newgate.” Again in 1705, “Captain Carlton, formerly a Justice of the Peace for Middlesex, is committed to Newgate for running a Marshal’s man through the body who endeavoured to arrest him on the parade by the Horse Guards in St. James’ Park, of which wound it is thought the man will die.” I can find no mention of the fate which overtook these murderers; but the ‘Calendars’ contain a detailed account of another murder of much the same kind, that perpetrated by the Marquis de Paleoti upon his servant, John Niccolo, otherwise John the Italian, in 1718. The Marquis had come to England to visit his sister, who had married the Duke of Shrewsbury in Rome, and had launched out into a career of wild extravagance. The Duchess had paid his debts several times, but at length declined to assist him further. He was arrested and imprisoned, but his sister privately procured his discharge. After his enlargement, being without funds, the Marquis sent Niccolo to borrow what he could. But “the servant, having met with frequent denials, declined going, at which the Marquis drew his sword and killed him on the spot.”[154] The Marquis seems to have hoped to have found sanctuary at the Bishop of Salisbury’s, to whose house he repaired as soon as Niccolo’s body was found. But he was arrested there after having behaved so rudely, that his sword, all bloody with gore, had to be taken from him, and he was conveyed to Newgate. His defence was weak, his guilt clear, and much to his surprise, he was sentenced to be hanged. He declared that it was disgraceful “to put a nobleman to death like a common malefactor for killing a servant;” but his plea availed little, and he suffered at Tyburn five weeks after the murder. Forty years later an English nobleman, Earl Ferrers, paid the same extreme penalty for murdering his steward. His lordship was tried by his peers, and after sentence until his execution was lodged in the Tower, and not in Newgate. His case is sufficiently well known, and has already been briefly referred to.