* Hume says the 21st. Another authority says the 28th. It is not with a mere wish to "split the difference" that we adopt the medium date of the 24th, but we have good reasons for stating that to be the exact day, and Mr. Charles Macfarlane, in his admirable "Cabinet History of England" has likewise named the 24th of November as the precise time of Warwick's execution. Henry had long been anxious to marry his daughter Margaret to James of Scotland, and he sent a cunning bishop, most appropriately named Fox, to act the part of a match-maker. The sly old dog brought the matter so cleverly about that the marriage was agreed upon, and this union led to the peaceful union of the two countries about a century afterwards. The young lady got but a small portion from her stingy father, and her husband made a settlement upon her of £2000 a year, but he got her to accept a paltry compromise. The meanness of the arrangements may be judged of by the ridiculous fact that King James and his young bride rode into Edinburgh on the same palfrey. Henry's eldest son, Arthur Prince of Wales, had been already married to Catherine, fourth daughter of Ferdinand of Spain, who promised two hundred thousand crowns, half of which he paid down, as a wedding portion. The young husband died soon after, and Ferdinand naturally asked for his money and his child back again. The English king had pocketed the greater part of the cash, which he was not only quite unwilling to refund, but he had serious thoughts of proceeding for the balance of his daughter-in-law's dowry. He therefore consented to affiance her to his second son, Henry, in compliance with the only condition upon which Ferdinand agreed to waive his claim to the cash already in hand, and he even promised to pay the rest of the portion at his "earliest convenience." Henry himself, or as we may call him for the sake of distinction, the "old gentleman," had lately lost his wife, and he went at once into the matrimonial market to see whether there was anything upon which it might be safe to speculate. He however wanted to conduct his operations with such extraordinary profit to himself that nothing seemed to tempt his avarice. His ruling passion was for "cash down," and to obtain this he fleeced his subjects most unmercifully, though he employed the disreputable firm of Empson and Dudley to collect the amount of the various extortions he was continually practising. These two men were little better than swindlers, though as lawyers they adhered to the rules of law, and indeed they kept a rabble always in the house to sit as jurymen. They had trials in their own office, and would often ring the bell to order up a jury from downstairs, just as anyone in the present day would order up his dinner. Dudley got the name of the Leech, from his power of drawing, and indeed he would have got the blood out of a blood-stone if the opportunity had been afforded him. *