Hill, making no headway with Mrs. Bracegirdle, concluded that she was in fact interested in Mountfort; they had often appeared on the stage together. More than once Hill was heard to utter threats against the actor, although Mohun was apparently on friendly terms with Mountfort Hill, determined to abduct the actress, persuaded Mohun to be his accomplice. They set Friday, 9 December 1692, as the date, and about ten o'clock in the evening, accompanied by some soldiers under Hill's command, they ambushed Mrs. Bracegirdle, her mother and her brother, Hamlet Bracegirdle, along with a man named Page, in Drury Lane. The actress's mother and Mr. Page fended the villains off for a time, in a moment a crowd gathered, and the would-be kidnappers saw that their plan was useless. Hill escorted the actress home and after having muttered a threat at Mr. Page proceeded to pace up and down outside their door. Approximately an hour and a half later, Mountfort appeared in Howard Street--apparently intent on confronting Hill and Mohun. Mohun greeted the actor courteously and asked if he had been sent for. Mountfort professed that he did not know anything of the business at hand, that he had come there by chance, adding that Mrs. Bracegirdle was no concern of his. What happened then happened fast and the witnesses disagree (see Borgman, pp. 135ff). It would seem, however, that Hill first struck the actor, then quickly drew and ran him through before Mountfort could draw. On his deathbed, traditionally the locale for truth-telling, Mountfort reported that "_My Lord Mohun offered me no Violence, but whilst I was talking with my Lord Mohun, Hill struck me with his Left Hand, and with his Right Hand run me through, before I could put my Hand to my Sword_" (Borgman, p. 140). It would seem clear that Hill gave the actor his deathblow and then, while the cry of murder was raised, escaped into the night. Mountfort, fatally wounded, staggered toward his own home in the next street. As Mrs. Mountfort opened the door, her husband fell bleeding into her arms; at one o'clock in the afternoon of the next day, he died. According to the "Account," he was to have played Bussy D'Ambois that night--Marlowe's tragedy of a young man who meets his death through assassination. Although Hill made good his escape, Lord Mohun stood trial in Westminster before his peers. Mohun's defense was simply that he was not privy to Hill's design and did not assist and encourage him in it. The lords, having heard the evidence, retired, and the next day, Saturday, 5 February, acquitted Mohun of wrongdoing by a vote of 69-14. The prisoner was discharged.