Algernon Percy, the tenth Earl of Northumberland, who was called by Lord Clarendon "the proudest man alive," became guardian of the two youngest children of Charles I. in 1645, and was one of the commissioners appointed to negotiate with the King at Newport in 1648. He took no part in public affairs during the Commonwealth and Protectorate. In the spring of 1660, George Monk--afterwards the Duke of Albemarle, and the husband of "Nan" Clarges--was invited, with the Earl of Manchester, Sir William Waller, and others to Northumberland House, and here, "in secret confidence with them," says Clarendon, "some of those measures were concerted which led to the speedy restoration of the Monarchy." Algernon Percy, who was a privy councillor after the Restoration, died in 1668. His son and successor, Josceline Percy, dying in 1670, without male issue, the property passed to his daughter, the Lady Elizabeth Percy (1667-1722). This lady had a strange matrimonial career. At the age of twelve she was "married" to Henry Cavendish, Earl of Ogle (son and heir of Henry, Duke of Newcastle), but he died in his youth. Two years later--that is to say, in 1681--she espoused Thomas Thynne, of Longleat, Wilts. Thynne, who was nicknamed "Tom of Ten Thousand," in consequence of his great wealth, was the Issachar of _Absalom and Achitophel_. Lady Elizabeth, soon after the death of Lord Ogle, had been given in marriage by her grandmother to Thynne, who, however, had agreed, on account of the youth of his bride, that the marriage should not be consummated until a year had elapsed. The lady, however, took such a dislike to Thynne that she fled for protection to Lady Temple at the Hague. "In the meantime, the famous Count Königsmark--noted for his beauty and intrigues in most of the Courts of Europe--had accidentally met Lady Ogle in public, and had either fallen in love with her person, or with the vast fortune of which she was the mistress. That the feeling was reciprocal there is not the least reason to suppose. Königsmark, however, equally daring and unprincipled, determined by foul, if not by fair means, to make her his wife, and, as the first step, projected the assassination of the unfortunate Thynne. The persons whom he hired to commit the crime were three foreigners--one Captain Vratz, a German; a Lieutenant Stern, a Swede; and one George Borotski, a Pole. The two former seem to have been as daring and reckless adventurers as any age could produce. Borotski, on the other hand, was a quiet, uneducated man, who appears to have acted entirely from a feeling of retainership, without any thought of the gold which had induced his accomplices to undertake to commit the crime. The night of Sunday, the 12th of February 1682, was fixed upon for the perpetration of the foul deed. Accordingly, having had their several parts assigned to them, between seven and eight o'clock the three assassins, mounted on horseback, posted themselves in a part of Pall