Whereupon the defendant began to make a speech in his own behalf, but his flow of eloquence was quenched by the judge, and the jury soon found Savage as well as Gregory, one of his companions in the drunken broil, to be guilty of murder. Many influences were now brought to bear on Queen Caroline, consort of George II., to secure a pardon for the rascal, but that good lady was for a time obdurate. She had heard a few choice stories anent the man, and among them, one which Dr. Johnson glosses over in this way: "Mr. Savage, when he had discovered his birth, had an incessant desire to speak to his mother, who always avoided him in public, and refused him admission into her house. One evening walking, as it was his custom, in the street that she inhabited, he saw the door of her house by accident open, he entered it, and, finding no person in the passage to hinder him, went upstairs to salute her. She discovered him before he entered her chamber, alarmed the family with the most distressful outcries, and when she had by her screams gathered them about her, ordered them to drive out of the house that villain who had forced himself in upon her and endeavoured to murder her. Savage, who had attempted with the most submissive tenderness to soften her rage, hearing her utter so detestable an accusation, thought it prudent to retire." Thus the Queen refused to interfere until the Countess of Hertford pleaded the cause of the imprisoned poet. In the meantime Mistress Oldfield interceded with the mighty Robert Walpole, and the result of all this wire-pulling was that Savage received the king's pardon,[A] being thus left free to continue the persecution of his alleged mother, to beg from friends and strangers alike, and to follow a mode of life which scandalised even his kindly biographer. And when Oldfield, the latchets of whose shoes he was not worthy to tie, played her last part and passed away from the earthly stage, Richard wore mourning for her, as for a mother, "but did not celebrate her in elegies;[B] because he knew that too great profusion of praise would only have revived those faults which his natural equity did not allow him to think less because they were committed by one who favoured him; but of which, though his virtue would not endeavour to palliate them, his gratitude would not suffer him to prolong the memory or diffuse the censure." [Footnote A: March 1728. It is cheerful to know that Mr. Gregory also escaped hanging. It was contended during the trial, and afterwards, that the testimony against both these defendants was more damning than the facts warranted.] [Footnote B: Nevertheless Savage did write a poem in Oldfield's honour, although he did not sign his virtuous name thereto. The verses are quoted by Chetwood. _Vide_ Chapter XI.]