It was convenient to carry on Eliot’s history unbroken, but it is necessary to look back to the assassination of Buckingham. The assassin, Felton, bought his knife at a stall on Tower Hill, went to Portsmouth, and there committed his crime. His motives still remain uncertain. Probably religious fanaticism was one, but private vengeance for supposed injustice as to promotion was another. Buckingham was so unpopular that when Felton was brought down the river to the Tower, blessings and prayers were cried after him by the crowd. He expressed deep penitence, and requested that he might be allowed to wear sackcloth and a halter until the day of his death, and might receive the Communion. He was hanged at Tyburn in December, and his body was hung in chains at Portsmouth. Lords Spencer and Arundel were shut up in the Tower over a private quarrel. Arundel insulted Spencer by telling him that at no distant time back his ancestors had been tending sheep, to which the retort was, “And at that time yours were plotting treason.” James I was the last monarch who used the Tower as a royal residence. Charles I did not even rest there on the night preceding his coronation, nor is there any record of his having visited the place during his whole reign. One line may be given to Mervyn, Lord Audley and Earl of Castlehaven, who was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1631 for a whole series of revolting crimes which probably indicate insanity. But the cells continued to be filled by offenders against the Government, Denzil Holles, Selden, Valentine, Coryton, Sir Miles Hobart, Sir P. Heyman among them. The first-named was brother-in-law of Lord Strafford, and strove to save him, but he took a strong part against the king’s policy, though after the Civil War broke out he opposed Cromwell and the Independents, and after the Restoration he was in the confidence of the king. John Selden was a steady opponent of the king, but after his fall kept entirely clear of politics, and gave himself to his great and valuable legal labours. Lord Loudoun was one of the commissioners sent to England by the Scottish Covenanters, and was committed to the Tower on the charge of treasonable correspondence. Clarendon has a story that the king ordered that he should be executed by virtue of his royal warrant, that the Marquis of Hamilton made his way to the royal presence to remonstrate, and was met with a curt refusal to listen. “Let the warrant be obeyed,” said the king, whereupon Hamilton said, “Then I shall start posthaste for Scotland to-morrow morning, for the whole city will be in an uproar, and I will show that I had no hand in it.” Thereupon Charles gave way, and soon after Loudoun was released. But the truth of this story has been questioned. He afterwards showed a genuine desire to reconcile the king with the Presbyterians, and was present at the coronation of Charles II at Scone in 1650.