The whole aspect of Tower Hill, with the exception of the appearance of the old fortress and its outer walls, has been entirely changed since Lovat saw it with the huge scaffoldings being erected for the spectators of his companions’ executions—and for his own a few months later. The house into which they were led to await their death no longer exists. It occupied the north-east corner of Catherine’s Court, and was formerly the Transport Office. From a raised platform, which was flush with the scaffold, the Jacobite lords walked from the house, which stood immediately opposite to the spot where so many remarkable men have perished by the axe of the headsman. During the last few years the actual site of the scaffold has been marked by a tablet in the garden that now surrounds the place of execution, where the axe had done its work from the time of Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, the son of the Duke of Clarence, to that of Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat. With the latter ended the long list of State executions on Tower Hill, which, during five centuries, had stained its soil with some of the noblest blood in the country. On the 18th of December, Lovat was taken from the Tower to the House of Lords, where the articles of his impeachment were read to him. The best account of the trial is undoubtedly that contained in one of the many letters written by Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann. Writing on the 20th of March 1747, Walpole says: “I have been living at old Lovat’s trial, and was willing to have it over before I talked to you about it. It lasted seven days; the evidence was as strong as possible; and after all he had denounced he made no defence. The Solicitor-General (Sir William Murray), who was one of the managers of the House of Commons, shone extremely. The Attorney-General (Sir Dudley Ryder), who is a much greater lawyer, is cold and tedious. The old creature’s behaviour has been foolish, and at last indecent. [Illustration: _Execution of the Rebel Lords 1746_]