Owing to the plague then raging in London, the customary procession at the coronation was omitted, although the King rode in state from the Tower to Westminster, preparatory to the opening of his first Parliament on 15th of March 1605, as the Londoners had made their welcome for him ready. In Mr Sidney Lee’s “Life of Shakespeare,” he states that Shakespeare, with eight other players of the King’s company of actors, “walked from the Tower of London to Westminster in the procession which accompanied the King in his formal entry into London. Each actor received four and a half yards of scarlet cloth to wear as a cloak on the occasion, and in the document authorising the grant, Shakespeare’s name stands first on the list.” This is the only time that we can positively know that Shakespeare was ever at the Tower; but his frequent introduction of the fortress into his historical dramas makes it certain that he must often have visited a place so full of dramatic episodes and historical memories.[2] Four months earlier, while staying at Wilton, news had reached James of a plot to place the crown upon the head of Lady Arabella Stuart, and a large batch of alleged conspirators were taken to the Tower in consequence. Among them was Sir Walter Raleigh, Lord Cobham, and his brother, George Brooke, Thomas Lord Grey de Wilton, Sir Griffin Maskham, Sir Edward Parham, Bartholomew Brookesby, Anthony Copley, and two priests named Weston and Clarke. This conspiracy, if it deserves the name, and for which Raleigh was for the second time sent to the Tower, owed its existence to the unlucky Arabella, daughter of Charles Stuart, Earl of Lennox, younger brother of Darnley, and consequently James’s first cousin on the mother’s side. [Illustration: _State Procession from the Tower in the days of the Stuarts._] Arabella Stuart was also related to the Tudors, and this double relationship to the reigning sovereign and to the late Queen was her greatest misfortune, and the cause of her untimely death. She appears to have been amiable, refined, virtuous, and good-looking, but of a somewhat frail physique and countenance, to judge by the excellent miniature which Oliver painted of her. That her mind was not a strong one is very evident, and one cannot be surprised that she became insane under the burden of her misfortunes.