told of it, for methinks it is a dismal thing to have one’s friends sent to that place.’... ‘At length, on June 15, Marlborough was brought before the Court of King’s Bench on a writ of habeas corpus, and released from the Tower upon finding bail for £6000 for his appearance when required.’” (“Life of Marlborough,” vol. ii.) The same charge of “abetting and adhering to their Majesties’ enemies,” upon which Marlborough had been imprisoned, was brought against Lord Brudenell, the Earl of Huntingdon, Sir Robert Thorold, and Colonel Langston. In the same year the ruffianly head of the gang of “Mohawks,” Lord Mohun, who figures in Thackeray’s “Esmond,” was twice in the Tower for having committed two assassinations—the first, that of the actor William Mountford, whom Mohun had murdered in a quarrel over the celebrated actress, Mrs Bracegirdle; and the second, when, with Edward, Earl of Warwick, he had helped to kill one Richard Coate. In 1695, Sir Basil Firebrace was in the Tower, as well as the Earls of Salisbury, Peterborough, and Arran, with Lord Montgomery, all imprisoned on the charge of being concerned in Jacobite plots. With these were Sir Edward Hale, Sir Thomas Jenner, Lord Castlemaine, Lord Forbes, Colonel Lumley, Captain Shackerley, Lord Preston, Sir Richard Cleaver, Sir Robert Hamilton, and Edward Griffin, upon whom James conferred a barony whilst he was imprisoned in the Tower, a title James had no more right to bestow than Griffin had to receive. Griffin, it seems, owed his imprisonment to an accident. He was in active correspondence with the court at St Germains, and had ordered a large pewter bottle to be made with a false bottom, in which to conceal letters. Late one night he gave this bottle to his cook with directions to have it soldered. Whilst this was being done, a packet of letters was discovered in the false bottom directed to James II. The cook was immediately seized, and Griffin, with his wife, was sent to the Tower, whence, however, he made his escape, but soon afterwards surrendered himself to the authorities. He died in the Tower in 1710. [Illustration: _View of the Tower in the time of James II._]