Note 799 — Chapter XII · (continued 2)

State Trials, ix. 577. Lord Essex cut his throat in the Tower. He was a man of the most excellent qualities, but subject to constitutional melancholy which overcame his fortitude; an event the more to be deplored, as there seems to have been no possibility of his being convicted. A suspicion, as is well known, obtained credit with the enemies of the court, that Lord Essex was murdered; and some evidence was brought forward by the zeal of one Braddon. The late editor of the State Trials seems a little inclined to revive this report, which even Harris (Life of Charles, p. 352) does not venture to accredit; and I am surprised to find Lord John Russell observe, "It would be idle, at the present time, to pretend to give any opinion on the subject."—P. 182. This I can by no means admit. We have, on the one side, some testimonies by children, who frequently invent and persist in falsehoods with no conceivable motive. But, on the other hand, we are to suppose, that Charles II. and the Duke of York caused a detestable murder to be perpetrated on one towards whom they had never shown any hostility, and in whose death they had no interest. Each of these princes had faults enough; but I may venture to say that they were totally incapable of such a crime. One of the presumptive arguments of Braddon, in a pamphlet published long afterwards, is, that the king and his brother were in the Tower on the morning of Lord Essex's death. If this leads to anything, we are to believe that Charles the Second, like the tyrant in a Grub Street tragedy, came to kill his prisoner with his own hands. Any man of ordinary understanding (which seems not to have been the case with Mr. Braddon) must perceive that the circumstance tends to repel suspicion rather than the contrary. See the whole of this, including Braddon's pamphlet, in State Trials, ix. 1127.