took Gill to task. "He deserves hanging," one of them said, after his speech about the King; and, though some drank Felton's health with him, others refused, Pickering among them, so that Gill, turning round upon him, asked jeeringly, "What? is Pick a Dukist too?" The impression among those who were afterwards interrogated as to Gill's condition at the climax of his outbreak was that " he was not absolutely drunk, for it was early in the morn"ing," but was certainly far from sober.

Interrogation came quickly enough. Gill had returned to London, and was in his place among the boys in St. Paul's school on the afternoon of Friday, September 4, when, to the consternation of the school and of his old father, two pursuivants entered and dragged him out. They had been sent by Bishop Laud's orders; and Gill was taken first to the Bishop's lodgings, which were then in Westminster. After having been questioned there by the Bishop and Attorney-General Heath, he was committed to the Gatehouse in Westminster, "so close prisoner that neither father, mother, nor friend can speak to him." Next day, Sunday, September 6, Laud informed the King himself of the capture and of the reasons for it. "I here "present your Majesty," he wrote, "with the examination "of one Alexander Gill. I am heartily sorry I must tell "your Majesty he is a divine, since he is void of all "humanity. This is but his first examination, and not

upon oath. When the information came to me against "him, as I could not in duty but take present care of the "business, so I thought it was fit to examine him as pri"vately as I might, because the speeches are so foul "against religion, allegiance, your Majesty's person, and my dear lord by execrable hands laid in the dust." Enclosed in this letter were the minutes of the examination of Gill before the Bishop, relating to the King the whole story of the escapade at Oxford, Gill's insolent words about the King himself included, as originally received by Laud from private information and as now confirmed substantially by Gill's confession. There was a memorandum also for his

one

Majesty of the names of the three most important witnesses of the enormity, Chillingworth designated vaguely as Mr. Shillingworth." His Majesty had probably never heard of that young Oxonian before, Laud's godson though he was, and one of his clients and correspondents.

The arrest and imprisonment of Gill made a great stir in London, and there was much talk among his friends and acquaintances as to the possible consequences, not only for Gill himself, but also for some of the others concerned, especially Pickering. On the 10th of September, a certain Samuel Fisher, seemingly an Oxonian of Trinity College who chanced then to be in London, wrote to Pickering at Oxford, telling him what had happened to Gill. "Chilling"worth is thought to be his accuser," proceeds Fisher in this letter, "and I fear had no other business to London. "One of our house for certain is the man. Chilling"worth left me at the turning to Westminster and made speed thither; which makes me believe so." From the sequel of the letter it appears that the information had been first sent from Oxford in a letter, so that the arrival of Chillingworth personally in London on the business had been a subsequent affair. The writer also expresses his own fear and that of others that Pickering may find himself in trouble, and adds, "Sir Morly and Mr. Deodat "are of my mind that Chillingworth is the man." The "Mr. Deodat " here mentioned is, of course, Milton's friend, Charles Diodati, for whom the affair would have a double interest, as affecting not only his and Milton's old teacher, but also the credit of the Oxford College to which he himself belonged and which he had but recently left with the degree of M.A. Nor were the fears for Pickering groundless. There is still extant the letter of Dr. Accepted Frewen, then Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, to the Privy Council, dated September 14, in which he informs the Council that he and Mr. Laurence Whittaker, one of the Clerks of the Council, sent down for the purpose, have obeyed the directions of their lordships by searching the chamber, study, and pockets of William Pickering, M. A.,

of Trinity College, and examining him as to his relations with Gill, and that the result, in the shape of " divers libels "and letters, written by Alexander Gill and others, all of "them touching on the late Duke of Buckingham," is herewith sent to their lordships,-the head of Trinity College having been instructed to see that Pickering himself should remain forthcoming. The packet of papers so sent up to the Privy Council included that very letter which Pickering had just received from Fisher, and in which Diodati is mentioned. But it included a great deal more. It included various letters that had been sent by Gill to Pickering in past months, containing rambling remarks about the King, the Duke, Bishops, and other public persons and things, as well as about his own and Pickering's affairs. In one of these, dated as far back as April 28, 1626, Gill, after mentioning that his brother George had "preached last Sunday in Mr. Skinner's church," and that a Jack Woodford, known to him and Pickering, was in doubts as to taking his degree, had proceeded, "The Duke, as they say of him, morbo "( comitiali laborat: I would his business were off or on; for "he is like Davus, perturbat otia." Besides these letters in Gill's own name, however, there were several anonymous, or semi-anonymous, letters and papers of a still more scurrilous and personal character. Some of these were traced to a William Grinkin, M.A., of Jesus College, Oxford, who seems to have taken pleasure in acting as Gill's accomplice in a mischievous side-correspondence for the purpose of annoying and mystifying Pickering, and to have occasionally copied out communications which really came from Gill. One of these contained a poem on the King, with Gill's name put upon it, of which this was a portion :

"And now, great God, I humbly pray

That thou wilt take that slime away

That keeps my sovereign's eyes from viewing

The things that will be our undoing.

Then let him hear, good God, the sounds

As well of men as of his hounds:

Give him a taste, and timely too,
Of what his subjects undergo;

Give him a feeling of their woes;
And then no doubt his royal nose
Will quickly smell those rascals' savours
Whose blacky deeds eclipse his favours.

Though found and scourged for their offences,
Heavens bless my king and all his senses!"

Altogether, Gill's original offence taking on a darker hue, if possible, from these discovered papers, there was matter enough for a very serious case in the Star-Chamber. Pickering, indeed, who had meanwhile been brought to London, and who was examined on the 26th of September by Attorney-General Heath, both as to his general connection with Gill and as to the late scene in Trinity College, cleared himself so far. Not only had he refused to drink Felton's health on the late dreadful occasion; but he could plead that "Mr. Chillingworth can witness for him that, before any questioning of these things, he did warn the said "Gill." It seems to have been thought enough, therefore, to dismiss Pickering with an admonition. Grinkin, though he professed himself heartily ashamed of his part in the affair, could not be dismissed so. He was kept in custody, for trial in the Star-Chamber along with Gill. As the punishment might be very severe, there continued to be nearly as much interest in the suspended case of Gill and Grinkin, prisoners in the Gatehouse, as in that of Felton himself, prisoner in the Tower.1

Milton's interest in the issue must have been peculiarly keen. It was even possible that his own two recent Latin letters to Gill might have been in Gill's pocket-book when he was arrested by Laud's pursuivants. Meanwhile, though it was the long vacation, Milton does not seem to have left

1 The narrative in the text is from documents of the given dates, and of July, 1628, in the State Paper Office, either as read there by myself long ago and partly transcribed, or as cited in abstract in the published Calendar of Domestic Papers for 1628-9, but with help from mentions of the case in Meade's correspondence with Stuteville, and with reference to Aubrey's memoir of Chillingworth in his Lives. Aubrey there says that Chillingworth was in the habit, in his younger days at

Oxford, of sending Laud" weekly intelligence of what passed in the University," and adds that he had been positively informed by Sir William Davenant, who was very intimate with Chillingworth, that it was Chillingworth, "notwithstanding his great reason," that informed against Gill. Probably Chillingworth, with his political and ecclesiastical notions at the time, felt himself obliged, in the interests of Church and State, to do as he did.

Cambridge. The probability is that he had remained there in that deep literary retirement, all by himself, of which he had advertised Gill in the second of his letters.

ACADEMIC YEAR 1628-9.

MILTON ætat. 20.

Vice-Chancellor, Dr. MATTHEW WREN, Master of Peterhouse.

Proctors, RICHARD LOVE of Clare Hall, and MICHAEL HONEYWOOD of Christ's. MICHAELMAS TERM. October 10, 1628, to December 16, 1628.

January 13, 1628-9, to March 27, 1629.
April 15, 1629, to July 10, 1629.

At the beginning of this session there was a good deal of bustle among the chiefs of the University in connexion with the installation of the new Chancellor, Lord Holland, who had been elected, at the King's request, to succeed the Duke. The ceremony did not take place at Cambridge, but in London, on the 29th of October.

Parliament, it may be remembered, had been prorogued till the 20th of October. By a farther prorogation, however, the time of reassembling was postponed till the 20th of January following. The postponement was not satisfactory. Although the King and the Parliament had parted in June last in comparatively good humour, various things had occurred in the interval to disturb equanimity. The assassination of the Duke had provoked a feeling of revenge in the Court, which took the shape of renewed antagonism to the Commons. In spite of the assent to the Petition of Right, the King had clung to his privilege of raising "tonnage and poundage" by his own authority; and several merchants who had resisted the claim had suffered seizure of their goods or had been imprisoned. Moreover, since the rising of Parliament, the royal favour had been extended in a very marked way to some of the men whom Parliament had stigmatized and censured. Dr. Mainwaring,