his "undue lenity" towards the Papists. As a result, he was recalled in favour of the more compliant Ormonde. After the fall of Danby, two years later, Essex was made treasurer in his room, and, with Shaftesbury, Sunderland, Halifax, and Sir William Temple, directed for a time the government of the nation. Following the dangerous lead of Shaftesbury, he became one of the bitterest opponents of the Court, and of the Duke of York's succession, taking part with Monmouth, Lord William Russell, and his kinsman Algernon Sidney, in the Rye House or "Fanatical" Plot. In the councils of the conspirators, Essex and Sidney favoured the establishment of a commonwealth. After the betrayal of the plot both were promptly arrested, together with Russell and others of the malcontents. On the same day that Russell was convicted of high treason (July 13, 1683), Lord Essex, dreading a like fate, put an end to his existence in one of the cells of the Tower.1 As Pennant points out,2 he had publicly upheld the morality of suicide, and he was known to be subject to fits of deep melancholy; yet there were not wanting those of the extreme anti-Papist party who claimed that his death was due to the King and the Duke of York," who happened that morning to pay a visit to the Tower." The evidence laid before the coroner's jury contained no suspicious facts such as were connected with the murder or suicide of Henry Percy, eighth Earl of Northumberland, a century before; and a verdict of felo de se was returned.5

Elizabeth, Lady Essex, survived her husband nearly thirty-four years, dying on February 5, 1717. Their only daughter, Ann Capel, married Charles, second Earl of Carlisle; while their son, Algernon, second Earl of Essex (born December 28, 1670) afterwards became Constable of the Tower wherein his ill-fated father had breathed his last.

1 He cut his throat with a razor.

3 Hume; History of England.

• Ibid.

2 London, p. 292, 293.

5 Pennant's London.

The present Earl of Essex is a descendant of Elizabeth Percy and Arthur Capel, first Earl.

The eleventh

life and marriage.

V

JOSCELINE PERCY, who succeeded as eleventh Earl of Northumberland, was now in his twenty-fifth year; and of constitution so frail that the quidnuncs had Earl: early already begun to speculate upon the probable extinction of the direct male line of Louvain. The young Earl's prevailing ill-health debarred him from taking any save a nominal part in public life, while at the same time it kept him uninfected by the moral leprosy of court life under the second Charles. Any excess must indeed have proved fatal to this "thin-spun life," and the old Earl acted with his usual common-sense in choosing as his son's tutor one who was not only a ripe scholar but also a physician of skill. This person was Dr. John Mapletoft, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and M.D. of the same university. Mapletoft subsequently took holy orders, and died vicar of St. Lawrence Jewry, November 10, 1721, in his ninety-first year.1 Thanks to the vigilance of Mapletoft, Lord Percy was delivered from the regimen of quackery and old wives' nostrums to which his mother, Lady Northumberland, had subjected him; and under his new mentor's care the young man made rapid strides towards health and strength. Mapletoft had no love for the Countess; nor did that descendant of the house of Suffolk look with favour upon the Cambridge doctor. Earl

1 John Mapletoft, b. 1631, of a good family in Northamptonshire, left Cambridge to undertake the education of Josceline Percy. In later years he practised with great success as a physician in London. Being offered the living of Braybrooke in Northants, he took orders 1682, and became D.D. of Cambridge in 1689-90. Subsequently he was transferred to he vicariate of St. Lawrence Jewry, where he continued to preach until over eighty. He died, full of years and honours, at Westminster, on the date given above. To the last, he appears to have practised medicine.

Algernon, however, saw the beneficial effects of Mapletoft's training, and imperious as Lady Northumberland was by nature, she did not dare to cross her husband's will. Josceline was sent abroad with his tutor, and spent many happy months in travel. At Rome he was much courted by the English Catholics, who hoped, as in the case of the Duke of York, to bring him to their way of thinking, especially as his father was known to hold views widely opposed to Puritanism. For Rome itself young Percy acquired an extraordinary affection, and it was while hastening over-eagerly to return to the Eternal City that he subsequently met his death at Turin. From the allurements, religious and otherwise, of the Papal States Mapletoft prudently withdrew his pupil, and the remainder of their sojourn on the Continent was spent at Paris and the Hague.

Percy, on his return to England, surprised his friends by the great improvement which had taken place in his health and intellect. The exacting Evelyn found the young heir of Northumberland entirely to his taste, and held him up as an example to his order. "It is not enough," wrote the diarist, "that persons of my Lord Percy's quality be taught to dance and to ride; to speak languages and weare his cloathes with a good grace1 (which are the verie shells of travail); but besides all these that he know men, customs, courts, and disciplines, and whatsoever superior excellencies the places afford, befitting a person of birth and noble impressions. This is the fruite of travail; thus our incomparable Sidney was bred, and this, tamquam Minerva Philidia, sets the crown upon his perfections. . . . Unless we thus cultivate our Youth, and noblemen make wiser provisions for their educations abroad above the vanity of Talk, Feather, and Ribbon. . .

1 The mode of educating a young nobleman had changed indeed since the days when Percy's ancestor, Hotspur, had been trained

"To dance and singe, and speak of gentilnesse,"

to manage his war-horse, and look askance at letters. But then, the Percy blood had changed also.