reputation. Therefore let no man despair that desires and endeavors to recover himself again, much less let the terrors of justice affright you; for though your lordship have great cause to fear, yet whatever may be law fully hoped for your lordship may expect from the peers." The evidence showed that the Earl and some friends were drinking at a public bous; in the Haymarket on a Sunday afternoon, when Nathaniel Cony and a friend named Goring dropped in to drink a bottle of wine. The Earl, being acquainted with Cony, per suaded him and his friend to join the larger company. Near midnight, when the whole party were more or less under the influence of liquor, a dispute arose between the Earl and Goring. The Earl threw a glass of wine in Goring's face. Goring thereupon attempted to draw his sword, but was re strained and put out of the room by some of the Earl's friends 'to avoid further mischief. Thereupon Cony, who had not been at all concerned in the original dispute, desired to go out of the room that he might look after his friend. This incensed the Earl, who violently attacked Cony, struck him to the ground and kicked him so brutally that he died shortly afterwards. The peers found the Earl guilty of man slaughter; whereupon he asked to have the benefit of clergy. Benefit of clergy was allowed to a common person by reading end burning in the hand with a hot iron; but according to statute a peer escaped without either. Lord Nottingham discharged the Earl with the caution that no man could have the benefit of the statute a second time. The case of Lord Cornwallis, 7 St. Tr. 143 (1678), was a similar trial. In a drunken brawl at Whitehall a youth had been brutally murdered by Lord Cornwallis' companion, a person named Gerrard, and Cornwallis was charged with being an accomplice. The evidence against him was not conclusive and he was acquitted. The case furnished an occasion for another admirable speech br
Lord High Steward Nottingham, in th: course of which he said: "It is your lordship's great unhappiness at this time to stand prisoner at the bar under the weight of no less a charge than a murder; and it is not to be wondered at if so great a misfortune as this be attended with some kind of confusion of face, when a man sees himself become a spectacle of misery in so great a presence and before so noble and illustrious an assembly. But be not yet dis mayed, my lord, for all this; let not the fears and terrors of justice so amaze and surprise you as to betray those succours that your reason would afford you, or to disarm you of those helps which good discretion may administer, and which are now extremely necessary. . . . Hearken, therefore, to your indictment with quietness and attention; observe what the witnesses say against you without interruption, and reserve what you have to say for yourself till it shall come your turn to make your defense, of which I shall be sure to give you notice; and when the time comes assure yourself you shall be heard not only with patience but with candor, too." The case of Count Coningsmark, 9 St. Tr. i (1682), was a celebrated case in its day. The Count was charged with having insti gated the murder of Thomas Thynn. Count Coningsmark was a German who had dis tinguished himself as a soldier in leading a turlorn hope at the siege of Mons, where he and one companion were the sole survivob of a whole command. In recognition of his gallantry the Prince of Orange had made him a lieutenant in the Guards, and the King of Sweden gave him a troop of horse. Thomas Thynn is the Issachar of Drvden's Absalom and Achitophel; he was a rich country gentleman who had been much en gaged in the Duke of Monmouth's cause, and a strong effort was made to give political significance to his murder. Mr. Thynn had been shot in his coach in Pall Mall by Boroski, a Pole, acting under the orders of
