shameless pair had time to attend to Killigrew, whose malicious tongue
must be silenced once for all. They hired bravos to track his footsteps,
and at a convenient moment to remove him from their path. The
opportunity came one day when it was learnt that Killigrew, who seemed
to know that his life was in danger and for a long time had evaded his
enemies successfully, intended to travel from town to his house at
Turnham Green late at night. His chaise was followed at a discreet
distance by my Lady Shrewsbury, who arrived on the scene just in time to
witness the prepared tragedy which was to crown her revenge. Killigrew,
who was sleeping in his chaise, awoke, to quote a contemporary account,

"by the thrust of a sword which pierced his neck and came
out at the shoulder. Before he could cry out he was flung
from the chaise, and stabbed in three other places by the
Countess's assassins, while the lady herself looked on
from her own coach and six, and cried out to the
murderers, 'Kill the villain!' Nor did she drive off till
he was thought dead."

The man whose murder she thus witnessed and encouraged was not, however,
Killigrew, as in the darkness she imagined, but his servant. Killigrew
himself, although severely wounded, was more fortunate in escaping with
his life. But the lesson he had received was so severe that for the rest
of his days he gave the Countess and her lover the widest of berths, and
retired into the obscurity in which alone he could feel safe from such
a revengeful virago. This second crime, like its predecessor, went
unpunished, so powerful was Buckingham, and so deep in the King's
favour; and he and the Countess were left in the undisturbed enjoyment
of their lust and their triumphs.