honour.

Of the circumstances of Godfrey's quandary an account is to follow.
But, meanwhile, the theory of Godfrey's suicide (though Danby is
said to have accepted it) was rejected, probably with good reason
(despite the doubts of L'Estrange, Hume, Sir George Sitwell, and
others), by the coroner's jury.*

*Sitwell, The First Whig, Sacheverell.

Privately printed, 1894, Sir George's book--a most interesting
volume, based on public and private papers--unluckily is
introuvable. Some years have passed since I read a copy which he
kindly lent me.

The evidence which determined the verdict of murder was that of two
surgeons. They found that the body had been severely bruised, on
the chest, by kicks, blows of a blunt weapon, or by men's knees. A
sword-thrust had been dealt, but had slipped on a rib; Godfrey's own
sword had then been passed through the left pap, and out at the
back. There was said to be no trace of the shedding of fresh living
blood on the clothes of Godfrey, or about the ditch. What blood
appeared was old, the surgeons averred, and malodorous, and flowed
after the extraction of the sword.

L'Estrange (1687) argues at great length, but on evidence collected
later, and given under the Anti-Plot bias, that there was much more
'bloud' than was allowed for at the inquest. But the early evidence
ought to be best. Again, the surgeons declared that Godfrey had
been strangled with a cloth (as the jury found), and his neck