which were incest, witchcraft, &c.;[A] and, to confirm its
authenticity, as the king was curious respecting the place, the time, and
the occasion, when the letter was written, their maid swore it was at the
countess's house at Wimbledon, and that she had written it at the window,
near the upper end of the great chamber; and that she (the maid) was hid
beneath the tapestry, where she heard the countess read over the letter
after writing. The king appeared satisfied with this new testimony; but,
unexpectedly, he visited the great chamber at Wimbledon, observed the
distance of the window, placed himself behind the hangings, and made the
lords in their turn: not one could distinctly hear the voice of a person
placed at the window. The king further observed, that the tapestry was two
feet short of the ground, and that any one standing behind it must
inevitably be discovered. "Oaths cannot confound my sight," exclaimed the
king. Having also effectuated other discoveries with a confession of one
of the parties, and Sir Thomas Lake being a faithful servant of James, as
he had been of Elizabeth, the king, who valued him, desired he would not
stand the trial with his wife and daughter; but the old man pleaded that
he was a husband and a father, and must fall with them. "It is a fall!"
said the king: "your wife is the serpent; your daughter is Eve; and you,
poor man, are Adam!"[B]

[Footnote A: Camden's "Annals of James I., Kennet II., 652."]

[Footnote B: The suit cost Sir Thomas Lake 30,000_l_.; the fines in the
star-chamber were always heavy in all reigns. Harris refers to this cause
as an evidence of the tyrannic conduct of James I., as if the king was
always influenced by personal dislike; but he does not give the story.]

The sullen Osborne reluctantly says, "I must confess he was the promptest
man living in detecting an imposture." There was a singular impostor in
his reign, of whom no one denies the king the merit of detecting the
deception--so far was James I. from being credulous, as he is generally
supposed to have been. Ridiculous as the affair may appear to us, it had
perfectly succeeded with the learned fellows of New College, Oxford, and
afterwards with heads as deep; and it required some exertion of the king's
philosophical reasoning to pronounce on the deception.

One Haddock, who was desirous of becoming a preacher, but had a stuttering
and slowness of utterance, which he could not get rid of, took to
the stud