Sir Walter's, and let him at his death take
the sacrament and his oath upon it, and I'll believe him; but till
Stucley loses his head, I shall credit Sir Walter Rawleigh's bare
affirmative before a thousand of Stucley's oaths." When Stucley, on
pretence of giving an account of his office, placed himself in the
audience chamber of the lord admiral, and his lordship passed him
without any notice, Sir Judas attempted to address the earl; but with a
bitter look his lordship exclaimed--"Base fellow! darest thou, who art
the scorn and contempt of men, offer thyself in my presence? Were it not
in my own house, I would cudgel thee with my staff for presuming on this
sauciness." This annihilating affront Stucley hastened to convey to the
king; his majesty answered him--"What wouldst thou have me do? Wouldst
thou have me hang him? Of my soul, if I should hang all that speak ill
of thee, all the trees of the country would not suffice, so great is the
number!"

One of the frequent crimes of that age, ere the forgery of bank-notes
existed, was the clipping of gold; and this was one of the private
amusements suitable to the character of our Sir Judas. Treachery and
forgery are the same crime in a different form. Stucley received out of
the exchequer five hundred pounds, as the reward of his _espionnage_ and
perfidy. It was the price of blood, and was hardly in his hands ere it
was turned into the fraudulent coin of "the cheater!" He was seized on
in the palace of Whitehall, for diminishing the gold coin. "The manner
of the discovery," says the manuscript-writer, "was strange, if my
occasions would suffer me to relate the particulars." On his examination
he attempted to shift the crime to his own son, who had fled; and on his
man, who, being taken, in the words of the letter-writer, was "willing
to set the saddle upon the right horse, and accused his master."
Manoury, too, the French empiric, was arrested at Plymouth for the same
crime, and accused his worthy friend. But such was the interest of
Stucley with government, bought, probably, with his last shilling, and,
as one says, with his last shirt, that he obtained his own and his son's
pardon, for a crime that ought to have finally concluded the history of
this blessed family.[75] A more solemn and tragical catastrophe was
reserved for the perfidious Stucley. He was deprived of his place of
vice-admiral, and left destitute in the world. Abandoned by all human
beings, and most probab