ing against George I. The scheme was, with four distinct
bodies of Jacobites, to seize the Tower and the Bank, to arrest the king
and the prince, and capture or kill Lord Cadogan, one of the Ministers.
At the trial it was proved that Layer had been over to Rome, and had
seen the Pretender, who, by proxy, had stood godfather to his child.
Troops were to be sent from France; barricades were to be thrown up all
over London. The Jacobites had calculated that the Government had only
14,000 men to meet them--3,000 of these would be wanted to guard London,
3,000 for Scotland, and 2,000 for the garrisons. The original design had
been to take advantage of the king's departure for Hanover, and, in the
words of one of the conspirators, the Jacobites were fully convinced
that "they should walk King George out before Lady-day." Layer was
hanged at Tyburn, and his head fixed upon Temple Bar.

Years after, one stormy night in 1753, the rebel's skull blew down, and
was picked up by a non-juring attorney, named Pierce, who preserved it
as a relic of the Jacobite martyr. It is said that Dr. Richard
Rawlinson, an eminent antiquary, obtained what he thought was Layer's
head, and desired in his will that it should be placed in his right hand
when he was buried. Another version of the story is, that a spurious
skull was foisted upon Rawlinson, who died happy in the possession of
the doubtful treasure. Rawlinson was bantered by Addison for his
pedantry, in one of the _Tatlers_, and was praised by Dr. Johnson for
his learning.

The 1745 rebellion brought the heads of fresh victims to the Bar, and
this was the last triumph of barbarous justice. Colonel Francis
Townley's was the sixth head; Fletcher's (his fellow-officer), the
seventh and last. The Earls of Kilmarnock and Cromarty, Lord Balmerino,
and thirty-seven other rebels (thirty-six of them having been captured
in Carlisle) were tried the same session. Townley was a man of about
fifty-four years of age, nephew of Mr. Townley of Townley Hall, in
Lancashire (the "Townley Marbles" family), who had been tried and
acquitted in 1715, though many of his men were found guilty and
executed. The nephew had gone over to France in 1727, and obtained a
commission from the French king, whom he served for fifteen years, being
at the siege of Philipsburg, and close to the Duke of Berwick when that
general's head was shot off. About 1740, Townley stole over to England
to see his friends and to plot agains