“There was a Mr. Pickering of Tichmarsh-Grove, in Northamptonshire who was in great esteem with King James.  This Mr. Pickering had a horse of special note for swiftness, on which he used to hunt with the king.  A little before the blow was to be given, Mr. Keies, one of the conspirators, and brother-in-law to Mr. Pickering, borrowed this horse of him, and conveyed him to London upon a bloody design, which was thus contrived:—­Fawkes, upon the day of the fatal blow, was appointed to retire himself into St. George’s Fields, where this horse was to attend him, to further his escape (as they made him believe) as soon as the Parliament should be blown up.  It was likewise contrived, that Mr. Pickering, who was noted for a puritan, should that morning be murdered in his bed, and secretly conveyed away; and also that Fawkes, as soon as he came into St. George’s Fields, should be there murdered, and so mangled, that he could not be known; upon which, it was to be spread abroad, that the puritans had blown up the parliament-house; and the better to make the world believe it, there was Mr. Pickering, with his choice horse ready to escape.  But that stirred up some, who seeing the heinousness of the fact, and him ready to escape, in detestation of so horrible a deed, fell upon him, and hewed him to pieces; and to make it more clear, there was his horse, known to be of special speed and swiftness, ready to carry him away; and upon this rumour, a massacre should have gone through the whole land upon the puritans.

“When the contrivance of this plot was discovered by some of the conspirators, and Fawkes, who was now a prisoner in the Tower, made acquainted with it, whereas before he was made to believe by his companions, that he should be bountifully rewarded for that his good service to the Catholic cause, now perceiving, that, on the contrary, his death had been contrived by them, he thereupon freely confessed all that he knew concerning that horrid conspiracy, which before all the torments of the rack could not force him to do.

“The truth of this was attested by Mr. William Perkins, who had it from Mr. Clement Cotton, to whom Mr. Pickering gave the above relation.”

[19] Erasmus, the poet’s immediate younger brother, was in trade, and resided in King-street, Westminster.  He succeeded to the family title and estate upon the death of Sir John Dryden, and died at the seat of Canons-Ashby 3d November 1718, leaving one daughter and five grandsons.  Henry, the poet’s third brother, went to Jamaica, and died there, leaving a son, Richard.  James, the fourth of the sons, was a tobacconist in London, and died there, leaving two daughters.  Of the daughters, Mr. Malone, after Oldys, says, that Agnes married Sylvester Emelyn of Stanford, Gent.; that Rose married ——­ Laughton of Calworth, D.D., in the county of Huntington; that Lucy became the wife of Stephen Umwell of London, merchant; and Martha of ——­ Bletso of Northampton.  Another of the daughters was married to one Shermardine, a bookseller in Little Britain; and Frances, the youngest, to Joseph Sandwell, a tobacconist in Newgate-street This last died 10th October 1730, at the advanced age of ninety.  She had survived the poet about thirty years.  Of the remaining four sisters, no notices occur.