One of these generosi adolescentuli, youths of generous blood, was CHIDIOCK TITCHBOURNE, of Southampton, the more intimate friend of Babington.  He had refused to connect himself with the assassination of Elizabeth, but his reluctant consent was inferred from his silence.  His address to the populace breathes all the carelessness of life, in one who knew all its value.  Proud of his ancient descent from a family which had existed before the Conquest till now without a stain, he paints the thoughtless happiness of his days with his beloved friend, when any object rather than matters of state engaged their pursuits; the hours of misery were only first known the day he entered into the conspiracy.  How feelingly he passes into the domestic scene, amidst his wife, his child, and his sisters! and even his servants!  Well might he cry, more in tenderness than in reproach, “Friendship hath brought me to this!”

“Countrymen, and my dear friends, you expect I should speak something; I am a bad orator, and my text is worse:  It were in vain to enter into the discourse of the whole matter for which I am brought hither, for that it hath been revealed heretofore; let me be a warning to all young gentlemen, especially generosis adolescentulis.  I had a friend, a dear friend, of whom I made no small account, whose friendship hath brought me to this; he told me the whole matter, I cannot deny, as they had laid it down to be done; but I always thought it impious, and denied to be a dealer in it; but the regard of my friend caused me to be a man in whom the old proverb was verified; I was silent, and so consented.  Before this thing chanced, we lived together in most nourishing estate:  Of whom went report in the Strand, Fleet-street, and elsewhere about London, but of Babington and Titchbourne?  No threshold was of force to brave our entry.  Thus we lived, and wanted nothing we could wish for; and God knows what less in my head than matters of state.  Now give me leave to declare the miseries I sustained after I was acquainted with the action, wherein I may justly compare my estate to that of Adam’s, who could not abstain one thing forbidden, to enjoy all other things the world could afford; the terror of conscience awaited me.  After I considered the dangers whereinto I was fallen, I went to Sir John Peters in Essex, and appointed my horses should meet me at London, intending to go down into the country.  I came to London, and then heard that all was bewrayed; whereupon, like Adam, we fled into the woods to hide ourselves.  My dear countrymen, my sorrows may be your joy, yet mix your smiles with tears, and pity my case; I am descended from a house, from two hundred years before the Conquest, never stained till this my misfortune.  I have a wife and one child; my wife Agnes, my dear wife, and there’s my grief—­and six sisters left in my hand—­my poor servants, I know, their master being taken, were dispersed;