but their approach had been heralded to Thom and his strolling vagrants, who had betaken themselves to the recesses of Bossenden wood, where the soi-disant Sir William, by his wild gesticulations and harangues, roused his adherents to a pitch of desperate fury.  To show his own valour, as soon as the soldiers, who were intended rather to overawe than injure the mob appeared, he strode out from among his ignorant attendants, and deliberately shot Lieutenant Bennett of the 45th regiment, who was in advance of his party.  The lieutenant fell dead on the spot.  The soldiers, excited by the murder of their leader, immediately returned the fire, and Thom was one of the first killed.  As he fell, he exclaimed, “I have Jesus in my heart!” Ten of his adherents shared his fate, and many were severely wounded.  Some of the more prominent among his followers were subsequently arrested, tried, and found guilty of participating in Bennett’s murder.  Two of them were sentenced to transportation for life; one had ten years’ transportation, while six expiated their offences by a year’s imprisonment in the House of Correction.

JAMES ANNESLEY—­CALLING HIMSELF EARL OF ANGLESEA.

Arthur Annesley, Viscount Valencia, who founded the families both of Anglesea and Altham, was one of the staunchest adherents of Charles II., and had a considerable hand in bringing about his restoration to the throne.  Immediately after that event his efforts were rewarded by an English peerage—­his title being Baron Annesley of Newport-Pagnel, in the county of Buckingham and Earl of Angelsea.  Besides this honour he obtained the more substantial gift of large tracts of land in Ireland.  The first peer had five sons.  James Annesley, the eldest son, having married the daughter of the Earl of Rutland, and having been constituted heir of all his father’s English real property, and a great part of his Irish estates, the old earl became desirous of establishing a second noble family in the sister kingdom, and succeeded in procuring the elevation of his second son Altham to the Irish peerage as Baron Altham of Altham, with remainder, on failure of male issue, to Richard his third son.

Altham, Lord Altham, died without issue, and the title and estates accordingly devolved upon Richard, who, dying in 1701, left two sons, named respectively Arthur and Richard.  The new peer, in 1706, espoused Mary Sheffield, a natural daughter of the Duke of Buckingham, against the wishes of his relatives.  He lived with his wife in England for two or three years, but was at last obliged to flee to Ireland from his creditors, leaving Lady Altham behind him in the care of his mother and sisters.  These ladies, who cordially hated her, set about ruining her reputation, and soon induced her weak and dissipated husband to sue for a divorce, but, as proof was not forthcoming, the case was dismissed.  Thereupon his lordship showed a disposition to become