the Secretary of State;[15] and, although this order was of doubtful
regularity, Coke determined to act upon it.

In July, 1617, Coke mustered a band of armed men, made up of his sons
(Bridget's sons), his servants and his dependents. He put on a
breastplate, and, with a sword at his side and pistols in the holsters
of his saddle, he placed himself at the head of his little army, and
gallantly led it to Oatlands to wage war upon his wife.

On arriving at the house which he went to besiege, he found no
symptoms of any garrison for its defence. All was quiet, as if the
place were uninhabited, the only sign that an attack was expected
being that the gate leading to the house was strongly bolted and
barred. To force the gate open, if a work requiring hard labour, was
one of time, rather than of difficulty: and, when it had been
accomplished, the general courageously led his troops from the outer
defences to the very walls of the enemy's--that is to say of his
wife's--castle.

The door of the house was found to be a very different thing from the
gate. The besiegers knocked, and pounded, and thumped, and pushed, and
battered: but that door withstood all their efforts. Again and again
Coke, with a loud voice, demanded his child, in the King's name.
"Remember," roared he to those within, "if we should kill any of your
people, it would be justifiable homicide; but, if any of you should
kill one of us, it would be MURDER!"[16]

To this opinion of the highest legal authority, given gratis, silence
gave consent; for no reply was returned from the fortress, in which
the stillness must have made the attackers afraid that the foes had