Page:A Book of the West (vol. 2).djvu/155

Rh name. He was a self-made man, who was knighted, and not having any right to arms of his own, assumed those of Count Tilly, of the Holy Roman empire. But this cam.e to the ears of the Herald's College, and an inquisition into the matter was made, and Sir James was fined, and his assumed arms were defaced and torn down.

He died in 1712, and by will required his adopted heir, one Woolley, his sister's son, not only to assume his name, but also not to inter his body in the earth, but to set it up in the chair in which he died, in hat, wig, rings, gloves, and his best apparel, shoes and stockings, and surround him with his books and papers, with pen and ink ready; and for the reception of his body to erect a walled chamber on a height, with a room above it in which his portrait was to be hung; and the whole was to be surmounted by a tower and spire.

About two hours before he died Sir James said, "In a couple of years I shall be back again, and unless Woolley has done what I have required, I will resume all again."

Mr. Woolley accordingly erected the tower that still stands above Sir James' vault. But the knight did not return. He crumbled away; moth and worm attacked his feathers and velvets; and after some years nothing was left of him but a mass of bone and dust that had fallen out of the chair.