and its contents were lost in the Dove, and the unlucky treasurer, compelled to fly before daylight discovered him, never after had an opportunity of returning to attempt their recovery.
The earl himself, deserted by those on whom he depended, was soon after betrayed into the hands of his enemies, who conducted him to Pontefract, where, after suffering the greatest indignities, as is generally the case with fallen greatness, his head was struck off, towards the end of March or beginning of April, 1322.
The subsequent troubles appear to have caused the loss of this treasure to be forgotten, and probably of the few who witnessed its immersion in the Dove none ever returned to Tutbury; so that the poor earl's money, which perhaps might have saved him his head, had he chanced to possess it before his capture, was destined to remain in the bed of the river undisturbed, except by the rushing waters, for more than five hundred years, and would in all likelihood have continued so, but for a curious chance.
This happened in June, 1831. In the long interval that had elapsed, the Dove had been spanned by two bridges; corn and cotton mills were erected on its banks near this spot; and the stream had been troubled with all manner of weirs and dams, cuts and alterations, but without revealing the secret it contained. On the 1st of June, in that year, however, the proprietors of the cotton mills having commenced the operation of deepening the river, with the object of giving a greater fall of water to the wheel, the workmen found among the gravel, about three-score yards below the present bridge, a few small
