We have a law peculiar to this realm,
That subjects to a mortal penalty
All women nobly born ... who, to the shame
Of chastity, o’erleap its thorny bounds,
To wanton in the flowery path of pleasure.
Act. ii. 2.
On this law Robert Jephson has founded the following tragedy: The Duke Bire´no, heir to the crown, falsely charges the Princess Sophia of incontinence. The villainy of the duke being discovered, he is slain in combat by a Briton named Paladore, and the victor marries the princess (1779).
Lawrence (Steven). Big yeoman, whose travels in America have added a touch of the backwoodsman to the English rustic. Handsome, wholesome and sensible, but unsophisticated. He is trapped into a marriage by a scheming woman, while he loves another. A series of unhappy years follow. His wife is shallow of heart and head, vain and ambitious; he resolute, upright, and tender of heart. After her death, he meets and marries the genuine woman of his first love.—Annie Edwards, Steven Lawrence, Yeoman.
Law’s Bubble, the famous Mississippi scheme, devised by John Law (1716-1720).
Law’s Tale (The Man of), the tale tells of Custance, daughter of the emperor of Rome, affianced to the sultan of Syria. On the wedding night the sultan’s mother murdered all the bridal party for apostacy, except Custance, whom she turned adrift in a ship. The ship stranded on the shores of Britain, where Custance was rescued by the lord-constable of Northumberland, whose wife, Hermegild, became much attached to her. A young knight wished to marry Custance, but she declined his suit; whereupon he murdered Hermegild, and then laid the knife beside Custance, to make it appear that she had committed the deed. King Alla, who tried the case, soon discovered the truth, executed the knight, and married Custance. Now was repeated the same infamy as occurred to her in Syria; the queen-mother, Donegild, disapproved of the match, and, during the absence of her son in Scotland, embarked Custance and her infant son in the same ship, which she turned adrift. After floating about for five years, it was taken in tow by the Roman fleet on its return from Syria, and Custance was put under the charge of a Roman senator. It so happened that Alla was at Rome at the very time on a pilgrimage, met his wife, and they returned to Northumberland together.