The Three Dukes

Andrew Marvel thus makes mention of the outrage on the beadle in his letter to the Mayor of Hull, Feb. 28, 1671 (*Works*, i. 195.):— "On Saturday night last, or rather Sunday morning, at two o'clock, some persons reported to be of great quality, together with other gentlemen, set upon the watch and killed a poor beadle, praying for his life upon his knees, with many wounds; warrants are out for apprehending some of them, but they are fled." I am not aware of any contemporary authority for the names of the three dukes; and a difficulty in the way of assigning them by conjecture is, that in the…