Majestie in his Solitudes and Sufferings, put forth within a few hours after the execution of Charles I as written by the king himself. To which Clarendon replied that he had been before acquainted with the secret and had often wished he had remained ignorant of it. Gauden was advanced in 1662, not as he had wished to the See of Winchester, but to Worcester. He was duly elected to the See of Worcester on 23 May and that election was confirmed on 10 June 1662. He died on 20 September the same year: his enemies said that he had died of chagrin at not getting the see of Winchester. His widow died in 1671: Samuel Pepys, a close friend of John's brother Sir Denis Gauden, the Navy Victualler, praised her charm and conversational skills. Authorship question The evidence in favour of Gauden's authorship rests chiefly on his own assertions and those of his wife (who after his death sent to her son John a narrative of the claim), and on the fact that it was admitted by Clarendon, who should have had means of being acquainted with the truth. Gauden's letters on the subject are printed in the appendix to vol. iii. of the Clarendon Papers. The argument is that Gauden had prepared the book to inspire sympathy with the king through a representation of his pious and forgiving disposition, and so to rouse public opinion against his execution. In 1693 further correspondence between Gauden, Clarendon, the Duke of York (later James II & VII, and Sir Edward Nicholas was published by Arthur North, who had found them among the papers of his sister-in-law, a daughter-in-law of Bishop Gauden; but doubt has been thrown on the authenticity of these papers. Gauden stated that he had begun the book in 1647 and was entirely responsible for it. But it is contended that the work was in existence at the Battle of Naseby, and testimony to Charles's authorship is brought forward from various witnesses who had seen Charles himself occupied with it at various times during his imprisonment. It is stated that the MS. was delivered by one of the king's agents to Edward Symmons, rector of Raine, near Bocking, and that it was in the handwriting of Oudart, Sir Edward Nicholas's secretary. The internal evidence has, as is usual in such cases, been brought forward as a conclusive argument in