It was ordered that a bill founded on the resolutions should be brought

in. A few days later the Chancellor of the Exchequer explained to the

Commons, in a Committee of Ways and Means, the plan by which he proposed

to meet the expense of the recoinage. It was impossible to estimate

with precision the charge of making good the deficiencies of the clipped

money. But it was certain that at least twelve hundred thousand pounds

would be required. Twelve hundred thousand pounds the Bank of England

undertook to advance on good security. It was a maxim received among

financiers that no security which the government could offer was so

good as the old hearth money had been. That tax, odious as it was to the

great majority of those who paid it, was remembered with regret at the

Treasury and in the City. It occurred to the Chancellor of the Exchequer

that it might be possible to devise an impost on houses, which might be

not less productive nor less certain than the hearth money, but which

might press less heavily on the poor, and might be collected by a

less vexatious process. The number of hearths in a house could not be

ascertained without domiciliary visits. The windows a collector

might count without passing the threshold. Montague proposed that the

inhabitants of cottages, who had been cruelly harassed by the chimney

men, should be altogether exempted from the new duty. His plan was

approved by the Committee of Ways and Means, and was sanctioned by the

House without a division. Such was the origin of the window tax, a tax

which, though doubtless a great evil, must be considered as a blessing

when compared with the curse from which it rescued the nation. [647]

Thus far things had gone smoothly. But now came a crisis which required

the most skilful steering. The news that the Parliament and the

government were determined on a reform of the currency produced an

ignorant panic among the common people. Every man wished to get rid of

his clipped crowns and halfcrowns. No man liked to take them. There

were brawls approaching to riots in half the streets of London. The

Jacobites, always full of joy and hope in a day of adversity and public

danger, ran about with eager looks and noisy tongues. The health of King

James was publicly drunk in taverns and on ale benches. Many members of

Parliament, who had hitherto supported the government, began to

waver; and, that nothing might be wanting to the difficulties of the

conjuncture, a dispute on a point of privilege arose between the Houses.

The Recoinage Bill, framed in conformity with Montague's resolutions,

had gone up to the Peers and had come back with amendments, some of

which, in the opinion of the Commons, their Lordships had no right to

make. The emergency was too serious to admit of delay. Montague brought

in a new bill; which was in fact his former bill modified in some

points to meet the wishes of the Lords; the Lords, though not perfectly

contented with the new bill, passed it without any alteration; and

the royal assent was immediately given. The fourth of May, a date long

remembered over the whole kingdom and especially in the capital, was

fixed as the day on which the government would cease to receive the

clipped money in payment of taxes. [648]

The principles of the Recoinage Act are excellent. But some of the

details, both of that Act and of a supplementary Act which was passed at

a later period of the session, seem to prove that Montague had not

fully considered what legislation can, and what it cannot, effect. For

example, he persuaded the Parliament to enact that it should be penal

to give or take more than twenty-two shillings for a guinea. It may be

confidently affirmed that this enactment was not suggested or approved

by Locke. He well knew that the high price of gold was not the evil

which afflicted the State, but merely a symptom of that evil, and that a

fall in the price of gold would inevitably follow, and could by no human

power or ingenuity be made to precede, the recoinage of the silver. In

fact, the penalty seems to have produced no effect whatever, good or

bad. Till the milled silver was in circulation, the guinea continued, in

spite of the law, to pass for thirty shillings. When the milled silver

became plentiful, the guinea fell, not to twenty-two shillings, which

was the highest price allowed by the law, but to twenty-one shillings

and sixpence. [649]

Early in February the panic which had been caused by the first debates

on the currency subsided; and, from that time till the fourth of May,

the want of money was not very severely felt. The recoinage began. Ten

furnaces were erected, in the garden behind the Treasury; and every day

huge heaps of pared and defaced crowns and shillings were turned into

massy ingots which were instantly sent off to the mint in the Tower.

[650]

With the fate of the law which restored the currency was closely

connected the fate of another law, which had been several years under

the consideration of Parliament, and had caused several warm disputes

between the hereditary and the elective branch of the legislature. The

session had scarcely commenced when the Bill for regulating Trials in

cases of High Treason was again laid on the table of the Commons. Of

the debates to which it gave occasion nothing is known except one

interesting circumstance which has been preserved by tradition. Among

those who supported the bill appeared conspicuous a young Whig of

high rank, of ample fortune, and of great abilities which had been

assiduously improved by study. This was Anthony Ashley Cooper, Lord

Ashley, eldest son of the second Earl of Shaftesbury, and grandson of

that renowned politician who had, in the days of Charles the Second,

been at one time the most unprincipled of ministers, and at another

the most unprincipled of demagogues. Ashley had just been returned to

Parliament for the borough of Poole, and was in his twenty-fifth year.

In the course of his speech he faltered, stammered and seemed to lose

the thread of his reasoning. The House, then, as now, indulgent to

novices, and then, as now, well aware that, on a first appearance, the

hesitation which is the effect of modesty and sensibility is quite

as promising a sign as volubility of utterance and ease of manner,

encouraged him to proceed. "How can I, Sir," said the young orator,

recovering himself, "produce a stronger argument in favour of this

bill than my own failure? My fortune, my character, my life, are not at

stake. I am speaking to an audience whose kindness might well inspire me

with courage. And yet, from mere nervousness, from mere want of practice

in addressing large assemblies, I have lost my recollection; I am unable

to go on with my argument. How helpless, then, must be a poor man who,

never having opened his lips in public, is called upon to reply, without

a moment's preparation, to the ablest and most experienced advocates in

the kingdom, and whose faculties are paralysed by the thought that,

if he fails to convince his hearers, he will in a few hours die on a

gallows, and leave beggary and infamy to those who are dearest to him."

It may reasonably be suspected that Ashley's confusion and the ingenious

use which he made of it had been carefully premeditated. His speech,

however, made a great impression, and probably raised expectations which

were not fulfilled. His health was delicate; his taste was refined even

to fastidiousness; he soon left politics to men whose bodies and

minds were of coarser texture than his own, gave himself up to mere

intellectual luxury, lost himself in the mazes of the old Academic

philosophy, and aspired to the glory of reviving the old Academic

eloquence. His diction, affected and florid, but often singularly

beautiful and melodious, fascinated many young enthusiasts. He had not

merely disciples, but worshippers. His life was short; but he lived

long enough to become the founder of a new sect of English freethinkers,

diametrically opposed in opinions and feelings to that sect of

freethinkers of which Hobbes was the oracle. During many years the

Characteristics continued to be the Gospel of romantic and sentimental

unbelievers, while the Gospel of coldblooded and hardheaded unbelievers

was the Leviathan.

The bill, so often brought in and so often lost, went through the

Commons without a division, and was carried up to the Lords. It soon

came back with the long disputed clause altering the constitution of the

Court of the Lord High Steward. A strong party among the representatives

of the people was still unwilling to grant any new privilege to the

nobility; but the moment was critical. The misunderstanding which

had arisen between the Houses touching the Recoinage Bill had produced

inconveniences which might well alarm even a bold politician. It was

necessary to purchase concession by concession. The Commons, by a

hundred and ninety-two votes to a hundred and fifty, agreed to the

amendment on which the Lords had, during four years, so obstinately

insisted; and the Lords in return immediately passed the Recoinage Bill

without any amendment.

There had been much contention as to the time at which the new system of

procedure in cases of high treason should come into operation; and the

bill had once been lost in consequence of a dispute on this point. Many

persons were of opinion that the change ought not to take place till the

close of the war. It was notorious, they said, that the foreign enemy

was abetted by too many traitors at home; and, at such a time, the

severity of the laws which protected the commonwealth against the

machinations of bad citizens ought not to be relaxed. It was at

last determined that the new regulations should take effect on the

twenty-fifth of March, the first day, according to the old Calendar, of

the year 1696.

On the twenty-first of January the Recoinage Bill and the Bill for

regulating Trials in cases of High Treason received the royal assent. On

the following day the Commons repaired to Kensington on an errand by

no means agreeable either to themselves or to the King. They were, as

a body, fully resolved to support him, at whatever cost and at whatever

hazard, against every foreign and domestic foe. But they were, as indeed

every assembly of five hundred and thirteen English gentlemen that could

by any process have been brought together must have been, jealous of the

favour which he showed to the friends of his youth. He had set his heart

on placing the house of Bentinck on a level in wealth and splendour with

the houses of Howard and Seymour, of Russell and Cavendish.

Some of the fairest hereditary domains of the Crown had been granted to

Portland, not without murmuring on the part both of Whigs and Tories.

Nothing had been done, it is true, which was not in conformity with the

letter of the law and with a long series of precedents. Every English

sovereign had from time immemorial considered the lands to which he had

succeeded in virtue of his office as his private property. Every family

that had been great in England, from the De Veres down to the Hydes,

had been enriched by royal deeds of gift. Charles the Second had carved

ducal estates for his bastards out of his hereditary domain. Nor did the

Bill of Rights contain a word which could be construed to mean that the

King was not at perfect liberty to alienate any part of the estates of

the Crown. At first, therefore, William's liberality to his countrymen,

though it caused much discontent, called forth no remonstrance from the

Parliament. But he at length went too far. In 1695 he ordered the Lords

of the Treasury to make out a warrant granting to Portland a magnificent

estate in Denbighshire. This estate was said to be worth more than a

hundred thousand pounds. The annual income, therefore, can hardly

have been less than six thousand pounds; and the annual rent which was

reserved to the Crown was only six and eightpence. This, however, was

not the worst. With the property were inseparably connected extensive

royalties, which the people of North Wales could not patiently see

in the hands of any subject. More than a century before Elizabeth had

bestowed a part of the same territory on her favourite Leicester. On

that occasion the population of Denbighshire had risen in arms; and,

after much tumult and several executions, Leicester had thought it

advisable to resign his mistress's gift back to her. The opposition to

Portland was less violent, but not less effective. Some of the chief

gentlemen of the principality made strong representations to the

ministers through whose offices the warrant had to pass, and at length

brought the subject under the consideration of the Lower House. An

address was unanimously voted requesting the King to stop the grant;

Portland begged that he might not be the cause of a dispute between his

master and the Parliament; and the King, though much mortified, yielded

to the general wish of the nation. [651]

This unfortunate affair, though it terminated without an open quarrel,

left much sore feeling. The King was angry with the Commons, and still

more angry with the Whig ministers who had not ventured to defend his

grant. The loyal affection which the Parliament had testified to him

during the first days of the session had perceptibly cooled; and he was

almost as unpopular as he had ever been, when an event took place which

suddenly brought back to him the hearts of millions, and made him for a

time as much the idol of the nation as he had been at the end of 1688.

[652]

The plan of assassination which had been formed in the preceding

spring had been given up in consequence of William's departure for the

Continent. The plan of insurrection which had been formed in the summer

had been given up for want of help from France. But before the end of

the autumn both plans were resumed. William had returned to England; and

the possibility of getting rid of him by a lucky shot or stab was again

seriously discussed. The French troops had gone into winter quarters;

and the force, which Charnock had in vain demanded while war was raging

round Namur, might now be spared without inconvenience. Now, therefore,

a plot was laid, more formidable than any that had yet threatened

the throne and the life of William; or rather, as has more than once

happened in our history, two plots were laid, one within the other. The

object of the greater plot was an open insurrection, an insurrection

which was to be supported by a foreign army. In this plot almost all the

Jacobites of note were more or less concerned. Some laid in arms; some

bought horses; some made lists of the servants and tenants in whom they

could place firm reliance. The less warlike members of the party could

at least take off bumpers to the King over the water, and intimate by

significant shrugs and whispers that he would not be over the water

long. It was universally remarked that the malecontents looked wiser

than usual when they were sober, and bragged more loudly than usual when

they were drunk. [653] To the smaller plot, of which the object was the

murder of William, only a few select traitors were privy.

Each of these plots was under the direction of a leader specially

sent from Saint Germains. The more honourable mission was entrusted to

Berwick. He was charged to communicate with the Jacobite nobility and

gentry, to ascertain what force they could bring into the field, and

to fix a time for the rising. He was authorised to assure them that the

French government was collecting troops and transports at Calais, and

that, as soon as it was known there that a rebellion had broken out in

England, his father would embark with twelve thousand veteran soldiers,

and would be among them in a few hours.

A more hazardous part was assigned to an emissary of lower rank, but

of great address, activity and courage. This was Sir George Barclay, a

Scotch gentleman who had served with credit under Dundee, and who,

when the war in the Highlands had ended, had retired to Saint Germains.

Barclay was called into the royal closet, and received his orders from

the royal lips. He was directed to steal across the Channel and to

repair to London. He was told that a few select officers and soldiers

should speedily follow him by twos and threes. That they might have no

difficulty in finding him, he was to walk, on Mondays and Thursdays, in

the Piazza of Covent Garden after nightfall, with a white handkerchief

hanging from his coat pocket. He was furnished with a considerable sum

of money, and with a commission which was not only signed but written

from beginning to end by James himself. This commission authorised the

bearer to do from time to time such acts of hostility against the Prince

of Orange and that Prince's adherents as should most conduce to the

service of the King. What explanation of these very comprehensive words

was orally given by James we are not informed.

Lest Barclay's absence from Saint Germains should cause any suspicion,

it was given out that his loose way of life had made it necessary for

him to put himself under the care of a surgeon at Paris. [654] He set

out with eight hundred pounds in his portmanteau, hastened to the coast,

and embarked on board of a privateer which was employed by the Jacobites

as a regular packet boat between France and England. This vessel

conveyed him to a desolate spot in Romney Marsh. About half a mile

from the landing place a smuggler named Hunt lived on a dreary and

unwholesome fen where he had no neighbours but a few rude shepherds. His

dwelling was singularly well situated for a contraband traffic in French

wares. Cargoes of Lyons silk and Valenciennes lace sufficient to load

thirty packhorses had repeatedly been landed in that dismal solitude

without attracting notice. But, since the Revolution, Hunt had

discovered that of all cargoes a cargo of traitors paid best. His lonely

abode became the resort of men of high consideration, Earls and Barons,

Knights and Doctors of Divinity. Some of them lodged many days under

his roof while waiting for a passage. A clandestine post was established

between his house and London. The couriers were constantly going and

returning; they performed their journeys up and down on foot; but they

appeared to be gentlemen, and it was whispered that one of them was the

son of a titled man. The letters from Saint Germains were few and small.

Those directed to Saint Germains were numerous and bulky; they were made

up like parcels of millinery, and were buried in the morass till they

were called for by the privateer.

Here Barclay landed in January 1696; and hence he took the road

to London. He was followed, a few days later, by a tall youth, who

concealed his name, but who produced credentials of the highest

authority. This youth too proceeded to London. Hunt afterwards

discovered that his humble roof had had the honour of sheltering the

Duke of Berwick. [655]

The part which Barclay had to perform was difficult and hazardous; and

he omitted no precaution. He had been little in London; and his face was

consequently unknown to the agents of the government. Nevertheless

he had several lodgings; he disguised himself so well that his oldest

friends would not have known him by broad daylight; and yet he seldom

ventured into the streets except in the dark. His chief agent was a monk

who, under several names, heard confessions and said masses at the risk

of his neck. This man intimated to some of the zealots with whom he

consorted a special agent of the royal family was to be spoken with in

Covent Garden, on certain nights, at a certain hour, and might be known

by certain signs. [656] In this way Barclay became acquainted with

several men fit for his purpose. The first persons to whom he fully

opened himself were Charnock and Parkyns. He talked with them about the

plot which they and some of their friends had formed in the preceding

spring against the life of William. Both Charnock and Parkyns declared

that the scheme might easily be executed, that there was no want of

resolute hearts among the Royalists, and that all that was wanting was

some sign of His Majesty's approbation.

Then Barclay produced his commission. He showed his two accomplices that

James had expressly commanded all good Englishmen, not only to rise in

arms, not only to make war on the usurping government, not only to seize

forts and towns, but also to do from time to time such other acts

of hostility against the Prince of Orange as might be for the royal

service. These words, Barclay said, plainly authorised an attack on the

Prince's person. Charnock and Parkyns were satisfied. How in truth was

it possible for them to doubt that James's confidential agent correctly

construed James's expressions? Nay, how was it possible for them to

understand the large words of the commission in any sense but one,

even if Barclay had not been there to act as commentator? If indeed the

subject had never been brought under James's consideration, it might

well be thought that those words had dropped from his pen without any

definite meaning. But he had been repeatedly apprised that some of his

friends in England meditated a deed of blood, and that they were waiting

only for his approbation. They had importuned him to speak one word,

to give one sign. He had long kept silence; and, now that he had broken

silence, he merely told them to do what ever might be beneficial to

himself and prejudicial to the usurper. They had his authority as

plainly given as they could reasonably expect to have it given in such a

case. [657]

All that remained was to find a sufficient number of courageous and

trustworthy assistants, to provide horses and weapons, and to fix the

hour and the place of the slaughter. Forty or fifty men, it was thought,

would be sufficient. Those troopers of James's guard who had already

followed Barclay across the Channel made up nearly half that number.

James had himself seen some of these men before their departure from

Saint Germains, had given them money for their journey, had told them by

what name each of them was to pass in England, had commanded them to

act as they should be directed by Barclay, and had informed them where

Barclay was to be found and by what tokens he was to be known. [658]

They were ordered to depart in small parties, and to assign different

reasons for going. Some were ill; some were weary of the service;

Cassels, one of the most noisy and profane among them, announced that,

since he could not get military promotion, he should enter at the Scotch

college and study for a learned profession. Under such pretexts about

twenty picked men left the palace of James, made their way by Romney

Marsh to London, and found their captain walking in the dim lamplight of

the Piazza with the handkerchief hanging from his pocket. One of these

men was Ambrose Rockwood, who held the rank of Brigadier, and who had a

high reputation for courage and honour; another was Major John Bernardi,

an adventurer of Genoese extraction, whose name has derived a melancholy

celebrity from a punishment so strangely prolonged that it at length

shocked a generation which could not remember his crime. [659]

It was in these adventurers from France that Barclay placed his chief

trust. In a moment of elation he once called them his Janissaries, and

expressed a hope that they would get him the George and Garter. But

twenty more assassins at least were wanted. The conspirators probably

expected valuable help from Sir John Friend, who had received a

Colonel's commission signed by James, and had been most active in

enlisting men and providing arms against the day when the French should

appear on the coast of Kent. The design was imparted to him; but he

thought it so rash, and so likely to bring reproach and disaster on the

good cause, that he would lend no assistance to his friends, though he

kept their secret religiously. [660] Charnock undertook to find eight

brave and trusty fellows. He communicated the design to Porter, not with

Barclay's entire approbation; for Barclay appears to have thought that

a tavern brawler, who had recently been in prison for swaggering drunk

about the streets and huzzaing in honour of the Prince of Wales, was

hardly to be trusted with a secret of such fearful import. Porter

entered into the plot with enthusiasm, and promised to bring in others

who would be useful. Among those whose help he engaged was his servant

Thomas Keyes. Keyes was a far more formidable conspirator than might

have been expected from his station in life. The household troops

generally were devoted to William; but there was a taint of disaffection

among the Blues. The chief conspirators had already been tampering

with some Roman Catholics who were in that regiment; and Keyes was

excellently qualified to bear a part in this work; for he had formerly

been trumpeter of the corps, and, though he had quitted the service, he

still kept up an acquaintaince with some of the old soldiers in whose

company he had lived at free quarter on the Somersetshire farmers after

the battle of Sedgemoor.

Parkyns, who was old and gouty, could not himself take a share in the

work of death. But he employed himself in providing horses, saddles and

weapons for his younger and more active accomplices. In this department

of business he was assisted by Charles Cranburne, a person who had long

acted as a broker between Jacobite plotters and people who dealt in

cutlery and firearms. Special orders were given by Barclay that the

swords should be made rather for stabbing than for slashing. Barclay

himself enlisted Edward Lowick, who had been a major in the Irish army,

and who had, since the capitulation of Limerick, been living obscurely

in London. The monk who had been Barclay's first confidant recommended

two busy Papists, Richard Fisher and Christopher Knightley; and this

recommendation was thought sufficient. Knightley drew in Edward King, a

Roman Catholic gentleman of hot and restless temper; and King procured

the assistance of a French gambler and bully named De la Rue. [661]

Meanwhile the heads of the conspiracy held frequent meetings at treason

taverns, for the purpose of settling a plan of operations. Several

schemes were proposed, applauded, and, on full consideration, abandoned.

At one time it was thought that an attack on Kensington House at dead

of night might probably be successful. The outer wall might easily be

scaled. If once forty armed men were in the garden, the palace would

soon be stormed or set on fire. Some were of opinion that it would be

best to strike the blow on a Sunday as William went from Kensington

to attend divine service at the chapel of Saint James's Palace. The

murderers might assemble near the spot where Apsley House and Hamilton

Place now stand. Just as the royal coach passed out of Hyde Park, and

was about to enter what has since been called the Green Park, thirty

of the conspirators, well mounted, might fall on the guards. The guards

were ordinarily only five and twenty. They would be taken completely

by surprise; and probably half of them would be shot or cut down before

they could strike a blow. Meanwhile ten or twelve resolute men on foot

would stop the carriage by shooting the horses, and would then without

difficulty despatch the King. At last the preference was given to a plan

originally sketched by Fisher and put into shape by Porter. William was

in the habit of going every Saturday from Kensington to hunt in Richmond

Park. There was then no bridge over the Thames between London and

Kingston. The King therefore went, in a coach escorted by some of his

body guards, through Turnham Green to the river. There he took boat,

crossed the water and found another coach and another set of guards

ready to receive him on the Surrey side. The first coach and the first

set of guards awaited his return on the northern bank. The conspirators

ascertained with great precision the whole order of these journeys, and

carefully examined the ground on both sides of the Thames. They thought

that they should attack the King with more advantage on the Middlesex

than on the Surrey bank, and when he was returning than when he was

going. For, when he was going, he was often attended to the water side

by a great retinue of lords and gentlemen; but on his return he had only

his guards about him. The place and time were fixed. The place was to be

a narrow and winding lane leading from the landingplace on the north

of the rover to Turnham Green. The spot may still be easily found.

The ground has since been drained by trenches. But in the seventeenth

century it was a quagmire, through which the royal coach was with

difficulty tugged at a foot's pace. The time was to be the afternoon

of Saturday the fifteenth of February. On that day the Forty were to

assemble in small parties at public houses near the Green. When the

signal was given that the coach was approaching they were to take horse

and repair to their posts. As the cavalcade came up this lane Charnock

was to attack the guards in the rear, Rockwood on one flank, Porter on

the other. Meanwhile Barclay, with eight trusty men, was to stop the

coach and to do the deed. That no movement of the King might escape

notice, two orderlies were appointed to watch the palace. One of these

men, a bold and active Fleming, named Durant, was especially charged to

keep Barclay well informed. The other, whose business was to communicate

with Charnock, was a ruffian named Chambers, who had served in the Irish

army, had received a severe wound in the breast at the Boyne, and, on

account of that wound, bore a savage personal hatred to William. [662]

While Barclay was making all his arrangements for the assassination,

Berwick was endeavouring to persuade the Jacobite aristocracy to rise

in arms. But this was no easy task. Several consultations were held;

and there was one great muster of the party under the pretence of a

masquerade, for which tickets were distributed among the initiated

at one guinea each. [663] All ended however in talking, singing and

drinking. Many men of rank and fortune indeed declared that they would

draw their swords for their rightful Sovereign as soon as their rightful

Sovereign was in the island with a French army; and Berwick had been

empowered to assure there that a French army should be sent as soon as

they had drawn the sword. But between what they asked and what he

was authorised to grant there was a difference which admitted of no

compromise. Lewis, situated as he was, would not risk ten or twelve

thousand excellent soldiers on the mere faith of promises. Similar

promises had been made in 1690; and yet, when the fleet of Tourville had

appeared on the coast of Devonshire, the western counties had risen as

one man in defence of the government, and not a single malecontent had

dared to utter a whisper in favour of the invaders. Similar promises had

been made in 1692; and to the confidence which had been placed in those

promises was to be attributed the great disaster of La Hogue. The

French King would not be deceived a third time. He would gladly help the

English royalists; but he must first see them help themselves. There

was much reason in this; and there was reason also in what the Jacobites

urged on the other side. If, they said, they were to rise, without a

single disciplined regiment to back them, against an usurper supported

by a regular army, they should all be cut to pieces before the news that

they were up could reach Versailles. As Berwick could hold out no hope

that there would be an invasion before there was an insurrection, and

as his English friends were immovable in their determination that there

should be no insurrection till there was an invasion, he had nothing

more to do here, and became impatient to depart.

He was the more impatient to depart because the fifteenth of February

drew near. For he was in constant communication with Barclay, and was

perfectly apprised of all the details of the crime which was to be

perpetrated on that day. He was generally considered as a man of sturdy

and even ungracious integrity. But to such a degree had his sense of

right and wrong been perverted by his zeal for the interests of his

family, and by his respect for the lessons of his priests, that he did

not, as he has himself ingenuously confessed, think that he lay under

any obligation to dissuade the assassins from the execution of their

purpose. He had indeed only one objection to their design; and that

objection he kept to himself. It was simply this, that all who were

concerned were very likely to be hanged. That, however, was their

affair; and, if they chose to run such a risk in the good cause, it was

not his business to discourage them. His mission was quite distinct from

theirs; he was not to act with them; and he had no inclination to suffer

with then. He therefore hastened down to Romney Marsh, and crossed to

Calais. [664]

At Calais he found preparations making for a descent on Kent. Troops

filled the town; transports filled the port. Boufflers had been ordered

to repair thither from Flanders, and to take the command. James himself

was daily expected. In fact he had already left Saint Germains. Berwick,

however, would not wait. He took the road to Paris, met his father at

Clermont, and made a full report of the state of things in England. His

embassy had failed; the Royalist nobility and gentry seemed resolved

not to rise till a French army was in the island; but there was still a

hope; news would probably come within a few days that the usurper was

no more; and such news would change the whole aspect of affairs. James

determined to go on to Calais, and there to await the event of

Barclay's plot. Berwick hastened to Versailles for the purpose of giving

explanations to Lewis. What the nature of the explanations was we know

from Berwick's own narrative. He plainly told the French King that a

small band of loyal men would in a short time make an attempt on the

life of the great enemy of France. The next courier might bring tidings

of an event which would probably subvert the English government and

dissolve the European coalition. It might have been thought that a

prince who ostentatiously affected the character of a devout Christian

and of a courteous knight would instantly have taken measures for

conveying to his rival a caution which perhaps might still arrive in

time, and would have severely reprimanded the guests who had so grossly

abused his hospitality. Such, however, was not the conduct of Lewis. Had

he been asked to give his sanction to a murder he would probably

have refused with indignation. But he was not moved to indignation by

learning that, without his sanction, a crime was likely to be committed

which would be far more beneficial to his interests than ten such

victories as that of Landen. He sent down orders to Calais that his

fleet should be in such readiness as might enable him to take advantage

of the great crisis which he anticipated. At Calais James waited with

still more impatience for the signal that his nephew was no more. That

signal was to be given by a fire, of which the fuel was already prepared

on the cliffs of Kent, and which would be visible across the straits.

[665]

But a peculiar fate has, in our country, always attended such

conspiracies as that of Barclay and Charnock. The English regard

assassination, and have during some ages regarded it, with a loathing

peculiar to themselves. So English indeed is this sentiment that it

cannot even now be called Irish, and till a recent period, it was not

Scotch. In Ireland to this day the villain who shoots at his enemy from

behind a hedge is too often protected from justice by public sympathy.

In Scotland plans of assassination were often, during the sixteenth

and seventeenth centuries, successfully executed, though known to great

numbers of persons. The murders of Beaton, of Rizzio, of Darnley, of

Murray, of Sharpe, are conspicuous instances. The royalists who murdered

Lisle in Switzerland were Irishmen; the royalists who murdered Ascham at

Madrid were Irishmen; the royalists who murdered Dorislaus at the Hague

were Scotchmen. In England, as soon as such a design ceases to be a

secret hidden in the recesses of one gloomy and ulcerated heart, the

risk of detection and failure becomes extreme. Felton and Bellingham

reposed trust in no human being; and they were therefore able to

accomplish their evil purposes. But Babington's conspiracy against

Elizabeth, Fawkes's conspiracy against James, Gerard's conspiracy

against Cromwell, the Rye House conspiracy, the Cato Street conspiracy,

were all discovered, frustrated and punished. In truth such a conspiracy

is here exposed to equal danger from the good and from the bad qualities

of the conspirators. Scarcely any Englishman, not utterly destitute of

conscience and honour, will engage in a plot for slaying an unsuspecting

fellow creature; and a wretch who has neither conscience nor honour is

likely to think much on the danger which he incurs by being true to his

associates, and on the rewards which he may obtain by betraying them.

There are, it is true, persons in whom religious or political fanaticism

has destroyed all moral sensibility on one particular point, and yet has

left that sensibility generally unimpaired. Such a person was Digby. He

had no scruple about blowing King, Lords and Commons into the air. Yet

to his accomplices he was religiously and chivalrously faithful; nor

could even the fear of the rack extort from him one word to their

prejudice. But this union of depravity and heroism is very rare. The

vast majority of men are either not vicious enough or not virtuous

enough to be loyal and devoted members of treacherous and cruel

confederacies; and, if a single member should want either the necessary

vice or the necessary virtue, the whole confederacy is in danger. To

bring together in one body forty Englishmen, all hardened cutthroats,

and yet all so upright and generous that neither the hope of opulence

nor the dread of the gallows can tempt any one of them to be false to

the rest, has hitherto been found, and will, it is to be hoped, always

be found impossible.

There were among Barclay's followers both men too bad and men too good

to be trusted with such a secret as his. The first whose heart failed

him was Fisher. Even before the time and place of the crime had been

fixed, he obtained an audience of Portland, and told that lord that a

design was forming against the King's life. Some days later Fisher came

again with more precise intelligence. But his character was not such

as entitled him to much credit; and the knavery of Fuller, of Young, of

Whitney and of Taffe, had made men of sense slow to believe stories of

plots. Portland, therefore, though in general very easily alarmed where

the safety of his master and friend was concerned, seems to have thought

little about the matter. But, on the evening of the fourteenth of

February, he received a visit from a person whose testimony he could not

treat lightly. This was a Roman Catholic gentleman of known courage and

honour, named Pendergrass. He had, on the preceding day, come up to town

from Hampshire, in consequence of a pressing summons from Porter, who,

dissolute and unprincipled as he was, had to Pendergrass been a

most kind friend, indeed almost a father. In a Jacobite insurrection

Pendergrass would probably have been one of the foremost. But he learned

with horror that he was expected to bear a part in a wicked and shameful

deed. He found himself in one of those situations which most cruelly

torture noble and sensitive natures. What was he to do? Was he to

commit a murder? Was he to suffer a murder which he could prevent to be

committed? Yet was he to betray one who, however culpable, had loaded

him with benefits? Perhaps it might be possible to save William without

harming Porter? Pendergrass determined to make the attempt. "My Lord,"

he said to Portland, "as you value King William's life, do not let

him hunt tomorrow. He is the enemy of my religion; yet my religion

constrains me to give him this caution. But the names of the

conspirators I am resolved to conceal; some of them are my friends; one

of them especially is my benefactor; and I will not betray them."

Portland went instantly to the King; but the King received the

intelligence very coolly, and seemed determined not to be frightened

out of a good day's sport by such an idle story. Portland argued and

implored in vain. He was at last forced to threaten that he would

immediately make the whole matter public, unless His Majesty would

consent to remain within doors during the next day; and this threat was

successful. [666]

Saturday the fifteenth came. The Forty were all ready to mount, when

they received intelligence from the orderlies who watched Kensington

House that the King did not mean to hunt that morning. "The fox," said

Chambers, with vindictive bitterness, "keeps his earth." Then he opened

his shirt; showed the great scar in his breast, and vowed revenge on

William.

The first thought of the conspirators was that their design had been

detected. But they were soon reassured. It was given out that the

weather had kept the King at home; and indeed the day was cold and

stormy. There was no sign of agitation at the palace. No extraordinary

precaution was taken. No arrest was made. No ominous whisper was

heard at the coffeehouses. The delay was vexatious; but Saturday the

twenty-second would do as well.

But, before Saturday the twenty-second arrived, a third informer, De

la Rue, had presented himself at the palace. His way of life did not

entitle him to much respect; but his story agreed so exactly with what

had been said by Fisher and Pendergrass that even William began to

believe that there was real danger.

Very late in the evening of Friday the twenty-first, Pendergrass, who

had as yet disclosed much less than either of the other informers, but

whose single word was worth much more than their joint oath, was sent

for to the royal closet. The faithful Portland and the gallant Cutts

were the only persons who witnessed the singular interview between the

King and his generous enemy. William, with courtesy and animation

which he rarely showed, but which he never showed without making a

deep impression, urged Pendergrass to speak out. "You are a man of true

probity and honour; I am deeply obliged to you; but you must feel that

the same considerations which have induced you to tell us so much ought

to induce you to tell us something more. The cautions which you have as

yet given can only make me suspect every body that comes near me. They

are sufficient to embitter my life, but not sufficient to preserve it.

You must let me know the names of these men." During more than half an

hour the King continued to entreat and Pendergrass to refuse. At last

Pendergrass said that he would give the information which was required,

if he could be assured that it would be used only for the prevention of

the crime, and not for the destruction of the criminals. "I give you

my word of honour," said William, "that your evidence shall not be used

against any person without your own free consent." It was long

past midnight when Pendergrass wrote down the names of the chief

conspirators.

While these things were passing at Kensington, a large party of the

assassins were revelling at a Jacobite tavern in Maiden Lane. Here they

received their final orders for the morrow. "Tomorrow or never," said

King. "Tomorrow, boys," cried Cassels with a curse, "we shall have the

plunder of the field." The morrow came. All was ready; the horses

were saddled; the pistols were loaded; the swords were sharpened; the

orderlies were on the alert; they early sent intelligence from the

palace that the King was certainly going a hunting; all the usual

preparations had been made; a party of guards had been sent round by

Kingston Bridge to Richmond; the royal coaches, each with six horses,

had gone from the stables at Charing Cross to Kensington. The chief

murderers assembled in high glee at Porter's lodgings. Pendergrass, who,

by the King's command, appeared among them, was greeted with ferocious

mirth. "Pendergrass," said Porter, "you are named one of the eight who

are to do his business. I have a musquetoon for you that will carry

eight balls." "Mr. Pendergrass," said King, "pray do not be afraid of

smashing the glass windows." From Porter's lodgings the party adjourned

to the Blue Posts in Spring Gardens, where they meant to take some

refreshment before they started for Turnham Green. They were at table

when a message came from an orderly that the King had changed his mind

and would not hunt; and scarcely had they recovered from their first

surprise at this ominous news, when Keyes, who had been out scouting

among his old comrades, arrived with news more ominous still. "The

coaches have returned to Charing Cross. The guards that were sent round

to Richmond have just come back to Kensington at full gallop, the flanks

of the horses all white with foam. I have had a word with one of

the Blues. He told me that strange things are muttered." Then the

countenances of the assassins fell; and their hearts died within them.

Porter made a feeble attempt to disguise his uneasiness. He took up

an orange and squeezed it. "What cannot be done one day may be done

another. Come, gentlemen, before we part let us have one glass to the

squeezing of the rotten orange." The squeezing of the rotten orange was

drunk; and the company dispersed. [667]

A few hours elapsed before all the conspirators abandoned all hope. Some

of them derived comfort from a report that the King had taken physic,

and that this was his only reason for not going to Richmond. If it were

so, the blow might still be struck. Two Saturdays had been unpropitious.

But Sunday was at hand. One of the plans which had formerly been

discussed and abandoned might be resumed. The usurper might be set upon

at Hyde Park Corner on his way to his chapel. Charnock was ready for any

enterprise however desperate. If the hunt was up, it was better to die

biting and scratching to the last than to be worried without resistance

or revenge. He assembled some of his accomplices at one of the numerous

houses at which he had lodgings, and plied there hard with healths to

the King, to the Queen, to the Prince, and to the Grand Monarch, as they

called Lewis. But the terror and dejection of the gang were beyond the

power of wine; and so many had stolen away that those who were left

could effect nothing. In the course of the afternoon it was known that

the guards had been doubled at the palace; and soon after nightfall

messengers from the Secretary of State's office were hurrying to and fro

with torches through the streets, accompanied by files and musketeers.

Before the dawn of Sunday Charnock was in custody. A little later,

Rockwood and Bernardi were found in bed at a Jacobite alehouse on Tower

Hill. Seventeen more traitors were seized before noon; and three of the

Blues were put under arrest. That morning a Council was held; and, as

soon as it rose, an express was sent off to call home some regiments

from Flanders; Dorset set out for Sussex, of which he was Lord

Lieutenant; Romney, who was Warden of the Cinque Ports, started for the

coast of Kent; and Russell hastened down the Thames to take the command

of the fleet. In the evening the Council sate again. Some of the

prisoners were examined and committed. The Lord Mayor was in attendance,

was informed of what had been discovered, and was specially charged to

look well to the peace of the capital. [668]

On Monday morning all the trainbands of the City were under arms. The

King went in state to the House of Lords, sent for the Commons, and

from the throne told the Parliament that, but for the protection of a

gracious Providence, he should at that moment have been a corpse, and

the kingdom would have been invaded by a French army. The danger of

invasion, he added, was still great; but he had already given such

orders as would, he hoped, suffice for the protection of the realm. Some

traitors were in custody; warrants were out against others; he should

do his part in this emergency; and he relied on the Houses to do theirs.

[669]

The Houses instantly voted a joint address in which they thankfully

acknowledged the divine goodness which had preserved him to his people,

and implored him to take more than ordinary care of his person. They

concluded by exhorting him to seize and secure all persons whom he

regarded as dangerous.

On the same day two important bills were brought into the Commons. By

one the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended. The other provided that the

Parliament should not be dissolved by the death of William. Sir Rowland

Gwyn, an honest country gentleman, made a motion of which he did not

at all foresee the important consequences. He proposed that the members

should enter into an association for the defence of their Sovereign and

their country. Montague, who of all men was the quickest at taking and

improving a hint, saw how much such an association would strengthen the

government and the Whig party. [670] An instrument was immediately

drawn tip, by which the representatives of the people, each for himself,

solemnly recognised William as rightful and lawful King, and bound

themselves to stand by him and by each other against James and James's

adherents. Lastly they vowed that, if His Majesty's life should be

shortened by violence, they would avenge him signally on his murderers,

and would, with one heart, strenuously support the order of succession

settled by the Bill of Rights. It was ordered that the House should

be called over the next morning. [671] The attendance was consequently

great; the Association, engrossed on parchment, was on the table; and

the members went up, county by county, to sign their names. [672]

The King's speech, the joint address of both Houses, the Association

framed by the Commons, and a proclamation, containing a list of

the conspirators and offering a reward of a thousand pounds for the

apprehension of any one of them, were soon cried in all the streets of

the capital and carried out by all the postbags. Wherever the news came

it raised the whole country. Those two hateful words, assassination and

invasion, acted like a spell. No impressment was necessary. The seamen

came forth from their hiding places by thousands to man the fleet. Only

three days after the King had appealed to the nation, Russell sailed out

of the Thames with one great squadron. Another was ready for action at

Spithead. The militia of all the maritime counties from the Wash to

the Land's End was under arms. For persons accused of offences merely

political there was generally much sympathy. But Barclay's assassins

were hunted like wolves by the whole population. The abhorrence which

the English have, through many generations, felt for domiciliary visits,

and for all those impediments which the police of continental states

throws in the way of travellers, was for a time suspended. The gates of

the City of London were kept many hours closed while a strict search was

made within. The magistrates of almost every walled town in the kingdom

followed the example of the capital. On every highway parties of armed

men were posted with orders to stop passengers of suspicious appearance.

During a few days it was hardly possible to perform a journey without a

passport, or to procure posthorses without the authority of a justice

of the peace. Nor was any voice raised against these precautions. The

common people indeed were, if possible, more eager than the public

functionaries to bring the traitors to justice. This eagerness may

perhaps be in part ascribed to the great rewards promised by the royal

proclamation. The hatred which every good Protestant felt for Popish

cutthroats was not a little strengthened by the songs in which the

street poets celebrated the lucky hackney coachman who had caught

his traitor, had received his thousand pounds, and had set up as a

gentleman. [673] The zeal of the populace could in some places hardly

be kept within the limits of the law. At the country seat of Parkyns

in Warwickshire, arms and accoutrements sufficient to equip a troop of

cavalry were found. As soon as this was known, a furious mob assembled,

pulled down the house and laid the gardens utterly waste. [674] Parkyns

himself was tracked to a garret in the Temple. Porter and Keyes, who

had fled into Surrey, were pursued by the hue and cry, stopped by the

country people near Leatherhead, and, after some show of resistance,

secured and sent to prison. Friend was found hidden in the house of a

Quaker. Knightley was caught in the dress of a fine lady, and recognised

in spite of his patches and paint. In a few days all the chief

conspirators were in custody except Barclay, who succeeded in making his

escape to France.

At the same time some notorious malecontents were arrested, and were

detained for a time on suspicion. Old Roger Lestrange, now in his

eightieth year, was taken up. Ferguson was found hidden under a bed

in Gray's Inn Lane, and was, to the general joy, locked up in Newgate.

[675] Meanwhile a special commission was issued for the trial of the

traitors. There was no want of evidence. For, of the conspirators who

had been seized, ten or twelve were ready to save themselves by bearing

witness against their associates. None had been deeper in guilt,

and none shrank with more abject terror from death, than Porter. The

government consented to spare him, and thus obtained, not only his

evidence, but the much more respectable evidence of Pendergrass.

Pendergrass was in no danger; he had committed no offence; his character

was fair; and his testimony would have far greater weight with a jury

than the testimony of a crowd of approvers swearing for their necks. But

he had the royal word of honour that he should not be a witness without

his own consent; and he was fully determined not to be a witness unless

he were assured of Porter's safety. Porter was now safe; and Pendergrass

had no longer any scruple about relating the whole truth.

Charnock, King and Keyes were set first to the bar. The Chiefs of the

three Courts of Common Law and several other judges were on the bench;

and among the audience were many members of both Houses of Parliament.

It was the eleventh of March. The new Act which regulated the

procedure in cases of high treason was not to come into force till

the twenty-fifth. The culprits urged that, as the Legislature had, by

passing that Act, recognised the justice of allowing them to see their

indictment, and to avail themselves of the assistance of an advocate,

the tribunal ought either to grant them what the highest authority had

declared to be a reasonable indulgence, or to defer the trial for a

fortnight. The judges, however, would consent to no delay. They have

therefore been accused by later writers of using the mere letter of

the law in order to destroy men who, if that law had been construed

according to its spirit, might have had some chance of escape. This

accusation is unjust. The judges undoubtedly carried the real intention

of the Legislature into effect; and, for whatever injustice was

committed, the Legislature, and not the judges, ought to be held

accountable. The words, "twenty-fifth of March," had not slipped into

the Act by mere inadvertence. All parties in Parliament had long been

agreed as to the principle of the new regulations. The only matter about

which there was any dispute was the time at which those regulations

should take effect. After debates extending through several sessions,

after repeated divisions with various results, a compromise had been

made; and it was surely not for the Courts to alter the terms of that

compromise. It may indeed be confidently affirmed that, if the Houses

had foreseen the Assassination Plot, they would have fixed, not an

earlier, but a later day for the commencement of the new system.

Undoubtedly the Parliament, and especially the Whig party, deserved

serious blame. For, if the old rules of procedure gave no unfair

advantage to the Crown, there was no reason for altering them; and if,

as was generally admitted, they did give an unfair advantage to the

Crown, and that against a defendant on trial for his life, they ought

not to have been suffered to continue in force a single day. But no

blame is due to the tribunals for not acting in direct opposition both

to the letter and to the spirit of the law.

The government might indeed have postponed the trials till the new Act

came into force; and it would have been wise, as well as right, to do

so; for the prisoners would have gained nothing by the delay. The case

against them was one on which all the ingenuity of the Inns of Court

could have made no impression. Porter, Pendergrass, De la Rue and others

gave evidence which admitted of no answer. Charnock said the very little

that he had to say with readiness and presence of mind. The jury found

all the defendants guilty. It is not much to the honour of that age that

the announcement of the verdict was received with loud huzzas by the

crowd which surrounded the Courthouse. Those huzzas were renewed when

the three unhappy men, having heard their doom, were brought forth under

a guard. [676]

Charnock had hitherto shown no sign of flinching; but when he was again

in his cell his fortitude gave way. He begged hard for mercy. He

would be content, he said, to pass the rest of his days in an easy

confinement. He asked only for his life. In return for his life, he

promised to discover all that he knew of the schemes of the Jacobites

against the government. If it should appear that he prevaricated or that

he suppressed any thing, he was willing to undergo the utmost rigour

of the law. This offer produced much excitement, and some difference of

opinion, among the councillors of William. But the King decided, as in

such cases he seldom failed to decide, wisely and magnanimously. He

saw that the discovery of the Assassination Plot had changed the whole

posture of affairs. His throne, lately tottering, was fixed on an

immovable basis. His popularity had risen impetuously to as great a

height as when he was on his march from Torbay to London. Many who

had been out of humour with his administration, and who had, in their

spleen, held some communication with Saint Germains, were shocked to

find that they had been, in some sense, leagued with murderers. He would

not drive such persons to despair. He would not even put them to the

blush. Not only should they not be punished; they should not undergo the

humiliation of being pardoned. He would not know that they had offended.

Charnock was left to his fate. [677] When he found that he had no chance

of being received as a deserter, he assumed the dignity of a martyr, and

played his part resolutely to the close. That he might bid farewell to

the world with a better grace, he ordered a fine new coat to be hanged

in, and was very particular on his last day about the powdering and

curling of his wig. [678] Just before he was turned off, he delivered

to the Sheriffs a paper in which he avowed that he had conspired against

the life of the Prince of Orange, but solemnly denied that James had

given any commission authorising assassination. The denial was doubtless

literally correct; but Charnock did not deny, and assuredly could not

with truth have denied, that he had seen a commission written and signed

by James, and containing words which might without any violence be

construed, and which were, by all to whom they were shown, actually

construed, to authorise the murderous ambuscade of Turnham Green.

Indeed Charnock, in another paper, which is still in existence, but has

never been printed, held very different language. He plainly said that,

for reasons too obvious to be mentioned, he could not tell the

whole truth in the paper which he had delivered to the Sheriffs. He

acknowledged that the plot in which he had been engaged seemed, even

to many loyal subjects, highly criminal. They called him assassin

and murderer. Yet what had he done more than had been done by Mucius

Scaevola? Nay, what had he done more than had been done by every body

who bore arms against the Prince of Orange? If an array of twenty

thousand men had suddenly landed in England and surprised the usurper,

this would have been called legitimate war. Did the difference between

war and assassination depend merely on the number of persons engaged?

What then was the smallest number which could lawfully surprise an

enemy? Was it five thousand, or a thousand, or a hundred? Jonathan and

his armourbearer were only two. Yet they made a great slaughter of the

Philistines. Was that assassination? It cannot, said Charnock, be the

mere act, it must be the cause, that makes killing assassination. It

followed that it was not assassination to kill one,--and here the

dying man gave a loose to all his hatred,--who had declared a war of

extermination against loyal subjects, who hung, drew and quartered every

man who stood up for the right, and who had laid waste England to

enrich the Dutch. Charnock admitted that his enterprise would have been

unjustifiable if it had not been authorised by James; but he maintained

that it had been authorised, not indeed expressly, but by implication.

His Majesty had indeed formerly prohibited similar attempts; but

had prohibited them, not as in themselves criminal, but merely as

inexpedient at this or that conjuncture of affairs. Circumstances had

changed. The prohibition might therefore reasonably be considered as

withdrawn. His Majesty's faithful subjects had then only to look to

the words of his commission; and those words, beyond all doubt, fully

warranted an attack on the person of the usurper. [679]

King and Keyes suffered with Charnock. King behaved with firmness and

decency. He acknowledged his crime, and said that he repented of it. He

thought it due to the Church of which he was a member, and on which his

conduct had brought reproach, to declare that he had been misled, not by

any casuistry about tyrannicide, but merely by the violence of his

own evil passions. Poor Keyes was in an agony of terror. His tears and

lamentations moved the pity of some of the spectators. It was said at

the time, and it has often since been repeated, that a servant drawn

into crime by a master was a proper object of royal clemency. But

those who have blamed the severity with which Keyes was treated

have altogether omitted to notice the important circumstance which

distinguished his case from that of every other conspirator. He had been

one of the Blues. He had kept up to the last an intercourse with his

old comrades. On the very day fixed for the murder he had contrived to

mingle with them and to pick up intelligence from them. The regiment had

been so deeply infected with disloyalty that it had been found necessary

to confine some men and to dismiss many more. Surely, if any example

was to be made, it was proper to make an example of the agent by whose

instrumentality the men who meant to shoot the King communicated with

the men whose business was to guard him.

Friend was tried next. His crime was not of so black a dye as that of

the three conspirators who had just suffered. He had indeed invited

foreign enemies to invade the realm, and had made preparations

for joining them. But, though he had been privy to the design of

assassination, he had not been a party to it. His large fortune however,

and the use which he was well known to have made of it, marked him out

as a fit object for punishment. He, like Charnock, asked for counsel,

and, like Charnock, asked in vain. The judges could not relax the law;

and the Attorney General would not postpone the trial. The proceedings

of that day furnish a strong argument in favour of the Act from the

benefit of which Friend was excluded. It is impossible to read them

over at this distance of time without feeling compassion for a silly ill

educated man, unnerved by extreme danger, and opposed to cool, astute

and experienced antagonists. Charnock had defended himself and those

who were tried with him as well as any professional advocate could have

done. But poor Friend was as helpless as a child. He could do little

more than exclaim that he was a Protestant, and that the witnesses

against him were Papists, who had dispensations from their priests for

perjury, and who believed that to swear away the lives of heretics was

a meritorious work. He was so grossly ignorant of law and history as to

imagine that the statute of treasons, passed in the reign of Edward the

Third, at a time when there was only one religion in Western Europe,

contained a clause providing that no Papist should be a witness, and

actually forced the Clerk of the Court to read the whole Act from

beginning to end. About his guilt it was impossible that there could be

a doubt in any rational mind. He was convicted; and he would have been

convicted if he had been allowed the privileges for which he asked.

Parkyns came next. He had been deeply concerned in the worst part of

the plot, and was, in one respect, less excusable than any of his

accomplices; for they were all nonjurors; and he had taken the oaths

to the existing government. He too insisted that he ought to be tried

according to the provisions of the new Act. But the counsel for the

Crown stood on their extreme right; and his request was denied. As he

was a man of considerable abilities, and had been bred to the bar, he

probably said for himself all that counsel could have said for him;

and that all amounted to very little. He was found guilty, and received

sentence of death on the evening of the twenty-fourth of March, within

six hours of the time when the law of which he had vainly demanded the

benefit was to come into force. [680]

The execution of the two knights was eagerly expected by the population

of London. The States General were informed by their correspondent that,

of all sights, that in which the English most delighted was a hanging,

and that, of all hangings within the memory of the oldest man, that of

Friend and Parkyns excited the greatest interest. The multitude had been

incensed against Friend by reports touching the exceeding badness of the

beer which he brewed. It was even rumoured that he had, in his zeal for

the Jacobite cause, poisoned all the casks which he had furnished to the

navy. An innumerable crowd accordingly assembled at Tyburn. Scaffolding

had been put up which formed an immense amphitheatre round the gallows.

On this scaffolding the wealthier spectators stood, row above row; and

expectation was at the height when it was announced that the show was

deferred. The mob broke up in bad humour, and not without many fights

between those who had given money for their places and those who refused

to return it. [681]

The cause of this severe disappointment was a resolution suddenly passed

by the Commons. A member had proposed that a Committee should be sent

to the Tower with authority to examine the prisoners, and to hold out

to them the hope that they might, by a full and ingenuous confession,

obtain the intercession of the House. The debate appears, from the

scanty information which has come down to us, to have been a very

curious one. Parties seemed to have changed characters. It might have

been expected that the Whigs would have been inexorably severe, and

that, if there was any tenderness for the unhappy men, that tenderness

would have been found among the Tories. But in truth many of the Whigs

hoped that they might, by sparing two criminals who had no power to do

mischief, be able to detect and destroy numerous criminals high in rank

and office. On the other hand, every man who had ever had any dealings

direct or indirect with Saint Germains, or who took an interest in any

person likely to have had such dealings, looked forward with dread to

the disclosures which the captives might, under the strong terrors of

death, be induced to make. Seymour, simply because he had gone further

in treason than almost any other member of the House, was louder than

any other member of the House in exclaiming against all indulgence

to his brother traitors. Would the Commons usurp the most sacred

prerogative of the Crown? It was for His Majesty, and not for them, to

judge whether lives justly forfeited could be without danger spared. The

Whigs however carried their point. A Committee, consisting of all the

Privy Councillors in the House, set off instantly for Newgate. Friend

and Parkyns were interrogated, but to no purpose. They had, after

sentence had been passed on them, shown at first some symptoms of

weakness; but their courage had been fortified by the exhortations of

nonjuring divines who had been admitted to the prison. The rumour

was that Parkyns would have given way but for the entreaties of his

daughter, who adjured him to suffer like a man for the good cause. The

criminals acknowledged that they had done the acts of which they had

been convicted, but, with a resolution which is the more respectable

because it seems to have sprung, not from constitutional hardihood, but

from sentiments of honour and religion, refused to say any thing which

could compromise others. [682]

In a few hours the crowd again assembled at Tyburn; and this time the

sightseers were not defrauded of their amusement. They saw indeed

one sight which they had not expected, and which produced a greater

sensation than the execution itself. Jeremy Collier and two other

nonjuring divines of less celebrity, named Cook and Snatt, had attended

the prisoners in Newgate, and were in the cart under the gallows. When

the prayers were over, and just before the hangman did his office, the

three schismatical priests stood up, and laid their hands on the heads

of the dying men who continued to kneel. Collier pronounced a form of

absolution taken from the service for the Visitation of the Sick, and

his brethren exclaimed "Amen!"

This ceremony raised a great outcry; and the outcry became louder

when, a few hours after the execution, the papers delivered by the two

traitors to the Sheriffs were made public. It had been supposed that

Parkyns at least would express some repentance for the crime which had

brought him to the gallows. Indeed he had, before the Committee of the

Commons, owned that the Assassination Plot could not be justified. But,

in his last declaration, he avowed his share in that plot, not only

without a word indicating remorse, but with something which resembled

exultation. Was this a man to be absolved by Christian divines, absolved

before the eyes of tens of thousands, absolved with rites evidently

intended to attract public attention, with rites of which there was no

trace in the Book of Common Prayer or in the practice of the Church of

England?

In journals, pamphlets and broadsides, the insolence of the three

Levites, as they were called, was sharply reprehended. Warrants were

soon out. Cook and Snatt were taken and imprisoned; but Collier was able

to conceal himself, and, by the help of one of the presses which were at

the service of his party, sent forth from his hiding place a defence of

his conduct. He declared that he abhorred assassination as much as any

of those who railed against him; and his general character warrants us

in believing that this declaration was perfectly sincere. But the

rash act into which he had been hurried by party spirit furnished his

adversaries with very plausible reasons for questioning his sincerity.

A crowd of answers to his defence appeared. Preeminent among them in

importance was a solemn manifesto signed by the two Archbishops and by

all the Bishops who were then in London, twelve in number. Even Crewe

of Durham and Sprat of Rochester set their names to this document. They

condemned the proceedings of the three nonjuring divines, as in form

irregular and in substance impious. To remit the sins of impenitent

sinners was a profane abuse of the power which Christ had delegated

to his ministers. It was not denied that Parkyns had planned an

assassination. It was not pretended that he had professed any repentance

for planning an assassination. The plain inference was that the divines

who absolved him did not think it sinful to assassinate King William.

Collier rejoined; but, though a pugnacious controversialist, he on this

occasion shrank from close conflict, and made his escape as well as he

could under a cloud of quotations from Tertullian, Cyprian and Jerome,

Albaspinaeus and Hammond, the Council of Carthage and the Council of

Toledo. The public feeling was strongly against the three absolvers. The

government however wisely determined not to confer on them the honour of

martyrdom. A bill was found against them by the grand jury of Middlesex;

but they were not brought to trial. Cook and Snatt were set at liberty

after a short detention; and Collier would have been treated with equal

lenity if he would have consented to put in bail. But he was determined

to do no act which could be construed into a recognition of the usurping

government. He was therefore outlawed; and when he died, more than

thirty years later, his outlawry had not been reversed. [683]

Parkyns was the last Englishman who was tried for high treason under the

old system of procedure. The first who was tried under the new system

was Rockwood. He was defended by Sir Bartholomew Shower, who in the

preceding reign had made himself unenviably conspicuous as a servile and

cruel sycophant, who had obtained from James the Recordership of

London when Holt honourably resigned it, and who had, as Recorder,

sent soldiers to the gibbet for breaches of military discipline. By

his servile cruelty he had earned the nickname of the Manhunter. Shower

deserved, if any offender deserved, to be excepted from the Act of

Indemnity, and left to the utmost rigour of those laws which he had so

shamelessly perverted. But he had been saved by the clemency of William,

and had requited that clemency by pertinacious and malignant opposition.

[684] It was doubtless on account of Shower's known leaning towards

Jacobitism that he was employed on this occasion. He raised some

technical objections which the Court overruled. On the merits of the

case he could make no defence. The jury returned a verdict of guilty.

Cranburne and Lowick were then tried and convicted. They suffered with

Rookwood; and there the executions stopped. [685]

The temper of the nation was such that the government might have shed

much more blood without incurring the reproach of cruelty. The feeling

which had been called forth by the discovery of the plot continued

during several weeks to increase day by day. Of that feeling the able

men who were at the head of the Whig party made a singularly skilful

use. They saw that the public enthusiasm, if left without guidance,

would exhaust itself in huzzas, healths and bonfires, but might, if

wisely guided, be the means of producing a great and lasting effect. The

Association, into which the Commons had entered while the King's speech

was still in their ears, furnished the means of combining four fifths of

the nation in one vast club for the defence of the order of succession

with which were inseparably combined the dearest liberties of the

English people, and of establishing a test which would distinguish those

who were zealous for that order of succession from those who sullenly

and reluctantly acquiesced in it. Of the five hundred and thirty members

of the Lower House about four hundred and twenty voluntarily subscribed

the instrument which recognised William as rightful and lawful King of

England. It was moved in the Upper House that the same form should be

adopted; but objections were raised by the Tories. Nottingham, ever

conscientious, honourable and narrow minded, declared that he could not

assent to the words "rightful and lawful." He still held, as he had

held from the first, that a prince who had taken the Crown, not by

birthright, but by the gift of the Convention, could not properly be so

described. William was doubtless King in fact, and, as King in fact, was

entitled to the obedience of Christians. "No man," said Nottingham, "has

served or will serve His Majesty more faithfully than I. But to this

document I cannot set my hand." Rochester and Normanby held similar

language. Monmouth, in a speech of two hours and a half, earnestly

exhorted the Lords to agree with the Commons. Burnet was vehement on the

same side. Wharton, whose father had lately died, and who was now Lord

Wharton, appeared in the foremost rank of the Whig peers. But no man

distinguished himself more in the debate than one whose life, both

public and private, had been one long series of faults and disasters,

the incestuous lover of Henrietta Berkeley, the unfortunate lieutenant

of Monmouth. He had recently ceased to be called by the tarnished name

of Grey of Wark, and was now Earl of Tankerville. He spoke on that day

with great force and eloquence for the words, "rightful and lawful."

Leeds, after expressing his regret that a question about a mere phrase

should have produced dissension among noble persons who were all equally

attached to the reigning Sovereign, undertook the office of mediator.

He proposed that their Lordships, instead of recognising William as

rightful and lawful King, should declare that William had the right

by law to the English Crown, and that no other person had any right

whatever to that Crown. Strange to say, almost all the Tory peers were

perfectly satisfied with what Leeds had suggested. Among the Whigs there

was some unwillingness to consent to a change which, slight as it was,

might be thought to indicate a difference of opinion between the two

Houses on a subject of grave importance. But Devonshire and Portland

declared themselves content; their authority prevailed; and the

alteration was made. How a rightful and lawful possessor is to be

distinguished from a possessor who has the exclusive right by law is

a question which a Whig may, without any painful sense of shame,

acknowledge to be beyond the reach of his faculties, and leave to be

discussed by High Churchmen. Eighty-three peers immediately affixed

their names to the amended form of association; and Rochester was among

them. Nottingham, not yet quite satisfied, asked time for consideration.

[686]

Beyond the walls of Parliament there was none of this verbal quibbling.

The language of the House of Commons was adopted by the whole country.

The City of London led the way. Within thirty-six hours after the

Association had been published under the direction of the Speaker it

was subscribed by the Lord Mayor, by the Aldermen, and by almost all the

members of the Common Council. The municipal corporations all over the

kingdom followed the example. The spring assizes were just beginning;

and at every county town the grand jurors and the justices of the peace

put down their names. Soon shopkeepers, artisans, yeomen, farmers,

husbandmen, came by thousands to the tables where the parchments were

laid out. In Westminster there were thirty-seven thousand associators,

in the Tower Hamlets eight thousand, in Southwark eighteen thousand. The

rural parts of Surrey furnished seventeen thousand. At Ipswich all the

freemen signed except two. At Warwick all the male inhabitants who had

attained the age of sixteen signed, except two Papists and two Quakers.

At Taunton, where the memory of the Bloody Circuit was fresh, every man

who could write gave in his adhesion to the government. All the churches

and all the meeting houses in the town were crowded, as they had never

been crowded before, with people who came to thank God for having

preserved him whom they fondly called William the Deliverer. Of all the

counties of England Lancashire was the most Jacobitical. Yet Lancashire

furnished fifty thousand signatures. Of all the great towns of England

Norwich was the most Jacobitical. The magistrates of that city were

supposed to be in the interest of the exiled dynasty. The nonjurors were

numerous, and had, just before the discovery of the plot, seemed to be

in unusual spirits and ventured to take unusual liberties. One of the

chief divines of the schism had preached a sermon there which gave rise

to strange suspicions. He had taken for his text the verse in which the

Prophet Jeremiah announced that the day of vengeance was come, that

the sword would be drunk with blood, that the Lord God of Hosts had a

sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates. Very soon it was

known that, at the time when this discourse was delivered, swords had

actually been sharpening, under the direction of Barclay and Parkyns,

for a bloody sacrifice on the north bank of the river Thames. The

indignation of the common people of Norwich was not to be restrained.

They came in multitudes, though discouraged by the municipal

authorities, to plight faith to William, rightful and lawful King. In

Norfolk the number of signatures amounted to forty-eight thousand, in

Suffolk to seventy thousand. Upwards of five hundred rolls went up

to London from every part of England. The number of names attached to

twenty-seven of those rolls appears from the London Gazette to have been

three hundred and fourteen thousand. After making the largest allowance

for fraud, it seems certain that the Association included the great

majority of the adult male inhabitants of England who were able to sign

their names. The tide of popular feeling was so strong that a man who

was known not to have signed ran considerable risk of being publicly

affronted. In many places nobody appeared without wearing in his hat a

red riband on which were embroidered the words, "General Association

for King William." Once a party of Jacobites had the courage to parade

a street in London with an emblematic device which seemed to indicate

their contempt for the new Solemn League and Covenant. They were

instantly put to rout by the mob, and their leader was well ducked. The

enthusiasm spread to secluded isles, to factories in foreign countries,

to remote colonies. The Association was signed by the rude fishermen

of the Scilly Rocks, by the English merchants of Malaga, by the English

merchants of Genoa, by the citizens of New York, by the tobacco planters

of Virginia and by the sugar planters of Barbadoes. [687]

Emboldened by success, the Whig leaders ventured to proceed a step

further. They brought into the Lower House a bill for the securing of

the King's person and government. By this bill it was provided that

whoever, while the war lasted, should come from France into England

without the royal license should incur the penalties of treason, that

the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act should continue to the end of

the year 1696, and that all functionaries appointed by William should

retain their offices, notwithstanding his death, till his successor

should be pleased to dismiss them. The form of Association which the

House of Commons had adopted was solemnly ratified; and it was provided

that no person should sit in that House or should hold any office, civil

or military, without signing. The Lords were indulged in the use of

their own form; and nothing was said about the clergy.

The Tories, headed by Finch and Seymour, complained bitterly of this

new test, and ventured once to divide, but were defeated. Finch seems to

have been heard patiently; but, notwithstanding all Seymour's eloquence,

the contemptuous manner in which he spoke of the Association raised a

storm against which he could not stand. Loud cries of "the Tower, the

Tower," were heard. Haughty and imperious as he was, he was forced to

explain away his words, and could scarcely, by apologizing in a manner

to which he was little accustomed, save himself from the humiliation of

being called to the bar and reprimanded on his knees. The bill went up

to the Lords, and passed with great speed in spite of the opposition of

Rochester and Nottingham. [688]

The nature and extent of the change which the discovery of the

Assassination Plot had produced in the temper of the House of Commons

and of the nation is strikingly illustrated by the history of a bill

entitled a Bill for the further Regulation of Elections of Members

of Parliament. The moneyed interest was almost entirely Whig, and was

therefore an object of dislike to the Tories. The rapidly growing power

of that interest was generally regarded with jealousy by landowners

whether they were Whigs or Tories. It was something new and monstrous

to see a trader from Lombard Street, who had no tie to the soil of our

island, and whose wealth was entirely personal and movable, post down to

Devonshire or Sussex with a portmanteau full of guineas, offer himself

as candidate for a borough in opposition to a neighbouring gentleman

whose ancestors had been regularly returned ever since the Wars of the

Roses, and come in at the head of the poll. Yet even this was not the

worst. More than one seat in Parliament, it was said, had been bought

and sold over a dish of coffee at Garraway's. The purchaser had not been

required even to go through the form of showing himself to the electors.

Without leaving his counting house in Cheapside, he had been chosen to

represent a place which he had never seen. Such things were intolerable.

No man, it was said, ought to sit in the English legislature who was

not master of some hundreds of acres of English ground. [689] A bill was

accordingly brought in which provided that every member of the House of

Commons must have a certain estate in land. For a knight of a shire the

qualification was fixed at five hundred a year; for a burgess at two

hundred a year. Early in February this bill was read a second time and

referred to a Select Committee. A motion was made that the Committee

should be instructed to add a clause enacting that all elections should

be by ballot. Whether this motion proceeded from a Whig or a Tory, by

what arguments it was supported and on what grounds it was opposed,

we have now no means of discovering. We know only that it was rejected

without a division.

Before the bill came back from the Committee, some of the most

respectable constituent bodies in the kingdom had raised their voices

against the new restriction to which it was proposed to subject them.

There had in general been little sympathy between the commercial towns

and the Universities. For the commercial towns were the chief seats of

Whiggism and Non conformity; and the Universities were zealous for the

Crown and the Church. Now, however, Oxford and Cambridge made common

cause with London and Bristol. It was hard, said the Academics, that a

grave and learned man, sent by a large body of grave and learned men to

the Great Council of the nation, should be thought less fit to sit in

that Council than a boozing clown who had scarcely literature enough

to entitle him to the benefit of clergy. It was hard, said the traders,

that a merchant prince, who had been the first magistrate of the first

city in the world, whose name on the back of a bill commanded entire

confidence at Smyrna and at Genoa, at Hamburg and at Amsterdam, who

had at sea ships every one of which was worth a manor, and who had

repeatedly, when the liberty and religion of the kingdom were in peril,

advanced to the government, at an hour's notice, five or ten thousand

pounds, should be supposed to have a less stake in the prosperity of the

commonwealth than a squire who sold his own bullocks and hops over a pot

of ale at the nearest market town. On the report, it was moved that the

Universities should be excepted; but the motion was lost by a hundred

and fifty-one votes to a hundred and forty-three. On the third reading

it was moved that the City of London should be excepted; but it was not

thought advisable to divide. The final question that the bill do pass,

was carried by a hundred and seventy-three votes to a hundred and fifty

on the day which preceded the discovery of the Assassination Plot. The

Lords agreed to the bill without any amendment.

William had to consider whether he would give or withhold his assent.

The commercial towns of the kingdom, and among them the City of London,

which had always stood firmly by him, and which had extricated him

many times from great embarrassments, implored his protection. It was

represented to him that the Commons were far indeed from being unanimous

on this subject; that, in the last stage, the majority had been only

twenty-three in a full House; that the motion to except the Universities

had been lost by a majority of only eight. On full consideration he

resolved not to pass the bill. Nobody, he said, could accuse him of

acting selfishly on this occasion; his prerogative was not concerned in

the matter; and he could have no objection to the proposed law except

that it would be mischievous to his people.

On the tenth of April 1696, therefore, the Clerk of the Parliament was

commanded to inform the Houses that the King would consider of the Bill

for the further Regulation of Elections. Some violent Tories in the

House of Commons flattered themselves that they might be able to carry

a resolution reflecting on the King. They moved that whoever had advised

His Majesty to refuse his assent to their bill was an enemy to him and

to the nation. Never was a greater blunder committed. The temper of

the House was very different from what it had been on the day when the

address against Portland's grant had been voted by acclamation. The

detection of a murderous conspiracy, the apprehension of a French

invasion, had changed every thing. The King was popular. Every day ten

or twelve bales of parchment covered with the signatures of associators

were laid at his feet. Nothing could be more imprudent than to propose,

at such a time, a thinly disguised vote of censure on him. The

moderate Tories accordingly separated themselves from their angry

and unreasonable brethren. The motion was rejected by two hundred and

nineteen votes to seventy; and the House ordered the question and the

numbers on both sides to be published, in order that the world might

know how completely the attempt to produce a quarrel between the King

and the Parliament had failed. [690]

The country gentlemen might perhaps have been more inclined to resent

the loss of their bill, had they not been put into high goodhumour by

another bill which they considered as even more important. The project

of a Land Bank had been revived; not in the form in which it had, two

years before, been brought under the consideration of the House of

Commons, but in a form much less shocking to common sense and less

open to ridicule. Chamberlayne indeed protested loudly against all

modifications of his plan, and proclaimed, with undiminished confidence,

that he would make all his countrymen rich if they would only let

him. He was not, he said, the first great discoverer whom princes and

statesmen had regarded as a dreamer. Henry the Seventh had, in an evil

hour, refused to listen to Christopher Columbus; the consequence had

been that England had lost the mines of Mexico and Peru; yet what were

the mines of Mexico and Peru to the riches of a nation blessed with an

unlimited paper currency? But the united force of reason and ridicule

had reduced the once numerous sect which followed Chamberlayne to a

small and select company of incorrigible fools. Few even of the squires

now believed in his two great doctrines; the doctrine that the State

can, by merely calling a bundle of old rags ten millions sterling, add

ten millions sterling to the riches of the nation; and the doctrine

that a lease of land for a term of years may be worth many times the fee

simple. But it was still the general opinion of the country gentlemen

that a bank, of which it should be the special business to advance money

on the security of land, might be a great blessing to the nation.

Harley and the Speaker Foley now proposed that such a bank should be

established by Act of Parliament, and promised that, if their plan

was adopted, the King should be amply supplied with money for the next

campaign.

The Whig leaders, and especially Montague, saw that the scheme was a

delusion, that it must speedily fail, and that, before it failed, it

might not improbably ruin their own favourite institution, the Bank of

England. But on this point they had against them, not only the whole

Tory party, but also their master and many of their followers. The

necessities of the State were pressing. The offers of the projectors

were tempting. The Bank of England had, in return for its charter,

advanced to the State only one million at eight per cent. The Land

Bank would advance more than two millions and a half at seven per cent.

William, whose chief object was to procure money for the service of the

year, was little inclined to find fault with any source from which two

millions and a half could be obtained. Sunderland, who generally

exerted his influence in favour of the Whig leaders, failed them on this

occasion. The Whig country gentlemen were delighted by the prospect of

being able to repair their stables, replenish their cellars, and give

portions to their daughters. It was impossible to contend against such a

combination of force. A bill was passed which authorised the government

to borrow two million five hundred and sixty-four thousand pounds at

seven per cent. A fund, arising chiefly from a new tax on salt, was set

apart for the payment of the interest. If, before the first of August,

the subscription for one half of this loan should have been filled,

and if one half of the sum subscribed should have been paid into the

Exchequer, the subscribers were to become a corporate body, under the

name of the National Land Bank. As this bank was expressly intended to

accommodate country gentlemen, it was strictly interdicted from lending

money on any private security other than a mortgage of land, and was

bound to lend on mortgage at least half a million annually. The interest

on this half million was not to exceed three and a half per cent., if

the payments were quarterly, or four per cent., if the payments were

half yearly. At that time the market rate of interest on the best

mortgages was full six per cent. The shrewd observers at the Dutch

Embassy therefore thought that capitalists would eschew all connection

with what must necessarily be a losing concern, and that the

subscription would never be half filled up; and it seems strange that

any sane person should have thought otherwise. [691]

It was vain however to reason against the general infatuation. The

Tories exultingly predicted that the Bank of Robert Harley would

completely eclipse the Bank of Charles Montague. The bill passed both

Houses. On the twenty-seventh of April it received the royal assent; and

the Parliament was immediately afterwards prorogued.