Felton, the assassin of the Duke of Buckingham, by the growing
republican party was hailed as a Brutus, rising, in the style of a
patriotic bard,
Refulgent from the stroke.--AKENSIDE.
Gibbon has thrown a shade of suspicion even over Brutus's "god-like
stroke," as Pope has exalted it. In Felton, a man acting from mixed and
confused motives, the political martyr is entirely lost in the contrite
penitent; he was, however, considered in his own day as a being almost
beyond humanity. Mrs. Macaulay has called him a "lunatic," because the
duke had not been assassinated on the right principle. His motives
appeared even inconceivable to his contemporaries; for Sir Henry
Wotton, who has written a Life of the Duke of Buckingham, observes, that
"what may have been the immediate or greatest motive of that felonious
conception (the duke's assassination) is even yet in the clouds." After
ascertaining that it was not private revenge, he seems to conclude that
it was Dr. Eglisham's furious "libel," and the "remonstrance" of the
parliament, which, having made the duke "one of the foulest monsters on
earth," worked on the dark imagination of Felton.
From Felton's memorable example, and some similar ones, one observation
occurs worth the notice of every minister of state who dares the popular
odium he has raised. Such a minister will always be in present danger of
a violent termination to his career; for however he may be convinced
that there is not political virtue enough in a whole people to afford
"the god-like stroke," he will always have to dread the arm of some
melancholy enthusiast, whose mind, secretly agitated by the public
indignation, directs itself solely on him. It was some time after having
written this reflection, that I discovered the following notice of the
Duke of Buckingham in the unpublished Life of Sir Symonds D'Ewes. "Some
of his friends had advised him how generally he was hated in England,
and how needful it would be for his greater safety to wear some coat of
mail, or some other secret defensive armour, which the duke slighting,
said, 'It needs not; there are no Roman spirits left.'"[246]
An account of the contemporary feelings which sympathised with Felton,
and almost sanctioned the assassin's deed, I gather from the MS. letters
of the times. The public mind, through a long state of discontent, had
been prepared for, and not without an obscure expectation of, the mortal
end of Buckingham. It is certain the duke received many warnings which
he despised. The assassination kindled a tumult of joy throughout the
nation, and a state-libel was written in strong characters in the faces
of the people.[247] The passage of Felton to London, after the
assassination, seemed a triumph. Now pitied, and now blessed, mothers
held up their children to behold the saviour of the country; and an old
woman exclaimed, as Felton passed her, with a scriptural allusion to his
short stature, and the mightiness of Buckingham, "God bless thee, little
David!" Felton was nearly sainted before he reached the metropolis. His
health was the reigning toast among the republicans. A character,
somewhat remarkable, Alexander Gill (usher under his father, Dr. Gill,
master of St. Paul's school), who was the tutor of Milton, and his dear
friend afterwards, and perhaps from whose impressions in early life
Milton derived his vehement hatred of Charles, was committed by the
Star-chamber, heavily fined, and sentenced to lose his ears,[248] on
three charges, one of which arose from drinking a health to Felton. At
Trinity College Gill said that the king was fitter to stand in a
Cheapside shop, with an apron before him, and say, _What lack ye?_ than
to govern a kingdom; that the duke was gone down to hell to see king
James; and drinking a health to Felton, added he was sorry Felton had
deprived him of the honour of doing that brave act.[249] In the taste of
that day, they contrived a political anagram of his name, to express the
immovable self-devotion he showed after the assassination, never
attempting to escape; and John Felton, for the nonce, was made to read,
_Noh! flie not!_
But while Felton's name was echoing through the kingdom, our new Brutus
was at this moment exhibiting a piteous spectacle of remorse; so
different often is the real person himself from the ideal personage of
the public. The assassination, with him, was a sort of theoretical one,
depending, as we shall show, on four propositions; so that when the
king's attorney, as the attorney-general was then called, had furnished
the unhappy criminal with an unexpected argument, which appeared to him
to have overturned his, he declared that he had been in a mistake; and
lamenting that he had not been aware of it before, from that instant his
conscientious spirit sunk into despair. In the open court he stretched
out his arm, offering it as the offending instrument to be first cut
off; he requested the king's leave to wear sackcloth about his loins,
to sprinkle ashes on his head, to carry a halter about his neck, in
testimony of repentance; and that he might sink to the lowest point of
contrition, he insisted on asking pardon not only of the duchess, the
duke's mother, but even of the duke's scullion-boy; and a man naturally
brave was seen always shedding tears, so that no one could have imagined
that Felton had been "a stout soldier." These particulars were given by
one of the divines who attended him, to the writer of the MS.
letter.[250]
The character of Felton must not, however, be conceived from this
agonising scene of contrition. Of melancholy and retired habits, and one
of those thousand officers who had incurred disappointments, both in
promotion and in arrears of pay, from the careless duke, he felt,
perhaps, although he denied it, a degree of personal animosity towards
him. A solitary man who conceives himself injured broods over his
revenge. Felton once cut off a piece of his own finger, inclosing it in
a challenge, to convince the person whom he addressed that he valued not
endangering his whole body, provided it afforded him an opportunity of
vengeance.[251] Yet with all this, such was his love of truth and rigid
honour, that Felton obtained the nickname of "honest Jack," one which,
after the assassination, became extremely popular through the nation.
The religious enthusiasm of the times had also deeply possessed his
mind, and that enthusiasm, as is well known, was of a nature that might
easily occasion its votary to be mistaken for a republican.
Clarendon mentions that in his hat he had sewed a paper, in which were
written a few lines of that remonstrance of the Commons, which appeared
to him to sanction the act. I have seen a letter from Sir D. Carleton to
the queen, detailing the particulars; his lordship was one of those who
saved Felton from the swords of the military around him, who in their
vexation for the loss of their general the duke, which they considered
to be the end of the war, and their ruin, would have avenged
themselves. But though Felton, in conversation with Sir D. Carleton,
confessed that by reading the remonstrance of the parliament it came
into his head, that in committing the act of killing the duke he should
do his country a great good service; yet the paper sewed in his hat,
thinking he might have fallen a victim in the attempt, was different
from that described by Clarendon, and is thus preserved in this letter
to the queen by Sir D. Carleton. "If I be slain, let no man condemn me,
but rather condemn himself. Our hearts are hardened, and become
senseless, or else he had not gone so long unpunished.[252] He is
unworthy the name of a gentleman or soldier, in my opinion, that is
afraid to sacrifice his life for the honour of God, his king, and
country. JOHN FELTON".[253]
Felton's mind had however previously passed through a more evangelical
process: four theological propositions struck the knife into the heart
of the minister. The conscientious assassin, however, accompanied the
fatal blow with a prayer to Heaven, to have mercy on the soul of the
victim; and never was a man murdered with more gospel than the duke. The
following curious document I have discovered in the MS. letter.
Propositions found in Felton's trunk, at the time he slew the duke.
"1. There is no alliance nearer to any one than his country.
"Except his God and his own soul, said the divines.
"2. The safety of the people is the chiefest law.
"Next to the law of God, said these divines.
"3. No law is more sacred than the safety and welfare of the
commonwealth.
"Only God's law is more sacred, said the divines.
"4. God himself hath enacted this law, that all things that are for the
good profit and benefit of the commonwealth should be lawful.
"The divines said, We must not do evil that good may come thereon."
The gradual rise in these extraordinary propositions, with the last
sweeping one, which includes everything lawless as lawful for the common
weal, was at least but feebly parried by the temperate divines, who,
while they were so reasonably referring everything to God, wanted the
vulgar curiosity to inquire, or the philosophical discernment to
discover, that Felton's imagination was driving everything at the duke.
Could they imagine that these were but subtle cobwebs, spun by a closet
speculation on human affairs? In those troubled times did they not give
a thought to the real object of these inquiries? or did they not care
what befel a minion of the state?
There is one bright passage in the history of this unhappy man, who,
when broken down in spirits, firmly asserted the rights of a Briton; and
even the name of John Felton may fill a date in the annals of our
constitutional freedom.
Felton was menaced with torture. Rushworth has noticed the fact, and
given some imperfect notes of his speech, when threatened to be racked;
but the following is not only more ample, but more important in its
essential particulars. When Lord Dorset told him (says the MS. letter)
"Mr. Felton, it is the king's pleasure that you should be put to the
torture, to make you confess your accomplices, and therefore prepare
yourself for the rack:"--Felton answered, "My lord, I do not believe
that it is the king's pleasure, for he is a just and a gracious prince,
and will not have his subjects _tortured against law_. I do affirm upon
my salvation that my purpose was not known to any man living; but if it
be his majesty's pleasure, I am ready to suffer whatever his majesty
will have inflicted upon me. Yet this I must tell you, by the way, that
if I be put upon the rack, I will accuse you, my lord of Dorset, and
none but yourself."[254] This firm and sensible speech silenced them. A
council was held; the judges were consulted; and on this occasion they
came to a very unexpected decision, that "Felton ought not to be
tortured by the rack, for no such punishment is known or allowed by our
law." Thus the judges condemned what the government had constantly
practised. Blackstone yields a fraternal eulogium to the honour of the
judges on this occasion; but Hume more philosophically discovers the
cause of this sudden tenderness. "So much more exact reasoners, with
regard to law, had they become from _the jealous scruples of the House
of Commons_." An argument which may be strengthened from cases which are
unknown to the writers of our history. Not two years before the present
one, a Captain Brodeman, one who had distinguished himself among the
"bold speakers" concerning the king and the duke, had been sent to the
Tower, and was reported to have expired on the rack; the death seems
doubtful, but the fact of his having been racked is repeated in the MS.
letters of the times. The rack has been more frequently used as a state
engine than has reached the knowledge of our historians: secret have
been the deadly embraces of the Duke of Exeter's daughter.[255] It was
only by an original journal of the transactions in the Tower that Burnet
discovered the racking of Anne Askew, a narrative of horror! James the
First incidentally mentions in his account of the powder-plot that this
rack was _shown_ to Guy Fawkes during his examination; and yet under
this prince, mild as his temper was, it had been used in a terrific
manner.[256] Elizabeth but too frequently employed this engine of
arbitrary power; once she had all the servants of the Duke of Norfolk
tortured. I have seen in a MS. of the times heads of charges made
against some members of the House of Commons in Elizabeth's reign, among
which is one for having written against torturing! Yet Coke, the most
eminent of our lawyers, extols the mercy of Elizabeth in the trials of
Essex and Southampton, because she had not used torture against their
accomplices or witnesses. Was it for the head of law itself, as Coke
was, to extol the _mercy_ of the sovereign for not violating the laws,
for not punishing the subject by an illegal act? The truth is, lawyers
are rarely philosophers; the history of the heart, read only in statutes
and law cases, presents the worst side of human nature: they are apt to
consider men as wild beasts; and they have never spoken with any great
abhorrence of what they so erroneously considered a means of obtaining
confession. Long after these times, Sir George Mackenzie, a great lawyer
in the reign of James the Second, used torture in Scotland. We have seen
how the manly spirit of Felton, and the scruples of the Commons,
wrenched the hidden law from judges who had hitherto been too silent;
and produced that unexpected avowal, which condemned all their former
practices. But it was reserved for better times, when philosophy
combining with law, enabled the genius of Blackstone to quote with
admiration the exquisite ridicule of torture by Beccaria.
On a rumour that Felton was condemned to suffer torture, an effusion of
poetry, the ardent breathings of a pure and youthful spirit, was
addressed to the supposed political martyr, by Zouch Townley,[257] of
the ancient family of the Townleys in Lancashire, to whose last
descendant the nation owes the first public collection of ancient
art.[258]
The poem I transcribe from a MS. copy of the time; it appears only to
have circulated in that secret form, for the writer being summoned to
the Star-chamber, and not willing to have any such poem addressed to
himself, escaped to the Hague.