(1716.)
[Illustration: Drop-O]n March 15, 1716, the wily Earl of Wintoun, after
repeated attempts to defer his plea, may be said to have been brought
to bay. The Lords would allow of no further postponements; and, ready
or not ready, they now brought him to trial. He had all due honours
paid him. There was a long processional entry, which opened with the
Lord High Steward’s Gentlemen Attendants, in pairs, and ended with
that great dignitary walking alone, and a supplementary group of pages
bearing his train. Between the two extremes of the procession walked
Clerks and Masters in Chancery, Serjeants at Law, the Judges, the elder
sons of Peers, Heralds, with Garter King-at-Arms in the midst of them,
and the Peers who were the judges in this solemn issue.
[Sidenote: _STATE-TRIAL CEREMONIES._]
When all these great personages had reached their proper places,
the Clerk of the Crown appeared on the floor of the House making
demonstrations of respect, in manner somewhat theatrical. As he
advanced to the Lord High Steward on the wool-pack, he stopped three
times and bowed very low. When he reached the wool-pack, he sank on
one knee, presented the king’s commission for holding the trial, and
then cleverly retired backwards, pausing thrice again to bow, as he
retreated. This little feat having been accomplished to the silent
approbation of the spectators, the Royal Commission was read to the
Peers. At the first word, they arose, taking off their coronets; and,
as the document was long and was in Latin, they seemed relieved when it
was over, and they sank back on their seats with a look of satisfaction.
Further relief ensued when another ballet-sort of movement was
performed by Garter, the lesser Heralds, and a corps of Gentlemen
Ushers. They advanced in a body, executed the triple ‘reverences’ at
the proper moments, and on arriving before the Lord High Steward,
they all went on their knees, while Garter, also kneeling, presented
to the great official the white staff, which was the symbol of his
office. My Lord took what was presented, the effect of which was, that
he was moved from the wool-pack to a chair of state placed on the
highest step but one of the throne. Shortly after, not caring for the
elevation, or finding himself too far removed from the body of the
court to hear accurately what might pass, Lord Cowper descended to the
table――permission being granted by the Peers.
[Sidenote: _LORD WINTOUN IN COURT._]
While this performance was proceeding, three persons were in a
neighbouring chamber――one of whom was the most interested in the
issue. They were the Earl of Wintoun, the Lieutenant of the Tower,
and the Gentleman Gaoler. Whatever may have been the tenour of
their conversation, it was arrested by the triple _Oyez_ of the
Sergeant-at-Arms and his sonorous command, as deputy of the Peers,
to the Lieutenant of the Tower to bring his prisoner into court. The
three gentlemen, of course, instantly obeyed. The Lieutenant, as
deputy-governor of the Tower, preceded the earl, at whose left side
walked the Gentleman Gaoler, carrying the official toy axe, with the
edge turned away from the accused rebel. As soon as Lord Wintoun
crossed the threshold, he made one deep general bow to the hushed
assembly. All the Peers rose and returned a ceremonious salutation.
When all this formality had come to an end, the Lord High Steward
recited the charges on which the earl at the bar was about to be
tried――rebellion, regicide, murder, and robbery――general and particular.
After some preliminary observations on matters which were known to
all the world, the Lord High Steward congratulated Lord Wintoun on
his being about to be tried by the whole body of his peers, summoned
indifferently. ‘Hence,’ added Lord Cowper, ‘your Lordship may be
assured that justice will be administered to you, attended not only
with that common degree of compassion which humanity itself derives to
persons in your condition, but also with that extraordinary concern
for you which naturally flows from a parity of circumstances common
to yourself and to them who judge you――those bonds, the weighty
accusation laid upon you with its consequences, almost only excepted.’
[Sidenote: _OPENING OF THE TRIAL._]
If Lord Wintoun had hitherto felt as he looked, not very seriously
concerned, the last words must have enforced some gravity of feeling
and of bearing. What followed, as it sounded still more gravely, was
calculated to inspire the accused with something like awe. It was to
this effect: ‘You must not hope that if you shall be clearly proved
guilty, their Lordships being under the strongest obligations to do
right that can be laid on noble minds, I mean that of their honour,
will not break through all the difficulties unmerited pity may put in
their way, to do perfect justice upon you, however miserable that may
render your condition.’
Lord Wintoun was then told that he might cross-examine any of the
witnesses brought against him, but that his counsel might _not_. And he
was bidden to observe that he was the first person impeached of high
treason, whose witnesses in defence would be heard upon oath, whereby
their credibility would be equal with that of the sworn witnesses of
the Crown.
[Sidenote: _THE LEGAL ASSAILANTS._]
Finally, Lord Cowper bade the impeachers proceed, on the part of the
Commons, with their work. Thereupon, these gentlemen flew at the earl
like hawks at a defenceless pigeon. As soon as one was out of breath,
and had exhausted one point, a colleague got up, fresh in wind, and
roared out other charges. Mr. Hampden, in opening the accusation,
contrived to strike at other persons as well as at the prisoner. He
ridiculed Lord Wintoun’s plea that he had unconsciously as it were
fallen into rebellion, and that when in it, he was rather passive
than active. Hampden could see some shadow of reason for Papists
seeking to overturn a Protestant throne, and to murder one whom they
called a ‘heretic king;’ but he could not understand the infatuation
of sympathising Protestants on any other ground than that they had
been de-naturalised by the late Tory administration under Queen Anne!
One curious remark was made by Hampden in the course of his speech,
in these words: ‘Whatever misrepresentations other prosecutions were
formally liable to, the notoriety of this rebellion has been so evident
that the most malicious of our enemies want confidence to deny it.’
Sir Joseph Jekyll, who followed, made almost as singular a remark,
namely, in his protest that he could not do so vain and wicked a thing
as to impose upon their lordships or divert them from the true merits
of the case. Jekyll chiefly dwelt on the absurdity of Lord Wintoun
hoping to make anyone believe that he could join the rebel forces, take
his armed retainers with him, march, fight, pray, and plunder for the
Pretender, without meaning any harm to King George.
Jekyll was succeeded by Sir Edward Northey, Attorney-General, in a
practical speech which was a condensed history of the Rebellion. He
laid great stress upon the facts that Lord Wintoun supplied his armed
servants who followed him with two shillings a day as military pay,
and that he distributed among them the blue and white ribbon cockade,
which distinguished the Jacobite soldiers from King George’s troops,
who wore on their caps a cockade of white and red. The hardest blow
struck in this speech was a sarcastic allusion to Wintoun’s comparative
passiveness. When that lord surrendered to Lord Forester at Preston,
said the Attorney-General, his chief complaint was, that the Jacobite
commander, Forster, had not treated him with the consideration due to a
man of quality; except, by putting him in the place of honour when to
fill it was dangerous.
[Sidenote: _THE KING’S WITNESSES._]
These speeches over, the witnesses were called. First came the
approvers――Quarter-master Calderwood, James Lindsay, and Cameron. They
all swore to the presence and active services of Lord Wintoun at every
step of the outbreak. The Lords treated them with great civility, and
the courtesy of the prosecuting counsel was remarkable. But the latter
were so eager to get answers, that before the witness could reply to
Jekyll, Mr. Cowper put a question, while Hampden asked queries of
another deponent who was yet considering how he was to satisfy a demand
made by the Attorney-General!
When Cameron closed his damaging evidence against the earl, the latter
was told by Lord Cowper that he might question the approver, if he
thought proper. Lord Wintoun looked in vain towards his counsel, and
then said, ‘My Lords, I am not prepared, so I hope your Lordships will
do me justice. I was not prepared for my trial. I did not think it
would come on so soon; my material witnesses not being come up; and
therefore I hope you will do me justice, and not make use of Cowper
(Cupar), Law, as we used to say in our country, “_Hang a man first,
and then judge him!_”’
[Sidenote: _THE REV. MR. PATTEN._]
At this sarcastic fling, Lord Cowper exclaimed to the Peers, ‘_Did you
hear?_’――and then begged Lord Wintoun he ‘would be pleased to speak
it again.’ Wintoun only reiterated his demand for more time,――leaving
Cameron to go away without any cross-examination. Then was summoned
the supreme villain among those who had turned king’s evidence,
namely, the Rev. Robert Patten. All eyes were bent on him, all ears
eagerly listening for ‘the parson’s’ revelations. The hearers were
disappointed. Patten, in his replies which affected the earl, merely
stated that he himself joined the rebels at Wooler, and that he first
saw Lord Wintoun at Kelsoe carrying a sword and taking part in the
proclaiming of the Pretender. At Jedburgh, Patten saw my lord at the
head of his men awaiting an attack, which turned out to be a false
alarm. A similar case occurred at Hawick. At Langholme, when some
of the rebel horse went to Dumfries, and part of the Highlanders
withdrew from the English Border, Wintoun went after them, but he
voluntarily returned to the rebel force about to invade England. At
Penrith, he was among the armed men at whose appearance the valiant
_posse comitatus_ suddenly evaporated. At Kirby, Patten stated that
he dined with _all_ the lords, and that, after dinner, they drank to
the Pretender, and success to the cause in hand. To this, the approver
added that he was present when the rebels carried off the guns which
they employed against the king’s forces at Preston, where he saw the
lord at the bar actively engaged. This was the sum of this witness’s
deposition, which was made in a few minutes. ◆[Sidenote: _PATTEN’S
CHARACTER OF WINTOUN._]◆ In one part of it, he expressed ignorance of
Wintoun’s opinions with regard to the march into England. After the
trial, however, in a book which he published, Patten spoke of Lord
Wintoun as follows: ‘This Earl wants no courage, nor so much capacity
as his friends find it for his interest to suggest, especially, if we
may judge by the counsel he gave. He was always forward for action
but never for the march into England, and he ceased not to thwart the
schemes which the Northumberland gentlemen laid down for marching
into England, not so much from the certainty, as he said there was,
of their being overpowered, as from the greater opportunity, which he
insisted there was, of doing service to their cause in Scotland, in
order to which he argued with and pressed them back into Scotland,
and, leaving Edinburgh and Stirling to their fate, to go and join the
Western Clans, attacking in their way the town of Dumfries and Glasgow,
and other places, and then open a communication with the Earl of Mar
and his forces. Which advice, if followed, in all probability would
have tended to their great advantage, the king’s forces being then so
small. However, therefore, some people have represented that Lord, all
his actions, both before a prisoner and whilst such, till he made his
escape out of the Tower, speak him to be master of more penetration
than many of those whose characters suffer no blemish as to their
understandings.’
[Sidenote: _MILITARY WITNESSES._]
When Patten retired, the audience felt that the chief actor had left
the stage, and that he had not come up to the general expectation. The
officers of the royal army succeeded him. Lord Forrester (being a lord,
he was ordered rather than allowed, to be seated on a chair) deposed
that in the attack on Preston, his regiment alone had thirty men killed
and forty wounded. On entering the place, he found the lords at the
_Mitre_ tavern, where he disarmed them, Wintoun delivering up his
pistols.
General Carpenter, who had been summoned at the earl’s request, spoke
to the attack and surrender. It was then seen why he had been called
by the earl,――who asked the very absurd question,――if _he_ had had
anything to do with the capitulation. Carpenter replied that Wintoun
did not directly and personally interfere, but that he was included
under the general treaty. Carpenter positively declared that he had
held out no hope to the rebels that surrender would necessarily ensure
the safety of their lives. When General Wills came forward to add his
testimony, the attention of the audience was deepened, to hear if,
on the last point, he would corroborate General Carpenter, and the
audience must have been satisfied that no assurance of mercy was held
out even to induce the Jacobites to surrender. General Wills deposed
that when the first overture was made, by Mr. Oxburgh (an Irish
ex-officer), sent out by Forster, the former offered that the force
in Preston should lay down their arms and submit; and he expressed a
hope that General Wills would ‘recommend them to the king’s mercy.’
◆[Sidenote: _THE SURRENDER AT PRESTON._]◆ On this, Wills refused to
treat at all with rebels who had slain the king’s subjects; but, on
pressure of appeal to his sense of honour and feelings of mercy, he,
Wills, agreed that if the rebels would surrender at discretion, ‘he
would prevent the soldiers from cutting them to pieces.’ It was while
these terms were under consideration that the Earl of Derwentwater and
Mr. Mackintosh were sent to the English camp, as hostages, that nothing
might be carried on for future furtherance of the defence, while the
terms were being considered. At seven o’clock in the morning of the
next day, Forster sent notice of their willingness to surrender at
discretion. Mackintosh, standing near Wills, expressed his doubt of the
Scots consenting to surrender on such terms. The negotiation was then,
temporarily, broken off, but, at last, the surrender at discretion
was made and accepted. Wills reiterated that no hope of mercy was
held out to induce them to yield the place and themselves. Patten, in
his ‘History of the Rebellion,’ states, in confirmation of the above,
that he ‘heard the answer which Colonel Cotton, whilst he was at the
White Bull, gave to a gentleman among the Rebels, who asked if they
might have mercy.’――‘That, Sir, I cannot assure you of,’ replied the
Colonel, ‘but I know the King to be a very merciful Prince;’ and then
he demanded of all the noblemen and gentlemen ‘to give their Parole of
Honours to perform what they on their part promised.’
[Sidenote: _A PRISONER AT BAY._]
When Lord Wintoun asked Wills if he had not attacked the town
without summoning it, thus _compelling_ it to resist, Wills readily
answered that such was the case, but then, while he was viewing
the place, the rebels shot two of his dragoons, and the attack was
made in consequence. Colonels Cotton and Churchill, with Brigadier
Munden, confirmed the testimony of their commanders by whom they had
been sent into the town to treat with the insurgents. Wintoun asked
Cotton if some of the rebel soldiers had not been shot, after the
capitulation. The Colonel, answering as readily as Wills, said, ‘Yes,
certainly; because they were trying to escape, contrary to the letter
and spirit of the terms of surrender.’ That was partly the reason why,
as Brigadier Munden said, when the leaders of the rebel force were
taken to the English camp, ‘Mr. Wills received them with the utmost
detestation and contempt.’
When the Lord High Steward called on Wintoun for his defence, the earl
made the whole audience smile, by his cool demand for a month in which
to prepare it. He had never seen his counsel, he said, but once. He
knew nothing of law. His witnesses were on their road, delayed by the
bad weather which made travelling difficult. ‘They will be of no use
to me,’ he said, ‘if they arrive after I am dead!’ Up to this time,
his counsel had not opened their mouths, and lest they should do so
now, the Attorney-General and Mr. Cowper started to their feet and
made speeches against any delay in a trial which had once commenced.
◆[Sidenote: _INCIDENTS OF THE TRIAL._]◆ Cowper was particularly
bitter――he who afterwards needed judicial indulgence, and was so near
being hanged himself! The public looked on from the galleries like
spectators gazing into the arena where a deadly struggle for life was
going on. When, at the close of the day, the Peers refused to allow
Wintoun further time, as being contrary to custom after a man was once
on trial, the earl remarked: ‘I think it very hard and great injustice
that I should be tied down to a foolish form, when I am in danger of
my life!’ He curtly bowed, walked out between his two over-officious
friends, the Lieutenant and the Gentleman with the axe, and was shortly
after conveyed in a carriage to the Tower. The mob did not know how it
had gone with him. They were silent. In the coffee-houses, the earl’s
sayings and doings of the day gave additional liveliness to those not
usually dull localities. But, on that night, the men who brought news
were more welcome than the men who brought nothing but wit.
[Sidenote: _WINTOUN BAITED BY COWPER._]
On the second day of the trial, after the usual processional
circumstance, and a formal permission to the Judges to put their hats
on over their wigs, Lord Wintoun was again called upon for his defence.
He looked towards his counsel. His counsel looked towards him. The earl
then said to the clerk, who stood near him throughout the trial, and
repeated his words aloud to the House, that he was ignorant of law, and
that his counsel would speak for him. Then ensued a scene that occurred
more than once while the trial was in progress. The Lord High Steward
complained that he had to tell the earl again and again that his
counsel dared not speak except to a point of law, and that he, against
whom the indictment was laid, must first state what the point of law
was! He was then invited to state it. The earl answered, with the
slightest touch of impatience, ‘It is impossible for me to do a thing
I don’t understand. I don’t know what the point of law is no more than
a man that knows nothing about it!’ At this natural remark some of the
lords tittered; whereupon Lord Wintoun said with quite natural gravity:
‘I am only speaking in my own defence. I do not expect to be laughed
at!’ On which words, falling amid a sudden silence, the Lord High
Steward came to the earl’s support, saying with dignity: ‘I think his
Lordship does observe well. I hope every one will forbear that!’ At the
end of this incident, the old dialogue was renewed. Wintoun was invited
to speak; he referred to his counsel; Lord Cowper explained the law and
custom, till he was weary of repeating it, but Wintoun was never weary
of provoking him to the tiresome process.
At length, Wintoun, the Jacobite earl, asserting that it would be
useless to produce his witnesses then in town, until he could bring up
others from the North to corroborate them, demanded further delay. Mr.
Cowper impatiently arose to press for immediate proceeding. He taunted
the earl by acknowledging that he had taken the best course he could
in such desperate circumstances; beating about the bush; fencing with
direct questions; trying to show that he might commit treason without
being a traitor;――yet being unable to disprove what had been alleged
and confirmed against him.
[Sidenote: _THE KING’S COUNSEL._]
Wintoun fearlessly replied that his counsel could show he was
incapable of committing treason, with which crime he was charged in
the indictment. This was in his boldest style of fencing. There can
be no doubt that when he asserted the loyalty of himself and family,
and denied that he had any design to overthrow the constitution of the
realm, he thought of loyalty to James III. and the constitution as it
was established under the Stuarts. At length, the Lord High Steward
bade the managers for the Commons to proceed. Mr. Cowper jumped to his
feet, and showed with alacrity that every iota of evidence against the
prisoner was confirmed. He alluded to no rebutting testimony being
even attempted; and, with something of a sneer, he commented on the
absurdity of Lord Wintoun wishing his treason to be viewed in a light
that should make it appear something quite different.
When Mr. Cowper had finished, Sir William Thomson rose to make his
thrust at a man who could not speak for himself, and who was not yet
allowed to have others speak for him. Sir William was strongest when he
denounced Wintoun’s plea,――that there were circumstances in his case
which made it different from that of others, and entitled him to be
more mildly dealt with,――as simply nonsense. It certainly was ignoble.
As for the earl’s innocence of heart, ignorance of law, and loyalty to
‘the King,’ Sir William laughed at all three. He concluded by a demand
for ‘justice,’ as the only way of obtaining safety and security for
England.
[Sidenote: _THE VERDICT._]
Then, without a word having been spoken in Wintoun’s defence, the
verdict of the peers was taken. There were ninety present. Thomas,
Lord Parker, was the first called upon to pronounce an opinion; and
this youngest lord, whose coronet was not a week old, arose, placed
his right hand on the spot where he supposed his heart to be, said
‘_Guilty_, upon my honour!’ and resumed his seat. Each succeeding peer
performed exactly the same action, and repeated precisely the same
words. The last fatal word was pronounced by the Lord High Steward
himself. Not one of the ninety was favourable to Wintoun, but the first
who pledged his honour to the verdict soon became a greater criminal
than the lord at the bar. He it was who as Lord Chancellor, the Earl of
Macclesfield, anticipated being driven from his post by resigning the
Great Seal. He had sold masterships in Chancery for great sums of gold,
and winked at, if he did not encourage, those masters in recuperating
their purchase money by embezzling that of the suitors.
Wintoun heard the adverse judgment with perfect calmness, but that
Friday night’s drive from Westminster Hall to the Tower was not a
pleasant one. The Gentleman Gaoler carried his axe all the way, with
the edge towards the condemned earl. The London Jacobites, as they
grouped together in their public or private resorts, had some faint
hope in an application for arrest of judgment.
[Sidenote: _SIR CONSTANTINE PHIPPS._]
The day to make that application was Monday, March 19th. All the
preliminary ceremonies having been duly performed, the earl was asked
what he had to say why judgment should not pass. Wintoun turned his
eyes towards Sir Constantine Phipps, and that great lawyer, in the most
apologetic tone, had only half expressed his ‘humble hopes that, if
their lordships pleased, there was a point of law,’――when, suddenly,
the Attorney-General arose in a flutter of indignation, ‘I hear,’
he cried in a sort of pious horror, ‘a gentleman of the long robe
offering to speak!――and to a point of law; before, too, the accused
had propounded the point, and their lordships had allowed that it was
one!’ The Attorney, having fallen back on his seat, full of breathless
amazement, Mr. Cowper, with the utmost legal fervour, could hardly find
words to express his surprise that Sir Constantine should presume to
speak! ‘If,’ said Phipps, ‘I had only been heard ten words more――――.’
‘No!’ interrupted Thomson, ‘he has no right to be heard one word
more!’ And the Lord High Steward followed with a stinging rebuke at
Sir Constantine’s audacity in daring to speak before he had obtained
the permission of the House. That was what Phipps was about to ask
for when Northey heard his voice and choked it in the utterance. Sir
Constantine sat perfectly silent under the accumulated rebuke, but he
was at length allowed to speak on the point that in the impeachment the
time of any alleged overt act was not stated with proper certainty. The
Jacobite lawyer made a good speech, in which he said that,――if in an
indictment for less perilous actions the time of action was omitted,
the indictment would fail. How much more should an indictment fall
through which perilled life, and omitted to state the date on which
the act was committed, which placed the accused in danger of death.
To general charges the Earl of Wintoun could not be expected to give
particular answers. Had a day been named, which brought him and a
stated act together, he might have brought forward witnesses to prove
an _alibi_. But every charge was laid down against acts committed ‘_on
or about_.’
[Sidenote: _A FIGHT FOR LIFE._]
Williams followed up his leader on this line by saying that ‘on or
about!’ a certain day would be bad; ‘on or about September,’ worse;
but ‘in or about September, October, and November,’ was worse than
all. Then, in allusion to Wintoun being called ‘the unhappy lord,’
Williams remarked, ‘He is unhappy as being in that doubtful state of
memory,――not insane enough to be within the protection of the law, nor
sane enough to do himself in any respect the least service whatever.’
At this natural observation all the managers of the Commons became
‘uneasy,’ as they said, at the learned gentleman going into a matter
of fact. Mr. Williams therefore restored their equanimity by simply
declaring that as the impeachment was defective, judgment should not be
executed.
[Sidenote: _THE FIGHT GROWS FURIOUS._]
The managers and their legal advisers had agreed that Lord Wintoun’s
counsel should be allowed to speak only on condition that the managers
of the impeachment on the other side should have the last words. They
followed accordingly. Mr. Robert Walpole suggested that Sir Constantine
Phipps had forgotten that Lord Wintoun’s case was not in an ordinary
court of law, but in a Court of Parliament, which was not to be bound
by common procedure. ‘What might quench,’ he said, ‘an Indictment in
the courts below should never make insufficient an Impeachment brought
by the Commons of Great Britain.’ The delighted Attorney-General went
on the same war-path, and proclaimed that parliamentary impeachments
were not to be governed by the forms of Westminster Hall. Mr. Cowper
added that the courts below had many forms for which no reason could be
given. ‘I believe,’ he said, ‘in parliamentary process, that nothing is
necessary that is not material.’ ‘Besides,’ said Thomson, ‘time, date,
and places _were_ laid in the five days at Preston. For the deeds done
there, Lord Wintoun had been convicted, and judgment could not legally
be stayed.’
Phipps and his colleagues replied that they were not convinced by
the arguments of their opponents; and the Attorney-General had the
last word in a speech, the chief point in which was the assertion,
sarcastically conveyed, that as far as concerned the rights of the
Commons of Great Britain, Lord Wintoun’s counsel had left the case just
where they found it.
Lastly, ‘the unhappy lord’ himself, who was the subject of this mortal
controversy, was asked if _he_ had anything to say why the sentence
of the law should not be carried out against him. He referred to
his counsel, and then the old series of explanations and irritable
squabbling, which Wintoun seemed delighted to provoke, ensued. At
length, on being told that if anything was to be said in arrest of
judgment, it must come from him, the doomed earl tranquilly remarked,
‘Since your lordships will not allow my counsel to speak, _I don’t know
nothing_.’
[Sidenote: _THE SENTENCE._]
The Lord High Steward then proceeded to deliver sentence. He prefaced
it by a speech, full of commonplaces about his own office, the crime
of rebellion, and the duty of punishing rebels. Lord Cowper then
proceeded to reconcile the earl with what he had to go through, by
observing:――‘Believe it, notwithstanding the unfair arts and industry
used to stir up a pernicious excess of commiseration towards such as
have fallen by the sword of justice (few if compared with the numbers
of good subjects murdered from doors and windows of Preston only), the
life of one honest loyal subject is more precious in the eye of God,
and all considering men, than the lives of many rebels and parricides!’
The Lord High Steward fully illustrated those sentiments by condemning
the earl to be hanged, to be cut down alive, to be ‘disembowelled
before his face, the bowels to be burnt, and the body quartered.’ It
was the old sentence against treason. Its form and spirit showed the
ancient horror of that crime.
[Sidenote: _DOOM BORNE WORTHILY._]
The Earl of Wintoun behaved as became a gentleman. He was calm and
dignified. His bearing won for him much sympathy. He turned away from
the bar, with his head nobly raised, his eye fixed on the edge of
the axe which was now carried thus significantly before him, and with
something on his brow that may have been the reflection of his thoughts
that he had not so nearly done with life as their sternly polite
lordships perhaps expected.
Lady Cowper made rather harsh record of Wintoun in her Diary. She says,
‘He received sentence of death, but behaved himself in a manner to
persuade a world of people that he was a natural fool, or mad, though
his natural character is that of a stubborn, illiterate, ill-bred
brute. He has eight wives. I can’t but be peevish at all this fuss
to go Fool-hunting. Sure, if it is as people say, he might have been
declared incapable of committing Treason.’
The truth is that the ‘illiterate brute’ may have spoken such English
as he used to hear in the smithy, but it was as good as much that was
spoken by country squires. The Jacobites would have made London echo
with their shouts if he had been acquitted. The Whigs manifested no
gladness that he was condemned. His passage to the Tower was witnessed
in respectful silence.
The Earl of Wintoun never asked nor sanctioned others to ask for
the life he had forfeited. He had defended it, but not altogether
heroically, for he had attempted to show that he had been deluded into
joining the rebels, that he had never been actively engaged for them,
and had never had an opportunity of escaping from them. Apart the
defence, his action was not without dignity; and the ultimate result
showed that he had more brains than he had credit for, even from the
friends and acquaintances who imagined they knew him best.
[Sidenote: _THE JACOBITE LAWYER._]
It is fair to Lord Wintoun’s Jacobite defender to say that Sir
Constantine――the displaced Tory Lord Chancellor of Ireland――did his
duty, at Lord Wintoun’s trial, in an able and dignified way. Duhigg, in
his ‘History of the King’s Inns,’ states, that after Phipps returned
to the English bar, ‘he seemed to consider official station as still
encircling him, and violated professional decorum at the bar of the
House of Lords, for which that august assembly most justly gave the
offender a public reprimand.’ The comment of Mr. O’Flanagan, in his
biography of Phipps, in the ‘Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland,’
is――‘The historian of the King’s Inns uses such strong language in
reference to all whom he dislikes, that I am not disposed to place
implicit reliance on all his statements.’ The Tory party naturally
honoured Sir Constantine, often escorting him to his mansion in the
new, fashionable, and semirural Ormond Street, with marks of enthusiasm.
The mug-houses, the coffee-houses, and the taverns, were crowded with
people more or less excited by the trial and its results. Friends
and acquaintances spoke without reserve, but when a stranger drew
near a group, the topic was changed. Some spoke of the new play, ‘The
Drummer,’ which they had seen on the previous Saturday, and others
talked of friends who had gone to the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre,
to patronise the benefit performance of Bullock, the favourite low
comedian of the time.
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