(1716.)
[Sidenote: _DAVID LINDSAY._]
[Illustration: Drop-T]here were some of the unfortunate doomed men in
Newgate who had heard ‘the legend of Lindsay,’ an old Jacobite captive
there, and they boasted they would be as true to the cause as Davy
had been. This David Lindsay had been guilty of traitorous visits to
France, but, comprehended within an amnesty, he returned to England,
where, under an Act of William III.’s time, he was tried, convicted,
and sentenced to die. His real offence was his refusal to betray his
confederates in the interest of King James. In spite of the amnesty,
David was carted to Tyburn, serving for an unusual public holiday. When
his neck was in the fatal noose, the sheriff tested David’s courage,
by telling him he might yet save his life on condition of revealing
the names of alleged traitors conspiring at St. Germain or in Scotland
against Queen Anne. David, however sorely tempted, declined to save
his neck on such terms. Thereupon, the sheriff ordered the cart to
drive on; but even this move towards leaving Lindsay suspended did not
shake his stout spirit. All this time the sheriff had a reprieve for
the unnecessarily tortured fellow in his pocket. Before the cart was
fairly from under Lindsay’s feet, it was stopped, or he would have been
murdered. The mob beheld the unusual sight of a man, brought to Tyburn
to be hanged, returning, eastward ho, alive! Whether it had not been
as well for him to have gone through with it while he was about it, is
a nice question. In such case his suffering would have been quickly
ended; whereas, he was closely confined, and nearly starved, in the
most loathsome of the Newgate holes; and at the end of three or four
years was condemned to perpetual banishment from the English dominions.
Lindsay found means to reach Holland, where all other means failed him.
He died there of hunger and exposure, but the fidelity of the poor
Jacobite was remembered in Newgate; and equally unfortunate Jacobites
declared they would be as true as David Lindsay.
On the day after the burst from Newgate, the trials of the Jacobite
rebels, of gentle, and of lower, degree, formed a rare show for the
Londoners. On the 5th of May, seven coaches, carrying prisoners and
armed messengers within, and surrounded by armed guards, set out in
procession from Newgate to Westminster. The streets were thronged to
see them pass. Sympathisers and opponents in the crowd got up fights
in support of their respective opinions. The former cheered lustily.
The populace were at the very height of their enjoyment, when the
procession was suddenly stopped. It then turned and began to retrace
its steps; finally, it became known that the judges at Westminster,
flurried at the escape of so many prisoners the night before, had
postponed arraignments and trials till the 7th, and had sent messengers
with orders for the return of the dismal array to the place from whence
it had come.
[Sidenote: _TRIALS OF REBEL OFFICERS._]
On Monday the 7th were to have been arraigned at the Exchequer Bar, at
Westminster, the Brigadier Mackintosh, Richard Gascogne, Henry Oxburgh,
Alexander Menzies, and John Robertson. The brigadier having otherwise
disposed of himself, Gascogne, said to be six feet eight in height,
was put to the bar. Gascogne pleaded for more time, ‘very modestly,’
in order to find an important witness. This was allowed, but the chief
judge expressed an opinion that applications for putting off trials
were often made with a view of escaping altogether, if possible; and
that the gaolers had better look more sharply after their prisoners.
Fourteen other prisoners were arraigned;[6] they pleaded ‘Not Guilty,’
and Henry Oxburgh was subsequently put upon trial for his life.
Short work was made with some of the accused Jacobites, or these made
short work with the judges. Charles Radcliffe, for instance, when
brought up for trial, declined to plead, and was returned _Guilty_.
Later, the streets were crowded to see the procession of half a dozen
coaches, containing Mr. Radcliffe and eleven others, to Westminster,
where the convicted dozen were condemned to death.
[Sidenote: _COLONEL OXBURGH._]
The trials bore a grim similitude to each other. That of Colonel
Oxburgh was as grim as any that followed. King’s Counsel denounced
rebellion, in general. King’s evidence, like knave Patten and his
fellow knave, Quarter-Master Calderwood, denounced this rebel, in
particular. They swore to his presence and great activity on the rebel
side, to which both rascals had belonged, at Preston. There was no
gainsaying it. Oxburgh’s counsel took exception to his name which,
falsely spelt in the indictment as Oxborough, rendered it invalid. This
catching at a straw was of no avail. They then protested that he was
never in arms. He wore a sword? Yes, every gentleman wore a sword! What
then? Besides he had surrendered upon hopes of mercy. These and other
throwings out of matters of little use to a drowning man, could not
rescue their gentleman-like client. The judge was brief. The jury were
briefer. Speech and reflection were quickly over. Oxburgh was found
_Guilty_, and the judge pronounced the disgusting sentence, hanging,
disembowelling, and quartering, without sparing a word of it. Colonel
Oxburgh stood calm; he was a little pale, but he turned from the jury
with the air of a gentleman, as the gaoler beckoned him away, to his
approaching fate.
[Sidenote: _THE COLONEL AT TYBURN._]
A few days after, on Monday, the 14th of May, Colonel Oxburgh was
executed at Tyburn. From the time he was sentenced till he died, the
gallant soldier behaved with unostentatious bravery. ‘To give the
Colonel his Due,’ says the ‘Mercurius Politicus,’ against which no
charge of sympathy will lie, ‘his Behaviour was very composed, and
though decently Bold, yet very Serious and Religious in his Way. It
is reported,’ adds ‘Mercurius,’ ‘that he fasted the day before his
execution, and that all the prisoners who were Romans did the like
for him; and then sent him word, they would come and visit him, if he
pleased; but he thanked them, and declined it, desiring to be alone in
his preparations. He was drawn in a sledge, with a book in his hand,
on which he fixed his eyes, without once looking up till he came to
the place of execution. When he was in the Cart, he applied himself
immediately to his private devotions; and afterwards delivered the
following paper to the Sheriff.’
The paper here alluded to abounded in sentiments of charity. The
writer died ‘a member of the Holy Roman Catholic Church,’ in charity
with all men, including those who had brought him to this death, for
whom he desired the blessings that he himself had missed. Oxburgh
solemnly declared that his allegiance to James III. was not paid to
that prince as a Catholic, but as his legitimate sovereign. It would
have been rendered as unreservedly had James been a Protestant. He then
expressed, without bitterness, his disappointment that England should
be, as he believed, ‘the only country where prisoners at discretion
are not understood to have their lives saved.’ Finally, he prayed for
unity and happiness among Englishmen, whose only objects, he trusted,
would soon be, the glory of God and the true interests of the nation.
Noble as the sentiments of this last address of a dying man must be
allowed to be, it gave great offence to the Whigs and Hanoverians. An
_ultra_ among both those classes declared that ‘Lord Derwentwater’s
speech and Colonel Oxburgh’s paper, both certainly came out of the same
mint; for they were sent to the printer’s, both written in the same
hand. So that we doubt not but that there is a common speech-maker for
the party, and much good may do him with his office!’ In examining
the two addresses, the ultra Whig says he is doing no wrong to the
English peer or to the brave soldier, but that he is only dealing with
a ‘cunning Jesuit.’ The examination of the document extends to more
than five columns of a newspaper, and is in the fierce ultra-Protestant
spirit of the times.
[Sidenote: _A HEAD ON TEMPLE BAR._]
On the evening of this execution, a man was seen, with a small bundle
under his arm, ascending a ladder, to the top of Temple Bar. Arrived
there he took the white cloth from off that which he had carried in it,
and then the men and boys gathered below saw that it was a human head.
The man thrust it on to an upright iron rod, then descended to the cart
which awaited him, and drove away towards Newgate. Next day, idlers
were peering at the head through a glass, and pious ‘Romans’ secretly
crossed themselves and prayed that Heaven would give rest to the soul
of the colonel. ‘And may God damn those who put his head up yonder!’
cried a too zealous Jacobite, who got a month in the Compter for his
outspokenness.
There was not a coffee-house in which Colonel Oxburgh’s paper was not
discussed. In a Tory house in St. Paul’s Churchyard, one guest read the
document aloud to the company, who listened with profound attention.
When the reader came to the part in which the colonel said, that his
life should have been granted to him as he surrendered at discretion,
an old Tory remarked, ‘Had it happened in the good Queen’s time not
a soul of ’em would have suffered!’ He then added with a sigh, ‘But
God preserve the Church!’ A taciturn Whig guest who happened to be in
the room, reported this incident to the papers, as illustrating the
disloyal spirit of the ‘_Jacks_.’
[Sidenote: _MORE TRIALS._]
The trials went on rapidly at the Marshalsea and in Westminster Hall.
The day after Oxburgh was condemned, James Home, said to be a brother,
but really a son of Earl Home, was tried with Mr. Farquharson. The
evidence differed but little, yet the jury seeing that it might lead
them to infer that Farquharson was more certainly forced into the rebel
ranks than Home, found the latter guilty, and acquitted Farquharson.
This Southwark jury accordingly began to be suspected of Jacobite
proclivities by the Whigs, and their ripeness of judgment to be doubted
by ‘my lords.’ In Westminster Hall, the jury went more in accordance
with what were held to be loyal principles. Mr. Menzies was tried there
on May 11th. It was shown that he was with the rebels, from Perth
to Preston; but no overt act could be proved against him. Menzies,
undoubtedly, tried to escape from the Jacobites who held him, and he
was so holden probably, because he had openly spoken in favour of King
George. He certainly never was in action. It was urged against him
that he had not persisted in making attempts to escape; but, it was
answered, that those who failed in such attempts were cruelly treated.
The law was pressed more cruelly against him now. The judges ruled that
his appearance among rebels, although he exercised no command, nor
shared in any hostilities, was high treason. The obsequious jury found
accordingly, and this poor gentleman was sentenced to death.
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE JURYMEN._]
Jacobite construction of law and judicial leaning had its turn at the
Marshalsea on the 12th. Two Douglases, with Maclean, Scrimshire, and
Skeen, retracted the plea of ‘not guilty,’ which they had made when
they were arraigned, and now pleaded ‘guilty,’ throwing themselves
on the king’s mercy. It was beginning to be understood that such
acknowledgment would save the lives of the less prominent Jacobites,
though it might not win their liberty. Two others, Ferguson and Innes,
stood stoutly to the plea which they had made on the day of their
arraigning. They asserted, and their assertion was sustained by very
good evidence, that their presence with the rebels was involuntary;
their action, the result of force applied against them. The jury
acquitted both gentlemen. Then arose a shout and a joyous disorder in
court. Numerous Jacobite gentlemen eagerly pressed forward, some to
shake hands with, others to embrace, the so-called unwilling friends of
James III. The bench was naturally indignant with audience and jury.
Two of the noisiest offenders were seized and brought up to suffer for
their offences. One, a Lambeth tallow-chandler (waiting, it was said,
on a summons to be a juryman), was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment
and a fine of 100_l._ The second offender, a looking-glass maker’s son,
on London Bridge, was condemned to the same term of imprisonment and
half the amount of fine.
[Sidenote: _TOWNELEY AND TILDESLEY._]
On May 15th, two important trials attracted universal interest. The
accused persons were gentlemen of great estate in Lancashire, namely,
‘Towneley of Towneley,’ and ‘Tildesley of the Lodge.’ The evidence
was very damaging against both. On the king’s side it was proved that
Towneley headed the troops called by his name, in a red waistcoat and
with a blunderbuss. His butler, coachman, and postillions rode in that
troop. He joined at Preston, of his own free will, and might have left
it whenever he chose up to the time of its being invested. The badness
of the cause of both prisoners was shown by an attempt made to bribe
the king’s witnesses to get out of the way. There was also a Tildesley
troop, and although Mr. Tildesley was never seen at the head of it,
he was seen with his sword drawn, and it was certain that he dined in
Preston with rebel officers, and drank rebel toasts.
[Sidenote: _THEIR TRIALS._]
For Towneley, it was alleged that he first fled from his own house
to avoid the militia, and that in his flight he was taken by rebels
and kept under constraint in Preston, whither he had sent horses
and servants for safety. This statement was treated with scorn by
the king’s counsel, especially the idea of his flying _from_ the
king’s forces to find refuge with traitors. The answer to this――that
a Romanist under suspicion was exposed to loss of property and
freedom――was but a poor one. It was more successfully established that
the man in the red waistcoat who rode at the head of the Towneley
troop, blunderbuss in hand, was one Leonard. It was reasonably
suggested that the rebel leaders called troops by the names of wealthy
landowners, to give dignity to those companies; and that, in such
cases, the consent of the gentlemen was not asked. For Tildesley, Sir
George Warrender swore that he was an inoffensive person, not given
to speak against King George. Tildesley’s housekeeper deposed that
he was carried away from his residence by rebel forces, against his
inclination; and the owner of the house in Preston where Tildesley
lodged, testified that he had expressed dissatisfaction at the manner
of his coming there. Further, that female attire had been prepared,
and a horse was about to be hired, in order to enable him to escape.
This statement elicited an observation from the opposite side, to the
effect that, doubtless, when the fatal end of the affair at Preston
was imminent, very many of the rebels would have been glad to have had
disguises and horses to facilitate their escape. The prisoners were
tried separately. The judge, in both cases, summed up vigorously for
a conviction. The jury, after half an hour’s consideration, found
Towneley ‘not guilty.’ They hardly considered at all in Tildesley’s
case, but acquitted him at once. The Jacobites in court shouted! The
judge could hardly contain himself for indignation. Mr. Baron Montague
protested that all good subjects would be lost in amazement at finding
that rebels, who ought to be convicted, could actually find favour.
The angry baron pointed out, not without force, that five men who had
followed Towneley and Tildesley into making war against the king,
had been hanged for it in the country, and yet the two who had drawn
them into it, were allowed to escape! Such a jury was no longer to be
trusted with the lives of alleged traitors, and that judicial body was
ignominiously discharged.
[Sidenote: _THEIR ACQUITTAL._]
Friends and enemies were alike amazed at these verdicts. Joy possessed
the one, rage affected the others. The two Jacobite gentlemen left
the court with their friends, and went through Southwark in a sort
of delirious ecstacy. On the following day, says ‘Mercurius,’ ‘Mr.
Towneley gave a handsome Treat among his Friends, as a Testimony of his
Thankfulness for his Deliverance, and sent a good sum of money to be
distributed among the poor Men in Prison for Debt, in the Marshalsea,
where he had been confined.’
Towneley very wisely considered that, acquitted as he was, he might
not be as safe in England as abroad. Consequently, he rode out of
London one morning in June, after taking leave of the friends who
accompanied him to the outskirts. He made quietly for France, and had
got undisturbed into Sussex, when he was arrested and brought before
a magistrate. As Towneley of Towneley showed he had a right to ride
in whatever direction he listed, and the country Minos could not deny
it, the great and thrice lucky Lancashire Jacobite continued his ride,
unmolested, towards the coast.
[Sidenote: _THE CHAPLAIN AT TOWNELEY HALL._]
The Towneleys continued to ignore King George. In the fourth Report of
the ‘Historical Manuscripts Commission,’ published in 1874, record is
made of a MS., now among the papers of Colonel Towneley of Towneley
Hall, Burnley, endorsed, ‘Baptisms and Anniversaries’――the memorandum
book of the priest who acted as family chaplain. The most interesting
entries are the ‘intentions’ of the masses which the priest celebrated,
from May 1706, to the 31st December, 1722. Among these, frequent
mention is made of masses celebrated ‘pro Rege nostro Jacobo!’ King
James was honoured in similar manner by many a Jacobite chaplain.
[Sidenote: _JUSTICE HALL AND CAPTAIN TALBOT._]
The theory that if a man was seen among rebels (although he might be
there only by force laid upon him, and did not avail himself of every
opportunity to escape, but by his presence abetted and comforted
them)――he was guilty of high treason, prevailed with the jury assembled
at Westminster on the 11th. They had to try separately, Mr. Hall, of
Otterburn, a county magistrate, and Robert Talbot who served as captain
of a troop of four-and-twenty horse, the whole way from Kelso to
Preston. Hall proved clearly that as he was riding home from Alnwick,
he and his man were surrounded and carried off by mounted rebels.
The ‘man’ himself deposed that, after they were carried to the rebel
head-quarters, his master rode about at pleasure. Patten swore that
Hall of Otterburn, moved about as freely as that ordained knave did
himself. In Robert Talbot’s case, two of his own troopers swore away
the life of their old captain by their testimony, which saved their
own necks. They swore, however, to what was true. In Robert Talbot’s
case there was no doubt. He had been a dangerously active Jacobite.
Poor Hall had been merely passive, and he protested that he was no
Jacobite at all, but a loyal supporter of the king on the throne. Both
were found guilty. Talbot did not pretend to have anything to say why
sentence of death should not be passed on him. ‘He had drawn the wine,’
he remarked, ‘and now he must drink it.’ Justice Hall pleaded that he
was in a strange place, friendless, and tried by a new law which he
did not understand. If time were given him, he could prove that his
principles were sound, and that he had never been disaffected to the
Government. Time was refused. Justice Hall and Captain Robert Talbot
were condemned to be hanged.
[Sidenote: _GASCOGNE’S TRIAL._]
On the 17th Richard Gascogne was put to the bar. He had travelled over
England, plotting, planning, collecting material and storing it away,
with a view of dethroning King George. Gascogne’s spirit, astuteness,
courage, restless activity, and unselfishness, made him almost the head
and front of the rebellion. The king’s counsel curiously remarked that
‘there were some evidences (witnesses) of his, under their own hands,
as would put the matter out of all doubt, but that there were some
reasons which rendered it not so proper yet to divulge those evidences,
but which would, however, be produced when time served.’
Patten then appeared to further merit the mercy which had been
extended to him, by aiding in the taking away of another man’s life.
His testimony was of the usual quality: he had seen Gascogne busily
and hotly engaged, a fierce Jacobite partisan. Patten’s fellow knave,
Calderwood, also appeared. When the ex-quartermaster stepped into the
box, Dick Gascogne probably felt a ray of hope beginning to beam upon
him; for Calderwood had called upon his old comrade in Newgate a day
or two before, and told him that he, Calderwood, could depose nothing
of importance against him. The prisoner was struck with amazement,
therefore, when the pardoned Jacobite now swore that, at Preston,
Gascogne sat as a member of the Council of War. The latter protested
down to his dying hour that he did not even know the house in which the
council assembled.
[Sidenote: _THE DUCHESS OF ORMOND._]
Great interest was given to this trial by the appearance in court of
the Duchess of Ormond and Lady Emily Butler, the duke’s sister. There
was a great gathering outside to see the wife of the ‘once illustrious’
Ormond pass into Westminster Hall to give evidence in behalf of the
Jacobite prisoner. Chairs were placed for them in court. They were
both sworn, and their testimony was given in order to weaken that
of a gentleman named Wye, who seems to have been a secret agent in
the pay of the Government. Wye deposed that he once saw the prisoner
in a room at the Duchess of Ormond’s when the duchess was present,
and also ‘a gentleman dressed very fine, in laced scarlet clothes,’
whom he afterwards knew as Mr. Charles Cotton,――one of the criminated
Jacobites. Wye must have been in the duchess’s closet in the character
of a Jacobite himself. He deposed that on Gascogne being introduced,
he stated that he had just come from France, that he had seen the duke
six days previously at Bayonne, in good health, and that King James
and his grace would soon be in England. The duchess called for a map
to note the locality; and then asked Gascogne if the report was true
that there had been found on Sir William Wyndham ‘letters of dangerous
consequences?’ Gascogne did not know, but he said that, if Sir William
carried such letters, he deserved to be whipped like a school-boy; and
that if he were really in custody, the whole design was ruined, and
that above a hundred gentlemen would be compromised, as they waited for
his signal to bring forward eight or nine thousand men, of whom he was
to be the leader.
[Sidenote: _GASCOGNE’S DEFENCE._]
Gascogne vehemently denied what Wye had sworn to, and ‘to which he
stuck close in general with great assurance.’ The duchess supported
Gascogne with calm dignity. The hostile counsel could neither break
down her self-possession, nor get the better of her woman’s wit. Sir
William’s name, she said, was doubtless mentioned when Mr. Gascogne
and the other gentleman were in her closet. Bayonne? ‘Well, that
place might also have been referred to.’ As to the raising of an
insurrectionary force, and as to other particulars, she could remember
nothing of them,――nay, on being hard-pressed, her grace affirmed that
she ‘could almost be positive there were no such things said.’ Lady
Emily Butler deposed, generally, that what the duchess had said, was
true, and that her own knowledge went no further. ‘It seemed possible,’
says ‘Mercurius,’ ‘that some affairs of a very great consequence might
at that time employ her grace’s thoughts, so that she might not exactly
remember or observe all that passed.’
Gascogne, against whom a warrant had been issued, on Wye’s information,
as long ago as the 2nd of November, tried to damage that worthy’s
reputation. Wye rejoined that he could have deposed to many particulars
that would have damaged Gascogne’s reputation, but ‘he chose to omit
them because he would not aggravate things against him.’ Things,
indeed, were grave enough. Gascogne struggled against them as long as
he could. In vain he endeavoured to show that he had gone from Bath
northward without any intention of joining the Jacobite army, and that
he was ultimately arrested by some of its soldiers and carried to
head-quarters. Once there, however, he could not deny that he was well
received, well entertained, and actively employed by General Forster.
The usual result followed. Found guilty, he had to listen to all the
horrible details of the sentence of death in cases of high treason. He
suffered with becoming dignity. In a paper, handed to the sheriff, he
gently complained of――and he heartily forgave――the witnesses who had
brought him to death by false testimony. In modest terms he expressed
an uncommon ardour or zeal in his duty to his ‘most injured and royal
sovereign, King James III.’ Gascogne added, ‘My loyalty descended to
me from my ancestors, my father and grandfather having had the honour
to be sacrificed in doing their duties to their kings, Charles I. and
James II.’ Gascogne gloried in being a Roman Catholic. The paper ended
by an expression of thankfulness to God ‘for enabling me to resist the
many temptations I have had frequently in relation to a Gentleman, upon
whose account, I presume, they have taken my life, because I would not
concur to take _his_ life.’
[Sidenote: _CHRISTIAN FEELING._]
The ‘Weekly Journal,’ referring to this paper, charitably remarked that
Roman Catholics who died on the gallows generally died with a lie in
their mouths! Living Jacobites and Tories, the public were informed,
lied as impudently as their dying partisans. It was a Tory lie to say
that Gascogne might have saved his life, and have had 1,000_l._ and
a commission, by telling all he knew and betraying his cause. The
‘Weekly’ did not think such information was wanting. ‘We know enough,’
says the good Christian, ‘to hang him and others of his stamp.’
[Sidenote: _FRACAS IN A COFFEE-HOUSE._]
At the Smyrna coffee-house, St. James’s, Mr. Cole, having read the
report of Gascogne’s trial, turned to a friend, as he laid it down, and
remarked on the Duchess of Ormond’s evidence, that it was well for her
this had happened under so mild a Government as that in England. In
any other country, he added, her grace would have been prosecuted as
being, on her own testimony, privy to a design against the Crown.
Mr. Cole was well known to all present as having been English Envoy
at Venice. An Irish Jacobite looked him in the face, while he made a
general remark to the effect that whoever dared hint anything against
the Duke or Duchess of Ormond was a rascal. Mr. Cole remained silent,
as became a man who loved peace, and saw himself in near collision
with a hot-headed individual who was determined to break it. The Irish
gentleman repeated the above remark with such emphasis that Mr. Cole,
compelled to notice it, quietly observed that he had only stated a
point of law grounded upon matter of fact. Whereupon, to use the words
of the ‘Flying Post,’ ‘the blustering Teague grew more insolent at this
generous explanation, told him he was a rascal, and offered to strike
him! But Mr. Cole repelled the blow, kicked him till he drew his sword,
and then wounded and disarmed him!’
At this time the Rev. Mr. Patten served the Whig cause in various
ways; among others, by preaching charity sermons in City churches. For
a season he was an occasional fashionable preacher. Whigs flocked to
look at, if not listen to, the villain. It is wonderful that the London
Jacobites did not pull him out of the pulpit, and break every bone in
his body! This fellow is described as having preached, on one Sunday
in July, in the Church of St. Mildred, Broad Street, ‘an excellent
sermon’ on the text Gal. v. 1, ‘Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty
wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the
yoke of bondage.’
[Sidenote: _JOY AND SORROW IN NEWGATE._]
When some of the accused persons were now to be seen, much at their
ease, in public places, Whigs wondered and Jacobites frowned. The
latter asked what service Lord Scarsdale, Lord Dupplin, Captain
Halstead, and others, had rendered to the Government, which had
admitted them to bail, and thus allowed them to figure in the parks?
In Newgate there were both joy and sorrow. News reached the prisoners
that the old Brigadier Mackintosh had got safely to France. Extra drink
was consumed in honour of the occasion. Some sorrow was felt at the
demise of Charles Radcliffe’s servant, a good fellow whom the sentence
of death could not rob of his cheerfulness. Spotted Fever killed him
and others. Extra drink was again taken in order to defy Spotted Fever.
When intelligence came down that of a batch of prisoners, capitally
convicted, only one or two would be executed, the king’s clemency was
honoured in good liquor. Several rebels, as they walked up and down
the yard, discussed the expediency of pleading guilty, and throwing
themselves on the king’s mercy. Such among them as resolved to take
this course, ordered a bowl of punch, whereby to fortify them in their
resolution.
[Sidenote: _CHIEF JUSTICE PARKER._]
The trial of another great Lancashire Squire, Mr. Dalton, was followed
with immense interest. There were, as usual, numerous groups of
sympathising ladies. There was no new feature in the case. Squire
Dalton pleaded that he was forced into the rebel army, and his friends
swore roundly, to sustain the plea. The clergyman of the parish deposed
to Dalton’s loyalty, inasmuch as the Squire had once uttered some
scruples against the Romish religion. ‘Why,’ bawled Chief Justice
Parker, ‘did you not improve the occasion, and confirm him in his
tendency towards the better faith?’ ‘I did make an Essay that way,’
replied the clergyman, ‘but Mr. Dalton had by that time recovered
himself, and nothing could be done with him.’ Found guilty, he threw
himself on the king’s mercy. Whereupon, Parker assailed the unfortunate
gentleman with reproaches, The judge accused the prisoner of having
‘stuck out’ to the last, and of having given them all the trouble he
possibly could. Mercy was for those who acknowledged guilt, not for
those who denied being guilty, and who were afterwards proved to be so!
This hint moved the next gentleman put to the bar, William Tunstal. He
was anxious to save his lordship all trouble; and therefore he pleaded
_guilty_, and asked for mercy in return. Parker made some joke upon
Tunstal’s king running away, a disgrace to which King George would
never stoop; he then left Tunstal some ray of hope that his life might
be saved.
[Sidenote: _THE SWINBURNES._]
The hope that saving the time of the court by pleading guilty might
perhaps redeem life, if it failed to secure liberty, not only induced
many prisoners to make that plea, but others to withdraw the plea they
had previously put in, of not guilty. James Swinburne had pleaded
not guilty, but he and his friends took a new course. They had so
manipulated the king’s evidence, that the witnesses now stoutly swore
that they believed Swinburne was mad. The Judges, at all events, were
in possession of _their_ senses. They knew nothing about ‘exacerbation
of insanity,’ and cared as little for ‘the mad doctor’ who was said to
have had the prisoner under his care. They wisely remarked that if a
criminal was proved to be mad, his life might be saved, ‘but then it
must be such a madness as showed a total deprivation of reason, which
appeared not the case with the prisoner.’ Swinburne was found guilty,
and the judge sentenced him to death. His brother, Edward Swinburne,
was put to the bar after him. Patten was the chief evidence, and that
rascal coolly deposed:――‘I saw Mr. Edward Swinburne at Wooler, where I
myself joined the rebels. I brought in eighteen men with me; and Mr.
Edward said, I was welcome with my troop, and need not fear being ill
received.’ Patten added other evidence equally condemnatory of himself,
on which, not he, but Edward Swinburne was convicted, and condemned to
be hanged! Mr. Richard Butler was sentenced to the gallows, on similar
testimony!
Meanwhile, they were sent back to various prisons, but most of them to
Newgate.
[Sidenote: _SCOTT’S NEWGATE._]
Scott (in ‘Rob Roy’) has reflected the interior of Newgate at this
time. Sir Hildebrand Osbaldiston with his wounded son John, and the
memory of his other son, Wilfrid, slain at Preston, had an original in
that gloomy prison. The dying John, bequeathing, with his last breath,
his cast of hawks, at the Hall, and his black spaniel bitch called
Lucy, was not without a prototype in that dungeon. So it was with the
religious visit of the chaplain of the Sardinian Ambassador, permission
for which was got with difficulty;――and the dying, less of fear of the
future, than of utter breaking down of mind, heart, and body;――and
the suspicion on the part of the Jacobites as to the intentions that
lay under the proffered kindness of a Whig. The following picture too
appears to be a faithful reflex of the original:――
‘The arm of the law was gradually abridging the numbers of those whom I
endeavoured to serve, and the hearts of the survivors became gradually
more contracted towards all whom they conceived to be concerned with
the existing government. As they were led gradually and by detachments
to execution, those who survived lost interest in mankind, and the
desire of communicating with them. I shall long remember what one of
them, Ned Shafton by name, replied to my anxious enquiry whether there
was any indulgence I could procure him. “Mr. Frank Osbaldiston, I must
suppose you mean me kindly, and therefore I thank you. But, by G――, men
cannot be fattened like poultry, when they see their neighbours carried
off, day by day, to the place of execution, and know that their own
necks are to be twisted round in their turn.”’
[Sidenote: _MOB FEROCITY._]
Several contrived that their turn should not arrive, and, from day to
day, slipped out of Newgate. For the use of persons lucky enough to
get free, a great trade was driven in forged ‘passes,’ which sometimes
brought the forgers to Tyburn. On the other hand, Lord Dupplin, the
Marquis of Huntly, Sir John Erskine, and others, were released, and the
‘Jacks’ recognised them in the streets, with cheers. At the same time,
Lord Duffus was caught and brought in, under uncomplimentary salute
from the Whig mobile. The Tory mobs were ferocious. A serving-girl
had informed the Government of the whereabout of a so-called Jacobite
‘Colonel,’ who was wanted. Some Jacks attacked the house in which the
girl lived, seized her, and flung her to the roaring mob, without. She
would there have had as much mercy as a fox from a pack of hounds,
had she not been ‘risqu’d by some brave loyal gentlemen,’ and some
constables who are described as being ‘very affectionate towards the
government.’
[6] Charles Radcliffe, brother to Lord Derwentwater,
Charles and Peregrine Widdrington, brothers of Lord
Widdrington, John Thornton, Robert Shaw, Thomas
Errington, Phil. Hodgson, Donald Robertson, James and
Edward Swinburne, Angus and William Mackintosh, James
Macqueen, and Alexander Macrudder.
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