REIGN OF CHARLES II. (_concluded_).
Charles's Embarrassments--Exclusion Intrigues--Parliament
Dissolved--The King again Pensioned by Louis--New Parliament
at Oxford--Violence of the Whigs--Charles Dissolves the
Oxford Parliament--Execution of Archbishop Plunket--Arrest of
Shaftesbury--Dismay of the Gang of Perjurers--Oates turned out of
Whitehall--Shaftesbury's Lists--Visit of William of Orange--James
in Scotland--Defeat of the Cameronians--Cargill's Manifesto--The
Duke of York's Tyranny--Flight of Argyll--The Torture in
Edinburgh--Arrogance of Monmouth--Contest between the Court and the
City--Death of Shaftesbury--Rye-House Plot--Suicide of the Earl of
Essex--Trial of Lord William Russell--Extraordinary Declaration
of the University of Oxford--Trial of Algernon Sidney--The
Duke of Monmouth Pardoned--Base Conduct of Monmouth--Trial of
Hampden--Trials in Scotland--Absolutism of Charles--Forfeiture
of Charters by the Corporations--Influence of the Duke of
York--Opposition of Halifax--Sickness and Death of the King.
Amid the contending factions of his Court, and in spite of the most
absolute destitution of money, Charles is described as being outwardly
merry.
Yet his situation would have embarrassed a much wiser man. The
Opposition, trusting to his need of money, calculated on his giving
way on the Exclusion Bill; and they kept up their warfare by speeches,
pamphlets, and addresses to the public, and by secret pressure on him
through his ministers, his mistress, his nephew, the Prince of Orange,
and his allies. Sunderland and Godolphin urged his concession to the
Opposition in Parliament. The duchess, when he sought retirement
with her, harped on the same string. Halifax, who had offended the
Opposition greatly by his determined resistance to the Exclusion Bill,
now proposed a Bill of Limitations of the authority of James in case of
his succession; and the Prince of Orange warned the king on no account
to adopt this Bill, because it would undermine the very foundation of
the monarchy.
[Illustration: ARRIVAL OF CHARLES AT OXFORD. (_See p._ 269.)]
The Spaniards complained that Louis was violating the Treaty of
Nimeguen, and called on Charles to act as their ally and a party to
the Treaty. To contend with Louis required money, even if he were so
disposed, and money he had none. Instead of answering his demands for
it, the Commons expressed their resentment of his resistance to the
Exclusion Bill, by attacking all the supporters of the king. They
summoned various Tory leaders on one pretence or another to their bar;
they demanded the removal of Jeffreys from the office of Recorder of
London, and he made haste to submit; they voted impeachments against
Scroggs and North, the chief justices, and Lewis Weston and other
judges. They sent a message to the king, that unless the Duke of York
was excluded, there was no safety to Protestantism. They voted that
the Marquis of Worcester, Halifax, Clarendon, and Feversham, were
promoters of Popery; that they and Lawrence Hyde, and Seymour, ought to
be removed from the king's council, and that till then no money could
be voted; and, moreover, that any one lending the king money upon any
branch of the revenue, should be adjudged an enemy of the country. As
they were going on voting still further resolutions of a like kind,
Charles prorogued Parliament, and then by proclamation dissolved it,
ordering another to assemble at the end of two months at Oxford.
The very naming of the place of meeting struck the Opposition with
alarm. In London they had a great protection in a strongly sympathising
population; but Oxford was notorious for its Royalist and Tory feeling;
and there Charles, amid a fiery mob of fortune-seeking gownsmen,
and a strong body of soldiery, might overawe Parliament, and direct
particular attacks against the Opposition leaders. These fears were
well founded. But the king had, in the interim, also strengthened
himself in another manner. He had first set to work every one of the
duke's friends that he possibly could, to induce him at least to appear
to conform to the demands of Parliament, but finding this utterly
unavailing, he had turned to his old friend Louis. The French monarch,
who never liked to leave Charles at the mercy of his Parliament, again
gratified his desire, and agreed to pay him two millions of livres this
year, and half a million of crowns in each of the two following years,
on condition that he should leave the Spaniards to his overbearing
encroachments. The many hints thrown out of secret treaties between
Charles and Louis had not been lost, and no written contract of this
agreement was made, but it was treated as a matter of honour, and only
the two monarchs, with Barillon on the one side, and Hyde on the other,
were included in the secret.
Being thus made independent of his Parliament, Charles disregarded
the strongest remonstrances against holding the Parliament in Oxford,
and on the day appointed appeared there, attended by a troop of Horse
Guards, besides crowds of armed courtiers, and the Opposition members
and their party, likewise armed, and attended by armed followers. It
appeared more like a preparation for war than for peaceful debate.
Charles addressed the assembled hearers in the tone of a man who had
money in his pocket. He spoke strongly of the factious proceedings
of the last Parliament, and of his determination neither to exercise
arbitrary power himself, nor to suffer it in others; but to show that
he had every disposition to consult the wishes of his subjects, he
proposed to grant them almost everything they had solicited. He then
offered the substance of the Bill of Limitations proposed by Halifax,
that James should be banished five hundred miles from the British
shores during the king's life; that, on succeeding, though he should
have the title of king, the powers of government should be vested in a
regent, and this regent, in the first instance, be his daughter, the
Princess Mary of Orange, and after her her sister Anne; that if James
should have a son educated in the Protestant faith, the regency should
continue only till he reached his majority; that, besides this, all
Catholics of incomes of more than one hundred pounds per annum should
be banished, the fraudulent conveyance of their estates be pronounced
void, and their children taken from them, and educated in Protestantism.
This was a sweeping concession; short of expelling James altogether,
nothing more could be expected, and it was scarcely to be expected
that Charles would concede that. On this one point he had always
displayed unusual firmness, and it was a firmness highly honourable to
him, for by it he maintained the rights of a brother, at the expense
of the aggrandisement of his own son. Nothing would have been easier
than to have, by a little finesse, conveyed the crown to Monmouth, the
favourite of the Protestant bulk of the nation, and for whom he had a
real affection. But the Whigs lost their opportunity; they were blinded
to their own interest by the idea of their strength, and thought
that, having so much offered, they were about to gain all. This was
the culminating point of their success; but they rejected the offer,
and from that hour the tide of their power ebbed, and their ruin was
determined.
There was another attempt to spur on the country to carry the Exclusion
Bill, by making use of a miserable pretence of a plot got up by two
low adventurers, Everard and Fitzharris. First these fellows pretended
that the king was leagued with the duke to establish Popery; but when
Fitzharris was thrown into Newgate, he got up another story, that
he had been offered ten thousand pounds by the Duchess of Modena to
murder the king, and that a foreign invasion was to assist the Catholic
attempt. The Opposition were ready to seize on this man as another
Dangerfield, to move the country by the disclosure of these plots.
But Charles was beforehand with them, cut off all intercourse with
the prisoner, and ordered the Attorney-General to proceed against
him. The Commons claimed to deal with him, and sent up an impeachment
to the Lords; the Lords refused to entertain it, and voted that he
should be tried as the king directed, by common law. The Commons
were exasperated, and declared that this was a denial of justice,
a violation of the rights of Parliament, and any inferior court
interfering would be guilty of a high breach of the privileges of their
House. They were going on with the reading of the Exclusion Bill, when
suddenly the king summoned them to the House of Lords, and dissolved
Parliament. He had, on hearing of their proceedings, privately put
the crown and robes of State into a sedan-chair, and hastened to the
House. The astonishment and rage of the Opposition were inconceivable.
Shaftesbury called on the members not to leave the House, but it was
in vain; they gradually withdrew: the king rode off, attended by a
detachment of his Guards, to Windsor, and thus, after the session of a
week, ended his fifth and last Parliament.
If the Whigs had not been blinded by their passions and their fancied
success, they might have seen the reaction that was taking place.
The long series of pretended plots had gradually opened the eyes of
the people; they began to wonder how they could have believed them,
and have consented to the spilling of so much blood on the evidence
of such despicable characters. At the execution of Lord Stafford,
instead of those yells of rage with which they had received some of
the previous victims, they cried that they believed him, and prayed
God to bless him. They might have seen this change still more clearly
in what now followed. Charles issued a Declaration of his reasons for
dissolving this Parliament;--that he had offered them everything that
reasonable men could desire, for which he had received only expressions
of discontent, and endeavours to usurp his authority; that they had
arrested Englishmen for offences with which Parliament had nothing
to do; had declared the most distinguished persons enemies to the
king on mere suspicion; had forbade any one to lend the king money
in anticipation of his revenue; had insisted on excluding the heir
apparent from the succession, notwithstanding all possible guarantees;
and that they were endeavouring to create a quarrel between the
two Houses, because the Lords would not interfere with the king's
prerogative. This Declaration, which was read in the churches, produced
a strong effect. The king was regarded as unreasonably treated, and
addresses of support were sent up from all quarters. The University
of Cambridge went the length of saying that "our kings derive not
their titles from the people, but from God, and that to Him only they
are accountable. They had an hereditary right of succession, which no
religion, no law, no fault, no forfeiture can alter or diminish." The
Whigs published a counter-address, but, still drawing their arguments
from Oates's plot, it failed to tell; this delusion had gone by, and
the opposite one of Divine Right was moving now, in consequence, with
an exaggerated impetus. The king persisted in bringing Fitzharris to
trial; the Whigs endeavoured to defend him by pleading that, being
impeached by the Commons, no other court than Parliament could try him;
but this was overruled, he was tried, condemned, and hanged.
At the same time suffered the titular Archbishop of Armagh; the last
victim of the Popish plot, and perhaps the most hardly and unjustly
used. Oliver Plunket, the archbishop, was imprisoned merely for
receiving orders in the Catholic Church, contrary to the law; but
whilst in prison some of the Irish informers charged him with being
concerned in the Popish plot; but instead of trying him in Ireland,
where he was well known and could produce his witnesses, he was
brought to England, and before his evidence could arrive, was tried
and executed (July 1, 1681). A more shameful proceeding has never been
recorded. The Earl of Essex, who had been Lord-Lieutenant in Ireland,
solicited his pardon, saying to Charles, that from his own knowledge,
the charge against him was undoubtedly false. "Then," retorted the
king, "on your head, my lord, be his blood. You might have saved him
if you would. I cannot pardon him, because I dare not." The storm, in
fact, was about to burst on the heads of those who had raised it. There
was no Parliament to defend them, and the Government now proceeded to
retaliate. The miscreants who had served Shaftesbury in running down
his victims now perceived the change of public opinion, and either
slunk away or offered their services to Government against their former
employers.
The first to be arrested were Shaftesbury himself, College, surnamed
the "Protestant joiner," and Rouse, the leader of the mob from Wapping.
Lord Howard was already in the Tower on the denunciation of Fitzharris.
The Grand Jury refused to find the Bill of Indictment against Lord
Howard; they did the same in the case of Rouse, but College was tried,
and the same witnesses who had been deemed worthy enough to condemn
the Catholics were brought against him. But the jury now refused to
believe them against a Protestant, and acquitted him. College, however,
was not permitted to escape so easily. He was a noisy and determined
leader of the people, sang songs and distributed prints, ridiculing the
king and Court, and was celebrated as the inventor of the Protestant
flail. It was found that some of his misdemeanours had been committed
in Oxfordshire, and he was sent down and tried there, where the Tory
feeling was not likely to let him off again. There the miserable
wretches, whose concocted evidence had doomed to death so many
charged by them as participators in the Popish plot, were now arrayed
against each other. Dugdale, Tuberville, and Smith swore against
College; Oates, Bolron, and others committed the political blunder of
contradicting them, and representing them in colours that in truth
belonged to the whole crew. For this proceeding Oates was deprived of
his pension and turned out of Whitehall; but College was condemned amid
roars of applause from the gownsmen. The execution of College was the
commencement of a murderous retaliation on the Whigs, as savage as had
been theirs on the Catholics. Shaftesbury, through the influence of
the sheriffs, and the vehement demonstrations of the City made in his
favour, was saved for the present by the jury ignoring the indictment,
amid the acclamations of the people, and the event was celebrated by
bonfires, ringing of bells, and shouts of "Monmouth!" "Shaftesbury!"
and "Buckingham!"
But the arrest of Shaftesbury had led to consequences which were fatal
to him, and most disastrous to the Whig party generally. Amongst his
papers were found, in particular, two which roused the indignation of
the Tory and Catholic parties to a perfect fury. One was the form of
an Association for excluding James and all Catholics from the throne,
and from political power, and including a vow to pursue to the death
all who should oppose this great purpose. The other contained two
lists of the leading persons in every county, ranged under the heads
of "worthy men," and "men worthy," the latter phrase being supposed
to mean worthy to be hanged. When this was published, the "men
worthy" sent up the most ardent addresses of loyalty, and readiness
to support the Crown in all its views; and many of the "worthy men"
even hastened to escape from the invidious distinction. The king lost
no time in taking advantage of this ferment. He availed himself of
the information contained in these lists, and struck out the most
prominent "worthy men" in office and commission. As the Dissenters had
supported Shaftesbury and his party, he let loose the myrmidons of
persecution against them, and they were fined, distrained upon, and
imprisoned as remorselessly as ever. He determined to punish the City
for its partisanship, and by a _quo warranto_ to inquire into its many
different privileges.
At this critical moment William of Orange proposed to pay a visit to
his uncles, which his loving father-in-law, James, strenuously opposed,
but which the easy Charles permitted. It was soon seen that William,
though his ostensible object was to induce Charles to enter into a
league against France--whose king continued, in spite of treaties, to
press on his encroachments,--yet was courted by the Exclusionists, even
by Monmouth, as well as Lord William Russell and other Whigs. With all
his habitual caution he could not avoid letting it be seen that he was
proud of the courtship. He even consented to accept an invitation from
the City to dinner, to the great disgust of the Court, which was in
high dudgeon at the conduct of the sheriffs, and William soon returned.
His object was to ascertain the strength of the Whig party, and though
the tide was rapidly running against it at that moment, he went back
with the conviction that some violent change was not very far off.
Though Charles promised William to join the alliance against France,
and call a Parliament, no sooner was the prince gone than he assured
Louis that he was his friend, and received a fresh bribe of a million
of livres to allow France to attack Luxembourg, one of the main keys of
Holland.
James, during these months, had been distinguishing himself in Scotland
in a manner which promised but a poor prospect to Protestantism should
he ever come to the throne. After the battle of Bothwell Bridge,
the Covenanting party seemed for awhile to have sunk into the earth
and disappeared; but ere long there was seen emerging again from
their hiding-places the more determined and enthusiastic section
which followed Donald Cargill and Richard Cameron. These so-called
Cameronians believed that Charles Stuart, by renouncing the Solemn
League and Covenant, had renounced all right to rule over them; and
Cameron, with some twenty of his adherents, affixed (June, 1680)
on the cross of Sanquhar "a declaration and testimony of the true
Presbyterian, anti-prelatic, anti-erastian, and persecuted party in
Scotland." In this bold paper they disowned Charles Stuart, who ought,
they said, to have been denuded years before of being king, ruler, or
magistrate, on account of his tyranny. They declared war on him as a
tyrant and usurper; they also disowned all power of James, Duke of
York, in Scotland, and declared that they would treat their enemies as
they had hitherto treated them.
The host of Israel, as they styled themselves, consisted of
six-and-twenty horse and forty foot. At Aird's Moss, this knot of
men, who spoke such loud things, were surprised by three troops of
dragoons, and Cameron, as bold in action as in word, rushed on this
unequal number, crying, "Lord, take the ripest, spare the greenest."
He fell with his brother and seven others (July 20, 1680). Rathillet,
who was there, was wounded and taken prisoner, but Cargill escaped.
Rathillet was tried and executed for the murder of Archbishop Sharp.
His hands were first cut off at the foot of the gallows; after hanging,
his head was cut off, and fixed on a spike at Cupar, and his body
was hung in chains at Magus Moor. Cargill reappeared in September,
1680, at Torwood, in Stirlingshire, and there preached; and then,
after the sermon, pronounced this extraordinary excommunication:--"I,
being a minister of Jesus Christ, and having authority from Him, do,
in His name and by His spirit, excommunicate, cast out of the true
Church, and deliver up to Satan, Charles II., King of Scotland, for
his mocking of God, his perjury, his uncleanness of adultery and
incest, his drunkenness, and his dissembling with God and man." He
also excommunicated the Duke of York for idolatry, Monmouth for his
slaughter of the Lord's people at Bothwell Bridge, Lauderdale for
blasphemy, apostasy, and adultery, and other offences.
The Government thought it time to hunt out this nest of enthusiasts,
and put to death, as a terror, the prisoners taken at Aird's Moss. Two
of these were women, Isabel Alison and Marian Harvey, who went to the
gallows rejoicing. The Duke of York offered to pardon some of them
if they would only say, "God save the king," but they refused, and
congratulated each other that they should that night sup in Paradise.
Cargill and four followers were hanged in July, 1681.
James now professed great leniency and liberality. Instead of
persecuting the Cameronians, he drafted them off into a Scottish
regiment which was serving abroad in Flanders, in the pay of Spain. He
put a stop to many of Lauderdale's embezzlements, and turned out some
of the worst of his official blood-suckers. He promised to maintain
episcopacy, and to put down conventicles, and brought into Parliament
a new Test Act, which was to swear every one to the king's supremacy,
and to passive obedience. His leniency was then soon at an end, and
the object he was driving at was too palpable to escape the slightest
observation. But Fletcher of Saltoun, Lord Stair, and some other bold
patriots, opposed the design, and carried a clause in the Test Act
for the defence of the Protestant religion, which was so worded as to
make it mean Presbyterianism of the Confession of Faith of 1560. This
so little suited James that he was impelled to add another clause,
excusing the princes of the blood from taking his own test. But Lord
Belhaven boldly declared that the object of it was to bind a Popish
successor. At this frank avowal, James's assumed liberality deserted
him, and he sent Lord Belhaven prisoner to Edinburgh castle, and
ordered the Attorney-General to impeach him. He removed Lord Stair
from his office of President of the Court of Session, and commenced
prosecutions against both him and Fletcher of Saltoun. The Earl of
Argyll, however, whose father had been executed by Charles soon after
his restoration, made a decided speech against the Test, and James
called upon him at the Council board to take it. Argyll took it with
certain qualifications, whereupon James appeared to be satisfied, and
invited Argyll to sit beside him at the Council board, and repeatedly
took the opportunity of whispering in his ear, as if he bestowed his
highest confidence on him. But this was but the fawning of the tiger
ere he made his spring. Two days after he sent him to the castle on
a charge of treason for limiting the Test. James, however, when some
of the courtiers surmised that his life and fortune must pay for his
treason, exclaimed, "Life and fortune! God forbid!" Yet on the 20th of
November, 1681, instructions arrived from England to accuse him of high
treason, and on the 12th of December he was brought to trial. To show
what was to be expected from such a trial, the Marquis of Montrose, the
grandson of the celebrated Montrose, whom the father of Argyll and the
Covenanters hanged, and who was, in consequence, the implacable enemy
of the present earl and all his house, was made foreman of the jury,
and delivered the sentence of guilty. The whole Council were called
on to endorse this sentence; even the bishops were not allowed to be
exempt, according to their privilege, from being concerned in a doom of
blood; and the earl's own friends and adherents had not the firmness to
refuse selling their names. Argyll, however, disappointed his enemies,
by escaping from his cell in Edinburgh Castle in the disguise of a page
to his daughter-in-law, Lady Lindsay, and made his way to England, and
thence to Holland, where, like many other fugitives from England and
Scotland, he took refuge with William of Orange.
James now, whilst the Parliament was terror-stricken by this example of
royal vengeance, brought in a Bill making it high treason in any one
to maintain the lawfulness of excluding him from the throne, either
on account of his religion or for any other reason whatever. By this
he showed to the Exclusionists that they must expect a civil war with
Scotland if they attempted to bar his way to the throne of England.
Deeming himself now secure, he gave way to his natural cruelty of
temper, and indulged in tortures and barbarities which seemed almost
to cast the atrocities of Lauderdale into the shade. It was his custom
to have the prisoners for religion so tortured in the Privy Council,
that even the old hardened courtiers who had witnessed the merciless
doings of Lauderdale and Middleton, escaped from the board as soon as
the iron boots were introduced. But James not only seemed to enjoy the
agonies of the sentenced with a peculiar satisfaction, but he made an
order that the whole of the Privy Council should remain during these
more than inquisitorial horrors. He was thus employing himself, when he
was summoned to England by Charles, who assured him that he should be
allowed soon to return permanently, on condition that he made over part
of his Parliamentary allowance to the French mistress, the Duchess of
Portsmouth.
[Illustration: ESCAPE OF ARGYLL. (_See p._ 272.)]
The duke being allowed to return, and being restored to the office of
Lord High Admiral, and lodged in St. James's Palace, Monmouth, who had
been assured that James should be retained in Scotland, also returned
from abroad, in spite of the positive command of the king. On the
Duke of York's return, the Tories, who regarded it as a proof of the
ascendency of their principles, framed an address of congratulation,
and of abhorrence of Shaftesbury's scheme of Association. When Monmouth
arrived, the Whig party received him with still more boisterous
enthusiasm. The City was in a turmoil of delight, but in the blaze of
his popularity, Monmouth, conceiving that the Whig influence was on the
decline, endeavoured to follow the example of Sunderland, who had made
his peace with the king, and the Duke was readmitted to the Cabinet.
But Monmouth was too narrowly watched, and though he had sent offers
of reconciliation through his wife, the reproaches of Shaftesbury,
Russell, and his other partisans, made him draw back, and under
pretence of paying a visit to the Earl of Macclesfield, he set out, as
in 1680, on a tour through the provinces.
Nothing could exceed Monmouth's folly in this progress. Had he been the
undoubted heir apparent to the crown, he could not have assumed more
airs of royalty; and at a moment when the eyes of both the king and
James were following him with jealous vigilance, this folly was the
more egregious. Wherever he came he was met by the nobles and great
landowners at the head of their tenantry, most of whom were armed, and
conducted in royal state to their houses. He was thus received by the
Lords Macclesfield, Brandon, Rivers, Colchester, Delamere, and Grey, as
well as by the leading gentry. He travelled attended by a hundred men
on horseback, one half of whom preceded, and the other followed him.
As he approached a town, he quitted his coach and mounted his horse,
on which he rode alone in the centre of the procession. On entering
the town, the nobles, gentry, and city officials took their places in
front, the tenantry and common people fell in behind, shouting, "A
Monmouth! a Monmouth! and no York!" Wherever he dined he ordered two
hundred covers to be laid for the guests, and the people, conducted
by proper officers, passed through the room in at one door and out at
another, in order to see him, as if he were a king. At Liverpool he
did not hesitate to touch for the king's evil. Wherever there were
fairs, races, or other public assemblies, he was sure to appear, and
ingratiate himself with the populace, not only by his flattering bows
and smiles, but by entering into their sports. He was a man of amazing
agility, and ran races on foot with the most celebrated pedestrians,
and after beating them in his shoes, he would run again in his boots
against them in their shoes, and win still. The prizes that he thus
gained he gave away at christenings in the evening.
Whilst he was thus exciting the wonder of the common people by his
popular acts, accomplishments, and condescensions, the spies of
Chiffinch, his father's old agent for secret purposes, were constantly
around him, and sent up hourly reports to Court. Jeffreys, who was now
Chief Justice of Chester, and himself addicted to much low company,
buffoonery, and drunkenness off the bench, and the wildest and most
insulting conduct upon it, seized the opportunity of some slight
disturbances, which occurred during Monmouth's stay there, to win
favour with the Duke of York, by taking into custody and punishing
some of his followers. At Stafford Monmouth had engaged to dine in
the public streets with the whole population; but as he was walking
towards the appointed place, a king's messenger appeared, and arrested
him on a charge of "passing through the kingdom with multitudes of
riotous people, to the disturbance of the peace and the terror of the
king's subjects." Shaftesbury was not there, or Monmouth might have
been advised to throw himself on the protection of the people, and the
rebellion which he stirred up a few years later might have occurred
then, for Shaftesbury was now advising all the leaders of his party to
rise; but Monmouth surrendered without resistance, and was conveyed
to the capital, where he was admitted to bail himself in a bond of
ten thousand pounds, and his sureties in two thousand pounds each.
The king, with that affection which he always showed for this vain
and foolish young man, appeared satisfied with having cut short his
mock-heroic progress.
But though the British Absalom for the present escaped thus easily,
the war of royalty and reassured Toryism on the long triumphant Whigs
was beginning in earnest. Shaftesbury, since his discharge from the
Tower, had seen with terror the rapid rising of the Tory influence, the
vindictive addresses from every part of the country against him, and
the undisguised cry of passive obedience. The circumstances seemed not
only to irritate his temper, but to have destroyed the cool steadiness
of his judgment. He felt assured that it would not be long before he
would be singled out for royal vengeance; and he busied himself with
his subordinate agents in planning schemes for raising the country.
These agents and associates were Walcot, formerly an officer under the
Commonwealth in the Irish army; Rumsey, another military adventurer,
who had been in the war in Portugal; Ferguson, a Scottish minister, who
deemed both the king and the duke apostates and tyrants, to be got rid
of by almost any means; and West, a lawyer. These men had their agents
and associates of the like views, and they assured Shaftesbury they
could raise the City at any time.
But the tug of war was actually beginning between the Court and the
City, and the prospect was so little flattering to the City, that
Halifax said there would soon be hanging, and Shaftesbury even thought
of attempting a reconciliation with the duke. He made an overture, to
which James replied, that though Lord Shaftesbury had been the most
bitter of his enemies, all his offences should be forgotten whenever
he became a dutiful subject of his Majesty. But second thoughts did
not encourage Shaftesbury to trust to the smooth speech of the man who
never forgot or forgave.
So long as the Whigs were in the ascendant, their sheriffs could secure
juries to condemn their opponents and save their friends. Charles
and James determined, whilst the Tory feeling ran so high, to force
the government of the City from the Whigs, and to hold the power in
their own hands. Sir John Moore, the then Lord Mayor, was brought
over to their interest, and they availed themselves of an old but
disused custom to get sheriffs nominated to their own minds. Thus the
Government had a complete triumph in the City; and they pursued their
advantage. A prosecution was commenced against Pilkington, one of
the late sheriffs, who in his vexation unguardedly said, "The Duke of
York fired the City at the burning of London, and now he is coming to
cut our throats." Damages were laid at one hundred thousand pounds,
and awarded by a jury at Hertford. Pilkington, whose sentence amounted
to imprisonment for life, and Shute, his late colleague, Sir Patience
Ward, Cornel, Ford, Lord Grey, and others were tried, Ward for perjury,
the rest for riot and assault on the Lord Mayor, and convicted. In all
these proceedings Mr. Serjeant Jeffreys was an active instrument to
promote the Government objects.
But these triumphs were only temporary. The Court determined to
establish a permanent power over the City. It therefore proceeded
by a writ of _quo warranto_ to deprive the City of its franchise.
The case was tried before Sir Edward Sanders and the other judges
of the King's Bench. The Attorney-General pleaded that the City had
perpetrated two illegal acts--they had imposed an arbitrary tax on
merchandise brought into the public market, and had accused the king,
by adjourning Parliament, of having interrupted the necessary business
of the nation. After much contention and delay, in the hope that the
City would voluntarily lay itself at the feet of the monarch, judgment
was pronounced that "the City of London should be taken and seized with
the king's hands." When the authorities prayed the non-carrying out of
the sentence, the Lord Chancellor North candidly avowed the real object
of the proceeding,--that the king was resolved to put an end to the
opposition of the City, by having a veto on the appointment of the Lord
Mayor and sheriffs; that he did not wish to interfere in their affairs
or liberties further, but this power he was determined to possess,
and therefore the judgment was confirmed June 20th, 1683, and London
was reduced to an absolute slavery to the king's will. It was equally
determined to proceed by the same means of a _quo warranto_ to suppress
the charters of the other corporations in the kingdom.
Shaftesbury had seen the progress of this enormous change with the
deepest alarm. He retired to his house in Aldersgate Street, and not
feeling himself secure there, hid himself successively in different
parts of the City, striving, through his agents, to move Monmouth,
Essex, and Grey to rise, and break this progress of despotism. He
boasted that he had ten thousand link-boys yet in the City, who would
rise at the lifting of his finger. It was proposed by Monmouth that
he should engage the Lords Macclesfield, Brandon, and Delamere to
rise in Cheshire and Lancashire. Lord William Russell corresponded
with Sir Francis Drake in the west of England, Trenchard engaged to
raise the people of Taunton. But Monmouth had more than half betrayed
the scheme to the king, and the progress of events in the City grew
formidable. Shaftesbury was struck with despair, and fled in November,
1682. He escaped to Harwich in the guise of a Presbyterian minister,
and got thence over to Holland. He took up his residence at Amsterdam,
where he was visited by Oates and Waller; but his mortification at the
failure of his grand scheme of "walking the king leisurely out of his
dominions, and making the Duke of York a vagabond like Cain on the face
of the earth," broke his spirits and his constitution. The gout fixed
itself in his stomach, and on the 21st of January, 1683, he expired,
only two months after his quitting England.
The fall of this extraordinary man and of his cause is a grand lesson
in history. His cause was the best in the world--that of maintaining
the liberties of England against the designs of one of the most
profligate and despotic Courts that ever existed. But by following
crooked by-paths and dishonest schemes, and by employing the most
villainous of mankind for accomplishing his object, he ruined it. Had
he and his fellows, who had more or less of genuine patriotism in them,
combined to rouse their country by high, direct, and honourable means,
they would have won the confidence of their country, and saved it, or
have perished with honour. As it was, the great national achievement
was reserved for others.
The flight and death of Shaftesbury struck terror into the Whig party.
Many gave up the cause in despair; others of a timid nature went over
to the enemy, and others, spurred on by their indignation, rushed
forward into more rash and fatal projects; and at this moment one of
the extraordinary revelations took place which rapidly brought to
the gallows and the block nearly the whole of Shaftesbury's agents,
coadjutors, and colleagues, including Lord William Russell and Algernon
Sidney.
We have seen that Shaftesbury and his party had been seriously
contemplating an insurrection to compel Charles to adopt measures for
securing a Protestant succession which they could not persuade him
to, and that the efforts of the arch-agitator and his agents, West,
Ferguson, Rouse, Rumsey, Walcot, and others, to excite the nobles of
the Whig party to action, had proved abortive and induced Shaftesbury
to fly. Unfortunately, the royal party being now in the full tide of
retribution, the more contemptible portion of those who had been most
active in carrying on the Whig aggressions began to consider what
was to be gained by betraying their associates. On the 1st of June a
Scotsman was arrested on suspicion at Newcastle, and on him was found
a letter, which indicated agreement between the Opposition parties in
Scotland and England. A quick inquiry was set on foot after further
traces of the alarming facts; and on the 12th, the very day on which
judgment was pronounced against the City, Josiah Keeling, a man who had
been extremely prominent in the late contests about the sheriffs, and
who had displayed his zeal by actually laying hands on the Lord Mayor
Moore, for his support of the Government, now waited on Lord Dartmouth,
the Duke of York's close friend, and informed him of particulars of
the late schemes, as if they were yet actively in operation against
the king's life. Dartmouth took the informer to Sir Leoline Jenkins,
Secretary of State, who had been extremely active in the proceedings
against the City. The story which Keeling laid before Sir Leoline was
to the following appalling purport:--That in the month of March last,
when the king and Duke of York were about to proceed to Newmarket, to
the races, Goodenough, the late Under Sheriff, one of Shaftesbury's
most busy men in the City, lamenting the slavery to which the City was
fast being reduced, asked him how many men he could engage to kill the
king and the duke too; that he had repeated the same question to him
whilst the king and the duke were there; and that he then consented to
join the plot, and to endeavour to procure accomplices. Accordingly,
he engaged Burton, a cheesemonger, Thompson, a carver, and Barber, an
instrument-maker of Wapping. They then met with one Rumbold, a maltster
at the "Mitre" Tavern, without Aldgate, where it was settled to go down
to a house that Rumbold had, called the Rye House, on the River Lea,
near Hoddesdon, in Hertfordshire, and there execute their design. This
house lay conveniently by the wayside, and a number of men concealed
under a fence could easily shoot down the king's postilion and horses,
and then kill him and the duke, and the four guards with them. If they
failed to stop the carriage, a man placed with a cart and horse in a
cross lane a few paces farther on was to run his horse and cart athwart
the road, and there stop it, till they had completed their design.
From this circumstance the plot obtained the name of the Rye House Plot.
At a subsequent meeting at the "Dolphin," behind the Exchange, there
was a disagreement as to the time when the king would return, and thus
they missed the opportunity, for Rumbold, who went down, said the king
and duke passed the place with only five Life-Guards. Various other
plans were then laid--one to cut off the king between Windsor and
Hampton Court.
Secretary Jenkins, after listening to this recital, told Keeling that
it would require another witness to establish a charge of treason
against the conspirators, and Keeling fetched his brother John, who
swore with him to these and many other particulars--namely, that
Goodenough had organised a plan for raising twenty districts in the
City, and that twenty thousand pounds were to be distributed amongst
the twenty managers of these districts; that the Duke of Monmouth was
to head the insurrection, a person called the colonel was to furnish
one thousand pounds, and different men in different parts of the
country were to raise their own neighbourhoods; that the murder was
now to come off at the next bull-feast in Red Lion Fields. Two days
afterwards they added that Goodenough had informed them that Lord
William Russell would enter heart and soul into the design of killing
the king and the Duke of York.
A proclamation was immediately issued for the arrest of Rumbold,
Colonel Rumsey, Walcot, Wade, Nelthorp, Thompson, Burton, and Hone; but
it was supposed that John Keeling, who had been reluctantly dragged
into the affair by Josiah, had given them warning, and they had all
got out of the way. Barber, the instrument-maker of Wapping, however,
was taken, and declared that he had never understood that the design
was against the king, but only against the duke. West soon surrendered
himself, and, in hope of pardon, gave most extensive evidence against
Ferguson and a dozen others; like Oates and Bedloe, continually
adding fresh facts and dragging in fresh people. He said Ferguson had
brought money to buy arms; that Wildman had been furnished with means
to buy arms; that Lord Howard of Escrick had gone deeply into it;
that Algernon Sidney and Wildman were in close correspondence with
the conspirators in Scotland; that at meetings held at the "Devil
Tavern," it was projected to shoot the king in a narrow street as he
was returning from the theatre; that they had hinted something of their
design to the Duke of Monmouth, but not the killing part of it, but
that he had sternly replied they must look on him as a son; and then
the relations of this wretched turncoat lawyer assumed all the wildness
of a Bluebeard story. Ferguson would hear of nothing but killing. The
new Lord Mayor, the new sheriffs Rich and North, were to be killed, and
their skins stuffed and hung up in Guildhall; the judges were to be
flayed, too, and their skins suspended in Westminster Hall and other
great traitors were to have their skins hung up in the Parliament House.
[Illustration: THE RYE HOUSE.]
Next, Rumsey turned informer, and, improving as he went on, he also
accused Lord William Russell, Mr. Trenchard, Roe, the Sword-Bearer of
Bristol, the Duke of Monmouth, Sir Thomas Armstrong, Lord Grey, and
Ferguson. He had, he said, met most of these persons at Shepherd's,
a wine-merchant, near Lombard Street, and nothing less was intended
by most of them than killing the king and his brother. Trenchard
had promised a thousand foot and three hundred horse in the West,
and Ferguson had engaged to raise twelve hundred Scots who had
fled to England after the battle of Bothwell Bridge. Shepherd, the
wine-merchant, was called, and said that Shaftesbury, before going
to Holland, the Duke of Monmouth, Lords William Russell and Grey,
Armstrong, Rumsey, and Ferguson had met at his house, and, he was
informed, had talked about securing his Majesty's Guards, and had
walked about the Court end of the town at night, and reported a very
remiss state of the Guards on duty. He added that as the design had not
obtained sufficient support, so far as he knew, it was laid aside.
On the 26th of June a proclamation was issued for the apprehension of
Monmouth, Grey, Russell, Armstrong, Walcot, and others. Monmouth, Grey,
Armstrong, and Ferguson escaped; Lord William Russell, Sidney, Essex,
Wildman, Howard of Escrick, Walcot, and others were taken, then or soon
after. Russell was the first secured. He was found quietly seated in
his library, and though the messengers had walked to and fro for some
time before his door, as if wishing him to get away, he took no steps
towards it, but as soon as the officer had shown his warrant, he went
with him as though he had been backed by a troop. When examined before
the Council, he is said, even by his own party, to have made but a
feeble defence. He admitted having been at Shepherd's, but only to buy
wines. He understood that some of those whom he had seen there were a
crowd of dangerous designers; he should not, therefore, mention them,
but only the Duke of Monmouth, against whom there could be no such
charge. He denied that he had heard there anything about a rising in
the West or in Scotland, but only that in the latter country there were
many people in distress, ministers and others, whom it would be a great
charity to relieve. He was committed to the Tower, and on entering it
he said he was sworn against, and they would have his life. His servant
replied that he hoped matters were not so bad as that, but he rejoined,
"Yes! the devil is loose!" He saw the course things were taking; the
spirit that was in the ascendant; he knew that he had entered into
revolutionary schemes sufficiently for his condemnation, and that the
Duke of York, who had an old hatred for him, would never let him escape.
Lord Howard was one of the last arrested. He went about after the
arrest of several of the others, declaring that there really was no
plot; that he knew of none; yet after that it is asserted, and strong
evidence adduced for it, that to save his own life he had made several
offers to the Court to betray his kinsman Russell. Four days before
Russell's trial, a serjeant-at-arms, attended by a troop of horse,
was sent to Howard's house at Knightsbridge, and after a long search
discovered him in his shirt in the chimney of his room. His conduct
when taken was most cowardly and despicable, and fully justified
the character that he had of being one of the most perfidious and
base of men. He wept, trembled, and entreated, and begging a private
interview with the king and duke, he betrayed his associates to save
himself. Russell had always had a horror and suspicion of him, but
he had managed to captivate Sidney by his vehement professions of
Republicanism, and by Sidney and Essex he had been induced to tolerate
the traitor. The Earl of Essex was taken at his house at Cassiobury,
and was escorted to town by a party of horse. He might have escaped
through the assistance of his friends, but he deemed that his flight
would tend to condemn his friend Russell, and he refused.
He was a man of a melancholy temperament, but he bore up bravely
till he was shut up in the Tower, in the same cell where his wife's
grandfather, the Earl of Northumberland, in the reign of Elizabeth,
had died by his own hands or those of an assassin, and from which
his father, the Lord Capel, had been led to execution under the
Commonwealth. He now became greatly depressed. The rest of the
prisoners--Sidney, Hampden, Armstrong, Baillie of Jerviswood, and
others, both Scottish and English--displayed the most firm bearing
before the Council, and refused to answer the questions put to
them. Sidney told the king and his ministers that if they wished to
incriminate him, it was not from himself that they would get their
information.
Lord William Russell was brought to trial on the 13th of July, at the
Old Bailey. He was charged with conspiring the death of the king, and
consulting to levy war upon him. Intense interest was attached to
this trial, in consequence of the high character of the prisoner, and
because it must decide how far the Whig leaders were concerned in the
designs of lower conspirators. He requested a delay till afternoon
or next morning, because material witnesses had not arrived, but the
Attorney-General, Sir Robert Sawyer, replied, "You would not have given
the king an hour's notice for saving his life; the trial must proceed."
He then requested the use of pen, ink, and paper, and for permission
to avail himself of the documents he had with him. These requests were
granted, and he then asked for some one to help him to take notes;
and the court replied that he might have the service of any of his
servants for that purpose. "My lord," said Russell, addressing Chief
Justice Pemberton, "my wife is here to do it." This observation, and
the lady herself then rising up to place herself at her husband's side
to perform this office, produced a lively sensation in the crowd of
spectators. The daughter of the excellent and popular Lord Southampton
thus devoting herself to assist her husband in his last extremity, was
an incident not likely to lose its effect on the mind of Englishmen,
and the image
"Of that sweet saint who sat by Russell's side"
has ever since formed a favourite theme for the painter and the poet.
The witnesses first produced against him were Rumsey and Shepherd.
Rumsey deposed that the prisoner had attended a meeting at Shepherd's
for concerting a plan to surprise the king's Guards at the Savoy and
the Mews, and Shepherd confirmed this evidence. Russell admitted the
being at Shepherd's, and meeting the persons alleged, but denied the
object stated so far as he himself was concerned, or so far as he had
heard or understood. The last and most infamous witness was Lord Howard
of Escrick, a man of ability and address, but a thorough profligate,
and generally despised, and by Russell himself long suspected. Yet even
he seemed to feel the infamy of his position, and to give his evidence
with shame. Whilst in the midst of it, the Court was electrified by the
news that the Earl of Essex had that moment committed suicide in his
cell. He had called for a razor, shut himself up in a closet, and cut
his throat so effectually that he had nearly severed his head from his
body. When the news, however, reached the court of the Old Bailey, the
sensation was intense. The witness himself was greatly agitated by it,
and Jeffreys, who was counsel for the Crown, seized upon it to damage
the cause of the prisoner at the bar. He argued that the very act
showed the conscious guilt of Essex, who had been constantly mixed up
in the proceedings of Russell.
Howard swore that he had heard from Monmouth, Walcot, and others, that
Russell had been deeply concerned with the conspirators, and especially
their head, Lord Shaftesbury. He alleged that Russell had taken part in
two discussions at Hampden's, where they had arranged the treasonable
correspondence with the Earl of Argyll and his adherents in Scotland;
and was aware of the agent, one Aaron Smith, being sent to Scotland
for the purpose of organising their co-operation. Being pressed to say
whether Lord William took an active part in these discussions, he did
not plainly assert that he did, as he said he was well known to be
cautious and reserved in his discourse, but that all was understood,
and he appeared to consent to everything. Russell admitted having been
at those meetings, but again denied any knowledge of any such designs,
and declared that Lord Howard's evidence was mere hearsay evidence,
and of no legal weight whatever; and that, moreover, Howard had
positively declared repeatedly that there was no plot, and had sworn to
his (Russell's) innocence. On this Howard was recalled, and explained
that it was before his arrest that he had ridiculed and denied the
plot--which, under the circumstances, was natural enough--and he had
sworn to Lord William's innocence only as far as regarded a design
of assassination of the king and duke, but not as regarded his
participation in the general plot. West and the serjeant-at-arms, who
had the Scottish prisoners in custody, were also called to prove the
reality of the plot, and of their looking chiefly to Lord William
Russell to head it.
On his part the prisoner contended that none of the witnesses were to
be relied on, because they were swearing against him in order to save
their own lives. He also argued that, according to the statute of 25
Edward III., the statute decided not the design to levy war, but the
overt act, to constitute treason. But the Attorney-General replied that
not only to levy war, but to conspire to levy war against the king, to
kill, depose, or constrain him, was treason by the statute. Before the
jury retired, Russell addressed them, saying, "Gentlemen, I am now in
your hands eternally; my honour, my life, and all; and I hope the heats
and animosities that are amongst you will not so bias you as to make
you in the least inclined to find an innocent man guilty. I call heaven
and earth to witness that I never had a design against the king's
life. I am in your hands, so God direct you." They returned a verdict
of guilty, and Treby, the Recorder of London, who had been an active
Exclusionist, pronounced the sentence of death. In spite of the efforts
of his relatives, the sentence was carried out on the 21st of July,
1683.
On the day of Lord William Russell's death, the University of Oxford
marked the epoch by one of those rampant assertions of Toryism which
have too often disgraced that seat of learning. It published a
"Judgment and Declaration," as passed in their Convocation, for the
honour of the holy and undivided Trinity, the preservation of Catholic
truth in the Church, and that the king's majesty might be secured
both from the attempts of open bloody enemies and the machinations of
treacherous heretics and schismatics. In this declaration they attacked
almost every principle of civil and religious liberty, which had been
promulgated and advocated in the works of Milton, Baxter, Bellarmin,
Owen, Knox, Buchanan, and others. They declared that the doctrines of
the civil authority being derived from the people; of there existing
any compact, tacit or expressed, between the prince and his subjects
from the obligation of which, should one party retreat, the other
becomes exempt; of the sovereign forfeiting his right to govern if he
violate the limitations established by the laws of God and man, were
all wicked, abominate, and devilish doctrines, deserving of everlasting
reprobation. And they called upon "All and singular the readers,
tutors, and catechists, diligently to instruct and ground their
scholars in that most necessary doctrine, which in a manner is the
badge and character of the Church of England, of submitting to every
ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, teaching that this submission and
obedience is to be clear, absolute, and without exception of any state
or order of men." This doctrine of slaves, which Oxford would have
fixed on the nation as the badge of Englishmen, they were in a very few
years, under James, taught the practical blessing of. They had, when
their turn came, quickly enough of it, flung the badge to the winds,
and made a present of their plate to the Dutch prince, who came to
drive their sovereign from the throne.
Before the trial of Algernon Sidney took place, Sir George Jeffreys
was made Lord Chief Justice in place of Sanders, who was incapacitated
by sickness. Before this alternately laughing and blackguarding demon
Algernon Sidney, the last of the republicans, was arraigned at the bar
of the King's Bench on the 7th of September, 1683. Rumsey, Keeling, and
West were brought against him, as against Russell, but the main witness
was the despicable Lord Howard, whom Evelyn truly calls, "That monster
of a man, Lord Howard of Escrick." On their evidence he was charged
with being a member of the Council of six, sworn to kill the king and
overturn his Government; with having attended at those meetings already
mentioned at Hampden's, Russell's, and Shepherd's; and with having
undertaken to send Aaron Smith to Scotland, to concert a simultaneous
insurrection, and to persuade the leading Scottish conspirators to come
to London, on pretence of proceeding to Carolina.
Sidney, after Howard had delivered his evidence, was asked if he had
any questions to put to the witness, but he replied with the utmost
scorn, that "he had no questions to ask such as him!" "Then," said the
Attorney-General, "silence--you know the rest of the proverb." The
difficulty remained to prove Sidney's treason, for there were no two
witnesses able or willing to attest an overt act. But if it depended
on the existence of fact, there was not one of the Council of six who
was not guilty of really conspiring to drive out the next successor
to the Crown. Neither Russell, nor Hampden, nor Sidney, though they
laboured in self-defence to prove the plot improbable, ever really
denied its existence. They knew that it did exist, and were too honest
to deny it, though they notoriously sought to evade the penalty of it,
by contending that nothing of the kind was or could be proved. But
what said Hampden himself after the Revolution, before a committee
of the House of Lords? Plainly, "that the coming into England of King
William was nothing else but the continuation of the Council of Six."
The conspiracy by that time was become in the eyes of the Government
no longer a crime, but a meritorious fact. The injustice thus done to
these patriots was not that they had not committed treason against the
existing Government, but that they were condemned on discreditable and
insufficient evidence. When men conspire to get rid of a tyrannous
government by force, they commit what is legally rendered treason, and
must take the consequence, if detected by the ruling powers. But that
circumstance does not render the attempt less meritorious, and if it
succeeds they have their reward. In this case the prisoners knew very
well that if their real doings could be proved against them, they must
fall by the resentment of those whom they sought to get rid of; but
they resisted, and justly, being condemned on the evidence of traitors
like Lord Howard, and even then by evidence less than the law required.
To make out the two necessary witnesses in this case, the
Attorney-General brought forward several persons to prove that the
Scottish agents of conspiracy for whom Sidney had sent had actually
arrived in London; but he relied much more on a manuscript pamphlet
which was found in Sidney's desk when he was arrested. This pamphlet
appeared to be an answer to Filmer's book, which argued that possession
was the only right to power. Three persons were called to swear that
it was in Sidney's handwriting; but the chief of these was the same
perfidious Shepherd, the wine-merchant, who had so scandalously
betrayed his party. He had seen Sidney sign several endorsements, and
believed this to be his writing. A second, who had seen him write
once, and a third, who had not seen him write at all, but had seen his
hand on some bills, thought it like his writing. This was by no means
conclusive, but that did not trouble the Court; it went on to read
passages in order to show the treasonableness of the manuscript, and
then it was adroitly handed to the prisoner on the plea of enabling
him to show any reasons for its being deemed harmless; but Sidney was
not caught by so palpable a trick. He put back the book as a thing
that no way concerned him. On this Jeffreys turned over the leaves,
and remarked, "I perceive you have arranged your matter under certain
heads; so, what heads will you have read?" Sidney replied that the man
who wrote it might speak to that; and asked with indignation whether
a paper found in his study against Nero and Caligula would prove that
he had conspired against Charles II.? What credit, he asked, was due to
such a man as Lord Howard, who had betrayed every one that had anything
to do with him, and had said that he could not get his pardon till the
drudgery of swearing was over? He contended that Howard was his debtor,
that he had a mortgage on his estate, and to get rid of repayment was
now seeking his life. He commented on the oldness of the work in the
manuscript, and asked the Attorney-General how many years the book of
Filmer's, which it replied to, had been written. Jeffreys told him
they had nothing to do with Filmer's book; the question was, would he
acknowledge the authorship of the pamphlet? Sidney replied, "No;" that
it was neither proved to be his, nor contained any treason if it had
been.
[Illustration: TRIAL OF LORD WILLIAM RUSSELL. (_See p._ 278.)
(_After the Picture by Sir George Hayter._)]
Jeffreys, after a parade of humanity, declaring that the king desired
not to take away any man's life which was not clearly forfeited to
the law, but had rather that many guilty men should escape than one
innocent man suffer, concluded, nevertheless, by telling the jury that
_scribere est agere_--that they had evidence enough before them, and
they, accordingly, brought in a verdict of guilty.
When the prisoner was brought up on the 26th of November to receive
sentence, he pleaded in arrest of judgment that he had had no trial,
that some of his jurors were not freeholders, and that his challenges
had not been complied with; yet he seems to have exercised that right
to a great extent, for the panel contains the names of eighty-nine
persons, of whom fifty-five were challenged, absent, or excused. As
jurymen, however, then were summoned, there might still be much truth
in his plea. He objected, too, that there was a material flaw in the
indictment, the words in the king's title--Defender of the Faith--being
left out. "But," exclaimed Jeffreys, "that you would deprive the king
of his life, that is in very full, I think." But this plea had a
certain effect, and a Mr. Bampfield, a barrister, contended that the
judgment should not be proceeded with whilst there was so material a
defect in the indictment. Sidney also insisted that there was no proof
of the manuscript being his, or of its being treason, and demanded that
the Duke of Monmouth should be summoned, as he could not be earlier
found, and now was at hand. But Jeffreys overruled all his pleadings,
and declared that there was nothing further to do than to pass
sentence. "I must appeal to God and the world that I am not heard,"
said Sidney. "Appeal to whom you will," retorted Jeffreys, brutally,
and with many terms of crimination and abuse, passed on him sentence
of death with all its butcheries. On the 7th of December he was led to
execution.
A very different man at this epoch obtained his pardon, and played
a very different part. The weak, impulsive, ambitious, and yet
vacillating Monmouth was by means of Halifax reconciled to his father.
Halifax, who was known as a minister by the name of the Trimmer, though
he had aided the Tories in gaining the ascendant, no sooner saw the
lengths at which they were driving, than he began to incline to the
other side. His tendency was always to trim the balance. When the Whigs
were in the ascendant he was a decided Tory; he did his best to throw
out the Exclusion Bill, and when it was thrown out he was one of the
first to advocate measures for preventing the mischiefs of a Popish
succession. His genius was not to stimulate some great principle,
and bear it on in triumph, but to keep the prevailing crisis from
running into extravagance. He was, like Danby, an enemy to the French
alliance; he loathed the doctrine of passive obedience; he was opposed
to long absence of Parliaments; he dared to intercede for Russell and
Sidney, when the Tory faction were demanding their blood; he saw the
undue influence that the Duke of York had acquired by the late triumph
over the Whigs, and he began to patronise Monmouth as a counterpoise;
he wrote some letters for Monmouth, professing great penitence, and
Monmouth copied and sent them, and the king at once relented. On the
25th of October Charles received him at the house of Major Long, in the
City; and though he assumed an air of displeasure, and upbraided him
with the heinous nature of his crimes, he added words which showed that
he meant to forgive. On the 4th of November there was another private
interview, and Halifax laboured hard to remove all difficulties. The
king offered him full forgiveness, but on condition that he submitted
himself entirely to his pleasure. On the 24th of November he threw
himself at the feet of the king and the Duke of York, and implored
their forgiveness, promising to be the first man, in case of the king's
death, to draw the sword for the maintenance of the duke's claims.
The duke had been prepared beforehand for this scene, and accorded
apparently his forgiveness. But Monmouth was then weak enough to be
induced to confirm the testimony of Lord Howard against his late
associates, and to reveal the particulars of their negotiations with
Argyll in Scotland. This he did under solemn assurances that all should
remain secret, and nothing should be done which should humiliate him.
Having done this, his outlawry was reversed, a full pardon formally
drawn, and a present of six thousand pounds was made him by the king to
start afresh with.
No sooner, however, was this done than he saw with consternation his
submission and confession published in the _Gazette_. He denied that
he had revealed anything to the king which confirmed the sentences
lately passed on Russell and Sidney. The king was enraged, and insisted
that he should in writing contradict these assertions. He was again
cowardly enough to comply, and immediately being assailed by the
reproaches of his late friends, and especially of Hampden, whose turn
was approaching, and who said that Monmouth had sealed his doom, he
hastened to Charles, and in great excitement and distress demanded back
his letter. Charles assured him that it should never be produced in
any court as evidence against the prisoners, and advised him to take
some time to reflect on the consequences to himself of the withdrawal.
But next morning, the 7th of December, renewing his entreaty for the
letter, it was returned him in exchange for a less decisive statement,
and Charles bade him never come into his presence again. He then
retired to his seat in the country, and once more offered to sign a
paper as strong as the last. Even Charles felt the infamy of this
proceeding, and refused the offer.
But still it was determined to make use of him, and he was subpœnaed
to give evidence on the approaching trial of Hampden. He pleaded
the promise that his confession should not be used against the
prisoners, but he was told that he had cancelled that obligation by
his subsequently withdrawing his letter. Seeing by this that he would
be dragged before a public court to play the disgraceful part of Lord
Howard, he suddenly disappeared from his house in Holborn, and escaped
to Holland, where he was well received by Prince William, who was now
the grand refuge of English and Scottish refugees of all parties and
politics. As Monmouth's escape deprived the court of his evidence, and
only one main witness, Lord Howard, could be obtained, the charge of
high treason was abandoned, and that of a misdemeanour was substituted.
Howard was the chief witness, and Hampden was found guilty and punished
by a fine of forty thousand pounds, and imprisoned till paid, besides
having to find two securities for his good behaviour during life. When
he complained of the severity of the sentence, which was equivalent to
imprisonment during the life of his father, he was reminded that his
crime really amounted to treason, and therefore was very mild.
On the return of the Duke of York to Scotland, the persecutions of the
defeated Covenanters had been renewed there with a fury and diabolical
ferocity which has scarcely a parallel in history. Wives were tortured
for refusing to betray their husbands, children because they would not
discover their parents. People were tortured and then hanged merely
because they would not say that the insurrection there was a rebellion,
or the killing of Archbishop Sharp was a murder. The fortress of the
Bass Rock, Dumbarton Castle, and other strongholds were crammed with
Covenanters and Cameronians. Witnesses, a thing unheard of before,
were now tortured. "This," says Sir John Lauder of Fountainhall,
"was agreeable to the Roman law, but not to ours; it was a barbarous
practice, but yet of late frequently used amongst us." He also informs
us that Generals Dalziel and Drummond had imported thumbscrews from
Russia, where they had seen them used, by which they crushed the thumbs
of prisoners to compel them to confess. All the laws of evidence
were thrown aside, and the accused were condemned on presumptive
evidence. On such testimony the property of numbers was forfeited, and
the notorious Graham of Claverhouse was enriched by the estate of a
suspected Covenanter.
By these torrents of blood, these diabolical engines of iron boots,
thumbscrews, and other tortures; by witnesses forced to implicate their
neighbours, and a herd of vile caitiffs brought forward to swear away
the lives and fortunes of every man who dared to entertain, though he
scarcely ventured to avow, a free opinion; by the Church preaching
passive obedience; by servile, bullying, and brutal judges; Charles had
now completely subdued the spirit of the nation, and had, through the
aid of French money, obtained that absolute power which his father in
vain fought for.
One of the first uses which he made of this beautiful tranquillity was
to destroy the ancient seminaries of freedom--the corporations of the
country. Writs of _quo warranto_ were issued, and the corporations,
like the nation at large, prostrate at the foot of the polluted
throne, were compelled by threats and promises to resign their ancient
privileges. "Neither," says Lingard, "had the boroughs much reason to
complain. By the renewal of their charters they lost no franchise
which it was reasonable they should retain; many acquired rights which
they did not previously possess; but individuals suffered, because the
exercise of authority was restricted to a smaller number of burgesses,
and these, according to custom, were in the first instance named by the
Crown."
[Illustration: THE BASS ROCK.]
There, indeed, lay the gist and mischief of the whole matter. Charles
cared little what other privileges they enjoyed so that he could
deprive them of their most important privilege--their independence,
and make them not only slavish institutions, but instruments for the
general enslavement of the country. "In the course of time," says the
same historian, "several boroughs, by the exercise of those exclusive
privileges, which had been conferred on them by ancient grants from
the Crown, had grown into nests or asylums of public malefactors, and
on that account were presented as nuisances by the grand juries of the
county assizes." This was a good reason why those "several boroughs"
should have been reformed; but none whatever why all boroughs should
be compelled to surrender their independence to a despotic monarch.
The great instrument in this sweeping usurpation was the Lord Chief
Justice Jeffreys, a man admirably calculated for the work by his
power of coaxing, jeering, browbeating, and terrifying the reluctant
corporations. Before he set out on his summer circuit this year,
Charles presented him with a ring from his own finger, as a mark of his
especial esteem, at the same time giving him a very necessary piece of
advice, Chief Justice as he was, to beware of drinking too much, as the
weather would be hot. The ring was called Jeffreys' bloodstone, being
presented to him just after the execution of Sir Thomas Armstrong.
Though blood had ceased to flow, persecution of the Whigs had not
ceased. Sir Samuel Barnardiston, the foreman of the grand jury which
had ignored the Bill against Lord Shaftesbury, was not forgotten. He
was tried for a libel, and fined ten thousand pounds, and ordered
to find security for his good behaviour during life. Williams, the
Speaker of the House of Commons, was prosecuted for merely having
discharged the duties of his office, in signing the votes; Braddon
and Speke were tried and punished severely for slandering the king
and duke by charging them with the murder of Essex. And James now
indulged his spleen against Titus Oates for his proceedings against
the Catholics, and his endeavour to exclude James from the succession.
The pretence seized upon was, that Oates and Dutton Colt had declared
that the Duke of York was a traitor, and that before he should come
to the succession, he should be banished or hanged, the hanging being
the fitter. Jeffreys, who tried them, had a particular pleasure in
sentencing Oates, who, in the days of his popularity, had hit the
rascally lawyer hard. In 1680 Jeffreys had fallen under the censure
of Parliament for interfering in its concerns, and they had not only
brought him to his knees at their bar, but had compelled him to resign
the recordership of London. On the trial of College, the "Protestant
joiner," Oates had appealed to Jeffreys, then Serjeant Jeffreys, to
confirm a part of his evidence. Jeffreys indignantly said he did not
intend becoming evidence for a man like him; whereupon Oates coolly
replied, "I don't desire Sir George Jeffreys to become an evidence
for me; I have had credit in Parliaments, and Sir George had disgrace
in one of them." Jeffreys was stunned by this repartee, and merely
replied, "Your servant, doctor; you are a witty man and a philosopher."
But now the tide had turned; Jeffreys had the witty man at his mercy,
and he fined him and Colt one hundred thousand pounds, or imprisonment
till paid, which meant so long as they lived.
Tardy justice was also done to the Catholic peers who were in the
Tower. Lord Stafford had fallen the victim of Protestant terrors
during the ascendency of the Whigs; Lord Petre died, worn out by his
confinement, but the Lords Powis, Arundel, and Bellasis, after lying in
durance vile for five years, were brought up by writ of Habeas corpus,
and were discharged on each entering into recognisances of ten thousand
pounds for himself, and five thousand pounds each for four sureties, to
appear at the bar of the House if called for. The judges, now that the
Duke of York, the Catholic prince, was in power, could admit that these
victims of a political faction "ought in justice and conscience to have
been admitted to bail long ago." Danby, too, was liberated on the same
terms, though he never could be forgiven by the king or duke for his
patronage of Oates, and his zeal in hunting out the plot.
The influence of James was every day more manifest. Charles restored
James to his former status by placing him at the head of the Admiralty;
and, to avoid subjecting him to the penalties of the Test Act, himself
signed all the papers which required the signature of the Lord High
Admiral. Seeing that this was received with perfect complacency, he
went a step farther, and, in defiance of the Test Act, introduced James
again into the Council. This, indeed, excited some murmurs, even the
Tories being scandalised at his thus coolly setting aside an Act of
Parliament.
No sooner was James reinstated in the Council, than he planned yet more
daring changes. Under the plea which he afterwards carried so far in
his own reign, of relieving the Dissenters, he sought to relieve the
Catholics from their penalties. What his regard was for the Dissenters
has been sufficiently shown by their cruel persecution in England, and
by his own especial oppression of the Covenanters in Scotland.
One morning, however, Jeffreys, who had lately been admitted to the
Council, appeared at the board with an immense bundle of papers and
parchments, and informed the king that they were the rolls of the names
of the recusants that he had collected during his late circuit. He
declared that the gaols were crammed with them, and that their case
deserved the serious attention of the king. Lord Keeper North, who saw
instantly the drift of the motion, and who had a profound jealousy of
Jeffreys, who, he knew, was anxiously looking for the Seals, asked
whether all the names in the list belonged to persons who were in
prison? Jeffreys replied no, for the prisons could not hold all the
persons convicted of recusancy. North then observed, that besides
Catholics there were vast numbers of Nonconformists and other persons
included in those lists, who were professed enemies of the king, and of
Church and State, and that it would be far easier and safer to grant
particular pardons to Catholics, than thus at once to set at liberty
all the elements of commotion in the kingdom. The blow was struck.
Strong as was the Government then, it dared not give a measure of
exemption exclusively to the Catholics. The scheme, it was obviously
seen, was transparent, and there was a significant silence. Neither
Halifax, nor Rochester, nor the more Protestant members having occasion
to open their mouths, the Council passed to other business.
But Halifax saw with alarm the advancing influence of the duke, and
trembled for his own hold of office, for the duke, he knew, hated
him mortally. He, therefore, as a certain resource against this
advancing power, advised Charles to call a Parliament, but that Charles
had resolved never to do. He still received a considerable sum from
Louis, though not so large in amount nor so regularly paid as when his
services were more needful; and to decrease his expenditure, he had,
during the last year, sent a squadron under Lord Dartmouth to destroy
the fortification of Tangier, which he had received as part of the
dowry of the queen. Had that Settlement been well managed, it would
have given England great advantages in the Mediterranean; but nothing
of that kind was well managed by this unpatriotic king. To spare the
expenditure necessary for its maintenance, he thus destroyed the
defences, and left the place to the Moors, to the great indignation of
Portugal, which thought rightly that, if he did not value it, he might
have restored it.
Defeated in that quarter, Halifax next endeavoured to stop the
advancement of Lord Rochester. This was Lawrence Hyde, the second son
of the late Lord Chancellor Clarendon, and the especial favourite of
the duke. He had (in 1682) not only been created Earl of Rochester,
but made First Commissioner of the Treasury. Halifax beheld in his
rise an ominous competitor, especially as the duke was the mainspring
of his prosperity. He therefore accused Rochester of negligence or
embezzlement in his office, and succeeded in removing him (1684) from
the Treasury board to the Presidency of the Council. This Halifax
called kicking a man upstairs. Nor did Rochester's promotion end here.
He was soon after appointed to the government of Ireland, the old and
veteran colleague of Rochester's father, and the staunch champion of
Charles in the days of his adversity, being removed to make way for
him. The great object, however, was not simply Rochester's promotion,
but the organisation of a powerful Catholic army in Ireland, for which
it was deemed Ormond was not active enough, this army having reference
to James's views on England, which afterwards proved his ruin.
By this appointment Rochester was removed from immediate rivalry with
Halifax; but sufficient elements of danger still surrounded that
minister. Halifax and his colleagues had succeeded in strengthening
the Protestant succession by the marriage of the second daughter of
the duke, Anne, to a Protestant prince; but even in this event the
influence of Louis had been active. Through the medium of Sunderland,
who continued in office, and maintained a close intimacy with the
French mistress, the Duchess of Portsmouth, Louis took care that,
though the nation would not tolerate any but a Protestant prince for
Anne's husband, it should be one of no great importance. George, Prince
of Hanover, afterwards George I., had been selected, and made a visit
to London, but returned without the princess. The fortune, it had been
suggested, was not enough for the penurious German; his father recalled
him to marry the Princess of Zell, a circumstance which Anne never
forgot or forgave. In the midst of the agitation of the Rye House Plot,
and but two days before the execution of Lord William Russell, another
wooer appeared in George, brother of the King of Denmark. This young
man also had the approbation of Louis, and the match took place a week
after his arrival.
Still Halifax felt a growing insecurity in the royal favour. The
whole influence of the Duke of York was exerted to ruin him, and he
therefore determined once more to attempt to re-establish Monmouth in
the king's favour. This popular but weak young man was living in great
honour at the Court of the Prince of Orange. Many remonstrances had
been made by the Duke of York to his daughter and son-in-law, against
their encouragement of a son who had taken so determined a part both
against his own father, the king, and himself, their father. But the
prince and princess were well aware of Charles's affection for his
undutiful son, and therefore did not fear seriously offending him.
Under the management of Halifax, Van Citters, the Dutch ambassador in
London, went over to the Hague on pretence of negotiating some measure
of importance between the two countries. The Prince of Orange affected
to comply with the wishes of Charles for the removal of Monmouth. But
this nobleman, instead of taking up his residence at Brussels, as was
given out, suddenly returned to London privately, had an interview with
his father, and as suddenly returned to the Hague, saying that in three
months he should be publicly admitted at Court, and the Duke of York
be banished afresh. Charles, meantime, had proposed to James to go and
hold a Parliament in Scotland, as if conferring a mark of particular
honour and confidence on him. But the private visit of Monmouth had not
escaped James, nor the correspondence of Halifax with him, and this
caused a fresh energy of opposition to that minister to be infused
into the duke's creatures at Court. Halifax had recommended a most
enlightened measure to the king as regarded the American colonies,
which, had it been adopted, might have prevented their loss at a later
period. He represented that the grant of local legislatures to them
would be the best means of developing their resources, and governing
them in peace; but on this admirable suggestion the duke's partisans
seized as something especially anti-monarchical and injurious to the
power of the king. The duke, the Duchess of Portsmouth, and the Earl of
Sunderland re-echoed these opinions, and drew from Charles a promise
that unless Halifax retired of himself, he should be dismissed on the
first plausible occasion. The influence of the French king was also at
work to effect the overthrow of Halifax. It was in vain that Louis had
endeavoured to buy him as he had done the king, the duke, and the other
ministers; and as he could not be bought, the only alternative was
to drive him from office. He was feebly supported by the Lord Keeper
North; he was actively and zealously undermined by his colleagues,
Sunderland and Godolphin; but still Charles hesitated. He enjoyed the
wit and brilliant conversation of Halifax; he knew well his ability,
and, still more, he was in a most indolent and undecided frame of
mind. Macaulay has well described him at this moment:--"The event
depended wholly on the will of Charles, and Charles could not come to
a decision. In his perplexity he promised everything to everybody.
He would stand by France, he would break with France; he would never
meet another Parliament; he would order writs for a Parliament without
delay. He assured the Duke of York that Halifax should be dismissed
from office, and Halifax that the duke should be sent to Scotland.
In public he affected implacable resentment against Monmouth, and in
private conveyed to Monmouth assurances of unalterable affection. How
long, if the king's life had been protracted, his hesitation would have
lasted, and what would have been his resolve, can only be conjectured."
But his time was come. It was not likely that a man who had led the
dissipated life that Charles had, would live to a very old age. He
was now in his fifty-fifth year, and the twenty-fifth of his reign,
that is, reckoning from the Restoration, and not from the death of
his father, as the Royalists, who would never admit that a king could
be unkinged, did. His health, or, more visibly, his spirits, had
lately much failed--no doubt the consequence of that giving way of
his debilitated system, which was soon to carry him off. His gaiety
had quite forsaken him; he was gloomy, depressed, finding no pleasure
in anything, and only at any degree of ease in sauntering away his
time amongst his women. It was thought that his conscience began to
trouble him for the profligacy of his life, and the blood that had been
shed under his rule; but Charles was not a man much troubled with a
conscience; he was sinking without being aware of it, and the heaviness
of death was lying on him. On Monday, the 2nd of February, 1685, he
rose at an early hour from a restless couch. Dr. King, a surgeon and
chemist, who had been employed by him in experiments, perceived that he
walked heavily, and with an unsteady gait. His face was ghastly, his
head drooping, and his hand retained on his stomach. When spoken to he
returned no answer, or a very incoherent one. King hastened out, and
informed the Earl of Peterborough that the king was in a strange state,
and did not speak one word of sense. They returned instantly to the
king's apartment, and had scarcely entered it when he fell on the floor
in an apoplectic fit. As no time was to be lost, Dr. King, on his own
responsibility, bled him. The blood flowed freely, and he recovered his
consciousness. When the physicians arrived they perfectly approved of
what Dr. King had done, and applied strong stimulants to various parts
of his body. The Council ordered one thousand pounds to be paid to Dr.
King for his prompt services, but the fee was never paid.
As soon as the king rallied a little, he asked for the queen, who
hastened to his bedside, and waited on him with the most zealous
affection, till the sight of his sufferings threw her into fits, and
the physicians ordered her to her own apartment. Towards evening
Charles had a relapse, but the next morning he rallied again, and was
so much better, that the physicians issued a bulletin, expressing hope
of his recovery; but the next day he changed again for the worse,
and on the fourth evening it was clear that his end was at hand. The
announcement of his dangerous condition spread consternation through
the City; the momentary news of his improvement was received with
unequivocal joy, the ringing of bells, and making of bonfires. When
the contrary intelligence of his imminent danger was made known,
crowds rushed to the churches to pray for his recovery; and it is said
the service was interrupted by the sobs and tears of the people. In
the royal chapel prayers every two hours were continued during his
remaining moments.
James was never a moment from the dying king's bedside. He was
afterwards accused of having poisoned him--a suspicion for which there
does not appear the slightest foundation; but, apart from natural
brotherly regard, James was on the watch to guard the chances of his
succession. Every precaution was taken to secure the tranquillity of
the City, and to insure an uninterrupted proclamation of his accession.
In the room, too, were as constantly a great number of noblemen and
bishops. There were the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of
London, Durham, and Ely, and Bath and Wells, besides twenty-five lords
and privy councillors. A bishop, with some of the nobles, took turns to
watch each night.
Early on the Thursday morning, Ken, of Bath and Wells, ventured to warn
the king of his danger, and Charles receiving the solemn intelligence
with an air of resignation, he proceeded to read the Office for the
Visitation of the Sick. He asked Charles if he repented of his sins,
and on replying that he did, Ken gave him absolution according to the
prescribed form of the Church of England, and then inquired whether
he should administer the Sacrament. To this there was no answer. Ken,
supposing that the king did not clearly comprehend the question,
repeated it more distinctly. Charles replied there was yet plenty of
time. The bread and wine, however, were brought, and placed on a table
near him; but though the question was again repeatedly asked by the
bishop, Charles only replied, "he would think of it."
The mystery was, however, solved by the French mistress, who, drawing
Barillon, the French ambassador into her boudoir, said, "Monsieur
l'Ambassadeur, I am going to tell you the greatest secret in the world,
and my head would be in danger if it were known here. The king, in the
bottom of his heart, is a Catholic, and nobody tells him the state he
is in, or speaks to him of God. I can no longer with propriety enter
into his chamber, where the queen is almost constantly with him; the
Duke of York thinks about his own affairs, and has no time to take the
care that he ought of the king's conscience. Go and tell him that I
have conjured you to warn him to do what he can to save the soul of the
king, his brother. He is master in the royal chamber, and can make any
one withdraw from it as he lists. Lose no time, for if you delay ever
so little, it may be too late."
When Barillon whispered this to James, he started as from a lethargy,
and said, "You are right, there is no time to lose. I will rather
hazard all than not do my duty." A priest was found in Huddleston, who
had been with the king in the battle of Worcester, and accompanied him
in his flight. He had become a Benedictine monk, and had been appointed
one of the chaplains of the queen.
The duke, stooping to the king's ear, had inquired in a whisper whether
he should bring him a Catholic priest, and Charles instantly replied,
"For God's sake, do!" The duke then requested, in the king's name, all
the company to retire into an adjoining room, except the Earl of Bath,
Lord of the Bedchamber, and Lord Feversham, Captain of the Guard, and
as soon as this was done, Huddleston, disguised in a wig and gown, was
introduced by the backstairs by Chiffinch, who for so many years had
been employed to introduce very different persons. Barillon says that
Huddleston was no great doctor, which is probably true enough, having
originally been a soldier, but he managed to administer the Sacrament
to the king, and also the extreme unction. Charles declared he pardoned
all his enemies, and prayed to be pardoned by God, and forgiven by all
whom he had injured.
This ceremony lasted three-quarters of an hour, and the excluded
attendants passed the time in much wonder and significant guesses. They
looked at one another in amazement, but spoke only with their eyes,
or in whispers. The Lords Bath and Feversham being both Protestants,
however, seemed to disarm the fears of the bishops. But when Huddleston
withdrew, the news was speedily spread. That night he was in much
pain; the queen sent to excuse her absence, and to beg that he would
pardon any offence that she might at any time have given him. "Alas!
poor woman!" he replied, "she beg my pardon! I beg hers with all my
heart; take back to her that answer." He then sent for his illegitimate
sons, except Monmouth, whom he never mentioned, and recommended them
to James, and, taking each by the hand, gave them his blessing. The
bishops, affected by this edifying sight, threw themselves on their
knees, and begged he would bless them too; whereupon he was raised up
and blessed them all. Having blessed the bishops, he next blessed the
ladies of his harem, and particularly recommended to his successor
the care of the Duchess of Portsmouth, who had been pretty active for
his exclusion, and also the Duchess of Cleveland, hoping, moreover,
that "poor Nelly"--Nell Gwynne--would not be left to starve. Three
hours afterwards this strange monarch breathed his last on the 6th of
February, 1685.
[Illustration: _By permission of the Corporation of Liverpool._
THE ANTE-CHAMBER OF WHITEHALL DURING THE LAST MOMENTS OF CHARLES II.,
1685.
FROM THE PICTURE BY E. M. WARD, R.A., IN THE WALKER ART GALLERY,
LIVERPOOL.]
[Illustration: GREAT SEAL OF JAMES II.]