1682 against the The various questions were discussed by a committee, called the Lords of the Articles; the remainder of the assembly_merely sanctioning or rejecting the decisions of the committee. Lauderdale had always had the Lords of the Articles at his disposal, and the duke reasonably expected the like submission. But there were influential men in the committee, as the Duke of Hamilton and the Earl of Argyle, who, he knew, were opposed to his claims. However, when parliament met (July 28, 1681), it voted that the succession to the crown was indefeasible; it enacted a It enacts Test which asserted the King's supremacy, renounced the aest covenant, inculcated passive obedience, and disclaimed Covenant. any attempt to change the civil or religious establishments. But it expressed the adherence to the Protestant religion, of the person taking it. The courtiers proposed that all princes of the blood should be exempted from this oath; but the Earl of Argyle opposed this, saying plainly, that the greatest danger from popery, in his opinion, was, that a prince of the royal family should allow himself to be drawn into it, and that it were better to have no test at all than one like this. When the earl took the oath, he added, "saving the right that every good Protestant and faithful subject has to propose, according to his conscience, beneficial reform in church and state." He was asked to add this reservation in writing. He did so; but it was an odious trap; for he had scarcely signed his name than he was arrested on a charge of high treason, and immediately condemned to death by a special commission. His daughter, however, effected his escape, Escape of and he reached Holland in safety (December 21st, 1681). Argyle. Scotland was now wholly under the feet of the tyrant. Judicial murders were committed in every district of the southern and western counties; hundreds were outlawed, and more than 80 ministers were expelled from Edinburgh for refusing to take the test. The maddened Presbyterians then formally re- The nounced their allegiance; this led to still greater violence, renounce the execution of which James now left to the Duke of allegiance. Queensberry and the Earl of Aberdeen, while he repaired to London (February, 1682). Covenanters their 56. Confiscation of the Charters. The court was now in the enjoyment of full triumph, and the Whigs, so late in the heyday of their pride, lay prostrate everywhere. London had lost its popular sheriffs; the choice of other sheriffs throughout the land was chiefly directed by the crown; the sheriffs could pack the jurymen on state trials; the jurymen would be duly exhorted from the pulpit, to believe upon the authority of scripture that, as The doctrine of obedience A royal army dangerous CHAP. XII. all resistance to authority was a sin, the support of authority in all its desires was a virtue. It was necessary for the passive peace of the country that the crown should have its inculcated. wished-for verdict in every trial, and it was the duty of every good man to assist the King's judges and the King's attorney in condemning the accused, that the throne might be placed upon the solid foundation of the people's implicit obedience. The danger of insurrection was manifest to every man by the presence of a standing army, consisting of two regiments of household cavalry, two regiments of foot guards, a regiment of dragoons, and five other regiments of foot. There was no war to give employment to this small army; there was no foreign garrison to absorb any portion of it, for Tangiers, to liberty. which came to the crown as the dowry of Queen Catherine, was abandoned. The army was wholly available for the repression of sedition at home.* The rebellious city of London was the first to be taught its duty. The power of the democracy and of the middle classes resided chiefly in the corporations, where the old Puritan spirit still survived, and Liberty and Protestantism were names which stirred the most sluggish spirits into patriotism. These corporations returned a majority of the representatives of the Commons, and so long, therefore, as they were animated with this patriotic spirit, there was little prospect of obtaining a parliament that would co-operate with the Stuart scheme of government. It was suggested, therefore, by some crafty lawyers, that a judgment of forfeiture obtained against the corporation of London, would not only demolish that citadel of insolent rebels, but intimidate the rest of England by so striking an example. An information, as it is called, quo warranto, information accordingly brought into the court of King's Bench against the against the corporation; two acts of the common council of London. being alleged as sufficient misdemeanours to warrant a judgment of forfeiture. The first was, the imposition of tolls upon goods brought into the city markets by an ordinance or by-law of their own; the other their petition to the King in 1679 for the sitting of parliament, and its publication throughout the country. The court pronounced judgment of forfeiture against the corporation, but the judgment, at the request of the attorneygeneral, was only recorded; the city continued to possess apparently its corporate franchises, but upon submission to certain regulations; viz., that no mayor, sheriff, recorder, or other chief An brought corporation * Knight's Pop. Hist.. IV., 369. was 1683 of the new officer, should be admitted until approved by the King; Regulations that if he twice disapproved their choice he should charter. appoint an officer himself; but that in the case of sheriffs, he should at once nominate his own officers, if the first choice did not receive his approval. The corporation, thus bound hand and foot, continued to be the slaves of the court till their shackles were knocked off by the Revolution of 1688. Other corporations were terrified into the surrender of their charters, and, to use the words of North, Charles II.'s most unblushing advocate, Judge Jeffreys on the northern circuit in 1684, "made all the charters, like the walls of Jericho, fall down before him, and returned laden with surrenders, the spoils of towns." They received instead, new charters, framing the constitution of these municipalities on a more oligarchical model, and reserving to the crown the first appointment of those who were to form the governing part of the corporation. At the same time that these confiscations were thus being enforced, the penal laws against the Renewed Nonconformists, which had remained dormant during the the ascendancy of the Whigs, were executed all over the dissenters. kingdom with extreme rigour, and as if to show that the court would revenge itself, even upon individuals, for past occurrences, the Duke of York prosecuted the late Sheriff Pilkington for having used some hasty and violent words concerning him, after his return from Scotland. Pilkington was fined £100,000. persecution conspiracy 57. The Rye-House Plot. Yet the spirit of the Whigs was not subdued; schemes of resistance were discussed, and it was proposed that there should be simultaneous insurrections A general in London, Cheshire, Bristol, and Newcastle. Commu- proposed. nications were also opened with the discontented Presbyterians in Scotland. Amongst the leaders of this conspiracy were, the Duke of Monmouth, Lord Essex, Lord Howard of Escrick, and Lord William Russell: Algernon Sidney, son of the Earl of Leicester, Lord Grey, and Hampden, grandson of the venerable patriot, were the last to join it. Lord Melville, Sir John Cochrane, Baillie, of Jerviswood, and others from Scotland, were in London on business when they were informed of the enterprise. They joined it at once, and returned to Scotland to raise their different districts. nature, The more violent con vieto At the same time another design, of a very different was meditated by the more violent-by Rumsey and Ferguson, two of Shaftesbury's former agents; Walcot, an Irishman, who had served in Cromwell's army; Rumbold, another old Cromwellian officer, and others. the Duke. King and murder the CHAP. XII. These men considered that the shortest and surest way of vindicating the Protestant religion and the liberties of England, was to murder the King and his brother. They proposed that 40 men should attack the King and his guards as they returned from Newmarket, at the Rye House, which belonged to Rumbold, and was situated in a lonely spot near Hoddesden. This scheme was known to few, and was carefully kept from the upright and humane. Russell, and from Monmouth. Both conspiracies, however, were prematurely discovered. Keeling, a vintner, first revealed them to the government; then Rumsey surrendered and gave further information; next came Shepherd, a winemerchant, who gave an account of a meeting of the to the court. conspirators which had been held at his house, and betrayed Russell, Sidney, and Wildman, who were sent to the Tower. Howard and Essex were arrested soon after; Monmouth, Grey, Ferguson, and another, escaped (June and July, 1683). Shaftesbury, whose violent counsels and desire for Shaftesbury. vengeance had started the conspiracy, escaped in the very beginning of the enterprise, and had died in Holland some months before (January 21, 1683).* Both conspiracies are betrayed Death of 58. Trial and execution of Lord William Russell. The trial of Lord William Russell, for his share in this conspiracy, began on the 18th of July; the witnesses against him being Rumsey, Shepherd, and Lord Howard. Rumsey deposed that he had attended a meeting at Shepherd's, the object of which was the King's assassination. Shepherd confirmed this evidence. Howard, who betrayed his friends to save his own life, divulged no more than was extracted by his own danger. As soon as he began to give his evidence, a rumour ran through the court that Essex had committed suicide in the Tower. The rumour was true; and the fact was considered as a proof of the unfortunate earl's guilt, as well as of that of the prisoner. Howard's evidence went to show that Russell had attended the meeting at Shepherd's, and that he had twice met with Monmouth, Essex, Sidney, Hampden, and himself (who, with Russell, were called the Council of Six), to consult on the most proper plan for the commencement of an insurrection, and upon sending an agent to Scotland to form a party there. The witnesses for the defence could only declare that they did not believe the prisoner capable of entering into so dark a conspiracy. Russell made a short defence; simply, but solemnly, denying the charges imputed to him, and alleging that he only went to Shepherd's inadvertently, for the purpose of tasting some wine; that he was ignorant of any conspiracy against the King's person, and had heard no mention of it at Shepherd's. His chief argument rested on the statute 25 Edward III., which declared the levying of war, and not the intention, to be treason. The court, however, rejected all that was said in his favour, and convicted him of treason, although Chief Justice Pemberton, who presided, by no means advanced, in his Read Hallam's observations on the great political error which the Whigs committed by this attempt at insurrection. Const. Hist., II., 152-153. Also Lord John Russell's Life of Russell, p. 253. 1683 directions to the jury, the proposition that a conspiracy to levy war is in itself an overt act of compassing the King's death. He limited it to cases where the King's person might be put in danger; as in the immediate instance, by the alleged scheme of seizing the royal guards; and his language was such as might have produced a verdict of acquittal from a jury tolerably disposed towards the prisoner. But the new sheriffs, being men wholly devoted to the prerogative, had taken care to return a panel in whom they could confide.* 66 After the Revolution, an act was passed (1 William and Mary), annulling Russell's attainder, and expressly declaring that he was, by partial and unjust constructions of law, wrongfully convicted, attainted, and executed for high treason." Throughout the trial, his wife, the celebrated Rachel Russell, daughter of the Earl of Southampton, calmly sat beside him, taking notes of the evidence, assisting him in every way as a secretary, and sustaining him by her tenderness, devotion, and fortitude. She made the most extraordinary efforts to save his life, but Charles was not to be moved, even by the offer of £100,000; and the great patriot was beheaded, July 21st, 1683, in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He went to his death with Christian fortitude. The parting with his noble wife was most touching. 59. Trial and execution of Algernon Sidney. The trial of Algernon Sidney was postponed till the 21st of November, Pemberton having been removed in the meantime to make way for Jeffreys, who had been one of the counsel for the crown when Russell was tried. Lord Howard, of Escrick, was again the chief witness, and the only living witness; but the Statute of Treasons required two witnesses. The defect was supplied by a manuscript found amongst Sidney's papers, in which treasonable principles were held to be advocated. It was a refutation of Filmer's work upon government, written many years before, and having no relation whatever with the charges now brought against Sidney; but Jeffreys took care to insinuate, in his charge to the jury, that the doctrines it contained; approving of conspiracies against Nero and Caligula, and questioning the legitimacy and absolute right of kings, were treasonable in themselves, and that the writing of them, even in a private and unpublished paper, amounted to an overt act of treason. Sidney was, therefore, convicted, in the utter absence of all legal evidence of treason; and, on the 7th of December, was executed on Tower Hill. The manifest iniquity of this sentence, as well as the high courage he displayed throughout the last scenes of his life, have inspired a sort of enthusiasm for the name of Sidney, which neither what we know of his life, nor the opinions of his contemporaries, seem altogether to warrant. He was the Character last of the Commonwealth-men, of the school of Vane. of Sidney. He possessed a powerful, active, and undaunted mind, stored with extensive reading on the topics in which he delighted. But * Hallam, II., 155. |