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VIII.

The solicitor for the Bishops sa te up all night with a body of CHAP. servants on the stairs leading to the room where the jury was consulting. It was absolutely necessary to watch the officers who watched the doors; for those officers were supposed to be in the interest of the crown, and might, if not carefully observed, have furnished a courtly juryman with food, which would have enabled him to starve out the other eleven. Strict guard was therefore kept. Not even a candle to light a pipe. was permitted to enter. Some basins of water for washing were suffered to pass at about four in the morning, The jurymen, raging with thirst, soon lapped up the whole. Great numbers of people walked the neighbouring streets till dawn. Every hour a messenger came from Whitehall to know what was passing. Voices, high in altercation, were repeatedly heard within the room: but nothing certain was known.*

At first nine were for acquitting and three for convicting. Two of the minority soon gave way: but Arnold was obstinate. Thomas Austin, a country gentleman of great estate, who had paid close attention to the evidence and speeches, and had taken full notes, wished to argue the question. Arnold declined. He was not used, he doggedly said, to reasoning and debating. His conscience was not satisfied; and he should not acquit the Bishops. "If you come to that," said Austin, "look at me. I am the largest and strongest of the twelve; and before I find such a petition as this a libel, here I will stay till I am no bigger than a tobacco pipe." It was six in the morning before Arnold yielded. It was soon known that the jury were agreed: but what the verdict would be was still a secret.†

At ten the Court again met. The crowd was greater than ever. The jury appeared in the box; and there was a breathless stillness.

Sir Samuel Astry spoke.

verdict.

"Do you find the defendants, The or any of them, guilty of the misdemeanour whereof they are impeached, or not guilty ?" Sir Roger Langley answered, "Not Guilty." As the words were uttered, Halifax sprang

up and waved his hat. At that signal, benches and galleries Joy of the raised a shout. In a moment ten thousand persons, who people.

crowded the great hall, replied with a still louder shout, which made the old oaken roof crack; and in another mo

Johnstone, July 2. 1688; Letter MSS.; Revolution Politics.

from Mr. Ince to the Archbishop, dated

at six o'clock in the morning; Tanner

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Johnstone, July 2. 1688.

СНАР.
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ment the innumerable throng without set up a third huzza, which was heard at Temple Bar. The boats which covered the Thames gave an answering cheer. A peal of gunpowder was heard on the water, and another, and another; and so in a few moments, the glad tidings went flying past the Savoy and the Friars to London Bridge, and to the forest of masts below. As the news spread, streets and squares, marketplaces and coffeehouses, broke forth into acclamations. Yet were the acclamations less strange than the weeping. For the feelings of men had been wound up to such a point that at length the stern English nature, so little used to outward signs of emotion, gave way, and thousands sobbed aloud for very joy. Meanwhile, from the outskirts of the multitude, horsemen were spurring off to bear along all the great roads intelligence of the victory of our Church and nation. Yet not even that astounding explosion could awe the bitter and intrepid spirit of the Solicitor. Striving to make himself heard above the din, he called on the Judges to commit those who had violated, by clamour, the dignity of a court of justice. One of the rejoicing populace was seized. But the tribunal felt that it would be absurd to punish a single individual for an offence common to hundreds of thousands, and dismissed him with a gentle reprimand.*

It was vain to think of passing at that moment to any other business. Indeed the roar of the multitude was such that, during half an hour, scarcely a word could be heard in the court. Williams got to his coach amidst a tempest of hisses and curses. Cartwright, whose curiosity was ungovernable, had been guilty of the folly and indecency of coming to Westminster in order to hear the decision. He was recognised by his sacerdotal garb and by his corpulent figure, and was hooted through the hall. "Take care," said one, "of the wolf in sheep's clothing." "Make room," cried another, "for the man with the Pope in his belly." +

The acquitted prelates took refuge in the nearest chapel

*State Trials; Oldmixon, 739.; Clarendon's Diary, June 25. 1688; Johnstone, July 2.; Van Citters, July; Adda, July; Luttrell's Diary; Barillon, July.

Van Citters, July. The gravity with which he tells the story has a comic effect. "Den Bisschop van Chester, wie seer de partie van het hof houdt, om te voldoen aan syne gewoone nieusgierigheyt, hem op dien tyt in Westminster Hall

mede hebbende laten vinden, in het uytgaan doorgaans was uytgekreten voor een grypende wolf in schaaps kleederen; en hy synde een heer van hooge stature en vollyvig, spotsgewyse alomme geroepen was dat men voor hem plaats moest e maken, om te laten passen, gelyck ook geschiede, om dat soo sy uytschreeuwden en hem in het aansigt seyden, hy den Paus in syn buyck hadde."

from the crowd which implored their blessing. Many churches were open on that morning throughout the capital; and many pious persons repaired thither. The bells of all the parishes of the City and liberties were ringing. The jury meanwhile could scarcely make their way out of the hall. They were forced to shake hands with hundreds. "God bless you!" cried the people; "God prosper your families! you have done like honest goodnatured gentlemen: you have saved us all to-day." As the noblemen who had attended to support the good cause drove off, they flung from their carriage windows handfuls of money, and bade the crowd drink to the health of the King, the Bishops, and the jury.*

The Attorney went with the tidings to Sunderland, who happened to be conversing with the Nuncio. "Never," said Powis, "within man's memory, have there been such shouts and such tears of joy as today."+ The King had that morning visited the camp on Hounslow Heath. Sunderland inJames was in

stantly sent a courier thither with the news.
Lord Feversham's tent when the express arrived. He was
greatly disturbed, and exclaimed in French, "So much the
worse for them." He soon set out for London. While he
was present, respect prevented the soldiers from giving a
loose to their feelings; but he had scarcely quitted the camp
when he heard a great shouting behind him. He was sur-
prised, and asked what that uproar meant. "Nothing," was
the answer: "the soldiers are glad that the Bishops are ac-
quitted." "Do you call that nothing?" said James.
then he repeated, "So much the worse for them."‡

And

He might well be out of temper. His defeat had been complete and most humiliating. Had the prelates escaped on account of some technical defect in the case for the crown, had they escaped because they had not written the petition in

* Luttrell ; Van Citters, July. 1688. "Soo syn in tegendeel gedagte jurys met de uyterste acclamatie en alle teyckenen van genegenheyt en danckbaarheyt in het door passeren van de gemeente ontvangen. Honderden vielen haar om den hals met alle bedenckelycke wewensch van segen en geluck over hare persoonen en familien, om dat sy haar so heusch en eerlyck buyten verwagtinge als het ware in desen gedragen hadden. Veele van de grooten en kleynen adel wierpen in het wegryden handen vol gelt onder de armen luyden, om op de gesontheyt van den Con

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CHAP.

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CHAP.

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Middlesex, or because it was impossible to prove, according to the strict rules of law, that they had delivered to the King the paper for which they were called in question, the prerogative would have suffered no shock. Happily for the country, the fact of publication had been fully established. The counsel for the defence had therefore been forced to attack the dispensing power. They had attacked it with great learning, eloquence, and boldness. The advocates of the government had been by universal acknowledgment overmatched in the contest. Not a single Judge had ventured to declare that the Declaration of Indulgence was legal. One Judge had in the strongest terms pronounced it illegal. The language of the whole town was that the dispensing power had received a fatal blow. Finch, who had the day before been universally reviled, was now universally applauded. He had been unwilling, it was said, to let the case be decided in a way which would have left the great constitutional question still doubtful. He had felt that a verdict which should acquit his clients, without condemning the Declaration of Indulgence, would be but half a victory. It is certain that Finch deserved neither the reproaches which had been cast on him while the event was doubtful, nor the praises which he received when it had proved happy. It was absurd to blame him because, during the short delay which he occasioned, the crown lawyers unexpectedly discovered new evidence. It was equally absurd to suppose that he deliberately exposed his clints to risk, in order to establish a general principle; and still more absurd was it to praise him for what would have been a gross violation of professional duty.

That joyful day was followed by a not less joyful evening. The Bishops, and some of their most respectable friends, in vain exerted themselves to prevent tumultuous demonstrations of public feeling. Never within the memory of the oldest, not even on that night on which it was known through London that the army of Scotland had declared for a free Parliament, had the streets been in such a glare with bonfires. Round every bonfire crowds were drinking good health to the Bishops and confusion to the Papists. The windows were lighted with rows of candles. Each row consisted of seven ; and the taper in the centre, which was taller than the rest, represented the Primate. The noise of rockets, squibs, and firearms, was incessant. One huge pile of faggots blazed right in front of the great gate of Whitehall. Others were

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lighted before the doors of Roman Catholic peers. Lord Arundell of Wardour wisely quieted the mob with a little money; but at Salisbury House in the Strand, an attempt at resistance was made. Lord Salisbury's servants sallied out and fired: but they killed only the unfortunate beadle of the parish, who had come thither to put out the fire; and they were soon routed and driven back into the house. None of the spectacles of that night interested the common people so much as one with which they had, a few years before, been familiar, and which they now, after a long interval, enjoyed once more, the burning of the Pope. This once familiar pageant is known to our generation only by descriptions and engravings. A figure, by no means resembling those rude representations of Guy Faux which are still paraded on the fifth of November, but made of wax with some skill, and adorned at no small expense with robes and a tiara, was mounted on a chair resembling that in which the Bishops of Rome are still, on some great festivals, borne through St. Peter's Church to the high altar. His Holiness was generally accompanied by a train of Cardinals and Jesuits. At his ear stood a buffoon disguised as a devil with horns and tail. No rich and zealous Protestant grudged his guinea on such an occasion, and, if rumour could be trusted, the cost of the procession was sometimes not less than a thousand pounds. After the Pope had been borne some time in state over the heads of the multitude, he was committed to the flames with loud acclamations. In the time of the popularity of Oates and Shaftesbury, this show was exhibited annually in Fleet Street before the windows of the Whig Club on the anniversary of the birth of Queen Elizabeth. Such was the celebrity of these grotesque rites, that Barillon once risked his life in order to peep at them from a hiding place.* But from the › day when the Rye House plot was discovered, till the day of the acquittal of the Bishops, the ceremony had been disused. Now, however, several Popes made their appearance in different parts of London. The Nuncio was much shocked; and the King was more hurt by this insult to his Church than by all the other affronts which he had received. The magistrates, however, could do nothing. The Sunday had dawned, and

See a very curious narrative published, among other papers, in 1710, by Danby, then Duke of Leeds. There is an amusing account of the ceremony of

burning a Pope in North's Examen,
570. See also the note on the Epilogue
to the Tragedy of Edipus in Scott's edi-
tion of Dryden.

CHAP.

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