It was to no
purpose that Ken wrote to implore mercy for the misguided people, and
described with pathetic eloquence the frightful state of his diocese.
purpose that Ken wrote to implore mercy for the misguided people, and
described with pathetic eloquence the frightful state of his diocese.
Macaulay
It is certain that the number
of persons whom he put to death in one month, and in one shire, very
much exceeded the number of all the political offenders who have been
put to death in our island since the Revolution. The rebellions of
1715 and 1745 were of longer duration, of wider extent, and of more
formidable aspect than that which was put down at Sedgemoor. It has
not been generally thought that, either after the rebellion of 1715, or
after the rebellion of 1745, the House of Hanover erred on the side of
clemency. Yet all the executions of 1715 and 1745 added together will
appear to have been few indeed when compared with those which disgraced
the Bloody Assizes. The number of the rebels whom Jeffreys hanged on
this circuit was three hundred and twenty. [448]
Such havoc must have excited disgust even if the sufferers had been
generally odious. But they were, for the most part, men of blameless
life, and of high religious profession. They were regarded by
themselves, and by a large proportion of their neighbours, not as
wrongdoers, but as martyrs who sealed with blood the truth of the
Protestant religion. Very few of the convicts professed any repentance
for what they had done. Many, animated by the old Puritan spirit, met
death, not merely with fortitude, but with exultation. It was in vain
that the ministers of the Established Church lectured them on the guilt
of rebellion and on the importance of priestly absolution. The claim of
the King to unbounded authority in things temporal, and the claim of the
clergy to the spiritual power of binding and loosing, moved the bitter
scorn of the intrepid sectaries. Some of them composed hymns in the
dungeon, and chaunted them on the fatal sledge. Christ, they sang while
they were undressing for the butchery, would soon come to rescue Zion
and to make war on Babylon, would set up his standard, would blow his
trumpet, and would requite his foes tenfold for all the evil which had
been inflicted on his servants. The dying words of these men were noted
down: their farewell letters were kept as treasures; and, in this way,
with the help of some invention and exaggeration, was formed a copious
supplement to the Marian martyrology. [449]
A few eases deserve special mention. Abraham Holmes, a retired officer
of the parliamentary army, and one of those zealots who would own no
king but King Jesus, had been taken at Sedgemoor. His arm had been
frightfully mangled and shattered in the battle; and, as no surgeon was
at hand, the stout old soldier amputated it himself. He was carried
up to London, and examined by the King in Council, but would make no
submission. "I am an aged man," he said, "and what remains to me of life
is not worth a falsehood or a baseness. I have always been a republican;
and I am so still. " He was sent back to the West and hanged. The people
remarked with awe and wonder that the beasts which were to drag him to
the gallows became restive and went back. Holmes himself doubted not
that the Angel of the Lord, as in the old time, stood in the way sword
in hand, invisible to human eyes, but visible to the inferior animals.
"Stop, gentlemen," he cried: "let me go on foot. There is more in this
than you think. Remember how the ass saw him whom the prophet could not
see. " He walked manfully to the gallows, harangued the people with a
smile, prayed fervently that God would hasten the downfall of Antichrist
and the deliverance of England, and went up the ladder with an apology
for mounting so awkwardly. "You see," he said, "I have but one arm. "
[450]
Not less courageously died Christopher Balttiscombe, a young Templar
of good family and fortune, who, at Dorchester, an agreeable provincial
town proud of its taste and refinement, was regarded by all as the
model of a fine gentleman. Great interest was made to save him. It was
believed through the West of England that he was engaged to a young lady
of gentle blood, the sister of the Sheriff, that she threw herself at
the feet of Jeffreys to beg for mercy, and that Jeffreys drove her from
him with a jest so hideous that to repeat it would be an offence
against decency and humanity. Her lover suffered at Lyme piously and
courageously. [451]
A still deeper interest was excited by the fate of two gallant brothers,
William and Benjamin Hewling. They were young, handsome, accomplished,
and well connected. Their maternal grandfather was named Kiffin. He was
one of the first merchants in London, and was generally considered as
the head of the Baptists. The Chief Justice behaved to William Hewling
on the trial with characteristic brutality. "You have a grandfather,"
he said, "who deserves to be hanged as richly as you. " The poor lad, who
was only nineteen, suffered death with so much meekness and fortitude,
that an officer of the army who attended the execution, and who had made
himself remarkable by rudeness and severity, was strangely melted, and
said, "I do not believe that my Lord Chief Justice himself could be
proof against this. " Hopes were entertained that Benjamin would be
pardoned. One victim of tender years was surely enough for one house to
furnish. Even Jeffreys was, or pretended to be, inclined to lenity. The
truth was that one of his kinsmen, from whom he had large expectations,
and whom, therefore, he could not treat as he generally treated
intercessors pleaded strongly for the afflicted family. Time was allowed
for a reference to London. The sister of the prisoner went to Whitehall
with a petition. Many courtiers wished her success; and Churchill, among
whose numerous faults cruelty had no place, obtained admittance for her.
"I wish well to your suit with all my heart," he said, as they stood
together in the antechamber; "but do not flatter yourself with hopes.
This marble,"--and he laid his hand on the chimneypiece,--"is not
harder than the King. " The prediction proved true. James was inexorable.
Benjamin Hewling died with dauntless courage, amidst lamentations in
which the soldiers who kept guard round the gallows could not refrain
from joining. [452]
Yet those rebels who were doomed to death were less to be pitied than
some of the survivors. Several prisoners to whom Jeffreys was unable to
bring home the charge of high treason were convicted of misdemeanours,
and were sentenced to scourging not less terrible than that which Oates
had undergone. A woman for some idle words, such as had been uttered by
half the women in the districts where the war had raged, was condemned
to be whipped through all the market towns in the county of Dorset. She
suffered part of her punishment before Jeffreys returned to London;
but, when he was no longer in the West, the gaolers, with the humane
connivance of the magistrates, took on themselves the responsibility
of sparing her any further torture. A still more frightful sentence was
passed on a lad named Tutchin, who was tried for seditious words. He
was, as usual, interrupted in his defence by ribaldry and scurrility
from the judgment seat. "You are a rebel; and all your family have been
rebels Since Adam. They tell me that you are a poet. I'll cap verses
with you. " The sentence was that the boy should be imprisoned seven
years, and should, during that period, be flogged through every market
town in Dorsetshire every year. The women in the galleries burst into
tears. The clerk of the arraigns stood up in great disorder. "My Lord,"
said he, "the prisoner is very young. There are many market towns in
our county. The sentence amounts to whipping once a fortnight for seven
years. " "If he is a young man," said Jeffreys, "he is an old rogue.
Ladies, you do not know the villain as well as I do. The punishment is
not half bad enough for him. All the interest in England shall not alter
it. " Tutchin in his despair petitioned, and probably with sincerity,
that he might be hanged. Fortunately for him he was, just at this
conjuncture, taken ill of the smallpox and given over. As it seemed
highly improbable that the sentence would ever be executed, the Chief
Justice consented to remit it, in return for a bribe which reduced the
prisoner to poverty. The temper of Tutchin, not originally very mild,
was exasperated to madness by what he had undergone. He lived to be
known as one of the most acrimonious and pertinacious enemies of the
House of Stuart and of the Tory party. [453]
The number of prisoners whom Jeffreys transported was eight hundred and
forty-one. These men, more wretched than their associates who suffered
death, were distributed into gangs, and bestowed on persons who enjoyed
favour at court. The conditions of the gift were that the convicts
should be carried beyond sea as slaves, that they should not be
emancipated for ten years, and that the place of their banishment should
be some West Indian island. This last article was studiously framed for
the purpose of aggravating the misery of the exiles. In New England or
New Jersey they would have found a population kindly disposed to them
and a climate not unfavourable to their health and vigour. It was
therefore determined that they should be sent to colonies where a
Puritan could hope to inspire little sympathy, and where a labourer born
in the temperate zone could hope to enjoy little health. Such was the
state of the slave market that these bondmen, long as was the passage,
and sickly as they were likely to prove, were still very valuable. It
was estimated by Jeffreys that, on an average, each of them, after all
charges were paid, would be worth from ten to fifteen pounds. There was
therefore much angry competition for grants. Some Tories in the West
conceived that they had, by their exertions and sufferings during the
insurrection, earned a right to share in the profits which had been
eagerly snatched up by the sycophants of Whitehall. The courtiers,
however, were victorious. [454]
The misery of the exiles fully equalled that of the negroes who are now
carried from Congo to Brazil. It appears from the best information which
is at present accessible that more than one fifth of those who were
shipped were flung to the sharks before the end of the voyage. The human
cargoes were stowed close in the holds of small vessels. So little space
was allowed that the wretches, many of whom were still tormented by
unhealed wounds, could not all lie down at once without lying on one
another. They were never suffered to go on deck. The hatchway was
constantly watched by sentinels armed with hangers and blunderbusses.
In the dungeon below all was darkness, stench, lamentation, disease
and death. Of ninety-nine convicts who were carried out in one vessel,
twenty-two died before they reached Jamaica, although the voyage was
performed with unusual speed. The survivors when they arrived at their
house of bondage were mere skeletons. During some weeks coarse biscuit
and fetid water had been doled out to them in such scanty measure that
any one of them could easily have consumed the ration which was assigned
to five. They were, therefore, in such a state that the merchant to whom
they had been consigned found it expedient to fatten them before selling
them. [455]
Meanwhile the property both of the rebels who had suffered death, and
of those more unfortunate men who were withering under the tropical sun,
was fought for and torn in pieces by a crowd of greedy informers. By law
a subject attainted of treason forfeits all his substance; and this law
was enforced after the Bloody Assizes with a rigour at once cruel
and ludicrous. The brokenhearted widows and destitute orphans of the
labouring men whose corpses hung at the cross roads were called upon by
the agents of the Treasury to explain what had become of a basket, of a
goose, of a flitch of bacon, of a keg of cider, of a sack of beans, of
a truss of hay. [456] While the humbler retainers of the government were
pillaging the families of the slaughtered peasants, the Chief Justice
was fast accumulating a fortune out of the plunder of a higher class of
Whigs. He traded largely in pardons. His most lucrative transaction of
this kind was with a gentleman named Edmund Prideaux. It is certain that
Prideaux had not been in arms against the government; and it is probable
that his only crime was the wealth which he had inherited from his
father, an eminent lawyer who had been high in office under the
Protector. No exertions were spared to make out a case for the crown.
Mercy was offered to some prisoners on condition that they would bear
evidence against Prideaux. The unfortunate man lay long in gaol and
at length, overcome by fear of the gallows, consented to pay fifteen
thousand pounds for his liberation. This great sum was received by
Jeffreys. He bought with it an estate, to which the people gave the name
of Aceldama, from that accursed field which was purchased with the price
of innocent blood. [457]
He was ably assisted in the work of extortion by the crew of parasites
who were in the habit of drinking and laughing with him. The office
of these men was to drive hard bargains with convicts under the strong
terrors of death, and with parents trembling for the lives of children.
A portion of the spoil was abandoned by Jeffreys to his agents. To one
of his boon companions, it is said he tossed a pardon for a rich traitor
across the table during a revel. It was not safe to have recourse to any
intercession except that of his creatures, for he guarded his profitable
monopoly of mercy with jealous care. It was even suspected that he sent
some persons to the gibbet solely because they had applied for the royal
clemency through channels independent of him. [458]
Some courtiers nevertheless contrived to obtain a small share of this
traffic. The ladies of the Queen's household distinguished themselves
preeminently by rapacity and hardheartedness. Part of the disgrace which
they incurred falls on their mistress: for it was solely on account of
the relation in which they stood to her that they were able to enrich
themselves by so odious a trade; and there can be no question that
she might with a word or a look have restrained them. But in truth she
encouraged them by her evil example, if not by her express approbation.
She seems to have been one of that large class of persons who bear
adversity better than prosperity. While her husband was a subject and an
exile, shut out from public employment, and in imminent danger of being
deprived of his birthright, the suavity and humility of her manners
conciliated the kindness even of those who most abhorred her religion.
But when her good fortune came her good nature disappeared. The meek and
affable Duchess turned out an ungracious and haughty Queen. [459] The
misfortunes which she subsequently endured have made her an object of
some interest; but that interest would be not a little heightened if it
could be shown that, in the season of her greatness, she saved, or even
tried to save, one single victim from the most frightful proscription
that England has ever seen. Unhappily the only request that she is known
to have preferred touching the rebels was that a hundred of those who
were sentenced to transportation might be given to her. [460] The profit
which she cleared on the cargo, after making large allowance for those
who died of hunger and fever during the passage, cannot be estimated
at less than a thousand guineas. We cannot wonder that her attendants
should have imitated her unprincely greediness and her unwomanly
cruelty. They exacted a thousand pounds from Roger Hoare, a merchant
of Bridgewater; who had contributed to the military chest of the rebel
army. But the prey on which they pounced most eagerly was one which it
might have been thought that even the most ungentle natures would have
spared. Already some of the girls who had presented the standard to
Monmouth at Taunton had cruelly expiated their offence. One of them had
been thrown into prison where an infectious malady was raging. She had
sickened and died there. Another had presented herself at the bar before
Jeffreys to beg for mercy. "Take her, gaoler," vociferated the Judge,
with one of those frowns which had often struck terror into stouter
hearts than hers. She burst into tears, drew her hood over her face,
followed the gaoler out of the court, fell ill of fright, and in a few
hours was a corpse. Most of the young ladies, however, who had walked
in the procession were still alive. Some of them were under ten years
of age. All had acted under the orders of their schoolmistress, without
knowing that they were committing a crime. The Queen's maids of honour
asked the royal permission to wring money out of the parents of the
poor children; and the permission was granted. An order was sent down to
Taunton that all these little girls should be seized and imprisoned.
Sir Francis Warre of Hestercombe, the Tory member for Bridgewater, was
requested to undertake the office of exacting the ransom. He was charged
to declare in strong language that the maids of honour would not endure
delay, that they were determined to prosecute to outlawry, unless a
reasonable sum were forthcoming, and that by a reasonable sum was meant
seven thousand pounds. Warre excused himself from taking any part in a
transaction so scandalous. The maids of honour then requested William
Penn to act for them; and Penn accepted the commission. Yet it should
seem that a little of the pertinacious scrupulosity which he had often
shown about taking off his hat would not have been altogether out of
place on this occasion. He probably silenced the remonstrances of his
conscience by repeating to himself that none of the money which he
extorted would go into his own pocket; that if he refused to be
the agent of the ladies they would find agents less humane; that by
complying he should increase his influence at the court, and that his
influence at the court had already enabled him, and still might enable
him, to render great services to his oppressed brethren. The maids of
honour were at last forced to content themselves with less than a third
part of what they had demanded. [461]
No English sovereign has ever given stronger proof of a cruel nature
than James the Second. Yet his cruelty was not more odious than his
mercy. Or perhaps it may be more correct to say that his mercy and his
cruelty were such that each reflects infamy on the other. Our horror at
the fate of the simple clowns, the young lads, the delicate women, to
whom he was inexorably severe, is increased when we find to whom and for
what considerations he granted his pardon.
The rule by which a prince ought, after a rebellion, to be guided in
selecting rebels for punishment is perfectly obvious. The ringleaders,
the men of rank, fortune, and education, whose power and whose artifices
have led the multitude into error, are the proper objects of severity.
The deluded populace, when once the slaughter on the field of battle
is over, can scarcely be treated too leniently. This rule, so evidently
agreeable to justice and humanity, was not only not observed: it was
inverted. While those who ought to have been spared were slaughtered by
hundreds, the few who might with propriety have been left to the utmost
rigour of the law were spared. This eccentric clemency has perplexed
some writers, and has drawn forth ludicrous eulogies from others. It was
neither at all mysterious nor at all praiseworthy. It may be distinctly
traced in every case either to a sordid or to a malignant motive, either
to thirst for money or to thirst for blood.
In the case of Grey there was no mitigating circumstance. His parts and
knowledge, the rank which he had inherited in the state, and the high
command which he had borne in the rebel army, would have pointed him out
to a just government as a much fitter object of punishment than Alice
Lisle, than William Hewling, than any of the hundreds of ignorant
peasants whose skulls and quarters were exposed in Somersetshire. But
Grey's estate was large and was strictly entailed. He had only a life
interest in his property; and he could forfeit no more interest than he
had. If he died, his lands at once devolved on the next heir. If he
were pardoned, he would be able to pay a large ransom. He was therefore
suffered to redeem himself by giving a bond for forty thousand pounds to
the Lord Treasurer, and smaller sums to other courtiers. [462]
Sir John Cochrane had held among the Scotch rebels the same rank which
had been held by Grey in the West of England. That Cochrane should be
forgiven by a prince vindictive beyond all example, seemed incredible.
But Cochrane was the younger son of a rich family; it was therefore only
by sparing him that money could be made out of him. His father, Lord
Dundonald, offered a bribe of five thousand pounds to the priests of the
royal household; and a pardon was granted. [463]
Samuel Storey, a noted sower of sedition, who had been Commissary to the
rebel army, and who had inflamed the ignorant populace of Somersetshire
by vehement harangues in which James had been described as an incendiary
and a poisoner, was admitted to mercy. For Storey was able to give
important assistance to Jeffreys in wringing fifteen thousand pounds out
of Prideaux. [464]
None of the traitors had less right to expect favour than Wade,
Goodenough, and Ferguson. These three chiefs of the rebellion had fled
together from the field of Sedgemoor, and had reached the coast in
safety. But they had found a frigate cruising near the spot where they
had hoped to embark. They had then separated. Wade and Goodenough
were soon discovered and brought up to London. Deeply as they had been
implicated in the Rye House plot, conspicuous as they had been among the
chiefs of the Western insurrection, they were suffered to live, because
they had it in their power to give information which enabled the King
to slaughter and plunder some persons whom he hated, but to whom he had
never yet been able to bring home any crime. [465]
How Ferguson escaped was, and still is, a mystery. Of all the enemies of
the government he was, without doubt, the most deeply criminal. He was
the original author of the plot for assassinating the royal brothers.
He had written that Declaration which, for insolence, malignity, and
mendacity, stands unrivalled even among the libels of those stormy
times. He had instigated Monmouth first to invade the kingdom, and then
to usurp the crown. It was reasonable to expect that a strict search
would be made for the archtraitor, as he was often called; and such a
search a man of so singular an aspect and dialect could scarcely have
eluded. It was confidently reported in the coffee houses of London
that Ferguson was taken, and this report found credit with men who had
excellent opportunities of knowing the truth. The next thing that was
heard of him was that he was safe on the Continent. It was strongly
suspected that he had been in constant communication with the government
against which he was constantly plotting, that he had, while urging his
associates to every excess of rashness sent to Whitehall just so much
information about their proceedings as might suffice to save his own
neck, and that therefore orders had been given to let him escape. [466]
And now Jeffreys had done his work, and returned to claim his reward. He
arrived at Windsor from the West, leaving carnage, mourning, and terror
behind him. The hatred with which he was regarded by the people of
Somersetshire has no parallel in our history. It was not to be quenched
by time or by political changes, was long transmitted from generation to
generation, and raged fiercely against his innocent progeny. When he
had been many years dead, when his name and title were extinct, his
granddaughter, the Countess of Pomfret, travelling along the western
road, was insulted by the populace, and found that she could not safely
venture herself among the descendants of those who had witnessed the
Bloody Assizes. [467]
But at the Court Jeffreys was cordially welcomed. He was a judge after
his master's own heart. James had watched the circuit with interest and
delight. In his drawingroom and at his table he had frequently talked of
the havoc which was making among his disaffected subjects with a glee
at which the foreign ministers stood aghast. With his own hand he had
penned accounts of what he facetiously called his Lord Chief Justice's
campaign in the West. Some hundreds of rebels, His Majesty wrote to the
Hague, had been condemned. Some of them had been hanged: more should
be hanged: and the rest should be sent to the plantations.
It was to no
purpose that Ken wrote to implore mercy for the misguided people, and
described with pathetic eloquence the frightful state of his diocese.
He complained that it was impossible to walk along the highways without
seeing some terrible spectacle, and that the whole air of Somersetshire
was tainted with death. The King read, and remained, according to the
saying of Churchill, hard as the marble chimneypieces of Whitehall. At
Windsor the great seal of England was put into the hands of Jeffreys and
in the next London Gazette it was solemnly notified that this honour
was the reward of the many eminent and faithful services which he had
rendered to the crown. [468]
At a later period, when all men of all parties spoke with horror of
the Bloody Assizes, the wicked Judge and the wicked King attempted to
vindicate themselves by throwing the blame on each other. Jeffreys, in
the Tower, protested that, in his utmost cruelty, he had not gone beyond
his master's express orders, nay, that he had fallen short of them.
James, at Saint Germain's would willingly have had it believed that his
own inclinations had been on the side of clemency, and that unmerited
obloquy had been brought on him by the violence of his minister. But
neither of these hardhearted men must be absolved at the expense of the
other. The plea set up for James can be proved under his own hand to
be false in fact. The plea of Jeffreys, even if it be true in fact, is
utterly worthless.
The slaughter in the West was over. The slaughter in London was about to
begin. The government was peculiarly desirous to find victims among the
great Whig merchants of the City. They had, in the last reign, been a
formidable part of the strength of the opposition. They were wealthy;
and their wealth was not, like that of many noblemen and country
gentlemen, protected by entail against forfeiture. In the case of Grey
and of men situated like him, it was impossible to gratify cruelty and
rapacity at once; but a rich trader might be both hanged and plundered.
The commercial grandees, however, though in general hostile to Popery
and to arbitrary power, had yet been too scrupulous or too timid to
incur the guilt of high treason. One of the most considerable among them
was Henry Cornish. He had been an Alderman under the old charter of
the City, and had filled the office of Sheriff when the question of the
Exclusion Bill occupied the public mind. In politics he was a Whig: his
religious opinions leaned towards Presbyterianism: but his temper was
cautious and moderate. It is not proved by trustworthy evidence that he
ever approached the verge of treason. He had, indeed, when Sheriff, been
very unwilling to employ as his deputy a man so violent and unprincipled
as Goodenough. When the Rye House plot was discovered, great hopes
were entertained at Whitehall that Cornish would appear to have been
concerned: but these hopes were disappointed. One of the conspirators,
indeed, John Rumsey, was ready to swear anything: but a single witness
was not sufficient; and no second witness could be found. More than two
years had since elapsed. Cornish thought himself safe; but the eye of
the tyrant was upon him. Goodenough, terrified by the near prospect
of death, and still harbouring malice on account of the unfavourable
opinion which had always been entertained of him by his old master,
consented to supply the testimony which had hitherto been wanting.
Cornish was arrested while transacting business on the Exchange, was
hurried to gaol, was kept there some days in solitary confinement, and
was brought altogether unprepared to the bar of the Old Bailey. The case
against him rested wholly on the evidence of Rumsey and Goodenough. Both
were, by their own confession accomplices in the plot with which they
charged the prisoner. Both were impelled by the strongest pressure of
hope end fear to criminate him. Evidence was produced which proved that
Goodenough was also under the influence of personal enmity. Rumsey's
story was inconsistent with the story which he had told when he appeared
as a witness against Lord Russell. But these things were urged in vain.
On the bench sate three judges who had been with Jeffreys in the West;
and it was remarked by those who watched their deportment that they had
come back from the carnage of Taunton in a fierce and excited state. It
is indeed but too true that the taste for blood is a taste which even
men not naturally cruel may, by habit, speedily acquire. The bar and
the bench united to browbeat the unfortunate Whig. The jury, named by a
courtly Sheriff, readily found a verdict of Guilty; and, in spite of the
indignant murmurs of the public, Cornish suffered death within ten days
after he had been arrested. That no circumstance of degradation might
be wanting, the gibbet was set up where King Street meets Cheapside, in
sight of the house where he had long lived in general respect, of the
Exchange where his credit had always stood high, and of the Guildhall
where he had distinguished himself as a popular leader. He died with
courage and with many pious expressions, but showed, by look and
gesture, such strong resentment at the barbarity and injustice with
which he had been treated, that his enemies spread a calumnious report
concerning him. He was drunk, they said, or out of his mind, when he was
turned off. William Penn, however, who stood near the gallows, and whose
prejudice were all on the side of the government, afterwards said that
he could see in Cornish's deportment nothing but the natural indignation
of an innocent man slain under the forms of law. The head of the
murdered magistrate was placed over the Guildhall. [469]
Black as this case was, it was not the blackest which disgraced the
sessions of that autumn at the Old Bailey. Among the persons concerned
in the Rye House plot was a man named James Burton. By his own
confession he had been present when the design of assassination was
discussed by his accomplices. When the conspiracy was detected, a reward
was offered for his apprehension. He was saved from death by an ancient
matron of the Baptist persuasion, named Elizabeth Gaunt. This woman,
with the peculiar manners and phraseology which then distinguished her
sect, had a large charity. Her life was passed in relieving the unhappy
of all religious denominations, and she was well known as a constant
visitor of the gaols. Her political and theological opinions, as well as
her compassionate disposition, led her to do everything in her power for
Burton. She procured a boat which took him to Gravesend, where he got
on board of a ship bound for Amsterdam. At the moment of parting she
put into his hand a sum of money which, for her means, was very large.
Burton, after living some time in exile, returned to England with
Monmouth, fought at Sedgemoor, fled to London, and took refuge in the
house of John Fernley, a barber in Whitechapel. Fernley was very poor.
He was besieged by creditors. He knew that a reward of a hundred pounds
had been offered by the government for the apprehension of Burton. But
the honest man was incapable of betraying one who, in extreme peril, had
come under the shadow of his roof. Unhappily it was soon noised abroad
that the anger of James was more strongly excited against those who
harboured rebels than against the rebels themselves. He had publicly
declared that of all forms of treason the hiding of traitors from his
vengeance was the most unpardonable. Burton knew this. He delivered
himself up to the government; and he gave information against Fernley
and Elizabeth Gaunt. They were brought to trial. The villain whose
life they had preserved had the heart and the forehead to appear as
the principal witness against them. They were convicted. Fernley was
sentenced to the gallows, Elizabeth Gaunt to the stake. Even after
all the horrors of that year, many thought it impossible that these
judgments should be carried into execution. But the King was without
pity. Fernley was hanged. Elizabeth Gaunt was burned alive at Tyburn on
the same day on which Cornish suffered death in Cheapside. She left a
paper written, indeed, in no graceful style, yet such as was read by
many thousands with compassion and horror. "My fault," she said, "was
one which a prince might well have forgiven. I did but relieve a poor
family; and lo! I must die for it. " She complained of the insolence of
the judges, of the ferocity of the gaoler, and of the tyranny of him,
the great one of all, to whose pleasure she and so many other victims
had been sacrificed. In so far as they had injured herself, she forgave
them: but, in that they were implacable enemies of that good cause which
would yet revive and flourish, she left them to the judgment of the King
of Kings. To the last she preserved a tranquil courage, which reminded
the spectators of the most heroic deaths of which they had read in Fox.
William Penn, for whom exhibitions which humane men generally avoid seem
to have had a strong attraction, hastened from Cheapside, where he had
seen Cornish hanged, to Tyburn, in order to see Elizabeth Gaunt burned.
He afterwards related that, when she calmly disposed the straw about her
in such a manner as to shorten her sufferings, all the bystanders burst
into tears. It was much noticed that, while the foulest judicial murder
which had disgraced even those times was perpetrating, a tempest burst
forth, such as had not been known since that great hurricane which had
raged round the deathbed of Oliver. The oppressed Puritans reckoned up,
not without a gloomy satisfaction the houses which had been blown down,
and the ships which had been cast away, and derived some consolation
from thinking that heaven was bearing awful testimony against the
iniquity which afflicted the earth. Since that terrible day no woman has
suffered death in England for any political offence. [470]
It was not thought that Goodenough had yet earned his pardon. The
government was bent on destroying a victim of no high rank, a surgeon in
the City, named Bateman. He had attended Shaftesbury professionally, and
had been a zealous Exclusionist. He may possibly have been privy to the
Whig plot; but it is certain that he had not been one of the leading
conspirators; for, in the great mass of depositions published by the
government, his name occurs only once, and then not in connection with
any crime bordering on high treason. From his indictment, and from the
scanty account which remains of his trial, it seems clear that he was
not even accused of participating in the design of murdering the royal
brothers. The malignity with which so obscure a man, guilty of so slight
an offence, was hunted down, while traitors far more criminal and
far more eminent were allowed to ransom themselves by giving evidence
against him, seemed to require explanation; and a disgraceful
explanation was found. When Oates, after his scourging, was carried into
Newgate insensible, and, as all thought, in the last agony, he had been
bled and his wounds had been dressed by Bateman. This was an offence not
to be forgiven. Bateman was arrested and indicted. The witnesses against
him were men of infamous character, men, too, who were swearing for
their own lives. None of them had yet got his pardon; and it was a
popular saying, that they fished for prey, like tame cormorants, with
ropes round their necks. The prisoner, stupefied by illness, was unable
to articulate, or to understand what passed. His son and daughter stood
by him at the bar. They read as well as they could some notes which he
had set down, and examined his witnesses. It was to little purpose. He
was convicted, hanged, and quartered. [471]
Never, not even under the tyranny of Laud, had the condition of the
Puritans been so deplorable as at that time. Never had spies been so
actively employed in detecting congregations. Never had magistrates,
grand jurors, rectors and churchwardens been so much on the alert. Many
Dissenters were cited before the ecclesiastical courts. Others found it
necessary to purchase the connivance of the agents of the government by
presents of hogsheads of wine, and of gloves stuffed with guineas. It
was impossible for the separatists to pray together without precautions
such as are employed by coiners and receivers of stolen goods. The
places of meeting were frequently changed. Worship was performed
sometimes just before break of day and sometimes at dead of night. Round
the building where the little flock was gathered sentinels were posted
to give the alarm if a stranger drew near. The minister in disguise was
introduced through the garden and the back yard. In some houses there
were trap doors through which, in case of danger, he might descend.
Where Nonconformists lived next door to each other, the walls were often
broken open, and secret passages were made from dwelling to dwelling. No
psalm was sung; and many contrivances were used to prevent the voice
of the preacher, in his moments of fervour, from being heard beyond the
walls. Yet, with all this care, it was often found impossible to elude
the vigilance of informers. In the suburbs of London, especially, the
law was enforced with the utmost rigour. Several opulent gentlemen were
accused of holding conventicles. Their houses were strictly searched,
and distresses were levied to the amount of many thousands of pounds.
The fiercer and bolder sectaries, thus driven from the shelter of roofs,
met in the open air, and determined to repel force by force. A Middlesex
justice who had learned that a nightly prayer meeting was held in a
gravel pit about two miles from London, took with him a strong body of
constables, broke in upon the assembly, and seized the preacher. But
the congregation, which consisted of about two hundred men, soon rescued
their pastor and put the magistrate and his officers to flight. [472]
This, however, was no ordinary occurrence. In general the Puritan spirit
seemed to be more effectually cowed at this conjuncture than at any
moment before or since. The Tory pamphleteers boasted that not one
fanatic dared to move tongue or pen in defence of his religious
opinions. Dissenting ministers, however blameless in life, however
eminent for learning and abilities, could not venture to walk the
streets for fear of outrages, which were not only not repressed, but
encouraged, by those whose duty it was to preserve the peace. Some
divines of great fame were in prison. Among these was Richard Baxter.
Others, who had, during a quarter of a century, borne up against
oppression, now lost heart, and quitted the kingdom. Among these was
John Howe. Great numbers of persons who had been accustomed to frequent
conventicles repaired to the parish churches. It was remarked that the
schismatics who had been terrified into this show of conformity might
easily be distinguished by the difficulty which they had in finding out
the collect, and by the awkward manner in which they bowed at the name
of Jesus. [473]
Through many years the autumn of 1685 was remembered by the
Nonconformists as a time of misery and terror. Yet in that autumn might
be discerned the first faint indications of a great turn of fortune;
and before eighteen months had elapsed, the intolerant King and the
intolerant Church were eagerly bidding against each other for the
support of the party which both had so deeply injured.
END OF VOL. I.
*****
[Footnote 1: In this, and in the next chapter, I have very seldom
thought it necessary to cite authorities: for, in these chapters, I have
not detailed events minutely, or used recondite materials; and the facts
which I mention are for the most part such that a person tolerably well
read in English history, if not already apprised of them, will at least
know where to look for evidence of them. In the subsequent chapters I
shall carefully indicate the sources of my information. ]
[Footnote 2: This is excellently put by Mr. Hallam in the first chapter
of his Constitutional History. ]
[Footnote 3: See a very curious paper which Strype believed to be in
Gardiner's handwriting. Ecclesiastical Memorials, Book 1. , Chap. xvii. ]
[Footnote 4: These are Cranmer's own words. See the Appendix to Burnet's
History of the Reformation, Part 1. Book III. No. 21. Question 9. ]
[Footnote 5: The Puritan historian, Neal, after censuring the cruelty
with which she treated the sect to which he belonged, concludes thus:
"However, notwithstanding all these blemishes, Queen Elizabeth stands
upon record as a wise and politic princess, for delivering her kingdom
from the difficulties in which it was involved at her accession, for
preserving the Protestant reformation against the potent attempts of the
Pope, the Emperor, and King of Spain abroad, and the Queen of Scots and
her Popish subjects at home. . . . She was the glory of the age in which
she lived, and will be the admiration of posterity. "--History of the
Puritans, Part I. Chap. viii. ]
[Footnote 6: On this subject, Bishop Cooper's language is remarkably
clear and strong. He maintains, in his Answer to Martin Marprelate,
printed in 1589, "that no form of church government is divinely
ordained; that Protestant communities, in establishing different forms,
have only made a legitimate use of their Christian liberty; and
that episcopacy is peculiarly suited to England, because the English
constitution is monarchical. " All those Churches," says the Bishop,
"in which the Gospell, in these daies, after great darknesse, was first
renewed, and the learned men whom God sent to instruct them, I doubt not
but have been directed by the Spirite of God to retaine this liberty,
that, in external government and other outward orders; they might choose
such as they thought in wisedome and godlinesse to be most convenient
for the state of their countrey and disposition of their people. Why
then should this liberty that other countreys have used under anie
colour be wrested from us? I think it therefore great presumption and
boldnesse that some of our nation, and those, whatever they may think
of themselves, not of the greatest wisedome and skill, should take upon
them to controlle the whole realme, and to binde both prince and people
in respect of conscience to alter the present state, and tie themselves
to a certain platforme devised by some of our neighbours, which, in the
judgment of many wise and godly persons, is most unfit for the state of
a Kingdome. "]
[Footnote 7: Strype's Life of Grindal, Appendix to Book II. No. xvii. ]
[Footnote 8: Canon 55, of 1603. ]
[Footnote 9: Joseph Hall, then dean of Worcester, and afterwards bishop
of Norwich, was one of the commissioners. In his life of himself, he
says: "My unworthiness was named for one of the assistants of that
honourable, grave, and reverend meeting. " To high churchmen this
humility will seem not a little out of place. ]
[Footnote 10: It was by the Act of Uniformity, passed after the
Restoration, that persons not episcopally ordained were, for the first
time, made incapable of holding benefices. No man was more zealous for
this law than Clarendon. Yet he says: "This was new; for there had been
many, and at present there were some, who possessed benefices with cure
of souls and other ecclesiastical promotions, who had never received
orders but in France or Holland; and these men must now receive new
ordination, which had been always held unlawful in the Church, or by
this act of parliament must be deprived of their livelihood which they
enjoyed in the most flourishing and peaceable time of the Church. "]
[Footnote 11: Peckard's Life of Ferrar; The Arminian Nunnery, or a Brief
Description of the late erected monastical Place called the Arminian
Nunnery, at Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire, 1641. ]
[Footnote 12: The correspondence of Wentworth seems to me fully to bear
out what I have said in the text. To transcribe all the passages
which have led me to the conclusion at which I have arrived, would be
impossible, nor would it be easy to make a better selection than has
already been made by Mr. Hallam. I may, however direct the attention of
the reader particularly to the very able paper which Wentworth drew up
respecting the affairs of the Palatinate. The date is March 31, 1637. ]
[Footnote 13: These are Wentworth's own words. See his letter to Laud,
dated Dec. 16, 1634. ]
[Footnote 14: See his report to Charles for the year 1639. ]
[Footnote 15: See his letter to the Earl of Northumberland, dated July
30, 1638. ]
[Footnote 16: How little compassion for the bear had to do with the
matter is sufficiently proved by the following extract from a paper
entitled A perfect Diurnal of some Passages of Parliament, and from
other Parts of the Kingdom, from Monday July 24th, to Monday July 31st,
1643. "Upon the Queen's coming from Holland, she brought with her,
besides a company of savage-like ruffians, a company of savage bears,
to what purpose you may judge by the sequel. Those bears were left about
Newark, and were brought into country towns constantly on the Lord's
day to be baited, such is the religion those here related would settle
amongst us; and, if any went about to hinder or but speak against their
damnable profanations, they were presently noted as Roundheads
and Puritans, and sure to be plundered for it. But some of Colonel
Cromwell's forces coming by accident into Uppingham town, in Rutland,
on the Lord's day, found these bears playing there in the usual manner,
and, in the height of their sport, caused them to be seized upon, tied
to a tree and shot. " This was by no means a solitary instance. Colonel
Pride, when Sheriff of Surrey, ordered the beasts in the bear garden
of Southwark to be killed. He is represented by a loyal satirist as
defending the act thus: "The first thing that is upon my spirits is the
killing of the bears, for which the people hate me, and call me all the
names in the rainbow. But did not David kill a bear? Did not the Lord
Deputy Ireton kill a bear? Did not another lord of ours kill five
bears? "-Last Speech and Dying Words of Thomas pride. ]
[Footnote 17: See Penn's New Witnesses proved Old Heretics, and
Muggleton's works, passim. ]
[Footnote 18: I am happy to say, that, since this passage was written,
the territories both of the Rajah of Nagpore and of the King of Oude
have been added to the British dominions. (1857. )]
[Footnote 19: The most sensible thing said in the House of Commons, on
this subject, came from Sir William Coventry: "Our ancestors never did
draw a line to circumscribe prerogative and liberty. "]
[Footnote 20: Halifax was undoubtedly the real author of the Character
of a Trimmer, which, for a time, went under the name of his kinsman, Sir
William Coventry. ]
[Footnote 21: North's Examen, 231, 574. ]
[Footnote 22: A peer who was present has described the effect of
Halifax's oratory in words which I will quote, because, though they
have been long in print, they are probably known to few even of the
most curious and diligent readers of history. "Of powerful eloquence and
great parts were the Duke's enemies who did assert the Bill; but a noble
Lord appeared against it who, that day, in all the force of speech, in
reason, in arguments of what could concern the public or the private
interests of men, in honour, in conscience, in estate, did outdo himself
and every other man; and in fine his conduct and his parts were
both victorious, and by him all the wit and malice of that party was
overthrown. " This passage is taken from a memoir of Henry Earl of
Peterborough, in a volume entitled "Succinct Genealogies, by Robert
Halstead," fol. 1685.
of persons whom he put to death in one month, and in one shire, very
much exceeded the number of all the political offenders who have been
put to death in our island since the Revolution. The rebellions of
1715 and 1745 were of longer duration, of wider extent, and of more
formidable aspect than that which was put down at Sedgemoor. It has
not been generally thought that, either after the rebellion of 1715, or
after the rebellion of 1745, the House of Hanover erred on the side of
clemency. Yet all the executions of 1715 and 1745 added together will
appear to have been few indeed when compared with those which disgraced
the Bloody Assizes. The number of the rebels whom Jeffreys hanged on
this circuit was three hundred and twenty. [448]
Such havoc must have excited disgust even if the sufferers had been
generally odious. But they were, for the most part, men of blameless
life, and of high religious profession. They were regarded by
themselves, and by a large proportion of their neighbours, not as
wrongdoers, but as martyrs who sealed with blood the truth of the
Protestant religion. Very few of the convicts professed any repentance
for what they had done. Many, animated by the old Puritan spirit, met
death, not merely with fortitude, but with exultation. It was in vain
that the ministers of the Established Church lectured them on the guilt
of rebellion and on the importance of priestly absolution. The claim of
the King to unbounded authority in things temporal, and the claim of the
clergy to the spiritual power of binding and loosing, moved the bitter
scorn of the intrepid sectaries. Some of them composed hymns in the
dungeon, and chaunted them on the fatal sledge. Christ, they sang while
they were undressing for the butchery, would soon come to rescue Zion
and to make war on Babylon, would set up his standard, would blow his
trumpet, and would requite his foes tenfold for all the evil which had
been inflicted on his servants. The dying words of these men were noted
down: their farewell letters were kept as treasures; and, in this way,
with the help of some invention and exaggeration, was formed a copious
supplement to the Marian martyrology. [449]
A few eases deserve special mention. Abraham Holmes, a retired officer
of the parliamentary army, and one of those zealots who would own no
king but King Jesus, had been taken at Sedgemoor. His arm had been
frightfully mangled and shattered in the battle; and, as no surgeon was
at hand, the stout old soldier amputated it himself. He was carried
up to London, and examined by the King in Council, but would make no
submission. "I am an aged man," he said, "and what remains to me of life
is not worth a falsehood or a baseness. I have always been a republican;
and I am so still. " He was sent back to the West and hanged. The people
remarked with awe and wonder that the beasts which were to drag him to
the gallows became restive and went back. Holmes himself doubted not
that the Angel of the Lord, as in the old time, stood in the way sword
in hand, invisible to human eyes, but visible to the inferior animals.
"Stop, gentlemen," he cried: "let me go on foot. There is more in this
than you think. Remember how the ass saw him whom the prophet could not
see. " He walked manfully to the gallows, harangued the people with a
smile, prayed fervently that God would hasten the downfall of Antichrist
and the deliverance of England, and went up the ladder with an apology
for mounting so awkwardly. "You see," he said, "I have but one arm. "
[450]
Not less courageously died Christopher Balttiscombe, a young Templar
of good family and fortune, who, at Dorchester, an agreeable provincial
town proud of its taste and refinement, was regarded by all as the
model of a fine gentleman. Great interest was made to save him. It was
believed through the West of England that he was engaged to a young lady
of gentle blood, the sister of the Sheriff, that she threw herself at
the feet of Jeffreys to beg for mercy, and that Jeffreys drove her from
him with a jest so hideous that to repeat it would be an offence
against decency and humanity. Her lover suffered at Lyme piously and
courageously. [451]
A still deeper interest was excited by the fate of two gallant brothers,
William and Benjamin Hewling. They were young, handsome, accomplished,
and well connected. Their maternal grandfather was named Kiffin. He was
one of the first merchants in London, and was generally considered as
the head of the Baptists. The Chief Justice behaved to William Hewling
on the trial with characteristic brutality. "You have a grandfather,"
he said, "who deserves to be hanged as richly as you. " The poor lad, who
was only nineteen, suffered death with so much meekness and fortitude,
that an officer of the army who attended the execution, and who had made
himself remarkable by rudeness and severity, was strangely melted, and
said, "I do not believe that my Lord Chief Justice himself could be
proof against this. " Hopes were entertained that Benjamin would be
pardoned. One victim of tender years was surely enough for one house to
furnish. Even Jeffreys was, or pretended to be, inclined to lenity. The
truth was that one of his kinsmen, from whom he had large expectations,
and whom, therefore, he could not treat as he generally treated
intercessors pleaded strongly for the afflicted family. Time was allowed
for a reference to London. The sister of the prisoner went to Whitehall
with a petition. Many courtiers wished her success; and Churchill, among
whose numerous faults cruelty had no place, obtained admittance for her.
"I wish well to your suit with all my heart," he said, as they stood
together in the antechamber; "but do not flatter yourself with hopes.
This marble,"--and he laid his hand on the chimneypiece,--"is not
harder than the King. " The prediction proved true. James was inexorable.
Benjamin Hewling died with dauntless courage, amidst lamentations in
which the soldiers who kept guard round the gallows could not refrain
from joining. [452]
Yet those rebels who were doomed to death were less to be pitied than
some of the survivors. Several prisoners to whom Jeffreys was unable to
bring home the charge of high treason were convicted of misdemeanours,
and were sentenced to scourging not less terrible than that which Oates
had undergone. A woman for some idle words, such as had been uttered by
half the women in the districts where the war had raged, was condemned
to be whipped through all the market towns in the county of Dorset. She
suffered part of her punishment before Jeffreys returned to London;
but, when he was no longer in the West, the gaolers, with the humane
connivance of the magistrates, took on themselves the responsibility
of sparing her any further torture. A still more frightful sentence was
passed on a lad named Tutchin, who was tried for seditious words. He
was, as usual, interrupted in his defence by ribaldry and scurrility
from the judgment seat. "You are a rebel; and all your family have been
rebels Since Adam. They tell me that you are a poet. I'll cap verses
with you. " The sentence was that the boy should be imprisoned seven
years, and should, during that period, be flogged through every market
town in Dorsetshire every year. The women in the galleries burst into
tears. The clerk of the arraigns stood up in great disorder. "My Lord,"
said he, "the prisoner is very young. There are many market towns in
our county. The sentence amounts to whipping once a fortnight for seven
years. " "If he is a young man," said Jeffreys, "he is an old rogue.
Ladies, you do not know the villain as well as I do. The punishment is
not half bad enough for him. All the interest in England shall not alter
it. " Tutchin in his despair petitioned, and probably with sincerity,
that he might be hanged. Fortunately for him he was, just at this
conjuncture, taken ill of the smallpox and given over. As it seemed
highly improbable that the sentence would ever be executed, the Chief
Justice consented to remit it, in return for a bribe which reduced the
prisoner to poverty. The temper of Tutchin, not originally very mild,
was exasperated to madness by what he had undergone. He lived to be
known as one of the most acrimonious and pertinacious enemies of the
House of Stuart and of the Tory party. [453]
The number of prisoners whom Jeffreys transported was eight hundred and
forty-one. These men, more wretched than their associates who suffered
death, were distributed into gangs, and bestowed on persons who enjoyed
favour at court. The conditions of the gift were that the convicts
should be carried beyond sea as slaves, that they should not be
emancipated for ten years, and that the place of their banishment should
be some West Indian island. This last article was studiously framed for
the purpose of aggravating the misery of the exiles. In New England or
New Jersey they would have found a population kindly disposed to them
and a climate not unfavourable to their health and vigour. It was
therefore determined that they should be sent to colonies where a
Puritan could hope to inspire little sympathy, and where a labourer born
in the temperate zone could hope to enjoy little health. Such was the
state of the slave market that these bondmen, long as was the passage,
and sickly as they were likely to prove, were still very valuable. It
was estimated by Jeffreys that, on an average, each of them, after all
charges were paid, would be worth from ten to fifteen pounds. There was
therefore much angry competition for grants. Some Tories in the West
conceived that they had, by their exertions and sufferings during the
insurrection, earned a right to share in the profits which had been
eagerly snatched up by the sycophants of Whitehall. The courtiers,
however, were victorious. [454]
The misery of the exiles fully equalled that of the negroes who are now
carried from Congo to Brazil. It appears from the best information which
is at present accessible that more than one fifth of those who were
shipped were flung to the sharks before the end of the voyage. The human
cargoes were stowed close in the holds of small vessels. So little space
was allowed that the wretches, many of whom were still tormented by
unhealed wounds, could not all lie down at once without lying on one
another. They were never suffered to go on deck. The hatchway was
constantly watched by sentinels armed with hangers and blunderbusses.
In the dungeon below all was darkness, stench, lamentation, disease
and death. Of ninety-nine convicts who were carried out in one vessel,
twenty-two died before they reached Jamaica, although the voyage was
performed with unusual speed. The survivors when they arrived at their
house of bondage were mere skeletons. During some weeks coarse biscuit
and fetid water had been doled out to them in such scanty measure that
any one of them could easily have consumed the ration which was assigned
to five. They were, therefore, in such a state that the merchant to whom
they had been consigned found it expedient to fatten them before selling
them. [455]
Meanwhile the property both of the rebels who had suffered death, and
of those more unfortunate men who were withering under the tropical sun,
was fought for and torn in pieces by a crowd of greedy informers. By law
a subject attainted of treason forfeits all his substance; and this law
was enforced after the Bloody Assizes with a rigour at once cruel
and ludicrous. The brokenhearted widows and destitute orphans of the
labouring men whose corpses hung at the cross roads were called upon by
the agents of the Treasury to explain what had become of a basket, of a
goose, of a flitch of bacon, of a keg of cider, of a sack of beans, of
a truss of hay. [456] While the humbler retainers of the government were
pillaging the families of the slaughtered peasants, the Chief Justice
was fast accumulating a fortune out of the plunder of a higher class of
Whigs. He traded largely in pardons. His most lucrative transaction of
this kind was with a gentleman named Edmund Prideaux. It is certain that
Prideaux had not been in arms against the government; and it is probable
that his only crime was the wealth which he had inherited from his
father, an eminent lawyer who had been high in office under the
Protector. No exertions were spared to make out a case for the crown.
Mercy was offered to some prisoners on condition that they would bear
evidence against Prideaux. The unfortunate man lay long in gaol and
at length, overcome by fear of the gallows, consented to pay fifteen
thousand pounds for his liberation. This great sum was received by
Jeffreys. He bought with it an estate, to which the people gave the name
of Aceldama, from that accursed field which was purchased with the price
of innocent blood. [457]
He was ably assisted in the work of extortion by the crew of parasites
who were in the habit of drinking and laughing with him. The office
of these men was to drive hard bargains with convicts under the strong
terrors of death, and with parents trembling for the lives of children.
A portion of the spoil was abandoned by Jeffreys to his agents. To one
of his boon companions, it is said he tossed a pardon for a rich traitor
across the table during a revel. It was not safe to have recourse to any
intercession except that of his creatures, for he guarded his profitable
monopoly of mercy with jealous care. It was even suspected that he sent
some persons to the gibbet solely because they had applied for the royal
clemency through channels independent of him. [458]
Some courtiers nevertheless contrived to obtain a small share of this
traffic. The ladies of the Queen's household distinguished themselves
preeminently by rapacity and hardheartedness. Part of the disgrace which
they incurred falls on their mistress: for it was solely on account of
the relation in which they stood to her that they were able to enrich
themselves by so odious a trade; and there can be no question that
she might with a word or a look have restrained them. But in truth she
encouraged them by her evil example, if not by her express approbation.
She seems to have been one of that large class of persons who bear
adversity better than prosperity. While her husband was a subject and an
exile, shut out from public employment, and in imminent danger of being
deprived of his birthright, the suavity and humility of her manners
conciliated the kindness even of those who most abhorred her religion.
But when her good fortune came her good nature disappeared. The meek and
affable Duchess turned out an ungracious and haughty Queen. [459] The
misfortunes which she subsequently endured have made her an object of
some interest; but that interest would be not a little heightened if it
could be shown that, in the season of her greatness, she saved, or even
tried to save, one single victim from the most frightful proscription
that England has ever seen. Unhappily the only request that she is known
to have preferred touching the rebels was that a hundred of those who
were sentenced to transportation might be given to her. [460] The profit
which she cleared on the cargo, after making large allowance for those
who died of hunger and fever during the passage, cannot be estimated
at less than a thousand guineas. We cannot wonder that her attendants
should have imitated her unprincely greediness and her unwomanly
cruelty. They exacted a thousand pounds from Roger Hoare, a merchant
of Bridgewater; who had contributed to the military chest of the rebel
army. But the prey on which they pounced most eagerly was one which it
might have been thought that even the most ungentle natures would have
spared. Already some of the girls who had presented the standard to
Monmouth at Taunton had cruelly expiated their offence. One of them had
been thrown into prison where an infectious malady was raging. She had
sickened and died there. Another had presented herself at the bar before
Jeffreys to beg for mercy. "Take her, gaoler," vociferated the Judge,
with one of those frowns which had often struck terror into stouter
hearts than hers. She burst into tears, drew her hood over her face,
followed the gaoler out of the court, fell ill of fright, and in a few
hours was a corpse. Most of the young ladies, however, who had walked
in the procession were still alive. Some of them were under ten years
of age. All had acted under the orders of their schoolmistress, without
knowing that they were committing a crime. The Queen's maids of honour
asked the royal permission to wring money out of the parents of the
poor children; and the permission was granted. An order was sent down to
Taunton that all these little girls should be seized and imprisoned.
Sir Francis Warre of Hestercombe, the Tory member for Bridgewater, was
requested to undertake the office of exacting the ransom. He was charged
to declare in strong language that the maids of honour would not endure
delay, that they were determined to prosecute to outlawry, unless a
reasonable sum were forthcoming, and that by a reasonable sum was meant
seven thousand pounds. Warre excused himself from taking any part in a
transaction so scandalous. The maids of honour then requested William
Penn to act for them; and Penn accepted the commission. Yet it should
seem that a little of the pertinacious scrupulosity which he had often
shown about taking off his hat would not have been altogether out of
place on this occasion. He probably silenced the remonstrances of his
conscience by repeating to himself that none of the money which he
extorted would go into his own pocket; that if he refused to be
the agent of the ladies they would find agents less humane; that by
complying he should increase his influence at the court, and that his
influence at the court had already enabled him, and still might enable
him, to render great services to his oppressed brethren. The maids of
honour were at last forced to content themselves with less than a third
part of what they had demanded. [461]
No English sovereign has ever given stronger proof of a cruel nature
than James the Second. Yet his cruelty was not more odious than his
mercy. Or perhaps it may be more correct to say that his mercy and his
cruelty were such that each reflects infamy on the other. Our horror at
the fate of the simple clowns, the young lads, the delicate women, to
whom he was inexorably severe, is increased when we find to whom and for
what considerations he granted his pardon.
The rule by which a prince ought, after a rebellion, to be guided in
selecting rebels for punishment is perfectly obvious. The ringleaders,
the men of rank, fortune, and education, whose power and whose artifices
have led the multitude into error, are the proper objects of severity.
The deluded populace, when once the slaughter on the field of battle
is over, can scarcely be treated too leniently. This rule, so evidently
agreeable to justice and humanity, was not only not observed: it was
inverted. While those who ought to have been spared were slaughtered by
hundreds, the few who might with propriety have been left to the utmost
rigour of the law were spared. This eccentric clemency has perplexed
some writers, and has drawn forth ludicrous eulogies from others. It was
neither at all mysterious nor at all praiseworthy. It may be distinctly
traced in every case either to a sordid or to a malignant motive, either
to thirst for money or to thirst for blood.
In the case of Grey there was no mitigating circumstance. His parts and
knowledge, the rank which he had inherited in the state, and the high
command which he had borne in the rebel army, would have pointed him out
to a just government as a much fitter object of punishment than Alice
Lisle, than William Hewling, than any of the hundreds of ignorant
peasants whose skulls and quarters were exposed in Somersetshire. But
Grey's estate was large and was strictly entailed. He had only a life
interest in his property; and he could forfeit no more interest than he
had. If he died, his lands at once devolved on the next heir. If he
were pardoned, he would be able to pay a large ransom. He was therefore
suffered to redeem himself by giving a bond for forty thousand pounds to
the Lord Treasurer, and smaller sums to other courtiers. [462]
Sir John Cochrane had held among the Scotch rebels the same rank which
had been held by Grey in the West of England. That Cochrane should be
forgiven by a prince vindictive beyond all example, seemed incredible.
But Cochrane was the younger son of a rich family; it was therefore only
by sparing him that money could be made out of him. His father, Lord
Dundonald, offered a bribe of five thousand pounds to the priests of the
royal household; and a pardon was granted. [463]
Samuel Storey, a noted sower of sedition, who had been Commissary to the
rebel army, and who had inflamed the ignorant populace of Somersetshire
by vehement harangues in which James had been described as an incendiary
and a poisoner, was admitted to mercy. For Storey was able to give
important assistance to Jeffreys in wringing fifteen thousand pounds out
of Prideaux. [464]
None of the traitors had less right to expect favour than Wade,
Goodenough, and Ferguson. These three chiefs of the rebellion had fled
together from the field of Sedgemoor, and had reached the coast in
safety. But they had found a frigate cruising near the spot where they
had hoped to embark. They had then separated. Wade and Goodenough
were soon discovered and brought up to London. Deeply as they had been
implicated in the Rye House plot, conspicuous as they had been among the
chiefs of the Western insurrection, they were suffered to live, because
they had it in their power to give information which enabled the King
to slaughter and plunder some persons whom he hated, but to whom he had
never yet been able to bring home any crime. [465]
How Ferguson escaped was, and still is, a mystery. Of all the enemies of
the government he was, without doubt, the most deeply criminal. He was
the original author of the plot for assassinating the royal brothers.
He had written that Declaration which, for insolence, malignity, and
mendacity, stands unrivalled even among the libels of those stormy
times. He had instigated Monmouth first to invade the kingdom, and then
to usurp the crown. It was reasonable to expect that a strict search
would be made for the archtraitor, as he was often called; and such a
search a man of so singular an aspect and dialect could scarcely have
eluded. It was confidently reported in the coffee houses of London
that Ferguson was taken, and this report found credit with men who had
excellent opportunities of knowing the truth. The next thing that was
heard of him was that he was safe on the Continent. It was strongly
suspected that he had been in constant communication with the government
against which he was constantly plotting, that he had, while urging his
associates to every excess of rashness sent to Whitehall just so much
information about their proceedings as might suffice to save his own
neck, and that therefore orders had been given to let him escape. [466]
And now Jeffreys had done his work, and returned to claim his reward. He
arrived at Windsor from the West, leaving carnage, mourning, and terror
behind him. The hatred with which he was regarded by the people of
Somersetshire has no parallel in our history. It was not to be quenched
by time or by political changes, was long transmitted from generation to
generation, and raged fiercely against his innocent progeny. When he
had been many years dead, when his name and title were extinct, his
granddaughter, the Countess of Pomfret, travelling along the western
road, was insulted by the populace, and found that she could not safely
venture herself among the descendants of those who had witnessed the
Bloody Assizes. [467]
But at the Court Jeffreys was cordially welcomed. He was a judge after
his master's own heart. James had watched the circuit with interest and
delight. In his drawingroom and at his table he had frequently talked of
the havoc which was making among his disaffected subjects with a glee
at which the foreign ministers stood aghast. With his own hand he had
penned accounts of what he facetiously called his Lord Chief Justice's
campaign in the West. Some hundreds of rebels, His Majesty wrote to the
Hague, had been condemned. Some of them had been hanged: more should
be hanged: and the rest should be sent to the plantations.
It was to no
purpose that Ken wrote to implore mercy for the misguided people, and
described with pathetic eloquence the frightful state of his diocese.
He complained that it was impossible to walk along the highways without
seeing some terrible spectacle, and that the whole air of Somersetshire
was tainted with death. The King read, and remained, according to the
saying of Churchill, hard as the marble chimneypieces of Whitehall. At
Windsor the great seal of England was put into the hands of Jeffreys and
in the next London Gazette it was solemnly notified that this honour
was the reward of the many eminent and faithful services which he had
rendered to the crown. [468]
At a later period, when all men of all parties spoke with horror of
the Bloody Assizes, the wicked Judge and the wicked King attempted to
vindicate themselves by throwing the blame on each other. Jeffreys, in
the Tower, protested that, in his utmost cruelty, he had not gone beyond
his master's express orders, nay, that he had fallen short of them.
James, at Saint Germain's would willingly have had it believed that his
own inclinations had been on the side of clemency, and that unmerited
obloquy had been brought on him by the violence of his minister. But
neither of these hardhearted men must be absolved at the expense of the
other. The plea set up for James can be proved under his own hand to
be false in fact. The plea of Jeffreys, even if it be true in fact, is
utterly worthless.
The slaughter in the West was over. The slaughter in London was about to
begin. The government was peculiarly desirous to find victims among the
great Whig merchants of the City. They had, in the last reign, been a
formidable part of the strength of the opposition. They were wealthy;
and their wealth was not, like that of many noblemen and country
gentlemen, protected by entail against forfeiture. In the case of Grey
and of men situated like him, it was impossible to gratify cruelty and
rapacity at once; but a rich trader might be both hanged and plundered.
The commercial grandees, however, though in general hostile to Popery
and to arbitrary power, had yet been too scrupulous or too timid to
incur the guilt of high treason. One of the most considerable among them
was Henry Cornish. He had been an Alderman under the old charter of
the City, and had filled the office of Sheriff when the question of the
Exclusion Bill occupied the public mind. In politics he was a Whig: his
religious opinions leaned towards Presbyterianism: but his temper was
cautious and moderate. It is not proved by trustworthy evidence that he
ever approached the verge of treason. He had, indeed, when Sheriff, been
very unwilling to employ as his deputy a man so violent and unprincipled
as Goodenough. When the Rye House plot was discovered, great hopes
were entertained at Whitehall that Cornish would appear to have been
concerned: but these hopes were disappointed. One of the conspirators,
indeed, John Rumsey, was ready to swear anything: but a single witness
was not sufficient; and no second witness could be found. More than two
years had since elapsed. Cornish thought himself safe; but the eye of
the tyrant was upon him. Goodenough, terrified by the near prospect
of death, and still harbouring malice on account of the unfavourable
opinion which had always been entertained of him by his old master,
consented to supply the testimony which had hitherto been wanting.
Cornish was arrested while transacting business on the Exchange, was
hurried to gaol, was kept there some days in solitary confinement, and
was brought altogether unprepared to the bar of the Old Bailey. The case
against him rested wholly on the evidence of Rumsey and Goodenough. Both
were, by their own confession accomplices in the plot with which they
charged the prisoner. Both were impelled by the strongest pressure of
hope end fear to criminate him. Evidence was produced which proved that
Goodenough was also under the influence of personal enmity. Rumsey's
story was inconsistent with the story which he had told when he appeared
as a witness against Lord Russell. But these things were urged in vain.
On the bench sate three judges who had been with Jeffreys in the West;
and it was remarked by those who watched their deportment that they had
come back from the carnage of Taunton in a fierce and excited state. It
is indeed but too true that the taste for blood is a taste which even
men not naturally cruel may, by habit, speedily acquire. The bar and
the bench united to browbeat the unfortunate Whig. The jury, named by a
courtly Sheriff, readily found a verdict of Guilty; and, in spite of the
indignant murmurs of the public, Cornish suffered death within ten days
after he had been arrested. That no circumstance of degradation might
be wanting, the gibbet was set up where King Street meets Cheapside, in
sight of the house where he had long lived in general respect, of the
Exchange where his credit had always stood high, and of the Guildhall
where he had distinguished himself as a popular leader. He died with
courage and with many pious expressions, but showed, by look and
gesture, such strong resentment at the barbarity and injustice with
which he had been treated, that his enemies spread a calumnious report
concerning him. He was drunk, they said, or out of his mind, when he was
turned off. William Penn, however, who stood near the gallows, and whose
prejudice were all on the side of the government, afterwards said that
he could see in Cornish's deportment nothing but the natural indignation
of an innocent man slain under the forms of law. The head of the
murdered magistrate was placed over the Guildhall. [469]
Black as this case was, it was not the blackest which disgraced the
sessions of that autumn at the Old Bailey. Among the persons concerned
in the Rye House plot was a man named James Burton. By his own
confession he had been present when the design of assassination was
discussed by his accomplices. When the conspiracy was detected, a reward
was offered for his apprehension. He was saved from death by an ancient
matron of the Baptist persuasion, named Elizabeth Gaunt. This woman,
with the peculiar manners and phraseology which then distinguished her
sect, had a large charity. Her life was passed in relieving the unhappy
of all religious denominations, and she was well known as a constant
visitor of the gaols. Her political and theological opinions, as well as
her compassionate disposition, led her to do everything in her power for
Burton. She procured a boat which took him to Gravesend, where he got
on board of a ship bound for Amsterdam. At the moment of parting she
put into his hand a sum of money which, for her means, was very large.
Burton, after living some time in exile, returned to England with
Monmouth, fought at Sedgemoor, fled to London, and took refuge in the
house of John Fernley, a barber in Whitechapel. Fernley was very poor.
He was besieged by creditors. He knew that a reward of a hundred pounds
had been offered by the government for the apprehension of Burton. But
the honest man was incapable of betraying one who, in extreme peril, had
come under the shadow of his roof. Unhappily it was soon noised abroad
that the anger of James was more strongly excited against those who
harboured rebels than against the rebels themselves. He had publicly
declared that of all forms of treason the hiding of traitors from his
vengeance was the most unpardonable. Burton knew this. He delivered
himself up to the government; and he gave information against Fernley
and Elizabeth Gaunt. They were brought to trial. The villain whose
life they had preserved had the heart and the forehead to appear as
the principal witness against them. They were convicted. Fernley was
sentenced to the gallows, Elizabeth Gaunt to the stake. Even after
all the horrors of that year, many thought it impossible that these
judgments should be carried into execution. But the King was without
pity. Fernley was hanged. Elizabeth Gaunt was burned alive at Tyburn on
the same day on which Cornish suffered death in Cheapside. She left a
paper written, indeed, in no graceful style, yet such as was read by
many thousands with compassion and horror. "My fault," she said, "was
one which a prince might well have forgiven. I did but relieve a poor
family; and lo! I must die for it. " She complained of the insolence of
the judges, of the ferocity of the gaoler, and of the tyranny of him,
the great one of all, to whose pleasure she and so many other victims
had been sacrificed. In so far as they had injured herself, she forgave
them: but, in that they were implacable enemies of that good cause which
would yet revive and flourish, she left them to the judgment of the King
of Kings. To the last she preserved a tranquil courage, which reminded
the spectators of the most heroic deaths of which they had read in Fox.
William Penn, for whom exhibitions which humane men generally avoid seem
to have had a strong attraction, hastened from Cheapside, where he had
seen Cornish hanged, to Tyburn, in order to see Elizabeth Gaunt burned.
He afterwards related that, when she calmly disposed the straw about her
in such a manner as to shorten her sufferings, all the bystanders burst
into tears. It was much noticed that, while the foulest judicial murder
which had disgraced even those times was perpetrating, a tempest burst
forth, such as had not been known since that great hurricane which had
raged round the deathbed of Oliver. The oppressed Puritans reckoned up,
not without a gloomy satisfaction the houses which had been blown down,
and the ships which had been cast away, and derived some consolation
from thinking that heaven was bearing awful testimony against the
iniquity which afflicted the earth. Since that terrible day no woman has
suffered death in England for any political offence. [470]
It was not thought that Goodenough had yet earned his pardon. The
government was bent on destroying a victim of no high rank, a surgeon in
the City, named Bateman. He had attended Shaftesbury professionally, and
had been a zealous Exclusionist. He may possibly have been privy to the
Whig plot; but it is certain that he had not been one of the leading
conspirators; for, in the great mass of depositions published by the
government, his name occurs only once, and then not in connection with
any crime bordering on high treason. From his indictment, and from the
scanty account which remains of his trial, it seems clear that he was
not even accused of participating in the design of murdering the royal
brothers. The malignity with which so obscure a man, guilty of so slight
an offence, was hunted down, while traitors far more criminal and
far more eminent were allowed to ransom themselves by giving evidence
against him, seemed to require explanation; and a disgraceful
explanation was found. When Oates, after his scourging, was carried into
Newgate insensible, and, as all thought, in the last agony, he had been
bled and his wounds had been dressed by Bateman. This was an offence not
to be forgiven. Bateman was arrested and indicted. The witnesses against
him were men of infamous character, men, too, who were swearing for
their own lives. None of them had yet got his pardon; and it was a
popular saying, that they fished for prey, like tame cormorants, with
ropes round their necks. The prisoner, stupefied by illness, was unable
to articulate, or to understand what passed. His son and daughter stood
by him at the bar. They read as well as they could some notes which he
had set down, and examined his witnesses. It was to little purpose. He
was convicted, hanged, and quartered. [471]
Never, not even under the tyranny of Laud, had the condition of the
Puritans been so deplorable as at that time. Never had spies been so
actively employed in detecting congregations. Never had magistrates,
grand jurors, rectors and churchwardens been so much on the alert. Many
Dissenters were cited before the ecclesiastical courts. Others found it
necessary to purchase the connivance of the agents of the government by
presents of hogsheads of wine, and of gloves stuffed with guineas. It
was impossible for the separatists to pray together without precautions
such as are employed by coiners and receivers of stolen goods. The
places of meeting were frequently changed. Worship was performed
sometimes just before break of day and sometimes at dead of night. Round
the building where the little flock was gathered sentinels were posted
to give the alarm if a stranger drew near. The minister in disguise was
introduced through the garden and the back yard. In some houses there
were trap doors through which, in case of danger, he might descend.
Where Nonconformists lived next door to each other, the walls were often
broken open, and secret passages were made from dwelling to dwelling. No
psalm was sung; and many contrivances were used to prevent the voice
of the preacher, in his moments of fervour, from being heard beyond the
walls. Yet, with all this care, it was often found impossible to elude
the vigilance of informers. In the suburbs of London, especially, the
law was enforced with the utmost rigour. Several opulent gentlemen were
accused of holding conventicles. Their houses were strictly searched,
and distresses were levied to the amount of many thousands of pounds.
The fiercer and bolder sectaries, thus driven from the shelter of roofs,
met in the open air, and determined to repel force by force. A Middlesex
justice who had learned that a nightly prayer meeting was held in a
gravel pit about two miles from London, took with him a strong body of
constables, broke in upon the assembly, and seized the preacher. But
the congregation, which consisted of about two hundred men, soon rescued
their pastor and put the magistrate and his officers to flight. [472]
This, however, was no ordinary occurrence. In general the Puritan spirit
seemed to be more effectually cowed at this conjuncture than at any
moment before or since. The Tory pamphleteers boasted that not one
fanatic dared to move tongue or pen in defence of his religious
opinions. Dissenting ministers, however blameless in life, however
eminent for learning and abilities, could not venture to walk the
streets for fear of outrages, which were not only not repressed, but
encouraged, by those whose duty it was to preserve the peace. Some
divines of great fame were in prison. Among these was Richard Baxter.
Others, who had, during a quarter of a century, borne up against
oppression, now lost heart, and quitted the kingdom. Among these was
John Howe. Great numbers of persons who had been accustomed to frequent
conventicles repaired to the parish churches. It was remarked that the
schismatics who had been terrified into this show of conformity might
easily be distinguished by the difficulty which they had in finding out
the collect, and by the awkward manner in which they bowed at the name
of Jesus. [473]
Through many years the autumn of 1685 was remembered by the
Nonconformists as a time of misery and terror. Yet in that autumn might
be discerned the first faint indications of a great turn of fortune;
and before eighteen months had elapsed, the intolerant King and the
intolerant Church were eagerly bidding against each other for the
support of the party which both had so deeply injured.
END OF VOL. I.
*****
[Footnote 1: In this, and in the next chapter, I have very seldom
thought it necessary to cite authorities: for, in these chapters, I have
not detailed events minutely, or used recondite materials; and the facts
which I mention are for the most part such that a person tolerably well
read in English history, if not already apprised of them, will at least
know where to look for evidence of them. In the subsequent chapters I
shall carefully indicate the sources of my information. ]
[Footnote 2: This is excellently put by Mr. Hallam in the first chapter
of his Constitutional History. ]
[Footnote 3: See a very curious paper which Strype believed to be in
Gardiner's handwriting. Ecclesiastical Memorials, Book 1. , Chap. xvii. ]
[Footnote 4: These are Cranmer's own words. See the Appendix to Burnet's
History of the Reformation, Part 1. Book III. No. 21. Question 9. ]
[Footnote 5: The Puritan historian, Neal, after censuring the cruelty
with which she treated the sect to which he belonged, concludes thus:
"However, notwithstanding all these blemishes, Queen Elizabeth stands
upon record as a wise and politic princess, for delivering her kingdom
from the difficulties in which it was involved at her accession, for
preserving the Protestant reformation against the potent attempts of the
Pope, the Emperor, and King of Spain abroad, and the Queen of Scots and
her Popish subjects at home. . . . She was the glory of the age in which
she lived, and will be the admiration of posterity. "--History of the
Puritans, Part I. Chap. viii. ]
[Footnote 6: On this subject, Bishop Cooper's language is remarkably
clear and strong. He maintains, in his Answer to Martin Marprelate,
printed in 1589, "that no form of church government is divinely
ordained; that Protestant communities, in establishing different forms,
have only made a legitimate use of their Christian liberty; and
that episcopacy is peculiarly suited to England, because the English
constitution is monarchical. " All those Churches," says the Bishop,
"in which the Gospell, in these daies, after great darknesse, was first
renewed, and the learned men whom God sent to instruct them, I doubt not
but have been directed by the Spirite of God to retaine this liberty,
that, in external government and other outward orders; they might choose
such as they thought in wisedome and godlinesse to be most convenient
for the state of their countrey and disposition of their people. Why
then should this liberty that other countreys have used under anie
colour be wrested from us? I think it therefore great presumption and
boldnesse that some of our nation, and those, whatever they may think
of themselves, not of the greatest wisedome and skill, should take upon
them to controlle the whole realme, and to binde both prince and people
in respect of conscience to alter the present state, and tie themselves
to a certain platforme devised by some of our neighbours, which, in the
judgment of many wise and godly persons, is most unfit for the state of
a Kingdome. "]
[Footnote 7: Strype's Life of Grindal, Appendix to Book II. No. xvii. ]
[Footnote 8: Canon 55, of 1603. ]
[Footnote 9: Joseph Hall, then dean of Worcester, and afterwards bishop
of Norwich, was one of the commissioners. In his life of himself, he
says: "My unworthiness was named for one of the assistants of that
honourable, grave, and reverend meeting. " To high churchmen this
humility will seem not a little out of place. ]
[Footnote 10: It was by the Act of Uniformity, passed after the
Restoration, that persons not episcopally ordained were, for the first
time, made incapable of holding benefices. No man was more zealous for
this law than Clarendon. Yet he says: "This was new; for there had been
many, and at present there were some, who possessed benefices with cure
of souls and other ecclesiastical promotions, who had never received
orders but in France or Holland; and these men must now receive new
ordination, which had been always held unlawful in the Church, or by
this act of parliament must be deprived of their livelihood which they
enjoyed in the most flourishing and peaceable time of the Church. "]
[Footnote 11: Peckard's Life of Ferrar; The Arminian Nunnery, or a Brief
Description of the late erected monastical Place called the Arminian
Nunnery, at Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire, 1641. ]
[Footnote 12: The correspondence of Wentworth seems to me fully to bear
out what I have said in the text. To transcribe all the passages
which have led me to the conclusion at which I have arrived, would be
impossible, nor would it be easy to make a better selection than has
already been made by Mr. Hallam. I may, however direct the attention of
the reader particularly to the very able paper which Wentworth drew up
respecting the affairs of the Palatinate. The date is March 31, 1637. ]
[Footnote 13: These are Wentworth's own words. See his letter to Laud,
dated Dec. 16, 1634. ]
[Footnote 14: See his report to Charles for the year 1639. ]
[Footnote 15: See his letter to the Earl of Northumberland, dated July
30, 1638. ]
[Footnote 16: How little compassion for the bear had to do with the
matter is sufficiently proved by the following extract from a paper
entitled A perfect Diurnal of some Passages of Parliament, and from
other Parts of the Kingdom, from Monday July 24th, to Monday July 31st,
1643. "Upon the Queen's coming from Holland, she brought with her,
besides a company of savage-like ruffians, a company of savage bears,
to what purpose you may judge by the sequel. Those bears were left about
Newark, and were brought into country towns constantly on the Lord's
day to be baited, such is the religion those here related would settle
amongst us; and, if any went about to hinder or but speak against their
damnable profanations, they were presently noted as Roundheads
and Puritans, and sure to be plundered for it. But some of Colonel
Cromwell's forces coming by accident into Uppingham town, in Rutland,
on the Lord's day, found these bears playing there in the usual manner,
and, in the height of their sport, caused them to be seized upon, tied
to a tree and shot. " This was by no means a solitary instance. Colonel
Pride, when Sheriff of Surrey, ordered the beasts in the bear garden
of Southwark to be killed. He is represented by a loyal satirist as
defending the act thus: "The first thing that is upon my spirits is the
killing of the bears, for which the people hate me, and call me all the
names in the rainbow. But did not David kill a bear? Did not the Lord
Deputy Ireton kill a bear? Did not another lord of ours kill five
bears? "-Last Speech and Dying Words of Thomas pride. ]
[Footnote 17: See Penn's New Witnesses proved Old Heretics, and
Muggleton's works, passim. ]
[Footnote 18: I am happy to say, that, since this passage was written,
the territories both of the Rajah of Nagpore and of the King of Oude
have been added to the British dominions. (1857. )]
[Footnote 19: The most sensible thing said in the House of Commons, on
this subject, came from Sir William Coventry: "Our ancestors never did
draw a line to circumscribe prerogative and liberty. "]
[Footnote 20: Halifax was undoubtedly the real author of the Character
of a Trimmer, which, for a time, went under the name of his kinsman, Sir
William Coventry. ]
[Footnote 21: North's Examen, 231, 574. ]
[Footnote 22: A peer who was present has described the effect of
Halifax's oratory in words which I will quote, because, though they
have been long in print, they are probably known to few even of the
most curious and diligent readers of history. "Of powerful eloquence and
great parts were the Duke's enemies who did assert the Bill; but a noble
Lord appeared against it who, that day, in all the force of speech, in
reason, in arguments of what could concern the public or the private
interests of men, in honour, in conscience, in estate, did outdo himself
and every other man; and in fine his conduct and his parts were
both victorious, and by him all the wit and malice of that party was
overthrown. " This passage is taken from a memoir of Henry Earl of
Peterborough, in a volume entitled "Succinct Genealogies, by Robert
Halstead," fol. 1685.
