There was no sign of
agitation
at the palace.
Macaulay
He was authorised to assure them that the
French government was collecting troops and transports at Calais, and
that, as soon as it was known there that a rebellion had broken out in
England, his father would embark with twelve thousand veteran soldiers,
and would be among them in a few hours.
A more hazardous part was assigned to an emissary of lower rank, but
of great address, activity and courage. This was Sir George Barclay, a
Scotch gentleman who had served with credit under Dundee, and who,
when the war in the Highlands had ended, had retired to Saint Germains.
Barclay was called into the royal closet, and received his orders from
the royal lips. He was directed to steal across the Channel and to
repair to London. He was told that a few select officers and soldiers
should speedily follow him by twos and threes. That they might have no
difficulty in finding him, he was to walk, on Mondays and Thursdays, in
the Piazza of Covent Garden after nightfall, with a white handkerchief
hanging from his coat pocket. He was furnished with a considerable sum
of money, and with a commission which was not only signed but written
from beginning to end by James himself. This commission authorised the
bearer to do from time to time such acts of hostility against the Prince
of Orange and that Prince's adherents as should most conduce to the
service of the King. What explanation of these very comprehensive words
was orally given by James we are not informed.
Lest Barclay's absence from Saint Germains should cause any suspicion,
it was given out that his loose way of life had made it necessary for
him to put himself under the care of a surgeon at Paris. [654] He set
out with eight hundred pounds in his portmanteau, hastened to the coast,
and embarked on board of a privateer which was employed by the Jacobites
as a regular packet boat between France and England. This vessel
conveyed him to a desolate spot in Romney Marsh. About half a mile
from the landing place a smuggler named Hunt lived on a dreary and
unwholesome fen where he had no neighbours but a few rude shepherds. His
dwelling was singularly well situated for a contraband traffic in French
wares. Cargoes of Lyons silk and Valenciennes lace sufficient to load
thirty packhorses had repeatedly been landed in that dismal solitude
without attracting notice. But, since the Revolution, Hunt had
discovered that of all cargoes a cargo of traitors paid best. His lonely
abode became the resort of men of high consideration, Earls and Barons,
Knights and Doctors of Divinity. Some of them lodged many days under
his roof while waiting for a passage. A clandestine post was established
between his house and London. The couriers were constantly going and
returning; they performed their journeys up and down on foot; but they
appeared to be gentlemen, and it was whispered that one of them was the
son of a titled man. The letters from Saint Germains were few and small.
Those directed to Saint Germains were numerous and bulky; they were made
up like parcels of millinery, and were buried in the morass till they
were called for by the privateer.
Here Barclay landed in January 1696; and hence he took the road
to London. He was followed, a few days later, by a tall youth, who
concealed his name, but who produced credentials of the highest
authority. This youth too proceeded to London. Hunt afterwards
discovered that his humble roof had had the honour of sheltering the
Duke of Berwick. [655]
The part which Barclay had to perform was difficult and hazardous; and
he omitted no precaution. He had been little in London; and his face was
consequently unknown to the agents of the government. Nevertheless
he had several lodgings; he disguised himself so well that his oldest
friends would not have known him by broad daylight; and yet he seldom
ventured into the streets except in the dark. His chief agent was a monk
who, under several names, heard confessions and said masses at the risk
of his neck. This man intimated to some of the zealots with whom he
consorted a special agent of the royal family was to be spoken with in
Covent Garden, on certain nights, at a certain hour, and might be known
by certain signs. [656] In this way Barclay became acquainted with
several men fit for his purpose. The first persons to whom he fully
opened himself were Charnock and Parkyns. He talked with them about the
plot which they and some of their friends had formed in the preceding
spring against the life of William. Both Charnock and Parkyns declared
that the scheme might easily be executed, that there was no want of
resolute hearts among the Royalists, and that all that was wanting was
some sign of His Majesty's approbation.
Then Barclay produced his commission. He showed his two accomplices that
James had expressly commanded all good Englishmen, not only to rise in
arms, not only to make war on the usurping government, not only to seize
forts and towns, but also to do from time to time such other acts
of hostility against the Prince of Orange as might be for the royal
service. These words, Barclay said, plainly authorised an attack on the
Prince's person. Charnock and Parkyns were satisfied. How in truth was
it possible for them to doubt that James's confidential agent correctly
construed James's expressions? Nay, how was it possible for them to
understand the large words of the commission in any sense but one,
even if Barclay had not been there to act as commentator? If indeed the
subject had never been brought under James's consideration, it might
well be thought that those words had dropped from his pen without any
definite meaning. But he had been repeatedly apprised that some of his
friends in England meditated a deed of blood, and that they were waiting
only for his approbation. They had importuned him to speak one word,
to give one sign. He had long kept silence; and, now that he had broken
silence, he merely told them to do what ever might be beneficial to
himself and prejudicial to the usurper. They had his authority as
plainly given as they could reasonably expect to have it given in such a
case. [657]
All that remained was to find a sufficient number of courageous and
trustworthy assistants, to provide horses and weapons, and to fix the
hour and the place of the slaughter. Forty or fifty men, it was thought,
would be sufficient. Those troopers of James's guard who had already
followed Barclay across the Channel made up nearly half that number.
James had himself seen some of these men before their departure from
Saint Germains, had given them money for their journey, had told them by
what name each of them was to pass in England, had commanded them to
act as they should be directed by Barclay, and had informed them where
Barclay was to be found and by what tokens he was to be known. [658]
They were ordered to depart in small parties, and to assign different
reasons for going. Some were ill; some were weary of the service;
Cassels, one of the most noisy and profane among them, announced that,
since he could not get military promotion, he should enter at the Scotch
college and study for a learned profession. Under such pretexts about
twenty picked men left the palace of James, made their way by Romney
Marsh to London, and found their captain walking in the dim lamplight of
the Piazza with the handkerchief hanging from his pocket. One of these
men was Ambrose Rockwood, who held the rank of Brigadier, and who had a
high reputation for courage and honour; another was Major John Bernardi,
an adventurer of Genoese extraction, whose name has derived a melancholy
celebrity from a punishment so strangely prolonged that it at length
shocked a generation which could not remember his crime. [659]
It was in these adventurers from France that Barclay placed his chief
trust. In a moment of elation he once called them his Janissaries, and
expressed a hope that they would get him the George and Garter. But
twenty more assassins at least were wanted. The conspirators probably
expected valuable help from Sir John Friend, who had received a
Colonel's commission signed by James, and had been most active in
enlisting men and providing arms against the day when the French should
appear on the coast of Kent. The design was imparted to him; but he
thought it so rash, and so likely to bring reproach and disaster on the
good cause, that he would lend no assistance to his friends, though he
kept their secret religiously. [660] Charnock undertook to find eight
brave and trusty fellows. He communicated the design to Porter, not with
Barclay's entire approbation; for Barclay appears to have thought that
a tavern brawler, who had recently been in prison for swaggering drunk
about the streets and huzzaing in honour of the Prince of Wales, was
hardly to be trusted with a secret of such fearful import. Porter
entered into the plot with enthusiasm, and promised to bring in others
who would be useful. Among those whose help he engaged was his servant
Thomas Keyes. Keyes was a far more formidable conspirator than might
have been expected from his station in life. The household troops
generally were devoted to William; but there was a taint of disaffection
among the Blues. The chief conspirators had already been tampering
with some Roman Catholics who were in that regiment; and Keyes was
excellently qualified to bear a part in this work; for he had formerly
been trumpeter of the corps, and, though he had quitted the service, he
still kept up an acquaintaince with some of the old soldiers in whose
company he had lived at free quarter on the Somersetshire farmers after
the battle of Sedgemoor.
Parkyns, who was old and gouty, could not himself take a share in the
work of death. But he employed himself in providing horses, saddles and
weapons for his younger and more active accomplices. In this department
of business he was assisted by Charles Cranburne, a person who had long
acted as a broker between Jacobite plotters and people who dealt in
cutlery and firearms. Special orders were given by Barclay that the
swords should be made rather for stabbing than for slashing. Barclay
himself enlisted Edward Lowick, who had been a major in the Irish army,
and who had, since the capitulation of Limerick, been living obscurely
in London. The monk who had been Barclay's first confidant recommended
two busy Papists, Richard Fisher and Christopher Knightley; and this
recommendation was thought sufficient. Knightley drew in Edward King, a
Roman Catholic gentleman of hot and restless temper; and King procured
the assistance of a French gambler and bully named De la Rue. [661]
Meanwhile the heads of the conspiracy held frequent meetings at treason
taverns, for the purpose of settling a plan of operations. Several
schemes were proposed, applauded, and, on full consideration, abandoned.
At one time it was thought that an attack on Kensington House at dead
of night might probably be successful. The outer wall might easily be
scaled. If once forty armed men were in the garden, the palace would
soon be stormed or set on fire. Some were of opinion that it would be
best to strike the blow on a Sunday as William went from Kensington
to attend divine service at the chapel of Saint James's Palace. The
murderers might assemble near the spot where Apsley House and Hamilton
Place now stand. Just as the royal coach passed out of Hyde Park, and
was about to enter what has since been called the Green Park, thirty
of the conspirators, well mounted, might fall on the guards. The guards
were ordinarily only five and twenty. They would be taken completely
by surprise; and probably half of them would be shot or cut down before
they could strike a blow. Meanwhile ten or twelve resolute men on foot
would stop the carriage by shooting the horses, and would then without
difficulty despatch the King. At last the preference was given to a plan
originally sketched by Fisher and put into shape by Porter. William was
in the habit of going every Saturday from Kensington to hunt in Richmond
Park. There was then no bridge over the Thames between London and
Kingston. The King therefore went, in a coach escorted by some of his
body guards, through Turnham Green to the river. There he took boat,
crossed the water and found another coach and another set of guards
ready to receive him on the Surrey side. The first coach and the first
set of guards awaited his return on the northern bank. The conspirators
ascertained with great precision the whole order of these journeys, and
carefully examined the ground on both sides of the Thames. They thought
that they should attack the King with more advantage on the Middlesex
than on the Surrey bank, and when he was returning than when he was
going. For, when he was going, he was often attended to the water side
by a great retinue of lords and gentlemen; but on his return he had only
his guards about him. The place and time were fixed. The place was to be
a narrow and winding lane leading from the landingplace on the north
of the rover to Turnham Green. The spot may still be easily found.
The ground has since been drained by trenches. But in the seventeenth
century it was a quagmire, through which the royal coach was with
difficulty tugged at a foot's pace. The time was to be the afternoon
of Saturday the fifteenth of February. On that day the Forty were to
assemble in small parties at public houses near the Green. When the
signal was given that the coach was approaching they were to take horse
and repair to their posts. As the cavalcade came up this lane Charnock
was to attack the guards in the rear, Rockwood on one flank, Porter on
the other. Meanwhile Barclay, with eight trusty men, was to stop the
coach and to do the deed. That no movement of the King might escape
notice, two orderlies were appointed to watch the palace. One of these
men, a bold and active Fleming, named Durant, was especially charged to
keep Barclay well informed. The other, whose business was to communicate
with Charnock, was a ruffian named Chambers, who had served in the Irish
army, had received a severe wound in the breast at the Boyne, and, on
account of that wound, bore a savage personal hatred to William. [662]
While Barclay was making all his arrangements for the assassination,
Berwick was endeavouring to persuade the Jacobite aristocracy to rise
in arms. But this was no easy task. Several consultations were held;
and there was one great muster of the party under the pretence of a
masquerade, for which tickets were distributed among the initiated
at one guinea each. [663] All ended however in talking, singing and
drinking. Many men of rank and fortune indeed declared that they would
draw their swords for their rightful Sovereign as soon as their rightful
Sovereign was in the island with a French army; and Berwick had been
empowered to assure there that a French army should be sent as soon as
they had drawn the sword. But between what they asked and what he
was authorised to grant there was a difference which admitted of no
compromise. Lewis, situated as he was, would not risk ten or twelve
thousand excellent soldiers on the mere faith of promises. Similar
promises had been made in 1690; and yet, when the fleet of Tourville had
appeared on the coast of Devonshire, the western counties had risen as
one man in defence of the government, and not a single malecontent had
dared to utter a whisper in favour of the invaders. Similar promises had
been made in 1692; and to the confidence which had been placed in those
promises was to be attributed the great disaster of La Hogue. The
French King would not be deceived a third time. He would gladly help the
English royalists; but he must first see them help themselves. There
was much reason in this; and there was reason also in what the Jacobites
urged on the other side. If, they said, they were to rise, without a
single disciplined regiment to back them, against an usurper supported
by a regular army, they should all be cut to pieces before the news that
they were up could reach Versailles. As Berwick could hold out no hope
that there would be an invasion before there was an insurrection, and
as his English friends were immovable in their determination that there
should be no insurrection till there was an invasion, he had nothing
more to do here, and became impatient to depart.
He was the more impatient to depart because the fifteenth of February
drew near. For he was in constant communication with Barclay, and was
perfectly apprised of all the details of the crime which was to be
perpetrated on that day. He was generally considered as a man of sturdy
and even ungracious integrity. But to such a degree had his sense of
right and wrong been perverted by his zeal for the interests of his
family, and by his respect for the lessons of his priests, that he did
not, as he has himself ingenuously confessed, think that he lay under
any obligation to dissuade the assassins from the execution of their
purpose. He had indeed only one objection to their design; and that
objection he kept to himself. It was simply this, that all who were
concerned were very likely to be hanged. That, however, was their
affair; and, if they chose to run such a risk in the good cause, it was
not his business to discourage them. His mission was quite distinct from
theirs; he was not to act with them; and he had no inclination to suffer
with then. He therefore hastened down to Romney Marsh, and crossed to
Calais. [664]
At Calais he found preparations making for a descent on Kent. Troops
filled the town; transports filled the port. Boufflers had been ordered
to repair thither from Flanders, and to take the command. James himself
was daily expected. In fact he had already left Saint Germains. Berwick,
however, would not wait. He took the road to Paris, met his father at
Clermont, and made a full report of the state of things in England. His
embassy had failed; the Royalist nobility and gentry seemed resolved
not to rise till a French army was in the island; but there was still a
hope; news would probably come within a few days that the usurper was
no more; and such news would change the whole aspect of affairs. James
determined to go on to Calais, and there to await the event of
Barclay's plot. Berwick hastened to Versailles for the purpose of giving
explanations to Lewis. What the nature of the explanations was we know
from Berwick's own narrative. He plainly told the French King that a
small band of loyal men would in a short time make an attempt on the
life of the great enemy of France. The next courier might bring tidings
of an event which would probably subvert the English government and
dissolve the European coalition. It might have been thought that a
prince who ostentatiously affected the character of a devout Christian
and of a courteous knight would instantly have taken measures for
conveying to his rival a caution which perhaps might still arrive in
time, and would have severely reprimanded the guests who had so grossly
abused his hospitality. Such, however, was not the conduct of Lewis. Had
he been asked to give his sanction to a murder he would probably
have refused with indignation. But he was not moved to indignation by
learning that, without his sanction, a crime was likely to be committed
which would be far more beneficial to his interests than ten such
victories as that of Landen. He sent down orders to Calais that his
fleet should be in such readiness as might enable him to take advantage
of the great crisis which he anticipated. At Calais James waited with
still more impatience for the signal that his nephew was no more. That
signal was to be given by a fire, of which the fuel was already prepared
on the cliffs of Kent, and which would be visible across the straits.
[665]
But a peculiar fate has, in our country, always attended such
conspiracies as that of Barclay and Charnock. The English regard
assassination, and have during some ages regarded it, with a loathing
peculiar to themselves. So English indeed is this sentiment that it
cannot even now be called Irish, and till a recent period, it was not
Scotch. In Ireland to this day the villain who shoots at his enemy from
behind a hedge is too often protected from justice by public sympathy.
In Scotland plans of assassination were often, during the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, successfully executed, though known to great
numbers of persons. The murders of Beaton, of Rizzio, of Darnley, of
Murray, of Sharpe, are conspicuous instances. The royalists who murdered
Lisle in Switzerland were Irishmen; the royalists who murdered Ascham at
Madrid were Irishmen; the royalists who murdered Dorislaus at the Hague
were Scotchmen. In England, as soon as such a design ceases to be a
secret hidden in the recesses of one gloomy and ulcerated heart, the
risk of detection and failure becomes extreme. Felton and Bellingham
reposed trust in no human being; and they were therefore able to
accomplish their evil purposes. But Babington's conspiracy against
Elizabeth, Fawkes's conspiracy against James, Gerard's conspiracy
against Cromwell, the Rye House conspiracy, the Cato Street conspiracy,
were all discovered, frustrated and punished. In truth such a conspiracy
is here exposed to equal danger from the good and from the bad qualities
of the conspirators. Scarcely any Englishman, not utterly destitute of
conscience and honour, will engage in a plot for slaying an unsuspecting
fellow creature; and a wretch who has neither conscience nor honour is
likely to think much on the danger which he incurs by being true to his
associates, and on the rewards which he may obtain by betraying them.
There are, it is true, persons in whom religious or political fanaticism
has destroyed all moral sensibility on one particular point, and yet has
left that sensibility generally unimpaired. Such a person was Digby. He
had no scruple about blowing King, Lords and Commons into the air. Yet
to his accomplices he was religiously and chivalrously faithful; nor
could even the fear of the rack extort from him one word to their
prejudice. But this union of depravity and heroism is very rare. The
vast majority of men are either not vicious enough or not virtuous
enough to be loyal and devoted members of treacherous and cruel
confederacies; and, if a single member should want either the necessary
vice or the necessary virtue, the whole confederacy is in danger. To
bring together in one body forty Englishmen, all hardened cutthroats,
and yet all so upright and generous that neither the hope of opulence
nor the dread of the gallows can tempt any one of them to be false to
the rest, has hitherto been found, and will, it is to be hoped, always
be found impossible.
There were among Barclay's followers both men too bad and men too good
to be trusted with such a secret as his. The first whose heart failed
him was Fisher. Even before the time and place of the crime had been
fixed, he obtained an audience of Portland, and told that lord that a
design was forming against the King's life. Some days later Fisher came
again with more precise intelligence. But his character was not such
as entitled him to much credit; and the knavery of Fuller, of Young, of
Whitney and of Taffe, had made men of sense slow to believe stories of
plots. Portland, therefore, though in general very easily alarmed where
the safety of his master and friend was concerned, seems to have thought
little about the matter. But, on the evening of the fourteenth of
February, he received a visit from a person whose testimony he could not
treat lightly. This was a Roman Catholic gentleman of known courage and
honour, named Pendergrass. He had, on the preceding day, come up to town
from Hampshire, in consequence of a pressing summons from Porter, who,
dissolute and unprincipled as he was, had to Pendergrass been a
most kind friend, indeed almost a father. In a Jacobite insurrection
Pendergrass would probably have been one of the foremost. But he learned
with horror that he was expected to bear a part in a wicked and shameful
deed. He found himself in one of those situations which most cruelly
torture noble and sensitive natures. What was he to do? Was he to
commit a murder? Was he to suffer a murder which he could prevent to be
committed? Yet was he to betray one who, however culpable, had loaded
him with benefits? Perhaps it might be possible to save William without
harming Porter? Pendergrass determined to make the attempt. "My Lord,"
he said to Portland, "as you value King William's life, do not let
him hunt tomorrow. He is the enemy of my religion; yet my religion
constrains me to give him this caution. But the names of the
conspirators I am resolved to conceal; some of them are my friends; one
of them especially is my benefactor; and I will not betray them. "
Portland went instantly to the King; but the King received the
intelligence very coolly, and seemed determined not to be frightened
out of a good day's sport by such an idle story. Portland argued and
implored in vain. He was at last forced to threaten that he would
immediately make the whole matter public, unless His Majesty would
consent to remain within doors during the next day; and this threat was
successful. [666]
Saturday the fifteenth came. The Forty were all ready to mount, when
they received intelligence from the orderlies who watched Kensington
House that the King did not mean to hunt that morning. "The fox," said
Chambers, with vindictive bitterness, "keeps his earth. " Then he opened
his shirt; showed the great scar in his breast, and vowed revenge on
William.
The first thought of the conspirators was that their design had been
detected. But they were soon reassured. It was given out that the
weather had kept the King at home; and indeed the day was cold and
stormy.
There was no sign of agitation at the palace. No extraordinary
precaution was taken. No arrest was made. No ominous whisper was
heard at the coffeehouses. The delay was vexatious; but Saturday the
twenty-second would do as well.
But, before Saturday the twenty-second arrived, a third informer, De
la Rue, had presented himself at the palace. His way of life did not
entitle him to much respect; but his story agreed so exactly with what
had been said by Fisher and Pendergrass that even William began to
believe that there was real danger.
Very late in the evening of Friday the twenty-first, Pendergrass, who
had as yet disclosed much less than either of the other informers, but
whose single word was worth much more than their joint oath, was sent
for to the royal closet. The faithful Portland and the gallant Cutts
were the only persons who witnessed the singular interview between the
King and his generous enemy. William, with courtesy and animation
which he rarely showed, but which he never showed without making a
deep impression, urged Pendergrass to speak out. "You are a man of true
probity and honour; I am deeply obliged to you; but you must feel that
the same considerations which have induced you to tell us so much ought
to induce you to tell us something more. The cautions which you have as
yet given can only make me suspect every body that comes near me. They
are sufficient to embitter my life, but not sufficient to preserve it.
You must let me know the names of these men. " During more than half an
hour the King continued to entreat and Pendergrass to refuse. At last
Pendergrass said that he would give the information which was required,
if he could be assured that it would be used only for the prevention of
the crime, and not for the destruction of the criminals. "I give you
my word of honour," said William, "that your evidence shall not be used
against any person without your own free consent. " It was long
past midnight when Pendergrass wrote down the names of the chief
conspirators.
While these things were passing at Kensington, a large party of the
assassins were revelling at a Jacobite tavern in Maiden Lane. Here they
received their final orders for the morrow. "Tomorrow or never," said
King. "Tomorrow, boys," cried Cassels with a curse, "we shall have the
plunder of the field. " The morrow came. All was ready; the horses
were saddled; the pistols were loaded; the swords were sharpened; the
orderlies were on the alert; they early sent intelligence from the
palace that the King was certainly going a hunting; all the usual
preparations had been made; a party of guards had been sent round by
Kingston Bridge to Richmond; the royal coaches, each with six horses,
had gone from the stables at Charing Cross to Kensington. The chief
murderers assembled in high glee at Porter's lodgings. Pendergrass, who,
by the King's command, appeared among them, was greeted with ferocious
mirth. "Pendergrass," said Porter, "you are named one of the eight who
are to do his business. I have a musquetoon for you that will carry
eight balls. " "Mr. Pendergrass," said King, "pray do not be afraid of
smashing the glass windows. " From Porter's lodgings the party adjourned
to the Blue Posts in Spring Gardens, where they meant to take some
refreshment before they started for Turnham Green. They were at table
when a message came from an orderly that the King had changed his mind
and would not hunt; and scarcely had they recovered from their first
surprise at this ominous news, when Keyes, who had been out scouting
among his old comrades, arrived with news more ominous still. "The
coaches have returned to Charing Cross. The guards that were sent round
to Richmond have just come back to Kensington at full gallop, the flanks
of the horses all white with foam. I have had a word with one of
the Blues. He told me that strange things are muttered. " Then the
countenances of the assassins fell; and their hearts died within them.
Porter made a feeble attempt to disguise his uneasiness. He took up
an orange and squeezed it. "What cannot be done one day may be done
another. Come, gentlemen, before we part let us have one glass to the
squeezing of the rotten orange. " The squeezing of the rotten orange was
drunk; and the company dispersed. [667]
A few hours elapsed before all the conspirators abandoned all hope. Some
of them derived comfort from a report that the King had taken physic,
and that this was his only reason for not going to Richmond. If it were
so, the blow might still be struck. Two Saturdays had been unpropitious.
But Sunday was at hand. One of the plans which had formerly been
discussed and abandoned might be resumed. The usurper might be set upon
at Hyde Park Corner on his way to his chapel. Charnock was ready for any
enterprise however desperate. If the hunt was up, it was better to die
biting and scratching to the last than to be worried without resistance
or revenge. He assembled some of his accomplices at one of the numerous
houses at which he had lodgings, and plied there hard with healths to
the King, to the Queen, to the Prince, and to the Grand Monarch, as they
called Lewis. But the terror and dejection of the gang were beyond the
power of wine; and so many had stolen away that those who were left
could effect nothing. In the course of the afternoon it was known that
the guards had been doubled at the palace; and soon after nightfall
messengers from the Secretary of State's office were hurrying to and fro
with torches through the streets, accompanied by files and musketeers.
Before the dawn of Sunday Charnock was in custody. A little later,
Rockwood and Bernardi were found in bed at a Jacobite alehouse on Tower
Hill. Seventeen more traitors were seized before noon; and three of the
Blues were put under arrest. That morning a Council was held; and, as
soon as it rose, an express was sent off to call home some regiments
from Flanders; Dorset set out for Sussex, of which he was Lord
Lieutenant; Romney, who was Warden of the Cinque Ports, started for the
coast of Kent; and Russell hastened down the Thames to take the command
of the fleet. In the evening the Council sate again. Some of the
prisoners were examined and committed. The Lord Mayor was in attendance,
was informed of what had been discovered, and was specially charged to
look well to the peace of the capital. [668]
On Monday morning all the trainbands of the City were under arms. The
King went in state to the House of Lords, sent for the Commons, and
from the throne told the Parliament that, but for the protection of a
gracious Providence, he should at that moment have been a corpse, and
the kingdom would have been invaded by a French army. The danger of
invasion, he added, was still great; but he had already given such
orders as would, he hoped, suffice for the protection of the realm. Some
traitors were in custody; warrants were out against others; he should
do his part in this emergency; and he relied on the Houses to do theirs.
[669]
The Houses instantly voted a joint address in which they thankfully
acknowledged the divine goodness which had preserved him to his people,
and implored him to take more than ordinary care of his person. They
concluded by exhorting him to seize and secure all persons whom he
regarded as dangerous.
On the same day two important bills were brought into the Commons. By
one the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended. The other provided that the
Parliament should not be dissolved by the death of William. Sir Rowland
Gwyn, an honest country gentleman, made a motion of which he did not
at all foresee the important consequences. He proposed that the members
should enter into an association for the defence of their Sovereign and
their country. Montague, who of all men was the quickest at taking and
improving a hint, saw how much such an association would strengthen the
government and the Whig party. [670] An instrument was immediately
drawn tip, by which the representatives of the people, each for himself,
solemnly recognised William as rightful and lawful King, and bound
themselves to stand by him and by each other against James and James's
adherents. Lastly they vowed that, if His Majesty's life should be
shortened by violence, they would avenge him signally on his murderers,
and would, with one heart, strenuously support the order of succession
settled by the Bill of Rights. It was ordered that the House should
be called over the next morning. [671] The attendance was consequently
great; the Association, engrossed on parchment, was on the table; and
the members went up, county by county, to sign their names. [672]
The King's speech, the joint address of both Houses, the Association
framed by the Commons, and a proclamation, containing a list of
the conspirators and offering a reward of a thousand pounds for the
apprehension of any one of them, were soon cried in all the streets of
the capital and carried out by all the postbags. Wherever the news came
it raised the whole country. Those two hateful words, assassination and
invasion, acted like a spell. No impressment was necessary. The seamen
came forth from their hiding places by thousands to man the fleet. Only
three days after the King had appealed to the nation, Russell sailed out
of the Thames with one great squadron. Another was ready for action at
Spithead. The militia of all the maritime counties from the Wash to
the Land's End was under arms. For persons accused of offences merely
political there was generally much sympathy. But Barclay's assassins
were hunted like wolves by the whole population. The abhorrence which
the English have, through many generations, felt for domiciliary visits,
and for all those impediments which the police of continental states
throws in the way of travellers, was for a time suspended. The gates of
the City of London were kept many hours closed while a strict search was
made within. The magistrates of almost every walled town in the kingdom
followed the example of the capital. On every highway parties of armed
men were posted with orders to stop passengers of suspicious appearance.
During a few days it was hardly possible to perform a journey without a
passport, or to procure posthorses without the authority of a justice
of the peace. Nor was any voice raised against these precautions. The
common people indeed were, if possible, more eager than the public
functionaries to bring the traitors to justice. This eagerness may
perhaps be in part ascribed to the great rewards promised by the royal
proclamation. The hatred which every good Protestant felt for Popish
cutthroats was not a little strengthened by the songs in which the
street poets celebrated the lucky hackney coachman who had caught
his traitor, had received his thousand pounds, and had set up as a
gentleman. [673] The zeal of the populace could in some places hardly
be kept within the limits of the law. At the country seat of Parkyns
in Warwickshire, arms and accoutrements sufficient to equip a troop of
cavalry were found. As soon as this was known, a furious mob assembled,
pulled down the house and laid the gardens utterly waste. [674] Parkyns
himself was tracked to a garret in the Temple. Porter and Keyes, who
had fled into Surrey, were pursued by the hue and cry, stopped by the
country people near Leatherhead, and, after some show of resistance,
secured and sent to prison. Friend was found hidden in the house of a
Quaker. Knightley was caught in the dress of a fine lady, and recognised
in spite of his patches and paint. In a few days all the chief
conspirators were in custody except Barclay, who succeeded in making his
escape to France.
At the same time some notorious malecontents were arrested, and were
detained for a time on suspicion. Old Roger Lestrange, now in his
eightieth year, was taken up. Ferguson was found hidden under a bed
in Gray's Inn Lane, and was, to the general joy, locked up in Newgate.
[675] Meanwhile a special commission was issued for the trial of the
traitors. There was no want of evidence. For, of the conspirators who
had been seized, ten or twelve were ready to save themselves by bearing
witness against their associates. None had been deeper in guilt,
and none shrank with more abject terror from death, than Porter. The
government consented to spare him, and thus obtained, not only his
evidence, but the much more respectable evidence of Pendergrass.
Pendergrass was in no danger; he had committed no offence; his character
was fair; and his testimony would have far greater weight with a jury
than the testimony of a crowd of approvers swearing for their necks. But
he had the royal word of honour that he should not be a witness without
his own consent; and he was fully determined not to be a witness unless
he were assured of Porter's safety. Porter was now safe; and Pendergrass
had no longer any scruple about relating the whole truth.
Charnock, King and Keyes were set first to the bar. The Chiefs of the
three Courts of Common Law and several other judges were on the bench;
and among the audience were many members of both Houses of Parliament.
It was the eleventh of March. The new Act which regulated the
procedure in cases of high treason was not to come into force till
the twenty-fifth. The culprits urged that, as the Legislature had, by
passing that Act, recognised the justice of allowing them to see their
indictment, and to avail themselves of the assistance of an advocate,
the tribunal ought either to grant them what the highest authority had
declared to be a reasonable indulgence, or to defer the trial for a
fortnight. The judges, however, would consent to no delay. They have
therefore been accused by later writers of using the mere letter of
the law in order to destroy men who, if that law had been construed
according to its spirit, might have had some chance of escape. This
accusation is unjust. The judges undoubtedly carried the real intention
of the Legislature into effect; and, for whatever injustice was
committed, the Legislature, and not the judges, ought to be held
accountable. The words, "twenty-fifth of March," had not slipped into
the Act by mere inadvertence. All parties in Parliament had long been
agreed as to the principle of the new regulations. The only matter about
which there was any dispute was the time at which those regulations
should take effect. After debates extending through several sessions,
after repeated divisions with various results, a compromise had been
made; and it was surely not for the Courts to alter the terms of that
compromise. It may indeed be confidently affirmed that, if the Houses
had foreseen the Assassination Plot, they would have fixed, not an
earlier, but a later day for the commencement of the new system.
Undoubtedly the Parliament, and especially the Whig party, deserved
serious blame. For, if the old rules of procedure gave no unfair
advantage to the Crown, there was no reason for altering them; and if,
as was generally admitted, they did give an unfair advantage to the
Crown, and that against a defendant on trial for his life, they ought
not to have been suffered to continue in force a single day. But no
blame is due to the tribunals for not acting in direct opposition both
to the letter and to the spirit of the law.
The government might indeed have postponed the trials till the new Act
came into force; and it would have been wise, as well as right, to do
so; for the prisoners would have gained nothing by the delay. The case
against them was one on which all the ingenuity of the Inns of Court
could have made no impression. Porter, Pendergrass, De la Rue and others
gave evidence which admitted of no answer. Charnock said the very little
that he had to say with readiness and presence of mind. The jury found
all the defendants guilty. It is not much to the honour of that age that
the announcement of the verdict was received with loud huzzas by the
crowd which surrounded the Courthouse. Those huzzas were renewed when
the three unhappy men, having heard their doom, were brought forth under
a guard. [676]
Charnock had hitherto shown no sign of flinching; but when he was again
in his cell his fortitude gave way. He begged hard for mercy. He
would be content, he said, to pass the rest of his days in an easy
confinement. He asked only for his life. In return for his life, he
promised to discover all that he knew of the schemes of the Jacobites
against the government. If it should appear that he prevaricated or that
he suppressed any thing, he was willing to undergo the utmost rigour
of the law. This offer produced much excitement, and some difference of
opinion, among the councillors of William. But the King decided, as in
such cases he seldom failed to decide, wisely and magnanimously. He
saw that the discovery of the Assassination Plot had changed the whole
posture of affairs. His throne, lately tottering, was fixed on an
immovable basis. His popularity had risen impetuously to as great a
height as when he was on his march from Torbay to London. Many who
had been out of humour with his administration, and who had, in their
spleen, held some communication with Saint Germains, were shocked to
find that they had been, in some sense, leagued with murderers. He would
not drive such persons to despair. He would not even put them to the
blush. Not only should they not be punished; they should not undergo the
humiliation of being pardoned. He would not know that they had offended.
Charnock was left to his fate. [677] When he found that he had no chance
of being received as a deserter, he assumed the dignity of a martyr, and
played his part resolutely to the close. That he might bid farewell to
the world with a better grace, he ordered a fine new coat to be hanged
in, and was very particular on his last day about the powdering and
curling of his wig. [678] Just before he was turned off, he delivered
to the Sheriffs a paper in which he avowed that he had conspired against
the life of the Prince of Orange, but solemnly denied that James had
given any commission authorising assassination. The denial was doubtless
literally correct; but Charnock did not deny, and assuredly could not
with truth have denied, that he had seen a commission written and signed
by James, and containing words which might without any violence be
construed, and which were, by all to whom they were shown, actually
construed, to authorise the murderous ambuscade of Turnham Green.
Indeed Charnock, in another paper, which is still in existence, but has
never been printed, held very different language. He plainly said that,
for reasons too obvious to be mentioned, he could not tell the
whole truth in the paper which he had delivered to the Sheriffs. He
acknowledged that the plot in which he had been engaged seemed, even
to many loyal subjects, highly criminal. They called him assassin
and murderer. Yet what had he done more than had been done by Mucius
Scaevola? Nay, what had he done more than had been done by every body
who bore arms against the Prince of Orange? If an array of twenty
thousand men had suddenly landed in England and surprised the usurper,
this would have been called legitimate war. Did the difference between
war and assassination depend merely on the number of persons engaged?
What then was the smallest number which could lawfully surprise an
enemy? Was it five thousand, or a thousand, or a hundred? Jonathan and
his armourbearer were only two. Yet they made a great slaughter of the
Philistines. Was that assassination? It cannot, said Charnock, be the
mere act, it must be the cause, that makes killing assassination. It
followed that it was not assassination to kill one,--and here the
dying man gave a loose to all his hatred,--who had declared a war of
extermination against loyal subjects, who hung, drew and quartered every
man who stood up for the right, and who had laid waste England to
enrich the Dutch. Charnock admitted that his enterprise would have been
unjustifiable if it had not been authorised by James; but he maintained
that it had been authorised, not indeed expressly, but by implication.
His Majesty had indeed formerly prohibited similar attempts; but
had prohibited them, not as in themselves criminal, but merely as
inexpedient at this or that conjuncture of affairs. Circumstances had
changed. The prohibition might therefore reasonably be considered as
withdrawn. His Majesty's faithful subjects had then only to look to
the words of his commission; and those words, beyond all doubt, fully
warranted an attack on the person of the usurper. [679]
King and Keyes suffered with Charnock. King behaved with firmness and
decency. He acknowledged his crime, and said that he repented of it. He
thought it due to the Church of which he was a member, and on which his
conduct had brought reproach, to declare that he had been misled, not by
any casuistry about tyrannicide, but merely by the violence of his
own evil passions. Poor Keyes was in an agony of terror. His tears and
lamentations moved the pity of some of the spectators. It was said at
the time, and it has often since been repeated, that a servant drawn
into crime by a master was a proper object of royal clemency. But
those who have blamed the severity with which Keyes was treated
have altogether omitted to notice the important circumstance which
distinguished his case from that of every other conspirator. He had been
one of the Blues. He had kept up to the last an intercourse with his
old comrades. On the very day fixed for the murder he had contrived to
mingle with them and to pick up intelligence from them. The regiment had
been so deeply infected with disloyalty that it had been found necessary
to confine some men and to dismiss many more. Surely, if any example
was to be made, it was proper to make an example of the agent by whose
instrumentality the men who meant to shoot the King communicated with
the men whose business was to guard him.
Friend was tried next. His crime was not of so black a dye as that of
the three conspirators who had just suffered. He had indeed invited
foreign enemies to invade the realm, and had made preparations
for joining them. But, though he had been privy to the design of
assassination, he had not been a party to it. His large fortune however,
and the use which he was well known to have made of it, marked him out
as a fit object for punishment. He, like Charnock, asked for counsel,
and, like Charnock, asked in vain. The judges could not relax the law;
and the Attorney General would not postpone the trial. The proceedings
of that day furnish a strong argument in favour of the Act from the
benefit of which Friend was excluded.
French government was collecting troops and transports at Calais, and
that, as soon as it was known there that a rebellion had broken out in
England, his father would embark with twelve thousand veteran soldiers,
and would be among them in a few hours.
A more hazardous part was assigned to an emissary of lower rank, but
of great address, activity and courage. This was Sir George Barclay, a
Scotch gentleman who had served with credit under Dundee, and who,
when the war in the Highlands had ended, had retired to Saint Germains.
Barclay was called into the royal closet, and received his orders from
the royal lips. He was directed to steal across the Channel and to
repair to London. He was told that a few select officers and soldiers
should speedily follow him by twos and threes. That they might have no
difficulty in finding him, he was to walk, on Mondays and Thursdays, in
the Piazza of Covent Garden after nightfall, with a white handkerchief
hanging from his coat pocket. He was furnished with a considerable sum
of money, and with a commission which was not only signed but written
from beginning to end by James himself. This commission authorised the
bearer to do from time to time such acts of hostility against the Prince
of Orange and that Prince's adherents as should most conduce to the
service of the King. What explanation of these very comprehensive words
was orally given by James we are not informed.
Lest Barclay's absence from Saint Germains should cause any suspicion,
it was given out that his loose way of life had made it necessary for
him to put himself under the care of a surgeon at Paris. [654] He set
out with eight hundred pounds in his portmanteau, hastened to the coast,
and embarked on board of a privateer which was employed by the Jacobites
as a regular packet boat between France and England. This vessel
conveyed him to a desolate spot in Romney Marsh. About half a mile
from the landing place a smuggler named Hunt lived on a dreary and
unwholesome fen where he had no neighbours but a few rude shepherds. His
dwelling was singularly well situated for a contraband traffic in French
wares. Cargoes of Lyons silk and Valenciennes lace sufficient to load
thirty packhorses had repeatedly been landed in that dismal solitude
without attracting notice. But, since the Revolution, Hunt had
discovered that of all cargoes a cargo of traitors paid best. His lonely
abode became the resort of men of high consideration, Earls and Barons,
Knights and Doctors of Divinity. Some of them lodged many days under
his roof while waiting for a passage. A clandestine post was established
between his house and London. The couriers were constantly going and
returning; they performed their journeys up and down on foot; but they
appeared to be gentlemen, and it was whispered that one of them was the
son of a titled man. The letters from Saint Germains were few and small.
Those directed to Saint Germains were numerous and bulky; they were made
up like parcels of millinery, and were buried in the morass till they
were called for by the privateer.
Here Barclay landed in January 1696; and hence he took the road
to London. He was followed, a few days later, by a tall youth, who
concealed his name, but who produced credentials of the highest
authority. This youth too proceeded to London. Hunt afterwards
discovered that his humble roof had had the honour of sheltering the
Duke of Berwick. [655]
The part which Barclay had to perform was difficult and hazardous; and
he omitted no precaution. He had been little in London; and his face was
consequently unknown to the agents of the government. Nevertheless
he had several lodgings; he disguised himself so well that his oldest
friends would not have known him by broad daylight; and yet he seldom
ventured into the streets except in the dark. His chief agent was a monk
who, under several names, heard confessions and said masses at the risk
of his neck. This man intimated to some of the zealots with whom he
consorted a special agent of the royal family was to be spoken with in
Covent Garden, on certain nights, at a certain hour, and might be known
by certain signs. [656] In this way Barclay became acquainted with
several men fit for his purpose. The first persons to whom he fully
opened himself were Charnock and Parkyns. He talked with them about the
plot which they and some of their friends had formed in the preceding
spring against the life of William. Both Charnock and Parkyns declared
that the scheme might easily be executed, that there was no want of
resolute hearts among the Royalists, and that all that was wanting was
some sign of His Majesty's approbation.
Then Barclay produced his commission. He showed his two accomplices that
James had expressly commanded all good Englishmen, not only to rise in
arms, not only to make war on the usurping government, not only to seize
forts and towns, but also to do from time to time such other acts
of hostility against the Prince of Orange as might be for the royal
service. These words, Barclay said, plainly authorised an attack on the
Prince's person. Charnock and Parkyns were satisfied. How in truth was
it possible for them to doubt that James's confidential agent correctly
construed James's expressions? Nay, how was it possible for them to
understand the large words of the commission in any sense but one,
even if Barclay had not been there to act as commentator? If indeed the
subject had never been brought under James's consideration, it might
well be thought that those words had dropped from his pen without any
definite meaning. But he had been repeatedly apprised that some of his
friends in England meditated a deed of blood, and that they were waiting
only for his approbation. They had importuned him to speak one word,
to give one sign. He had long kept silence; and, now that he had broken
silence, he merely told them to do what ever might be beneficial to
himself and prejudicial to the usurper. They had his authority as
plainly given as they could reasonably expect to have it given in such a
case. [657]
All that remained was to find a sufficient number of courageous and
trustworthy assistants, to provide horses and weapons, and to fix the
hour and the place of the slaughter. Forty or fifty men, it was thought,
would be sufficient. Those troopers of James's guard who had already
followed Barclay across the Channel made up nearly half that number.
James had himself seen some of these men before their departure from
Saint Germains, had given them money for their journey, had told them by
what name each of them was to pass in England, had commanded them to
act as they should be directed by Barclay, and had informed them where
Barclay was to be found and by what tokens he was to be known. [658]
They were ordered to depart in small parties, and to assign different
reasons for going. Some were ill; some were weary of the service;
Cassels, one of the most noisy and profane among them, announced that,
since he could not get military promotion, he should enter at the Scotch
college and study for a learned profession. Under such pretexts about
twenty picked men left the palace of James, made their way by Romney
Marsh to London, and found their captain walking in the dim lamplight of
the Piazza with the handkerchief hanging from his pocket. One of these
men was Ambrose Rockwood, who held the rank of Brigadier, and who had a
high reputation for courage and honour; another was Major John Bernardi,
an adventurer of Genoese extraction, whose name has derived a melancholy
celebrity from a punishment so strangely prolonged that it at length
shocked a generation which could not remember his crime. [659]
It was in these adventurers from France that Barclay placed his chief
trust. In a moment of elation he once called them his Janissaries, and
expressed a hope that they would get him the George and Garter. But
twenty more assassins at least were wanted. The conspirators probably
expected valuable help from Sir John Friend, who had received a
Colonel's commission signed by James, and had been most active in
enlisting men and providing arms against the day when the French should
appear on the coast of Kent. The design was imparted to him; but he
thought it so rash, and so likely to bring reproach and disaster on the
good cause, that he would lend no assistance to his friends, though he
kept their secret religiously. [660] Charnock undertook to find eight
brave and trusty fellows. He communicated the design to Porter, not with
Barclay's entire approbation; for Barclay appears to have thought that
a tavern brawler, who had recently been in prison for swaggering drunk
about the streets and huzzaing in honour of the Prince of Wales, was
hardly to be trusted with a secret of such fearful import. Porter
entered into the plot with enthusiasm, and promised to bring in others
who would be useful. Among those whose help he engaged was his servant
Thomas Keyes. Keyes was a far more formidable conspirator than might
have been expected from his station in life. The household troops
generally were devoted to William; but there was a taint of disaffection
among the Blues. The chief conspirators had already been tampering
with some Roman Catholics who were in that regiment; and Keyes was
excellently qualified to bear a part in this work; for he had formerly
been trumpeter of the corps, and, though he had quitted the service, he
still kept up an acquaintaince with some of the old soldiers in whose
company he had lived at free quarter on the Somersetshire farmers after
the battle of Sedgemoor.
Parkyns, who was old and gouty, could not himself take a share in the
work of death. But he employed himself in providing horses, saddles and
weapons for his younger and more active accomplices. In this department
of business he was assisted by Charles Cranburne, a person who had long
acted as a broker between Jacobite plotters and people who dealt in
cutlery and firearms. Special orders were given by Barclay that the
swords should be made rather for stabbing than for slashing. Barclay
himself enlisted Edward Lowick, who had been a major in the Irish army,
and who had, since the capitulation of Limerick, been living obscurely
in London. The monk who had been Barclay's first confidant recommended
two busy Papists, Richard Fisher and Christopher Knightley; and this
recommendation was thought sufficient. Knightley drew in Edward King, a
Roman Catholic gentleman of hot and restless temper; and King procured
the assistance of a French gambler and bully named De la Rue. [661]
Meanwhile the heads of the conspiracy held frequent meetings at treason
taverns, for the purpose of settling a plan of operations. Several
schemes were proposed, applauded, and, on full consideration, abandoned.
At one time it was thought that an attack on Kensington House at dead
of night might probably be successful. The outer wall might easily be
scaled. If once forty armed men were in the garden, the palace would
soon be stormed or set on fire. Some were of opinion that it would be
best to strike the blow on a Sunday as William went from Kensington
to attend divine service at the chapel of Saint James's Palace. The
murderers might assemble near the spot where Apsley House and Hamilton
Place now stand. Just as the royal coach passed out of Hyde Park, and
was about to enter what has since been called the Green Park, thirty
of the conspirators, well mounted, might fall on the guards. The guards
were ordinarily only five and twenty. They would be taken completely
by surprise; and probably half of them would be shot or cut down before
they could strike a blow. Meanwhile ten or twelve resolute men on foot
would stop the carriage by shooting the horses, and would then without
difficulty despatch the King. At last the preference was given to a plan
originally sketched by Fisher and put into shape by Porter. William was
in the habit of going every Saturday from Kensington to hunt in Richmond
Park. There was then no bridge over the Thames between London and
Kingston. The King therefore went, in a coach escorted by some of his
body guards, through Turnham Green to the river. There he took boat,
crossed the water and found another coach and another set of guards
ready to receive him on the Surrey side. The first coach and the first
set of guards awaited his return on the northern bank. The conspirators
ascertained with great precision the whole order of these journeys, and
carefully examined the ground on both sides of the Thames. They thought
that they should attack the King with more advantage on the Middlesex
than on the Surrey bank, and when he was returning than when he was
going. For, when he was going, he was often attended to the water side
by a great retinue of lords and gentlemen; but on his return he had only
his guards about him. The place and time were fixed. The place was to be
a narrow and winding lane leading from the landingplace on the north
of the rover to Turnham Green. The spot may still be easily found.
The ground has since been drained by trenches. But in the seventeenth
century it was a quagmire, through which the royal coach was with
difficulty tugged at a foot's pace. The time was to be the afternoon
of Saturday the fifteenth of February. On that day the Forty were to
assemble in small parties at public houses near the Green. When the
signal was given that the coach was approaching they were to take horse
and repair to their posts. As the cavalcade came up this lane Charnock
was to attack the guards in the rear, Rockwood on one flank, Porter on
the other. Meanwhile Barclay, with eight trusty men, was to stop the
coach and to do the deed. That no movement of the King might escape
notice, two orderlies were appointed to watch the palace. One of these
men, a bold and active Fleming, named Durant, was especially charged to
keep Barclay well informed. The other, whose business was to communicate
with Charnock, was a ruffian named Chambers, who had served in the Irish
army, had received a severe wound in the breast at the Boyne, and, on
account of that wound, bore a savage personal hatred to William. [662]
While Barclay was making all his arrangements for the assassination,
Berwick was endeavouring to persuade the Jacobite aristocracy to rise
in arms. But this was no easy task. Several consultations were held;
and there was one great muster of the party under the pretence of a
masquerade, for which tickets were distributed among the initiated
at one guinea each. [663] All ended however in talking, singing and
drinking. Many men of rank and fortune indeed declared that they would
draw their swords for their rightful Sovereign as soon as their rightful
Sovereign was in the island with a French army; and Berwick had been
empowered to assure there that a French army should be sent as soon as
they had drawn the sword. But between what they asked and what he
was authorised to grant there was a difference which admitted of no
compromise. Lewis, situated as he was, would not risk ten or twelve
thousand excellent soldiers on the mere faith of promises. Similar
promises had been made in 1690; and yet, when the fleet of Tourville had
appeared on the coast of Devonshire, the western counties had risen as
one man in defence of the government, and not a single malecontent had
dared to utter a whisper in favour of the invaders. Similar promises had
been made in 1692; and to the confidence which had been placed in those
promises was to be attributed the great disaster of La Hogue. The
French King would not be deceived a third time. He would gladly help the
English royalists; but he must first see them help themselves. There
was much reason in this; and there was reason also in what the Jacobites
urged on the other side. If, they said, they were to rise, without a
single disciplined regiment to back them, against an usurper supported
by a regular army, they should all be cut to pieces before the news that
they were up could reach Versailles. As Berwick could hold out no hope
that there would be an invasion before there was an insurrection, and
as his English friends were immovable in their determination that there
should be no insurrection till there was an invasion, he had nothing
more to do here, and became impatient to depart.
He was the more impatient to depart because the fifteenth of February
drew near. For he was in constant communication with Barclay, and was
perfectly apprised of all the details of the crime which was to be
perpetrated on that day. He was generally considered as a man of sturdy
and even ungracious integrity. But to such a degree had his sense of
right and wrong been perverted by his zeal for the interests of his
family, and by his respect for the lessons of his priests, that he did
not, as he has himself ingenuously confessed, think that he lay under
any obligation to dissuade the assassins from the execution of their
purpose. He had indeed only one objection to their design; and that
objection he kept to himself. It was simply this, that all who were
concerned were very likely to be hanged. That, however, was their
affair; and, if they chose to run such a risk in the good cause, it was
not his business to discourage them. His mission was quite distinct from
theirs; he was not to act with them; and he had no inclination to suffer
with then. He therefore hastened down to Romney Marsh, and crossed to
Calais. [664]
At Calais he found preparations making for a descent on Kent. Troops
filled the town; transports filled the port. Boufflers had been ordered
to repair thither from Flanders, and to take the command. James himself
was daily expected. In fact he had already left Saint Germains. Berwick,
however, would not wait. He took the road to Paris, met his father at
Clermont, and made a full report of the state of things in England. His
embassy had failed; the Royalist nobility and gentry seemed resolved
not to rise till a French army was in the island; but there was still a
hope; news would probably come within a few days that the usurper was
no more; and such news would change the whole aspect of affairs. James
determined to go on to Calais, and there to await the event of
Barclay's plot. Berwick hastened to Versailles for the purpose of giving
explanations to Lewis. What the nature of the explanations was we know
from Berwick's own narrative. He plainly told the French King that a
small band of loyal men would in a short time make an attempt on the
life of the great enemy of France. The next courier might bring tidings
of an event which would probably subvert the English government and
dissolve the European coalition. It might have been thought that a
prince who ostentatiously affected the character of a devout Christian
and of a courteous knight would instantly have taken measures for
conveying to his rival a caution which perhaps might still arrive in
time, and would have severely reprimanded the guests who had so grossly
abused his hospitality. Such, however, was not the conduct of Lewis. Had
he been asked to give his sanction to a murder he would probably
have refused with indignation. But he was not moved to indignation by
learning that, without his sanction, a crime was likely to be committed
which would be far more beneficial to his interests than ten such
victories as that of Landen. He sent down orders to Calais that his
fleet should be in such readiness as might enable him to take advantage
of the great crisis which he anticipated. At Calais James waited with
still more impatience for the signal that his nephew was no more. That
signal was to be given by a fire, of which the fuel was already prepared
on the cliffs of Kent, and which would be visible across the straits.
[665]
But a peculiar fate has, in our country, always attended such
conspiracies as that of Barclay and Charnock. The English regard
assassination, and have during some ages regarded it, with a loathing
peculiar to themselves. So English indeed is this sentiment that it
cannot even now be called Irish, and till a recent period, it was not
Scotch. In Ireland to this day the villain who shoots at his enemy from
behind a hedge is too often protected from justice by public sympathy.
In Scotland plans of assassination were often, during the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, successfully executed, though known to great
numbers of persons. The murders of Beaton, of Rizzio, of Darnley, of
Murray, of Sharpe, are conspicuous instances. The royalists who murdered
Lisle in Switzerland were Irishmen; the royalists who murdered Ascham at
Madrid were Irishmen; the royalists who murdered Dorislaus at the Hague
were Scotchmen. In England, as soon as such a design ceases to be a
secret hidden in the recesses of one gloomy and ulcerated heart, the
risk of detection and failure becomes extreme. Felton and Bellingham
reposed trust in no human being; and they were therefore able to
accomplish their evil purposes. But Babington's conspiracy against
Elizabeth, Fawkes's conspiracy against James, Gerard's conspiracy
against Cromwell, the Rye House conspiracy, the Cato Street conspiracy,
were all discovered, frustrated and punished. In truth such a conspiracy
is here exposed to equal danger from the good and from the bad qualities
of the conspirators. Scarcely any Englishman, not utterly destitute of
conscience and honour, will engage in a plot for slaying an unsuspecting
fellow creature; and a wretch who has neither conscience nor honour is
likely to think much on the danger which he incurs by being true to his
associates, and on the rewards which he may obtain by betraying them.
There are, it is true, persons in whom religious or political fanaticism
has destroyed all moral sensibility on one particular point, and yet has
left that sensibility generally unimpaired. Such a person was Digby. He
had no scruple about blowing King, Lords and Commons into the air. Yet
to his accomplices he was religiously and chivalrously faithful; nor
could even the fear of the rack extort from him one word to their
prejudice. But this union of depravity and heroism is very rare. The
vast majority of men are either not vicious enough or not virtuous
enough to be loyal and devoted members of treacherous and cruel
confederacies; and, if a single member should want either the necessary
vice or the necessary virtue, the whole confederacy is in danger. To
bring together in one body forty Englishmen, all hardened cutthroats,
and yet all so upright and generous that neither the hope of opulence
nor the dread of the gallows can tempt any one of them to be false to
the rest, has hitherto been found, and will, it is to be hoped, always
be found impossible.
There were among Barclay's followers both men too bad and men too good
to be trusted with such a secret as his. The first whose heart failed
him was Fisher. Even before the time and place of the crime had been
fixed, he obtained an audience of Portland, and told that lord that a
design was forming against the King's life. Some days later Fisher came
again with more precise intelligence. But his character was not such
as entitled him to much credit; and the knavery of Fuller, of Young, of
Whitney and of Taffe, had made men of sense slow to believe stories of
plots. Portland, therefore, though in general very easily alarmed where
the safety of his master and friend was concerned, seems to have thought
little about the matter. But, on the evening of the fourteenth of
February, he received a visit from a person whose testimony he could not
treat lightly. This was a Roman Catholic gentleman of known courage and
honour, named Pendergrass. He had, on the preceding day, come up to town
from Hampshire, in consequence of a pressing summons from Porter, who,
dissolute and unprincipled as he was, had to Pendergrass been a
most kind friend, indeed almost a father. In a Jacobite insurrection
Pendergrass would probably have been one of the foremost. But he learned
with horror that he was expected to bear a part in a wicked and shameful
deed. He found himself in one of those situations which most cruelly
torture noble and sensitive natures. What was he to do? Was he to
commit a murder? Was he to suffer a murder which he could prevent to be
committed? Yet was he to betray one who, however culpable, had loaded
him with benefits? Perhaps it might be possible to save William without
harming Porter? Pendergrass determined to make the attempt. "My Lord,"
he said to Portland, "as you value King William's life, do not let
him hunt tomorrow. He is the enemy of my religion; yet my religion
constrains me to give him this caution. But the names of the
conspirators I am resolved to conceal; some of them are my friends; one
of them especially is my benefactor; and I will not betray them. "
Portland went instantly to the King; but the King received the
intelligence very coolly, and seemed determined not to be frightened
out of a good day's sport by such an idle story. Portland argued and
implored in vain. He was at last forced to threaten that he would
immediately make the whole matter public, unless His Majesty would
consent to remain within doors during the next day; and this threat was
successful. [666]
Saturday the fifteenth came. The Forty were all ready to mount, when
they received intelligence from the orderlies who watched Kensington
House that the King did not mean to hunt that morning. "The fox," said
Chambers, with vindictive bitterness, "keeps his earth. " Then he opened
his shirt; showed the great scar in his breast, and vowed revenge on
William.
The first thought of the conspirators was that their design had been
detected. But they were soon reassured. It was given out that the
weather had kept the King at home; and indeed the day was cold and
stormy.
There was no sign of agitation at the palace. No extraordinary
precaution was taken. No arrest was made. No ominous whisper was
heard at the coffeehouses. The delay was vexatious; but Saturday the
twenty-second would do as well.
But, before Saturday the twenty-second arrived, a third informer, De
la Rue, had presented himself at the palace. His way of life did not
entitle him to much respect; but his story agreed so exactly with what
had been said by Fisher and Pendergrass that even William began to
believe that there was real danger.
Very late in the evening of Friday the twenty-first, Pendergrass, who
had as yet disclosed much less than either of the other informers, but
whose single word was worth much more than their joint oath, was sent
for to the royal closet. The faithful Portland and the gallant Cutts
were the only persons who witnessed the singular interview between the
King and his generous enemy. William, with courtesy and animation
which he rarely showed, but which he never showed without making a
deep impression, urged Pendergrass to speak out. "You are a man of true
probity and honour; I am deeply obliged to you; but you must feel that
the same considerations which have induced you to tell us so much ought
to induce you to tell us something more. The cautions which you have as
yet given can only make me suspect every body that comes near me. They
are sufficient to embitter my life, but not sufficient to preserve it.
You must let me know the names of these men. " During more than half an
hour the King continued to entreat and Pendergrass to refuse. At last
Pendergrass said that he would give the information which was required,
if he could be assured that it would be used only for the prevention of
the crime, and not for the destruction of the criminals. "I give you
my word of honour," said William, "that your evidence shall not be used
against any person without your own free consent. " It was long
past midnight when Pendergrass wrote down the names of the chief
conspirators.
While these things were passing at Kensington, a large party of the
assassins were revelling at a Jacobite tavern in Maiden Lane. Here they
received their final orders for the morrow. "Tomorrow or never," said
King. "Tomorrow, boys," cried Cassels with a curse, "we shall have the
plunder of the field. " The morrow came. All was ready; the horses
were saddled; the pistols were loaded; the swords were sharpened; the
orderlies were on the alert; they early sent intelligence from the
palace that the King was certainly going a hunting; all the usual
preparations had been made; a party of guards had been sent round by
Kingston Bridge to Richmond; the royal coaches, each with six horses,
had gone from the stables at Charing Cross to Kensington. The chief
murderers assembled in high glee at Porter's lodgings. Pendergrass, who,
by the King's command, appeared among them, was greeted with ferocious
mirth. "Pendergrass," said Porter, "you are named one of the eight who
are to do his business. I have a musquetoon for you that will carry
eight balls. " "Mr. Pendergrass," said King, "pray do not be afraid of
smashing the glass windows. " From Porter's lodgings the party adjourned
to the Blue Posts in Spring Gardens, where they meant to take some
refreshment before they started for Turnham Green. They were at table
when a message came from an orderly that the King had changed his mind
and would not hunt; and scarcely had they recovered from their first
surprise at this ominous news, when Keyes, who had been out scouting
among his old comrades, arrived with news more ominous still. "The
coaches have returned to Charing Cross. The guards that were sent round
to Richmond have just come back to Kensington at full gallop, the flanks
of the horses all white with foam. I have had a word with one of
the Blues. He told me that strange things are muttered. " Then the
countenances of the assassins fell; and their hearts died within them.
Porter made a feeble attempt to disguise his uneasiness. He took up
an orange and squeezed it. "What cannot be done one day may be done
another. Come, gentlemen, before we part let us have one glass to the
squeezing of the rotten orange. " The squeezing of the rotten orange was
drunk; and the company dispersed. [667]
A few hours elapsed before all the conspirators abandoned all hope. Some
of them derived comfort from a report that the King had taken physic,
and that this was his only reason for not going to Richmond. If it were
so, the blow might still be struck. Two Saturdays had been unpropitious.
But Sunday was at hand. One of the plans which had formerly been
discussed and abandoned might be resumed. The usurper might be set upon
at Hyde Park Corner on his way to his chapel. Charnock was ready for any
enterprise however desperate. If the hunt was up, it was better to die
biting and scratching to the last than to be worried without resistance
or revenge. He assembled some of his accomplices at one of the numerous
houses at which he had lodgings, and plied there hard with healths to
the King, to the Queen, to the Prince, and to the Grand Monarch, as they
called Lewis. But the terror and dejection of the gang were beyond the
power of wine; and so many had stolen away that those who were left
could effect nothing. In the course of the afternoon it was known that
the guards had been doubled at the palace; and soon after nightfall
messengers from the Secretary of State's office were hurrying to and fro
with torches through the streets, accompanied by files and musketeers.
Before the dawn of Sunday Charnock was in custody. A little later,
Rockwood and Bernardi were found in bed at a Jacobite alehouse on Tower
Hill. Seventeen more traitors were seized before noon; and three of the
Blues were put under arrest. That morning a Council was held; and, as
soon as it rose, an express was sent off to call home some regiments
from Flanders; Dorset set out for Sussex, of which he was Lord
Lieutenant; Romney, who was Warden of the Cinque Ports, started for the
coast of Kent; and Russell hastened down the Thames to take the command
of the fleet. In the evening the Council sate again. Some of the
prisoners were examined and committed. The Lord Mayor was in attendance,
was informed of what had been discovered, and was specially charged to
look well to the peace of the capital. [668]
On Monday morning all the trainbands of the City were under arms. The
King went in state to the House of Lords, sent for the Commons, and
from the throne told the Parliament that, but for the protection of a
gracious Providence, he should at that moment have been a corpse, and
the kingdom would have been invaded by a French army. The danger of
invasion, he added, was still great; but he had already given such
orders as would, he hoped, suffice for the protection of the realm. Some
traitors were in custody; warrants were out against others; he should
do his part in this emergency; and he relied on the Houses to do theirs.
[669]
The Houses instantly voted a joint address in which they thankfully
acknowledged the divine goodness which had preserved him to his people,
and implored him to take more than ordinary care of his person. They
concluded by exhorting him to seize and secure all persons whom he
regarded as dangerous.
On the same day two important bills were brought into the Commons. By
one the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended. The other provided that the
Parliament should not be dissolved by the death of William. Sir Rowland
Gwyn, an honest country gentleman, made a motion of which he did not
at all foresee the important consequences. He proposed that the members
should enter into an association for the defence of their Sovereign and
their country. Montague, who of all men was the quickest at taking and
improving a hint, saw how much such an association would strengthen the
government and the Whig party. [670] An instrument was immediately
drawn tip, by which the representatives of the people, each for himself,
solemnly recognised William as rightful and lawful King, and bound
themselves to stand by him and by each other against James and James's
adherents. Lastly they vowed that, if His Majesty's life should be
shortened by violence, they would avenge him signally on his murderers,
and would, with one heart, strenuously support the order of succession
settled by the Bill of Rights. It was ordered that the House should
be called over the next morning. [671] The attendance was consequently
great; the Association, engrossed on parchment, was on the table; and
the members went up, county by county, to sign their names. [672]
The King's speech, the joint address of both Houses, the Association
framed by the Commons, and a proclamation, containing a list of
the conspirators and offering a reward of a thousand pounds for the
apprehension of any one of them, were soon cried in all the streets of
the capital and carried out by all the postbags. Wherever the news came
it raised the whole country. Those two hateful words, assassination and
invasion, acted like a spell. No impressment was necessary. The seamen
came forth from their hiding places by thousands to man the fleet. Only
three days after the King had appealed to the nation, Russell sailed out
of the Thames with one great squadron. Another was ready for action at
Spithead. The militia of all the maritime counties from the Wash to
the Land's End was under arms. For persons accused of offences merely
political there was generally much sympathy. But Barclay's assassins
were hunted like wolves by the whole population. The abhorrence which
the English have, through many generations, felt for domiciliary visits,
and for all those impediments which the police of continental states
throws in the way of travellers, was for a time suspended. The gates of
the City of London were kept many hours closed while a strict search was
made within. The magistrates of almost every walled town in the kingdom
followed the example of the capital. On every highway parties of armed
men were posted with orders to stop passengers of suspicious appearance.
During a few days it was hardly possible to perform a journey without a
passport, or to procure posthorses without the authority of a justice
of the peace. Nor was any voice raised against these precautions. The
common people indeed were, if possible, more eager than the public
functionaries to bring the traitors to justice. This eagerness may
perhaps be in part ascribed to the great rewards promised by the royal
proclamation. The hatred which every good Protestant felt for Popish
cutthroats was not a little strengthened by the songs in which the
street poets celebrated the lucky hackney coachman who had caught
his traitor, had received his thousand pounds, and had set up as a
gentleman. [673] The zeal of the populace could in some places hardly
be kept within the limits of the law. At the country seat of Parkyns
in Warwickshire, arms and accoutrements sufficient to equip a troop of
cavalry were found. As soon as this was known, a furious mob assembled,
pulled down the house and laid the gardens utterly waste. [674] Parkyns
himself was tracked to a garret in the Temple. Porter and Keyes, who
had fled into Surrey, were pursued by the hue and cry, stopped by the
country people near Leatherhead, and, after some show of resistance,
secured and sent to prison. Friend was found hidden in the house of a
Quaker. Knightley was caught in the dress of a fine lady, and recognised
in spite of his patches and paint. In a few days all the chief
conspirators were in custody except Barclay, who succeeded in making his
escape to France.
At the same time some notorious malecontents were arrested, and were
detained for a time on suspicion. Old Roger Lestrange, now in his
eightieth year, was taken up. Ferguson was found hidden under a bed
in Gray's Inn Lane, and was, to the general joy, locked up in Newgate.
[675] Meanwhile a special commission was issued for the trial of the
traitors. There was no want of evidence. For, of the conspirators who
had been seized, ten or twelve were ready to save themselves by bearing
witness against their associates. None had been deeper in guilt,
and none shrank with more abject terror from death, than Porter. The
government consented to spare him, and thus obtained, not only his
evidence, but the much more respectable evidence of Pendergrass.
Pendergrass was in no danger; he had committed no offence; his character
was fair; and his testimony would have far greater weight with a jury
than the testimony of a crowd of approvers swearing for their necks. But
he had the royal word of honour that he should not be a witness without
his own consent; and he was fully determined not to be a witness unless
he were assured of Porter's safety. Porter was now safe; and Pendergrass
had no longer any scruple about relating the whole truth.
Charnock, King and Keyes were set first to the bar. The Chiefs of the
three Courts of Common Law and several other judges were on the bench;
and among the audience were many members of both Houses of Parliament.
It was the eleventh of March. The new Act which regulated the
procedure in cases of high treason was not to come into force till
the twenty-fifth. The culprits urged that, as the Legislature had, by
passing that Act, recognised the justice of allowing them to see their
indictment, and to avail themselves of the assistance of an advocate,
the tribunal ought either to grant them what the highest authority had
declared to be a reasonable indulgence, or to defer the trial for a
fortnight. The judges, however, would consent to no delay. They have
therefore been accused by later writers of using the mere letter of
the law in order to destroy men who, if that law had been construed
according to its spirit, might have had some chance of escape. This
accusation is unjust. The judges undoubtedly carried the real intention
of the Legislature into effect; and, for whatever injustice was
committed, the Legislature, and not the judges, ought to be held
accountable. The words, "twenty-fifth of March," had not slipped into
the Act by mere inadvertence. All parties in Parliament had long been
agreed as to the principle of the new regulations. The only matter about
which there was any dispute was the time at which those regulations
should take effect. After debates extending through several sessions,
after repeated divisions with various results, a compromise had been
made; and it was surely not for the Courts to alter the terms of that
compromise. It may indeed be confidently affirmed that, if the Houses
had foreseen the Assassination Plot, they would have fixed, not an
earlier, but a later day for the commencement of the new system.
Undoubtedly the Parliament, and especially the Whig party, deserved
serious blame. For, if the old rules of procedure gave no unfair
advantage to the Crown, there was no reason for altering them; and if,
as was generally admitted, they did give an unfair advantage to the
Crown, and that against a defendant on trial for his life, they ought
not to have been suffered to continue in force a single day. But no
blame is due to the tribunals for not acting in direct opposition both
to the letter and to the spirit of the law.
The government might indeed have postponed the trials till the new Act
came into force; and it would have been wise, as well as right, to do
so; for the prisoners would have gained nothing by the delay. The case
against them was one on which all the ingenuity of the Inns of Court
could have made no impression. Porter, Pendergrass, De la Rue and others
gave evidence which admitted of no answer. Charnock said the very little
that he had to say with readiness and presence of mind. The jury found
all the defendants guilty. It is not much to the honour of that age that
the announcement of the verdict was received with loud huzzas by the
crowd which surrounded the Courthouse. Those huzzas were renewed when
the three unhappy men, having heard their doom, were brought forth under
a guard. [676]
Charnock had hitherto shown no sign of flinching; but when he was again
in his cell his fortitude gave way. He begged hard for mercy. He
would be content, he said, to pass the rest of his days in an easy
confinement. He asked only for his life. In return for his life, he
promised to discover all that he knew of the schemes of the Jacobites
against the government. If it should appear that he prevaricated or that
he suppressed any thing, he was willing to undergo the utmost rigour
of the law. This offer produced much excitement, and some difference of
opinion, among the councillors of William. But the King decided, as in
such cases he seldom failed to decide, wisely and magnanimously. He
saw that the discovery of the Assassination Plot had changed the whole
posture of affairs. His throne, lately tottering, was fixed on an
immovable basis. His popularity had risen impetuously to as great a
height as when he was on his march from Torbay to London. Many who
had been out of humour with his administration, and who had, in their
spleen, held some communication with Saint Germains, were shocked to
find that they had been, in some sense, leagued with murderers. He would
not drive such persons to despair. He would not even put them to the
blush. Not only should they not be punished; they should not undergo the
humiliation of being pardoned. He would not know that they had offended.
Charnock was left to his fate. [677] When he found that he had no chance
of being received as a deserter, he assumed the dignity of a martyr, and
played his part resolutely to the close. That he might bid farewell to
the world with a better grace, he ordered a fine new coat to be hanged
in, and was very particular on his last day about the powdering and
curling of his wig. [678] Just before he was turned off, he delivered
to the Sheriffs a paper in which he avowed that he had conspired against
the life of the Prince of Orange, but solemnly denied that James had
given any commission authorising assassination. The denial was doubtless
literally correct; but Charnock did not deny, and assuredly could not
with truth have denied, that he had seen a commission written and signed
by James, and containing words which might without any violence be
construed, and which were, by all to whom they were shown, actually
construed, to authorise the murderous ambuscade of Turnham Green.
Indeed Charnock, in another paper, which is still in existence, but has
never been printed, held very different language. He plainly said that,
for reasons too obvious to be mentioned, he could not tell the
whole truth in the paper which he had delivered to the Sheriffs. He
acknowledged that the plot in which he had been engaged seemed, even
to many loyal subjects, highly criminal. They called him assassin
and murderer. Yet what had he done more than had been done by Mucius
Scaevola? Nay, what had he done more than had been done by every body
who bore arms against the Prince of Orange? If an array of twenty
thousand men had suddenly landed in England and surprised the usurper,
this would have been called legitimate war. Did the difference between
war and assassination depend merely on the number of persons engaged?
What then was the smallest number which could lawfully surprise an
enemy? Was it five thousand, or a thousand, or a hundred? Jonathan and
his armourbearer were only two. Yet they made a great slaughter of the
Philistines. Was that assassination? It cannot, said Charnock, be the
mere act, it must be the cause, that makes killing assassination. It
followed that it was not assassination to kill one,--and here the
dying man gave a loose to all his hatred,--who had declared a war of
extermination against loyal subjects, who hung, drew and quartered every
man who stood up for the right, and who had laid waste England to
enrich the Dutch. Charnock admitted that his enterprise would have been
unjustifiable if it had not been authorised by James; but he maintained
that it had been authorised, not indeed expressly, but by implication.
His Majesty had indeed formerly prohibited similar attempts; but
had prohibited them, not as in themselves criminal, but merely as
inexpedient at this or that conjuncture of affairs. Circumstances had
changed. The prohibition might therefore reasonably be considered as
withdrawn. His Majesty's faithful subjects had then only to look to
the words of his commission; and those words, beyond all doubt, fully
warranted an attack on the person of the usurper. [679]
King and Keyes suffered with Charnock. King behaved with firmness and
decency. He acknowledged his crime, and said that he repented of it. He
thought it due to the Church of which he was a member, and on which his
conduct had brought reproach, to declare that he had been misled, not by
any casuistry about tyrannicide, but merely by the violence of his
own evil passions. Poor Keyes was in an agony of terror. His tears and
lamentations moved the pity of some of the spectators. It was said at
the time, and it has often since been repeated, that a servant drawn
into crime by a master was a proper object of royal clemency. But
those who have blamed the severity with which Keyes was treated
have altogether omitted to notice the important circumstance which
distinguished his case from that of every other conspirator. He had been
one of the Blues. He had kept up to the last an intercourse with his
old comrades. On the very day fixed for the murder he had contrived to
mingle with them and to pick up intelligence from them. The regiment had
been so deeply infected with disloyalty that it had been found necessary
to confine some men and to dismiss many more. Surely, if any example
was to be made, it was proper to make an example of the agent by whose
instrumentality the men who meant to shoot the King communicated with
the men whose business was to guard him.
Friend was tried next. His crime was not of so black a dye as that of
the three conspirators who had just suffered. He had indeed invited
foreign enemies to invade the realm, and had made preparations
for joining them. But, though he had been privy to the design of
assassination, he had not been a party to it. His large fortune however,
and the use which he was well known to have made of it, marked him out
as a fit object for punishment. He, like Charnock, asked for counsel,
and, like Charnock, asked in vain. The judges could not relax the law;
and the Attorney General would not postpone the trial. The proceedings
of that day furnish a strong argument in favour of the Act from the
benefit of which Friend was excluded.
