CAMEO
VIII.

Lord Russell. 1584.

and no hope was left. Lord Cavendish tried to persuade the prisoner to exchange clothes with him and thus escape, but Russell would not endanger his friend. His mind was made up, and as he said to Bishop Burnet, he only permitted his wife to make so many useless and harassing efforts on his behalf because he thought it would be a comfort to her afterwards to feel that she had left nothing untried. He spoke of his gratitude that it had never entered his head to propose the baseness of denouncing his friends to save his life, like Lord Howard, and rejoiced to leave his children to such a mother.

They spent their last day together like a Sunday, with an early communion celebrated by Dr. Tillotson, and then in peaceful, devotional converse. He saw and blessed his three young children, two girls and a boy, and then supped alone with his wife, parting at ten o'clock, calmly but with many kisses. "The bitterness of death is passed," he said; and the only break in his calm devotion was when on his way to execution he passed Southampton House, and then the tears fell fast. He was beheaded on the 21st of July, 1683, full of devotion and resolution, and the crowd of spectators were entirely silent and awestricken.

It was on that same day that the University of Oxford published a declaration, founded on the whole attitude of the primitive Church towards the Cæsars, and on the injunctions of SS. Peter and Paul, namely, that passive obedience was the badge and character of the Church of England; by which the divines meant that the "powers that be" should be obeyed in all things lawful, and that, in the case of their enjoining anything contrary to the conscience of a Christian, there must be disobedience with patient submission to the consequences even to the death, insurrection or armed resistance even to the worst of sovereigns being absolute rebellion, and therefore coming under a curse. They also held that direct hereditary succession pointed out the Divine appointment of the ruler, and must not be interfered with, whatever the heir might be. To this doctrine and declaration a large body in the Church stood firm at a heavy cost, holding it as the only form of loyalty, their favourite virtue. In point of fact, there will always be a doubt whether loyalty be duty to the Sovereign or to the law.

Algernon Sidney was not tried till the next term, and in the meantime Sir George Jeffreys, a coarse, hard-hearted, violent, and unscrupulous man had been made Chief Justice at thirty-four years of age in the room of Pemberton. Lord Howard again was the principal witness, showing Sidney as one of the council of six, together with Russell, Essex, Hampden, and Armstrong, and that he had sent one Aaron Smith as an emissary to Scotland to concert measures with the malcontents there. Further, a treasonable manuscript had been found on Sidney's desk, which three not very competent witnesses swore to be in his handwriting. Passages were read from it which were entirely generalties against misgovernment, and defence of popular rights,

without any special application to the present time, and the main body of it had been written long before. The defence was, first, that it was not proved to be in his writing; next that it was a private paper, never published; and, lastly, that it was not treasonable. Would a defence of the destruction of Nero and Caligula, he said, prove a plan for assassinating King Charles? It really was an answer to a pamphlet on the right of resistance written many years before, and the colour of the ink proved its age.

Then Sidney showed how utterly unworthy of credit Lord Howard was-how he was deeply in debt to himself, and that he, moreover, was, like the inferior witnesses, earning his pardon by accusations. He had even been heard to say that he should not have his pardon till he had done some other jobs and gone through the drudgery of swearing. A number of witnesses of high rank declared that Lord Howard had expressed his utter disbelief in any plot at all, and his own brother, Edward Howard, even assured the Court of his having said it was a mere sham, forged by priests and Jesuits. Lord Howard might have said so; but, though there was no definite project formed by the men of higher stamp for a rebellion, and none at all of murder on their part, the lower sort, either from fanaticism or from indignation at the wrongs done to the corporation of London, had certainly aimed at the assassination of the King and Duke. Charles, one of the acutest men of his time, availed himself of the vague connection to destroy the leading men, who he foresaw would sooner or later cause a revolution in which he and his brother might not indeed be murdered, but might meet their father's fate. This was the secret of his permitting the law of treason to be put in force against high-minded men, who, on their own principles, might easily begin a civil war. So Sidney's defence was unavailing; he was found guilty, and Jeffreys pronounced sentence with all its horrors.

66

Then," cried Sidney, "oh, my God, I beseech thee to sanctify these sufferings unto me, and impute not my blood unto the country. Let no inquisition be made for it; but if any, and the shedding of blood that is innocent must be revenged, let the weight of it fall only on those that maliciously persecute me for righteousness' sake."

To which Jeffreys replied:

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'I pray God work in you a temper fit to go to the other world, for I see you are not fit for this."

Sidney held out his hand and said :

"My Lord, feel my pulse, and see if I am disordered. I bless God I never was in better temper than I now am."

Efforts were made to save Sidney by Lord Halifax, his nephew by marriage, but in vain. Only his noble blood availed him to be beheaded-he died with the grave, self-concentrated dignity with which he had lived.

Halifax thought it well to bring home Monmouth to counteract the

САМЕО

VIII.

Algernon
Sidney.

1684.

CAMEO
VIII.

Return of

Monmouth. 1685.

influence of York. The Duke signed some submissive letters to his father, came over and met him at a private house, where Charles showed himself displeased, but affectionate, and promised pardon on condition of unreserved submission. On this Monmouth surrendered, and there followed a strange tangle of confessions and retractations. He seems, in fact, to have told his father and uncle all he knew, but to have drawn back as soon as he found his words likely to be used against the remaining prisoners, and heard the reproaches of those Whig friends on whose support he relied; and when in the spring he was subpoenaed as a witness against Hampden he again fled to Holland.

So he

The flight saved Hampden's life, for the only witness available was Howard of Escrick, and two were needed in cases of treason. was only indicted for a misdemeanour, fined forty thousand pounds and imprisoned till the amount should be paid. Holloway, a merchant of Bristol, and Sir Thomas Armstrong, were sentenced and executed. Sir Thomas Armstrong's daughter was present at the trial, and shrieked out, "My Lord, do not murder my father! "Take her into custody," said Jeffreys. "God's judgments light upon you!" "I am clamour proof," said Jeffreys.

Charles rewarded the Chief Justice with a valuable ring, which the wits called a "blood stone." But the significant advice was added, "My Lord, you are going on circuit, do not drink too hard."

Jeffreys at this time tried the saintly Richard Baxter for libel, some words against the Church of Rome being thought to reflect on the English Church. Never was more insolence displayed: "Richard, Richard! thou art an old fellow and an old knave; thy books are as full of treason as an egg is full of meat."

He was found guilty, had to pay a fine of £500, and was imprisoned for two years.

There were no more executions on this unhappy plot in England, and in Scotland the only person put to death was Baillie of Jerviswood, though on the evidence of Ferguson, surnamed the plotter, full 2,000 were denounced as outlaws. Baillie was, no doubt, in correspondence with the Earl of Argyll, and from him the Scotch branch of the conspiracy, such as it was, is known as the Jerviswood plot. He was a devout, much-esteemed man and received his doom with the words, "My Lords, the sentence is sharp, and the time is short; but I thank God Who has made me as fit to die as you are to live." His wife remained with him to the last moment on the scaffold, and his son George fled to Holland, and entered the Regiment of Guards of the Prince of Orange.

Thither too escaped Sir Patrick Hume in disguise, guided by his steward. His wife and ten children followed, and, to eke out the £150 a year allowed out of his forfeited estate, he practised as a physician at Utrecht, and his son joined his friend, George Baillie in the guards.

Foor and exiled as they were, they led a most happy life, always looked back to by the children as their most joyous days and with Grisell as the great element of peace, gladness, and usefulness, as commemorated by her descendant's daughter, Joanna Baillie.

And well, with ready hand and heart
Each task of toilsome duty taking,
Did one dear inmate take her part-
The last asleep, the earliest waking.”

CAMEO
VIII.

Exiles in
Holland

CAMEO IX.

MONMOUTH'S REBELLION.

1685-1686.

France.

CAMEO IX.

February 1 1685.

England.

1685. James II.

1643. Louis XIV.

Germany.

1658. Leopold I.

Spain.

1650. Charles II.

Pope.

1670. Clement X.

PERHAPS the reign of Charles II. may be thus summed up: He came with great abilities and fair intentions, but with habits corrupted by vicious surroundings and principles overthrown by professing to be of one communion, while his faith was with another.

His course under any circumstances would have been hard, but his brother's open Romanism maddened the nation, and made them believe in the Popish plot. He had not courage to withstand their fanatic violence lest his real proclivities should be suspected and cause his ruin, but he was resolved to support his brother's lawful claims to the throne. Therefore he avoided assembling Parliament, and kept himself afloat by French bribes, gradually advancing in power, and at last, when the Rye House plot gave him the opportunity, availing himself of it to destroy those leaders whom he thought most perilous to his throne and to his brother's succession. It was a miserable policy, a miserable time, and the stain long rested on English statesmen.

Charles, the object of so many hopes, all so grievously disappointed, endowed with so many gifts, all thrown away, had reached the term of his trial. He was only fifty-four years old, and full of energy, apparently in strong health, though he did not walk as much as usual, but worked in his laboratory. On the last Sunday of his life, the scene in the evening of February 1st, 1685, at Whitehall is described by Evelyn :

A game at basset was going on with a bank of at least £2,000 in the midst, while the King sat a little apart, with the Duchesses of Cleveland, Portsmouth; and Mazarin listening to love-songs sung by a French boy. Already the King was unwell, and had hardly tasted food, and somewhat later, he went to the Duchess of Portsmouth's rooms and asked