298 "Let every feeble rumour shake your hearts." firmly to this one principle. If he ever felt tempted to swerve from it, as we may show hereafter, it was in the last months of his life, when he admitted Monmouth to a secret interview; but this seems justified by the conduct of York, in Scotland, threatening almost a rebellion in his turn, and Charles felt the difficulty of controuling him. That he was to be abandoned or superseded is utterly incredible, and without documentary evidence. Charles refused to deprive of his birthright the brother who had shared his wanderings, and in whose affection he trusted, although continually harassed on his account, and annoyed by his stubbornness. We have seen that Charles offered a compromise of limitations and restrictions on his successor, to propitiate the Russell faction, instead of the abhorred " Exclusion," which to their own loss they demanded and would take no substitute. The " Expedient" of Halifax (see p. 29) might have satisfied reasonable men, but these men were not reasonable. Until their unconciliating and factious intolerance was displayed so forcibly, by Lords and Commons, with the probability (known now to be a certainty) that they were about to vote their own permanence in contumacy, the Oxford Parliament had possessed a last opportunity wherewith to gain redress of many grievances. The Commons brought upon themselves their punishment of sudden dismissal. They deserved to fall thus ignominiously and ridiculed. When it was found to be too late to win back the forfeited privileges, the moderate politicians saw their past error in having supported the Exclusionists, and regretted the perversity of their leaders. But these leaders remained incapable of temperate judgment in looking back, and thus could feel no remorse. They indulged one another with bitter denunciations of the Court, of arbitrary power (no person being more autocratical than each of themselves desired to become), and while continually talking of what might happen "after the King's death," it grew natural to take a preliminary step of hurrying on that event, by conspiracy, and to avoid a failure of their ambitious hopes, either by an armed insurrection with Russell, or a deliberate murder with Rumsey. Major Abraham Holmes was one of the representatively desperate men, not devoid of good qualities, intermittent fits of patriotic sincerity and courage; but rash, like the Rumbolds and Argyle. It is worth noticing that William of Orange used all his influence over the Whigs, with whom he maintained a secret and treasonable correspondence, to oppose the King's conciliatory policy. Any offer of cramping the future power of James II. found William adverse; not because of consideration for his fatherin-law and uncle, but solely because he was himself continually plotting for the chance of winning the Sovereignty, and resented the idea of any limitations being fixed to his own will and power. William was the incarnation of cold-blooded selfishness, and, like his enemy Louis XIV., stirred discontent continually among his neighbours, to weaken them and forward his ambition. The King's Deliverance at Newmarket. 299 An accidental fire breaking out at Newmarket, during the time of the King's visit (March 3 to 22, 1683), caused him to make a premature departure, and saved his life. When he hurriedly passed the Rye-House on his return to London he was attended by five guards only, and the opportunity was lost that had been counted on by his intended murderers. In the narrow way they were to have lain in ambush behind a wall: to have fired at the carriage as it passed, killing the horses to ensure a pause for taking better aim at the King with their blunderbusses. Two of their men, disguised as carters, were to have drawn a cart across the roadway as an obstruction, and then to have done their utmost as assassins. The moated house was suitable for harbouring many men in concealment, although it could not have withstood a siege. As a surprise the deed might have been perpetrated, and at the first news of it in London there was to be an armed insurrection, a seizure of important strongholds, and the proclamation of the Good Old Cause. On p. 307 will follow, unmutilated, a description of the RyeHouse, in 1683; as it is given in Dr. Thomas Sprat's Official True Account of the Conspiracy, and how it was discovered. A view of the Rye-House (specially drawn and engraved by us) is on our p. 292. When the King's danger and escape became afterwards revealed, there was a joyous feeling of thanksgiving for his safety and of horror at the murderous conspiracy. Not until so late a date as September 9th (by the neglect of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Sancroft, and disloyalty of Compton, Bishop of London) was any Day of Prayer set apart in gratitude, and by that time the execution of many conspirators had slackened the zeal of those who at first made loud rejoicings. Canting seditionists had insulted the religious ceremony, by affixing on church doors this libellous pasquinade : An Offering to the Reader. You for and then give thanks! Ou Hypocrites, forbear your pranks, Forbear your tricks, pursue no further, On this Thanksgiving-Day, after the Church-services, with sermons against rebellion and disaffection of Whigs and Dissenters, there was at night an universal ringing of joy bells with blazing of bonfires. The following poem had preceded the Offering: a Loyal expression of rejoicing at the King's safety. We possess two printed copies. Nat. Thompson's is entitled "On the King's Most Happy and Miraculous Deliverance at Newmarket; " while John Smith's of Covent Garden has the shorter title which we use. 1. 2. On the King's Deliverance at Newmarket. So weapons prosper which are form'd 'gainst Heaven, Or 'tis Vicegerent Heaven's peculiar Care, To whom are more than vulgar blessings given, By mighty means for mighty ends, Or (what his Goodness more delights to see) Nor do we more congratulate The present safety of the State, Than future Peace which we anticipate. 10 Nor did they cheat the World, who took such pain [Shaftesburians. First Arbitrary Power must down, Then must some Minister be in disgrace, More Liberty the People crave, Yet know not how to use that which they have. They'd make the King a Property. [Danby. [Sir T. Clayton. "What monstrous blessing wou'd a Change create!". Might Atheists mend the Church, and Knaves the State. With our Allegiance have we lost our sense? These very Tricks ruin'd us once before, Curse of such Arts which now are Arts no more. 3 All that is envi'd still attends the Throne, But when these Earthly Gods shall dye like Men, (Nature, the Rule of Him by whom Kings reign) 30 [Stuarts. 40 A Fire at Newmarket saves the life of King Charles. 301 The fire at Newmarket providentially drove Charles II. hence, before the conspirators were ready to waylay him at the Rye-House: March 3rd, in the morning early, their Majesties and His Royall Highnesse went from Whitehall to Newmarket, the carriages and wagons being gone three or four daies before. The 5th, Her Royal Highnesse [Duchess of York] went hence for Newmarket. 7th. Letters from Newmarket inform that their Majesties are in good health, and divert themselves with hawking, hunting, horse-racing, etc. On the 22nd instant, at night, between nine and ten, a fire happened at the town of Newmarket, which began in a stable by the carelessness of a groom taking tobacco: the wind being high, it burnt so furiously that it consumed above half the town, being quite one side of thereof; but his Majestie's house received no damage. However, it proved a great losse, several persons being burnt, and divers fine coaches and horses. Robert West deposed, on 23rd June, 1683, before Jenkins, that after the Newmarket fire Richard Rumbold told West and Keeling, at a tavern in the City, "that the King came by his house with a slender guard of six Horse, much tyred; and that six men well provided might have made the attempt [to slay the Royal party], and succeeded in it." October 8th, the King returned to Newmarket, followed two days later by his brother and the recently-married Prince George of Denmark, "Est-il-possible? They stayed a few days, departing on the 20th for Whitehall. A similar visit was paid by the King next year, in the last October of his life. So that he cannot be said to have avoided Newmarket. His personal courage was indisputable. The discovery came, as usual, through the treachery of an accomplice. In every conspiracy there are some members who have joined it from discontent and unsettled position. They are usually the first to lose enthusiasm, to distrust the chance of success, to fear treachery of others, and thence to purchase safety as a reward for themselves by being the quickest to betray their comrades. "This is the moral of all earthly tales," especially Irish. A decaying Vintner, one Josiah Keeling, had been early introduced into the Plot by Richard Goodenough, formerly under-sheriff to Bethel and Cornish, therefore accustomed to hearing seditious murmurs against the Court. Becoming frightened, perhaps, when he learnt how much more desperate were the plans of his associates than he had earlier expected, the man Josiah Keeling went to George Legge, Lord Dartmouth, to betray all that he knew, and was speedily examined before Sir Leoline Jenkins. His Information, signed 12th June, 1683, incriminated Richard Goodenough, as having first proposed the murder of the King and the Duke of York; also a number of other persons of small account, such as James Burton, William Thompson and Andrew Barber. That at the Mitre within Aldgate he had by appointment met Richard Rumbold, or Rumball: one Richard Rumball a Maltster-man, living at a place called the Rye (if this informant mistake not the name), within two miles of Hoddesden, in the county of Hertford, or thereabouts, did agree on the Saturday next before his Majesty's return from Newmarket last, to go down to the Rye, being the house of the aforesaid Rumball, and there to effect their design of taking off the King and the Duke. The manner whereby they proposed this should be effected, That the said Rumball's house, where they were to meet, being by the High-way's side, 302 Deposition of the two Keelings, and Goodenough. they that were to be actors in the fact were to hide themselves under a wall, or a pale; and when his Majesty's coach should come over against the said wall or pale, three or four were to shoot with blunderbusses at the Postilion and the horses; and if the horses should not drop, then there were to be two men with an empty Cart in the lane near the place, who in the habit of labourers should run the Cart thwart the lane, and so to stop the horses; besides those that were to shoot the postilion and horses, there were several appointed to shoot at the Guards that should be attending the Coach.-Josiah Keeling's Information. He told of meeting Robert West the barrister and going with him to the Dolphin Tavern in Bartholomew Lane, behind the Royal Exchange, where they met the said Rumbold and one W. Hone of Southwark, a carpenter; together they discoursed on the Newmarket ambuscade, and the weapons to be employed. Later, after the King's unexpectedly hastened return, Rumbold told Keeling that "he had seen the King passing by his house, and that if he [Rumbold, had] had but five men with him, he could have done his business, for that there were but five Life-Guardsmen with them." Farther, he told about the arrangements for an insurrection, involving the lawyers Wade, Nelthorp, and the already mentioned West, as also Captain Walcot, "who went over with the Earl of Shaftesbury, and came back with his corpse." He indicated likewise a Colonel, whose name he did not know, but who was evidently Colonel John Rumsey. "West further told this Deponent on Easter Eve, that since the design to be executed on the King's return from Newmarket had failed, they intended to take the King and Duke off between Windsor and Hampton Court." Secretary Sir L. Jenkins seems to have been cautiously unwilling to act on this single information, and in fact he was continually receiving secret warnings of murderous intentions. Finding that another witness was required to confirm his evidence, which met lukewarm acceptance, if not declared suspicion and incredulity, Joshua Keeling contrived that his own brother John Keeling should be admitted to both see and hear what passed at the next meeting; and Richard Goodenough accommodated him; so that, two days after the first betrayal, a double Deposition of the brothers Keeling (14th June, 1683) gave the Plotters into the hands of the Court. Col. Rumsey's name was now mentioned, with Wade the councillor of Bristol, as furnishing money for the projected insurrection, also "that the Duke of Monmouth and all his friends would be concerned in raising the said money and that the said Duke would be at the head of the said party, which they propounded to be four thousand in number, and that many more would quickly fall in." In answer to Josiah Keeling's enquiry whether the design of killing the King and the Duke of York between Windsor and Hampton-Court was still entertained, "Goodenough replyed, No, because they [the Royal brothers] did not usually go together, but they would do it at the Bull Feast in Lyon-fields." [Compare our p. 286.] : |