The Plot Rent and Torn. TUNE OF, Joan's Placket [is torn. See pp. 36, 622]. Fitz-Harris, Hetherington,' with Bedloe, Smith, and Prance, For the Plot is rent and torn, and will never be mended again! Then Dugdale was a Saint, till he the Cause forsook ; And Dangerfield did rant, in person of a Duke; 2 12 With Cummins too, a perjur'd crew, came swearing o'er the Main, But now the Doctor 's flogg'd, and 'brac'd the Pillory twice; The Joyner for his zeal did Penance in a String, Argile, the rebel Scot, with all the factious Crew, In bloody arms were got, but see what did ensue ;3 For all his hope, he found a Rope did quickly end his reign : Now Royal JAMES is plac'd upon his Father's Throne, His Foes shall flye, the Whigs shall cry, Our hopes are all in vain!" For the Plot is rent and torn, and will never be mended again! &c. 1 This Hetherington had been a witness testifying to the existence of a Popish Plot in Ireland. In May, 1685, before the 20th, he made his escape out of the King's Bench Prison. 2 Eustace Comyns, one of the Irish "Evidences." See pp. 76, 607, 654. 3 News of the capture of Argyle had been communicated to the Commons by the Earl of Middleton on the 22nd of June. The execution was on the 30th. 624 True explanation of Argyle's last slumbers. To him kind Heaven has sent (Heaven's bounteous Gift alone) A Loyal Parliament, to fix him on the Throne; Who shall our King, in every thing, of his due Rights maintain : For the Plot is rent and torn, but will never be mended again! &c. This Parliament did vote the King a Royal Sum, Which shall his Name promote above all Christendom : And overcome his Foes at home, who shew their Teeth in vain, For the Plot is rent and torn, and will never be mended again! &c. May such a Parliament support the Royal Cause, To give his Friends content, and to subdue his Foes; When all that Plot are gone to Pot, the King in Peace shall reign: For the Plot is rent and torn, and will never be mended again. 'Tis rent and torn, and torn and rent, 'tis rent and torn in twain, The Plot is rent and torn, and will never be mended again! [In White-letter. Date, after the beginning of July, 1685.] 60 Mark Napier exposed many of the shameless lies of Wodrow, and thus commented on the popular error concerning the last sleep of Argyle : "No head ever fell on the scaffold more worthy of that death. No enviable memorial of his fame is this praise of him-Thus died this excellent and truly good and great man,'-written by Wodrow, who, in recording the public characters of those times, never failed to speak evil of the good, and good of the evil. An instance of Wodrow's disingenuousness relative to this great State criminal [Argyle] must here be noted. He weaves a fanatical romance, with verbose sentimentality, of a placid slumber of the Earl's, after his last meal, and immediately before his execution; which slumber, he adds, 'affords a charming view of the power of religion and a peaceful conscience in the greatest of shocks.' Now, when dressing up an apocryphal story of 'one of the principal managers' having nearly lost his senses, conscience-stricken at the unexpected sight of this saint-like repose, Wodrow himself was aware of a physical cause, which would have entirely marred his story had he been so honest as to add it. In his unpublished Collections he had noted the following information: In some of the scuffles of those times, a bullet lighted upon a wall of a castle he (the Earl of Argyle) was in, and rebounding, struck him on the head, and cracked his scull; and it was trepanned, and the piece taken out. This made the Earl that he behoved still (i.e. always) to sleep after meat an hour or more; and that day he was execute, he behoved to have his sleep after dinner.' (See Wodrow's Analecta, ii. 139, and compare with his History, iv. 302.)”—Memorials and Letters, illustrative of the Life and Times of John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, by Mark Napier, 1859, i. 317. Even Macaulay was deceived by Wodrow's mis-statements, as in the matter of the apocryphal "Wigton Martyrs," who were respited, undrowned, and E. M. Ward in 1854 followed Macaulay's account unhesitatingly. We esteem him as our best historical-painter, after David Scott, till Yeames arose. Note 2.-Discontent of the Scotch Exiles, while in Holland. From his own Narrative, we quote the following self-revelation of a crotchetty and mutinous conspirator; afterwards Lord Polwarth and Earl Marchmont (obiit 1724). He has been accurately described as "a man incapable alike of leading and of following; conceited, captious, and wrong-headed; an endless talker; a sluggard in action against the enemy, and active only against his own allies." Sir Patrick Hume's habit of hurling Javelins. 625 From Sir Patrick Hume's Narrative, p. 5. (Hon. Geo. Rose's "Observations on the Historical Work of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox." 1809.) "After free communication of thoughts, wherin wee were at perfect agreement, wee as freely communicated opinions and counsells, and attained at lenth to as perfect an agreement of resolution and determination what to doe; and being convinced that the hellish Popish plot, so evidently and distinctly discovered and laid open in the Parliament of England, to the conviction of all ingenous and intelligent considerers, though afterwards hudled up and obscured by the arts of the Duke of York and others, its wicked and restless instruments, and thereby put in case to work and goe on with greater ease and safety to itselfe and them, and far greater danger to all the protestant freemen; had taken its effect against the late King by an incomparable ingratitude of all the managers thereof; and was now in case and ready to receive its top ston[e]; and finall accomplishment in the destruction and suppression of the Christian Religion (which is but one, and wherin the [p. 6] Roman has no pairt unless Christian and Anti-Christian signify the same thing,) and its professors, and of the natural and native rights and liberties of the free people of Britaine and Ireland, and all the legall fences of societie and propertie there established, by the means of the Duke of York his attaining to, and his receiving of the imperial crowne of these Kingdoms; and that if he should be able by the feircer methods of his oune fury, or the crafty contrivance of his party, so to work upon the countries and corporations of England, generally laid sleeping and intoxicated by ease from war and taxes, and by a free course of their traffick and trade, during the later years of King Charles his reigne, by reason of pairtly that King's love of ease; and feares and apprehensiones of a civil war, and his jealousies and dislike of parliaments; finding of late their inclinations to search in his mysteries, the designes of popery, at least in subserviencie to arbitrary power, and absolute tyranny; and pairtly his policie and cuning, wherin he exceeded all about him admitted to his service and counsels; wherby he indeed made easier, quicker, and greater progress in his designes than he could possibly have done by rough and stormie methods, verifying upon his hoodwinked people the saying,plures gulû quam gladiis pereant.'— Who truly have been as Samson dandled upon the knees of their Delilas 'till the loaks of their strenth have been cutt off, and almost their eyes put out, as to gett a parliament there of his owne packing, ac[p. 7]cording to the illegall methods taken to debauch and influence elections in counties, cities and tounes; having that point abundantly certaine in Scotland, by treacherie and perfidie of former mock-parliaments, very well packed for that purpose, by methods as fraudulent and unjust and more violent; and in Ireland by such assistance as a few apostate planters, being men of intrest and in command, might give to the numerous barbarous and bigot papist natives, he might and would soone fortifie himselfe in his station with strong armies; and then, on the methods of his naturall temper, conforme to the cruell principles of his religion and its doctrines, cary on his terrible work of setling and rivetting Popery and tyrannie in, and eradicating Christianity and Liberty, the chief blessings of a society, out of these nations; at least would make the meanes of preventing these great and imminent dangers, more narrow and scarce; and the practice more difficult and dangerous: etc. Sir Patrick Hume's long-windedness, with almost total absence of full stops, gives us a fair sample of what must have been his interminable harangues, wordy and self-opinionated, and bitterly polemical. A specimen of litigious "Flyting." VOL. V. 2 s Monmouth's Expedition Awaited. "'Tis said, Astrologers strange wonders find, To come, in two great Planets lately joyn'd. And merry Catches, how to rule the State. Vicars neglect their flocks to turn Translators, And Barley-water whey-fac'd Beaux write Satyrs; Of Wit or Vertue there's no longer need." King's & Duke's theatres. -Falkland's Prologue to Otway's Atheist, 1684. MANY were the West-Country ballads sung in London in the summer of 1685, and during the next five years. Some are in praise of Taunton, where the disaffected fanatics mustered in force, and on 11th of May annually celebrated the raising by Charles I's G. Goring a siege of their town, 1645, while held by the Parliamentary troopers. Loyal attempts to repress these outbreaks had been attended with riots, but the obtrusive pugnacity and vapouring of the sectaries had been recently punished by some very high-handed proceedings in suppression of meetings, with burning of pulpits and benches. Every release from legal punishment was vaunted as a triumph; every fine or imprisonment incurred was denounced as persecution or tyranny. Letters were being circulated through the mail-bags, and more stealthily by private messengers, announcing the near approach of Monmouth to effect a deliverance. Some few of these missives from London were intercepted. Here is a brief specimen, from the Axe Papers, Harleian MS. 6845, fol. 284: Copy of Letter giving notice of Monmouth's intended Landing. "Friend,-These are to advise thee that honest Protestants forthwith prepare and make themselves very ready, for here is now orders to apprehend all honest men that are any wise noted, and to secure them; for they have notice here at Court that a Certaine Person will forthwith appeare in the West, which puts them here at Court into a most dredful fear and confusion: 'Tis hoped, therefore, that all honest men that are true Protestants will stick together, and not let their friends be brought out of the country by any messenger or the like. You know how to deal with your two neighbouring and such like fellows. Argile have had great successe in Scotland, and have already destroyed great part of the King's forces there; and we heare from good hande that he hath sure an army that doe increase so mightily daily, that nothing can oppose them; and How Monmouth's Insurrection was announced. 627 if they be once up in the West they would suddenly be up in all parts of England, all the Protestants being certainly prepared by this, and resolved rather to dye than to live Slaves or Papists. Make good use hereof, and impart it to such as you can trust, that you may all be prepared and ready against the appearance of a certain person, which will be forthwith if not already. From your friend, F.R." Directed to Mr. James Curryer, at Ilminster, in Somersett. King James II. affected to disbelieve this, which he called an enigmatickal Letter," when it was conveyed to him with speed by Capt. William Speke from Taunton. Nevertheless precautionary measures were not omitted by loyal magistrates in the district. Suspected persons were arrested, and additional troops were in readiness. Another letter, intercepted at Taunton, was signed S.E., directed to "Mr. Christopher Cooke, Mulnager, in Taunton," from St. James's, 20 May, 1685. James may have been less incredulous than he declared himself to be. He told Barillon, a little later, of his getting news from Scotland, and he was endeavouring to obtain information direct from Holland. To his own master, Louis XIV., M. de Barillon thus communicated what he had heard, May 28, 1685: "Every one believes that Argyle's expedition was founded upon the expectation that the Duke of Monmouth would attempt at the same time to excite a revolt in England; but it is believed that he has not ventured hither. The King has just informed me that a Courier has just arrived from Scotland, who left Edinburgh the 4th of this month [June our May 25]. All the letters from Scotland lead to a belief that Argyle expected that the Duke of Monmouth would set about exciting a revolt, according to his engagement, in England." no William of Orange and his factotum William Bentinck were meantime doing their utmost to persuade King James that they knew nothing of Monmouth's rebellious intentions, gave encouragement to them, and were absolutely ignorant of his being anywhere near the Hague. We cordially endorse the sage opinion of Dr. R. Watson, concerning William of Orange's systematic duplicity and falsehood in these matters: "Of all the opposers of King James, none acted with so much duplicity as the intriguing Prince of Orange. He had carefully studied human nature, and was well acquainted with the genius of the British nation. Cool and dispassionate, he artfully soothed every party, and balanced them so exactly that they all depended upon himself. What he principally aimed at was, to get rid of such of the refugees as stood in the way of his ambition; and with these views he encouraged the expeditions of Argyle and Monmouth, whilst he gave private information of their intentions to his father-in-law. He wished neither party success; he hoped their attempts would involve the country in a Civil War, when he expected to be sent for as umpire. Whatever might be the issue of the invasion, the Prince of Orange thought the attention of King James would be sufficiently occupied to enable him to prosecute his designs: even the King himself did not dislike the expedition, as, from the various accounts received, he was confident of crushing it without endangering the throne."-R. Watson, M.D., his Life of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, prefixed to the 1798 edition of Fletcher's Political Works, p. 47. (For brief mention of Fletcher see our pp. 586, 649.) |