Reign of Charles II. (Continued) page 15

But fresh plots kept streaming up from the same inexhaustible source. A fellow of the name of Bolron, who had been the manager of Sir Thomas Gascoign's colleries in Yorkshire, and dismissed for embezzlement, assisted by Mowbray, a servant dismissed for suspicion of theft, charged Sir Thomas, who was eighty-five years of age, his daughter, lady Tempest, Thomas Gascoign, the son, Mr. Thwinge, the nephew, Sir Miles Stapleton, and others, with a conspiracy to assassinate the king. As the county magistrates would not listen to such a charge, these men hastened to the great receiver-general, as well as inventor of plots, Shaftesbury, and they were arrested and tried in Westminster on the 28th and 29th of July, but were acquitted, with the exception of Mr. Thwinge, who, if the others were innocent, certainly could not be guilty; yet he was executed at York as a traitor.

In these dreadful times no catholic's life was safe if he offended his servants, and these base villains, Dangerfield and Bolron, were still retained by their patrons for other dirty work.

The great object of all these got-up plots, was to drive James from the succession, and two parties were at work for this purpose, who united so far as excluding James, but were divided as to the successor to be set up. Monmouth was the idol of Shaftesbury and his party; William of Orange the selected favourite of Temple, Hyde, Godolphin, and their party - a far more intellectual and able one. Against James this common object of his exclusion told fearfully; for the rest, the deep and cautious character of the Dutchman, and the light and frivolous one of Monmouth, made William's chance far the best. Shaftesbury, Buckingham, and their adherents contrived to win over the duchess of Portsmouth to part of their views by concealing the rest. They represented to her that if the king were brought to nominate his successor, as Cromwell had done, and as an act of parliament would enable him, her eldest son might be selected. The bait took, especially when it was coupled with the terrors of an impeachment in default of compliance, which threatened her ruin and that of her children. She flattered herself that the illegitimacy of her son might be got over, and went zealously into the affair. On the other hand, Shaftesbury made himself sure that if this plan was accomplished, Monmouth would be the successor elect. She pledged herself to use all her influence with Charles, and she was empowered to assure him of a large supply of money from parliament, and the same power of naming his successor as had been given to Henry VIII.

Charles appeared to fall into the scheme, but demanded no less than eight hundred thousand pounds. For this he probably would have sold his brother's birthright. The question of James's exclusion was discussed in the council, and Charles ordered James to return again to Scotland. But what probably saved James, was want of faith betwixt the leaders of the two exclusion factions and Charles, and betwixt each other. Each faction knew that the other had ill own successor in view, and both doubted Charles too much to trust him with the money before the exclusion act was passed. Barillon, the French ambassador, whose object was to maintain James, also came in as a third party, with French money, to embarrass and divide them. To cut the main difficulty, Shaftesbury determined to damage James irrevocably before the country; he, therefore, on the 26th of October, brought forward the wretch Dangerfield to accuse the duke, before the commons, of having been at the bottom of the late plot against the presbyterians; of having given him the instructions to forge and distribute the lists and commissions; of having presented him with twenty guineas; given him a promise of much greater reward; and ridiculed his hesitation to shed the king's blood, &c.

The audacity of an opposition that could bring forward so horrible a charge against the heir-apparent, on the evidence of a scoundrel branded by sixteen convictions for base crimes, is something incredible now-a-days. But no sooner had Dangerfield made the statement, than the house was thrown into a wonderful agitation, and lord Russell rose and moved that effectual measures be taken to suppress popery and prevent a popish succession. From that day to the 2nd of November a succession of other witnesses and depositions were brought before the house to strengthen the charge. The deposition of Bedloe, on his deathbed, affirming all his statements, was read; one Francisco de Faria, a converted Jew, asserted that an offer had been made to him by the late Portuguese ambassador, to whom he was interpreter, to assassinate Oates, Bedloe, and Shaftesbury; Dug- dale related all his proofs against the lords in the Tower; Prance repeated the story of the murder of Godfrey, with fresh embellishments; and Mr. Treby read the report of the committee of inquiry into the plot. The house, almost beside itself, voted that a bill should be brought in to disable the duke of York, as a papist, from succeeding, and that any violence offered to the king should be revenged on the whole body of the papists. In the debate on the bill, all the horrors of the fire of London, the destruction of the fleet in the river, and the penuries of Titus Oates were charged on James and the papists, and the bill passed amid loud shouts. But on the 15th of November it received a different fate in the lords, being rejected by sixty-three against thirty. Shaftesbury then proposed, as the last means of safety, the king should divorce the queen, marry again, and have a chance of legitimate issue; but on this the king himself put an effectual damper. Disappointed in both these objects, the opposition resorted to the cowardly measure of shedding more innocent blood, in order to have a fresh opportunity of exciting the alarm and rage of the people against popery. They selected, from the five popish lords in the Tower, the lord Stafford for their victim. He was nearly seventy years of age, and in infirm health, and they flattered themselves he would not be able to make much defence. He was arraigned in Westminster Hall before a court of managers, as in the case of lord Strafford. The trial lasted seven days, and Oates, Dugdale, Prance, Tuberville, and Denis, all men of the most infamous and perjured character, charged him with having held consultations with emissaries of the pope, and having endeavoured to engage Dugdale by an offer of five, hundred pounds to assassinate the king, &c. &c. The old earl made an admirable defence, in which he dissected most effectually the villainous characters of his traducers; but, notwithstanding, he was condemned by a majority of fifty-five to thirty-one, and was beheaded on the 29th of December on Tower Hill. The sheriffs of London objected to the order for his beheading, contending that he ought to suffer all the horrors of the law against traitors; but the king commanded them to obey his order. On the scaffold the earl, whose mild au I pious demeanour made a- deep impression on the popery- frightened people, declared his entire innocence, and the people, standing with bare heads, replied, "We believe you, my lord. God bless you, my lord!"

This last transaction, instead of strengthening the opposition, greatly damaged them. The impression of the spectators was that the poor old earl was entirely innocent; and they called to mind that the whole of the victims had died, firmly protesting the same; and several of them even refusing to purchase their lives by confessing auy knowledge of a plot. The witnessed throughout, too, were such men as would have damned any cause by their infamy, in any but such times. Shaftesbury and his party were, indeed, called the champions of protestantism; but in our time protestantism cannot accept as champions men who can employ any vile instrument in its support, who suborn the most polluted and perjured of the community in its defence, and sacrifice lives and shed torrents of innocent blood to effect their object. Protestantism repudiates such supporters, and the sense of to-day must be that the whole of these persecutions by Shaftesbury and his faction, stand as amongst the blackest facts in history.