Reign of Charles II. (Concluded) page 4

Next, Rumsey came in and turned informer, and, improving as he went on, he also accused lord Russell, Mr. Trenchard, Roe, the sword bearer of Bristol, the duke of Monmouth, Sir Thomas Armstrong, lord Grey, and Ferguson. That he had met most of these persons at Shepherd's, a wine merchant, near Lombard Street, and that nothing less was intended by most of them than killing the king and his brother. That Trenchard had promised a thousand foot and three hundred horse in the west, and Ferguson had engaged to raise twelve hundred Scots who had fled to England after the battle of Bothwell Bridge. Shepherd, the wine merchant, was called up, and said that certainly Shaftesbury, before going to Holland, the duke of Monmouth, lords Russell and Grey, Armstrong, Rumsey, and Ferguson had met at his house, and, he was informed, had talked about securing his majesty's guards, and had walked about the court end of the town at night, and reported a very remiss state of the guards on duty. He added, that not obtaining sufficient support, the design, so far as he knew, was laid aside.

On the 26th of June a proclamation was issued for the apprehension of Monmouth, Grey, Russell, Armstrong, Walcot, and others. Monmouth, Grey, Armstrong, and Ferguson made their escape; lord Russell, Sidney, Essex, Wildman, Howard of Escrick, Walcot, and others were taken, then or soon after. Lord Russell was the first secured. He was found quietly seated in his library, and though the messengers had walked to and fro for some time before his door, as if wishing him to get away, he took no steps towards it, but as soon as the officer had shown his warrant, he went with, him as though he had been backed by a troop. When examined before the council, he is said, even by his own party, to have made but a feeble defence. He admitted having been at Shepherd's, but only to buy wines. That he understood that some of those whom he had seen there were a crowd of dangerous designers; he should not, therefore, mention them, but only the duke of Monmouth, against whom there could be no such charge. He denied that he had heard there anything about a rising in the west or in Scotland,, but only that in the latter country there were many people in distress, ministers and others, whom it would be a great charity to relieve. He was committed to the Tower, and on entering it he said he was sworn against, and they would have his life. His servant replied that he hoped matters were not so bad as that, but he rejoined, "Yes! the devil is loose!" He saw the course things were taking; the spirit that was in the ascendant; he knew that he had entered into revolutionary schemes sufficiently for his condemnation, and that the duke of York, who had an old hatred for him, would never let him escape.

Lord Howard was one of the last arrested. He went about after the arrest of several of the others, declaring that there really was no plot; that he knew of none; yet after that it is asserted, and strong evidence adduced for it, that to save his own life he had made several offers to the court to betray his kinsman Russell., Four days before lord Russell's trial, a serjeant-at-arms, attended by a troop of horse, was sent to his house at Knightsbridge, and after a long search discovered him in his shirt in the chimney of his room. His conduct when taken was most cowardly and despicable, and fully justified the character that he had of being one of the most perfidious and base of men. He wept, trembled, and entreated, and, begging a private interview with the king and duke, he betrayed his associates to save himself. Russell had always had a horror and suspicion of him, but he had managed to captivate Sidney by his vehement professions of republicanism, and by Sidney and Essex he had been induced to tolerate the traitor. The earl of Essex was taken at his house at Cassiobury, and was escörted to town by a party of horse. He might have escaped through the assistance of his friends, but he deemed that his flight would tend to condemn his friend Russell, and he refused."

He was a man of a melancholy temperament, but he bore up bravely till he was shut up in the Tower, in the same cell where his wife's grandfather, the earl of Northumberland, in the reign of Elizabeth, had. died by his own hands or those of an assässin, and from which his father, the lord Capel, had been led to execution under the commonwealth. He now became greatly depressed. The rest of the prisoners - Sidney, Hampden, Armstrong, Baillie of Jerviswood, and others, both Scotch and English - displayed the most firm bearing before the council, and refused to answer the questions put to them. Sidney told the king and his ministers that if they wished to criminate him, it was not from himself that they would get their information.

The first of the prisoners brought to trial were Walcot, Rouse, and Hone, a joiner, who, on the evidence of West, Keeling, and Rumsey, were condemned and executed as traitors. Walcot and Rouse denied any design of murdering the king or the duke; but Hone, the joiner, confessed having spoken to Goodenough about killing the blackbird and goldfinch, meaning the king and the duke. Meantime, the city, under its new regime, put on an air of intense loyalty; almost all the other corporations in the kingdom followed their example; neither were the counties behind, pouring in addresses for the condign punishment of the execrable traitors, villains, and infamous miscreants, rebellious spirits, and atheistic monsters, who were seeking his majesty's precious life, which the magistrates of Middlesex declared was worth a hundred millions of theirs.

In this state of the public mind lord Russell was brought to trial on the 13th of July, at the Old Bailey. He was charged with conspiring the death of the king, and consulting to levy war upon him. Intense interest was attached to this trial, not only in consequence of the high character of the prisoner, but because it must decide how far the whig leaders were concerned in the designs of the lower conspirators. He requested a delay till afternoon or next morning, because material witnesses had not arrived, but the attorney-general, Sir Robert Sawyer, replied, "You would not have given the king an hour's notice for saving his life; the trial must proceed." He then requested the use of pen, ink, and paper, and for permission to avail himself of the documents he had with him. These requests were granted, and he then asked for some one to help him to take notes; and the court replied that he might have the service of any of his servants for that purpose. "My lord," said Russell, addressing chief justice Pemberton, "my wife is here to do it." This observation, and the lady herself then rising up to place herself at her husband's side to perform this office, produced a lively sensation in the crowd of spectators. The daughter of the excellent and popular lord Southampton thus devoting herself to assist her husband in his last extremity, was an incident not likely to lose its effect on the mind of Englishmen, and the image "Of that sweet saint who sat by Russell's side." has ever since formed a favourite theme for the painter and the poet.

The witnesses first produced against him were Rumsey and Shepherd. Rumsey deposed that the prisoner had attended a meeting at Shepherd's for concerting a plan to surprise the king's guards at the Savoy and the Mews, and Shepherd confirmed this evidence. Russell admitted the being at Shepherd's, and meeting the persons alleged, but denied the object stated so far as he himself was concerned, or so far as he had heard or understood. The last and most infamous witness was lord Howard of Escrick. This man, who was a man of ability and address, but a thorough profligate, and generally despised, and by Russell himself long suspected, and who had gone about protesting that there was no plot that he knew of, now came forward to save his own life by sacrificing those who had imprudently trusted him. Yet even he seemed to feel the infamy of his position, and to give his evidence with shame and reluctance. Whilst in the midst of it, the court was electrified by the news that the earl of Essex had that moment committed suicide in his cell. He had called for a razor, shut himself up in a closet, and cut his throat so effectually that he had nearly severed his head from his body. It was an awkward circumstance for the king and duke, that just at that time they had made a visit to the Tower, where they were said not to have been for years. It was supposed that they had gone from curiosity to see how lord Russell bore himself as he was conveyed to trial. Just as they were leaving the Tower, the cry arose that Essex was murdered, and this singular coincidence caused a murmur that they had themselves done this bloody deed. But the matter is too ridiculous to be dwelt on for a moment. They had too many and certain means of getting rid of their enemies by legal power, to directly dip their own hands in blood. When the news, however, reached the court of the Old Bailey, the sensation was intense. The witness himself was greatly agitated by it, and Jeffreys, who was counsel for the crown, seized upon it to damage the cause of the prisoner at the bar. He argued that the very act showed the conscious guilt of Essex, who had been constantly mixed up in the proceedings of Russell.

Howard swore that he had heard from Monmouth, Walcot, and others, that lord Russell had been deeply concerned with the conspirators, and especially their head, lord Shaftesbury. He alleged that Russell had taken part in two discussions at Hampden's, where they had arranged the treasonable correspondence with the earl of Argyll and his adherents in Scotland; and was aware of the agent, one Aaron Smith, being sent to Scotland for the purpose of organising their co-operation. Being pressed to say whether lord Russell took an active part in these discussions, he did not plainly assert that he did, as he said he was well known to be cautious and reserved in his discourse, but that all was understood, and he appeared to consent to everything. Lord Russell admitted having been at those meetings, but again denied any knowledge of any such designs, and declared that lord Howard's evidence was mere hearsay evidence, and of no legal weight whatever; and that, moreover, Howard had positively declared repeatedly that there was no plot, and had sworn to his (lord Russell's) innocence. On this Howard was recalled, and explained that it was before his arrest that he had ridiculed and denied the plot - which, under the circumstances, was natural enough - and he had sworn to lord Russell's innocence only as far as it regarded a design of assassination of the king and duke, but not of his participation in the general plot. West and the serjeant-at-arms, who had the Scottish prisoners in custody, were also called to prove the reality of the plot, and of their looking chiefly to lord Russell to head it.

On his part the prisoner contended that none of the witnesses were to be relied on, because they were swearing against him in order to save, their own lives. He also argued that, according to the statute of 25 Edward III., the statute decided not the design to levy war, but the overt act, to constitute treason. But the attorney-general replied that not only to levy war, but to conspire to levy war against the king, to kill, depose, pr constrain him, was treason by the statute. Before the jury retired, Russell addressed them, saying, "Gentlemen, I am now in your hands eternally; my honour, my life, and all; and I hope the heats and animosities that are amongst you will not so bias you as to make you in the least inclined to find an innocent man guilty. I call heaven and earth to witness that I never had a design against the king's life. I am in your hands, so God direct you." They returned a verdict of guilty, and Treby, the recorder of London, who had been an active exclusionist, pronounced the sentence of death.

There were active exertions made after his condemnation to obtain a pardon, or at least a commutation of the sentence; but lord Russell himself is said to have entertained no hope that the never-forgiving duke of York would forego his blood. His father, the duke of Bedford, offered one hundred thousand pounds through the duchess of Portsmouth to save his life, but Charles held firm to his purpose, and was steeled even to refuse the money by James. When lord Dartmouth urged that to take his life would remain an unpardonable offence to a great family, whilst something was due to the daughter of the earl of Southampton, and to spare lord Russell would lay an everlasting obligation on the house of Bedford, Charies replied that all that was very true, but that if he did not take Russell's life he would soon have his. The afflicted father made a second and public petition to the king for his son's life, and said that himself, his wife, and children would be content to be reduced for the remainder of their days to bread and water, so that he might be saved.

It was in vain; and though lord Russell, at the earnest entreaty of his family, humbled himself to petition both the king and the duke for a change of sentence, still protesting his innocence of any design against their lives, he told his friends that it was perfectly useless, and would be hawked about the streets when he was hanged, as a proof of his submission. Lady Russell herself presented the petition to the duchess of York, with earnest prayers for her good offices; but the appeal might as well have been made to a stone as to James, who never forgave the smallest injury; and in this case, lord Russell had! been as prominent as Shaftesbury in advocating the duke's exclusion from the succession, and to such an offence there could be no pardon in James's heart. Lord Russell did not attempt to palliate his conduct except by asserting that he had acted solely on public grounds, and without any personal animosity towards his highness; and he promised, if his life were spared, to regard his intercession as the highest obligation, and never more to engage in any opposition to him.

An attempt was now made upon him by the prelates, to induce him to admit the doctrine of non-resistance; and it was though that had he consented to that, his life might have been spared; but that was an apostacy to one of the very greatest of political principles, which no man of noble and upright character could consent to, which would have left him a pitiable object of contempt. Yet Burnet and Tillotson, then dean of Canterbury, laboured hard for this triumph over him, but without effect, and his execution was fixed for the 21st of July. Lord Cavendish nobly offered to manage his escape by changing clothes with him, but neither would he consent to that, for with such people as Charles and James, Cavendish would himself have speedily forfeited his life. When he had taken leave of his devoted wife, who endeavoured to keep down her emotion so as not to unman him, he said, "Now the bitterness of death is passed." The scaffold was not, according to custom, erected on Tower Hill, but in Lincoln's Inn Fields, in order, says Wallace, "that the citizens might be humbled by the spectacle of their once triumphant Header carried in his coach to death through the city; a device which, like most others of the kind, produced an effect contrary to what was intended: the multitude imagined that they beheld virtue and liberty sitting by his side." The trying circumstance to the illustrious prisoner was, that he had to pass Southampton House, the paternal home of his noble-minded wife, and he could not see it without strong emotion, and a few tears. Burnet and Tillotson accompanied him, and whilst Tillotson read prayers, Burnet was ready to write down his last observations. His lordship handed a paper to the sheriff Rich, who had been a zealous co-operator with him in endeavouring to effect the exclusion, saying that he had never loved much speaking, and could not now expect to be well heard, and therefore had set down there what he had to say. He declared that he died in charity with all men, and prayed that the protestants might forget all their animosities, and still combine for the defeat of popery. He declared that he regarded himself far happier than lord Howard, who had purchased his life by the infamy of betraying his associates. Having embraced Tillotson and Burnet, he laid his head on the block, and, like lord Stafford, refusing to give any sign to the executioner, his head was severed from his body at two strokes.