Reign of Charles II. (Concluded) page 5

The people testified their sense of this execution by a general groan, and retired in a mood which boded no good to the perpetrators of the deed. The execution was scarcely over, when the town rang in every quarter of the city with the printed statement of the sufferer's last declaration, which, though he gave it to the sheriff in manuscript, was already printed and circulated by the management of his lady.

In this paper lord Russell again denied ever having had or participated in any design against the king's life; he did not deny his endeavour to obtain the exclusion, but defended the measure as necessary to the preservation of protestantism. He denied having consented to the seizure of the guards, but contended that he had at lord Shaftesbury's denounced the scheme, as rendering the next necessary step, the massacre of the guards in cold blood; a thing detestable, and so like a popish practice that he abhorred it. He still denied the justice of his sentence, on the ground that he had not actually levied war on the king, and therefore did not come within the meaning of the act of Edward III. But the weakest part of his statement was that in which he defended his proceedings regarding the popish plot, declaring that he sincerely had believed, and did still believe, that the plot was real. But if so, his alarm must have strangely blinded him to the nature of the evidence produced, the infamous character of the witnesses, and their most flagrant contradictions of themselves and each other, and their gross and palpable inventions.

That lord William Russell was a sincere and high-minded patriot; that he was too noble to soil his fingers with French money, like so many of his coadjutors; and that h^ died firmly for his principles, refusing to betray the great national cause by consenting to the base doctrine - absolute submission to royal tyranny - to save his life, must always place him high amongst British worthies: but as few men are perfect, so his acquiescence in the base proceedings against many innocent men charged with being guilty of Titus Oates's plot, is a stain amid his brightness. That he ran a, fair, risk of forfeiting his life by his patriotic exertions, he would have been blind not to foresee, and in his last paper he admits the fact. That Charles, and still less James, should have had the nobility to spare his life, was not in their nature; though there came a time when James was reminded by Russell's father how supremely politic such clemency would have been. The drawing up his last declaration was attributed to Burnet, who, after the revolution, acknowledged this to be the fact. At that time also his attainder was reversed, on the plea of his lawful challenge of his jurors having been refused, and of partial and unjust construction of laws.

On the very day of lord Russell's death, the university of Oxford marked the epoch by one of those rampant assertions of tory ism and base subservience which has too often disgraced that seat of learning. It published a "Judgment and Declaration," as passed in their convocation, for the honour of the holy and undivided Trinity, the preservation of catholic truth in the church, and that the king's majesty might be secured both from the attempts of open bloody enemies, and the machinations of treacherous heretics and schismatics. In this declaration they attacked almost every principle of civil and religious liberty, which had been promulgated and advocated in the works of Milton, Baxter, Bellarmin, Owen, Knox, Buchanan, and others. They declared that the doctrines of the civil authority being derived from the people; of there existing any compact, tacit or expressed, between the prince and his subjects from the obligation of which, should one party retreat, the other becomes exempt; of the sovereign forfeiting his right to govern if he violate the limitations established by the laws of God and man J were all wicked, abominate, and devilish doctrines, deserving of everlasting reprobation. And they called upon "All and singular the readers, tutors, and catechists, diligently to instruct and ground their scholars in that most necessary doctrine, which in a manner is the badge and character of the. church of England, of submitting to every ordinance, of man for the Lord's sake, teaching that this submission and obedience is to be clear, absolute, and without exception of any state or order of men." This doctrine of slaves, which Oxford would vainly have fixed on the nation as the badge of Englishmen, they were in a very few years, under James, taught the practical blessing of. They had, when their term came, quickly enough of it, flung the badge to the winds, and made a present of their plate to the Dutch prince, who came to drive their sovereign from the throne.

Before the trial of Algernon Sydney took place, Sir Francis Jeffreys was made lord chief justice in place of Sanders, who was incapacitated by sickness. Jeffreys was promoted over the heads of the other judges, though merely a serjeant. But the court wanted a man who would go thorough for it, and Jeffreys had shown that he was at once a servile tool of power, and a savage bully to the accused. He was perhaps the most singular, mixture of buffoonery, debauchery, insolence, vulgarity, and brutal cruelty, that ever sate on the bench, and his name has come down to "us as the perfection of judicial infamy. He hated the whigs, because they had turned him out of the recordership of the city of London and took a savage and malignant pleasure in browbeating and hanging them. "His friendship and conversation," says Roger North, "lay much amongst the good fellows and humorists, and his delights were the extravagancies of the bottle. His weakness was, that he could not reprehend without scolding, and in such Billingsgate as should not come out of the mouth of any man. He called it giving a lick with the rough side of his tongue."

Before this alternately laughing and blackguarding demon Algernon Sidney, the last of the republicans, was arraigned at the bar of the king's bench on the 7th of September, 1683. Rumsey, Keeling, and West were brought against him as against Russell, but the main witness was the despicable lord Howard, whom Evelyn truly calls, "That monster of a man, lord Howard of Escrick." On their evidence he was charged with being a member of the council of six, sworn to kill the king and overturn his government. That he had attended at those meetings already mentioned at Hampden's, Russell's, and Shepherd's. That he had undertaken to send Aaron Smith to Scotland, to concert a simultaneous insurrection, and to persuade the leading Scotch conspirators to come to London, on pretence of proceeding to Carolina.

Sidney, after Howard had delivered his evidence, was asked if he had any questions to put to the witness, but he replied with the utmost scorn, that "he had no questions to ask such as him!" "Then," said the attorney-general, "silence - you know the rest of the proverb.". The difficulty remained to prove Sidney's treason, for there were no two witnesses able or willing to attest an overt act. But if it depended on the existence of fact, there was not one of the council of six who was not guilty of really conspiring to drive out the next successor to the crown. Neither Russell Hampden, nor Sidney, though they laboured in self-defence' to prove the plot improbable, ever substantially denied its' existence. They knew that it did exist, and were too honest to deny it, though they notoriously sought to evade the penalty of it, by contending that nothing of the kind was or could be proved. But what said Hampden himself after the revolution, before a committee of the house of lords? Plainly, "that the coming into England of king William was nothing else but the continuation' of the council of six." The conspiracy by that time was become in the eves of the government no longer a crime, but a meritorious fact. The injustice thus done to these patriots was not that they had not committed treason against the existing government, but that they were condemned on discreditable and insufficient evidence. "When men conspire to get rid of a tyrannous government by force, they commit what is legally rendered treason, and must take the consequence, if detected, by the ruling powers. But that circumstance does not render the attempt less meritorious, and if it succeeds they have their reward. In this case the prisoners knew very well that if their real doings could be proved against them, they must fall by the resentment of those whom they sought to get rid of; but they resisted, and justly, being condemned on the evidence of traitors like lord Howard, and even then by evidence less than the law required.

To make out the two necessary witnesses in this case, the attorney-general brought forward several persons to prove that the Scottish agents of conspiracy for whom Sidney had sent had actually arrived in London; but he relied much more on a manuscript pamphlet which was found in Sidney's desk when he was arrested. This pamphlet appeared to be an answer to Filmer's book, which argued that possession was the only right to power. Three persons were called to swear that it was in Sidney's handwriting; but the chief of these was the same perfidious Shepherd, the wine merchant, who had so scandalously betrayed his party. He had seen Sidney sign several endorsements, and believed this to be his writing. A second, who had seen him write once, and a third, who had not seen him write at all, but had seen his hand on some bills, thought it like his writing. This was by no means conclusive, but that did not trouble the court; it went on to read passages in order to show the treasonableness of the manuscript, and then it was adroitly handed to the prisoner on the plea of enabling him to show any reasons for its being deemed harmless; but Sidney was not caught by so palpable a trick. He put back the book as a thing that no way concerned him. On this Jeffreys turned over the leaves and remarked, "I perceive you have arranged your matter under certain heads; so, what heads will you have read? Sidney replied that the man who wrote it might speak to that; and asked with indignation whether a paper found in his study against Nero and Caligula, would prove that he had conspired against Charles H. Whether any credit was due to such a man as lord Howard, who had betrayed every one that had anything to do with him, and had said that he could not get his pardon till the drudgery of swearing was over? He contended that Howard was his debtor, that he had a mortgage on his estate, and to get rid of repayment was now seeking his life. He commented on the oldness of the work in the manuscript, and asked the attorney-general how many years the book of Filmer's, which it replied to, had been written. Jeffreys told him they had nothing to do with Filmer's book; the question was, would he acknowledge the authorship of the pamphlet? Sidney replied "No;" that it was neither proved to be his, nor contained any treason if it had been.

As that was clearly the case, he brought forward several witnesses, some of them of high rank, to demolish the only remaining evidence of any consequence - that of lord Howard. These witnesses were two of lord Howard's own relations - Philip and Edward Howard; the earl of Anglesey, lord Clare, lord Paget, M. Du Cas, a Frenchman, a Mr. Blake, and two of his own servants. They one and all swore that lord Howard had solemnly and repeatedly protested that there was no plot, and Mr. Edward Howard spoke out in the strongest manner of his relative. He declared that he fully believed the first statement of lord Howard, that there was no plot, for he was not a man to get into anything where there was danger, and because he had no motive for telling himself this. He added, he would not now believe his second statement were he on the jury. The evidence of this most honourable scion of the family of Howard, was so bold and strong, that he was threatened with being bound over to keep the peace.

Finch, the solicitor-general, replied, assuming the fact to be proved that the pamphlet was Sidney's; that, taken with the rest of the evidence, it was quite sufficient, especially as the prisoner had taught the horrid doctrine, that when kings broke their trust to their people, they might be called to account by them; and that Sidney was the most dangerous of all the conspirators, because he was not, like some of them, stirred up by fancied personal injuries, but acted on a king-destroying principle.

Jeffreys, after a parade of humanity, declaring that the king desired not to take away any man's life which was not clearly forfeited to the law, but had rather that many guilty men should escape than one innocent man suffer, concluded, nevertheless, by telling the jury that scribere est agere - that they had evidence enough before them, and they, accordingly, brought in a verdict of guilty.

When the prisoner was brought up on the 26th of November to receive sentence, he pleaded in arrest of judgment that he had had no trial, that some of his jurors were not freeholders, and that his challenges had not been complied with; yet he seems to have exercised that right to a great extent, for the panel contains the names of eighty-nine persons, of whom fifty-five were challenged, absent, or excused. As jurymen, however, then were summoned, there might still be much truth in his plea. He objected, too, that there was a material flaw in the indictment, the words in the king's title, defender of the faith, being left out. "But," exclaimed Jeffreys, "that you would deprive the king of his life, that is in very full, I think." But this plea had a certain effect, and a Mr. Bampfield, a barrister, contended that the judgment should not be proceeded with whilst there was so material a defect in the indictment. Sidney also insisted that there was no proof of the manuscript being his, or of its being treason, and demanded that the duke of Monmouth should be summoned, as he could not be earlier found, and now was at hand. But Jeffreys overruled all his pleadings,, and declared that there was nothing further to do than to pass sentence. "I must appeal to God and the world that I am not heard," said Sidney. "Appeal to whom you will," retorted Jeffreys, brutally, and with many terms of crimination and abuse, passed on him sentence of death with all its butcheries.

As soon as he had finished, Sidney exclaimed in a loud and solemn tone, "Then, O God! O God! I beseech thee to sanctify my sufferings, and impute not my blood to the country or the city; let no inquisition be made for it; but, if any day the shedding of blood that is innocent must be avenged, let the weight of it fall only on those that maliciously persecute me for righteousness' sake."