Cassell's History of England, Vol. 3 (of 8) / From the Great Rebellion to the Fall of Marlborough.

by Anonymous

The duke being allowed to return, and being restored to the office of Lord High Admiral, and lodged in St. James's Palace, Monmouth, who had been assured that James should be retained in Scotland, also returned from abroad, in spite of the positive command of the king. On the Duke of York's return, the Tories, who regarded it as a proof of the ascendency of their principles, framed an address of congratulation, and of abhorrence of Shaftesbury's scheme of Association. When Monmouth arrived, the Whig party received him with still more boisterous enthusiasm. The City was in a turmoil of delight, but in the blaze of his popularity, Monmouth, conceiving that the Whig influence was on the decline, endeavoured to follow the example of Sunderland, who had made his peace with the king, and the Duke was readmitted to the Cabinet. But Monmouth was too narrowly watched, and though he had sent offers of reconciliation through his wife, the reproaches of Shaftesbury, Russell, and his other partisans, made him draw back, and under pretence of paying a visit to the Earl of Macclesfield, he set out, as in 1680, on a tour through the provinces.

Nothing could exceed Monmouth's folly in this progress. Had he been the undoubted heir apparent to the crown, he could not have assumed more airs of royalty; and at a moment when the eyes of both the king and James were following him with jealous vigilance, this folly was the more egregious. Wherever he came he was met by the nobles and great landowners at the head of their tenantry, most of whom were armed, and conducted in royal state to their houses. He was thus received by the Lords Macclesfield, Brandon, Rivers, Colchester, Delamere, and Grey, as well as by the leading gentry. He travelled attended by a hundred men on horseback, one half of whom preceded, and the other followed him. As he approached a town, he quitted his coach and mounted his horse, on which he rode alone in the centre of the procession. On entering the town, the nobles, gentry, and city officials took their places in front, the tenantry and common people fell in behind, shouting, "A Monmouth! a Monmouth! and no York!" Wherever he dined he ordered two hundred covers to be laid for the guests, and the people, conducted by proper officers, passed through the room in at one door and out at another, in order to see him, as if he were a king. At Liverpool he did not hesitate to touch for the king's evil. Wherever there were fairs, races, or other public assemblies, he was sure to appear, and ingratiate himself with the populace, not only by his flattering bows and smiles, but by entering into their sports. He was a man of amazing agility, and ran races on foot with the most celebrated pedestrians, and after beating them in his shoes, he would run again in his boots against them in their shoes, and win still. The prizes that he thus gained he gave away at christenings in the evening.

Whilst he was thus exciting the wonder of the common people by his popular acts, accomplishments, and condescensions, the spies of Chiffinch, his father's old agent for secret purposes, were constantly around him, and sent up hourly reports to Court. Jeffreys, who was now Chief Justice of Chester, and himself addicted to much low company, buffoonery, and drunkenness off the bench, and the wildest and most insulting conduct upon it, seized the opportunity of some slight disturbances, which occurred during Monmouth's stay there, to win favour with the Duke of York, by taking into custody and punishing some of his followers. At Stafford Monmouth had engaged to dine in the public streets with the whole population; but as he was walking towards the appointed place, a king's messenger appeared, and arrested him on a charge of "passing through the kingdom with multitudes of riotous people, to the disturbance of the peace and the terror of the king's subjects." Shaftesbury was not there, or Monmouth might have been advised to throw himself on the protection of the people, and the rebellion which he stirred up a few years later might have occurred then, for Shaftesbury was now advising all the leaders of his party to rise; but Monmouth surrendered without resistance, and was conveyed to the capital, where he was admitted to bail himself in a bond of ten thousand pounds, and his sureties in two thousand pounds each. The king, with that affection which he always showed for this vain and foolish young man, appeared satisfied with having cut short his mock-heroic progress.

But though the British Absalom for the present escaped thus easily, the war of royalty and reassured Toryism on the long triumphant Whigs was beginning in earnest. Shaftesbury, since his discharge from the Tower, had seen with terror the rapid rising of the Tory influence, the vindictive addresses from every part of the country against him, and the undisguised cry of passive obedience. The circumstances seemed not only to irritate his temper, but to have destroyed the cool steadiness of his judgment. He felt assured that it would not be long before he would be singled out for royal vengeance; and he busied himself with his subordinate agents in planning schemes for raising the country. These agents and associates were Walcot, formerly an officer under the Commonwealth in the Irish army; Rumsey, another military adventurer, who had been in the war in Portugal; Ferguson, a Scottish minister, who deemed both the king and the duke apostates and tyrants, to be got rid of by almost any means; and West, a lawyer. These men had their agents and associates of the like views, and they assured Shaftesbury they could raise the City at any time.

But the tug of war was actually beginning between the Court and the City, and the prospect was so little flattering to the City, that Halifax said there would soon be hanging, and Shaftesbury even thought of attempting a reconciliation with the duke. He made an overture, to which James replied, that though Lord Shaftesbury had been the most bitter of his enemies, all his offences should be forgotten whenever he became a dutiful subject of his Majesty. But second thoughts did not encourage Shaftesbury to trust to the smooth speech of the man who never forgot or forgave.

So long as the Whigs were in the ascendant, their sheriffs could secure juries to condemn their opponents and save their friends. Charles and James determined, whilst the Tory feeling ran so high, to force the government of the City from the Whigs, and to hold the power in their own hands. Sir John Moore, the then Lord Mayor, was brought over to their interest, and they availed themselves of an old but disused custom to get sheriffs nominated to their own minds. Thus the Government had a complete triumph in the City; and they pursued their advantage. A prosecution was commenced against Pilkington, one of the late sheriffs, who in his vexation unguardedly said, "The Duke of York fired the City at the burning of London, and now he is coming to cut our throats." Damages were laid at one hundred thousand pounds, and awarded by a jury at Hertford. Pilkington, whose sentence amounted to imprisonment for life, and Shute, his late colleague, Sir Patience Ward, Cornel, Ford, Lord Grey, and others were tried, Ward for perjury, the rest for riot and assault on the Lord Mayor, and convicted. In all these proceedings Mr. Serjeant Jeffreys was an active instrument to promote the Government objects.

But these triumphs were only temporary. The Court determined to establish a permanent power over the City. It therefore proceeded by a writ of quo warranto to deprive the City of its franchise. The case was tried before Sir Edward Sanders and the other judges of the King's Bench. The Attorney-General pleaded that the City had perpetrated two illegal acts—they had imposed an arbitrary tax on merchandise brought into the public market, and had accused the king, by adjourning Parliament, of having interrupted the necessary business of the nation. After much contention and delay, in the hope that the City would voluntarily lay itself at the feet of the monarch, judgment was pronounced that "the City of London should be taken and seized with the king's hands." When the authorities prayed the non-carrying out of the sentence, the Lord Chancellor North candidly avowed the real object of the proceeding,—that the king was resolved to put an end to the opposition of the City, by having a veto on the appointment of the Lord Mayor and sheriffs; that he did not wish to interfere in their affairs or liberties further, but this power he was determined to possess, and therefore the judgment was confirmed June 20th, 1683, and London was reduced to an absolute slavery to the king's will. It was equally determined to proceed by the same means of a quo warranto to suppress the charters of the other corporations in the kingdom.

Shaftesbury had seen the progress of this enormous change with the deepest alarm. He retired to his house in Aldersgate Street, and not feeling himself secure there, hid himself successively in different parts of the City, striving, through his agents, to move Monmouth, Essex, and Grey to rise, and break this progress of despotism. He boasted that he had ten thousand link-boys yet in the City, who would rise at the lifting of his finger. It was proposed by Monmouth that he should engage the Lords Macclesfield, Brandon, and Delamere to rise in Cheshire and Lancashire. Lord William Russell corresponded with Sir Francis Drake in the west of England, Trenchard engaged to raise the people of Taunton. But Monmouth had more than half betrayed the scheme to the king, and the progress of events in the City grew formidable. Shaftesbury was struck with despair, and fled in November, 1682. He escaped to Harwich in the guise of a Presbyterian minister, and got thence over to Holland. He took up his residence at Amsterdam, where he was visited by Oates and Waller; but his mortification at the failure of his grand scheme of "walking the king leisurely out of his dominions, and making the Duke of York a vagabond like Cain on the face of the earth," broke his spirits and his constitution. The gout fixed itself in his stomach, and on the 21st of January, 1683, he expired, only two months after his quitting England.

The fall of this extraordinary man and of his cause is a grand lesson in history. His cause was the best in the world—that of maintaining the liberties of England against the designs of one of the most profligate and despotic Courts that ever existed. But by following crooked by-paths and dishonest schemes, and by employing the most villainous of mankind for accomplishing his object, he ruined it. Had he and his fellows, who had more or less of genuine patriotism in them, combined to rouse their country by high, direct, and honourable means, they would have won the confidence of their country, and saved it, or have perished with honour. As it was, the great national achievement was reserved for others.

The flight and death of Shaftesbury struck terror into the Whig party. Many gave up the cause in despair; others of a timid nature went over to the enemy, and others, spurred on by their indignation, rushed forward into more rash and fatal projects; and at this moment one of the extraordinary revelations took place which rapidly brought to the gallows and the block nearly the whole of Shaftesbury's agents, coadjutors, and colleagues, including Lord William Russell and Algernon Sidney.