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 assassin, 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 Scottish 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 incriminate him, it was not from himself that they would get their information.
Lord William 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, in consequence of the high character of the prisoner, and because it must decide how far the Whig leaders were concerned in the designs of 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, a man of ability and address, but a thorough profligate, and generally despised, and by Russell himself long suspected. Yet even he seemed to feel the infamy of his position, and to give his evidence with shame. 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. 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 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 William 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. 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 (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 William's innocence only as far as regarded a design of assassination of the king and duke, but not as regarded 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 William 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, or 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. In spite of the efforts of his relatives, the sentence was carried out on the 21st of July, 1683.
On the day of Lord William Russell's death, the University of Oxford marked the epoch by one of those rampant assertions of Toryism which have 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, 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 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 turn 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 Sidney took place, Sir George Jeffreys was made Lord Chief Justice in place of Sanders, who was incapacitated by sickness. 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; with having attended at those meetings already mentioned at Hampden's, Russell's, and Shepherd's; and with having undertaken to send Aaron Smith to Scotland, to concert a simultaneous insurrection, and to persuade the leading Scottish 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, nor Hampden, nor Sidney, though they laboured in self-defence to prove the plot improbable, ever really 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 eyes 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.