Lord Delamere, to ease his mind from the anxiety to know whether the man who so spoke was to pronounce upon his guilt or innocence, said, “I beg your grace would please to satisfy me whether your grace be one of my judges in concurrence with the rest of the lords.” L. H. Steward.—“No, my lord, I am judge of the court, but I am none of your triers.”[142]
A plea to the jurisdiction being put in, Lord Delamere requested his grace to advise with the other peers upon it, as it was a matter of privilege. L. H. Steward.—“Good my lord, I hope you that are a prisoner at the bar are not to give me direction who I should advise with, or how I should demean myself here.”
This plea was properly overruled, and not guilty pleaded, when his grace, to prejudice the peers-triers against the noble prisoner as a notorious exclusionist, delivered an inflammatory address to them before any evidence was given.
To create a further prejudice, poor Lord Howard was called to repeat once more his oft-told tale of the ryehouse plot, with which it was not pretended that the prisoner had any connection. The charge in the indictment was only supported by one witness, who himself had been in the rebellion, and who swore that Lord Delamere, at a time and place which he specified, had sent a message by him to Monmouth, asking a supply of money to maintain ten thousand men to be levied in Cheshire against King James. An alibi was clearly proved. Yet his grace summed up for a conviction, and took pains, “for the sake of the numerous and great auditory, that a mistake in point of law might not go unrectified, which seemed to be urged with some earnestness by the noble lord at the bar, that there is a necessity there should be two positive witnesses to convict a man of treason.”
To the honor of the peerage of England, there was a unanimous verdict of acquittal. James himself even allowed this to be right, wreaking all his vengeance on the witness for not having given better evidence, and swearing that he would have him first convicted of perjury, and then hanged for treason. Jeffreys seems to have struggled hard to behave with moderation on this trial; but his habitual arrogance from time to time broke out, and must have created a disgust among the peers-triers very favorable to the prisoner.
Jeffreys, still pretending to be a strong Protestant, eagerly assisted the king in his mad attempt to open the church and the universities to the intrusion of the Catholics. The fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford, having disobeyed the royal mandate to elect, as head of their college, Anthony Farmer, who was not qualified by the statutes, and was a man of infamous character, and having chosen the pious and learned Hough, were summoned before the Court of Ecclesiastical Commission. Jeffreys observed that Dr. Fairfax, one of their number, had not signed the answer of the college to the charge of disregarding the king’s recommendation. Fairfax asking leave to explain his reasons for declining to sign the answer, Jeffreys thought that he was willing to conform, and exclaimed, “Ay, this looks like a man of sense, and a good subject. Let’s hear what he will say.” Fairfax.—“I don’t object to the answer, because it is the vindication of my college: I go further; and as, according to the rules of the ecclesiastical courts, a libel is given to the party that he may know the grounds of his accusation, I demand that libel; for I do not know otherwise wherefore I am called here, and besides, this affair should be discussed in Westminster Hall.” Jeffreys.—“You are a doctor of divinity, not of law.” Fairfax.—“By what authority do you sit here?” Jeffreys.—“Pray, what commission have you to be so impudent in court? This man ought to be kept in a dark room. Why do you suffer him without a guardian? Why did you not bring him to me? Pray let my officers seize him.”
Three members of the ecclesiastical commission were sent to Oxford to represent that formidable body, and they annulled the election of Hough, expelled the refractory fellows, and made Magdalen College, for a time, a Popish establishment—the court in London, under the presidency of Jeffreys, confirming all their proceedings.
The lord chancellor next involved the king in the prosecution of the seven bishops, which, more than any other act of misrule during his reign, led to his downfall.[143] On the 25th of April, 1688, a new “declaration of indulgence” came out under the great seal; and, that it might be the more generally known and obeyed, an order was sent from the council to all bishops in England, enjoining that it should be read by the clergy in all churches and chapels within their dioceses during divine service. A petition, signed by Sancroft, the archbishop, and six other prelates, was laid before the king, praying in respectful language that the clergy might be excused from reading the declaration; not because they were wanting in duty to the sovereign, or in tenderness to the dissenters, but because it was founded upon the dispensing power, which had often been declared illegal in Parliament, and on that account they could not, in prudence, honor, or conscience, be such parties to it as the reading of it in the church would imply.
Even the Earl of Sunderland and Father Peter represented to the king the danger of arraying the whole church of England against the authority of the crown, and advised him that the bishops should merely be admonished to be more compliant. But with the concurrence of Jeffreys he resolved to visit them with condign punishment, and they were ordered to appear before the council, with a view to obtain evidence against them, as the petition had been privately presented to the king. When they entered the council chamber, Jeffreys said to them, “Do you own the petition?” After some hesitation, the archbishop confessed that he wrote it, and the bishops, that they signed it. Jeffreys.—“Did you publish it?” They, thinking he referred to the printing of it, of which the king had loudly complained, denied this very resolutely; but they admitted that they had delivered it to the king at Whitehall palace, in the county of Middlesex. This was considered enough to fix them with a publication, in point of law, of the supposed libel; and Jeffreys, after lecturing them on their disloyalty, required them to enter into a recognizance to appear before the Court of King’s Bench, and answer the high misdemeanor of which they were guilty. They insisted that, according to the privileges of the House of Peers, of which they were members, they could not lawfully be committed, and were not bound to enter into the required recognizance. Jeffreys threatened to commit them to the Tower as public delinquents. Archbishop.—“We are ready to go whithersoever his majesty may be pleased to send us. We hope the King of kings will be our protector and our judge. We fear nought from man; and having acted according to law and our consciences, no punishment shall ever be able to shake our resolutions.”
If this struggle could have been foreseen, even Jeffreys would have shrunk from the monstrous impolicy of sending these men to jail, on what would be considered the charge of temperately exercising a constitutional right in defence of the Protestant faith, so dear to the great bulk of the nation; but he thought it was too late to resile. He therefore, with his own hand, drew a warrant for their commitment, which he signed, and handed round the board. It was signed by all the councillors present, except Father Peter, whose signature the king excused, to avoid the awkward appearance of Protestant bishops being sent to jail by a Jesuit.