A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second

by Charles James Fox

Before he left the castle, he had his dinner at the usual hour, at which he discoursed, not only calmly, but even cheerfully, with Mr. Charteris and others. After dinner he retired, as was his custom, to his bed-chamber, where it is recorded that he slept quietly for about a quarter of an hour. While he was in his bed, one of the members of the council came and intimated to the attendants a desire to speak with him: upon being told that the earl was asleep, and had left orders not to be disturbed, the manager disbelieved the account, which he considered as a device to avoid further questionings. To satisfy him, the door of the bed-chamber was half opened, and he then beheld, enjoying a sweet and tranquil slumber, the man who, by the doom of him and his fellows, was to die within the space of two short hours! Struck with this sight, he hurried out of the room, quitted the castle with the utmost precipitation, and hid himself in the lodgings of an acquaintance who lived near, where he flung himself upon the first bed that presented itself, and had every appearance of a man suffering the most excruciating torture. His friend, who had been apprised by the servant of the state he was in, and who naturally concluded that he was ill, offered him some wine. He refused, saying, “No, no, that will not help me: I have been in at Argyle, and saw him sleeping as pleasantly as ever man did, within an hour of eternity. But as for me—.” The name of the person to whom this anecdote relates is not mentioned, and the truth of it may therefore be fairly considered as liable to that degree of doubt with which men of judgment receive every species of traditional history. Woodrow, however, whose veracity is above suspicion, says he had it from the most unquestionable authority. It is not in itself unlikely; and who is there that would not wish it true? What a satisfactory spectacle to a philosophical mind, to see the oppressor, in the zenith of his power, envying his victim! What an acknowledgment of the superiority of virtue! What an affecting and forcible testimony to the value of that peace of mind which innocence alone can confer! We know not who this man was; but when we reflect that the guilt which agonised him was probably incurred for the sake of some vain title, or, at least, of some increase of wealth, which he did not want, and possibly knew not how to enjoy, our disgust is turned into something like compassion for that very foolish class of men whom the world calls wise in their generation.

Soon after his short repose Argyle was brought, according to order, to the Laigh Council-house, from which place is dated the letter to his wife, and thence to the place of execution. On the scaffold he had some discourse, as well with Mr. Annand, a minister appointed by government to attend him, as with Mr. Charteris. He desired both of them to pray for him, and prayed himself with much fervency and devotion. The speech which he made to the people was such as might be expected from the passages already related. The same mixture of firmness and mildness is conspicuous in every part of it. “We ought not,” says he, “to despise our afflictions, nor to faint under them. We must not suffer ourselves to be exasperated against the instruments of our troubles, nor by fraudulent, nor pusillanimous compliances, bring guilt upon ourselves; faint hearts are ordinarily false hearts, choosing sin rather than suffering.” He offers his prayers to God for the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and that an end may be put to their present trials. Having then asked pardon for his own failings, both of God and man, he would have concluded; but being reminded that he had said nothing of the royal family, he adds that he refers, in this matter, to what he had said at his trial concerning the test; that he prayed there never might be wanting one of the royal family to support the Protestant religion; and if any of them had swerved from the true faith, he prayed God to turn their hearts, but, at any rate, to save His people from their machinations. When he had ended, he turned to the south side of the scaffold, and said, “Gentlemen, I pray you do not misconstruct my behaviour this day; I freely forgive all men their wrongs and injuries done against me, as I desire to be forgiven of God.” Mr. Annand repeated these words louder to the people. The earl then went to the north side of the scaffold, and used the same or the like expressions. Mr. Annand repeated them again, and said, “This nobleman dies a Protestant.” The earl stepped forward again, and said, “I die not only a Protestant, but with a heart-hatred of popery, prelacy, and all superstition whatsoever.” It would perhaps have been better if these last expressions had never been uttered, as there appears certainly something of violence in them unsuitable to the general tenor of his language; but it must be remembered, first, that the opinion that the pope is Antichrist was at that time general among almost all the zealous Protestants in these kingdoms; secondly, that Annand being employed by government, and probably an Episcopalian, the earl might apprehend that the declaration of such a minister might not convey the precise idea which he, Argyle, affixed to the word Protestant.

He then embraced his friends, gave some tokens of remembrance to his son-in-law, Lord Maitland, for his daughter and grandchildren, stripped himself of part of his apparel, of which he likewise made presents, and laid his head upon the block. Having uttered a short prayer, he gave the signal to the executioner, which was instantly obeyed, and his head severed from his body. Such were the last hours, and such the final close, of this great man’s life. May the like happy serenity in such dreadful circumstances, and a death equally glorious, be the lot of all whom tyranny, of whatever denomination or description, shall in any age, or in any country, call to expiate their virtues on the scaffold!

Of the followers of Argyle, in the disastrous expedition above recounted, the fortunes were various. Among those who either surrendered or were taken, some suffered the same fate with their commander, others were pardoned; while, on the other hand, of those who escaped to foreign parts, many after a short exile returned triumphantly to their country at the period of the revolution, and under a system congenial to their principles, some even attained the highest honours of the State. It is to be recollected that when, after the disastrous night-march from Killerne, a separation took place at Kilpatrick between Argyle and his confederates, Sir John Cochrane, Sir Patrick Hume, and others, crossed the Clyde into Renfrewshire, with about, it is supposed, two hundred men. Upon their landing they met with some opposition from a troop of militia horse, which was, however, feeble and ineffectual; but fresh parties of militia as well as regular troops drawing together, a sort of scuffle ensued, near a place called Muirdyke; an offer of quarter was made by the king’s troops, but (probably on account of the conditions annexed to it) was refused; and Cochrane and the rest, now reduced to the number of seventy took shelter in a fold-dyke, where they were able to resist and repel, though not without loss on each side, the attack of the enemy. Their situation was nevertheless still desperate, and in the night they determined to make their escape. The king’s troops having retired, this was effected without difficulty; and this remnant of an army being dispersed by common consent, every man sought his own safety in the best manner he could. Sir John Cochrane took refuge in the house of an uncle, by whom, or by whose wife, it is said, he was betrayed. He was, however, pardoned; and from this circumstance, coupled with the constant and seemingly peevish opposition which he gave to almost all Argyle’s plans, a suspicion has arisen that he had been treacherous throughout. But the account given of his pardon by Burnet, who says his father, Lord Dundonald, who was an opulent nobleman, purchased it with a considerable sum of money, is more credible, as well as more candid; and it must be remembered that in Sir John’s disputes with his general, he was almost always acting in conjunction with Sir Patrick Hume, who is proved, by the subsequent events, and indeed by the whole tenor of his life and conduct, to have been uniformly sincere and zealous in the cause of his country. Cochrane was sent to England, where he had an interview with the king, and gave such answers to the questions put to him as were deemed satisfactory by his majesty; and the information thus obtained whatever might be the real and secret causes, furnished a plausible pretence at least for the exercise of royal mercy. Sir Patrick Hume, after having concealed himself some time in the house, and under the protection of Lady Eleanor Dunbar, sister to the Earl of Eglington, found means to escape to Holland, whence he returned in better times, and was created first Lord Hume of Polwarth, and afterwards Earl of Marchmont. Fullarton, and Campbell of Auchinbreak, appear to have escaped, but by what means is not known. Two sons of Argyle, John and Charles, and Archibald Campbell, his nephew, were sentenced to death and forfeiture, but the capital part of the sentence was remitted. Thomas Archer, a clergyman, who had been wounded at Muirdyke, was executed, notwithstanding many applications in his favour, among which was one from Lord Drumlanrig, Queensbury’s eldest son. Woodrow, who was himself a Presbyterian minister, and though a most valuable and correct historian, was not without a tincture of the prejudices belonging to his order, attributes the unrelenting spirit of the government in this instance to their malice against the clergy of his sect. Some of the holy ministry, he observes, as Guthrie at the restoration, Kidd and Mackail after the insurrections at Pentland and Bothwell Bridge, and now Archer, were upon every occasion to be sacrificed to the fury of the persecutors. But to him who is well acquainted with the history of this period, the habitual cruelty of the government will fully account for any particular act of severity; and it is only in cases of lenity, such as that of Cochrane, for instance, that he will look for some hidden or special motive.

Ayloff, having in vain attempted to kill himself, was, like Cochrane, sent to London to be examined. His relationship to the king’s first wife might perhaps be one inducement to this measure, or it might be thought more expedient that he should be executed for the Rye House Plot, the credit of which it was a favourite object of the court to uphold, than for his recent acts of rebellion in Scotland. Upon his examination he refused to give any information, and suffered death upon a sentence of outlawry, which had passed in the former reign. It is recorded that James interrogated him personally, and finding him sullen, and unwilling to speak, said: “Mr. Ayloff, you know it is in my power to pardon you, therefore say that which may deserve it:” to which Ayloff replied: “Though it is in your power, it is not in your nature to pardon.” This, however, is one of those anecdotes which are believed rather on account of the air of nature that belongs to them, than upon any very good traditional authority, and which ought, therefore when any very material inference with respect either to fact or character, is to be drawn from them, to be received with great caution.

Rumbold, covered with wounds, and defending himself with uncommon exertions of strength and courage, was at last taken. However desirable it might have been thought to execute in England a man so deeply implicated in the Rye House Plot, the state of Rumbold’s health made such a project impracticable. Had it been attempted he would probably, by a natural death, have disappointed the views of a government who were eager to see brought to the block a man whom they thought, or pretended to think, guilty of having projected the assassination of the late and present king. Weakened as he was in body, his mind was firm, his constancy unshaken; and notwithstanding some endeavours that were made by drums and other instruments, to drown his voice when he was addressing the people from the scaffold, enough has been preserved of what he then uttered to satisfy us that his personal courage, the praise of which has not been denied him, was not of the vulgar or constitutional kind, but was accompanied with a proportionable vigour of mind. Upon hearing his sentence, whether in imitation of Montrose, or from that congeniality of character which causes men in similar circumstances to conceive similar sentiments, he expressed the same wish which that gallant nobleman had done; he wished he had a limb for every town in Christendom. With respect to the intended assassination imputed to him, he protested his innocence, and desired to be believed upon the faith of a dying man; adding, in terms as natural as they are forcibly descriptive of a conscious dignity of character, that he was too well known for any to have had the imprudence to make such a proposition to him. He concluded with plain, and apparently sincere, declarations of his undiminished attachment to the principles of liberty, civil and religious; denied that he was an enemy to monarchy, affirming, on the contrary, that he considered it, when properly limited, as the most eligible form of government; but that he never could believe that any man was born marked by God above another, “for none comes into the world with a saddle on his back, neither any booted and spurred to ride him.”

Except by Ralph, who, with a warmth that does honour to his feelings, expatiates at some length upon the subject, the circumstances attending the death of this extraordinary man have been little noticed. Rapin, Echard, Kennet, Hume, make no mention of them whatever; and yet, exclusively of the interest always excited by any great display of spirit and magnanimity, his solemn denial of the project of assassination imputed to him in the affair of the Rye House Plot is in itself a fact of great importance, and one which might have been expected to attract, in no small degree, the attention of the historian. That Hume, who has taken some pains in canvassing the degree of credit due to the different parts of the Rye House Plot, should pass it over in silence, is the more extraordinary because, in the case of the popish plot, he lays, and justly lays, the greatest stress upon the dying declarations of the sufferers. Burnet adverts as well to the peculiar language used by Rumbold as to his denial of the assassination; but having before given us to understand that he believed that no such crime had been projected, it is the less to be wondered at that he does not much dwell upon this further evidence in favour of his former opinion. Sir John Dalrymple, upon the authority of a paper which he does not produce, but from which he quotes enough to show that if produced it would not answer his purpose, takes Rumbold’s guilt for a decided fact, and then states his dying protestations of his innocence, as an instance of aggravated wickedness. It is to be remarked, too, that although Sir John is pleased roundly to assert that Rumbold denied the share he had had in the Rye House Plot, yet the particular words which he cites neither contain nor express, nor imply any such denial. He has not even selected those by which the design of assassination was denied (the only denial that was uttered), but refers to a general declaration made by Rumbold, that he had done injustice to no man—a declaration which was by no means inconsistent with his having been a party to a plot, which he, no doubt, considered as justifiable, and even meritorious. This is not all: the paper referred to is addressed to Walcot, by whom Rumbold states himself to have been led on; and Walcot, with his last breath, denied his own participation in any design to murder either Charles or James. Thus, therefore, whether the declaration of the sufferer be interpreted in a general or in a particular sense, there is no contradiction whatever between it and the paper adduced; but thus it is that the character of a brave and, as far as appears, a virtuous man, is most unjustly and cruelly traduced. An incredible confusion of head, and an uncommon want of reasoning powers, which distinguish the author to whom I refer, are, I should charitably hope, the true sources of his misrepresentation; while others may probably impute it to his desire of blackening, upon any pretence, a person whose name is more or less connected with those of Sidney and Russell. It ought not, perhaps, to pass without observation, that this attack upon Rumbold is introduced only in an oblique manner: the rigour of government destroyed, says the historian, the morals it intended to correct, and made the unhappy sufferer add to his former crimes the atrocity of declaring a falsehood in his last moments. Now, what particular instances of rigour are here alluded to, it is difficult to guess: for surely the execution of a man whom he sets down as guilty of a design to murder the two royal brothers, could not, even in the judgment of persons much less accustomed than Sir John to palliate the crimes of princes, be looked upon as an act of blameable severity; but it was thought, perhaps, that for the purpose of conveying a calumny upon the persons concerned, or accused of being concerned, in the Rye House Plot, an affected censure upon the government would be the fittest vehicle.

The fact itself, that Rumbold did, in his last hours, solemnly deny the having been concerned in any project for assassinating the king or duke, has not, I believe, been questioned. It is not invalidated by the silence of some historians: it is confirmed by the misrepresentation of others. The first question that naturally presents itself must be, was this declaration true? The asseverations of dying men have always had, and will always have, great influence upon the minds of those who do not push their ill opinion of mankind to the most outrageous and unwarrantable length; but though the weight of such asseverations be in all cases great, it will not be in all equal. It is material therefore to consider, first, what are the circumstances which may tend in particular cases to diminish their credit; and next, how far such circumstances appear to have existed in the case before us. The case where this species of evidence would be the least convincing, would be where hope of pardon is entertained; for then the man is not a dying man in the sense of the proposition, for he has not that certainty that his falsehood will not avail him, which is the principal foundation of the credit due to his assertions. For the same reason, though in a less degree, he who hopes for favour to his children, or to other surviving connections, is to be listened to with some caution; for the existence of one virtue does not necessarily prove that of another, and he who loves his children and friends may yet be profligate and unprincipled; or, deceiving himself, may think that while his ends are laudable, he ought not to hesitate concerning the means. Besides these more obvious temptations to prevarication, there is another which, though it may lie somewhat deeper, yet experience teaches us to be rooted in human nature: I mean that sort of obstinacy, or false shame, which makes men so unwilling to retract what they have once advanced, whether in matter of opinion or of fact. The general character of the man is also in this, as in all other human testimony, a circumstance of the greatest moment. Where none of the above-mentioned objections occur, and where therefore the weight of evidence in question is confessedly considerable, yet is it still liable to be balanced or outweighed by evidence in the opposite scale.

Let Rumbold’s declaration, then, be examined upon these principles, and we shall find that it has every character of truth, without a single circumstance to discredit it. He was so far from entertaining any hope of pardon, that he did not seem even to wish it; and indeed if he had had any such chimerical object in view, he must have known that to have supplied the government with a proof of the Rye House assassination plot, would be a more likely road at least, than a steady denial, to obtain it. He left none behind him for whom to entreat favour, or whose welfare or honour was at all affected by any confession or declaration he might make. If, in a prospective view, he was without temptation, so neither, if he looked back, was he fettered by any former declaration; so that he could not be influenced by that erroneous notion of consistency to which it may be feared that truth, even in the most awful moments, has in some cases been sacrificed. His timely escape in 1683 had saved him from the necessity of making any protestation upon the subject of his innocence at that time; and the words of the letter to Walcot are so far from containing such a protestation, that they are quoted (very absurdly, it is true) by Sir John Dalrymple as an avowal of guilt. If his testimony is free from these particular objections, much less is it impeached by his general character, which was that of a bold and daring man, who was very unlikely to feel shame in avowing what he had not been ashamed to commit, and who seems to have taken a delight in speaking bold truths, or at least what appeared to him to be such, without regarding the manner in which his hearers were likely to receive them. With respect to the last consideration, that of the opposite evidence, it all depends upon the veracity of men who, according to their own account, betrayed their comrades, and were actuated by the hope either of pardon or reward.

It appears to be of the more consequence to clear up this matter, because if we should be of opinion, as I think we all must be, that the story of the intended assassination of the king, in his way from Newmarket, is as fabulous as that of the silver bullets by which he was to have been shot at Windsor, a most singular train of reflections will force itself upon our minds, as well in regard to the character of the times, as to the means by which the two causes gained successively the advantage over each other. The Royalists had found it impossible to discredit the fiction, gross as it was, of the popish plot; nor could they prevent it from being a powerful engine in the hands of the Whigs, who, during the alarm raised by it, gained an irresistible superiority in the House of Commons, in the City of London, and in most parts of the kingdom. But they who could not quiet a false alarm raised by their adversaries, found little or no difficulty in raising one equally false in their own favour, by the supposed detection of the intended assassination. With regard to the advantages derived to the respective parties from those detestable fictions, if it be urged, on one hand, that the panic spread by the Whigs was more universal and more violent in its effects, it must be allowed, on the other, that the advantages gained by the Tories were, on account of their alliance with the crown, more durable and decisive. There is a superior solidity ever belonging to the power of the crown, as compared with that of any body of men or party, or even with either of the other branches of the legislature. A party has influence, but, properly speaking, no power. The Houses of Parliament have abundance of power, but, as bodies, little or no influence. The crown has both power and influence, which, when exerted with wisdom and steadiness, will always be found too strong for any opposition whatever, till the zeal and fidelity of party attachments shall be found to increase in proportion to the increased influence of the executive power.