Lady Lisle was widow of one of the regicides, who had enjoyed great favor and authority under Cromwell, and who having fled, after the restoration, to Lauzanne, in Switzerland, was there assassinated by three Irish ruffians, who hoped to make their fortune by this piece of service. His widow was now prosecuted for harboring two rebels the day after the battle of Sedgemoor; and Jefferies pushed on the trial with an unrelenting violence. In vain did the aged prisoner plead, that these criminals had been put into no proclamation; had been convicted by no verdict; nor could any man be denominated a traitor, till the sentence of some legal court was passed upon him: that it appeared not by any proof, that she was so much as acquainted with the guilt of the persons, or had heard of their joining the rebellion of Monmouth: that though she might be obnoxious on account of her family, it was well known that her heart was ever loyal; and that no person in England had shed more tears for that tragical event, in which her husband had unfortunately borne too great a share: and that the same principles which she herself had ever embraced, she had carefully instilled into her son; and had, at that very time, sent him to fight against those rebels whom she was now accused of harboring. Though these arguments did not move Jefferies, they had influence on the jury. Twice they seemed inclined to bring in a favorable verdict: they were as often sent back with menaces and reproaches; and at last were constrained to give sentence against the prisoner. Notwithstanding all applications for pardon, the cruel sentence was executed. The king said, that he had given Jefferies a promise not to pardon her; an excuse which could serve only to aggravate the blame against himself.
It might have been hoped that, by all these bloody executions, a rebellion so precipitate, so ill supported, and of such short duration, would have been sufficiently expiated: but nothing could satiate the spirit of rigor which possessed the administration. Even those multitudes who received pardon, were obliged to atone for their guilt by fines which reduced them to beggary; or where their former poverty made them incapable of paying, they were condemned to cruel whippings or severe imprisonments. Nor could the innocent escape the hands, no less rapacious than cruel, of the chief justice. Prideaux, a gentleman of Devonshire, being thrown into prison, and dreading the severe and arbitrary spirit which at that time met with no control, was obliged to buy his liberty of Jefferies at the price of fifteen thousand pounds; though he could never so much as learn the crime of which he was accused.
Goodenough, the seditious under sheriff of London, who had been engaged in the most bloody and desperate part of the Rye-house conspiracy, was taken prisoner after the battle of Sedgemoor, and resolved to save his own life by an accusation of Cornish, the sheriff, whom he knew to be extremely obnoxious to the court. Colonel Rumsey joined him in the accusation; and the prosecution was so hastened, that the prisoner was tried, condemned, and executed in the space of a week. The perjury of the witnesses appeared immediately after; and the king seemed to regret the execution of Cornish. He granted his estate to his family, and condemned the witnesses to perpetual imprisonment.
The injustice of this sentence against Cornish was not wanted to disgust the nation with the court: the continued rigor of the other executions had already impressed a universal hatred against the ministers of justice, attended with compassion for the unhappy sufferers, who, as they had been seduced into this crime by mistaken principles, bore their punishment with the spirit and zeal of martyrs. The people might have been willing on this occasion to distinguish between the king and his ministers: but care was taken to prove, that the latter had done nothing but what was agreeable to their master. Jefferies, on his return, was immediately, for those eminent services, created a peer; and was soon after vested with the dignity of chancellor. It is pretended, however, with some appearance of authority, that the king was displeased with these cruelties, and put a stop to them by orders, as soon as proper information of them was conveyed to him.[*]
* Life of Lord Keeper North, p. 260. K. James’s Memoirs, p,
144.
We must now take a view of the state of affairs in Scotland; where the fate of Argyle had been decided before that of Monmouth. Immediately after the king’s accession, a parliament had been summoned at Edinburgh; and all affairs were there conducted by the duke of Queensberry the commissioner, and the earl of Perth chancellor. The former had resolved to make an entire surrender of the liberties of his country; but was determined still to adhere to its religion: the latter entertained no scruple of paying court even by the sacrifice of both. But no courtier, even the most prostitute, could go further than the parliament itself towards a resignation of their liberties. In a vote, which they called an offer of duty, after adopting the fabulous history of a hundred and eleven Scottish monarchs, they acknowledged, that all these princes, by the primary and fundamental law of the state, had been vested with a solid and absolute authority. They declared their abhorrence of all principles and positions derogatory to the king’s sacred, supreme, sovereign, absolute power, of which none, they said, whether single persons or collective bodies, can participate, but in dependence on him, and by commission from him. They promised, that the whole nation, between sixteen and sixty, shall be in readiness for his majesty’s service, where and as oft as it shall be his royal pleasure to require them. And they annexed the whole excise, both of inland and foreign commodities, forever to the crown.
All the other acts of this assembly savored of the same spirit. They declared it treason for any person to refuse the test, if tendered by the council. To defend the obligation of the covenant, subjected a person to the same penalty. To be present at any conventicle, was made punishable with death and confiscation of movables. Even such as refused to give testimony, either in cases of treason or nonconformity, were declared equally punishable as if guilty of those very crimes; an excellent prelude to all the rigors of an inquisition. It must be confessed, that nothing could equal the abject servility of the Scottish nation during this period but the arbitrary severity of the administration.
It was in vain that Argyle summoned a people so lost to all sense of liberty, so degraded by repeated indignities, to rise in vindication of their violated laws and privileges. Even those who declared for him, were, for the greater part, his own vassals; men who, if possible, were still more sunk in slavery than the rest of the nation. He arrived, after a prosperous voyage, in Argyleshire, attended by some fugitives from Holland; among the rest, by Sir Patrick Hume, a man of mild dispositions, who had been driven to this extremity by a continued train of oppression. The privy council was beforehand apprised of Argyle’s intentions. The whole militia of the kingdom, to the number of twenty-two thousand men, were already in arms; and a third part of them, with the regular forces, were on their march to oppose him. All the considerable gentry of his clan were thrown into prison. And two ships of war were on the coast to watch his motions. Under all these discouragements he yet made a shift, partly from terror, partly from affection, to collect and arm a body of about two thousand five hundred men; but soon found himself surrounded on all sides with insuperable difficulties. His arms and ammunition were seized, his provisions cut off: the marquis of Athole pressed him on one side; Lord Charles Murray on another; the duke of Gordon hung upon his rear; the earl of Dunbarton met him in front. His followers daily fell off from him; but Argyle, resolute to persevere, broke at last with the shattered remains of his troops into the disaffected part of the low countries, which he had endeavored to allure to him by declarations for the covenant. No one showed either courage or inclination to join him; and his small and still decreasing army, after wandering about for a little time, was at last defeated and dissipated without an enemy. Argyle himself was seized and carried to Edinburgh, where, after enduring many indignities with a gallant spirit, he was publicly executed. He suffered on the former unjust sentence which had been passed upon him. The rest of his followers either escaped or were punished by transportation: Rumbold and Ayloffe, two Englishmen who had attended Argyle on this expedition, were executed.
The king was so elated with this continued tide of prosperity, that he began to undervalue even an English parliament, at all times formidable to his family; and from his speech to that assembly, which he had assembled early in the winter, he seems to have thought himself exempted from all rules of prudence or necessity of dissimulation. He plainly told the two houses, that the militia, which had formerly been so much magnified, was now found, by experience in the last rebellion, to be altogether useless; and he required a new supply, in order to maintain those additional forces which he had levied. He also took notice that he had employed a great many Catholic officers, and that he had, in their favor, dispensed with the law requiring the test to be taken by every one that possessed any public office. And to cut short all opposition, he declared, that, having reaped the benefit of their service during such times of danger he was determined neither to expose them afterwards to disgrace, nor himself, in case of another rebellion, to the want of their assistance.
Such violent aversion did this parliament bear to opposition so great dread had been instilled of the consequences attending any breach with the king, that it is probable, had he used his dispensing power without declaring it, no inquiries would have been made, and time might have reconciled the nation to this dangerous exercise of prerogative. But to invade at once their constitution, to threaten their religion, to establish a standing army, and even to require them, by their concurrence, to contribute towards all these measures, exceeded the bounds of their patience; and they began, for the first time, to display some small remains of English spirit and generosity. When the king’s speech was taken into consideration by the commons, many severe reflections were thrown out against the present measures; and the house was with seeming difficulty engaged to promise, in a general vote, that they would grant some supply. But instead of finishing that business, which could alone render them acceptable to the king, they proceeded to examine the dispensing power; and they voted an address to the king against it. Before this address was presented, they resumed the consideration of the supply; and as one million two hundred thousand pounds were demanded by the court, and two hundred thousand proposed by the country party, a middle course was chosen, and seven hundred thousand, after some dispute, were at last voted. The address against the dispensing power was expressed in the most respectful and submissive terms; yet was it very ill received by the king; and his answer contained a flat denial, uttered with great warmth and vehemence. The commons were so daunted with this reply, that they kept silence a long time; and when Coke, member for Derby, rose up and said, “I hope we are all Englishmen, and not to be frightened with a few hard words,” so little spirit appeared in that assembly, often so refractory and mutinous, that they sent him to the Tower for bluntly expressing a free and generous sentiment. They adjourned without fixing a day for the consideration of his majesty’s answer: and on their next meeting, they submissively proceeded to the consideration of the supply, and even went so far as to establish funds for paying the sum voted in nine years and a half. The king, therefore, had in effect, almost without contest or violence, obtained a complete victory over the commons; and that assembly, instead of guarding their liberties, now exposed to manifest peril, conferred an additional revenue on the crown; and, by rendering the king in some degree independent, contributed to increase those dangers with which they had so much reason to be alarmed.