An event occurred on the 17th of May, in the Tower, which must have cast a heavy shadow of gloom on Atterbury and the friends who crowded to see him before he left his native country for ever. Counsellor Layer was led out that morning to undergo ignominious death at Tyburn. His crime was being active in the plot of which Atterbury quietly held the threads. But Layer was indiscreet, and was condemned by his own acts and handwriting. Atterbury apparently lived the life of a quiet scholar, and seems to have taken care that neither word nor handwriting should ever be so indulged in as to expose him even to suspicion. These men were equally guilty; but, rather than say,—the prelate deserved to be hanged with the counsellor, it might be urged that the lawyer might, in mercy, have been banished with the bishop. Atterbury must have felt a pang when as good, or as bad, a gentleman as himself began the long agony from the fortress to Tyburn Field.
LAYER ON HOLBORN HILL.
Counsellor Layer, who had been convicted in November, 1722, was respited from time to time. Ministers hoped to get disclosures of importance from him, which he bravely declined to make. What promises were held out to this obstinate Jacobite in return are not known. At all events he made none. Some of ‘my lords’ were repeatedly with him, to urge him to unburthen his mind, but their urging had no effect. On the 16th of May, 1723, the evening before his execution, the Earls of Lincoln and Scarborough, and Col. Crosby, were in deep consultation with him, in the Tower, but Layer remained faithful to those by whom he had been trusted. There was, indeed, another cause for the frequent respites. Being an obstinate Jacobite, he would have been sent sooner to Tyburn, only for the pressure of his distinguished clients’ unsettled affairs. For their sake also, it was said, he was reprieved from time to time; and among the singular sights of the Tower in that Jacobite time, not the least singular was that of ‘Counsellor Layer, with a rope round his neck,’ transacting law business with the attorneys of his clients, and arranging matters of which he was never to see the end, yet for which he did not scruple to take the fees. But then, wine was dear, though plentiful, in prison, and a man condemned to death did not choose to be inhospitable to the visitors who sympathised with, still less in this case, to the clients who employed him. It was observed, however, that the affairs between the clients and their counsel were never likely to come to a conclusion, and Layer would not serve the Government by turning traitor. The impatient authorities at once ordered Layer to ‘travel westward,’ and he rode up Holborn Hill accordingly. But he rode up like a gentleman who had, indeed, serious business in hand, but which must not be allowed to disturb his gentlemanlike self-possession. The Jacobite agent made his last appearance in public in a fine suit of black clothes full trimmed, and his new tye wig could not have looked smarter if he had been going to be married. Seated in a sledge drawn by five horses, he went the weary way between the Tower and Tyburn. The dignified seriousness of his self-possession was not mocked by the bitterest of the Whigs who watched his passage, while many a Jacobite shed tears, yet was proud of the calm courage with which he bore his dreadful fate. In a carriage behind the sledge rode two reverend clergymen, Messrs. Berryman and Hawkins—one of them a Nonjuror, of course. At Tyburn, as the two stood up in the cart beneath the gallows, there ensued the scene not uncommon on such occasions. The utmost liberty was given to a man, about to die, to unburthen his soul in any way he pleased. Layer made the most of the privilege. He said boldly, but without bluster, that there was no king but James III.; that the so-called King George was an usurper; that it was a glorious duty to take up arms for the rightful sovereign; that there would be no joy in the land till that sovereign was restored; and that, for his own part, he was glad to die for his legitimate monarch, King James. Having said which, the Nonjuror gave the speaker absolution, the people cheered, and the once eminent and able barrister was soon beyond the reach of further suffering.
LAYER AT TYBURN.
Layer kept the word he had pledged to Colonel Williamson as he was leaving the Tower. ‘Colonel,’ he said, ‘I will die like a man.’ ‘I hope, Mr. Layer,’ replied the Deputy-Governor, ‘you will die like a Christian.’ The Jacobite counsellor fulfilled both hope and promise. Only a Whig paper or two affected to sneer at the calm courage with which he met that mortal ignominy at Tyburn.
Within a few hours of the execution, an Old Bailey bard had thrown off and published the following ‘Sorrowful Lamentation of Counsellor Layer’s who was Condemned to die at London for High Treason,’ and which is here given as a specimen of the London gutter-and-gallows poetry in the Jacobite times:—
LAMENTATION FOR LAYER.
Noble Hearts all around the Nation;
—That do hear my wretched Fate,
I’d have you lay by all confusion,