Lord Orford’s gallery, on the south side of the hall, was filled by his friends. While it was building, a marriage took place which was thus announced in the papers. ‘On Wednesday, July the 23rd, Walford, Esq., clerk of certificates at the custom house, was married to Miss Rachel Norsa, daughter of Mr. Norsa, steward to the Earl of Orford, a beautiful young lady with a very considerable fortune’.... We learn from Horace Walpole that among the spectators was ‘the Old Jew tavern-keeper, Norsa, now retired from business.’ He had sanctioned (for money) an arrangement whereby his daughter, a singer of some eminence, was to live with Lord Walpole, my lord signing a contract to marry Miss Norsa when his wife happened to die—but she happened to survive him. The Jew and Horace Walpole were in the extensive gallery, which the latter’s brother, Lord Orford, had at his disposal as auditor of the exchequer. Horace, not disdaining to speak to this rascal, Norsa, remarked: ‘I really feel for the prisoners!’ Old Sparker, as Walpole calls him, replied, ‘Feel for them! Pray, if they had succeeded, what would have become of all us?’
They who could not get tickets for the official galleries thought that there might as well have been no rebellion! The grand jury of Surrey having found true bills, the curious order was issued that, on the above Monday, July 28th, Lord Kilmarnock should be tried in Westminster Hall at 9 o’clock, Lord Cromartie at 10, and Lord Balmerino at 11. The three lords were brought to the hall in three separate carriages, heavily escorted. It was at starting that the little difficulty occurred as to which carriage should convey the official and significant axe; difficulty which Balmerino terminated by exclaiming, ‘Come, come! put it in here with me.’ He needed not to have been in a hurry, for the Lord High Steward kept everybody waiting, and eleven had struck when the three lords were brought into the hall together, and then Lord Hardwick addressed them prosily, yet sharply, on their alleged wickedness, and he did not particularly interest them by remarking that their lordships were the first of their rank who had been brought to trial upon indictments for high treason, since the passing of the Act of William III.
KILMARNOCK AND CROMARTIE.
On being arraigned, the tall, slender, and dignified Kilmarnock, and Cromartie, without dignity, or self-possession, disappointed half the audience by pleading ‘Guilty.’ They were at once removed, Cromartie almost swooning. Balmerino was left standing, with the gentleman-gaoler at his side, holding the ominous axe, with its edge turned away from the prisoner. The latter conversed with the axe-bearer as unconcernedly as if both were mere spectators; while talking, he played with his fingers on the axe, and when a bystander listened to what Balmerino was saying, the stout old lord himself turned the blade of the axe in such a way as to partly hide his face, and to enable him the better to speak with the gentleman-gaoler without being heard. BALMERINO. Balmerino, on being asked to plead, fenced rather than fought for his life. He was not, he said, what the indictment styled him, ‘Arthur, Lord Balmerino, of the city of Carlisle.’ He could prove, he said, that he was never within twelve miles of it. On this and other trifling objections being over-ruled, he bluntly pleaded, Not Guilty, and the clerk of arraigns as bluntly called out, ‘Culprit, how will you be tried?’ and Balmerino, looking at the clerk with some disgust for assuming his guilt, muttered the formula, ‘by God and my peers’; whereupon Sir Richard Lloyd opened the case against him. In a few words to the purpose he accused Balmerino with waging war against the king, and with slaughtering the king’s subjects. Sir Richard was followed by careful Serjeant Skinner, who spoke of Balmerino as ‘this unfortunate peer,’ adding: ‘I will not bring a railing accusation against this unhappy lord,’ but he marred this fair precedent by a fierce denunciation of the traitor whose treason merited death, and whose condemnation would cover his posterity with infamy.
THE PROSECUTION.
The serjeant committed a few plagiarisms from various loyal sermons, such as,—that rebellion was as wicked as witchcraft, and as absurd as transubstantiation; and that, had it succeeded, it would have reduced England to the degraded position of being a mere province of France. Then, having traced the progress of the ‘rebels’ from the landing of the Pretender, in June 1745, to the battle of Preston Pans, the serjeant heaved a sigh, and added: ‘I wish we could forget the miscarriages of that day!’ Having noted at what period Kilmarnock and Cromartie had joined the Pretender’s army, and added some forcible comments on the alleged murdering of the king’s wounded soldiers on the field at Clifton, the serjeant alluded to Balmerino having held a commission in the king’s service, and deserting that service to side with traitors, whereby ‘he heightened every feature of the deformity of treason.’ Having sketched the career of Balmerino from his first entry into Carlisle till his capture near Culloden, the serjeant gave place to the Attorney-General, who began by sympathetically remarking that it was ‘disagreeable to try a noble person, one of their lordships’ high order,’ and then Mr. Attorney did what he could to condemn him by insisting that failing to prove a single event in the indictment could not invalidate it. On the contrary, if but one alleged criminal act was proved, a verdict of Guilty must follow.
BALMERINO AND MURRAY.
Balmerino protested against such interpretation of the law. But, being asked if he would have counsel assigned to him to argue the question, he curtly replied: ‘I don’t want any.’ Only four witnesses were called. They made brief and simple statements, and not a question was put to them by way of cross-examination. William M‘Ghee swore to Balmerino’s active offices in the rebel army. The accused peer only remarked that M‘Ghee confused his dates. ‘I can’t tell the time myself,’ said Balmerino, ‘unless I was at home to look at my notes.’ He declined, however, to ask M‘Ghee any questions. Next, Hugh Douglas gave similar evidence, with the additional circumstance that, at Falkirk, where the cavalry were not engaged, he was with them, and saw Balmerino, Kilmarnock, and Lord Pitsligo, with the reserve of horse. One James Patterson corroborated this testimony, and Balmerino asked him what he was. ‘I am a gentleman’s servant,’ was the reply. ‘What regiment?’ rejoined Balmerino. Patterson intimated that he was a soldier, servant to a gentleman in the first troop of Horse Guards. ‘Horse Guards!’ cried the Lord High Steward, ‘whose Horse Guards?’ ‘The Pretender’s,’ answered the ‘approver.’ One Roger Macdonald deposed to similar purpose, and closed the case for the Crown. Balmerino had ‘nothing to say,’ except that all the acts laid in the indictment had not been made out. Long pleadings ensued, the end of which was unfavourable to the prisoner. ‘My solicitor, Mr. Ross,’ he said, ‘thought as the king’s counsel thinks, but I thought Mr. Ross was wrong. I was mistaken. I heartily beg your lordships’ pardon for taking up so much of your present time.’ It was at this juncture that the Solicitor-General (brother of the Pretender’s secretary) officiously and insolently went up to Balmerino and asked how he dared to give the lords so much trouble, when his solicitor had told him his plea could be of no use to him. ‘Who is this person?’ asked Balmerino, and being told it was Mr. Murray, ‘Oh!’ exclaimed Balmerino, ‘Mr. Murray! I am glad to see you. I have been with several of your relations: the good lady, your mother, was of great use to us at Perth!’ When the votes were about to be taken, Lord Foley withdrew, ‘as too well a wisher,’ says Walpole. Lord Moray and Lord Stair also withdrew, being kinsmen of Balmerino; and Lord Stamford ‘would not answer to the name of Henry, having been christened Harry. ‘GUILTY, UPON MY HONOUR!’ All the remaining peers put their hands to their breasts and said, ‘Guilty, upon my honour,’ except Lord Windus, who remarked, ‘I am sorry I must say, “Guilty, upon my honour.”’ When Lord Townshend uttered the usual formula, his wife, with her well-known audacity, applied it to himself, and said, ‘Yes, I knew he was guilty, but I never thought he would own it upon his honour!’ The joking and the solemnity being over, the gentleman-gaoler turned the edge of his axe towards the traitor, and Balmerino bowed to his judges and was ushered out of the hall. On going out he remarked: ‘They call me a Jacobite. I am no more a Jacobite than any that tried me; but if the Great Mogul had set up his standard, I should have followed it, for I could not starve!’ and he good-naturedly remarked, that if he had pleaded Not Guilty, it was chiefly that the ladies might not be disappointed of their show.
Walpole spoke of Balmerino as the most natural, brave old fellow he had ever seen, his intrepidity amounting to indifference. While the lords were in consultation in their own house, Balmerino shook hands and talked with the witnesses who had sworn against him. Among the spectators was a little boy who could see nothing. Balmerino alone was unselfish enough to think of him. ‘He made room for the child,’ says Walpole, ‘and placed him near himself.’
KILMARNOCK’S APOLOGY.