[98] The dissentient judge was Street; and Powell doubted. The king had privately secured this opinion of the bench in his favour before the action was brought. Life of James, ii. 79.
[99] State Trials, xi. 1132 et seq. The members of the commission were the primate Sancroft (who never sat), Crew and Sprat, Bishops of Durham and Rochester the chancellor Jefferies, the Earls of Rochester and Sunderland, and Chief-Justice Herbert. Three were to form a quorum, but the chancellor necessarily to be one. Ralph, 929. The Earl of Mulgrave was introduced afterwards.
[100] Mazure, ii. 130.
[101] Henry Earl of Clarendon's papers, ii. 278. In Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa, vol. i. p. 287, we find not only this license to Massey, but one to Obadiah Walker, master of University College, and to two fellows of the same, and one of Brazen-nose College, to absent themselves from church, and not to take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, or do any other thing to which, by the laws and statutes of the realm, or those of the college, they are obliged. There is also, in the same book, a dispensation for one Sclater, curate of Putney, and rector of Esher, from using the common prayer, etc., etc. Id. p. 290. These are in May 1686, and subscribed by Powis, the solicitor-general. The attorney-general, Sawyer, had refused; as we learn from Reresby, p. 133, the only contemporary writer, perhaps, who mentions this very remarkable aggression on the established church.
[102] The catholic lords, according to Barillon, had represented to the king, that nothing could be done with parliament so long as the treasurer caballed against the designs of his majesty. James promised to dismiss him if he did not change his religion. Mazure, ii. 170. The queen had previously been rendered his enemy by the arts of Sunderland, who persuaded her that Lord and Lady Rochester had favoured the king's intimacy with the Countess of Dorchester in order to thwart the popish intrigue. Id. 149. "On voit," says Barillon, on the treasurer's dismissal, "que la cabale catholique a entièrement prevalu. On s'attendoit depuis quelque temps à ce qui est arrivé au comte de Rochester; mais l'exécution fait encore une nouvelle impression sur les esprits."—P. 181.
[103] Life of James, 74. Barillon frequently mentions this cabal, as having in effect the whole conduct of affairs in their hands. Sunderland belonged to them; but Jefferies, being reckoned on the protestant side, had, I believe, very little influence for at least the two latter years of the king's reign. "Les affaires de ce pays-ci," says Bonrepos, in 1686, "ne roulent à présent que sur la religion. Le roi est absolument gouverné par les catholiques. My Lord Sunderland ne se maintient que par ceux-ci, et par son dévouement à faire tout ce qu'il croit être agréable sur ce point. Il a le secret des affaires de Rome." Mazure, ii. 124. "On feroit ici," says Barillon, the same year, "ce que on fait en France" [that is, I suppose, dragonner et fusilier les hérétiques] "si l'on pouvoit espérer de réussir."—P. 127.
[104] Rochester makes so very bad a figure in all Barillon's correspondence, that there really seems no want of candour in this supposition. He was evidently the most active co-operator in the connection of both the brothers with France, and seems to have had as few compunctious visitings, where the church of England was not concerned, as Sunderland himself. Godolphin was too much implicated, at least by acquiescence, in the counsels of this reign; yet we find him suspected of not wishing "se passer entièrement de parlement, et à rompre nettement avec le prince d'Orange." Fox, Append, p. 60.
If Rochester had gone over to the Romanists, many, probably, would have followed: on the other hand, his steadiness retained the wavering. It was one of the first great disappointments with which the king met. But his dismissal from the treasury created a sensible alarm. Dalrymple, 179.
[105] Lord Dartmouth wrote to say that Fletcher told him there were good grounds to suspect that the prince, underhand, encouraged the expedition, with design to ruin the Duke of Monmouth; and this Dalrymple believes. P. 136. It is needless to observe, that such subtle and hazardous policy was totally out of William's character; nor is there much more reason to believe what is insinuated by James himself (Macpherson's Extracts, p. 144; Life of James, ii. 34), that Sunderland had been in secret correspondence with Monmouth; unless indeed it were, as seems hinted in the latter work, with the king's knowledge.
[106] The number of persons who suffered the sentence of the law, in the famous western assize of Jefferies, has been differently stated; but according to a list in the Harleian Collection, n. 4689, it appears to be as follows: at Winchester, one (Mrs. Lisle) executed; at Salisbury, none; at Dorchester, 74 executed, 171 transported; at Exeter, 14 executed, 7 transported; at Taunton, 144 executed, 284 transported; at Wells, 97 executed, 393 transported. In all, 330 executed, 855 transported; besides many that were left in custody for want of evidence. It may be observed, that the prisoners sentenced to transportation appear to have been made over to some gentlemen of interest at court; among others, to Sir Christopher Musgrave, who did not blush to beg the grant of their unfortunate countrymen, to be sold as slaves in the colonies.