The bent of the king's mind was quickly discerned in the sentences pronounced by judges eager to secure his favour. Titus Oates was taken out of prison and whipt at the cart's tail from Aldgate to Newgate the day after parliament met. Two days later he was again whipt from Newgate to Tyburn, and the punishment was so mercilessly carried out that it nearly cost him his life. Precautions had to be taken by the mayor to prevent a display of force by Oates's partisans, who overturned the pillory on which he was to stand.[1566] Dangerfield, another professional informer, was made to undergo a punishment scarcely less severe. He survived the punishment, but only to die from the effect of a vicious blow dealt him by a bystander as he was being carried back to gaol from Tyburn.
Richard Baxter brought to trial, 30 May, 1685.
On the other hand Richard Baxter—the most learned and moderate of Nonconformists—was tried at the Guildhall on a charge of having introduced into his commentary on the New Testament some seditious remarks respecting the attitude of the government towards dissenters. The infamous Jeffreys presided at the trial, and spared neither counsel nor prisoner his insolent invectives. The whole proceedings were nothing less than a farce, and the evidence adduced was of such a flimsy character that Baxter volunteered a remark expressing a doubt whether any jury would convict a man on it. He was, however, mistaken.[pg 511] The sheriffs, like the mayor, were but tools of the court party, and the jurymen selected to sit on the trial did not hesitate to bring in a verdict of guilty. He was fortunate to get off with no worse sentence than a fine of 500 marks and imprisonment until it was paid.[1567]
The Monmouth Rebellion, 1685.
There was doubtless a large number of inhabitants of the city who would gladly have assisted Monmouth—"the champion of the dissenters and extreme Protestants"—had they been in a position to do so. But as soon as the news of the duke's landing in Dorsetshire reached London orders were issued by the mayor for a strict watch to be kept by night throughout the city, and for the arrest of all suspicious characters, whilst the duke and his supporters were proclaimed traitors and rebels. It was forbidden to circulate the duke's manifesto in the city, and on the 16th June, or within five days of his landing, a price of £5,000 was put upon his head.[1568] After Monmouth's defeat at Sedgmoor (6 July) he and his companions sought safety in flight. Monmouth himself fled to the New Forest, where he was captured in the last stage of poverty, sleeping in a ditch, and was brought to London. He was lodged in the Tower, where his wife and three children had already been sent. Thousands of spectators, who, we are told, "seemed much troubled," went forth to witness his arrival by water on the evening of the 13th July. Two days later he was executed on Tower Hill.
Trial of Cornish and others, 19 Oct., 1685.
The utmost cruelty, both military and judicial, was inflicted on Monmouth's supporters. Many were[pg 512] hanged by royalist soldiers—"Kirke's lambs," as they were called—without form of law. Others were committed for trial until Jeffreys came to hold his "Bloody Assize," when to the cruelty of the sentences passed on most of them was added the ribald insolence of the judge. The opportunity was taken of giving the city of London a lesson, and Henry Cornish, late alderman and sheriff, was suddenly arrested. This took place on Tuesday the 13th October. He was kept a close prisoner, not allowed to see friends or counsel, and deprived of writing materials. On Saturday he was informed for the first time that he would be tried on a charge of high treason, and that the trial would commence on the following Monday (19 Oct.). His attitude before the judges was calm and dignified. Before pleading not guilty to the charge of having consented to aid and abet the late Duke of Monmouth and others in their attempt on the life of the late king (the Rye House Plot), he entered a protest against the indecent haste with which he had been called upon to plead and the short time allowed him to prepare his case. He asked for further time, but this the judges refused.
One of the chief witnesses for the Crown was Goodenough, who had a personal spite against Cornish for his having objected to him (Goodenough) serving as under-sheriff in 1680-1, the year when Bethell and Cornish were sheriffs.[1569] Goodenough had risked his neck in Monmouth's late rebellion, but[pg 513] he had succeeded in obtaining a pardon by promises of valuable information against others. With the king's pardon in his pocket he unblushingly declared before the judges that he, as well as Cornish and some others, had determined upon a general rising in the city at the time of the Rye House Plot. "We designed," said he, "to divide it (i.e., the city) into twenty parts, and out of each part to raise five hundred men, if it might be done, to make an insurrection."[1570] The Tower was to be seized and the guard expelled.
Cornish had been afforded no opportunity for instructing counsel in his defence. He was therefore obliged to act as his own counsel, with the result usual in such cases. He rested his main defence upon the improbability of his having acted as the prosecution endeavoured to make out. This he so persistently urged that the judges lost patience. Improbability was not enough, they declared; let him call his witnesses. When, however, Cornish desired an adjournment in order that he might bring a witness up from Lancashire, his request was refused. His chief witness he omitted to call until after the lord chief justice had summed up. This man was a vintner of the city, named Shephard, at whose house Cornish was charged with having met and held consultation with Monmouth and the rest of the conspirators. The bench after some demur assented to the prisoner's earnest prayer that Shephard's evidence might be taken. He showed that he had been in the habit of having commercial transactions with Cornish and was at that moment in his debt; that on the occasion in question Cornish had come to his[pg 514] house, but whether he came to speak with the Duke of Monmouth or not the witness could not say for certain; that he only remained a few minutes, and that no paper or declaration (on which so much stress had been laid) in connection with the conspiracy was read in Cornish's presence; that in fact Cornish was not considered at the time as being in the plot. Such evidence, if not conclusive, ought to have gone far towards obtaining a verdict of acquittal for the prisoner. This was not the case, however; the witness was characterised by one of the judges as "very forward," and when Cornish humbly remonstrated with the treatment his witness was receiving from the bench he was sharply told to hold his tongue. The jury after a brief consultation brought in a verdict of guilty, and Cornish had to submit to the indignity of being tied—like a dangerous criminal—whilst sentence of death was passed upon him and three others who had been tried at the same time.
Execution of Cornish, 23 Oct., 1685.