The countess of Derwentwater, with her sister, accompanied by the duchesses of Cleveland and Bolton, and several other ladies of the first distinction, was introduced by the dukes of Richmond and St. Alban’s into the king’s bed-chamber, where she invoked his majesty’s clemency for her unfortunate consort. She afterwards repaired to the lobby of the house of peers, attended by the ladies of the other condemned lords, and above twenty others of the same quality, and begged the intercession of the house; but no regard was paid to their petition. Next day they petitioned both houses of parliament. The commons rejected their suit. In the upper house, the duke of Richmond delivered a petition from the earl of Derwentwater, to whom he was nearly related, at the same time declaring that he himself should oppose his solicitation. The earl of Derby expressed some compassion for the numerous family of lord Nairn. Petitions from the rest were presented by other lords, moved with pity and humanity. Lord Town-shend and others vehemently opposed their being read. The earl of Nottingham thought this indulgence might be granted; the house assented to his opinion, and agreed to an address, praying his majesty would reprieve such of the condemned lords as should seem to deserve his mercy. To this petition the king answered, that on this and all other occasions, he would do what he thought most consistent with the dignity of his crown and the safety of his people. The earl of Nottingham, president of the council, his brother the earl of Aylesbury, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, his son lord Finch, one of the lords of the treasury, his kinsman lord Guernsey, master of the jewel-office, were altogether dismissed from his majesty’s service. Orders were despatched for executing the earls of Derwentwater and Nithsdale, and the viscount of Kennruir, immediately; the others were respited to the seventh day of March. Nithsdale made his escape in woman’s apparel, furnished and conveyed to him by his own mother. On the twenty-fourth day of February, Derwentwater and Kenmuir were beheaded on Tower-hill. The former was an amiable youth, brave, open, generous, hospitable, and humane. His fate drew tears from the spectators, and was a great misfortune to the country in which he lived. He gave bread to multitudes of people whom he employed on his estate; the poor, the widow, and the orphan rejoiced in his bounty. Kenmuir was a virtuous nobleman, calm, sensible, resolute, and resigned. He was a devout member of the English church; but the other died in the faith of Rome: both adhered to their political principles. On the fifteenth day of March, Winton was brought to trial, and being convicted, received sentence of death.
1716
TRIALS OF REBELS.
When the king passed the land-tax bill, which was ushered in with a very extraordinary preamble, he informed both houses of the pretender’s flight from Scotland. In the beginning of April a commission for trying the rebels met in the court of common-pleas, when bills of high treason were found against Mr. Forster, Mackintosh, and twenty of their confederates. Forster escaped from Newgate, and reached the continent in safety; the rest pleaded not guilty, and were indulged with time to prepare for their trials. The judges appointed to try the rebels at Liverpool, found a considerable number guilty of high treason. Two-and-twenty were executed at Preston and Manchester; about a thousand prisoners submitted to the king’s mercy, and petitioned for transportation. Pitts, the keeper of Newgate, being suspected of having connived at Forster’s escape, was tried for his life at the Old-Bailey, and acquitted. Notwithstanding this prosecution, which ought to have redoubled the vigilance of the jailors, brigadier Mackintosh, and several other prisoners, broke from Newgate, after having mastered the keeper and turnkey, and disarmed the sentinel. The court proceeded with the trials of those that remained, and a great number were found guilty; four or five were hanged, drawn, and quartered, at Tyburn; and among these was one William Paul, a clergyman, who, in his last speech, professed himself a true and sincere member of the church of England, but not of the revolution schismatical church, whose bishops had abandoned the king, and shamefully given up their ecclesiastical rights, by submitting to the unlawful, invalid, lay-deprivations authorized by the prince of Orange.
ACT FOR SEPTENNIAL PARLIAMENTS.
Though the rebellion was extinguished, the flame of national dissatisfaction still continued to rage: the severities exercised against the rebels increased the general discontent; for now the danger was blown over, their humane passions began to prevail. The courage and fortitude with which the condemned persons encountered the pains of death in its most dreadful force, prepossessed many spectators in favour of the cause by which those unhappy victims were animated. In a word, persecution, as usual, extended the heresy. The ministry, perceiving this universal dissatisfaction, and dreading the revolution of a new parliament, which might wrest the power from their faction, and retort upon them the violence of their own measures, formed a resolution equally odious and effectual to establish their administration. This was no other than a scheme to repeal the triennial act, and by a new law to extend the term of parliaments to seven years. On the tenth day of April, the duke of Devonshire represented, in the house of lords, that triennial elections served to keep up party divisions; to raise and foment feuds in private families; to produce ruinous expenses, and give occasion to the cabals and intrigues of foreign princes; that it became the wisdom of such an august assembly to apply proper remedies to an evil that might be attended with the most dangerous consequences, especially in the present temper of the nation, as the spirit of rebellion still remained unconquered. He therefore proposed a bill for enlarging the continuance of parliaments. He was seconded by the earls of Dorset and Rockingham, the duke of Argyle, Lord Townshend, and the other chiefs of that party. The motion was opposed by the earls of Nottingham, Abingdon, and Paulet. They observed, that frequent parliaments were required by the fundamental constitution of the kingdom, ascertained in the practice of many ages; that the members of the lower house were chosen by the body of the nation, for a certain term of years, at the expiration of which they could be no longer representatives of the people, who, by the parliament’s protracting its own authority, would be deprived of the only remedy which they have against those who, through ignorance or corruption, betrayed the trust reposed in them; that the reasons in favour of such a bill were weak and frivolous; that, with respect to foreign alliances, no prince or state could reasonably depend upon a people to defend their liberties and interests, who should be thought to have given up so great a part of their own; nor would it be prudent in them to wish for a change in that constitution under which Europe had of late been so powerfully supported; on the contrary, they might be deterred from entering into any engagements with Great Britain, when informed by the preamble of the bill, that the popish faction was so dangerous as to threaten destruction to the government; they would apprehend that the administration was so weak as to want so extraordinary a provision for its safety; that the gentlemen of Britain were not to be trusted; and that the good affections of the people were restrained within the limits of the house of commons. They affirmed that this bill, far from preventing the expense of elections, would rather increase it, and encourage every species of corruption; for the value of a seat would always be in proportion to the duration of a parliament, and the purchase would rise accordingly; that a long parliament would yield a greater temptation, as well as a better opportunity to a vicious ministry, to corrupt the members, than they could possibly have when the parliaments were short and frequent; that the same reasons urged for passing the bill to continue this parliament for seven years, would be at least as strong, and, by the conduct of the ministry, might be made much stronger before the end of that term, for continuing and even perpetuating their legislative power, to the absolute subversion of the third estate of the realm. These arguments served only to form a decent debate, after which the bill for septennial parliaments passed by a great majority, though twenty peers entered a protest. It met with the same fate in the lower house, where many strong objections were stated to no purpose. They were represented as the effects of party spleen; and, indeed, this was the great spring of action on both sides. The question for the bill was carried in the affirmative; and in a little time it received the royal sanction.