From an engraving after Sir Peter Lely.
Then James succeeded. Evidently he regarded Cornish as one of his most dangerous enemies. He waited until the Monmouth rebellion gave him an excuse. There had been an actual rebellion; if it could be proved that Cornish had any hand in it, there would be a way of getting rid of him.
Monmouth was executed on July 15. Three months passed, during which nothing was done to Cornish. This interval was employed, it is now certain, in getting up a case against him; we cannot suppose that James was ignorant of this plot—it was nothing less—to take the life of the sturdy Whig. The man Rumsey found another man, a private enemy to Cornish, named Goodenough, to join him in bearing witness which should implicate Cornish in the Rye House Plot and show him to be a friend of Monmouth. On Tuesday, the 13th of October, Cornish was arrested and taken to Newgate. On the Saturday he learned for the first time that he was in prison on a charge of high treason, and that he would be tried on the Monday. The trial took place accordingly. It was marked by the customary brow-beating and bullying. The man must have known that he was doomed; the fact that two days only were allowed him to prepare his case and bring forward his witnesses might have warned him what to expect.
Prospect des Thur-hils zu London worauf der Herzog von Monmouth den 25/15 Iuly 1685 enthaubt worden.
THE EXECUTION OF MONMOUTH, JULY 15, 1685
From a contemporary Dutch print. E. Gardner’s Collection.
[4]“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 1680–81, the year when Bethel and Cornish were sheriffs. Goodenough had risked his neck in Monmouth’s late rebellion, but 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.’ 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 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 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.