Various
Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, February, 1885
The moment the revolt had broken out the different captains were to muster their men and march them to the several places of rendezvous fixed upon; some were to be stationed in St. James’s Square, others in Covent Garden, others again in Southwark, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and the Royal Exchange, whilst those named at Moorfields were to take possession of the arms in the Artillery Ground. A large body of cavalry was, at the same time, to be on the alert and scour the streets, so as to prevent the King’s party from embodying or the Horse Guards from doing their duty. The bridges over the Thames were to be secured, and fagots taken into the narrow streets around Eastcheap for purposes of conflagration, if necessary.66 All these measures appeared comparatively easy of execution to the conspirators; one detail in the enterprise, however, seems greatly to have perplexed them. As long as the Tower was in the hands of the King’s guards, any rise in the city might prove a failure. To obtain possession of the Tower was therefore one of the most prominent features in the discussions held at the various hostels which the conspirators frequented. Some suggested that fagots should be heaped about the gates of the building at dead of night, and then set on fire; others that it should be bombarded from the Thames; whilst a third proposed that men should be lodged in Thames Street, and secretly fall upon the guard. “Several ways,” witnesses Robert West,67 “were proposed to surprise and take the Tower of London. One was to send ten or twelve men armed with pistols, pocket daggers and pocket blunderbusses into the Tower under the pretence of seeing the armory; another number should go to see the lions, who, by reason of their not going into the inner gate, were not to have their swords taken from them, that the persons who went to see the armory should return into the tavern just within the gate, and there eat and drink till the time for the attempt was come, that some persons should come in a mourning coach, or some gentleman’s coach to be borrowed for this occasion under pretence of making a visit to some of the lords in the Tower; and just within the gate some of the persons issuing out of the tavern should kill one of the horses and overturn the coach, so as the gate could not be shut; and the rest of the persons within and those who went to see the lions should set upon the guards, that upon a signal of the coach driving down a party of men (lodged in empty houses near the Tower) should be ready to rush out, and upon the noise of the first shot immediately run down to the gate and break in; this way, if at all put in execution, was to be in the daytime about two o’clock, because after dinner the officers are usually dispersed or engaged in drinking, and the soldiers loitering from their arms.”
Another suggestion was “that several men should enter actions against one another in St. Catherine’s Court, held for the Tower liberty within the Tower, and that at the court day, at which time great liberty is allowed to all persons to come in, a party of men should go as plaintiffs and defendants, and witnesses who should come in under pretence of curiosity, and being seconded by certain stout fellows working as laborers in the Tower, should attempt the surprise.”68 It would, however, appear that all these proposals, after full consideration, were deemed impracticable, for we learn that no definite decision was arrived at, but the capture of the Tower was left to the chapter of accidents. The first step, said the plotters, was to begin the revolt; then events, at present unforeseen, would spring up and favor the development of the insurrection. “Only let the football be dropped,” said one, “and there would be plenty to give it a kick.”69
The King and his brother shot down, and the city in the hands of the conspirators, punishment was then swiftly to overtake those who had favored the past policy of Charles. The late Lord Mayor of London, who had specially shown himself the creature of the court in willing to yield the charter of the corporation, was to be killed. A similar fate was to befall the existing Lord Mayor, also guilty of the same subservience; with this addition, that after death “his skin should be flayed off and stuffed and hung up in Guildhall, as one who had betrayed the rights and privileges of the city.” The office of chief magistrate of the city thus vacant, it was to be filled by one Alderman Cornish; should he refuse to accept the dignity, he was to be “knocked on the head.” Certain members of the corporation, who “had behaved themselves like trimmers, and neglected to repeal several by-laws,” were to be forced to appear publicly and admit the fact: in the event of their declining to be thus humiliated, they also were to be “knocked on the head.” The civic authorities chastened by this process of correction applied to the cranium, the bench was next to fall under the ire of the plotters. All such judges as had been guilty of passing arbitrary judgments, and of identifying the law with the royal will, were to be brought to trial, “and their skins stuffed and hung up in Westminster Hall.” Then came the turn of the ecclesiastics; in the vicious hour of mob rule the Church is always one of the first and greatest sufferers. On this occasion “bishops, deans, and chapters were to be wholly laid aside,” their lands confiscated, and such sums as it was the custom to apply to educational purposes were to be appropriated “to public uses in ease of the people from taxes.” Men who had made themselves unpopular during the late Parliament as greedy pensioners of the Crown were to be “brought to trial and death, and their skins stuffed and then hung up in the Parliament House as betrayers of the people and of the trust.” It was also thought “convenient” that certain Ministers of State, such as my Lord Halifax, and my Lord Hyde, should be “taken off.” To complete the programme, should funds be lacking, a raid was to be made upon the city magnates, for, said these advocates of communism, “there was money and plate enough among the bankers and goldsmiths.” This scheme of revenge and spoliation was to be rigidly carried out; and those to whom it was entrusted were to fulfil it as they would “obey the commandments.”70
The insurrection once an accomplished fact, and the prerogative of the Crown, with all its attendant evils, overthrown, the reforms which had inspired the movement were immediately to be put in force. The House of Commons was no longer to be the creature of the throne, but of the nation. The people were to meet annually at a certain time to choose members of Parliament “without any writ or particular direction to do so.” The Parliament thus chosen was to assemble for a stated time; nor was it to be dissolved, prorogued, or adjourned except by its own consent. Parliament was to consist of an upper and lower House; but “only such nobility should be hereditary as were assisting in this design; the rest should only be for life, and upon their death the House of Lords should be supplied from time to time with new ones out of the House of Commons.” To Parliament should be entrusted “the nomination, if not the election, of all judges, sheriffs, justices of the peace, and other greater or lesser offices, civil or military.” Acts passed by both Houses of Parliament should be a perpetual law, without any necessity for the sanction of the Crown. A council selected from the Lords and Commons were to act as the advisers of the sovereign. The militia were to be in the hands of the people. Every county was to choose its own sheriffs. Parliament was to be held once a year, and to sit as long as it had anything to do. All peers who had acted contrary to the interest of the people were to be degraded. In matters of religion complete toleration was to be accorded to everyone. England was to be a free port, and all foreigners who willed it should be naturalized. Finally, the only imports to be levied were the excise and land taxes.71
The example set by London in rising against the despotism of the Crown was to be followed by the rest of the country. The Earl of Argyll agreed first for thirty thousand, then for ten thousand pounds, “to stir the Scots,” who were hotly in favor of revolt, “though they had nothing but their claws to fight with rather than endure what they did.” In the west of England, Bristol, Taunton, and Exeter were full of agents of the disaffected; whilst in the north, Chester, York, and Newcastle were ready at a moment’s notice to act in union with London. In the south, Portsmouth was the only town as yet which had voted in favor of the plot. The east of England was quiet. It was agreed that upon the death of Charles his illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, should be crowned king, but owing to the jealousy of the council appointed to curb the prerogative, and to the measures of the reformers, it was said that the royal bastard would be more a “Duke of Venice” than an English monarch.72
Whilst these schemes were being fashioned within the parlors of the “Dolphin,” the “Rising Sun,” and the rest of the City taverns, a very different order of men were at the same time deliberating how to pull the nation out of the slough of despotism into which it had been plunged. Upon the death of Shaftesbury, who had been during the last years of his life the most prominent of the foes of the court, especially of the Duke of York, and the most potent among the disaffected in the city of London, the leaders of the Whig party, aware of the danger which menaced them from “froward sheriffs, willing juries, mercenary judges, and bold witnesses,” determined not to let the cause which Shaftesbury had advocated fall to the ground. They held frequent meetings at different places of rendezvous, and formed themselves into a select committee, which was known by the name of the “Council of Six.” The members of this council were the Duke of Monmouth, who was intriguing for the crown, Lord Essex, Algernon Sydney, Lord William Russell, Lord Howard, and young Hampden, the grandson of the opponent of ship-money. What the deliberations of this council were it is now difficult to ascertain, owing to the prejudiced sources from which information had to be derived; the official accounts of the plot, drawn up at the request of the King by Ford, Lord Grey, and by Sprat, the servile Bishop of Rochester, are not to be implicitly believed in; nor is the evidence of the witnesses produced by the Crown at the trials of Sydney and Russell a whit more trustworthy. There can be no doubt, however, that consultations were frequently held among the Six as to the best course to pursue for resisting a Government which aimed at nothing less than arbitrary power. If we are to credit the men who sold their testimony to the Crown, and the men who purchased life by turning King’s evidence, the aim of the Council was to organise an insurrection all over the country, and with the help of the discontented Presbyterians in Scotland to put an end to the tyranny of Charles and his Popish brother. What was the exact extent of their designs we know not, but in all probability the statement by Lady William Russell is not far from the truth. “There was,” said her ladyship, “much talk about a general rising, but it only amounted to loose discourse, or at most embryos that never came to anything.”
Nor have we, though the testimony is partial, much reason to doubt the assertion. Considering the condition of England at that time, and the conflicting views of the Six who constituted the council, it would have been difficult for any decided and unanimous scheme of action to have been prepared. Though the conduct of Charles had caused much discontent and distress, yet the nation at large felt itself powerless to oppose the evil. The Whigs were in a minority, whilst the Royalists were a most formidable party, in whose hands were all the military and naval resources of the kingdom. To levy war upon the Merry Monarch, as had forty years before been levied upon his father, was a scheme which bore failure on its very face, and could not have been seriously entertained by keen and cautious men like Russell or Sydney. The Six in all probability contented themselves with merely forming estimates of the strength of their followers, and with knitting together a confederacy which absolute necessity might call into action. We must also remember that the members of the Council were not in such harmony with each other as to render it probable that they had fixed upon any distinct plan of rebellion. Monmouth was in favor of a monarchy with himself as monarch. Algernon Sydney had no other object before him but the realisation of his cherished idea of a republic, and frankly declared that it was indifferent to him whether James Duke of York or James Duke of Monmouth was on the throne. Essex was very much the same way of thinking as Sydney. Russell and Hampden wished for the exclusion of the Duke of York, as a Papist, from the throne, the redress of certain grievances, and the return of the Constitution within its ancient lines; whilst Howard, the falsest and most mercenary of men, was ready to vote for any change of government which could be harmlessly effected, and by which his own interests would not be forgotten. Many years after the execution of her husband, Lady William Russell said, with reference to these men and the measures they proposed, that she was convinced it was but talk, “and ’tis possible that talk going so far as to consider if a remedy to suppress evils might be sought, how it could be found.”
To return to the Rye House plotters. We are told by those given to speculation and organisation that in all calculations a large allowance should be made for that which upsets most plans – the unforeseen. On this occasion the conspirators were so sanguine of their scheme as never to imagine it might be put to nought by pure accident. The farm had been engaged, the men instructed, the necessary hiding-places prepared, and all things were ready for the murderous deed. Suddenly the unforeseen occurred, and all the careful measures of the would-be regicides were rendered abortive. Owing to his house having caught fire, Charles was obliged to leave Newmarket eight days earlier than he had intended, and thus, thanks to this happy conflagration, passed unscathed by the Rye House, then completely deserted; his Majesty was comfortably ensconced at Whitehall, toying with his mistresses and sorting their bonbons, whilst his enemies, unconscious of his escape, were congratulating themselves that in another week their work would be done, and their victim fall an easy prey to their designs.
And now the result ensued which invariably attends upon treason which has failed and which fears detection. It was an age when plots were freely concocted against the Crown and those in supreme authority, yet, often as conspiracies were entered into, there were always witnesses ready to come forward and swear away the lives of their former accomplices, to divulge what they had pledged themselves to keep secret, and if need be to follow in every detail the example of the biggest scoundrel of the seventeenth century, Doctor Titus Oates of Salamanca. Among the minor persons engaged in the Rye House plot was, as we have said, Josiah Keeling; he was now fearful of the fate which might befall him should the authorities at Whitehall get wind of the past deliberations, and accordingly with that prudence which characterised him he was determined to be first in the field to make a clean breast of all that had been planned and suggested. First he went to Lord Dartmouth, of the Privy Council, and told his tale, and then was referred by that statesman to his colleague, Mr. Secretary Jenkins. Jenkins took down the deposition of the man, but said that unless the evidence was supported by another witness, no investigation of the matter could be proceeded with. Keeling was, however, equal to the occasion, and induced his brother John, a turner in Blackfriars, to corroborate his statements. The plot now authenticated by the two requisite witnesses, the Secretary of State thought it his duty to communicate the affair to the rest of the advisers of the Crown. It appears, however, that a few days after his confession the conscience of the younger brother, John Keeling, pricked him, and he secretly availed himself of the first opportunity to inform Richard Goodenough that the plot had been discovered by the Government, and advised all who had been engaged in it to fly beyond sea.
This news coming to the ears of Colonel Romsey and Robert West, who were bosom friends, the two, unconscious of the revelations of the Keelings, thought it now prudent to save their own skins by informing ministers of all that had occurred, and, indeed, to make their story the more palatable to the Government, of a little more than had occurred. Accordingly they wended their way to Whitehall, and there told how the house at Rye had been offered them by Rumbald, the maltster; how at this house forty men well armed and mounted, commanded in two divisions by Romsey and Walcot, were to assemble; and how on the return of the King from Newmarket, Romsey with his division was to stop the coach, and murder Charles and his brother, whilst Walcot was to busy himself in engaging with the guards. So far the narrative of the informers tallied with the confessions of the Keelings. But Romsey and West, aware how hateful Lord William Russell, Algernon Sydney, and the rest of the cabal were to the Government, by their open opposition to the home and foreign policy of the court, essayed to give the impression that the Council of Six were also implicated in the detestable designs of the Rye House plotters.73 When unscrupulous men in supreme power are anxious to gratify their animosity, any evidence calculated to bring foes within reach is acceptable. The hints of Romsey and West were sufficient for the purpose, and orders were instantly issued by the Secretaries of State for the arrest of the Six. The first victim was Lord William, who was at once taken before the council for examination; but as he denied all the charges brought against him, he was forthwith sent to the Tower. Algernon Sydney next followed. He had been seized whilst at his lodgings, and all his papers sealed and secured by a messenger. Once before the council, he answered a few questions, “respectfully and without deceit,” but his examination was brief, for on his refusal to reply to certain queries put to him, he also was despatched to the Tower. Monmouth, having received timely warning, had placed the North Sea between him and the court. Ford, Lord Grey, had been brought before the council, had been examined and sent to the Tower, but managing to bribe his guards, had escaped. Lord Essex and Hampden were imprisoned: shortly after his confinement, Essex, who was subject to constitutional melancholy, committed suicide by cutting his throat. Lord Howard was still at large, protesting that there was no plot, and that he had never heard of any. Orders were, however, issued for his arrest, and when the officers came to his house, they found him secreted up the chimney in one of his rooms. As Keeling had informed against the Rye House plotters, so Lord Howard now informed against the Six. Weeping at the fact that he was a prisoner, he promised to reveal all; his revelations were considered so satisfactory that within a few days after their being taken down by the council, both Lord William Russell and Algernon Sydney were put upon their trial for high treason.
Russell was the first to stand at the bar. It appears that one evening he had been present at the house of Thomas Shepherd in Abchurch Lane, where the Rye House conspirators were occasionally in the habit of meeting and discussing their plans. He had gone thither to taste some wine. “It was the greatest accident in the world I was there,” said Russell at his trial, “and when I saw that company was there I would have been gone again. I came there to speak with Mr. Shepherd, for I was just come to town.” His excuse was raised in vain. Romsey, Shepherd, and Howard were playing into the hands of the Crown, and each did his best by hard swearing and false testimony to make the prisoner’s conviction certain. The gallant colonel asserted that he had seen his lordship at the house of Shepherd, where discourse was being held by the cabal of conspirators as to surprising the King’s guards and creating an insurrection throughout the country. Thomas Shepherd next followed, and gave very much the same evidence as Romsey – that his house in Abchurch Lane was let as a place of rendezvous for the disaffected; that the substance of the discourse of those who met there was how to surprise the guards and organise a rising; that two meetings were held at his house, and that he believed the prisoner attended both, but that he was certainly at the meeting when they talked of seizing the guards. Then Lord Howard was called as a witness. He said that he was one of the Six, and had attended the meetings at the house of Shepherd; at such meetings it had been agreed to begin the insurrection in the country before raising the city, and there had also been some talk of dealing with the discontented Scotch; at these deliberations no question was put or vote collected, and he of course concluded by the presence of Lord William that the prisoner gave his consent like the rest to the designs of the cabal.
In his defence Russell denied that he ever had any intention against the life of the King; he was ignorant of the proceedings of the Rye House plotters, and his mixing with the conspirators on the sole occasion he had visited Shepherd at Abchurch Lane was purely due to accident. He had gone thither about some wine. He did not admit that he had listened to any talk as to the possibility of creating an insurrection; but even had he made such an admission, talk of that nature could not be construed into treason, for by a special statute (the old statute of treasons) passed in the reign of Edward III., “a design to levy war is not treason;” besides, such talk had not been acted upon; they had met to consult, but they acted nothing in pursuance of that consulting. The attorney-general held a different view, and asserted it had often been determined that to prepare forces to fight against the King was a design within the statute of Edward III. to kill the King. The presiding judge, as a creature of the court, was, of course, of the same opinion; he summed up the evidence, deeming it unfavorable to the prisoner; and the jury, basing their verdict upon the tone of the bench, brought in a sentence of guilty of high treason. In spite of every effort that affection could inspire and interest advocate, Lord William Russell ended his days on the scaffold. “That which is most certain in the affair is,” writes Charles James Fox in his history of James II., “that Russell had committed no overt act indicating the imagining the King’s death even according to the most strained construction of the statute of Edward III.; much less was any such act legally proved against him; and the conspiring to levy war was not treason, except by a recent statute of Charles II., the prosecutions upon which were expressly limited to a certain time which in these cases had elapsed; so that it is impossible not to assent to the opinion of those who have ever stigmatised the condemnation and execution of Russell as a most flagrant violation of law and justice.”
The same measure was now meted out to Algernon Sydney as had been dealt to Russell. In the eyes of the bench, conspiring to levy war and conspiring against the King’s life were considered one and the same thing. It was in vain that Sydney asserted that he had not conspired to the death of the King, that he had not levied war, and that he had not written anything to stir up the people against the King. It was in vain that even the Rye House plotters had to confess they knew nothing of him, and had never seen him at the different meetings. Canting Nadab, however – as Dryden, in his immortal satire, calls Lord Howard – was there, ready to swear away a colleague’s life or do any other dirty trick provided his own skin and estate were not forfeited for past misdeeds; his evidence was the chief trump card on which the court relied to score the game. Accordingly his lordship began his testimony by relating what had passed at the meetings of the Six, as to the best means for defending the public interest from invasion, and the advisability of the rising breaking out first in the country instead of in the city. He also stated that it was the special province of Algernon Sydney to deal with the malcontent Scots, and had carried out this task through the agency of one Aaron Smith, who had gone north and been provided with funds for the purpose. This assertion, though Howard candidly said he only spoke from hearsay, was deemed sufficient by the advisers of the Crown to place Sydney’s head in jeopardy. As the law, however, demanded that in all trials for high treason there should be two witnesses against the prisoner before sentence could be passed, and as no other witness had the baseness to act the part so well played by Lord Howard, it was necessary for the court to resort to some expedient which would sufficiently answer its purpose of convicting Sydney. The Court was equal to the emergency. Search was made among Sydney’s papers, and it was discovered that he had written a treatise – his famous discourse on Government – which particularly discussed the paramount authority of the people and the legality of resisting an oppressive Government. A few isolated passages of the work were read here and there, the extracts given were garbled, and, thanks to the coloring of the prosecution, the case against the prisoner looked black indeed. Entering upon his defence, Sydney, like Russell, denied that he had ever conspired to the death of Charles; nor was he a friend of Monmouth, with whom he had spoken but three times in his life: he objected to the evidence of Howard, which was based upon hearsay, but if such testimony were true, he was but one witness, and the law required two. As for regarding a mangled portion of his treatise as a second witness, it was iniquitous. “Should a man,” he cried, “be indicted for treason for scraps of papers, innocent in themselves, but when pieced and patched with Lord Howard’s story, made a contrivance to kill the King? Let them not pick out extracts, but read the work as a whole. If they took Scripture to pieces, they could make all the penmen of the Scripture blasphemous. They might accuse David of saying there is no God; the evangelists of saying that Christ was a blasphemer and seducer, and of the apostles that they were drunk.” Then he ended by denying that he had any connection with the malcontents in Scotland. “I have not sent myself,” he said, “nor written a letter into Scotland ever since 1659; nor do I know one man in Scotland to whom I can write, or from whom I ever received one.” He refuted the charges brought against him in vain. The notorious Jeffries was now the presiding judge, and never was summing up from the bench more culpably partial or more flagrantly at variance with the clauses of the judicial oath. “I look upon the meetings of the Six,” said Jeffries to the jury, “and the meetings of the Rye House plotters as having one and the same end in view; I place implicit faith in the evidence of Howard; I deny that it is necessary that there shall be two witnesses to convict a prisoner of high treason; and as for the treatise of Sydney, I declare it is sufficient to condemn the author as being guilty of compassing and imagining the death of the King.” Upon the jury retiring to consider their verdict, Jeffries sternly informed them that he had explained the law, and that they were bound to accept his interpretation of it. Thus left without any option in the matter, the jury returned at the end of half an hour into court, and brought in a verdict of guilty. After a brief confinement. Algernon Sydney was beheaded on Tower Hill, Dec. 7, 1683.
Thus ended one of the most iniquitous and unjust trials that the annals of justice ever had to record. “The proceedings in the case of Algernon Sydney,” writes Fox, “were most detestable. The production of papers containing speculative opinions upon government and liberty, written long before, and perhaps never intended to be published, together with the use made of those papers in considering them as a substitute for the second witness to the overt act, exhibited such a compound of wickedness and nonsense as is hardly to be paralleled in the history of judicial tyranny. But the validity of pretences was little attended to at that time in the case of a person whom the court had devoted to destruction; and upon evidence such as has been stated was this great and excellent man condemned to die.” Upon the accession of “the Deliverer” to the throne, an Act was passed annulling and making void the attainder of Algernon Sydney on account of its having been obtained “without sufficient legal evidence of any treason committed by him,” and “by a partial and unjust construction of the statute declaring what was his treason.” The fate of the Rye House conspirators was very various. Some fled never to return, and were outlawed like Ferguson and Goodenough; others confessed, and were pardoned like Romsey; whilst a third offered in vain to purchase life by turning informers, as was the case with Walcot and Armstrong. Two years later those who had been outlawed, and were living in exile, again tried their hand at insurrection by aiding Monmouth in his revolt. —Gentleman’s Magazine.