parliament, and having no other resource left, either to secure their indemnity for what they had already done, or to carry the point which they still designed, resolved at last to attempt it in the way of force, and to raise a general insurrection in Great Britain. Some of the meaner people engaged in this design founded on it another of a worse nature, in which they were to be the principal actors themselves; and proposed to assassinate the king in his return from the April meeting at Newmarket. The chief of these was one Rumbold, formerly an officer of Cromwell's, who had an house about Hoddesdon, near a gate on the road, where toll used to be paid for per-527 mission to pass by a gravelled causeway over a large meadow. In this house and in the gardens and yards belonging to it, which were hid from the view of passengers by high ditches, trees, and weeds, twelve of the actors were to be planted; four of them were to shoot blunderbusses into the king's coach, three or four to let fly at the coachman and postillion, and the rest at the guards that rode behind the coach. The coach was necessarily to come close by the ditch, and to make some little stop at the gate; and the guards were not above six when the king made but a day's journey from Newmarket to London. However, to be sure of time enough to do their work, they had contrived to have a cart stand cross the causeway, which should seem to do so by the unskilfulness of the carter, (who was to be one of the conspirators disguised,) or by the awkwardness of the horses. They were to have somewhere thereabouts about thirty horse more: with these, and by their knowledge of by-ways, they were to get to London, where they had either prepared for a rising, or did not question but there would be one, when their design was effected. Thus was the plan laid for murdering the king; and probably would have been attempted, if a fire, which burnt a great part of Newmarket, had not driven his majesty

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thence eight or ten days sooner than he intended, and had prefixed for his stay there.

Among the conspirators there was a substantial citizen, zealously factious and active in all the measures of the discontented party carried on in the city. He was the man that arrested the lord mayor, when nobody else could be found hardy enough to undertake it; which was deemed a proof of his boldness. This man in the June following discovered the design, moved thereto (as he said) by remorse of conscience and the horror of so bloody an action, and for prevention of the like villainy; and it is but charity to suppose he might thus repent and make the discovery, though possibly the fear of others of the conspirators being beforehand with him might have some share in his conversion. Upon this man's information, orders were given to seize colonel Rumsey, who had received great favours from the king and duke of York; West, a lawyer, who set up for an atheist; captain Walcot; Hone, a joiner; and one Rouse, an officer under sir Thomas Player, chamberlain of London, and one through whose hands the bounty of the citizens and others was conveyed to the Irish witnesses. Most if not all the meaner sort that were in the conspiracy were observed to be anabaptists or independents; and many of them broken or indigent tradesmen. Those who were taken up readily confessed enough against themselves; but were backward in charging others or confessing any thing beyond what they conjectured was known already, or what was drawn from them by such questions as they could not easily evade. Thus some days passed before any more considerable persons were charged; one reason of which was, that the council would never name any person to them, that it might not be in theirs or anybody's power to say they had been terrified or bribed to name any particular person. This si lence of some days might possibly be the reason why

some noble persons, concerned in the design of an insurrection, and not in that of an assassination, might imagine themselves to be secure. At last colonel Rumsey, seeming to be more concerned for the infamy of his ingratitude than for the danger of his life, intimated that he had some things to discover, but would reserve them for his majesty's own knowledge.

131 The king, upon notice thereof, came on June 26 from Windsor on purpose to receive his confession, in consequence of which warrants were issued for seizing the duke of Monmouth, the earl of Essex, the lords Russel, Grey, Howard of Escrick, and other persons. Monmouth fled; the rest were taken up, and brought before the 528 council. When the earl of Essex appeared there in the king's presence, his defence and deportment were far short of what was expected from him, or indeed from men of less quality and parts. The duke of Ormond, considering what he had lately done to supplant him in his government, was all along silent whenever his case came in question. Lord Russel seemed to think himself in little danger, and his behaviour before the king was very foolish. It was ill judged; for modesty is the most insinuating address to persuade people of a man's innocence, as well as to give them hopes of his repentance. The duke of Ormond, who had an old friendship with the earl of Bedford, was much concerned to see the behaviour of lord Russel, and to find that he seemed not sensible of the peril he was in; for his grace always thought that young nobleman's case to be very dangerous; and so it proved soon after, when he was convicted and beheaded. Lord Grey, when he was apprehended, and came before the council, carried himself much better, and afterwards made his escape. Lord Howard saved himself by making a confession, and being an evidence against lord Russel and the rest.

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The fate of the earl of Essex was more melancholy

than any of the rest; he was his own executioner. His lady's grandfather, the earl of Northumberland, in queen Elizabeth's time, being imprisoned for treason, pistolled himself in the Tower, and left a note on the table, expressing that the whore should never have his honour and estate. The son of that earl, looking on his father's picture, would often say, that he adored that man, and would do the like himself, if in his condition; and would disinherit any child that should not do the like, if he could foresee it. The earl of Essex had imbibed too much of these sentiments, and had on former occasions declared them to be his own. He had a great disposition to melancholy, and this was increased (since he was put into the Tower) by the reflection of lord Russel's danger, whom he had teased into an acquaintance with lord Howard; an acquaintance which lord Russel had, since his imprisonment, said he entertained with difficulty enough, and which was now like to prove fatal to his life. The earl of Essex had often expressed his grief at being the means of that acquaintance; and when he saw lord Russel walking under his window out of the Tower to the coach that carried him to his trial, all his grief and melancholy thoughts flowed in upon him like a torrent, and, not allowing time for reason to do her office, he cut his own throat. The coroner's inquest sat upon him; their verdict was that he was felo de se; and, besides the deposition of Bomenes, his gentleman of the chamber who attended him, the circumstances were such, that there was not the least room for a surmise to the contrary.

133

I shall not enter farther into the affair of this conspiracy, known by the name of the Rye-House plot, Dr. J Sprat, bishop of Rochester, having given an ample account of it in a particular history on this subject; but conclude what I have to say upon it with the sentiments of the king and of the duke of Ormond upon it; because

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The

they are not taken notice of by anybody else. king's reflection upon it related to ends proposed by it, and the character of the generality of the persons concerned in it; which made him think it was very strange that beggars should contend for property, atheists for religion, and bastards for succession. The duke of Ormond's relates to the distinction made between the two designs of a rebellion and assassination; and is expressed in these words of his letter of July 7 to the earl of Arran:

"Ever since about Midsummer-day last we have been satisfied of the truth of the information first given of a design laid for the assassination of the king and duke, and for the raising of a rebellion in England and Scotland. And though I make them two designs, because it doth not yet appear that all who 529 were in at the rebellion were for the assassination, or privy to it; yet those crimes are so near akin, and the time of consulting for them both almost the same, and some of the persons in at both, that nothing but the monstrousness of the ingratitude of such a parricide in such as the duke of Monmouth, the lord Russel, and lord Grey, can leave a doubt but that it was all one entire plot, though consisting of two parts, and to be acted by several persons.'

135 The duke of Monmouth had returned from abroad without the king's consent; and continuing his intimacy with lord Shaftesbury, embarked in all his measures. He had made a progress into the west, and other parts of the kingdom, affecting popularity, and attended in all places. with prodigious crowds of people. The king was much incensed at his conduct, and had declared it in such terms, that the duke thought fit at last, about the middle of May 1682, to send a proposal of submission to his majesty. He judged the time favourable, because the duke of York was then in Scotland, and the duchess of Portsmouth in France. The proposal was made by sir Robert Holmes to the lord Conway, secretary of state, and contained in substance, that he desired to submit himself to